DELTA MISSION

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Reliant121
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by Reliant121 »

USS Paladin

"Fire."

Cix tapped the large red key underneath the phaser array, pulse turret and torpedo launcher controls. 12 quantum torpedoes tore from their tubes, followed by a hailstorm of phaser beams and an unholy barrage of pulse phaser fire. The torpedoes struck an envelope of energy, which fizzed and bubbled under the intense energy involved until it dropped. Phaser strikes pierced through the faltering shields and cut across her hull. Only, most of the energy reflected harmlessly off and dissipated into the wastes of space. The pulse phasers proved more effective, ramming home and causing nanofissures in the neutronium skinned armour.

"Captain, energy surge in that...mass driver cannon...I think she's powering up again!" Teaos called, not tearing his eyes away from the panel.

"Brace for impact, auxiliary power to shields and inertial dampeners!" Mark responded calmly, grasping tightly at the nearest railing. The mass driver fired once more, hurling the accelerated neutronium shell into the shield array of the Paladin. The Paladin groaned as the immense kinetic energy struck the shield, causing microfractures in the energy array and frying several small systems across the ship. The hull creaked as a backwash of energy washed into the hull. Once more, the ship was thrown off course. Following it, the second Battleaxe opened fire with shorter range versions of the cannon, weaker in output and much faster firing. They were like the stings on a bee, a consistent and constant fusillade of minute pinpricks disabling the shields autoregeneration system from coping.

"Shields at 58%, there are some small fractures in the shield bubble. I've got reports of systems malfunctions on decks 7,10 and 16. Theres a small breach on deck 4, energy backwash," Cix reported.

"Their time is up. Tactical, power up the phaser lance," Fletcher ordered. The lighting of the ship dimmed slightly as power was drawn from the warp engines and shunted into the colossal axial phaser lance cannon. At that moment the second Battleaxe opened its primary mass driver port.

"Captain, incoming!" Moments later, another impact struck from the starboard side instead of the port, flinging the ship 6 degress in that direction.

"Shields at 43%, breach in the forward port section!" Cix again relayed, showing the slightest signs of frustration. He let off all of the secondary weapons at the beta target, cracking the shields but barely touching the armour as was the case before.

"commander, lance target on alpha, target that forward cannon." Mark waited around 3 seconds for Cix to have programmed all the requested parameters. "Fire."

The entire ship shuddered almost imperceptibly as the lance fired. The initial shot tore into the massive bow cannon and ripped through the primary hull, fracturing the hardened skin of armour from the inside. The enemy hull began to crack, smaller outer sections falling away in micro-explosions. Cix fired a quartet of quantum torpedoes following the lance strike, each of which tore directly into the breach. A rapid set of secondary explosions rippled through the Battleaxe cruiser. The starboard wing slowly broke itself free with another set of explosions while the second half broke itself apart, each smaller element consumed by intense plasma fire.

"Alpha destroyed, locking target on beta. Shields at 37%, enemy weapons are bleeding through and we are taking some light damage to the ablative plating. Requesting permission to fire phaser lance," Cix reported. There was perhaps the slightest hint of joy and pleasure in his voice which made Fletcher smirk to himself. Mark turned around and raised an eyebrow before turning back to the screen.

"Granted. Fire at will on target beta."

The phaser lance speared slightly to the right, slicing across the port wing of the advancing enemy cruiser. The blast cut into the wing and triggered a round of explosions and tears. The inertial force of the Geg cruiser in motion caused the wing to rip free of its parent ship. The Battleaxe continued onward, preparing to fire its main gun. A second lance shot tore into the central hull section , rupturing the main hull of the enemy vessel. Once again, Cix let off a set of quantum torpedoes into the carved breach. The ship cracked with an almighty groan, and it fell apart piece by piece. There was no explosion, no vaporisation of the hull. It simply fell into component sections.

The Paladin swung to the side, wounded, and set its sights on the massive Warhammer class.

______

USS Farseer

"Captain, we've got minimal impulse power restored," the XO of the Farseer reported, blood dripping down the side of her face. The bridge of the Farseer was in a state of disorganized chaos, panels lying strewn across the small interior, entire command consoles ripped clean from their deck. A small breach had ripped into the hull and was currently covered from a faintly glowing structural field.

A klaxon sounded loudly, shrieking an incessant and unrelenting alert at the crew.

"Captain, we've got hostile borders on the lower decks! I'm reading...hostile borders on decks 11 and 9."

"Security, repelling actions if you please." The remaining security teams maneuvered as best they could, they could not let the Farseer fall to anyone.

Anyone.

______

USS Paladin

"Captain Fletcher...The heavy warship is turning to face us. I expect we're gonna be seeing one of those mass drivers like the former classes, but that thing is ridiculously slow on the turn. Fast in a straight line, not so much in the corners," Teaos reported. He was right. The massive vessel was barely even turning, fighting its own mass to turn on its axis. It completely eclipsed the stricken Farseer.

