Chapter 1: Mission Objective - SURVIVE!
[Lt. Vanya | Checkpoint | Romulan Facility ] ATTN: @Dree @Stegro88 , @Number6 @RyeTanker @P.C. Haring , @Hans Applegate @Sqweloookle
TIME: Day 1, 2200hrs
“Alright.” Said Vanya. “Can I trust you, at least for now?”
The woman nodded. “I... want to tell the story, but I think that we don’t have time.”
She shot a bitter look at the corpse on the floor. “Suffice to say, he killed the only person who I ever loved, and the death was completely covered up.” She looked back at Vanya.
“My lover was shy, artistic, and he wouldn’t hurt a single person. For his murder to be unanswered, I can’t live in a state like this.”
Vanya wasn’t about to kill this stranger who had helped her, and chances are she would be discovered for what she had done. And yet, if she followed Vanya to the Federation, it would be tough.
She put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I was sent away – not by choice, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. But its not easy. Being away from all that you have known, seeing the ideas that you have been taught as real are proven to be false, or unpopular. You could turn around now and run and say that I killed him and live your life.
“I want to help. Zoin was my love, my world, my life. This… is nothing to me without him.”
Vanya wasn’t sure that this stranger knew what she meant. However, her first point was the most important they didn’t have the time.
“Alright… if I know my crew, they are already getting the data that we need. We need to make it easy for them.”
“Easier said than done.” The unnamed Romulan said. “They will already be on us… wait… I need to access that console.”
Vanya held up her phaser. If this was some bizarre trick or game, then she would quickly step in. With a single look, she gave her a sign that she would be able to stop her if she showed a single form of betrayal.
“I’m a low-level data technician. When one of these pigs file the wrong report, they come to people like me.” She said. That certainly explained the fact that she didn’t take out Vanya as well as the apparent killer. “I was here when they installed this system. Sure, there are parts I can’t access… but a few permissions weren’t quite deleted when the system came online.”
The young girl's fingers moved like a pianists on their keys, an artist doing her thing. Finally, Hundreds of alert klaxons started to go off. Vanya watched as a rotating wall of personnel photos filled the screen, each with the word “Wanted” on their photo.
“I have uploaded the base roster, minus myself, into the wanted criminal's database. Now, every crewman’s clearance code is uploaded to the system as wanted criminals. They still have weapons, but the few automated defenses we do have won’t tell friends from foes. Oh, and the shock of having hundreds of criminals on board will probably overload the system.”
Vanya was still worried. More ships could still be on the way, and someone might be able to put everything back where it was. Still, it was a start. She tapped her combadge. “Vanya to all personnel. I suggest an immediate retreat back to our evac points. I’m bringing a defector that might have just made this shindig a lot easier.
NARRATOR: The young Romulan’s efforts proved fruitful, indeed, and, combined with the continued efforts of the other three teams still deployed on the Romulan station, madness and chaos among the Romulan forces increased to bedlam levels. Lieutenant Vanya was not the only member of the infiltration team(s) to come across a defector willing to sell out their comrades for an escape off the station and out from under the authoritarian rule of Tal’Aura and the Tal’Shiar. It seemed discontent lay within the hearts of many…
~~
[ Lt Reika Sh’laan | Maintenance Corridor | Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space]
As soon as Reika heard the words, she activated her comms. “Triggers have been found. Everyone, we’re evacuating now. Let’s move!”
She moved to the hallway, supporting the rifle with both of her hands as best as she could. While the pain of her injury had been deadened, her arm was only functioning at 75% capacity. As she peeked around the corner, she saw a Romulan holding a phaser rifle on a member of the Theurgy crew. She didn’t hesitate. She simply shot the Romulan in the back - right between the shoulder blades. “We’re heading out,” Reika called to the member of their crew and tipped her head toward the exit. Reika had seen the crew member before, but she wasn’t sure of her name.
