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Enter the Badlands

Posted on Mon Jan 7th, 2019 @ 11:52am by Captain Henry Crow & Commander Edra Crow & Commander Brielle Jayde & Commander Caressa Melanick & Lieutenant Commander Constance Stewart & Lieutenant Michael Harris & Lieutenant Aemilia "Millie" Stepanova

Mission: To Boldly Go
Location: Merc Bridge

As the Mercutio slipped into the Badlands the tension on the bridge was palpable.

Henry stood from his chair, nodding to Brie. "Alright, bring us to red alert and let's all be on the lookout for anyone and anything. Even if they're not who we're searching for, someone could be hiding in here for their own reasons and may not like seeing a Starfleet ship passing through the neighborhood."

With a heavy sigh, Brie nodded, triggering the red alert. "Yes sir, red alert." She heard the klaxons start before she kicked up the sensors. "Scans starting." She looked out the viewscreen for a moment. "Let's see what's out here."

Edruj pinched the bridge of her nose. She had been staring at the sensor screens for some time when she remembered a report she had read that the Klingon Empire had shared. "Sir echolocation sir." She started as she turned toward the center chair. "Back during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor the Bajoran Resistance would use echolocation to navigate the Badlands and find each other and other ships. Using the deflector dish it is possible to replicate this, which would speed this process up."

Caressa was at the med ops station, once again making sure that if things went south as they typically did, that medical was more than ready.

Edra vaguely remembered overhearing similar stories around certain Bajorans as a child. She nodded to Henry, confirming the Klingon's statement, even though she could offer no more details.

Henry turned to the Science Officer. "Very good thinking."

Meanwhile Banks was huddled with Vox on a console in the rear of the bridge. "A hundred billion faces in this database and the computer can't recognize her." Frustration evident in her tone.

"Then, perhaps, we are chasing a призрак." Millie brushed a wisp of hair back into her usual bun, having stepped on the bridge just in time to hear Tricia's comment. "The Russian language has over a dozen terms for 'ghost'," she said with a shrug, "but I don't think that gets you any closer to finding her, да?"

Constance was at her station on the Bridge. Monitoring communications in Security in case she was needed. All the while she was monitoring what was going on the Bridge. She was nervous being in the badlands where anything can happen.

Edra turned, panning her view across the rest of the bridge crew. "If anyone sees anything, even slightly off, say something. If we deem it's nothing, that's better than missing something important. Understood?" They didn't have any room for failure, and she didn't want anyone embarrassed to ask questions they needed to answer.

"The deflector dish is ready for echolocation. At your command sir." Edruj spoke from her station.

Henry nodded. "Turn it on."

"Aye sir" Edruj said as she keyed in the execute command for the program that she designed. On the exterior of the Mercutio the deflector dish glowed a purplish hue. It began to pulse, as the signal was sent in all directions. In short order data began to read on the screens of the science station. "We should have something in a moment or two."

That moment or two was all it took as the echolation showed a ship coming down at them from above. A moment after the discovery the ship opened fire with everything they had before turning away and vanishing again for the moment.

Meanwhile the Mercutio struggled to maintain systems across the board and shields barely hung on from the onslaught.

Brie’s eyes went wide, but she didn’t even have a chance to give a warning before they were hit. Barely holding on, she ended up on the deck behind her station. Getting back up to her seat with a groan, she pulled up her tactical screens. “Shields at 48%! Trying to see what the hell hit us.”

Caressa grabbed the console as the barrage hit. It was for not because she went flying across the deck coming to rest in front of the turbo lift door. She did not move for a moment or two. She sat up and definitely had her bell rung. She tapped her comm badge before she even rose up off the floor. +Melanick to sickbay, be prepared for causalities and report numbers. Melanick out.+ She stood a bit off kilter. She noticed a warmness flowing down the side of her head. Touching it and looking at her fingers, the tale tale signs of a laceration to her left eyebrow. She grabbed the first aid kit bandage and applied pressure. " Now this sucks"

Millie hadn't quite made it down the ramp when the barrage hit, sending her tumbling onto the deck. She hit the floor hard with her chin, and sat up, slightly dazed.

Just as the image of a ship coalesced on Edruj's screen a barrage of weapons struck the Mercutio. The Klingon woman braced herself against the console and shook little with the detonations. But other than that she weathered the attack with no issues. After the onslaught was over she looked at her sensor screens and thankfully the echolocation was still operational. "I am still getting information on the transponder of the attacker. However, it appears that this vessel is using three shields overlaid each other. When the ship takes damage one shield protects them while the other two recharge. I am still looking to see if I can come up with a way to work around it."

