About the Space of Half an Hour
Posted on Mon Jul 5, 2021 @ 10:10pm by Admiral Alan Markus & Captain April Dragon & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Commander Cullen Walker & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant Arashi Tanaka Mr. & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit
2,432 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Archangel
Location: USS Victory
Timeline: Just before 0600
"Hello, Darling," The woman said, smiling at the Admiral.
The Admiral, for his part, looked pale, with a mixture of rage and understanding on his face. The shadows from the emergency lighting made his expression even more severe.
"You took something from me," he said, his voice soft but measured.
"I told you I would," she said evenly. "So please don't draw this out with feigned shock and indignation." She brushed a speck of dust off the arm of her chair. "So, Alan is it?"
"Borrowed it from a friend," Markus said. "You're looking well....?" he left the question hanging in the air.
"Thank you," she said, her voice warming. "Thought I'd go back to Lilith. It suits me."
While the Admiral and this Lilith person were exchanging pleasantries, softly and with the bridge comm system muted so as to not warn any others immediately of what they were doing the Captain said, “Lieutenant Naroot. Initiate a passive scan, find out if the abductees are on that ship. Try not to be obvious about it.” She did not give the order to go to red alert just yet, with the ship at yellow alert their defensive shields were already up. She would not bring weapons online and risk the safety of the hostages, not yet.
Meanwhile, the discussion was going on. "Among a few other choice monikers," Markus said.
"Flirt," Lilith said, with a wry smile.
Walker waited briefly, then spoke, "Lillu abi abi." Most knew he was a hard charging door kicker, most didn't remember he had degrees in history and political science, or in Cultural Anthropology. Anyone who researched the name Lilith would know what he said and he was being an ass. It wasn't his faith, so he didn't believe in the words.
Arashi was looking a bit confused and decided to gain some info about who this Lilith was. "Excuse me, 'Lilith', is it? What is it you are doing here and what do you want from the Admiral?" He knew, as soon as he asked the question, he was going to regret the answer.
The Captain flashed an irritated scowl at the younger officer, but said nothing.
Lilith's smile faded and she stared the young man down. "Mind your place, child, the adults are talking." She looked back at Markus and put her smile back on. "Now, dear, instruct your ships to completely power down their engines, and as soon as they've cooled, I'll return the extra cargo I picked up, and we can go discuss this over breakfast."
Looking to the Admiral. "My assessment, sir, don't meet that woman without a 'lazakhar'." It was a reference to a magical protective amulet, used by men. It would be similar to the 'lanekevah', which would be used by women. They were used as protection from Lilith and her children lilit(male), lilith(female), and lilin(plural). In this case, he was using the word as a stand in for phaser or a condom.
Lilith raised an eyebrow and got a look of disgust, looking back at the Admiral. "Are these the vulgar urchins you're associating with now? They're worse than those mongrels you were collecting."
Nicole growled. "Speaking for the mongrels--"
"Enough!" Markus said, cutting through. He looked at the screen, and spoke very slowly. "Give back what you took, and return to the void, or I will hunt you down and get them back."
Lilith laughed, her voice rather musical, despite her attitude. "I have four ships here, you have two. Please, tell me what your plan is?" She looked at him almost pityingly. "Now, to both of the Captains out there: power down your engines. I won't ask again."
“Sorry. My Chief Engineer has become a little cranky as he’s gotten older. It’s quite a chore to bring the engines back online and.. I don’t feel like dealing with it.” Kennit replied. “That isn’t going to happen.”
Lilith's expression hardened. "Then I'm sorry to inconvenience you." She looked off to her left. "Golee maar."
The ships opened fire on the Saint George and Victory, striking hard with the shields powered down. The already low-power ships were rocked hard by the blast to their engine bays.
Penny immediately plied her board, trying to get the ship to move. Engineering had managed to push back against the power-dampening beam slightly, but there wasn't enough to power everything they needed. She was rerouting between shields and engines almost nonstop, and it was quickly becoming a losing battle and their power levels dropped.
