Bastion (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 06 Jun 2023 @ 5:34pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Rafe Caradec & Ensign Amanda Turell & Petty Officer 2nd Class Donald Andrews & Petty Officer 3rd Class Constantin Vansen & Lia Quil & Marcus Mulder

4,859 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Alcyone Sector, Cold Station 31
Timeline: MD 11, 0405 hrs

Previously, on The Other Side (Part 6)...

There was a clash of metal as a panel fell from above and hit the deck. It was followed by the thud of boots as the long haired wildman jumped down. The team member of the classified project once known as Aguni swung the rusted blade that was now his arm, using it with a scrape of metal on metal to get enough leverage to launch forward, heading for the group of officers trying to get the transporter up and running.

Blake fired at the surprisingly fast assailant, her jaw clenching as he dove out of the way of the energy beam with uncanny timing and reflexes. It was enough to draw his attention though, and he turned to face the rest of the team instead, momentarily distracted from the team trying to fix the transporter. He clambered up the wall bounding along it with all fours, defying gravity as he gained speed for an attack. "Keep him busy!" Blake called to the remaining team alongside her, firing at the imposing figure getting closer and managing to dodge each streak of fire.

Rafe ran inside the transporter room from the corridor seeing the quickly moving wraith with the gangling weapon, setting for another strike, while dodging each round of fire. He quickly raised his phaser, steadying his stance, letting out half a breath, and squeezed off his shot. He didn't think it saw him yet due to being distracted. And that is the only reason he thought his shot was true. Unbeknownst to the Commander, Rafe had changed his setting to kill and narrowed the beam as much as possible. The energy beam nailed the creature in the lower torso, eliciting a blood curdling screech which seemed to resonate with several harmonic frequencies, making the sound almost unbearable. It only slowed him down but perhaps enough to allow the others to hit him also.

Rafe went to his knees due to the agonizing sound. He shouted with everything he had, "Fire, everyone! Fire!!!"

Allyndra turned at the sound, grimacing at the sound. Just in time, she saw the thing take one shot to the midsection. She still could not fly but she fluttered enough and fired in a sweep catching the thing in what might be its head. The thing took a pause. "Again!"

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Chief Warrant Officer Darius joined the assault on the creature. His arm extended while he maintained a steady firing stance then sent an orange burst of high-powered phased energy into its torso. The impact staggered the lifeform backwards for a brief moment, but ultimately just further enraged it. They were fighting a losing battle and time wasn't on their side. "We really need that transporter right now!" he yelled to the others with urgency.

"It's coming." Donald said keeping his voice steady and calm despite the crazy situation going on around them. "I still need some ODN conduit, pull something else apart if needs be but I can't finish this without some."

While continuing to shift positions and fire Rafe yelled, "Focus your fire around it first, then I'll focus mine center of mass. If I hit it, then bring your fire with mine, narrow beam, set to kill, continuous fire." Giving them a few seconds to set their phasers, Rafe kept firing. The creature started to move toward Rafe, slowly at first, then gaining speed. Rafe yelled, "Now!!!"

Vansen frowned through the noise, taking a deeper breath. He got up and ran, towards what looked to have been some sort of containment area. He kept low though, out of some sort of training, before sliding the last seven feet to the console. He jerked it open, looking around. "Okay...ODN conduit..." he whispered to himself, sweat damp on his skin. His heart was racing but it didn't matter. He reached inside, taking a deeper breath before yanking the whole thing out. He got up again and ran back, quickly getting to Andrews. "Here, try this..." he said before he grinned. "You know, if we had more time, I'd set up the containment fields in here, buy us more time..."

"One thing at a time Constantin." Donald remarked, he slotted one end of the ODN conduit into position and used his phaser to weld it into place before doing the same with the other side, the bright light in the confine space straining his eyes but there wasn't a better choice. "Check it now will you."

"Yeah, looking better," Vansen said as he shook his head, frowning. "Almost there now."

