Last Contact
Posted on Mon Mar 19th, 2018 @ 10:16am by Captain Elijah Michaels & Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Commander Ziyal Tajor & Lieutenant Ishan Satele & Lieutenant Hel Samedi & Lieutenant JG Jordan Posey
Mission:
Of Machines and Men
Location: USS Victory Bridge
"Transporter room to Bridge, I've lost the lock ont he away team!"
Elijah got up from his seat. "How the bloody hell did that happen?" He barked as he looked around for answers. "Valeria you better get me something."
There was a lingering silence for a few moments as the rabbitess tapped at her console. "I have a partial something." Valeria replied, her calm the perfect contrast to Elijah's agitation, "There's an energy field around the main structure that the team entered, which must have been triggered by their entering it. The field seems configured to absorb most of the high energy spectrum. Heat, radiation, electromagnetism, it's not being reflected but rather absorbed." she explained. You could take the girl out of the science department, but you couldn't take the science department out of the girl, it seemed.
"Our sensors are barely even capable of scanning the field, as only about twenty percent of the scan actually returns to the probe." she continued, "With the field in place, the structure is very well defended from an attack. I'd heavily recommend against attempting to transport in a team to any location near that field. It may have an effect on them."
"could we throw a probe at the field itself? if it's designed to absorb multiple forms of energy, it may not be able to handle physical impact" Satele suggested, standing at the rear of the bridge.
"Captain, we are getting a video feed from the structure," Comms reported.
"On Screen." Elijah commented looked at viewer.
The screen main screen lit up, displaying an archaic arena. Along one side a series of numbers were being shown. The Computer translated tehm as biological statistics. Apparently, whoever they were for was well, if a little agitated.
Two humanoid figures appeared in the arena. At first they looked dazed and a little groggy, but they quickly straightened up, checking their equipment.
A voice boomed over the arena, "Ladies and gentlemen, and other viewers. I present to you Combatants 1338543 and 1338544, Lieutenant Jayton Alyl and Lieutenant Junior Grade Scotty Kayne!"
An automated cheer track played as a door at the far end of the area opened. At the door appeared a robot. It was 5 meters tall and heavily armoured on tank treads. At the top, a large cannon, mounted next to a missile rack. One arm appeared to be a rotary drill/saw combination, and the other licked with flame.
Valeria simply shook her head at the display. "I.. if we attack the arena, it could mean the execution of Jayton and Scotty." Valeria managed, "But... if we don't work out a rescue, who knows what will happen." she thought for a moment, choosing not to look at the screen to clear her thoughts. "A infiltration team, with signal repeaters? If the away team entered the structure, maybe there's enough of a window to beam them out while the proverbial doors are open."
Jaton drew his phaser and began to scan the surroundings. Not much cover in the arena. He looked over at Scotty. "Split up. I'll draw its fire. If it has fire."
As Jaton ran an arch of light leapt from the head of the robot and passed the space he had just stood in.
A commentary began from the screen, "Oh, a beautiful opening move from 1338543, taking maters to hand. He has the Opponents attention. What will he do with it?"
Satele stood at next to the security console observing the situation. she wasn't sure if there was anything they could do at this point without bombarding the shield, "Perhaps we should just wait and see what happens"
Scotty in turn drew his phaser and ran in the opposite direction, firing his phaser as it attacked Jaton.
Distracted from its first target by the weapons fire the turret rotated slowly to follow Scotty, but the young pilot new about evasive maneuvers and keeping out of a fire arc.
Jaton took the opportunity to duck behind what little cover the arena sides did afford. He turned his phaser up to the highest setting and fired at the robot.
The blast caught it in its armoured side. For a moment it looked like the heavy unit was heating but then the energy dissipated. The watchers were quite shocked. That should have left a significant hole in a rock wall.
"A Disruption attack," The announcer burbled. "Predictable, and easily countered. We have seen this used by almost every new contender in the last two thousand years. Let's hope the pair have something more up their sleeves. Oh, it has got the Opponents focus again though. it is on the move!"
The Robot was beginning to move on it's tracks, focusing on the most obvious danger. It trundled towards the low wall where Jayton was hiding and raised it's flame covered arm. A plume of fire leapt forward, engulfing the wall and wrapping around the meager shelter.
Satele lent forward, hoping to see if Jayton had managed to evade the attack in time, although it was somewhat unlikely that he would've avoided such an attack, Satele had learnt that anything is possible when it comes to Starfleet Personel.
Scotty then set his phaser to the highest setting, and fired, exclaiming "Why don't you pick on someone you're own size!"