"Mr. Cix, we are not going to let that thing get a beat on our main gun. The advantage we have, the only one, is the fact she can barely turn. Lock primary target on that ships weapons modules, port and starboard. All conventional weapons, standby phaser lance. Fire at will."

The Geg ship opened fire with its conventional weaponry at the same time, doubling and redoubling the standard autocannon fire that the Paladin had taken from the Battleaxes. The shields began to flare and buckle, with small chunks of the enemies weaponry ripping straight through and into the ablative armour. The armour was meant to absorb energy damage and large scale explosive force, not kinetic energy. As such, several shots slice through like paper. In response, every available weapon exploded from the Paladin, subjecting the enemy ship the heaviest single ship barrage currently known to be available in the alpha quadrant. The shields of the Geg dreadnaught shuddered and flickered, before finally falling free. The remaining energy weaponry struck home, exchanging heavy fire with the enemies secondary systems.

"Shields at 19%. At 10% we will start to loose emitters."

"Fire phaser lance, maximum spread."

The phaser lance once again opened fire, tearing into the enemy command ship. Unlike the case with the Battleaxes, the Warhammer put up a valiant fight with the armour. The first shot from the lance was absorbed by the neutronium armour with significant bleed through, which superheated the armour and weakened it. The second shot hit the same region of the ship and it cracked, letting the beam through unabated. The beam tore through and emerged the other side, gradually fracturing the weapons pod section. Cix repeated the other process on the other side of the ship, rupturing the second weapons pod section. Each of these sections contained the primary power cores; each of them was either severed from its support system or utterly vaporized. The Warhammer began to loose power, slowly flickering out of life. A final lance shot ripped through the now exposed nose section, knocking the ship into a slow inertia driven spiral to the port.

Everyone signed in relief. They had triumphed. They were sure that if that Geg ship had been in position from the start, they would never have got through it. But the lance, and fate, saved their butts.

"Enemy ship is hailing, Sir," G'han piped up cheerily, keying in the commands to accept the transmission. "It's audio only, says their viewing system is cut out." Figures.

"Open channel."

"Federation vessel....I am the Lord of this ship. You have made a grave mistake this day. My clan will not abide this wanton intrusion of our territory. That is why we engaged your scout ship. Now you have simply defended their transgression. You will live to see the consequences of your mistake."

"However, we understand the Federation has some form of...articles for prisoner treatment, yes? Well. I would ask, warrior to warrior, that the peasant-crew are removed from this vessel and evacuated. We will follow soon."

Mark thought for a moment, and glanced at Fletcher. The captain nodded softly and sat down in his seat.

"Geg vessel, this is the Paladin. We have locked our transporters and are standing by. Operations, begin evacuation." The transfer took several minutes, loading the multitude of Geg crewmembers to the Federation battleship.

"It's complete. We are standing by to transport you and your command sta..." He never finished his sentence.

"There is honour only in preserving the cause." The Lord said, and the channel went dead. The bridge was silent for a moment.

"Captain..." A concerned and worried Teaos looked up from his panel. "Large scale build of energy in several key locations aboard the Geg warship. It's consistent with Fusion explosives, they are all going critical. They are scuttling her!"

Fletcher reacted almost instantly. "Evasive maneuvers, maximum impulse. Where's the Farseer?!"

"She's managed to drift just outside the detonation edge. Our engines are at 110% capacity, hull stress increasing."

"Increase to 120% and..." Too late.

The Geg ship detonated, tearing itself apart in a brilliant explosion like a miniature supernova. The ripples of the enormous energy washed over the Paladin, knocking her of course. The whisps of remaining shield absorbed the majority of the blast, but the ship was clearly out of position. Critically, both her and the Farseer were safe.
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by Mikey »

Grr'lek looked quizzically at his tactical display for a moment, touched a couple of buttons to update it, then looked up to watch the Geg ships detonate. Without a pause, he opened an internal channel. "Lt. Corrin - stand down from escort detail. Prepare a POW guard detail and proceed to cargo 1 and 2." He closed the channel as an insistent beep chirped from his console, then attempted to adjust the display again. "Captain?" he called.

"Something up, lieutenant?" Fletcher asked. "That is, something other than the pounding we just took and the self-destruction of the contacts?" the captain added ironically.

"Actually - yes, sir." Grr'lek's voice grew even huskier than normal as he prepared to give voice to his confusion. "I don't have any contact with the Daystrom. Near as I can tell she's altered course, but hasn't updated or even responded. It's like she's running on complete automation. The Ravage seems to be remaining in position."

Mark spoke up. "Can you determine the Daystrom's status?"

"No, sir. By all indications, she's running normally... just without any contact protocols in use."

"G'han, hail the Daystrom on common and emergency channels," Fletcher ordered. "Cix - has she sent the Tigerfish this way?"

"I wouldn't," Grr'lek muttered.

Fletcher stood and turned to face the strategic station. "Beg your pardon, lieutenant?" he asked, his generally genial tone now all business.

"If you were flying the 'Fish and the Daystrom was in trouble, would you be on your way here... to help us in an engagement clearly designed to occupy us when we could have been helping them?"

