Rescue Plan (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 25 Oct 2013 @ 11:25am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh & Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Alexander Iella & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Riley Cameron & Chief Petty Officer K8 Yellow & Petty Officer 1st Class Rhyan Davies

2,470 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1, Conference Room
Timeline: MD 06 - 1150 hrs

Previously, on Rescue Plan (Part 1)...

Pausing, Asahi folded his arms against his chest. "Without knowing exactly what technology this race is using to control the Borg, of all things, we can't exactly underestimate-or overestimate-what they're capable of. But there isn't much time to speculate about it..." At this point, he was more talking himself through the situation. The solution would pop up. "... But they do have to be transmitting something in order to control the Borg and know what the Borg are doing. So, if we could get into that and fiddle with it so that they don't think anything's wrong with the Borg while we're snooping about, it would at least buy us some time to get in and out of there."

The captain raised her eyebrows at the gold-collared man and tilted her head to the side with curiosity. "And how do we make that happen?" she asked, her eyes glancing across the assembled staff in front of her. Right now she wasn't interested in obstacles or roadblocks, she was only concerned with solutions.

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

Alex rubbed his chin as he thought about the captain's question. "Ultra High Band subspace. It's the only answer as to how they could control them. It allows for vast amounts of data transfer at high speeds and distance. The only problem is, last I recall the only subspace antenna we have capable of getting to a frequency high enough to see it is on Vulcan at the science institute. It might be possible to flood the high bands with noise though, distort there connect and make it look like regular noise."

Sabotage, now they were speaking Rhyan's language. Though she, as a rule, tried to avoid notice by the commanding officers of any ship she found herself a part of, even when they were buxom green ladies like the Galileo's Captain, Rhyan had to speak up.

"The hive mind of the Borg nanoprobes has always been impenetrable to our technology," Rhyan tried to speak loud enough so the entire group could hear, but even so, those on the other side would likely have to strain to hear her soft-spoken words. "But, we have seen a society who have cracked that code. Therefore, we know these Borg, at least, have one or more back doors to infiltrate their systems... but, more importantly, every good hacker has a failsafe in case things go wrong. What if, all we have to do is trigger the L'ekt," here, Rhyan stumbled over the unfamiliar word for the pale alien, "failsafe for their Borg? That would create a distraction and allow for the rescue of the prisoners."

"Woah woah woah!" Cameron called out above the hubbub that was forming in the room. Like one of his instructors at the academy had said - bring six engineers in a room and you'll get 8 different opinions. The Scot thankfully wasn't known for holding his tongue, and was more than happy to shout out.

"Ladies and Gents, not to upset everyone but we really don't have the time to be developing a plan to shut down every drone in this wee sector! We're here tae get our people back and that's the lot - if we start dicking about with whatever method those people are using to control the Borg the first thing we'll know about it is a half dozen torpedoes hitting our warp core - it's not at all pretty!"

Cameron felt a little energetic at this moment, it was true that there was no shortage of ideas, but similarly there was no shortage of risk.

"Let's just go in, get our people, and get out without these bald-heeded numpties blowin' us out of the sky!"

"... Not quite sure what a numpty is... but the warrant officer does sort of have a point." Asahi wasn't sure what to make of the suggestions on the table. He probably should have kept his own mouth shut, but sometimes he couldn't resist. It just didn't help that waves and frequencies weren't exactly his own specialty. He made sure to make a note of Rhyan's face before continuing on his thought. Even if they weren't going to use the plan, she had an interesting mindset, and he'd definitely like to listen to her perspective. "We don't want to piss 'em off in any sense... But we do also need to have something on the backburner in case something goes awry." He shook his head. "Precautions, but things we may not have time for right away." He had to focus. Too many ideas springing around at once was going to distract him.

Alex shook his head, "Exactly why I suggested the high band subspace. If we can identify the right band, which we can do if we can modify the subspace antenna correctly, which i think we can. Then all we have to do is flood the band and make it look like interference. They shouldn't suspect a thing."

Listening to the multitude of ideas and suggestions being presented, Lirha finally spoke up to the group. "I appreciate the enthusiasm, but Mister Cameron is correct. The last thing we want is for whatever hold these aliens have on the Borg to disappear, which would revert them into a far more dangerous opponent. We will proceed with implementing the technology in Commander Holliday's schematics," she decided with finality, "Along with the high-band modulation." she looked at Iella.

"I want it ready within the hour, as well as the microprobe device. Unfortunately I do not believe we have time to create a backup plan, which means we will get one chance at this. Make it count."

"Aye cap'n we'll have something ready tae bash these wee beasties with in no time." Cameron replied before burying his nose back into the schematics.

Outwardly, Rhyan wilted under the pressures of the male officers in the room. Inwardly, she was scowling and reminding herself why she was much better off working alone. Brainstorming sessions with non-engineers at the head rarely resulted in anything productive. She did, however, make note of the man from the Venture. He seemed to have the more level headed mindset of the group. If no one wanted to listen to her simple idea, then she would pray this Holliday knew more about Borg schematics than what got him assimilated in the first place.

Asahi nodded, merely returning to his PADD to pull up schematics. Boy was this engineering crew going to be a hoot. He would have needed a hearing aid to hear one and subtitles to understand another. What exactly did he get himself into?

"I'll need some help, but i think we can get the sensors modified in time." Alex replied with a nod.

The Orion captain turned towards the medical personnel currently at the table and looked at both of them. "Once we have located our assimilated crew members, how do we subdue them without harming them? Are there any tranquilizing agents at our disposal which would be effective against drones?" she asked.