But as crewmembers headed for the doorway in which she stood, there was a crackle in her helmet followed by an unfamiliar voice. “Lieutenants Ashby and Sh’laan. This is Petty Officer 3rd class Kaudia Cheung.” The woman rattled off a correct authentication code and stated that she was from Starfleet intel. After more necessary background information, Reika heard what the woman had called to give them in the first place. “I’m currently coordinating with my team to bring them to a shuttle bay twelve decks up from you to secure transportation for extraction…Please advise on your intentions, as my team has been ordered to join you for your return to Theurgy.”
Reika paused for a moment. So this was how they were going to get off this Romulan monstrosity. But twelve decks? That was a lot and everything could go wrong between here and there. But seeing as how they were dropped off, Reika knew that this was their best chance.
“I copy you Cheung. We’ll meet you at the shuttle - assuming we can get there.”
To the rest of the group with her, Reika turned to face the ones that she could. “In order to get off the station, we need to head twelve decks above us. Starfleet Intel is waiting to get us off. Let’s see if we can find us the equivalent of a Romulan Jeffries tube and climb our way out. Let’s move people!”
Something in her had switched back to her Tactical training. She stepped outside of the doorway and pointed her rifle in the opposite direction of where the others were headed. Once everyone was out of the room where they had found the triggers, Reika took off at a jog after them. One by one, she saw the crew members disappear into what she could only assume was a Jeffries tube. Bringing up the rear, she slipped her rifle around to her back and ducked into the aperture. Doing her best to hold on with one hand and wrench the door shut with her hurt arm, she winced. With one more pull with bad arm, she was able to get the entrance closed.
It was then that she looked up. This ladder appeared never-ending. Checking out the deck number written on the inside of the door, she started up after the rest of the crew. Right arm and foot, left arm and foot. Right arm and foot, left arm and foot. Over and over. They were only six decks in, and Reika found it hard to continue to push herself. Whatever pain reliever Ashby had given her was beginning to wear off, and the pain in her injured arm was growing by the moment. The more the pain grew, the less she was able to effectively use it.
She looked up again. Everyone above her was still climbing. She paused, trying to catch her breath. She groaned loudly as her injured arm loudly protested against further movement.
“Breath, Reika. Just breathe.” She did heed her own advice. “Get off your ass, Lieutenant,” she told herself. “You can do this. You have to do this.”
But as her self-pep talk died on her lips, she heard the metallic clink of a hatch opening, and looking down, she saw a head of dark hair and angular eyelashes looking up at her. “Shit,” she said as she saw someone climb into the ladder with them. “Move i,t everyone. We have visitors on our six.” Sure they were a good six decks above them, but with Reika’s arm, this was going to be a race to the finish.
She shouldn’t have found it amazing that she was now able to move better than she had before. Nothing like your life being on the line to put some umph in your step. Reika climbed - just one rung at a time, but each rung was one closer to her destination. After another deck or two, she looked back down. The Romulans were gaining on her.
She activated her comms. But as soon as she did, she started back up the ladder. “Cheung, the first of our people should be exiting a hatch near you shortly,” Sh’laan paused her speech for several large gulps of air. “We took a ladder up, but some Romulans are hot on our tail. I’m bringing up the rea,r and my arm was injured, so be ready for a quick takeoff once we’re with you.”
Once again, she drew a breath quickly. Two decks left to go. She didn’t want to waste time looking down to see how close the Romulans were; she just climbed as quickly as she could. When she was only one deck below where they were exiting the hatch, Reika’s bad arm gave out, but she caught herself with her good arm - well, it was her good arm before she wrenched it to catch herself from falling.
Her feet searched for a rung; it was a good three seconds before she found her footing again. Her eyes glanced down as her feet tried to gain their footing again. “Damn!” she said.
The Romulans were only about two decks below her as she placed her feet down and started up again; this time, a shot hit the inside of the tube just to the right of her head. “Oh, shit!” She had no time for any injured arms - let alone two. Pain was no longer a factor; living was. She was only several rungs below the opening. Another shot missed her by inches. By this time, someone’s head emerged above her and offered her their hands to help hoist her up.
It was a good thing they had because this time the rung on which her feet were planted had been hit and gave way, but by this time she was pulled through the opening. Sh'Zahn had a tight hold on her. Reika nodded her thanks. Once she was sure Reika was on her feet, she slammed the hatch shut and wedged a piece of metal across the door. If the Romulans got through, it would take them a while.
