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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]
Last post by RyeTanker -Getting to the station was easy. Getting passed the patrols was non-trivial, and it had taken the crew some fancy flying when they'd been pounced on by a patrolling warbird, which left the Intelligence team adding to the litany of curses from ages past about not having a cloaking device. After taking fire for a while, they'd needed to do some fancy flying near a large and bright class A star and the judicious application of the ship's countermeasure suite, and Bob was your uncle. Except, the flying had gotten too fancy when the 'freighter' had flipped end over end and surprised the warbird by blasting a couple of holes in it after taking too many hits. Said hits had somewhat fried the internal systems, which were now causing some control issues as the ship hurtled through space towards a Romulan space station that was supposed to be involved in weapons development. A transmission from headquarters had provided an updated operations schedule from the Theurgy team which meant at maximum speed to catch up.
Chief Lau sat in the cockpit of the freighter as the ship vibrated around him. The normal smooth hum of the warp engines replaced with a deep and rough growl. He tapped a button to communicate with the engineering space. "Klaudia, how does it look?" Bessir's face was tight as worked to trim the warp field as much as possible to keep the ship FTL while the powerflow was becoming erratic. There was a pause "Can's say Chief, it's not my specialty. I mean, this was mainly the el-tee's thing. That last torpedo hit we took fried half a dozen relays and patching them isn't going well. We don't have the spares on board." She yelped as relay exploded in the background. Bessir decided to interrupt. "The nav system is starting to act up, we need to pull out of warp soon. I think we're almost at the station's coordinates."
It was a hard call, but the ship was falling apart around them and the Chief nodded. The Cardassian-Bajoran sniper nodded. "Getting ready to disengage warp drive." His fingers engaged the deceleration process and the growl got even louder as the damage control screen lit up like Christmas Tree and instead of a standard shortening of the starscape to pricks of light, the view began to spin as the ship exited warp violently. "Shiiiiit!" Bessir loudly cursed while everyone clung to whatever was handy as the inertial dampening field struggled to keep everyone from being turned into jam. Lau stretched an arm out and the process of re-routing power to the IDF was agonizingly slow as the sequence was input. After what seemed like an eternity, the centrifugal force slowed and the ship began to right itself as the sniper turned pilot got more control of the ship. It didn't take too much longer before the ship seemed to be more or less stable and out of immediate danger that Lau moved to the next steps. "How bad is it?" He could almost feel Cheung shaking her head. "I can't really say, but out port nacelle is leaking plasma and the starboard impulse thruster is having fits." A pause as she worked to make sense of the other information that coming out. "Structural Integrity is compromised, but holding; and everything else is damaged to one degree or another. Sensors, shields, and weapons are mostly okay......and shit! EW is out. Looks like the drop out of warp caused a surge that blew some of the emitters. I don't think we can produce a convincing cover to get us anywhere." That as bad news overall and the next decision was whether to abort. "Do you think the engines will get us anywhere safe?" "If safe counts as a Romulan prison, then sure. Definitely not back to Federation space."
That as bad news indeed and Dominic grimaced. The CHief pulled up a chart of the system that was being built while the ship flew further in system. The station was easy to identify due to the structural makeup and the power radiating from it. Artificial singularities were quite distinctive even from a star. There was one bit of 'terrain' the would make this whole escapade possible and he turned to Bessir with a death head's grin. "How lucky are you feeling?" The teammate looked back with dread, then grinned. "Do I have a choice?" "Well, the alternative is capture, torture, and a firing squad." The hybrid snorted. "Then I'm feeling lucky as hell." The Chief nodded at this and uploaded the flight path to the objective. A quiet 'shit' followed."This should be fun." "Indeed. All hands, secure yourself. This ride is going to be bumpy."
