Shockwave (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on 28 Jun 2020 @ 1:22pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Luke Wyatt & Ensign Mimi & Commander Andreus Kohl & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kala Gorvel & Senior Chief Petty Officer Goldie Brown & Petty Officer 2nd Class Donald Andrews & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday & Crewman Draia Thero & Cadet Senior Grade Jemima de la Coeur

3,127 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Latari A III, Low Orbit
Timeline: MD 04, 2310 hrs

Previously, on Call of Duty (Part 3)...

Slightly leaning to one side, Luke monitored the descent from the small panel which was embedded into the left arm. The Galileo rocked as the gravitational stresses of their decent began to take hold of the ship and using his body weight kept himself firmly glued to his chair. "Operations, boost power to inertial dampeners, take anything none essential offline include life support from the non-essential areas, I want the Captain to get her ship back in one piece this time around."

"Aye Sir." Mimi said, her ears twitching nervously, taking power from everything non essential but also life support was a rather 'last ditch', keeping one eye on the charts she shut everything she dared and shifted the freed up wattage around.

"We've lost communication with the task group," Goldie announced. She tried to compensate for the atmosphere, but with no luck. Still, she kept trying.

Instinctively, irrationally, Kohl tilted his head back. Kohl looked to the overhead and its communication nodes, as if he could will the return Rasmussen's orders and the support of the task group. Softly, Kohl muttered, "I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing," and then he cleared his throat, and he snapped his gaze to the viewscreen. Time to go boldly.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Latari A III

USS Galileo punched through the planet's upper atmosphere and announced its arrival into the troposphere with repeating sonic booms. The small starship's shields were engulfed by white-hot fire which now started to dissipate as the vessel decelerated.

On the bridge's main viewer, a terrifying image of geological destruction encompassed the screen. The sky of Latari A III was filled with a dark, thick and unstable cloud layer composed of volcanic ash and falling igneous rock particles. Through the haze, glowing river-sized tendrils of lava illuminated the barren surface. Jagged rock formations permeated the landscape creating a massive field of geomorteus activity reaching from horizon to horizon.

The deck plating on the bridge trembled throughout the descent but started to stabilize. "Shields holding!" called out the security officer.

For a dizzying moment --amid the rumbling of the deck-- Kohl felt as if he might tumble forward and through the viewscreen. He leaned back in his chair and he gripped the armrests, as if for his very life. Having spent the majority of this tour aboard the Lagrange, the burning visage crossing the viewscreen was his first live look at the state of the colony world. When Kohl had studied a planet in sensor composites and recordings in the past, he always had to wonder if some ephemeral aspects of a world had been lost by the sensor imagers. But seeing it right there, Kohl could only see a natural wonder that had been ravaged by a science experiment gone horribly wrong.

"What hell is this?" Kohl asked in a low tone, mostly rhetorically. Still, he shared a quick glance in Luke's direction. "I don't want to imagine this spreading to Argelius or Earth..." Kohl swore. Raising his voice, Kohl barked an order for, "Ship status reports." He took a breath, and he added in a pointed tone, "Including my targeting lock."

"Hull pressure and temperature are very high but within tolerance." Mimi reported. 'but not by much' She looked up at the viewscreen, a lot had changed on the planet since her away team had been down there; it looked a lot worse now. "We have damage to a generator but the SIF is stable."

The ride was far from smooth and Luke gripping onto his seat was all he could do from being thrown from it. "Something is not right" Luke shouted over the noise of the ship's outer hull being pushed to its extremes as the ship around them groaned under the turbulence. Looking to the viewscreen Luke could see swirls of gaseous formation, lightning, and the glowing red form of Galileos nose as they continued to dive into the planet's atmosphere.

Sylver was too focused on keeping the ship together, pushing it to its limit but keeping them on the right track to answer straight away. He let out a breath and looked up, briefly. "Trying to compensate," he called out, fingers moving quickly. "Come on, old girl, we are in this together..."

Jemima began to bounce with nervous energy. The situation was intense, the crew was tense, and what was on the viewscreen looked like something out of a place her Grandmother called hell. Part of her wanted to close her eyes and part wanted to watch everything. She forced her attention back to her console and began to scan for the source of the Genesis signal.

"Picking up debris from the USS Reliant," de la Coeur said. "And...oh my gosh! Sorry, I mean, there's an enormous thing nearby. It's biological, and silicon and huge!"

At the auxiliary/tactical station, Lieutenant Diego's eyes were tight and severe as he stared at the main viewer. He painfully swallowed a dry lump down his throat. The captain had just said it best - What the hell is this?. He was no planetary scientist but even he could see the continental devastation occurring on the world. It was unlike anything he'd ever studied at the Academy or encountered in the simulations. And he'd most certainly never been on a starship that could enter a planet's atmosphere like the Galileo. Until now.

Everything was happening so fast that it caught him off guard. Target lock, Diego prioritized, setting to the task. The surface scan data pointed the targeting sensors to the designated debris coordinates then he initiated a search track on the biological.

"Good solution on primary target..." there was a pause. "Sir, I have the...thing on visual," Diego reported.