"Explain yourself, lieutenant. Are you saying that we shouldn't have assisted the Farseer?"

"Not at all, sir," Grr'lek replied, then coughed as all eyes on the bridge turned toward him. "According to our intel, the Geg typically don't engage for simple territorial infractions... and certainly not against the will of the highest-ranking feudal lord. In any event, this area is reported to be common ground among the Geg clans - whoever attacked us doesn't have any proprietary claim to this territory."

"And the Farseer?" Cix asked.

"A perfectly executed snare," Grr'lek answered quietly.

**********************************************************************************************

Mikey opened his eyes and looked from side to side. Sick bay, he surmised. Looking down at his immobilized body, he found himself on a bio-bed restrained under a full-torso post-operative monitor. I must have gotten it pretty good, he thought. He closed his eyes to the dim light and felt around the room, antennae twitching as they searched. Two guards, armed, by the door to post-op... at least two more men in the triage room beyond. He struggled briefly, finding a full range of movement available - along with an interesting and sharp new pain near the base of his spine - but the monitor was locked down around him. He probably wasn't in shape to take on the guards even if he were free.

Instead, he kept his eyes closed and retreated into thought. The Wild Bill out here, where it had no business being... taken over by these inhuman humans... and an Andorian Thris-class research vessel in the middle of a Starfleet investigation... Mikey paused in his reflection a moment, trying to ignore the next thought that would come and completely derail his train of thought. What if there's a connection? he thought. Old ship, out here in the middle of a mystery, followed up by an Andorian- "Icy hells!" he exclaimed aloud involuntarily. The guards by the door drew a step closer, training their longarms on the bio-bed. Mikey thought quickly, then looked toward the guards and said, "If I were free..."

The guards chuckled between them, assured that the prisoner's exclamation was just one of frustration and bravado, and retreated to their posts by the door. That's it! Mikey's thoughts ran on. The Wild Bill was being operated by Starfleet Intelligence... the ACS Alt'hris must have been an Ahm Tal ship under the public auspices of the Andorian Science Institute. The Andorian espionage agency was rumored to work in conjunction with Starfleet Intelligence. That means that Z'rak must have left the Institute and run off to join up... Mikey's growl was audible through the room, but the guards now just chalked it up to the impotent anger of a non-human species.

Mikey soon left off these mental excercises and and instead began to meditate, concentrating on his body to channel his energy toward healing. Soon, there was the noise of a heated discussion out in the triage room.

"I don't care!" squawked a familiar voice. "I have a patient in there, and I need to check on him! Even you barbarians ought to understand that!"

"What makes you think we need to offer continued medical care to the prisoner?" asked a calmer, deeper voice.

"What makes you think I won't 'accidentally' mix up your man's palliative injection with a healthy dose of hydrogen cyanide?" said the first voice. "Now let me through. I'm not asking for anything from you. You can go on being self-important and imposing-looking all you want."

A frustrated grunt answered, then the force field in the post-op doorway shimmered and dropped. Holmes limped in, leaning on his cane a bit more heavily than usual. Mikey picked his head up and said, "Have they hurt you, doctor?"

"No, no, I'm just getting old," Holmes answered with his usual tone of annoyance. "Have they hurt you- oh, yeah."

"Keep it quiet!" growled the voice that had argued with Holmes. The doctor busied himself with taking readings from the post-op monitor's instruments. He hit one button which engaged a rather noisy, low-pitched whine, then walked around the bed and reached up and roughly pulled Mikey's antennae toward him.

"Grell'nors de-altireth!" Mikey shouted. "Captivity hasn't helped your bedside manner, doctor."

Holmes pitched his voice low. He began to mutter quietly, only loud enough to be heard with the help of Mikey's antennae. That and the buzz of the monitor made sure that he couldn't be heard from more than a foot away from the bed. "Shut up and listen," he hissed. "I treated one of the invaders you knocked around. These guys are more human than human - perfect DNA sequences. No chromosomal abnormalities, not even cosmetic ones. No genetic defects, not even ones only expressed as carriers. I think these guys are the products of eugenics."

Mikey pitched one antennae inquisitively, not daring to speak loud enough for Holmes to hear.

"You've heard of Khan Noonian Singh?" Holmes whispered. "Well, these guys look like what would have happened if he were allowed to continue a selective breeding program."

Mikey pointed one antenna at Holmes' tricorder. Holmes pulled out the scanner wand and the device's chirping added to the noise in the room. "What I need to know, doctor," Mikey whispered fiercely, "is how to kill them. All of them."

"That's awfully monomaniacally violent... even for you, Mikey."

"My quasi-nephew in the first degree, second tier- er, my nephew, and the closest thing I'll ever have to a son - was a graduate student at the Andorian Science Institute. Apparently, he joined up with Ahm- er, an Andorian exploratory commission - and shipped out. He was a staff officer on the ACS Alt'hris, a research vessel which went missing one sector up along the warp highway about a month ago." Mikey took another deep breath and continued through gritted teeth, "In his oath of service, he said he was inspired to join by the example of... of his brave Uncle M'karn W'trisk, the Starfleet captain."

