Angry Housewife

Posted on Wed Mar 23rd, 2011 @ 10:49pm by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Lieutenant Lianna Vanders & Lieutenant JG Nessa Jenarian

Mission: Bug-Eyed Bogies
Location: Main Engineering

Li continued to lead the way in the Jefferies tube. "All right you ugly bastards. We've got two members of the Mickey Roach club coming over for dinner. Show your ugly mugs for us please."

Nessa was working her way relatively quickly after what could be considered substance abuse in sickbay. One of her hands held her phaser pistol ready while the other carried a tricorder, using the scanner to detect any bugs. Her features were set in a grim determination, she was pretty much ready to shoot anything on sight as long as it exhibited hostile intentions. "Lieutenant, just to let you know... it is my opinion that should something bad happen, the mission to take out the queen needs to take priority... as such, if I end up disabled or something else along those lines, don't hesitate to continue forward," she said. While she certainly didn't have a death wish, she knew that if the queen was not taken out soon enough, the rest of the crew could end up in a worse situation than they already were in.

Li spoke, "And if we cannot get the queen, one of us will have to set a charge on the Warp Core. Make no mistake, we cannot let these bugs get to an inhabited planet. It will be pure hell if they do." Li then spoke, "We're approaching Engineering."

"Understood, lieutenant," the science officer responded. She didn't know when or how long it had been, but her fever had returned with a vengeance and she was once again having trouble focusing her thoughts. Still, the medical tricorder she held in her hand remained relatively quiet as to the presence of other creatures. She thought for a moment, then tapped her comm badge, lowering her voice to a whisper, "Jenarian to bridge. How are those sensors in engineering coming along? The tricorder can't make heads or tails of the situation inside."

"Still no joy, Ensign," came the response over the com line. "Engineering's a total blind spot, and we can't penetrate it. It doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the internal sensors themselves though - there might be something in the compartment that is acting as a dampening field to our sensors; perhaps the Queen, or a concentration of so many of the bugs; we're unsure."

"Awesome. Guess we have to go in blind then," the science officer said, suddenly realizing why her tricorder was detecting absolutely nothing. With a sigh, she turned the device off and slipped it back in its holster at her hip. "Let's hope that zap we gave them knocked out most if not all of them," she added, checking her phaser for a moment to make sure it was set on kill rather than stun before nodding to the lieutenant and saying, "Guess we get to go in guns blazing."

Li spoke, "Easy there. Never shoot at anything unless you know what you're shooting at. You waste ammo firing blind. Sides, I wanna see if the Holonurse's contraption can make the drones think we're one of them, so I can get a clear shot in on the queen's head."

"Of course, lieutenant. It was just a figure of speech, it's not like I was going to jump in there and open fire on anything that moves. For all we know, we could have friendly targets in there too. Plus, I certainly would like to see how the bugs react to my presence too," the science officer answered, tilting her head slightly toward the access hatch they had reached and adding, "Let's see how things go."

Li opened the hatch to Engineering and proceeded into the room. She kept her phaser rifle at the ready, as she moved forward slowly, and suppressing the urge to open up full auto on everything in the room.

Engineering, on the whole, was intact, spare a few sparking consoles. The warp core itself had a large cluster of immobile bugs surrounding its base, suggesting that before the power surge the creatures had all been affixed to the outer shell of the containment chamber. Similarly, at the base of every console, there were more of the overside creatures, suggesting that each of them had been an outlet for their sustenance also.

There were only five things moving in the room - four distinctly different looking bugs, which appeared to be conscious but struggling severely. There was one bug on the other hand, which didn't seem hampered in any way by the energy burst, and indeed the Queen was hovering in the centre of engineering, its insectile eyes looking directly at the jeffries tube from which the officers emerged. Somehow, the buzzing of its wings sounded decisively furious.

Li stared the queen in her eyes. "Not her you b*tch. Yes, come after me." She began to taunt her telepathically. 'Yeah, I killed you kids. You want a piece of me!'

The Queen simply hovered in place over the four struggling bugs - from the looks of them much larger and stronger than the average - clicking her mandibles at the pair of them.

"Wings would appear to be a good target, Lieutenant," the science officer spoke as she stepped out from the hatch, lifting her tricorder once more in an attempt to scan the flying creature. Her right hand held her phaser pistol trained on the queen as she took a quick glance at the results. "Eyes will probably be vulnerable to direct fire too." She shut the tricorder off, slipping it in its holster at her hip before focusing her attention on the flying bug and trying to steady her trembling hand to aim at one of the wings as close to the creature's body as possible.

Li spoke, "Get to work on our plan. I'll deal with her." She took aim and opened fire with a volley of repeating phaser fire right into the queen's wings." The queen squealed in pain and began to advance on Lianna. "Yeah, over here." She moved toward the corridor, and fired another volley of repeating phaser fire into the queen. The fire being adsorbed by the queen's exoskeleton as the Lieutenant ran out of Engineering, followed by the Queen.

The science officer gave a brief pause. The plan was insane to say the least and it hinged on one too many variables that were completely uncontrollable. For one, Nessa wasn't certain exactly how badly the ship's power had been rerouted, so getting transporters operational could take some working. Still, she simply moved to the side, her eyes darting toward the still-twitching bugs as she approached one of the consoles. So far, the bait part seemed to be going well, considering the flying queen was quite eagerly directing her attention toward the betazoid.

She managed to remove the two carcasses still latched onto the console as her fingers trailed over the controls and she started untangling the numerous rerouted systems that the bugs had created in their hunger for the ship's power. Still, the primary objective was to get transporters operational, and it seemed like she'd need some time for that... unless, of course, she wanted to fry the system in the process. She made a mental note of that option should the time prove insufficient to reroute it the normal way.

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Lieutenant Lianna Vanders
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

&

Lieutenant JG Nessa Jenarian
Chief Science Officer
USS Endeavour