Star Trek: Theurgy

CHAPTER 05: VERTEX | DAY 06 | 0810 hrs.


First Officer's Log, stardate 57556.03. The other Vectors never showed.

At the first Rendezvous, we had managed to shake off the Savi fighters - a feat we could never have managed without F'Rell. The T'fanrell has proved herself indispensable in Engineering since she managed to augment the capacity of our diminutive warp core. Yet even if we made it in time, neither the Sword nor the Stallion were there, and after one hour had passed, we set a new course, clinging to hope that the others had merely been delayed, that they were still chased by the Savi, and we told ourselves that next time, they would be there.

The next day, whilst we waited, we managed to finish the installation of Ensign ch'Xinya's particle sensors, and we were relieved to see them working. We detected and followed a Reman shuttle on our sensors - despite its cloak - but after it managed to ignite sirilium gas with its thrusters, we could no longer be idle. True to Starfleet protocol, I personally oversaw the rescue of the two-person crew, and with access to a Reman cloaking device, Commander Martin and F'Rell have been trying to make it work aboard the Helmet. Since Captain Ives already broke the Treaty of Algeron when they installed and later lost a cloak aboard the Theurgy, before I came aboard, the attempt to install the device was sanctioned by Captain Trent. Since specialist Ravenholm helped with the cloak the Theurgy lost, she was drafted to make the new one work.

By the time we reached the second Rendezvous, we were in high spirits, thinking that the unfinished cloak would be enough an edge to eventually return to the Savi ship. To rescue our crew. An hour passed, but no one came. Since then, the morale aboard has dropped. The majority of the crew now thinks the other Vectors were destroyed. That they couldn't outrun the Savi.

Yes, I said it, even if I dread to even think about it. The true intent of Captain Trent. He seems hell-bent on getting back those we lost to the Savi. Publicly, it might not be so evident, since Captain Ives' orders were clear, and openly undermining Ives' last order could be dire indeed, especially since there have been attempts of mutiny aboard the Theurgy. Everyone knows that the Continuance Protocol was created to protect the truth and to make sure the mission continued. Still, Trent speaks very little to me about what we are to do if the Theurgy can't be reintegrated.

Instead, he keeps going over the poor scans we actually managed to make of the Versant. As much we learned; the name of the Savi dreadnought. Little else. We have virtually nothing to go on for any rescue attempt, and still it lingers as a prospect at the forefront of the Captain's mind. The reason, even if he has never told me as much, is rather clear. Trent's heart belong to a woman abducted by the Savi, and he wants to take her back. Perhaps he rationalizes that ambition in other ways... but I know she's special to him. I learned that personally...

In ten minutes, we set a course for the third Rendezvous. The final hour of waiting, in which we hope for reintegration. Our last chance to remain a single crew, and continue the mission.

Or, if Captain Trent manages to convince the other Captains...

...to set a course for the Versant.

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: All
[Show/Hide]Stepping away from the tactical display table in the aft of the main bridge, Jennifer Dewitt (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Command_NPCs#Lieutenant_Commander_Jennifer_Dewitt) came to stand on the right side of Captain Trent (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Carrigan_Trent), who was seated in the Commanding Officer's chair. "ETA, one minute, sir."

On the viewscreen, the streaming stars cast flickering light across the bridge. They were at warp, and due to arrive to the third Rendevouz. The progressive approach to the area of the nebula made hope bloom anew in Dewitt's chest, where her heart had been heavy since the last time they sought to reintegrate Vector 01 with the other hulls, making Thea whole again. Then again, since the Savi had literally ripped her out of the computer core, would the ship ever truly be herself again? As it were, they relied on the auxiliary starship computer system, Thea's voice being a dead echo of the guardian spirit that had been aboard since her commissioning. Jennifer had merely come aboard recently from the Black Opal (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Black_Opal), but even she could feel the loss of the AI. She could but imagine what the original Theurgy crew were feeling.

In the anticipation of the arrival, she came to realise that there were virtually none of the original Theurgy crew present on the bridge. Just Petty Officer Song (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Morgan_Song), who was one of the engineers behind Suq (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Suq-Reylin-Efreya_Xan), the sole diplomat aboard, Faye Eloi-Danvers (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Faye_Lintah_Eloi-Danvers), and one seated behind the Chief Tactical Officer. Was his name Arisaka (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Tactical_NPCs#Lieutentant_.28JG.29_Jonas_Arisaka)? The rest were either from the Harbinger or the Resolve, with the exception of the Captain, who had defected from the very force sent out to destroy the Theurgy. And Morwen (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Science_NPCs#Lieutenant_Junior_Grade_Morwen_Angharad), of course, sitting next to Vivian Martin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Vivian_Martin). Morwen was like her, from the Opal, and for all their differences, it was good to have her there. During the years on the Opal, she remembered having thought she'd never miss any of her staff on that rock, but now, with all that had happened since then, she actually felt grounded in reality seeing her there.

Dewitt glanced towards her right, to Lieutenant Commander Marquez (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Leon_Marquez). He'd proven his worth when they fought the Savi, and every hour fending off the fighters since then. As his temporary XO, she simply glanced at his duty station, seeing that he was ready to raise shields. There was no need to remind him. They were of equal rank, her appointed position alone giving her authority over him, and she had faith in his skills. He'd been beyond Romulan space and back again, so he needed no micromanagement. Moreover, he had two more tactical officers seated behind him.

Looking towards the rest of the bridge crew, Dewitt found herself confident in all their abilities. Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) at the helm worked well together with the Orion woman from the Resolve, A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr). Selena Ravenholm (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Selena_Ravenholm) wasn't present, working on the final stage of the Reman cloak installation in Engineering together with F'Rell (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=F%27Rell) and Abner (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Engineering_NPCs#Ensign_Carla_Abner), but Faye would be able to handle Communications well on her own.

The minute came to an end, and Dewitt spoke up. "We've entered the Rendezvous zone. Drop us out of warp, Mister Veradin. Martin, no need for the particle sensors now, just use the long range sensors. Eloi-Danvers, send the message that we are here over the protocol's subspace frequency. It might not go far in the nebula, but if they are out there... they will find us."

Then began the silence.

[ A short while later | 0810 hrs. ]

After ten minutes, Dewitt lowered her green eyes to the floor. The doubt was creeping back... and thus she suspected that she'd have to go against Trent, who'd likely still order them to set a course towards the Versant.

They are dead. All of them.

The only reason she found merit in Trent's ambition was that they might be able to avenge their deaths.

There was a chirp coming from somewhere. Dewitt frowned, looking up, and saw a light flashing in the edge of the viewscreen. Contact! Her heart leapt, but only a smile touched her lips. She turned on her heel and looked at the holographic display table, zooming out by closing her hands before it. "Captain. We have one contact. Federation warp signature. At least one...." There was a second blip. "A second one! They are both here."

Then, there were ten blips.

"Captain..." she said, feeling her lips go numb. She turned her ashen face to the bridge crew, confirming what they might be seeing on their consoles. "There are thirteen signatures, inbound at maximum warp. It's them..."

Task Force Archeron.

(https://uss-theurgy.com/w/images/8/87/Task-Force-Azure-Nebula.png) (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/images/8/87/Task-Force-Azure-Nebula.png)

---

OOC: *Theme music begins to play* :)

Regular shields operable by 50 %, with some emitters still needing to keep out some radiation. Sensor range limited to 10 000 meters. Next poster: @CanadianVet , after he has posted, a seven day response time begins for all all bridge crew officers. Other departments will respond when alerted by the Captain or other bridge crew.

This is the starter for Chapter 05: Vertex. This thread features the hour when the Helmet waits for the third and final Rendezvous, and a showdown with Task Force Archeron begins right in the Rendevouz zone. All Supplemental Threads that are started will have to be set before this time of 0810 hrs. on Day 06, but not afterwards. Just like in the interregnum, Supplemental one-on-one threads are started at your leisure! Supplemental threads should be named Chapter 05: Supplemental [Day XX|YYYY hrs.] Insert Title, and can extend as far back as right after the battle with the Versant and all the way up to 0810 hrs on Day 06, where the third Rendevouz will be set.

These are the main tasks to solve, your Mission Objectives in this Chapter: [Show/Hide]Main Bridge & Deck 01: [Show/Hide]Known staff on the Helmet: [Show/Hide]Inbound ships from Task Force Archeron: [Show/Hide]

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: All

Three days.  Two missed rendezvous.  And Carrigan Trent was nervous.  But that was not something that showed much; one might say he was nearly Vulcan in keeping his features into a mask of calm and concentration.  Even with his mind running frantically.  And seeing negative outcomes coming to pass behind his eyes, and not just when he closed his eyes, but when he was awake as well.  But that was part of the burden of command, that he knew entirely too well.  But there was something else; he was emotionally involved in everything that needed doing ever since he had decided on a course of action.  But he did look somewhat worse for wear.  He was paler than usual, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes.  He was naturally gaunt, but his features looked drawn, nearly cadaverous in some ways. 

And, while he tended to not take bridge watches himself save if there was an emergency, and there had been plenty; and this time he was in the central chair.  It was his place, as it had been at every other RV.  And he waited, impassive and acknowledging reports sent to him with little more than a node or a simple few words. 

Much had happened so far, and now hopefully their harrowing escape would finally come to a stop.  Two passengers had been picked up; the Asurian saucer was in their shuttlebay being pored over so it might be brought into service, and a Reman cloaking device was being installed on board.  All in all, they were in decent shape. 

And now, at the third RV point they waited. 

Sensor contact.  At that report, Trent looked up at the holodisplay between him and the viewscreen.  And then he saw another one appear.  And just as he dared to allow himself to believe things were working out, more appeared.  And he knew what was going on, even as Dewitt said it.  And, immediately, Trent realized there was a number of things that needed to be done immediately.  "Red alert!  Shields down, weapons cold."  Those were not conventional orders, but a fight was not something they could start, not right now.  Not with only Vector 1. Not even with all three Vectors on hand and a full fighter complement.  "Arisaka, take EW.  Bring the barrage jammers up just enough to cover our emissions but no more."  Stealth.  In this soup, that would  be the only way to elude Sankolov and his ships.  And it meant a few other things. 

"Shut down all active sensors, all exterior lights; external sections are to go dark.  Impulse engines to cold standby, warp drive to minimal."  And that was just a start.  Especially since the other vectors had to  be warned.  But how?  Task Force Archeron was bound to monitor communications, and without being in contact, there would be no way to sync up their cryptological suites.  And Trent would be damned if they would transmit in the clear... 

Which left one option.  "Lieutenant Zeshryr, bring up the MVAM link and use it to transmit a warning to the other two Vectors.  And tell them to set another rendezvous.  L4 point of the fourth planet of the system we sent the Sabine to, but exact wording only, no coordinates."  And now, it was time to start hiding.  "Mister Veradin, micro-warp burst, any heading, then start a slow and easy evasive curve.  Minimal thrusters."

And, with those basic orders given, Trent settled back into his seat and looked about the Bridge.  "We can't leave.  Not until we know for certain the others aren't coming.  So for now, we hide, and we elude Task Force Archeron.  Let's get the cloaking device installed, but we will save it for a last resort.  We need decoys, and options if they're going to catch us."

[ Lt. Jg. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]

Sleep eluded him. He was aboard the bridge, his tiny body quivering under doses of caffeine he wasn’t used to. He’d find a few hours of rest here and there in Jeffries tubes, but that was about it. Besides that, things were pretty much back to normal. People were missing, probably dead. He was running around with his head cut off trying to get the ship in a suitable way again. It wasn’t raining, it wasn’t pouring, it was just a straight sheet of water coming at them at alarmingly high velocities. He dealt with that stress well.

They held warp fine. Suq had his eyes closed and was listening to the hum of the ship, and he heard the usual discordant harmonies that he came to expect from an active warp core. Of course, his analysis wasn’t as accurate this far from engineering, but the ship was loud to him. He could hear quite a bit more than others could.

Derik dropped them out of warp. He listened to the ship and flinched when he heard some sort of...karrr-umph, a quiet sound underneath the warp core sounds. He’d heard it on the Resolve. She was an injured ship.

His eyes opened, and they began the wait for their companions…

He considered that nobody on any of the two vectors survived. It was the most likely scenario. The threats they had faced were so many and the crew so fractured. It was normal though, being this close to losing everything and everyone. He didn’t feel panicked. He felt his chest tighten, but he lifted his inhaler from his pocket. The spritz of his inhaler interrupted the silence.

He supposed this was his life now. One thing after another, nothing stable, everything transient. Chaos and no order.

As he mused the irony of that, Commander Dewitt’s voice broke his thoughts. He looked up at her. Two...no, thirteen. Task force Archeron.

He puffed on his inhaler again and cleared his throat. Here came the next sheet of water.
“Lieutenant Suq to Engineering, impulse engines on cold standby, reduce energy signature. Let’s cap our emissions, we don’t want to leave a trail. I hope everyone wore their brown pants today.”

[ Captain Marcus Alexander Slayton | Main Bridge | USS Archeron ]
Attn: @CanadianVet @Triton @Triage @Mathis @Hastata-Nerada @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @Absinthe @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @Auctor Lucan

He strode around the bridge like some kind of large predator that was stalking his prey as he studied each and every station with a trained eye, the only one that he didn't have to worry about was Commander Ranzz who was at his station and already keeping the people in Security busy...as well as the younger officer hadn't appeared in anything less then a full security exosuit since they first entered the nebula.

The last two times that this ship had tracked down the renegades under the command of Ives, the Chameloid's company barely managed to escape the hounds of justice through trickery or betrayal of hir erstwhile allies.

The task force had been arrayed in the standard Moore tactical search pattern, the Archeron wasn't alone as she was being escorted by the starships First Minister, Dauntless, Defiance, and Yeager when a stray subspace signal was detected which caused the ships to enter the nebula since the signal bore the channel markings of the Theurgy.

Since then the admiral had remained quiet, his dark eyes watching him with a clear intent as he watched his new executive officer move around the bridge, a private little smile on his face.

Marcus then looked out at the main viewer which showed the other ships with the "Archeron" moving in a silent formation with the "Yeager" moving like a huge star fighter, ready to move between the flagship and anything that might come forward to do it harm, the Akira class "Dauntless" with its small cluster of Valkyries moving around like a angry swarm of black hornets with the forward saucer sections of the "Defiance" and "First Minister" just barely within the sensor pickups.

The older man reached up and gently rubbed the left side of his head, the replacement eye was starting to throb as the two ice blue orbs narrowed as he looked at the endless fields of azure that lay before him.

"Captain Slayton, message coming in from Black Wolf Lead," said the Operations officer.

Marcus stopped rubbing the side of his head as he strode over to Operations where the younger officer stepped aside as the captain opened the channel. "This is Archeron Actual, go," he said.

[This is Warlock, sensor sweeps have detected a strange energy pattern at coordinates that's sending on secure channel six point alpha two.] came back the voice of Lieutenant Commander Ashton bates, the squadron leader of the Black Wolves.

"Understood," Marcus said as he inputted a code into the console before him that allowed the data transfer to happen, his trained eyes going over the information before he shunted half of the files to the science station. "Mister Du Paris, your thoughts on the information that I just sent you?" he asked without any preamble.

The ginger haired man at Sciences looked over the data in question, his brow furrowing ever so slightly as he regarded the data. "From what I can gather, Captain, it seems that we are looking at a mass that is roughly one third of the target mass shadow that we're looking for," he said in a crisp and clear tone.

Marcus nodded as he slowly made his way around the broad operations "arm" of the bridge to stand next to the admiral. "Permission to deploy the task force in Moore Tactical Six position and hail the hostiles, sir?” he asked respectfully.

The admiral didn’t say anything, his dark eyes glittered in the light of the bridge in a way that reminded him of both admirals Black and Nechayev during his time in the special operations group of the Fleet, it felt like he was being examined like he was some kind of great and hard scientific equation.

"You may execute the orders," was all that he said.

Marcus nodded tightly before looking over at the operations manager, “Send the word to our escorts to move into Omicron formation,” he said as he started to make his way around. “Tactical, I want shields to full and any excess power rerouted to the shields at a moment's notice."

The two stations reported ready as Slayton himself moved to stand next to the tactical station, “Open a channel.”

[ Azure Nebula ]

Within the bright blue mists of the nebula, the powerful forward saucer section of the starship Archeron parted a large wall of mist like the ancient Megalodon shark of Earth’s prehistory going through the deepest and murkest of depths, the carrier Dauntless followed close at hand with a squadron of lethal Valkyries swarming about their carrier like an angry swarm of insects with the small and bulky Yeager providing point.

Behind them the graceful forms of the First Minister and Defiance was close at hand before going off in a separate direction but keeping their formation close to the flagship, the graceful lines of their respective designs hiding the true lethal intent of systems at one time dedicated purely to a scientific pursuit-now focused on a much darker one.

[This is Captain Marcus Alexander Slayton of the starship Archeron to the renegade starship Theurgy, you are hereby ordered to either show yourself and surrender or be destroyed. This is your one and only chance to at a fair trial for you and your crew.] Slayton’s voice resounded throughout the comm channel. [We know that you’re here, so there is no use trying to make us think otherwise, Citizen Ives.]

[ Black Wolf-01 | Callsign: Warlock | Mk II Valkyrie Cockpit ]

In his cockpit of Black Wolf Zero One, Warlock kept his eyes on his sensors. Dark eyes alert and almost predatory as he searched for any signs of his squadron’s lesser counterparts in the Lone Wolves as well as keeping an eye out for any blips that would possibly lead them to the enemy carrier itself.

“Come on now...show yourselves…”Warlock said in a dark whisper as he waited like some kind of dark predator.

[ Captain Marcus Alexander Slayton | Main Bridge | USS Archeron ]

Marcus looked at the tactical sensors and saw no blips yet as he looked over at the Science and Operations stations who simply shook their heads at the moment, at which point Slayton simply said one more thing in the coldest, hardest of tones;

“The admiral requires your choice….Citizen.”

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OOC: The bridge of the Archeron is this and image is courtesy and copyright of Mark Wolfe: [Show/Hide]

[ Lt Cmdr Leon Marquez, | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan  @Triage @Mathis @Hastata-Nerada @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @DocReno @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe
[Show/Hide]
Even though hours could seem like days, It had been a relief that Marquez could sleep like a rock for at most four hours and be at his station in moments upon waking up. It was the wait that had been eating away at him, like convoy duty all over again. Leon was vigilant for any sign of the other vectors after their hasty getaway from the Savi ship. As far as the chief tactical officer was concerned, this wasn't a retreat, it was half-time.

It wasn't all bridge duty, Marquez made a few visits to the admiralty deck to inspect the damage inflicted by Savi weapons fire where Ravenholm and Nator had engaged--survived-- the enemy. Leon had also been present to meet and debrief one of two survivors of a Reman vessel Theurgy's Helmet vector had rescued, while the other was rushed into stasis. Serving on Project Eagle's Officer Exchange program was one thing: a cloaked warbird could fight-and-fade. A Theurgy-class Helm vector with an improvised Reman retrofit with a Cloak was providence if there ever was such a thing; ironic, given the device's origin, a cloak appearing right when he needed one. Despite the Treaty of Algeron, Leon was actually looking forward to the options available to a ship with a cloaking device, however makeshift it was. Besides, this time there would be no Romulan cuisine.

In off-hours, Marquez spent time with the new 'guest' Jimmy claimed to have 'rescued' from the coreless moon. Unsurprisingly, the El-Aurian woman's claim that she was the one who rescued Jimmy contradicted what he'd been informed, but at least Bremmer's reports of a successful mission were not as exxagerated. Marquez found Zyrao Natauna dry but direct and to the point, even if he was just the slightest bit disturbed that she worked for the Cardassians and Klingons, but that was another lifetime ago-- never mind her El-Aurian lifespan. Every few moments, Marquez's console would receive an update on the nebula's atmosphere or a repair update to the vector, but nothing of grave consequence. He passed these findings along to the Center seat. Just then, Lt Commander Dewitt raised the alert.

"Captain. We have one contact. Federation warp signature. At least one.... A second one...Captain....There are thirteen signatures, inbound at maximum warp. It's them..."

Trent gave the order for Red alert and the corresponding klaxons and warning lights changed the color scheme of the bridge "Aye, Captain. Jonas Arisaka replied, carrying out orders as given. "Going dark."

Leon confirmed Dewitt's report and elaborated, designating targets on the holo-table with corresponding icons. Without active sensor scans, however, the computer would only register basic readouts due to the Nebula's interference. Fortunately--hopefully, that worked both ways. "Confirmed contacts: Defiant, Akira, Intrepid, Rigel, Saber, 2 Sovereigns...  one Excelsior, two Galaxies, two Lunas..." Leon listed off the classes of the identified ship warp signatures; He'd had history with those last three ship classes, but the nebula made every one of them unidentifiable by name or registry. But he identified the flagship by its class, knowing of the acting Captain's past with the vessel. "...and one Odyssey-class!" Marquez reported, logging the signatures and their bearing. And a partridge in a pear tree.

"Active sensors offline." Marquez confirmed as the vector visibly dimmed, hopefully enough to elude the battle-damaged sensors of Archeron and her task force. "We're ghosts in the blizzard.", he remarked with a degree of certainty. Knowing they couldn't take on an Odyssey-class in their current state, let alone her task force, their options were to either run for it and compromise the odds of their return or do what he would've done, hide and hope for the best. Thankfully, Trent's instincts were on point. Otherwise, Leon would've been extremely hard-pressed to forgive himself were he to engage killing other Starfleet personnel. Or would he, when it came to survival of his crew and their mission? Incoming contacts on his readings tested this.

"Bandits! Hostile fighters inbound!" the former pilot reactively identified passive scanner readings of enemy fighters appearing from the task force. The deployment of a Saber-class leading a squadron of fighters reminded Leon of his own saucer-separation tactics on his Galaxy-Class taking point for a wing of Peregrines. Now he was on the receiving end of one of his own favored moves. Fortunately, they hadn't zeroed in on them just yet. Moving quickly, he indicated and highlighted the Saber and its escort; Sankolov's vanguard. Just then, a cold, steely voice almost as gravelly as Leon's own was heard:

"This is Captain Marcus Alexander Slayton of the starship Archeron to the renegade starship Theurgy, you are hereby ordered to either show yourself and surrender or be destroyed. This is your one and only chance to at a fair trial for you and your crew. We know that you're here, so there is no use trying to make us think otherwise, Citizen Ives. The admiral requires your choice....Citizen."

Smug bastard. Does that bluff ever work? Marquez idly wondered. "I think the bandits are pinging us, Captain. The hounds for the hunters." Obviously, Leon had no intention of being goaded, nor letting even a single hint if Vector 1's presence be detected. Perhaps with luck, instead of finding them, they'd get the attention of the Savi dreadnought and give Slayton something else to pursue.

[ Lt. JG Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) | Main Bridge | Deck 1 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]As they waited at the rendezvous point, Derik’s mind wandered a bit, needing something to think about. He hated moments like this, waiting. Waiting to see if the rest of their family would show up. The pressure of it increased by this not being the first time they’d done this now. Each time left Derik feeling less hopeful about their situation.

The past few days aboard the Helmet had been tense. Even during their brief times of respite, there was a collective stress that seemed to permeate the ship. No matter what he did to try to raise his own spirits, often with spirits, it wasn’t enough to do more than just suppress it for a time. As he scanned the bridge, he got the feeling he wasn’t alone. His eyes fell on Suq as he looked around. The engineer, and his friend and sometimes lover looked like he hadn’t had much sleep lately. Derik wished there was more he could do.

Derik’s heart jumped when a contact appeared on his sensor screen. The excitement was replaced by dread as too many Federation signatures began appearing in their little corner of this damned nebula. The bridge was suddenly alive with activity. Derik anticipated Trent’s order with a few possible courses. He had an idea of what their new CO would do but didn’t want to assume. Would they take Slayton’s offer? They wouldn’t try to fight, right? As the order came to evade the enemy ships and fighters, Derik nodded and breathed out silent relief. It was their best bet to stay alive and hopefully wait still for the others.

“Aye, sir,” Derik called as he laid in a micro jump away at an angle from the task force, but not too far to lose them or the rendezvous completely. He then began taking them in a wide, slow arc. Moving silently through the misty blue cloud on just thrusters. The cat and mouse game had begun, and he hoped the mouse’s luck wasn’t completely run out.

[ Lt. JG A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr) | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @CanadianVet, @Triton, @Mathis, @Hastata-Nerada, @FollowTomorrow, @chXinya, @Brutus, @Absinthe, @SummerDawn, @Stegro88, @Blue Zephyr & @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]A'vura glanced towards Derik, as if drawing reassurance from him. Once they were out of warp, Jennifer's warning rang out. The Orion's heart leapt into her throat and nearly choked her. She was not cut out for this level of excitement. It was a wonder she survived as long as she did on the Resolve, and the horrors of Hell Sector; yet somehow, she felt a little nostalgic for those "simpler" times compared the non-stop hi-octane adventures the crew of the Theurgy was seemingly saddled with. She'd barely begun serving under Captain Jien Ives before the man/woman/whatever got snatched away, leaving her under Captain Trent's leadership. She didn't know what to expect, but the man's mechanical left arm made her nervous.

She was glad thought that she wasn't alone in all this, or surrounded by unfamiliar faces. At least she had Vivian Martin, Suq and Commander Marquez. She repressed a small smile when Suq quipped about brown pants, then quickly chirped “Yes captain,” to Trent at his order to use the MVAM to warn the other two vectors wherever they were about Task Force Archeron. It shocked her at the amount of resources they'd dedicated to hunting them down. Her fingers danced over her console as she keyed in the commands and transmitted the message, “L-Four point of the fourth planet of the system we sent the Sabine to. Confirmed.”

She glanced up at the screen, and looked towards Marquez as he read out the ships and the fighters being arrayed against them. How were they going to get away from them? She rested her right palm over her heart, feeling its own beat, and trying to calm herself from the fear and panic threatening to overwhelm her. This was too much. When were they ever going to catch a break? And this Task Force leader was baiting them, expecting Ives to be in touch, or in command. Well, of course they wouldn't know about all the nonsense they've been through in the last few days and all the changes in command structure. Ives planned very far ahead, that much A'vura gave him great credit for. Now, she supposed, Carrigan's skills as a captain will be put to the test.

[ Lt. J.G. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Bridge | Vector 01 | U.S.S. Theurgy ]

To hear Marcus Slayton's voice nearly stopped his heart.  His skin was already going pale from seeing so many bigger, better ships all shuffling in like Death-Hand birds over a corpse. It made him think of a funeral back home. He shivered.

But he would not allow himself to feel the fear like he knew he should.  His hands continued to shake, but he actually mocked the Captain Slayton. "Myeh myeh myeh, sssssitizen Ivesssss" He privately muttered. "I'm totally not a lizardman wearing human skin. Myeh."

Even still, they were defenseless. Outnumbered, outclassed. On the screen was death. In fact, they may already be dead. His hands went to his lap and he began to stare off to a distant point. His eyes went unfocused. Even though he had a private smirk on his face from his own joke, he fell off reality and into a pool of unthought.

His mind fell empty, he didn't think about the situation anymore. He knew he should, but he just couldn't, and he didn't want to anyway.  The best he could do was lay a hand on Morgan Song's shoulder, urging him to take on his work as he fell, fell, fell...

There was an image in his head. It was the cloaking device, nestled safely in engineering. It came from the Reman shuttle. In his mind, he saw the wiring, the connections, the power conduits, the very molecular structure of things...

"We can't cloak yet, but we might," he announced, interrupting the silence and his own disassociative fit. "I need thirty five minutes, the cloaking device, Ravenholm, the deflector, and the warp core shut off." He looked over at the cyber-lady, Selena Ravenholm. He had only read up on her. She had made a cloak once. He hadn't done that, but he's no stranger to emergency MacGyver-ing the ship.

There was no one hundred percent guarantee this would work. Really, the chances are low they would live. His mind was blissfully empty of all these thoughts.

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @SummerDawn @Triton @chXinya @Brutus
[Show/Hide]When Captain Vasser ordered the Red Alert, and the bridge crew scrambled to act on the sudden situation they were facing, Jennifer had run around her tactical display table and picked up her earpiece, fastening it with her heart beating hard in her chest.

Where the hell did they come from? she wondered, reassessing the situation, Did they happen to pick up on the Rendevouz message we sent out? What's the odds of that, in a nebula like this? One in a million? She couldn't see how it could be any else than coincidence, and really, really bad luck on their part. Hopefully, with the measures Trent ordered, and the skilful actions taken by the bridge crew, they would escape their sensors... But they really needed that cloak already.

She stepped up next to Trent where he sat in he chair, and picked up on what Suq was saying after the short warp burst. It would have pinged the Archeron the other ships when they did the short jump, but with the inertia they travelled by, and the density of the nebula, they just might...

No, Marquez informed them that there was no such luck. Warp fighters. A whole squadron of them.

"Mister Suq," she said, taking on her part as XO, clenching her fists at her sides to lend fortitude, conquering her fear, "there is no time to waste. Go!" Having said as much, she knew Morgan Song would step in and take the Eforisan's place, and that when Ravenholm vanished off the bridge, Eloi-Danvers would remain. Her mind was already elsewhere. She knew that thirty minutes was far too long. She stepped back towards her table in the aft section, sorting out her thoughts, and letting Trent, Marquez and the others handle the immediate situation. She had to plan ahead, somehow, for all their sakes.

"This is Commander Dewitt to Lorad," she said into the microphone of her earpiece, "we may need your help in Engineering, immediately. Please make yourself available to Junior Lieutenant Suq and Warrant Officer Ravenholm. I'll clear you for entry. Please, hurry." The Reman might be able to shave off a few minutes of the installation, since he had the most experience with the device. Then, she glanced to the back of Trent's head, knowing that her next action might not sit entirely well with him, but she would not reject and asset when she knew one at that point.

"Commander Dewitt to Zyrao Natauna, we could use your counsel on the bridge," she said, the Red Alert likely clue enough for her, "I am clearing you for access through the security checkpoint. Please report to me for a briefing of the situation on hand."

What else, what else? "Dewitt to Ryuan Sel, Task Force Archeron has located us. Be prepared for boarding parties, should bad come to worse." While she spoke, she thought about the squadron of fighters that were searching for them ahead of the starships. They had little in terms of small crafts that could make any difference, except for... "The Sabine."

