A slight hiccup

Posted on Thu Nov 22nd, 2018 @ 4:51pm by Captain Taliserra Tigran & Lieutenant Commander Radak & Lieutenant Commander Mariana Vaz & Lieutenant Sika EngD & Lieutenant Galatea Polaris & Lieutenant JG Jasad Yuvek & Lieutenant Anthony Edwards Ph. D & Ensign Mark Cross

4,184 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Negotiations and Apothecaries
Location: Various
Timeline: 21st feb 2395

ON:

Still at impulse speed, the maintenance of the warp engines after their long trip taking longer than expected the Wollf steamed towards the rendezvous with the Kurai's ambassador. They weren't too far from the border but the going was slow.

Mariana was standing behind the tactical console, doing department work on the quiet bridge. Suddenly, a siren blared out from the console and the sensor display began to glow red in quick succession. She leaned over with quick reflexes and grazed a button with slender fingers that silenced the alarm and stopped the flashing display. Immediately, she winced in confusion. She had been monitoring long range sensors and saw no approaching ships, but now there were three ships which seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Commander, I'm reading three ships of unknown composition which have suddenly appeared on short range sensors," she said, her Brazilian accented voice deliberate and calm. Her fingers danced again over the sensor display. "We have no record of their approach on long range sensors. Recommend we raise shields."

"Go to Yellow alert, can you identify them?" Taliserra asked, there was a fair chance they were Kurai ships but she could only guess.

"No, sir. They are of unknown specification." Mariana responded as her hand slipped over the quick-order button that raised the shields and sounded yellow alert klaxons throughout the ship; it would serve as a cue that everyone aboard should report to action stations. "The ships are steadily approaching us, sir."

Lieutenant Yuvek first became aware of the vessels when the warning sensors activated. He could not believe his eyes that three vessels were able to approach the Wolff so fast without being picked up on long range sensors.

The situation was made worse by their malfunctioning engines. If they were going to have to fight three hostile vessels he would have preferred to have the full capability of warp drive in the process.

Lieutenant Yuvek began to do a cursory scan of the nearby area of space. If there were to be a confrontation, it would help for their to be a nearby asteroid field or gas cloud to shield them from tactical sensors.

"Hhhmmm." Taliserra tapped her arm console. "Tigran to Ambassador Al'mek, can you come to the bridge immediately."

Al'mek wasn't really doing anything of import, so being called to the bridge by the Wolff's captain was very exciting to him. He put down the book he had been reading and stepped outside of his quarters to the nearest security officer, who was more than willing to escort him to the bridge. A few moments and a turbolift ride later and he was standing on one of the most technologically advanced bridges he'd ever seen.

It was hard for Al'mek to concentrate on the matter at hand with so many flashing lights and blinking consoles all around him. "Captain..." he said, in way of announcing himself and stepped forward a little. On the viewscreen in front of him were ships. Kurai ships. Their ships had caused so much trouble for Al'mek that seeing them, even aboard this ship, made him extremely nervous.

"These ships appeared as if from nowhere, one minute there was nothing on sensors, the next they were already this close to us as we never detected them before," Taliserra explained. "Are they Kurai ships?"

The Ambassador nodded. "Yes, Captain. I am afraid that they are, Kurai cruisers. We are not certain how they are able to avoid detection for so long. We speculate that perhaps they are skipping areas of space somehow. I apologize for my lack of proper terms. Engineering and its theory have never been my strong suit," he readily admitted.

Mariana glared at the back of the Ambassador's head. This information, in her mind, would have been better given before this encounter.

"Hail the Kurai ships. Let's see if we can figure out why they're here."

Edward listened to the Ambassador as he spoke and ran some passive scans. "No response, Commander Tigran, but I think I can answer how they appear to skip. That, like the Bajorans pre-occupation, they're using the solar winds to change sub-light vessels into near warp vessels in speed."

Taliserra thought for a moment, the large tail section of the sleek ship certainly looked like a sail or a fin. Edwards could be right, but she was sure they would have detected them before now. She turned to Al'mek. "Ambassador is there a Yatal diplomatic code that they may be more likely to respond to?"

Al'mek blinked at her as if he had just suddenly come back to the conversation. "Oh! Captain, my apologies." He reached into the inside pocket of his robe and produced a small device that he held out to the Captain. "This will help. This is our translation device that we have developed to speak to the Kurai."