Jaton took Scotty's distraction as an opportunity to pick himself up off the floor, and recover his phaser. It didn't seem to do much good, but it was better than nothing. He did his best despite his being unable to use his left arm at all and began to favour his right.
But thank the gods he still had his legs intact. He began to strafe the robot, and did his best to keep out of its line of sight, looking desperately for some sort of weak spot.
Scotty maintained his fire. You gotta be freakin kidding me, damn near nothing seems to hurt it, I hope Jaton can do some damage. he thought to himself while firing on the robot
"Ooh nice work, dividing the Opponents attention. This model does not deal well with multiple targets. Unfortunately they seem unable to develop a new strategy beyond disruptor fire. Disappointing. But we were warned these contestants are not soldiers."
Jaton looked over the robot between shots. It's turreted head was turning back and forth in response to each shot they made, but it had stopped moving, unable to decide which target to pursue. The main body was mounted on tracked treads but was rigid, meaning the fire arc of the flame arm and the swing of the bladed arm were limited. The turreted head, however had a serious beam attack and a missile rack that it had yet to use.
A light went off in Jaton’s mind. As Scotty continued to draw the robot’s fire, Jaton took out his tricorder. He struggled with trying to manipulate it with one hand, but eventually was able to slice into the robot’s programming. the system was very simple, and the key commands were not even well encrypted. A simple command line entry and...
The robot shuddered to a halt and powered down.
"Cyber attack! Nice approach. Just goes to show, once again, that this contest does not require you to be a great warrior to excel. Let's give our contestants a hand and we'll move on to our next round."
There was a red flash and the pair vanished, as the robot powered back on and trundled from the arena.
The screen went blank for a moment, then lit up and a new set of figures were displayed. Val appeared on the arena already running to cover.
A voice boomed over the arena, "Ladies and gentlemen, and other viewers. I present to you Combatants 1338545 and 1338546, Gunnery Sergeant Val Seran!"
The cheer went up and the same robot rolled slowly out to face the pair. Unlike the previous couple, it would be hard for Val to split up in the same way.
Val didn't waste time. There were two of her, and although they had to remain within a certain distance from each other to enable the best level of cooperation, she was banking on this seamless cooperation to carry the day. Well, the cooperation and her signature weapon, the Dalacari designed and manufactured GX-80 heavy marksman rifle.
The bioform with the prosthetic arm, nickname 'lefty' and the heavy backpack dropped said backpack at the feet of the one with the weapon, nickname 'Trigger'. Lefty then drew her type III compression rifle and started firing short bursts of suppression fire at the robot while sidestepping, trying to draw its attention, leaving Trigger free to hook the GX-80 up to its support pack.
The robots tracking began to follow 'Lefty' but then it turned back to refocus on the ammo pack.
The voice rang over the auditorium, narrating the action, "This is interesting. One of the combatants is trying to draw fire, but we can't tell which one. The Opponents Threat Matrix seems fixed on the new heavy weapon in the arena. The disruptor rifle is not a real concern but it doesn't know what to expect from this new... ooh, look out!"
The mount one the Drones shoulder flipped open, exposing a rack of small missiles. A red beam of light shot out and marked the Ammo pack.
"We need to find a way to bring that energy field down, if that's what's blocking our transporters then there may be a redundant power supply somewhere else on the surface." Elijah then noticed then eyes fixated on him. "Valeria work with Hel, take whoever you need from which ever departments you need and get to work."
The rabbitess turned towards Hel and gave a nod, before turning to Elijah, "If there's a way to do it, we'll find it." she looked forward to working with Hel, on a professional level.
"I've already got some ideas." Offered Hel. She was still recovering, though looking better than she had been, and out of her hoverchair.
"Ziyal in the absence of Cuprum and Cor you are now the acting First Officer." He looked at the Cardassian. "Work with Diplomatic and find out what you can about this world and the system and if there have been situations like this before."
Ziyal nodded, "Aye sir."
On the screen the drama continued to unfold:
'Lefty' let out a Dalacari swear as 'Trigger' leapt to her feet, yanking the cord and releasing the quick release to the support pack.
A flurry of small rockets surged from the robot and swarmed the pack like angry wasps. There was a huge burst of heat and flame, but all the combatants were well clear. The Charger, however was reduced to hot shrapnel.
Fortunately the weapon was charged. "Heavy armor piercing round should do the trick~" She replicated a 1800 grain tungsten core long rod projectile as she dashed away from her support pack. Velocity set for 1500 meters per second she took aim and -
'Lefty's targeting optics told 'Trigger' where to hit the drone. Left of center mass, half a meter above the rotational cuff - that's where the machine's power reading was the highest - as well as its armor the thickest. A deafening BANG rang out, the GX-80's onboard inertial dampening coils handling most of the recoil, and the tungsten cored round slammed into the drone's armor with a force of nearly a hundred kilojoules.
