IBEX part 5

Posted on Wed 22nd May, 2024 @ 12:24am by Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide
Edited on on Tue 4th Jun, 2024 @ 1:25am

2,893 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: O' the Cardiff Rose
Location: The Triangle
Timeline: MD10

Previously… https://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/viewpost/2321

And Now…

“Status Reggie, and where the hell is Alex?”

Reggie's voice piped over a speaker as Dralir entered Engineering's main deck. ”Chief, I am very busy. The Captain is in Deflector Control. I am attempting to patch comms but like I said… busy.”

She got to the engineering console main computer, and the readout was dark red nearly everywhere. She knew they'd need an orbit and a month to cycle engines and recharge, repair systems, but saw no star systems isolated or uninhabited they could use. Plenty of options of course, but their mandate demanded secrecy, so anywhere they could be detected was out of the question. Reggie wouldn't allow it; the captain wouldn't allow it.

"I can boost power using the solar sails. Let me just deploy them!" They were using the engines at max for speed, so any extra power that would go to shields or weapons would be funneled as well. Even draining the particles of the holo-emitters gave a small return even though both power sources hadn't been made compatible yet. She examined the consoles briefly and noted what repairs she could make most rapidly.

“I might be able to get us a bit more power for the engines!" She called out her actions to feel something akin to companionship. This crisis had seen her weathering its effects by herself and the toll was mounting.

”Alex here, Dralir; we are back online,” her badge chirped, and her heart beat faster at the relief of her friend's voice.

”Captain, do you have eyes on scene?”

”Affirmative, I’m in Deflector Control disabling the last pursuer's target locks. We got a huge lead thanks to you.”

She let herself breathe a deep, reaffirming, full-bodied sigh. “The phrase is “by the skin of my teeth?”

”It works. Fires are out, boarders are contained and being dealt with. I’ll return to bridge in a moment--we have a problem.”

”What is it?” The lack of reply was not promising.

With nothing else to do now but her actual job, she began to pull cable on the shorted panels. A short inside the manifold led her to directly connect in a bypass two separate EPS systems. She ducked towards the reactors and started rerouting power through undamaged conduits, seeing the systems restore as a reward for her efforts. There was definitely a leak in their nacelle, but she couldn't get to that, the DOTS would need to prioritize that next. Before she could dispatch one of the DOTS the reply from the captain was forthcoming.

“The two raiders have already resumed pursuit and are gaining. We’ve lost half the crew but hold the ship. Right now, power is the issue. I can't keep shields up or stop their transport over. I’ve had some luck with infiltration, but without steady signal attenuation, I can't get far before losing signal.”

Dralir cussed, a long Denobulan string of profanity similar to a hymn. "Okay, then tell me what you need power to the most. I can reroute if you give me half a second of notice." Manually rerouting power was slower, but it kept the power going through undamaged circuits, following precisely controlled paths avoiding pitfalls and sinks. Using her fingers rather than automating the process was slower to transfer but more resources ultimately made it where they needed to be.

The captain didn't hesitate; his voice thundered over comms “Give me power to long-range communications!”

{Deflector Control}

He hoped Dralir was able to hear him and was rewarded when the power levels spiked suddenly. The Chief was good at her job, she had kept this old as sin vessel in fighting form through Hellish bouts many times before. He returned his attention to the pursuing vessels, grinning at the green on his panel indicating full strength deflectors. In moments as he perched theri defenses, programs embedded in their core codes were about to change their targeting program. Simply a matter of changing their locations and then hopefully that would cause torpedoes to detonate in their bays. With full power he could infiltrate any system with a few seconds of relief and steady power. Hell, an engine imbalance would be enough to invoke so he got to work seeing what damages he could do.

"Can you do anything?" Dralir spoke with a clipped urgency, and the borderline panic that happens when you think nobody can hear your pleas for help. Feeling as though he were fighting this whole battle himself, Dralir worked the controls to bring some kind of control to the chaos all around them.

Reggie came over the speakers on the console, “Activate the holo-console, I can give you direct control of the ship through the graphic interface.”

Dralir quickly tapped the icon, and a wireframed image of the Ibex with real-time data appeared. The damage was extensive, but localized to the armory and primary hull. Core systems hadn’t been damaged severely yet; there was hope. The holo-image highlighted the DOTS that were working diligently to keep the systems working. Dralir knew a solution when he saw one, they could cannibalize outer hull to seal the inner hull, this would solve the atmospheric pressure issue without diverting them from the myriad of other problems facing them.

{Armory}

"Their shield emitters are down! Can you do anything?" Merrick heard the message, relayed through the ship by Reggie’s replicants.

