Remnants (Part 5 of 5)

Posted on 28 Oct 2016 @ 10:22pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Amaranai Franklin
Edited on on 02 Nov 2016 @ 12:31am

2,820 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 12 - Recluse
Location: Shuttlecraft Virginia/Paulson Nebula
Timeline: MD 03 - 0040 hrs

Previously, on Remnants (Part 4)...

"We also have one other little current secret. Tuula saved her pet tribbles. She has put them into the air shaft. Now I figure it will be at least a day or more before the suppressant will wear off but if they survive and find a food source." Allyndra shrugged. "Well Klingons and Tribbles do not mix well and my guess is that they will in several more days be more busy dealing with a tribble infestation and thus less time to be watching us. Between the tribbles and the possibility of making them deathly sick I think our odds in a few more days will vastly improve."

Greg smiled: "Well that sounds like a good pla...wait. Are those things going to spill into and overcrowd this already crowded cell? Because I am extremely claustrophobic."

"My guess is that the Klingons might be a little more aggressive in their techniques but," Allyndra again showed those sharp teeth. "Tribbles love wiring cover and most likely will consume enough to short out the control to the brig force fields. We just have to have a bit of patience."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Virginia NCC-80010/3 - Somewhere in the Paulson Nebula

Luke woke with a started expression, he had grown exhausted after the battle with the Klingons, his wounds didn't help and despite his best efforts he finally succumbed to sleep. Though he knew he was only asleep for a few minutes he turned to Amaranai and asked "How long was I out?"

Though Amaranai was in a lot of pain, she didn't want to sleep. Their comrades were out there - somewhere - and they had to do something. Wyatt seemed more than tired and Amaranai was glad that he was able to sleep, even if it was a few minutes.

"Maybe ten minutes," she said. "Chrono is off, like everything else."

She looked out the viewport.

"Ship's probably gone by now," she said matter-of-factly. "I wonder how many got off?"

Luke sighed as he joined her looking out into the nebula, "I don't know. But what I do know is that almost all the escape pods were ejected which means a lot made it off the ship"

"Do you think the Klingons would kill them?" she asked after a moment. "Or would they try to hold them hostage?"

He shrugged "I don't believe so, the Klingons don't see killing prisoners as hounrable if anything they will be held if randsome or a trade of prisoners." He came away from the view and began looking at what was in the shuttle. "But before then we'll have rescued them, don't feel bad about leaving them because were getting them back" he too said as a matter of fact.

Lieutenant Commander Wyatt's words were enough to shake the concern out her. Well, not concern, but worry. Amaranai had only just become a member of the crew and now that crew was in danger. She thought back to all of her training, all of studies and all of her missions. When she worried, nothing happened. She had to do something and it seemed as if Commander Wyatt wanted to do the same.

"Okay, sir," she said as she turned around to face him. "We have a shuttle and presumeably no backup for now. What's your plan?"

He turned around holding a box. "Well first we need to send an encrypted message to Starfleet and tell them what has happened and where we are but without letting the Klingons know. Secondly we need to find a way onto one of the Klingons ships and then were figure out out from there. Any Suggestions?" He asked opening the box its content of phaser rifle packs spilling onto the seat.

"Perfect," she thought for a moment and then looked to the commander.

"We could send a low-level communication to somewhere outside of the nebula. If there's anyone out there we might find an ally to send a message to Starfleet with certain code words to let them know it's a valid message."

She considered her own suggestion.

"But then again," she continued. "The Klingons might be able to locate the transmission and then us, as well." She paused. "If they're listening, that is."

Luke nodded in agreement "Which is why we need to rig a portable device with a large power source that will attract the Klingons that way when we send the message it will bounce off the device misleading the Klingons to that location and means they wont be able to triangulate our location."

"What did you have in mind?" she said.

"If we eject our warp core the Klingons should see it on scanners, we can attach the relay device to it and transmit our message and hope Starfleet will get it. The Klingons will find a warp core with some communications box without being able to triangulate us. Then we use the opportunity to get in close to the klingon ship riding in its slipstream so to speak so there scanners cant read us. After that, I guess im kinda making it up." He explained.

She smiled and winced in a little bit of pain.

"It sounds like a good plan," she started. "I mean, ejecting the small warp core we have, hoping the Klingons notice, hoping they come check it out and not just assume that more Starfleet officers were destroyed, and then hoping to sneak up behind them and get on board their ship and rescue our crew and commandeer a Bird of Prey with a lot more Klingons that are mostly healthy." She paused. "You left out the part where the Klingons capture us as soon as we materialize on their decks and leave us in solitary confinement for twenty years before they contact Starfleet to let them know we are actually alive."

