The Relay (Part 2 of 3) [18+]

Posted on 03 May 2024 @ 3:25pm by Commander (La) Kuran & Lieutenant Aria Rice
Edited on on 03 May 2024 @ 3:27pm

3,178 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 19 - Tomorrow's Galileo
Location: Pleiades Cluster, Subspace Relay Station
Timeline: MD 03, 1231 hrs

Previously, on The Relay (Part 1)...

"We will bring Praxis to within transporter range under cloak then transport a strike team to capture its occupants." The captain locked eyes with the Federation security chief. "You will lead this team. Take three of our best warriors and an engineer. Once you have captured the ones who operate the relay, transport them back here for interrogation; whoever they might be, regardless of the empire they serve. Then, your team will be free to access any logs and systems required without interference."

Aria nodded as she straightened at the order. "Yes Captain," she said, giving a small nod. She could figure out who to take. Best warriors, yes, but also warriors she knew wouldn't lose their heads in a fight...she wanted the occupants alive after all. Not killed because someone felt the need to bloody themselves.

Kuran glanced at the nearby chronometer displayed in Klingon on one of the nearby consoles. His crew now had approximately 100 minutes until their arrival at the station's location, meaning time to prepare was becoming short. "Go now and prepare your team. This may be our only chance to reveal the secrets of this time and return back to your vessel...if it has not already been destroyed."

Aria nodded as she looked at him, her eyes calm as she turned and walked away, already giving orders of who to meet her to go to the relay.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Unseen to any entities who might be lurking in the vicinity, the D8-class Klingon battlecruiser Praxis dropped out of warp and slowed to one-quarter impulse approximately one million kilometers from the Romulan-designed subspace relay beacon. Under cloak, the warship approached slowly and with precision until the small station was within weapons range should the need to destroy it arise.

"Full stop," ordered Captain Kuran to his bridge officers while seated within the center of the command chamber. He pressed a button on his chair's console to initiate a comm channel to his Human first officer - the one who would soon assault the facility and capture the Romulan petaQ for questioning.

"Sogh Rice, we are in position. Is your team ready?"

Rice looked at her team, giving a small nod. "Yes, we are ready," she said, moving to the transported pad. She was well armed, just like the others. "We need every single person in this facility alive," she told her team, a firm order. She was not going to see blood spilled for no reason and trusted in the skill of the Klingons to be able to subdue as much as kill.

Kuran stared into the viewscreen at the small station which was representative of this future's chaos and uncertainty. The Federation had been too weak to defend itself against the might of the Klingon Empire...yet was it solely because of his people and their prowess? How many Romulans had assisted them, either with honor or most likely dishonorably? It was time for answers.

"So'Ha'!" he declared, ordering Praxis to drop its cloak and prepare for transport. In space, the stars shimmered and the intimidating green and gray hull of the Klingon battlecruiser materialized. "rIH!" he then commanded his operations chief.

Within the transporter room, the captain's command was relayed from the bridge and the young warrior manning the console tapped several buttons of the Klingon red-and-yellow computer interface. Aria Rice and her strike team's bodies were suddenly consumed by a shimmer of laterally-materializing red shimmers, then faded from existence aboard Praxis.

Back aboard the bridge, the confirmation report came in from the primary operations officer. "They have been transported to the subspace relay, captain."

"So'!" exclaimed Kuran, ordering his vessel to re-engage its cloak then move off to a nearby position. The battlecruiser shimmered again, this time fading into the stars among the visual spectrum, and now the cosmos were quiet once more.


Subspace Relay Station

The Klingon away team materialized within the confines of the relay station's small and cramped main corridor. As the red transporter waves quickly dissipated with seconds, the reality of the facility's origin was formally revealed. The main hallway was much more brightly lit than that of a Klingon facility, and its structure was hexagonal in nature with green running lights embedded into the ceiling and various LCARS displays integrated within the walls...Romulan computer interfaces.

Aria had her weapon ready, taking in the surroundings. Yes, this was a Romulan station. She looked around, motioning for her team to move forward. Door to door then and she took position, signalling for the door to open. The moment the first door slid open with a quiet hiss, she fired on the two Romulans there, stunning them before they had a chance to react. Her weapon was on stun. They were not going to kill anyone here. She moved to kneel by the two downed Romulans, reaching for the restraints she carried and offering them to the Klingon who knelt with her. "Secure them," she whispered, eyes going to the door again. There weren't many. She looked around the room, which clearly was as simple as a bunkroom. Nothing to use here, unfortunately.

The small and compact corridor's entrance to the command chamber suddenly hissed open and a single Romulan officer came into view with her hand-held disruptor trained on the Klingon away team. "I knew it would only be a matter of time before your kind couldn't stay in your place." She locked the door behind her by reaching out with her off hand to expertly manipulate the controls, then pointed her weapon at one of the undesirables and fired.

A single bright, searing stream of Romulan disruptor fire impacted one of the Klingon warriors directly in his chest, exploding on his torso's armor with a burst of sparks which sent him flying backwards with a halfway-hole in his chest as he cried out in his final moments.

