No Man's Land (Part 7 of 10)

Posted on 21 Apr 2017 @ 2:44pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & General ('aj) Ko'raH House of G'Iogh & Commander Aren Ban & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Amaranai Franklin & Ensign Miraj Derani & Ensign Mimi
Edited on on 21 Apr 2017 @ 2:54pm

2,219 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 14 - Statecraft
Location: IKS DuJa'Q, Klingon Neutral Zone
Timeline: MD 11, 2336 hrs

Previously, on No Man's Land (Part 6)...

"I don't know who did what," Marisa said casually while she worked. "I don't know anything more than that there's been a mutiny and people on the bridge are injured. I'm taking care of you. Allyndra went onto the bridge to see who needed help there. Why do you think she's involved?" She didn't want to make any suppositions. Right now, she believed that the injuries were being treated and there were no fatalities. That was not something she wanted to dwell on right now.

As soon as she finished bandaging up his belly wound, she stood. "Wait here. I'll go check on Allyndra and send her out to you."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Deck 3, Forward Section - Bridge

It'd taken a significant deal of strength for the Orion general to finally get to her feet. She panted heavily and cradled her right arm close to her chest in order to keep the intense stabs of pain in the back of her shoulder from becoming too overwhelming. Her tied-back ponytail had become disheveled, and strands of her black hair were stuck to her cheeks and forehead by a copious amount of pink blood that covered the sides of her neck and face. Saalm looked at the carnage around her; first at Ban, who was bruised and battered, then to Derani's unconscious body, then to the Mirror Wyatt who'd just been subdued by Mimi. Finally, her gaze settled on Chorag's dead body which lay in a large pool of blood next to one of the aft wall consoles.

Allyndra finally arrived. It was obvious that a supreme struggle had taken place but in the end the Federation crew or coalition had prevailed. She moved with slowness, the hurt in her side reminding her of quick movements.

The general seemed to be functioning but the first officer was down as were others. She began to move toward him when she was interrupted.

Warraquim's arrival at the bridge was a relief. With almost all of them injured to some degree, medical assistance couldn't come any sooner. Pointing towards the helm officer on the floor, Saalm instructed the doctor to tend to her first. "Ensign Derani needs help. She took a phaser stun to her chest and hit her head on the console," the general explained with concern.

Allyndra moved there and and knelt. She gave a local for the phaser burn but needed to asses the helm officers state before giving anything more. She gave something to help wake her up and mollify a bit of the pain.

"Ensign, can you speak?"

Miraj blinked up at her, frowning. There was a woman leaning over her, but she didn't recognise her. One of the new recruits from Kreanus?. What had happened. She remembered getting shot, but that was it. How long had she been out. "Yes?"

"Very good follow my finger," Allyndra said with authority. The pupils were pretty normal so far no sign of fracture.

Miraj looked at the finger the woman was holding up, then her eyes slid to a point 6 inches to the left. Then back to the finger. She lost tracking again and brought it back. Then she gave up and looked around the bridge, gaze stuttering from one body to another. There wasn't a familiar face in sight, though the crew remained as mixed as ever? What the hell was going on? "Where is everyone? What happened? How long have I been out?"

Allyndra watched the movement of the eyes. She was concerned, this was not proper and then Miraj spoke but before she could answer more people showed.

"Lay down, close your eyes." She figured it would be better and she could help defend her patient.

But Miraj couldn't be pacified, and refused to lie back down. "Not until you tell me what's going on? And where the others are!"

"There is a mutiny going on. What others ensign?" Allyndra asked but she had no time to figure out what was going on with others injured. "I will try to answer your question later but I have others I need to attend to. Stay low and be still and we will get you taken care of."

Miraj didn't want to be left alone. She was surrounded by people she didn't know. Moving was making her feel queasy. The woman had said there was a mutiny. She knew that. She'd been part of it. What she didn't get was why she didn't recognise anyone. All the people she knew had vanished, replaced by strangers. Everyone, from the Admiral down. How badly had it all gone wrong? Had Ko'raH got control of the ship?

The sound of approaching footsteps could suddenly be heard in the corridor to the bridge. They became louder and faster in pace, and judging by the multitude of them, it was obvious that company was on its way.

Hearing the thunderous footsteps outside that could only have been Klingons, Mimi turned to the entrance claws ready.

Not knowing what was going on, Miraj shrunk back, pulling close to the helm panel, hoping to stay out of the way, out of danger of being shot again.

A tall, older Klingon with graying hair pushed his way through the hole in the bridge's entrance and was followed by two other warriors. Their silver and black uniform armor was covered in streaks of Klingon blood, but fortunately it was not their own.

"General, do not fire!" shouted the older man. It was the same Klingon that'd helped rescue Sandoval and Warraquim from the medical bay several minutes prior. Now that he was in the bridge and able to observe the damage, he fully understood the extent of the attempted mutiny. "General, I am La' Hom Tojor and these are my men," he began to explain to Saalm. "We are loyal to your command and have secured the forward section of the ship," he explained, his eyes now locked on the Klingon first officer's dead body. "Most of Chorag's men have been eliminated and the rest of my team is sweeping the engineering hull. We have achieved victory...but at a heavy cost."

Aren relaxed his stance, letting the bloody knife that was his hands fall to his side. This had all been a tremendous waste of life. "La' Hom, how many casualties, dead and injured?l" Aren asked.

The Klingon lieutenant commander gritted his teeth while recalling the number of dead he and his men had come across. "At least fifty dead, including Chorag's followers," Tojor answered solemnly. "Another twelve injured, and..." he knew he had a duty to report the loss of Federation personnel as well, "two of your Starfleet crew were ambushed. They did not survive."