With Sh'Zahn helping her, they made their way to where Cheung was waiting for them. Without a word, they - the last two of the group entered the shuttle. Whoever was piloting wasted no time detaching the docking clamps and getting the group away from the station as quickly as possible.
NARRATOR: Unbeknownst to Sh’laan, a total of three members of the infiltration teams would be killed before successful extraction, including Asst. Chief Intelligence Officer Amarik, Lt. Tek, Lt JG Martin, and Lt. Okafor, with another requiring medical attention and stasis once they reached Theurgy again, namely Lt. Rez. While they’d managed to successfully obtain the information they’d come for, it was not without the loss of valued crewmembers and friends.
~~
[CPO Dominic Lau | Maintenance Tubes | Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space]
TIME: Day 2, 0200hrs
Chief Lau and Bessir alternated between crawling and descending as they moved through the station. The Intel chief mentally shook his head ruefully as he thought about the sequence of events that had led him to this point. The entire operation was a failure since there had been nothing remotely covert since the operation on the station had fallen apart. Now, they were on another station, making their way out after leaving a mass of wreckage behind. This wasn't a covert op; this was mayhem. It was a positive; they were so good at it since he wasn't sure how likely he was to be able to get on another covert operation after this. Maybe his boss needed an excuse to pull him from the field. That would be unfortunate.
That happy thought carried him to a level with a junction that had a full-size door when Cheung's voice came in over the comm system. "Okay, Chief. That's the door you need to exit. I'm still making my way down and guiding a few other groups toward the shuttle area. Just a heads up. The Theurgy group has evac'd the station on their ship, but we can use several runabout-type shuttles to get everyone out."
"Acknowledged. How long till everyone is out?" The Chief queried as he unslung his rifle. Bessir did the same shortly after landing like a cat.
"I'd say maybe about five more minutes, Chief." The tech specialist estimated. "Oh. By the way. The Romulan security team that was chasing the Theurgy crew is standing nearby to the left of the door, aboouuuuut 15 meters away."
Chief Lau nodded at this data. "Got it. See you soon." Looking at Bessir, the two gave each other a grin.
"Flash and boom?" Bessir nodded.
"Sounds about right. On 3?" Chief Lau plucked a grenade off his belt while the sniper pulled a flash bang. "Of course. 1...2....3"
The sniper hit the door control, revealing a mostly intact corridor beyond. A quick look confirmed a gaggle of targets, and an underhand toss delivered the pyrotechnic device into the midst of the group. Chief Lau tossed the armed explosive grenade to the halfbreed, and the bomb soon followed as both men opened their mouths and covered their ears for a moment. An explosion and screams followed, and the two men exited the maintenance junction with rifles raised. The two swiveled their eyes quickly, identifying those who had escaped the blast. A few were trying to crawl somewhere, anywhere to escape the devastation visited upon them, and the operatives shot them before moving on.
With the bay secured, Chief Lau and Bessir waited for everyone else to show up. It didn't take long, and the Chief moved to split the group amongst as many of the ships they could steal before giving the order to launch.
NARRATOR: Though the Chief did have a point, this was a terrible excuse for a covert mission, it was not a complete failure as a mission. The infiltration teams had been able to secure the data necessary to transmit back to the Theurgy at the Triangle, they had picked up a few defectors willing to share secrets and support as the teams beat a retreat to their respective evac points, and a few members of the infiltration teams had managed to “borrow” some extra technology and data, to be studied later when they were running for their lives. Altogether, it wasn’t a failure, but for someone whose focus was on subtly, it was indeed an embarrassment.
~~
[Lt. Kestra Pren | Evacuation Coordinates | Apache]
Kestra took in a deep breath as she fitted the mask over her nose and mouth. Almost immediately, her vision became less loopy and more realistic, a sensation that all but confirmed her suspicion that her perception problems were due to some kind of psychotropic hallucinogen the Romulans had inserted into the air. Although she couldn't know for sure, the Trill suspected the Romulans might have used it as a countermeasure against their incursion. No matter. The call that the trigger data had been recovered came through, and all the teams received verbed evac orders.