His leg was steadily dripping blood, he could track life’s dwindling measure in each gentle pat-pat-pat sound they made. The armory was still under fire, so no doctor was going to save the day here. Life was measured by deeds, but in these last few moments he realized time was the most important factor to him. What could be done in the time he had left?

Everything left in the armory was standard fare, Duke loved to make his toys but otherwise their need to visit a proper restock depot had been paramount for a decade. He fixed a dead rifle and threw it on the pile with Duke's for them to hold the line.

”Grazia, swap for the carbine. Keep 'em back; I’m working!”

Already, a short-lived bout of fatigue nearly took him; his blood volume was low. Time was running out. When enemy fire rocked the ship and a new wave of boarders appeared, the near hopeless sensation nearly claimed him.

”Merrick, anytime you can do a magic trick, we are getting hammered out here!”

The Ferengi loved him, her grouch was from the fight. She had been in combat at least fifteen minutes by this point, constant fire past her temples.

”Grazia, I promise not to disappoint. You just keep on being the best gal around.”

She noted the tone, but had no time to consider the odd behavior. The boarding teams had armor and shields, it took several hits to bring them down and they were very good at rotating their wounded. She could only confirm a few actual kills, and their enemy was getting closer. Duke’s fire sale of power weapons had helped considerably, but time was not in their favor.

“Duke, I recharged your stuff, wish I could do more.” Merrick felt very faint, the blood loss finally overcoming his willpower.

A smile came on his face, but left just as quickly as he set to his work. His plan was going to work, but he had no idea how to survive it. Looking at the long-range one-way transporter, he knew the solution wasn’t the best, but it was the only one he had to help. His injury kept him from running, even moving caused it to bleed too much. They’d be overtaken soon.

He looked over at Kolor who was trying to reach Duke in the corridor.

“Kolor!” Merrick yelled, and the Cardassian instantly looked his way. “Give this to Starfleet.” He tossed a small data pad, the intel of a lifetime given freely…. “And give my love to everyone here. I had… a blast.”

Before Kolor could say anything, a chuckling Merrick disappeared in a shower of particles and light. Incoming fire forced his attention back to the battle, dread at the fate of the poor young man hitting him in a burst.

Far from the armory, two hundred thousand kilometers away and just a moment later, one of their two remaining pursuers suffered a massive internal explosion and destroyed itself in its uncontrolled descent from warp speed.

{Deflector Control}

Captain Alexander saw the explosives rip through the underbelly of the Chalnoth pursuer. With this turn of fortune there was only one more vessel at their heels. The warship had taken a huge hull breach from the explosives gambit launched from the shuttlebay and had fallen off; miraculously, another just fell out of warp and exploded entirely, leaving one of their raiders solely remaining. If not for their current damage a single vessel like this could be within their tactical prowess to dispatch effectively.

However, this hungry raider wasn’t even hurt, and now they were closing distance, arming torpedoes. The lack of boarding parties assaulting them indicated their pursuers were done with trying to take them alive. They had to have taken losses in the hundreds already, and so bloodied they were howling for payback. Wanton destruction awaited them if the wolf chasing them closed range any further. To add to the bedlam, the IBEX was losing speed; they had already entered weapons range.

Four triangles, cosseted in red warning highlights against the dark area map, warned of incoming torpedoes. Alexander pounded the keys furiously, trying to pierce their data encryptions, and was able to detonate three of the four close enough to the vessel to hurt them slightly. Their enemy detected the issues with their torpedoes, disarming the one in their racks, no further fire came from the vessel behind them except...

Of the four torpedoes, three had been detonated prematurely, the fourth and the last missile fired was protected by fate. Due to a sudden power loss their counterfire signal was interrupted, Alex watched helplessly as multiple systems failures cascaded, removing sensors, shields, transporters, anything power hungry starved and died. When the shields dropped, this allowed the solitary torpedo to hit the hull directly above the command deck.

An explosion ripped through the primary hull. Depressurization alarms sounded in the Command Deck. The strike had hit the armor plating directly above their nerve center. The ablative plating did its job; the internal contents of the vessel weren’t damaged severely, but power loss prevented containment fields from holding vacuum back. He needed power to the shields or he wouldn’t stay alive. Holding his breath in the thinning air, Alexander was determined, he would take control of that ship's computer or die here in the cold vacuum.

”Dralir, I'm trapped in Forward Deflector Control, attempting remote control. Get the boarders clear!”

{Armory}

“I had a blast…” Duke heard the sound of a transporter behind him, he'd been unable to make the exact words out over the sound of one of his phasers. He glanced back to see Merrick was indeed gone. Duke assumed he'd transported somewhere else on the ship. "Stupid bastard. We could use him here," he grunted.

