Battle for the Bay (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 02 Aug 2012 @ 9:01am by Rachel Hardaway Ph.D. & Anthony Hardaway Ph.D. & Eric Anderson & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Lieutenant JG Brayden White Ph.D. & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Chief Petty Officer Lucalin Mrina Ph.D. & Justice Abernathy Ph.D. (MIA) & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Marek Pawlak (KIA) & Captain Jonathan Holliday
Edited on on 06 Aug 2012 @ 10:52am

3,469 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Cargo Bay #2
Timeline: MD07 - 2245 hrs

[ON]

=^=All hands this is the Bridge, secure your stations and prepare to repel boarding parties, repeat, prepare to repel boarding parties! =^=

Galileo's XO made his voice heard once again, it seemed that the situation had gone from bad to worse and there was now a sudden change in their combat situation. Of course the cargo bay was an obvious target for the Klingons - no doubt by now they had managed to ascertain that it was the most likely place for the Sienna materials to have been transferred on such a small ship.

Luckily, the earlier set up of transport inhibitors had been more than sufficient to prevent the Klingons from simply beaming the materials in their entirety out of storage, but they had still managed to help themselves to a few crew members, and strangely one who had chosen to go with them for some unknown reason.

Eric was standing, staring Anthony down following his proclamation. As the XO's voice echoed through the cargo bay a strike of fear went through him, "What do you want your concentration to be on now? Securing what we still have and repelling the intruders? Or hacking the system and trying to get back items which may allow more Klingons to board?"

The doctor switched tracks pretty quickly when he heard the announcement. Fortunately he still had his phaser on him. "Klingons first," Anthony told Eric, "transporters second."

Studying Anthony for one more moment, Eric nodded his head. "You've got the phaser, I suggest you either find a way to get Rachel on her feet or get her to a safe area with the other injured and give her phaser to a person who can stand with you and fire. I'm going to try secure what equipment I can, see if we can do something to try prevent them from taking more.

"We must repel them," Hardaway said decisively, a determined tone in his voice. He turned to look at Rachel and see how she was doing. As dangerous as this was, he always preferred to have her at his side.

Rachel was propped against the wall close to where she had fallen. The bleeding had slowed and the world had stopped its spinning. Her hand moved to the phaser that was sitting next to her. "I am fine... I can manage." She called out as she moved to stand near her husband.

Brayden couldn't feel his left hand. No, that wasn't entirely correct. It had been supporting Emma's head as she'd been absorbed in the transporter beam with the other scientist, and now it was... not his hand. It might have looked like it, but it certainly didn't belong to him. It was a stranger's hand, tingling and twitching. Temporary, he knew, but unnerving. He snapped his kit closed. "So we lock the cargo bay down," he said, nodding to the security officer.

Aria looked at him, nodding as she frowned, rolling her shoulders. "Yeah. Sure."

Brayden went to the next closest injured scientist and scanned him with the tricorder. "Injured towards the back of the cargo bay. Can you walk?" he asked the man he was scanning. Bumps and bruises and shock. There was more than enough shock to go around. "Right back there," he pointed towards a semi-protected area of the bay and hurried over to Carlisle's side. "How's he doing? Can we move him?"

Carlisle frowned, her lips in a thin grim line. Her mind swatted away the thought of Klingon boarding parties like so many annoying flies as her training focused her attention on her patient. "Yes, but we need to keep his head and neck immobilized. He also can't afford to lose any more nutrients."

Delainey could see no immediate signs of serious brain trauma, but she had bigger issues to contend with. Under the best of circumstances, Lucalin's body was fragile, and now that his nutrition pack was damaged, what was normally a frightening balancing act had now become a nightmare.

Lucalin tried to trill and wound up spitting a mouthful of frothy reddish goo down his chin. He could feel his insides beginning to tighten and twist, his muscles bunching with strain as they began to lose the abundance of nutrients that had been provided to them. He rubbed his lips together, fighting the foggy feeling in his head and the spreading strain of his body, but the fog won as he slumped in Carlisle's hold.