According to the data Cheung had fed her before she lost contact, Kestra was closest to the Apache, a support ship from Theurgy that had ferried blue and red teams to the outpost. She had lost contact with the Mary Baldwin, the freighter that had brought her, Lau, Knox and the others. Given the ship's state when she had disembarked, Kestra did not hold out much hope the ship was still in one piece.
Fortunately, Cheung had had the opportunity to perform the required IFF handshakes so the Red and Blue teams would recognize the crew of the Baldwin, Purple Team, as friendlies. Still, she was glad for the opaque mask as it covered enough of her face that she could avoid questions and confusion about why she looked like one of their pilots for just a little longer. At least the cuts and wounds she had sustained bled Trill red and not Romulan green. That, at least, should buy her a little credibility that she wasn't a Romulan spy. It didn't take her long to board the Apace once she arrived at the extraction coordinates. Already, there were a handful of Federation crew aboard, and she wasted no time stowing her weapon and getting out of the way.
[Pren, you there?]
Kestra's hand shot to her combadge. "Cheung! Damn, it's good to hear your voice. Thought you were gone."
[Not Quite, though we came close.]
"Status?"
[The Baldwin is gone. We had to find other transportation out]
"Do you need support?"
[Negative. We commandeered a Romulan runabout. Even managed a quick sweep to beam over some of the personal effects. Didn't get everything. Best we could do, though.]
She didn’t give that any more thought. Saving personal gear was nice but hardly a priority. Plus, the only thing that mattered - her research and orders- were on isolenear chips tucked into pockets inside her tunic.
Outside, weapons fire drew her attention as more people boarded. The Romulans were not giving up so easily. Kestra had no idea about the tactical capability of this ship, and she suspected the Romulans could track their own Runabout, even if it were cloaked. They had gotten the data they wanted. But it was useless they were all killed before they got back to their ship... her ship now.
"Cheung," she said as she pushed gently through the growing group of people boarding, "none of this is going to mean a damn if we don't get the data back to Theurgy. We need to send them what we have now!"
[No good L.T. The Romulans have jammed all subspace frequencies. We only have short-range comms.]
"Can you break through?"
[Maybe. But the window won’t be that big. The data stream will have to be compressed.]
"How small?"
[Small as you can make it.]
The deck shuddered beneath her as the engines came online, and the Apache began to withdraw from the ravaged station.
"I think we're on the move?”
[You are. We're matching course and speed]
Again, the deck rocked, but this was far more violent. Kestra recognized a weapon strike when she experienced one.
"Cheung. Get on it. I'll work on the compression.”
Kestra was no communications officer, nor was she an intelligence operative, but her time during the war had left her with more than a few tricks up her sleeve. Still, between the unfamiliar interface on the console, the rocking from the attack, and her own sense of urgency, she slipped up far more times than she cared to admit. Her first attempt only achieved a 10% reduction in size: Not enough, according to Cheung. According to her, they needed at least 40%. She reprogrammed the compression algorithm. It wasn't perfect, she knew, but the last time she had used this one was years ago-and on the unfamiliar interface, she couldn't rely on muscle memory. This attempt yielded better results but fell short of the mark at only a 27% reduction.
"Damnit." then, she remembered the subroutine she had forgotten. Being such a small part of the overall process, it was easy to overlook. But with the way it functioned within the algorithm, it could provide such effective results. She keyed it in and ran the algorithm again.
[L.T., this is Cheung, I hope you're ready with the data stream. I’ve managed to cut through the jamming, but I don’t know how long I can keep it open.] The algorithm was completed, achieving only a 32% reduction.
"I don't know. I'm not at 40 yet."
[Send it L.T! When I lose this, I won't get it back] She didn't think when she pressed the transmit button. The progress bar cycled as the data was sent back to the Theurgy. It progressed faster than she said track before it blinked out, only to be replaced by a message indicating the connection had been lost. [I just lost the frequency L.T. Did you get the data stream sent?]
Kestra looked at the blank screen. 'I don't know.”
