CHAPTER 04: Invictus [06: Calamity]
Chapter 04: Invictus [06: Calamity]
Attn: IronFerrox, Kurohigi, Searcher, CanadianVet, Doctor Maya, DocReno, Nolan & RosariaRosette
[ USS Theurgy | Vector 03 Battle Bridge | Deck 08 ]
Attn: Carrigan Trent, Billy Bob O'Connell & Declan Vasser. Optionally: Morrigan
When T'Rena heard her own voice being repeated on the intercom - her message recorded and broadcast - she pushed away from the computer console and walked off towards the turbolifts. Pure instinct made her move, and she reasoned she did not have to remain still to eventually hear the Intelligence Officer's reply, and it was more effective to make her way down to Deck 08 and handle the situation on her own. She had already sent off Phantom to Sickbay together with two of his Tactical Conn pilots, but two more remained with her, so she halted them from following her aboard the turbolift.
"I saw on the internal sensors that there were a lot of resistance people heading towards Life Support and the second Battle Bridge on this Deck. Lay an ambush and call for reinforcements. Report to me when they have been handled."
"Aye, Captain," said Smoke, Titan quickly ran off together with him to lay their makeshift ambush not far from there - calling for more people under Vasser's command to join them.
As T'Rena headed down the turbolift, she tapped her combadge. "T'Rena to Ravenholm. I demand that the reprogrammed version of Thea is uploaded to the computer core immediately. You have been granted access, and we are still waiting. I need Thea to vent the atmosphere from Vector 03:s Battle Bridge."
When there was no reply, T'Rena could not help running the analysis of what had just happened - the repercussions catching up with her. For some odd reason, her free hand was hurting. She looked at it, and she saw that it was curled into a white-knuckled fist - her palm bleeding from the bite of her nails. Breathing evenly, she worked her fingers - loosening them. While blood dripped to the floor, she assessed her actions again, and again. An oversight, no matter how she looked at it. Her words had not been meant for the whole ship to hear, and it was likely that Carrigan Trent had managed to rally a lot of support for Ives' cause. The prolonged fighting aboard did not harbour good odds to fight the Calamity.
There was a sense of vertigo as the analysis yielded more and more unfavourable results, and images began to flash before her eyes. Images that she had not considered for many decades. Vulcans in robes, killed and shedding green blood on the white bedrock. Brigands, screaming in repentance for what they had done to her acolytes. The outpost in flames, just like her home - a home she could still remember because of her training at the temple. Pleading voices, for her to give mercy. She alleviated their pain, and brought it down unto the filthy animals that had come their way. Snapping bones. Tearing of skin. Spatter of ichor on dewy grass.
[Deck 08] said the turbolift, and T'Rena opened her eyes - twain slits cutting the length of the corridor. She had lost control of her breathing, nostrils flaring as she set out towards the Battle Bridge. Her intent was clear, and it was to repeat history - to tear the lesser creatures apart for their slight. She needed neither Ravenholm nor an A.I. to end the lives of mere humans, and the matter had become... personal. "Computer, override the authority of Lieutenant Commander Carrigan Trent and seal all doors to both Battle Bridges. Only my command may open them. Rescind all command privileges and system access from said officer on my authority, T'Rena-Captain-Five-Beta-Niner. I also want the intercom disabled from this moment. Acknowledged?"
[Doors sealed. Access rescinded. Communication channel disabled.]
That would suffice before she reached this Lieutenant Commander Trent. He would not seed any more unrest aboard her ship before she killed him.
[ USS Theurgy | Upper Computer Core | Deck 05 ]
Attn: Selena Ravenholm
Selena Ravenholm and Thea had gained access to the Upper Computer Core, but they were not alone. At the back stood one of the mutineers, namely the suspicious Catian by the name Ghaan. Outside the doors were three more mutineers, guarding the room from any resistance cells, but Ghaan was inside, watching the back of the two women that were about to reach the main console.
That was when T'Rena began to speak on the intercom - and Thea frowned in alarm.
[Captain T'Rena to Lieutenant Commander Trent, this is not acceptable, and I hope you realise how futile your efforts truly are. We are about to upload a reprogrammed version of the Ship A.I. from her mobile emitter and into the pasitronic brain core. Whatever access you might have gained from Lieutenant Fedd will then be rescinded and if you do not surrender immediately, Thea's first act to further our cause will be to shut down life support on your Battle Bridge. So unless you put away your weapons and surrender, you will be taking the lives of everyone on that bridge with you as you draw your last breaths. You will not be able to shut her out of her own systems, so I do suggest you comply. State your choice, Lieutenant Commander.]
Pausing her step to gauge the development, Thea turned her attention towards Selena, and she also wanted to know how Ghaan might react. She knew that the encryption specialist had felt ill when hearing the Vulcan in the turbolift, since the mind-meld still lingered in her subconsciousness. In the wake of the Vulcan's words, Carrigan Trent replied in defiance, but at the same time, Selena Ravenholm's combadge chirped - heralding T'Rena's words as she contacted the cybernetically enhanced woman.
[T'Rena to Ravenholm. I demand that the reprogrammed version of Thea is uploaded to the computer core immediately. You have been granted access, and we are still waiting. I need Thea to vent the atmosphere from Vector 03:s Battle Bridge.]
Would Selena manage to resist T'Rena's indoctrination, and keep silent about Thea's true nature?
"What is the matter?" asked Ghaan angrily, stepping closer with his phaser in hand.
