A Threat out of Nowhere
Posted on Mon Jan 13th, 2014 @ 6:37pm by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Commander Gaius Ra-Xialii & Lieutenant Horatio Hawke & Lieutenant Ciaran McIntyre
Mission:
Remnant Part 2
Location: USS Endeavour
Byrne imagined that he could feel the solution from the hypospray work its way from where the device was pressed against his neck through his body, negating the paralysing effect that had been applied to him for his partial assimilation. With a gasp of breath that his sense of self needed more than his body, he was finally able to move his own limbs again for the few seconds before medical techs lept forward to hold him down for fear of what he might do to the crew.
"It's alright," he said, his voice feeling hoarse as it emerged from his suddenly dry throat. "It's me," he managed to croak. The techs finally released him, convinced that they weren't about to be assimilated. Sitting up, he found himself in sickbay on the main surgical biobed, surrounded by medics and security officers. He could see Kessel lying on another bed and being attended to, though he seemed to be sedated.
Benjamin took a moment to look down at his own body and the changes wrought upon it by the Borg. His skin was still far too grey to be natural, and he was still wearing the plain black one-piece garment that was the first thing to replace his uniform. The exo-skeleton-like armour had been removed, but he still had various devices protruding from his skin, and he could feel a metal plate covering half of his scalp.
He didn't have any more time to assess his situation however, as the ship shook violently, and the lights momentarily dimmed. Benjamin's temporarily enhanced hearing was able to overhear the conversation of two of the security guards; "Was that more debris?" "No, we cleared the debris of the Cube already. It must be something else." The next time the deck shook was much more violently, and Byrne recognised the feeling of a ship under fire.
"I need to get to the bridge!" he said, as he swung his legs off the biobed and made ready to get up.
"Captain, you can't!" the doctor said to him, trying to stand in his way.
"Doctor; is my mind my own?" the captain asked, looking square in the man's eyes. The doctor reluctantly nodded. "And am I in danger of my body failing me?"
"Not just yet," the doctor answered. "Your body won't start to reject your remaining implants for another day or two."
"Then I am going to the bridge of my ship," Byrne said, dropping off the bed and moving towards the door without waiting for an answer. The security guards hesitated only a moment before they received a nod from the doctor, at which point they moved aside and then went to follow the captain through the ship.
Bridge
As Byrne stepped onto the bridge, flanked by his two new escorts, he did his best to try and act normally; to ignore the fact that he must still look very much like a Borg to his crew. "What's our situation, Commander?" he said, as he strode towards the centre of the bridge.
"Ben! Uhh, Captain, I wasnt expecting you," Gaius said, heavily relieved to see his CO in almost the same piece.
McIntyre attempted to pull the weapons online as much as he could. The Borg had managed to do significant damage to their weapons and shield generators before they had got out of range. He barely had time to register that the Captain looked like Frankenstein's monster. "Looking good, Sir!" He waved his hand over his face. "I like... whatever this is!"
Hawke turned to the source of the familiar voice behind him and was shocked by what he saw. Shock, awe and a deep sense of relief filled him. Despite the outward appearance, it was Captain Byrne back on the bridge and he couldn't help but smile briefly before quickly returning his focus to the imminent danger to the ship.
"Sir we have incoming weapons fire, have we got information?" He said, talking to both the Captain and McIntyre.
"The ship shows signature matches to the station of one, T'Marl." McIntyre hadn't seen the like before but the sensors were flagging up data from the Endeavour's own data banks. "Old friend of yours?"
"Damn that woman," the captain said, trying to ignore the stares that his current appearance was garnering him. The bridge shook violently again as T'Marl's ship sent another hail of fire towards them. "How's our ship?" Benjamin asked, fearing the answer as he watched the lights flicker again as the power grid struggled against an overload.
"Ranging anywhere between bad and crippled." McIntyre called over the fizzing of the console which had just given way behind him. The ship was on her last legs and the shields were all but gone. "I can give you one phaser array and, if we line it up just right, we might be able to hit them with a photon torpedo."
"Lining them up is a lot easier said than done, I'm afraid," Hawke interjected. "I've got thrust but maneuvering is shot to hell. We've got no portside RCS on the saucer, so I'm doing what I can with the others and half of those aren't working."
"What about warp?" Byrne asked.
Hawke winced and shook his head, "Technically we can go to warp, but the Nav computer is fried. Until we get it back up and running, I can't plot a course and worse I won't be able to navigate to avoid any collisions while we're at warp. It would be very risky, sir."
Benjamin reached out to grasp hold of a nearby console as the ship shook under fire again, and he could hear the supporting beams in the ceiling moving under the strain. He stopped and stared at the image on the viewscreen for a few moments. He knew T'Marl; she would have taken their previous encounter personally, and would be more than willing to take out the entire ship whilst she had the opportunity to in its crippled state. As much as he'd like to enjoy the high from his rescue and the promise of living out the rest of his life as a human, he knew that there was probably only one way that he could guarantee his crew's safety.
