Judgement – Crash.....
by Commander Karen Villiers & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Dorian Gabriel & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Mathew Totti & Lieutenant Commander Bruce Freeman & Lieutenant Jana Kasikova & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC)
Post Details
ON
OLD
Solid ground seem to rush toward them. Garan's console began to ping warnings as one system after another red-lined, though the controls stayed maddeningly unresponsive. "Inertial Dampers at max....Heat Deflectors at Max....Thrusters at max."
The computers voice chimed in. "Warning. Collision imminent. Collision in Five hundred meters... Four hundred meters... Three hundred meters...."
Garan braced for impact. She couldn't help closing her eyes.
NEW
- Tyne
Carstairs had never wanted an action packed life, he had been quite happy with a desk job researching the dull little details that could bring a case to life and provide the ammunition that made others shine.
As the planet came ever closer and he clung to the arms of the chair bracing himself he regretted having come, he would not regret it for long however, as the impact came he fell forward and as his head snapped back it struck the edge of his headrest rather than the centre and everything went dark.
Jana had been strapped into her seat and it restrained her as they hit the ground, her arms came up, trying to protect her head as it hit the console in front of her, stars danced across her face, "Ben..." She groaned before everything went black.
Kensington fought with his seatbelt release and threw himself out of his place as soon as it finally let go of him. He cried out. "JANA!" and snatched up his med-kit, struggling again to release the strap holding it, all fingers and thumbs in his haste.
Ben realized he must calm himself to do his job and forget this was the woman he loved. If he was clumsy with her care, it would be a disaster. As he leapt across the cabin he took in deep breaths and as gently as if she were a thread of spun glass, her touched Jana's bruised and bloodied lips with his fingertip as he ran the med-scanner over her.
It took several minutes for Duquesne to recognize the dripping sensation he was experiencing was not water, but another liquid instead, his own blood. His eyes slowly came open and he saw the destroyed viewscreen before him. Beside him lied the body of their resident JAG officer, Lieutenant Carstairs.
He freed himself from his seat and fell to the deck as his knees gave out from beneath him. He managed to climb to his feet and press several buttons attempting to establishing communications. Unfortunately, the ship's communication relay was beyond inoperable.
The only system that was of any reliability was short-range sensors. Duquesne activated them and began to scan the immediate area in an attempt to ascertain their exact location.
At first he was grateful to be alive; however, what he read next made him question just how fortunate he was.
"I need everyone that can walk to get up, now!" He said in a strained voice as the blood continued to escape from the significant wound across the side of his head.
Garan eased herself out of her seat. She was bruised but alive. "What's happening?"
"Sensors are detecting that we are going to have company immediately." He said as he struggled to his feet.
"The Thames?" The petty officer asked hopefully
"No, they don't match any Federation signatures. Plus they originated from the planet's surface. Chances are they are the party responsible for shooting us out of the sky." he said as he spit blood from his mouth.
"We can't stay here and risk being captured. We. . . we need to seek cover until we can find a way to notify the rest of the party." He said as he began to limp over to the rear compartment and withdraw several kits.
Ben quickly checked Carstairs and declared him deceased, then he tried to run his medscan over Duquesne's gash but was waved away. He didn't have time to insist as he quickly assessed anyone else who was not standing up in response to Duquesne's order.
Garan came over and let him load her up, "Do you want me to boobytrap the ship? Give us a bit of time?"
"let's get the wounded out of here first" Kensington's voice was strained with worry as he broke out a stretcher for Jana who was still unconscious.
Jana could hear faint voices around her and her body felt like lead. She was worried about the baby she was carrying. She couldn't reach out of the fog.
Duquesne knew that they did not have the necessary equipment to take on the incoming party, nor did they have time to repair the Runabout to operational-level. The only option they had remaining was to escape and hope they could find assistance nearby or at least a place to hide until the Federation was able to control the situation.
"Leave it" he said in a strained, but detached tone.