The barrage of fire had forced Aguni to his knees, his body contorting with the agony, but still he struggled against it. Sinking lower, he momentarily slipped out of aim of some of the energy blast, and the wildman rolled out of instinct before scrabbling on all fours to dive behind a broken workstation. There was a trail of thick, black droplets, barely even blood anymore.

Blake paused for a moment, but frowned as the scraping stopped. She moved carefully towards the wreckage, rifle ready to shoot as she rounded the corner to fire at him...but there was nothing there. She looked around with narrowed eyes, lifting her rifle to follow her gaze around the room. "What the actual f..."

The scrapping started again, but this time it sounded like it was somehow coming from behind the bulkheads. The high pitched metal dragging noise grew more intense, almost a screech, the lights flickering as a shadow pulled away from the wall. Out of the wall? Despite the black blood dripping from it, it moved fast. Between...around. Until it settled behind Lamar Darius, the rusted blade that served as its arm bursting through and out of the side of his torso, blood dripping from the blade sticking out of his body.

Bright, warm crimson blood splattered against the XO's face when the conn officer was impaled. Darius staggered from the impact then processed the immediate tight, searing cold sensations now ripping through the tendons and muscles in his thorax. "Ahhh!" he called out through gritted teeth. The reality of what had just happened to him still hadn't fully processed, but his instinct and adrenaline forced him to jerk his body forward and away from the peril. His hand dropped his phaser as he stumbled forward then collapsed on the deck plating. "Transporter...!" he managed to yell again.

Attempting to ignore Darius as best he could knowing that getting flustered would only make the situation harder for him to fix, Donald quickly carried on working; the A2 relays replaced, the ODN line connected, just the non existent J27 relays to sort...... "Right here goes nothing, pay attention folks," He said in a joking manner. "They don't teach you this at the academy." He added before jamming each end of the hyperspanner into the relay points.

Electrical power crackled between the points snapping and arcing with vigorous intent, it flashed bright flame for only a moment but enough to almost blind Donald. "Owww, f--k." He yelped as the heat and electricity scorched his fingers and face and burnt a chunk of his uniform.

Rafe could tell everything was going sideways, and quickly! He grabbed the conduit he had been carrying and raced behind the creature while his gaze was set on Darius. He swung with all his might! A loud "DING!" resonated as the conduit bounced off the side of the creature's head. The creature, surprisingly, was stunned and started to contort and try and get away. Rafe followed, swinging with precision..."DING! ... DING! ... DING!" Rafe was in the zone! The creature was wildly moving with no pattern at all, it was doing it's best to survive so it could kill again. It wildly spun around to slice Rafe in half. If he hadn't been in mid swing with the conduit, he would have been killed instantly. As it was, Rafe was able to bring the conduit between himself and the massive blade of the enemy. It went halfway through before becoming lodged.

Rafe leveraged the conduit and slammed the enemy down. Then, jumping on top of the creature, shoved his phaser in the creature's mouth, pulling the trigger, yelling "DIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

Allyndra went to Darius and immediately did what she could. The kits were so limited. She put things in to slow metabolism, heart rate to slow blood loss and others that would help preserve brain functions. "Get us out of here right now! I need the bio bed in the shuttle ASAP!"

"I need 17 seconds..." Lia called across the chamber, with her usual knack for precision. She was going through her checklist. Emergency or not, they'd created such a complicated, interconnecting expansion to the transporter function that just one thread being out of place could have horrific consequences. And they'd seen the result more than once. All over the walls.

The Starfleet team had managed to get a reliable power flow back to the transporter, and more, extended the range of the signal. Even so, the practical part of Lia's mind decided to beam out half of the newcomers first. A trial run was always preferable. She locked on to a random 50% of the team - apart from herself and Marcus Mulder who she had assigned to the second transport. She watched as the beams of light enveloped Darius, Warraquim, Sandoval, Shizn, Karras and Ullswater, making them shimmer in and out of existence before they disappeared entirely.