NARRATOR: Though they would not know of their success until much later, the combined efforts of Cheung and Pren did indeed work to get the data stream sent. It would take quite some time before the Theurgy received the data. However, it would prove to be a type of deux ex machina, giving Theurgy and her allies the necessary edge to face Tal’Aura’s encroaching forces.
~~
[ CPO Knox | Somewhere inside the Romulan Space Station | Romulan Space ]
Knox was running down a long hallway towards what he hoped would eventually provide him with a way up a few levels to the hangar bay when he went splat. Actually, it was the whole station that went splat. The violent shockwave that ripped through the station was so strong that it threw Knox against the wall hard enough that he reflexively reverted to his liquid state to avoid injury. He turned into a pasty orange splat on the wall and then oozed down to the floor in a state of bewilderment. Knox’s mind raced. Had he caused this explosion? He racked his brain, thinking about all the things that he had caused to go boom on the station. Nothing would have been this awesome! Then he remembered the Mary Baldwin. “Oh!...Right…The warp core…”
The glob of murder orange juice slowly took on the shape of a humanoid again, then eventually took on the features of his female CPO Knox form, complete in her Starfleet uniform. She steadied herself as aftershocks shook the station further. It felt like explosive decompressions were running along the edge of the station. Well, if speed was necessary, Knox knew how to go fast. Bending over to pick up the lightning-thrower weapon and a spare charge pack, Knox prepared to speed run this station and get to the cool ship she wanted to steal. With another heavy series of thuds from explosive decompressions nearby, Knox sprinted to a door and forced it open. Running down the next corridor at a full sprint, Knox ran into a group of Romulans also fleeing from something. More monsters, maybe? Knox didn’t care; she just wanted to get to the hangar quickly now. Her kill count was sufficient for an outing, but these easy targets fell into her lap.
Zap! Zap! Zap!
The bolts from this handheld lightning thrower arced out towards the unsuspecting trio—white hot energy crackled with a tinge of blue at the edges. The three Romulans didn’t have much time to react. Their bodies going ridged when struck, then shaking like being electrocuted to death. Because they were being electrocuted to death, all three fell on the floor, smoking and twitching in a small pile. Knox bent down and had a good look at each of them. Just in case she wanted to take on their visage at a later time. Then it was off to the races again. Running down to another door to find a small service hatch.
Inside the service hatch was a ladder that led either up or down. Knox believed that the closest hanger was up from where she currently was. So, up she went. Keeping her eyes open for anyone else who might want to use this ladder. The short climb up two decks was uneventful, but the ladder went no further. Having to find another way to continue, Knox unslung her new favorite mega taser and prepared to show the Romulans the meaning of haste.
The second door that Knox came to had a heap of dying Romulans in it. One of those awesome monsters was lying dead at one end of the room, surrounded by body parts. A few decapitated corpses were near it also. Probably the thagomizer. Then, some had been hit by phaser fire, or maybe they were choked to death. Either way, it was a scene of carnage. Knox stepped lightly over the bodies on the way to the door on the far side and saw a few intact corpses. In a passing thought, Knox decides to imprint another Romulan or two to impersonate. This one is a strong and mostly intact Romulan male whose uniform pants have been slightly pulled down. Knox examines his genitals so as to be able to impersonate a male of the species fully. Her eyes went wide in shock as she looked at his manhood. “Ridges! They have ridges on their cocks?”
Knox yanked down the pants of 3 more Romulan men to find the same thing. All of them had ridged cocks! “Damn, those lucky Romulan bitches! That has to feel better than a smooth dicked human!” She exclaimed. Then, a thought hit her. All the females she had imprinted on. What if their insides were not exactly like a human female? Setting down her weapon, Knox stripped the lower half of a Romulan woman who had been bisected with her top half missing. Ramming a hand that turned into an orange liquid inside the dead female’s lower half, Knox found out that Romulan women were slightly different inside than human women. It's not much different, mind you, but it's just enough to get caught on a mission that required her to be ‘Deep’ undercover. Pulling down the pants of 3 more girls just to make sure, Knox took imprints of their love canals so she could really play the part of a Romulan female if the need arose. All of them had similar variations that set their meat butterflies apart from human women.