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Most of the systems are fried and aren't of any use to anybody. We don't have the time to properly activate a self-destruct sequence, nor the supplies to spare to activate it properly." He said as he took the last kit out of the storage compartment and passed it to the Petty Officer and the Doctor.
"Everybody who can stand on their feet needs to move out of the shuttle as quickly as possible." He said, knowing that Carstairs would not receive a proper burial, nor would anybody else that was captured. Duquesne had been in situations like this before, and they rarely turned out pleasantly. Certain sacrifices would have to be made in order to survive.
Duquesne opened the hatch and began to climb down while carrying whatever supplies he could hold on his back. He had only briefly glanced at the main console before heading to the rear of the shuttle, but it appeared as if the other visitors were at least 15 min away from their position. Not enough time to hope that the rest of the convoy had determined their position.
"The sun will be setting soon, so we'll need to find shelter until we can venture out to establish our location." He said up to the crew as he continued to painfully climb down the jagged edge cliff towards the nearest flat surface.
Ben approached Garan. "I need help to carry Jana, would you mind?" he asked, his face full of the angst of a man whose whole world revolved around one injured woman.
"I've adapted a sling-harness, I can carry her on my back if you help me get her out of the shuttle and up onto my back" Ben explained.
Between them, they wrestled Jana into position, and then, throwing the supplies down to Duquesne, they descended the cliff side. It was an awkward slide, but they made it in no worse shape than they started. Garan hefted the kit up on to her own shoulder and pulled out a tricorder. "I've got heavy vegetation five kilometers south east from here. Will that provide us some cover?"
Duquesne patted himself to locate his tricorder, but quickly realized that he had left it on the shuttle along with several other kits. The only thing of value on his person was his phaser, and a standard survival kit. He was about to begin to climb up the cliff to retrieve it from the Runabout when he heard the sound of approaching forces from the eastern direction. He decided it was best to abandon the shuttle as a whole rather risk capture.
"It will have to do for now, we can venture outward at sunrise tomorrow. For now, we are at a severe disadvantage to our enemies." He said as he stepped aside to allow Garan to lead the way since she had the only working non-medical tricorder.
She started to lead the way, heading for the trees ahead, keeping a close eye on her tricorder. She couldn't detect the incoming forces yet, the range wasn't great enough. But that was a good thing. Once the enemy forces were on her tri-corder, they would be in serious trouble. She wanted to put that moment off as long as possible.
- Thames -
Bill could not believe that they had failed. He blamed himself for his poor judgement and slow reactions. He swung around in his chair to Mat.
"Sorry sir, I failed but I do have the LZ pinpointed." He said hoping for some for of atonement.
Mathew was disappointed by the failed attempt to save the Tyne, but could feel Bill beating himself up over it, so chose to not say anything.
"Alright; hail the Nautilus."
"Aye sir." Harris replied and swung himself back around to the con and opened the hailing channel to Nautilus.
=^= Nautilus, you make sure the Tyne crew is ok. Offer them any medical assistance they need but I want you to find out what the planets defenses are, and what that weapon was. See if there is a way to protect our ships. The Tyne has already gone down and there is no use us all getting shot down. We on the other hand will try to find this Pring again to find out more of what's happened. We should get a clearer signal now as we are closer=^=
- Nautilus -
Mike received the orders from Totti and relayed them to Lt Freeman. "Sir, we're ordered to check on the crew of the Tyne. She's down and badly damaged. We're to find out what those defences are too, to see if we can protect ourselves. The Thames are going to contact Pring, Sir, I've located the wreckage of the Tyne, just getting scans of the life-forms in and around. Lieutenant.... there's a hostile craft approaching them...... "
Bruce looked over the options open to them. There weren't many open. "Prepare planetary landing procedures, get us between the hostile and the Tyne. Computer show the data collected that weapon on the Engineering station." He instructed the crew and computer.
