Too Hot to Handle
Posted on Thu Mar 10th, 2022 @ 10:47am by Major Amelia St Lacroix & Lieutenant Commander Asahi Kita & Lieutenant Rufus Marocain & Lance Corporal Morwen Haldane
Mission:
Between Realities
Location: Bridge, Tholian Cruiser
1596 words - 3.2 OF Standard Post Measure
Steps echoed through the main bridge as the trio made their way into the empty room. Even in the dim lighting, the central area of the Tholian cruiser was illuminated by the reflective surfaces of the crystalline displays growing out of the walls and the main hub area in the center. Asahi wasted no time looking around, ignoring any shadows or noises that might have otherwise had the twitchy Intel officer investigating. Whoever was in this ship before they got here? They were long deceased.
Hopefully.
Approaching the main set of controls in the middle of the room, Asahi began to read about, squinting into the faces of the semi-transparent crystals. After a few waves of his hand, he rolled his eyes, pulling out a button-sized device that he clumsily slapped to one of the crystal faces. After a press of the button, a holographic image streamed over the Tholian interface, mirroring it into a Federation standard translated version.
"I couldn't imagine piloting one of these," he commented offhandedly, "The control scheme is a nightmare for anyone with two arms to use."
Rufus would probably take that as a challenge. Good thing he's not here, Morwen thought, though if she was honest letting him take the challenge held some appeal. "I don't suppose that interface would let us nudge this thing further in Federation territory? Something about this whole 'drifted into the edge of UFP space' just doesn't smell right."
"Hm? Oh likely." Asahi held his gloved hand up to the interface as it flickered it's translation. "But moving it might set something off here or in engineering, and I don't want to have to be the bearer of bad news if any number of us are blown to little bitty bits." He tapped a few buttons on the holographic display, tilting his head to one side. "I'm sure there's gotta be some sort of record of what happened here, so we can find out-Ah!"
The display sprang to life, and a textual log scrolled through. "Well wait now hold your dilithium-powered crystal cores!" Asahi tapped at it again until the log screeched to a halt, and the translation began it's work. "Should be around here somewhere- What doesn't smell right to you, by the way?" Asahi asked, glancing back toward Morwen, "Something more off than Tholian corpses in a slightly less than hot and totally abandoned ship?"
Swallowing a short laugh, Durst shook his head. "No, it's just an expression. We can't smell anything in these suits - which tends to put us on edge anyway - but this is more of a ...feeling... that sense that something isn't quite right."
"That." Morwen nodded. "If the first layer under the armor weren't so from-fitting the hair on my back would be on end."
"I'd be more worried if you could smell it through your suits - ah, here it is." In moments, Asahi had found what he deemed to be 'important information,' skimming through it as he spoke. "I also don't like that you guys are feeling that dodgy. I knew we were going into a bad situation when I heard the words 'abandoned Tholian cruiser.' I don't care who's territory it's in. Tholians don't just abandon their shit. They don't. And this ship is weird. I expected to see more tech from the Pact, but I don't. Some of the tech from the Typhon Pact doesn't meld well with Tholian tech only because it needs to be cooler than the temperature Tholians need to survive that I expected this to be from some malfunction."
Asahi frowned. "It's not. That's the problem. If these Tholians knew they were dealing with extra Typhon Pact tech, they'd more likely have gear that protected them from malfunctions and this would not be abandoned and we wouldn't be here. Which means that whatever they were dealing with? They didn't know what it could do. Or they got cocky... but these logs? I'm a little hooky on these logs."
He took a step back for the others to take a gander. "This isn't the full crew. The logs say that some of the crew got out of here after a tech malfunction. They were experimenting with stuff they shouldn't have been experimenting with, but I don't think they're going to leave this here for much longer. We need to bail."
The Kainans exchanged a quick look - more an exchange of suit-shrouded body language, but one both could easily understand. "Agreed," Durst said for both of them. "I'll inform the Captain. You should probably download everything you can before we need to bug out."
With that, he activated his comm and the link from the visual in his suit visor to St. Lacroix could see what he was on the display. "Captain, the Lieutenant has found something. We may have to expect company."
//Somewhere in the Tholian Cruiser\\
There was a hum, followed by the sound of metal sticking together, a moment later a series of red lights illuminated the faceless visor of the Marine Captain. She had been tracking what appeared to be a main power conduit for the last few minutes and had finally found a junction that looked exceptionally important. The device in question, a small yield photonic charge was part of her special orders - no evidence the Federation had been scrubbing through here. There were a few of these now littered around the ship, power junctions, what appeared to be some kind of plasma manifold, and even a life support box control she'd managed to correctly identify. Only two charges were left. She was beginning to straighten up from her crouched position when her comms chimed. She listened for a second, before looking back down the hallway she'd come down. "Good to know Durst, let's pull back to the shuttle, take what we can and get out. No need to risk anything extra." she said, looking about one last time. With that she took off at a light jog back the way she'd come towards engineering. Flicking her comms towards the Engineering crew. "Commander, I am coming back for you, the Lieutenant found out some of the crew got off and are likely coming back, we need to get out of here."
A voice came through the communicator, Asahi's. "Yeaaaaah, uh, make sure you don't touch anything that doesn't look Tholian either. I dunno what it is, but it isn't from the Typhon Pact. And I don't... think I know how to unstick us if we did touch it. The things this log describes aren't anywhere remotely close to anything SFI has had contact with recently. Or... not so recently."
As the Marine Captain made her way into the Engine room, she didn't break stride, and in fact gave the diminutive Engineer no opportunity to so much as even slightly object as she scooped him by the EVA's grab handle and threw him effortlessly over her shoulder in a fireman carry. The thud of his weight, and soundless complaints, against her own armour made her shudder as she charged forward back towards the shuttle's egress point. "Sorry Commander," she said through the comms, "I cannot imagine this is how you wanted to leave."
Morwen had hustled Asahi out of the bridge as Durst placed the last charges before following close behind. Now, as they approached the access to the shuttle, the Kainan marines looked considerably more like herders than hunters, running with Morwen ahead and Durst behind the intel officer hurrying in the pocket between them.
And Asahi was not going to complain at them blowing up this little cruiser out of the stars. Not with the information he had found out. "I'm going to need a little more time with this research, but if I corroborate the data with the logs I downloaded and the data we're grabbing from the tech specs in engineering, we want out before we stepped foot here." He looked up, "You guys didn't happen to get the engine fired up, did you? Because that's a bad idea."
Ameilia wasn't far behind, the sounds of the Vesta relaying the combat that was going on outside. "I don't think the Commander got that far," she said, the sound of the stress of the run apparent as she met the other group and nodded towards the shuttle. "It sounds like things are hairy out there," she added, placing Jack down to let him orient himself. I think it is time we go now."
The small shuttle ripped back towards the Vesta, dodging fire from the two Tholian ships as they bore down on it.
"Captain St. Lacroix, looks like we are going with the fireworks option, you are clear to blow the ship." was the call that came through the comms as the small shuttle raced back towards the ship. The Marine gave a faceless glance back towards the Commander before she nodded. "Aye Commodore," she said, pulling from one of the heat isolated pouches a small detonator. She firmly gripped the device as the shuttle approached the Vesta's shuttle bay making for the landing. "Fire in the hole," she said deliberately, before squeezing down on the device. Aboard the Tholian cruiser, located on whatever the Marine could identify as critical components, as series of explosives went off, resulting in a chain reaction. The results of which wouldn't be seen by the crew as the bay doors slammed shut.
