Marauder (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on 17 Jul 2022 @ 5:43pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Petra Varelli Ph.D. & Viola Avalon PhD & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Petty Officer Afthinam Naime & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petty Officer 1st Class Ember Locksley & Petty Officer 2nd Class Leon Inaros & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday & Petty Officer 3rd Class Helliun 'Hel' Inant & Petty Officer 3rd Class Raine Ni-ya & Laeon Wylde & Nesh Saalm
Edited on on 17 Jul 2022 @ 5:46pm

3,224 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Alcyone Sector, USS Galileo-A
Timeline: MD 10, 1304 hrs

Previously, on Marauder (Part 2)...

Another furious cry emanated from the Ferengi, this one of pure pain. "Kzinti female...!! I will buy and sell you and your whole family to the Syndicate...!..."

Tal-shya was an old temple technique that was derived from making a quick execution as thus was thought to be something merciful. The rage was in her now, she had stripped off most of the veneer of calmness. She dodged the wild attempts at bringing her down and threw off the hurts. With a swift move one Ferengi went down with a broken neck the look of surprise that he was dead still plain on his face.

"Commander Tarin!" T'Lin bellowed. "We need to escape and regroup!"

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Deck 3 - Sickbay

Nurse Inaros looked over at the others when the intruder alert sounded, and he reached for his hip onto to find nothing. "Do you want me to get a weapon, Doctor?" he asked, suddenly feeling a bit lost. Drawn between his past and present.

"Yes, right now," Alexion confirmed without looking away from what he was doing. They already had some patients in, and he was working to stabilise an unconscious, burn marred man. Getting a weapon into the ex-marine's hand was the best they could do to protect themselves. "Everyone else, make sure you have a phaser to hand!" he called across the bay. If they had to protect these patients themselves, then they would.

Leon nodded and walked to the office. He took a moment before using his code to get the drawer open with the weapons, taking one. He would have loved to get something better, but site to site transport wouldn't work for him, not in this situation. So here he was, with a phaser, but it would have to do. He looked around and frowned, considering before he rushed to get a laser scalpel as well. Useless items rarely used, but it worked as a knife if needed. He then made a point to hand out phasers to those that didn't have them, glancing at Alexion. "If we can, we should move everyone back from the door," he finally said. The alternative was that he went outside and kept the corridor clear.

"Let's do it!" Alexion agreed, but didn't dare stop his work with his patient, keeping close as he glanced over with a furrowed brow. "Thorne..."

"On it..." the Chaplain moved quickly to the woman who was huddled on the ground near the door, her leg outstretched awkwardly. "Let's get you somewhere more comfortable," he said softly to her, gripping her carefully as he helped her up.

Ember frowned as Leon placed the phaser down close to her, glancing to him with a grim expression before loading a hypo with careful hands. "That's not a tool I'm used to using."

"It's set to max stun," Leon said and touched her arm, meeting her eyes for a moment. "You'll be fine. I am hoping you won't need it." Because if she did, it meant he had failed.


Deck 5

Gabriel Stark ran down the corridor, bulky with the weapons he carried. His advanced training had taught him a lot; how to adapt, get the best out of his strengths and weaknesses. He just wished that they had the kind of firepower that he'd been playing with back then. He'd grabbed and was carrying as many weapons as he could get away with, whilst compromising movement as little as possible. He'd transferred Security and Tactical control to the Security office before locking it down.

He slowed down as he heard the unmistakable tones of Ferengi voices. Arrogant declarations of victory and superiority. Gabriel's jaw tightened in anger as he took cover at the intersection, shouldering the rifle in his hands to take the hand phaser instead. He peered around far enough to fire at the closest Ferengi, taking the chance to see what was waiting for him. With a group of three irate Ferengis ready to charge, he switched up the phaser to wide beam, letting them get closer before pushing his hand around to fire.