"Landing sequences set up and ready to initiate. Manoeuvring into position in front of the Tyne......Sir! We are being fired on!" Mike responded quickly. There wasn't time to worry about the Computer read out, Mike was hard pushed to get the shields to hold. He relayed all auxiliary power and re-routed power from all non-essential systems which he shut down. His hands were flying across the console as the Nautilus took a pounding.
"She can't take much more of this Sir" he puffed, struggling to keep up with the myriad tasks he was having to perform just to stay in the air.
Reading over the information displayed on the viewer Bruce knew there was only one shot at hoping to survive this. "Land us so the survivors can board, drop the ventral shields and give that power to the dorsal shields." He turned and looked at who was on the bridge, he noticed one was the shield expert he brought along. 'Good this will make things easy.' He thought to himself. "Come with me." He said, "We need to get the shield dome up and running in ten minutes with the amount of bombardment we are going to get." He hoped he could do it in time.
Mike looked at the screen. "Sir!" he called to Bruce who was now just moving away, talking to the shield expert. "Sorry to interrupt Sir but the survivors... there are no readings on the downed ship. They must have moved away. But there are hostiles on the ground in the area. I can't pinpoint our people's signals... I'll keep trying." he reported the added complication, still wrestling to keep the ship in the air so close to the ground.
"Wait... I've detected a group of Feltans in a fan pattern moving away from the Tyne northwards. It looks like they're tracking something, probably the survivors' trail. Shall I lay down some smoke to offer our people cover? Or do I open fire and try to scare them back, Sir?" he asked anxiously.
"Well since they are gone give them some smoke. Its too risky risky to fire upon them. Then find us a good spot to land, hopefully so we can get the survivors, and get this put up." Bruce replied finishing up the temporary shield mechanism and hitting it. "This will give us some time to think of a way out of this. Plus time get our shields back up and look over that weapon some more."
-Thames-
Mathew now more relaxed, even though some strange weapon could be locking on to them at any moment; focused on his part of the mission. "Harris, trace the signal we received from this Mr Pring. And is there anything we can do to mask our presence and stay undetected?"
Harris tapped at the console and started a ping trace of the original signal. He then set the nacelles to slowly release ion particles.
"Trace started and we can confuse their sensors, but without adaptive shielding I can do little to actually hide us." He advised as the console finished it's trace.
"Lieutenant, the original location of the signal has been pinpointed. I have co-ordinates...." His hand came to his head. "Lieutenant, this can't be right. The signal came from behind us, in space!" He remarked in puzzlement. "They must be aboard a cloaked ship, or a relay station." He added the latter as a theory as they were both speculation.
Mathew was pleased with Harris' quick thinking. "Now we must be out of range of this weapon or it's recharging. I predict it can't fire this low, but just in case Alicia you prepare a more equipped survival pack in case we crash. And Harris can we contact Pring from here?"
Alicia nodded enthusiastically, glad to have a job to do. She scurried about collecting together appropriate items for the three back-packs she had found in the emergency locker. She added to the basic first aid kits that were already inside and the sonic emergency flares that were there too. She found some thermo jackets, the ones with the air layers. Some oxygen masks, but she could only find two no matter how she searched, so she hoped they wouldn't need these.
Then she put in power packs, small enough to carry but the maximum charge possible in such tiny packs. There were even emergency survival rations, so she added those and two self-inflating shelters.
The packs were getting full and heavy. She put in manually operated communicators, testing their tiny senders first. Then she looked around again. What had she missed? She worked away busily.
[Feltor Prime - Government Control Centre]
"It worked, sir, one of the attacking ships is down ... transmitting co-ordinates to the recovery team now."
Onaran Whissst like everyone else was watching the replay of events on the massive screen that covered one wall of the control room, in front of it people worked at blinking consoles, their fingers controlling the destiny of the failed Federation rescue team.
Until this moment they could not be sure, but this demonstration proved what they had created worked, and heralded a new dawn for Feltor Prime.
