Downfall

Posted on Sat Feb 2nd, 2019 @ 2:40am by Captain Alistar McKeon & Chief Petty Officer Malcolm Reynolds & Lieutenant JG Zoe Ellija & Commander Isabella dei`Silvisi & Lieutenant Commander Akira-Ri Sato & Lieutenant Jera'turak Ros & Lieutenant Kev Walker & Lieutenant Élan Val & Civilian Specialist Kaylyn Wolfe

2,164 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Memento Mori

The transporter beam died away and released Alistar and the away team on the bridge of the stolen Defiant class ship. The team instantly took aim with their weapons, but the only pirates present were dead. Alistar frowned as he he checked the bridge. Motioning for the security team to check the pirates, he moved over to one of the command consoles and checked it. After a moment, he shook his head. "They've locked out the computer, but from what I can tell, they took a lot of damage," he said.

Akira had shifted her phaser rifle to one hand and grabbed her tricorder, scanning the area. "These guys all died from an external phaser blast at point blank range," she said, horrified. Looking up, she shook her head. "What does that mean?"

"At a guess, looking at the way they're positioned and the evidence we have on hand, I'd say they were all killed in an execution style method," Mal said as he finished checking the bodies. "We can get the doors opened, but it'll take a few minutes."

"Get to it," Alistar ordered. "Set a watch on both doors and the service hatch. I don't want any surprises." Tapping his commbadge, he hailed the Endeavour. "McKeon to Endeavour. Bridge secured. I need a status update on the ship as well."

On the bridge of the Endeavour, Isabella was literally hovering over the bridge science console. It was mostly because there was little or nothing else she could do at the moment, and that fact alone upset her greatly. There were simply too many things that she didn't like about the situation, and she wasn't sure if the Endeavour would come out of the situation victorious as she had so many times before. When the captain's voice filtered through the communications channel, she breathed a sigh of relief before responding. "Captain, we've taken severe damage. Engineering and operations are sure they can get minimal impulse back online, but the warp drive is another story. Weapons, shield, and life support are going to be minimal as well," she reported.

"Do what you can, away team out," Alistar said before he signed off. Turning to the rest of the team, he raised his phaser rifle and nodded. "Let's hunt down some pirates," he said.

On the Endeavour, Isabella sighed and turned away from the science console to view the damaged bridge. She wondered just how much more damage the ship could take. There was only so much that a star ship could take before the Starfleet Corp of Engineers would condemn a ship for the scrap yard. The current Endeavour had taken more than most ships took over their entire lifetime. Heading over to the engineering station, Isabella nodded towards the officer seated there. "Lieutenant Walker, you've been shadowing T'lon for the past year. Do you think you can take over the duties of operations officer?"

"I was cross trained at the academy for operations, Commander," Kev said. "I'll get right on getting those repairs started."

Isabella nodded and moved away, wondering how medical and the other lower deck departments were faring.

Engineering was a mess. Jera grumbled as she welded a bulkhead securely in place and raised the welding hood. The air hitting her face felt good after the heat from the welding, but she unfortunately didn't have time to enjoy it. The entire ship was a wreak, and she was too tired to even bitch about it. Setting her tools down, Jera stood and grabbed her kit. The secondary engineering bay had held up fairly well, but from the reports, the main engineering bay was trashed, along with the majority of the ship. "Alright, set a watch for the warp core, everyone else get busy on getting repairs underway," she called as she headed towards the door.

The security teams had finally opened the doors to the bridge of the pirate ship, and Alistar had broken the away team in half. Sato and her team were moving towards the lower decks, while Alistar's team was trying to secure the upper decks. Most of Deck One was clear as they reached the doors leading into the upper engineering balcony. The security officer paused. "Sir, this door is locked, not just powered down," the ensign said.

"Get it open," Alistar said, wanting to get this over with. The security officer started a bypass, which took barely five minutes. Clearly, Brex and his forces hadn't bothered to changed the original security lockout codes when they had taken the ship. Free to move out, Alistar led his team out and down the corridor. It took less than twenty minutes to secure deck one, and then they were moving on to deck two.

Akira followed the captain's lead and led her team carefully through the ship. Wherever the pirates had gone off to, they were still about and most likely they were twice as dangerous. As they moved on to deck two, her worries increased. As they arrived, she frowned. "Sir, this deck is shielded. Our tricorders only have a range of two meters, and energy weapons may not operate at all," she said.

"Funny, we didn't detect this field before," Alistar said. "All right. Engineering, medical, the mess hall, transporter room, access to the warp nacelles should all be on this deck. We'll secure this deck and move on down."

Mal had been paying half of his attention to the officers behind him. They had to worry about more than he did, so he worried ore about the current dangers. Which was good because pirates started pouring down the corridor at that time. "CONTACT!" he shouted, taking aim and firing as the pirates started firing towards them.

Alistar pressed against the bulkhead and returned fire along with the entire away team. He was loosing people, but so were the enemy. The firefight took several minutes, a tense and bloody encounter that left half of his team wounded or dead. "Dammit!" he snarled when the firing had stopped. "If every deck is going to be like this then we'll get ourselves killed trying to take them down."

"I agree," Akira said. "Mal, take the majority of the team and secure this deck. The captain and I will take your best team and go down to deck three."

"Right. You want Conson and Riley," Mal said. "And You'd better take Rassak and Connor."