[ USS Theurgy | Corridor | Close to the Upper Computer Core | Deck 05 ]
Attn: Lin Kae & Skye Carver. Optionally: Morrigan
Not far away on Deck 05, the Holographic Specialist and two women at his side - Fighter Pilot Skye Carver and Engineer Rihen Neyah - were being held up by a hologram. She looked like Thea, wearing her golden security body suit, but all that she said to them was that she would let Lin Kae through, but only him. If Rihen or Skye would step closer, she would apprehend them and detain them until T'Rena could perform her mind-meld on them.
It was unclear what they could do. Were they to leave Lin Kae at the mercy of the hologram? Should they double back and find some other way? Dared they even move in the opposite direction or would Thea follow them? Also, was this really Thea in front of them, brainwashed and left guarding the corridor?
[Captain T'Rena to Lieutenant Commander Trent, this is not acceptable, and I hope you realise how futile your efforts truly are. We are about to upload a reprogrammed version of the Ship A.I. from her mobile emitter and into the pasitronic brain core. Whatever access you might have gained from Lieutenant Fedd will then be rescinded and if you do not surrender immediately, Thea's first act to further our cause will be to shut down life support on your Battle Bridge. So unless you put away your weapons and surrender, you will be taking the lives of everyone on that bridge with you as you draw your last breaths. You will not be able to shut her out of her own systems, so I do suggest you comply. State your choice, Lieutenant Commander.]
If it wasn't the real Thea - and they still had time to reach the Upper Computer Core and stop what the Vulcan was talking about on the intercom - would they be able to make it in time? During this impasse, Carrigan Trent replied to T'Rena's message in death-defiance. Were they hearing a dead man's last stand? Rihen hoped that they could stop it from happening. She did not want the man to die. Too many had already died for Starfleet reasons that she could not quite understand. The panic nearly overtook her. "We must do something! We are so close!"
[ USS Harbinger | Corridors | Deck 07 ]
Attn: CJ "Husker" Slayton & Amelya Duv
As they set their brisk pace down the corridor, heading for the turbolifts and stunning one or two crewmen on the way there, ThanIda zh'Wann's mind was bent of the task set before them. As to how, exactly, they were to get back on the Theurgy, she did not know for certain, but she figured that the Harbinger ship was something to use as leverage in any kind of situation - hostile or diplomatic.
That was when the intruder alert was sounded; the corridors cast in red light and the klaxon hounding them down the corridor. Their escape had become a known fact, and Ida supposed that the surveillance system was fully operational on the Harbinger, and that someone had seen them on a console somewhere. Their odds of reaching the bridge had just plummeted, but that did not merit them stopping. What choice did they have but to continue?
"We move on," she said without pasuse to Husker and Duv, changing route down an intersection to not stay on the same path as they might have been seen taking towards the turbolifts. "If we were spotted on screen, we have to be unpredictable. Otherwise, they will be abl-"
No more had she said it than a forcefield appeared ten feet ahead of them - blocking their path.
"Back up, hurry!" Ida turned on her heels and almost collided with the Pinkskin and the Trill in her haste to outrun the trap they might have found themselves in. Yet no more had she changed direction than another forcefield was raised - effectively imprisoning them again after only having escaped the Brig a couple of minutes earlier. Their holding cell might have become bigger, and with two force-fields, but it was still - essentially - a cell. The difference was that they were now armed.
"Try to take out the force-field emitters in the ceiling. If that doesn't work, we have to cut our way into the chamber next to us. Come on! We need to keep moving!" Said and done, Ida bared her teeth and powered up her phaser along with her escaped companions.
[ Uncharted Planetoid | Outside the Class-9 Nebula ]
Attn: Nathaniel Isley & Tomas Ravon
"The Calamity," Rawley mouthed, eyes wide.
There was no mistaking the silhouette against the orange sky - the dark outline of the Calamity-class starship sliding like a knife through the atmosphere of the ice planet they had ended up on. The adrenaline that started to pump through Rawley's limbs when she saw the nightmarish vessel made her fidget upon Nathaniel's shoulders. She realised she had to warn him, and Thomas, about what they were not seeing overhead. She was sure she had seen the Calamity deploy Reavers, and they were bound to find their landed Valkyries in no time at all. Perhaps they were already inbound - powering up their weapons to destroy their only means to fight back and to escape the planet.
"It is here!" she called over the com channel, and her cry sent her into a coughing fit. The blood that spattered the inside of her visor did not bode well, but nonetheless, she tried to croak her words out. "The Calami-ity! Reavers i-inbound!"
There were still alien creatures native to the ice chasing them, but no more than three or four left. It was hard to tell in the blizzard. "Hurry! Wolf three and eight, come in! Do you hear me? Abort patrol and power up the birds!" she wheezed, clinging to Nathaniel's shoulders as best as she might since he was definitely quicker than she'd be in her current state - ascending the mountainside without missing a step. Meanwhile, Razor was shooting the creatures, but he had no means to keep up with Maverick since he was facing the wrong way. He'd never be able to reach his Valkyrie in time if he straggled too far behind.
"Stop shooting a-and run!" she called to Thomas, coughing anew and tasting the metal of the blood in her mouth, "I will warn you if they get too f-fucking close. So run, Lieutenant! Run, you fat fuck!"
Rawley was not sure if she meant Maverick or Razor, but the military-wise encouragement went for them both. She tried to keep an eye out for the last creatures in the blizzard, but the blood inside her visor would make it hard to spot them in time. She kept looking over her shoulder too, expecting the Reavers to descend upon them from the sky at any moment.
This Chapter in the Theurgy story is dedicated to Mr. Leonard Nimoy, 1931-2015. May he never be forgotten.