Arrival at Kappa-4

Posted on Sun Oct 4th, 2020 @ 1:17am by Captain Taliserra Tigran & Lieutenant JG Binea & Ensign Bracca & Lieutenant Commander Radak & Lieutenant Ronan St. Cyr M.D. & Lieutenant JG Amelia Barron & Lieutenant Anthony Edwards Ph. D

2,049 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: To catch a thief
Location: Deck 1- Bridge
Timeline: 3rd April 2395 0545hrs

ON:

As the light years flew by on the Wolff's route to research base Kappa-4, Taliserra fidgeted in the command chair. She didn't like how little information they had about the situation, worried that she could be taking the ship into another firefight or crisis situation. She hoped it was all just a simple case of a broken comm system. “Anthony, are we in sensor range yet?” She looked across at her science officer.

"Barely, Captain! There is the Kappa 4 station and a ship. Whether an attacker or rescuer, I can't say at this point, Captain."

“Can you identify the ship?” she asked.

Looking over the sensor data from the space surrounding the station, Anthony watched, trying to work out everything he could. When he responded, a few minutes later, he had to respond perplexed. "No, Captain. Though the odd thing is, I am not getting anything. I can visually see it on the screen, but when I turn to my station there is nothing. It's not even showing any transponder information, which in itself is perplexing."

“Yellow alert,” Taliserra called out. The ship could be a rescuer, but with no identification it could easily be someone attacking it. "Helm, increase speed to warp 8. Bring us out of warp as close to that ship as you can."

"Aye, Sir," Bracca replied, all the tiredness from waking up so early was gone, now replaced with trepidation.

Radak had not been on duty, but he was awake and dressed and ready for just about anything. The moment the ship went to yellow alert he headed for the bridge as quickly as he could. =/\= I'm on my way, Captain, =/\= he said into his combadge.

As the ship dropped out of warp the situation before them filled the viewscreen. The research base stood silent against the darkness of space except for the bright blue glow of its tractor beam that held a small ship in its flickering grip.

“Scan the research base and that ship. What's their condition?” Taliserra started issuing orders.

As soon as helm dropped from warp, Anthony ran the scans targeting the station. He could physically see the tractor beam, but noticed that communications and shields were down though minimally externally damaged showed that the fight didn’t last long after shields failed. “Captain, shields and communications on the station are down. They have the ship caught in a tractor beam, but who knows how long it will last. Scientifically, that suggests to me that that ship was part of an attacking group. I would suggest that we assist the station by taking over stooping that ship's escape so the station can reserve that power for starting repairs.”

Amelia grunted softly as her hands flew over the console. She couldn't get a lock on the ship but she could get a reading on the tractor beam. She tasked the computer to analyze the energy disbursal and back-scatter from the tractor beam to get an idea so to the shape of the ship. The computer pinged when it recognized the shape.

"It's a corvette styled, non-military vessel. Likely some kind of light civilian craft repurposed to serve as a light escort. My guess given the circumstances likely militia or mercenary," she said as she took in the visual and compared it to the reading she was getting.

Radak stepped through the turbolift door and onto the bridge. "Captain?" he queried and quickly took his seat. His eyes shifted between the viewscreen and Taliserra.

"Looks like 54 was right to send a starship," Taliserra told him. "They've been attacked."

Radak took a deep breath. "Do we know by whom? Is there any sort of communication from the station?"

“None, communications are down. There is little damage externally, but one area that is damaged is the communication array. So, until they get that fixed, there will be nothing, Commander,” Anthony answered Commander Radek‘s inquiry.

Radak's gaze shifted from Taliserra to Edwards. "Thank you, Lieutenant," he said simply.

The tractor beam from the station began to flicker even more. "Amelia, lock our tractor beam onto that ship, I don't want it escaping," Taliserra ordered.

Amelia grunted as she read the scans of the tractor beam failing and programmed the computer to backtrack the stations lock. As she did so she noticed that she could now tell there was an EM field in place.

"Captain, I'm reading an EM field in place, likely from the corvette. Though it is blocking our sensors I can make out that its warp and impulse engines are offline. Perhaps, when and if we get closer we can cut through the interference," Amelia said, as she watched the Wolff's tractor beam lock onto the vessel that was vexing the ships sensors.

"Helm, move us closer. I want to know what that ship is."

"Aye, Sir," Bracca responded, steadily he moved the Wolff to only a few kilometres away from the much smaller ship.

Anthony liked Amelia. She was a tactical officer with her head screwed on right, so he transferred his working station to a station much nearer Amelia so she could see what he was doing and coordinate her efforts with his. He used the science sensors to feel his way through the EM field surrounding that ship.

Amelia's fingers flew over the console, her mind ticking over like a clockwork machine. Trying options then discarding those that don't work. She grinned as she saw something she recognized. A pattern in the disruption, she highlighted it and slipped it across to Anthony's station.

"Analyse that and tell me that doesn't match up to nautical EM emitters and old ones at that," she said to Anthony, as she began reprogramming the photon torpedo warheads that were in the tubes.

Anthony looked it over and ran it through the science sensors. "They're old, certainly. In fact, they're almost so old I missed them. I think I can see a small place where there is limited coverage." Anthony slid his findings back to Amelia on the tactical station.

