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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Chapter 4: Mission Objective: SHOW UP AND DON'T BLOW UP
Last post by Ellen Fitz -ATTN: @Brutus @RyeTanker @ob2lander961 @Tae @Eden @Sqweloookle @Griff @Eirual @Dree
TIME: Day 2, 0800hrs
It was a strange experience indeed to be inside a shuttlecraft packed to the brim with people, stranger still, for them all to be armed. Indeed, some hasty work had been done on the Theurgy to convert the shuttles into impromptu troop transports, and there had been some grumbles in the aft compartment about the seats, but it was too late to do anything now. Within minutes, the Erudite would arrive at Hobus, and the near-suicidal mission to save Romulus would begin.
In the forward compartment, Alistair (now clad in a rather gaudy gold exosuit) wondered idly how the Romulans would respond when they learned that Starfleet saved their capital world. He only let the train of thought go on for a few moments before cutting it off. He (by some strange cosmic irony) was in command. He needed to focus.
An abrupt beeping broke the thick tension in the shuttle, and Alistair answered it immediately, seeing an unfamiliar Savi appear on the screen. This one looked horribly pale and drawn, but for Savi, that might simply be normal.
"Lieutenant Leavitt, our approach has been detected," the Savi said. "However, enemy defences are much weaker than expected, and we have lost sensor contact with the dreadnought Panacea. Our tactical analysis suggests a trap. Do you concur?"
"I concur," Alistair said, feeling the unease in his stomach build. "Even so, it's an opportunity, one that we cannot ignore. They'll have a much harder job fighting us on the station instead of in space. I guess the diversionary mission worked, at least somewhat." He hesitated, looking around him at the people who might die in the coming minutes and hours, the people who probably would die. "We're going in. Take us out of warp as scheduled, please."
The Savi bristled. "You understand that the survival of the Erudite is paramount? If necessary, we will leave you, human. We certainly will not die for you."
Alistair couldn't help but smile solemnly at the screen. "That was never in doubt, trust me. It's been...uh..." he paused, deciding on the truth rather than a polite lie. "It's been an interesting experience working with you. Leavitt out."
All that was left to do was wait. It didn't take long. With the huge hangar doors already open, the Starfleeters could actually see the transition to normal space. As soon as the stars were visible, Alistair pressed a control, the final line of the checklist...the final opportunity to back out. A bright blue beam flashed past the Erudite within an uncomfortable close, surely a graviton beam lance, the same weapon that had so effortlessly penetrated a Borg cube's defenses. The Erudite couldn't have dodged the monstrous weapon by much. It was time.
"All Starfleet ships, launch, launch, launch."
~~
[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Aboard the USS Lindstrom (Type 11 Shuttle) | Space between Hobus Station and Erudite]
It was certainly an impressive light show as the pair of shuttles dodged through space as bright energy fire lanced around the shuttle. It definitely seemed like the arrival of the Erudite was unexpected as the return fire was uncoordinated and focused on the Savi Dreadnought. Lieutenant Zark didn't really like the plan. Their available strength had been cut down by a last-second addition that had taken Lieutenant zh'Wann off to another unexpected station in system, leaving her in charge of the security detachment and down by about a third of their leadership.
Now, they were going to break into a hostile station, not knowing what to really expect from a technologically superior opponent. But they had an edge. As technically peaceful as Starfleet was ,though, its personnel were still far better equipped in creating havoc that a species of scientists, and Lt.Zark had lots of experience to draw on.
The shuttle shifted and pulled the Andorian out of her ruminations as the formation of small craft maneuvered to avoid some of the fire and aimed for the entry point. This part was tricky as getting the Savi to agree to accept instructions from a less advanced species had been a major effort on the part of the one diplomat with the team. The principal was going to be brutally simple. The Erudite would focus all it's fire at a specific point to induce local shield failure while the fighters and shuttles would go through the gap before the backups could cover the gap.
Once through, the fighters would provide cover while the shuttle docked with the station, and a breaching charge would blast a hole in the hull, allowing everyone in quickly. From there, it got more tricky as one team led by Ensign Milly Dubois would seize the data node and power centre in what would be an attempt to access the station's systems while trying to cause sections of the station to overload. Lieutenant Zark, in the meantime, would lead the team specialists deeper into the station to access primary systems and cause some real damage.
A tight pattern of blue energy smashed into the station, and the shields flared for a moment under the relentless assault.
