Virtue of Mercy

Posted on Mon 4th Nov, 2024 @ 6:31pm by Izwyx 'Lo & Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide
Edited on on Mon 4th Nov, 2024 @ 6:35pm

2,029 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: The Phoenix Gamble
Location: Romulan Raider Vessel

Previously… https://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/viewpost/2346

{Shrike Raider-G’konn}

The Raider was overfilled with relatively useless materials. The transporter had claimed anything off the freighter that wasn’t superstructure, and gleamed on their scans. Even at their total capacity it had barely registered a dent in the cargo holds. Four Romulans with a decent computer crack had managed to overwrite the Freighters computer and beam aboard. Jamming comms had seen to the rest of the take over smoothly.

The Second Officer resided over the hoarde presently. Overall, the crew had done admirably, just five of them with a haul of this magnitude meant a fortune in the tally. Much of the equipment was easily replicated but there were worlds out there who didnt have those capabilities. The captain of this Shrike, “Egrim” had gone over to find true valuables or intelligence off of the crew. The Second officer didn’t mind staying back though. Five thousand to five left a few more per person than they could handle, Egrim had kept a ruse of far more people alive, thus ensuring their compliance.

“Lidokh, report? Egrim ordered over comms.

Lidokh checked his boards before replying, “Long Range shows traffic…”

Egrim heard the hesitation, “And?!”

“The Cradle ship Ticonderoga has changed course, it might be on an intercept course though it is unclear.”

“We need to increase speed then, get into the dark corners of the imperial remnant where others can aid us.”

Lidokh agreed but it wasn’t so simple, “We are limited on power, the cloak has taken all reserves. 4.8 is all I can give you as long as we are both cloaked and hauling a freighter three times our size.”

Egrim grunted, “and the maximum for the freighter is?”

“We presume warp 3 without analysis its difficult to say.”

Egrim growled, “If that monstrosity catches up to us they will take it all back and imprison us. They aren’t fast either, at most warp 5, 5.5. That is your mandate. Warp 6 Lidokh, I demand it!”

{Colonial Freighter "Xon Halliar"}

The runabout had taken fire just before his plea for help as a poor defenseless colonist. Thankfully he wore simple clothing, no uniform to betray his Tactical and operations background as a Starfleet officer. He listened, pretended to be a simple farmer looking for a new home and acted ignorant of their topics for conversation. The colonists were locked in their sections, explosive decompression promised if anyone breached their boundaries. They had to stay in their bunks, but even that gave Kreypa hope. Some of those groups had their tools with them.

Lt. Kreypa was ever so fast in thinking, demanded medical treatment for his decompression sickness. It took little time to determine the one man helping him to walk was just one of four on board. This freighter was only held in thrall thanks to computer controls, so Kreypa made a plan. As he had materialized, a two meter tall individual had greeted him with a visor featuring a repair to the glass. This new one was different, shorter, no repair to the visor, but had a very distictive hand movement which he guessed betrayed long nails underneath gloves. A third was evident over comms, and the fourth was on the bridge based on the reports circulating. Four on board, maybe only one or two more on the vessel which had subdued them.

The first step was to make sure they couldnt harm the colonists. Then he'd need to reduce their numbers, space them out. As much as he hated part three, it was Tactically sound, give them a path of retreat and encourage them along. Kreypa collapsed at a slight variation inthe floor, acting feeble as he wheezed and made the guard use both hands to lift. Both hands on Kreypa meant no hands on their disruptor, and he took the wrists of his captor in hand and pulled them close into a headbutt. In a tight Pirouette, Kreypa threw the masked figure with all his might. The Capellan was in a righteous state of adrenaline and fury so the throw was not merciful or restrained.

They landed inside the medical ward, very hard. Surprisingly, the Doctor and a dozen others had been sealed in here, they recognized what was going on and jumped in immediately to help. They landed blows on the black armored invader, and Kreypa issued the knock down blow.

A moment of stunned silence let the scene calm down, before Kreypa took action, "Dr... any of your people able to crack computer coding?"

After another moment where nobody stepped up he nodded to himself, "Ok so no luck there, but this one surely knows something."

He took a station asking over his shoulder, "Truss this one up, get the armor off, it looks just my size. Doctor, can you confirm this?" He pointed at the screen where red coding was highlighted as the intrusive means they used to override ship systems. It showed that Life support was still isolated. The hijackers were bluffing, they didn't have the ability to vent colonists, but to be certain he wanted to verify with someone else. Computers were his weakness, he knew how to use them, could figure out largely how to adapt to changes or new systems, but counter intrusions and defusing software was well outside his abilities.

"If I read this correctly Life Support is isolated and requires direct modulation for the four sections of the crew compartments. I don't see any automated codecs at all. There might only be manual releases."

Digga Kreypa let out a whoop in his Capellan tongue. He could fight this, there was a chance.