Allyndra helped Darius but her thought was getting out of this place and him back to the shuttle where at least she had better medical equipment. "You'll have more to tell the grandchildren one day," She quipped to him.

Bright particles of light suddenly invaded Lamar's vision. Even in his wounded state, he was alert enough to recognize the initial, distinctive tingling sensations of a transporter dematerializing his body. But the longer the short cycle progressed, the more it felt...different. What should have been a two-second process seemed to take an relative eternity. He phased in and out of the matter stream before the pattern buffers finally absorbed him in his entirety. Five seconds later, he was gone. To somewhere else.

Mulder looked over at the console, his breath tight in his chest for a moment. And then he exhaled, slowly, eyes focused on the numbers, of the transporter cycle being repeated. Of the call and responses he was expecting. The silence seemed to stretch around him before he looked over at Lia. "They're through," he said and actually gave her a warm smile in response. "Set up the next round."

Lia smiled at the confirmation. Despite everything...the blood, the death, the horror, she smiled. It worked. It actually worked. She nodded, setting up for the next cycle.

Amanda watched as Rafe pummelled the creature, an important factor raced through her mind. "Commander, permission to set charges on the transporter, to stop him following us if he survives."

"What? No!" Lia looked over to them with actual disbelief at the suggestion. After all they'd sacrificed for their work? Everything they'd gone through?

If Blake heard the objection, she completely ignored. "Granted. We're not leaving a single chance for anything to crawl through that thing after us."

Lia's jaw tightened as she looked over to Mulder, and even if she rarely met people's eyes, she did now. With clear meaning, her good arm moving to tap intently on the tricorder, nodding to him to back up what was left.

Quickly Amanda scurried around the transporter, planting the micro charges she'd bought around all the vital parts of the transporter pad before moving to the operators console and working around the others put several more to wreck the console more than it already was; hopefully irreparably.

Mulder started transferring the data across, frowning as he worked. "I'd give my last eye to take all this equipment with us," he whispered to Lia, the frown easing and a small smile coming to him.

"Hurry up please people, I've no idea how long this jury rig will last." Donald told them as he monitored the sparking consoles, the pain in his hands and face was getting worse by the minute and he was dreading looking in a mirror when he got back to the Galileo.

"I have it," Mulder said quietly, looking around him for a moment, taking it all in. He shook his head, swallowing hard at the concept of leaving.

Rafe jumped off of the creature, it's head almost severed at the mouth but continuing to regenerate, although slowly due the damage inflicted. "Come on, Mulder", Rafe ordered. "We don't have time to wish for better circumstances!"

"Charges are set Commander," Amanda reported. "Hit the button and 10 seconds later this place is done for."

Blake had her foot firmly planted on the plating that was pinning Aguni down, her rifle pointed at his head. She pressed down harder as she felt the stirring of movement, glancing to the scientists. "Time to go! Now!"

Lia shook her head, jaw tight with annoyance at the demand from the rifle wielding Starfleet officer, thinking fragile technology worked that way. She moved her hand as quickly as she could in the final set up before unhooking the tricorder and sliding chips into her pocket. "5...4...3...2...1...energising..."

Vansen closed his eyes, taking a deeper breath before he opened them. He let out a shaky breath and fell to his knees, his hands running over his face. The shuttlebay. And their shuttles were still there. Somehow, it had worked. He looked around for a moment, at the others, wondering if they were as relieved as he was.

A new assembly of transporter beams shimmered into existence within the cold station's docking bay. Darius was already present and watched with fatigued dark eyes while the remaining members of their away teams appeared. Plus two, including the devious scientists who were most certainly responsible for this incident. Holding one arm across his bloodied chest while he sat on the ground, he gave them a weak greeting. "Didn't think you'd make it..."

"Ye of little faith," Blake replied a note of dry humour in her voice as she moved quickly around the group. "Caradec, we need you at the helm while Darius is treated. We will need to pass through the asteroid field to leave. I know it feels like we have all hell on our tail, but slow and steady wins the race, Lieutenant, consider that an order. Shizn is in no state to fly either. Mister Vansen, are you up to it?" her eyes met Constantin's with an expectation of cold honesty in response.