The satisfying thuds of bodies hitting the deck greeted him, and he pushed himself around the corner. He started to run, jumping over the sprawled limbs. He stooped to grab one of their whips, weighing the handle in his hand as he ran. He followed the voices to an open doorway, stilling at the edge, pressed to the wall. He looked down at the whip, musing for a moment.

Gabriel gave a deliberate cough, waiting for the inevitable footsteps towards the doorway. Just as the Ferengi crossed the threshold in a stooped defensive posture, he cracked the whip out sideways across the doorway, watching as the intruder doubled over in pain and dropped to the deck. As the second rushed to him out of sheer instinct, Gabriel slashed the whip upwards, slicing the beam across his snarling face. He kicked down at the first hostile to make sure he was out for the count as he stared down at the whip with wide eyes. "Holy f...." he shook his head with disbelief before sprinting down the corridor.


Deck 7 - Main Engineering

"..noticing..." Hel said at the intruder alert, staring at the Ferengi that had just beamed into Engineering. Her lip curled into a sneer, and she looked over at the others before she ran towards the Ferengi, grabbing the nearest object ODN recoupler, it had some heft on her way past before throwing it at the Ferengi with all her strength...and an angry cry at someone daring to enter their territory.

Hollenday grabbed a plasma cutter and flicked it on and jumped toward one of the short figures. It turned but John was on him and the Ferengi screamed as the torch cut into his skin. One of his other compatriots started to fire wildly and hit first the man John was struggling with and then grazed John.

"Damn!" John used the one Ferengi as a shield and tried to move forward picking the struggling burnt Ferengi easily.

Hel had jumped onto the Ferengi, her weight forcing the body down as she gripped the wrist and hit the hand against the deck, again and again, to get the whip out of the hand. Her teeth were bared in a sneer, her instincts kicking in.

A sharp sonic concussion preceded an incoming energy bolt aimed directly at Hollenday's flank. What the Ferengi lacked in physical fortitude and combat training, they started to make up for with pure numbers. The whip snap's projectile slammed into the Engineering officer's ribs and fizzled across his body.

John wanted to howl but couldn't as he dropped to the deck. His body spasmed from the weapon.

Hel pulled the whip from the Ferengi she was fighting, using it on her before her fist punched him, just to make sure it went down. She turned, snapping the whip, before swinging it at the Ferengi that a gotten to Hollenday. A weapon was a weapon, and right now she wanted revenge. "This is our ship! Begone!"

The Ferengi dodged sideways then countered the attack with another whip-snap towards the unusual-looking alien female. His small stature gave him a speed and maneuverability advantage which he used to rear his own whip back and snap it at Inant. Another pulse of turquiouse energy sizzled through the air, aimed at the woman's waist.

Hel dodged to the side, rolling, before she reached out. The Ferengi was fast, but she had reach. Oh, did she. Her hand wrapped around the wrist holding the whip and she watched the Ferengi as she squeezed...and then quickly bent the wrist in a direction it wasn't designed to go, holding his eyes.

"Ahhh!!" The outburst of pain was the result of the small man's wrist being broken. The Ferengi's eyes watered and he involuntarily dropped his weapon on the deck before going to a knee. "Release me, she-man!!" he angrily clawed at her with is opposite free hand.

Hel hissed at him, a gesture close to what the Ferengi did. "I will do no such thing, you pitiful little sand-worm," she countered before hit him hard, hoping to knock him out. Of course, she was not familiar with the Ferengi, so she hoped a solid hit to the temple would have the same result as it did with her own people.

The Ferengi opened his mouth with a new insult but the sudden impact on his cranium caused him to blabble incomprehensible words. His small beady eyes briefly fluttered then closed, and he unceremoniously fell to the ground with a small thud.

A short moment later a second thud sounded out as Chief Naime, in a very undignified manner, tumbled out of a Jefferies tube, phaser in hand and looking for a fight. "Ah..." she blinked, taking in the scene around her and said "Looks like you have all this under control so far Hel?"


