IBEX part 6

Posted on Wed 22nd May, 2024 @ 12:27am by Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide
Edited on on Tue 4th Jun, 2024 @ 1:49am

2,145 words; about a 11 minute read

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

Previously https://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/viewpost/2322

And now…

He spotted a familiar suite of circuitry, several crude bypasses bolted into place tying it the other hodge podge. He spotted a signal attenuator and accessed it through a panel with Klingon Basic. With competence, comms access became available after activating an emergency beacon from the engine room's left installed from a panel scavenged off a Rigelian freighter.

“IBEX… If you can hear me respond. I’m here. I’m….”

Power shut off to comms, the bridge working fast to squelch his call for help. Ter-il felt a pit in his stomach, knowing there was no hope. Capture was as bad as anything, there were other protocols which would be involved now. He did his duty one last time, flooding coolant into the intermix chambers, and ruining the warp plasma manifolds. The engines would never recover, it was a grim realization what that meant for him.

The Chalnoth ship went into emergency procedures, dropping from warp almost immediately. The captain of this ship was on the ball; there was little other damage, if they could find a tow, the repairs wouldn't take but a few days to swap out the ruined intakes, and this ship would be back in service. The other two were likely totally ruined, but that did little to help him now. Sensors showed the Ibex pulling away rapidly. If they maintained speed, they'd get away, he felt with some satisfaction.

The Chalnoth on board were furious, their usual nearly civil, practical attitude towards killing their enemies thrown away. They wanted blood, a pound of flesh for everyone at home. Ensign Weathers was going back to their colony, his personal countermeasures for torture removed along with the “kill switch” installed in his brain stem. No, for the measure of sacrifice it took to save his friends he had earned himself something more gratuitous. Life support was cut in the aft quarter; gases fell from their nodules in recessed panels and there was nothing for him to do but hold his breath. The two minutes that passed offered only contemplation of how bleak it all was, as blackness swirled around his vision.


{IBEX- Engineering Command substation}

On the Ibex, Dralir was able to see the mirror of what Ensign Weathers had seen as they sped away. The last ship vanished behind them swiftly, having reduced its speed to prevent damage. She wasted no time and redirected energy to internal shields from weapons to try to hold the ship together. She didn't let one more molecule of air escape, tasking the life support matrix to begin to manufacture all the aspects of breathable air. Even the best life support had to have something to work with, and she'd never tried to replicate air.

"Reggie. I am putting up internal forcefields. Connect me to everyone!" she said. With the ship locked down as it was, Reggie had to make it so they could all communicate through his holo forms doing their spectral voice.

="Keep your combadges on. We have limited air. Move slowly... There are emergency personal forcefields around each of you, and that is the only thing keeping you breathing. We need to get together so we can concentrate life-support."

Everyone had varying levels of air, depending on what was available nearby. The DOTS had gone upside for hull repairs but that was not going to be soon enough. She added one last order, "Let's get to the main holo level as soon as possible, combine the resources."

She did the figures, thinking again like an engineer and not a commander. Her internal process told her ff they all got to the hololevel, they could concentrate all the life support there and then make it to the nearest dock. She didn't have the command training for mission imperatives that Alex had. In her mind they could do small repair excursions one at a time as they limped through space, but there was a darker reality awaiting them.

She left her position as soon as she was sure the ship was safe and headed for Reggie's domain, the command level holodeck. It wasn't far, usually, but damaged sections forced a creative route. The tale it told of the damages wrought here was sad and brutal. This ship would never recover without shipyard or starbase--the idea of which was only now finding the rejection she knew was there, for they had one imperative above all others.

”Do not be seen, leave no trace.”

{Armory/Range}

Duke flinched as his forcefield came up, allowing the air inside to condense to “thicken”. The zapping sound was not unlike a phaser and he found himself more than a little tense, given the end of their firefight only moments ago. He could see a shimmer glowing faintly pink with sparks flaring to life and dying as the forcefield came into contact with itself at random. Remembrance the others around him, with the new quiet onboard the words, "Is everyone ok?" came from his mouth before he could stop them.

‘As much as can be. Sorry, dumb question.” He held his hand to his chest. It was burned badly enough it wasn't bleeding and it didn't even hurt much. That could have been shock or adrenaline. Either way, he felt pretty all right with the situation.

"We need to get to Reggie," he said, "see who we still have." He wasn't deluded. If the Chalnoth were lying around dead, it was sure that their own men were as well.

They moved as fast they could along their own creative routes and made their way into the central-most portion of the ship, the command deck. Dralir waited until Grazia entered the holo-level to seal the doors with a hiss to indicate they were trapping air. The airlocks and turbines pumped the sections to vacuum and redirected what was left to the holo-level. To inhale without labor was a gift, and almost a normal breathful, but still too thin for comfort.

Makoto emerged from the overhead maintenance tunnel. She was covered in burns, blood, torn armor and had a furious countenance. She had seen the gambit taken to disable their last pursuer, Merrick was gone, God bless him, but there was one she was less certain of. She only asked, “Ensign Weathers?”