"Please give it to Lieutenant Edwards," Taliserra told Al'mek. "Anthony, see if you can link it to our comm system and send a message to the Kurai, tell them we have the Yatal ambassador onboard and are taking him to meet with a Kurai ambassador."

The Ambassador stepped forward and offered the device to Lieutenant Edwards, as indicated by the captain. He hoped that he was not too late for some of the Kurai's more drastic fighting maneuvers.

“Thank you Ambassador Al’mek this should make communication easier,” Anthony said as he patiently accepted the communication device from the ambassador. After a quick non evasive patch job he got it wired into the science station, so that it could be returned once the universal translator picked up the Kurai language when it would no longer be necessary.

Commander Vaz's eyes were planted squarely on her sensor readings as the Science Chief sent the requested message. She looked at tactical scans of the three ships with pursed full lips. Her brown ponytail hung over her right shoulder as she leaned forward.

"No shield emitters, but their armament is impressive for their technological level," she thought to herself, running a quick comparison between the Kurai ships and the Yatal vessel they encountered earlier. "Their particle cannons are slightly lower yield than the those of the Yatal, but these ships have excellent coverage."

Mariana felt the pulse of a tactile notification under her fingers which made no sound. She leaned in when she saw the indication which had become familiar to her through her constant tactical practice. She looked up and toward the back of Commander Tigran's head, her lips parting.

"Captain, their powering up weap-"

A beam of of orange light streaked across the viewscreen as it crossed the expanse between the Wolff and the Kurai ship in the center of the formation. The ship shook and those managing stations around the bridge reached toward their consoles for support. Red alert klaxons began to blare and the lighting on the bridge dimmed slightly.

"The center ship has fired on us, sir," Mariana said with a calm, but authoritative tone. "No damage to our shields; they're no match for the Wolff. I'm not sure what they thought they would accomplish. Shall I return fire?"

Lieutenant Yuvek did not wait for the command from the Captain before he began to input the directions for evasive maneuvers. The lead vessel's weapon did not appear to have harmed the Wolff; however, there was no telling what other armaments the vessel possessed. Additionally, there was no telling what would happen if all of the ships fired collectively.

"Hold fire, Commander," Taliserra ordered. "Reopen the channel to the Kurai ships.

Mariana tensed her jaw, but obeyed the order. This was the difference between Starfleet and the Marines. The Marines weren't explorers or diplomats and they would have turned those ships into space dust.

Anthony reacted instinctively and said "Beam weapons their not supposed to have those according to the briefing notes Commander Tigran." He looked at Ambassador Al'mek quickly before returning to the task at hand and patch through the contact to the Kurai vessels.

=/\= Kurai vessels, =/\= Taliserra started. =/\= Your ships are outmatched, cease your attacks or we will defend ourselves =/\=

The ship rocked again with increased cannon fire, this time from all three Kurai ships. The shields of the Wolff were buffeted and lit by the fire, but they still weren't registering more than 3 percent damage.

"These aren't just warning shots, Captain. They mean to do us harm," Commander Vaz remarked as she watched the scene unfold. Another tactile indicator got her attention and she leaned in to read it.

"Captain, the Kurai ships are arming high yield nuclear weapons."

"Nuclear weapons?" Taliserra paused for a moment, she'd not expected anything like nuclear weapons. "Full impulse, evasive Omega-5."

Three nukes arched away from the Kurai ships and toward the Luna Class ship, their fire creating a trail of smoke in their wake as they chased the ship through a series of evasive maneuver. They were clearly program to hit the same location and they circled around toward the secondary hull, striking near the starboard nacelle.

The ship rocked hard and Mariana was thrown to the deck, bruising her side on the way down. She could hear the sound of exclamations and groans around her as she added to the chorus herself.

Sat securely in the centre chair, Taliserra rode out the violent shake of the ship, several of the other crew weren't so lucky.

Ambassador Al'mek landed hard on the deck. Knocking the wind out of him, but otherwise he remained okay. He scrambled to his feet, resisting the desire to bark orders to the crew. The Yatal had come up against the Kurai many times and had not always come out the victor.

Anthony was now working feverishly on his science console, some of the sensors were damaged in the first attack. "Love the fact that everyone shoots first and ask questions after."