Deck 2 - Mess Hall

"Take that, you wide-eared misogynists!" Nesh Saalm cried out in Orion, throwing a pan of boiling water filled with rice, there goes lunch, into the face of a Ferengi that had come too close to her. While he gripped his face she grabbed the frying pan and hit him over the head, again and again until he went down.

The Orion female then turned, her eyes flashing with her anger, her hair escaping the scarf as she reached for the large knife. "Come closer, let me stroke your ears..."

"Ahh! Stop!" One of the intruders cried out as he was assaulted by kitchenware, then kneeled down and tried to protect himself from the young Saalm's onslaught. He withered for many short moments while the other Ferengi approached slowly and methodically. He holstered his disruptor then pulled out his specialized energy whip which began to charge and glow with blue luminescence.

"Orion female...be a good servant and let's do this the easy way..." he snapped the whip then reared it back, "or...if you prefer...the HARD way!" He cracked the whip forward towards Nesh which unleashed a turquoise energy bolt directly at her chest with surprising accuracy.

Nesh pulled back, just out of the reach. It wasn't her first encounter with a whip. "How about the way where you get off my ship?" she said, her lips twisted into something between a sneer and a smile. She reached for a knife, her eyes on the Ferengi because she knew better. "Or else I'll have to think of bad puns, and I don't want to upset you...small-ears..."

The remaining Ferengi hissed at her with ire. "..I can fetch at least twenty bars of gold-pressed latinum for you. And that's just from the Syndicate market alone!" he taunted, then cracked his whip again at her to send another stun bolt downrange. "The more you hide, the more painful this will be for you..."

Nesh jumped back again, shaking her head. "As if you could ever handle me, Ferengi..." she purred, watching him, moving the knife with confidence. Some things were just natural to her, like art. And knives were something she had grown to like. "Of course, I have to admit I have access to far more gold-pressed latinum than you'd get selling me. I am not just your average Orion female."

A moment of silence passed. "...You're not?" It wasn't a question so much as a realization of a vastly more lucrative business opportunity. The Ferengi man input several comms commands into his personal transmitter. Ten seconds later, three addition Ferengi marauders materialized in shimmering transporter beams near Nesh's location. "Tell me more...are you Orion royalty? Which family?" he taunted as the four of them now moved to surround the young sous chef.

"And here I was going to do a business proposition...with you. Singular you!" Nesh said and jumped back, over the counter, skidding to a halt. Freezer. Not the best choice, she'd freeze to death. But she wasn't surrendering. "Frax," she swore, in Ferengi, turning around and holding her knife up, ready to lash out. If he had more people here, maybe, just maybe, someone else has some heat off them now. Think positive thoughts, Nesh...

Laeon Wylde moved quietly from the other side of the Mess, using their distraction with Nesh to make his way closer with slow, silent footsteps. The youth took a breath, steeling himself as he lifted the large kitchen knife. His jaw tightened, his hearts beating hard and fast, the beat rushing in his ears. He stabbed down, the knife plunging deep into the Ferengi's back before ripping it back out to turn to the next one. The intruder close to them was already reacting, already turning to him as he stabbed down again, more at the shoulder with the angle of this one.

Nesh gasped at Laeon stabbing the first Ferengi, before he turned to the seconds. You have to help him... she thought and grabbed the rolling pin, throwing it towards the Ferengi. Distraction, she threw it wide so she didn't risk hitting Laeon.

"Oww...!!" the intruder exclaimed out loud, reaching up to put his hand on one of his forehead bulbs which had just been struck by a cooking instrument. "Orion savage!" he yelled in return, readying his energy whip.

Just outside of the pandemonium, Gabriel Stark slowed his steps at the Mess doorway, hearing the struggle inside. He turned off his path, pushing though into the chaotic Mess, his rifle already lifted. He fired without hesitation at the Ferengi turning on Laeon, shooting him before he could get any closer to him. He swept the barrel across, firing rapid shots to take down the cluster of intruders.

