The Battle at Science Station D5, Part I

Posted on Sat Feb 10th, 2018 @ 7:20pm by Captain Alistar McKeon & Lieutenant JG Zoe Ellija & Commander Isabella dei`Silvisi & Lieutenant Commander Akira-Ri Sato & Lieutenant Jera'turak Ros & Lieutenant Kev Walker & Lieutenant Jordan Spencer & Lieutenant T'lon & Lieutenant Élan Val & Civilian Specialist Kaylyn Wolfe
Edited on on Thu Feb 15th, 2018 @ 10:47am

1,991 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Memento Mori
Location: USS Endeavour, D5, Various Other Locations

The order to take the ship to battle stations had thrown the inside of the Endeavour into a blue lit darkness that was broken only by the dimmed lighting of various consoles and stations throughout the ship. The blue lights outlining corridors, rooms, and steps was mirrored by the red alert lights that flashed constantly. On the bridge, Alistar felt isolated. Other than him, onyl Crewman Ellija, Commander Sato, and an operations rating whose name he couldn't recall manned the bridge. Silvisi had gone below to sickbay, T'lon had been left behind on D5 and the ship had always been short handed to begin with. Silently, he mouthed a few choice words at the fact that his ship was often unprepared for the situations it often had to face.

On the view screen, the enemy force split and began their attack runs and Alistar knew he had to act. Growling in the back of his throat, he took a brief moment to study the field before he made his mind up. The transport ship was hanging back, but the Defiant class ship had gone back to harassing the station while the two Miranda class ships and the bird of prey angled in to attack the Endeavour. Glancing at the command console, he nodded at the ship's onboard status. Shields were online, along with weapons, and they were as prepared for a fight as they could be.

"Helm, attack pattern Echo one eight. Tactical, phasers only. Let's try to disable them first," Alistar ordered.

"Understood, Sir," Akira said grumpily as she targeted the ship's phasers and prepared to fire. She felt her eyes narrow as she studied her readings on the tactical display. She could tell that the captain was wanting to play it safe, but she had a gut feeling that before this fight would end it would get extremely bloody, hopefully in a figurative manner. "Phasers are armed and standing by," she reported. Mentally, she added 'And so are the torpedoes'.

As he exited the turbolift, newly assigned Jordan Spencer stepped out to the darkened bridge of the U.S.S. Endeavour. He hadn't been on the class except for the holodeck, but over the short time being added to the ships temporary crew, he took the time to get used to the class. He hadn't been given a full assignment as of yet, so he was just seen as a temp doctor and counselor for high in a sense. Given a chance to expand his skills as a counselor after completing his training, bouncing around almost became a norm for the time being.

The ship's medical staff had a full staff, so he made a request for bridge access and felt he could easily coordinate from the command center of the ship with the emergency responders and assist as need. So with that, he moved like a shadow among what crew where on the bridge and took a position behind the center chairs known as the command chairs. The auxiliary station was adjusted with a few command codes giving him internal scans and layouts of the ship. He could see active vitals which were basic, thanks to the combadges. It eased the power consumption of the ships internal sensors themselves. But in a pinch, it wasn't hard to switch over to get a more detailed view for the responders to know the injury.

Looking up from the console, he kept his tongue. He preferred to stay silent until called upon. All he realy had was information that the command staff could easily figure. No injuries, all sections reporting in fully manned... at least with what crew were aboard... life support working just fine... So he looked up at the view screen.

What the hell? Jordan thought to himself as he looked at the sight before him. He was confused as he saw Miranda class starships and a bird of prey coming their way. It wasn't much, but the last second glance of a deflaint class buzzing D5 station wasn't something that was seen much if at all. Typically, he kept his focus to himself and his job, but he now took interest to know what was going on.

Sickbay was most likely the only area of the ship where the lighting was almost normal as Isabella hurried through the doors. The few medical officers and nurses that had been assigned to the Endeavour, minus the few who had been forced to remain behind on the science station, were already present, more than likely because they had known that she would be coming. Until a full time senior medical officer was assigned, she would have to continue to step in and help the medical staff. It wasn't a fact that Isabella enjoyed, either. She preferred to operate in the science department, having grown weary of the medical field long ago.

"Where is Lieutenant Eidan?" she asked as she scanned the room.

"I believe she was left behind on the station," one of the nurses replied.

Isabella sighed and nodded before she pointed to four officers and nurses. "You and you, take what you need and set up a medical response unit on Deck Eight in the cargo bays. You two, set up one in the lounge on Deck Two."

Sending those four staff out of sickbay could be problematic, but doing so also freed up room for more wounded and allowed crew members to seek out treatment quicker. As she moved over to the primary aid station, Isabella tapped the intercom button. "Sickbay to bridge. Aide stations on Decks Two and Eight are being set up. Sickbay is ready and standing by," she said.