Could it act as a decoy, at least? Bait, to lure them away. But who could possibly agree to take it out? Sera vers Aldnoah was a civilian, and even though she'd been on the mission to the Coreless Moon, what would compel her to likely sacrifice her own life for the survival of the crew on the Helmet? No, it was a bad idea, nonetheless, she sent a message to the shuttle bay to prepare the Sabine for potential launch.

"Marquez! I am preparing the Sabine for launch, but we have no pilot. Ideas?"

---

OOC: Remember, regular shields operable by 50 %, with some emitters still needing to keep out some radiation. Sensor range limited to 10 000 meters. Next poster: @Triton, after he has posted, a seven day response time begins for all all bridge crew officers. Other departments will respond when alerted by the Captain or other bridge crew.

Known staff on the Helmet: [Show/Hide]Inbound ships from Task Force Archeron: [Show/Hide]

[ Lt Cmdrs. Leon Marquez & Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Joint-Post by Auctor Lucan & Triton
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan  @Triage @Mathis @Hastata-Nerada @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe
[Show/Hide]"Stand by." Leon had an idea but time was of the essence, so he prepared his unorthodox calculations verbally, drawing and illustrating them out on the battle-space map.

"Computer, open file from datarod 1-1-7, upload file, Operation Rodeo. Projection: replace the Steamrunner-class with Vector 0-1, apply Sabine." At his command, corresponding icons appeared and fell into place at his specifications. He continued, "Projections: Archeron recon unit, last known bearing based off of last-active scan. Display." Marquez highlighted specific files as they were made available to them. As ordered, the Saber-class and its air support wing came into bearing of Vector one limited to 10,000 meter visual range with only their concentrated patch of gas to obscure them. Behind this hologram, a blinking diamond that soon shaped into the Sabine appeared and left one of several conn-trails that would have in a number of routes have lured at least the vanguard away.

The tactical display lit up with a projection of using a smaller craft with substantial additional power readings hiding just within visual range of a patch of gas, which broadcast the energy reading of a much larger vessel. Then he worked with the warp signature settings afforded with additional power crammed into a ship of the Sabine's interior volume and estimated a warp bubble at least approximately close to the size and radius of the Helmet vector. This tactic was planned with Maquis raiders in mind, but as an advance ambush for a Steamrunner lying in wait to conduct patrol and enforcement of the Badlands. This time, the decoy would need to match or exceed the vessel originally the predator, not the prey as Vector one was in this case.

"If we can program the Sabine to fly long-distance loops around the task force, it can let them follow a photonic sensor ghost, before coming about 1-8-0 of the lead ship and drawing some of them off. " He added, tracing a path on the map with his finger, leaving a projected path as he illustrated projected plot, resulting in the Vector remaining in place or facing a different path from that of the Sabine.

Jennifer Dewitt stepped forth from her table in the aft section of the bridge and looked at what Marquez was suggesting, having a finger against her earpiece since she was also listening to reports coming in. "What do we need?"

The clock was ticking, and he was keeping pace as he made visible upgrades of an old maneuver.  "The owner's permission? The Sabine is repaired, but she is not ours," he said, reminding them all that it was in the possession of one of the civilian passengers aboard, "Nontheless, she's the only small craft we have that is fast enough to do this. I recommend sending a runner to the Sabine, linking her to our computer for autopilot command, and rigging an external emitter to project the sensor ghost."

"Dewitt to Sera vers Aldnoah," said Jennifer, trying to reach the Sabine's owner. "No answer."

As soon as the most-agreed upon pattern vectors were selected. Leon reminded, "We'll have to let the Sabine do something to get their attention, then use her bait. While we get that cloak operational, using our patch of nebula for cover, the photonic message-in-a-bottle might keep their attention." Leon's formula was on display and running animations as he explained to Dewitt and the acting Captain. "Captain: If there's any one person here who could really get under their skin, it's you, Sir." Leon invited the idea of Trent exchanging words with Sankolov or this Slayton lizardman-- it was here where Leon glanced at Suq wearing a barely-stifled smirk.

After a more noticable glance towards Captain Trent, Dewitt made the call, her heart thumping in her chest. "Lieutenant A'vura Zeshryr, use site-to-site transport and get what you need for the installation, then do as the Commander said. Marquez will send the sensor ghost profile to the Sabine once you are done. There is no time to waste, certainly none to ask persmission from the owner. Go!"

[ Lt. JG A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr) | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @CanadianVet, @Triton, @Mathis, @FollowTomorrow, @chXinya, @Brutus, @Absinthe, @SummerDawn, @Stegro88, @Blue Zephyr & @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]A'vura should be afraid. She should be very afraid. Yet, if anything, she only felt grim determination. Perhaps it was the sum of her experiences in Hell Sector that she no longer feared threats as Suq feared...well, everything. That was not a fair or entirely accurate assessment of the Efrosian, but the Orion supposed that would be close to it, in a summary. Her sense of mortality was no less than it was when she first joined Starfleet, but it said something about her if she could overcome any nervousness now. Or she was simply so busy processing everything that's happened in the last few days still, that she hasn't had time to grow frightened.

They were trying to think of ways to evade Task Force Archeron and its fighter complements. Suq was the first to announce a solution, and as he listed off the things he needed, she whispered to herself, “You don't need someone's mechanical eyeball?” citing a scene from a film that Jimmy and Meony had introduced to her, from the twenty-first century. Commander Dewitt approved the plan, and began calling all the relevant people, and then she had an idea to use the Sabine. When she asked for a volunteer, A'vura raised her hand half-way, twisting her body around from her console, having a harebrained idea or two that she was certain would aid the escape of the Helmet...in theory.

But she was distracted, listening to Leon's own idea, which was admittedly a whole lot better than what she had planned. It was a simple deception, but effective nonetheless...in planning. Project the impression of a much larger vessel using a tiny shuttle, and leading the task force on a merry wild Q chase. She was already pondering the tools and equipment needed to make this plan work, when she realized that Jennifer had called her and given the command to make this plan a reality. Reacting with a start, she stumbled clumsily out of her seat with the over-eagerness to get underway. First, she needed to get to the Engineering room, for some tools. She had an idea to add to the plan as well, using another nifty trick Sinead O'Riley once showed her regarding photonics and hologram projections.

She only felt bad for the ship's owner, Sera. The woman was very likely to throw a fit when she found out they used her ship without her permission.

[ SS Sabine NX-59846 | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 11 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]

“Computer, beam me to the Sabine.” said A'vura as she gathered up all the equipment, tools, and a type I palm phaser. She also acquired an EVA suit. She didn't expect to need it while well within the safe confines of the shuttle bay, but her life on the Resolve had taught her to be prepared and keep everything on hand for the unexpected. She felt the brief sense of nausea and she found herself in the Sabine, saving her the time of running through hallways like a maniac. The Orion almost always wore a skirt uniform, and she would have been quite a sight blasting through corridors at her top speed. Once inside the Sabine, she set down her gear and opened up her toolbox, retrieving a PADD, and turned to head for the cockpit.

[ Lt. J.G. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Bridge | Vector 01 | U.S.S. Theurgy ]

“Go,” was the only word he needed to hear. He didn’t see Ravenholm get up and move before he took off at full speed. Leon was talking, and he heard someone else's voice mention an eyeball, but he didn't respond to any of that. For a man with little legs, he was quick. The bridge would only see the proverbial dust from his heels. Morgan Song was left as the bridge’s engineer. They’d be just fine. Probably.

---

Engineering

He arrived at engineering without knowing how he got there or how long he took. It didn’t particularly matter either, so he gave it no further thought.

Engineering was abuzz with activity, as it should be in times of crisis. He dodged and weaved between people when his size did not offer enough agility. His hands went to his toolbelt, checking that he had all of his tools in the right place.
“Lorad?” He called out, not knowing who he was or even what Lorad looked like. “Where’s the Reman cloaker? I need that. We’re gonna give it a better power source and hook it up through the deflector.” He explained. The ship didn’t have the sort of build that a Reman ship had, such as multiple shields to use during cloaking or even a computer console that wouldn’t flip out if he tried to use it to control the cloak. He prayed no consoles would explode—shutting off the warp core for a moment while powering on the cloak would at least prevent an explosion there. Also, shooting while cloaked would reveal their position, but he hoped the folks up at the bridge weren’t honestly thinking of shooting at Archeron.

As all this went through his head, he felt...nothing, really. That part of his brain had shut down. Packed up and left. On vacation until further notice. He was standing in engineering, looking perfectly calm, like he had just come by to discuss the weather lately. As his eyes met Lorad’s shielded ones, they looked devoid of thought and sparkle.
“Mind helping me with the cloak? Ravenholm, can you work on getting the deflector dish and a console ready to plug in? Ravenholm?” He glanced around. He didn’t actually remember seeing her follow him, so he just needed to check that everyone was here. They’d need as many hands as possible to get this thing going as fast as possible. He hoped to beat his previously quoted 35 minutes.

[PWO Selena Ravenholm | Vector 1 Engineering | Deck 6 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy]

Sitting a few meters from the vector’s diminutive warp core, the Reman cloaking device didn’t look like much, just a blocky cylinder encased in a very dark green metal adorned with angled crosses wrapped around the body.  Multiple cables were plugged into each end and lead to different connections along the walls, under consoles, even one going to a direct power feed from the warp core.  Sitting at one of the wall consoles nearby, Selena Ravenholm was trying not to pound the console, or the cloak, with a fist.  She’d been at this for over a day now, and this Reman cloak was still being a stubborn son of a bitch.  First the power feed was incompatible, so she had to rig up an adapter.  Then the computers didn’t want to handshake, that was a bit easier to fix despite the complexity of the Reman language.  This time though…

“God damn piece of shit!” Instead of punching something, Selena gave a nearby equipment case a hard kick, sending it flying past Suq as he walked in.  Not even close to apologetic for nearly flattening the engineer, Selena just waved him off.  “Did that hours ago, but good luck getting this lemon to function.  It just does not want to pump out enough energy to project a field large enough to cover the entire ship.  I’m still not sure if it’s a hardware limit or some programmed safeguard.  What we need to do is strip it down to its wires and rebuild from scratch.”

That wasn’t Selena’s usual methodology, normally she could whip up tech solutions in no time at all after a quick read of its programming.  Stripping machinery wasn’t her forte, at least nothing of this size and magnitude.  Thea could’ve figured it out by now… she said to herself again, but just like the other times such thoughts only reminded her at her friend’s kidnapping by the Savi, right in front of her.  Fighting back the ever-present grief, she couldn’t help but make the now-reflexive glance at her arm.  With some help she’d managed to get it reattached properly, but while the break was sealed, she hadn’t been able to do much about the point where the Savi beam first punched through.  A noticeable dimple marred her bicep with subtle cracks still spread out from it like lunar rays.

“You want to give it a try? Be my guest.” Turning back to the console, Selena tapped back into the cloaking devices core programming, resuming her search for anything that would get the damned thing to work.

[ Sera vers Aldnoah (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Sera_vers_Aldnoah) | SS Sabine | Upper Shuttle Bay | Vector 01 - The Helmet | USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide]There was a tremor in her wrist, and slowly, Sera vers Aldnoah opened her yellow eyes. Burn me, where am I?

She felt like she wore an iron kettle on her head, every motion leaden, and she ached through both scalp and skull. Her mouth was more parched than the southern wastes in the Fire Region of Câroon, and her lips bruised and thick with thirst. She sat up, and promptly hit her head against the top bunk. "Flame and bloody ashes," she swore, and raked her tattooed hand through her long, dark hair. The vibration on her wrist persisted, and she looked at it again. It was her chronometer, and the silent intruder alert. "Who the flaming..."

Growling, she threw her blankets aside and tried to get up... but her leg was caught underneath another leg. Thus, she ended up falling out of her bunk. "Wh-" she started, struggling to clear her head and get some kind of bearings. She wasn't wearing anything at all, despite how she usually slept with a lill' something covering her, and the reason was right there in her bunk. In fact, the whole aft compartment of the Sabine just stank of sex, and her nethers were sore. As drunk as she'd gotten last night in the breached Spearhead Lounge - with the Azure Nebula outside the structural integrity field - she had no idea who she'd picked up when she tore the covers out of the bunk.

The small eyes of a large Reman male stared back at her, giving her a start.

"Woah! Who are you?" No matter, there was an intruder on the Sabine, but he was not the one. He could not have triggered the silent alarm from her sheets. "Nevermind...." She shook her head, regretted it immediately, and cursed the whole while she rummaged around for her panties and her top. Once she got them on, she picked up the Klingon disruptor that she'd got at SuD Lang and set a murderous pace through the sliding doors, entering the main compartment with her disruptor in a two-handed grip. She saw someone moving in the cockpit area and began to shout at the figure whilst she made her way there.

"Hey!" she barked, and her eyes momentarily lit up with the glow of her crown zi'naaq. That was when she saw it was an Orion woman. Bloody thieves and scoundrels, the lot of them. "What in the burning wastes do you think you're doing? Blast you, get off my flaming ship!"

---

OOC: Stegro's coming post will take Lorad to Engineering, don't you all worry. :) Triage, you can post after him.

 [Tesserarius Lorad | SS Sabine | Upper Shuttle Bay | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan, @Triage, @chXinya, @FollowTomorrow, @Triton
[Show/Hide] 

Lorad hurt. He hadn't hurt this much since that boarding action against a Dominion battlecruiser. And he had no idea where he was. What happened? Would someone stop that annoying vibration! Where is my knife?

A sudden thunk snapped Lorad's eyes open, letting in light and pain that was beyond what Lorad could bear. Slamming his eyes shut again, Lorad thought he heard incoherent words beyond them but with his head pounding from the abuse, he couldn't be sure. The vibration thankfully stopped and the light softened as something was thrown over his head. Which was when Lorad realised he wasn't alone in whatever bed he was in.

"Wh-?" came a female voice that tickled at Lorad's mind. It wasn't Commander Dewitt's but it was somehow familiar. He felt he should know it but his mind wasn't working. All this happened at the same time as this female tugged on his leg, which happened to be draped over hers. Unable to free it, she fell out of the bunk.

Through a gap in whatever she had apparently thrown over his head, Lorad was able to glimpse a view at the female. She was sprawled on the floor, naked. Taking a moment, Lorad realised that he was also naked. What had they done? It was then that Lorad's nose awoke and told him exactly what they had seemingly done. Looking again at the woman, no standing, Lorad admired her lithe yet exceptional form. And those eyes... As if sensing his gaze, the woman reached out and tugged the cover off him completely.

"Woah! Who are you?" She demanded after a moment. Before Lorad could think of a response, she continued. "Nevermind...." She said as she shook her head. Judging from her reaction, hers hurt just as much as his did. He watched as she began rummaging around on the floor which he discovered had their discarded clothes strewn on it. Once she had found several items and put them on, she picked up what Lorad's training identified as a disruptor of Klingon origin. Turning she left the compartment without a word. Deciding that a tactical withdrawal was in order, Lorad climbed to his feet and set about searching for his own clothes.

"Hey!" Lorad heard the woman shout from outside as he tugged on his pants, followed by his boots. His head pounded again as he searched around for his shirt but unable to find it, Lorad donned his vest. 

"What in the burning wastes do you think you're doing? Blast you, get off my flaming ship!" Was what Lorad was confronted with as he left the compartment he, they, had awoken in. In front of him, the woman held her disruptor on an Orion female in a Starfleet uniform. Continuing his tactical withdrawal, Lorad slapped the door release and departed the situation.

Compared to where he had been, the shuttle bay he found himself was blinding. Lorad reached into his vest for his visor, his hand brushing his combadge as he did so.

"You have one new message. Message received 5 minutes ago," came the disembodied voice of the ship's computer.

"Play message," Lorad growled out as he seated his visor over his eyes and headed for the exit.

"This is Commander Dewitt to Lorad," came the fiery-haired commander's voice from Lorad's combadge, "we may need your help in Engineering, immediately. Please make yourself available to Junior Lieutenant Suq and Warrant Officer Ravenholm. I'll clear you for entry. Please, hurry."

Something in her voice made Lorad's ears twitch, even in his hungover state; something was happening and it was important if he was being cleared to enter the Engineering section. Quickening his pace, Lorad tapped his combadge.

"Lorad to Commander Dewitt," Lorad said in Standard slowly and clearly. "On my way." The hulking Reman turned out of the shuttlebay and headed for the nearest turbolift. Entering it, he thought for a moment, trying to remember what he had read about the layout of this ship. Unable to remember the deck, Lorad merely called out "Engineering."

The turbolift opened onto a corridor and Lorad stepped out and looked around. Seeing the entrance to Engineering to his left, he made his way through it and into the bright lights and chaos; organised though it was. 

Ahead of him, sitting on the deck between a workbench strewn with tools and other equipment and what to Lorad appeared to be the warp core of this ship, sat the cloaking device from the Apache. When Lorad had discovered that they had removed it, he had been angry. They were gutting the ship that had saved his and his sister’s lives time and time again. But he had calmed when he realised that for the time being, if it helped keep this ship safe, then it was helping keep Samala safe. And that was all that mattered.

He was just in time to see tiny man dodge a crate that had come from across the room. Scanning, he identified Selena sitting at a console as the likely reason. He heard the short man shout his name over the cacophony so Lorad decided he must be one of the people he had been sent to. Padding around the room, he stopped next to the man whose height was barely two thirds his own.

"Mind helping me with the cloak?" The man asked before turning to the female who had kicked the crate. His addressing her as Ravenholm confirmed both their identities for Lorad. He listened as they spoke about power and his head began to hurt even more than it already did. He was better at destroying things than building them. Why had he been asked here?

"Reman cloak not made for ship this size," Lorad said in standard once the two had stopped speaking for a moment. As was becoming a usual occurrence when he spoke, every eye in the room fell upon him but soon the situation drew their attention away again. "Remans make it to hide from Romulans. But also to be easy to build. Supplies scare. You need to build Scimitar cloak. Apache cloak too small. It same, just smaller."

[ Lt. JG A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr) | SS Sabine NX-59846 | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 11 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]“SHEEP FARTS IN ASPIC!” was A'vura's opening line at Sera's voice. The Orion was not expecting company, and she was certainly edgy enough to try reaching for a sidearm, if she had one, but due to the panic induced by Sera's bark, the girl only succeeded in fumbling her PADD and send it clattering to the deck. And as she completed the clumsy motion of reaching for a non-existent weapon, she'd turned around to face a very angry and fairly naked Câroon woman, and the sight of that creepy eye glow made the Orion jump backwards even more, bumping into the consoles. “Oh shit!”

So much for her lack of fear.

“Miss Aldnoah,” said A'vura, both palms raised up and facing the woman in a gesture of surrender, doing her best not to look at a Reman that was sneaking out the ship, “I'm so sorry for intruding on your vessel like this...uh...didn't you hear Commander Dewitt's call for you?”

She moved slowly, going to her knees, and she picked up the PADD again, even more slowly, with one hand, the other palm stayed up. Sera wasn't Starfleet, and there was no telling how the woman would behave if the Orion made even the least threatening action. She turned the screen of the PADD around to show the gun-toting spacer the problem, namely Task Force Archeron in the nebula, hunting for the Helmet. “You see that? We've got Task Force Archeron right on top of us. Their fighter element's tracking our warp and ion signatures. Commander Marquez has a plan to use the Sabine, control it remotely to fly circles around the fighters and the task force to give them a false trail, lead them away while we go in another direction. We'll bring the Sabine back, of course...uh...with your permission?”

She tried to smile at the woman, flashing pearly white teeth, with as apologetic a look on her face as possible.

[ Dyan Cardamone \ Sar-unga Neleo | Drauc's quarters | Vector 01 | U.S.S. Theurgy ]

Decorum was not a word typically associated with a certain Asurian warrior. In fact, she was possibly the least tactful individual she knew, and she knew a great number of people.

This fact became ever more present as she woke up, stretched in bed, and purposefully cracked her back and tail. She was naked, as usual, but this time she was naked because she’d torn her clothes clean off. She was in a room not hers. It belonged to one...uh, what was his name?

Oh yeah, Drauc. Kind of a rough looking man, but certainly not her worst conquest. He fucked, he didn’t make love, and that’s all she was looking for. It was her admittedly selfish way of saying thanks, and also blowing off steam and stress after her cathartic battle a few days ago and the never-ending debriefings that followed.

The man slept next to her as she heard her combadge go off. It was muffled and thrown off in a corner, but she heard the most important bit: “be ready for boarding parties”.

Instantly her face lit up. This was an excellent way to start the morning, she decided. She was almost about to march right on out the door right now, bolt out of Drauc’s quarters stark naked with a blade mounted on her arm. Then she thought, why take on the day alone when she had a perfectly good warrior right here next to her! Also, she needed clothes. Hers were ruined, partly because of her fight and not having changed for a while, but mostly because she shredded them pre-sex.
“Drauc!” She bounced on the bed, then climbed on top of the poor Romulan creature. Her bare breasts covered his face, her slightly-chilly skin pressed against his. He could’ve been totally awake and she wouldn’t have known, or cared really.
“Wakey wakey, time for battle!” She draped herself on his body, her tail thumped the bed and sometimes Drauc’s legs out of excitement. “They say to get ready for boarding parties. Time to get up and fight!” From her voice alone, she was absolutely delighted. This was the perfect way to wake up, and now more than ever, she felt at home again. Happy. All this was evident on her face, like a ray of sunshine, but more deadly.

“Also….can I borrow some clothes?” She grinned, his would likely be too big for her. Oh well, she thought, and rolled off Drauc and onto the floor. She landed on her feet and ran about, looking for her sindt. She’d pick up a phaser later, but the sindt was meaningful to her. Her footsteps thump-thump-thumped as she checked under her clothes, and then under the bed. Her tail occasionally thumped the wall or her own legs as it whipped around, and her tits bounced with the excitement in her step. At the very least, her boots and socks were in tact, so she thump-thump-thumped to collect those too.

[Zyrao Natauna | Borrowing Lives |  Stealing Rank | They Always Come Callin' | Duty Calls]
@Auctor Lucan @CanadianVet @Stegro88 @Triage @Triton @FollowTomorrow @chXinya

Zyrao leaned back in her seat, the comfortable leather was much preferred to the hard metal of the Klingon ships.  If your ass didn't hurt while you were flying through space and fighting space battles for the Klingon empire then you weren't fighting with true honor.  Something to that effect.  She had grown used to, and likely grown calluses, to compensate.  However, she knew that she could enjoy the cool crisp and soft leather carressing her body as she sat there.  Boots up on the console, she was fully relaxed and very comfortable in her space.  All around her, the other Security officers were moving about getting their jobs done, Zy's cool grey eyes were studying the Security feeds from various areas of the Vector. 

“Your tea, ma'am.”

A cup and saucer were placed beside her the steam wafting off proved to carry with it the scent of fresh beautiful tea.  Oh, she hadn't had tea for days.  A tragedy in the eyes of Zyrao.  While right now it could not be the full on true leaf tea, she would have to settle for replicated.  It was at least, pretend tea. 

“Thank you, Ensign.” she gave a nod.

“Did you need anything else, ma'am?”

I do enjoy Starfleet manners, at least, when they think that I have a rank above their own.  Her eyes shifted to the young man that stood there.  He wasn't human, but he wasn't an odd color either.  Some humanoid race, the dark eyes .. probably meant he was partially Betazoid.  Empathic, but either ill-adept at using his abilities, or seeing only what he wanted to see.  Pretty enough, though, she supposed.  Though and Ensign had nothing she truly needed to get out of him other than the tea and possibly snacks.

“Do you those.. small... round.. sweet cracker like .. contraptions.  They are new to me, forgive me, I'm not from Earth, you see.  Small sweet pastries, crisp.”

“Cookies?”

Zyrao snapped her fingers.  “Thank you for knowing that, Ensign, and not making me look like a fool at the same time.  Yes, cookies, could you make some of those?”

“Uh, well, ma'am, what kind?”

Her brow rose.  “There are different kinds?”  She slid her feet down onto the deck plating and leaned close to the poor Ensign who swallowed heavily.  “This intrigues me, what is your favorite?” she whispered consipiratorily.

“Uh.. th.. um, I .. the.. cho..chocolate.. are um.. th.. the best.”

She smiled and gave a nod.  “Then lets try those!” she put her feet back up.  One then the other, crossed at the ankles.  “Oh make some for yourself too!  We can share, and chit chat.” she winked at the poor Ensign as he tripped over towards the replicator.  Her eyes swung back over to the Security footage.  They had just come out of warp, and she was watching everything unfold around the ship. 

Red Alert sounded, her brow rose, and then a slow grin pulled the right side of her mouth high for a moment before it fell back to neutral.  Only a moment before that sad excuse for an air sack calls me in to help. she thought of the “Captain.”  I wonder if mutiny is a thing in Starfleet, it really should be.

[Commander Dewitt to Zyrao Natauna, we could use your counsel on the bridge, I am clearing you for access through the security checkpoint. Please report to me for a briefing of the situation on hand.]

The combadge that she had been issued by some one, she hadn't needed nor cared to remember the name on her chest chirped as the message came through for her.  She gave a sigh.  Ahhh victory.  Slowly she got herself up from the chair the cushion would rise back to it's normal shape without her weight in it.  Carefully she picked up her cup of tea and took a slow sip now that it was just hot and less scalding.  Turning she stopped short seeing the Ensign returning with a plate of cookies.

“Apologies, my friend, I've been called to the Bridge.”

“She didn't call you Lieutenant Commander.”  He stated curiously.

“No.. she didn't.”  Zy let out a long exasperated sigh as she put her hand on the man's shoulder.  “I'll have to have a chit chat with her about that, won't I?”  she shook her head.  “We'll give her a slight pass though.. she has to be very stressed.  Battles.. secret rendezvous, being on the scandalous Theurgy... makes for a complicated position.  Ah, Let me just take one of these to go.”

She picked up one of the chocolate cookies from the plate and headed off towards the Turbolift feeling the eyes of the half-Betazoid burning into her back from behind.  Carefully she took a nibble of the cookie and chewed thoughtfully.  Horribly sweet, not terrible, but it would have to be something eaten in very tight moderation.  The Turbolift opened and she stepped into it.

“Zyrao Natauna, Bridge.”

The chime sounded meaning she was cleared and she was taken up to the Bridge.  She finished her overly sweet confection by the time the Turbolift paused at the Bridge.  The door slid open and the El-Aurian stepped out on the Bridge. She was wearing a full Starfleet uniform.  The pants, a Security uniform, complete with Lieutenant Commander pips, her combadge, and her Starfleet issued boots.  It hadn't been easy .. nor really difficult to attain the clothing.  Honestly, the people on the ship were absolutely addicted to sex even when half their crew had only recently been abducted.  It was far too easy to woo people into various corridors and secret maintenance closets before liberating them of pieces of their clothing.  Oh they wouldn't complain, they wouldn't want to be caught, and besides, she made sure it was worth their while.  But, she had slowly pieced together a full uniform.

It was far easier to gain information about the ship when everyone believed you were one of them.  A unfamiliar face meant little in a ship that consistently took on new and random crew members all the time.  Her being there didn't really seem to raise any alarms and once she had found her uniform it had been even easier.  She could pretty much go where ever she wanted, and many times she just followed others in.  Their clearance was something she could tail if she timed it right, and she was very good at timing. 

The Bridge was a hub of activity.  They were going dark, shutting down sensors, and engines.  Her eyes flickered over to the Child that currently played Captain, and next to him, the woman that had called her up in the first place.  Before she said a word, she took another sip of her tea.  It would help keep her calm, though keeping her hands off of the Child's neck would be hard enough even with the tea.  It depended on his level of stupidity for the day.  She found that it fluctuated heavily. 

Clearing her throat her eyes did not look at the Child instead they found the female first officer beside him.  “Zyrao Natauna reporting as requested.” she stated smoothly.  Holding her saucer in one hand she picked up her cup and took another sip.  If only this cup never emptied.  "I need details if you want my assistance." she said slowly making her way towards the command team.

[ Admiral Sankolov | Main Bridge | Deck 01 | USS Archeron ] @CanadianVet @Blue Zephyr @Triton @Brutus @Mathis

When there was no answer - just a spike of a short warp jump that faded into nothingness - Admiral Sankolov quietly remained seated in his command chair on the bridge of the Archeron. He had been in this situation before, during the hunt through the Alpha Quadrant - the Theurgy persisting in its elusiveness. This time, the thing inside him was restless, not caring the least for another game of hide and seek. Still, this was what lay ahead, and with his experience hunting this prey, Sankolov knew better than his new First Officer what to do next.

"Mister Slayton," he said, not looking at the man as he spoke - his dispassionate stare on the viewscreen. "You will better assist in this search on the Telemachus. You will be another set of eyes, which I will need more than your assistance here on the bridge. Report once you've launched. Search pattern... Alpha-Delta-Niner."

There was a pause, but the man knew better than to contradict orders. "Aye, Captain," he said, and left the bridge.

Only then did Sankolov rise from his seat, and stepped forth to initiate the search. Oh, but there was more to this than the mere hunt itself, for the Azure Nebula was a melting pot of different factions, all with their own aims and ambitions. Even he, through his kin in far and near places, knew not the full extent about the showdown to come, but he knew that it would all come together soon - this next phase of the current cycle. With the intervention of the Relativity at Niga, the cycle in which he now fought had many unknowns - a minefield of situations yet foreseen. Unconditioned grounds on the battlefield.

Nonetheless, it was his turn.

"Open a channel to all present ships as well as the Squadron Commander," he said in his dry, British accent. "This is Admiral Sankolov. One of the Theurgy's vectors is hiding here, and judging by their subspace transmission, they are looking for the other two. This means they are at a disadvantage, yet we have made the mistake of underestimating them before. Take no chances. Conceit spoils the finest minds."

Adjusting the sleeves of his uniform where he stood, he continued. "Because we are Starfleet, we have given them due warning... only without reply. They were given the opportunity to surrender, but now, considering what their A.I. did to us above Theta Eridani IV, we cannot risk any further subspace communication with this enemy. I repeat, protect your ships and fighters by blocking all incoming hails. There is no telling what kind of new computer virus we'd receive with the transmission."

Of course he had laid the blame of the virus that crippled Task Force Archeron above Theta Eridani IV at the Theurgy's A.I.'s feet. Oh, he knew very well that it had been Carrigan Trent that betrayed him, but his treachery would have raised questions, so he altered the evidence and informed the crew that the man had been lost when a shuttle bay had been depressurised. If he was still alive, aboard the Theurgy, his officers knew that the Theurgy had every possibility to make holograms to substitute missing crew. What faces those holograms would wear was subject to the whims of their Captain and the Federation database.