Delainey stifled a curse as she felt Luca go limp. On the one hand, she was grateful he'd found some respite from the pain, but on the other, she knew that wasn't a good sign. She scrambled to grab every hypo of electrolyte infusions she could get her hands on and administered them in hopes of stabilizing the man for the moment.

Lucalin gasped as the hypo sprays jerked him back to consciousness. The sounds in the room swarmed his awareness and it took him a moment to sort through them. Too much panic, too many heartbeats, and the pounding of boots on the corridor. He lifted his hand and touched her face, humming through closed lips. "Not safe," he said roughly. "Coming," he pointed weakly towards the closed door.

"They sure are," Brayden said, trying to maintain at least a facade of calm while he was pulling an inflatable neck cuff from the emergency kit and securing it around the officer's neck. "You just stick around with us; otherwise, you'll miss the show." He looked around and caught sight of a grav lift, hurrying away and bringing it back with him. "Let's load him on and get him behind cover. Do you have a phaser?"

Delainey nodded and pointed to it, set far away from the rest of her medical tools but still in reach. She bit back a nervous comment about not shooting since the Academy and instead offered. "I'll get his legs if you get his head?"

"On three," Brayden agreed, crossing around to cradle Lucalin's head. When they were both in place, he met Delainey's eyes. "One, two..." They lifted the officer onto the grav lift and began to steer him towards the back of the cargo bay. Brayden had been in plenty of tough spots before. Hurricanes and freezing winds and ninety foot swells. No one had ever shot at him before. Especially not when he was trapped in a room with no means of escape. He felt energized, his heart beat rapid, and knew that was adrenaline activating in the face of the fear. Good feelings. Bloody terrible situation. He kept it to himself.

Delainey exhaled a stream of breath as she gently helped to lift and lay Lucalin on the stretcher. "Thanks," she replied reflexively.
Politeness wasn't bad, it just seemed the least of their worries.

Anthony looked at Aria, frowning. He had yet to see her move. "Well?" he snapped at her, "Get the cargo bay locked down. Do your... security thing." He really had no clue what Starfleet security did on this ship; so far, nothing that he had seen. "Eric, get the information node with Sienna's files and bring it to me. I would rather start from scratch than let our research be taken." He and his wife knew how to succeed now, even if they had to start over completely, it would not take the years it had.

Aria shot her eyes to Anthony, her own dark. "Hey! I am not your bloody dog or your slave! You talk to me with some respect," she snapped back, moving to the control panel. Okay. Basic engineering, right. Get the doors down. She bit her lip and punched in her codes. "Or else I can always grab the other damned ear..." she muttered under her breath as the doors slid shut.

Trying to block out everything around him, Eric spared a quick glance towards Lucalin to reassure himself the crewman was being looked after. He was still trying to comprehend everything that was happening, why had Justice and Emma disappeared like that? Was there something more going on? Heading towards the nearest LCARS terminal, he brought up all the data on Sienna and started to upload it into a data node he'd found thrown to the floor.

The sound of disruptor fire could be heard emanating through the corridors of the Galileo as the intruders made their way towards their objective. With the aim of securing the Cargo Bay square in their sights, they were unlikely to be stopped any time soon.

Although the doors to the bay had been placed in lockdown mode, they were still only duranium, and would eventually surrender to the hail of disruptor fire as the Klingons began unleashing their weapons upon the metal. It would only be a matter of time before they broke through, and the real fight began...

Hearing the noises against the door, Eric started to hear his heart beating loud in his ears as the complete reality of the situation started to hit him. The sound of the continuous fire hitting the only means of protecting them from the danger on the other side. Looking back over his shoulder, he still saw wounded strewn about the floor, "GET THE WOUNDED TO SAFETY NOW!!!" Getting everyone he could to listen to him, he saw the upload was only 52% done and stepped away to start dragging people to the area sectioned off.

Anthony seemed in no hurry to abandon the project to aid a few expendable individuals. Besides, Lucalin was the only injured one not capable of moving himself, as far as Anthony could see, and Eric seemed so enamored with the odd scientist's safety that no doubt he would be able to carry him behind a crate without assistance. "We'll get the files," he said to Rachel, "then one of us will escape through the Jefferies tubes." He gestured with his phaser for his wife to follow. "Find cover!" he called to the others as he hurried to where the data node was downloading and crouched down behind a crate of lab equipment and waited for the Klingons.