"Well done," Onaran said smoothly to a man who stood near him, realising only then that he had been holding his breath. "Never again will we be at the mercy of a hostile power seeking to enrich itself at our expense," he said to the room and gestured to the human scientist who stood nearby, "thanks to this man we have learned the secret they hoped to keep from us and harnessed it for ourselves. We need no Federation, all will remember this great day for ..."
"Recovery team will rendezvous with the Federation craft in fifteen minutes. Two hostile ships still in orbit - out of range of the weapon."
"Then do something to extend the range," Whissst snapped, disgruntled at having his speech interrupted,"and increase efforts on the ground to find the rebels."
- Thames -
On the Thames, tensions were mounting, at least for Harris as he shook his head, frustrated at himself for not being able to get a signal out to make any contact.
"Nothing at all Sir." He advised as he swung his seat around partially towards the diplomatic officer and saw the female aide struggling with a backpack of some sort and felt that she was as nervous as he was. "I think we need to get closer to that relay station, use it as an amplifier and try to contact the planets government. They must be aware of what has happened!" Harris remarked as his hand began to shake with nerves, or the beginning of losing them.
Mathew kept calm but the others' fear creeped in.
"Damn right the government knows what's happened! They would have ordered it.
Give me the specifics of that relay station. I wanna know if we can land on it for temporary protection and perhaps to if we need to... shut them down."
"Aye sir." Bill said happy to be doing something of use. "There are several compartments on the station, but the gravity is only ten percent of Earth standard. No viable atmosphere, but shielding will afford us some protection, more so if we orbit the station from behind." Harris swung about in his chair. "Sir, as a relay station, it should contain transcripts of all recent commands and messages." He stated as a grin appeared across his face.
Mathew smiled as well to keep up the now growing good spirits. "Take us there best speed. Release more ions, scanners at maximum."
"Aye sir." Harris replied with enthusiasm. His hands swept across the console, one entering course, the other setting the engines to dispense an ion trail in their wake. "Course plotted. Maximum impulse. Warp engines not available whilst we deposit the ion trial." He advised.
Mathew turned back to Harris "Are we able to send a report to DS5 through this thing?"
He shook his head. "We can try, but the ion trial will dampen the message. Transferring message to probe." He said and fired the missile in the general direction of the space station. "Probe away sir." He said, bringing his attention back to the relay station.
"Forty five seconds to target, sir." He said with a joyful smirk on his face though there was still the concern that this may not work.
Mathew displayed no emotion focusing on what was happening and hoping this would give them some kind of base to begin planning something.
"Good. Firstly we need to find out what they've been up to. I don't think diplomacy in this case will work but we still need to try, and get our people out alive."
To be continued.......
The Cast
Runabout Tyne - Crashed on the planet
JAG: Lieutenant Evans Carstairs (Louise NPC) Possibly deceased.
Operations: Petty Officer Garan (Notty NPC)
Science: Lieutenant Jana Kasikova
Medical: Lieutenant JG Ben Kensington (Jools NPC)
Tactica/Helm: Lieutenant Michael Duquesne (Thom NPC)
On a diplomatic ship (Runabout Thames) -
Diplomacy: Lieutenant Mathew Totti
Flight/Weapons - PO3C William Harris (Giving support to Mat) (Mark NPC)
Diplomatic Aide: Yeoman Alicia York ( " " " ) (jools NPC)
Nautilus (Engineering support) -
Engineering: Lieutenant Bruce Freeman
Master Chief Mike White - Engineering Assistant
Feltor Prime - in support of the Federation
Cornelian Pring - leader of the Feltor And Federation movement. (Louise NPC)
Feltor Prime - the new regime
Onaran Whissst (Louise NPC)
by Commander Karen Villiers & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Dorian Gabriel & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Mathew Totti & Lieutenant Commander Bruce Freeman & Lieutenant Jana Kasikova & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC)
Post Details
| Title | Crash..... | |
| Mission | Judgement | |
| Author(s) | Commander Karen Villiers & Commander Chelsea Dunham & Alderman Dorian Gabriel & Alderman Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Mathew Totti & Lieutenant Commander Bruce Freeman & Lieutenant Jana Kasikova & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) | |
| Posted | Mon Jan 03, 2011 @ 8:49am | |
| Location | Feltor Prime | |
| Timeline | SD36 |
OLD
Solid ground seem to rush toward them. Garan's console began to ping warnings as one system after another red-lined, though the controls stayed maddeningly unresponsive. "Inertial Dampers at max....Heat Deflectors at Max....Thrusters at max."