Squinting at the viewscreen, Kohl cocked his head to one side. "Magnify," he said. All the while, Kohl reminded himself that Rasmussen's orders had been clear: the Genesis wave could not be allowed to spread. The device could take life on as massive a scale as it could give life. It was too dangerous, too dangerous for any to possess.

The bridge's main viewscreen blinked twice and zoomed in on the isolated object - a lifeform unlike anything ever seen or documented by the Federation.

A thousand yards from the USS Reliant debris' impact crater, a massive five-sided crystal carapace appeared on the screen. Orange and gold in coloration and over a hundred feet tall, it appeared to have grown upwards through the surface and could be seen slowly turning until a pair of glowing white triangular eye slits trained their attention on the incoming Nova-class. The top of its pentagon-shaped mantle was obfuscated by burning debris falling from the lower atmosphere.

Two orange crystalline appendages the size of football fields suddenly burst upwards through the molten ground and reached high into the air. Dripping with lava, each one spread three digits and forcefully slammed down onto the volcanic surface.

Looking to the view screen time seemed to have stopped in front of Luke who was all but paralyzed and only what he could describe as eyes burning a path from its mashed face towards the Galileo, its appendages huge and fluid. "What the..." Was all he could speak looking to Kohl.

Sylver looked up and then back at what he was doing. He tried not to think about the fact that a monster was coming to eat them. Instead, he focused on his work...flying this ship, making those decisions that it couldn't do. A ship's computer could calculate, even fly if needed...but that gut survival instinct? No. That was something you needed to be a living, breathing creature.

Goldie stared at the viewscreen. Part of her didn't believe such a creature existed, but here it was, and it was fascinating and horrific at the same time. It was incredible.

Jemima stared. "That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen and man, does it look ticked."

'Wow' Mimi thought, the creature was many times bigger than the one she'd met.

Again, Kohl reminded himself that Rasmussen's orders had been clear: the Genesis wave could not be allowed to spread. "Diego," Kohl said, with all of the gravity that came with the knowledge of how the device could take life on as massive a scale as it could give life. It was too dangerous, too dangerous for any to possess. "Target the Reliant debris," Kohl ordered. "The Genesis Device must die."

The security officer's fingers danced across his console without hesitation. "Ready to fire," he confirmed to the captain. The pulsing red crosshairs on his screen were locked on to the center point of the ancient ship's broken nacelle. All that was needed was for Galileo to remain steady on target.

Sylver looked up briefly again before he hit the controls to level the ship up, to make it as smooth as possible for as long as it took. Of course, too long and the ship might blow up, so he hoped that there was a firing solution on the target.

Seconds before Diego's finger initiated torpedo launch, the bridge's tactical console suddenly blared a loud and repeating combat alert. The lieutenant's brown eyes went wide then he looked up to the main viewer. In the time it'd taken to maneuver into firing position, the silicon creature on the planet's surface had raised one of its crystalline appendages towards the Nova-class and now an unidentified projectile was detected.

"Unknown incoming zero-zero-three! Five seconds to impact!"

"Evasive manoeuvre!" Luke shouted as the bridge erupted once again this time to a different tune his hands gliding over his arm console realising quickly that the Galileo was essentially in a free fall he added, "Diego, switch fire to the incoming defensive fire, we don't have enough power to divert to manoeuvreing thrusters." Once again they were fighting for their lives. He hated the Genesis Protocol with his entire mind body and soul.

Sylver's face set into an almost cold look the second he heard the words 'evasive manoeuvre' leave Wyatt's mouth, as well as the countdown. "Aye Sir!" His brain ticked off the seconds as he banked hard, changing the course to try and avoid it. If lucky, it was something going straight. If less lucky, they would be able to take it out of the sky. If unlucky, it would be a hit and the shields were already unhappy with him.

Sylver flew the ship like he would have a fighter, pushing her to her limits with a quick dive and turn, battling the elements as much as the controls. A ship, even a smaller one, did not like being treated like an atmospheric attack jet. His hands were sure though and the decisions based on what the ship told him, the information around him and the instinct...even so, it was an attempted evasion and the five seconds clocked down with a slow inevitability in his brain until it hit zero.

Galileo nosed down towards the planet's surface to gain airspeed then initiated a hard aileron roll to port. The airfoils on the rear nacelles locked to maximum deflection and the ship's impulse exhaust manifold initiated thrust vectoring to side-slip the vessel away from its current trajectory. Throughout the ship, inertial dampers struggled to maintain a positive 1G atmosphere. Those crew members who hadn't braced suddenly found themselves tumbling through an inverted atmospheric maneuver at negative Gs.

Holding on to the nearby handrail and executing the XO's order, Diego activated point-defense targeting and began firing on the rapidly-moving bogey. The starship's ventral, lateral, and dorsal phaser arrays consecutively fired in short bursts at the imminent threat. Each bright orange phaser stream missed their mark.

Thrown forward Luke did everything to keep himself seated, he only hoped that others had braced themselves all over the ship and that casualties were low, his mind then darted to the object which had been thrown in their direction. Like an old Earth submariner he waited for the explosive force of the ship being struck.

