The Enemy (Part 7 of 8)

Posted on 18 Sep 2013 @ 8:56pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Scarlet Blake & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Lieutenant Ammar Fahad & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas & Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley & Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Lieutenant JG Jacrux & Ensign Ariadne Fleming & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Tarishiana Barel & Alexander Iella & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov & Petty Officer 1st Class Victarion Jaqen & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petty Officer 1st Class Siren Hex Saalm & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Amon Mormont

2,049 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Main Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 03 - 0210 hrs

Previously, on The Enemy (Part 6)...

Allydnra's eyes fluttered open. The extra rush of air into the somewhat depleted Cargo Bay helped that. Her back hurt, but her lungs hurt more.
She nodded but croaked out, "The other patients outside the Bay are they alright? I tried to make sure enough hypos..."

"Everyone is on the move, the ship isn't secure," he replied with a level voice, frowning as he assessed the damage. "You need to concentrate on yourself now, yes?" he readied the hypo to knock her out. "We need you well to put the rest of the ship right," he flashed a small smile.

Allyndra wanted to protest but the drugs coursing through did not allow her to say anything more.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Deck 3 Corridor

Lilou clamored out of the Jeffries just as the emergency shields were dropping into place. A few seconds later, she'd have been trapped in the tubes until someone thought to let her out. And with the way her comm seemed to be on the fritz, that seemed like a really bad idea. Communications being down was not a good thing. Not at a time like this. She didn't know if it was system wide or if the initial shock from grabbing hold of the shield modulator had fried her comm's circuitry. Anything seemed possible. And the Borg of all things. They were in her dreams most nights, though she'd never actually seem them up close. Images. Holographic simulations. How many sweat-drenched hours had she spent fighting them, running and shooting and trying to blast them out into the inky black? Now, though it bore no logical sense, she felt as though she'd somehow summoned them. By trying to fight one of her many fears, she'd brought it right down onto her head. Of course, she hadn't. This was just something terrible that had happened, randomly and chaotically, on the heels of other terrible things. Yet more would follow she was sure.

She accessed the turbolift, but asking it to take her to Deck 7 only resulted in her being deposited on Deck 5. Here, the lights flickered and she could hear the sounds of muffled screaming down the corridor. Hurrying towards the sound, she readied her phaser and turned the corner towards the teeth-gritting sound of metal being sawed through. Two drones were actively trying to cut through a storage door. By the sounds coming from behind it, several crewmen had locked themselves away inside of that storage room for protection. Lilou bit her lip and fired straight at one of their heads.

The blast ripped off a cybernetic implant around the drone's eye and ear, but otherwise left it unharmed. She changed the setting and fired again, this time burning a hole in its cheek, but the drone didn't seem to be going down. It did, however, turn to notice her and left the door behind to seek out more accessible humanoid life-forms.

"Damn it," Lilou muttered, then, "That's right. Come and get me, you massive bag of parts!" She fired again, then again, backing away, but not running. Like ships on a tractor beam, they kept coming. She wasn't sure where she was leading them yet, but as long as it was away from the door they'd almost broken through, then that was something. Right? It had to be. She changed the phaser setting again, and fired again. This time the blast ripped through the eye of one of the drones and downed it, but the other was still coming and now it had erected some kind of green shield dampener to prevent the blasts from getting through. She began to fire at loose wiring and panels, trying to disengage them to fall onto the oncoming drone. Her aim was good, but the ship was too well constructed and parts wouldn't just collapse the way she needed them to. "You were much more accommodating in the holodeck," she grumbled. "Plan B. Run." She spun to take off, and ran headlong into three drones. Her arms were grasped, tubules tore through the flesh of her neck, and darkness tinged with the Borg's transporter beam enveloped her.


Bridge

Lirha felt her individuality slipping away as each second ticked by. Millions of collective voices all began speaking at once to her in her mind, and she realized it would only be a matter of seconds before she lost control of herself to the Borg machines which were now inside of her. She managed to whisper a final command, one which she hoped would bring an end to her enslavement and the present and future servitude of all of her crew.

"...Computer....begin...auto-destruct sequence....authorization.....Saalm.....five-one-alpha-beta...." she weakly whispered.

Quinn tapped his badge. =^=Quinn to Bridge! The relay sequence has been altered to reflect the current power draw. We should have Shields and Warp power. It won't last long, but we may have enough for at least a micro jump, say, two or three light-years? Or..we will explode from the over draw and we destroy everything within a million kilometers! Either way, we have a chance at least!=^=

=^= Blake here, I'm in command now. Do it, =^= Blake called through to Quinn, taking a breath as she looked around the bridge, standing up from the Captain.

=^=Affirmative! Here we go!=^=

Moving away to get the medkit out of the wall, Scarlet started shouting over the bridge. "Rice! Get this bridge secure! Bridge crew, if you're not security and don't have a rifle get back on your stations! I need you at your posts to keep this ship together!"

