Unseen Revelations Part 2
Posted on Tue Dec 31, 2024 @ 11:45pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Commander Zachary Addams & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Ardal King
2,187 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission: A Lost Endeavour
Previously on Star Trek Victory:
Contact the Victory, let’s coordinate our attack and take the fight to them. I want to capture one if at all possible make sure that you transmit that that to Commander Walker. The Endeavour’s crew are still alive, held captive by the Klingon warlord who controls those ships.. I’m not sure if they’re here on this side of the rift, or if they’re still on the other side.”
"Understood, Captain," David said, pausing a moment. "Message to pursue and assist has been transmitted to Commander Walker on the Victory. What are your orders, Captain?"
And now the exciting continuation:
“Initiate a full sensor scan of those Klingon vessels. Include a parameter to differentiate between our quantum signature and theirs...if they are holding any of Endeavor's crew hostage I want to know before we open fire on them.”
David shimmered and reappeared. "Klingon ships are equidistantly spaced around us with one warbird directly in our path. Sensor scans did not find any life signs on the remaining Klingon vessels which matched the quantum signature of this dimension. All showed the slight variation consistent with the Klingon vessels themselves, indicating no hostages being held on the ships they faced."
“Open a secure channel to the Victory.” The Captain ordered.
"Aye, Captain," David said.
Once the secure channel was established, the Captains said, “Kennit to Victory. I don’t know about you, Mr. Walker, but I’m rather tired of this nonsense from these Klingon intruders.”
She laid out a quick tactical plan of action to bring both Victory and Endeavour into action together to swiftly disable or destroy the hostile vessels. She reiterated her desire to try and capture one of the Klingon ships if possible, citing the need for additional information which could be obtained from the enemy vessel’s onboard computers.
“Have boarding parties ready to go in the event we are able to disable one of the Klingon ships,” Kennit told Walker. “However, these are Klingons. They could opt to destroy their own ship rather than be taken, so caution is priority. I will not have our personnel lost in this attempt.”
Walking answered, "Sending out the orders. Our teams know the risks. ". He made sure that the department heads creating the away team knew to send someone with overt knowledge of Klingon Tech.
The plan called for Victory and Endeavour to run a deception: Endeavour would turn and appear to be trying to retreat with Victory moving to provide protection to allow the older and assumed less capable ship to withdraw. Klingons being Klingons, Kennit expected at least one of the remaining ships to try and move in to make the ‘kill’ and disable Endeavour to recapture the ship. As soon as the Klingon vessel was within range of both Federation ships they would open fire and catch the enemy vessel with their full weapons power.
Was it cheesy? Absolutely. Would any Klingon from THIS dimension worth his name fall for it? Not a chance.
But these Klingons were not from this dimension, Rhea knew that in their dimension the Federation had fallen within 3 decades of its initial inception. The Klingon ships they faced were considered high-powered ships of war in their universe but here, they were roughly equivalent of 2270s era technology. The Klingons and Romulans had overrun their galaxy and without the Federation and the engineering breakthroughs of Human and Vulcan skills, they had no real need to continue to develop their ships. These ships were far behind the technological prowess of even the Endeavour. Compared the Victory, it was like putting a wooden pirate ship from Earth’s distant past up against a WWII era American battleship.
They were about to be schooled.
"Captain, the Klingon ships are scanning us," David said. "I'm attempting to block their scans. Shall I return to the bridge to begin to execute your plan?"
“Absolutely.” The Captain answered.
Zach and Sarah sat on the floor of the Endeavour's Sickbay, resting against a storage cabinet. They'd done their best to secure several of the Klingon prisoners who'd been brought in once they'd been healed, and then had to haul them around to make room for the Victory officers who'd been injured. Thankfully, the Captain must have regained control, since the Klingons had all been beamed away. Hope they like the brig, Zach thought to himself.
"Is...is it over?" Sarah said, leaning on him, her head on his shoulder.
"I think so," Zach said, similarly exhausted. Vulcan mannerisms were one thing, but Vulcan stamina was another, and he regretted lacking it at that moment. "At least the invasion is. If the Klingons are gone, it means we have control of the bridge. With some luck, the Captain will--mmf!"
He registered the weight on him before he realized what it was. He fell back to the deck as Sarah landed on top of him and kissed him full on. In his shock, he froze up, the familiar cool of emotionless logic washing over him before he felt something in his mind cramp and he was back to normal. The shock stunned him so much he didn't consciously realize he'd been kissing her back until she sat up, her face as red as the alert panel above them.
"So...um....That. Yeah," he said, trying to find the words.
"I'm sorry," she said, "it's just...you saved my life...like twice...and then there was the whole surgery together thing and the bonding talk and you keeping me from freaking out and I just wanted to say...thank you." She smiled shyly and shrugged.
Zach gave an embarrassed smile and shrugged amiably. "Well, you're welcome. But if the Klingons really are off the ship, we should find out what's going on." He tapped his combadge. "Addams to Naroot. Is the fighting over?"
To his great surprise, instead of a response over the comm with a shimmer of light David appeared standing directly before him. “The ship has been secured and the hostile intruders have been successfully dealt with, however the Klingon ships remain a threat which we are in the process of dealing with.”
Zach stood up and looked concerned. "What are you doing here?"
“I am a hologram.” David replied. “My program allows me to split into multiple instances in order to better facilitate operations in times of need such as the current situation.”
"Where's Penny?" Zach said.