"A physical attack! And right at the Opponents energy distribution node. Was that a lucky shot?" the narration chimed.
The android flashed around. It was moving faster now than it had with the previous opponents. Piercing it had accelerated its threat potential respond. the turret tracked 'Trigger" for a meter and then...
There was a white beam, a short scream and one less combatant on the field.
Satele stood there in shock. she couldn't believe what she had just seen
'Lefty' barely flinched when 'Trigger' was vaporised. In fact, Val's one remaining form seemed more surprised at the drone's increased speed and lethality compared to what she'd observed when Jaton and Scotty were fighting it, than the death of her other form. She dashed forward towards the drone, raising her type III compression rifle.
The drone turning to engage the remaining Val, who lept up onto the tank treads and braced herself, jabbing the muzzle of her compression rifle into the sparking, jagged hole in the armor, left there by the heavy armor piercing shot earlier. Emitting a feral snarl she pulled the trigger - again and again and again and again - ripping into the drone's unprotected internal systems with her phaser.
There was a series of explosions as the Robot's internals were torn apart by the energy weapon, now able to penetrate the protected hide. At first the robot simply rolled on, but it quickly ground to a stop.
"Victory to our remaining combatant!"
The screen went blank again.
"So what now Captain?" Satele asked.
He looked around the Bridge. "I am one to suggestions everyone, open floor."
Ziyal considered what she had seen and what she already knew. "The fights were revealing. The arena has been around for at least two thousand years, if not more. From what I'm reading, the Vulcan Science team who visited here three hundred years ago lost several of their team to the field. The arena broadcast several fights until every member of the team was dead. The science vessel wasn't able to crack it and so decided to cut their losses. They flagged it as a dangerous world, but a data migration two hundred years ago meant that it didn't come up in our initial searches. We've already collected more data about the world then the Vulcan science team did."
"The robots seem to be more designed for show then for actual combat effectiveness. Buzz Saws and flamethrowers are less effective, but more showy then the tech level that they are demonstrating. If they merely wanted to kill them, our team would already be dead. Hacking shouldn't work on a true autonomous combat robot, so it's there for show or the robots are not autonomous. This presents an attack surface we may be able to take advantage of. The armor appears to have highly effective energy dispersing techniques but is more vulnerable to physical attacks. I would therefore suggest any team that we send down be equipped with TR-116s. It's not standard, but we should have the replicator files. There are records of equipping it with a micro-transporter and exographic targeting sensors. I was unable to locate the designs, so we would have to redevelop them if we wanted to use them. It shouldn't be too difficult, but it would take time." Ziyal offered.
"Our first course of action should be to find a way through the shield, even if it's one way. If we can drop care packages to them, it will significantly increase their chances of survival. If the shield is absorbing our energy, then that energy must be going somewhere. If we can find out where it is going, we may be able to target that and cause an overload by destroying the link. We also need to prioritize finding a way to communicate with the team. There exists a possibility that the Arena provides a way for us to communicate with favorites so we will want to investigate that possibility. It may also provide us with a way to hack in and take control of the system. We will also want Lieutenant Hood to contact the Dalacari. If Val survives, she will need her help dealing with losing a bioform."
"We could," hazarded the comms officer, "try calling the stadium? Maybe they allow communications?"
"We are receiving a transmission. Maybe we can send a signal along the same bandwidth," Satele suggested.
"On screen." Elijah said looking the viewer.
"There is only a video feed out, sir," comms replied, "But..."
The screen lit up and a new set of figures were displayed. Scotty and Wescott appeared on the arena already running to cover.
A voice boomed over the arena, "Ladies and gentlemen, and other viewers. I present to you Combatants 1338547 Lieutenant junior grade Scot Kayne and 1338548, Lieutenant Commander Alec Wescott!"
The cheer went up and the same robot rolled slowly out to face the pair.
Ziyal considered for a moment, "Let's run a analysis on the cheers, see if they are real or are generated."
"The cheers are real. Recorded and processed for an infinite ambiance, but they are actual recorded cheers as opposed to a synthetic ambiance." Valeria mentioned from her station.
"Sir, I am getting an aduio response to our hail. Patching it through..."
"Hello, and thank you for contacting the greatest Show in the Universe. To talk to our Marketing team, press one. To apply for a position in the games, press 2. To send a message of support to your favourite competitors, press 3. For all other, or to talk to a Games Representative, Press 4. To hear these options again, press 5."
