Damsel in Distress
Posted on Wed Feb 20th, 2019 @ 11:52pm by Captain Cynthia Jackson & Lieutenant JG Eric Thornton & Ensign T'Peal & Lieutenant Commander Charlotte Hudson & Lieutenant Steffan Haas & Lieutenant Gente López-Fonsi & Lieutenant Jane Sinclair MD, DVM & Lieutenant JG Neza Glenn & Lieutenant JG Alec Toten & Lieutenant JG Ayden Kennett
2,881 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
Mission 2 - Love ORION Mistaken
Location: Bridge
Timeline: 2261.222 1230
With no standing orders other than to explore but to stay in the general area by the Romulan and Klingon borders, Cindy was in heaven. It had been a month so far and already they had cataloged two new spatial anomalies. During these times, Cindy was working close in tandem with the science team to prod all of their characteristics out and was as giddy as a child in a candy store.
Cindy had ordered the Legacy to the area near the Borderlands where she knew that the Federation was negotiating with Cordian for its entry into the Federation. Likely, this would be a good area to get to know for the Federation, she rationalized.
Lieutenant Steffan Haas was pleased to finally put the mission with the Klingons and Romulans behind them. He hoped they would do a routine patrol or maybe some exploration. It didn’t really matter, as long as Romulans weren’t shooting at them.
He sat at his console going about his daily duties. Monitoring incoming and outgoing communications, keeping an ear out for anything out of the ordinary, keeping an eye on the local rugby results coming in from home. Just a normal day for a comms officer.
Suddenly, his ear picking something up. A signal of some kind, it was being scrambled. He tried clearing it up. It was a call for help. “Captain Jackson, I’m picking up a badly garbled message. I believe it’s a distress call.”
Gente really hated being on the bridge, but it was part of his duties, to serve on a bridge rotation as Assistant Chief Engineer. Typically he would have preferred to be down with the engines, taking care of the ship. The bridge crew, seemed to chat, a little more than he liked. Gente wondered who was sending out the call.
Neza was reviewing things, still finalizing a few reports from the encounter with the Romulans. There was a lot of sensor data to go through, and they were finally nearing the end. But she was exhausted from all of it. Hearing Steffan say something about a garbled transmission that might be a distress call, she sat up and checked on the sensors.
Jane had come up to the bridge to discuss crew health matters with Cindy and Bec. Most of the crew had recovered from their injuries during the battle, but ongoing health discussions with command were crucial. Hearing a distress call, which usually meant injured persons, piqued her interest. She looked at Steffan, and then at Cindy, waiting to hear what would come next.
"Put it on screen," Cindy replied with confidence, her platinum gold locks stretching and curling behind her. Her eyes were green and she was curious at this unexpected change in mission.
“It’s audio only, Captain. I’ll patch it through the speakers.” Haas reported as his hands danced over his console as he worked.
”To....yone....eed assistan....wo ori....ssel’s are....tacking me, pleas...elp...”
"Neza, get me a view in the area of that signal!" Cindy cried out urgently.
"Already on it," came Neza's voice as she worked on getting the view once she started hearing the audio. On the window, appeared an incredible scene. Two ships, both larger than the lead vessel were regularly firing phasers on a smaller ship unsuccessfully trying to evade them.
Cindy told Steffan, open a channel. "Attacking vessels! This is Captain Cynthia Jackson! State your business! Cease your fire on the other vessel."
On the viewscreen came a large bulbous male face, clearly an Orion. "We will not. She is a criminal and none of your concern. Stand down." Without any other forewarning, the screen went blank.
"He hung up on me!" Cindy complained. "Bec, give me your best guess here. Neza, tell me what's the status of that ship being fired on."
Having stayed quiet during the conversation, Neza spun to look at Cindy. "They're in trouble. Looks like their life support systems are nearly gone, hull breaches, engines are gone. I'm surprised they have made it this far. But that ship won't survive the Orion attack much longer."
"Are we in transporter range?" Cindy asked urgently.
Neza turned back to check, "Close, a minute and a half out, I just hope the ship makes it that long."
"We need to give her time! Bec, I need some input!" Cindy called out.
“Cindy,” Jane said. “I’m going down to Sickbay. I’ll be ready to help if you can beam her here, or to beam over to her ship.” She turned away from the bridge and ran into the open turbolift.
"Calculating..." Bec said as she looked over the information on the tactical console. "Orions don't generally outright kill criminals. They tend to prefer capturing and selling. I don't like the looks of this..." she said with a frown. "They are shooting to disable, but they're also aiming to destroy. I suggest firing a warning shot, targeting their weapons, to get them to back down."
“The Orions seem to be jamming Communications with the fleeing ship. I can’t get a message through to them.” Haas reported.
