Posted by Lieutenant Issac Forgrave (Chief of Security) in Main Sim [Valh’kaeri]: Unexpected Turns

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Peter Sigmundsson (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Main Sim [Valh’kaeri]: Unexpected Turns

Posted by Commander Kohr (Executive Officer) in Main Sim [Valh’kaeri]: Unexpected Turns
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
“Status.”

Kohr nearly glared through the view screen at the massive colony ship stretched out before them. According to the astrogational readings, the Muninn was halfway to its destination and already the Valh’kaeri‘s bow tickled the edge of his view. The Klingon scanned for any sign of movement from the alien vessel, but it remained as motionless as it was dark. Light from the distant stars played along the rises and vales of the ship’s constructive landscape, and its scintillating material seemed to breath slowly as they drew closer. No matter how he tried to think of it, the Valh’kaeri was still a slumbering behemoth to him waiting to wake and consume them. Kohr grit his teeth and focused on piloting the runabout; his apprehension of Hab’rabi and the lord’s intent had dwindled with distance and time, but his instincts still rattled against his skull as keenly as they had on the bridge.

“Electromagnetic signatures are still negative,” Watanabe replied pensively from the science station. “Radiation has permeated seven decks of the drive section, but our countermeasures should allow us to navigate them safely enough to effect repairs. There’s still enough ionic interference where direct transport isn’t advisable. Life support and gravity have completely failed ship-wide. There are only a few locations where I can even detect power output. She’s dead in the water, sir.”

Ensign Linch turned from her display, frowning. “Stasis pods seem to be holding, but I can already tell the power drain is putting strain on the remaining crew. I’d say we have less than an hour before we lose at least one of the aliens. We’ll have to move fast to either restore power or get them to the Viking.”

Kohr gave a curt nod and swung the Muninn to parallel the colony ship’s dorsal axis. “Understood. Options?”

Baker’s hands flew across his console, his foot tapping thoughtfully as he worked. “Divide and conquer. We can drop someone at the same point where the original away team set down, give them a portable generator to stabilize the pods and buy us time to make repairs. Lieutenant Commander Sigmundsson’s been there before, so he’d know the lay of the land. The chief could tag along for backup in case there’s any more of those things out there, yeah?”

“There’s what looks like a maintenance hatch on the drive section, ventral aft starboard,” Baker continued, flicking a holodisplay into the air between them for clarity. “It’ll put us two decks from their warp core, which means less time in that ionic soup. We can park the Muninn nearby in case we need to scoot; transporters might not be able to get us in, but with the EVA’s transponders I’d wager it could yank us out.”

Baker turned to regard both Sigmundsson and Forgrave with a soft smile, the fingers of his free hand twitching excitedly. “Unless, of course, you two have a better plan.”
—Kohr, Executive Officer—

Issac shook his head. “No, I think I like that approach; time is critical here if we’re gonna prevent any deaths. Or any more deaths, I reckon… But that bein’ said, lets stop by the maintaince hatch and drop off the warp core team first. They’ll need time to get to the core, and I want to minimize exposure otherwise - the EVA suits oughta keep them safe. For the rest of us, parking the shuttle closer to the pods might give us the opportunity to link the shuttle’s engine to the pod storage, in case the generator ain’t enough. Or alternately, it’ll allow us ta move back and forth to the shuttle without risking ion exposure. Thoughts?”

=/\=Rende to Kohr. Be advised our transporters will harm the remnants. Any crew that might need to be transported will have to be scanned for contact with a remnant. Priority on stabilizing the pods then on accessing the computer for information on the collision with the filiment. Maybe we can send them back through and trap them there. Rende out.=/\=

Rende, CO

“Well, that’ll make things a bit more difficult… but I reckon that’s the situation one way or another.” Forgrave shook his head in mild exasperation. Always something else…

Forgrave, CoS

Kohr grit his teeth and nodded in agreement with Forgrave’s sentiment. “Difficult, but not impossible. We will be cautious in our methods, but if removal is our only option those within the pods are our priority… remnants be damned. Understood?”

Issac nodded - the living took precedent over the dead; no question about it. Granted, it wasn’t exactly common for the dead to float about plain view…

Baker and Walker exchanged glances before giving assent, with Watanabe only a heartbeat behind. Ensign Linch shifted uncomfortably in her seat, trying very hard not to meet the Commander’s eye. Of the group, Kohr knew she would have the most difficult time making the hard calls necessary on such an away mission. She was young, fresh out of the Academy with most every other wide-eyed officer that had the utmost faith the Federation could conquer all. The Klingon had seen so many disabused of that notion during the Dominion War—most of which never returned to learn from their naivete—and did his diligence to preserve it whenever possible. There was no shame in the knowledge that he would fail this day, but he did allow himself a soft sigh as the story of her life threatened to turn the page. To her credit, however, Ensign Linch finally returned his gaze and nodded.