"Here goes nothing." The pilot sounded out loud as he watched the LCARS panel as energy flooded the area, sending sensors into high-range readings while trying to determine if the shields had collapsed. The result could be seen soon as another pattern of blue fire made it through and explosions tore the hull in a mass of fire and metal.
That was all the sign Lieutenant Zark needed as she heard herself say, "Punch it." and the shuttle lurched for the gap.
~~
[Ensign Sylvain Llewellyn-Kth | USS Lindstrom | Approaching the Hobus Station | Hobus System]
Sylvain’s eyes were a blur of white and hazel, his pupils flickering from panel to panel as his fingers danced a jive across the console before him, a dizzying array of activity that barely afforded him a moment to breathe. It was taking everything he had just to keep on top of the litanies of information that the sensors were feeding him, his hands bringing the ship into a moderately tight lurch in response to an incoming round of disruptor fire; they hadn’t taken a hit, yet, but he didn’t entirely trust that the shuttle’s shields would be able to weather much of an impact from the Savi’s superior weaponry…
Regardless of his own concerns, however, the Ensign had little time to consider them, a small hiss of breath escaping from his mouth as he re-adjusted their wayward trajectory and realigned their shuttle with their target, guiding them dangerously close to the perimeter shields of the Hobus Station, and onwards towards their objective.
Truthfully, had he not required the entire breadth of his brain power to be fixated on the task at hand, his wandering mind might have blanched at how bafflingly risky their plan seemed to be...
It had been a fair amount of time since he’d actually served in his capacity as a pilot, having spent the past few months being ferried across Federation Space on Admiral Anderson’s orders, so, in a way, it was a welcome return to find himself back behind a helm again. On the other hand, he’d never been in a situation where the odds were stacked so vehemently against him before, and the knowledge that their tiny shuttle was currently hurtling towards a shield whilst an alien space station and dreadnought tried to blow each other into the void, wasn’t providing much in the way of making this a gentle reunion for him… Still, he knew what he was doing, and getting the boarding party aboard the Hobus Station and making sure their escape route remained safe was probably the easiest job of those who were aboard.
“Here goes nothing…” He barely breathed, eyes fixated on his sensors even as his pale skin was bathed in a dazzling array of blue light, the data spiking to inordinate levels in clarification that the Savi shielding had failed, verified further when a volley of energy from the Erudite lanced into the side of the Hobus Station and carved a small section out of the hull.
If he needed further confirmation that it was time to move, it came when the Andorian beside him quietly instructed him to ‘punch it’, and whilst Sylvain typically understood that command as an instruction to go to warp, he was fairly confident that he understood what the Lieutenant meant.
Pale fingers flooded across the LCARS panel as he maneuvered the shuttle into a tight turn, dodging around a fragment of debris that the Erudite's weapon fire had torn loose and threading the shuttle into the breach in the Station’s shields with an artisan’s proficiency. The ship sailed the final kilometers without issue, the few bundles of debris far less concerning than the fusillade of energy weapons that had been threatening them previously, affording Sylvain enough time to rush up a docking procedure that would bring them in line with a port that was shadowed in some of the twisted metal that clawed away from the hull, hopefully providing them a little extra cover. Their scans indicated that the atmosphere of the station was still present on the other side, so with any luck, the next part would proceed smoothly.
“Docking sequence initiated…” He calmly called out, his clear tone cutting through the relative silence of the ship as his fingers input the final few instructions, the computer instantaneously calculating the descent velocity, and their combined efforts resulting in a solid thud echoing up through the hull of their shuttlecraft. “You’re up, Lieutenant…” Sylvain gently turned to the Andorian as he spoke, trying to offer up a moment of calm to those who would be entering the station themselves. “I don’t know what sort of interference there will be, but I’ll keep the transporters on standby and get a lock on you all as soon as the shields are down…” He wasn’t any particular savant with transporters, but he knew how to tell the computer to get a lock on any non-Savi bio signs, at the very least. “And I’ll make sure you all have a shuttle to come back to when you’re done.”
