This is our stop

Posted on Tue Mar 14th, 2017 @ 5:09am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Captain Elijah Michaels & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Ishan Satele & Lieutenant Sara'draphia T'eseri

Mission: All the Kings Men: Wargames

The Smithsonian hung in space, dead. There was barely enough power in her reserves to run Life support and sensors, with none spare for thrusters, weapons or defences.

Nearby the USS Cosmos arrived at the large asteroid that housed the secret SFI archive of alien tech and research deemed to dangerous for use. Between it and the Smithsonian were the USS Tasmania and USS Undaunted. Both were preparing a volley of fire that would tear the tiny Smithsonian apart.

Inside the ship the crew were out of options. Then suddenly...

"Sir, the Undaunted is pulling away. She has broken weapons lock. The Tasmania is following... There is a ship dropping out of warp."

The pale face of the ensign looked to Elijah and Smith, "It's a Jenarri war ship!"

"What?!" Elijah said shocked at the news. "How the bloody hell did they know about the Archives?"

The Undaunted fired quickly at the Jennari battle ship, but the weapons flexed harmlessly against the shielding. The Miranda class Tasmania was too slow to turn. The Jenarri unleashed a barrage of weaponry on her.

"The Tasmania's shields are down! But... I... there is no damage registered."

"The Jenarri are hailing us, sir."

Smith, to everyone's surprise began to laugh, "Of course they are. Captain, Elijah. I believe THIS call is for you."

"Onscreen." Elijah said with a curious glance and raise of his eyebrow.

The screen lit to a surprisingly familiar scene; the Bridge of the USS Victory, with Acting Captain Bertand Cuprum in the command seat.

"An interesting choice of friends, you have made, Captain," Bertrand observed. "They do seem rather keen to play though. I wonder if you are in the need of some assistance?"

That's when the lights flickered. That's when the nagging concerns of power went away.

"Main power restored, we're alive again." Cordale said through the comms. He even sounded excited. Possibly because today he got to live.

"Satele get us powered up." Elijah said. "Karadis ready all weapons and load torpedo bays." He said with a nod.

Satele smiled, "alright, time to have some fun and see how much stress this ship can take" she said, bringing all of her engines to full power along with the internal dampeners.

"That may be sooner than we'd hoped Lieutenant!" Karadis called out to Satele, "the Ambassador class is moving in to protect the Miranda class, and...what the hell...I've never come across those kind of readings before, it's almost a polarisation field, but it's been inverted to emit a...." but she didn't get to finish her sentence.

The Smithsonian was battered by a full broadside spread of torpedo's from the Ambassador, quickly followed up with a tri-phasic blast that shook the SFI ship to it's core. Karadis was thrown to the ground hard, but she got up again just as quick, grabbing her console for support.

"Those weren't ordinary torpedo's, and that was no ordinary phaser fire, they've got something new there Sirs" Karadis called to Smith and Elijah "our shields are down to forty percent, and they're coming round for another pass....and bloody hell, how has she managed that so quicky, the Miranda class has nearly managed to restore her shields!? She's moving towards us as well, and I'm getting the same odd readings I got from the other ship before 'it' fired!"

She frantically looked round at Smith "INCOMING fire from both ships..."

Elijah clutched the console. "All hands brace for impact...."

The Ship rocked from the volley they were receiving. Smithsonian wasn't a Warship but she was agile enough to pack a punch and she just needed to get herself into the right position.

Smith gripped the chair, "Engineering, prepare for Run!"

Cor heard the order, but had the most puzzled look on his face. He turned to one of the engineering hands in the belly of the ship with him and gave them the same puzzled look. "It's a high energy state," the crewhand explained. "It's basically the Warp system we use for the high speed but for raw power instead."

"Oh, so it's a secret system I should have been briefed about, if this ship technically existed?" Cordale asked. To which, the crewhand nodded, "We blew out every EPS junction in the ship the first time we used it."

"You fixed that part, right?!" Cordale asked, a little irritated to say the least. "Well.... we're good at diverting power." was the answer he didn't want to hear...

"We get ten minutes, then we are dead in the water again," the Ensign added another nail to the coffin.