Hearing Edruj's report, Brielle realized exactly what she was reading from a tactical standpoint. Wincing as she moved her arm to pull some readings to her main screen, she sighed. Her arm wasn't quite at the right angle. "Hey doc, feel like patching up an arm?" She shook her head but kept working.

Caressa shook the cobwebs out of her head, grabbing a tricorder and medkit. Kneeling by Brie she scanned her right arm."Well nothing broken, just dislocated." She stated calmly. She took Bries arm by the wrist and elbow lifted and twisted it at a 90 degree angle. " This will hurt for a second and then you will feel a pop at the same time." Before Brie could even give her acknowledgement Caressa had pulled,twisted and the arm popped. " There ya go good as new, just head down to sickbay later to get those muscles regenerated so it doesn't happen again."

"Yow," winced Brie as she got a bit of the tingling feeling back in her fingers. "Not quite what I thought you'd do, but thanks Doc."

Banks picked herself off the floor, luckily having avoided any serious injury. "Well that was nice."

Henry had stayed on his feet thanks to gripping the arm of the center chair. "Shift power from auxiliary to shields."

"From what I can get from hull alloys and ship make up. This vessel seems to be a conglomerate of Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi, and Cardassian designs and technology. However, all three of the shields are definitely Cardassian technology. Perhaps if we modulate our weapons to the Cardassian shield harmonics it will buy us some time." Edruj reported without turning from her station. She may be a scientist but in battle a Klingon focuses on their station and at the moment she was hyper-focused.

Millie shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. She uneasily made her way back into her usual seat to the side of the Captain, and sat down. She felt the trickle down her jawline from the impact, and wiped at it with the back of her hand.

Constance was flung foward during the attack hitting her console face and head first. She lifts her head feeling blood trickling down from a laceration on her forehead. She also feels her right eye swelling up she's having trouble seeing out of it. But ignores everything going back to her console monitoring the communications of her teams.

Listening to Edruj, Brie checked the weapons of the other ship. "Weapons are the same thing: Klingon, Cardassian, Ferengi, Romulan."

"Geez, is this gang up on the women" Caressa went around to the bridge staff putting everyone back together. Repairing Millie and Constance. " Next time just hold on a bit tighter you two" winking at both of them. Back at her console. "Captain, I have multiple reports of minor injuries over multiple decks, nothing serious however." She went back to pushing buttons.

Edra looked around to see if she could help. She liked to keep her medical skills from getting too rusty if the occassion arose, but Caressa seemed to have a hold of everything. The XO had madw it through the attack relatively unscathed, staying rooted in her seat.

Millie managed a nervous smile, holding onto her chair as the ship righted itself in her vision again. "I can't say that I'm *used* to the combat part of Starfleet. They left most of that out of our Academy training." Her eyes flitted uneasily between the viewscreen, and her crewmates behind her.

A moment later the sensors sent out another alert as the echolocation picked up the attacker on another run coming down towards them.

Constance smiles at the Dr "thanks for the patch up I own you a bottle of tequila. I'm gonna Velcro myself to the seat then put in on console lol lol" The sensor alert caught my attention. Looking at my console, "sensor has picked up another attacker headed right for us"

Edra stood and looked back to Constance. "A different vessel, or the same one?"

"Turn us to face them, shift power to forward shields, and open fire!" Henry yelled over his shoulder.

"Moving power to forward shields! I'll fire once we're in range!" Brie called out, targeting for the moment the ship was turned around.

Millie gripped the sides of her seat. It was hard to disguise the fear that flickered across her face.

Constance looks at Edra " not sure mam'm" she kept her eyes on her screen and braced herself for anything.

As the Mercutio turned towards the enemy, they were targeted for the second time but this time the shields hung on...barely. A moment later she returned fire, hitting the attacker directly at the moment where its three shields were harmonized. Suffering intense damage the other ship turned, more limped, away and for the moment they were lost to the sensors.

Henry surveyed the bridge. Emergency lighting was on, several console displays were off, but everyone seemed to be more or less okay after that last round. "Figure out our situation, tend to the wounded, and find those bastards!" He shouted to no one in particular but everyone knew who he was talking to.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Brie kept the tactical sensors trained where they needed to be and started to work on the shields. Even if the other ship was limping away, that didn't mean they wouldn't come back. She didn't say a word, just worked silently.

Edra looked around, everybody with a console was busy, as ordered, and thankfully, the forewarning about the second attack meant no serious injuries were reported, at least here. A look at her side console told her reports from other decks were starting to come in.

Millie fished under the seats, pulling out one of the emergency medkits. She let out the breath she'd been holding, not realizing she'd been holding it in. A deep breath in, and her facade of reassurance was back in place. She slipped past the Captain, and pulled out the dermal regenerator. She knew that the requests to see the counselor would pile up once things were put back together. Until then, she could make herself useful.

