Star Trek: Theurgy

Chapter 1: Triggered Much? [ Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

January 05, 2024, 08:43:04 AM

[ Lt. Carson | onboard the Apache | Romulan Space ] ATTN: @BipSpoon   @Stegro88   @RyeTanker   @P.C. Haring  @Ellen Fitz  @Sqweloookle

He hated this fucking job, but he hated the Infested even more. Wasn’t a particular fan of Romulans, though he’d be damned if he ever breathed a hint of that anywhere near the LT leading one of the two major missions at this damned R&D facility. Only a handful of their overall team remained with the Apache, while the rest were currently infiltrating the facility. Carson didn’t know if he was among the “lucky” ones to remain behind or if they were the ones damned to death because he could feel it in his bones, people were going to die on this mission. A lot of them.

“I’ve got two latinum bars on the LT,” he turned his head to smirk at Martin, the only other crew member still on the bridge while the rest of the skeleton crew manned their stations elsewhere, “she’s going to blow this whole place sky high.”

Martin cocked his head, staring at Carson as if he were an idiot, “Why the fuck would I want to bet against that when that’s rather what part of the mission is about?”

“Well,” Carson snorted, “I didn’t say whether she would do it while she and the others are safely aboard the ship.”

“I can’t tell if you’re hoping people are going to die on this mission or if you’re just so fucked up that you’re assuming we’re all going to die,” Martin glared at him a few more seconds before sighing and shaking his head, “Probably both.”

Carson shrugged, gaze wandering back to his console, observing the monitors as they beeped this and that regarding their away teams. It was about time to check in with the rest of the skeleton crew, make sure everything was up to speed and ready in case shit went south–and it would. He may hate his job, but he didn’t hate EVERYONE on the crew so much that he’d be the fucking twat to get them all killed.

---

OOC: The objective of this thread is to infiltrate the facility, scan the triggers and anything else useful for combating the thalaron-based weaponry. There is a story prompt that may be accessed during the time on the facility if anyone in this mission thread, or the other mission thread, is interested in taking that on. I will be NPCing Bip's characters of Henshaw and Rez until Bip gets back.

Re: Chapter 1: Triggered Much? [ Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #1 – February 12, 2024, 10:50:31 AM

[ Ens. Cameron Henshaw | Maintenance Corridor | Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ]  @Stegro88  @Number6  @Nesota Kynnovan  ((later on: @RyeTanker @P.C. Haring  @Hans Applegate ))

Cameron squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for their team to get through this next round of security protocols before they could enter the station proper. They were barely inside the station on their mission, and they’d already almost lost one of their teammates. Okafor’s suit malfunctioned just shy of their entry point. If sh’Laan hadn’t been quick on the response, the medical officer would’ve shot clear past the station and continued on into open space until his propulsion unit had given out entirely. It’d been a damnably tricky approach, and she made a mental note to speak to Ives about increasing their suit training. They’d had to double up more and nearly compromised their approach since more members on their team were not fully qualified for all the suit maneuvers, which was part of what led to Okafor’s malfunction.

Glancing at the rest of the group, Cameron gave them a reassuring nod (a gesture she wished someone would do for her). “Red team should be infiltrating on the opposite wing by now and will plant explosives as they make their way to the docking bay. We are to contact them if we become compromised only, then they’ll start rattling the pots and pans to draw off attention so we can complete our mission. We are to rendezvous with them in the docking bay at 0100. That gives us seven hours to find everything we can to give our people a leg up against Tal’Aura.”

Cameron waited for questions or comments, inwardly sighing when the last hatch baring their way to the station was opened, compliments of bypassing the security protocol. Seven hours was a long time and not enough, giving them plenty of opportunities to get caught or succeed.

---

The Theurgy-based NPCs in this chapter are: Amelya Rez (NPC), Tyreke Okafor (NPC), Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Guy Benton (NPC), Lt. J.G. Vince Kennedy (NPC).

If you opted in for the odd and bizarre secret prompts, you can use these in any of the chapters.

Rye, PC, and Hans may choose to join this chapter or the other, TBD.

