The Redemption Part 1
Posted on Thu Sep 8th, 2016 @ 12:14am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Captain Elijah Michaels & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Ishan Satele & Lieutenant JG Elliot Keller & Johnathen Wade
Mission:
Do Not Follow
Location: Bridge, USS VIctory.
Ensign Keller sat in the Captains Chair of the Victory, the Diplomatic Officer had been left in charge by Captain Michaels whilst the Senior Staff conducted Repairs and prepared the next course of action in this barren and wild space of the Expanse.
Whoever attacked them left them in bad way, so much so that it left a Skeleton Bridge Crew whilst the others were conducting repairs. It wasn't proper procedure to have a Junior Officer manning the Bridge, but the Ensign had earned his stripes so to speak with the actions on Nomad Station.
The Ensign heard the beep coming from Tactical station. He turned his gaze to the Crewman manning the console. "Crewman? Report."
"Sir I'm detecting a Vessel on an intercept course, it's a similar energy signature to our attackers......" The Crewman paused for a second or two. "But this one is a single Ship much larger.
Elliot stood up. "Red Alert, Captain Michaels and the Senior Staff to the Bridge."
Elijah stepped out of his Ready Room and approached the Ensign. "Mister Keller, what's going on?"
The Ensign allowed Elijah to take a seat. "They're back Sir, a single Ship twice the size of the Cruiser that attacked us."
Bertrand was with a search and rescue team on the starboard section. They had managed to link enough power to return atmosphere to breached sections to allow them access to parts of the ship which had been cut off since the fight. Bertrand had been using his senses to home in on conscious survivours, while the tricorder had been identifying those who were passed out or worse.
"Three behind this blockage," he told his crew. "One of them are awake."
"Hello?" came a querulous call from behind the blocked passage.
"Hang tight, were are coming for you," Bertrand called back. "What is your status?"
"Er... We had a plasma leak, but it seems to have gone out. The Commander Bartlet was pretty badly knocked about though. She hasn't regained consciousness. Lou is burned, but he's breathing and wakes up occasionally. I am just very thirsty. Can't you beam us out?"
"Radiation spill is mucking the transporter locks and power is on extreme reserves until..."
That is when the alert sounded. Bertrand handed the tricorder to one of the rescue team. "Gotta go. Get the XO out of there ASAP."
"Aye, sir,"
Bertrand began to run for one of the ladders as he reached it he had to steady himself against a sudden dizziness. Maybe it was better to risk the turbo lift.
While the Engineering station was manned on the bridge, it was not manned by Cordale. The Thux was still in Engineering proper, but had a channel open. "Engineering live and ready sir. We've repaired all priority systems, and are about half way through repairs to the rest of the ship but she'll hold together if you need her to."
At her station, Satele conducted a quick check before reporting, "helm ready, all impulse speeds available, though I'd recommend a max speed of Warp 6 for now"
Wade and Stevevs had decided to ignore the suggestion too head to the rally point and instead move through the parts of the ship the could and assist those who where stuck. Roger's unbelievable strength made moving debris easy and Jack's "Jack of all trades" skill set helped him fix up the none critically injured enough too be able to move and wait for more appropriate help to arrive. When they had finally arrived to where Michelle had been trapped and the crew had been struggling to remove the obstruction it was welcome relief when Roger just ripped it away with out much issue.
Behind the breach was a very relieved looking engineer. He was holding a medkit and was covered in grime. Next to him lay Michelle, with a makeshift brace on her neck. A junior science officer, with much of his uniform and some skin removed by burns lay unconcious and mumbling incoherently. The rescue team handed the engineer a water pack.
"We've got some injured here. Where is the stretcher?"
The makeshift cot was passed through. The medical ensign frowned at the two casualties then glanced at Wade. "Cmdr Bertrand said to get the XO out, but her injuries aren't the worst. Any objections if we take Lou first?
Jack just shrugged. "Fine by me, I'm not your CO."
Meanwhile
Ensign Keller moved to the rear of the Bridge. The Diplomatic Officer manned one of the relief Stations, he had been on a course to get a better grasp of Starship Operations. "Damage Control and Secondary Systems are a go."
With the turbolift to the bridge now operational again, Kevin stepped out of it and picked his way over to the Tactical station. The bridge still showed signs of the hammering they'd taken, but a lot of the debris had been cleared. Checking over his console, and once he was happy that everything was as it should be, he reported "Tactical ready Sir."
Bertrand arrived moments later. He stepped towards the Tactical station, saw it was manned and for a moment was about to order the officer to step aside. Only for a moment though. He remembered that with Bartlet still trapped he was in the role of acting XO.
He moved down to the chair next to the captain and pulled up a display, "Let's see it on the Main viewer, please."