"Roger that," Jordan responded from his auxiliary station. He looked down at his station and pulled up a zoomed in version of the Deck two location. The lounge area was marked and then he turned to the deck eight, cargo bays to mark them before zooming back out on his readings. "Commander dei`Silvisi reports sick bay prepped and standing by. Decks two and eight are being prepped now for aide stations as needed," Spencer spoke up before retreating back into his mental shadowed position in his mind. Being noticed wasn't entirely his desire whatsoever, but needed from time to time.

"Understood. Pass that on to all decks please," Alistar said, wondering who had passed the report on. He shrugged it off as his display changed, showing a shift in the enemy formation. "Helm, engage Echo one eight. Tactical, fire three second bursts every fifteen seconds on my mark," he ordered.

At the helm, Zoe nodded, trying not to show how nervous she was. This would be her first time piloting a ship in battle and she felt unprepared but determined to do her best. Her hands flew over the helm as she banked the Endeavour towards the nearest enemy ship, ready to bank away as the attack pattern specified.

Alistar watched as the Endeavour banked towards the nearest ship, a Miranda. He waited until the distanced closed to just outside the target ship's phaser range before he leaned back in his seat and braced. "Mark!" he barked.

The Endeavour fired, quick and short bursts of phaser fire as quickly as the ship's capacitors could handle as the Intrepid class ship suddenly started darting about between the enemy ships. The enemy ship's returned fire, some hitting the lone starship, most missing.

Engineering was a dark muted cavern as Kev arrived. Taking a look around, he noticed that everyone but the chief was present, leaving him in charge. Deciding that it was best not to start snapping orders he walked about engineering, looking over shoulders at this station or that, checking readouts and making sure that nothing was going faulty before he settled in at the master console. "Whose on the bridge?" he asked, curious. 

"No one, sir," an ensign answered. 

"Miss Wolfe, could you report to the bridge and take over the engineering station there?" Kev asked. 

"On my way," Kaylyn said before she dashed towards the doorway leading out of engineering. She had to be a bit more careful as she made her way through the ship, since it was darker than usual and she had never been on board a ship under the coding of battle stations before. Finding a turbo lift, she headed to the bridge. When the doors opened, she paused to let her eyes adjust again to the darkness before she hurried over to the engineering station. Sitting down, she keyed her access in and checked the readings. Everything looked good.

Returning his attention to the console in front of him, Kev frowned in concentration. "I need damage control team alpha to damage control, bravo team on standby on deck eight," he ordered. 

~~ Station D5 ~~

Jera felt her fingers curled around the edge of the engineering console and grip the edges like an angry creature that wanted to pick the console up and smash it to bits. The station had been jury rigged for so long and in no particular manner that there was simply no way she could process everything. The shields were holding, but she couldn't hope to keep everything powered up for long with even one ship attacking. Eventually, the shields would overload the matrix systems and then they would have nothing. "T'lon, can you think of anything to keep the shields up a bit longer?" she asked.

"Negative," T'lon replied. "The basic structure and routing that the station engineers have in place at this moment is barely suitable to provide power to the station systems. To attempt to provide additional power at these levels station wide currently would most likely provide assistance to those who are currently attacking the station. My suggestion would be to deactivate non critical systems and divert that power to the shields."

Élan had to admit that a battle had been the last thing she had expected when she had taken the chance to stop by the station's science labs and look into any interesting science experiments that the civilians might have been conducting. Isha had gone along to the station observatory while Élan had raided, in a practical sense of the word, the hydroponics bays first. Then, the attack had happened; the Endeavour had departed in order to fight the attackers, and Élan, Isha, and several others had been stranded on the station.

Élan had teamed up with one of the science teams, surprisingly made entirely up of her fellow Trills. They had locked down the science wing of the station, ensuring that none of the more delicate experiments would be bothered. She was considering going to find Isha, or at least one of the security teams, and asking for a hand phaser. She looked around the science lab that she and the team had locked themselves into and wondered if they had done the right thing. It was self contained, which was good should the station be destroyed, but none of them were armed, and even for a scientist, Élan questioned the logic of that.

~~ USS Endeavour ~~

"Minimal damage to shields; holding at ninety nine percent," Akira reported over the alarms. "According to my readings, it doesn't look like they've upgraded the weapons on the Miranda class ships recently. I'm estimating that they're equipped with Type Seven or Eight class phasers. The Bird of Prey I'm still running an analysis on."

Alistar nodded. Even before the system modifications from the Starbase Typhoon shipyards, the Endeavour could easily handle taking hits from a Type seven or eight phaser array. He guessed that the pirates, for lack of better term at the moment, mostly used the Miranda class ships against civilians. "Helm, stand by to switch to attack pattern Beta three. Tactical, standby to attack all targets at will," he ordered. Maybe, he added silently, this wouldn't be as bad as it had seemed at first.


To be continued........

 

RSS Feed