Bob and Weave
Posted on Sun Nov 8, 2020 @ 10:25pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Commander Cullen Walker & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Camille Lévesque PhD & Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Lieutenant JG Sydney Friedman Jr & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit
2,209 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
The Binary Suns
Location: Nearby Earth
Timeline: Concurrent with Battle for the Treasure House
"Thought the point of infiltrating a ship was to disable it quickly," Penny said as everyone was forced to lean to one side as the intertial dampeners strained to keep up. She twisted the Victory like a corkscrew, using its narrow profile to make it harder for the other ship to get a lock.
She suddenly heaved backwards, flipping them around, attempting to get behind the other ship. However, the other ship's short size made it maneuverable enough to keep to their side. So far, no one was getting the upper hand. But, at least they weren't in pieces.
The away team was on the ground, the infiltration team was on the ship and they were left behind waiting and twirling around like a ballerina. "Bad guys are coming around for another pass," Penny warned.
“I’m detecting warp signatures coming from outside the system,” Camille reported. “Presumed enemy reinforcements are inbound. Estimated time of arrival: seventy minutes, but that might change.”
"if they're reinforcing the kidnappers, they won't risk taking their time assessing from afar," Sydney warned. "They'll drop out of warp right in the heart of the system if they have to."
Walker answered, "Tactically speaking, I would do it shock an all, like that. Be prepared."
“Scanning their systems,” Lt. Stetson replied. A new officer to the Victory’s crew, the last place Lt. Lee Stetson had ever thought to find himself was in the Bridge, in the middle of a firefight manning the tactical operations station in battle against other Federation ships!
“I’m detecting a variant fluxuation in their port nacelle field emissions. If we can knock the nacelle off line it will take down their warp drive and weapons without too great a loss of life..” Stetson said aloud.
"Yeah but that loss could be some of our people," Penny said. "AJ's team needs more time to disable the ship." She looked back at Commander Walker. "Do I aim for a shot? Or keep evading?"
“Feeding Tactical precise scans of the enemy ship,” Camille added. “We can minimize loss of our own if the shot is accurate.” She continued to reassert in her mind that this ship was an enemy. That it happened to look like them was...coincidental.
Walker answered, "Evade. Evade. A clean tactical shot. A Surgical scalpel. You got this Penny."
Penny leaned forward as they accelerated towards the ship, then dipped down at the last moment, risking clipping into their attacker, but throwing the other ship off course and forcing it to veer up and take them out of the line of fire.
A new contact appeared on the tactical display, a Sovereign Class ship had entered the inner system and was on a heading bringing the ship straight toward their position, it’s ID code said it was the USS Huron, under the command of Captain Su Juanxiu. The comm system chimed as the Huron drew closer, “Victory. This is the USS Huron. I advise you to stand down. You are outnumbered and can not stand alone against us all.”
“They weren’t on our long-range sensors,” Camille said softly, shocked by how quickly the tide could turn against them in the battle. Was she going to die today? She took a deep breath and returned to her monitors. Her brow furrowed. “More contacts incoming. But these look...strange. Not Starfleet. They’re a mix of ships from different classes. Is that...a Galor?”
"They came in the system in the sensor blind of Jupiter," Penny said. "They're all trying to avoid the Borg ship seeing them."
Walker answered the long range Comm. "Huron. I didn't copy your direct. Something about your mother and combat boots, a sledgehammer, and activities with a pig and a goat." He cut the communication.
Penny snorted with laughter and turned them away hard as the Huron opened fire.
Walker looked at Stetson, "We are going to play a little. We need to give our team some time. You know how to inverse a tractor beam? Penny, you know how to hug the donkey?"
"Till it brays my name," Penny said, swinging them around laterally and aligning them with the saucer section of the Huron.
USS Victory
Engineering
Miguel looked up. What the hell was that? He felt it again. The inertial dampeners were kicking in. "What the hell is going on?" he asked more himself than anyone else. But one of the junior officers did look at him. "Did you feel that?" Miguel asked him.
The young officer paused and then his eyes opened. "What was that?"
"I'm willing to bet that was one of Penny's outrageous evasive maneuvers." Miguel said as he began tapping away at the controls in front of him. His instruments still showed them heading steady and not doing anything out of the ordinary. "I want everyone to run a full diagnostics on their systems. NOW!" he said as he began running an over all check of the computer.
Bridge
More ships were entering the system now, some were engaging each other in combat and it was impossible to tell for sure which side the new arrivals were on.
The Huron suddenly dipped forward and veered off as the area of space behind it flared to life. A Galor-class Cardassian warship suddenly filled the viewscreen.
"Commander," Lt. Stetson said, checking his board, "the Cardassian ship is hailing."
Walker grinned. "Answer them."
A Cardassian Gul appeared on screen. "USS Victory, I am Gul Moren. I'm here along with the USS Zhukov and USS Roanoke. We're to assist in your defense."
Walker grinned. "That is one Cardassian I like seeing. I owe you a whiskey, but it's is in my quarters. Keep us alive so I can give it to you."
Another figure stepped into frame, her pregnant figure making it hard to step up onto the central dais of the Captain's chair. "Hello all," Cassandra said. "Do you need assistance?"
"Hey, Cass!" Penny said, brightly as she swung the ship around beside their new teammates. Camille smiled too, though couldn't direct her eyes off her console.
Walker grinned. "A little cover while Penny hugs the donkey."