Aria aimed her weapon at her but did not move for cover. She was too far away. The other Klingons on her team had better positions to quickly move and disarm...so distract then. She could do that. "And is that how you greet your guests?" she demanded, watching her. "Your allies?"

The Romulan officer slapped large green button on the console to her left which initiated a station-wide audible alert and lockdown. The ambient lighting dimmed followed by the incessant sound of repeating warning klaxons. She briefly narrowed her gaze at the short 'Klingon' first officer. "A Human. We should have known better than to underestimate the Klingon appetite for cowardice...they are only allies in name, and their treachery today proves it!"

She fired again, then again, with two bright green streaks of Romulan disruptor fire missing their targets but passing dangerously close to Rice's head and singing her hair. The other Klingons within the strike team sprinted forward, attempting to close the distance as quickly as possible while pulling their bat'leths from their backs. They closed to within several meters before another went down from a direct disruptor hit to his abdomen, and another was incapacitated by an emerald energy strike to his shoulder. But two of them got through and one swung his bladed weapon down with swift force upon the Romulan's arm and non-consensually amputated the limb's forearm.

The disruptor fired into the corridors bulkhead, the severed body part's muscles involuntarily spasming as it fell on the deck plate. Green blood sprayed from the Romulan woman's arm which she look at with shock before collapsing to her knees and looking up to her maimers. "...We will destroy you for this..."

Aria watched her, taking a slow breath before she nodded. "Sure, you and the rest of this universe," she said, her voice quiet. She looked at her team before she knelt, pulling off her belt and used it as a tourniquet, holding the Romulan woman's eyes. "I am going to have some questions for you. You sound like you're a capable woman..." she secured her, trying not to think about her dwindling team, the alarms, the situation. Sloppy. It felt sloppy. She knew better. She would do better. "You, stay with the prisoner. If she tries anything, cut off her other arm. But keep her alive," she told the Klingon nearest to her, her mind grasping for a name. Ba'rel. That was it. Ba'rel. Third son.

"The rest, with me. Mission has not changed," she lifted her weapon and glanced back at the room, making sure everyone was in cover in case something less than friendly appeared when the doors opened again.

The doors slid open when Aria's bloodied hand hit the override. But despite the noise, the hallway was empty. She motioned for her team to follow but took the lead, her weapon ready.

The two other rooms they tried were empty, which was gone in one way...in another, Aria's calmness had become resignation. The command room. It was at the end of the corridor and the door was locked. "Chara," she looked at the Klingon woman for a moment. "Give me the package."

"Sogh," she acknowledged, reaching into the sachet she carried. She pulled out the two coaster-sized metal discs. Explosives. Strong enough to blow a door open, but not strong enough to breach the hull. Given what they knew about similar structures, the equipment would be away from the door.

Aria reached for them and moved to the door. "You take cover, furthest doorway from here," she said as she studied the door before putting them at the places she knew would cause most damage to the object, but also contain the blast. Shrapnel wouldn't be helped, that was life. And it would not kill the Romulans. So...she took a moment and put her phaser to wide beam. She then set the charges and activated them, getting up and getting to the nearest room, putting herself in cover.

There was a moment where there was complete silence before the blast rang. It had an almost dull thud in it, then the whistling sound of shrapnel and the creak of metal. Before the smoke even cleared she leant out of cover, aimed her weapon and fired, the wide beam stunning anything in front of her that it could reach.

A new calm yet eerie silence followed Rice's phaser burst into the subspace relay station's control center. No footsteps, no voices. Only the subdued repeating Romulan chirp of a single console which remained online and cast its green and blue hues through the hazy room. The smoke and particles in the air resulting from the breach soon dissipated to reveal two additional Romulans slumped forward in their chairs. Their heads and torsos rested upon the consoles in front of them but their identities were easily confirmed by their silver, black and gray-checkered uniforms and dark shoulder sashes which connected to their belts.

Aria looked around before she motioned for the Klingons to secure the prisoners. She walked over to the console, touching it before she looked at the Engineer. "Download the data," she said before she activated communications. "This is the away team, we have secured the facility. Two causalities, all Romulans are...alive and our prisoners. We're downloading the data now."

Over the encrypted comm channel to IKS Praxis, Kuran's familiar gruff and bass-filled voice replied with a rare uneasy tone of caution, "Be swift and do not linger...Romulans in our time were masters of deception and sabotage...I doubt they have changed their devious ways in a mere 25 years. We will stand by for your transport command." The communique from the Klingon battlecruiser then terminated.

One of the first officer's warriors quickly moved to the sole online console within the control room then pulled his data-retrieval device from his weapons belt. He attached the thick block to the front of the Romulan interface then tapped several commands into it. Many long seconds passed while the red and yellow screen displayed various forms of Klingon iconography in sequence while the connection to the foreign database initialized. "The download is in progress!" he finally announced with pride. "92 seconds until complete."

As the warrior stood observing the data transfer and performing his duty, a new Romulan console activated on the other side of the compartment and showed a single green and blue roundel containing many Romulan glyphs. Two seconds passed before one of the symbols disappeared, then another, and another; each accompanied by a distinctive audible tone from the computer mainframe.