Sylvain’s confidence in the second clause of his promise was one he felt far less confident with; an encounter with a Savi response team wasn’t something he should reasonably be expecting to survive after all… Still, he could only trust that the boarding parties and the fire from the Erudite would collectively cause enough chaos that the Savi wouldn’t have spare security teams available to come and hunt their shuttle down… If they did, he had a phaser, a knife, and a transporter; having witnessed first-hand the genocidal intentions of the Savi who were supposed to be the good guys, Sylvain felt far less uncomfortable with the prospect of having to kill something than he might have been a few days prior…
He twisted his chair and adopted himself into a new position, granting him better access to the transporter controls, and haphazardly drew his phaser, twisting his body in the direction of the docking port, where two Officers were mounting a breaching charge against the Hobus Station’s airlock… Despite his semi-confident thoughts, he’d never fired one at a living thing before, and as much as he wanted to believe he would be able to do it, truthfully, he didn’t know what would happen if something was on the other side of that door.
~~
[Ens. Via "DixeBee" Wix | Wolf-16 | Seconds to Hobus Station | (Hobus System)]
“How did my dumbass get into this…” Via exasperated quietly to herself as she waited anxiously in the seat of her cockpit.
The crews did all they could to patch up her scorched fighter. It would’ve been vaporized no thanks to her replacement RIO, who was sitting timidly behind her with a black eye. There weren’t many of them, the crew. Most were spread around the other vectors of the Theurgy or a part of other operations. Any repair equipment they did bring was only capable of getting moderately damaged Valkyrie or Valravn up to operational strength. Via’s fighter was lucky in that regard, while during the cluster fuck that was the last mission, she took some hits and got thrown around where the concussive impact from hitting her console gave her a massive gash on her forehead which was hastily healed by the medics on board.
Via was sure the wound opened up again, but she didn’t have enough energy to care. They didn’t have any time for anything more. The ship was supposed to leave warp any second now. It was times like these that Via missed her sister the most. She always knew what to say, what to think, what to do. Right now, all that Via wanted to do was cry, but she couldn’t. There was always something in the back of her head telling her “stop bein’ a lil bitch” that just wouldn’t allow her to feel…to process. So like usual, she leaned on her fortress that is her personality and lashed out, then recused herself. No time to think, no time, to process, no time…
Via heard the call from her flight leader and got to work. She began the combat startup, which was her favorite kind of startup. Skipping a bunch of redundant and unnecessary takeoff checklist items and throwing full power to her impulse drives. She kept noticing the scorch marks and blood on her armored gauntlet as she went around, pressing buttons and flipping switches. The last mission nearly cooked the both of them…almost spaced them.
The sharp, heavy feeling came back to her chest where her implant was. “Stop it…Stop it…”
“What?! Stop what?” her Bajoran RIO threw her arms up in an anxious panic.
“Not your dumbass- j-just do your job and shut your ass up, ok” Via said firmly but with defeat in her voice. The RIO quickly resigned herself to he own tasks. The tension was still alive between them.
Once the young pilot finished getting her fighter spun up she reported she was ready for her flight lead. Suddenly, the stars that had been white horizontal streaks running across her vision finally returned to normal.
With an abrupt and sudden roar, the Starfleet fighters boosted out of the Alien Savi hanger, turning toward the front of the Erudit,e hugging against its superstructure until they overtook it. The flight of Wolves seemed to dance around each other while they speeded with aggression towards their target. The massive eerily ancient station was slowly increasing as they went closer. Via’s HUD, which was showing everyone's status and location, linked up to another one of their objectives. The USS Lindstrom, a shuttle carrying the boarding party, was several AU ahead closer to the station. At the Valravn’s speed, Via and her wingmen would easily be able to close the distance. The problem was the shields were still up.
“Uh…ain’t them savey guys ‘spose ain’t takin them shields down?” Via spoke in comms, but as if the Aliens heard her (which they probably did) a tight beam of energy erupted from behind the formation, flying just over their heads and impacting the station dead center. The Valravn’s proximity sensors blared in the young pilot’s ears, which only pissed her off. “Fuck off”! She yelled, taking the act as a slight against her. Their opening, however, was clear now but rapidly closing.
As planned Via’s RIO put all power into the impulse drive, and the flight speeded head towards the gap. “Comeon- Comeon- Comeon!!” The gap in the shields was getting narrower and narrower, the shuttle made it and a few of the other wolves. There was no way she was going to die as a metaphorical fly hitting against the windshield of a hovercar.
“We ain’t goin’ fast enough reroute the air!” Via yelled to her RIO who’s eyes widened. “Prophets I-” “I SWEAR” Via’s anger returned and the RIO got the hint. With life support rerouted the Valravn jolted forward faster. The inertial dampeners were at their limit as Via felt her suit’s G layer activate putting pressure on her body and sending her back to her seat.
