A Gaslight Whizbang (Rescue finale)

Posted on Sat 22nd Feb, 2025 @ 2:03pm by Commander Entaaro Nasz & Captain Gordon Francis & Captain Izwyx 'Lo & Alidade (Computer)

1,804 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: The Phoenix Gamble
Location: 1.5LY from SB109

-Start-

…Not Far from Starbase 109 inside the former Romulan Neutral Zone…

{Ticonderoga Bridge}

Izzy hated math when it gave her the right answers but wrong numbers. they couldn’t get over 2.2 out of their damaged power systems and at Warp Factor Two Point Two Starbase 109 was a day and a half away. Thunderchild was in tow still, but with the imminent arrival of their pursuers had been restored to full duty despite the heavy damage.

"Cut moorings, have Thunderchild assume defensive positioning at our flank." Izzy was exhausted of this, but the day wasn't done yet.

"Thunderchild is still engeaged in repair lattice, disengaging now, repairs to systems were not completed fully!"

"Status report, us then them!"

The chorus sounded around her,
"Main power at 43%, still down to one reactor."
"Solar Strip is at 13% exposure"
"Hull integrity in section Alpha, 87%, Beta 67%, Delta 23% Gamma 91%-

She stopped it, "Shields, Weapons, engines, Thunderchild, Go?!"

Fouran cut to the chase, "Thunderchild has minimal shields. Ours are at 31% and not regenerating, Thunderchilds weapons are compromised but several banks are functional, Countermeasures are available on Ticonderoga but only the undamaged segments of the solar strip are able to fire. We can maintain our speed, but not under fire."

Then, it happened, Fouran announced, "Long Range Sensors picking up a dozen smaller vessels, Raptors, D'chang, K'vort, B'rel, Two Zakdorn, there are gravimetric distortions... cloaked vessels most likely!"

Panic almost got in the door, but like the practiced officer she was it got caught before it did anything.

"Can we send word to 109 yet?" She definitely heard a waiver in her throat, it was time to show them all the way to whether these storms.

Her comms officer Lutay had been trying non stop, but this time she had a different answer, "Yes, they are jamming us but I can get the signal through in short messages!"

"Get Starbase 109 on the comm!"

Lutay and Fouran worked in concert, Sepp Agandar he second officer made the countdown verbally, "Twelve minutes to intercept!"

Izzy keyed her intership, "The enemy is back. We have to keep trucking, priority is to keep engines alive. I am taking command of Thunderchild once more, we will make it through this. Just have to tag home base to be safe right? Good luck everyone, I plan to make this very hard for them. Izwyx'lo signing over to Sepp Agandar. Let's do this people!"

She pumped them up but secretly felt despair. They had nothing to stop this fleet.

"Captain, we got a window of time, channels aren't perfect but they are open!"

Izzy wasted no time, "Starbase 109, This is the Ticonderoga in peril. We are engaged with Thunderchild against an enemy fleet, please send help!"

The screen fizzled, if they even got a visual it would be a triumph. Then the screen cut to loss of signal icons and she let our her breath in a single sigh.

Her next breath was in a different place as Izzy beamed to the Thunderchild.

{SB109 C&C}

In the Command Center, Francis turned to Commander Nasz upon seeing the garbled, unintelligible message that looked like a distress call from the Ticonderoga.

"Please tell me you can clear that up," Francis said. Frustrated, he sat in the command chair and pulled up the message on his personal screen, straining to hear individual words, but only getting the beginning. He punched up a list of ships in the area, as well as ones docked at the station. There was one: a Luna-Class starship, the USS Enceladus, had departed from the station yesterday after receiving minor repairs. It was commanded by a young Vulcan woman, Captain Pallek. Francis had met her briefly when the Enceladus' crew came aboard for a brief leave. She was ambitious and very by-the-book, and did not stay on the station long, cutting her crew's leave to just two days.

Captain Francis turned in his seat. "Mr. Nasz, contact the Enceladus and see if they're in a position to assist the Ticonderoga."

Entaaro was on it, somehow already keying in their codes, "Enceladus reporting, they are twenty one minutes from the Thunderchild, and underway now!"

"That's good," Francis said, shifting in his chair, punching up readouts on his console. "Let's hope it gets there soon."

{Thunderchild- Bridge}

The board was much better on the Thunderchild, her problems were in computer inefficiencies and hull damage. The problem was the lack of effective bio gel packs to control the ship. Alidade was literally fast enough to think around it, but in combat the delays in response times would be deadly as though the ship had nerve damage. The solution was well prepared crew and tight communication.

Lily Dechlan had earned her place at the second officers seat, she greeted the captain informally, "Izzy, we wont have but deflectors up in ten minutes... and I have power for weapons but half the weapons and firing arcs are compromised. We just dont have time for anything else."