Radak was in his office when the ship rocked hard and almost threw him out of his chair to the floor. He had to grab his desk hard to keep his seat. Whatever was going on out there didn't feel like it was going well.

Down in the ambassador's quarters several of the delicately stacked scent bottles fell from their shelves and smashed on the deck, their contents spilling out onto the carpet and the strong smelling vapours mixing with the air in the quarters were gradually pulled into the ventilation system.

"Damage report," Taliserra called out.

Commander Vaz pulled herself back to her feet, ignoring the pain in her side, and brought herself back to the console.

"Shields at 63 percent... no radiation leak or hull damage. Several injuries reported throughout the ship..." she said, a wave of irritation welling up at the lack of responsiveness. She looked back toward the Captain, her eyebrows raised. "We have tried the carrot, Sir. Might I recommend the stick?"

"Ma'am, those nuclear detonations emitted several subsequent EMP bursts. I've lost maneuvering thrusters on the port, starboard, and impulse engines are responding with a noticeable delay." Lieutenant Yuvek said as he recovered from gripping his console.

Who in this day and age used something as barbaric as nuclear missiles! Jasad thought to himself as he adjusted the ship's direction to try to put more distance between the Wolff and the vessels. There was no telling how many more radiological devices they possessed.

As much as Taliserra didn't want to fight Mariana was right. "Target the lead ship, attack pattern beta 3, keep your eyes open for more missiles."

"Aye ma'am," Lieutenant Yuvek responded as he began to initiate a broad arc turn around one of the closest vessels. The damage to the maneuvering thrusters made the move slightly more difficult; however, the enemy ship did not have the same maneuvering capabilities, or simply was too slow to realize what was happening, to try to counter.

As the ship pulled to the Kurai lead's fore-starboard quarter, phaser fire sprang from the Federation ship across the void of space, making contact with the cannon, which held firm against the phaser blast, emitting several more volleys of its own before it was struck again by phaser fire. As the last energy blast made its impact, the cannon of the Kurai ship exploded without further resistance.

"Cannon destroyed, I'm reading a small hull breach. I'm going to try to exploit the weakness," Mariana said, partially under her breath. "These ships don't have shielding, but they're still pretty heavily armored. Lieutenant Sika, divert extra power to phasers."

The Bajoran was capable of the task. He knew where to take from and when. "I'll give you everything I can without taking from essential systems...you'll have to make it count." he said motioning to her that her order was being followed.

Phaser blast make contact close to the destroyed cannon, exploiting the weakened hull in the area and starting several other breaches. As the Wolff commenced the Beta-2 maneuver, she pulled underneath the Kurai vessel, opening a straight line in her ventral hull.

"Reading decompression events in several of the enemy's outer-compartments, Captain," Mariana said. "Their hull is heavily reinforced, but are weak around their weaponry. A torpedo blast should unzip them."

The tactical console vibrated again and Mariana leaned in to read. "The other two ships are loading nukes again, Sir."

"Ma'am, it appears apparent that they are not interested in a diplomatic solution. Therefore, I suggest we destroy one vessel to prove how serious we are." Lieutenant Yuvek stated. "Once they see one of their own perish they may be more willing to cooperate," he added.

Taliserra looked at the sensor display. "Helm bring us about to.... 135 mark 8, ready a full spread of torpedoes. If they launch missiles try to take them down."

Lt. Yuvek adjusted the ship's vessel and brought the ship around on to 135 degrees along the horizontal axis and 8 degrees along its vertical. "Coming about," He announced.

Mariana's fingers reached for the appropriate buttons on her screen, loading a full spread of torpedoes into the bay, targeting the damaged ship as well as one of the others. As the indicator sounded that the devices were loaded into the tubes and ready to fire, another indicator sounded. She looked up toward the screen as two nukes rocketed out of their housings and arched toward the Wolff.

"Droga! Nukes fired!" she exclaimed, her fingers dancing across her console again as she made an attempt to use the phasers as point defense weapons. This was a complicated procedure and she was very new to the tactical role, nevertheless, she succeeded with one of them. One nuke detonated in the space between the Federation vessel and the Kurai ships, causing a huge explosion that buffeted the ship, but the other struck true in the same place as before, near the starboard nacelle.