She winced in pain again.

"Then again," she said. "It's a better plan than I've got at the moment." She paused. "I wish I had a stiff drink to toast to this plan. Then I'd have some liquid courage as well."

Luke sighed "Its all I've got at the moment, its not much and its revolves heavily on hope." He noticed her pain nad moved to the hypospray "Maybe we can replicate some whisky or maybe vodka... This feels like a vodka job" He joked as he turned with the medication and held it up. "May I? There's no point us sitting here in pain" His face was full of concern.

Amaranai chuckled. "Yeah," she said. "At least vodka. Make mine a double."

Luke moved closer with the hypospray and she nodded at his request to administer more pain killers.

"I'm going to need as much of that as we have if we're going to pull off this mission." She paused. "Unless you want to amputate me without sedatives in front of them so my screaming will immobilize them."

She chuckled as she felt the pain medication take effect.

"Or, just this stuff."

Luke set the makeshift Transponder down on the shuttles bench "Well this is the best were going to manage and to be honest... I think this is pretty good considering what we had to use." The Transponder was a fusion of shuttle parts and whatever electronic supplies they could find. Luke would have it that for it is seemed the shuttle was getting ready for a supply run with a lot of disused engineering components. "Now we just need to attach it to the warp core, eject said warp core and then send our distress signal while we use the opportunity to sneak into the bird of preys sensor blind spot, attach the shuttle to the ship, infiltrate the ship and save the crew, sounds easy right?" He looked at the assistant chief.

The pain medication was fully in her system and had rendered her immune to the pain in her leg for a little while. It was also a decent buzz that would have to suffice until she got some vodka. She had watched Luke work on building the responder and was glad that he knew what he was doing. Her skills were more aligned to the rescue of their crewmates.

Amaranai listened as Luke listed off the steps that they would need to follow and succeed with in order to pull this off and she nodded before she spoke.

"You only forgot one thing," she said. "We have to find some Klingon Blood Wine along the way."

She smiled.

"I guess we should get this show on the road,"

Luke smiled "Yes, though maybe we should find a whole crate of blood wine, a small compensation fee for the destruction of our ship and the kidnapping of our crew.I hope you will join me after we save the day for a drink" Luke said before quickly going to work, making improvised explosives was usually his forte (not that this wouldn't make a bang) but he had learnt the odd trick over the few years and before long the transponder was safely attached to the warp core.

Stepping back he closed the engines small blast doors and smiled "Will you do the honours, I've also rigged the core to explode so I suggest holding on, we'll know its coming but the Klingons will just be decloaking so it'll disrupt their shield's, weapons and scanners allowing us time to sneak in and attatch ourselves to the Klingons sensor blind spot. Then we can move to phase two of our suicidal plan.

Amaranai turned to the control panel and brought the systems online once again. When it was ready, Amaranai pressed the core ejection controls. Unlike the Galileo, the core ejected properly and flew into space.

Th warp core depressurised and was sent shooting out of the shuttle, causing a slight rocking motion "Lets get some distance between us." He said making it clear for her to go to full Impulse and put a gap between them and the core. "And..." He began trasmitting the message they had recorded with tactical data, location, ship manifest, a quick report and finally their authentication codes. Luke had also recorded a little something for the Klingons for when the finally intercepted the message. "Beginning to transmit now..."" On the shuttle's HUD it showed two distinct federation IF signatures. "...Powering down systems..." He said and within seconds their own blip disappeared. "...Perfect, now we wait." He sat back in his chair.

Amaranai responded to the request to get the shuttle underway and took it to full impulse until Luke began transimitting the distress message. Luke took charage and began to power the systems down onec again, leaving them floating in the nebula, hopefully invisible to the Klingon scanners.

"I kind of wish we had that blood wine right now," she said. "At least it would give us something to do until they get here."


Paulson Nebula

The transmission of a distress call and the ejection of a highly-charged warp core was quickly detected by the Klingon task group's large D8-class battlecruiser. The warship began to change course while continuing its active jamming efforts, effectively blocking all communication from the nearby vicinity. Coupled with the nebula's natural sensor interference, it would take a miracle for the singla to reach any nearby Federation vessels, let alone the nearest starbase.