As the pounding on the doors grew louder, Eric spotted Anthony heading for the data node. He should have guessed that the guy was completely and utterly selfish. No matter the importance of the research, it in no possible way superceeded the importance of these people and their lives. Wrapping his arm around the waist of a crying woman, her leg limp below the knee, Eric started to half walk, half drag her to safety.

Anthony frowned when he saw Eric. Did he not understand how important it was to save Project Sienna? A few lives were a sacrifice he was sure even the victims would give if they knew what this meant to the Federation. Sometimes he wondered if he was not better off serving a government that had more appreciation for his work, that was not so obsessed with its precious ideals as to allow their progress to stagnate. But Anthony was nothing if not an elitist, and what he did he did for humanity, and seeing as humanity was a part of the Federation...

Brayden hunched down at the back of the cargo bay, running tricorder scans on the assembled injured, with occassional nervous glances towards the cargo bay doors as they were battered. "What happens when they get in?" he asked Delainey in a whisper.

"We do whatever we can to protect our people," Delainey said, not looking at White and focusing her attention on stopping the bleeding on an officer's deep cut. Lucalin was stable for now and she had only her duty to focus on. She was scared to death and belatedly realized it wasn't fair to avoid reassuring Brayden, no matter how focused she had to remain for her own sanity. "I just got here. I'm not going to lose you."

"Same here," Brayden told her with a quick reassuring smile. It was so much easier to be brave for others than it was to be brave for himself. He peered over their meager barricade towards the cargo bay doors.

Then suddenly the firing in the other side of the doors just stopped; it was a moment that felt like a millennia. Shouts in Federation Standard and Klingon exploded in the corridor like grenades, along with a whole new eruption of phaser fire away from the doors.

=^=Rice, this is Pawlak. I have weapons. I am coming to you. Can you manage a two foot opening in the cargo bay doors on my mark?=^=

=^=Yeah...I can=^= Aria frowned as she bit her lip, to adjust the settings so it would only open two foot. Weapons. She could do with some weapons. She waited to hear from him.

Hearing the change in the fighting outside of the doors, Eric paused from where he was helping a petty officer limp into the make shift medical area. Frowning as he heard the voices he figured that they had better take advantage of the respite. Moving the patient quicker he looked back at Anthony, "How is the download coming along?"

Anthony tapped the side of his phaser against his palm as he watched the cargo bay doors, only glancing at the download for a moment. "It will be finished before the Klingons arrive," he said in a low voice, "Rachel and I will take care of it..." the doctor's cold eyes flicked to the back of the cargo bay, where the delicate propulsion core sat in its stasis field, then just as quickly returned to the door. His phaser smacked gently against his palm once more.

Diverting his attention back to the injured, Eric crouched down at the side of the guy from sickbay who seemed to be in control, "Can I do anything to help?"

Brayden sat back on his heels and looked at the scientist, keeping his voice low and steady. "We've handled most of what we can from here. A couple of these people really could do with Sickbay, but they're stable for now. The calmer everyone stays until we're out of here, the better we're going to be. How are you doing?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Eric took another look around the cargo bay, trying to identify if there was any further casulities. "I'm fine. Just worried about these people and this equipment. Despite the importance of this project, it isn't worth the lives being lost for it."

Delainey bit her lip. She happened to agree with the sentiment, but to voice that aloud would be inappropriate. She was a Starfleet Officer and she was sworn to follow orders.

In the corridor, Marek nodded to Ruktah and Smoak. All three of them were wearing gas masks and armor from the armory. On the third count, Marek rolled two sedative canisters down the hall towards the seven Klingons who had been trying to break into the cargo bay. After the bridge and engineering, the cargo bay was one of the most sensitive areas on the ship right now. The mission was at stake if anything happened to the scientists or equipment in that bay and that was the most important thing. As the Klingons charged down the corridor towards them, the three security officers drew their fire, backing up and waiting for the sedatives to take affect. They were slow, slower than they should have been, slow enough to allow the intruders to close in and do what they were best at.

