Rescue pt.2

Posted on Thu 19th Dec, 2024 @ 10:27am by Commander Heriah Rex & Commodore H'tek & Captain Izwyx 'Lo

2,147 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: The Phoenix Gamble
Location: Deep Inside Former RSE

Previously…

-Start-

{Runabout Akita}

The battle was fairing as well as it could. Seven nimble craft danced at the peripheries of the Shrikes weapons, dancing with death but keeping just barely ahead. Ensign Liza was experiencing keen stress, having already witnessed two other of their number die, and a third MIA. An ambush of torpedoes early in their battle had given them holes in the shield grid to fire through making this fight a little more even.

However, their time was dwindling, and the Shrike had found a firing solution to their evasive tactics. Focus firing on one at a time, even glancing blows reduced the Malamute and Foxhound to smoking trails as they desperately fought to keep from immolation. They had even taken a position up close to the Xon Halliar, reducing the cover it provided, but offering one solid shadow to work with. Rotating around the freighter still gave them shot opportunity and each one came closer if not hitting outright.

“Liza! Ticonderoga is inbound!”

The music to her ears came finally, the second portion of their plan was now in effect. Fortunately it would work with the five of them remaining, redundancy in numbers factored five or more as the desired amount. They had managed to bloody their opponent, but their true reason to be here was to give the Ticonderoga eyes on cloaked vessels as they deployed baryon smokescreen.

All ten runabouts had charged Tachyons ready to deploy in their Deflectors. Even when destroyed, the sticky particles would spread from their dishes to help detect cloaked vessels. Five of them together was enough to form a small tachyon net, with pockets of them all around from their downed colleagues to add to the challenge for any cloaked vessels.

Liza called to her co-pilot Grantham, “Signal Lily, time to paint the black!”

In concert with four others Lily was showing off in the ‘Foxhound' with an added roll purely just for fun.

From the Akita, Liza watched Lily perform with artistry. Sidereal motion, gyroscopic alignment on a targeting point, use of thrusters and rotational velocities to add random vectors and allaying firing solutions… Lily was painting a picture in the curls of her every motion. Like dancing, she weaved and bobbed, avoiding beams and blasts alike.

They were outside of the Raiders weapon range, and their mothership was seconds away. Lily was in place, and signaled ready. The particle wash from their Deflector grids flooded the battle grounds in Tachyons.

“Liza?!” Grantham had an immediate alert, and fear in his voice.

On screen they saw a cloaked vessels trailing the Shrike Raider, it was large too.

“Oh Grantham it’s a trap. Send word to Ticonderoga!”

No sooner than she said it, than their hero tragically entered the scene.

*

{SC Ticonderoga}

The losses had been relayed to Izzy as they happened. Crew were dying to a desperate gambit and she knew more death was to come if they persisted. Where was the ratio finally unbalanced? At what point does this rescue turn into a fools mission to get everyone killed. Her gut said the line had already been crossed, but her mind told her these people would die or worse without timely intervention.

“Five seconds, deceleration commencing hold on!” Fouran was calling the shots, her science officer had managed to keep the massive Star Cradle spinning to offset shearing forces, now the spinning stopped and inertial dampeners strained mightily to slow the hulking vessel down.

“Brace, Auxiliary power to gravity subsystems!” Izzy strapped into her chair, the deceleration and pushback from inertial dampeners squeezing her like a tube of paste. The Star cradle, a third the size of SB109 skidded to a halt and collapsed its own warp field directly on top of the scene as it was designed to do. Immediately, it was surrounded in a filmy bubble dissipated into the ether. Baryonic particles were nasty little radioactive pieces the massive ship generated under strain. There was a lot of Baryonic byproduct to say the least, and it would solidly stop transporter activity, deep scans, fry deflector dishes and in general force distance. The sensor Chaff it kicked up was blinding for anyone inside the gaseous expansion.

A mobile Star Cradle can change the tide of battle, tough, resilient and able to repair catastrophic damages in twenty minutes, they were combat medics for starships. They could slide in at warp speed, use displacement to clear an area and establish a shield perimeter large enough to encapsulate a task force.

The G’konn was outclassed in every way. A fraction of the mass, when the Ticonderoga arrived four kilometers off their bow the displacement wave took their main systems offline for several moments. However this was the last part of anything to go to plan.

Little did anyone know until just now that another predator had been circling, waiting for the right opportunity.

Had the Ticonderoga not just sprinted at full steam for seven light years, and blown so many power relays the lights on the bridge were out, they might have been able to get their shields up in time. But compromised as they were, The Ticonderoga could only experience abject horror when the Suv’Wi decloaked and fired cluster munitions at their power plants. Only a lack of true knowledge for targeting to hit them dead on spared Ticonderoga immediate terminal wounds. The damage was extensive all the same and power levels visibly dipped.

Like socking a winded runner in the gut, the sudden deprivation of power to hungry systems caused their whole main power grid to shut down as demand surged and supply dropped. Before the Auxiliary could kick in, H’tek had targeted the Fusion Reactor again, reducing Ticonderoga’s power supply by half. The shots were low power, likely squeezed out of the guns and impulse manifolds spare power as extras. The reactor wasn't fully offline, but reduced more power from their reserves.

On the bridge Captain Izwyx felt true fear, feeling the disruptor bolts wracking their wounded gasping mothership.

"The bastard over energized to get those shots, he'll be in recovery for a minute, plot course and get me a firing solution.

“Shield grids reduced to 47% efficacy, we can’t cover the Xon Halliar!”

