Mission 1 - Klingon Neutral Zone - Part 2

[Cmdr Phil]

"I do not see another choice. Do you?" The question seemed mostly rhetorical as Cindy turned her back and watched the view screen. Her mood seemed determined and serious.

“Sadly, no…” Phil acknowledged.

A beep a mere thirty seconds outside the neutral zone told Cindy that that whiskers had found the Romulan vessel through gravametric disturbance, again." Cindy did not hesitate. "Phil, try and aid Lieutenant Williams to guide phasers based on the bit we saw of the Romulan ship. Hopefully you can calculate where it is most likely to be based on those whiskers. Full phaser volley, now!"

TK fired a full burst along the suspected length of the enemy hull. Drive nacelles first, they were easy enough to target given the speed and direction of the enemy advance and the relative distance from the detected anomaly. Next, Engineering; even easier, just point it at the source of the gavimetric readings, that would be the drive core.

“Good targetting, Williams. I’m sending you a reading on hotspots - you’ve already hit the Engines, so next concentration is either kitchens or densely populated. Might help you zero in on the Bridge...

TK only had a guess based on standard Romulan ship designs. There was no telling if this followed any of those conventions.
There were bright lights that showed as the phasers hit something. After a few moments, debris was visible in the area, including some drifting bodies. Cindy asked to nobody in particular as the debris appeared, "Is it destroyed?"

Phil’s console was showing what had been breathable gases leaking around the impact zone.

“Certainly holed. Likely disabled…” he offered.

"Did that seem too easy to anyone else?" TK asked as he double checked shield integrity, just in case.

“ Perhaps, although we already know they were ploughing a lot of energy just into staying invisible, perhaps they sacrificed their shielding trying to bolster it once they realised we could see them… Wouldn’t be too quick to drop our guard, though,” Phil advised.

[Amanda Rose]

Cindy carefully listened to Phil and Williams and agreed with both. "It doesn't feel right at all. No fighting back? Just poof?" She looked over at the science station and commanded, "Scan the debris and calculate its mass, please. In the meantime, Luke, stay back and set deflector and shields at maximum."

tag - Aislinn, Phil, Williams, Luke

[T-Prime]

[Iar Edra]

When the call came in that the whiskers were back online, Cindy's face started to curl into a smile again. Turning to Aislinn as she got on the bridge, Cindy addressed her and said, "I hope that congratulations will soon be in order to you and Nav."

"Aye, Captain. The whiskers should be able to give you whatever information you ask of them now."

A beep a mere thirty seconds outside the neutral zone told Cindy that that whiskers had found the Romulan vessel through gravametric disturbance, again." Cindy did not hesitate. "Phil, try and aid Lieutenant Williams to guide phasers based on the bit we saw of the Romulan ship. Hopefully you can calculate where it is most likely to be based on those whiskers. Full phaser volley, now!"

TK fired a full burst along the suspected length of the enemy hull...

<trim>

Cindy carefully listened to Phil and Williams and agreed with both. "It doesn't feel right at all. No fighting back? Just poof?" She looked over at the science station and commanded, "Scan the debris and calculate its mass, please. In the meantime, Luke, stay back and set deflector and shields at maximum."

"Shields stable at full strength. Weapons are holding up and standing by." He reported.

Aislinn had begun scanning the debris field with the Captain's first question. She made all the proper calculations and was double checking to make sure there were no mistakes, so when she felt the Captain's gaze on her, she answered confidently, "Total mass is equal to that of a Romulan ship." She pushed a few more buttons as she was getting results of other scans she'd run, until one of those results pinged on her console. She looked up, "Um, Captain, something in that debris is giving off nuclear readings."

[Melissa Richards]

[KendleRJ]

Dragging her makeshift seat with her as though it was attached to her arm, she let Dr. Vodden, who she remembered had asked her to call her Jill, to a bed. Why she let that, well, it seemed like a natural thing to do in Sickbay, but she didn't, no she wouldn't... Blinking a little, she realised that there had been a question. Reaching up a hand, she gingerly touched the bump on her head, and smiled sheepishly.

"I hit my head," Nav said softly, trying not to jar it too much with the reverberations going through her skull. "I'm sorry to have troubled you with so many injured, but they told me to come." Waving her hand around a little, probably referencing the invisible 'they', she squinted a little when the room decided to follow her hand and take a nice spin around itself. "It's nothing, shouldn't have bothered..." she mumbled and moved to get up, settling on the side of the bed with little motivation to move. "I'm not bleeding," she said a little proudly and then promptly closed her eyes. If she had been, there would have been a whole lot more in the squeamish department... and then the whiskers... and Norson... and then the Captain... and Frankie...