The computers voice chimed in. "Warning. Collision imminent. Collision in Five hundred meters... Four hundred meters... Three hundred meters...."
Garan braced for impact. She couldn't help closing her eyes.
NEW
- Tyne
Carstairs had never wanted an action packed life, he had been quite happy with a desk job researching the dull little details that could bring a case to life and provide the ammunition that made others shine.
As the planet came ever closer and he clung to the arms of the chair bracing himself he regretted having come, he would not regret it for long however, as the impact came he fell forward and as his head snapped back it struck the edge of his headrest rather than the centre and everything went dark.
Jana had been strapped into her seat and it restrained her as they hit the ground, her arms came up, trying to protect her head as it hit the console in front of her, stars danced across her face, "Ben..." She groaned before everything went black.
Kensington fought with his seatbelt release and threw himself out of his place as soon as it finally let go of him. He cried out. "JANA!" and snatched up his med-kit, struggling again to release the strap holding it, all fingers and thumbs in his haste.
Ben realized he must calm himself to do his job and forget this was the woman he loved. If he was clumsy with her care, it would be a disaster. As he leapt across the cabin he took in deep breaths and as gently as if she were a thread of spun glass, her touched Jana's bruised and bloodied lips with his fingertip as he ran the med-scanner over her.
It took several minutes for Duquesne to recognize the dripping sensation he was experiencing was not water, but another liquid instead, his own blood. His eyes slowly came open and he saw the destroyed viewscreen before him. Beside him lied the body of their resident JAG officer, Lieutenant Carstairs.
He freed himself from his seat and fell to the deck as his knees gave out from beneath him. He managed to climb to his feet and press several buttons attempting to establishing communications. Unfortunately, the ship's communication relay was beyond inoperable.
The only system that was of any reliability was short-range sensors. Duquesne activated them and began to scan the immediate area in an attempt to ascertain their exact location.
At first he was grateful to be alive; however, what he read next made him question just how fortunate he was.
"I need everyone that can walk to get up, now!" He said in a strained voice as the blood continued to escape from the significant wound across the side of his head.
Garan eased herself out of her seat. She was bruised but alive. "What's happening?"
"Sensors are detecting that we are going to have company immediately." He said as he struggled to his feet.
"The Thames?" The petty officer asked hopefully
"No, they don't match any Federation signatures. Plus they originated from the planet's surface. Chances are they are the party responsible for shooting us out of the sky." he said as he spit blood from his mouth.
"We can't stay here and risk being captured. We. . . we need to seek cover until we can find a way to notify the rest of the party." He said as he began to limp over to the rear compartment and withdraw several kits.
Ben quickly checked Carstairs and declared him deceased, then he tried to run his medscan over Duquesne's gash but was waved away. He didn't have time to insist as he quickly assessed anyone else who was not standing up in response to Duquesne's order.
Garan came over and let him load her up, "Do you want me to boobytrap the ship? Give us a bit of time?"
"let's get the wounded out of here first" Kensington's voice was strained with worry as he broke out a stretcher for Jana who was still unconscious.
Jana could hear faint voices around her and her body felt like lead. She was worried about the baby she was carrying. She couldn't reach out of the fog.