"Which ones?" Saalm demanded. The casualty report sounded grisly with many more dead than wounded, but she knew Klingons often fought to the death and carried no weapons with stun settings. She clenched one of her fists in preparation for the KIA report.

Tojor shook his head lightly, unsure of the names of the two Starfleet personnel. "One was a senior chief, a petty officer. We found him in the main armory with a disruptor wound the back," he revealed, then turned his eyes to the side. "Chorag's men no doubt ambushed him in order to arm themselves. He was alone and had no assistance." Tojor looked to the Romulan in the room, then to the woman who was now on her knees and under guard. He hadn't expected a Starfleet crew member to have been a part of Chorag's plans. "The other was a woman, a science officer. My men discovered her in the science laboratory. She was shot in the chest at close range, and did not survive."

Abbey felt a lump form in her throat as she sat up against the bulkhead listening to the casualty reports. It saddened her that Caine was among the injured. "Lest we forget" She muttered under her breath. "Death is life" Abbey added, a Norse saying.

Aren nodded at the news. He knew both of them. What saddened him most was that they had a little daughter, JJ. Aren always knew this was a possibility with children aboard, it would be his duty to make sure that they got JJ out of there and to the next of kin. Aren made a mental note to talk to Ambassador Varro about taking care of JJ until they got back to Federation space.

Miraj heard the report of the dead. She hadn't know the two well, but she remembered the baby who was now without her mother and her guts twisted. Two dead. And the rest...gone. Everything was coming apart.

A strange chirp suddenly sounded from Chorag's body. Then, after a two-second pause, it repeated. And then again. Saalm looked over to the source of noise while taking note of its distinctive sound. It was coming from the first officer's body, and it seemed to be a device that was hidden somewhere on his uniform. Then she recognized the sound -- a Klingon communicator. She approached the body but before she could reach it, a muffled voice suddenly sounded from the small commbadge.

"Chorag, report!" came the gruff and urgent voice of another Klingon. "Have you secured DuJa'Q?!" The tonality and inflection of the voice on the other end of the communicator sounded familiar, and it took Saalm only a few seconds to recognize it at Ko'raH's. She bit down on the side of her cheek while moving to stand over the Klingon's body in order to search the uniform and retrieve the device.

"This is General Saalm," she said forcefully into the transmitter, now holding it in her hand. "Chorag -- your agent -- is dead. Your mutiny has failed, general!" she yelled with a voice full of anger, rage, and disdain for what she quickly assumed had been a collaboration between the general and Chorag. She wanted to kick herself in the head, to go to her quarters and pound her fist against a bulkhead for being so naive. She'd known that Ko'raH had been trailing their starship, but she'd not not done enough of her due diligence to vet every member of DuJa'Q's crew before departing on their assignment. Nor had she informed any of her senior officers of her knowledge because of Medara's demand that she maintain a semblance of ignorance in order to draw him out. And as a result, she'd just subjected her entire starship to a terrible body count solely for the sake of the Klingon fool's honor. How could she have been so ignorant and so easily manipulated?

It was then that the bridge's tactical console began to blare and emit an audible signal that a new starship had just been detected on short-range sensors. Saalm looked over to Franklin in expectation of Ko'raH's revealed presence, but it was not his vessel that had been detected.

In the warp stream behind IKS DuJa'Q, the blackness of space and streaking stars were suddenly disrupted by the shimmer of a decloaking vessel. The distinctive bright green hull of a Vor'cha-class heavy cruiser rippled into sight less than fifty kilometers from the K't'inga-class' stern.

By now, Amaranai had made her way back to her station, if only to sit and rest from what had transpired over the past several minutes. And as much as the sound of further Klingons entering the bridge should have prompted her to make herself ready for another fight, Amaranai was grateful when she didn't have to fight a larger group.

As she sat there, the tactical officer heard the noise from the computer. She looked at her sensors in case her ears were mistaken, but they were not. Short-range contact.

"General," she said, suddenly filled with more adrenaline. "Vor'cha class battlecruiser decloaking to our aft."

She checked the sensors as they reported new information.

"Sir, they are charging weapons."

Lirha's eyes went wide. She started to run down to the command chair as fast as she could in order to view her tactical display, but it was too late.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

GEN Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
IKS DuJa'Q

Commander Chorag
First Officer
IKS DuJa'Q
[PNPC Saalm]

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
IKS DuJa'Q

CPO2 Crispin Snow
Operations Officer
IKS DuJa'Q
[PNPC Derani]

Ensign Mimi
Operations Officer
IKS DuJa'Q

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical and Second Officer
IKS Duja'Q

PO2 T'Lin
Science Officer
IKS Duja'Q
[PNPC Warraquim]

Lieutenant JG Marisa Sandoval
Counselor
IKS Duja'Q

Petra Varelli, PhD
Forensic Anthropologist
IKS Duja'Q
[PNPC Sandoval]

Ambassador Sorel Varro
Chief Diplomatic Officer
IKS Duja'Q

Petty Officer Eviess
Medical Officer
IKS Duja'Q
[PNPC Varro]

Lt. JG Eelim Galan
Security Officer
IKS Duja'Q
[PNPC Varro]

Commander Aren Ban
Executive Officer
IKS Duja'Q

Lieutenant JG Amaranai Franklin
Assistant Chief Security / Tactical
IKS Duja'Q

Lieutenant Commander Luke Wyatt
Strategic Operations Officer
IKS Duja'Q

Ensign Abbey St James
Security Officer
IKS Duja'Q
[PNPC Wyatt]

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