Just then, with her hand shoved up a dead Romulan woman’s gnome canoe, the door slid open as a Romulan man and woman walked into the room, catching Knox in quite the act.
“Uh…It's not what it looks like.” Knox said quickly in Federation standard. The two had a horrified look on their faces and were not convinced at all by Knox’s lame reaction.
Raising their disruptors at Knox, the officer shouted, also in Federation standard, “Why the fuck are you here?”
Surprised and happy that at least some Romulans can speak something she understands, Knox smiles broadly. “If you don’t shoot me, I will tell you exactly why we are here and what our mission was.”
The two give each other apprehensive looks and keep their disruptors aimed at Knox, with her hand still shoved up a dead Romulan woman's slime pond. “Well. What was your mission?”
Knos slowly pulled the orange imprint of the dead girl’s roast beef sandwich that she had taken, ‘For Science,’ was careful to have the hand reform as it came free not to let the two hot heads with guns know that she was a changeling. Then Knox answered, standing to her full height and raising her hands, with correct anatomy, over her head. “We were sent here to steal something. Not sure what. My job was to create chaos on the station as a diversion.” While speaking, Knox grew a skinny tendril out of her heel and wrapped up around the handle and trigger of the lightning thrower.
The anger flared on the faces of her two foes as they hefted their weapons to fire. But Knox was faster on the trigger from an angle they didn’t expect.
Zap! Zap!
The first bolt hit the man she was speaking to in the lower stomach, and he doubled over with what sounded like a Wilhelm scream. The next bolt struck the woman in her side, and she bent sideways, causing her weapon to discharge wide and miss Knox. Both fell to the ground with a series of twitches as the lights overhead blinked rapidly with the energy overload. While the two Romulans finished their death ‘A la Electric Boogaloo’ in the most groovy rave fashion, Knox heard voices from others coming down the hallway after them. It turns out they were not alone. His disco of death was over, with the lights returning to normal and the twitching stopping. Knox grabbed the lightning thrower and sidestepped to get into the deep pocket of the room, ready for close quarters combat.
But that is when things took a turn. Just as the rest of the team entered the doorway, the pressure in the room dropped, and the air rushed out the open door. Knox was pulled towards said door rapidly and caught a glimpse down the hallway. The station had opened up all the doors leading to the outside vacuum of space! Reaching for the door controls to override the system and close the door to the room, Knox got a glimpse of the gaggle of Romulans being sucked down the hallway and around the corner, out of sight and presumably out of the station.
Using six extra hands, Knox held on for all she was worth until the door closed and stopped the air from trying to pull her from the station along with all the dead bodies. Sadly she lost her new lighting weapon that was sucked out along with everything else. Knox had held onto the door frame with that extra hand, deciding it was best to lose a toy instead of her life. Now, with the situation somewhat resolved, Knox needed off this station and quickly. It seemed that the very station itself was trying to kill everyone. Time to steal a cool vehicle and leave!
Finding a service conduit, Knox abandoned her female form and returned to her thick orange juice consistency and frantically flowed and slithered in an upwardly direction as much as possible. The shaking and whooshing of decompressions echoed in his small tunnel. Finally, Knox reached what appeared to be two floors below the level of the hanger bay. However, further progress was impeded because the service connector stopped. This was the end of the line for this little maintenance chute. Probably due to the thick metal and composite-reinforced structure of the hanger itself. This meant Knox was just below the hanger and didn’t have a direct route yet to get up to the entrance. Besides, there was lots of shooting from a few floors up and back towards the station's interior. Most likely, the entrance to the hangar had descended into a warzone.
Knox needed another way to one of this station's many hangers, and quickly. Fortunately, a way seemed to McGuffin itself into his path, in the form of two Romulans wearing EV suits and heading for the nearest airlock. Running up behind them, Knox took the form of a female Romulan from earlier. Knox jumped in with them just as they reached an airlock and opened it up. The two were surprised at her presence and yelled something at her, which Knox took to mean, “Are you crazy? You don’t have an EV suit on, and we are about to go into the vacuum of space!” But really, that was just a guess because Knox planned on getting a suit from one of them quickly.