“I just need enough time to secure the lock and I can do it,” Neza said as she tried to extend transporter range, which she really didn’t have any idea how to. She did not like the readings from the ship. “That ship may not make it to us getting to transporter range if we don’t do something.”
"Warning shot it is," Cindy decided. "Neza, are we in our territory or the Borderlands? Is the lead ship in our territory or the Borderlands? I want us in transporter range, yesterday! Do I make myself clear?"
Getting frustrated at having to work so many systems, Neza let out a sigh to calm herself and checked their distance to the Borderlands. "We're on the edge, but the ship they are firing on, and themselves, are in the Borderlands." She glanced over her shoulder. "I can't get us anything else for transporter range, not until we actually get closer, but we'll cross into the Borderlands the moment we hit transporter range."
"That's fine, Neza. Just get me there and get that person out of that ship."
Gente wondered if this was a wise course of action. They knew nothing about the person. And the Orions did say they were a criminal. He understood they had a humanitarian duty to help others. But would this incident start a war? He recalled the Klingons, and how they almost started a war against the Federation.
"I'll work on getting us closer, Neza, you work on the teleporter range," Bec said over her shoulder. "And when we're a bit closer I'll fire a warning shot just wide of their bow, close to their weapons, Cindy. I don't want to accidentally hit that smaller ship." Her hands continued to work over her console and she boosted their speed while attempting to line up a warning shot.
“I’m on top of it, Bec. The moment we are in range I’ll get them out of there.” Neza glanced over to the viewscreen for a moment before watching the range closely.
The two ships continued to fire at the lead ship. A hole in the shields must have developed as pieces of the hull started to fly from the lead ship. Another distress signal came in from the lead ship, "Have...60 second...Breach...Hel...!"
=^=Jane to bridge,=^= came the doctor’s voice over the comms. =^=I’m in the medbay. We’re ready to receive the potential casualty.=^=
Swearing under her breath, Neza transferred some of her sensor power over to the transporters, trying to boost the range, “We’re going to cut it close! 45 seconds to range!”
Calling to the Chief Engineer, “Gente, I need a miracle. A little burst of power. An extension on the transporter range. Anything!” Cindy begged.
"I'll need to divert power from the main impulse drive, but I can boost our transporters but I will need to have Kennett and Wang monitor the transporter buffers and relays, this surge if successful, will increase the range of the transport beam. I am concerned the extra power will ignite the relays." Gente said, not sure if the Captain would like this idea. Sadly it would give his engineers more work. He wished the Legacy, had an operations officer.
"Do it quickly! I want that female off that ship!" Cindy ordered.
Gente opened a channel with Lieutenant Kennett. "I need you in the transporter room, Mister Kennett." Ordered Gente, he paused for a moment to allow Ayden a moment to respond. He knew they did not have a lot of time.
Listening from where he was working, Ayden hit the comm. "On my way." He gathered a few tools and went to the transporter room as quickly as he could.
"Lieutenant, we are going to attempt a long range beam, I'm drawing power from the impulse drive, and pumping it to the transporter system. I will monitor the power outputs, we will only have a few seconds before the system burns out by the surge, I need you to be ready to lock onto her signal, and beam her over." Said Gente, waiting to see how Ayden was going to react to this plan.
Blinking, Ayden didn't question it but went to work. "We are going to be doing a lot of repairing when we are through here, you know that right?" He setup a connection to the bridge sensors. =^= Kennett to Bridge, Glenn, I'm grabbing your sensor lock and will be initiating transport. Bridge, watch for a few blown systems with this power transfer! =^=
He looked to Gente. "Ready when you are, boss."
Gente looked to the Captain, for permission to transport. "We are ready to proceed." He said, waiting for her to make eye contact with him. After she did, he looked at his station, and waited for her command to come in.
Cindy watched helplessly as the two ships continued to fire on the one. It was a sitting duck. She ordered, "Gente, get her beamed over now! And directly to the medbay!"
"Activating the beam now, captain." Gente said, as he started to monitor the power flow. "Mister Kennett its your show, beam our guest to sickbay." He said, making sure to keep the beam constant, he knew he could not keep this up for long, but long enough to transport the guest to sickbay.
Ayden quickly triple-checked the transporters and the lock before completing the transport of the passenger to sickbay. He let out a quick sigh of relief when the transport was successful.
Gente noticed a few relay's represented on his lcars screens were going in the red. "Did we get her Mister Kennett?" Gente asked with a concerned look on his face. He could see the two ships were destroying each other. He hoped that Mister Kennett was successful.
"We got her. She's safe and sound in sickbay." He too saw the overloads and jumped back before sparks flew into his face. "And..now I have work to do."
The lead ship was destroyed just after Gente executed the order to transport the female to the medbay. More surprisingly on the viewscreen, after the lead ship was destroyed, the two Orion ships turned towards each other, fired and also were destroyed in turn.