"Leave Omicron formation and randomise search patterns individually until further notice," he said, turning back. Once he had seated himself, he ended the hail. "Weapons free. Shoot on sight, and in memory of those fallen, and the surviving families of the Federation.... give no quarter. Sankolov out."

And thus, the search began.

[ Lt Cmdr. Ashton "Warlock" Bates | Black Wolf-01 | Mk II Valkyrie Cockpit ] @Vox

Once more, they were on the prowl - the Black Wolves on the hunt for the Theurgy and it's fighters. Ash Bates couldn't remember how many times he'd engaged the dreadnought and its Lone Wolves, but he knew every one of the pilots he'd lost. The new wolves in his pack, flying the Valravn fighters, they knew not the losses suffered - the bad blood between them and this prey.

The White Wolves... He could but hope they knew what they were about, and could follow orders.  They were not truly accepted into the pack yet, having transferred aboard at Starbase 84 barely a week ago, but as the Alpha... he knew they would forge a tighter bond as a pack once they'd fought together. He was concerned about how some of their former packmates on the Orcus had defected mid-battle, and he had to admit he held it against the Valravn fighters. He didn't trust them yet, thinking they might defect as well. It seemed, however, a perfect time to see if they were truly loyal had come...

The Admiral spoke to him, and Ash listened in quietude before relaying his orders to the Black Wolves. "This is Wolf-Zero-One," he said over the squadron channel, "the search has begun. You are weapons free, and you are to shoot-on-sight and raise your howl if you make contact. Since their subspace signals might be spiked by an A.I. virus, do not accept transmissions from the enemy, and don't initiate communication either. I will not tow you back to the den if you get your fighters crippled that way. Understood?"

There was a quiet chuckle from behind him, but Ash's RIO knew he meant what he said. Someone else would have to tow such a pup-wit home.

"All wolves, confirm and fan out by Elements. Keep your noses in the wind and your eyes on your sensors. Warlock, out."

[ Sera vers Aldnoah (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Sera_vers_Aldnoah) | SS Sabine | Upper Shuttle Bay | Vector 01 - The Helmet | USS Theurgy ] @Triage
[Show/Hide]Sera tilted her head and listened to the Orion woman that had broken into the Sabine to pilfer whatever she could find, and she narrowed her yellow eyes when she mentioned the name Dewitt. She'd never heard the name before. At least she didn't think so. Her head ached as if that Reman back in her bed had knocked her over the skull and dragged her to bed, but even if she would't remember if he did, she had a suspicion she had some small part in what had happened to. After Hi'Jak's betrayal, she had been quite anxious to haul her ashes. If nothing else to blast him out of her system.

"What in the wastes are you talking about?" she growled, curling her upper lip and practically jabbing her disruptor in the air at the flaming thief. "Burn you, I don't give a spark about your excuses, you just..."

Seeing the PADD, she trailed off, frowning even harder than she did before. If the information was to be believed, the Theurgy just kept drawing troubles to itself like moths to a flame. And to add fuel to the fire, they were thinking about hijacking her ship, make it bait, and then blast off without regrets. "Does Starfleet always tend to burn their bridges before them?" she snapped at the woman, who was still a thief, only she had planned to take her whole ship! "You will not throw the Sabine out there like a candle in the flaming winds. Burn you, if you'd only asked, I'd fly her if that would spell survival. Understood? If you need her, you get me as a part of the package."

[Lieutenant Zephryr, this is Dewitt,] came a voice from the lettuce-skinned thief's combadge, [what's the status, over?]

Sera snarled and reached forward, pushing her tattooed hand against the combadge since the Orion had hers raised. She might have pushed the Lieutenant into the pilot seat, but Sera wasn't looking anymore. She had turned away and set a murderous gait towards the cargo hold and where her red Câroon exosuit was stored. Still, spoke loudly enough for his "Dewitt" to hear her through the Lieutenant's combadge. "The flaming status is that I'll fly the Sabine out there! Estimated launch, three minutes provided that your thief here can prep my ship in that time for whatever the ashes you want me to do!"

[...Understood.] There was a pause before Dewitt continued. [Lieutenant Zephryr. I am sorry... you must rig the emitter, but I need you on that ship. Not just to project the sensor ghost... but to make sure Miss Aldnoah doesn't abandon us. We truly need the Sabine. Dewitt out... and good luck.]

"I flaming heard that!" called Sera from the aft compartment, where she cursed and tried to don her exosuit.

“Sera Vers Aldnoah...the main thing I know about her is make sure she sees you coming with your intents clear from about twelve lightyears away...”

[ Lt. JG A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr) | SS Sabine NX-59846 | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 11 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]Goodbye cruel universe...thought A'vura as she looked at that weapon in Sera's hands. The woman was looking like a hair's breadth away from pulling the trigger and spreading the Orion's atoms across the space lanes. Just her luck to be stuck with someone with selective hearing! She dropped whatever pleading smile she had plastered on her face to be replaced with a mild panic and a feeble attempt to explain herself or plead for her short life, or...she stopped talking. Ah the PADD. But did she believe it? Annnnd she was still mad...maybe madder, even. Raising both hands again, she said, “I wasn't even going t...”

With perfect timing, Jennifer chimed in for a status report.

But Sera was reaching for the Orion's combadge, and she scrambled frantically, thinking she was going for physical assault, and ended up overbalancing into the pilot's seat, “Hwauf!”

She just stared at Sera as the woman headed back into the back compartment of the ship, where she shouted her response, to which A'vura protested with a terse, “I'm not a thief!”

Then Jennifer sentenced her to death, “Wha...but I...I was supposed...g'aaahh!” suck it up, A'vura! You can do this! She composed herself, and then said, “Understood commander, Zeshryr out.”

Great...just great. I get to fly with Wonder Woman here, and she's not my fan...can it get any worse-d'oh! Don't jynx yourself!

Grumpy, the green lady wasted no time and headed back to her gear, picked up the emitter and headed over to Sera, “So...uh, sorry again? I really wasn't going to...I mean...you didn't answer our initial hails, and it was really urgent...I uh...I need your permission to set up this emitter in your ship. It'll project the impression of something bigger for the fighter squadrons out there, and the Task Force.”

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | The Spearhead Lounge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]When Drauc came to, the announcement from the combadge had already been made, and he had but heard a few words of it. Mornings, for him, was always the end of respite, the relative quietude of his dreams preferable to the assault of other minds, always imposing on his own. As it were, waking up in his new quarters - given to him since he lost his own when the ship split - there was one mind that imposed upon him. One elated by the prospect of battle, an attitude which was foreign for him, even though he had more than a mere aptitude for it. He was, after all, bred and raised for the battlefield.

Yet his mind was not all that was imposed upon. Dyan Cardamone, the rare Asurian that he had met three days past, and met once more the night before, she asserted her will to fight alongside him by  draping herself on his face. Already awake, though drowsy from the lack of sleep, he opened his dark eyes and stared up at her from the vantage point she had given him - having to crane his neck to breathe and answer. Normal males of any species would be delighted by the awakening, yet his desires... he believed them to be the reflection of the ones who wanted him. Their pleasure made his own.

Such had been the case the night before, where Cardamone wished to thank him for saving her life in the breached lounge three days past. The only way he had been able to accommodate her was because Nurse Jovela had shown her his ability to please others not long before. He had read her mind, and obliged her, and her gratification had been his own. The cost was that her nails had almost opened the cut her kinsman had dealt unto his shoulder. The seam left from the dermal regenerators had - thankfully - held, and Cardamone had fallen asleep in his bed once content.

"I may fight better if not smothered in bed," he rasped through his torn vocal cords and raised his scarred hands to her slim waist, gently helping to ease her out of bed and off from him - her strong tail having lashed both the sheets and his shins. Did the prospect of battle excite her so? Judging by the way her mind pulsed, and her face shone, there was no doubt. "I have little in means of clothing that fit you, yet I was given rations to make new apparel."

Though washed and stitched together, he still had the clothes he'd worn when he came aboard, and it seemed new attire was no option for him. He rose from his sheets and walked to the replicator and inserted the chip before getting dressed himself. "Short sleeve skirt uniform in the size and departmental colour used by Ensign Dyan Cardamone."

Before the neatly folded fabric had finished materializing, Drauc began to locate and pick up pieces of his clothes from deck beneath their feet. He looked at the Asurian through the tresses of his burgundy hair as she looked for her blade, the sight of her bare body a reminder of the night before, and the way she had made him spend himself inside her several times. "You put your blade next to the sonic shower."

Drauc found that she had torn his tunic apart at the front when she'd been impatient with him, which now left his chest and upper abdomen bare within the folds of his threadbare, brown robe. He cared naught besides the fact that there was nothing to snag a dagger or blade if they were to fight her people again. "What's the nature of the threat, and who will we face in battle?"

Did it matter? It didn't seem to matter for the Asurian, at least.

[ Sera vers Aldnoah (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Sera_vers_Aldnoah) | SS Sabine | Upper Shuttle Bay | Vector 01 - The Helmet | USS Theurgy ] @Triage @CanadianVet
[Show/Hide]Sealing the arms to the shoulder-joints, the air-pressure seals hissing in the same tone she had before, Sera glowered at the Orion when she approached her again, this time actually asking permission. She had, of course, heard that they'd tried to contact her whilst she slept, but her foul mood didn't lift in the slightest, much less her hangover.

"Just do what you need to and be flaming quick about it. I'll power her up in the meantime," he mumbled, not quite ready to accept any apology. She supposed she needed to apologise as well, but fact remained that the Starfleeters had been fully willing to just take her ship from her and autopilot it out there as bait. The odds that it would have made it back in one piece had seemed infinitesimally small. Which, incidentally, remained the truth when they endeavored to do the same, the odds just a tad better since she'd be piloting the Sabine instead of some sandworm hiding on the bridge.

Once she had her red exosuit on, she stalked through the Sabine and slammed her helmet down next to her before she seated herself. Mumbling about rudeness and blasting them all for their ungratefulness, Sera powered up her ship. She had made sure they got their dilithium crystals, hadn't she? So what was the thanks for that? Blast them all.

"Hurry up, burn you!" she shouted through the open airlock, before she contacted Mission Ops. "This is the SS Sabine, ready for take-off as soon as your flaming emitter is installed. Awaiting tactical briefing about what to expect. I already have the decoy route but I don't have a spark of a notion about who these snakes are. If you want your Orion and I back alive, and lure them away long enough, start talking, over."

[This is Dewitt, stand by.] Sera heard how the woman muffled some kind of earpiece, and then spoke again. [Captain Trent knows the enemy best. I'll patch him through to you as soon as he is available.]

[ Dyan Cardamone \ Sar-unga Neleo | Drauc's quarters | Vector 01 | U.S.S. Theurgy ]

Drauc was such a grump. At least he was a helpful grump. She ran to the sonic shower to get her blade. Lo and behold, there it was. She lifted it up, days-old blood still stained the blade. It’d wash off easily if she would just sit down and take the time to clean it, but she would not. It was a symbol of pride and of hard-earned loyalty. She carried that and her shoes with her to the replicator to grab her clothes. She dressed right there, responding to Drauc as he did.
“Does it matter?” she replied. She had no idea that her mind was being skimmed, and if she did, she’d likely not care. Her last secret had been spilled long ago.

“I hope it’s the Sheromi.” She grinned, hatred for the species welled up inside her and used it to fuel her energy. “Whatever happened between us and the Asurians, I bet it’s their fault.” Her voice was muffled as she pulled her blouse on over her head. No bra today, apparently. It’s possible she forgot too. Now she stepped into her underwear and hiked that up. It was adult sized but had cute cartoon characters on it. An odd contrast, compared to the lacy one she had yesterday.

“Could be Archeron though.” She suggested, though she really hoped it was the Sheromi. “They’re on our tail too. Or more Asurians, but they’ll usually take a step back and reorganize before attacking something as big as us again. We’re not Klingons, stupid deaths aren’t good deaths.” And down came the dress. She struggled with the sleeves for a moment or two. She carried her shoes and blade to a mirror so she could gussy up. Rearranging her blouse, evening our her dress running her fingers through her hair to give herself a tousled-yet-feminine look. It was almost like getting ready for a night out on the town. On some level, she was also primping for Drauc too. Look at me, see that I’m pretty.

“Let’s stick together this time. You’re a good fighter, we’ll be awesome in battle together.” She beamed as she got her shoes on. “I’ll try to keep another blade from going into your shoulder.” She offered him a thumbs up. He was mopey, but so far, she liked him. Once she was dressed, she attached her blade to her arm and moved to wait by the door, bouncing on her feet and her tail swishing. She was waiting for him to finish, and also staring at his bare chest. He could do with a few more scratches, she thought...

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Blue Zephyr @CanadianVet @Brutus
[Show/Hide]After the brief chat with Sera vers Aldnoah, suggesting that Trent would brief the Câroon scavenger about what they were up against in regard to the tactic of the Sabine being bait, Jennifer Dewitt noticed the El-Aurian advisor that had entered the bridge, standing there wi-

A Starfleet uniform? Dewitt reminded herself that this was not the time. Instead, it was time to brief this alleged old military commander, and see if she could offer insight from beyond Federation borders on how to handle the task force on their tails. The Commanding Officers of all those ships out there had learned by the same books as they had, the tricks common knowledge within the fleet. It offered the certainty of pitched battles, transparent manoeuvres and predictable tactics. Dewitt's hope was that this wild card that had come aboard on the Sabine would offer something Sankolov and the rest didn't know.

She walked up to the El-Aurian, a frown on her face. "This is no time for games, Specialist Natanua." Conveniently, the woman's hands were busy holding the saucer and cup in her hands. Therefore, she plucked the three pips from her collar and pocketed them. "I will have to talk you out of that uniform later."

While he had no intention for it to sound the way it did, she certainly found the woman attractive enough. The time and place was not for antiques, and stealing a uniform was crime on most worlds out there. "Have you been briefed about who Task Force Archeron are? They were the ones hunting this ship when it first fled Earth, carrying the knowledge about Starfleet Command. Captain Trent has voiced evidence that the fleet commander is one of them - one of the infested."

Walking to the holographic tactical display table in the back of the bridge, expecting that the El-Aurian would follow her, Dewitt raised her hand and summoned the topographic image of the Azure Nebula and the ships that their sensors spotted before they made the short warp jump. "If we were to see them on our sensors actively, so would they be able to see us. Therefore, we have gone dark. What we have, are these old readings from a couple of minutes ago, where they were converging on us and launching their fighters. As you can see, there are thirteen ships, and that one is the Archeron. The fighter squadron are marked out with white dots, here."

She tapped her fingers against the controls, then having visualised the squadron, she moved on. "Our Helmsman made a micro jump for us, which made us move from the position you see now in this sensor image..." she said, and then zoomed out the three-dimensional image and added their current coordinates, far out on the flank of the task force. "...to this one."

Having shown the seasoned El-Aurian woman the tactical layout as far as they knew it, she walked over to another side of the table and loaded up the data on the ships they had detected. "If you want to know the enemy in detail, what we have on those ships is right here. I... heard you wanted a Klingon interface, so just hit this button here and then you can start reading. The sooner you have a suggestion, the better. In the meantime, we are about to launch the Sabine as bait, with a sensor ghost decoy behind it."

Whatever Trent had told Sera, Dewitt had missed it, but she hoped Captain Trent had more orders. Were they to use the particle sensor now? Send out a ping, or wait, and do so before the next warp jump? With her his clenched at her sides, she hoped that between Specialist Natauna, the Sabine and the particle sensor, they would be able to stay clear long enough. The Reman cloak was some time before it might work, but if they were lucky, perhaps the other Vectors would arrive.

Still, what if they are already dead, and we wait and risk our lives and the truth in vain?

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | The Spearhead Lounge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]In truth, it did not really matter, just like the Asurian said. Regardless where the enemy hailed from, they were threats to the safety of the crew and ship. That much remained the truth even if it was a long time since the Dominion War, and he'd worn her departmental colours. Her wishes for it to be the Savi were highly personal, he'd reckoned, based on the talks of the night before, and how she blamed them for what had happened when they faced the Versant.

From her mind, he picked up how she wished for him to notice her, and as much he did on her wordless behest. He looked towards her, and saw her staring at his bared chest too. Apparently, she liked how he could anticipate her needs, even if he questioned if he had any needs of his own.

"That would be preferable," he rasped in regard to helping him from getting another injury like the one he'd suffered before. He also shared her sentiment about fighting alongside each other. He hadn't truly fought together with her before, but if her kinsmen were any indication, and the fact that she was actually older than him, she likely could hold her own in a fight. Since he was a civlian, he was unarmed, but he needed no weapon for the battlefield. He was a honed blade in himself, and if he had need for tools to kill with, there were usually plenty to pick from the fallen.

He walked up to her by the door once he was finished, his hood yet raised, and looked down and into her green eyes. "Unless, of course, you are a distraction in itself, and I get stabbed because I look at you instead of our foes," he grated, and while he didn't smile, he had come to stand close to her. He had anticipated her need to look at her, and so he did, thinking he'd offer compliment. Perhaps it would make her fight even better. "Despite my preferences, I should have replicated a less revealing uniform."

Having told her this in his low, scraping syllables, he moved to step out of the room and into the corridor - ready for whatever might face them. "Perhaps you need to ascertain more detail about the threat from Ensign Ryan Sel?"

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: All

Initial orders had been given.  That was all Trent could have done for now and he forced himself to relax into the command chair.  He could not afford to give any indication of his fear, of his stress.  Calm, cool, confident competence was what he needed to radiate; if that was what his Bridge officers saw, then it would rub off onto them as well. 

But what could not have helped was Captain Slayton's own broadcast.  A call to surrender.  Of course such a thing would be sent.  The man hadn't been there at Theta Eridani when Sankolov and his posse of hand-picked captains had cornered Theurgy and made it clear no quarter would be given and that surrender would just mean a faster execution.  In fact, he hadn't been one of Sankolov's own choices to command an asset of the Task Force, and Trent knew him not only to be an excellent tactician and one to utterly commit to action, but as a man of integrity who would not have accepted a simple declaration there would be no quarter granted unless they surrendered.

Not that surrender would have meant much.  There would be 'accidents' and 'equipment failures' and 'prisoner uprisings' aplenty to guarantee no on on the Vector would have their day in front of a magistrate.  That or Sankolov would convene a special tribunal, see them all sent to a remote penal colony, and their transport would be mysteriously 'lost with all hands' along the way. 

But, as he had requested, suggestions started coming in, and being implemented.  Sabine to be used as a decoy, the possibility of unsettling the opposition by revealing he was in command, and of course calling up Miss Natanua.  Of course.  Because she might see something he could not in the maelstrom of ships and the fog that would occlude their sensors.   

"Commander Marquez, we can shelve that for later.  Have a beacon prepared, and give me message and launch control when you have that done."  That would be a start.  That, and broadcasting anything at this time would be tantamount to suicide.  They would have to be ghosts in this mess until the cloak would become operational. 

While Ensign Zeshryr made her way to the Sabine, that was when the El-Aurian arrived... in a Starfleet uniform and wearing the rank of a senior officer, no less.  But this was no time to address the matter, and Trent simply narrowed his eyes at the display... a display Jennifer herself took care of.  That would be just a start, and he'd have to ensure to have it mentioned, very clearly, that wearing a uniform again would be a fast way to ensure a stay in a cell until they could find a convenient place to dump her. 

"Bring up the particle sensors, low-power, rotating modulation and a slow, random interval; let's not give any more than we absolutely have to.  He then spoke, still looking at the less than detailed holographic plot between him and the viewscreen.  "Miss Natanua, we are being hunted by Task Force Archeron.  They have a number of starships and dozens of fighters after us.  Your task is to keep us hidden until we can bring the cloaking device online or the other Vectors arrive, or we get confirmation they received our message."

And, of course, the civilian from the Sabine spoke up.  "Sabine, this is the Captain.  Expect to head out into a swarm of hostile ships and fighters.  Your task will be to fly a decoy course at your discretion, using the emitter to lure them away from us.  Keep your active sensors locked down, and only radiate enough energy to keep them interested.  You will  be operating under complete radio silence until informed otherwise by myself, so you will have to operate at your own discretion.  If you are going to be spotted, you are to withdraw.  Ensign Zeshryr will be accompanying you, and she knows where the rendezvous will be.  Don't let yourself be boarded, and godspeed, Miss Aldnoah.  Trent out."

With that done, something came to Trent's mind, and he turned to look at the Tactical station.  "Commander Marquez, Task Force Archeron has no restriction on their use of active sensors.  I want you to reconfigure quantum torpedoes to be pushed out of the tubes using compressed nebula material.  They are to remain inactive, on their own internal telemetry, until they detect a Task Force Archeron asset in their immediate vicinity or are hit by active sensors.  Only then will they activate their drives and engage.  My intent is to force Sankolov to be as blind as we are."

[ Lt.Com. Vivian Martin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Vivian_Martin) | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @CanadianVet, @Triton, @Mathis, @Hastata-Nerada, @FollowTomorrow, @chXinya, @Brutus, @Absinthe, @SummerDawn, @Stegro88, @Blue Zephyr & @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]Vivian had been quiet this whole time on the bridge, observing, considering, and playing scenarios out in her head. Everybody had some brilliant plans and ideas for sure. But they could do more. So much more. She saw the woman, Zyrao, who was an El Aurian. She was more than likely one of the oldest people on board the ship right now. That was a valuable resource right there. Rich with information. She frowned at the woman wearing a senior officer's Starfleet uniform, but she'd served three years on board the Resolve, dicipline and decorum was lax under the circumstances, plus Commander Dewitt already addressed the matter, and from Carrigan's look, whatever was decided on that would be enforced.

But the dark-haired woman had other priorities to consider. Suq was off fixing a Reman cloak meant for smaller vessels than the Helmet, but if anyone could do it, it was Suq, and A'vura was off to save the day in a small shuttle. Who said the Orion didn't have a heroic streak in her? Carrigan was a tactically brilliant man, and she knew Leon would do what it took to save the crew. But the crew of the Theurgy didn't have some of the experiences Vivian had on the Resolve, and that was all the difference in the entirety. The variance. People would say what she was about to propose was bordering on overkill, but it was all their lives at stake, why should they not press and use every advantage they had?

She had been considering the abundant resources available all around them. As well as all the ways they could cloak themselves even without the benefit of a Reman cloak. “Captain,” said Vivian as she stood up, and turned to look at the man, “I would be remiss if I didn't offer a few other options we can use.” She picked up a PADD and presented it to the man after keying in her findings, conclusive with the most valid and possible outcomes. “Besides the Reman cloak, we can use the Thermionic radiation, draw them around the Vector like it's own cloak. It enables us to mask our energy signature even more effectively and uses less than half the power we are currently using to maintain our cover. We simply need to place EPS conduits in key sections. Emiting a low-band frequency on all fronts will give any active and passive scanners the readings of background radiowaves. Like an ancient terran submarine diving under to avoid detection.”

She was far from finished, “Using the same Thermionic radiation and the EPS conduits, we can use your idea for modified quantum torpedoes outfitted with the conduits, so that when they activate, they'll draw in the radiation towards a target, putting a blindfold on them. And lastly,” she brought up one more item on her PADD, “The Delta Radiation. Electro-magnetic emitters can manipulate them, draw them together with the Thermionic rads, and with the sirillium content in the nebula, we can essentially create a wide-radius incendiary cover once we go to warp and once the Sabine is a safe distance away. The catalyst for an ignition can be a quick venting of plasma from our warp nacelles, or a phaser bomb we leave behind to trigger on a timer or remotely.”

She clasped her hands behind her when she concluded, and said, “Just thought you might like to know, sir.”

[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | Bridge | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @CanadianVet @Blue Zephyr @Auctor Lucan @Triton @Triage  
[Show/Hide]
Sitting at the Comm station on the bridge of Vector - 01 (Theurgy's main bridge) was a somewhat new experience for Faye. She'd been working with Selena Ravenholm for the past few days, ever since their flight during the battle with the Savi. A dark cloud had loomed over the young diplomat, whose heart was filled with worry, for her ship, her crew, and her paramour, trapped on another vector and far from Faye's touch. Added to all of that was the ever present fear that permeated the crew (mostly), a sense of dread she could not block out entirely, despite her best efforts.

And she had made efforts, both too shore up her barriers, and to give herself a bit of relief. A quick glance towards the science station early, and the source of said relief - a heated dalliance of convenience and mutual physical interest - confirmed to Faye that she'd had far better luck with the later, than the former. And with the sudden arrival of task for Archeron, that barrier she had erected around her mind was crumbling by the minute.

Alone of those on the bridge, Faye knew the Captains thoughts. While the man was calm and collected on the outside, she could feel the wave of frustration and annoyance that surfaced when someone called Natanua showed up on the bridge. Faye knew next to nothing about the El-Aurian, other than that the woman's mind seemed nigh on impenetrable to Faye. At the moment, that was welcome, as the brunette telepath had been busying herself with handing various and sundry internal calls about the ship. Multiple departments reporting in, and all of them to Faye, who would correlate and reroute requests as need be. All the while, there was this running thread in the back of her mind that she was picking up from Captain Trent.

FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuck - needless to say, it was less than inspiring.

"Commander Marquez, we can shelve that for later. Have a beacon prepared, and give me message and launch control when you have that done." Fayes head snapped around at that, her dark eyes going wide. True, the order had been given to Commander Leon Marquez, recently of the late USS Resolve and the new head Tactical Officer of the Theurgy. But a message beacon like that - her station was already configured. And in her harried state, it made perfect sense to Faye to simply take on the task and let the man with the guns worry about rigging up...torpedo mines? Or whatever such thing it was that Trent had in mind for Marquez to deploy against the Archeron and her escorts.

"I've got it, Commander, Captain," Faye called out, letting her eyes sweep the controls. A button here, a slider there. Reroute power, selecting from the bouy stock. Sending to the tubes and..."She's ready, sir. Transferring control." Two more taps and Faye smacked both of her hands down on the edge of the console. "All yours, Captain." She'd felt like she'd finally managed to do something to help.

[ Lt. JG A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr) | SS Sabine NX-59846 | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 11 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]Predictably, Sera's sour mood didn't get any better even with an apology and an act of deference. Nodding her head and with a quick “Right, yeah.” she decided to just get to her task. Inspecting the panel and the layout of the vessel, A'vura began to recall whatever she could of the specs of the ship of this design. It was bigger than Meony's Fuzzy Flayer, a modified Type-8 shuttle, and carried a greater payload, cargo space and even crew accomodations. But it was also smaller than a Runabout, which was technically classified as a micro starship. Nevertheless, the shuttle was designed with Federation standard of quality, which meant it had certain distinct advantages and disadvantages that could prove pivotal in a tricky situation-

"Hurry up, burn you!"

“Son of a-!” The Orion lost her grip on her welding torch and only barely managed to catch it back, without setting anything on fire. She yelled back, “On it!”

Fix the panel here, screw in the bolt tight there, and...“All right, done! It's good to go!” I hope...she tested the device, and the scans on her tricorder indicated it was all systems go. She would just have to stick to it like herpes if she wanted to make sure nothing went amiss. She heard Captain Trent's instructions and sighed, muttering softly to herself, “Yeah...awesome. Just stick me with the pissed off Câroon, she's only going to shoot me in the ass.”

Getting up, she put her tools back in the box and walked timidly over to the cockpit. She stood behind the co-pilot's seat, when a thought struck her. “Miss Aldnoah, just wondering, but does the Sabine have a Bussard Collector?”

Lt. JG Donna ‘Chance’ Petterson | Wolf 07 | Azure Nebula ] @Auctor Lucan @Vox
[Show/Hide]
What was it she had heard about the best laid plans again? Something about them going awry or whatever. It didn’t really matter at the moment. What mattered was how in the hell she was supposed to do the impossible.

Donna ‘Chance’ Petterson looked down and checked her displays again but saw no changes. There was a ship out there supposedly but so far, she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of it.

“Tank, are you reading anything?” Chance asked her RIO seated behind her. The Rigellan male hadn’t said much since they had deployed from the Dauntless, focused as he was on locating the ship that had killed some of his friends.

“Nothing yet,” Tank replied after a moment. “But they’re out there. I can feel it.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Chance responded as she thought about how her RIO would react if she succeeded in her mission. Probably not well.

Rechecking her controls, her eyes ghosted over her current weapons status. Besides the standard armaments of her Mk II Valkyrie, she was also carrying ten Mk XXVII Photon Torpedoes in two external pods as well as a pair of Hell-Hound cluster bombs. She had argued for twin mount turrets instead of the cluster bombs but had been denied as the turrets were ineffective against shielded targets.

She had plan in mind on how she was going to do what she needed to do. Several even, but they all hinged on one necessity.

“Wolf-07 to Wolf Leader,” Chance called over the squadron com channel. “Warlock, what are we doing out here again? We’re more likely to blow ourselves up in this nebula than find them if they don’t want to be found.”

[ Dyan Cardamone \ Sar-unga Neleo | Hallway | Vector 01 | U.S.S. Theurgy ]

It delighted her to be acknowledged in such a way. Even though Drauc was so...droopy, she still sought his attention. She pushed her chest out and shoulders back even farther knowing that her strange, droopy friend would see it. Her tail whipped about.

Her stance changed right away as she realized she didn’t know anything more about the threat, or where to go or what to do. She hadn’t thought that far, she had just figured she’d step out the door and right into the thick of it, again. She tapped her combadge, “PO Sar-unga Neleo to Ryuan Sel, what kind of boarders are we facing and where are they?” She’d wait for a response.

In fact, it was still out here. The ship hummed as she usually did. She didn’t hear any sounds that were out of sorts. She glanced around the hallways, and nothing was happening. Her tail flicked.

Now that she had hyped herself up, primed herself for violence and action, the lack of it was under-stimulating. She quickly found herself...bored.

She picked at her nails, first. They were clean and well cared for, but she imagined there must’ve been something there anyway. Then she fidgeted with her hair. Her tail was twitching on it’s own. It was only a few minutes, but she had run out of ways to entertain her racing mind. That is, until she looked up at Drauc.

It wasn’t really a thought-out idea. She just knew Drauc was droopy, and he was also there. It was only natural he become her next target.

“Hey Drauc,” She started and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, “Looks like we got some time, you feel like hanging out?” She asked, as if there was actually a question. She started twiddling with his hair instead. Far more entertaining, of course. “How come you’re such a mope?” Her intent was nothing more than just to be a pest. She poked his cheeks with her fingers and gently pressed them upwards, in a mockery of a 'smile'. "Do you have facial muscles?"