"Of course, happy to," she said. "Gul Moren? Pull out the stops and bombs away."
"I always do what the Doctor orders," Gul Moren said.
Walker laughed. "Stetson, on Penny's signal, crack that whip." With Penny spinning around the other ship, he wanted Stetson to lock on with a tractor beam, and let go to sling it into another ship.
Stetson nodded as Penny closed the channel to watch the ships. The Galor-class vessel, began a strafing pattern along the Huron while the Zhukov and Roanoke corralled the other ship that AJ's team was disabling.
Penny tilted the ship on the z-axis and pushed the impulse engines, swinging their ship laterally around the neck of the Soverign-class vessel like a hula hoop. "Have at it, Stetson!" she shouted.
Deftly Stetson used the Victory’s transporter beam to lock onto the hostile ship, using the powerful beam in tandem with the Victory’s momentum to pull the ship off course and force it right where they wanted it.
"It's working!" Camille called out. "Huron is on a collision course with Izar. Continue holding it. Collision will be unavoidable in...now! Cut it now!"
USS Victory
Engineering
"Looks like some kind of virus was introduced into our computers... it's very old." An engineering reported.
"No shit sherlock... and it looks as if it was designed to activate when another was activated and deleted. A decoy virus." Miguel said as he continued to pull chips out of the main console and replace him.
"Why would they lock us out from the rest of the ship?" the engineer asked.
"Think about it, if anyone detected a virus it would us to remove it. So you'd want to lockout engineering so someone else would remove it and the other virus wouldn't be found. Thus you have the ship vulnerable." He explained.
"Alright since this virus looks like it was deep in the core programming of the computer how do we clear it out? Every backup would have it in theory." the Engineer said.
"Yeah I'm working on that right now. Just keep removing every control chip with the blank backups for now." Miguel ordered.
After a few minutes "Sir all the control chips have been replaced with the blank backups. But what good is that going to do us the virus is already in the system."
"I'm going to shut everything down and do a complete restart." Miguel told the younger officer as he continued to type away on his terminal.
"That'll take hours."
"I'm going to do it in two minutes." Miguel told him as his fingers continued to dance.
"That's not possible."
"Watch me." was Miguel's defiant reply. "And take notes kid." Once he initiated the shutdown all the power in the ship shutdown. If it worked the ship would automatically power backup in a few seconds. If it didn't, they'd be dead. Hopefully the outage wouldn't affect what was going on the bridge and around them he thought as he hit the button and all the lights in engineering, including that from the warp core shutoff.
It was about 20 seconds later that the core came back first. Miguel listened to the heart of the ship to make sure it sounded like it was supposed to. As the rest of the control systems came back up he looked at the controls and saw where they were. "Oh damn." He pressed the intership comm. "Torres to bridge... sorry for the brief power outage, we had a nasty little bugger in our computer that has now been dealt with." he explained quickly he could give them the details later.
Penny leaned into her boards, swinging the ship out of the turn, the engines giving a whine and the intertial dampeners working overtime as she swung them hard away from the Huron and spun them around, putting some distance between themselves and the ships.
The Huron attempted to lurch out of the way, but it's size and design didn't afford it much ability to twist and while it did manage to avoid a head-on collision, it locked nacelles with the Izar and they smashed into each other. Hull plates and parts went flying into the void, and even though hearing the crash was physically impossible, everyone on the bridge winced as if their ears could pick out the sickening squeal of metal on metal.
"Sir," Penny said, "the Cardassian ship is hailing."
"On screen," Walker said.
"This is Gul Moren," the Cardassian Captain said. "Captain Williams at Starbase Haven sends her regards. If you require repairs we are ready to assist."
Walker started checking with the departments, "Your offer is appreciated and accepted. Let me dot some I's and cross some T's first."
The Captain materialized on the Bridge, where she immediately reclaimed command and began to issue a series of instructions per Admiral Bennett’s command, taking command of the gathered fleet and overseeing rescue and apprehension of the disabled ships, immediately starting work to identify what medical and damage control assistance was required as well as arranging for the immediate apprehension, arrest and transport of the command crews to the Victory’s brig, which was large enough to hold them all securely until the President and Starfleet Admiralty could decide on a more permanent option.
Walker got up out her seat, "Please take it back. I don't like it. Be advised, there will probably be a communication etiquette complaint about my Exchange with the Huron."
Nicole limped through Sickbay, escorting the hostages. "Private ward for the President and his people, main ward for our people," she told Maggie. "Get them scanned and cleared and make them comfortable."
"Speaking of," Maggie said, looking concerned. "Do you require attention."
"Not yet," Nicole said trying to ignore the constant itching on her back from the burned suit. "Grab a medkit and let's get to work."
King looked at her, "You want me to do it? Or eat them if they get out of line." His species wasn't beyond eating an enemy, but there were better sources of calories, it was mostly a bluff and a threat, mostly.
Nicole stopped, noticing him there. "Admiral Bennett requires round-the-clock protection. Do not leave his side until he leaves the ship."
She walked away to the patients, shaking her head.
King nodded and washed his hands. He was weird about dried blood in his fur and on his claws. He took up a position near the admiral, "Yes, ma'am." He grabbed a tricorder and scanned his own arm where there was a cut. He prepared a hypospray and put it against his furred arm, then he used the suturer. "This is so much better than the SRT medical kit." He posted up next to the Admiral and remained quiet.
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