Smith glanced at Kardis, "In a moment ensign, you will have all the power you need for shields and manouvers. Run power is incredible. It gives us 10 minutes of unimaginable energy output, but don't forget that our conduits, etc are limited in their output. We don't want to burn out our phasers by pouring all the power directly into them."

"That is incredible." Elijah said as he examined the schematics. "Karadis I'm sure you can work your magic and get the mix just right."

"Then you have more belief in my abilities than I do Sir!" Karadis replied "I've really only worked on simulations, remember, Lt Kilbane is the main Tactical officer, I'm just his Assistant."

However, Shr'Nesh knew what was at stake, and she turned her concentration back to the job in hand. She quickly scanned over the information coming across her screen and her mind worked fifteen to the dozen to make the calculations she believed were required for the firing solutions.

"Helm, bring us about, heading.....four two mark six, two second burst at half impulse" she called to Satele.

Satele nodded, "confirmed, new heading four two mark six, two second half impulse" she repeated as she input the heading and triggered the impulse engines.

The Smithsonian leapt forward and was now nearside on the Miranda Class. Karadis had already loaded into the computer the firing solution for a full spread of the quantum torpedo's and jabbed her thumb down of the button to fire. Though the torpedo's struck at a dangerously close range to the Smithsonian, causing their ship to rock back slightly, the effect on the Miranda class was devastating. Their shields buckled and collapsed almost instantly allowing Karadis to follow the torpedo spread up with concentrated phaser fire to their port side nacelle and also their main engineering deck.

The port nacelle of the Miranda exploded in half, causing it to vear off wildly and spiral downwards through space. As it went, Karadis fired phasers into the main command deck of saucer section. She watched as it exploded outwards, taking about ten percent of the plating with it.

Meanwhile on the Victory...

"Direct hit on the Tasmania," Ops reported. "She is reading as destroyed. All her power is off line."

"Our configurations from the war games are designed to feed into other Federation computers. Their systems are responding to our coded weapon signals just as if they were involved in the war games. As far as their computer is concerned they are fighting an actual Jenarri warship. Which means when we blow her up, there will be no actual loss of life, but the ship's own computer will shut it down until given the rest codes to start again."

The ship rocked as the Undaunted swapped between targets.

"Unfortunately," the acting Co continued, "All of their weapons are specifically configured against Jenarri. Time to drop the shoe. Mr Kilbane, switch to secondary systems. Bring our main weapons back on line! Let's show them why a Sovreign outclasses an Ambassador."

The rabbitess gave a nod of acknowledgement, followed immediately with a verbal "Aye, sir." as she undid the transponder update, and restored the Victory to her true sensor signature. "Sensor baffles disengaged, IFF transponder restored to Starfleet designation."

"Commander Bertrand, you are once again in command of the USS Victory." she announced, with a subtle hint of fanfare.

Kevin did as he was bid and said "Aye Sir, switching to secondary systems, main weapons are back online!"

There was a skip in sensors and the sensor image of the Jenarri war cruiser resolved to that of the USS Victory.

-Smithsonian-

"Sirs, the Victory just changed their IFF reading" Satele reported

"Target their weapons systems," Smith ordered. "Those are Federation personnel on the ships. We are not looking for casualties."

"As far as I can tell from our readings, they haven't suffered any casualties!" Karadis replied "The nacelle breaking in two has caused no-one to get hurt, just made their ship almost inoperable and the attack on their main engineering deck took out a generator. As for firing on their main deck, only their plating has been affected, again, there's no sign from our readings that anyone has been killed."

Bertrand came over the comms again, "The Victory can handle the Undaunted. You get after Gates. Good hunting."

"Bring us about!" Smith ordered. "Set heading for the USS Cosmos. Stand by boarding parties!"

Elijah turned to Smith. "You know as well as I do that it wont be that easy....." The Captain was about finish his sentence when the Smithsonian rocked from Phaser fire. The lights on the Bridge flickered as Smith was sent hurtling across the Bridge. "Take evasive action!"

"Understood, initiating pattern delta" Satele reported.

