The Battle of Latari (Part 5 of 6)

Posted on 06 Jul 2019 @ 11:49am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri & Captain Hiroshi Tanakata & Commander Teegan Jones & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday & Crewman Draia Thero & LuAnn Lovegood PhD
Edited on on 06 Jul 2019 @ 12:02pm

3,569 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Latari System - Latari A III Orbit
Timeline: MD 01, 0529 hrs

Previously, on The Battle of Latari (Part 4)...

The captain wiped stray locks of disheveled hair from her eyes then used her hand to swipe the center console clean of debris. The LCARS tactical display fizzled in and out of function, making it hard for Saalm to read the shimmering readouts.

"They're losing port shields," Lirha finally answered, "..she's being outmaneuvered..."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

USS Galileo - Deck 3, Sickbay

Within the Nova-class's medical bay, the computer systems surged and the monitor above one of the three biobeds exploded outward into the brightly-lit sickbay. The force of the Tholian weapon barrage took most of the occupants off their feet, then left the room dark and hazy with smokey debris. The deck plating trembled and vibrated, revealing serious damage to the vessel's spaceframe. All around the room, the LCARS panels on the walls flickered with visual reports of ship-wide casualties.

"WARNING," blared the ship's female computer voice from the overhead audio, "Hull breach. Deck Two, Deck Three, Deck Four. WARNING. Hull breach," it repeated.

Moments earlier, Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant was thrown reeling backwards by the topsy-turvy writhing of the deck beneath him. Based on the arc of his fall, his body would have collided with the Emergency Medical Hologram, but her physical form fizzed away as the holographic projectors failed. Lake's body passed through Shirley's body. A heartbeat later, Lake wasn't so lucky. The back of his head connected with the foot of a biobed. It certainly didn't help that the overhead lighting blinked out, but it was more than that for Lake. He blacked out for the remaining seconds it took for his body to crumple on the deck.

Still, he wasn't much slower than the other medical officers when he regained his senses enough to brace his hands against the biobed's pedestal, and groan his way onto his knees, as another flare of sparks came raining down not far behind him. "That can't-- there can't be a breach in here, yeah?" Lake said, referring the Sickbay compartment, in response to the computerized warning of a hull breach. He sounded about as fuzzy as the smokey haze crossing his field of vision. He looked left and he looked right. "We would notice, yeah?" Lake asked, genuinely unsure.

Allyndra fell to the deck as the hit imploded that part of the hull. Before it was like riding the wave of a storm, rough and wild. She instinctively relaxed as she was tossed from her chair but did not get time to protect her face and her nose banged the floor. It hurt and reddish blood leaked from it as she got herself up. She checked it, touching it gingerly and decided it was not broken. Air, they still had air though as her mind came back online she had noted the change that had happened for an instant. "Hull breach," her mind got itself together supplying the information. She got up and staggered to the office door.

"Hull breach, somewhere on this deck, emitters must have sealed it off." She responded to Lake. "We need to get to the injured if we can. The bar and the observation deck might still be intact and we can set up triage there until get a better idea of what we have. I would not trust holodecks at the moment." She shook her head, scattering drops of blood across her uniform and the deck and then holding her hand to the injured member. "Move people, we need to get to our jobs!" She turned and grabbed a medical kit and then grabbed a piece of gauze from supplies and stuffed it in the leaking nostril.

Following Allyndra's movement with his eyes, Lake didn't react as quickly as he normally would have done. While Allyndra gave orders, Lake closed his eyes and he rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. It took extra effort for him to concentrate on her words. Before she finished offering encouragement, Lake screwed up the strength to stand on his own two feet. He shuffled beside the biobed he'd used for leverage to steal the equipment that had been laid out for its potential patients. Lake snatched up a hypospray, a pack of common medicinal cartridges, and a medical tricorder. As he followed Allyndra to the exit, he only detoured enough to sling a full medikit over his shoulder. It was only when Lake marched out into the corridor that he noticed the medical tricorder felt slick. He tucked his extra equipment into the medikit and found a smear of blood across his right palm. Given the blood was green, it was most likely his own.

LuAnn was carrying a tray of supplies when the the ship was hit. She had no time to balance herself before she hit a biobed, throwing the contest of the tray across the room. She picked herself up and rubbed her sore arm and began to pick up the floor. "I'll stay here," she said to the departing duo. Someone should be here in case anyone walked in, and she figured it might as well be her.