The next one through the turbolift doors was Valeria Mordin, who was startled when the doors stopped at only half-open before they opened fully a moment later. Note to self, advise Engineering of fault in turbolift doors. She took her station at the Science console, relieving the crewhand there. "Science Division, ready Sir." A few errant keystrokes brought the console up to her personal preferences.
An Ensign from Mickey's team took the operations station following orders.
As Kevin brought up the tactical display on the main viewer he said "The vessel will be within firing range of us in ten minutes Commander."
Bertrand shook his head and glanced at the CO, "We are in no position to fight. I can get us one aft launcher and 53% on Phasers, at best. Shields are shot, and we are still pulling people out of the existing wreckage. Records show they do not respond well to surrender, and we are still 15 hours from the nearest Federation support. I recommend saucer separation to try and buy the civilians some time."
Elijah nodded. "Alright, Ensign Keller you oversee that." He looked to the Ensign. "Get the Civillians evacuated and download the logs of this encounter so Starfleet knows what happened, your Diplomatic Departmant is their protection."
Elliot nodded. "Aye Sir."
Elijah looked at Kevin. "Think you can still work your magic Kilbane?" Elijah asked him.
Kevin actually smiled, he didn't know why but as the CO said that to him, he thought of himself in top hat and tails "I'll certainly try my best Captain" he said.
"I want all the wounded and injured to go with the Civillians, that includes the XO." Elijah looked at Bertrand. "No sense have them same fate as us."
"Agreed," Bertrand responded. He pressed the comms, "All hands prepare for saucer seperation. Civilians and injured to the forward sections. Separation in T minus Three minutes."
Kevin opened a channel to the Engineering section and said "Kilbane to Engineering, Commander Cordale and Lt Mordin, do you have the phaser port shield frequency of that approaching ship 'handy'?"
"Engineering, Cordale here. We're running the final scans, and Mordin's crunching the last bit of numbers. We should have an answer for you in..." the Thux started, and Valeria's voice came over from her station. "About six minutes standard."
"That's going to be cutting it fine" Kevin said "what about our shields Commander, the XO up here thinks they're shot, are they?"
"Well shot is a subjective term." Cordale started. "We're not a hundred percent but I'm re-routing everything we have to spare into the shields, and I'm allocating half of our auxilliary power into the aft projectors. Last ditch, I can polarize the hull with the same magnetic signature as their weaponry based off the scans we got from the Seattle and see about repelling at least some of any incoming attack."
"So long as you can give us some shields" Kevin replied, "even if it's only enough to give us a snow balls chance in hell of trying to pull this off" he finished.
"You'll have something, I can promise that." Cordale said back.
Bertrand shook his head in concern, "You are gambling a lot on the enemy ship having the exact same shield frequency as their colleagues. Even if they do, it is not going to take much time for them to adjust to a new frequency, or rotate them like we do with the Borg, and we are back at having our arses kicked."
"I'm open to new suggestions Commander...." Kevin said.
"Saucer separation T minus one, sir," the Operations ensign reported.
"Then it is time we moved to the battle bridge," Bertrand stood quickly. He gestured Elijah towards the turbo lift. "After you, sir."
Valeria signed off on her station and transferred Science controls to the Battle Bridge. Though, she continued running her calculations on a PaDD as she made her way down. No point in idle time. "Almost. Filtering out interference and adjusting for expected background frequencies."
With the Tactical controls transferred to the Battle Bridge, Kevin moved towards the turbolift.
As the crew arrived on the Battle bridge they felt the slight vibration as the forward section of the ship dis-attached and moved off at it's own speed. It would maintain warp for a little while, having inherited the momentum of the Stardrive section, but once it finally dropped to impulse it did not have it's own warp drive and it would be a slow crawl from then on.
"Helm, Bring us about. Move to intercept the Alien vessel," Bertrand ordered.
Watching the timer, and the approach of the enemy vessel, Kevin silently mouthed the countdown. His hands moved across his console as each calculation came in on the enemies movement through space.
"Ok, we're into the final minute" Kevin said "strap yourselves down ladies and gentlemen, 'cause if this goes south, you can kiss our chances of surviving this goodbye!"
"Lt Mordin, the moment you start to detect the phaser ports shield frequency change, you shout as loud as you can" Kevin called out to Valeria.
There was a pause that hung in the air, before Valeria called out, "Frequency lock! One eight seven gigahertz, modulation pattern two three sigma. Modulate a steady phaser beam to that and we should have them locked."
As Valeria called out the frequency, Kevin punched it into the computer.
He looked round at Bertrand "Their frequencies locked in, our torpedo's live Sir!"
"Fire!" Elijah barked loudly.
"Torpedo away" Kevin shouted.
The Torpedo fired from the Victory and made its way to the enemy Ship. Seconds seemed to go on for an eternity as the blue glow from the Quantum torpedo impacted the vessel. A ball of flame from the impact was prominent but not what was expected.