Holmes stared down at Mikey for a second, then cleared his throat and put away the tricorder. "Yes, well," he said aloud while shutting off the noisy monitoring equipment, "you had quite a nasty pulse phase infection - common enough for an Andorian, but dangerous nonetheless. If you didn't have such a way with people that earned you a second shout to the gut, it might not have been so bad. You'll recover fully, but long muscle function will be diminished for about four-" Holmes held up his hand with the thumb and forefinger pushed together- "days."

Back up to strength in four hours, Mikey thought. Good to know.

"OK, lumpy!" Holmes called out toward the doorway. "I'm done here for now."
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by Mark »

USS Ravage – Torpedo Room One

Two hundred years ago on the first starship that ever launched from Earth, the Main Torpedo Control Room was as important as the Bridge or Main Engineering to a Starship. Over the years, as ships came to rely more and more on phasers, automated loading, and remote fire control the torpedo room of a starship became a rarely visited area of the ship. Aside from the torpedo control team, the only ones to come down here were usually enlisted crew looking for a few moments of intimate privacy that couldn’t otherwise be found in the enlisted dorms. So it was no small surprise to the two lowly crewmen manning the forgotten room when the ships First Officer and Chief Engineer came barreling into the room amidst all the confusion.

Commander Sinclair ran to the manual fire control console as Chief McDuff quickly ran to the torpedo tube to check the load. All eight of the modified torpedoes were loaded into the burst fire mechanism. Panels were still open and tools were still strewn about the room from the modifications McDuff’s team were making. Sinclair noticed that McDuff saw the disarray in his realm, and that he had to suppress the urge to bite someone’s head off at that moment.

Sinclair tapped his comm badge “Sinclair to Lewis, we’re here.”

The Captain’s reply sounded slightly tinny as it was relayed through the shuttles communication system “Acknowledged. Open a channel to Alpha One. She’s the Daystrom’s flight commander. You’re going to need to coordinate with her, Commander. Lewis out.”

Sinclair tapped his badge once to close and clear the channel, counted to three then tapped it again “Ravage to Alpha One.”

After a moment, a female voice responded “Standing by.”

“This is Commander Jordan Sinclair, First Officer of the Ravage. We have limited ability still in our forward tube, but have no maneuverability ourselves. I need your people to draw that ship into our crosshairs.” Sinclair explained as he watched as McDuff furiously working with the console, his combadge, an engineering tricorder and a tool kit.

He heard her mutter under her breath “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Then in a louder voice, she asked, “Draw them where exactly, Commander?”

“Zero-zero-zero mark zero Alpha Leader” he clarified “Put them directly on line with our forward tube.”

“Sure, no problem.” She answered in a sarcastic tone. “Suggest you keep all your fingers and toes crossed, Commander.”

“Agreed.” Sinclair said as McDuff motioned him over to the console. He moved over to the engineer “What do you have for me, Chief?”

McDuff pressed a key and suddenly the Wild Bill was on the screen, surrounded by fighters making attack runs, but it was off center to the right, and towards the top of the screen.

“I used my combadge to set up a remote link with the Sagan’s sensors.” McDuff explained “then I set up my tricorder to download and transfer the data, and plugged it into this screen. You have a fraction of a second delay on what you’re seeing, but it’s the best I can do without the ships computer. I figured you needed a way to target these torps.”

“Good call Chief.” Sinclair said.

They waited impatiently as they watched the battle unfold. A New Orleans class frigate, even a newer one such as the Wild Bill was a relatively weak ship when measured against the Ravage or the Daystrom. Against fighters however, it was a deadly opponent. The smaller craft would continuously sweep in and sting the Starship with their weapons, but mostly were unable to penetrate its shields. The Wild Bill’s phasers snaked out at the smaller ships, and for the most part they were able to avoid the incoming fire. However, eventually a pilot would react a half a second too late or the Wild Bill’s gunner would get lucky and yet another fighter would flare out in one brief fiery burst. However, slowly they were drawing the ship into the Ravage’s crosshairs.
At this rate, they’d be in position in another minute.

Sinclair looked over and saw McDuff had set up a portable power supply and plugged it into the launcher. He had put both of the crewmen to work, one monitoring the generator, as he had the other calibrating the device and setting it to a single fire launch sequence. Sinclair raised an eyebrow in question and McDuff answered “We’ve only got eight shots. I didn’t figure it’d be a good idea to waste them in a burst.”

Sinclair stared intently at the monitor as the Wild Bill finally came into the forward torpedoes firing arc. He immediately inputted a set of coordinates which should target the enemy ships. He took a deep breath and said “Fire one and two on my mark.”

The crewman who was at the trigger heard the word “fire” and jumped the gun pressing the trigger button early. The sound of the torpedo firing echoed loudly through the room as Sinclair stared daggers at the young man, until McDuff jerked him out of the way, taking the trigger himself. The misfired torpedo sailed harmlessly past the Wild Bill and off into space.