Bessir pumped the impulse engines to maximum. Given the entrance they'd made into the system, there was no hiding, so no sense in being subtle. The Mary Baldwin 'dove' into an asteroid cluster that would lead to the station and Bessir corkscrewed and weaved between masses of rock. The ship pulled at the crew as they made their run in like a mad missile throwing an evasive pattern, but guiding unerringly on a target. "Looks like they're waking up. Let's see what's left of the EW suite. Beginning wide spectrum jamming." Bessir only nodded as Lau cut off communications with the outside and he flipped the ship over and pulled past another rock. Manoeuvrable the freighter was, a small nimble fighter it was not as a piece of astral debris was smacked aside by the shields and the crew lurched forward as the kinetic energy was transferred to the ship. The ship lurched sideways again since Bessir hasn't really a pilot and didn't have the skills to dodge everything in the asteroid belt.
Lau was frankly more surprised that they hadn't collided head on with any of the larger rocks, but soon it got harder as green beams glanced out in their path. There were fewer then expected, which was a small saving grace. The ship shuddered from a glancing blow and Lau ran scans on the station to determine points of interest. A section quickly lit up that was using more energy than the initial scan and the signature matched the one a shield generator would give off. "I'm locking on to their shields and communications system. " okay, here we go." Bessir announced as the ship cleared the final asteroid and the station lay in front of them stabbing space with angry green beams. "Targets locked and.... Firing!" Micro torpedoes flew into space in angry red orbs and quickly covered the distance between the Mary Baldwin and the station. Orange beams also lanced out and they hadn't a prayer of overwhelming the entire shield system. While most of the war heads and beams wasted themselves against the energy barrier, they were just enough to cause a local failure and a few torpedoes made it through to the hull. The metal buckled under the blasts of the phasers then the warheads plowed their way through. A Romulan crew standing watch over the primary shield generator worked frantically to try to reinforce the shields, but it was too late as an small matter/anti-matter warhead struck the bulkhead around them and vented it's fury into the compartment. They didn't even have time to scream as they were incinerated along with all the equipment. Breakers throughout the station tried to stem the energy feedback and some succeeded, but others failed and other sections of the station exploded as their relayed blew up, sending more shrapnel and plasma careening through compartments along the energy's path. Havoc reined on the command deck as a quarter of the consoles exploded in flaming ruin compounding the green bloody mess of watch crewman being torn to shreds by glass and alloys.
The Mary Baldwin didn't have it all her way though as a beam cleave straight through the damaged nacelle and shattered it at the very end. Thankfully, Cheung had the presence of mind to shut the engine down, so the damage was limited internally, but the ship would probably never fly again as a chunk of warp coil smashed the undamaged nacelle and rendered it inoperative. Cheung took a moment to check her displays as she picked herself up off the deck.
"Chief, we've lost all warp drive. Both nacelles are gone." Lau confirmed as he checked his own display, then looked out the window to see a metal stub on one side, and streaming wreckage on the other. "Understood. Bessir, drive us at this hab complex and try to brake us before we hit too hard." Bessir now looked up. "Have you lost it?" The chief's rictus grin got more deadly "Not at all." Looking back at the flaming station, he targeted the section he wanted to crash and released another volley of torpedoes then hit the intercom.
"All hands brace for impact." with scant moments to secure himself and divert all power to the SIF/IDF and shields, the freighter plowed into the cavity the explosions gouged into the station and tore itself deep into the complex. Metal screamed and screeched as systems got jumbled and power relays registered their protest by sparking or exploding. Lau gritted his teeth as he pushed against the console in front of him while the straps dug into his muscled body while keeping him in his seat. Eyes stared wide as metal tore itself apart and the sliding death scream transferred itself into the hull in front of his very eyes and suddenly with a final lurch it was over. With the violence over, Lau stayed put while his brain caught up with the fact that he was alive. A groan to his side caused him to look over at the pilot/sniper and he was gratified to Bessir pushing himself up from the console, then slowly look over with a grin. "See Chief, told ya. Feelin lucky as hell." Chief Lau grinned back. "That's the spirit Bessie, now get your lazy ass out and let's check on everyone else while we gear up. We're going in heavy."