Crouched in the Shadows

Posted on 27 May 2020 @ 3:34pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Marisa Wyatt & Lieutenant JG Tris Shizn & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Petty Officer 1st Class T'Lin

2,764 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: Shuttlecraft Vincenzo, Latari B III - Dark Side of the Moon
Timeline: MD 04, 2302 hrs

[ON]

It had been hours since the Waverider had settled down to try and allude the threats from above in the dark veil of the moon. Long, long hours. Each minute had driven the frustration higher in the ex marine that found herself in command of a team in hiding. And she hated hiding. Blake's features were cold with stillness, keeping the frustration locked away...the unnatural feeling of huddling in the shadows while not really knowing what was going on...and all the while, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling that they were hauled up in what felt like a tin can being held together by tape and string. "Anything?" she broke the silence that was laden with unspoken 'what ifs'.

"Scanners have not detected any warp or impulse signatures. There is no response from any of the probes and indications are they were all destroyed ma'am. Considering our current position we do not have an ideal location to monitor a full section. If anything, I have not detected anything more involving the colony either. Volcanic activity has continued unabated." T'Lin gave the same report she had given the last ten times asked by the commander. It was not logical to ask, but then again she had learned that many other species found that time passed just by asking the already known.

"On a positive note, we haven't been followed, either," Marisa added. "We're alive and there's still hope that our signal got out." She was concerned that the Galileo was out of range or something went wrong. Neither Saalm nor Luke would leave them behind.

"Perhaps, however, while this vessel has been repaired it is not in the best of shape. Our power levels are sinking, so we will have to determine if to continue to wait or move." T'Lin replied switching the panel over to engineering functions.

Tris sat, somewhat sulking, in the pilot seat. He wished it could swivel, but to no avail. He had turned in his seat to listened to the conversation. His head bobbed on its axis, looking about at those present in the forward section. All had been said and true. There wasn’t much more he could add. It seemed that right now was just a waiting game. The Andorian looked to T’Lin and began to nod his head slowly in agreement with her assessment.

"But if we move, we will burn power more quickly," Aria Rice suddenly said from where she had been huddled in a corner. She finally sighed and shifted closer to the group. "I was wondering if we could use the power from the phasers to give us some more time. Like an...old fashioned battery?"

T'Lin ran the suggestion through and nodded in the affirmative, "At best we would have extra three hours. Commander I would suggest we either use what we have to head toward the last known position of the Galileo to get a clearer subspace signal or head back to the planet. We will have less than a day if we fly toward he position, two days on planet, or three days here at maximum including Lieutenant's Rice suggestion."

Marisa agreed with the assessments of the others. She still hoped the ship was somewhere and would come to their rescue--if the ship could receive their message. She ran an analysis of the trinary system and the projected path of the ship. Then she overlaid comm ranges, depending on where the Galileo might be now. "Here's where we have the best chance to get a message out."

Aria moved over, running a tired hand over her own face. "It's all guesses in the dark. Message might go out, but no one might be listening..." she said and gave a small shrug, but forced a smile. "I feel optimistic!"

"Volcanic winter and total destruction of the ability to support life on the planet has already commenced. While I have indicated that we might have an extra day looking over the structural integrity of the ship, there is a high probability of not surviving the descent through the atmosphere."

The Andorian’s antenna drooped slightly as Tris looked down, realizing that what they said was most likely to be true, and very sad. All the life on a planet to be lost or cast into a dormant state was not a cheerful thought. And a ship entering the atmosphere, under those conditions, would be hard to say the least.

Scarlet was looking away from the group, her mind moving over and over in thought, considering each and every view point. It might not seem it with her gaze focused somewhere in the middle of a bulkhead, but she was listening intently. She loathed waiting in the shadows, hiding away with no proactive course. But the options were just too risky.

Blake understood the suggestion to go back to the colony, but she could never bring herself to risk the threat up there following them and reigning even more doom on the people trying their best to survive. And trying to find the ship? They'd never make it...no matter which way she stacked the odds and possibilities, they couldn't make it back to Galileo out of sheer will alone. No matter how strong it was amongst the fine team she had. She opened her mouth to deliver the gloomy verdict, but was interrupted before any words could form.

