Storms and Mountains and Pirates, Oh My, Part 5

Posted on Fri 29th Jan, 2021 @ 11:13am by Lieutenant Elliot Jericho & Lieutenant Commander Kiara Lena

1,736 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Uncharted Planet in the Thetacron Sector
Timeline: MD: 2, 1115 hours

Kiara felt She put a hand on his arm. "You'll see her again. If she's not waiting for you, I'll help you search for her." She dropped her hand. "Shall we see to that beacon?"

Elliot smiled back, "Lets go get that beacon and get off this rock." Elliot led the way back towards the cave where he hid the pack with the beacon in it.

Kiara found her old clothes where she'd left them. They needed a good wash, if they were even worth salvaging after so long. They were still slightly damp. She left them where they were. If she wanted, she could pick them up on the way back. Now she had clean clothes. Because of the rain the night before, she was mostly clean, too. Well, as clean as she could get here. She checked her pack and nodded. "Ready."

Elliot nodded, "I am." The two left the cave and headed up the mountain to find a good place to put the distress beacon so they could signal for help. The rest of the day was uneventful and they found a good spot on high ground to place the beacon.

While Elliot placed and configured the beacon, Kiara sat down to look out over the land below. It was beautiful. After the storm, the creature, and the pirates, everything looked so peaceful and serene. "It only took us two days to get here," she joked. "I don't want to think about the return journey." But they did need to get back to the shuttle and their home-away-from-home.

It took Elliot about two hours to set up and configure the beacon to breech the planet's ionosphere. There seemed to be some type of interface. He finally got the correct frequency that would cut through the barrier, the signal was out! Elliot sighed and slowly stood where he had knelt beside the little box and antenna. He turned to face Kiara, "Now, hopefully someone picks up our little distress signal, someone close."

Kiara stood and nodded. "Hear that, little beacon, you're our only hope." She was only half joking. She dusted off her pants as she walked over to Elliot and grabbed her pack. "Now let's see if those pirates left anything on the shuttle or in our cave we can still use."

"I don't know about you, but I could use some nice long sleep when we get back to our great little cave." Elliot said as he shouldered his bag and began leading the long walk back to their cave.

Sleep. "Yes. Sleep and a meal." Even their cave woudl be a welcome sight right now. And hopefully, when they woke, there would be some good news.
the vibrations from the explosion. That had to be Elliot. She looked for a way to be sure it was him. It took her a couple of minutes to find the link for the camera to the shuttle bay--most likely to watch the cargo being loaded and unloaded. Now the question was, could she lock onto his signal and transport him to her location? SHOULD she lock onto his signal? They'd certainly know it was her and come looking, but maybe that would give her and Elliot time to do something... Or so she hoped.

Pirates were swarming into the shuttle bay when she pushed the button to transport Elliot to her lab.

====

Elliot had ducked behind a stack of cargo containers when the klaxon had sounded. The doors to Elliot's front and left sides had opened and about a dozen pirates began rushing in. Elliot had a backpack full of munitions and more disruptors if the power cells ran out in the ones that he was using so he was prepared to get Kiara the hard way. He would hunt down and kill every pirate on this ship until he found her.

He stood up with each disruptor pointed at a group of pirates and was about to fire when he felt the familiar tingle of his molecules begin to be scrambled by a transporter. He wondered to himself as he often did when he was about to be transported, ~Does the transporter actually kill you? Do you cease to exist and does a copy take over? ~

After the transport cycle was complete and he was whole once again he found himself in a lab. The klaxon was still going off but, he didn't hear the shouts or the sounds of the pirates running for him. Instead, he heard the quiet hum of the laboratory equipment. He turned around slowly as his eyes adjusted to the light until he saw the familiar face of Commander Kiara Lena.

====

"Good to see you again," she quipped. "Beaming you here was the best thing I could think of, but I'm pretty sure they'll find out where we are. I don't know if we could get to a shuttle and run off, or go back to the planet. Neither will get us away from the pirates. Any suggestions?" She hesitated. "Too bad we couldn't beam them all to the planet and steal the ship."

