Star Trek: Theurgy

Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

January 05, 2024, 08:40:35 AM

[ Petty Officer Dylan Cobb | onboard the Apache | Romulan Space ] ATNN: @BipSpoon    @RyeTanker   @Number6   @P.C. Haring  @Ellen Fitz

Dylan felt sick to his stomach. He hated being left behind like this. What made the Apache any different from a sitting duck? What could they do if things went bad inside? They’d have to sit and wait no matter what, hoping against hope that they didn’t get themselves shot to pieces before everyone came back so they could get the hell away. And that was IF everyone got back.

“Hey, Chief,” Dylan called out to Chief Warrant Officer Tarsi sh’Zhan, waiting until the Andorian paused in the corridor next to his station before he continued, “If you had to put a number on our odds of survival, what would it be?”

Her antennae flagged back and forth a moment, and Dylan watched as a wry smile played at the edges of her blue lips before she replied. “I learned a long time ago that numbers can be manipulated. Just do your job, Cobb, and do it well. We’re all here to succeed, and you’ve got to trust that.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” He watched her walk away, feeling marginally bolstered by her words.

Lieutenant Carson called for updates on stations seconds later. Cobb was snapped back into his job, relegating his earlier fears to the same portion of his brain where he kept his reminders to eat his vegetables.

---

OOC: The objective of this thread is to infiltrate the facility, and while the other thread is scanning the triggers and anything else useful for combating the thalaron-based weaponry, this mission team is tasked with smashing everything that’s smashable and basically making a diversion and mess of things. 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.  Mission teams were assigned in the first chapter thread, and you are welcome to have your character respond to that first before launching into the mission here. We have Asra Tek, Lt. J.G. Vince Kennedy, Chief Petty Officer Helena Prince, and Petty Officer Second Class Riley Patterson with us to do with as we please (kill or not kill is the question). I will be NPCing Amarik. Rye's character and/or PC's character will show up later. Happy hunting!

Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #1 – February 12, 2024, 11:24:12 AM

[ Lt. Valyn Amarik | traversing vacuum between the Apache and Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ] @Stegro88  @Sqweloookle ((later, either this chapter thread or the other: @P.C. Haring @RyeTanker @Hans Applegate ))

Valyn adjusted the angle of her approach with subtle movements, knowing too much, and she’d ping off the side of the station like space junk. She couldn’t afford to take her eyes off her target (an outer maintenance hatch on one of the smaller wings of the station) and, therefore, could only hope that the rest of her team had kept up with their suit training prior to this mission.

This sort of infiltration required not only a spacewalk outside their ship but an open vacuum traversing as they moved from their cloaked ship over to the station. This area, already riddled with asteroid debris, offered what could be considered a perfect cover if it wasn’t a Romulan station they were seeking to infiltrate. Though they were using the smaller pieces of debris to mask their appearance, anchoring behind the larger pieces to move sporadically with their propulsion units, Valyn knew it was a long shot that they’d manage to get into the station completely unnoticed.

“Disguised” as they were, some two to a piece of debris with only Amarik and two others managing debris solo, should someone try to catch a visual on the minuscule blip their bodies would register as on the station’s sensors, they’d likely see only the debris. Since their adjustments on trajectory and movement were calculated to avoid the appearance of intent, the infiltration side of this maneuver was taking a hell of a lot longer than any of them would like.

She knew that the other team, Blue Team, was making a similar maneuver along a different arm of the station, one that, according to their covert scans, seemed to be closer to the labs on the station and thereby, hopefully, that much closer to the triggers they needed to scan. Amarik’s Red Team was to make some noise when necessary to divert attention but, until then, covertly lay the groundwork for a later explosive show.

A piece of debris accelerated past her, and Amarik swore. They had to maintain radio silence out here, so there was no way to call out to Kennedy and Patterson, the two officers sharing the debris, to slow down. Valyn subtly increased her propulsion unit to try and keep up, watching Kennedy as he signaled the problem: Patterson’s propulsion unit malfunctioned and would not switch off or adjust to lower levels. Again swearing at their luck, Valyn signaled back: eject the system. It would leave Patterson needing a ride home should they need to retreat the way they entered, but they’d worry about that later.