Lt. Yuvek heard the klaxon warning of the impending impact just an instant before he was violently thrown from his console and onto the ground. He groaned as he rolled to his side and tried to recover from the wind being knocked out of his lungs completely. After several seconds he was able to stagger to his knees and climb back into the Helm console and try to maintain guidance of the ship.

Immediately after impact, Mariana slammed her finger down on the "fire" button and the viewscreen was illuminated with crimson flashes as six torpedoes sped from their launch tube. Three made contact with the lead vessel and three made contact with one of the others, causing both ships to explode in a dazzling display of fire.

"Two of the three ships have been destroyed, Captain," Commander Vaz said, looking forward toward the command area.

Anthony said to himself, 'Now let's just hope the Kurai Ambassador wasn't on one of those ships.'

The barrage of fire from the surviving Kurai ships plasma cannons ceased and its engines flared brightly against the blackness of space as it increased speed and started to turn away from the Wolff.


Meanwhile in Sickbay

Galatea move her hair out of her eyes as she recovered the feet that were swept from under her as the ship was shaking. Taking advantage of the fact that the ship had stopped she sighed and turned to her staff. She divided her group into those who would make deck rounds and those who would stay in sickbay.

The casualty calls were coming in. Mostly bumps, bruises, a few broken bones. She would have felt relieved if the doors to the sickbay hadn't whooshed open with a rather hard case. The ensign was young, his legged looked crushed. "What happened?" she yelled as she cleared a bio bed.

"He was in the cargo bay. Box of bolts fell on him."

She wanted to point out that this was a crate not a box. She would have her work cut out for her. "Payton! Prep the surgical room. I want Emma and you in there now. Prep the room."

Payton gave a nod and headed to do her bidding.

Back on the bridge...

"Hold fire Commander." Taliserra let out a sigh of relief as the Kurai ship started to leave. "What's our status?"

"Shields at 46 percent. Our starboard nacelle seems to be... not quite right..." Mariana said, furrowing her brow. She was marine police and knew nothing about warp technology. "Several injuries reported, sir. Three severe, all others have been reported as superficial."

Lt. Yuvek had to look at the console twice to believe what he was seeing. The surviving vessel was actually turning towards The Wolff. In fact, it was heading towards the Starfleet vessel at a very high rate of speed. It did not make any sense to do so since the vessel was undoubtedly defenseless and its shields could not have survived a full barrage from the Starfleet vessel.

"Ma'am! The vessel has entered a direct course for us, high speed," the Cardassian announced as he attempted to maneuver the vessel, but the residual EMP from the nuclear devices were still causing the maneuvering thrusters to respond sluggishly.

"Initiating evasive maneuvers, Gamma-4!" the Cardassian shouted as he was finally able to get a better response from helm controls.

"Captain," Ambassador Al'mek said suddenly. "It is very likely that they will try and ram you next. It is one of their more aggressive tactics," he warned. He had found a place to sit and hold on.

Still working feverishly over his console Anthony let out a Romulan naughty “Faelirh chsusse thrai “ (Son of a B) before he remembered the guest and then added “Why...”

"I wish I knew why, Lieutenant Edwards," Al'mek answered, his eyes glued to the viewscreen.

"My apologies Ambassador, we humans have a thing known in our language as a Rhetorical question. I hope I didn't cause you too much confusion, but it means I was voicing an opinion as a question that didn't necessarily need answering. My question of "why" wasn't actually looking for an answer, but it is nice to know that you meant for me to have the answer you thought appropriate," Anthony said quietly to Ambassador Al'mek.

Al'mek tipped his head to the side. "Very curious. I would like to know more at an appropriate time."

Mariana's hands moved over the tactical console as she loaded three more torpedoes and focused phaser targeting toward the enemy vessel. "Weapons locked, Captain. Just give the word..."

Lt. Yuvek had worked out the calculations and had begun to execute his plan, which he was 85% confident would work. He put the vessel into a hard jerk to the port side, he used the momentum from the help drive the vessel hard to its port side. Lt. Yuvek tipped the nose of the vessel downward, thereby using the resulting momentum to force the vessel to fall steeply toward its port side, therefore making the vessel as narrow as possible as it attempted to avoid the incoming vessel.