Victoria made her way to her station slowly, surveying the damage to the ship as she went. There were crew members draped all over the place like throw blankets and they were all moaning in pain from their injuries. The bridge itself was a mess; it wasn't going to be fun getting this all cleaned up and repaired. She shook her head and sat down at the battered, barely-working console, a steady stream of colorful profanities flitting through her head.

The Captain was down, but it was only now Jac noticed the XO missing as well. That left Scarlet in charge, and the rest of the Bridge was at least as decimated as the command staff. How were they going to get out of this?

He touched the cut on his head, reopened by the fight. Maybe something had gotten knocked loose. Jac felt torn, there was no other word for it. Like he was hanging over multiple cliffs at the same time and wasn't sure over which he was going to fall. It was disconcerting, but a useless feeling.

Rifle, Blake mentioned a rifle. Jac glanced at the remains of the one he'd snatched on his way in and barked a short burst of laughter. That had turned out well. Instead, Jac scooped up a phaser discarded from another crew member. From the looks of it, the prior owner was in no shape to make use of it. Only after he was armed did Jac stumble to his console, but it was in ruins, too scorched to be of use. Instead he went to Jared's, attempting to reboot the damaged system.

"Crawley," the roughness of his voice surprised him, so the half breed cleared his throat before continuing, "Is yours working? Mine's fried, this one barely works." He scowled, smashing a hanging and twisted bit of panelling away in annoyance with his remaining hand, his prosthetic arm destroyed with the invading Borg.

Victoria swore loudly as the console hissed and sparked. "No," she half-growled. "I take it yours isn't either?" The console hissed again and this time a shower of sparks erupted from it, sending Victoria, yet again, to the floor in an ungainly heap. "Go ndana an diabhal drimire de cnmh do dhroma ag piocadh ll i ngairdn Ifrinn!" she shouted, very loudly at the console.

A sharp shriek punctured the air of the Bridge, and a ball of fur came crashing down from the ceiling: S'Ranna, landing on her paws, predictably enough. She shook off the debris, seemingly more disturbed at getting her fur dirty than at almost getting assimilated. She sidestepped the dead drone and returned to the thankfully undamaged navigational station.

"Setting courrrse, maximum escape velocity!"

Jacob looked deep into Mor'an eyes for a moment, they had somehow survived and he gave her a look as if to say, "I want you to know how I feel about you." Then quickly raced back to his station. "Commander Blake, we need to get to the center of that nebula where the Borg would certainly not want to follow as the high levels of magnetic and quantum particles would most likely play havoc with their mechanisms and their link to each other." He didn't even realize that he was tearing up. The Borg had assimilated his Captain, taken his Commander, gotten a hold of Jared and who knows how many of his fellow crewmates..

"We're going to try a jump away," Scarlet crouched down and got the heaviest sedative in the medkit, holding Lirha's face. "I'm going to knock you out. Next time you open your eyes, you are going to be staring up at one of our ridiculously good looking Sickbay staff, you hear me?" she smiled at her, squeezing her hand. "Just you wait, you'll be sick of the sight of Kohl," she pressed the hypo to Lirha's neck.

The Orion's body convulsed as nanoprobes continued to violate and manipulate every aspect of her insides. Her skin began to turn from bright olive to a sickly grey color, and she barely recognized the image of Scarlet in front of her. The multitude of voices in her head sucked her away from reality, but she just managed to make out her 2XO's words. "...Protect....the crew....." her eyes fluttered closed and she lost consciousness.

Scarlet's breath caught at the words and her smile faded as soon as the Captain was under. Protect the crew. She wondered if that included giving the second authorisation required to blow the ship if they didn't get out of this.


Engineering

Ammar had dropped his torch only a few seconds earlier. He noted a one-handed Quinn at another console. "Do it, Chief." Fahad's fingers tapped controls quickly, trying to moderate any problems that there were.

The warp core pulsed and thrummed with power, ramping up for a no-holds-barred jump. It sounded almost as if the whole ship groaned as it started to move, the kick start sounding through the systems, the wounded ship complaining at the last effort asked of her.

Before the engines could make the final jump that would have led them to safety, a violent shake of the ship tore the last hope away as a deadly green bolt of fire connected directly with the port nacelle. It didn't stand a chance after the ship's battering and was crippled and crumpled with explosions, with another spectacular jolt of the ship.

Willis was manning the MSD and had finished entering the final command to activate their escape plan when the blast hit, sending the young man toppling over the Pool Table and head first in to a girder.

Quinn was wrestling with a voice that entered his head as his body went flying over the railing and was stuck dangling as his only available hand was clinching the railing with all his might. He witnessed his friend flying across the room while the voice of his Imzadi was screaming for his help as she was being assimilated. Quinn's eyes filled with tear and hatred coursed his very soul. He let loose a primal scream that surely would be heard through the quietness of space...."NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

Ammar was thrown away from the console he was standing at. He hit the floor. Hard. He gasped breathlessly and rolled to his side, desperately trying to refill his lungs with air. He shuddered as he took a heaving breath, and another. He rolled to his knees, tears streaming down into the stubble on his cheeks.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

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