"Get to the escape pods," he said after a long silence. "Get everyone off the ship. I'll do what I can to keep T'Marl's attention here while you get away." He tapped Hawke's shoulder to get him to move aside and let him sit at the helm console.
"Captain." McIntyre protested. "We've already lost you once this week- we can't get you do this on your own."
"It's an order, Lieutenant," Byrne called back. "T'Marl is here for me. I can't let any of you be in the firing line for this one. This isn't duty; it is personal."
McIntyre grumbled his resigned acceptance of the Captain's orders. He wasn't keen on the Captain's plan. Regardless of the outcome, it was more than likely that the ship wasn't going to make it and there was nothing to stop T'Marl coming after them. Still- if it was personal, it was personal.
Hawke grudgingly rose from his console. He wanted to protest, he wanted to keep flying the Endeavour, he wanted to stand with his captain. He went to protest anyway, but the look in Byrne's eye silenced him. Instead, he stood aside as the captain sat down.
"She won't respond like you want her, sir," Hawke said. "Give her some time, though, she's trying. And if you want to turn to starboard, it's better to go the long way."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Byrne said as he settled into the seat and took a moment to re-familiarise himself with the controls.
Hawke nodded and stood straight, saluting the captain in the old-fashioned military style. It was an anachronistic thing to do, but for Hawke, it seemed appropriate at that moment.
McIntyre stepped forward, regarding his friend with curious eyes. He thrust his hand forward and gripped Byrne's tightly. "Good luck, Sir. It's been an honour."
Gaius in turn outstretched the Captain's arm, but grasped his elbow, gripping it tightly, then with his other hand, put it behind Byrne's neck, before bringing the two of their forheads together. On Efros, sharing the warmth of ones breath was one of the greatest honours one could bestow, on such a cold and forbidding planet. Gaius wanted Benjamin to know how much he meant to him, as both a superior officer, and as a friend.
"Thank you, all of you," Benjamin said, almost having to force his emotions deeper within him to prevent them from choking his words. "Now go; get everyone out of here. And good luck."
"Computer, transfer all Command codes and initiate vocal control for Captain Benjamin Byrne, Authorisation Ra-Xialli Gamma Echo Whiskey Four Niner," Gaius said, not taking his eyes of his CO. With a final nod, he continued to the escape pods.
It wasn't long before Benjamin was left alone on his bridge, sat at the helm console and relaying the other system monitors through to the one station. He watched the monitors as the remaining escape vessels left the ship, showing up as small blips on the scanners. As soon as the internal sensors showed that he was the only one left onboard, he ordered the computer to shut down life support everywhere except deck one and redirect the extra power to the phasers. There were no shields left to direct the power to.
Using the remaining RCS thrusters to align the only working photon torpedo launcher with T'Marl's ship, he keyed in a firing sequence that would have the torpedo launch first, followed by the phaser array firing at full power to hit T'Marl's shields a fraction of a second before the torpedo. He hoped that the combined attack would overload the shields enough to let the torpedo through to hit T'Marl's sensor array, hopefully blinding her to the small fleet of escape pods.
As he keyed the 'Fire' command, he watched as at the same moment, another torpedo left T'Marl's vessel, streaking towards his ship. The inertial dampeners had failed, pushing the Sovereign class back, leaving a trail of its own debris in front of it. Ben fought with the RCS thrusters to keep T'Marl's ship in range of the phaser array's firing arc, but couldn't stop it from turning to port.
The ship's new position gave Benjamin an idea, and he checked the ship's new orientation relevant to the new debris cloud it had just left in front of it. A straight line course would have him just miss it, and head away from T'Marl. An escape would be no use if T'Marl were still able to follow him, but Ben's mind brought up an old tactical report, involving the USS Enterprise-D and one of its earliest wargames scenarios. Commander Riker had sent his ship into warp a fraction of a second before the torpedo fired at it had hit, giving the impression that the ship had been destroyed.
Ben knew that he didn't have much time before T'Marl's torpedo reached his crippled ship, and he watched on the viewscreen as the two torpedoes passed each other. The auto-navigation was down, so he would have to launch the ship into warp manually, which would mean that his plan had an even lower chance of succeeding, but it was his only hope for survival. As soon as he saw the phaser array discharge, he hit the control to throw the ship into warp speed, keying it to disengage after a single second.
Escape Pods
The remaining crew of the Endeavour watched through their small viewports as their ship fired a single phaser beam to make way for the torpedo that exploded on their attacker's hull a moment before they saw a similar explosion engulf their own ship. The fire quickly dissipated, and there was nothing but wreckage left where their ship had once been.
Captain Benjamin J. Byrne
Commanding Officer
Commander Gaius Ra-Xialli
First Officer
Lieutenant Ciaran McIntyre
Chief of Security
&
Lieutenant Horatio Hawke
Chief Helmsman
USS Endeavour