Turning back, Lake said, "Thank you, LuAnn. Comm us if too many patients come herding this way." He offered her a nod and spun back towards the corridor.

"Hey..." Wylde reached out to grab hold of Lake's arm, shaking his head with a frown as he half moved in front of him. "You went down like a bird from the sky....you should let her take a look at you," he said with a firm voice that was laced with disbelief that he was about to walk out there like nothing had happened.

Replying to Wylde's firm suggestion, Lake said, "That's why I work out," through his most winning smile. At the same time, he wiped off the blood on the back of his right thigh. He flexed a bicep to prove his point, without actively, explicitly refusing Wydle's suggestion. "I bounce back!" Lake affirmed.

"Your head did..." Alexion mumbled with a frown, gripping the side of his face as he leant in closer to get a better look at his face and eyes. "I mean it, you could be in trouble..." his voice held a slight edge and a tone he only used with his son and patients.

The smile drained away from Lake's face, and he dropped his arms to his sides. Lake allowed Alexion to lay hands on him, to inspect him. Lake offered no resistance but for his words. "We're all in danger," Lake said. Halfheartedly, he was dismissing Alexion's concerns. Too, Lake believed everything he was saying. He was allowing Alexion to see how Lake saw the universe. Crestfallen, Lake said, "We're all in danger all the time..."

Alexion searched his eyes, torn as he held his breath tight in his chest for a long moment. "Some more than others," he muttered, holding his eyes before taking a step back. If they didn't have a ship of potential casualties to see to, he would have dug his heels in deeper, but as it was, Lake was right, they were all in danger, and Lake was hardly an unseasoned crewman who needed to be scolded.

Allyndra had to replace the gauze in her nostril but then made her way over to Lake. She did a quick scan and shook her head. "Stay there, lay down, it appears you might have a concussion." She got up and waved to the rest, "Come on people, we got to mop the place and get people handled."


Deck 7 - Main Engineering

Galileo's small engineering team had braced as best they could down in the heart of the starship on Deck 7. The Tholian tetryon fire missed their central location and instead focused on the side of the saucer section, blowing holes in the vessel's superstructure and destroying the port RCS thruster quad. Cascading damage flowed through the primary power relays and caused a massive overload surge through all decks.

In main engineering, several of the plasma conduit power relays sparked then erupted and were immediately followed by warnings of imminent failure to the warp propulsion system.

Only seconds earlier, the LCARS menu options presented to Crewman Draia Thero were in the comforting shades of coral, amber and grey that were most common to the current Nova-class operating system. Yes, the Galileo-A was under pressure, and no, she wasn't performing at her absolute best, but the starship had been designed for this. The Cardassian crewman needed one hand to hold onto the edge of her damage control monitor and the tighter she held on, the more she was reminded of a quote she had read in basic training: If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home.

Prophetically, the superstructure of Galileo heaved and screamed to anyone who would listen, and Draia Thero was knocked to the ground. She was given a bloody nose of her very own. Struggling to stand up to her station, the LCARS menu options were now screaming at Draia in blood red. She had to be yell to be heard over the commotion in Main Engineering, but that was okay. She woke up most mornings, looking for an opportunity to yell.

"The secondary fuel feed manifold has been damaged at a juncture on deck six," Draia reported to the nearest engineers who hadn't been knocked unconscious. Although LCARS menu options popped up to suggest courses of actions, there wasn't time for her to research which solution was the best one or why any of the solutions would work. Relying on instinctive memory, she muttered, "Crack in the manifold... Can't let contaminated slush deuterium flood the matter reactant injector." --Her hand started hitting interface contacts even before she consciously made the decision-- "I'm valving off that manifold. Gal's gonna have to keep her warp strength up with one fewer, I hope."

John was already working as soon as the ship first rocked with the impacts. "Well don't that just drill my pickle," he swore as he attempted to keep circuits alive and was getting burned and singed by sparks the entire time. As fast as he got one thing more or less working three more it seemed popped or gave up. "Iff'n they don't stop, we won't have enough to do crap with."

Draia pivoted her head in John's direction, nodding slowly at his dire warning. "Do, uh, do starship Captains ever order to run and hide?" Draia asked hopefully.