Re: Chapter 1: Triggered Much? [ Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #2 – March 07, 2024, 07:35:46 AM

[Lt Reika Sh’Laan | Maintenance Corridor | Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ]
@Stegro88  @Number6  @Nesota Kynnovan @Ellen Fitz  ((later on: @RyeTanker  @P.C. Haring  @Hans Applegate ))

Reika stood only feet away from Henshaw who seemed to be gathering her thoughts as everyone congregated just outside the last barrier to entering the station.  Everything in Sh’Laan wanted to pull at the blasted EV suit.  ‘These weren’t made for Andorians,’ she thought.  And they weren’t.  Her antennae were plastered flat forward against her head.  She could feel them squirming trying to work their way into a more comfortable position.  ‘At least these suits have climate control settings, so my eyes won’t burn from drops of sweat.’ 

At that moment at the head of the group, Henshaw started giving them what would likely be their final briefing before they entered the research facility.  While she listened to the Ensign, Reika glanced diagonally at Okafor to ensure he was recovering emotionally from his snafu with his EV suit.  Despite the suit's environmental controls, Reika could see beads of sweat dotting his brow.  But from what she could tell, he seemed to have his mental faculties about him again and his attention was at the front of their column on Cameron.

Her eyes gliding back to the short woman in the front, the Andorian took in everything Henshaw was saying.  Seven hours.  Seven hours to find a needle in a haystack.  Sure they had tricorders with them, but in a station this size the thaleron triggers could be almost anywhere, there was no guarantee that they were going to find them all …  They weren’t even given a number - instead they were told just to find them and gather the data - in seven hours.  And while seven hours felt so short for their task, seven hours also gave them an eternity to get caught or wounded or … worse.

As her thoughts paused momentarily on the ‘or worse,’ a picture of Kino flashed across Reika’s mind, and she deliberately pushed it away.  This was not the time to worry about either of them.  This was the time to focus on the mission - to be all in - to be single-minded. And while she loved that gorgeous Trill and would do everything in her power to be reunited with her, she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of thinking of her right now.

With eyes and thoughts back on Henshaw’s last words, Reika drew a long slow breath as she waited for anyone else's questions and thought of a small piece of earth literature she had memorized at one point that felt very fitting in their present circumstances. 

‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our [Romulan] dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage.’

Re: Chapter 1: Triggered Much? [ Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #3 – March 10, 2024, 10:42:51 PM

[Lt Vanya| Maintenance Corridor | Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ]
@Stegro88 8  @Dree   @Nesota Kynnovan a Kynnovan @Ellen Fitz tz  ((later on: @RyeTanker Tanker  @P.C. Haring Haring  @Hans Applegate ))

As Vanya looked around the enemy space station, she considered the paper portfolio nestled in her gear back on the ship  It was a proposal on the positive uses of Thaleron, written by a Theurgy lab orderly.    Nueva had once been a promising officer, but this research, like the subject itself had burned through and obliterated her career.   If they were still in the Federation, Vanya would have committed a court martial offense.   She would have been drummed out of Starfleet, but not before some vengeful admiral had her freedoms overridden and had her dismantled and archived in some back water annex of the Daystrom institute.
  
Few things made Vanya more uncomfortable than Thaleron.   She tried to weigh things up rationally.   Perhaps it was the destructive potential of the stuff.    As a scientist, every thought and position she had told her that it was something that should be destroyed, and every piece of Thaleron research should be locked on a fire wall where after successfully entering a 47 character encryption key, the person must take an ARA test to confirm that they are not going to use the data to construct a weapon, just that they are looking to counteract the effects of one such bomb that had been created somewhere else.  

On the other hand, she was much like a Thaleron weapon herself.    They were both created by Romulans.   They were both designed to be weapons of last resort, her an android that was against all Romulan doctrine on synthetic life forms, Thaleron a weapon that could rip the life from a world.  And yet…

She had been allowed to escape.   Her creator had given her a spark of self-determination and independence – something that many cultures had feared in AI’s since the earliest speculative fiction on a hundred worlds.   And yet, she had not attempted to usurp organics, or enslave them, or do anything other than what was asked from her as a Starfleet officer.    And yet, just by doing that and doing what was ultimately right, she was a renegade anyway.    

Was her mother, and Crewman Nueva truly that different?   She might be an officer of Vanya’s grade, or above, but in focusing on illegal Thalaron research, she had doomed herself to scientific oblivion, in the same way her mother cand condemned herself to death for something that she believed in too.   It was clear from the research.  

Still, the time for debate was past.   The mission was clear.   

"Let's do this." she said at last