Attacked from within! Part 3

Posted on Mon Aug 4, 2014 @ 10:28pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Samantha Raylen

2,357 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: A Whole New World, Part 2 - Durbatuluk
Location: On Board

[Corridor near VIP quarters]

Nicole's nostrils flared with the scent of her prey as she charged down the corridor. She didn't know the Intelligence Officer outside of department head meetings, but the woman had turned a phaser on the Captain and then run away. That was enough in Nicole's book to make her part of the problem.

She wasn't sparing anything, her recent victory giving her a level of strength and stamina she only felt when she'd gotten proper nutrition. It didn't take her long to overtake her prey and tackle the other woman to the deck.

Blackburn was taken by surprise by the other woman. As she hit the deck, her training took hold as she slammed her elbow backwards at the attacker.

Nicole grunted as she felt the elbow hit her right in the diaphragm, driving the air from her lungs. She gasped, but grabbed hold of Blackburn by the hair and yanked her head back, exposing her neck, and straddled her, forcing her onto her stomach. "Now," she hissed in the woman's ear, "how long have you been working for the Raeru and what do you know of their plan?"

"The Master will have this ship," Nina grunted. "He's already gaining control of the crew. Those who aren't being driven mad yet."

Nicole growled dangerously and gave Nina a swift slam forward, cracking her nose and knocking her head on the deck. Nina looked dazed and blinked several times. Nicole picked her up bodily off the deck and hefted her by the front of her uniform. Her temples were pounding, but she fought it down. "What is their plan?" she said.

Nina tried to break Nicole's grip, but despite their evenly-matched physique, she barely managed to budge the Doctor. She grimaced and spat defiantly in Nicole's face, determined to keep the Master's secrets.

Nicole snarled and slammed Nina backwards into the bulkhead. She watched as Nina's eyes lost focus for a moment and the woman slid to the deck. Nicole advanced on her, ready to extract the information she wanted, when Nina suddenly looked up, confused. "Doctor...?"

Nicole stopped, suddenly unsure of herself. "Yes....?"

"How did I get here?" Nina said. putting a hand to her head. "We were cornering that man by the VIP quarters...."

The rage in Nicole built again and her temples pounded. She suddenly had the overwhelming urge to rip the little liar's throat out. Rage, however, was her constant companion, and she wasn't always able to push it aside, but part of her mind was screaming that this was significant.

"Cortical reset," she said quietly, staring at Nina like a lab specimen. Okay, hinek, put it together,, she thought. A blow to the he front of the head didn't do anything; punches in the face weren't saving anyone. But, a swift hit to the back of the cranium disrupted whatever signals their minds were receiving.

Of course, that was also a spectacular way to do serious cranial damage.

"Can you stand?" she said. When Nina nodded slowly and got to her feet, Nicole handed the woman's phaser rifle back to her. "One solid hit to the back of the skull. I don't know how long it will last, but it'll knock out their hold. Anyone acting against the crew, hit them."

She immediately turned and ran back to Sickbay. She had a clue, and now she could develop a diagnosis and a cure.

After all, she was a Doctor, not a fighter.


[Crew quarters]

After having ended another double shift in engineering and had gone straight to bed, didn't even bother to eat. The good news is that he almost had all of the power systems working the way he wanted. Soon the ship would be working at max efficiency was the last thought as his head hit the pillow and he slipped into unconsciousness.

He didn't know how long he had slept, but that didn't matter to much now. He had felt the ship get rocked. His eyes where opened immediately as he looked around trying to figure out what the hell had happened. He knew that kind of hit was an explosion. Where they under attack he wondered. "Torres to the bridge." he said as he got out of bed. There was no answer so he grabbed his combadge and tapped it. "Torres to bridge, what the hell is going on?" he asked as he began to get himself dressed.

"Miguel!?" Hunter's voice came back through the com. "Get to Engineering. The Raeru are trying to take over the ship! We have cascade system failures all over."

"Aye sir." Miguel responded as he finished getting dressed, grabbed a SIMs beacon and strapped it to his wrist. he activated and shined the light ahead of him as he left his quarters. "I'm going to kill whoever screwed up my ship." he thought to himself as he made his way through the dark corridors towards engineering. "Torres to Raylen, meet me in engineering ASAP we got a ship to get back together." he said with a bit of an aggravated tone in his voice.

The reply through the comm system was full of static and cut off before she'd finished finished speaking, "Raylen here. I'm on my w...."

Seems that whatever was messing with the power was also wrecking havoc with the comm systems. One moment it was working the next it wasn't. Miguel was really thinking about putting a hurt on whoever was messing with his ship. He ended up needing t take the jefferies tubes to engineering since he didn't want to risk getting stuck in a turbolift by one of the random power fluctuations. To say the least his trip was rather adventurous, especially a few of the young officers he had to render unconscious for getting in his way. Although as he made his way to the last section he did vaguely wonder if he had to hit the last guy as hard as he did.

Having contacted Miguel, Hunter tried to contact Rhea, "Hunter to Kennit, Captain, what's your situation?"

The only response to his hail was a hiss of static, whatever was going on with the ship's systems was now impacting internal communications as well...

"Damn!" Alec spat in anger. Looking at the crew member who manned the science station. " Do we have internal sensors? I'd like to know where the Raeru are. That is if it isn't too much trouble."

"Working on getting them restored Commander, I had to reboot the system but it's taking longer than usual."

"Why am I not surprised. Do the best you can, as quickly as you can."



