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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]
Last post by Hans Applegate -As soon as the Mary Baldwin impacted the Romulan Space Station, Knox stood up from his chair on the bridge and turned to his friend Dominic Lau, “See you on the station. I am heading to engineering to help evacuate any survivors and scuttle the Mary Baldwin. Just to be clear, our instructions were to cause mayhem so the stealthy team can sneak in during the chaos we unleash and grab the goods. I plan to make this space station unusable by them when we leave. Let’s aim to be gone in 15 minutes or less.”
With that, Knox sprinted to the weapons locker and grabbed a few charges to fix engineering. He also place 4 phaser pistols against his chest and absorbed them into his body before shifting his appearance. His skin took on the form of an extravehicular space suit to survive the vacuum of space if that became necessary. And there was a good chance that it would. Armed with 4 guns and two large shaped charges Knox took a minute to appreciate exactly what he was about to do and smiled an honest smile to himself. Not one of those learned responses to fit in with the solid members of the crew, but a real one. He was going to enjoy the next 15 to 20 minutes. He thought for a minute and then decided that 20 minutes might be better. He could have more fun, and more solids who were members of his crew might make it out with the extra 5 minutes. Yeah, his people might make it out, but these Romulans, they weren’t going to have a good day. Hell, if he had anything to do with it this would be their last day.
When Knox arrived in engineering he found complete chaos. Someone was trying to contain the warp core. Others were fixing relays, and attending to the wounded. “Whoever is in charge here report now!” Knox commanded with no real authority to do so. He just knew that in chaos like this people quickly responded to take charge attitude. Also, his imposing frame in the large exo suit added to it and he knew they could not tell who he was, just that he was Federation.
“Sir,.?, Uh.. its very bad.” an engineer stammered. “The core is about to go critical if we don’t shut it down. It will blow in 30 to 40 minutes at this rate.”
“Good.” Knox nodded to the shock of the ensign. “Show me the most critical areas that if they took direct damage this thing would completely blow.”
“Here Sir,” the nervous ensign pointed to two areas on either side of the warp core.
“Great!” Knox placed the two charges and let everyone who had stopped working at this point and were watching what he was doing. As everyone looked he set them to detonate in 20 minutes. “OK, everyone!” Knox stood up to face the ashen-faced crew members staring in disbelief. “If anyone wants to live longer than 20 minutes you need to evacuate the Mary Baldwin and board the Romulan space station we are currently lodged inside. Make your way to the hangar or something and steal any space-capable vehicle you can and fly the fuck away from here. Those are your orders. Now Move!” He yelled. They all quickly scrambled away. Most likely heading to the transporter room or something. Step one of his plan of unleashing chaos as a shroud to conceal the great technology robbery was set in motion. Also, this would cover their tracks and really fuck with the Romulans in this sector.
Knox used his communicator to inform Lau of what he had just done as he made his way to an airlock. On the way, he was fortunate enough to find a hull breach. A fissure had formed from the enemy fire on the ship and ripped open during the collision. Knox pried his way out and into the vacuum of space and skirted along the stricken hull of the Mary Baldwin turned fireship towards the space station.
Seeing a small access panel below him towards the bottom or southward end of the space station where Knox thought a military-minded race might keep a barracks, Knox pushed off from the hull and drifted towards the access port.
Once inside the station, Knox could hear alarms blaring. Commands were being yelled in corridors all around him. Through the walls he could hear the stamp of boots running and weaker-willed individuals screaming. Apparently, the Romulans were not ready for war today he mused as the airlock repressurized and the door opened letting him inside the station proper. OK, just a few minutes to get as many kills as possible before I need to find a way to get the fuck away from this place so I don’t get unlived too. His skin changed from the space suit form to a matt black ballistic fabric texture covering everything except his eyes. He had a dark reflective wrap-around visor encircling most of his head hiding 8 human-like eyes but hybridized with the Gorlokian Bat retinas giving him the ability to see in infrared seeing heat in pitch darkness. He pulled the 4 pistols out of his chest and grew an extra set of arms. Now with 4 arms each holding a pistol and 360-degree augmented vision Knox opened the next set of doors in front of him and sprinted through ready for a hunt. A running gunfight of a hunt that he would long remember. "I am become Chaos, destroyer of Space Stations." Knox thought to himself with glee as he found the first group of Romulan security personnel.