With a stabbing motion, Knox speared through the male Romulan with a spear he grew out of his arm. The speared Romulan let out a guttural grunt and slammed back against the bulkhead. The back of his head triggered the airlock to start. Knox now had just seconds to get the one remaining EV suit from the Romulan woman standing in shock next to her.
Turning to the stunned female, Knox said, “I need your spacesuit, ma’am.” As he pinned her to the wall. There was a look of disbelieving sheer terror on the girl’s face as many tentrals sprang from Knox’s back and undulated around her. The astonished woman could barely make a sound as the small, prehensile tentacles quickly stripped her of her EV suit. Knox could feel the air pressure dropping now and picked up the pace, pouring herself into parts of the suit as it was taken from the poor Romulan girl. In just seconds, Knox was standing there in a full EV suit she had just commandeered as the now nude Romulan chick started to choke and gasp in the low air pressure. Then, with a whoosh, the three were pulled out into the vacuum of space as the door opened. The dead Romulan male in an EV suit spurted blood from his wounds in the front and back where he had been run through. Knox grabbed the dead guy and dying girl and stabilized herself as they floated out away from the station.
Seeing the hanger bay now as they drifted out, Knox took aim at where he wanted to go and flung the larger body, that of the Romulan male, in the opposite direction of the hanger bay. This was enough to get Knox moving in the right direction, more or less, but she would need to make another minor adjustment to her trajectory. Grabbing the now dead Romulan woman by her ankle, Knox flung her away at just the right angle to get steered towards the hanger. It was perfect! Knox turned and looked over her shoulder at the naked Romulan chick as her dead body, with arms and legs sprawled out, rotated into the void. “Thanks, babe!” was all Knox could think of saying, and briefly saluting the nude piece of space debris slowly cartwheeling to infinity.
Moments later, Knox landed in the hanger bay. She ducked just as a small runabout left the hanger. Then, a shuttle quickly followed. Everyone was getting out while they could. Knox took a moment to look around. There were a few shuttle-like craft around and another runabout sitting close by. They would all work to escape, but Knox wanted something more sporty. There, at the far end of the hanger, a garage door meant for a small craft was closed. Hearing some Romulans trying to break into the hangar behind him and none of them sounding happy, Knox sprinted away from the obvious correct choices for a getaway vehicle and opted to find out what was behind the secret door. When she arrived, Knox quickly hit buttons on the panel until the door opened for her. Darting inside, Knox found more or less what she hoped to find.
A small pointed craft. Only room for one in a cockpit with a clear canopy. It was a spacefighter of some sort. Knox didn’t have any idea what exactly it was. But it looked like it could fly in atmosphere and in space both. And it looked fast. A disruptor beam shot over her head. Speaking of fast, Knox decided to hurry, and this ride was as good as she would get. She jumped into the cockpit and closed the canopy. The controls seemed easy enough. Most humanoids had similar ideas about how to control small craft. A few seconds later, Knox exited the hangar bay and shot green laser-like beams of energy at the Romulans still in the hangar.
Once free of the station, Knox tried the comm system to make contact with other Federation personnel. After a few attempts, she was able to establish a link to another Federation ship making a getaway as well and was given the coordinates for a rendezvous location.
Sometime later, Knox and the other Federation members arrived at a set of coordinates called “The Triangle.” Knox didn’t actually see a triangle when they arrived. However, she swallowed her disappointment, like a load of bad-tasting spunk, and reached for the comms to call the other Federation vessels. But that is when disappointment abated! A fleet jumped into view as they dropped out of warp.
NARRATOR: Leaving behind a ravaged station that would likely take months, if not years, to recover, the three-pronged effort to infiltrate, steal, distract, and escape was successfully pulled off. Continuously hounded by Romulan forces along the way, it was not without further damage to their ships (both original and “borrowed”) and surviving crew that they arrived back at the Triangle just in time to witness the kick-off of the skirmish between Tal’Aura’s carrier group, Donatra’s rebel forces, Martok’s defense group, and the Helmet.
AND NOW THE BATTLE AT THE TRIANGLE COMMENCES…
Topic: Chapter 1: Mission Objective - SURVIVE! (Read 725 times)
previous topic - next topic