Grazia had a mournful look on her face; she had taken a liking to Ensign Weathers, there had even been some reciprocation, but he had been yanked off the ship in the first few seconds of combat. She had seen Chalnoth slave fights, bet on a few of them, even. However, Makoto had something else on her mind though, not sadness, but alarm.

She knew Starfleet. Ensign Alan Weathers would do as well as a Human could, but he was certainly going to die. She knew the Ibex couldn’t give chase either, so she silently protested doing nothing and resigned herself to the inevitable. The fact she was missing was how this compromised their mandate. She tallied the dead and hunkered down for the part of the mission she did anticipate. Soon, they’d have nothing but time and silence as they limped away from this place.

Dralir had the DOTS at work on repairs, and the only air left was in the command deck. Life Support was hanging on, but at minimal levels. Her seat was even cut to half power, and her breath was already frosting surfaces. She sat in a slump, making some hard decisions wordlessly. They all arrived, save Alex, and Dralir had a comm to the Captain open, discussing their escape, when suddenly the lights dimmed, and all aspect of instrumentations and lit screens dimmed before fading to black.

“Captain, what are you doing?” Dralir didn't understand, there was a command imperative rerouting their consoles to central computers.

Dralir tried to access the primary control panel but the onyx reflective surface didn’t respond. Feverishly applying her most advanced skills in engineering to get some system working, realizing the lockout was actually a power down. She used residual power in battery backups to intiialize other batteries in the row to regain the power to her workstation's controls. Suddenly, those too went cold and dark.

“What the Hell are you doing Alex!” Frustration turned to dread, it was Reggie’s voice that stopped them from trying anything else.

“Chief Dralir, I have removed your access and am powering down all systems.” Reggie was not just an aid to the vessel, in many ways he was the ultimate Starfleet Officer.

On this ship, the computer was given sentience, an AI with a very tight collar and mandate. If the crew died, the AI could still pilot the ship to return it. A hologram which would never defy orders and would always follow directives with utmost diligence. Weird science from Two hundred years of exploration informed systems of myriad functionality. The Ibex was beyond classified; its existence had been kept secret since its inception during the Organian conflict due to very strict protocol. One of these was, “Nobody leaves the ship without a mission in progress.” The other one of merit was, “Crew will be held to the secrecy under penalty of death, even in the event of being taken prisoner, or personal duress.” Dralir knew now what Reggie was doing, and it was horrifying.

Having run from the prominence on the bow to here, Alexander came striding out of the command deck airlock huffing. “What happened? I was trying to access the lead ship's computer core when they lost power and fell out of warp, was that Merrick?”

He was addressing Dralir, but the Denobulan was in an argument with her conn board. Makoto nodded, though, to answer Alex’s question.

Alex had spent the battle restoring EPS and remote hacking, leaving Dralir to run the ship. He hated that reality but it had become necessary, and he had been trapped in the room. However it was only now he took a head count and realized over half the crew was dead or missing. Their crew profiles had already been updated, and when he looked, “Alan Weathers” was labeled in Red, “Missing in Action.” Seven dead profiles stared back at him, the losses becoming apparent far too late.

Now, the conversation immediately spelled the protocols at play here and the Captain took his chair back metaphorically by shouting, “Reggie! There isn’t enough power to fire them, we are barely maintaining internal forcefields.”

His sudden volume gained the attention of everyone. Kolor had been halfway inside the walls working to manually power one of their air filters, and even he stopped to look. Alex stood in his spot, the single chair centered in the old Bridge module of the Saladin class with its wall removed and holodeck all around. The darkness was eerie, this whole portion of the ship could display anything, but without main power they might as well exist in a cave.

The disembodied voice of their holographic crewmate sounded remorseful in reply, “Ensign Weathers was captured by a hostile race, protocol is undeniable in this case. We must destroy the vessel as we cannot recover Ensign Weathers.”

Makoto punched the wall next to her, the hard metal gained four divots. Grazia sobbed internally, her shoulders betraying a gentle heaving. The truth was apparent, there would be no rescue, and it didn't stop there.

Kolor added, “The Chalnoth have stolen tech from all over the quadrant, they tend to love items of coercion or torture, especially something to scan memories. Mr. Weathers is either dead or wishing he were. If we had any means of doing so I’d volunteer to go get him, but as we are…a swift death for all of them would be our greatest mercy.”

The Cardassian said this as though he hadn’t known Alan Weathers for three years, had served with him, shared a love for strategy games. He seemed totally calm, the voice of reason speaking for all of them to say what needed to be said and relieve the tension. Sadly, the pall remained and Alex glared at Kolor, their rivalry not a secret. “We can rescue, we’ve done it under other circumstances-“

”Captain let me relieve you of this decision. We have escaped, which is your job, but the mandate is my job as well. Sending more people back is not an option.”

Alex input a small control rod to power his console, he began working the board. Reggie’s slight surprise was programmed into his face to communicate to the Captain he already knew of the override. No captain worth their salt could call themselves that unless they had the ability to command their ship. It didn't matter though, Reggie had made the moves in an instant and they were irrevocable.

-TBC-

 

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