[Transporter Room]

The transporter room was still bathed in red emergency light when Tom felt the explosion from the lower decks. Instantly, the pad lost power and so did his console. Under normal circumstances (whoever thought losing power would be a normal circumstance), Tom would have remained at his station to do what he could to restore power. Something felt very odd about this situation. Unfortunately, his call to the bridge must've been lost in all the comm traffic. He tapped his badge to try again and immediately noted that communications were now down.

With no power available, there was no point to remain in the transporter room. And, with no weapons stored in the room, he would have no way to defend it if needed. Tom slipped into the back service room and into the Jeffries tube. He had to find someone that knew what was going on...

Instead of navigating the Jefferies tubes for a while, he found the nearest corridor exit.

"You!" shouted a gruff voice right as Tom was able to stand on his own feet again. He turned to see two people, silhouetted by the emergency lighting.

Tom squinted, trying to make out a face or any sort of feature that might identify who they were.

"I bet you're the one that cut the power." The figures stepped forward, just enough to be illuminated by a light panel. Tom could tell both were ensigns, and neither one looked happy.

"Gotta watch those with chevrons," the other ensign spoke. "Starfleet will take just about anyone who will enlist these days."

"Hey now," Tom replied, his own tone agitated. Technically, the ensigns outranked him by far, but the Chief was part of the ship's command structure. He could tell reason wasn't about to work here, especially since one was carrying a phaser. "I've been in Starfleet for twenty years," he tried to reason anyway, "almost as long as you've been alive."

"You're the kind we have to watch," said the first voice, raising his phaser and backing Tom down into the junction. "No old fart likes taking orders from a kid."

Tom narrowed his eyes at the phaser as it was aimed at him. Realizing the junction they backed him into was dark, he ducked and rolled into the armed ensign, slamming his elbow into the kid's gut, knocking the wind out of him. An attack yell came from the other ensign. Tom dodged as the ensign lunged at him, grabbing the phaser from his first attacker. Standing out in the corridor under a light, he pointed the phaser at them both. "Stand down, Ensigns!"

Both refocused and started to move towards the Chief. Noting the phaser was on stun, Tom fired. As both men lay unconscious on the floor, Tom lowered the phaser and looked down at the officers. He sighed. When he looked up, he noticed a new arrival, this one with a wrist beacon pointed at his face. He squinted to see the owner, but could only make out the reflection of Lieutenant Commander pips. "It... Self defense, sir," Tom tried to explain, hoping the new arrival saw at least some of the interaction.

"I believe you Chief... I had a run in with a few people as I made my way down here. I think our doctor is going to be upset with me over how i might have put one of them in traction." Torres said. But he didn't stop moving he just headed fro the quickest way to access main engineering. Once there he'd be able to figure out what the hell was going on.

Tom remained standing over the two ensigns for a couple moments, wondering if he should restrain them before they came to. Glancing back at the Chief Engineer and seeing the wrist beacon grow dimmer as he moved down the corridor, Tom thought it would be best to leave them be.

"Commander!" he called out, rushing to catch up with the officer. "What the hell exactly is going on anyway?"

"Seems our guests are not only trying to take over our ship, but they have some sort of device that is messing with the minds of our crewmates." Miguel told the Chief.

Tom paused in the corridor for a moment, and cocked his head to the side. "Hunh..." He mumbled. Looking back up, he saw the engineer's wrist beacon disappear, or at least almost disappear. "Commander!" He called out, running to catch up to the officer. "What's the plan, sir?" Tom checked the setting on his phaser and hoping they could rally more troops to their cause, not stun them in the corridor.

"Plan is simple. Get to engineering, reestablish power throughout the ship, take control of it if we have to, and we kick anyone's ass that tries to stop us." he told the enlisted man.

[Main Science Lab]

Resh awoke slowly, his head pounding. What happened? he thought to himself, Why am I on the floor? His scientist’s mind kicked in. Assess the relevant data: what do I see? He lifted his head enough to look around. Science lab. We’re at red alert. There’s a human officer in gold sitting at my console, mumbling to himself about “blue-skinned devils”. A type-2 phaser rests on another panel to his right. What do I remember? Despite his aching antennae, he thought back to his last recollections. I was working at my station, the ship went to red alert. The ship shook, then the sound of the door opening. After that, all I remember is a flash of light.

Conclusion: I was likely stunned by the officer currently seated in my chair. The ship is under attack or otherwise in distress. At least some of the crew may be undergoing some form of telepathic control or attack, unless this particular officer simply hates Andorians. Given that the Raeru are the only known variable currently aboard the ship, they may be involved.

First things first: eliminate the immediate threat. He doesn't seem to have noticed that I’ve awakened. If I’m fast, I may be able to incapacitate him. Slowly rising to a crouched position, Resh took a closer look at the phaser. Good, still set to light stun. He crept across the floor until he was almost directly behind the seated officer, who seemed to engaged in whatever he was doing to notice Resh. Taking a deep breath, Resh grabbed the phaser and jumped to his feet, moving away from the console. As the disgruntled security officer rose from the chair to face him, he pointed the weapon and fired. The human’s limp form crumpled to the floor.

Now to find out what’s going on. Resh checked the panel the security officer had been working at. It appeared he had been trying to access the ship’s systems, but with main power offline, he had limited success. Res tapped his combadge. “th’Cham to security.” No response. “th’Cham to bridge.” Still nothing. “This is Ensign Resh th’Cham, is anyone reading me?” Silence. Apparently internal communications are down as well. I suppose this calls for some hands on research. I should get to the bridge. Without power, that means Jeffries tubes. Only four decks up, though, could be worse, He thought as he entered the tube and began his ascent.

 

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