"I am," Vansen said with a small nod, taking a deeper breath as he went to the shuttle closest to him. He got in, looking around before taking a seat. He flew a lot. Just for pleasure, but this was different. "Let's get out of here, sweetheart..."

Rafe hurried into the other shuttle to hurry through the pre-flight checklist, his hands deftly moving across the control panel. Halfway into his checklist and they felt the shudder beneath their feet of the charges going off several decks away. No use waiting for anything else to go awry. While everyone loaded into both shuttles, he turned to the Commander, "Ready Commander, just give me the word and I'll get us out of this God-forsaken place."

Blake nodded, glancing around to see the state of the battered, tired team. They were so close. But that's when most accidents happened. "So if Caradec's covering Darius, who's with Warraquim, I'll take the other shuttle with Vansen. Mulder, Quil, Shizn and Karras, you're with me. Turell, Andrews, Ullswater and Sandoval with Warraquim."

Amanda moved the the shuttles door and stood rifle raised as everyone began to clamber in intent on making sure everyone was safe during the last vital but vulnerable moments

Allyndra got Darius settled on the fold-down biobed. "Once we are away, fire anything we have, phasers, mini-quantum torpedoes, throw an old pot at the place. I don't want anyone to come snooping around the place ever again."

Laying down on the makeshift medical platform seemed to induce more pain than sitting upright. Lamar was feeling exceedingly groggy but his commitment to his duty station remained unwavering. "...Autosuture," he requested from Warraquim. "I have to get back to the conn...to navigate. No one else knows this asteroid field..."

"All right. As soon as we are clear you scuttle your rear back to here." She started what Darius requested.

After the doctor finished sealing the skin on torso with the glowing red tip of the medical instrument, Darius pushed himself upright then clumsily swung his legs off of the biobed. He got to his feet and took a couple steps toward the flight deck before going down on one knee with dizziness from a lack of blood flow. Get to the conn, Lamar, he internally yelled to himself. Slowly, he returned to his upright posture then stumbled across the others in the rear cabin until he managed to plop himself down in the co-pilot seat across from Caradec. "...You pilot, I'll navigate..." he said in between deep and painful breaths.

"You got it. Hang on, Chief! You've got this." Rafe's hands moved exceedingly quickly over the console, the shuttle lifting off the deck floor and quickly turning to face the internal corridor from where the enemy would likely show themselves. They wouldn't just get a hand phaser this time. "Caradec to Vansen, are you ready?"

Vansen smiled weakly where he sat, before shifting slightly. "Following your lead, Virginia," he said, before he took a centering breath. Now this was fine. This was fine because it meant they were getting away from that place.

"Commander I could use a little help too." Donald announced after Allyndra had finished with Darius, the burns on his face and hands were swelling up already and the pain was getting to be more than he could take, the desire to scratch at them was even worse.

Allyndra was distracted away from the launch but she had to take care of others right now. "Coming. Lieutenant Caradec, get us out of here but my standing orders are still to destroy that station before entering the asteroid field."

"Aye, aye, Commander!" Rafe quickly turned the shuttle to their cold salvation of space. "Stay close to me, Vansen. We won't be breaking any speed records because of the debris, so stay extra close. You may have to fishtail behind me to avoid getting hit. Here we go!" He exited the station at station keeping. As soon as the shuttles cleared the station he ordered both shuttles a 1,000 meters away and shields up to full. While still very close to the station, probably too close, Caradec ordered the release of all their ordinances, phasers, mini-quantam torpedoes, forks, spoons, everything they had!

They watched the station tear itself apart as the ordinances hit, and then a few places with gas pockets due to failed containment exploded with a bubble-like expansion of the hull, and then a complete rupture of the hull as the first explosion structurally broke open other plasma conduits and the station just seemed to shatter like a porcelain doll, into a million pieces.