“If you are referring to Lt. Naroot, she is lying on Biobed 7 directly behind you as she has been injured and requires medical assistance,” the hologram replied.
"Oh, no," Zach said, spinning around and looking at Penny.
"She isn't breathing," Sarah said, looking at her.
"She's off," Zach said.
"You mean she's dead?" Sarah said.
"No, I mean she's deactivated. She's not human, she's an artificial lifeform," Zach said, scanning Penny quickly. "And I'm no Engineer."
"What do we do?" Sarah said.
Zach looked down at his patient and frowned. "What's this?" He looked down by her pack and saw a part of her uniform that had turned black. "Help me roll her," he said.
They grabbed her and gently rolled her onto her side. The large burn mark on her back was evident, and would have been horrific if she'd been human. Thankfully, instead of her insides spilling out behind her, they saw the mechanical innards under the skin-like polymer.
"Oh my God," Sarah said.
"That's bad...." Zach said. He leaned in close and looked at the wound and the underlying parts. "There's no internal damage," he said. "It took the outer layer, but her insides seem fine."
"That's good," Sarah said. "So she could be repaired? It's just cosmetic with her...'skin' missing?"
Zach frowned. "If it's just cosmetic, why is she out of commission?" He looked at Sarah. "If a patient lost a layer of skin and had exposed muscle, that wouldn't kill them."
"It could put them into shock," Sarah said. "Blood loss, pain, trauma response. Maybe she's shut down as a protection against further damage?"
"Maybe..." Zach said. He looked at the wound closer. He noticed a discoloration and followed it with his eyes. There was a ring around the wound that looked like healthy skin, but was a slightly different color than the rest of Penny's skin. "She was repairing herself," he said. "Look...the skin here is new."
"So why did it stop?" Sarah said.
The answer clicked immediately in Zach's head. "Same reason we do: she's out of energy."
Sarah looked Penny over. "Not to be indelicate but...where do we plug her in?"
Zach put Penny back down on the biobed and folded his arms. "I don't know," he said. "She's told me so much about herself...but not that."
"I have some impolite ideas, but I doubt they're correct," Sarah said. She looked the android over. "She really looks human," she said. "An amazing piece of work."
"She's very human," Zach said. "She was designed to look like us, even with systems similar to ours." He stopped and looked around, an idea coming to him. "I need a piece of equipment."
"What is it?" Sarah said.
"A defibrillator," Zach said.
"What is that?" Sarah said.
"Ancient device. It could stabilize a human heart by delivering a charged blast through the heart muscle. They became obsolete a couple centuries ago when we developed more compact cortical and cardial stimulators."
"You think it has the power to charge her up?"
"It's something," Zach said. "Even if we had to do it repeatedly, it should eventually work."
Sarah nodded and went to the replicator. Zach looked down at Penny. "Forgive me," he said, pulling her uniform jacket off, then her shirt, then her bra. He took a sample of conductive gel and put it on the center of her chest. When Sarah came back with two paddles and a power connection, he plugged it into a nearby computer console and began setting the controls. "All right," he said, "let's pray." He pressed the charge button and started the process.
"Clear!"
BRIDGE - USS ENDEAVOUR
It only took a few minutes to complete the plan of attack against the enemy ships. Moving together, Victory and Endeavour quickly took position to lure the Klingons into firing range. The battle was swift, and when they closed range it was short work to destroy one of the Klingon ships and badly damage another. The enemy ships, outnumbered and aware they were at a greater disadvantage than they’d believed immediately withdrew from the battle and jumped to warp. Rather than follow, the Victory and Endeavour instead returned to a position near the wormhole. If Endeavour’s crew were not here, it was a logical assumption that they remained on the other side.
The turbolift doors opened and Zach and Sarah stepped out, Penny hanging between them. Her uniform top was missing but her shirt was on. She was sluggish and had to be propped up between them, but she was looking around. "Captain," she said. "Klingons briefly took the bridge. Reporting for duty."
The Captain turned toward the 'lift as the doors opened, and frowned in concern at seeing Lt. Naroot in such a state. "I am not sure you should be here on the Bridge Lieutenant.. in fact based on seeing that Dr. Addams and his assistant are holding you upright, I am certain of it." Kennit's gaze locked onto the Doctor. "You should take her back to sickbay until she has recovered fully."
"Yeah, that was the plan," Zach said, helping Penny to the helm and setting her in the chair. "Except she isn't recovering, she's recharging. Lying in Sickbay, sitting here, it makes no difference to her, and there's not much else I can do for her at this point, and she insisted on coming to the bridge."
"With all due respect to everyone here," Penny said, her voice a bit steadier, "even at partial power, I'm capable of performing any helm task. And we need to finish up here before things get worse."
Ardal followed behind, blood on mouth and claws. He enjoyed fighting Klingons. He was clearing his head and pulled out his padd and brought up a file. It was for a biokinetic energy pump. He made some tweaks so it would be be transferring energy from comm badge to comm badge to help Penny charge faster. He held it up to Zach.
Zach looked it over and raised an eyebrow. "Well that's an interesting idea," he said, then showed it to Penny. "Think you could do it?"
Penny looked it over. "Maybe, but right now we can't spare any more time." She looked at the Captain. "The sooner we get that wormhole closed, the better."
"Very well Lieutenant," the captain answered. "Take your station but if you feel anything wrong at all, I expect you to remove yourself from duty and return to sickbay."
"Aye, Captain," Penny said. She started scanning the wormhole, transferring readings to the side of the viewscreen.
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