"So we need to make sure each section can secure their manifolds, then we retake the ship. They wont light the core up or do anything to risk all of you, the value of the haul is also our defense. Who among you can be counted on to fight well?"

The question came out bluntly but there was not time for anything else. He saw two hands go up fast, a third with hesitation. Two and half then, not bad. He thought to himself, but spoke differently aloud.

"You three, are my reinforcements. Watch me move through the ship, feed me their locations, come running if I need it. I'll be running weapons to the people in those sections, letting them know there's only a few of them. If we coordinate our efforts we can retake this ship under their noses. They are relying on us being too afrain of dying to act. It's a lie, they cannot vent us, they can only damage the very ship and cargo they hope to sell. If it comes down to it, I'll phaser the core before allowing them to drag us into their dark caves. Dr., any hypos you can mix me up to knock these people out?"

The nurse to his left had already taken the initiative, holding up a tray with two Hypo sprays. "This one has ten doses, high powered sedative, immediate effect. The other is a nano based treatment for burns, three charges. For someone without burns, it can be very uncomfortable, but do no lasting damage."

Lt Kreypa understood right away, "And you didnt raise your hand either but this counts. Oh does this count Thank you."

He looked to the bound Romulan, whose armor had been stripped, "Poor boy, I have no idea how this will hurt. We showed you mercy, but not for your sake. Noooo, for a slaver there is usually only one response and that's painful instant death. But see, I just want information and the rest of what happens is entirely up to the information you provide. My mercy is a little different from others, and non existent when it comes to people who would sell me and mine. Now... You had command codes for this ship, how did you obtain them, and what are they?"

{UFP Star Cradle Ticonderoga}

A vessel just over a third of the mass of Starbase 109 hurtled through deep space with unimaginable speed for its frame. Ordinarily such large objects required extensive warping of space and towing to maintain even shearing stress across the hull, but for their present emergency such luxury wasn't available. After ejecting as much mass as they could and trimming the profile to fit into a smaller bubble, The Star Cradle made warp 5.2, when it was designed to never exceed warp 5. The steady decline of structural integrity fields and blowing power grids said it all, they were doing more damage than their eventual enemy would.

"Sepp, why is the distance from our target growing?"

"Because they are faster than we are Captain!"

He knew she wasn't asking for any other reason than to razz his Tellarite sensibilities. She did it well, and it worked much to his chagrin.

"Fouran, we have a wake what the hell?"

Operations was tasked to keep the ship powered and smoothly running, a wake meant their warp profile wasnt effecient and parcticel wash was creating a wake and subsequent drag. Given their size a wake was to be expected, but not today.

"The particle wash we are generating off the bow shock cant be discharged-"

Izzy knew what he was going to say and cut him off, "Don't discharge it then, direct it to secondary hull along cargo holds. and shape the field for maximum efficiency, do it right now!"

The argument stopped, and she saw the wake diminish. It was a short lived satisfaction, as nearly immediately the built up charges created plasma arcs which rolled across the lower hull. The size of this moving monstrosity was now at least a benefit as the plasma rolled and cooled itself before taking root as an inferno. Each build up and discharge lit the ship on fire for a split second, but the hull could handle it.

Their speed was now 5.6, "We still arent gaining, what else is there, I need answers!"

Lily Forrester, a civilian pilot among other trades had her best idea ever, and spoke up. "We arent falling behind either. We can send the runabouts ahead, harry them to slow down. They can each achieve warp 8, in a Starbust pattern they could achieve 8.4 even, and get there in twelve minutes."

Izzy wasnt aware of the Starbust pattern and asked, "Describe their method of using a maneuver for more speed?"

Lily replied swiftly, "The Runabouts line up, the one in the rear tractors the one in front, the one in front goes to maximum warp, accelerating at higher cost and creative the path for the others to follow by syncing their warpfields. They rotate positions, and can travel faster as a unit. It eats fuel, but they'd have plenty for this short distance."

More power shorts announced on her master display board. This was getting out of hand, her whole ship was about explode from strain. There was no more speed to be wrought, then it occurred to her, "Can we use the same wake riding on the Ticon? Have our flock breaking the wind profile ahead of us so to speak?"

Both Sepp Agandar and Fouran replied, "Yes! On it now!" They were never so in sync as they were right now.

To Lily she ordered, "Gather your pilots, finish for combat modifications. We will prepare a plan for surviving the cloaked ship towing them, and we launch in ten. Whoever thought this was going to be a simple heist is about to get a rude awakening. Thank you all for the hard work, let's go get our people."

Ten minutes evaporated like a puddle in the sun, and Izwyx saw the launch of their entire runabout and shuttle complement. forming an arrowhead configuration in front of them and rotating off as engines needed to cycle from the hard work a steady routine emerged. Their speed increased despite all odds to a factor of warp 5.8.

Ten of them however never joined the pull team, and formed a straight line.

She only had to say, "God speed Lily, we will be right behind you. Go fast, be safe."

-TBC-

 

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