Alexion frowned as he thought it over. He had watched the Engineers sling the ideas back and forward until he was dizzy. He had virtually shut off, not really hearing what they were all saying after a while. He'd been at Wolf 359. He wasn't fond of the idea of playing around with the Borg. "None that I know of. I can try and find an effective sedative, but they've adapted to virtually everything that's been thrown at them in the past, in the same way they can heal and repair themselves with little difficulty."

Alexion paused, shaking his head. "I will try and find something, probably a mix. But it is not just that. If we're going to retrieve our personnel, we need to find a way to find each one of them on the cube and get them back here. We lost a number of our own people, there could be many more from Venture. More than we can physically handle, so the physical aspect of getting them back to Galileo will be key. We need some kind of transporter action on each felled Borg drone we recover."

Lirha closed her fatigued eyes and rubbed them, then silently nodded. "That will have to suffice. You have one hour to produce a sedative, or else our plan will fail." she gave the warrant officer the deadline and the repercussions.

Opening her eyes, she addressed the second part of the man's concerns. "I am sure our engineers and transporter chief can come up with a viable plan to mask our transporter signatures. We can adapt use the cargo transporters to accommodate a larger compliment, if need be."

Cameron resurfaced from his PADD for a just a moment to utter one sentence before disappearing back into circuit diagrams and material analyses.

"If I remember correctly the Borg employ a multispectral internal security grid, it's good, but there's a cycle reset every 13.4 seconds - it only lasts a few tenths of a second, but if we timed the transporters to engage during that reset, they'd be blind to it."

Dea felt like a complete idiot for opening her mouth at all. After her initial comments she remained silent yet the conversation around her didn't make the situation any easier it only made matters worse because she knew Lirha was right, in this case they didn't have time working for them. As things were Dea knew they were all on edge with the current situation but they had to keep it together for their crew mates.

Kate wiggled her antennae. "It should not be a problem to time click! a transport to correlate to the fluctuations in the Borg click! grid," she said after some thought. "But we would l believe that beaming off the cube click! will be significantly more difficult. We would click! need to erect a dampening field in our cargo bay to prevent the Borg click! from detecting the beam out. And we would click! have to mask our signal with a radiation feedback dispersal."

Cameron nodded in agreement.

"Simple enough - we can align the transporters with the main deflector, put out a dispersal field that should make the transporter signature look like a few errant tetryon particles - they're common in this nebula anyway so the Borg shouldn't care."

Fighting back a wave of nausea which suddenly washed over her, Lirha wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and swallowed a lump in her throat. It was becoming obvious she did not feel well and was not exactly fit to be back on duty, but her stubbornness and emotional distress was forcing her to keep going.

"Very well, make it so." she replied to Cameron with shaky eyes, then turned towards Dea. "Assemble our teams in our transporter rooms and be ready to depart by 1220." Her legs felt weak and she leaned on the wall for support, reaching out and holding the side of the LCARS monitor for support.

"Understood Ma'am," Dea responded looking concerned. Quickly moving closer to her Commanding Officer with an outstretched hand. "You look like you could use some help."

Lirha looked into Dea's eyes with a knowing look but tried to put on her best commanding officer appearance. She didn't want to appear weak in front of her crew, especially if they were about to undertake a highly-dangerous away mission. "That is all then. Dismissed." she said to the assembled members, then held Dea's eyes as everyone began to file out and prepare for the mission.

Dea nodded briefly to Lirha as if responding to an order while she watched the others leave. No matter what she wouldn't leave Lirha alone, at least for now. But Mialin also understood the need to keep things very low key.

Well this left Asahi a bit shaken, and definitely a little less sure of himself. Was Cameron going to be in charge of the engineering bits? That sounded like such a novice question for him to ask, even to himself. All the 'pips' were in his direction, but he had very little idea of what to do past the mission. No, he needed to focus. Focus on the mission ahead. There were decoys that needed to be made. He would have had to take charge at some point, especially with his chief off on another task and his assistant chief... elsewhere.

"Yes'm." He nodded briefly, gathering both courage and PADD, before quickly exiting the room. If he was any charge he needed to be taking, he would do it elsewhere, after he had a talk with the other engineers.

Alexion strode out quickly, his long legs making a fast pace towards Sickbay; he'd been given the impossible to do, find a sedative that would work against the adaptive Borg, and an impossible time in which to do it. He frowned, running his hand down over his face as he let out a long, tight breath.

Once everyone except Dea had departed the room, Lirha let out a painful sigh as her knees finally gave out and she sunk down to the floor in obvious distress. She squinted her eyes shut and tried to repress the multitude of Borg voices which began to persistently echo throughout her head despite her cured assimilation in sickbay almost two days ago.

Carefully Dea leaned down to help Lirha off the floor. "Let me walk you back to your quarters. Its better than the alternative of someone else finding you and putting in an emergency call to medical. None of us likes to feel vulnerable so this will stay between us."

Lirha didn't respond because she despite her best efforts, she simply couldn't. The multitude of collective voices swarming through her brain had interrupted her speech processes but she was still conscious of her surroundings as well as the assistance her CFCO was giving her. Leaning on Dea and putting a weak arm around her waist, Lirha rested her head on her shoulder and closed her eyes, allowing her to take her back to her quarters.

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

WO Riley Cameron
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
pNPC John Holliday

LT. JR Grade Asahi Kita
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

ENS S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh
Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

CPO K8 Yellow
Transporter Chief
USS Galileo
[NPC - T'Srrr'Kharh]

WO Alexion Wylde
Doctor
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Scarlet Blake]

Alexander Iella
Chef and Engineer
USS Galileo

LT Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

PO1 Rhyan Davies
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
PNPC Jacrux

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