“Good.” Kohr returned his attention to the controls and set to work. “We will be docking in—”

There was a startled cry from behind him, and the commander snapped around just in time to see Ensign Walker’s EVA suit spark and smoulder. An angry red glare pooled in the metal at his shoulder, then slithered around his neck to slip down his spine. White-hot rain leapt from its trail,hissing angrily against the bulkhead behind him. Walker’s body jerked and twitched as the monitoring lights flickered and struggled against whatever gripped him for a long moment before he slumped motionless against Ensign Baker. The security guard grappled the other man and wrenched him away from the serpentine bolt of energy as it burrowed into the Muninn behind them; heedless of the still-smoldering metal sizzling in his face, Baker worked quickly to peel the damaged plating away.

It took a second for Issac to fully realize what was happening - his thoughts flickered from ‘malfunction’ to ‘attack’, and then from ‘laser’ to ‘damned remnant!’ in a heartbeat. He snarled, and started unbuckling his harness before stopping - there wasn’t anything he could do beyond get in the way.

Ensign Linch dropped to her knees almost immediately, tricorder in-hand with a celerity Kohr would not have expected. “H-He’s in shock. Second degree burns to his torso and shoulder, but the suit’s insulation shielded him from the worst of it. Hand me my medical kit!”

“How did it get onboard?” Baker snarled, sliding her the kit as his eyes darted about wildly. “Didn’t you scan the EVA suits before we launched?”

“Twice!” Linch’s voice hitched, but she swallowed her fear and set to work stabilizing Walker. “I-I don’t know… I tried…!”

“Baker! Secure Walker - that fraggin’ remnant mighta got to him; but don’t get in Linch’s way if you can help it. We can figure out what happened later!” Forgrave shuddered to think of the damage a phaser rifle could do in these close quarters.

Kohr snarled as the runabout’s controls winked out, threw his arms across his face in time to deflect more angry sparks. A well-placed fist jolted the controls back to life, but they were not happy in the doing. “It must have found a way to bypass our sensors. Watanabe, contact the Viking and—”

“I can’t, sir,” the small woman replied, her hands working frantically across a dying station panel. “It’s in the computer. Trying to isolate, but comms are down. The port nacelle is down to thirty-seven percent. We’re losing systems faster than I can compensate.”

Gritting his teeth, Kohr struggled against the ailing systems and displays. “Navigation is not responding, and we are drifting closer to the Valh’kaeri. If we cannot regain control of the systems soon, we will impact with the colony ship. Get to the transporters now and return to the Viking!”

“Transporters are at forty percent and falling fast.” Watanabe shook her head and gave the Klingon a resigned glace. “We’ll have to beam out one at a time, maybe in pairs if we hurry.”

“Commander Sigmundsson, return with the munitions first,” Kohr barked, jerking a thumb at the crate of explosives already on the transporter pad. “Lieutenant Forgrave will be next with the antimatter. If I cannot correct our trajectory, I would rather minimize the risk of collateral damage. Ensigns Walker and Linch will follow, then Watanabe and Baker. By then, hopefully the Viking will have been able to render assistance. If not…”

Kohr set his shoulders and glared at the looming vessel as he wrestled with the Muninn‘s controls. “Today is a good day to die.”
—Kohr, Executive Officer—

Peter didn’t hesitate, he holstered the phaser that he’d drawn as soon as the attack took place. He took two large steps and grabbed the crate of explosives “The day is not over yet Commander” He said “Ready to beam out” He said in his gruff voice, he disliked the idea of leaving first but there literally wasn’t time to argue.

CIO

Issac didn’t like it any more than Peter. He knew it was stupid; but he couldn’t shake that romantic notion of ‘going down with the ship.’ But here… he was useless, or damned close. He wasn’t a pilot; he wasn’t an engineer, a medic, nothing. Dead weight. He didn’t like the admission, but he refused to shy away from it. But Kohr… “Baker, Watanabe; make sure Kohr gets out after Linch and Walker - stun him if you have to. There’s no need for useless heroics here, Kohr! Our job ain’t yet done; you wouldn’t be shirking off work, would you?” Issac knew the barb was a bit cruel, but the Viking needed her XO. It was heartless, but such was reality - XO’s were harder to replace than Lieutenants and Ensigns.