Elliot had a sharp tactical mind and he ran different scenarios in his mind, but they either had too much risk or would get caught by the pirates again. "If we take their shuttle, they will catch us, even if we damage their ship if we transport back to the surface, they will find us." Elliot shook his head, "By now they know you used the transporter and are probably working on locking you out. They are waiting in the shuttle knowing that we will try to take it. We have to get rid of these guys, all of them."

Elliot took off his backpack and began arming explosives, five in all. "Transport me to their Engineering then bring me back. Once I'm back transport the two of us back to the planet surface." There was no time to explain his plans since he had no idea how much time they had before they would be locked out of the controls. "Energize!" Elliot said as he held his backpack in one hand and a disruptor in the other.

She found engineering, but she had to reroute power once to transport him. While he was gone, she sent a power surge through one power junction to distract the pirates and give them a little more time to get away.

====

Elliot materialized about 6 meters from the main reactor. He immediately tossed the backpack, harmlessly hitting the thick metal casing. The sudden appearance of Elliot got the attention of the Engineering crew. For one awkward moment Elliot looked at the Engineering as he waited for Kiara to beam him back. The Pirates just seemed to blankly stare at him before they finally began drawing their weapons. Elliot fired off a few shots with his disruptor as he slid on his knees behind a large console. Shots of searing energy made black holes in the back side of the console keeping Elliot pinned down for the moment. Something was wrong. Why hadn't Kiara transported him back?

====

Again, Kiara had to find an alternate way to access the transporters. It was getting harder to keep ahead of whoever was trying to stop her. She heard a noise outside and pulled her disruptor to seal the door closed. She heard someone trying to use a disruptor to get through the door.

Elliot. She needed to get him back so they could leave this place.

A moment later, he materialized in the room. "All set?" she asked.

"Energize!" He said then held up a detonator and pushed the button for Kiara to see. With the impending explosion and destruction of the Pirate ship, there would not be enough time to fix a hiccup.

The pirates didn't have time to cut her access to the transporters, and they weren't quite through the door as she set the coordinates and activated the transporter.

There was a brief hiccup, then they materialized back on the planet.

Elliot looked up in time to see a faint flash in the night sky. "Well, I guess that's that. Are you okay?" Elliot glanced her way to see if she was okay.

"Yes. The man I spoke to told me that if I didn't tell him why we were here, he'd kill you. He wouldn't accept the truth, so I made up a story." She shrugged. "I managed to get away. I'm glad you made it so easy to locate you. I'm not sure what I would have done if you were still on the planet."

"I have a feeling that they were trying to kill me anyway, or at least they were hunting me." Elliot smiled. "I knew I had to find you; Dallas Briggs would kill me if I let anything happen to you. So, I made them fly me up to the ship where I commence to kill pirates so I could get to you, but then you found me." Elliot paused for a moment, "Sorry I didn't have time to tell you my plan at the end."

"It's okay. There wasn't time to say much of anything at the end," she said. Mentioning Dallas made her heart ache. She still thought of him every day, but, as she kept reminding herself, he didn't want anything more than friendship. He made that perfectly clear weeks before she left for this trip. Her voice was a little husky when she spoke again. "We need to place the beacon. Those pirates may have friends who will come looking for us. I'd like to be off this planet when they do." If they could get the attention of someone who wasn't out to kill them. "Your wife must be frantic by now."

Elliot sighed. He refused to grieve for his wife's death and refused to abandon hope that she was still alive. He had no proof either way so he chose to believe that she was alive. "If she somehow survived, she has no way of knowing that I'm alive." Elliot smiled, "You've heard that saying I'm sure, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' I think that once you see Briggs again things will be different." Elliot had to keep changing the subject from Megan. When he thought of her his hope seemed to fade ever so slightly and he needed to hang onto what he could.

 

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