The eye in the shield was looking more like a pinhole every second Via was certain they were done for…then they crossed the threshold. “YES!! FUC-” They were going a bit too fast they were coming up on the Station’s hull, prompting Via to quickly cut the engines, throw on RCS, spin her fighter around, and light up her engines again, bringing the Valravn to a quick but abrupt stop.
Both Via and her RIO panted, partly from stress and partly from having life support off for a few seconds. The RIO started praying to her gods which only got a sigh from Via. That was all her skill he thought as she returned in formation with her wingman Chaos.
It was surreal being under the shield and watching the battle unfold outside. Via kept to her lead side as she looked around. “I ain’t none of them sneaky guys gettin’ my ass again” she spoke as she made a visual scan of their surroundings. As of now, their main objective was protecting that shuttle from all hostile threats. Via didn’t know if she was going to face the same combatants as the previous station. She wasn’t looking forward to if she was…
"Anyone see anythin'"? she spoke with a hint of hesitation which came up as aspiration.
She was terrified.
~~
[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Aboard the USS Lindstrom (Type 11 Shuttle) | Space between Hobus Station and Erudite]
It was certainly some fancy flying as the shuttle threaded the needle through all the fire then pulled off a non-textbook docking maneuver to connect the small craft to the hull. Hopefully, the intel on the makeup of the station's skin was accurate in that it was standard hull material. The medic stood by and focused as she hefted her rifle while a couple of security personnel attached the beehive charge. It was a non-standard way to enter a ship, but it had the advantage of being far less intensive than using a cutter or phaser. It didn't take long as a crewman slapped the charge on, then ran a hand along the frame, breaking the thin film that released the adhesive.
"Charge set," He confirmed.
The medic could feel the Deputy nod behind her as she quickly took in the data and framed it against the cutting models.
"Set level 6. Stand back, everyone!" The other Zhen commanded as the crewman set the charge control to six, then backed up and activated a forcefield.
A segment of the docking collar was detached and the sound of rushing air quickly indicated a leak that sucked out all the air that could cause concussive damage to both the shuttle and the people standing inside. Zark stood by with a canister of fire suppressant as Lt. zh'Wann yelled
"Fire in the Hole!" A brief flash could be seen the charge went off in what amounted to silence except for the reverberation of metal as the shock transmitted itself through the structure of the hull to the docking collar.
"Reattaching docking collar." A crewman called as the magnets re-engaged to provide an air tight seal.
The Deputy didn't even wait for the whole time as the enviro systems kicked into overdrive to replace the lost atmosphere as she dropped the forcefield.
Lieutenant Zark didn't wait either as she moved forward and sprayed the edges of the whole to cool them off. Others in exosuits didn't bother to wait as they jumped into the hole to secure a foothold for the rest to follow. "Breach secure. No hostiles." came the clipped report and the rest of the Security detail followed, leaping in seemingly unhesitatingly into the breach. The medic soon followed when the canister jumping in feet first. Her vision soon changed from on of soothing Federation standard to something dark, foreboding, and decidedly odd that reminded her once again of the Erudite that had brought her to this point. It definitely brought on odd sense of foreboding. The medico shook off the feeling quickly and brought up the map that led deeper into the bowels of the station.
"Okay, I have a route towards what the Savi are guessing is central computing location." She turned her helmeted head towards Alistair, Mia, Nara, and a few others. "Stick close." With that warning, the lithe armoured figure moved off.
[Lieutenant Ida zh'Wann | Outer maintenance corridor | Hobus Station]
Ida watched as her medic led the actual infiltration team into the station and took a breath, as took up a position slightly back as the rest of the security team made its way towards an outer power node. Whatever was going on, it didn't seem like they'd set off any alarms as they advanced. This made the Deputy more concerned as the larger group seemed to move at will through the station, but there was little they could do now since the mission was committed.
Hearts raced as they approached the power room and the Andorian's confusion only grew as they got closer. There were no detectable security systems, nor even any personnel in the area. It was completely vacant. The point man reached the door and looked back at Ensign Dubois. The human hesitated for a moment since she was getting the same readings.
"Let's go in nicely." She finally answered and the point man nodded as he raised his rifle while the officer punched in the sequence to enter.
On the last button, she looked at the point man one more time and saw that he was entirely focused on the room ahead. She punched the last button, and the door opened silently. The point man entered, and Millie followed soon after. The room was deserted. As everyone filed in, Lieutenant zh'Wann's sense of paranoia grew, but it looked like the initial part of the plan had gone off without a hitch. Too good to be true for sure, but they had ways of making sure it stayed that way.