The Captain went over to Smith who was knocked out from the blast. "He's alive just knocked out." He turned to the Bridge Crew of the Smithsonian and then it hit him. "Cordale meet me in the Transporter Room."

"Aye aye, boss." the Thux replied, then turned to the rather helpful crew hand who helped him with all these cloak-and-dagger systems, "Thanks for you help, but looks like this is my stop. I'd put in the good word for you, you know, if you actually existed." which earned him a chuckle of a response before the blue weaseloid took off towards the Transporter room. "Thux on the move, make a hole."

"Mister Dartanyan you have the Conn." Elijah said as he moved to one of the wall panels to collected a Rifle and a Phaser.

Dartanyan was ready and stepped to the command chair, "Aye, sir."

Stepping out of the bridge just as Elijah grabbed his weapons, Sara looked around in surprise, "captian? What's going on?"

"I don't have time to explain Doctor, just see to Agent Smith." He said directing the blue skinned Alien to the unconscious SFI Agent. "Trust me."

Karadis closed her eyes, opened them, looked up at the ceiling and through clenched teeth whispered "I hate you for doing this to me Kilbane!"

"You!" she called over to one of the Smithsonian crew "take over this console."

She jogged over to the small arms weapon locker behind the Captains chair, opened it and grabbed a phaser. She made her way up to where Elijah was and said "Sir....as per regulations on a Senior Officer beaming into a hazardous situation, as part of your Victory Security personnel I hereby request permission to come with you.

Elijah placed his hand on her shoulder. "Negative, Karadis I don't have time to explain this to you now but if you beam over with me you'll die." He looked at the Ensign. "Trust me on this one Ensign."

Karadis knew that she was about to speak out of turn, but at that particular juncture, it didn't matter to her because this all seemed like madness "So Sir, not only are you going against Starfleet protocol and orders to carry out the war games, you're also failing to follow procedure and have someone from Security with you to protect you. You know, I told Kilbane this was a bad idea, but for some reason he felt obliged to tell me to come over here to the Smithsonian to protect your sorry arse and keep you out of trouble and now I'll have to tell him you refused to have that happen. Damn it all, I don't care if I die, that happens to go with the territory, but at least I'll have died doing what I signed on to do!" she finished, almost sounding like she was ten years old and sulking.

"That's not what he means, Ensign," Dartanyan cut in. He sighed heavily then continued. "Your Captain has worked it out. The planet is guarded by a coded shield. Anyone with a rank below Captain who attempts to beam onto the planet is scattered. That's why we needed to come and get you all. Commander Smith couldn't get to the planet to chase down Gates. Good news is, he won't have any people following him. It'll be a one on one confrontation."

Dartanyan turned to Kardis, "You want to keep your Captain safe, you need to make sure he has a safe place to come back to. I need you on Tactical."

Karadis said nothing, but instead walked back to the Captains chair and placed the phaser she had back in the small arms locker and closed it. Making sure it was locked, she then continued over to the Tactical station and relieved the Smithsonian crew member.

With a nod Elijah proceeded off the Bridge. After the brief exchange between Karadis and himself, Elijah proceeded down the Corridor into the Transporter Room. "Set coordinates for the Archive and then lock out the Transporter so nobody follows me."

This all sounded so crazy. Though, with the slightest of nods, Cordale acknowledged Elijah's order. "Aye sir. Ready." after tapping in the commands to beam Elijah over. "Don't suppose you want to make a few of us Captains real fast, eh?"

The Captain gave Cor a smile before checking his weapon. "Command is yours until Smith regains consciousness." Elijah nodded. "Keep these people safe Commander......" He smiled at the Thux. "See you on the other side."

Another nod, and a final swish upwards of the console to energize the transport. It was only once Elijah was gone that Cor stopped holding that breath he was holding. "That's not a nice thing for humans to say." he said to an empty platform. Command... He was in charge.

Well shit. This wasn't what he expected with his morning coffee, but it's what he had. The Thux made his way up to the Bridge, "How are we looking out there?" he asked, clearly not in the mindset of giving orders.