"Captain we blown out several relays on Decks5, 6 add 8. But I think we can call that a win. Repair teams ready to repair the blown out relays." Gente said, feeling grateful, it was only a few relays.
Cindy's eyes widened in surprise. She first asked on the comm, =^= Jane, did we get her there? =^=
Before her on the biobed lay one of the most beautiful women Jane had ever seen. Bright green skin and petite body, she looked shorter than Jane, which was rare. She had burns on her arms and she was coughing, likely smoke inhalation. =^= Affirmative. She’s injured and we’re beginning treatment. Will advise when she’s able to speak to you. =^=
Jane approaches the young woman. She took both of her cheeks in her hands and looked her in the eyes. “You’re aboard a Federation starship. You are safe. I’m a doctor and I’m going to help you. Do you understand?”
The young woman nodded nervously. "Th..thank you."
With that, Jane and her team began a full scan to identify all injuries and began treating the burned skin.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
"Bec, can you explain to me what just happened here?"
Sitting back and blinking at her console, which had died in a pitiful light show, Bec shook her head. "I have no clue, Cindy. As I stated before, Orions are known for taking prisoners to sell as slaves, they're not known for outright destroying anyone," she turned to look at Cindy as she spoke. "And destroying each other after destroying the lone female's ship? I have nothing for you... I'm stumped..."
"I think there's only one way to find out, then. Care to take a trip with me to the medbay?"
"A trip with you? I'd be mad to say no," Bec said cheekily, standing from her dead station. "After you, Mon Capitaine."
"Well, I would prefer you happy," Cindy responded in kind as she proceeded to the turbolift.
"Neza, see if you can find me any potential scientific phenomenon that would explain any of this."
Blinking, unsure whether to believe her readings or not, Neza looked back to the viewscreen before turning to the sensors, power returning to them as the transport was done. “There..is nothing. The area reads as normal. Nothing on the ships from the previous scans to indicate anything either.”
"So much for hoping that we could explain this through science," Cindy replied sadly.
"Wish I could. With nothing showing up on sensors, I'd have to dig around in...hell I don't even know. This is beyond me." Neza sighed and sat back, staring blankly at her screens which provided her no information.
"Did you get any signals sent by those Orions between talking to us and destroying themselves, Steffan?"
Haas checked then rechecked the sensor records before shaking his head. “Nothing Captain. I’ve double checked the logs.”
Hearing that Cindy and Bec were going to the medbay, Neza looked over, curious who now they were going to leave in charge while they tried to figure out why the Orions seemed to have completely lost it.
Alec, doing his "Assistant thing" as he called it got Jane the tray she needed, helping the other sickbay officers. He run his tricorder over the patient, just to do it. His belief, you couldn't have too much information.
“Alec, talk to me,” Jane said. “The arm burns are obvious. Is the coughing smoke inhalation or something more toxic? And are there any other injuries?”
"Tricorder says definite damaged lungs. Fumes from burning ship most likely. Also a broken radius, but not too bad." He said.
“Prep the imaging chamber,” Jane ordered. “Program it to treat her burned lungs.” She looked back at the Orion. “It’s going to be alright.” She stuck the girl with a hypospray, knocking her unconscious.
Cindy and Bec strolled through the medbay doors. "Jane, is your patient able to answer a few questions?" She had not seen the Orion or her whereabouts when she entered.
Jane shook her head. “She’s pretty badly injured, Cindy. I put her under just before you arrived. Her lungs were burned, I don’t think she couldn’t answered your questions without being in pain. I’ll alert you when she wakes.” She turned to Alec. “Is the chamber ready?”
"Going in now." Alec said. "Scans about to go through."
"Damn it!" Cindy exclaimed. "I guess we will have to wait to solve our mystery." Cindy then turned back to Bec, "Let's come to a full stop. I want you to assemble anyone you can to get the wreckage, logs, or anything else from all of those ships. Search every bit of the wreckage. I need answers."
Looking back at Jane, Cindy told her doctor, "I want to know the second she is up. I doubt we are going to solve this without talking to her. Why do I get the feeling that talking to her won't solve it, either?" Cindy blew some of her hair away from her face, annoyed.
Bec shook her head. She did not like the situation, but couldn't stop the nagging curiosity either. Everything about this was odd, but she didn't know the full story yet. "I can do that," she replied to Cindy. "But I doubt it'll give us anything more than just a piece of the puzzle."
Jane nodded to Cindy. “You’ll know the instant she wakes up. But it might not be for a few hours. Maybe even tomorrow. Her lung damage is quite severe.” She smiled. “And don’t worry; I won’t stay on duty the entire time. We’ll rotate who has watch over her.”
"Thank you, Jane," Cindy replied smiling at her doctor. "Bec, let's go. We have some thinking and exploring to do."
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