"Sir?" the comms officer looked confused.
"Alright then I guess we talk to a representative." Elijah commented as he looked at Comms. "We contact them directly and see who we are dealing with, I want all systems monitoring the games and the contact."
Valeria took a moment to speak up from working at her console. "Wait. Replay the last few moments of Seran's combat." and the last moments of the combat were replayed. "Again." and again, the last moments were aired. "Something's wrong." she walked up to the large front display and motioned to the surviving Dalacari bioform. "That's... not a standard response to the injury or death of one form."
"Something's amiss." she commented, puzzled at the display she saw before them.
"Yeah, she seemed a little - ... unbothered." Hel agreed. "From what you told us in your brief back then I would've expected a lot more of a reaction to losing a body." she mused. "About that force field, though. Do we know where it's emanating from? If the source is outside the field we can destroy the source and kill the field. Or if we knew the frequency the field operates at we could collapse it by sending an equal pulse with opposite modulation. Or we could simply try overloading the field - any artificially created field has an operating limit of what it can absorb."
Elijah nodded. "We could use the Ship." He said with a glance to the Master Display. "If we use the Victory to try and short circuit the city and their power junctions it may weaken the field enough to allow us formulate a rescue plan." He then input a command. "We shunt the power through our systems one by one."
"If we agitate the field while scanning for heat sources or increased energy output we might find whatever systems are powering the barrier." Valeria offered, "Though any offensive motion on our end will most likely be viewed as a threat by the ... representative." she used their word. "I recommend we send out a few more probes in a wide web scanning formation. In theory, we may only get one shot at this before there are repercussions to our trapped team."
"If this recent communication is originating from INSIDE the arena, then it may be on the carrier frequency we need to operate at." the rabbitess took a breath and collected her thoughts. "Step one, probe net. Step two, exploratory phaser barrage on the barrier. Step three, locate heat sources for possible power stations to the field. Knock out the power to knock out the field. Alternative, see if the carrier frequency for the broadcast changes when we assault the barrier. See if we can learn what frequency the field exactly harmonizes on, and then we can work to counter it." a pause, "Theoretically."
Hel almost imperceptibly licked her lips as Valeria talked geek at her. "Way ahead of you. Programming the probes now." Hel mused, pouring over her console, working to input the various navigation markers into a set of probes, setting them to scan the field in a net formation. "The phaser barrage should be low yield, wide beam, to disperse the energy over the field. Pressure the entire bubble, it's the safest way." she mused. "Probes programmed. Permission to launch, Captain?"
"Alright make it so." He said in agreement. "But we do it by the numbers, we probe first and try and find the frequency to the Shield grid, if we find it then we match the frequency and become part of the grid." He then motioned. "If that fails we stick to finding a source of the shield."
"And probes .... away!" Hel spoke as the stream of dots spewed forth from the ship, spreading out to form a scanning pattern over the field below. "Probes entering atmo. Setting up their approach run ... T-minus 15 until they're in position. All up to you now, Lieutenant."
OOC Bert: Remember that if getting past shields (either by finding a frequency or overloading them) were easy, they would be useless in battle. As for overloading the shield, they have the power system of an entire planet to contend with. not to mention that the primary power source is probably inside the shielded area.
The Probes began to collect the Data they required, hopefully they turned up something. But for the time being Elijah had them patch in and try and get hold of somebody to speak to.
"Hello, and thank you for contacting the greatest Show in the Universe. None of our Games Representatives are currently available. If you would like to remain in the cue, the current waiting time is 9,032 years. If you would rather our representative calls you back, you can end your call now, and we will use this frequency once one of our people become available for you. If you would like to send a message of support to your favourite competitor, please state their number and then a short message. To return to the main menu, press 5."
"9,032 years? That's a hell of a long wait indeed." The Captain responded out loud.
"I wonder what the time is to get a message to a contestant." Ziyal said.
"I can't even begin to imagine." Elijah shrugged.
"I wonder if there is a way for us to get in there as something other then contestants. Perhaps as a games representative. I wonder if there are any side channels offering jobs." Ziyal wondered.
"We can certainly see what happens if we try it." Elijah said as he directed the Bridge Crew.
There was a sudden commotion on the field. The robot began to rotate slowly and smoke started to pour between it's tracks. the Commentator jumped in.
"I am sorry to report, we appear to have a technical issue with our Opponent droid. Looks like the repair house has struggled to keep up with demand. As per the rules, without a fitting opponent, both combatants are automatically through to the next round. Disappointing, but the next fight, promises to make up for it."