Duquesne knew that they did not have the necessary equipment to take on the incoming party, nor did they have time to repair the Runabout to operational-level. The only option they had remaining was to escape and hope they could find assistance nearby or at least a place to hide until the Federation was able to control the situation.
"Leave it" he said in a strained, but detached tone.
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Most of the systems are fried and aren't of any use to anybody. We don't have the time to properly activate a self-destruct sequence, nor the supplies to spare to activate it properly." He said as he took the last kit out of the storage compartment and passed it to the Petty Officer and the Doctor.
"Everybody who can stand on their feet needs to move out of the shuttle as quickly as possible." He said, knowing that Carstairs would not receive a proper burial, nor would anybody else that was captured. Duquesne had been in situations like this before, and they rarely turned out pleasantly. Certain sacrifices would have to be made in order to survive.
Duquesne opened the hatch and began to climb down while carrying whatever supplies he could hold on his back. He had only briefly glanced at the main console before heading to the rear of the shuttle, but it appeared as if the other visitors were at least 15 min away from their position. Not enough time to hope that the rest of the convoy had determined their position.
"The sun will be setting soon, so we'll need to find shelter until we can venture out to establish our location." He said up to the crew as he continued to painfully climb down the jagged edge cliff towards the nearest flat surface.
Ben approached Garan. "I need help to carry Jana, would you mind?" he asked, his face full of the angst of a man whose whole world revolved around one injured woman.
"I've adapted a sling-harness, I can carry her on my back if you help me get her out of the shuttle and up onto my back" Ben explained.
Between them, they wrestled Jana into position, and then, throwing the supplies down to Duquesne, they descended the cliff side. It was an awkward slide, but they made it in no worse shape than they started. Garan hefted the kit up on to her own shoulder and pulled out a tricorder. "I've got heavy vegetation five kilometers south east from here. Will that provide us some cover?"
Duquesne patted himself to locate his tricorder, but quickly realized that he had left it on the shuttle along with several other kits. The only thing of value on his person was his phaser, and a standard survival kit. He was about to begin to climb up the cliff to retrieve it from the Runabout when he heard the sound of approaching forces from the eastern direction. He decided it was best to abandon the shuttle as a whole rather risk capture.
"It will have to do for now, we can venture outward at sunrise tomorrow. For now, we are at a severe disadvantage to our enemies." He said as he stepped aside to allow Garan to lead the way since she had the only working non-medical tricorder.
She started to lead the way, heading for the trees ahead, keeping a close eye on her tricorder. She couldn't detect the incoming forces yet, the range wasn't great enough. But that was a good thing. Once the enemy forces were on her tri-corder, they would be in serious trouble. She wanted to put that moment off as long as possible.
- Thames -
Bill could not believe that they had failed. He blamed himself for his poor judgement and slow reactions. He swung around in his chair to Mat.
"Sorry sir, I failed but I do have the LZ pinpointed." He said hoping for some for of atonement.
Mathew was disappointed by the failed attempt to save the Tyne, but could feel Bill beating himself up over it, so chose to not say anything.
"Alright; hail the Nautilus."
"Aye sir." Harris replied and swung himself back around to the con and opened the hailing channel to Nautilus.
=^= Nautilus, you make sure the Tyne crew is ok. Offer them any medical assistance they need but I want you to find out what the planets defenses are, and what that weapon was. See if there is a way to protect our ships. The Tyne has already gone down and there is no use us all getting shot down. We on the other hand will try to find this Pring again to find out more of what's happened. We should get a clearer signal now as we are closer=^=
- Nautilus -
Mike received the orders from Totti and relayed them to Lt Freeman. "Sir, we're ordered to check on the crew of the Tyne. She's down and badly damaged. We're to find out what those defences are too, to see if we can protect ourselves. The Thames are going to contact Pring, Sir, I've located the wreckage of the Tyne, just getting scans of the life-forms in and around. Lieutenant.... there's a hostile craft approaching them...... "
Bruce looked over the options open to them. There weren't many open. "Prepare planetary landing procedures, get us between the hostile and the Tyne. Computer show the data collected that weapon on the Engineering station." He instructed the crew and computer.