Several of the short, large-lobed intruders went down from the security officer's flanking phaser onslaught. Two of the intruders managed to scramble behind the cover of two tables which they'd pushed over onto their sides. Then, from opposite angles within the dining facility, both of them quickly readied their weapons then popped out of cover to simultaneously return fire on the gold-collared petty officer. Three disruptor bursts were proceeded by an energy whip snap and an incoming turquoise pulse.

Gabriel lunged for cover under the unrelenting return fire, but he was clipped on the way down, the energy just scorching his side in a split second turn of bad luck. The force sent him to the ground with a heavy sprawl behind an overturned table, rather than the calculated dive he had intended. He shouted in pain, a long string of expletives falling out of his mouth with the pain as he reached down, pulling the knife free with one hand and pulling a hand held phaser with the other, waiting for them to come around to him.

Nesh watched with wide eyes, reaching for the nearest frying pan. She threw it at the Ferengi that had hit Stark, her eyes wide. "You get away!" she shouted, grabbing the nearest thing to her hand, a three foot metal skewer.


Deck 4 - Science Labs

Raine's eyes widened when she saw the Ferengi materialise and she ducked, with a strange calmness, finding a shielded position. Her hand went up, feeling her way to the nearest tool and she took it. "Great..." Interphasic scanner was the prize today. She frowned as she felt across it before she took her PADD, biting her lip as she shifted. She could try and reprogramme it. The Ferengi. Their strength is their hearing. So, they will hear different pitches than we do. She changed the scanner's audio, tweaking the pitch range, thinking. If I can make this loud enough, and outside of normal humanoid hearing, the Ferengi in theory should experience pain and discomfort. If I get this right, symptoms might include nausea or brain haemorrhage in the Ferengi...or it might not work and I am wasting time.

Avalon picked up anything she could reach and began throwing things at the Ferengi, focusing on his face and ears. Her goal was to distract the intruder long enough for one of the others to do something.

Petra dropped to the floor and crawled to the cupboard and grabbed a bottle of hydrochloric acid. She would need to make sure she just got the Ferengi and not any of her fellow scientists. She carefully maneuvered to where she could get a clean shot.

Raine let out a breath as she re-aligned the internal buffering of the Interphasic Scanner, then turned it on. She heard the first sound, but adjusted it. And she then aimed it towards the Ferengi.

Viola listened to the other two scientists and threw an empty PADD, hitting the Ferengi in the eye. Then she ducked, hoping that was enough to keep the intruder from attacking Raine.

Petra would much prefer the sound to disable the Ferengi than throw the acid. It would cause significant damage to the lab, even though there was a base compound to neutralize it in the cabinet. But if Raine's gambit failed, she would act as backup.

The three intruders within the science laboratory each held their ears over their hands and cried out with withering pain. They were effectively immobilized, each unable to concentrate on their hostile takeover while subsonic pulses scrambled their senses.

Raine breathed hard as she got up, her eyes going for something they could use. She grabbed the emergency medical kit, pulling out the hypo of sedatives. One dose that would get one Ferengi down, still left two. "Tie up the two others, secure them any way we can," she said, stepping over the acid before grabbing one of the Ferengi and sedating him.

Petra and Viola looked at eac other for a moment before Viola gave a small shrug. "Yeah..." she found some cords and started tying the Ferengi up, watching Petra do the same.

"I'll...clean up the spill," Raine said, frowning as she moved to grab what she needed to make the floor safe again without it eating through their shoes. She glanced at the two other scientists before back at what she was doing, feeling very strange having cracked out those skills again. Falling into old habits, Raine. You must be careful.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

PO1 Ember Locksley
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

PO2 Leon Inaros
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

CWO3 Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CPO Afthinam Naime
Acting Chief Engineer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Ullswater]

PO3 John Hollenday
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

PO3 Helliun Inant
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

Viola Avalon
Marine Biologist
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Sandoval]

Petra Varelli
Archaeologist
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Sandoval]

PO1 Gabriel Stark
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

Nesh Saalm
Sous Chef
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

Laeon Wylde
Civilian
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

PO3 Raine Ni-ya
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

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