He fired another of his bits and pieces phasers and, perhaps because of his words about his now-dead comrade, found himself on his back. The phaser had overcharged a bit, but that was the order of the day. The blast had knocked him back, but had taken out the last Chalnoth in this hall.

The comm badge from Alex in Forward Deflctor Control came to all of them, “…get the boarders clear.”

Duke hated the notion of the captain being trapped but followed orders to a fault. "Let's get out of here. We need to clear the ship" he called. Grazia and Kolor were both armed to the teeth.

Grazia had even found a set of personal shields, she was wearing them both, and when Duke looked at them she glared back, “Finder Keeper.”

There were surely more elsewhere, but there wasn’t time to go hunting. So he activated a transport inhibitor and hid it in some wreckage to secure this area.

”I am ready.” Kolor followed a few steps behind, rifle raised, a professional calm about him.

Duke tapped his badge, “Makoto, we are going on the offensive, restoring power is priority for you, we will clear boarders. Moving to Effigy Strictures.”

Two clicks on the comm confirmed. She was near an enemy and needed to be silent. Duke tossed up a prayer for the wayward soul at the end of her scope and motioned for his two charges to follow.

**

{Chalnoth Command Vessel}

Ensign Ter-il Weathers had found himself in a bad position during the initial attack. The Chalnoth had locked right onto him and transported him away as they transported onto the Ibex. He was on one of their ships and had been instantly slammed with a Klingon Mind Ripper. With his luck he was still on the vessel pursuing the Ibex. Materializing on board here had only taken a few agonizing minutes of torture and the secrets began to spill out of him.

They didn’t want to kill him, so they threw him into the brig once they had the prefix codes. he tried to give the fake ones but the mind ripper used the victim's senses to detect deception and snuffed any hope of resistance. Now as a prisoner his duty was clear; he had to get out of this cell. He had to do something to make up for giving them the intelligence to crack the Ibex stealth. The ship he was on was shaking; its stabilizers were recently damaged, and warp was not treating it well. He knew Chalnoth ships, they were scavengers, but able ones. They’d keep their ships in good shape. He lamented how if only he could get past this forcefield and out of this cage, he could be useful.

It was his passcodes they were using, the betrayal he was forced into stung deeply, indelibly. They'd taken the counter-protocols right off him. He was responsible for the lives lost on that small spy ship. They had taken his poison pill in transport, the recessed weapons in his forearm, the emergency beacon in his heel, all of the gadgets disabled or removed in transport. It meant intel had leaked before now as well. Someone knew how to see them, and how to catch them and this ambush was well planned to have a trio of warships on standby. The game was afoot and they had stepped into a trap.

As he paced, his world shook and tossed as explosions went off nearby. Even the gravity was fluctuating. The ship pitched to the side as the gravity went out. He found himself slammed right into the forcefield, where he was jolted harshly, but the power flickered and he passed right through it. Gravity returned suddenly, and he hit the ground with his full weight and a little more, as the Chalnoth preferred 1.4 Earth gravities. This gave him an idea, as he entered the aft quarter. He knew how to rig a grav plate for sudden discharge, without a doubt, it was a specialty of his. Rigging the panels as he moved in stealth along the corridors gave him an invisible series of barriers.

The ship was small, and it took no time to get to the back, as the crew was barely present, having lost so many to the boarding attempt. His imagination painted an accurate assessment of the battle scene. They were in pursuit and gaining, using beam weapons, but suffering from power losses and systems failures, demonstrating someone on the Ibex was infiltrating the computer. It wasn’t going to be enough to stop them, but Ter-il trusted a solution would present itself. Impossible problems only seemed that way from the outside, to find a way through, one had to be much closer to it.

The instrumentation was foreign to his eyes. He had no idea what the indicated systems were; his experience in Chalnoth language and culture didn’t include reading the language for technical matters. He knew the Chalnoth didn't install unnecessary things on their ships, however; they didn't have holodecks or dedicated science systems. If it was powered, it was relevant. He found a panel that came off and started tearing out anything he could get his hands around.

Ter-il ignored the burning and shocks, he knew he wasn't leaving this ship. The grim determination this fact gave to him was oddly calming.

The Chalnoth knew he was loose now, but these ships weren't like the Ibex. They weren't made with internal security in mind, and the ensign was destroying their systems with fearsome progress by the second. Two of their security number found Ter-il, but the rigged grav plate did its job and quadrupled their weight in an instant. The two massive soldiers slammed into the ground and were held for a moment as the plate discharged. Without a phaser he had no choice but to use the heavy tool on the wall rack as a club. Two solid strikes ended these soldiers lives, and Ter-il went back to work.

-TBC-

 

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