Izzy grit her teeth, “Pull shield perimeter back to us, tight profile, cover damaged zones. Can we fire back, do something to back this asshole off?”

“Phasers ready Captain!”

She wasn’t surprised, they had Solar strips top and bottom strong enough to create ring systems out of moons. Powering them was a problem with only one Fusion reactor though, shields or weapons she debated.

She pointed to Sepp Agandar, “Wait for a good shot, target their weapons, give em the Full force.”

The Tellarite nodded, watching for the Suv’Wi to move into a firing range. The fast moving assault craft knew the Star Cradles blind eye very well, and Sepp only got a sliver of an opportunity. He took it, firing at the slight target he had been given. A thick lance of energy skewered their battleground, just narrowly missing the Suv’Wi.

The response was brutal, as H’tek emptied the torpedo racks on unshielded hull plates. The bridge had been spared, but Izzy took account on her Master Display. They had been disabled. Both power plants offline, Reactor at a quarter power and all of their backups rerouted to engined even make this sprint. She had little power, lots of maneuvaerability, but had just lost control of the situation.

With a dry mouth and fear in her heart, Izzy looked to see where to Thunderchild was. Twenty two minutes min away was too long. It was too long. Then she noticed it the same time as her science officer.

“This was updated twelve minutes ago. What is current location of Thunderchild?”

Fouran tried to have an answer, hating how he sounded when he didnt. “We are getting no telemetry… And there is… we have no scanners sir, it makes no sense but I think I detect subspace shockwaves at that coordinate. If something is affecting subspace we wont be able to see it with our sensors compromised.”

Her heart stopped. She had gone too far, and gotten her whole crew killed. Panic threatened to overtake her, but training paid off as she took stock, and remembered her Kobayashi Maru. Orders until the ship is sunk, that’s what they expected of her.

“Prepare to be boarded, Launch black box, send Distress calls on open channel… This is the Federation Star Cradle Ticonderoga. We are under attack and need immediate-“ The channel closed, to be replaced with the image of an old snarling Klingon.

"Signals blocked Captain!" Izzy knew what was coming next, as unfathomable as it was.

The dour old pirate growled, “I am H’tek of the Suv'wi and Patron of the Second Sons... and I will be taking this freighter with me. Along with the plunder I have gained from you and your escort Thunderchild. Lay down your arms, and we will leave once we are satisfied our holds can take on no more. The least resistance will be met with fearsome reprisal, but if you allow us, we will be gone in ten minutes.

Izwyx wasn’t sure what he meant, did he imply the Thunderchild had been destroyed? Was this possible? How had things gotten so wrong?

She let her anger drive, as it was a Klingon sort of day. "I am Izwyx'Lo of the Federation Star Cradle Ticonderoga. What in the hell have you done to the Thunderchild? You are taking on far too much H'tek!"

"I am not afraid of anything your Starfleet has to offer, a simple isolytic mine is all. If their crew was clever they escaped. Are you prepared to lower your shields on the protected holds? Or do I need to keep firing on your bare hull?"

She thought as hard as she could, but without power the whole station was operating on residuals and batteries, no solution came to her. They needed to rescue Thunderchild's crew, disable this cruiser, and rescue this freighter, but first they had to get from under this pirates shadow.

"No H'tek, you socked us while we were winded but this ship has seen dirtier days. We will have our main power back in a moment and I plan on whooping your ass. My recommendation, take what you can beam off, and both of you can leave."

H'tek laughed, "I'll fire on any system you use to power-"

"’ a fool, it'd take an hour to do real damage, I've already dispatched runabouts to assist Thunderchild, and have a thousand more officers than you do. Make your choice."

She ended the channel abruptly.

"Launches, Intecepts, shuttles, workbees with an phaser welded on… put to field everything that has weapons and thrusters, target their weapons and engines. Burn warp plasma to power primary phasers, and PLEASE do not miss, route auxiliaries and batteries to internal shielding. and... Oooh we still have our rescue grapples don't we."

The science officer gulped, combat against other ships was not something they enjoyed. "Yes sir?"

"Sepp!" she called for her second officer, "Get on the grapplers, if that bastard gets in range, nail him, Engineering, give me one power plant just one for Christmas pretty please!"

The battle had arrived and she was already losing. H'tek strafed across their hull, but the sheer size of the Star Cradle was a defense of its own. Since the Grapplers required proximity, Izzy performed an emergency thruster maneuver, nearly clipping H'tek but giving their underbelly with over a dozen mounted grappler lines several firing solutions. Like a thrown net, 24 lines fired from the anterior of the Jellyfish dome erupted, and five found their mark. The Suv'Wi was ensnared but fired its engines to escape. Several lines popped but two held tight.

The light raider decloaked, and fired at Ticonderoga's attached lines freeing the Suv'Wi. However once free it retreated and left the raider behind and exposed. This was odd to day the least but her mind was pre-occupied.

Izzy swore, "I just need some trickle of %#^%$ power back, focus on nothing else! Incoming strafe! Prepare for heavy damage in outlying areas.”

Another run across their exposed hull rumbled the whole frame. As they pulled away small craft began to emerge, forming a defensive picket. Drone control handled many of them, with the shuttles performing commands for individualized swarms. They lacked the firepower to win, but had the capacity to harass.

Furiously issuing commands on her display, a single error called “Energy Deficit” kept rebuking her. With gritted teeth she had a dozen plans but needed one thing more than anything else, “Please, my kingdom for a phaser bank, not even the big ones, give me whiskers or wings, just something to fire back!"

-TBC-

 

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