With a flash both Stevens and Wescot were removed from the field.
----
"Captain according to the Combat log, both Commander Wescott and Lieutenant Stevens have been removed from the arena due to a fault with the Droid." The Communications Officer responded.
"Was it on their end or from our interference?" Elijah asked.
"Unknown, Sir, but we have a frequency we can lock into." The Officer relayed the information to the Captain.
"Valeria, Hel, can we patch in? Try and become part of the field and disrupt it?" He asked looking at the two Lieutenants.
"Eighty seconds to field synchronization. Tactical, prepare the lowest possible setting on the forward phaser array, and prepare the alter the harmonics of the array manually. I'll be giving you the frequency once I have it." Valeria commented, her glance all but glued to her console display.
The Captain then looked at Tactical. "Lieutenant Posey isn't it?" He asked the Junior Officer. "How quickly can you get a Team together if we are able to disrupt the field?"
Jordan looked up from his spot at tactical. "I can have a team together in ten minutes, fully outfitted for a direct assault."
"Captain!" The comms officer drew attention to the main viewer again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, and other viewers. I present to you Combatants 1338549 Lieutenant Sara'draphia T'eseri and 1338550, Commander Bertrand Cuprum!"
On the viewer Bertrand began to move, but at first it did not look like it was a tactical move, more a sort of dance step.
The Drone rolled out and was drawn by the movement.
"Is that... That's Bahadi!" the comms officer said in surprise. "It's... its a dance communication, similar to Earth Semaphore, or Capoeira. He's sending us a message."
The Robot fired a shot but Bert danced easily out of the way.
"Family or group... safety? Possibly we are safe?" The comms officer hazarded. "I am not very familiar with the form, or perhaps the Commander is a little rusty in its execution."
"Regardless, good job spotting that." Ziyal remarked.
Valeria didn't care much for Bertrand's dance routine. Not that she couldn't appreciate it, but her duty was more focused on the data from the probes. She looked over towards Jordan, "Lieutenant, lowest setting phaser array, continuous stream, target the primary structure. You'll be updating the harmonic frequency of the beam manually. Fire when ready."
"Aye sir, firing now."
Jordan tapped his panel, sending a deadly stream of phased energy downward. Even the lowest setting was usually enough to level a small building.
Seeing the drone chase after Bertrand, Sara threw out her hand is if to throw something at the drone, but nothing happened. Confused, she tried again and again nothing happened. Getting frustrated, Sara charged after the drone hoping to flank it.
Bertrand was moving in a wide arc to draw fire, but he seemed as confused as Sara by her failed attack. Suddenly he changed direction and moved towards the robot. A roll to the right to avoid the arc of energy then a step to the left as a wave of flame washed past, not quite fast enough though, as the flame seared the uniform of his exposed artificial hand.
With two sudden steps forward he leapt for the turret. Raising his right arm he punched the turret housing. The armour absorbed the blow easily, but the drone was now fully concentrating on Bert, leaving Sara to make the killing blow.
"Adjust the beam frequency to one six seven four point three." she requested, watching the console. Slowly... slowly...
"Monitoring probe feedback." Hel mused from her console. "Interesting readings. The field is homogeneous, seems to be fed very evenly too. I'm not su - " She didn't get to finish her sentence before her console sparked and blew, sending the woman careening backwards onto the floor paneling.
The console in front of Valeria gave one beep in warning before it sparked and popped, prompting the rabbitess to give a very unladylike squeak of surprise as she all but tossed herself away from the cascading electrical failure. An arm up to shield her eyes from the sudden flare up in intensity, while all around consoles were shorting out in a similar spectacular fashion.
Picking herself up off the deck, Valeria took a moment to regain her senses. "Power surge through the beam once we made optimal contact. Best theory, we became part of the planetary power grid." a pause from the rabbitess, "Imagine the class of power they're producing..."
"A single starship is gonna do jack shit against a type 1 Kardashev civilization." Hel muttered, pulling herself up off the ground. "Can't see crap. Ow. Everyone ok? Nobody hurt? I should try and get to main engineering."
"That's one hell of a kick," Jordan replied, waving smoke out of his face. He tapped a few commands into his station, which mostly beeped in an annoyed manner. "And right now phaser systems are completely down."
Elijah picked himself up off the Deck and went to help pick up Ensign Baxter. "I want a full damage Report." The Captain moved to the secondary Ops console. "We've lost power to all decks."
The Ship,was dead in the Water. They had taken the chance and it had backfired on them, right now they were focuses on getting the Ship back in order.