"Landing sequences set up and ready to initiate. Manoeuvring into position in front of the Tyne......Sir! We are being fired on!" Mike responded quickly. There wasn't time to worry about the Computer read out, Mike was hard pushed to get the shields to hold. He relayed all auxiliary power and re-routed power from all non-essential systems which he shut down. His hands were flying across the console as the Nautilus took a pounding.
"She can't take much more of this Sir" he puffed, struggling to keep up with the myriad tasks he was having to perform just to stay in the air.
Reading over the information displayed on the viewer Bruce knew there was only one shot at hoping to survive this. "Land us so the survivors can board, drop the ventral shields and give that power to the dorsal shields." He turned and looked at who was on the bridge, he noticed one was the shield expert he brought along. 'Good this will make things easy.' He thought to himself. "Come with me." He said, "We need to get the shield dome up and running in ten minutes with the amount of bombardment we are going to get." He hoped he could do it in time.
Mike looked at the screen. "Sir!" he called to Bruce who was now just moving away, talking to the shield expert. "Sorry to interrupt Sir but the survivors... there are no readings on the downed ship. They must have moved away. But there are hostiles on the ground in the area. I can't pinpoint our people's signals... I'll keep trying." he reported the added complication, still wrestling to keep the ship in the air so close to the ground.
"Wait... I've detected a group of Feltans in a fan pattern moving away from the Tyne northwards. It looks like they're tracking something, probably the survivors' trail. Shall I lay down some smoke to offer our people cover? Or do I open fire and try to scare them back, Sir?" he asked anxiously.
"Well since they are gone give them some smoke. Its too risky risky to fire upon them. Then find us a good spot to land, hopefully so we can get the survivors, and get this put up." Bruce replied finishing up the temporary shield mechanism and hitting it. "This will give us some time to think of a way out of this. Plus time get our shields back up and look over that weapon some more."
-Thames-
Mathew now more relaxed, even though some strange weapon could be locking on to them at any moment; focused on his part of the mission. "Harris, trace the signal we received from this Mr Pring. And is there anything we can do to mask our presence and stay undetected?"
Harris tapped at the console and started a ping trace of the original signal. He then set the nacelles to slowly release ion particles.
"Trace started and we can confuse their sensors, but without adaptive shielding I can do little to actually hide us." He advised as the console finished it's trace.
"Lieutenant, the original location of the signal has been pinpointed. I have co-ordinates...." His hand came to his head. "Lieutenant, this can't be right. The signal came from behind us, in space!" He remarked in puzzlement. "They must be aboard a cloaked ship, or a relay station." He added the latter as a theory as they were both speculation.
Mathew was pleased with Harris' quick thinking. "Now we must be out of range of this weapon or it's recharging. I predict it can't fire this low, but just in case Alicia you prepare a more equipped survival pack in case we crash. And Harris can we contact Pring from here?"
Alicia nodded enthusiastically, glad to have a job to do. She scurried about collecting together appropriate items for the three back-packs she had found in the emergency locker. She added to the basic first aid kits that were already inside and the sonic emergency flares that were there too. She found some thermo jackets, the ones with the air layers. Some oxygen masks, but she could only find two no matter how she searched, so she hoped they wouldn't need these.
Then she put in power packs, small enough to carry but the maximum charge possible in such tiny packs. There were even emergency survival rations, so she added those and two self-inflating shelters.
The packs were getting full and heavy. She put in manually operated communicators, testing their tiny senders first. Then she looked around again. What had she missed? She worked away busily.
[Feltor Prime - Government Control Centre]
"It worked, sir, one of the attacking ships is down ... transmitting co-ordinates to the recovery team now."
Onaran Whissst like everyone else was watching the replay of events on the massive screen that covered one wall of the control room, in front of it people worked at blinking consoles, their fingers controlling the destiny of the failed Federation rescue team.