[ Lt. JG Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) | Main Bridge | Deck 1 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]The cat and mouse game progressed slowly. It had become basically a ‘hurry up and wait’ situation. Nerves were on edge, and Derik listened to the activity on the bridge around him, kept an eye on his sensor readouts and display all simultaneously hoping for something to do and the exact opposite. Having something more for him to do than their current arcing path through the blue clouds would mean they’d been found and were in a world of hurt. A’vura had volunteered to go on the decoy mission on the Sabine and he worried about her. That was such a dangerous prospect, no matter how well armed or maneuverable Sabine was. There were likely entire squadrons out there looking for them, not to mention the task force’s main ships.

He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he maintained his forced calm. He listened as the CO and XO briefed someone he didn’t know well enough yet, someone called Natanua. She was some kind of tactics expert or something? He wasn’t sure. His mind went to the other vectors again. Were they gone? Why had they missed the earlier rendezvous? His gut told him they were alive, but was he just fooling himself? Were they all fooling themselves?

Zyrao Natauna | Culling the Games | It's Go Time | Are You Ready Mother Fuckers? | Bridge]
@Auctor Lucan @CanadianVet

Oh she could read the faces on the Bridge.  Shock, awe, entertainment.  It was all beautiful.  Yes, she was not playing by the rules but when she was bored she tended to do some things that weren't always the most kosher.  However, Zyrao had needed to get information and insight on the ship and the crew.  The best thing you could do was blend in and she had.  Yes, it had been wrong and she knew that in many military organizations she could have been carted off, cuffed, and locked up.  But, she knew they needed her, that and at least now the time had finally come for her to actually show what she could do.  People seemed to think that she had no clue what she was doing.  She wasn't Starfleet, her intelligence could not be that high.

She supposed stealing a uniform wasn't exactly a way to prove intelligence but it had been entertaining and she likely wouldn't do it again.  But, it was worth it for the first go.  The First Officer reached forward and plucked the pips from her collar.  Zyrao couldn't help but grin.  She didn't know much about the man that sat in the captain's seat, other than his ineptitude when it came to meeting strange but intelligent women and his distaste for being told he was wrong.  Still, she was surprised that he hadn't even looked her way, it was likely part of his ploy.  That was fine, he could do what he wished, her opinion of him would not be risen until he proved he was capable of anything other than being a self righteous asshole.

Zyrao tilted her head to the side slightly at the commentary that came forth a moment later.  A bit of a grin slid across her lips.  “Promises, Promises, Commander.” she winked at the young woman and then turned her attention to her again as business prevailed.

The El-Aurian woman put her cup back on her saucer it was only the dregs at this point and without the grit at the bottom because it wasn't replicated she just felt that it wasn't worth it.  There was something potent about the last sips of tea when you got to the part that sat stagnant in the water for longer.  The strength only increased as you reached the bottom of the cup.  Allowing a bit of a bite to those teas that were more bitter.

“What I know of the Acheron are that they are continually on the hunt for the Theurgy because of the fact that they know you have the truth.  The parasitic invasion and who have been infested, including some of the staff from the Task Force.” she said smoothly, she had done her reading and research that Trent had sent her though she had decided that the etiquette lesson was just too much for that day.  Afterall, she didn't need to know how to treat those that she respected.  She already knew how to do that.

Zyrao followed the young woman as she was lead to the back of the Bridge where the holographic tactical display was located.  She put her cup and saucer to the side and watched as Dewitt summoned the topographic images that would allow Zyrao to get a better feel for what was going on.  Jennifer could see, in front of her, that Zyrao's demeanor completely changed.  A seriousness came over her face.  She unzipped the department jacket and shrugged it off her strong shoulders.  The muscles underneath her myriad of tattoos rippled as she did so and tossed it over an empty chair not too far away.  She was wearing a simple black tank top and the Starfleet issue pants.  Leaning down she began to examine the Nebula as it was given to her. 

The sensor readings were a few minutes old because they had gone dark so they couldn't be located.  Archeron wanted to take them in and of course the Theurgy would likely all go to jail if not be killed on sight.  They couldn't chance letting the rumors take hold of anyone with power.  So she needed help the Theurgy and the crew.  One, because she wasn't ready to die yet today.  Two, because she wanted to make a name for herself here.  Three, she wanted to prove to the dickhead in the main seat that it was worth keeping her around even if she didn't bend over the desk for him right away.  It wasn't that she was against it, clearly, she wasn't, but she certainly didn't think that she could stomach Trent at the moment.

Dewitt then showed her their actual location rather than the sensor location.  She gave a nod, and another screen showed the power of the ships that were around them.  For a moment Zyrao stood back, shoulders back.  One of her thumbs stroked over her lower lip over and over again while she watched everything and then her eyes shifted. 

Grey orbs landed on Dewitt.  “Well the first thing you need is a diversion, and a heavy one.  We need to play hide and seek.  Right now we're hiding, and that's fantastic but we need to give them something to focus on or they are going to find us through various processes.  There are ways to scan and use sensors that would find us through various avenues.  All it takes is an intelligent Engineer to figure it out.” she stated.

“What I think our first order of business should be, would be deploying or sending through the various shuttles that we have, some sensor probes that are actually programmed with our signature.  Making it seem as though we are everywhere.  Initiate them at different times.  Set them up like a timer.  One here, then other over there, then other.  Flashing all over the place.  No two on at the same time.  Make it look as though we are warping all over the place, but cloaked.  Give them something to mess with, gt them confused, second guessing themselves while we take care of the business we're actually here to do.”

She gave a nod.

“Like what you planned to use the Sabine for, but on a greater scale.”

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Blue Zephyr @CanadianVet @Brutus
[Show/Hide]While Captain Trent was trying to implement a torpedo-minefield in the Rendezvous-zone, and Eloi-Danvers was to prepare a warning for the other Vectors with a beacon, Dewitt listened carefully to what the El-Aurian was suggesting. She had refrained to comment on the way the woman reciprocated her throw-away comment, and she tried to keep her eyes from wandering over that tank top whilst she spoke.

The need for a diversion was paramount, and the Sabine was just one ship heading out there to try and act as decoy. It made perfect sense to try and use unmanned technology to create more decoys. They had deployed all their Tovarek-class drones when they'd fought the Versant, so that left them with available shuttlecrafts and sensor probes. The El-Aurian's idea to calibrate a timed projection sequence was inspired... "Computer," she said, thinking fast, "how many class eight and nine probes do we have on Vector 01?"

[Vector 01currently have two Class VIII and four Class IX probes.]

There were nine different classes of probes, which varied in sensor types, power, and performance ratings. All nine types were capable of launch from the torpedo launchers, but only two are specially designed for warp flight and remote maneuvering. The problem was that the subspace signal to them would deteriorate quickly at short range inside the nebula, and the subspace link itself was prone for detection.

"Okay, good thinking," she said to Natauna, tapping her console at the holographic display table. "Just like a tricorder can be calibrated to emit stored life signs, we could theoretically make the sensor probes do the dame thing, only with a sensor reading of the Theurgy. Mister Morgan, are you paying attention?"

"Yes, ma'am," said the Asian man at the Engineering station. He had been looking at the El-Aurian, and Dewitt couldn't truly blame him.

"I need you to calibrate those probes to emit sensor readings. Head down to the torpedo launch room and do it on site. We need those probes launched just in time with our next warp jump, lest their launch might give away our position. Having nebula gas in the launch tubes won't help if they jump to warp."

"Yes, ma'am," said Morgan and ran off, another engineering officer taking his place. Dewitt turned to Natauna, thinking.

"The shuttles themselves have probes too," she mused quietly, "only less capable, and this might be a prolonged engagement. We might need them later on. Let's start with the first six that we can actually control and that can sustain warp flight. Do you concur?"

Then, she looked at the display, pondering the next jump and the launch. "Where do you recommend we jump next, and in which trajectories should we deploy the six probes before the jump?" she asked, coming to stand next to the woman, looking at the last known locations of the present ships. "The sensor emission sequence shouldn't be too hard to make, as long as the four sequences doesn't overlap. Captain, Mister Veradin, recommending a warp jump when these probes are calibrated. If we are to deploy armed torpedoes as mines, as well as a beacon, we need to move about, lest they'll all be too close together, right?"

As treacherous as the situation was, Dewitt actually felt a smidgen of hope in the tactics deployed.

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]After Dyan Cardamone had traded brief words with Ensign Ryuan Sel, the waiting began.

Whereas the Asurian next to him fidgeted and couldn't stand still, Drauc just stared down the corridor, as unmoving as a statue. He breathed slowly, evenly, with his bared chest subtly rising and falling. His scarred hands hung loosely at his sides, partially covered by the frayed sleeves of his threadbare robe. He was focused on the pending moment, where there would be word about hostile forces roaming the Vector. Unblinking, his dark eyes stared into the distance, and he let the minds in his immediate vicinity touch his own. None of them were hostile, felt above and below, since there were no people in the crew quarters when Red Alert had been sounded. All hands to battle stations, and he stood there, waiting for word on where the battle might be.

His keen focus was disrupted by the mind and the actions of his companion, feeling her embrace him despite her short stature. He blinked, turning his face down towards her. Hanging... out? he wondered, not entirely certain what the Federation Standard expression meant. She was practically hanging upon him already, despite how he didn't shift his stance, and she even tousled his hair. She began to query him about this and that, and it was about then that he realised that the boredom he'd felt was only partially his own. It was clear that the Asurian didn't handle the suspense well, projecting her frustrations on him instead.

"I am not..." he began to rasp when she pushed his cheeks upwards - forestalling his answer.

Not wishing to hurt her, he slowly wrapped his calloused fingers around one of her wrists and pulled the hand away. "I do," he grated quietly, with neither ire nor jest in his tone, "yet I will not use them when there is no need. What benefit would there be to express things I do not feel? It would be like discharging your weapon when there is no foe in your sights. It would merely be a waste of energy better spent at a more opportune moment."

He tilted his head a bit, focusing on her green eyes. "Yet do no think me absent of emotion. I merely need the incentive... and I will scourge the fields with my anger. You cannot provoke me, however, for you mean me no harm. Quite the opposite... if your thoughts are any indication."

[ Sera vers Aldnoah (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Sera_vers_Aldnoah) | SS Sabine | Upper Shuttle Bay | Vector 01 - The Helmet | USS Theurgy ] @Triage @CanadianVet
[Show/Hide]With her yellow eyes narrow slits, rubbing her temple with her gauntleted hand, Sera vers Aldnoah listened to the Captain. Blasting poor odds, heading out in a sandstorm filled with nasty fauna, blinded and alone. Sera could understand the sentiment that this ought to have been an unmanned flight, but she'd rather risk the odds than loose her ship. She thought she would serve far better than any autopilot program, in any case, since the subspace signal range would be piss poor in the nebula.

"Understood," she said. "Make the flaming most of the time you get, for this might be a short decoy run if those fighters chance upon us. Sabine out."

She'd say more, but she needed a hypospray with some kind of hydration if she'd to think clearly. When the Orion announced that the emitter was in place, she finished the pre-flight checks and elevated the Sabine from the deck, the craft stabilizing as soon as the inertial dampeners came online. When the Orion woman spoke, asking about the bussard collectors, Sera didn't understand her meaning.

"Of course," she said, suspecting that the question was but rhetorical. Of the two ramscoops were right below the wings. "What's your spark of thought?"

Meanwhile, she punched in the trajectory, and departed the Vector, emerging from the shuttle bay doors and setting a course away from the partial ship. She had yet to jump to warp, not wanting to do so too close to the Vector, instead listening to what the Orion had in mind.

[ Lt. Jg. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Engineering | U.S.S. Theurgy ] Attn: @chXinya @Stegro88

Something flew past his head as he walked in. It only just now registered that it had happened. He failed to react in a meaningful way though.

"Reman cloak not made for ship this size,” Lorad explained, confirming what Ravenholm said and what he already knew. What a unique voice. If he were present in his own mind, he’d like to listen to it some more, enjoy it a while. Shame he wasn’t present.
“We’re gonna make it Scimitar.” He replied, rolling up his sleeves.

Immediately, he sat down on the floor with the device and started pulling out one of his favorite tools. He called it a seam ripper. It was used for ripping open the panels of walls, floors, ceilings, and other things to get at the wiring underneath. Reman tech was similar to Romulan tech, he assumed, so he set his seam ripper to medium strength and began mutilating the covering of poor, defenseless cloak.

There were wires and circuitry inside. They didn’t look familiar to him, though he had seen Romulan tech up close. With the seam ripper laid aside, he picked through his toolbelt for something else.
“Ravenholm, is everything else set up for the cloak to work? Lorad, cut out the power regulator. Just set it off to the side when you're done.” He handed the Reman the seam ripper he had just been using, a wire cutter, and some gloves. After that, Suq stood up and...ran away?

He was actually running over to a replicator. The average, standard replicator, but he wouldn’t be ordering anything off the standard, given menu. He backs out of the catalog that the console gives him and instead starts entering a custom specification. His brain was not verbally thinking what he was typing, though. It was his hands that did the work. In short: he had no idea what he was doing.

---

[ Dyan Cardamone / Sar-unga Neleo| Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

“So, you’re telling me,” She started, her eyes locked onto his. There was not a drop of fear in her, despite the grip he had on her wrists, “that you don’t feel happiness. Like, at all. And you don’t feel it because...it’s firing a gun at nothing.” Her brows furrowed and her smile turned to laughing. At him, not with him.

“That’s stupid.” She held onto his hands with her own, but her right hand looser than the left. Her sindt was there. It was currently in a defensive position, parallel with her forearm, but it didn’t take much movement to spring it forward into it’s offensive position. With her other hand though, she laced her fingers in his, gripped tight, and pushed her hand against his. She was trying to push him around. There was no aggression behind it, nor was she particularly forceful. The feeling of deep muscle stimulation was soothing.
“Happiness isn’t an energy waster, it’s an energy maker! I incent you to smile!” She grinned, pleased with her mastery of the language. More than that, she had a new challenge, and she loved challenges.

“And I don’t take no for an answer either!”

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: All

One might think that the tactical situation, when all movement was slow and sensors were next to useless, would be easier than when ships were moving at a quarter of the speed of light, and could see each other at millions of kilometers.  But it was not.  Oh, certainly there was more time to think, but so did the opposition.  And the wait involved between each steps of that lethal dance was simply murderous for some people. 

But not for Carrigan Trent.  The more time he had to think about his next move, the happier he was.  This was a lethal game of three-dimensional chess, and in this case hurrying would be their downfall; deliberate action was the name of this game, and things needed to be precise, and calculated.  Like their current pattern of drift, and how to include the ideas given to him. 

When mention of the probes was made, he looked over his shoulder to this advisor.  That was something he had not considered, and he did spare her a nod before he turned back to face the plot before him even as the computer was reporting to Dewitt what they had for probes suitable for this task.  And his hands started moving on the consoles of his armrests, with various portions of the holographic display before him changing colours as he considered courses of action and probe parameters.  And the Sabine.  "Mister Song," started Trent as he became satisfied with the configuration before him, one that would provide a large area of coverage while not overly constricting his freedom of action as well as Sabine's.  "Take the information from the plot to program the probes; they will be launched in fully autonomous mode, without subspace links."  That was something he did not amplify on; there was a reason he had ordered active sensors shut down save for the volumetric particle scanners, and instructed the Sabine to be radio silent; because any transmission would point Sankolov into their own direction; and if they were actively controlling the probes, it would be suicide.  "Also, make sure that if they come under direct contact, they simply jump to warp on a random heading, then self-destruct.  Let's keep the Task Force in the dark as much as we can here." 

Having said this, he wasted no time in forwarding that exact same information to the Sabine, and he cued in a comm link to the ship.  "Miss Aldnoah, you will be part of a larger deception operation.  Make sure you do not overlap with our other decoys while you are out there. "

And now, there were other matters to deal with.  Such as Jennifer's own points.  "We should only need a few spreads of torpedoes to make Sankolov think twice about using his active sensors too merrily.  Worst case scenario, his ships' shields are as good as ours here; at best, his engineers haven't been able to get the right modulation to give them any real protection value.  So even a single quantum torpedo will give any of his assets something to really think about.  But yes, we will execute two jumps; we will drop half the decoys here, the other half after the next one.  Mister Veradin, I will send you coordinates, execute the warp and thrust sequences on my command."

[ Lt. JG A'vura Zeshryr (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=A%27vura_Zeshryr) | SS Sabine NX-59846 | Upper Shuttle Bay | Deck 11 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan & @CanadianVet
[Show/Hide]Oh that's reassuring...A'vura thought as Sera replied to Carrigan. But when the woman answered her own question, she lit up, also showing signs of relief, “Thank goodness. Sorry, it's just that, I didn't want to assume you had everything according to spec. But good, you have Bussard collectors, it's just an idea I had that you could use should it become necessary. I see that this ship also has a plasma ventilation and flush system, so that's going to be really helpful if we get fighters on our tail. I think you see where I'm going with this.” She offered as an explanation, with her eye catching on a glint of courage and reckless boldness. She was always braver and more dangerous when she was acting in the interest of protecting people she cared about, namely the surviving crew of the Resolve, but now, also the other crews on board the Theurgy, even Sera.

She watched as the ship exited the shuttle bay and headed into the vast soup of the Azure Nebula. The place was incredible, and incredibly dangerous, she thought as she heard Carrigan's voice again on the channel. "Miss Aldnoah, you will be part of a larger deception operation.  Make sure you do not overlap with our other decoys while you are out there."

Picking up the helmet that Sera dunked in the co-pilot's chair, A'vura settled herself in and began typing commands and inputs for the Sabine's sensors. “Updating your ship's scanners on passive settings for now, but we'll pick up the decoys he's talking about. No active readings though. We don't want them to come for us instead of the task force.”

She finished her work and configurations and leaned back, looking at the Câroon woman, “Take it away, captain.”

---

[ Lt.Com. Vivian Martin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Vivian_Martin) | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @CanadianVet, @Triton, @Mathis, @Hastata-Nerada, @FollowTomorrow, @chXinya, @Brutus, @Absinthe, @SummerDawn, @Stegro88, @Blue Zephyr & @Auctor Lucan
[Show/Hide]After speaking to the captain and addressing everyone within earshot of her, Vivian settled back into her station, her hands dancing over the consoles as she called up whatever readings the Helmet could pick up passively without making any active pings. It seemed the ship's eyes and ears as it were, picked up a fair bit. By adjusting the ship's sensors and deflectors to pick up changes in the radiation and cloud mass around it, she was discovering a great deal of information pertinent to movements of other celestial objects or any solid matter wider than two meters across.

“Captain,” she called out from where she sat, “I'm picking up multiple displacement readings of the nebula's contents within several hundred kilometers around us.”

She turned around then to look at the man, “Primarily the sirillium gas. I surmise our pursuers are on the move. While I am unable to ascertain the exact size of the vessels on a passive reading, the volume of dispersion of the gas contents can give us a rough estimate on that matter. I'm transferring my finds to Tactical and Helm.”

The mass ratio increased and decreased at rapid levels, suggesting ships moving at high impulse, by her guess, quite possibly fightercraft. A few taps on her console forwarded her settings and findings to the helmsman, and the captain's chair consoles, helpfully updating the strategic map with an estimate, give or take a several meters, as to the whereabouts of the moving objects and their rough speed. It was like looking through muddy water, but it was far better than not being able to see at all. She enabled all consoles to get her readings should anyone else wish to view it. Best to collate and share all findings until the danger was past. It was how they did it on the Resolve, and also how they survived.

[ Ensign Isel “Foxfire” Nix | Black Wolf-08 | Mk II Valkyrie Cockpit | Azure Nebula ] @Auctor Lucan @Stegro88 @Vox

Ensign Isel Nix, callsign Foxfire, eased her Valkyrie back into position off Wolf-07’s wing as they moved through the Azure Nebula in search of the Theurgy. Thus far there had been no sign of the traitor vessel, though searching for a ship in the swirling blue mass of the Azure Nebula was like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

A haystack that moves and messes with our sensors. Foxfire thought as her eyes searched the swirling mists.

[How the hell are we supposed to find anything out here?] Came the voice of Foxfire’s RIO, Ensign Hilda “Bourbon” Gershwin, who had joined the Black Wolves from the Persephone along with Foxfire.

”You just keep your eyes on the sensors and I’ll keep mine on the blue soup.” Foxfire told her. Then, unable to resist a bit of teasing, she added. ”And try not to yakk in your helmet this time…”

[One time! That was one fucking time!] Came the reply, though Bourbon’s feigned rage was spoiled by the fact that she was obviously laughing.

Suddenly Wolf-07 could be heard on the squadron channel, causing Foxfire to tense in anticipation of the Theurgy being sighted.

[Wolf-07 to Wolf Leader. Warlock, what are we doing out here again? We’re more likely to blow ourselves up in this nebula than find them if they don’t want to be found.] Came Chance’s voice over the comms, causing Foxfire to relax, the Theurgy apparently still evading them.

[She’s not wrong…] Bourbon muttered over their personal channel. [We could spend weeks searching this nebula and not find ‘em!]

”Oh, we’ll find them…” Foxfire said, more to herself than to Bourbon. ”We have to.” She had a vested interest in finding the Theurgy.

Chance had made sure of that.

[Zyrao Natauna | Plans for Deception | Task Force Can Fuck Off | Middle Finger to the Parasitic Federation]
@Auctor Lucan @CanadianVet

Dewitt was on it.

She was glad to prove her merit here.  There was nothing quite like proving that she was right.  It was something that she truly appreciated being able to do.  She had told the asshole in his little ready room that she was worth the effort it took to use her and keep her around.  However, he decided to be a pretencious Dickface instead of believing her.  Sure, she could look at it from his point of view, but where was the fun in that.  Because honestly, he had been a Dick hole.  He wasn't even good enough to be the whole rigid member.  It was far better that he was just this one painful little part as a kidney stone tried to make it's way out.  That was Trent.  A fucking dick hole ripped apart by a kidney stone.

Of course, he had a chance to prove himself. 

The Vector currently boasted two class eights and four class Nines.  Of course, Zyrao knew nothing about what these probes would actually be good for, or what their capabilities were.  She had only had enough time to read up on the ship as the stuff that she could get her hands on.  But, she had only been on the ship a short time.  There was only so much she knew and there was so much yet to learn.  However, if Dewitt was worth her weight as a First Officer then she knew the probes rather intimately and Zyrao felt that she would be able to relay on the woman for the knowledge that it would work.  Of course, it should work.

Dewitt jumped on the male close by, Morgan, or something.  Zy's silver eyes shifted over to the man and caught him just startled out of staring at her.  Dewitt got Morgan working on their plan and then turned to give her the attention again.  Her sharp eyes shifted up to Dewitt's looking them right in the eye, almost piercing in nature, but she was honestly not thinking less of Dewitt.  She actually respected the fact that the woman seemed to respect her, that was all she ever asked out of people.  The arm of respect was something that would get it right back.  Apparently, the shuttles that they were equipped with also had some other probes that they could use, but the ship's probes were better at the kind of trickery that they were going with.

Zyrao nodded.  “Absolutely, we need to have a few ideas up our sleeves.  We don't know for sure that Acheron will fall for our plan but then the point is not so much that they believe that's exactly where we are but that they don't know where we actually are.” she reitterated a she brushed a hand through her short hair and looked back at Dewitt.  “We save the other probes for later.  We might need further decoys but for now we set up these.”

Zy stood up right again and surveyed the map.  Crossing her arms underneath her chest she thought about the best points in which to offer positions for their diversion.  “We can't just put them out there randomly because, it'll be obvious that we're not going there.  Those people out there are also Starfleet.  If we're not smart they will figure out our ploy.  Thus, I think we need to think about the locations that we could go, that would put more of a distance between Acheron and us.  That is what is going to be most realistic.” she stated as she continued to gaze at the map of ships that populated the area that they were in.

She began to touch the map letting small beacons lay in the spots that she saw as the best possible places.  Hiding the 'Theurgy' behind other groups of ships.  Just as if they were trying to hide.  There was no way it would make sense for the Theurgy to be out in the open or too close to Acheron because strategically they would want to get as far away as possible.  As she tagged the locations where she thought the probes would be most useful, she heard words from the Captain.  He began to give information to someone named Song.

“I think Trent has a good idea.  Make sure they are logged with a plan if they are scanned and noticed, we need to make sure they get destroyed.  That's smart.” she said standing there as she looked back at the map.  Dewitt had asked her where she thought they, personally, should go next.  “I think we need to come back here.  It's not the furthest point from Acheron, that's reserved for one of the probes, it's the most likely place they will expect to find us.  We need to go here.  There is a space, just about the size for us, forward of the back line, but far enough away that we can let the probes do their jobs.”

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]It was not lost on Drauc how she teased him, toyed with him, trying to provoke him. To what end, he was not entirely sure of, but he was not so easily provoked. He'd endure her, if that was the challenge posed. It was far from him to be playful, but in the current situation, he was bereft of other options than to indulge her. She shifted in his loose grip on one of her wrists, and pushed at him. He stood still, equal to the force she applied to her ploy.

Obviously, despite how their 'dance' was equated in force, they had a difference of opinion, and she'd interpret his words in her own way. What he did, after a few seconds of matching her push towards him, was to raise her hands high, and whilst being careful not to nick himself on her sindt, he stepped around her, so that she ended up with her back towards his bare chest, and her forearms crossed before her chest. He still held on to her arms in the embrace, but now, he could speak directly next to her pointed ear.

"Whether smiling is a waste or not is irrelevant," he rasped to her, not hurting her as he held her against himself. He could feel her tail moving below, but paid it little heed. "For I am in no shortage of energy. Neither on the battlefield nor off duty.... as I presume you noticed last night."

To keep her from trying to unbalance him, he opted for a ploy of his own... and lifted her off the deck. With his arms around her, he kept her suspended in the air. His grating voice continued to speak in serrated vowels. "As far as I can read your mind, you seemed content enough. I didn't have to smile for a moment. We both know any other answer would be a lie."

[ Sera vers Aldnoah (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Sera_vers_Aldnoah) | SS Sabine | Upper Shuttle Bay | Vector 01 - The Helmet | USS Theurgy ] @Triage @CanadianVet
[Show/Hide]Indeed, Sera understood what A'vura was after, and she glanced towards the Orion over her shoulder.

"Good thinking, th-," he began, but paused, thinking that she ought to move on. She was still pissed  like a sand snake in a trap, but she ought to put her grievances behind her. Obviosuly, the Orion was not like the rest of her people, being a Starfleeter, and she seemed resourceful enough. "...A'vura Zehryr. I am sure we can collect plenty of sirillium gas to pass in their faces. Burn me, I'd hate to take a hit against the bussard tanks, though, so let's keep it in mind for the time being."

She waited for any further instructions aside from the sensors and the decoys from the Helmet, the EM band open until the Helmet would make another jump. The EM band was the last line of communication they had, limited as they were to such old fashion method since the enemy scanned for subspace frequencies. The last line to safety deteriorating by the second the further they went. Sera was both afraid and thrilled, just like she had been when they headed for the Coreless Moon.

"Not sure when we might expect enemy contact, and if they find us first, they might shoot us out of existence before we flaming see them. Federation warp fighters are better built than the Sabine for a dogfight too," she said, and bit her lower lip, thinking further. "We'll refrain from jumping to warp, for starters, since we don't need to announce our presence ahead of time. We'll let the Vector jump, and remain here, using that fancy emitter of yours, and jump later on, when we are sure we have that sensor ghost up and running behind us."

Sera paused. The silence lasted for a couple of seconds. Then she sighed. Bored already.

She turned to the Orion officer... and grinned. "Burn me, no point in living lest you feel alive, right? Get the emitter up and running. Course set. Maximum warp. Let's see if we can get their attention. Hang on to your knickers!"

Then, she throttled up the Sabine - blasting through the Azure Nebula.

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Triton @CanadianVet @Mathis  @Blue Zephyr 
[Show/Hide]While waiting for CONN to confirm the coordinates and for the Helmet to jump to warp - the probes and torpedoes about to be finished for deployment first - Jennifer Dewitt had nodded in confirmation to Trent's order to divide the assets between two jumps, and then turned to listen to the El-Aurian. Evidently, they were of the same mind in regards to conserving shuttle-based probes for the time being.

The strategist continued to offer her assistance in plotting probe destinations after launch, based on the general disposition of enemy ships in the Rendezvous Zone. Depending on enemy movements since the last active sensor reading, it seemed like a prudent tactic to place them where shown, even if Dewitt didn't trust herself to have the right kind of experience to verify the coordinates. Instead, she put faith in those better abled than her, storing the new data for the launches they were about to make.

As for the Helmet itself... and where it ought to go, she had asked Zy for her input, but Dewittt had no way of knowing if the coordinates the El-Aurian suggested were aligned withthe ones Trent was about to send to CONN. What she did, was to save the coordinates Zy was pointing out above the table, and... "Transferring suggested warp route to fore display area, Captain!"

With a sweeping gesture with her hand, she made Zy's coordinates appear in front of the CONN and Ops station. With any luck, they were close to the coordinates Trent had already been working on.

---

OOC: Exiting thread with Sera and A’vura and moving it to a separate one, where the Black Wolves will be featured as well. In this thread, I will be posting with Sankolov after the Helmet makes the micro jumps and deplyes both torpedoes and probes, so please, further the story that far with your next post, @Mathis . First, though, @Triton and @CanadianVet should go next. Oh, and @Absinthe , don’t forget to post with Sel here!

Moreover, for sake of building bridges between Zy and Trent, let’s have Trent’s suggested coordinates closly aligned with Zy’s suggested coordinates? :)

[ Lt Cmdr Leon Marquez, | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan  @Triage @Mathis @Hastata-Nerada @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe
[Show/Hide]
Leon obeyed his orders without reservation. With the joint minds of the Resolve aboard, it was clear that the ideas forged in the name of their collective survival were to avoid their discovery as much as hoping no innocent Federation lives aboard were risked, despite things being what they were.

So much for a pre-recorded one-off, even though the notion of beacons and decoys was being taken into effect, accelerating the speed at which it took for The Captain's console to have control over the beacon and launch control. Good Luck, he uttered to A'vura, unblinking as he kept his attention focused on his console, attentively initiating the acting captain's orders.
 
Bring up the particle sensors, low-power, rotating modulation and a slow, random interval; let's not give any more than we absolutely have to. Task Force Archeron has no restriction on their use of active sensors.  I want you to reconfigure quantum torpedoes to be pushed out of the tubes using compressed nebula material.