"Well, the Miranda class ship, much like the agent supposedly in charge of this bucket, is completely fuc.....I mean out of commission" Karadis said without looking up "Captain Michaels has abandoned us for a second time to go on some glory hunt against Admiral Gates, leaving an Engineer with little or no combat experience, no disrespect intended Sir, in charge."

"Oh yes, and now it looks like the Victory has abandoned the war games it was meant to be participating in as well, since it's now here with us, though how the hell they managed to get here so quickly I don't know, seeing as they don't have this 'hop drive' thing we have. Apart from that, things are pretty peachy I'd say....."

"Watch your mouth Ensign." Tarlee commented from Ops. The Bolian Lieuteant then looked at Cor. "Commander, the Captain has materialised safely on the Archive and he has a slog to reach Gates but he will make it, Victory has begun her attack run."

Cordale held his prosthetic hand up towards Tarlee. "No no, I prefer brutal honesty to flowery talk anyday. For the most part anyway, she's got a lot of good points." he paused for a moment, "No offense taken."

"Captain's safe? Good, let's give the Victory a hand." he really didn't want to talk about Elijah right now. Whether what he was doing was important or just chasing a whale, Cor felt that for the moment, that discussion could be tabled. He sat uncomfortably in the Captain's chair, "Helm, bring us to the opposing side of the Victory's target. Tactical, when we're in range light 'em up. Together, we'll carve through their shields twice as fast. Then target their power distribution network nodes, here here and ... here." he indicated on the panel on the Captain's chair. "It'll cripple their power network without putting lives at risk."

"You were also right about one other thing." the Thux smirked, "He left an Engineer in charge."

Tarlee looked over at Cor, he had never seen the Engineer in the Chair before so he was curious to see how he would respond. But the Bolian did like the unconventional approach from the Thux. "Secondary power diverted to shields and Engines Sir."

Keller monitored the Communications Station of the Smithsonian. "Victory's responded to our plan, they are waiting for us to take the lead."

"Oh excellent" Karadis said, then amended her words "Oh excellent....Lt Tarlee, Sir. By diverting secondary power to the shields and engines, you've just taken the torpedo launch sequencer offline.....and the targeting....oh, and the failsafe. However, we still have main phasers.....mmmmm, actually, no, we don't as the power diversion has just caused the failsafe to 'kick in'. If you wish, Commander" she said, looking at Cor "from a Tactical point of view, I could get out and try swatting the Ambassador Class ship with a PADD....."

"Make sure to exhale on the trip out." he said with a ghost of a smirk. A tap of his comm badge, "Bridge to Shuttlebay One. Bring two runabouts online, engines idle, and hook them into the power distribution nodes before bringing them up to throttle. Target intermix on the runabouts is fifteen to one." Cordale then looked between Karadis and Tarlee. "I don't know what the reactor can take, but I know what shuttlecraft can give. Get our targeting and phaser arrays back online, torpedoes aren't a priority at the moment. We're looking to disable, not destroy."

"If... we miss our window for a strike run, notify the Victory that our systems are experiencing technical difficulties." his tone indicated that the term 'Technical Difficulties' was an often overused euphemism.

***USS Victory***

Kevin stabbed the COMM's link and yelled "Lt Kilbane to Smithsonian Tactical station, what the hells happening over there, why have your weapons gone offline?"

Karadis hit the COMM button to reply, saying "Lt Tarlee has diverted Secondary power to our shields and engines Sir, the cascading effect is that it's taken the torpedo launch sequencer offline and the targeting and also the failsafe. Additionally it's caused the main phaser failsafe to kick in, making the phaser array useless. Commander Cor has just ordered me to undo what's just been done by Lt Tarlee so we can get everything back online, if you bare with us a few moments, I'll hopefully have it sorted."

Kevin couldn't believe what he was hearing "Wait a minute, are you telling me that a Strategic Operations Officer caused your problems, the very person who's meant to know 'what they're doing' so these things don't happen?"

"In his defense Sir" Karadis replied, continuing to carry out the order from Cor "he 'is' on an unfamiliar ship, he didn't know that would happen."

"That's no bloody excuse!!!!" Kevin shouted "he 'should' know, it's what he's trained for!"