Looking at Millie pulling out a medkit, note to self to remind her of her limits, she did have a medical staff. She shook her head. + Sickbay to Melanick you are needed in sickbay stat!+ Pressing her comm badge, + Acknowledged sickbay and on the way+ She was off the bridge and in the turbo lift, before anyone could bat a eye.

Suddenly long range sensors picked up a large plasma plume trailing away from the Mercutio.

Edruj had worked the problem since the first attack run. The problem for her was finding this attacker. It was the second run that gave her what she needed. She had used what little sensors she had, with the echolocation on top of that. The icing on the cake was the natural elements that were in the Badlands became disturbed by any vessel as it passed through. Once she filtered out the Merc, bingo there was the enemy. A broad smile crept across her face as she realized that battle was afoot, and science made it happen. "Sir I have found the enemy. Make your target 3-4-9 mark 5 off the port side." She spoke as she turned in her chair.

"Onscreen," Edra ordered, hoping they at least had that capability. She glanced over at Henry wondering what he'd do. Were they in any shape to pursue this vessel, or did repairs have to come first?

Henry watched the viewscreen literally flicker to life, a reminder that all was not shipshape in their current condition. "What can we tell about their ship systems? Can they get away?"

Checking over her own readings, Brie raised an eyebrow. "Their propulsion is heavily damaged, weapons are offline."

"Engines and weapons update for us?" Edra asked. "Can we go after them?"

Constance checking her console listening to incoming Security reports. Things were chaotic but finally settling down. So she could focus on what was going on on the bridge.

Henry checked his chair's console which was still working. "Engineering reports impulse power at best." He looked to his wife, his glance perfectly stating his intentions in silence.

She nodded in response.

Millie finished patching up the split chin of a bridge member, and took in a nervous breath, putting her 'calm face' back on. She gave a glance around the bridge, and seeing that most everyone left was patched up, she tucked the dermal regenerator back into the medkit, and returned to her normal seat to the other side of Henry.

"Sir, The Badlands is the richest area of space in spacial plasma. If we use the deflector to send a composite ionic pulse directed at the enemy engines that would ignite the plasma in the area and level the playing field. It should take out their warp drive." Edruj turned toward the command pit as she spoke.

"Would that further damage us as well?" Henry asked Edruj.

"There would be a small blast wave. However, if we time it right and turn into the wave, our shields and intertial dampeners should take care of the rest. In my estimation damage to the Mercutio would be minimal." Edruj was exited about this plan as she was whenever Science proved to turn a battle. However, she took special care to measure her voice. She was all too aware that Starfleet Captains did not like an authoritative stance from their underlings.

"I'm not sure I want to risk that when we've already got the high ground." Henry chewed on that for a minute. "How long would it take us at impulse speed to get close enough to lock on a tractor beam...assuming our tractor beam still works right now."

Checking the systems, Brie let out an extremely small sigh of relief. "Tractor is working, at least right now. Current impulse speed," she looked over at Henry. "25 minutes to close the gap to tractor range."

Henry nodded. "Set course for intercept and when we're in range lock on. It's time we end this."

The Helmsman nodded. "Plotting intercept."

The minutes felt like hours but finally they neared the hybrid ship. "We're in range now, Sir."

A moment later the mysterious craft was under the control of the tractor beam and stopped in it's very crippled tracks. Henry turned to Edra. "Form a boarding party, fully armed. We'll give them the standard surrender orders but you know how that usually goes."

Brie glanced up at the words 'boarding party.' Somehow she knew it was coming. "Tractor is holding...as long as the power holds it'll hold as long as we need it too," she said to really no one.

Edra nodded and stood up. "Millie, Constance, Vox, and Caressa. Let's try this again," she commented, realizing it was mostly the same as her last team. "Let's gear up." She led the way off the bridge. They would get what they needed in the armory next to the Transporter Room.

"We'll keep a lock on you like before. Any signs of trouble, I'll hit the button to get you out of there," Brie stated as she looked over at Edra.

Millie blinked in surprise. She...wasn't used to being a part of an away team...much less a boarding party. Nevertheless, she stood and followed Edra off of the bridge.

No sooner had Millie headed to the turbolift that a message came in.

"Captain," said a junior officer, "incoming message from the ship we're engaged with."

Henry slowly turned to the young man. "What's it say?"

"I surrender."

Henry let that sink in for a moment before hitting his com to open a channel to his wife. "Change of plans....."

"Surrender?" Brie whispered as she brought the tactical sensors back up to cover her screen. This seemed too easy.

 

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