Marek grunted as he threw himself out of the way of a swinging bat'leth, hitting the wall of the corridor full force. The battle that ensued was fierce and bloody, but between Smoak's aim, Ruktah's ferocity, and Marek's common sense, the Klingons were eventually bested, unconscious on the floor of the corridor. "Keep an eye on them," he told Ruktah, stepping over a body on his way to the cargo bay doors. "Smoak-"

"Eyes on the corridors," the Petty Officer nodded quickly. "I'm way ahead of you, AC."

Marek watched the spry sharp-shooter hurry off to check the corridors again and tapped his com badge. =^=Open up, Rice. You're clear for the moment.=^=

Rice let out a breath and punched the code in, the hatch opening just as expected and only two feet...she stayed ready to lower it as soon as the others were inside.

As Anthony saw Rice open the door, he turned his gaze to look at the newcomers. "How many Klingons are converging on the cargo bay?" he asked them.

"None just now," Marek told the scientist, as he slipped through the narrow gap in the doorway. He saw the medical officers towards the back of the cargo bay circulating. "We've cleared the floor; we need to move all personnel away from the cargo bays and into mandatory congregation zones. How many people need to move to Sickbay?"

"Not too many," Delainey replied. "Brayden and I will see to the Petty Officer as he appears to be the most severely wounded. Everyone else should be well enough to be tended to elsewhere."

Marek nodded, "Good. Smoak will go with you. Ruktah and I will take the rest of you to the mess hall, where you'll wait for further instructions. The cargo bay will be sealed off completely, no access, full lockdown, as follows top secret security procedures."

"No," Anthony said, stepping forward. "Project Sienna is our top priority. We cannot afford to let it fall into Klingon hands. We must stay here and defend. It is more defensible than a mess hall and has transport inhibitors in place." The doctor spared a glance towards the console. The files would be completed soon. "I need two comm badges."

"Let me guess...the word 'please' isn't in your vocabulary?" Rice said and looked around, nodding. "Alright. We can produce two comm badges..."

Marek's eyes flicked momentarily to Rice, before returning to Hardaway with intensity. The Ensign was trying her best, but now wasn't the time to worry about ruffling feathers. They were all in danger, and endangering the Sienna Project just by being there. "With all due respect, doctor, this is not a negotiation. You will proceed directly to the mess hall. The sooner all of you are out of here, the sooner we can guarantee the cargo bay's safety. Emergency protocols will allow us to secure the bay to a drastically higher percentage without additional personnel inside. That means you." He pointed to the doors. "Single line, organized, stay behind Ruktah, and we'll get you all where you need to be." He met Anthony's gaze and recognized the stubborn streak in them, "Your specialty was building this thing. Mine is protecting - people and areas of this ship specifically. You let me do my job and I'll make sure you have one to come back to."

Helping transport the patients, Eric knew that Anthony would grab the key with the information transfer contained on it. As he heard Marek's words, he paused in his steps, balancing the patients against his arm. "Anthony stopping being so stupid. If you care so much for this project than consider this. If we loose both you and the equipment we will have lost everything. This way at least you and Rachel are safe and we can rebuild."

Marek did not have any idea just how stubborn Doctor Anthony Hardaway could be. He eyed the man right back, looking him up and down, just like he would perform a scan with a tricorder, analyzing the man. "I do not intend to remain here," he told them both, "You must take the rest of the team, but in order to ensure the Klingons have no access to myself, my wife, or Sienna, you must allow me to do as I must. Now, the comm badges, if you please." He held out his hand expectantly.

Aria looked at Marek, her blue eyes doubtful. She watched them before touching her own, fingering it almost distractedly. "Mission comes first," she said quietly. "And our mission is to protect project Sienna. It was the briefing I got, Sir."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Lt Cmdr Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

Rachel Hardaway, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Tarishiana Barel

Anthony Hardaway, Ph.D.
Lead Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Chauncey Remington III

Justice Abernathy Ph.D.
Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Lilou Peers

Eric Anderson
Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Pola Ni Dhuinn

Ensign Aria Rice
Security
USS Galileo

MWO Marek Pawlak
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Galileo

CPO Lucalin Mrina
Bioengineer
USS Galileo

Additional Klingon NPC's
played by Holliday

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