"Oh put a sock in it you drama queen!" Karadis yelled back, loosing her temper "what's done is done, you're not perfect so you deal with your end and I'll help out at this end. If you've nothing constructive to say then close the link you arrogant arse!"

"You...what...you...you...can't speak....that's not how....." Kevin spluttered.

Karadis closed the link at her end and went back to trying to get the phasers and torpedo's back online. She'd deal with the consequences of her actions with Kevin later, right now his bruised ego was the last thing on her mind.

Still raging from her conversation with Kevin, Karadis turned to Cor after a minute or so and said "Phasers are back online, torpedo's as well, we're ready to go after this mother fu...this Ambassador class!"

"Good to hear, you have your targets." Cordale mentioned from his uncomfortable seat. They never designed these chairs for folks with tails. "Coordinate with Victory and begin the attack run."

Karadis turned to the helm and said "Lt Satele, lay in course two two three, mark one, 'z' minus five thousand metres please. We 'have' to come at them from below their stern, that's where their shields are weakest."

The Smithsonian moved off after the larger ship, and as they did, Karadis double checked her calculations, then triple checked them just to make sure she had everything right. Satisfied that they were ready, she waited till they reached their start point.

"Ok, when we go in Sir" she said to Cor, moving across to his chair "they're going to try and turn us flank on, but no matter how much they try, we have to remain full on to them, our shields are strongest at the front of the ship, so we have to use that as our advantage. If we can keep them stern on to us, we have a chance to buckle their shields, here, here and here" she said, pointing to the schematic on Cor's chair panel.

Cordale gave a nod, "Excellent. Coordinate with Engineering to see if they can get that ... whatever it was... that makes us crazy maneuverable again. Otherwise, we'll have to trust in maneuvering thrusters and inertial dampeners."

Karadis moved back to her station and made the call "Lt Satele, take us in, half impulse for two seconds, then full stop!"

The Smithsonian moved forward steadily from beneath the Ambassador class, and as soon as they were in position, Kardis fired their forward phasers. The impact was like a myriad of Christmas trees lighting up all at once. The Ambassador class fired back, but they fired wide because of the hammer blow they'd just taken. Karadis fired a full blast again, this time the Ambassador class shields failed and the last few shots penetrated the larger ships hull, causing it to rock wildly.

"Their aft shields have gone Sir" Karadis called to Cor "what're your orders?"

"If we have the shot at their power distribution network, don't stop until they go dark. Otherwise, force them to turn their exposed flank to the Victory." Cordale spoke.

"The Undaunted is withdrawing, sir. We are being hailed by the Victory."

Bertrand's face came up on the screen again, though it was obvious he was distracted, "Nice trick, Cor. Now if your crew have finished upsetting my Tactical officer, we can coordinate to take the USS Cosmos. Leave the other two. They are no longer a threat."

Before Cor could respond alarms began to sound. A familiar voice from Engineering came across the internal Comms, "Engineering to Bridge. I've got bad news, and worse news. You've got about three minutes of main power left, and then the ship is going to explode. We've looking at cascade containment loss. Nothing I can do about it at these power flows. We are loosing to many systems."

"Bertrand, we need to get everyone off this ship! Warp core's on a fuse!" he paused for a moment, "Given the nature of this ship, and all the systems and secrets aboard it, I'm inclined to let it pop. Computer, give me a two minute countdown." and the computer acknowledged by putting a two-minute countdown on his console. "He said three, I want to be clear out. Bridge to Engineering, evacuate the core and seal all bulkheads."

"Ops, backup the computer core as of the last update, load the backup into an escape pod and jettison when ready. Bertrand, catch whatever we throw you. Everyone else, emergency beaming to the Victory will commence shortly. Bertrand, it's gonna be standing room only for a bit but, fortunately the Smithsonian doesn't have as big a crew as the Victory. Not that I saw during the nickle slip tour anyway."

"Start getting the crew out. Non-essentials first, then crewhands, then seniors." he jammed on the comm switch, "Bridge to all stations, we are abandoning ship via mass transport beam."

"Tactical, lower the shields. Helm, plot a course as far from this section as we could get on impulse, away from the station. Delay it for two minutes from now."

Continued in next post...