Sinclair announced “Resetting range to target. Fire on my command only.”

“Aye Commander” McDuff said.

------

Biggles jerked the control stick hard, rolling her ship over onto its port wing, barely dodging that last phaser blast. The Ravage had taken her shot and missed it seemed, as it just float in space. She had started to wonder if this was how it would end when one of her fighters consoles started bleeping a second before she saw the telltale red light. Torpedo after torpedo launched from the Ravage at the Wild Bill. The first torpedo missed, as did the last two, but four of them landed solid hits against the Wild Bill. The first two brought down its shields, while the third blasted through the hull into top of the saucer and out of the bottom. The final strike must have hit the EPS relay for the weapons systems, because Biggles suddenly read that the Wild Bill had lost all weapons. The ship still had power, but couldn’t attack.

She suddenly picked up a scrambled message from the Wild Bill to the Daystrom. The limited computer of the fighter couldn’t decode it, but it’s meaning became clear when the Daystrom got underway at impulse and came around in an apparent attack run on the Ravage. The Daystrom moved to optimal firing range and again Biggles knew it was over. The ship would fire any second now, and obliterate the helpless ship. As one second led to another Biggles started to breathe again. On a spur of the moment impulse, she scanned the Daystrom and found to her delight and relief that the Daystrom’s tactical systems were offline as well.

“Way to go, Skipper!” she howled her praise of Captain W’Trisk.

The Wild Bill and the Daystrom both came about together, side by side on the same course, and suddenly she knew that she was out of time. In one last desperate hope, she emptied her torpedo magazine and phaser capacitor at the fleeing ships, hoping against hope that a lucky strike would stop them. But with a flash of light, both the USS Daystrom and the USS William Thompson disappeared into warp.
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by Mark »

USS Ravage – Main Conference Room

Time seemed to stand still since the Wild Bill and the Daystrom had fled into warp. They worked until they were light headed with hunger, ate field rations as they worked, and took short naps when they could no longer function. They had worked thus for nearly 30 hours and had little progress to show for it. Not only had the main computer been compromised, but it seemed to have some sort of virus implanted, which would carry out the last instructions it received, which could be anything from warping the Ravage into enemy hands, shutting down life support, or simply causing containment failure, and destroying the ship.

The Ravage’s senior staff was seated around the large conference room table, still illuminated by emergency lighting. It was ironic, of course. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the power generation systems, nor had the ship suffered any damage, but that damned computer attack left them drifting helplessly in space. Anything that required computer control was unavailable, except for critical systems such as life support, communications, and so forth. To achieve these ends, all of the Ravage’s shuttlecraft had been networked together and were barely able to keep the ship going.

“Reports please?” Lewis ordered.

“All tactical systems are offline,” Devi reported “We’ve manually reloaded both torpedo bays and have both control rooms fully manned, but we have no phasers, no shields, and no targeting systems.”

“We’ve got a little headway on communications, sensors and transporters,” Uzume advised “again provided by the shuttles. We’ve been able to use their transporters to evacuate the crew trapped below decks, have short range sensors, and short range communications.”

“Can we send a distress call to Limbo Station?” Lewis asked quickly.

“Not a chance,” she replied “we don’t have nearly enough power.”

Everyone looked at the Chief who shrugged “Here’s the problem we’re facing. When those bastards hacked us, they uploaded a virus as well. Now, we’re guessing but we BELIEVE it’s got some hidden command codes from the bits we’ve found. Those codes contain hidden contingency commands. I can’t wipe them all at once without reinstalling the main operating system, and I can’t do that without activating the main computer, and risk having the virus take over.”

“What CAN we do?” Lorcon asked.

“Right now, we’re pulling individual isoliniar chips and rods, taking them to a standalone terminal and checking them for malicious code. It’s working, but VERY, VERY slowly. At best, we can’t restart for a week. At worst, a month.” The Chief replied with a grimace.

“That’s it then” Sinclair decided “we need help. I’ll take one of the shuttles and go.”

Lewis looked at his First Officer and said “I appreciate the offer, but we can’t exactly spare a shuttle right now.”

“Um, excuse me?” a timid voice said

Everyone looked over at who had spoken and saw a young man with a midshipman rank insignia. The quiet fellow had been serving coffee. Sinclair remembered he was an assistant to the Yeoman.

“Yes Cadet….?” Lewis asked kindly.

“Cadet Rhodes, Sir.” The Cadet replied “I couldn’t help but overhear, and I just wondered why we couldn’t have that other ship take the Commander.”

A look of chagrin passed over the face of every man and woman present. The senior staff had forgotten the Tigerfish, which was still in a covering orbit. They’d managed to get most of the Daystrom’s fighters stored in various shuttle and cargo bays, rotating a flight in space mostly because the Ravage couldn’t accommodate them all. They’d all forgotten the larger craft.

“Let me place a call to Commander Robustelli” Lewis said. “In the meantime, Commander, I want you and Lt. Uzume to pack. You’re going to fetch the cavalry.”