As she approached the centre of the room, the Deputy began issuing orders. "Bring those crates in and get the transport inhibitors set up. Make sure the doors are barricaded and lets settle in. Engineering, Science, and everyone else see what you can make of the computer systems."
~~
[Ensign Sylvain Llewellyn-Kth | USS Lindstrom | Hobus Station | Hobus System]
A searing plume of energy lanced into the aft shielding of the Erudite, illuminating the Ensign’s trembling hands with a fallow glow that shone through the viewscreen of the Lindstrom, his pale skin almost iridescent under the light as his fingers swept across the panels beneath them. Sylvain’s trembling form was enrolled in a flurry of activity, his entire body riddled with anxiety as he made a desperate attempt to find something, anything, to do, that might prove at least somewhat useful. Or keep him distracted at least… He was running sensor sweeps of the adjoining sections of the Hobus Station, trying to follow the biosigns of the Starfleet crew as best he could, monitoring the Erudite’s status and maintaining an open comm system… Yet none of it could stop the adrenaline from making his fingers vibrate like a malfunctioning inertial damper. None of it could make him feel useful. None of it could stop the feeling of dread that was creeping down the back of his spine.
He was the pilot. His job was to get the team into the station, and get them out again when they were done; he definitely had the easy job. Sure, he’d flown the ship through a battlefield, dodging disruptor blasts and torpedoes coming from every-which-way, but that was the easy part compared to what the boarding teams had to contend with… The engineering and science teams were carrying the weight of Romulus on their shoulders, the security teams were ready to protect their colleagues to the death; he was a glorified chauffeur in comparison. Hell, his piloting wasn’t even the hard part when compared to what he had to do; wait.
Nobody told him how agonising the waiting would be…
The boarding teams were on a communications blackout, a tactical effort to help delay the Hobus Station’s security from locating their exact positions; even if it only provided the boarding teams an extra couple of seconds of anonymity, they needed to use every advantage they had… Sylvain fully understood that, yet he begrudged how it kept him in the dark, his only confirmation that the boarding teams were even still alive, being the occasional confirmation from the sensor sweeps, familiar biosigns blinking in-and-out of focus as the team descended deeper into the belly of the beast. Other than that, he was blind to what was going on outside of the Lindstrom’s hull, isolated from the perilous circumstances that the rest of the team had thrown themselves into... It was only natural that he was desperate to find a way to help.
Thus his eyes were glued to the sensor readings, monitoring both the boarding parties and the status of the Erudite, making sure that if the plan somehow derailed, he would be able to react… How, he didn’t quite know, but Sylvain was keenly aware that they were currently operating on something of a ‘make-it-up-as-you-go-along’ basis, and despite his severe discomfort with the idea, he understood that this was a time where he needed to embrace a little entropy. It wasn’t as though they didn’t have a plan; they did. The Savi had provided them with schematics, they had a goal set before them, the Erudite and the Theurgy’s fighters were doing a stellar job keeping the Hobus Station’s eyes elsewhere… But still, the universe had a way of disregarding even the most well-prepared plans in the heat of battle, and it was no secret that there were quite literally thousands of things that could go wrong…
It took the Ensign a moment to notice, his expertise in stellar phenomena not having much of an overlap with biosignatures, but the pilot was a natural analyst, and he never failed to notice when something just wasn’t quite right… There was only a slight discrepancy in the sensors, something awry with the data that was being received on the Lindstrom’s end, a distortion a few sections away from where the boarding party had begun setting up… His brow furrowed for a moment, his hazel eyes flicking across the data-telemetries to determine whether the discrepancy was due to a glitch, or whether it might be due to…
“Oh no…” A tone of absolute horror fled from his mouth as he gasped around his words, lurching forwards, his eyes alight in alarm as the sensor sweep turned up the same glitch again, though this time half-a-section closer to where the boarding team were located. Sylvain’s pale hand flew to his chest in a heartbeat, trembling fingers thundering into his combadge, his desire to alert the boarding parties almost overcoming his acknowledgement of their radio silence… Almost. His hand balled quickly into a fist that he pressed hard against his mouth in horror; if he alerted the boarding team, the signal could give away their exact position, if the Savi weren’t aware of it already… Yet on the other hand, if he did nothing…
Sylvain wasn’t one to curse, but if there was ever time for an expletive, it was now…