-Forgrave, CoS

Baker blinked up at Forgrave, then blanched as he considered the snarling Klingon. He barked a wry laugh and shot the lieutenant a ragged smile. “Aye, sir, but the commander’s an ornery bast—”

The Muninn jerked sharply and began to vibrate as the Viking attempted to snag the runabout with a tractor beam. Kohr attempted to alter the shuttle’s pitch to give the beam greater surface area along their dorsal side, but the controls fought him like a rampaging targ. Half the time he couldn’t see the controls on the flickering console, and he offered a prayer to Kahless for guidance. While in his heart he was a warrior prepared for his life to end at any given moment, a part of him wryly considered that he’d rather that day not come so soon. When the display panels moved from flickering to near constantly dim, he slapped his hand to his chest twice. The environmental suit’s helmet folded up from the bulky collar around his neck and enclosed his head, and the Klingon was almost relieved when there was a soft hush of oxygen.

One less thing to worry about, he thought bitterly. Still wrestling with the controls, he growled, “Command lead override. Engage environmental safeties.”

The commander clenched his jaw as the onboard computer responded, sending out a pulse to the other suits for their systems to do likewise. He could hear the soft clatter of helmets sliding into place, was gratified when the heads-up display confirmed that the away team was now secure should the Muninn‘s life support fail along with the rest of the ailing systems. He was startled, however, when a hum began to build in the runabout, the lights and consoles growing brighter.

“Sir,” Watanabe called from her station, “I can’t be sure but… it looks like the runabout is absorbing the energy from the tractor beam. I’m reading a slight metreon build-up in the EPS array, and it’s acting as a kind of catalyst to polarize the hull. It’s not quite strong enough to exactly shield us from the tractor beam, but it is making purchase difficult.”

Glancing back at the others, Kohr frowned. “Can we discharge it through the phaser array or the deflector grid, disperse the energy?”

“Fire control is down,” Baker replied, wrenching open the access panel beneath his feet and working furiously at the exposed components. “I’ll try to see if I can patch it through secondary systems, get us at least manual control. Won’t be able to aim, but maybe—argh!“

A ragged tongue of energy licked up the arm of Baker’s suit and flung him hard enough against his chair to drive the air from his lungs. The navigational panel above him exploded in a shower of sparks and white-hot metal, scattering off the hard armor plating and onto the deck. Baker groaned and mumbled something, but Kohr couldn’t quite make it out. All things considered, the commander chose to interpret it as “I’m still alive” which suited him just fine.

“Where are we with the transporter?” he growled.

Watanabe checked her console, now almost bright enough to blind, and nodded. “We’re ready, sir. Whatever is going on has supercharged the Muninn, and I can divert some of that power to getting us out of here. There… There’s ionic radiation flooding the main compartment, so we have to go now!”

“Proceed!”

The Klingon’s vision blurred in a cascade of particles as the transporter took hold, and he felt almost violently sick for a long moment. When his vision cleared, he snarled in frustration as he realized he was still aboard the Muninn. The runabout bucked beneath him, and his helmet kissed the console hard enough to crack the visor. Blackness swam all around him, and Kohr could feel blood trickling down his temple. Head lolling on his shoulders, he turned to assess his situation.

Forgrave and Sigmundsson were gone along with the crate of explosives they’d brought for the mission. Baker was curled up on the floor between their seats, and Watanabe was sprawled across her science station. Linch stared at him with raw despair, tricorder held limply in her hand; Walker was not moving, and with his visor damaged there was no way for Kohr to be sure the man was even alive.

“What happened?” he barked.

Ensign Linch’s mouth dropped open, and she shook her head. The tricorder spilled from her hand, and the woman jumped as it clattered to the deck. Thankfully the noise seemed to shake her from shock. Pulling herself up by Watanabe’s chair, she leaned over the unconscious science officer to glance at her console. “The ionization disrupted the pattern lock, but it looks like the lieutenant and lieutenant commander made it safely back to the Viking. The cargo container is… three hundred meters off our port side and adrift in space. The Muninn‘s safety protocols abandoned the transport effort and returned us here.”

“Warning,” the computer announced blandly, apparently heedless of the chaotic situation. “Structural integrity at seven percent. Hull breach is eminent. Attempting to co-co-com… pen… Attempting…“

Linch shot Kohr a worried glance. “I-It looks like the Munnin‘s systems are redirecting the tractor beam energy. It looks like it’s routing through the computer core somehow and shunting back along the beam!”

A muffled thud rippled through the runabout and it bucked hard enough to send Linch sprawling. Before Kohr could react, the Muninn went completely dark and still. The only sound he could hear was his own ragged breathing echoing inside his helmet. A part of him was glad for it; no one would be able to see his completely bewildered expression. They were powerless and adrift, likely still on a collision course for the Valh’kaeri. Muttering a string of curses that would make even a hardened warrior look askance, he began to grope about in the dark for the others.

Let us hope that you are having better luck than we, he thought bitterly, wondering how the captain and the rest of the Viking crew were faring.
—Kohr, Executive Officer—