Goldie held on, bracing against any jolts. At least the inertial dampeners were still working.

In the planet's atmosphere, a large sickle-shaped projectile composed of igneous rock rippled past the Nova-class, missing the starboard shield grid by mere meters. USS Galileo rolled out from its defensive posture and started to re-stabilize, it's point defense phasers finished firing.

"We're clear!" said Diego shouted with relief. "Sensors tracking the object on a ballistic course to the upper atmosphere.

"Reset targeting sensors to the debris, recharge phaser banks and fire immediately, let's get this done and out of here before... whatever that is fires another rock at us again" He ordered turning to Kohl. "We can't take a hit from one of those, our shields are already at maximum stress and let's not even talk about the engines, I think they may have been our one and only move."

Lieutenant Diego raised his wrist to his forehead and wiped a layer of sweat from his face. Mere physical feet had apparently decided their fate, which he now realized was ultimately out of his control. He had to accept that, and as soon as he did, his fingers returned to his console where he resumed his targeting task.

"Re-acquiring..." he answered, quickly manipulating his LCARS with precision. A dual set of red and orange targeting reticles appeared on the bridge's viewscreen overlayed above both surface targets. "Torpedoes ready to fire on the debris field. Phasers locked on the lifeform."

"Fire torpedoes, at will, DO NOT engage the lifeform unless in a defensive posture" He said making it very clear no body was going to be engaging an unknown lifeform. "And someone please tell me what the hell that crystalline mass is now!"

Clutching the armrests of his chair, Kohl reaffirmed the purpose of the Genesis Directive. "We can't risk this happening to any other colony worlds," Kohl affirmed, any hint of doubt had burned away from his timbre. "Destroy the Reliant," he ordered, and with resigned understanding, he added, "with the tricobalt warheads."

Diego held his finger over the red torpedo launch LCARS button. He hesitated, but only for a second to wonder why the hold had been put on engaging the crystal alien. Their torpedoes would theoretically obliterate anything in the continental vicinity, regardless. Why the discretion? Then he remembered, it ultimately didn't matter what he thought or what questions he had. The order had been given. His right index finger came down on the fire command.

Two small jolts could be felt throughout the deck when Galileo fired its torpedoes. Both forward launchers sequentially ejected the two tricobalt devices creating bright cerulean flares which streaked away from the starship and towards the surface.

A half-second passed. "One and two away, tracking...impact in eight seconds!"

"Emergency power to engines, get us up and out of the atmosphere, we need to clear the blast radius" Luke ordered tapping his comm badge and adding, =/\= Bridge to Engineering, I know you're doing your best but we need more power to engines to clear the planet's gravity well =/\=


Deck 7, Engineering

John was swearing like a drunken sailor on shore leave after a long voyage. Most of the swearing was directed at the idiots on the bridge. Taking a patched up ship into the atmosphere was daft, and then the violent maneuvers pretty much put paid to a lot of the systems. The red and yellow lights outnumbered the green by a fair piece showing a cascade of failures as one circuit to another to another failed overloaded the next and then the next. All that work trying to get things together was quickly being undone.

Then the call came in, emergency power to the engines. "Yeah right, those stupid idiots! We are all but doing that! You tell them they are going to lose something, we already have diverted most everything else, so its loss of some shielding or dampers or both." John called out.

Her voice panic-stricken, Crewman Draia Thero was crouched on her workstool with her legs intertwined beneath the seat. "Coolant valve 14-B has failed; it's clogged or something," Draia reported. She slapped her LCARS panel a couple of times, and she added, "I've bypassed to maintain temperatures!"

"We could cut main power to the weapons, the phaser batteries should last till we get back in orbit if they're not too trigger happy up there." Donald suggested shouting down from the upper level, it wasn't the best option but the ship had little more to give.

John swore some more. "Just damn well do it!" He shouted. "I am pulling dampers to minimal and sucking environmental as well but for the most critical areas. Med might have my guts for garters but things are falling apart!"

"On it." Donald hurried to a station to cut power to the phasers, he knew the Captain probably wouldn't like it but it was the only thing way they could spare enough power for what they wanted.


Latari A III, Surface

Galileo's two tricobalt warheads streaked through the dark and debris-filled sky towards the surface. Their white flares and contrails quickly disappeared beneath the lower cloud layer for several seconds, then suddenly erupted with blinding light.

The first warhead penetrated deep into the planet's surface crust then detonated while the second trailing torpedo air-bursted at fifty meters. The raw power of a thousand 20th century nuclear weapons was suddenly unleashed upon the world, and the Genesis signal source - the debris from USS Reliant - was instantly obliterated by the fusion reaction in addition to any other carbon life in the vicinity.

Multiple expanding shockwaves emanated from the detonations and traveled at mach speeds towards the Galileo. The ship was quickly overtaken by an intense microburst of air which sucked all moisture from the atmosphere inwards towards its center. The tiny Nova-class was suddenly left with no atmospheric lift or maneuvering capability as the barometric pressure readings went off the scale.

Less than three seconds behind it, a second and more powerful pressure wave spherically expanded and was actively disintegrating everything in its path on a continental scale.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

All Crew, USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Diego
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

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