John was swearing like a preacher on a Sunday morning sermon down in the hollow. He hurt from the burns and hated the smell of singed hair but he doggedly kept trying to put things back together. Finally the circuits came to life again and the plasma conduit lit up again. "We got warp!" He shouted to no one in particular but hoped that command decided that running at this point was going to be better part of valour at this point.

John wasn't the only one in engineering swearing, from Kala's mouth alone she could have filled the swear jar that would have funded the first warp ship. "The Warp core isn't stable," She said in a tone that indicated she was wrestling a bear at the same time. However Kala, unsure if it was her skill or just plain luck managed to bring it down to acceptable levels, "The core is fluctuating but right now we're in the green" She said to no one in particular.


USS Trial

In the orbital cosmos above Latari A III, the Miranda-class Starfleet vessel continued to turn and fire on the Tholian ships. For every phaser salvo the larger light-cruiser unleashed, it was effectively absorbed and returned with a heavier barrage of blue tetryon beam fire. Galileo had tried to delay the inevitable and now spun slowly on its z-axis, out of control while the enemy concentrated all its fire on USS Trial.

The Tholian starships continued their assault and collapsed Trial's port shields before targeting their rear quarter. The bridge jolted from each impact while tactical cautions lit up throughout its bridge.

Matthew watched Galileo insert herself directly into the line of fire to protect the Trial. The proud feelings he had for his Captain and crewmates defied words. And it was gruesome to watch the Nova-class science ship endure such a cruel onslaught. It was so strange to hear at that moment, in his mind a still, small voice calmly say to him, ”Conflict can be from many sources. But what it always has in common is…a failure to communicate.” The words he and every officer and every member of Starfleet learned early in their career.

None of that helped Plumeri now, Matt's interlink with the Galileo suddenly went dark. "Galileo?! Ullswater?! Sofie? Respond please?" He typed and tried voice communications. He assumed the worst.

He felt powerless to aid his crewmates. Trial was taking heavy fire and Ensign Ullswater’s shield modulations were quickly dispatched by the Tholians. Matthew watched Galileo take huge amounts of damage. He saw explosions rip along her hull and explosive decompression blow debris out into space. He even thought he saw the bodies of crew. He said, “No…no, no no…..NO!” but there was little he could do. His home, his ship and crewmates aboard Galileo spun helplessly. Venting gasses, sparking and zero-g fires emanating from inside the open bulkheads the ought nought be open. The sputtering, shimmering emergency forcefields seemed like they were gasping for enough energy to maintain their cohesion. His thoughts turned to his friends and to Lake.

Earlier, something that Ensign Mastrel said gave Matthew and idea. Before the COMM link went down, he accessed the recovered logs from Franconia. He remembered that she was cut to pieces but that she had not been obliterated. And why not? Plumeri managed to download the last twenty-minutes of sensor data from Franconia and he asked the computer to analyze the data and look for patterns. Specifically, he wanted to know if the Tholians were using a tactical strategy or attack that was different from previous Federation encounters. And, scan the data for anything in the EM spectrum that was…unusual. It was minutes before the computer had processed the request.

Tactically, the Tholian ships proved to be their resilient selves. They worked together, their attacks were coordinated, and they continually and seemingly equally presented the Franconia with always equal targets. Never providing the Franconia with an advantage and always denying her a break from the attack. The blue tetryon beams defied sensor tracking and they cut right through the shields of the Franconia.

Then – there was a spike! It caught Matthew’s eye and it was the last three-seconds of data before the tactical log was damaged. There was a surge in tetryon particles. But not from the Tholians. It was from the Franconia. But why?

The Tholians now concentrated their fire on the Trial. The bridge shuddered and Matt swore he could feel his ears pop again and the air grow thinner. Inside, he was pissed at the Tholians. Matthew gave a report to the Captain, “Shields collapsing Captain! Aft quarter is…gone!”

Hiroshi just took the information in as it came trying to avoid the sparks and flying debris as best as possible. He could see figures slumped at their stations, or crying in agony either at stations or on the floor. He knew it had to be worse elsewhere as the reports came in. The ship would not take much more.