"Sir our torpedo impacted but only caused moderate damage to their Dorsal Section." Tarlee said taking Ops in lieu of an Operations Officer.
Elijah looked at the somber mood of his Crew, they had given it their best shot. He turned his attention to the Officer at Helm. "Lay in a Collision Course, get us enough speed so that we can take them with us." He turned to Bertrand and the others. "Prepare to abandon Ship, I'll buy you what time I can."
"Sir." Valeria spoke up from the secondary bridge's science station, "I must protest. We fired A torpedo and it didn't win the day, so we quit? I apologize for my tone, sir." a pause, "But shouldn't we empty our options before this course? Shouldn't the Victory be our final projectile rather than our second?"
Kevin was shocked at the CO's reaction, but he was more angered at where the torpedo had hit the enemy ship, why the hell had it hit the dorsal fin. Had it been targeted wrongly, had any eddy or current of some kind caused it to go off course?
"Sir, I've never given in on any fight I've ever faced, and I'm sorry to say, I have no intention of doing so now. We didn't just have the one torpedo altered, we had three in total" Kevin said "surely we can't just give up after firing one, we have another two chances. As Lt Mordin has just indicated, we have to empty our options. I can manually guide the next torpedo, or we re-calculate and try once again to hit their phaser ports."
Bertrand stood up, "Regardless of personal feelings, we have been given orders. You have presented your protests, now do as you have been told. This is not a Democracy."
"Helm, Set course bearing 0 Mark 23. Standby for full Impulse. All hands secure stations and report to escape pods!"
The four escape pods for the Emergency bridge opened their doors on the port and starboard side. Each had the capacity to hold two people.
"On your mark, Sir," Bertrand stood by the command capsule ready for a last minute jump.
"You are correct, Mister Bertrand sir. This isn't a Democracy." Valeria started. "And therefore, I'm prepared to invoke Starfleet Order 104, section C, pending evaluation from Medical, which we don't have time to wait for. Citing the Captain's decision to destroy this craft and potentially condemn the lives of everyone on the saucer section without expending the remaining resources we have. That would either leave you in command Mister Bertrand, or Mister Cordale."
A pause from the rabbitess, "We can either flip that coin, or fire while we maneuver for our suicide run, sir."
A comm channel opened from the Engineering bay, "This is Cordale in Engineering. All hands accounted and tucked in. All escape pods in Engineering loaded and counted."
Tarlee examined his instruments. "They're closing the distance Captain."
"That is damn close to committing a Mutiny Miss Mordin." Elijah said looking at the acting head of Science. The Captain looked at all of his remaining Crew. "We delay them to the last possible second if we have to, then when we are done....You will ALL abandon Ship as I have ordered."
Even in dire crisis, Kevin's sense of humour came to the fore "This is mutiny Mr Christian, I'll see you swing from the yardarm for this!!!" he said in his best actors voice as he looked at Valeria.
What Elijah said was all that Valeria needed to hear. though those words threatened to shake her to her very core. At this rate, the only Science Vessel she'd be in charge of would be the kind that floated in the tub. She maintained a firm outlook, though. Also, at Kevin's antics she cracked a smirk. Her glance slid to him as she spoke, "Hoist the mizzenmast and keep a weather eye, Mister Stubb. Our white whale is gaining."
He looked round at his console again. His fingers moved quickly over the screen, and as he worked he tapped his COMM badge saying "Kilbane to Karadis, how are you getting on with the Polaron upgrade?"
Within moments the reply came back "We're just sealing the torpedo now Sir, it's ready to go in...ten seconds."
Kevin looked round to the Captain and his temporary XO, Lt/Commander Cuprum "I realise this is unconventional, and I apologise for my outburst earlier Sirs, however, we do still have a fighting chance to come out of this without having to destroy the Victory. Lt Mordin has a point, we haven't exhausted all the possibilities we have yet. Even if this torpedo fails, we still have one more to use. I've asked Karadis to load this torpedo as a last resort, because if we do have to use, we'll know our goose is well a truly cooked. However, if it's ok with you both, we'll come to that if this next one fails."
"Belay that!" Bertrand barked. "Stand down the Polaron warhead."
"You see these pins?" Bertrand indicated his collar. "It means I don't have to explain myself, especially not in battle. Stand down your weapons, secure your station and report to your life pod. If the next words out of your mouth aren't 'Yes, sir', I will have you up on charges. Do I make myself clear?"
"When this is over, I may decide to explain to you the effects on Polaron exposure to crew in shielded life craft, that all non-standard weapon modifications need to be checked with the CTO first, or why you don't double guess orders from superiors who have a higher security clearance than you. Then I will explain to Valeria that Order 104 requires the ratification of CMO and XO, and an applicable medical or psychological evaluation, none of which she has. But for now, follow orders, or get of the bridge!"