Aria looked over at the new console, frowning before she took her Starfleet issued tricorder. Thalaron radiation. Nothing like a Romulan suicide pill to unleash. And the countdown was clear to her. "Oh hairy tribbles..." she muttered before she contacted the Praxis. "This is Rice, lock onto us and our prisoners. We have Talaron radiation building up..." she looked at her tricorder, doing a quick calculation in her head. "Have medical stand by for decontamination and beam us over in..." she looked at the warrior, motioning to him. "How long left?" They might have to pull out early without all the data.

The Klingon engineering officer operating the download device felt his two hearts quicken at the notification of nearby thalaron radiation. It was the Romulan's eternal curse. Their final act of vengeance against anyone who challenged their superiority. After Emperor Shinzon first used it to assassinate the entire Romulan Senate in 2379, news of this weapon's power had spread through the Klingon Empire in subsequent years. To die from a form of radiation which was invisible and reduced all biological lifeforms to ash was...the epitome of a dishonorable death. It condemned all in its wake to Gre'thor, for all eternity. There were not many obstacles which frightened Kuran's warriors, but this was one of them.

"47 seconds!" the engineer finally responded to the first officer. "We must leave, now!" he added with a rare tinge of fear in his voice. The other Klingons within the room grunted and nodded similar approval, nervously glancing around the command chamber.

The Romulan console's countdown continued, and by now, almost half of the symbology had disappeared. Even more disturbing was the static-laced reply from Kuran. "....ice.......mit........nates....un... - ....thala...." The transmission was lost.

"Okay, pull it, we'll take what we got so far," Aria ordered, frowning as she looked at the tricorder. The radiation was disrupting communication, so there was that. Her eyes saw familiar numbers on the Romulan console. Now, she hadn't exactly excelled at anything remotely linguistic in her time, but she could see it was a countdown. And the clock was at 30 seconds.

30 seconds remaining.

30 seconds could seem like forever, if you really noticed it.

She looked around, at her team, at the Romulans. Her mind had set the countdown, pale blue eyes focused with the rush of adrenaline through her.

Focus. They needed to get out, quickly. The tricorder told her that the way they had come was useless. The doors being blown also didn't shield them, they would be dead if they stayed, or went back the same way.

She looked from the destroyed door to the floor, studying it briefly. There was never only one way into a room. Especially something like this. And she saw it.

A latch.

She kicked the latch, watching the small lever pull up. Green. Of course it was green, one of those neon colours that screamed we have loads of different shades of green, pick one. A check with the tricorder confirmed it was connected to a floor hatch. And radiation was less under them than where they were. She pulled it, the hatch releasing. "Grab the prisoners, we're going down," she said, firmly. There was no getting to the ones they had secured in other rooms.

They were either dead or dying. Either way, getting them was out of the question. But they could salvage the ones they had in here.

20 seconds remaining.

She opened the hatch and dropped down, estimating the drop at 3 meters as her boots hit the floor. She moved to the side as the Klingons, carrying the Romulans they had stunned, dropped down as well. No lifesigns down here except them but it would have to do. "Praxis, this is Rice. Lock onto the lifesigns and transport us, now," she tried again as she started moving. She heard the Klingons behind her.

12 seconds.

Escape pod. Federation relay stations had them. She hadn't expected Romulans to have them too but it made sense. Romulans weren't stupid.

She pressed the panel and the door slid open, revealing the escape pod. It would be a tight squeeze. She got in, starting it up. "In, now!"

5 seconds.

The last Klingon carrying the Romulan got in and she sealed the escape pod, hitting the release. There was a pop...

And the feeling of thrusters as the escape pod released from the station, a brief second of weightlessness before the force of the thrusters pressed them together.

"This is Rice, we're in the escape pod. Beam us over," she tried again, her turning her head to look at what remained of her team, and the prisoners they had. With the amount of breathing, alive people here...oxygen would not last forever.

The compact Romulan escape pod maneuvered on an escape trajectory directly astern from the subspace relay station and rapidly cleared 10 kilometers of distance in only a matter of seconds using its first-stage thrusters. Unseen to its occupants, the interior of the Romulan communications facility was suddenly showered with a spectacular display of thalaron radiation particles from within, slowly descending from the overhead bulkheads and disappearing as they penetrated down through the deck plating. The body of one deceased Klingon warrior who'd been left behind suddenly began to molecularly break down, his dark skin turning to a stony coloration of gray before crumbling in on itself and leaving nothing more than his uniform, weapon and a pile of organic ash in place of his once-large frame.

"...Rice! ..Sogh -ice...report!" replied Kuran's demanding voice through the interior of the escape pod. The audio reception was improving the further the small capsule traveled from the relay station.

"This is Rice. We're in the escape pod," Aria said as she closed her eyes for a moment. "We got some of the data, suffered a few losses...and have some prisoners. Suggest we get beamed on board rather than take the escape pod onto the ship."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CMDR (La') Kuran
Commanding Officer
IKS Praxis
[PNPC Tarin]

Lieutenant Aria Rice
First Officer
IKS Praxis

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