----

Twenty minutes later they were racing off for help at top warp.
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by Mikey »

A sickening thud sounded once again as a sharp left hook landed on the side of Mikey's face - one which would have easily dislocated his jaw if he didn't roll with it. The pain would fade, he knew, and was dulled by the ever-increasing tide of adrenaline in his blood... the frustration and anger, however, of holding back and taking a beating continued to mount. The "sparring sessions" had begun when Mikey had fully regained his ability to walk, spurred by the fact that he intentionally rose to his captors' repeated taunts and jibes. He was in the middle of his third such bout, approximately 12 hours since the Daystrom had been captured.

Pleased with their success, and encouraged by their ability to seemingly easily beat an experienced Andorian in fisticuffs, his captors had begun to talk. Words and phrases like "enhanced," "superior to normal humans," and "our rightful place" had been bandied, all while Mikey gritted his teeth and took dive after dive. Fortunately, the aggressors seemed disposed to continue their sport, and brought Mikey back to Dr. Holmes each time in order to be patched back up into fighting trim. During these clinical visits, Mikey quizzed Holmes enough to learn what direction in which to direct conversation. In this manner, Mikey had managed to learn that due to the lack of a sufficient population to continue to develop and breed their genetic enhancements, the augmented humans had taken to abducting Starfleet vessels, using the human crew as stock and "discarding" the non-humans or using them for training and sport - much the same as Mikey was being used now.

"However," taunted the tanned human standing over the staggered Andorian, "I've yet to see any of them show your spirit or stamina. Can you believe I'd been holding back? We were killing some of the aliens too quickly to be of any use by going all out."

Mikey spat and said dryly, "I can't imagine."

"Even that ship full of your type," continued Mikey's opponent, gregarious with the flush of an energetic workout. Mikey's eyes narrowed as the augmented human went on, "They were tough all right, but had none of your skill or mettle. The younger ones, even - screamed like little girls after just two or three broken bones and punctured organs." The augment chuckled to himself as Mikey remained down on one knee for a moment, his antennae scanning the room. The two observers had left when Mikey went down while the armed guards waited outside the door, and he was temporarily alone in the cargo bay with his opponent. He slowly rose and faced the augment, who chuckled again and settled into a fighting stance. He danced towards Mikey, right arm raised to deliver a sloppy haymaker. As Mikey pretended to wobble, the blow came - but the Andorian stepped aside, hooked the human's right arm under his own, braced his hip against the human's, and spun. The augment's eyes widened slightly at the sudden display of speed and strength from the captive, then more so at the audible "pop" as his shoulder blade snapped neatly down its centerline. Mikey continued pulling the now-disabled arm until the human had spun around completely, hooked a leg, and deposited the augment flat on his back.

"Funny thing about us aliens," Mikey puffed, "is that even we sometimes have kin." The heel of Mikey's boot came down sharply and crushed the augment's trachea before he could answer.

************************************************************************************************

"What are you doing?" Sinclair asked imperiously. "I've already advised Limbo Station of our ETA."

"Yes, I know," Robustelli replied. "I'm trying to reach the Paladin." At Sinclair's glare he added, "Your pedigree and accomplishments are well-known, Commander, but as of right now Captain Fletcher is still in charge of our mission. I intend to give him a full report. When you get your own command, I'll be happy to follow your decisions... until then, I'll report to my superiors and keep the options open for the best chance of getting my captain back in as few pieces as possible."

Sinclair stared at the young Robustelli for a moment, then smiled slightly. It was the same sort of moral bravado he'd so recently employed against his uncle, but it surprised him - this Robustelli seemed to have grown something of a backbone in just a few minutes. No, Sinclair corrected himself, he'd learned how to employ his backbone from hanging around with W'trisk. "When and if I get my own command, I think I'd be happy with an XO with that attitude."

Robustelli flushed slightly while Sinclair turned his seat towards him and extended his hand. "I'm Jordan, by the way."

Shaking the offered hand, Robustelli replied, "Andy - but would you mind calling me 'commander' once in a while? It's so much nicer than what I'm used to being called by Captain W'trisk." The console chirped, and Andy looked down and said, "There - the Paladin is advised that the Ravage is going to be laid up and that we're en route for assistance."

************************************************************************************************

"I should just let you rot," Holmes complained as he passed his tricorder over Mikey's body. "I'm not accustomed to patients who go trying to get pummeled."

"Funny," Mikey sighed wearily, "what you're accustomed to means just slightly less than a skinny rat's ass to me."

Holmes put down the tricorder and picked up another small instrument, applying it precisely to the corner of Mikey's jaw. "By the way, there's something I wanted to show you." The doctor put down the medical instrument, picked up his walking stick, and limped over to the wall. He rapped two sharp blows on a panel of the bulkhead, then limped back to the biobed. A few seconds later, the panel began to quiver and then pop off the wall. Behind it was an ugly, familiar, bearded, tusked face. Pigrather Talknegree clambered out of the Jeffries tube, stretched, and surveyed the scene.