She didn't dare say the truth of it, that the Ticonderoga had twenty thousand people on board with all of the colonials on board. If it came down to it, Thunderchild would sacrifice everything to prevent her capture.

"I know Lily. We just have a little more fighting to do, its all in the name of letting them escape." She spoke softly to her second, who took the hidden meaning in stride.

"What if we bought time, we still have a dozen runabouts and shuttles, surely..." Lily was no military minded tactician, she felt powerful piloting a runabout, and had proved how proficient she was. She had no experience in ship to ship combat.

Izzy didn't think they had time for outlandish tactics but was also keenly aware of their lack of any straightforward options. She indulged the conversation despite the realities of a warship annihilating the smaller craft with prejudice. But something in Lily's earnest nature dislodged the block in her higher thinking.

They had just spent two hours doing mostly vital systems repairs. But what if their pursuers thought it was more? Could they be like the pufferfish? The car who raises its back and puffs its fur with a hiss and snarl as ferocious as could be?

"Alidade, how are you feeling about what's coming?"

"I certainly do not want to see the premature conclusions of anyone's trek along the 4th dimension, but they are coming seemingly to prematurely conclude yours. So, I am willing to help prevent that doing whatever I can. If I have to prematurely conclude someone, as I feel I have done already, I feel I can do it again."

Izzy wished she shared the confidence. "I need you to understand as mighty as you feel, the numbers are against us. We are down to gumption and guile. If you can trust us, we will find a way out of this."

Alidade's avatar flicked up in the viewscreen. "Captain, I have been reviewing tactics of others way back on the 4th dimension. One tactic that I came across was to use holo-emitters to bounce a holographic recreation of the ship around inside the ship's shields thus making the ship appear larger. If my research is accurate, predators often see a larger prey as more dangerous. Also, if I were to thank them for their subspace mine, as it is apparently how I got into the computer, and I am the ship while you broadcast the sensor recording of the first assailant that I destroyed, that may make all these smaller assailants want to turn and run. Others may decide to break formation and run as well."

She blinked at the avatar on the screen, "Holographic decoys? Are we... could that even happen? We would need to have emitters in place on the hull, we don't have time. But you're thinking..."

She turned to the others on the bridge, "OK, time to white wash a fence, gimme ways out of the work. First idea, holographic sensor decoys, or disguised as a larger vessel?"

Lily spoke up right away, "We already have external mounts for Emitter racks, and with juicing it takes the fabricator two minutes to make a rack of them-"

Izzy yelled a bit in the beginning of her speech but reigned it in, "DO IT... Get them started. Outfit our shuttle complement weld em on fast as needed and power them, make a flight plan to have them approach at believable vectors from Federation space. Thats one point for Alidade, Lily, Fouran, anyone else?"

Lily spoke, "Contacting Second Star, it's forty eight minutes away but they'd bring guns to our side. they can hail us on open channels about coming."

It was too far away to be helpful immediately but in an hour they could be very grateful to see the maroon stripes and Indigo Nacelles, Izzy gave her a thumbs up.

Another idea came to her, she got excited while saying. "Launch the warp sleds, get the runabouts to tow em and generate warp shadows back to us. Place em on long arc as though they are taking flanking positions."

Sepp Agandar retorted in his rare Tellarite fashion for his usual graceful manner, "Captain these parlor tricks won't hold them, off, we have minutes at best before they scan and our hollow defense is revealed."

Fouran had an idea, "We can use our warp plasma, vent it, all of it, we have enough to refuel a fleet. With warp fields, we could create a miniature plasma storm, our hull could tolerate it."

Sepp was adamant, “Captain, we have no time for ruse, what will we broadcast they will be afraid of? Those K’vort will take minor damage from energized plasma at best, you’ll force the smaller craft into maneuvering around the storms…”

As he ranted, Lily pulled up the stats for Starbase 109. To her delight she saw there was in fact a fighter squadron stationed on SB109, and it was anyone’s guess if it was believable they'd be here now.

“We use these guys, disguise the runabouts as the fighter squadrons. We can present the swamp of warp plasma, create incoming warp shadows, have the Second Star do the same-“

Izzy took over, “Love it, all these orders get moving on them now-“

A jubilant cheer came from sensors, the young man there stammered, “USS Enceladus is using emergency warp and will arrive in 97 seconds!”

Lily began sending the same message to the Enceladus, to tell them to create warp shadows of a larger fleet inbound, when Izzy stopped her.

“Have the Enceladus present as a smaller less capable vessel, they could pull off a Nova, and make it look like their actual Luna class body is the illusion. We can sucker H’tek into position, get me Captain Pallek now!”

-To be Concluded...

 

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