“Engineering!” the Captain ordered in a hard voice. “I need the secondary warp core online.. now!”
Stop hurting my ship Rhea! is that Torres was thinking as he barked the orders about bringing the secondary core online.
After what seemed like a very long time during combat, but which was in truth only 9.774 seconds, the flickering power systems and displays stabilized as the combined power provided by the Victory’s dual warp core design brought power levels up to nominal despite the effects of the power-dampening beam being used against them. Immediately, Kennit said “Lieutenant Naroot! Bring all weapons systems online, set the forward primary phaser array to maximum effect, utilize a photon spread and then send them a message…”
"Weapons' power systems initialized, aye!" Penny said. "Rerouting power. Engines are online, taking evasive maneuvers."
Arashi had locked phasers and torpedoes on target and fired, on the captain's orders. He was doing damage to the enemy's shields and he was smiling.
Back in engineering Torres was already working on the weaker engine, supplementing it every way he knew how so they could use both cores to keep the ship at full power. He was already looking at the sensor readings and had a fairly good idea of how to counter that little advantage in the future.
Penny swung them around for another shot as they dodged a phaser blast from the Federation ship. "Saint George taking heavy damage but returning fire. Castelnaudry is blending in with the background, but I think they're attacking the bad Federation ship. We're in trouble without reinforcements, though."
Nicole finally shook herself out of her shock and looked at Kennit. "Captain, permission to play a fifth ace," Nicole said as they shook from another volley, albeit less since the shields were strengthening.
Aware of the Doctor’s ‘hand’, Kennit gave a quick nod in assent as she said “Be my guest..”
"Penny, send out a message on all Klingon frequencies," Nicole said.
"Channel open," Penny said, not looking up from her boards.
Nicole took a deep breath. "qul!" she shouted.
Behind the explosions, behind the Saint George listing off its axis, behind the oddly-stationary star field firing back at the hostile Federation ship, behind the power-draining envelope, three, large, Klingon Birds-of-Prey de-cloaked and opened fire.
The combination of weapons fire from in front and behind rocked the Night ships and enemy Federation ship. With a final flare from the Victory's phasers, the ships turned and fired at the Klingons, making them veer off. The enemy ships took advantage of the gap and set off, flying into the dark.
“Follow the hostile ships! Fire at will! Aim to disable their engines!” Kennit ordered.
Penny shot the ship into warp, pushing the engines as hard as she dared. The other ships were trying to eek out a decimal point more of warp speed. Even one one-thousandth more would make a difference eventually. At least she could track their trails.
Firing at the enemy ship, Arashi was angry at them. He hit their engines but did not do a lot of damage. He continued to fire at the ships, growling angrily as shots continued to be deflected as they went faster into warp.
From her station on the Bridge, Summer's face took on an slight grin. "Blow those Klingon ships to high Heavens !!!" she shouted. Her grin 'slightly' took on a smirk.
Hearing that, Walker clinched his fists. Each knuckle popped as he did, an audible pop. One, those were our allies. Two, he was a quarter Klingon.
Nicole growled, her eyes red, but she was too invested in what was going on with the battle to pay more attention. She could eat later.
Turning to look at Summers in disbelief, the Captain said, “you want our allies blown high heavens? What is wrong with you..if you are trying to get yourself killed I will fulfill that request now before I’ll allow you to endanger my ship and crew a second time!” The Captain snarled, drawing a phaser from the weapons compartment set into her chair and aiming the weapon at the Romulan.. Summers had tried once before, Kennit wasn’t going to allow a second.
Summers shook her head as if to clear it. " My...apologies, Captain. " Summers cocked her head a bit before continuing. " A...'Second time,' Captain? I..I don't understand. I do apologize for my outburst. "
“Security! Escort Chief Summers to her quarters and keep her under guard until Doctor Anderson is able to give her a medical exam. If she attempts to leave, or anything else, weapons are authorized.”
"Come on Summers. Let's go." Arashi said with a sigh. He took her gently by the arm so as not to trigger her other personality.