"Great," he muttered. "Trapped on board with that mook-" he pointed to Holmes - "AND you."

"That is 'Captain' and 'Doctor' Mook to you, Talknegree!" Mikey admonished him, then grinned to take the sting out of his words. "I guess there's yet another person who thought my order to abandon ship was a mild suggestion."

"No sir, I tried like hell to get away. Doctor Pain-in-the-ass wouldn't let me get to the corridor... said something about enemy soldiers. So I got into the tubes, but the access to the shuttle bay was watched on the other end."

"Do you have access to the whole ship?" Mikey asked.

"Most of it," Piggy admitted. "They don't have enough people to police the whole ship properly. If I watch where I'm going, I can pretty much get anywhere."

"Like the forward comms array, to use a manual send?" Mikey led.

"Yeah, considering that falls under the category of 'anywhere.' But they'll see any outgoing comms right away," answered Piggy.

Mikey considered for a few moments. "Not if it looks like our basic running scans." He grabbed the tricorder from the bed and began configuring it. "Can you match the comm signature to this profile?"

Piggy studied the tricorder for a moment, then said, "Sure. That's a basic tissue scan. But I don't..."

"It uses the same scanning profile as our running lateral scans. It won't look like anything more than that. Even so, I want the message coded..." Mikey trailed off while Holmes broke in.

"Don't they have access to all our ciphers?"

"Yes. But not to any Starfleet personnel on the Paladin. Piggy, hand me that tricorder."

Piggy complied, and Mikey began to type. "Send this message exactly."

*************************************************************************************************

"Captain," Cix called from the tac station on the Paladin's bridge. "Incoming read-only message."

"From whom?" Fletcher asked, distracted from the mundane job of preparing to tow the Farseer to Limbo Station.

Cix paused a moment, then said, "I don't know, sir. There's no identifier, and the transmission profile looks like a ship's lateral sensor array."

Fletcher rubbed his chin and said, "OK, then - let's hear it."

There was another pause, and the big Xindi finally said, "I can't crack it, sir. It reads in Basic standard, but the letters don't make any proper combinations. It doesn't match any substitution cipher, either." Finally there was a soft cough from the back of the bridge.

"May I?" asked Grr'lek simply. "Among the Romulans, keeping things secret was a day-to-day affair." Fletcher nodded, and Cix tapped a button to send the message to the strategic console.

Grr'lek studied the message for a moment, then chuckled. Fletcher spun his chair around and asked, "Did we get our subscription to the joke-of-the-week club, Lieutenant?"

Grr'lek straightened. "No sir! But this isn't a cipher. It's an attempt to render Rihannsu into basic Standard characters... clumsily, I might add. I'll translate it, but it's a safe bet that Captain W'trisk is still alive." Fletcher nodded subtly and G'han grinned as Grr'lek pored over the message on his console. Eventually he looked up and said, "It's a status report, sir. Most of the Daystrom's crew was evacuated." Grr'lek's voice dropped as he went on, "The ship - along with the captain and a couple of the medical staff - is captive to a group of genetically augmented or eugenic humans. This group has been behind all the disappearances, and might be working with the rogue Geg factions."

"I'll be damned," Fletcher mumbled absently.

"No, sir - whoever is leading these augments will be," Grr'lek replied softly.

"Beg pardon, Lieutenant?"

"It appears that they've killed the crew of an Andorian research ship... one which included one of Captain W'trisk's kin. I said that if anyone's going to be damned, it's the person who gave that order."
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
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Reliant121
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by Reliant121 »

Somewhere within the bowls of the Daystrome

"Err...M'am?" The nervous crewmen whispered, glancing back toward the Romulan currently hunched over an awkwardly placed conduit. "I dunno but I thought I saw movement down the corridor."

"Don't stand there like a pri'val, scan for something. Or listen. Or shoot the..the...the something panel and make a lot of noise. Maybe we'll encounter a human whose afraid of phaser fire," she turned and grinned. Unfortunately, the crewmen stared back with a look of incredulity. "Just because my blood is an odd colour, and I have ridges plastered to my forehead does not mean I have no sense of humour." He nodded, and turned around. He edged further out to take a look and saw nothing.

"F*cking, m'am," The ensign said, turning toward D'Tyra. She looked at him oddly.

"Is that a request or some strange descriptive word?"

He laughed. "No, no. It's a...swear word. An offensive word, used to express something rudely and crassly. You sad shoot the "something" panel. The word would go great there." She considered this for a moment. Any form of profanity or crass word said around officers on a Romulan ship would be a horrific display of protocol breach. Not only that, but such things were reserved for those who you really hated and where only spoken in the most heated situation. And yet, here D'Tyra found herself far from any Romulan. And humans seemed to appreciate this profanity a lot more than a Romulan would.