Rafe bowed his head, squeezing his eyes closed and exhaling quickly as a wave of emotion hit him. "God help all of them, even those who put discovery over the safety of their comrades. No one deserved this. Vansen, we're done here. Follow me out."

In the sister shuttle, Lia Quil looked out of the viewport with empty eyes. Everything they had done. All that time and energy. They had made, done, touched things that no other scientist had. She cradled the arm that was in the sling to her chest, feeling sick. At least they had managed to keep the bulk of the data.

Together in tandem trail formation, shuttlecraft Virginia and Livia rapidly sped away from the cold station as best possible speed to navigate the hazards of the unstable asteroid field surrounding the secretive research facility. The narrow path to open space was equally as treacherous as the first inbound flight. This time, unfortunately, the journey was compounded by those injured and incapacitated within the shuttles.

Virginia rolled to port around a large moving asteroid and hugged its jagged surface tightly to avoid another incoming rock. Inside the cockpit, Lamar Darius gingerly tapped on his navigation console then relayed instructions to the pilot. "New vector...zero-one-eight mark twenty..."

"Copy vector zero-one-eight mark twenty", Rafe responded. The shuttle again responded to the pilots hands as they turned towards safety, friends who have become family, and home. "Chief, go get some more treatment, I've got it from here."

Darius was close to being incapacitated but managed to retain his consciousness and sense of duty. The other pilot's words were but a mere intelligible buzz in his concentrated mind. Instead of following orders, he continued to plot navigational trajectories into the computer for Caradec to follow; specific trajectories which he'd memorized for the inbound flight, and now manually calculated their reciprocals. "KB-0192 and 0718 are coming up...thread the...needle," Lamar coughed then collapsed forward across the nav console.

Rafe followed Lamar's instructions to the letter. He needed to or they would be toast. The two asteroids were coming up on an intercept course with themselves and with the Virginia. He gunned the engines to just over half impulse to give the Livia room to accelerate in close to them, both of them squeezing in between the asteroids roughly 20 seconds before they collided and turning a wild 30 degree downward angular curve starboard, filling the vacated space where KB-0192 was. He remained at half impulse just to get away from the debris shower of the collision, moving to the halfway point of the asteroid field with more of the debris falling behind them.

In the co-pilot's seat of the Livia, Blake leant forward to open up the comm. "USS Galileo, this is the Livia. We're ready for pickup..." she fell silent. And the silence stretched. She glanced to Vansen, but her expression was unchanged. "Livia to Galileo, do you read?" She sat back in her seat as more silence greeted them. Of course. Just...of course. They had descended through the circles of Hell and crawled their way back out, of course there was no response from the ship. It was just that kind of mission. "Vansen can you pick them up out there?"

Vansen glanced at the controls, before he gave a small shake of his head. "Not yet, but there's a lot of disturbance," he said, focusing on following the Virginia. He shifted forward, the bad habits of a civilian pilot rather than a Starfleet trained one, his hands moving smoothly. Flying manually was always a rush, and he wasn't flying blind either. A balance then. "A few more minutes and we should clear it, the new pilot's pretty good."

Sitting back, Mulder looked over at Lia, studying her with his one eye. He smiled, unable to stop it, leaning forward. He touched her hand, lightly, to make her look at him. "You just worked on the data," he finally said. "You never understood what it all meant..." it sounded sympathetic...but underneath it, it was instruction. He knew what would happen, the washing of hands, the pointing of fingers. Both did not need to go down over this.

"I will not be relegated to a footnote," Lia replied quietly, her gaze still fixed elsewhere, but not really seeing anything anymore. "Not even for a logical reason."

He watched her before he nodded, patting her hand before he sat back. "Well then. Let us be co-authors of our own destiny then," he said quietly, but the smile grew.