Oh!

She was in Sickbay.

Nav cracked an eye open and smiled a little at the too bright Doctor. "I'm cleared to go back to Engineering, right?" she asked.

Tags Jill / Sickbay / Everyone who is anyone

[Amanda Rose]

"Total mass is of a Romulan ship?" Cindy asked as if not expecting that answer. She was certain, as she was sure that Williams and Phil were, that it must have been some sort of deception, that they had not destroyed it.

Cindy was about to give another order when she heard Aislinn hesitate before informing, "Um, Captain, something in that debris is giving off nuclear readings."

Cindy's eyes grew large and dark. "Oh, my God!" she uttered. "How stupid of me! The whiskers measure gravemetric disturbance of time-space and thus the mass of an object in the area. That did not mean it was destroyed! It was there and planting a nuclear bomb! It is a trap! They're on the move again! Back off to a distance that our shield will absorb the radiation and then fire, Williams!"

tag - Luke, Williams, Phil

Once the device was destroyed, Cindy knew that a decision had to be made. She looked at Phil with a sense of dread and urgency. "They are going to make it to the neutral zone. We had better inform Starfleet. Estimated time of a response? And are there recommendations for a course of action?"

tag - Phil, Williams

[Melissa Richards]

[Sjet]

“Nnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Nurse made a hole as a suddenly terrified Keth made a beeline for the sounded Nav and the caring Jill. It was either a hole was made, or Keth would have done what the Detroit Lions could never have done against a line backer blitz. With impressive speed the mass of fur, muscles, and near terrified Huanni was by Nav’s side, holding a hand.

Or enveloping it within one of his massive paws.

“Curse those Rigellians!” he snarled, before a passing orderly corrected him “Oh, well yes I meant Romulans. Obviously. But oh! Those…Romulans? Romulans have felled Nav! They’ve hurt her! Oh-!”

He turned to look at Jill, his eyes big and water filled.

“Please save her! She’s the only human I can stand to be close to because you all smell pretty funny! I can donate blood!” he said, before turning, and pointing directly at one of the walking wounded “He has the same blood as Nav, lots and lots of it all just floating about in his useless none Nav body! Oh and I can donate two kidneys from the walking wounded! Oh and a spleen, and four meters of digestive tract no one is using for the next four hours until the mess opens! And did you know that exactly fifty percent of the crew have appendix’s? Does Nav need one of those? Oh please, please, PLEASE tell me you can save Nav, Doctor Voddy!”

And then the fear and pain vanished…and was replaced by a curling lip and the presentation of fangs.

“Those Romulans killed Nav!” he snarled, his voice a bass rumble that caused a beaker of blue fluid to jitter slightly on its shelf “They did this didn’t they? They fired on us! On Nav! On you Dr Voddy! They are filling our sickbay with wounded! THEY ARE CAUSING PAIN!! I WILL CAUSE THEM PAIN!!!”

He released Nav’s hand, the ruff of his mane up high enough to count as a sail, and rushed equally as quickly towards the door to sickbay. So impatient was he to leave sickbay, for parts unknown, he didn’t even wait for the doors to open all the way. He instead shouldered one apart, bending them out slightly to lock them open on their rails.

“Is…is he heading for the transporter room?” someone asked in the now deadly quiet medical centre.

TAG-Anyone

Ensign Keth Soban
Medical
USS Legacy

KETH SMASH!

[Cmdr Phil]

Cindy's eyes grew large and dark. "...It was there and planting a nuclear bomb! It is a trap! They're on the move again! Back off to a distance that our shield will absorb the radiation and then fire, Williams!"

Phil’s fingers danced across the display - using the gravimetric flux to calculate the approximate gigatonnage of the device and the best distance Williams could buy them in the time. They would need to plough as much as they dared spare into the rear deflector to protect them from the blast.

tag - Williams

Once the device was destroyed, Cindy knew that a decision had to be made. She looked at Phil with a sense of dread and urgency. "They are going to make it to the neutral zone. We had better inform Starfleet. Estimated time of a response? And are there recommendations for a course of action?"

“Survive and get the intel back to them, preferably by several different routes, just in case…” he advised. He could see she was blaming herself for missed opportunities, needlessly in his opinion. “What we’ve learned here is useful. If they can get a few more ships here and tooled up with whiskers and the readings we took on their shielding, they stand a much better chance of taking them down if they dare step over the line again. We may not have been able to take them down ourselves, but we’ve come away alive and with a lot more knowledge than we could have dared hope for. It’s going to make a difference.”

Tag - Cindy