Suddenly, the Science station Matthew was working at started to vibrate. It also felt hot. He didn’t notice it at first but, as he lifted his fingers from the LCARS panel, tendrils of energy, like long, blue-green fingers remained in contact with his fingertips. His hair started to stand up on end. And as he looked at his hands, the blood veins in his hands started to illuminate from the inside. “What the…??!!” The Trial’s bridge science officer yelled, “Get back!” and at the last second, tackled Plumeri away from the science station just in time to avoid the entire remaining two-science stations exploding in a fireworks show of sparks and energy.

Matt was blinded for a moment by the light show and he hit the ground hard. He tried to move but the Bolian science officer laid on him like a brick. When he could, Matthew tried to get back on his feet. Thinking that the man was simply unconscious, Matthew tried to rouse him from unconsciousness.

Thick, blue blood was all over Matt’s uniform tunic. The Bolian was dead. He sacrificed himself to save Matthew. Pushing his way out from under the dead body, feeling remorse and regret and at the same time having to push those feelings down, Matt sat upright. The bridge science section on the Trial was destroyed. And still the attacks were coming.

His uniform dripping with blue-blood, Matt surveyed the bridge – well – what was left of it. He got to his feet, “Damn Tholians! Crystal shit heads!” He yelled and stood on his feet. “Paranoid, xeno-phobic, hot-ass, lava-pissing, dumb-rock heads! YOU gonna get your asses kicked now!” Blue-blood covered his hands and he wiped them off on his pants. He looked to Captain Hiroshi and approached the center seat.

Dirty-faced, covered in blood and sweating like a Klingon Councilman after dinner, Matt said, “Captain? If we still have maneuvering thrusters - - I have an idea. We need to create an ionized Tetryon field! Through the main deflector sir! Ionize the shit out of the Tholians with an inverted Tetryon field. It will - - create a pocket of unstable sub-space. It’ll take all the power we can get to do it. And the main deflector will probably be toast when we’re done. We better hurry Captain.” Matthew braced himself on anything sturdy and sank to his knees. “Better….do it now.”

Hiroshi was shouting to whoever was left to try to turn the ship on its axis. The port side was in dire straights and best to put the starboard on the onslaught, there was only one thing to do when the Galileo's science officer approached him. He listened briefly and then shook his head.

"Sorry Lieutenant, it is a great idea but this ship cannot take anymore hits and I do not think the Galileo is going to either." He said that keeping a stoic face amid the chaos and his training giving his voice a steadiness that internally he did not feel. "We have to withdraw, we have no choice while the Tholians are making a turn. If you have any training at all, take the helm and turn us with starboard side to the attackers and anything, and I mean anything, thrusters, impluse and an unbalanced warp bubble if possible and get us out of here."

He did not wait for the reply before turning to his first officer and saying, "Signal the Galileo we are withdrawing, suggest they do as well. Not sure it will get through though."

Matthew looked at Captain Tanakata as if he were crazy. Another hit and the bridge shuddered and a decompression alarm sounded. Matthew said, "I'm an historian; not a helmsman!" A fire erupted from the turbolift shaft and the doors to the lift blew inwards. Flames spewed out of the turboshaft. Matt said, "Buuut!! I'll see what I can do!" He moved as quickly as he could to the CONN station. The crewman manning it was dead. His lifeless body slumped over the station. Matthew lifted the dead crewman off the panel and to the floor saying a Fontalan blessing for the dead:

"Caro fratello,
Ti benedica nel tuo viaggio
Possa tu trovare ciò che cerchi
E Possiamo quello di cui hai bisogno.
È benvenuto, averti coinvolto nella gloria.
E tutti i Tallis che in quella spiaggia pacifica."

Dear brother,
Bless you on your journey.
May you find what you seek
And what you need.
Possiamo welcome you, having called you into life after this life.
And all the Tallis who receive you to that peaceful shore.

Matt used his arm to wipe the panel free of debris and blood. There wasn't much left; but she could still maneuver. "Firing...maneuvering thrusters PORT! Station keeping...PORT thrusters are online and active! I'll try and turn us about...starboard side. Shields at 30%!"

The Trial started to turn and come about. Her list steadied up. Plumeri called, "She's answering her helm Captain. Coming about. GAWD! What I wouldn't give for a couple of DAMN TORPEDOES!" The seconds ticked by as the Trial, the smoking hulk she was, came about and rounded the firing envelope.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

All Crew
USS Galileo-A

All Crew
USS Trial

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