As the battlecruiser closed in on the source of the signal, it was suddenly met with only the signature of an ejected warp core floating aimlessly in the cosmos. When further scans detected nothing, the heavy cruiser began a slow box-pattern search for anything out of the ordinary.

Luke cursed "They're completely ignoring it, they must be jamming the signal otherwise they would have destroyed it." He thought for a moment "they're beggening a standard box search, we have to go now if we're going to accomplish anything."

Amaranai hadn't thought about the Klingons jamming communications in the area. She figured the nebula was doing a good enough job, but she figured the Klingons felt the need to add to the static. When Luke suggested they needed to get moving, she started getting the shuttle ready to move.

Luke nodded "Im going to detonate the warp core, we'll have to use thrusters to get in undetected, brace yourself!" He said without much delay before giving to command for the warpcore to explode.

The warp core expanded in a beautiful ball of blinding light which was followed by a blue rippling shock wave which impacted the D8 cruiser and luckily for them lost most momentum by the time it hit the shuttle. "Now thrusters, get in behind it and attach to the underwing of the D8 where it meets the main body."

A bright green flare from the D8's shields signified an impact from the warp core's shockwave on the vessel's wing. The battlecruiser rolled slightly to starboard as it absorbed the hit, but then quickly leveled out as it regained its composure. Slowly and calculated, the starship came about back towards the source of the explosion and began to search the ionized space particles for any clues.

Amaranai turned her face from the viewport as the explosion filled the screen. She held on as best she could to the control panel and tried not to fall out of her seat. If they weren't in such a hurry, she would have liked to have watched the explosion dissapate in the nebula - it was probably really cool to look at.

When Luke's command came to fly toward the D8, she hit the thrusters and headed toward the rear of the ship. She had never completed a live dock to another ship before but there was always a first time for everything and it seemed this mission was her trial by fire. She maneuvered the shuttle toward the rear of the D8 and flipped their orientation to prepare to dock.

Luke watched and monitored the instruments "Easy, a little bit closer" he said just as the shuttle impacted with the Klingons Vessles hull. "Powering down all non essential systems, any sign of them detecting us?" He asked as the cabin dimmed once more.

Amaranai eased the shuttle to the section of the D8 cruiser and placed it gently against the hull. She locked the ship down as Luke powered down everything else. Before turning off the scanners, she checked them to answer his question.

"It doesn't look like it, but I don't think we should leave much online in case they start noticing."

She powered down the rest of the non-essential systems and waited for the next part of the plan.

Luke nodded "Ok, now we wait. Hopefully the ship will take us to where they're operating from and from there we can formulate a plan. Now we are are attached to their hull they shouldn't detect us unless someone physically came out and had a look. These ships are fantastic but their close range scanners are a little outdated." At least he hoped. "We should rest, it might be a little while. I'll take first watch"

Amaranai nodded and moved to the rear of the shuttle and sat down in one of the chairs. After everything they had been through, she was tired and even a small rest would help her with her injuries. She was asleep in seconds.

Several minutes passed at first, during which the Klingon battlecruiser slowly patrolled the nearby vicinity. Oblivious to the small passenger shuttle which now clung to its outer hull, the warship's advanced sensors continued to scan the remaining warp core debris and slowly expand outward into a larger search grid. Minute after minute ticked by but eventually -- approximately twenty minutes later -- the D8 finished its scans and began to return to the rest of the battlegroup. There was nothing left worth searching for, the captain had concluded, and the large vessel suddenly accelerated to three-quarters impulse deeper into the nebula and away from Galileo's wreckage.

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm [KIA]
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

General Kor'aH
Klingon Commander
[PNPC Saalm]

Lt Cmdr Luke Wyatt
Chief Strategic Operations officer
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Noah Khoroushi
Assistant Chief Operations
USS Galileo

Ensign Ryan Alexander [KIA]
Operations
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Amaranai Franklin
Assistant Chief Secutiry / Tactical
USS Galileo

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical and Second Officer
USS Galileo

PO2 T'Lin
Biochemistry Expert
USS Galileo
[PNPC Warraquim]

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

CPO2 Crispin Snow
Operations Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC Derani]

Ensign Splendora Nightingale
Counselor
USS Galileo
[PNPC Braxton MacKenzie]

Lt. JG Braxton MacKenzie
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Eelim Galan
Security Officer
USS Galileo

CPO Torgier Naess
Security Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Ibrahim Qureshi M.D.
Medical Intern
USS Galileo

Commander Langdale Wiggins
First Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed