The Fall of Science Station D5

Posted on Sat Mar 31st, 2018 @ 1:45pm by Brex & Lieutenant Jera'turak Ros & Ensign Matt Connor & Lieutenant Élan Val

1,580 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Memento Mori
Location: D5

Jera had managed to find a control panel near the primary deck’s central stem that connected it to the station proper. She had ignored the station personnel who were huddled there waiting for the turbo lift that would never come as she had ripped the panel off and started digging through the control interface’s guts. Finally finding the primary command and control wiring bundle that she was looking for, Jera pulled it out, ripped the primary wire out of the control interface panel and plugged it into her engineering PADD. Tapping in a few commands, she accessed the station’s primary systems. Fortunately, her Starfleet access gave her the overrides she needed to stomp the civilian access blocks. Unfortunately, the station had no weapons, and no shields. Accessing the external sensors, Jera was surprised to see a Defiant class ship preparing to force ram one of the outer docking ports. “Heads up security. We’ve got company coming, port side docking port, primary airlock,” she said.

“I got it,” Matt said as he swung to cover that corridor and directed his security team to do the same. They barely made it before the entire station shook, throwing them off balance. Matt slipped and fell, half of his team falling down as well.

The reinforced nose of a Defiant class ship slammed through the station hull, seconds before the forward airlock blast doors opened and a motley group of pirates rushed from the ship and boarded the station. They wasted no time on trying to make demands or even identifying if their targets were armed threats or not, they simply started firing at everyone as they swarmed onto the station.

Matt tried to recover his footing and get into a firing position, but his foot came down on a piece of shrapnel and it slid, making him fall again. The accident helped him, as a phaser blast meant for him hit the officer behind him. A part of Matt’s brain identified the phaser whine as that of a phaser set to very heavy stun. Rolling, he threw up his phaser rifle and fired blindly in the general direction of the pirates. He wasn’t sure if he would hit anything, but the other officers took the guidance to heart and started firing as well.

Élan wished that she had remained on the Endeavour instead of joining Isha and Sarleya on their outing to inspect the science labs on the science station. It had been a valid argument from Lieutenant Veralan to do so, but the Trill was starting to regret doing so. It had always been her mantra that staying on the ship was the safe thing to do, but the adventuresome nature of the Val symbiont had won her over. “And now look what we’ve gotten into. Locked and trapped inside a science lab on a civilian science station being boarded by pirates, and not a single blasted weapon in sight,” Élan muttered out loud.

The pirates quickly moved forward from the breach point, shooting and moving forward at a fast steady pace. The docking area was overrun quickly, followed by the living quarters segments of the station hub and onwards to the central core of the deck. They seemed only slightly surprised to find an actual resistance manned by Starfleet personnel, but their leader recovered quickly and set his men into finding cover and trying to subdue the Starfleet officers. They outnumbered that defenders, and it was only a matter of time.

Matt rolled away and tried to run towards the corridor leading upwards to the core level, but in the confusion he had turned and instead ended up going down to the observation promenade. The circular deck was at the bottom of the entire station, had two access ways and no cover. Trying to correct his mistake and run towards the correct corridor only ended with him nearly getting shot. “Sh**!” he shouted as he hurried down. He had one hope, and that was to run as fast as he could towards the stairs on the opposite side and hope the pirates hadn’t gotten there before him.

Jera watched in horror on the internal monitors as the security team fell back, some making it to the stairs going up, a few getting hit and going down, and one looking very confused and heading down to the observation ring. Where she was standing was next, and as a visiting engineer, Jera hadn’t been armed when she had come on board the station. Ripping the cords out of her PADD, she grabbed her kit and hurried towards the nearest Jefferies tube access. Ripping the access hatch open, she shouted towards the others to hurry up and get inside.

The pirates swarmed the level quickly, finding no resistance other than the short lived one that the Starfleet security team managed to put up before they were scattered. Quickly, they were divided up and started spreading out across the deck in an organized search while some were sent down to the observation ring and the majority was sent upwards to the rest of the station.

Jera had herded as many people as she could into the Jefferies tube hatch before she could see that the pirates had made it to that point. Flipping the lead group of pirates the ancient human sign of the bird, she ducked into the service tube and slammed the hatch shut. Pausing, she plugged her PADD into the access port just inside and entered a code. She smiled as she heard the heavy locks inside the hatch slide out, locking the hatch shut. Nothing short of a direct hit from a starship mounted phaser cannon could budge it, and until she unlocked it, the hatch wouldn’t open. Unplugging her PADD, Jera silently was thankful that some engineering overrides were useful, such as radiation leak overrides. “Alright people, there should be a ladder twelve meters down. Start crawling, and then start climbing,” she said to the rather small group she had managed to save.

The observation ring was larger than Matt had expected, and he was almost out of breath when he reached the other side. To his dismay, a group of pirates were waiting for him as he tiredly jogged into view. He started to raise his phaser rifle, but stopped when they beat him to it. Breathing heavily, he dropped the rifle and raised his hands halfway. “Just do it, you thieving fu…..” Matt started to say, but was cut off when three of the pirates simply shot him. Matt fell to the deck, heavily stunned and down for the count.

Élan was seriously starting to consider making a run for it when she heard the fighting make it to the science deck. It wasn’t hard to miss, as the science deck was rather small. It wasn’t long before the pirates forced their way into the science lab where Élan and several other civilians were hiding, but to her surprise they stopped when they had broken through the doors. Their leader nodded to the others, then proceeded to shoot everyone in the room. Élan’s last conscience thought was wondering where everyone else was and how they were faring through the attack.

The station fell quickly, slowed only slightly by the presence of the Starfleet officers. The commander of the pirates personally toured the entire station once it had fallen. It didn’t take long, as D5 was a small station. His men had looted a few valuables here and there, but the real prize had been something else entirely. Standing in the large science lab where his men were dragging their true prizes, the pirate leader smiled. It vanished as the station rocked suddenly for a moment, and he tapped the communicator strapped to his wrist. “Objective achieved. We have a couple of extras thanks to that cruiser being here. Proceed as normal?”

On the bridge of what had once been his flagship, Brex had long ago stopped glaring at the image of the Endeavour. His once powerful flagship was now a ruined hulk, and although repairs were possible, he was certain that the Endeavour could recover before he could get the war bird operational again. Silently, he was impressed. Clearly, the Endeavour was a ship to be considered as a dangerous opponent. Starfleet still had a few good captains and crews, and clearly this was one of them. He was thinking over the many possibilities of how to extract revenge when the call from his senior lieutenant came through. He had planned this raid carefully, but the Endeavour’s presence had cost more than he had planned. Pressing his own communication device, Brex spoke, his voice measured and angry. “No. Claim the prizes. Withdraw the other ships to Volchok. I’m moving my command to your ship, you will stop and pick up what’s left of my crew. We’ll proceed back to base as planned.”

Brex leaned back in his seat and felt his fingers curl as he did so. He had planned carefully, expanded his power just as carefully, and he had nearly lost to this one starship and its captain. By the time his lieutenant had claimed their prizes and beamed Brex away from what had once his war bird, he had already formulated several different plans by which he would make the Endeavour pay dearly for his losses this day.

 

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