Summers looked straight into Arashi's eyes and sighed, while offering herself to his arms. " Let's go. " She said.
Walker started to relax. If the Captain ordered it, he would end her. The paperwork would say she resisted going to her quarters under guard. He could stage it well enough that Nicole would have increased difficulty saying otherwise. For a moment, he wanted those orders.
"Problem," Penny said. "The ships branch off in about forty seconds and...I've lost their warp trails!"
"What?" Nicole screamed.
“What do you mean you lost them?” Kennit questioned in a sharp voice.
"Sensors indicate all the ships' warp trails disappear. The ships are gone, but the warp trails just stopped. It's like they dropped out of warp and just vanished," Penny said. She dropped their ship out of warp as well, about where sensors indicated the disappearance.
A moment later, a flash of rainbow light splashed across the viewscreen as something dropped out of warp right by them. A blur of holographic coating later, and a Defiant-class ship was facing them.
“Fuck!” Kennit said. A pause, then, “hail Admiral Markus...” the Captain barked out. The moment the Admiral's face reappeared on the screen, she demanded, “you have not been at all honest with me Admiral. You have placed my ship and members of my crew into danger and I find that unacceptable. Who was that woman?”
It had been some time since Nicole had seen the admiral so stern and so cross. He was the kind of person who burned quiet, and usually something else exploded, not him. Nicole actually took a step back from the viewscreen and swallowed when she saw the look in his eye.
"I am not discussing this over subspace," he said, his voice hard as a diamond. "So I'll give you a choice. You and one representative transport here, or I and one will transport to you. Choose, Captain."
“We will transport to you. Five minutes Admiral.” Kennit replied, unfazed by the glare of old men who mistakenly believed the hype that a number of gold pips at their collars gave them power. It took more than jewelry to earn her true respect.
“Commander Walker. You have the con. Dr. Anderson. You’re with me.” the Captain said. Anderson had a past history with the Admiral. Her insights on his words and action in the next minutes could be useful.
"Aye, Captain," Nicole said, following her to the turbolift.
Arashi had arrived back to his station after escorting Summers to the brig. He told his subordinates that they were authorized to use weapons if she tried to escape or otherwise tried to harm anyone. He noticed the tense atmosphere on the bridge and was about to ask what was happening but thought better of it and stayed quiet when he saw the rage on the captain's face as she walked by.
"Keep your guard up," Nicole said quietly to Arashi as she walked by.
"Roger that. I will do that and make sure that no one is hurt." He said and turned back to his station. He was wondering about what to do about the lady who fired on his ship. "Damn that woman, whoever the hell she is! She is going to pay for what she did to our ship!" Arashi whispered angrily. He pushed some buttons on his console to check the supply of torpedoes, just so no one noticed that he was angry.
As the turbolift doors closed, Nicole rubbed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her face. "So," she said, "be prepared to argue with possibly the one person in the galaxy as stubborn as you are. I saw his face. Whoever that woman was, he knows her, but he wasn't expecting her. He was surprised; he doesn't like surprises."
“And I don’t like being lied to. Either direct purpose or through omission of data, especially when it places my ship and my crew in danger.” was Kennit’s hard toned response. “Any idea who that female was?”
"I've never seen her before," Nicole said. "But given their talk, I'd say it's obvious they have a history. Probably someone he's pissed off at some point. There are one or two of them out there. I'm sure you can relate," she gave a sideways glance as the lift stopped by the transporter room.
“Well, he can add my name to that list...” was all the Captain said.
Yeah that ship sailed already, Nicole thought. "I'll be sure to add that to my report," she deadpanned as they walked into the transporter room.
"We have coordinates, Ma'am," the transporter tech said.
Nicole walked over and stepped up on the transporter padd. Her face was stony but inside she was boiling, sobbing and barely holding together. "Remember, we're there to figure out what happened, not brag about whose nacelles are bigger."
Kennit shrugged one shoulder, “I have only met the Admiral a few times. With your history with him, I’m sure you’re the one to be the best judge of that.”
Nicole rolled her eyes as the transporter took them away.
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