Marquez commenced the load-out configurations specified and readied the orders to the queue down in the torpedo bay. Trent continued,

They are to remain inactive, on their own internal telemetry, until they detect a Task Force Archeron asset in their immediate vicinity or are hit by active sensors.  Only then will they activate their drives and engage.  My intent is to force Sankolov to be as blind as we are.

"Aye, Sir." Necessary, but he privately was grateful they weren't the likes of antimatter mines or incendiary plasma mines, the likes of which even the Jem'Hadar learned to avoid if not outright fear.

Down below at the torpedo bay, Tarsi had begun to call up the quantum torpedoes and prepared their warheads and tubes in-real time as ordered before the chief herself greenlit the order from her corresponding tactical workstation, and the tactical readiness blip came to life on Trent's console.

With A'vura out there, Marquez hoped all the more reason she'd make it back alive, lest she wind up like the Neutral Zone incident of 2286. Poor girl wouldn't last under that much heat even with Sera there to keep an eye on the Resolve survivor.

Leon received unexpected help from the buoy station request from a-- the diplomatic officer? Quantum explosives in this environment skirted the thin red line of self-defense and deterrence when it came to the means to the ends of their survival. Leon hoped it was worth it as he reported, "Torpedo stations reporting ready.."

With his report, Marquez initiated the firing sequence, and all aft tubes disgorged full patterns of torpedoes set on their widest dispersal.  But they did not go screaming out, courtesy of the linear accelerators in the tubes; instead, they were coughed out by a compressed charge of nebula material, at which point they were left to drift in Theurgy's wake, patiently waiting for the conditions for their activations to be met, and engage in their designed purpose, that of delivering their payload on target with lethal effect.

Leon's response came moments later as even the screen's HUD seemed to run on low power settings. Leon almost laughed when Zyrao appeared impersonating an officer but instead footnoted the image of her taking his advice too literally and being summarily 'demoted' for it.

(Thanks to @CanVet for penultimate paragraph)

[ Tesserarius Lorad | Vector 01 Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan , @FollowTomorrow , @chXinya
[Show/Hide] 

The small man was strange. And he was dangerous. And he was going to be repairing the cloak for the Apache or building a new one when all this was done. 

Lorad hadn't argued when the small man, Suq he thought someone had called him, when Suq had begun to tear apart the cloak. With the Orion female arriving in that ship. Sera's ship, his mind supplied. Dewitt's call to report to Engineering and the way everyone was acting; it was clear to even Lorad that something was going on. Especially if they were willing to suddenly rip open the cloaking device they had so carefully removed.

And Lorad was going to make sure that it or one just like it went back into the Apache or he was going to hang the little man by his ankles and use his claws to remove every hair on his body; one at a time.

"Be sure fix cloak for Apache when danger past," Lorad grumbled as Suq ran off. He looked at the gloves he had been given, woefully too small for his clawed hands and tossed them aside. Picking up the wire cutters, Lorad tried to remember what his sister had told him when she had been fixing the cloak. His fingers traced over parts of the device before he decided on which part should be the power regulator that Suq wanted removed. Being careful, he used the wire cutters to cut the connections to it before carefully lifting it free and setting it to the side.

"It is done," Lorad declared as his eyes tried to find where the little man had disappeared to. 

Why couldn’t the ship have been boarded? He was a soldier, not an engineer. He broke things not built them. Grumbling under his breath, it almost sounding like he was growling, Lorad waited for the next instruction.

[ Lt. JG Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) | Main Bridge | Deck 1 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy]
[Show/Hide]Being a bridge officer involved quite a lot of multitasking, Derik had learned. One needed to pay attention to their station enough not to miss anything or not perform adequately, but also be aware enough of other situations around them so as to understand how their role fit into the larger efforts. Derik was listening as much as he could to the discussions between the Captain, XO, and Natauna person. Derik decided he liked her, very straight forward and obviously competent. Where had they picked her up again? He put that thought out of his head for now and continued listening as they outlined a plan that involved two micro jumps from him.

Micro jumps, or at least precise micro jumps, were no easy feat, especially in a nebula situation like this. Overshoot into a dense gas pocket, or even warp through the wrong area and your ship was toast. He plotted carefully around the sets of coordinates he was given by the Captain. Derik tapped his fingers across the controls of his main console, becoming more and more familiar with the Theurgy controls since his arrival, the ship slowly becoming ‘his.’ As soon as he had word from Marquez that the first sets of projectiles were away, Derik was ready to make the first micro jump. “Aye Captain, jumping in 3, 2, 1.” He punched in the coordinates and engaged the jump.

The stars blurred on the viewscreen as the jump was over as soon as it began. Derik kept his breathing steady as he focused on the task, determined not to fuck up. The second set was away soon after and he did the countdown again, executing the second jump. His display told him both jumps had gone as planned and he began another wide, slow arc through the blue gasses. “Jumps successful, payloads reported away, Captain.” He allowed himself to relax a bit as he waited for the next task.

[ Ens. Ryuan Sel | Corridor - Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] Attn: peeps on the bridge
[Show/Hide]
At the moment before Sel arrived on the bridge she paused and gripped the railing in the corridor. The feeling of jumping to warp when you weren't expecting it was not something g she had really gotten used to, especially when it was a short jump. Of course, she had been told many times that the wave of space sickness she felt was all psychosomatic, but it made little difference. The heavy weight of the massive Accipiter rifle slung over her back grounded her and reminded her that there was a battle coming. She had pulled out a single one of them, her gun, and only given the security team standard phaser rifles. She didn't need them running around with those beasts strapped to their backs, let alone firing them. Sel barely trusted herself with the damn thing, especially in her current condition.

A moment later she stepped onto the bridge.

"Apologies, I had to make sure the security teams were armed and ready before I came to the bridge," she said with a curt nod to the center chair. She didn't especially care who was in it. She made her way to the bridge security console, making a mental note of everyone on the bridge, she didn't know some of them, but she effortlessly sized them up, figuring out how much of a threat they would be.

She relieved her junior from the station and quickly tapped in her personnel code, accessing the ships internal security network. Some key functions were not working and had not been for some time, but it would give her more insight into the current situation.

---

[ F'Rell of the 12th House | Corridor - Engineering | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: Peeps in engineering~
[Show/Hide]
She moved with Grace and speed as she moved down the corridor toward Main Engineering. F'Rell was undoubtedly a creature of beauty and poise, yet she could be just as frightening to some. She was in a hurry and the recent jump into warp made it clear that she needed to be in more of a hurry.

Her long serpentine body slide through the doors into the engineering department and she moved swiftly total the controls of the central warp core. She did not have time to explain, instead, she began entering in her latest computations and algorithms while running a comparability diagnostic on them. She needed them to not only work, but they had to work the first time and with no wormhole effect, something that would cause infinite problems if was caused. The likely hood was low, but if the warp field was destabilized by her newest computation, it would happen all the same.

The entire goal was to reduce the size of the warp field, to sharpen the knife as it were. But that was easier said than done. The Vector she was on only had a single nacelle with which to generate the warp field and required a precisely calibrated one at that. It had to be perfect.

But she was good at her job.

"Suq!" She called out not looking up from the field of numbers she was entering. "Suq, I require your access code!" Her tone was not altogether impatient, but it was not very polite and courteous either.

[ Dyan Cardamone / Sar-unga Neleo| Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

She seemed to enjoy the ‘wrestling’. Hell, she even delighted in it, being held close to Drauc’s bare chest. Her tail thwapped his legs. It may have been annoying, though ultimately harmless. Her emotions were laid bare both in her mind and in her tail.

Then, she was up in the air. If she was delighted before, it paled in comparison to her joy now. She laughed and kicked her legs about. Her tail thrashed about wildly to keep her body balanced and wound up slapping Lorad’s body. She couldn’t hold onto it, nor was she particularly inclined to stop it anyway. That was her tail, after all, why should she continue to hide it and conceal it?

“I don’t even know what you’re saying!” She spoke between laughs. It was true as far as Drauc could tell. Whatever he meant flew over her head like a poorly piloted shuttle craft. “Aren’t you having fun right now? So why not smile?” After all, what better fun was there than some horseplay between warriors? Dyan could only think of one thing; horseplay between warriors, plus some of that plum-drink her roommate Eliska had.

As he held her though, it wasn’t just happiness and joy in her mind. It was like a normal mind set at high speed, only really half-finishing thoughts before moving onto the next. It was no wonder his words were lost on her.

She did not make further attempt to escape his grip. She knew if she did so, her blade would likely slice something important up. For a moment, she considered slicing him anyways, to show her power. She was only voluntarily held, she wanted him and everyone else in the whole wide world to know that. If she were thirty years younger, she would have too, but she had learned some measure of self restraint. Still, her high-speed mind was rising and rising, and even though she was enjoying the play, bad memories stirred up. Memories that were supposed to be washed away with blood. She could do it, she could control them, but for how long?

“...you should put me down.” She grinned and asked with nonchalance. As if she didn’t know he could read minds, and just wanted to give him a friendly suggestion.

---

[ Lt. Jg. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Engineering | U.S.S. Theurgy ] Attn: @chXinya  @Stegro88  @Absinthe


To say he had intentions of fixing anything other than this situation would be an all out lie, so when Lorad demanded he make the device Apache-ready when he was done, Suq just didn’t say anything. He didn’t have any words in his mind to say, anyway.

His order at the industrial replicator took some time. Custom-replication was not nearly as speedy as the far more popular catalog version. He’d get the parts he needed though. Not a Reman regulator and adaptor, but Romulan built, and admittedly probably out of date by now. Back on the resolve, he used to just keep a box of old Romulan parts, just to tool around with. There was a certain filter that had to be applied to fool the rest of the machine into thinking it was receiving power from a Romulan ship. It took him the better part of the first two years to figure that one out, and he’s pretty sure the filter changed at least four times in that time span.

He heard another voice call for him. He felt the sound go into one ear, rattle around in his hollow head, and fall right out the other. Though he knew F’rell and loved her dearly, this time, he did not respond right away.

It was actually two minutes on the dot before he reacted. He was almost back to Lorad, Ravenholm and the poor mutilated cloaking device with an armful of machine guts, when he came to a total stop and nearly tripped on himself doing it. Command authorization...command authorization…

His eyes stared in Lorad’s direction, but he turned right around and ran back to F’rell, carrying the guts with him. He was spending time they didn’t have to help her, and on some level he knew, but his brain was not here and now. As far as he knew, this was a dreamy, unreal fog. He’d wake up soon and not remember a thing about what happened.

He brought himself to F’rell’s console with his arms full and didn’t think out how to use the console with no hands before this. So he put some of his things directly on the console, keeping with his horrible habit of treating the consoles like tables, and typed in his code.
[Show/Hide]
Then, he scooped everything up the best he could. It was a comedic setup, some sort of board covering his face, some suspicious wires dangling from his fingers down to the ground, near his feet and threatening to trip him. Somehow, he didn’t trip, but he ran back to the cloaking device.

He knelt in front of the device, right next to Lorad, and handed him the entire stack of things. “Great, see if you can install the demodulator and the input plug on the veroboard and solder the wiring together.” He...did not ask, nor order. It was a flat statement. Same as two plus two equals four. Obviously these things made sense. Meanwhile, he was whipping tools out his belt and going to town, working with fast and nimble hands. This was his job, and he could do it even if he wasn’t actually there.

[Zyrao Natauna | Stratego | Making a Name | Ready to Level the Enemy | USS Up Yours]

It seemed she and the Up-Start Captain had the same idea, their coordinates of choice were similar enough that she felt that maybe he wasn't all idiot.  He might have some merit to his education though she still didn't think that made him a good Captain.  As her coordinates were taken into the computer system, and her probe destinations were deliberated about, she stood there proud of the job that she had done.  She was unsure of her place on the Bridge now that her current job was done.  She knew, of course, there would be more for her to do, but at this moment she had to let everything take it's course.  At some point the Task Force would make a move and the game would change.  The ships would shift and there would be more for her to do.

Standing there, she surveyed the coordinates, the micro jumps were a little disorienting because they were so quick and barely moved them yet they were still a bit off putting.  The El-Aurian had been through so many jump, light year traveling, and the like in her long life, yet there was something that still sunk at the bottom of her stomach when quick successive jumps were done.  Perhaps it was just the way that she was, a slight apprehension of what was to come.  She feared nearly nothing, not even death, she had lived a long life and when it was her time it would be her time she would go willingly and hopefully spectacularly.  She feared not, the fact of jumping, it was just the apprehension, she supposed, of what there was to find at the other end.

Here, it was even more up in the air.  Would her plan work, had all the cards aligned properly to make the trick happen.  Would the Sabine and the probes do their jobs well enough.  Would they give enough of a signature off that they would be able to get the upper hand?  She knew not, not yet, only time would tell. 

But this, the heart of the battle was exactly what she lived and breathed for.  While gifted with strategy and tactics she loved nothing more than a good battle.  A war, it lived in her blood, battle pumped in her heart, every cell vibrated with the excitement of the fight that was to come.  She longed for the blood, the hot liquids hitting her skin as she cut her swatch through the battlefield.  She had always lived for this kind of thing, back even when she was on El-Auria.  Her home, long gone now, but it had been the home that had always breathed life within her.  When she ran into another of her kind she found herself always longing for more of them.  Their race was gone, dead, and it would fade out over time.  El-Aurians did not seek out each other to breed and repopulate because they had scattered far too distant from one another.  They could not return, there was nothing to go back for.  The Borg had taken them down, one by one, cut them down, assimilated them, and torn her planet apart.

For that, one day, she hoped they would pay.

Yet for now, she had to turn her battle hardened soul onto the enemies they faced now.  The task force had no idea what it stood against.

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: All

Orders were given, orders were obeyed.  In Theurgy's wake, patterns of torpedoes, their single-minded computers waiting for the trigger that would light up their drives and send them on their purposes; probes discreetly heading on their assigned courses before they would start radiating Theurgy's signature.  But, there was another tool in Theurgy's arsenal that did not appear on any manifest. 

That weapon was information, and how it would be used.  According to the news reports, Carrigan Trent had been killed by the Romulan cyber-weapon that disabled Task Force Archeron.  Oh, odds are a few people, those closest to Sankolov, knew about it.  But he was willing to bet there were plenty who did not know that.  Including a certain Captain Marcus Slayton, a man Sankolov could not have possibly owned just yet, unlike the bulk of the sycophants who captained the ships of the task force.  And that he could use.

Tapping a few controls on his armrest, he started to adjust the parameters of the beacon's transmission.  A delayed, omnidirectional broadcast, of course.  But one thing Carrigan Trent was, was an expert in Starfleet's communications protocols; and that meant the message would not just go onto main channels to individual ships; it would be broadcast to every screen and terminal that could pick it up.  If he could cause enough confusion, it would significantly broaden their margin of safety.

"Task Force Archeron, this is Carrigan Trent.  Reports of my death by Admiral Sankolov and the Federation News Network have been grossly exaggerated.  I defected from Admiral Sankolov's command team, because he has been compromised by an alien influence, and I could not simply stand by  and help him hunt down the one officer who had the courage to act on their knowledge."  Trent took a deep breath, and he continued on.

"Captain Slayton, you have a reputation for being a man of honour and integrity.  Which is why I am willing to bet Sankolov did not share with you the true events that transpired when his task force was disabled; you offered us a chance for honourable surrender, and for that I am grateful.  But when Sankolov first caught up to this ship, he did not offer terms of surrender; he demanded the heads of everyone on board.  He flatly refused to offer any guarantees of even being treated as per Starfleet Regulations and Federation Law.  And while you gave us those guarantees in your own person, Sankolov would never have allowed us to have our day in court, to say our piece.  We would all have been killed in a 'prisoner uprising', or in equipment failures.  Or the ship transporting us to a penal colony, with you on board as his personal representative, would have been mysteriously lost with all hands along the way."

"You have no particular reason to believe me, but ask around from any crewmember and officer you can find.  Not just from the recordings as those can be altered.  And find out the truth for yourself.  Trent out."

And, with that said, he settled back further into his chair.  "This is bound to cause some confusion in the ranks back there.  Ensign Eloi-Danvers, jettison the beacon, ten minute delay to activation, at your leisure."

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]Remembering how her tail had moved the night before, at some stages, Drauc knew to connect its movements with elation without even sensing Dyan Cardamone's mind. She delighted in the development, even if he felt no joy himself. At least, no more joy than she did, letting it wash against him like the waves against a stone pier.

"I do not believe I have ever smiled. I was never given a reason for it in my youth," he rasped into her ear, his embrace lingering until she eventually asked him to put her down. At this point, her tail mirrored her state of mind again, since it appeared he might have triggered unpleasant memories. Shadows, almost intangible, which he could not quite identify. Something about a Klingon? He was uncertain. Either way, he gently lowered her down to the deck again, and stepped back.

"It would appear we both carry dark memories, yours perhaps more recent than mine. My apologies, for making you think of them again. It was not my intention," he grated to her in a low voice, facing her in the corridor. He was not certain how he could make amends, but at least he could try, for what it was worth.

"If there is any consolation, I wish to thank you," he rasped, and he raised a scarred hand to brush her silvery white hair back from her face. "As disconnected as I am from my own emotions, more so than those of others, you have shown me appreciation, even desire. This is a rarity, and a situation which I am not adept in handling well. Thank you for your understanding, and for making it easier for me to be with you, and seeing past my... lack of charisma. Especially if you were hurt so recently."

He lowered his hand from her, his stare unblinking. "It is my hope that I might have granted you some reprieve too, if not some distraction... from past and present concerns."

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Triton @CanadianVet @Mathis  @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe 
[Show/Hide]During the development on the bridge of the Helmet, there was only so much Dewitt could keep track of. On her end, she kept a close eye on the development shown above the tactical holo-display table, seeing how the tactics of Trent, Natauna, Marquez and herself were falling out in this portentous game of hide-and-seek.

Ensign Ryuan Sel entered, carrying one of the five Accipiters on Theurgy, a kind of weapon from the future that they had collected from the Reavers of the Calamity before she came aboard. She ran Security on the Helmet, and she'd come to personally secure the bridge against potential boarding parties. Dewitt inclined her head to the Bajoran woman. "Happy to have you here, Ensign. So far, we have made no direct contact, and fired off a lot of decoys and distractions. We're buying time in hope that the other Vectors might appear, and if they do, we have set up a new RV close to the Coreless Moon."

It was the place where the away team on the Sabine had gone to collect dilithium crystals.

"The gravest risk now is that our warp speed is too diminutive to outrun Task Force Archeron, so we can't risk going to warp and leave a solid warp trail for them to follow. We have been doing micro-jumps, gone to full impulse, then resorted to drift by inertia and rely on the Nebula to hide us. There is no telling how long we can keep doing so, but we have solid tactics underway. We might even have a cloaking device up and running soon, if fortune favours us."

Having given Ryuan the short briefing, Dewitt glanced towards Zy before speaking in Trent's and Marquez's direction - having waited until Trent finished the recording for Eloi-Danvers. "Captain, Lieutenant Commander, the Sabine went to maximum warp and successfully caught the attention from the Task Force. Our passive sensors could only tell us so much in these conditions, but I believe I noticed several warp signatures flaring up in response to vers Aldnoah's stunt. From what I could see, the sensor ghost was working too. I am updating the positions detected now on the tactical display."

The Câroon was either a fool or extremely reckless, in Dewitt's opinion, but she was grateful nonetheless. It was plain that the smaller beacons of the Valkyrie fighters had flared up in response to the Sabine's jump to warp, and a couple of capital ships had stirred too. Yet as to where all the others were? They couldn't know lest they revealed themselves as well.

Then, suddenly, two spikes. Dewitt checked them, accumulating the data.

"We have a sirilium gas explosion far off, bearing Two-One-Nine-Mark-Five. Secondly... a torpedo detonation," he confirmed, "One light-year directly aft of our current trajectory. It's from our location one warp-jump back. No way to tell anything more. Presumably, they triggered one of those we armed. Hopefully, the word will spread to be restrictive with their active sensors..."

With any luck, they were soon be able to cloak and vacate this part of the Azure Nebula.

Would they even be so bold and engage the Task Force? Dewitt was not keen on the idea, knowing fully well that those starships out there were manned by oblivious and innocent Starfleet officers. Officers who might, if Sankolov hadn't told them to not answer any hails or messages from them, hear what Trent had just told them...

As alive as they still remained, she had a bad feeling... that as lucky as they had been so far... their luck was not going to last.

"Dewitt to Engineering," she said, having tapped her combadge, "how is that cloak coming along?"

[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | Bridge | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: 
[Show/Hide]
Tapping her fingers against the comm stations controls, Faye was whispering into her earpiece. Despite her low tones, the mic pick up was able to pull her words in easily, and there would be no issues with whomever would be on the other side of the call. But she muted the pickup and turned her attention fully to the events on the bridge. She darted her head up, and glanced over at the commander. There was an almost scary sense of anticipation for what was about to come, from Trent.

On her console she saw a new window pop up - a notice that the beacon she'd set up had been targeted for recording. Her eyes went wide that It was time.

Faye had been shocked before, when she'd heard Marcus Slayton's voice com over the comms. She'd never met the man, but she knew him. For a short while, back in the Academy, she'd had a brief dalliance with the mans younger brother. Chris Slayton was a good man. Things had been casual, but enjoyable.  And she'd learned a few things about the man. His family, as well. And Marcus Slayton was as cold as ice.

But as Carrigan Trent pointed out, Slayton was also known to be honorable. Hard, yes, but fair. Faye just had no idea if this kind of appeal would work. She'd as his brother, but he wasn't on the Vector. She'd been surprised to learn that Chris had ended up on the Theurgy during her time in stasis. Nothing can be done 'bout that now.

And, with that said, he settled back further into his chair. "This is bound to cause some confusion in the ranks back there. Ensign Eloi-Danvers, jettison the beacon, ten minute delay to activation, at your leisure."

"Aye sir," she turned back and brought up the launch control. There was a tickle in the back of her mind, some sense of dread - she shoved it a side. It wasn't her thoughts, and she wasn't going to pry. She didn't need that right now. Dark eyes darted over a quick course, then nodded and punched a few more buttons. The course was set, and...."Launched."

[ Dyan Cardamone / Sar-unga Neleo | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

As she was set down, her tail whirled about. It was trying to find balance for her, and until her feet were on the ground it would continue it’s brave mission. Finally though, she was on her own two feet. She let Drauc go, hoping not to re-ignite the dumpster fire that was her brain. 200 miles a minute it went, already leaving her bad memories behind, and the more she was awake the faster it would go. Especially when he touched her face, it was like jumping to warp.

“You have charisma?” She beamed, her sharp teeth showing on purpose. Her new favorite friend. Move over, Heather.
“I mean, you sure as hell were distracting, so yeah, you did do good.” She would not mention anything about the Klingon in her mind. It was long gone, buried beneath a couple hundred tons of...well, stuff. None of it appeared to be any ill will held towards Drauc. Or at least, none that she didn’t harbor towards the rest of the known universe.

She was capricious, the flow of her mind able to reverse in a few moments. It was entirely possible that, if Drauc displeased her, he’d be on her bad side. At least she was easy to read.

“Do you always read my brain? Like, does that turn off?” She reached behind her to hold her tail. The whipping about had finally gotten annoying and this was the easiest way to stop it. However, the action of actually grabbing her tail was harder. She span around a few times trying to catch it before she actually grabbed it.
“Does that mean you know everything about me?”

---

[ Lt. Jg. Suq | The Floor | main engineering | Vector 01 | U.S.S. Theurgy ] @chXinya   @Stegro88   @Absinthe

"how is that cloak coming along?"

“Coaaaak’sh comin’, shorta bishy here.” Was Suq’s reply. He had wires in between his teeth, making his language sound absolutely silly. “Fibe minush.”

He hadn’t been paying attention to anybody else up until that point. The only thing that existed was this cloak, himself, and these stupid wires as he tried to solder them together. Every time he tried, his hands shook. He had no idea why they were shaking, but it frustrated him so badly that he couldn’t do this that his face was turning colors.

He really hated mechanisms and machines. He had no clue why it came so natural to him. They didn’t listen to you when you talked to them and they didn’t care if you were in a rush. So insensitive, really.

Speaking of, every time he needed a part, he’d take it. It didn’t matter if Lorad was holding it. If he was then the Efrosian would just pluck it right out of his hands like the Reman was an extremely fancy end table, with arms. He’d take it and he’d work on it with unusual speed, but these damned wires, he just couldn’t get them. It probably had something to do with the fact that he was burning his fingertips with the soldering gun. It smelt like cooked flesh.

But he was working fast, and he seemed to know what he was doing. He had a board assembled before those five minutes were up and it was already wired into the cloaking device.

“Gotta cycle it. Prepare to plug it in. We’ll either cloak or explode. Ravenholm, you ready?"

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]Judging by the maelstrom that was her mind, Drauc had not upset her, and as fickle as her temper might be, he was pleased to discern that she seemed to enjoy his company. So far, at least. Moreover, she appeared to like when he touched her, despite what his embrace had just caused her to remember. A memory he had not fully seen, because of the alacrity in which her mind moved, and likely her unwillingness to relive it.

Her questions, however, were such that he could readily answer, and he did, watching her unique mannerisms, with her disobedient tail and the way in which she seemed eager to fight and yet had to restrain herself. Asurians were an interesting people, made more interesting by Dyan Cardamone. Or Sar-unga, as her original name had was.

For a moment, before he answered, he considered her phrasing, wondering in what sense she had meant 'turn off', but he guessed - by context - that she was wondering if he was able to restrain and control his ability. "My ability is no choice of mine," he rasped to her, and raised a calloused hand to rake back his hair from his forehead, making the surgical scarring there catch the overhead light, "and if I could, I would welcome the respite of merely having my own mind to care about."

Lowering his hand again, he glanced towards the empty corridor before answering her second question. "I know you intimately," he said quietly, looking into her green eyes, "yet my ability doesn't let me uncover all the years of knowledge you possess. No secrets that's not at the forefront of your mind. My perception is limited to what you think of in my presence, not what you did last month, year or decade. The whole of your life is not laid bare to my inner eye, so your private secrets are safe, as long as you do not detail them in your thoughts."

Having said this, Drauc studied the corridor anew. "It would appear the ship is in hiding, since no Intruder Alert has been sounded. Shall we linger here, or find a sensitive area of the ship to protect once the boarding parties might arrive?"

Even if the A.I. of the ship had been taken by the Savi, the Main Computer Core was likely an area in due need of protection, just like the auxiliary engineering area and the warp core. Then again, he was a civilian, so he had no access to these areas unless Dyan cleared his entry. It was either that, or returning to her quarters in wait for specific orders, and Drauc had no opinion either way.

---

OOC: I will wait for a couple of more replies on the bridge, then I will post with Dewitt again! :)

[Zyrao Natauna | Bridge of Hot Air | Dangerous Affairs | Kindred Spirits | Can We Blow These Fuckers Up Yet | We're Already Criminals]
@Auctor Lucan @Absinthe @CanadianVet

Carrigan Trent. 

The most pretentious name she had ever heard.  Perhaps it was just that the man behind the horrendous excuse for a name was such a pile of wet, hot, shit, it didn't matter what he was named.  He would probably make something much more mundane seem just as elitist.  It wasn't even the name, it was the man that sat there penning a message to the Task Force.  She really, really wanted to interject some really badass shit in there.  He was far too formal for his own good. 

I have spent far too much fucking time with the Klingons.

He spoke talking about how someone knew him, and his death wasn't true.  Her brow rose.  Fake deaths.  This sounds like a Klingon opera. she thought to herself staying silent, but it was very hard to when he made it so fucking easy to want to jab and poke at him.  Brushing a hand through her hair she shifted her grey eyes over to the map that was showing their strategies.  Rereading over the map to make sure that she had picked the best possible spots for the best possible outcomes.

What if I had gone thirty degrees higher, it would have enabled them to possibly accidentally attack one of their own.. no no .. that would make us vulnerable to plan-detection which would be far worse than taking out a ship.

She listened to more of the man's message as she sat there watching the bridge and the map and just trying to decide what her next move should be.  Trent out?  She literally put her hand over her mouth.  For two reasons, one, she could not imagine coming up with something to say that would be nice or supportive.  Someone had obviously forgotten to train this asshole in matters of how to close a message or at the very least do it properly.  The second reason was so that she didn't laugh out loud for the moment.  She could just, not imagine, but then Ives was the Captain.

We have to get them back.

Someone entered the Bridge, catching Zyrao's attention.  Everyone that came on board got sized up by the Strategist.  There was a great deal you could tell just from watching the way that people moved.  The way they carried themselves, and scanned the Bridge, and the way they spoke with other people.  The way that she gripped the railing as they jumped into warp caused Zyrao's brow to rise.  She put her elbow on the arm of her chair and leaned against it just content to observe the Bridge that was working hard and especially the new arrival.  Though what really intrigued the El-Aurian was whatever contraption was strapped to her back.  Leaning forward slightly, caught up in her own interest to seem uncaring as normal, she studied it.  Looked like a rifle but she had never seen anything quite like it.  She was interested in where it was from, how it worked, and of course she wanted to shoot it.

“I just want to state, for the record, I'm not only a strategist but a solider.” she put that out there, raising one finger from her face as her eyes zero-d in on Dewitt who had just finished filling the Ensign with the beautiful work of art on her back in on their current situation.

Dewitt began reporting about the Sabine.  Zyrao sat comfortably in her seat but her ear was peeled for any and all information pertaining to the only friend she had on this massive boat.  The fact that she had went to max warp was not a surprise, she was out there to lure the TFA to heading out with them.  And it seemed that it had worked, though she hoped that the woman would be all right.  They had shared a heated night and a nice bed.  She didn't want her friend to die.  It wasn't easy for her to make any and on a ship that seemed personally affronted by her very presence, she thought it would be helpful to keep all the friends that she could.  Besides, Sera was really nice, and though Zyrao could tell that she would like to try another tryst, she knew that it would be good for them to just have a strong friendship.

You got this Sera, you come back, so we can drink some more strong Câroon booze and pass out again.

A torpedo detination came across their sensors.  Zyrao let a slow grin take over her lips as she ran her thumb over the lower one back and forth.

It's all coming together.

“Do we have a plan if the other vectors of your ship do not come?” she asked curiously looking at Dewitt.  “We might be able to elude the TFA briefly, but we are out gunned here, unless you have weaponry I am unaware of.” she stated calmly hoping to be able to help somehow.