Until this moment they could not be sure, but this demonstration proved what they had created worked, and heralded a new dawn for Feltor Prime.
"Well done," Onaran said smoothly to a man who stood near him, realising only then that he had been holding his breath. "Never again will we be at the mercy of a hostile power seeking to enrich itself at our expense," he said to the room and gestured to the human scientist who stood nearby, "thanks to this man we have learned the secret they hoped to keep from us and harnessed it for ourselves. We need no Federation, all will remember this great day for ..."
"Recovery team will rendezvous with the Federation craft in fifteen minutes. Two hostile ships still in orbit - out of range of the weapon."
"Then do something to extend the range," Whissst snapped, disgruntled at having his speech interrupted,"and increase efforts on the ground to find the rebels."
- Thames -
On the Thames, tensions were mounting, at least for Harris as he shook his head, frustrated at himself for not being able to get a signal out to make any contact.
"Nothing at all Sir." He advised as he swung his seat around partially towards the diplomatic officer and saw the female aide struggling with a backpack of some sort and felt that she was as nervous as he was. "I think we need to get closer to that relay station, use it as an amplifier and try to contact the planets government. They must be aware of what has happened!" Harris remarked as his hand began to shake with nerves, or the beginning of losing them.
Mathew kept calm but the others' fear creeped in.
"Damn right the government knows what's happened! They would have ordered it.
Give me the specifics of that relay station. I wanna know if we can land on it for temporary protection and perhaps to if we need to... shut them down."
"Aye sir." Bill said happy to be doing something of use. "There are several compartments on the station, but the gravity is only ten percent of Earth standard. No viable atmosphere, but shielding will afford us some protection, more so if we orbit the station from behind." Harris swung about in his chair. "Sir, as a relay station, it should contain transcripts of all recent commands and messages." He stated as a grin appeared across his face.
Mathew smiled as well to keep up the now growing good spirits. "Take us there best speed. Release more ions, scanners at maximum."
"Aye sir." Harris replied with enthusiasm. His hands swept across the console, one entering course, the other setting the engines to dispense an ion trail in their wake. "Course plotted. Maximum impulse. Warp engines not available whilst we deposit the ion trial." He advised.
Mathew turned back to Harris "Are we able to send a report to DS5 through this thing?"
He shook his head. "We can try, but the ion trial will dampen the message. Transferring message to probe." He said and fired the missile in the general direction of the space station. "Probe away sir." He said, bringing his attention back to the relay station.
"Forty five seconds to target, sir." He said with a joyful smirk on his face though there was still the concern that this may not work.
Mathew displayed no emotion focusing on what was happening and hoping this would give them some kind of base to begin planning something.
"Good. Firstly we need to find out what they've been up to. I don't think diplomacy in this case will work but we still need to try, and get our people out alive."
To be continued.......
The Cast
Runabout Tyne - Crashed on the planet
JAG: Lieutenant Evans Carstairs (Louise NPC) Possibly deceased.
Operations: Petty Officer Garan (Notty NPC)
Science: Lieutenant Jana Kasikova
Medical: Lieutenant JG Ben Kensington (Jools NPC)
Tactica/Helm: Lieutenant Michael Duquesne (Thom NPC)
On a diplomatic ship (Runabout Thames) -
Diplomacy: Lieutenant Mathew Totti
Flight/Weapons - PO3C William Harris (Giving support to Mat) (Mark NPC)
Diplomatic Aide: Yeoman Alicia York ( " " " ) (jools NPC)
Nautilus (Engineering support) -
Engineering: Lieutenant Bruce Freeman
Master Chief Mike White - Engineering Assistant
Feltor Prime - in support of the Federation
Cornelian Pring - leader of the Feltor And Federation movement. (Louise NPC)
Feltor Prime - the new regime
Onaran Whissst (Louise NPC)