Patterson complied without hesitation, and they used Kennedy’s unit to adjust the trajectory of their debris, angling for the debris to shoot past the station. At this rate, they’d hit the station first, which, as long as they didn’t fuck it up for all of them, suited Valyn just fine. In the debrief before launching, the plan had been to get to the hatch, override the tech codes to break in without setting off alarms, and then work their way through the station deck by deck, the docking bay their ending target before triggering the first explosives they’d planted to make it easier to get out of the station via the docking bay, possibly with a stolen vessel if things worked completely as they wanted.

But, again, the station being Romulan and Tal’Shiar at that, Valyn already knew they would not get everything they wanted.

---

The Theurgy-based NPCs in this thread are Asra Tek (NPC), Chief Petty Officer Helena Prince (NPC), Crewman Petra Vansen (NPC), and Petty Officer Second Class Riley Patterson (NPC). Do with them as you see fit. Also, remember, if you opted in for the odd and bizarre secret prompts, you can use those in any of the episode chapters.

The in-bound characters on the shuttle may join in this thread or the other, TBD presently.

Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #2 – March 24, 2024, 10:54:48 PM

[ CPO Dominic Lau | Mary Baldwin | Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ] @Ellen Fitz @BipSpoon @P.C. Haring @Hans Applegate @Sqweloookle @Stegro88

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 wasn'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 lanced 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 stabbed out and they hadn't a prayer of overwhelming the entire shield system.  While most of the warheads 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 its 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 relays blew up, sending more shrapnel and plasma careening through compartments along the energy's path. Havoc reigned 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 cleaved straight through the damaged nacelle and shattered it..  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."

Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #3 – March 31, 2024, 09:56:37 AM

[ CPO Knox | inside the Mary Baldwin half inside the Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ] @Stegro88   @Sqweloookle  @Ellen Fitz   @P.C. Haring  @RyeTanker

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 place the two charged 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.

Re: Chapter 1: The (hopefully) Great Romulan Smash and Grab [Day 1 | 1800hrs ]

Reply #4 – April 23, 2024, 11:21:06 PM

[ Lieutenant JG Adam Kingston | Between the Apache and the Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ] attn: @Ellen Fitz @Stegro88  Apologies for the delay, Tafe has been rough with assessment due dates. Sorry for holding this up.

Along with the rest of the Red team, Adam was on his way to the Romulan Research and Development Station but through the vacuum of space in an environmental suit. All his equipment magnetically attached to his suit in some way or another.

He watched as the other took advantage of the small asteroids to mask their approach, he grabbed one that was just the size of two humanoids holding hands while stretched out to arms length and quickly grabbed onto it. It was already on course towards the station so it was good, though he tried not to do anything that could alter its trajectory but was prepared to use his thrusters just in case and softly.

The sense of paranoia of the Romulan's sensors detecting them floated around Adam's thoughts as he watched the HUD display inside his helmet. It showed the other Red team members in the passive scan radius. He was concerned when he saw Kennedy and Patterson go out of control but one saved the other at the last moment.

Adam sighed in relief and waited for when he was to get close enough that he could let go of the asteroid to drift over to the Station's hull. After that the task was to find an airlock or some other way in. It was a pity that they couldn't communicate as that would reveal their approach and positions, maybe they could look into some gizmo to equip onto their suits to cause interference so they could communicate using the interference as a medium.

Some time later…

Adam was drifting towards the Station hull after releasing the asteroid he rode in with, he checked the others to see if all had made contact as well. He appeared to be the last one to arrive. His suit's magnetic boots automatically stuck to the hull and he sighed again because he was glad the space flight was over.

He made his way to where the Red team seemed to be clustering to and he wondered about just how they were to breach the Station.