[ Lt Cmdr Leon Marquez, | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan  @Triage @Mathis @Hastata-Nerada @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe
[Show/Hide]
"Captain, Lieutenant Commander, the Sabine went to maximum warp and successfully caught the attention from the Task Force. Our passive sensors could only tell us so much in these conditions, but I believe I noticed several warp signatures flaring up in response to vers Aldnoah's stunt. From what I could see, the sensor ghost was working too. I am updating the positions detected now on the tactical display."

"Two-One-Nine-Mark-Five. and One-Eight-Zero, mark." Marquez acknowledged the First Officer, as he sensed the distant explosions, hoping as ever that the Nebula wouldn't set off a chain reaction: There were Seven Thousand on that task force, not counting the Theurgy crew, whom he was more immediately concerned about, but not exclusively.

Leon reactively indicated the display to show the relative direction of Sera's and A'vura's shuttlecraft, avidly hoping this would draw the Task Force's advanced party away. It was indeed like Operation Rodeo, but with one of his old crewmates aboard, making his job all the more invested. Sensors registered an explosion.

"We're not going to leave anyone behind." Leon so far tried to minimize chatter, unless it pertained to combat, but he had to remind twofold that they had friends and family out there, but also that in the long run, even one other Vector had the means, methods, tools, people and common goals to get to safety and expose the truth. He was not going to lose sight of that, and reminded himself.

If we're outgunned and about to go down fighting, I'm going to personally rip Sankolov's guts out like I would have done to the Hawthorne parasite. Only this time, I'll do it in a fleetwide transmission and expose this damned conspiracy. Then that Task Force's parasites will reveal themselves the moment they give compromised orders.

Leon realized that his gaze met with Ensign Eloi-Danvers' for a moment. Indifferently, he looked back to his readings.

"Then the hunted become the hunters." Leon grumbled in a low voice that mirrored his sentiments. Despite a considerably patient and even-keeled output, Leon all the same kept his true sentiments to himself. "But we will succeed. So will our crews." Marquez added. Patiently biding his time as he glued his eyes to his monitors, reacting as he detected and magnified a reading. It was a glimmer in this nebula, but enough to warrant a report. Moments later, his earpiece chimed something that mirrored a report on his station.

"Captain. Passive sensors are picking up movements..." Marquez announced. "Multiple contacts... But without going to active sensors, I can's poinpoint anything in this nebula." Leon glowered, forwarding his readings to the holographic table. The IFF and identification relays may have been more of Archeron's scouts, or it could have been one of the Vectors. Given their odds and the inability to identify, this was wishful thinking; he chided himself for an instant for letting hope outweigh logic in this situation; It was attributed to fallout from what he'd do to the Parasite commander if he only could. "Fluctuating signals detected... Captain, I reccomend a particle sensor ping before another micro warp jump."

[PWO Selena Ravenholm | Vector 1 Engineering | Deck 6 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy] attn: @FollowTomorrow @Stegro88

She couldn’t say it out loud, but Selena was very glad that Suq took over on the cloaking device.  She’d been so lost in getting this cloaking device to work that she’d effectively given up.  Nothing she’d tried worked and the console had come within seconds of suffering for it.  Luckily, someone far more familiar with the technology had arrived, with the ship’s main hardware wonk a few steps behind him.  Watching the two work, Selena followed along silently, mentally lambasting herself for not seeing the solution to the power incompatibility.  In theory she might’ve been able to program in a transformer in the existing power flow, but she hadn’t seen it.  I need to focus better, can’t let Thea distract me… she reminded herself again.

“The ship’s system is ready for the input.” Selena reported when Suq asked if everything was ready.  Clearly everything wasn’t otherwise they’d be cloaked already, but she’d made it clear it was a hardware issue as far as she could tell.  If he heard, the Efrosian didn’t respond to her, he simply tossed a tool at Lorad and had him get to work opening the cloak and pulling a part.

Following Suq as he moved around the room and started replicating things, a new arrival’s mention of the Efrosian’s access code caught her ear.  Turning enough to see what was going on, she hid any reaction to the flying eel hanging by the warp core, clearly expecting to be able to work on the warp core.  As surreptitiously as possible, Selena watched as Suq set the newly replicated parts he was carrying over to it and typed something into the console, unlocking it for use.  Practiced motions hid the entry from ordinary prying eyes, but Selena’s weren’t ordinary.  Zooming in with her occular implants, she could clearly see the code entry and filed it away for later.

Watching Lorad for a moment once the parts here handed over, the software expert saw what she needed to do to patch the cloak into the Helmet’s power distribution properly.  It was a beautiful workaround hardware-wise, eliminating the need to transform the energy input via software, instead they were going with the old 20th century hardware set-up.  Working fast to strip out her earlier coding, Selena reset the cloaking program into a simple on-off control with attached diagnostics.  The three of them would have to stick around at first to keep an eye on the machine to make sure the cloak remained stable and get the kinks worked out, but once that was done it only needed someone to keep an eye on it to make sure the energy flow remains in tolerance.

Finishing up with a quick debug function, Selena uploaded the finalized coding to the main computer.  “All set on this end.”

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: All

Torpedo detonation.  And a pocket of gas exploding.  He knew there would be casualties within the Task Force from this, Starfleet personnel whose only crime was to follow in good faith orders they thought to be coming from a lawful authority.  But still, Trent's eyes flashed with cold satisfaction, and his thin lips briefly twitched into an approximation of a smile.  But it was cold and mirthless, and all it conveyed was a sense of dreadful exultation, the knowledge that his tactics had started to pay off, that he had hurt the enemy. 

And then, Marquez launched himself into a rather long discourse.  Oh, it was quiet and it certainly did echo much of Trent's own feelings.  But this was no time for distraction, and there was only so much audio bandwidth the bridge crew could manage, and that meant there was little room for this sort of thing, no matter how well it matched his own state of mind.  But he would address that later.  There was his report about the multiple contact he may or may not be picking up, and his recommendation to do a single ping using their volumetric sensors.  "Tactical, make it so, and release one more spread of torpedoes."

And, even before the ping for the scan was released, his fingers worked one of his armrest consoles, considering the particulars of their next jump, and then he turned his attention to the helmsman.  "Lieutenant Veradin, microwarp jump to these coordinates, if you please, on a course back towards the RV point under inertia.  Execute once the torpedoes are away."

With the immediate tactical situation dealt with, the acting Captain had a chance to pay some attention to their El-Aurian advisor.  She was asking a pointed enough question, and there were contingencies.  Not that he planned to go into detail just yet.  "We have a cloaking device.  Once we activate it, we can remain on station pretty much at will, or depart without being detected as needed.  If the other Vectors do not get here, they have been sent an emergency RV point."

[ Dyan Cardamone / Sar-unga Neleo | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

Drauc was a fascination. Like a toy to play with, a warrior to fight alongside, and a lover to fuck. On top of that, he read minds. Maybe that’s why he was such a good fit for her.

“Yeah, let’s head out. Thea’s room, the computer core.” She agreed, though her mind clearly was occupied with another problem. It was like watching a pack of squirrels attempt to solve a rubix cube. Her chosen location wasn’t done with any thought—she had been told earlier that Thea’s brain had been stolen. There’s more in that room worth taking, so it was worth guarding.

She began walking without waiting to see if Drauc followed her. Of course he’d follow her, what else would he do?

“So...why not go get it fixed down in sickbay? Once our vectors are back, anyway. Medicine’s pretty damn good these days. You know how long I passed for human? Medicine.” She nodded, as if she expected him to understand the extent of change she was forced to undergo. To her, someone who only grasped the basics and didn’t really care about anything beyond that, it seemed like a lot. Nothing was out of reach for those who reached for it.

“Or maybe I could just take this blade and do some surgery? I’ve got a good hand.” She grinned and spun her blade on it’s pivot, just to show off. She was threatening and flirting and joking. Pay attention to me, her mind insisted. Pay attention!

---

[ Lt. Jg. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Main Engineering | Deck 6 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy] attn: @chXinya  @Stegro88 @Auctor Lucan

Suq was fairly oblivious to Ravenholm or Lorad. He was only really focused on making the thing work. It was a...pretty damn shitty solution, if he said so himself. He’d ruined certain parts of the device purely to make way for a hillbilly-style power converter, and he had serious concerns that there would be at least one major explosion, thanks to the way Federation consoles were made. On top of that, there was a substantial chance this wouldn’t even work as well as the original Reman cloak—after all, the Theurgy was massive. Even just one vector was way too much.

But really, he didn’t even have enough metaphorical bandwidth for that. Solder this, fuse that, twist here. Like that old anatomy song. The leg bone is connected to the, head bone… If this was anatomy, he’d probably constructed a tumor. But it was theoretically a functioning, live tumor. Time to put theory to practice.

He thumped his badge, and using a firmer, louder voice, announced new information to both those around them and the bridge. His burnt, smoking hand hovered over a switch normally used in the cockpits of fighters, connected with a bunch of delicate wiring better suited for devices far larger than this thing.

“Cloaking device activation in three...two...one...”

Click.

[ F'Rell of the 12th House | Engineering | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: Peeps in engineering~
[Show/Hide]
The matter of inserting a new algorithm for the warp field could be as simple as simply installing the new parameters or as complex as a complete simulation to ensure the system could handle the new program. F'Rell tended to side with caution in such matters, but time was short. She could see her friend, Suq, working on installing what she was pretty sure was the cloak, and she also knew that no doubt the captain would want warp while the cloak was active. The issue was her initial algorithm was not such to allow for interface density and transphasic particles like a cloak field would generate. If they went to warp now they would likely overwork the system as it attempted to compensate and it could cause a cascade failure inside the warp core. And it would have been her fault

So she had to install a new algorithm before the cloak went active, accounting for not only the already odd shape of the vector's warp field, but also now compensating for the effect of the cloak. The mathematics alone would have taken a normal engineer several days to compute and install, but this was F'Rell's field of expertise. Much of what was going on around her was confusing and seemed alien to her, but this, this was simple.

The soft pad of her appendage allowed her to press an appendage over a section of the console without activating it and with careful movements of the pad activate the controls faster than fingers typing in could, creating a slightly more direct interface.

So with time low, and the true problem unknown to any but herself, F'Rell took the warp systems offline to install the new code. She left the core in an idle state, but the whole of the computer interface would need to be reset once she had installed the new algorithm for it to work properly and not attempt to merge the old algorithm with the new algorithm, something that could happen if things were not done just right.

Luckily Suq had given her access at the command level and she was unabashedly using it in a big damn hurry.

Finally, with the new algorithm in place, she set the system to incorporate it and then reset. It would take no more than 30 seconds, but for that 30 seconds, she barely dared to move.

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]Walking a step behind Dyan Cardamone, Drauc T'Laus did not apply more or less focus on reading the Asurian's mind just because they were alone, nor did he do so because of what had happened between them. His ability was just present, always, and over the course of the years, he had tried to tune it out as best as he might, but his ability was not natural. It was a construct of the Tal'Shiar, and he had neither choice nor true reign over it.

Therefore, he picked out whatever might be revealed, not by choice, and he merely noticed her quick wit to run rampant, her incentives lost on hum in the stream of impulses, and it was quite refreshing to not be subjected to a slow, predictable mind. Already, she had come to suggest that his scarring would be removed.

He recognised her jest in using her native weapon for surgery, and while he did not smile he did pause to let her enjoy herself at his expense. This, he could offer, while he remained fascinated by the genuine feelings in her mind, fickle as they were.

"What can be seen upon my body is just skin-deep, of little consequence," he rasped quietly, flexing is scarred hands within the threadbare sleeves of his robe while he walked, "and while one might remove the memories of what was done to me with medicine, I do not believe I can remain who I am without knowing where I come from. More importantly, I have learned to function, so I remain sane despite of this ability of absorbing everything within its reach. Yet indeed, I might be able to have my scars removed, despite how little I love surgery suites... but there is little point to it."

He did not mention how there were advantages to having had his forehead ridges surgically carved out of his cranium. A casual glance might have him appear Vulcan instead, which had been a lot more inconspicuous when dealing with, or behind, the border to the Federation since he had deserted Starfleet. "Whereas your natural state of being, Dyan Cardamone, is to have your sac render your body entirely unblemished, preserving your flawless appearance," he said, and it was a statement of fact, having seen all of her, "my natural state is to get scarred. I would not recognise myself without the marks of a life led. The reminders of who I am... as opposed to the others in my head."

Briefly, he looked down his bare torso, framed by his robe. He saw fresh lines from her nails there, earned through the night.

---

OOC: Another post coming up with Sankolov and Dewitt! :)

[ Admiral Sankolov | Main Bridge | Deck 01 | USS Archeron ] Attn: All

As this prolonged engagement continued to be a game of hide-and-seek, Admiral Sankolov remained as patient as his host body allowed him to be. Of course, the nameless darkness wished for erratic measures, but chaos had no place in this challenge, where there was such a ripe opportunity to silence the voice of the Theurgy. The ship was supposed to be spreading the Niga virus across Federation space, but it seemed that in this cycle, the ship persisted. No matter, there were - of course - contingencies, regardless if the other Vectors of the Theurgy might be inbound. Judging by the subspace message relating to ship re-integration, the one that they had intercepted to begin with - that was quite likely. Then again, I suppose it depends on how successful the Savi were in their pursuit... or if the new Borg Queen has crossed their path. Either way, it is merely a question of time before even this cycle is ours.

The development so far - in the events he dealt with directly - had not been entirely without a modicum of excitement, of course. There had been the sensor reading of the Theurgy that had sped right through one formation, and the fighter squadron was sent after it. A decoy? Too soon to tell. There had been armed torpedoes, just recently, which reacted to active sensor readings. It seemed, by some indications from his eyes and ears out there, that their prey was moving about, appearing and vanishing with random intervals. Sankolov believed that it was all smoke and mirrors, and that they ought to conserve resources and attention from a positive sighting. Of course, some of the Captains that reported to him didn't have his patience, and one of them had suffered for it. The USS Telemachus, with Captain Slayton in command, had taken the brunt of the punishment. Reports were still coming in about the result, but there was no word about Slayton himself.

With the fate of the Telemachus, it had become obvious that they now operated in a mine-field, where usage of active sensors came at a cost, and the need for readiness with defensive measures.

"We have another warp flare!" said the officer in Ops, and Sankolov shifted his eyes to the man over his steepled fingers. The officer continued. "This one had... something more, just before it was noticed on our passive sensors. A signal. Unknown composition. It could have been anything, but the other warp flares that our ships have detected didn't emit such a reading."

Sankolov's eyes shifted to the viewscreen. He gave it some thought, running a hand over the stubble on his chin. Soon enough, he made his decision. "Hail the Defiance, the Challenger, the Sydney, the Akagi, the Yeager and the Berlin. This is Admiral Sankolov. Break off current searches and investigate the latest warp flare . Go there and make an active sensor scan to learn more about what she did, and where she went. The Theurgy has lost the element of surprise, because now, you can all be ready for another number of torpedoes being armed. Anticipate the need to fire at them from an adequate distance when you make your scans. I want to know where the warp jump would have gone... and I will commit the other half of this search force to that area of the nebula." It was the best lead so far, this oddity of a reading that had occurred. "I stress, find out what that was; that signal they sent out before the warp reading."

Rising from his seat, Sankolov adjusted the sleeves of his uniform. "Hail the First Minister, the Monarch, the Sisko, the Dauntless and the Bellerophon. This is Sankolov on the Archeron. Stand by to receive coordinates and converge on them at maximum warp. Be ready to drop out warp... and engage the potential enemy there."

On the tactical display, Sankolov saw the indicators of the starships moving as he'd ordered - scenting the blood of their prey.

Then, it came... what he'd been waiting for. That mistake bound to be made.

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Triton @CanadianVet @Mathis  @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Stegro88 
[Show/Hide]Dewitt had focused entirely on the tactical map over the table while the others had been talking, attentive to what Leon Marquez had warned them about. Natauna had asked a question, but Trent had answered for her. Passive sensors were poor in the conditions of the nebula, but Trent saw reason in making a ping with the particle sensors at that point, where they had sent out plenty of decoys and distractions with the Sabine and the probes. They had also done what they could to deter active scanning for them with sensor-triggered torpedo fields.

The orders were carried out, torpedoes away, the particle sensor signal flared out, and in the particle dust of the Azure Nebula, everyone on the bridge could see the cascade of contacts made across the closest vicinity. Immediately, it became clear that Marquez had it right. There were four capital ships within 80 000 km, and the rest were not too far off. Then, they were at warp, gone from the area and the four ships that might suffer the onslaught of torpedoes they'd left behind.

Yet as the brief warp jump ended, even the passive sensors picked up the aftermath of the area they'd left behind. Spikes showing torpedo detonations, but it was impossible to say how effective they were. Dewitt bit her lower lip before she murmured under her breath. "That was a close call. They were almost on top of us." More loudly, she added, as she saw the enemy deployment that the particle sensors had shown, "As of the ping we made, we had three contacts directly ahead of our current trajectory. Range, 100 000 km, and two more off our starboard side at 120 000 km. The others were further out, at warp distances, but I recommend another warp jump soon, even if that will alert them of our presence. We can only hope our probes out there - or the Sabine - will draw their attention again."

There was a brief pause, during which the voice ow Suq was heard, contacting the bridge. [Cloaking device activation in three...two...one...]

Then, there was a power warning klaxon, followed by flashing LCARS displays. Internal sensors went haywire. There was no operational control on the bridge over what was happening, not even a way to discern if the attempt was successful or not. All Dewitt noticed was that the fluctuations in power continued, making the holographic display in front of her flash and shimmer. Dewitt looked around, wondering if they were cloaked or not, but unable to tell for sure.

"This is the bridge, come in Engineering. Is it working? Please confirm!" she demanded, but then...

...the power fluctuations stopped, lights returning to normal. Dewitt's eyes checked internal sensors and system readouts. They had just lit up like a Christmas tree! Cloak or not, that kind of flare would have been seen from light years away.

[Tactical Alert. Five vessels approaching, multiple bearings. Warning weapon signatures detected,] said the computer.

Shit, shit, shit... Dewitt called out the nearest contact, sensors giving them the identity of the ship. "Closest one is the First Minister, bearing Two-Four-Nine Mark Zero," she said, and then spoke with Suq and the others in Engineering. "Dewitt to Suq, if we were actually cloaked for a while there, any second attempt better work and the cloak better hold. Our position has just been compromised, since the power surge alerted the task force. We have them on our tail now. Make that cloak work and sustain it this time!"

Then, she looked towards the helm. "Mister Veradin, keep us alive," she said, then looked towards Captain Trent, trying to keep her focus and not letting her fears take over. "Orders, Captain?"

Every second counted now, before they were in full out engagement with the task force.

---

OOC: The cloak worked, for a few seconds. Unfortunately, the power surge of the activation was detected, since Vector 1 had been in grey mode before this attempt. Now, let's hope the cloak can last a bit longer the next time, and that the Vector can remain ahead of its foes until then! Have fun with this thrill and close call with destruction, just to elevate the pulse a bit more in this Chapter! :)

[ Lt. JG Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) | Main Birdge | Vector 1 "Helmet" | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Triton @CanadianVet @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Stegro88 
[Show/Hide]
Billiards, as Derik Veradin had noticed during his practice of the game during his time at the Academy and kick-backs on the holodecks, was a game of intense geometry, physics, and, most often in his case, dumb luck. Here he was, in a nebula-sized pool table, with the power to win or lose the game of life consequence with other starship-sized billiard balls.

Theurgy was his cue ball. Careful where he placed it, moving it around from time to time, scrambling the other targets within the nebula to counteract his opponents attempts in finding the starship’s true location. Upon the touch of his console, the micro warp jumps surely causing some bridge officers some hell in the task force and the torpedos he left behind doing so even greater. When thinking of it as a game… taking orders… jumping to warp… knocking in a ball… it was as if he wasn’t too concerned on the win itself, rather the plays that got him there.

Thea under his helm, in a sort of twisted rush, he played the game damn well, on top of multiple different approaches for each jump he could make and reacting to anticipated orders with seamless precision. On his console, coordinates drawn up for countless locations within the nebula for prime areas that would block out sensor readings had a jump been made. In the chaos of explosions in the view screen, grunting, reluctant cheers of his crewmates, and deaths of innocent Starfleet officers, he had this under control. With a starship, or a third of a starship in his unfavorable position, under his wing, he knew he could bring them to safety.

However, while awaiting orders and continuing to anticipate his next warp jump, his console began to flash and flutter out of his control, the ringing background noise in his ears flooded into focus. From his forward station on the bridge, he swung his spotted head around, just in time to catch the computer notifying, [Tactical Alert. Five vessels approaching, multiple bearings. Warning weapon signatures detected.]

The Trill’s chiseled face fell in horror. His game had just become more difficult to win. Scratch.

As the holographic table blipped with more enemy icons, he was inclined to believe the cloak had, in fact, not worked to their favor, which was only confirmed by the shared new frantic air on the bride and wining klaxons. Knowing orders were to follow, he swiveled around once more, and began to regain control of the console that had previously faltered along with the rest of the LCARS displays.

"Mister Veradin, keep us alive!” He heard behind him. And so, he must.

“Wouldn't dream otherwise, Lieutenant Commander,” he called behind him, voice strained in his own concentration of the work ahead of him. He ignored the navigational sensors on his own console blaring at him with the red flash of enemy starships in proximity, choosing to look over their distance from Theurgy as it would be irrelevant in the moments to come. The long list of potential jumping coordinates he had crafted was about to come in handy.

Understanding Dewitt’s command meaning for him to pilot the Helmet at will, Veradin laid in the coordinates for his first jump, and without confirmation from the red-shirts with much more pips on their necks behind him, whispered “Engage,” to himself. The view screen flashed momentarily as the space around the vessel was warped by his fingertips, only lasting seconds as the first vector of his starship dropped out of warp. Without a moment of rest, he repeated, flying down the list of coordinates he had pre-installed.

“This will buy engineering more time,” he mentioned to anyone who was listening, hands flying over the controls as he repeatedly took the starship in and out of FTL propulsion, “And give Archeron a hell of a time trying to find where we’ll be next.”

The cycle continued. Rapid warp jumps made in erratic directions - a clusterfuck of warp signatures and possible locations for the taskforce to dig through. With the Sabine also out there causing a ruckus, there was no telling what was on their enemies’ sensors. Derik could only imagine how such rapid bursts of dropping in and out of warp was affecting the core, or even the structural integrity of the ship. He hadn’t seemed to have ripped it apart just yet, and if he was lucky, was preventing the enemy from doing so themselves. At the current state of things, he couldn’t see much more options he could procure other than facing the taskforce with guns blazing.

However, with that understanding, he smirked at the realization that the ship wasn't the cue ball any longer. It was his lucky number 8.

---

OOC: This is my first post for the SIM! Please let me know of anything I can work on in the posts to come. Excited to get mixed up in this action.

[Zyrao Natauna | Battle Forthcoming | Playing Hide and Seek | Functioning Theories | I Win the Game]
@Auctor Lucan @JayLatte @CanadianVet

They had a cloaking device.

Why in the seven realms of fuck were they not using it.

Why in the eleven rings of excrement didn't they fucking get that shit working earlier?  Theyc could have fucking timed that shit to actually initiate the moment that the Sabine did her magic and Sera would have been the perfect fucking decoy.  She was incensed, almost pissed off, that she hadn't been told of the technology that was currently on board the ship.  She didn't have all the information, she had not been given the knowledge of all the tools at her finger tips.  She could have done her job that much better if she had only know things like this. 

For a moment, to control her anger, she squeezed the Bridge of her nose between her thumb and her forefinger and tried to just try to figure out what her next fucking move was going to be with this new information.

One day, the mother fucker in the center seat, would die.

She would not be surprised.

Dewitt began feeding the Bridge numbers.  She took them in thinking about their implications.  Yet, she could tell that they had warped off again and she was really starting to lose her affinity for that gut-wrenching sensation of moving quickly from one position to another.  She could handle a lot, and had been through a lot, her body was a veritable tapestry of her life story with tattoos for her triumphs and scars for her down falls.  Yet, she did not find that she wished for any more warps.  It wouldn't be the last, even when the cloak went into place she wasn't sure how well it worked and how long it could work.

The cloaking device was activated, and she looked around.  Surely, something that profound should have some kind of shimmer or something, a light would go on to say it was indeed, working and cloaking them from the view of others.  Yet, to her knowledge, she could see nothing had changed on the Bridge.  Suddenly, Klaxons echoed on the bridge, the consoles in front of the officers began to blink and flicker.  The lights were flickering the holographic displays were going in and out.

“This ship doesn't have enough power for this shit what were you even thinking?” she asked turning to Dewitt.  The idea of the cloaking device was sensational and were it working it would have been fantastic.  However, with it becoming something of a detriment instead of a boon without the proper power it was just going to drain the ship for no reason.  Aren't these people supposed to know what they're doing?

Tactical chimed in before the First Officer could say anything at all.  She was demanding answers, and the lights settled back on again.  There was an alert, five vessels had suddenly appeared in the area they were in.  “So much for being invisible.”  Dewitt was barking orders to Engineering and Zyrao hoped that she would get them to fix this shit so they could actually be cloaked.  Weapons were up.

Zyrao was at the holographic display pulling up the most recent information that she could get.  The ship themselves and she looked at the signatures that they were picking up without active sensors she couldn't get a great deal of information but she could at least get their positions.  The weapons and the like she could only be aware that they were here.  When she asked the toddler in the center seat for his orders, Zyrao wanted to go puke loudly in a corner.  Making sure that everyone knew that calling the man in the center seat a Captain was far too generous a word.

Hopefully it's temporary or I will make mutiny my bitch.

Veradin was their hope, he was the one that was going to get them out of this shit hole that the whole fucking Bridge Crew and the fucking Anal Fissure in the center seat had gotten them into.  She quickly worked up places where they could go, for strategical advantage, they didn't want to go too far, she just wanted to figure out where she could go.  Where could they go so that they could continue to be in range for the rendezvous and yet not become particles of space dust.

“Pilot-boy I'm sending you some suggestions of coordinates that will keep us close but safer.” she said as she used the holo display to do just that.  She was learning her way around the interfaces, and hopefully the coordinates would pop up on his console and he could determine which one he, as an officer, would like to go to.  He must have figured out that he liked one or the other, or none, because moments later that gut wrenching feeling was back and they had moved, again, to another location.

“Helm, unless you have better ideas of your own, keep those coordinates handy for when we need to jump again, hopefully the cloak doesn't fail again, but if it does we need to be able to bounce.  Do we have any probes left that we can use as a deterrent?  Any more torpedoes or anything that we could drop should the shield fail a second time?  We need a back up plan.”

[ Tesserarius Lorad | Vector 01 Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @FollowTomorrow @CanadianVet @Blue Zephyr @JayLatte @chXinya @Triton @Absinthe
[Show/Hide] 

The Reman Shock Trooper stood back as the short man, Suq, spoke.

"Cloaking device activation in three...two...one..."

Click. Nothing happened. Then the lights came on inside the disembowelled cloaking device. Sparks emerged from it. The entire rooms lights flickered, screens flashed on and off and a deafening klaxon began to sound. Looking around, Lorad saw several of the crew just standing around and looking at the warp core. He didn’t know why. He was no engineer.

"This is the bridge, come in Engineering. Is it working? Please confirm!" called Commander Dewitt's voice through the air.

Before anyone could respond to the woman’s call, several pops echoed through the room. The pops were almost immediately followed by screams as multiple crewmen were enveloped in expanding clouds of… something. Lorad wasn’t sure what it was, but if it caused humans to scream in pain, best not to get hit by it. Other crewmen began to run around and shout but Lorad was having trouble focusing amongst the cacophony.

Looking down at what had once been the cloaking device, Lorad saw smoke wafting from it and the lights that had been on inside it were now gone. And Lorad did not need to be an engineer to know that not only was the cloak not working, but whatever had just happened was probably detected by anything within 5 lightyears. And had caused untold damage to the ship at the same time.

“I told you cloak not work for this ship. Ship is too big,” Lorad said from where he stood, back and out of the way. He had no idea how to fix this. “You need to build a Scimitar cloak. My sister, Samala would know that. She could explain to you why,” Lorad continued, wishing not for the first time that his and his sister’s places could be exchanged.

---

Hope that is alright to get the drama started. Given Lorad's unfamiliarity with engineering in general and Starfleet tech specifically, I did not go into too much detail. I will let @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow and @chXinya go into detail about that.

[ F'Rell of the 12th House | Engineering | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: Peeps in engineering~
[Show/Hide]
Something went wrong.

No, that was too mild a term.

Something had gone so wrong that F'Rell watched as a plasma conduit blew and the man at the console in front of it be torn to shreds by the force and the concussion wave sent her back away from her own console.

Something had gone so wrong that a coolant tank ruptured and the fumes engulfed a few crewmen, leaving nothing but inorganic uniforms to fall on the floor empty as emergency shield held in the fumes.

Something had gone more than wrong.

F'Rell saw all of this in the few seconds before the alarm even had a chance to catch up with the weight of what just happened. And when it did the klaxons shot through the air, seeming almost as loud as the initial blast itself.

And for a moment F'Rell looked around the room, at the sheer horror of it, and she hesitated. In a second she had seen as 3 crewmen had died and at least a dozen were wounded by either the explosion or the fumes of warp plasma coolant. She watched as a man fell to his knees, coughing up the liquefied remains of what had been his lungs. Death would follow in only a minute. There was no way they could stop it, even though several crew members rushed to him and in another second he was transported away in a glitter of light, likely to sickbay.

She was grateful to not have the same feeling of smell as those around her, but she could taste the burnt flesh and chemical soup left behind by the chemically disintegrated men.

If she had a stomach she would have vomited, she watched as another crew member did, or at least she hoped it was vomit.

When she did move, it was to the warp field control console. The cloak had drawn on the EPS network and with the warp system resetting it had rerouted power from the warp systems without the computer to control the flow. The result was a power surge through the cloak and into the warp field. Then when the system had reset, before the new distribution could be undone, they had gone to warp. The nacelle had done there job and pulled the superheated plasma into them to power up and then had pumped the plasma back out.

The problem was the coolant system had not expected such a massive heat spike and overloaded.

This meant that the nacelle was now generating a faulty warp field because of heat damage inside and that the coolant system would not be able to keep up. Add to that the shock wave through the system was causing a feedback loop inside the core itself, generating increasing amounts of pressure, and they were not only looking at a damaged warp field, but the warp core itself was now right on the edge of a breach.