She nodded. "A properly calibrated warhead should knock that hole large enough to get us through." She slid the modifications she made to the torpedo to him.

He looked over the specs for the configuration on the warhead and ran a simulation of his own. With a warhead detonating at that close to either ship it showed a choice of fifty-fifty. One ship or the other exploding or at least being badly damaged. He ran a test where they used a series of short term burst phaser fire. It showed the phaser fire opened a window, but neither destroyed nor damaged either ship. "Amelia, you might like to look this over before firing your weapons."

She looked over the information and deactivated the warheads then began programming the phasers with the proper fire pattern, frequency and rate.

As the crew worked to punch through the field something caught Taliserra's eye. "Binea, magnify the section just below the starboard bow of the ship."

The viewscreen flicked to show the section Taliserra had ordered. A symbol stood magnified on the screen; three red daggers buried several inches deep into a white skull. "That looks familiar, Anthony? I'm sure we've seen that before somewhere."

Anthony looked up from the work he was doing, at the time, at the viewscreen. Then looking down, he looked very quickly back through the library. He had to go back months before he found what he was looking for and he sent it split screen to the viewscreen. "It was that ship or another like it that attacked the Apollo, Captain."

Taliserra looked at the paired images on the viewscreen, the symbols were practically indistinguishable. She stood up and circled the bridge, stopping momentarily at each station as she was want to do when thinking about what to do next.

She stopped beside Anthony. "Can we punch through the field enough to get a transporter signal through? I want that ship boarded and taken intact."

"If the EM generators are confirmed to be what I think they are they have a weakness. We can disrupt them long enough to get a few teams over to the ship." Amelia looked to Anthony for his analysis.

"I concur, Captain. There is a small twisty hole in their EM field which should provide us an in to get the teams in," Anthony said with a smile as he looked at the captain.

"I have the fire pattern set. Let me get a team together before we open the hole up. We won't have much time," Amelia said confidently.

"Go Lieutenant. Take some ops crew with you. I want that ship and its crew secured quickly."

Amelia nodded. As she had been setting up the firing pattern, she had also sent alerts to the Beta team she had compiled for a boarding operation. She kept set lists of teams on her console in case she needed to get a boarding party set up quickly and didn't have time to contact each via communicator. They should be getting data dumps with required equipment, brief rundowns of the situation and the transporter room they would be meeting at. Amelia turned quickly and headed to the turbolift to disappear into the ship and meet her team.

After Amelia left, Taliserra turned to Radak. "Commander, get an away team together and beam over to the research base. Check on their situation and find out why they were attacked."

Radak nodded and rose from his seat. "Yes, Sir. I will assemble a team as well. Lieutenant Edwards... with me please." He would take Petty Officer Saral as well. He headed for the turbolift and tapped his combadge as he did. =/\= Petty Officer Saral, please report to transporter room 2 for an away mission. You might want to bring a tool kit, just in case. =/\=

=/\= Understood Commander, on my way=/\= Came the voice of PO Saral.

"Take Dr. St. Cyr with you too," Taliserra added. "There may be casualties on there."

Radak nodded. "Aye, Captain," he responded, as he stepped onto the turbolift and headed for transporter room 2. He tapped his combadge on the way. =/\= Dr. St. Cyr, please join us in transporter room 2. Please come prepared for injuries and casualties. =/\= After he'd made the statement, Radak shook his head to himself. It was rather redundant to ask a doctor to bring a medkit, but there it was. He stepped off the turbolift and made a quick stop at a weapons' locker to pick up a phaser.

"Understood," Ronan answered from behind his desk. "I'll be there shortly." He stopped long enough to ensure that another doctor would take over his shift while the on-duty nurse made sure that his bag was packed with everything he would need. "Thanks," he said as she handed it over and was rewarded with a flashing smile. He was situating the strap on the bag, so that it hung across his lean frame, as he headed for the nearest turbolift.

=/\= Barron to bridge. =/\= She paused a beat to get a response then continued. =/\= We are ready to transport to the frigate. I request you execute the shield disruption so we can get over. =/\=

"Lt. Samson, fire phasers," Taliserra ordered.

=/\= Firing in 3,2,1. =/\= Samson said linking into the comm channel so Amelia could hear too, he tapped the fire button to initiate the sequence Amelia had plotted.

Several phaser beams left the dorsal phaser array of the Wolff striking pinpoint spots on the corvette with low intensity pulses.

"There is a small gap forming in the field." Brendon who had replaced Anthony at science called out.

"Can we get the team through?" Taliserra asked.

"Not yet, a little longer." Brendon replied.

Taliserra looked over at Samson. "Continue firing."

"We're through," Brendon reported a few seconds later. "The team is beaming over."

Slowly Taliserra headed back to her chair and sat down, there was nothing to do now but wait to hear from both away teams. She hoped everything would go well, doubting she could take any more of her crew dying.


OFF:

Captain Taliserra Tigran
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant (jg) Dr Anthony Edwards, Ph.D
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant Ronan St. Cyr, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Commander Radak
Executive Officer

Lt. JG Amelia Barron
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

 

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