There was a beeping that suddenly started from T'Lin's panel. She turned thinking it was something about the shuttle, but it was from sensor feed. "Commander, I am getting warp signatures. Lieutenant Rice can you clear that up ma'am?"

Shizn spun around in the pilot’s seat to look at his heads up and readouts, concerned that he would need to move the ship quickly.

Aria chuckled at that, just glad to be doing something. "Give me a sec..." she said and squeezed herself in to give a bit more power by bypassing something that wouldn't kill them if they didn't have it for a few seconds. "Okay...let's see...signatures..." she frowned before she let out a sound somewhere between a shout and a shriek. "Sorry...almost electrocuted myself...I'm fine..." she shook her hand sharply. "Try now?"

T'Lin nodded and worked the panel. The trip across the oceans and the encounter with one of the inhabitants had wreaked havoc on the sensors and while repaired to an extent it was not a shipyard refit.

"Commander, I am getting id frequency, starfleet in nature indicating the ships are the Langrange, Kali and...." she turned in her seat an almost smile on the lips. "The Galileo."

Blake pushed herself up stiffly, moving to try and see for herself, looking over their shoulders with a small smile pulling at her lips. She'd heard once that patience was a virtue. She had never believed it...until now. "Can we get any more out of the sensors? I want a better look of what's going on up there..."

"Ma'am, if we pull the power from the environmental a bit and perhaps turn the shuttle slightly more toward the other system, it might be possible." T'Lin answered.

Marisa couldn't keep from smiling. "I'll shut down whatever else we can spare. Can we send another message?"

T'Lin shook her head slightly. "Yes....wait!" T'Lin made the admonition.
"I am detecting further signatures and...." she danced her fingers on the panel, "they appear to be Tholian if the database is correct."

Marisa looked at the others. "Are they attacking the convoy?" She wasn't sure if there was anything they could do in a damaged shuttle.

T'Lin could have been playing a concerto as her fingers continued to dance on the panel. If she had been other than Vulcan, most anyone else would have pounded the panel in frustration.

She shook her head, "Ma'am, I am detecting explosions but so far see only fleet photon torpedo signatures....wait a moment...I just lost the Galileo off the feed."

For a moment, alarm flickered across the features of the commander, who was usually able to keep them in a carefully emotionless expression. "Is there any chatter on the Starfleet tactical frequency? If they're working together up there we might be able to pick up more of what's going on...."

Aria watched the exchange with tense shoulders, but she swallowed hard. Just because she couldn't see the ship didn't mean anything. Or so she told herself as she bit her lip.

"There's a lot of static," Marisa replied. "Trying to clear it up." Focusing on the task helped her put her own worries about Luke to the back of her mind--at least for now.

T'Lin continued to shake her head. "I get three Tholian frigates the Kali and the Lagrange but have nothing on the Galileo. No debris that would indicate the ship nor a warp trail."

Sandoval continued to work on the comms to get better reception. Finally, they could hear the chatter. It was still broken, but it was something.

The overhead speakers in the Waverider shuttle came to life and started to transmit secure Starfleet tactical communications for the away team to hear.

"...Impact in two, one..."

"All targets evaded, they're breaking forma--"

"..Reloading, five sec-"

"-amage assessment!"

"..No damage, Tholian frigates flanking to port..."

"Conn, cut -em off...two-zero-one, get below them!"

Tris was about to move the shuttle, but didn’t engage the engines. He waited for the order to come from Blake.

Distortion and comms interference quickly started to degrade the signal till it temporarily cut out.

T'Lin listened. It was obvious that the Federation ships had engaged the Tholian ships still the later had easily flanked to port. So far she had not heard anything about receiving fire. It made her wonder what was actually going on.

There was so little information. Why were they engaging the Tholians? Marisa felt helpless, sitting in a broken shuttle where she could do nothing to help.

Aria was frowning as she sat there, taking a deeper breath. She finally closed her eyes, took that emotion...and pushed it aside, moving to stand.

The Andorian wondered if he could match the maneuvers of the Tholian vessel. In that way they might only be considered an echo in their sensors.

Hearing the battle raging without them was enough to relight the fire in the First Officer, who, frankly, was sick of skulking in the shadows. She clapped a hand on Shizn's shoulder on the way back to her seat. "Fire her up, we're heading up to help them out," she said firmly, her jaw set and mind made up. If they were in trouble up there, it was their duty to help out however they could.