And with the might of the task force breathing down on them there would be no option to shut down and repair. No option to eject the core and either let it blow in the vacuum of space or let it go inactive.

No, as F'Rell looked over the readouts and alerts, she knew there was only one option. They needed to clamp down the core, keep it active, and attempt to keep the coolant system online, even though they could not get to the breach in it until it was shut down.

Meaning, if the emergency forcefield failed, they all died. If the clamps failed, they died. If she could not, on the fly, keep the warp field stable manually, they died.

At that moment, F'Rell missed the Resolve.

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Triton @Blue Zephyr @JayLatte @FollowTomorrow @chXinya

Warning the cloaking device was coming online had been sent, and Trent, even though he dared hope it would function, showed not a hint of emotion as he concentrated on the plot before him.  It wouldn't come a moment too late, for it would seem Sankolov had wised up as to where they were within the cloud of decoys.  The cloak had to work.  Otherwise, it would call for some serious tap-dancing to resume their game of hide and seek. 

And just as Engineering said they were activating the cloak, not only did it not function, but the failed activation made their energy signature spike, faster and harder than the low-level jamming Arisaka had been carefully managing could handle and conceal.  Task Force Archeron had them dialed in, and of course, their so-called advisor, rather than coming up with something constructive, decided to start going off.  Again.

"Miss Natauna, this ship has sufficient power to operate a cloaking device; what we lack is plug-and-play capability."  Trent's voice was its usual near-whisper, and neither voice nor face betrayed any emotion.  Would he rather he'd thought of this sooner?  Of course.  Were mistakes made in the implementation of the cloak?  Obviously.  However, he knew the situation: Engineering was forced to work faster than they'd like, with equipment not even compatible with their power grid.  And this was even before the stress of having to keep the warp drive functioning, no easy task with their repeated jumps.  One thing for certain, the coils would need serious maintenance if they go out of this one. 

And Trent nearly surprised himself with his own calm.  But then again, this was not the first time he was taking this ship through a death ride.  It was not even the first ship he commanded in such dire straits either.  But this was not the Harrier.  This was not a pack of Jem'Hadar fighters coming at him.  It was Starfleet officers.  Perhaps Sankolov would be relentless, but his crews, on the other hand?  They were merely mortals. 

That could be exploited all right. 

"Commander Dewitt, Mister Marquez, Mister Veradin, we have a few minutes here, let's use them.  Jennifer, prepare a set of instructions for the probes to send via burst transmission so they all make a warp jump and all come out of warp at the same time.  Helm, you will execute a near-simultaneous warp jump of our own, set to drop out of warp along with the probes.  Tactical, bring all tubes back to normal operation and reprogram a full spread of torpedoes from all of our tubes.  Have them set for image recognition on all of the Task Force's ships, and enter coordinates to target life support systems on the nearest vessels.  Set for computer-controlled launch the instant we enter warp speed." 

The order was not one given lightly.  For Trent had a plan, one that was ruthless, and utterly dependent on Sankolov having to maintain morale within his own fleet.  And even if he felt no particular obligation to pick up his crews, his other captains well might. And the order to launch the torpedoes from warp speed, that would mean the weapons would come screaming out of the tubes at a an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, relative to the ship.  But launched from warp, the sustainer motor that was their main drive would keep them at warp, and at such short ranges, the kinetic effect alone, even before the warheads would go, would be terrible on ships that could not maintain full shields.

And the acting captain knew he was going to kill a number of Starfleet personnel this way, but his more immediate concern was to take some of those ships out of the fight by giving them something bigger to worry about, and force others to peel off to start collecting their crews before space would claim them through their hulls. 

And only then did he consider the sets of coordinates the El-Aurian sent out.  Given the deployment and movement of the Task Force, most made sense.  But one in particular spoke to him.  "Mister Veradin, third set of coordinates, make those our arrival coordinates, and work the math to make it work with Commander Dewitt's probe operations. "

"And once we drop out of warp again, resume silent running." 

However, he was not quite done with addressing Bridge matters. "Miss Natauna, please remember to copy me when you send coordinates to the Helm."

And only then did he key the channel to Engineering.  "Mister Suq, I need a simple answer.  Can you make the cloak work?"

[ Ens. Faye Lintah Eloi-Danvers | Bridge | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: 
[Show/Hide]
For a long while there was almost nothing for Faye to do. Nothing but, sit, stew, and feel the emotions around her fester. There was a spike of fear that made her shiver, cold sweat runnign down her spine, as the lights flickered all around them. She saw the power levels on the comm's array drop slightly, then return. And in her ear, calls from various stations around the ship began to echo, reporting in status updates for the vector. Her face paled just a bit more with the news.

Damn, she thought, gripping the side of her console with a tension that left her knuckles white. The cloak had failed - Dewitt had said as much, and others around the room were feeling it.  Tension climbed up rapidly, as the announcement of inbound ships send the rest of the crew around her springing forth into action. Not for the first time she wondered just what she was supposed to do. She was not picking up any enemy transmissions to hack into. There was no fleet for her to coordinate with. The computer took care of most of the internal transmissions. She was documenting reports as they came in, but all the same...she was a diplomat, not a fighter. And they were in the middle of a nasty cat and mouse game.

Balanced on the edge of a Terror-honed knife.

Faye found herself pressing back into her seat, braced against her console, as the Trill pilot from the other ship - the Resolve began a series of micro-warp jumps in rapid succession. Less so from any issues with the inertial dampeners, and more so from the spike of intent that the pilot had that Faye caught a whiff of. Her mind drew out and supplied the illusion of being shaken about, when the ship itself barely registered more than a few gentle stops and starts.

Hearing their 'guest' mouthing off at Lt. Cmdr. Dewitt did nothing at all for Faye's concentration or mental health. She couldn't read this Zayro's mind, which might every well have been for the best. Hearing how lacking the woman found them in her tone was more than enough for Faye. Never-mind picking up how everyone else around her felt about the enigmatic ally of theirs. She was pretty sure she was still an ally. But one that  was really getting on her Captains's nerves.

It was, perhaps Trent that drew most of the young diplomats attention, mostly because she got an inkling of what his next orders were, before he spoke them. She saw images of a ship bridge, smaller, more compact than this one, falling apart under a barrage. Flames leaping high along a bank of consoles, sparks ringing out. The profile of a Jem Hadar Attack cruiser - one that was replaced with an image of the Archeron and then other ships from the task force. Ships exploding as torpedoes detonated against them at impossible velocities, wrecking untold havoc.

Trent's mind-scape shifted again to the face, like a skeletal specter, of Admiral Sankolov, a death-head specter, and the question, crystal clear in Trent's mind, What would he have to give to maintain his fleets morale.

If anyone on the bridge had been paying attention to the silent, slender Betazoid that sat manning the comms station, they would have seen, a scant few seconds before Trent gave the order to target the life support systems, a look of unmitigated horror pass over her face. Those coal-black eyes went wide with shock, her mouth slightly agape. She wanted to protest, to call out the man in the center chair for his cold blooded calculus. Except, the math added up.

Gods help me...it might be the best plan we have.

[ Lt Cmdr Leon Marquez | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan  @Triage @Mathis @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe
[Show/Hide]
Leon regretted fueling the situation with the outspoken Klingon guest tactician. While the Chief Tactical Officer had their collected ideas prepared and ready to be enabled, based off of attack patterns memorized so as not to have a trail on the computer's memory. Marquez seemed to 'think' better with her presence, or whatever he could imagine he sensed out of the El-Aurian. If only her verbal output could only be toned down a notch, Marquez had no difficulty focusing, but well, at least in respects to the job at hand, he didn't exactly need any more encouragement to think about the tension on the bridge right now.

"Tactical, bring all tubes back to normal operation and reprogram a full spread of torpedoes from all of our tubes.  Have them set for image recognition on all of the Task Force's ships, and enter coordinates to target life support systems on the nearest vessels.  Set for computer-controlled launch the instant we enter warp speed." 

"Aye, Captain."Leon pulled up the schematics of confirmed vessels according his prior sensor findings. Defiant, Akira, Intrepid, Rigel, Saber, Sovereigns, Excelsior, Galaxies, Luna... and the Archeron her--itself. The head of the snake. Leon's readouts projected color-coordinated readouts indicating the precise locations to hit those ships where it had to hurt. This was something that went against years of training and belief in the Federation. He was going to cripple the very people he wore a uniform to protect. At this point, his only hope was to restore the space time continuum to set things right. The afterthought was replaced by targeting the Berlins life support systems; the poor Cardassian-War relic was particularly susceptible to critical damage, and was the last to be targeted.

As the holotable and main viewer prepared a codex of target data of the confirmed readings of corresponding craft, the system read its targets locked. This was when he had a moment of micro-momentary hesitation, which ultimately ruled into the maxim of the needs of the billions of citizen lives at at stake, outweighing the needs of the few...thousand... Archeron crew, or the one parasite. Leon only wished he could've fired the barrage to kill Sankolov himself. In a moment of necessity, Theurgy's torpedoes armed. The Helm braced for battle.

In the spirit of opportunity, Marquez specifically targeted the enemy Flagship allthesame, and read out the torpedo readiness. "Torpedoes loaded, targets based off of proximity and vulnerability." Leon indicated potential torpedo vectors in 'alpha', 'beta' and 'delta' patterns, the latter of which locked on to the flagship's dorsal quadrant. Even one variably-effective missile hit would be a sufficient enough of a taunt. "Should I send further regards to the Admiral, Sir?" Leon asked, his voice as low as the light setting on the bridge and the voices of the others present. His hand was safely enough near the torpedoes' trigger to fire when ready.

[ Lt. Jg. Suq Reylin Efreya-Xan | Main Engineering | Deck 6 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy] attn: @chXinya  @Stegro88 @Auctor Lucan @CanadianVet

The explosion shockwave rocked him, but he did not seem particularly surprised by it. This was the critical flaw of Federation-built ships; explosions.

As he lay on the ground, his eyes squeezed shut so they wouldn’t see what his ears were processing. Screaming, gas whistling past a ruptured something-or-another, emergency klaxons. Someone was heaving, or trying to breathe, or something. His men and women, dying by his hand. Blood, he saw blood, he felt blood, he was covered in it, all his fault, all his fault…

He pushed hi body up, without panic. He opened his eyes and all he saw was blood, covering his skin, the blood of all the people who died because of his decisions. At that moment, he decided that what he was seeing wasn’t real. Nothing he heard was real. So he stood up, and despite the ‘false’ whistling, he focused in on that sound. Not plasma, he decided, but a gas of some kind. Fumes, from...environmentals, or the coolant system. Not the EPS conduits. The other problem he could identify was the warp core. To him and his sensitive hearing, it sounded like it was screaming. Not yet breached, but that told him it was close.
“Ravenholm, Warp core. Lorad, fix the device.” He spoke as he walked on to the very much not-real cooling leak.

He heard Trent. He was so distant, under the waves of an ocean, almost. He wasn’t real. None of this was. He tapped his combadge,
“It will work. I will make it work. Give me time to patch ‘er up and we’ll try again.” And he meant those words. Despite the fog, the ocean, the distant roar of reality, there was an eternal flame burning in his chest. It was not bright, not huge, but it was, and by that very flame he would make this goddamn cloak work. There was no other outcome.

He ran his hands over his toolbelt. Yes, he had the right tools. He stopped by the replicator four sheets of alloy please. He walked by F’rell without further word, headed towards the jeffries tubes, his body language more fitting of a handyman come to change a lightbulb than an engineer in an emergency.

But what on Efros was he planning on doing anyway?

---

[ Dyan Cardamone / Sar-unga Neleo | On the way to Thea's room | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

“Why do you like your scars?” She half-laughed, looking back at him as if he had suggested that they were beautiful. Dyan didn’t think so, but it also did not stop her from sleeping with him. Personally, she’d never had scarring. Even with her sac repressed, her skin was always perfect. She made a point to keep it that way, demanding that the nurses and doctors in sickbay don’t leave any marks behind.

“You’re still you even when you’re ugly, so why not choose to make yourself look better?” Admittedly, despite her racing mind, she could be shallow. This is one of her shallow moments. It came from not understanding. Or, if Drauc looked deeper, she did not want to understand. Drauc was different, and thus not as good as Dyan. There wasn’t any reason to understand; Drauc simply made bad decisions. Dyan didn’t. A defense mechanism, a thought process built to hide...something. Something she didn’t want to think about.

“You could at least do with a manicure. You know you can get your nails sharpened, right?” She grinned, looking back at his scratches. She did that on purpose. It made her proud to know that she did.

[ Lt. JG Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) | Main Birdge | Vector 1 "Helmet" | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Triton @CanadianVet @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Stegro88 
[Show/Hide]While Derik had worked up an ample list of potential jump coordinates himself, that list was soon growing dry and would near its end within, if he calculated correctly, two and a half minutes of dropping in and out of warp. He tried not to panic, but looking at how quickly he had to apply these coordinates into his console, and administering the actual piloting of the ship, there was simply no time for him to draw up more coordinates and keep Archeron off their tails at the same time. It was simply too dangerous to jump to an unsurveyed area of the nebula, and certainly too dangerous to sit still, like a waiting duck, to lay in a brand new course every time they needed to jump.

That was until a little voice behind him, spoke up. "Pilot-boy I'm sending you some suggestions of coordinates that will keep us close but safer." While being referred to as “Pilot-boy” wasn’t exactly flattering, nor along the lines of Starfleet command protocol, he was grateful as the weaning list on his navigational display was replenished, offering the entire vessel at least another ten or so minutes of time that he couldn’t afford to give them otherwise.

The Trill did his best to award his appreciation, but through the concentration on their survival, the expediency at which his hands and mind were moving, and the noise on the bridge, had forgotten the woman’s name who had just thrown him a very large bone. Natauna he remembered, as she was sternly addressed by the acting captain, before she was passively chastised for the snarky comment to Commander Dewitt.

Not the most pleasant gal, he noted, yet proved extremely useful. He made sure to let her know while he continued the frequent warp jumps. “Much appreciated, Natauna,” he called to the El-Aurian. “Feel free to keep those coordinates coming.”

It was then, after turning his attention back to the helm, that he received orders for the first time after he began to fly Theurgy at will, a somewhat comforting and dulling of his predicament. It wasn’t every day that he got to pilot state-of-the-art machinery, running from enemies, and feeling like a badass. Tehren would be so proud.

Commander Trent was clear in his instructions, but his motives were not so crystal to the helmsman. Regardless, he processed his order to align his attention with that of the Lieutenant Commander, perfectly syncing their entrance and drop from warp along with the probes that Marquez and Dewitt were to reconfigure.

It then made sense. Like a bow and an arrow. He would draw the string back, launch to warp along with the torpedos, and when he dropped out, the arrow would continue to fly. Full spread. Right into the enemy ships. He grimaced at imagining the detriment a torpedo at warp speed would provoke on a ship’s hull… to a ship’s compliment.

"Mister Veradin, third set of coordinates, make those our arrival coordinates, and work the math to make it work with Commander Dewitt's probe operations."

He nodded his head affirmatively to his captain, offering the confirmation,  “Aye, sir.”

Derik was usually a man of many words, yet in this moment of life or death, which had previously thrilled him moments ago, he remained silent. The thrill had been in protecting his, and his crew’s, own lives. Not taking that of others. Derik wasn’t a tactical officer. Yet in the moment he disengaged the warp drive, he would function as one, sending a deadly blow at Federation starships, breaching hulls, sucking officers into the vacuum of space, and killing others upon impact.

Was he comfortable with letting go of the string? Well, he reminded himself, You can’t have your cake, and eat it too.

[Zyrao Natauna | There is No Miss |  Sociopathic Assholes | Control Your Bridge |  Ideas are Welcome]
@Auctor Lucan @CanadianVet @JayLatte @FollowTomorrow @Triton @Brutus

“What was that?”

Thing was, on a Bridge were red alert was happening, people were talking, calling over each other, and so forth no one was going to hear a mother fucking whisper.  She didn't even, honestly care what he said, she heard something that sounded an awful lot like Miss.  She didn't think it was, because, she doubted that asshole knew how to show someone respect that wasn't decorated with shit on their collars.  She certainly hadn't seen him do it yet.  Perhaps, he was allergic to showing respect, regardless, it didn't really matter what he had said.  As she doubted that it really gave to the whole operation.  She was up here for a reason, to help, and if he was going to disrespect everyone that wasn't an officer merely because of that fact, he was going to have a very short list of people he could rely on.

He began to give orders, a bit louder than before, since it seemed that she could actually hear him this time.  She wasn't sure how everyone heard the man, afterall, he was so quiet.  Quiet didn't mean shit except for 'listen really hard for me because me because I'm only going to say this once, super quiet, and then if you didn't hear me it's your loss'.  Attention-grabbing, bull shit if she ever saw it.  There was nothing about being loud that meant you lost control.  You lost control when you were red faced and screaming, not taking your volume up a rung so that you could be heard and understood more easily.  But hey, apparently, he was a super cool Captain.  Maybe if he put more effort in being a Captain instead of being so damn quiet he might actually achieve something.

The orders weren't bad though.  The simultaneous warp out was not a bad idea.  They had lost the element of surprise when the cloak that they were playing with fucking failed.  “You'll need to time it as simultaneous as possible.  Nearly, is not going to be good enough.  Do we have anyone that can program it to actually be at the same time?” she asked she was standing behind Trent now.  She didn't much care where he wanted her to be, she was the one person on this Bridge he could not control.  The Engineering came back with an answer.  She thought about it for a moment, she didn't know much about Engineering but she understood power.

“We need as much power as possible to cloak a ship this size, Engineer.” she stated when the channel was open again.  “If the cloak doesn't work this time, we're running out of hiding places and luck.”

She didn't care who got pissed off at her for taking control.  Someone had to, and besides, she wasn't saying anything that was untrue.  Words came from the Pilot-Boy up front.

What was that?

Was that actual respect?

Was that a thing they taught in Starfleet? 

Who knew!?

Her eyes zeroed in on the Helmsman.  She had only called him Pilot-boy because she had no idea what his name was.  On a Bridge this size there were so many people that she could not keep up with them in the heat of the battle and her mind was working on many other things, it was not out of direspect that she had called him Pilot-Boy.  However, the fact that he had figured out her own name and went out of his way to thank her and request more of her work, straightened her back.  There was a gross change that came over her face, something those looking at her could see.  Respect, went a long way with her.  It was one of the reasons that she would respect Marquez over the Anal Boil that sat in the Captain's seat.  She thrust her shoulders back.

“Will do, Mister Helmsman.” she said quickly as she thought about how this was all going to go down.  Zyrao pulled her PADD up, the one given to her by Dewitt and began to plug away at more of the battle field trying to figure out what her next moves would be, depending on how well this worked.  Trent might be going after life support, but that didn't mean it would hit, and it didn't mean they didn't have their own method to fire back.  If the cloak didn't hold, if it didn't even get off the ground, they were fucked in a big way.

[PWO Selena Ravenholm | Vector 1 Engineering | Deck 6 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy]

For a moment, everything worked.  Power flowed into the cloaking device, the device cranked out a unfathomable amount of exotic particles at a rate that flagged several warnings that she’d already disabled (as well as an automatic shutdown attempt that an earlier test had triggered), and pumped them all out into space.

And then everything went to hell.

Since she’d been looking at her console and not the warp core she only heard the explosion before the shockwave slammed her face first into the monitor.  Recoiling from the sudden headache, Selena’s hands quickly covered her face to feel if anything was broken, a move that saved her from the coolant splash.  Her hands flashed with simulated pain, but it died quickly as the compound quickly sublimated and decomposed into harmless components.  Since the emergency forcefield snapped around the core the moment the computer registered the threat to the crew that was the worst of what she took, not that it would’ve been much comfort to the three empty uniforms laying on the deck.

The moment Suq got his bearings and snapped out the orders, Selena was out of the chair and standing in front of the warp core control console.  The display was a hash of error messages, red lights marking every control point between the dilithium matrix and the nacelle itself.  With a shattered coolant pipe the fact that all of those warnings were heat related was no real surprise.  The bigger surprise was that the warp core hadn’t automatically shut down and that it was even still projecting a usable (if severely compromised) warp bubble.  Not knowing all that much about warp cores, Selena had to approach it like any other faulty machine with overheating issues: shut things down.

Mechanical fingers flew across the controls, limiting the matter and antimatter flows so that magnetic constrictors can work at lower level, reduce the load on the EPS conduits, and even allow the warp coils to radiate off some of their own heat into space.  It was a temporary measure, all of these little adjustments meant that their warp speed was severely impeded, but she had no idea by how much.

Once the immediate problems were addressed, Selena started up some new diagnostics, hoping the computer could figure out its own solutions.  While it worked, she looked up at the eel hovering nearby.  “Just what the hell did you do?!” she barked, struggling to keep from strangling the thing with her bare hands.

[ Tesserarius Lorad | Vector 01 Main Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
[Show/Hide] 

How, by the pit, was he supposed to fix the device? It wasn't even a device. It was the disembowelled, makeshift remnants of a device that were now also smoking. And he wasn't an engineer. 

It was at that moment that time seemed to catch up to the Reman and he realised he was standing in a room that was now a complete shambles. He had no idea how he had not noticed it before but something was most definitely wrong. Even to his eyes and ears. Selena's head looked like it had been slapped and that was the mildest of injuries his battlefield trained eyes picked out. But that was not his job.

Snapping out with his oversized arm, Lorad grasped onto the tunic of a passing human male and brought him around to stand in front of him. Before the man could say anything, Lorad repeated the manoeuvre and deposited a second crewman in front of himself.

"You, get PADD with plans for cloak," Lorad demanded of the female; noting that she seemed to have the higher ranked insignia. "And you," Lorad continued, turning to face the male. "Find working replicator. We fix cloak."

He wasn't sure if it was his gruff demeanour, unusual voice or that they had heard the Efrosian tell him to fix the device but the two crewmen disappeared into the tumultuous throng of people moving about as Lorad returned to staring at the device that had once upon a time been the Apache's cloaking device.

He still had no idea what to do.

[ F'Rell of the 12th House | Engineering | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: Peeps in engineering~
[Show/Hide]
"Just what the hell did you do?!"

At those words, F'Rell froze. Her long body undulated just enough to hold her position as the whole of engineering moved around her, desperate to fix what had happened.

"<I...>"

This was her fault.

There were no two ways about it. She had reset the system at the worst possible moment and at that moment she was through her actions caused this. She had killed those people and likely because of this mistake more people would die. Her once flawless equation was now a jumble and the warp field was failing, and if it did they would all die. And if that happened it would be her fault.

"<I failed...>"

The was all her fault.

She looked down at the warp field controls and watched as the system moved to critical. She watched as the warp field integrity diminished rapidly. She watched as it tried to compensate with her equation and only furthered the imbalance.

She had to move. She had to create a balancing program, or at the very least balance the field parameters on the fly. They would want to go to warp again and again. That had been the plan. It had always been the plan. She had taken too long with the original algorithm and now she had no time to fix it.

And she was too scared to move. Too ashamed to move. She had never failed so badly it has cost anyone their lives. Not until now, not until today. She had failed and it had killed. She had through her own actions killed 4 people.

And she could not bring herself to move.

The warp field integrity began to go critical.

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow 
[Show/Hide]It seemed apparent, judging by what Drauc was able to pick up in the Asurian's chaotic mind, that she did not understand the point he was trying to make. The deeper machinations of her thinking was difficult to discern, and even if his experience over the years of absorbing the minds of others allowed him to make educated guesses, he could not see the root causes of her current conscience.  At some distant level, he did appreciate her jest about her nails.

"No mind is like another's, and therefore, no one's preference is more valid than another's. Your preferences are your own, yet merely your own, and based on ideals solely sprung from your cultural exposure and what you have grown to prefer. Some would look at your body and merely see it as attractive, yet never think for a moment that you are the kind of warrior you are, because you do not have the marks to prove your experience; the tokens of survival." He said this without inflection of being insulted, since he had no opinion about his scars aside from the facts he had stated earlier "Therefore, my scars are essentially moot, and not the subject of absolutes in opinion, since there are too many."

Her certainty was compelling, and he asked what he'd meant to ask after seeing her in front of the Asurian saucer in the Spearhead Lounge - the blood of one of her people all over her. She had slain one of her own, betraying the Asurian Queen and her people, the blood all over her arm-blade. She had tried to make the larger Asurian stand down, projecting blame upon the Savi.

"You have not mentioned what made you stay aboard the Theurgy," he rasped to her, and they reached the entrance to the Upper Computer Core, which also served as the Flag Bridge. The room inside the sliding doors, which Dyan would have to access with her security clearance, had once housed Thea's positronic brain, yet now, it was merely the key access area to the common computer core of the ship, the same kind which all starships shared.

"You lost your family at Starbase 84, and as I have understood it, they died defending the Theurgy," he grated, not knowing the details, "and yet when you were given the chance to return to your people, you chose to betray them, even killing them in your service to this ship and crew. This, we have in common, since I have left Romulus behind."

He looked at her through the tresses of his hair, wondering if there might be a hint in her thoughts when he posed the question. "Thus, I come to wonder if your unblemished skin have marks akin to my own - merely unseen to the naked eye. You need not answer... but because I care, I wonder what happened. I see this dark shadow in your mind, someone - or some event in the past - that made you slay your own. You continue to serve here, in conflict with yourself, on a ship that had your family slain on the battlefield."

He found himself moved by ire, an emotion of his own, towards the person that had wronged her.

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Triton @CanadianVet @Mathis  @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Stegro88 
[Show/Hide]Dewitt had her orders, and while she was somewhat aware of what was happening on the bridge overall, chaotic as it might be, her focus and priority was the survival of the Helmet's crew.

"Yes, sir!" she said, raking back her red hair from her face as she set about to try and calibrate the probes for a simultaneous warp jump. Since they had moved so far out, she couldn't maintain a reliable connection with two of them, but she sent the data package nonetheless, hoping it would reach them in time. Fortunately enough, their chronometers were already synced, so as long as they would receive them, it would still work.

Derik Veradin was doing wonders at the helm of the Vector, and Dewitt began to understand how the Resolve had been able to make it back from the far edge of known space in the galaxy. Zyrano was helping him as well, allowing him to be agile. "The First Minister is right on top of us," she announced, her voice tight as she multitasked, since there was no help in seeing the holographic representations of their pursuers above the tactical holo-table. "There are three others right behind it. Helm! Coordinated warp jump to specified coordinates almost ready. Just keep at it."

[Warning. Warp core status critical,] announced a voice file Thea left behind.

Dewitts eyes lifted, and Morgan spoke up from the Engineering station. "Captain, I have tried, but I am not receiving any replies. I saw the warp core might have been compromised when the cloak failed. Right now, I think they have been forced to vent excess plasma to keep us running. I keep sending queries, but they are too busy to answer. Each of these warp jumps have made it worse, and right now, we are virtually a tinderbox about to blow at the slightest provocation. What I am saying is... any enemy fire we sustain might compromise the remaining balance we have in the containment fields in the core!"

Grinding her teeth together, she refrained from cursing. "Can we make two more jumps?"

"Yes, I think so, perhaps more, depending on... too many factors to mention," said the young Engineer.

Throwing an eye towards Marquez, it was evident he was on top of things, the full spread of calibrated torpedoes at the ready. "Helm! One jump for the torpedo-launch. Flip her over to use the four forward launchers, and jump to warp immediately! The second jump has to be the simultaneous one. Countdown starting soon."

As soon as the Trill at the helm made the jump, Marquez's torpedoes were away, and they were sent straight into the pursuers. Because of the warp jump, the ships and the results vanished from the display above the holo-table. Sensors were taking in some facts despite the quick development. "The First Minister's shields took the brunt of the force, the image recognition seeing it first. We might have breached the hull on several decks too. Helm! Are you ready? Synchronised warp jump in five, four, three, two, one. Engage!"

Across the RV zone, where they were supposed to meet with the other Vectors, the probes they had launched blasted off along with the Helmet. It had to be just another short jump, but already Morgan at Engineering was worried. "The status of the core only allowed us to reach Warp 2. And... it seems we still have to vent plasma, so as silently as we might want to run... We're still bleeding."

Dewitt wanted to swear. "Have them mitigate it, Petty Officer. Somehow. Inform Suq that it is imperative we try to minimise our sensor signature, and the cloak is still our best option if we can make it work without alerting the entire Galaxy about our position. Zyrano, are there any really dense clouds of nebula dust we can safely bleed into? There can't be any sirillium there though, since the plasma will likely ignite it. Helm! Minimal impulse boost after we drop out of warp, and have us drift by inertia to the safe coordinates."

Unknown to Dewitt, they could not shut down the core entirely at that point, since then it might take a long time to get it running again.

BEEP-BEEP.

Her eyes went to the sensors, the Helmet still at warp. "We have no pursuit, but there are a lot of capital ships further ahead. I recommend we drop out of warp now, before we end up in too close proximity."

They had a slim chance that the ones ahead were watching all the warp signatures from the probes too, and didn't single out theirs...

[Zyrao Natauna | Actions & Maneuvers | Saving Asses |  Mutiny for the Center Seat Forthcoming]
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan @JayLatte

They were jumping, again.  The Engineer mentioned that he wasn’t sure it would even work.  That the warp core was overloading.  “Well I for one would prefer not to be space particles this day, or any one, truly.  So lets see if we can get our collective asses out of this mess before we become so.” She said as she turned back to the table where Dewitt was standing doing her job.  The dark headed El-Aurian was in the heat of battle and her mind was racing with the tons of ideas that plagued her mind while she stood there thinking of where they could go and how far they could go without blowing the engines.  The cloak would be nice, but if it didn’t take a second time they would be dead in the water and floating among the stars for someone to just come by and pick off. 

That wasn’t where they were going to want to be.  Dewitt mentioned that the First Minister was right on top of them.  She looked at the red headed woman and shook her head.  “We have no choice we have to risk the engines to warp.” She counseled the woman that likely already knew that but Zyrao knew that sometimes in the heat of battle having a second voice that echoed your own thoughts could go a long way.  She swallowed heavily as she looked at the map that was in front of her on the screen.  They needed a place they could vent the plasma.  No one had actually admitted to her that they needed it yet but she knew they were going to have to cool down the engines before they became much more fucked than they already were.

The imagery disappeared after they launched the torps at the direction of the ship and then they were off on another part of the area.  Zyrao waited a moment for her stomach to come back out of her feet, clawing it’s way back up, small step by step.  She could use a few less jumps at the moment but their battle was not yet done.  She looked around at the map they had now.  They were venting plasma.  They had to, if the engines didn’t get cool enough they would be just asking for Archeron to take them down and she had not worked so hard today to find that happening.