There was a moment's pause as Bertrand reflected on what he was saying, "Follow orders AND get off the bridge!"
"Yes sir." Valeria replied. He was wrong to pull rank like some amateur tactician, and his knowledge of the general orders was flawed and biased. But there literally was no time to correct him, nor would doing so actually accomplish anything. Apparently he and the Captain were both heavy set on ignoring tactical options and instead opting for suicide in the face of overwhelming options. She'd make it a point to bite her tongue at his postmortem ceremony, where they'd shower a picture of his corpse with medals and accolades.
There was no glare to her features, and her skull's composition made reading her surface emotions and thoughts difficult. She secured her station, as ordered, and advanced to the nearest lifepod. With the most subtle of motions imaginable, she motioned for Kevin to join her. If for nothing else than suitable conversation during their drifting through the cosmos.
As the crew were secured into their ASRV escape pods, Bertrand turned to the Captain, who had taken the Helm position. "Sir, there are still two seats free. We need to release the pods at the last possible moment to protect them from enemy fire."
"Go, I'll set the Ship on autopilot and do it Captain said with a nod towards Bertrand.
The computer burbled an alarm, "Warning. Impact in 15 seconds."
Bertrand stood at the door of the Pod watching Elijah, "Sir, we have to go now!"
"Warning: Impact in 10 seconds...9"
Bertrand climbed into the harness. All ASRV were set to jetison at T-5 seconds.
"7...6..."
There was a shudder and the lights on the bridge dimmed, to be replaced by emergency lighting only. The computer burbled a report, "Warning: Main power off line. Drive systems inoperable. Structural Integrity fields at 73%. Emergency Jettison Procedure halted."
Bertrand struggled back out through the ASRV door which was only partially closed. He got to the Tactical system in three long strides.
"We are dead in the water. Shields are down. Weapons offline. Even our self destruct system has failed."
"Bollocks." Elijah said as he crawled to the Captains Chair. "We are as good as dead if they want to finish us off."
Bertrand pressed the Comms, "All hands Stand by. Senior officers, report back to your stations."
He looked at the tactical and then at Elijah, "Why aren't they shooting. They could have reduced us to dust by now and then picked off the ASRV, like they did to the Seattle."
At the Comms panel, to one side, an incoming call announced itself.
Get off the Bridge, Stay on the Bridge, Get off the Bridge, Return to the Bridge... Valeria was not enjoying the indecisiveness of the rather confident in his pips Bertrand at the moment. Though, as she cautiously opened the lifepod to allow the others to disembark, she returned to her dead and powerless station.
Down in Engineering, the lifepods remained occupied, sealed, and awaiting jettison. Cordale tried the comm to contact the bridge, but there was no signal. Through the ports, the occupants saw that the lighting in Engineering was dead. The core was dead. Everything was dead.
Except them.
Somewhere, in the depths of the Victory, a Thux cursed at the top of his lungs about the 'inconvenience' of a cold start on the reactor. Was he happy to be alive? More than anyone else... which is why he celebrated his gift of life by complaining.
With something of a call coming through the scattered comms about returning to stations, Cordale looked at his engineering crew in the pod with him, "Well, you heard the man. Back to work." and he opened the hatch to the life boat. "Oi, back to work everyone." the Thux called out as he ordered the pit crew back into the thick of it. "This reactor won't start itself. Call out what we've got, and prep for a cold start."
Elijah looked at the Comm. "We are being hailed?" He pressed the switched which brought the viewer online.
An Alien figure, almost identical to a Human appeared on screen. Though this Alien had blue skin and piercing red eyes. Wearing a white Military Uniform with Black Boots. "I am Fleet Marshall Tarik Kolan of the Star Dreadnaught Redemption, to whom am I speaking?"
"Captain Elijah Michaels, of the USS Victory." He said staring at the viewscreen. "You will forgive me if I don't want to share pleasantries, after all you have been blasting us apart for the last few hours."
"Captain Michaels," the figure continued, "Your ship is disabled and you are in need of help. I will be sending a party of three to your ship to discuss terms for the Federation. Provide coordinates for a safe beam in location. This is not a request."
"Very well." He drew his attention to Tarlee to send the Coordinates. "We shall be awaiting your arrival." The Screen went blank.
Commander Cuprum as acting XO you are with me, have Commander Cordale meet us in Transporter Room one." Elijah said as he moved up the steps to the rear of the Bridge. "Miss Mordin, you have the Bridge."
Bert handed Tactical back to Kevin, not that there was much left to be tactical with. He tapped his pin as he walked to the Turbo lift. There was no response.
"Communications are down, but there is still power in the turbo lifts. I will get to Engineering myself and we'll meet you in the transporter room."