Just when Rafe thought he was through the rough stuff, he saw in the distance what the computer identified as KB-1302, a large asteroid flying towards them like it was shot out of a gun, but its trajectory put it in course with hitting KB-0081, a much smaller asteroid. This is bad, this is really bad, Rafe thought. He knew the larger asteroid would break the smaller into a thousand pieces and those pieces would shower right through them! "Computer, prepare to release plasma on my verbal command! Caradec to Vansen, prepare to come under me, turn 180 degrees on my command, stop and release 70% of your plasma, then fly in the opposite direction for 20 seconds, again turn 180 degrees and stop, the fire all phasers at the plasma. I will do the same. This is our only shot at diverting all of the asteroid shower fragments away from us. It'll be like using an umbrella, but with plasma. And when you fire, bring all your auxiliary power to reinforce the front shields."

Vansen let out a breath, about to argue but deciding not to. Officers and all that. "Rogers that," he said, already working on lining up everything he needed. It was, when put it that way, not really that complicated. It was just about the timing of it.

"Rafe to Vansen, turn now!", Rafe exclaimed. Rafe turned the shuttle 180 degrees and stopped. "Computer, release plasma!", Rafe commanded. Vansen did the same. The plasma shot out from the nacelles of both shuttles along the axis of where the asteroid shower would be. "Let's go, Vansen." Both shuttles immediately jumped at the pilots' hands. They flew the predestined 20 seconds as the asteroids collided. They then turned their shuttles 180 degrees, reinforced their front shields and fired all phasers.

Both shuttles, one on top of the other, experienced a dazzling light show with the plasma erupting briefly, creating a concussive force, shoving the asteroid fragments out of line with the intended escape vector of the shuttles. Thank God, Rafe thought. "Follow me out, Vansen. I think we'll be okay now.", Rafe said. But the fatigue carried in the voice. He was ready to get home. Fortunately, it seemed like the rest was debris that could be easily navigated. "Caradec to the Livia, it looks like we're out of the rough stuff. Copy?"

"Copy, we're still breathing," Vansen said, sounding calm as he worked. "Vansen to Virginia, any sign of the Galileo?" he asked, because that was the next priority. Locating and hailing their ship, or else with the plasma they'd vented...well, he didn't need to look at the controls to know that the sooner they got on the ship, the better.

Both long and short-range sensors aboard the two shuttlecraft detected no signs of the Nova-class in the nearby vicinity. The pre-planned rendezvous point was quickly approaching which made the situation even stranger. Commander Morgan Tarin wasn't one to miss deadlines or abdicate responsibility for the shuttles and their personnel. Why Galileo was not responding to hails or lurking within sensor range, was a mystery.

Rafe looked out the shuttle window, wondering where the Galileo could be. In this region of space, with all the craziness going on, there was no telling. "No luck here, Vansen. We'll try to boost our long range sensors with auxiliary power and see if we don't get any blips. While we're getting out of this debris field, let's make sure everybody that needs medical care gets as much as we can offer. Caradec, out." Rafe was running on fumes, but then so was everyone else. "Computer," Rafe said, "set up an alert for the Galileo if it comes within sensor range as well as a proximity alert for any non-Federation ships within 1 parsec." The computer responded in the affirmative while Rafe started working on the comms to get a signal out.

Allyndra moved back toward the front to check on Darius. "Instead of both of us broadcasting, would it be possible to boost one of the shuttles signals by using the other shuttles power?"

"I'm game, Commander", said Rafe. "Caradec to the Livia, please transmit a message to the Galileo but send it directly to us at maximum gain along with any additional auxiliary power you have available. I'll boost it with our auxiliary power and at our maximum gain and hopefully that will be enough to get through."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

LTJG Rafe Caradec
Conn Officer
Cold Station 31

Cmdr. Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second Officer and Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Amanda Turell
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

PO2 Donald Andrews
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

PO3 Constantine Vansen
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

Lia Quil
Lead Scientist
Cold Station 31
[PNPC Blake]

Marcus Mulder
Lead Scientist
Cold Station 31
[PNPC Rice]

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