A subtle cluck sounded beneath her. Triumphant, she ripped free the power node to the power conduit, and it flickered from life. Lighting on the deck failed, and emergency systems took over. She plugged her crude microdisplay into the computer terminal next to the conduit and run a basic check of the system. Ship at warp, weapons disabled. She ran some intense looks at the sensor array. At that moment, something activated it. She watched a series of activations and dropped her mouth. Through the sensor array? Only one place that could have come from. She took a glance at the message that had been scrawled in some god awful approximation of the mother tongue. At it's culmination, she smiled widely and couldn't help but laugh.

"M'am, what...what are you laughing at?"

"My dear crewman. You're captain lives yet aboard this taken vessel. For whoever took this ship, there will be hell to pay."

A klaxon sounded on the deck as the power conduit had power redirected through it. They had been detected. A pair of the assailants rounded the corner and opened fire with phasers, narrowly missing the dodging Romulan. She returned fire with the crude phaser rifle she had stolen and struck one in the shoulder. He had been knocked to the floor, but staggered back upwards. She grabbed the frozen crewmen and threw him down the corridor. Turning to run, she pointed the riffle at the walls behind her and unleashed a torrent of fire.

"If you want it, come and F*cking get it!" the augments heard, as the wall begun to buckle and melt in front of them
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by alexmann »

Limbo Station Infirmary

"Assistant Chief Medical Officer's personal log, Stardate 67473.8. I have been informed that I am to become the new Chief Medical Officer of the starship Ravage. This assignment should be very interesting. I'm not sure I will be able to take all of my collection. I look forward to serving with the crew, especially Commander Sinclair. I intend to host a get together to help introduce myself to the senior officers. As soon as the Ravage returns to the station I will be joining them. I have packed nearly all of my things with just a few extra bits of my collection to go. End Log."
As Geff picked up the PADD in front of him, the comm system sounded.
"Halow here."
"Report to the briefing room."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Limbo Station Briefing Room

The doors opened and Geff walked in. The first thing he noticed was Commander Sinclair. He sat down in the nearest seat and listened carefully.
"We were investigating the loss of the Telford when we detected another Federation ship, the Farseer. We were then attack by an old New Orleans class ship called the William Thompson. Ordinarily they would be no threat but they used some program with our prefix codes in it. They started to shut down all our systems but McDuff shut down our computer. The Ravage isn't badly damaged but it's going to take weeks to get the computer back online safely by ourselves. We're going to need a tow back to base. Then, with some help from station personnel we should be able to get back online in a day or so. The Daystrom was taken completely by surprise, the last we saw of them they were heading into warp under enemy control. I would like to suggest that all the ships operating in this area be given new prefix codes" Sinclair told.
"Agreed. We'll send out the Angola to tow you back. Commander Halow, go on the Angola with Sinclair, I want you to get to know the people you're going to be working with." Grayling replied.
"Aye Sir. May I suggest, if we are going to be dealing with these people again, we should make a backup of the main operating system and anything critical to run the ship."
"Actually, thats a good idea. You have a chip duplicator don't you?"
"Yes sir, I normally use it for copying one chip onto lots of them for giving orders but I could get an engineer to modify it to copy more than one chip simultaneously. I will get more replicated as soon as possible."
"Good. Commander Sinclair, Oversee the preperations for the launch of the Angola. Call both myself and Halow when you are ready to depart. Dismissed."
Sinclair and Halow stood up at the same time and exited together.
"So Commander, what's the Ravage like?" asked Geff as they walked down the corridor to the turbolift.
"It's a fine ship, You'll like it." They entered the turbolift. "Deck 70."
"Deck 129." said Halow as the turbolift started to move.
"Halow, we should have the Angola ready withing a couple of hours, please be ready to leave as soon as possible."
"Aye sir."
They stayed silent until Sinclair exited.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Limbo Station Main Engineering

"Here, I've made the modification that you wanted."
Geff took the machine from the engineer.
"Thanks. Where is the replication center again?" he asked.
"Deck 103, Section 12."
Geff crossed engineering and entered the turbolift.
"Deck 103, Section 12. Replication Center"
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alexmann
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Re: DELTA MISSION

Post by alexmann »

USS Angola, Main Bridge

Halow had volunteered to command Gamma shift. He was settled comfortably in the command chair with his small night bridge crew around him.
"Commander, we're coming up on the Ravage. ETA, 2 minutes." came a voice from the Conn.
"Thank you. Take us out of warp when we come within half a million kilometers." Halow ordered.
The stars streaked by on the main viewer for another few minutes until a beeping from the helm brought them back to sublight speeds. The Ravage hung lifeless in space before them.
"Hail them." Halow ordered as he stood up and walked forward.
Captain Lewis's face appeared on the viewer, bags beneath his eyes.
"Doctor Halow. Good to see you at last. Come to take us home?" he asked.
"Of course." he replied, before speaking to his bridge crew. "Bring the Warp Core up to full power and put a tractor beam on the Ravage."
"Thank you Doctor. If you can handle this, I'll be going to sleep now. It's been a long day. Ravage out."
He sat back down into his chair as he gave one more order.
"Helm, lay in a course for Limbo Station, Warp 4. Let's get these people home."

((Section 2 in progress. Just me getting lost on my way to sickbay.))
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