T'Lin turned at looked hard at the commander. "Commander, at best we have only eighty percent of impulse power and by the time we even got there whatever is going to happen will have happened. It is not a logical course to attempt to engage anything in our current condition."

"I want to help, too," Marisa said, "But we have to make sure we do not become a liability by putting ourselves in jeopardy at a time when the fleet needs to focus on the battle." She paused. "At the same time, we don't know why they're engaging, so perhaps we may be able to help. Can we get more data before we rush in?"

"If we sit here, we will die anyway," Aria finally said as she looked at the others. "If we can help, even if it is as another target to draw their fire...it seems a better use of our lives than being stranded here until life support gives out."

Blake wouldn't say it out loud to them, but a similar grim thought had also partly spurred her decision. "We're going," she said with her usual even tone, but the firmness was underlying in it. "She's going to take a while to get fully warmed up and ready to go in her condition, use that time to try and get anymore intel on what's going on up there and where we can be most use."

Shizn finally heard the words he had been waiting for. His hands began to move across the controls surface of the conn, engaging a start up sequence for the engines. He monitored all levels, checking for any issues, since they had been shut down for a good while.

T'Lin routed power flows as best she could, there was going to demands from the engine controls, more from shields and they had partially shut down environmental, and to keep sensors up. Their time aboard this craft at least alive was going to be much more limited as she watched levels already begin their inevitable march toward depletion. She would do her best.

They had so much data on the planet, the proto-Tholian, the impact, the colonists, that Marisa didn't want to get lost. The first probe they'd sent out was destroyed, so while she analyzed data on the battle, she looked for some way to preserve their data in case they didn't make it. As much as she wanted to get back to the Galileo and Luke, she knew the data was more important. At the same time, she knew that if the colonists were to have any chance at all of survival, the shuttle and its crew would have to survive. "Most of what we've heard has been Federation fire. Are the Tholians attacking?"

Aria had shifted to her station, looking at the readings. She narrowed her eyes for a moment before she let out a breath. "Ma'am, multiple targets firing, I am detecting tetryon signatures on the sensors. The Tholians are attacking as well," she said and looked up, her face serious.

Tris was very happy to see the engine levels were where they needed to be and Shizn reported, “Sir, we can go to impulse at your command.” He glanced over his shoulder for a second, but then looked back at the controls. He wanted to be ready when the order was given. And then thought, I hope we don't have to push them too hard right off.

Marisa whispered to the waverider, "Hear that, baby? Just hold together, we're going home."

"Then let's go, Lieutenant," Blake nodded sharply, setting herself firmly in her seat, ready for what might not be the smoothest of rides. But at least they were moving now, instead of sitting and waiting for a hand of fate that might never come. "Take us back to the fleet..." The fleet. What was left of their convoy could hardly be called a fleet, but it was a reminder of what they were about to fight for.

T'Lin left the rest of sensor and weapons to others, just keeping the power working through the rather patched relays and conduits was going to occupy her entire time. The last thought was it was not logical to take an impulse only shuttle barely space worthy into a fight with warp capable and highly armed ships. Emotional species never thought with logic though.

At the command to move, a smile came to the Andorian’s face before replying, “Yes Ma’am.” Shizn engaged the impulse engines at 10% and slowly increased, not wanting to put too much pressure too quickly.

Aria shifted, to keep an eye on what was happening. "No one has noticed us yet," she announced, frowning as she kept a firm eye on the signatures of the fire. "No one is identifying us yet either, we must look like debris at this speed and size in the battle. May change when we get later."

Tris then noticed a yellow light indicator on a coolant pressure line. He gritted his teeth in frustration, and they were only at 75%. He tried to remember what that Human ‘good luck’ gesture was, . . something about crossing toes or digits or some non-sense, thinking We could use some real non-sense right now.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

PO2 T'Lin
Biochemistry Scientist
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

LTJG Tris Shizn
Helmsman
USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Marisa Sandoval
Chief Science Officer
USS Gemini-A

Lieutenant Junior Grade Aria Rice
Security
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Vansen]

Commander Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

LTJG Aria Rice
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Vansen]

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