As this went on Anthony tried something different to exactly what Commander Tigran had told him to put in the message. =/\=This is the USS Wolff of the United Federation of Planets, we are on a diplomatic mission to meet with diplomatic envoys to negotiate a peace between the Yatal and Kurai people. Your attack is an act of treason and an instigation to war with the United Federation of Planets and their military arms of Starfleet and Marines. Cease your attack! Now!=/\=

Unable to turn quickly enough to counter the turns of the Wolff the Kurai ship lightly skimmed against the ventral shields and was deflected away, missing the warp nacelles by scant feet.

Taliserra let out the breath she'd held since the ramming attempt was started. "Aft torpedoes, fire when ready."

Three torpedoes went shooting from the pod on the top of the Wolff's hull, flying through space on their intended course. As they drew nearer to the Kurai ship, it made attempts to serve the impact to no avail. One after another, the torpedoes slammed into the aft dorsal section of the Kurai vessel, ripping it open and causing an explosion that spread debris in every direction.

"Enemy vessel destroyed, Captain," Commander Vaz stated clearly, looking up with an expression of satisfaction. "Something tells me a diplomatic solution is a long way off."

"Maybe." Taliserra said, "This could just be a faction of the Kurai that do not want peace."

"Oh they were testing our strength and resolve." Anthony half chuckled to himself, but did something he had overlooked. He set his scans to look for cloaked ships, he found nothing, but he thought he should look. "Captain some of my sensors are fried but the forward sensors are working perfectly thanks to Lieutenant Yuvek, keeping those projectiles from hitting us on the bow. There is nothing except space junk and bits of those three vessels out there."

"Good." Taliserra tapped the arm panel. =/\= Bridge to engineering. =/\=

=/\= Cross here, Bridge. =/\= Mark replied, hands on hips and head shaking as he surveyed the scene around him.

=/\= Status on our engines? a lot of the fire was directed towards them. =/\=

=/\= It's certainly going to keep us to impulse for longer than we planned. Nothing we can't fix, but it'll probably take a matter of hours. =/\=

=/\= Keep me informed, bridge out. =/\= Taliserra said then closed the channel.

=/\= Captain? Is everything alright up there? =/\= Radak came through the comm. He had managed to pull himself together and was currently headed to the bridge, but kept running into people that were hurt and bruised. After several trips to Sickbay he was once again on his way. =/\= I am on my way. =/\=

=/\= Everything is under control, Commander. A few Kurai ships made themselves known, =/\= Taliserra replied.

Radak stopped in his tracks. If he wasn't needed on the bridge, then perhaps he could help with the injured and making sure there wasn't interior damage. =/\= If you do not need my assistance, Captain, I think my time would be better served helping with injuries. =/\=

=/\= Go ahead Commander.=/\= Taliserra said, she closed the channel and walked around the bridge stopping at each primary station.

"Jasad, bring us back onto our original course and speed, Mariana we'll stay at yellow alert for now, keep your eyes open for any more Kurai ships. Anthony, work with Sika and see if you can find out how we didn't detect those ships before they were on top of us."

Lt. Yuvek suppressed a laugh. The ship was already going less than optimal speed before the ambush. The subsequent attack had made things worse. He could put the ship back on its original course, but speed was a totally different matter. "Aye, ma'am," he responded.

Anthony got up and moved to the second science station. It hadn't been as badly affected the primary console and started connecting to operations. "Okay, Lieutenant Sika, let's get this started. Send me everything you did get before they decided to attack us and let's see what we can learn and avoid it happening again."

Lieutenant Sika grunted a grunt of affirmation. "It's going to be a bit of a puzzle to piece the information back together, but it should not be too difficult to do so in order to get it sorted. I'll start sending you what I have and hopefully we can take some preventive measures."

Anthony smiled and said, "That is okay. I am a science officer. We're all very versed in working out puzzles."

Finishing her circle back at the centre chair she sat down. 'Hopefully the rest of the trip will go more smoothly.' she thought to herself.

OFF:

Commander Taliserra Tigran
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Commander Radak
Executive Officer
NCP: Ambassador Al'mek

Lieutenant Commander Mariana Vaz
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

Lieutenant Galatea Polaris
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Sika
Chief Operations Officer

Lieutenant j.g.
Jasad Yuvek
Chief Helmsman

Lt (jg) Anthony Edwards
Chief Science Officer

Ensign Mark Cross
Engineering Officer

 

RSS Feed