“I think we drop the cloak idea for now.” She admitted to the bridge loudly, because she was not going to be quiet.  She wasn’t yelling but she wanted to be heard over the alarms, and the other officers that were calling out on the Bridge trading information.  “We only have so much power, we have to get that core cool unless you all fancy being space dust, and I don’t.  We vent first and foremost.  If we debilitate ourselves it won’t matter if we’re cloaked or not.” She said, her eyes zeroing In on Dewitt, the only fucking officer of command on this damn bridge that had a modicum of respect for someone that was new but knowledgeable.

Zyrao heard the words of Dewitt, asking her to find a part of the Nebula that they could bleed into, one void of sirillium.  Her brow rose and she shifted her attention over to the massive map on the holo-display that they had been using together since she had come up on the Bridge and put away the fun of the fake uniform and pips. 

“Well lets see.  It’s a fairly large nebula, the problem is without active scanners I can only estimate what kind of sirillium content we’re going to be dealing with and I can’t guarantee as much as I would like to.  But that’s battle, a game of chances and risk.”

She didn’t say that so that people would feel nervous, she only said that to inform the crew of what was going on and so that they didn’t take her word as gold.  However, she knew that the pockets of sirillium would be something she should be able to predict.  However, they could also use the sirillium to their benefit as well.  She chewed on her lower lip as she read the Nebula.  She had been around a long time and Nebulas weren’t all that uncommon in the universe.  She had multiple experiences with it.

“Has anyone thought to use the pockets of sirillium against the Task Force?”  she asked the Bridge as a whole.  The Waste of Space that sat in the center seat surely hadn’t spoken up for a while since he had quietly mentioned what he wanted to do.  “If we could cool ourselves off, and move again, cloak up.  Ignite the Sirillium when we have the chance after luring them in there.  It’s something that we could use to debilitate the fleet while we can.” She threw the idea out there.  Mass murder was not always the best way to go, but if they could use it.. they might have a chance.

“Furthermore, actually, a better idea, is do we have any other shuttles or anything that we could launch.  Change it to our signature.  Then leave, ignite the Sirillium with the shuttle on some sort of remote detonation and boom, they believe us dead, and we can get out of here while they swarm the Nebula.” She offered, again, trying to put out as many ideas as she could.  She compiled a very quick list of the choices she deemed the most-likely-safe-ish and sent it over to helm.

"Coordinates coming your way, Boy.  Three of them, you pick, Time to gamble, my dear Helm." she grinned darkly. 

[ Ensign Ryuan Sel | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
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Patience was not one of Sel's strongest qualities. She was a fighter, not a waiter. And yet, standing at the security station, directing what security officers she had via the computer system, she felt like not only were her hands tied, but she had to wait. Wait for the plan to work and for them to be fine, or wait for something else to go wrong and for this fight to turn into one for every inch. She knew full well that more than likely it wouldn't come to them actually being boarded, it'd be far easier to simply hit them with a lucky torpedo hit or phaser shot and then they'd be nothing but debris.

Not that it would matter one way or another. If they were boarded it was not likely they'd be able to put up a fight worth a whole heck of a lot. Even though she had every confidence that her security teams would do their job, that they would stand and fight, there was a heck of a lot of ships out there and they had a lot more men than Sel had. It would be a losing fight if it came down to it. Sel knew that, even if she would never say it out loud.

This was not how she wanted to die. She didn't want to die so far away from Sarresh. She didn't want to die at all. She looked down at the security console and glared at the readout. There was nothing she could do to turn the tide at this point. She wasn't in charge of any critical system that could win them the day, she was Mistress-at-Arms and being forced to pretend she could handle being the full-on head of the department. It was a job she could fake, but she knew her limits, or at least she was certain she was way outside her comfort zone on this.

[ Cmdr Carrigan Trent, Captain | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Triton @Blue Zephyr @JayLatte @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Absinthe

"Belay the all out venting.  Shunt the plasma to the impulse reactors, empty deuterium tanks and Bussard collectors.  Only let go of the overflow.  Prepare to evacuate overheating sections of all non-essential personnel, and get the remainder into environmental suits."  Trent's voice snapped out from an impassive face.  As soon as he knew of the warp core's malfunctions, his mind had been racing.  He might be a tactical officer by training and not be an engineer, but no one made it to command appointments without a grounding in those disciplines as well.  He knew what he was asking would not be as thermally efficient as just getting rid of the offending material, but he also knew such venting would leave a trail a drunk, half-blind Pakled on a barely spaceworthy freighter's sensor watch could follow. 

And he had no intention of making things any easier than they had to be for Task Force Archeron.

And still, there was much to be considered about the situation before him.  At this point in time, they were no longer being pursued, so they had time to think and act while they were resuming their game of hide and seek.  But, despite her arrogance, the El-Aurian had made a few good points.  The cloak was important, but without the warp drive, they would be unable to run no matter what.  And there was the matter of hiding...

But there was one option in particular that was definitely not an acceptable initial course of action.  A second-last resort, perhaps, but definitely not as a first choice. 

"First of all, I've already given orders that have killed, and well might have condemned to death, entirely too many innocent Starfleet personnel for my taste, so luring them into a sirillium cloud is not an option at this time."  Trent could be ruthless, he had to be.  But that did not mean he particularly enjoyed such things.  Willingness and desire, after all, were two entirely different beasts.  "Second, I agree, the cloak needs to become a second priority."

Tapping the comms button in his armrest, he contacted engineering.  [Bridge to Engineering.  Cloak is no longer a primary focus.  Priority goes to the warp core.  If you were to shut down the core, how long to effect repairs and perform a crash restart?]

With that question hanging in the air, he could now focus on the tactical picture.  "Faking our own death might work, but not with a straight sirillium explosion.  The enemy knows we are operating with decoys, so they are certain to do a mass survey of the wreckage, and will find out it was an auxiliary craft.  What we need is a departing warp signature, with a core detonation just as the ship leaves normal space."  Indeed, a warp core breach tended to leave very little debris behind, and if it happened when a ship was jumping to warp, even more would be lost in subspace, and there would be absolutely no way to know for certain the mass of the destroyed vessel. 

"We still have one runabout in the shuttlebay, that will be our decoy.  Have it modified to radiate something that looks like our warp signature, and load it with as many of the shuttlebay's antimatter fuel pods as you can fit on board.  Red-line its warp core to have a signature that approaches appropriate strength, and have it set to drift towards a sirillium gas concentration, and have the warp core breach as soon as it jumps to warp.  It would be impossible to miss the subpace spike of a warp core breach, and between the additional antimatter and the sirillium gas, it should generate enough energy to make it believable."

"Commanders Dewitt, Marquez and Martin, work the math and have the shuttlebay prepare the runabout.  Mister Arisaka, manage EW to keep us in hiding even better.  Running won't be an option for some time, so your job is to make it so we pretend really, really well to be a hole in space."

[ Lt Cmdr Leon Marquez | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ]
@CanadianVet @Auctor Lucan  @Triage @Mathis @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Brutus @SummerDawn @Stegro88 @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe
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Leon shuddered internally as the ship rocked due to power failure and the cloaking device's malfunction. Damn this situation: where a next-generation dreadnought's vector was jury-rigged to a questionably-safe cloaking device. Never mind the Pegasus scandal Leon had been privately briefed upon, or Benjamin Sisko's ship and the strings pulled to get that installed. The technology, and compatability -were- there for this to work, but nothing like this, nothing this short-notice cobbled together like an old automobile retrofit. Leon continued monitoring the Task Force's progress (and that of A'vura's.) as he awaited to continue the next salvo of gassed-out torpedoes. Marquez didn't know what the nebula could have smelled like, but for Sankolov's sake, he hoped the impact of the torpedoes would cause a literal stink aboard. Maybe the smell would poison the parasite. Despite his admonitions to the contrary, Leon dabbled in wishful thinking to some extent during his duties.

"Belay the all out venting.  Shunt the plasma to the impulse reactors, empty deuterium tanks and Bussard collectors.  Only let go of the overflow.  Prepare to evacuate overheating sections of all non-essential personnel, and get the remainder into environmental suits." Trent ordered.

Never one to waste time when crew lives were in peril, Leon opened channels to the at-risk decks and sections. "This is the bridge. Evacuate immediately if your section is overheating, or get to an environmental suit. Move!" Leon was able to hushedly urge into the channel he'd opened which came out over those designated areas' comm speakers.

"Aye, Captain." Leon replied in an equally passive tone to the rest of the command, best befitting his scratchy growling accent; it wasn't like whispering was going to give them away... was it? "Vivian, drop down power to nonessential systems. Bottom the boat out. Dim the lights, if you have to. Give our Reman friend and our teams the most slack we can possibly afford." At his own orders, he powered down the extra tactical systems to mimimize the vessel's energy readings, warp silhouette, heat and infrared signatures, continuing to mention to fellow Resolve officer Vivian Martin, "Use some of the configs we used on our last deployment as a reference."

Meanwhile, he'd had another window opened with readouts of the Danube needed for the next course of action and had been at work looking for templates for the craft's loadouts. After a few seconds of designing the runabout's best equipment to be prepped, Leon then hailed the shuttlebay crew. "Bridge to shuttlebay: Prepare the runabout. Prepare it for... jackrabbiting." It was the closest euphimisim he could think of for the concept of a decoy, but had a workable template in hand to be rigged for a diversionary run.

With the cult of Morali seizing one runabout, and now this one altered as a sacrifice, Leon was passively starting to wonder how long their overall situation would last if they kept spending craft like that. It still didn't pass his notice that he hadn't heard from the other Vector crews for too long, but he hoped the runabout wouldn't lead the task force or its elements to the Stallion or Sword. Leon pulled up from his own cadet years with Danube prototypes, this would require a dedicated minute of adding additional power signature falsification while his console network-linked into a counterpart for him to work with someone in the bay itself, on a 2-way interface. "Bay reports the runabout will be good to go in T-minus 60." Marquez conveyed the info he'd received on his earpiece.

[ Sar-Unga Neleo/Dyan Cardamone | Corridors | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan

Drauc was a strange guy. He made her mind whirr ever-faster, and right now the high was like some sort of contraband drug. She couldn’t think of anything else that made her mind whirr like this, except at least sixty other lovers and a three-tiered wedding cake she ate all by herself once. Despite that number of lovers, she never remembered one who skimmed her mind and made her think like this. Most people either didn’t care, or weren’t around long enough to try.

She thought about his words. She had received a great number of wounds in her life, more than most people do. Part of it was her culture, and the other part was that she liked to be in ridiculously dangerous situations. She briefly remembered a few recent injuries, the most recent one being a small puncture hole over her velsren sac that wouldn’t close up for about a week after the procedure and always ached and throbbed.

But her mind was jolted, unpleasantly, to newer memories. The saucer, seeing her kind again, her hatred of Ives and Trent and anyone who wore a rank above hers...the sound of her family’s death. Silence.

Her brain tried to fill that silence rapidly. Don’t think, don’t feel it, don’t want it, don’t want it, don’t want it--

All this happened within seconds of being asked, and it was an objectively nuclear response. She went from baseline way-too-fast to overloading, about to explode, need to explode or she’ll implode instead. The whole emotional response revealed, if it wasn’t already evident, that she was more like a house of cards than a warrior on the inside. Her own rage, stubbornness, and stupidity kept her going, because others would have knelt to fate by now.

Her people had a belief about fate though. It was cruel, it was uncaring. It was a force more powerful than any other in the universe, and it snuffed out lives as if they were nothing. From what her mind could understand of the universe, every individual life was so small as to be insignificant anyway, so fate was not even obligated to notice.

In this way, the parasites were a part of fate. More powerful than anything else, and life was meaningless to them. She and her people would not be meaningless, they would not be lost to fate, made to be so tiny and powerless that the universe would not care if they died. The parasites would know her, see her coming and tremble, because she was Asurian and that meant she would challenge fate to it’s face, demand that she would be meaningful. Her death, when it came, would be part of a much louder cacophany of utter chaos and fury so powerful that the Asurians would not be lost in the cosmic grand scheme. I, she thought, will not be insignificant. I will be so loud, so cantankerous, so violent, so me that you, fate, will know who I am, what I am.

“...Well, mind reader, if you were paying attention, then I guess you get the idea.” She shrugged, coming back to life on the outside. Her thoughts had temporarily stunned her, as if her body could not process deep thoughts and conduct movement at the same time. And they were loud thoughts too, they made her ears ring the same way they would if she were in a perfectly silent room. It would take some time for her mind to ease back into it’s usual rush, and right now she felt like she needed blood to spill.

“And if you’re asking about the guy I killed, he tried to rape me. So he deserved it.” She shrugged off, with a sort of casualness in her mind that seemed entirely inappropriate given the fact that she murdered what was once her first love. He, like Drauc, was just a temporary fascination. Something to be tossed aside when she was done.  Her mind went over these thoughts openly, because they weren't truly important. She was still stuck on her cultural manifesto against the universe.

[LtCmdr Vivian Martin|Bridge|Vector 1| USS Theurgy] Attn: @Auctor Lucan  @CanadianVet  @Triton
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Vivian acknowledged the command from Trent with a quick “Yes sir!” as she quickly pulled up the appropriate information regarding the runabout and its warp signature. While ship operations and warp signatures were not Vivian’s area of expertise, like any good Starfleet officer, she had a basic understanding of it. Her eyes scanned the information before her and with and with deft fingers Vivian began to manipulate the math before her.

As she worked chaos and shouted orders still reigned on the bridge. Vivian took a deep breath and concentrated on her screen, trying to block out any and all distractions. She pressed her lips firmly together as she hurried to alter their Runabouts signature before the Task Force found their lone vector.

As her work progressed at a steady rate Vivian heard her name again, this time from Marquez, with orders to reroute power, to try and hide them once more. “Yes sir!” she called out again.

She quickly checked her calculations one last time before sending them to the team in the shuttle bay and quickly moving on to the power systems of the Vector. Slightly more slowly than she had been working on the math for the runabout, Vivian began to reroute power away from any and all systems that would be lighting up their location, and notifying the hunters in the Task Force.

Within a minute Vivian had dropped their power usage considerably, she just hoped she had dropped it far enough to conceal them again .”I’ve done what I can for the power grid Commander. The runabout should be ready for launch any moment now. We await your signal to launch.”

[PWO Selena Ravenholm | Vector 1 Engineering | Deck 6 | Vector 1 | USS Theurgy] attn: @Absinthe

Steely eyes still locked on F’Rell hovering above her, Selena couldn’t help but soften slightly when it spoke just three words.  “<I failed…>”  Like many others caught in a horrific situation caused by their hands (inadvertently or not), the eel froze up.  The console blurted out a new warning which pulled the cyborg’s attention back to it: the warp field was destabilizing.  In less than five minutes they would be stuck until the entire core could be reset, and there was no time to deal with that.

As much as Selena wanted to fix this, the symbols and math flowing across the warp core status screen were beyond her.  “Suq!” she yelled over all of the alarms and half-crazed engineers running around fixing everything while spouting out technobabble at a kilometer a minute.  Looking around frantically for the Efrosian and not seeing any sign of him, she had to really work at fighting the panic.  What in the name of all that was holy was he thinking tossing her at the core like this?

Out of options, Selena turned back to the floating eel, still hovering in the air in shock.  “Hey, are you still with me?  If you know anything about warp fields I need your help.  The field is crashing due to my partial shutdown, can you walk me through how to reset it for a lower power output?  I’m a programmer, not a warp field mathematician, I’m way outside of my field here.”

[ F'Rell of the 12th House | Engineering | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: Peeps in engineering~
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The seconds ticked by and F'Rell could not move, her body seeming to hang in the air, for the first time in her entire time on any ship inhabited by humans, her body seemed to drift with the air, even her usual subtle movements meant to hold her position had stopped. It was as if she had completely detached from the universe.

"<I... failed...>" came the translator, the voice in shock, though her long whisker-like tendrils had hardly seemed to move. In silent horror she watched the display, the timer showing the countdown to a critical warp field collapse and perhaps even a containment breach if the field fully destabilized. The situation was dire. And she could do nothing. The female humanoid asked her about the field, the field she had installed and was now causing the problem. It was supposed to work. She had done the math. She had missed a single variable and now they were dead.

She glanced to the area contained by the emergency force fields. She could no longer see the uniforms on the floor, no longer see the all but liquefied remains of the crewmen, soaking into the carpeted floor of engineering. That was her fault. She had made the mistake and it had killed them.

She turned to the woman, her body slowly beginning to list to the side, as if she was no longer even on the same spatial axis as the rest of them.

"<Warp... field...>" she began, her brain beginning to catch up. The warp field was losing stability, the warp core was redlining, and the plasma network was no longer distributing the excess heat correctly. She had to do something. Suq had gone somewhere, somewhere to do something to help. She had to do the same. She had to react. She had to...

It clicked and in a single movement of sublime grace and beauty, she moved to the console and began to tap at the controls hurriedly.

"<Do you know how to use the antimatter regulator?>" She asked as she began inputting new field parameters, designed to strengthen the field and keep it from needing a full reset, something that would require taking the warp core itself offline at this point. With her long tail, she gestured to a console nearby. "<See if you can balance out the antimatter-matter reaction. I am near certain these jumps are putting a heavy strain on your dilithium crystals, they could begin to crack. Keep an eye out for energy spikes.>" Her tone was suddenly calm. She knew what to do, she knew how to get them out of this, just as long as nothing else went wrong.

[ Lt. JG Derik Veradin (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Derik_Veradin) | Main Birdge | Vector 1 "Helmet" | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Auctor Lucan @Triton @CanadianVet @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Stegro88 
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As much fun as it was rapidly cue commands into his console, hurdling the Helmet into a new coordinate of space second after second, Derik’s stomach dropped even further than it had rested before when his screens lit up with alerts, flashing brightly, adding to the already hectic status of his station and to the bridge. The warp core had gone critical, he read, which was promptly confirmed by the computer’s voice. Thea, she was named, the Trill remembered, as he whispered a soft curse at the grim warning.

He couldn’t resist engaging the warp core, however. His life, and the hundreds of lives aboard his vector of the starship were counting on it. He had to keep flying, to keep dodging, to keep foiling Task Force Archeron’s pursuit. There was no other option than survival, and in this very moment, his decisions held the weight of hundreds of lives. But what good is a ship with no warp core? Or better yet, a breached warp core? Every jump he made, he uncontrollably grimaced at the fact that he was consistently stabbing the heart of his ship, injuring it, blood spilling into the nebula.

His brief moment of meditation in the anxious matter was starkly halted by the voice of Commander Dewitt, who alarmed the bridge officers that the First Minister was right on top of them. His navigational sensors blipped to life again after dropping from another jump, the Starfleet icon not yet identified, confirming her statement of their dangerous proximity. It was close. Uncomfortably so.

All they could do was run with the cloak still not operating, and Derik wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to pull that off. Even as his heart relentlessly beat, and his breaths remained sharp and rapid, he made sure his fingers made not a single tremble or mistake. His mind was racing, but his hands were focused. It was more than he have himself credit for, considering the enemy ship a few kilometers off the bow and the warp core threatening to give.

Over his uniformed shoulder, he advised in concurrence with the El-Aurian advisor, “Yes, we have to jump at least one more time! I’m running out of time to input safe coordinates, I can’t put too much attention into navigation without losing helm control.”

And just in time, growing more and more worried by the breath, Commander Dewitt sprang with half-answers to the Junior Lieutenant. "There are three others right behind it. Helm! Coordinated warp jump to specified coordinates almost ready. Just keep at it."

He grunted a confirmation, watching the ships on his impaired sensors, moments pouring by like molasses from a jar.  Without engaging the warp drive, they were practically still in space, despite of the impulse power he maneuvered the ship away from its attackers with. Without safe coordinates, he couldn't risk warping them into a war zone or a hyperinflammable cluster of nebula gas, especially with an unstable warp core. Hopefully Engineering was on top of it.

Ships still gaining in, Junior Lieutenant Veradin continued to flee at sub-light speeds, hoping the surrounding area was safe enough to not cause more trouble than they were already in. Without fail, Dewitt surprised him again with a suggestion that he did not want to hear. She wanted to make two more jumps. As much as he wanted to throw up his hands and scream a terrified, “What the fuck?” he trusted he was in safe hands, and shot an affirmative glance to his superiors behind him.

“I hope the ship will hold itself together for two more jumps,” he replied, eyeing the constant flashing “Warp Core Critical” warning on his consoles with ironic reluctance, “But relay me the commands. I’ll keep us safe.”

And with that, he gathered his focus and responded in no time of Dewitt's, "Helm! One jump for the torpedo-launch. Flip her over to use the four forward launchers, and jump to warp immediately!”

He engaged, and the blue gas on the view screen flurried into flight, becoming still a moment later, only to be lit once more by the flashing trail of torpedos. It was better to see the light of photon warheads rather than the breaching of his wounded warp core. The First Minister was struck badly, it was reported, and the frenzy of adrenaline clouded the image of dying explorers from his mind. His short breath awaited the second coordinates and his fingers remained statues over his controls, enthralled in the precision and accuracy he needed to example. The countdown was to come.

5. He let the air calmly flee his lungs through puckered lips.

4. A bead of sweat crawled from atop his spotted forehead, and dropped onto the grey shoulders of his uniform.

3. His hands hovered eager above the controls.

2. Was the ship going to withstand the jump?

1. Would we make it out of the nebula alive?

Engage. He closed his eyes, and awaited the outcome.

Upon their opening, he gulped in relief. No explosions, only the gravely familiar hectic air on the bridge. People still communicating over each other. Klaxons still blaring. Worry continuing to set it. They held it together for one last jump, but he was sure everyone aboard the Helmet was well aware another would be detrimental. They had achieved a minuscule warp factor of 2, which allowed the ship to keep its bulkheads screwed in place, but had yet to evade the pursuing fleet.

As the motion of the ship ceased, he felt it necessary to communicate his worry as the pilot of the heavily fevered vector, “Trent, Dewitt. I don’t know if another jump will be possible. I’m sure your screens are telling you the same thing, and the folks down in the engine room would agree. Our engines are severely overheated and every pixel of my console is telling to not do the very job I’m doing. We’re dead in the water unless we can make some speedy repairs without drawing too much attention to ourselves.”

Amidst the chatter, the redheaded Commander affirmed his statement, elaborating to the bridge crew by saying they couldn’t run any further without venting plasma. Drifting at impulse, per Dewitt’s orders, Derik sat grossly relieved that he had depleted all his available options as a helmsman. He began to reassess their predicament, searching his brain for any remnants of solutions he could use from his time on the Resolve. Natauna’s proposal lifted his ears quite a bit, using the sirillium that plagued the nebula to deliver a debilitating explosive blow to the Task Force. But it required them to first vent plasma, which would be a sure-fire beacon and cause the enemy vessels to swarm them like bees, and to cloak in order to effectively lure them into an available area and escape in time, both of which were two very improbable circumstances.

Her second idea, however, turned even more eager heads. To fake their deaths, to which their acting captain, Trent, hurriedly banked on, proposing a plan to use one of Theurgy’s runabouts to create a charade display of their demise. It was clear that the silent man, whose face expressed perpetual stoicism, had many an experience with tactical maneuvers and strategies as the commands flew from his lips with clarity and apparent expertise. The Trill admired his fellow Resolve survivor from the front of the bridge, valuing the exchange of words between Trent and Marquez, both having served as executive and tactical officers and feeding off each other’s energy.

Quickly conceptualizing the impending plan of action, Derik tapped his combadge. “Bridge to shuttle bay. This is your department head, Lieutenant Veradin. Report.” A junior officer replied positively. “Glad to hear it. Have all hands available. Await further commands from Commander Marquez. Standby.”

In the mean time, he trusted that his department down in the bay would be able to process their duties swiftly and accurately, as their service records and abilities were to be praised, and continued to tend to his awry CONN station, having a moment to breathe at impulse rather than bombarding the computer with new coordinates every second.

The air was still tense, yet they all seemed to breathe as one, now. They had a plan, and it was bound to work.

[ Drauc T'Laus (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Drauc_T%27Laus) | Outside Drauc's Quarters | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @FollowTomorrow @JayLatte @The Ostrich 
[Show/Hide]As practised as Drauc might have been on absorbing the surface thoughts of the people around him, the reaction to his questions was a whirlwind in which he could only single out a few things. It was, perhaps, the most honest reaction - the most intimate moment - he'd shared with Dyan Cardamone. He looked at her where they stood in the main computer core, and gleaned not just the defiance he'd known her by, but also this nurtured belief of her native people - a self-consciousness that few civilisations he'd encountered were prepared to admit.

He was silent afterwards, when she referred to her mind in knowledge of what he would have sensed.

It was not until she spoke of the Asurian that she'd killed on the saucer, that he nodded imperceptibly. When referred, images appeared, and he saw the dead male in her thoughts. What he tried to do to her, failing at the cost of his life. Yet as that unknown face died... Another face was superimposed over it. A face... that Drauc did recall. A Klingon face. Once a friend, like the Asurian, but he gleaned that Klingon completing the act with Dyan, managing to force himself upon her, on the floor of an interrogation room. What he saw was just below her surface thoughts. The catalyst...

And Drauc knew this Klingon. There were not many Klingons that shaved their heads any more.

"I saw Lieutenant Zaraq at Starbase 84," he rasped to her quietly, having learned the brute's name afterwards. He found his scarred hands clenching into firsts at his sides. "Had I known what he did to you... and known you the way I do now... I would not have let Captain Hawthorne crush his skull. He deserved worse, and you deserved to exact his punishment."

He was vehement in his tone... for another Klingon had been the reason for his desertion from Starfleet. Even that Klingon had sought to violate a woman, and he had intervened that time. Nurse Jovela remained grateful, her modesty preserved, but there was naught he could do for Dyan Cardamone. He did not bespeak Jaris-Al Kaori, since he'd been a lover she'd chosen. The first lover? He was unsure. Killing him had likely not been easy, yet killing Zaraq? Was it merely Starfleet protocols that had stopped her?

When he mentioned the Klingon's name, he saw someone else. The one who had stopped Zaraq in that interrogation room. A Vulpinian... Miles Renard. He, too, had been lost at the hands of Task Force Archeron at Starbase 84. He found himself... moved by the amount of grief she carried, and he reached out - his scarred hand resting on her shoulder. Words, they were so inadequate. "I wish there was anything I could do. Any condolences I give would ring hollow. Your regrets... have become my own."

Knowing what Jovela had done for him, he made the offer. "If you want to leave this ship," he grated quietly, "I can help you."

The decision was hers.

---

[ Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Dewitt | Main Bridge | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Triton @CanadianVet @Mathis  @Blue Zephyr @Absinthe @FollowTomorrow @chXinya @Stegro88 
[Show/Hide]Preparations were underway, coordinated between Tactical, Veradin, Martin and herself, to ready the USS Thames for its final, short voyage. Minutes passed by, antimatter was being loaded, the Theurgy's plasma venting was being restricted as best as possible, but what was being leaked could also make the fate of the Thames more convincing.

When she stepped up to Trent's side, Vector 01 was still adrift at a trajectory that was free of any sirillium gas, in thanks to the joint efforts of Derik Veradin and Zyrao Natauna. In a couple of minutes, the Thames would be launched, but the tactical situation in the Rendezvous Zone was still a nightmare. The cloak wasn't finished yet, and there was no telling if they could even risk trying to cloak again, since the last time, they had nearly been destroyed by the First Minister and the rest of the Task Force that waited for them out there in the swirling blue clouds of nebula particles. Admiral Sankolov was still out there, and they didn't know if the Sabine and her crew of two had survived. Worst of all, the warp core was still in critical condition, and there was no telling how much time it would take before they could risk jumping to warp with Vector 01.

The time was 0840 hrs., and even though they had survived so far, it was clear that they could not continue playing hide-and-seek with the task force. It was suicidal even if the Theurgy had been whole, and they still had a ship that could make warp jumps and didn't leak plasma behind them. They didn't have enough fire power to defend themselves, no fighter complement to cover their escape, no more warp-capable probes to create further distractions, and no Tovarek-class drones to utilise in further engagements.

Yet worst of all, in their current trajectory, propelled by inertia, they were heading straight into a cluster of Starfleet ships.

When she had told them this, a couple of minutes ago, it had been evident that the Thames had to be destroyed post haste.

"ETA... three minutes." With this in mind, Dewitt spoke to Captain Trent in the middle of the bridge.

"Sir, I think we need to make a choice, since we might never get the chance again," she said quietly, though everyone could hear her. She folded her arms below her chest, looking down at the deck plating. "In twenty minutes, the time for the third and last rendevouz will have run out. If neither of the other Vectors show up before then, the Continuance Protocol dictates that we continue our mission on our own, as best as we might. It stands to reason that we are the last of what's left of the Theurgy, and the rest have been killed by the hands of the Savi, or even the very ships that we are hiding from now."

It was a chilling thought, that everyone else were dead. Dewitt was not sure she could quite wrap her mind around the enormity of it. Nonetheless, it was her responsibility to protect what was left. She slowly paced towards the starboard side of the tactical display area, before the CONN station. "Option one. If the engineers can keep this Vector together for one more warp jump, we can jump at the same time as the Thames is destroyed, and we might just be able to mask our departure that way. We run the risk of getting the last Vector of the Theurgy destroyed if we stay, that's why I bring it up."

Then, her pacing took her to the other side, and she paused before the Ops station. "Option two. We stay, hoping that the others might still make it here in the final minutes, and we might even have to risk activating the cloak again... for I don't see how we can keep avoiding Admiral Sankolov's ships in this condition."

Staying also meant a slim chance for Trent to reintegrate the Theurgy with the other Vectors, even if logic suggested that they wouldn't come at that rate. If the ship was whole again - or if at least one more Vector made it - then Dewitt knew Trent would try to save the abductees from the Versant. She did not relish the prospect, even if she hoped the other Vectors would show up above anything else.

Leaving the Rendevouz Zone, with little chance that any surviving Vectors would learn where they went - more likely being attacked by Sankolov - hope might be lost for the abductees. Yet the mission could continue, as Ives had ordered, carried out by the last part of the USS Theurgy.

For surely Trent wouldn't attempt going up against the Versant with the Helmet alone?

Dewitt came to a stop in front of the bridge crew, her green eyes finding Trent's. "What say you, Captain?"

- FIN

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OOC: A poll will be posted, in which the whole sim can vote about where Vector 01 goes! :) A new Chapter will be posted with the outcome.