"Let's go," Alistar growled as he ducked into the access hatch and started climbing down. Arriving at deck three, he knew that something was wrong. The ship was empty, and a call from Mal Reynolds confirmed that the rest of deck two was deserted as well. Securing the aft section, Alistar and Sato moved their team forward, finding nothing until they arrived at the cargo bay, where Brex, one of his lieutenants and Elan Val waited for them. Brex simply smiled and pulled Val in front of him, a modernized 10mm handgun to her head.

"Captain, I think we should consider negotiating. Don't you?" the Trill said.

"I think you should consider surrendering," Alistar said.

"I'll give you my terms. They are simple, and not open for negotiation. I go free. You get the girl. You refuse, I kill her," Brex said.

"He's bluffing," Akira said. "No Trill would knowingly endanger a symbiont."

Brex grinned wickedly as he stared at them for a moment, then lowered the handgun and fired two rounds. At that close range, both bullets flew all the way through Elan, and Val, causing massive damage to both as they ruptured their way through and exited, one striking one of the security officers and the other finding its way to the bulkhead. Elan and Conson both fell, dead on impact.

Alistar snarled, a bitter, harsh and savage sound. He raised his rifle and pressed the trigger, emptying what was left of the power cell before he threw the weapon down and charged, drawing the combat knife from his harness as he did.

Brex grinned and tossed his weapon to his lieutenant, who wisely took a step back, giving Brex and the enraged Starfleet officer as much of the cargo bay as he could.

Alistar came in with a heavy attack. He had studied martial arts at the Academy and was an expert in kyokushin kaikan karate as well as shuri ryu. He sliced at Brex with the combat knife, then followed with a savage three hit combo. Two of his attacks landed on Brex, who took the blows well.

Brex didn't even grunt at the blows, instead he simply returned with his own attacks. A three, one, three, two combo and spin kick before he grinned and stepped closer, grabbing the captain's wrist and slamming it hard into the bulkhead.

Alistar grunted under the blows and made a wordless scream at the last attack. Stunned, he dropped the knife then brought his knee up and into his enemy's stomach.

Brex oofed and spun the captain away, pausing long enough to snatch the knife off of the deck before he stepped in and brought it down hard, slicing into the captain's shoulder hard.

Alistar screamed as the knife went deep into his shoulder, slicing through flesh, nerves, even bone. Falling to his knees, he struggled to grab at Brex, but the pain was simply too much. He fell over, grasping for the knife.

Brex stood back and smiled towards Sato, who had her phaser rifle aimed towards him. Quickly, he pressed a control on the band attached to his wrist and smiled even more as a force field activated. "In three minutes, the antimatter reserves are going to explode. I'd run back to what's left of your ship if I were you. Oh, the rest of your crew are dead. Your security man should have found them by now."

"Reynolds to Sato," Mal's voice broke through the tense moment.

Akira stood, unsure of what to do until Reynold's voice broke through. "Go ahead," she said.

"We found the hostages. They're all dead. We're also reading a massive power spike in the warp core. It looks like an overload."

"All hands, return to the Endeavour now!" Akira shouted as she shouldered her rifled and moved over to the captain. Looking at the wound, she winced at the sight of it. As deep as the combat knife had gone in, it was more than likely that pulling the blade out would cause additional blood loss. Grabbing McKeon, she hefted him up to his feet and glared towards Brex. "Be assured, this isn't over," she said.

"I'm sure of that. My best to your captain," Brex said before he grinned and vanished in a transporter beam.

Akira hissed as she struggled to pull the captain out of the small cargo bay. "Sato to Endeavour, emergency, priority one. Beam everyone out now!" she snapped.

Isabella had just about to turn to check a beeping indicator when Commander Sato's voice filtered through. She caught the worried and stressed tone of the security and tactical chief and wondered just how bad things had gotten. Turning towards Lieutenant Walker, she silently prayed that he had some good news. "Please tell me we can transport them out," she said.

"i can, but it's going to take most of the power reserves," Kev said as he typed in a series of commands. He finally nodded and pressed a command button. "They will all arrive in the cargo transporter room."

"That's good enough, as long as they're all on board," Isabella said. She spun about when a fresh alarm rang out. "Now what?" she asked.

"Commander, the Defiant's warp core is overloading. I'm detecting a massive buildup of antimatter that's not being regulated in the warp core," Kaylyn reported.

"Helm!" Isabella nearly shouted as she hurried over to the command seat.

"I'm already on it, Ma'am," Zoe said from the shattered helm console. There was one panel still intact, and she bit her lip as she activated everything the Endeavour still had left. "We'll be at minimal safe distance in twenty seconds," she reported.

"Core breach in fifteen seconds," Kaylyn filed in.

"All hands, brace for impact," Isabella ordered, trying to sound as calm as she possibly could.

At the mention of another impact, Jera muttered under her breath and shook the arc welder she had been using. Turning, she shouted to her team. "You heard you, you basement rats. Grab a hold and brace!" she shouted.

The Defiant class ship exploded, sending out a shock wave of compact explosions everywhere. Several ships were hit by the blast, but they survived with minimal damage. The Endeavour, being already badly damaged and barely at a safe distance, tossed about like a paper boat in a heavy thunderstorm. Rocking, the ship rolled over along her long axis twice as her final activated systems blew out. The ship finally slew to a stop, resting nearly dead in space, but intact, and with her remaining crew still alive.

 

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