The Waiting

Posted on Thu May 30th, 2013 @ 7:27am by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Commander Gaius Ra-Xialii & Lieutenant Horatio Hawke & Lieutenant Ciaran McIntyre & Lieutenant JG Ethan Kessel & Lieutenant JG Patok Malroon & Petty Officer 2nd Class Sophie Blaise

Mission: Klingons on the Starboard Bow
Location: USS Endeavour - Bridge
Timeline: After Shuttle has Landed

The bridge of the Endeavour was still bathed in the red hue of the current alert status. The computers beeping in their usual pattern and low amounts of chatter filled the air. This was a deck that had a eerie suspense to it. The away team had left already and the Endeavour had taken up a low polar orbit on one of the moons nearby. Still outside the sensor range of the facility.

Commander Ra-Xialli sat poised in the Captain's chair, ready for any signal. He had ordered all external running lights of the Endeavour extinguished giving very little visual profile, and had secondary systems shut down to lower her power signature. It was frustrating to note the Captain disobeying orders, but he really could do nothing about it, 'not until i get another pip,' he thought to himself.

He started drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair, he needed to expel this nervouse energy somehow. Gaius usually wasnt like this, he had so much to think about, what if the Captain died? What would Starfleet say about him disobeying protocol? He couldnt sit silent any longer.

"Report, all stations," Ra-Xialli chimed up, straightening his uniform. He looked to the officers on deck in turn.

"Tactical systems are at the ready, Commander," reported Lieutenant Gabel, the Orion officer who was filling in for Biggs whilst he was on the away mission. "Shields operating to parameters and weapons systems are ready when required."

"Lieutenant Malroon is on Operations," Patok chimed in. "Standing by."

Sophie was quiet during the reports, just listening to what was happening.She was pacing up and down the bridge a bit with a padd in her hand, trying to focus. She was a bit anxious about the current events. She had met Klingons before and dealt with them, but never during combat. And she preferred to keep it that way.

"Mr Malroon, give me a sensor image of where our people are. If we can track from this distance," Gaius ordered.

"Yes, Sir!" Patok replied. He adjusted the scanner frequencies to focus on the away team. The result was only slightly garbled, and their position was clear. "The away team is currently within 300 meters of the Facility, and moving towards it."

Gaius stood and turned to the rear of the bridge, "Track their progress. Tactical, I want to know where to hit the facility to make the biggest bang. Flight, link with Tactical for a course."

The Orion brought up a very rough schematic on his screen, based off of the sensor readings they had been able to take before hiding behind a moon. He'd already done the calculations, but he brought it up to reference. "A torpedo strike at the centre of the main facility should cause sufficient damage, Commander," he said. "Even if the facility goes underground, torpedo blasts at that location should sufficiently decimate the main compound."

"Engineering, We need auxiliary power offline for now, to lower our power signature," Gaius continued, listing off his orders.

"On it sir. Auxillary power coming down now. I am leaving the shields and engines at half power and shutting down all non-critical systems," Ethan reported over the comm.

Gaius simply nodded and turned back to the viewscreen, then realising that the engineer was the only one not to see him nod, quickly replied, "Understood engineering."

"Commander?" Gable said, looking up from his tactical console towards the central chair. "I'm detecting an odd tetryon reading on scanners. From what I can see it's a ship on an inbound trajectory. The readings are very faint, but it appears to be a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and it appears to have a damaged cloaking device."

"Has it detected us?" the Commander replied, in slightly too hushed of a tone, the hued bridge of the Endeavour reminding him of the submarine he was on once during his time in the Andorian military.

"There are no outward indications that it has." Gable replied, matching the Commander's tone and hoping that they wouldn't become engaged in a whispering match. "It is possible that they've detected an emission but the chances of them having seen us in all our glory are slim at this point."

"If it starts to decloak, I want you to ram a spread of torpedoes into its mid-decks," Gaius ordered, remembering that BoPs are weakest when decloaking.

Gable was pleased that the Commander had adopted a more commanding timbre in his order. If he was going to pepper some Klingons with burning plasma, he'd prefer to do it to a rousing command. "Aye, Sir."

The bridge was silent for a few minutes until it was broken by the sound of an in-coming comm. signal. The computer had been programmed to open a channel immediately upon contact with the shuttle or the away team, and so there was no delay whilst the inbound signal was reported.

"Hawke to Endeavour," the floating voice called. "We've got a problem down here."

Gable fell into his standard response, not realising that the emergency channel meant that Lieutenant Hawke's communication was not being patched through him. "Go ahead Lieutenant."

He could feel the rest of the bridge crew's eyes boring into the back of his head as he said the words. He turned and looked at Commander Ra-Xialli and mouthed the word 'sorry'.

The Commander acknowledged Gables small mishap, things happen in combat. He put a couple of commands into his PADD, not wanting to interrupt the incoming signal.

Sophie quietly watched what was happening around her. She wasn't sure, but this didn't sound good. Too many mysteries and too many uncertainties. She looked around, all she could do was wait.

Hawke continued, "Soon after the away team entered the compound, a large number of armed hostiles moved in. We have to assume they're in danger. I can use the shuttle's transporter to lock onto their transponders and get them out of there, but we will have to get off world quickly."

"All power to engines, get us there. Gable, clip the Klingon's wings," Gaius said, with more aggression than he had intended.

Gable attempted to respond to the Commander but could only muster a low growl. His hands were already working on acquiring the optimal target on the Klingon ship's engines. Before the last word was fully out of the Commander's mouth, Lieutenant Gable had already fired, sending a stream of brilliant orange out across the vacuum of space and tearing through the protective bulkheads surrounding the Klingon's impulse engines.

"Target disabled. Sir."