Cat and Mouse (It Comes to Blows Pt. 2)
Posted on Thu Mar 10th, 2022 @ 10:57am by Rear Admiral Yoshi Minawara & Captain Ewan Darrow & Lieutenant Jek'Lar Son of Thrawn & Lieutenant Njalia Sayffier & Lieutenant M'rrina & Lieutenant Rufus Marocain
Mission:
Between Realities
2045 words - 4.1 OF Standard Post Measure
As the shuttle lined up and made her landing inside the ship's shuttle bay, the viewscreen was still locked on the view of the Tholian ship, of which one of the Tholian craft had broken away from the ongoing combat to approach. There was a pause, the barest hint that something was happening in real time, before the first of the explosions from the outside could be seen, a ripple running through the ship, before another blossomed, and then another, and another, and soon the hull of the Tholian ship was dissolving in a wash of purple and green energy, which expanded outwards away from the ship, washing over all the ship. "Rufus get us out of here, Quantum Slipstream velocities!"
"Aye, sir." With a quick glance to verify shuttle bay sealed, he initiated QSD and ...nothing happened. Not even a cartoonish clunk or sputter of malfunction, just ...nothing. After a blink of disbelief, he reset controls and tried again. Nothing.
Yoshi paused, his eyes looking to the display as nothing was happening. "What is happening Mister Marocain?" he asked, looking around in confusion. From the main display to his chair's displays, he confirmed they in fact seemed to be unable to make the jump, but wasn't sure. And in all of the confusion, the Tholian ships were starting to come back around, the confusion of the effects of whatever had happened dissipating quickly for them. He didn't have time to diagnose the issue, he knew that, but he knew he also had to get us away. "Put as much distance between us and those Tholian ships as you can, Ms Sayffier, find me a place to hide while we figure out what is going on..."
Pushing to maximum impulse, Rufus vectored away, trying to keep the debris from the explosion between them and the remaining Tholian ships to limit whatever targeting they'd recovered.
Ewan swore as he jumped out of his seat just forward of Yoshi and moved towards the right of the bridge and the Engineering Station. Kicking the rather panicked looking ensign from the seat with a firm but hurried "Move." Ewan dropped into the seat and began tapping away at the console pulling up the direct connection to the sub-computer that controlled just the Slipstream drive. The Tholians had, historically at least, never give much of a reprieve to anyone especially once they had regrouped after a surprise. They needed to get this figured out fast.
"On it, sir," replied Njalia flipping through scans. "Nearest immediate cover in a cometary mass .4 AU away vector 80 by 120. We could use that on the way to an asteroid grouping .8 AU away. Beyond that, any physical object of any size will take warp to get to in a meaningful amount of time." She flipped the noted objects up to the tactical display.
"Rufus," he said nodding at the display. The Vesta was going to be faster than the Tholian ships, the oversized impulse engines made sure of that. He didn't need to say any more, he knew the Kainan was on it. "Jek'Lar, I need you to drop torpedoes behind us, set them to only pursue if a ship gets within five kilometres and set a thirty hour timed delay," no reason to be leaving mines laying about behind after they were gone, but if the Tholians were dumb enough to chase straight after that should be enough to have the torpedos hunt their targets. His eyes now turned to Ewann, knowing Jack was probably still very angrily decontaminating. "What's the word?"
"Drives down." Ewan stated the obvious as he tapped away at the console, "I'm not sure why it's down, or what's causing it. All tests are nominal, the drive shows perfectly functional. Warp core is online and providing charge, the benamite was in fine condition...." He trailed off reading another status report. "I need more time."
So much for a last second fix... Rufus thought, but he had already transferred the proposed path to the helm and executed a sharp turn to aim Vesta at the cometary mass. He swept in toward it, juking to throw off Tholian fire before correcting to follow the heading to the asteroids.
Njalia dropped a relay drone and a probe behind them on the far side of the cometary mass from the Tholians as they passed by. The relay drone would boost the carrier wave to keep the Tholian sensors spoofed and the probe would act as an extra sensor post. Combined, both might lead the Tholians to believe the Vesta was hiding on the other side of the mass, a slim hope but any distraction for their enemies was useful.
M'rrina had basically dropped all but the most cursory communications monitoring for now--all their people were back on board, and the Tholians clearly didn't want to talk--in favor of playing backup to Njalia's efforts; the earlier tail-lashing had coalesced into just a repetitive swish of just the tip; ears ever-so slightly back in the sort of focus her ancestors would have deployed in the lead up to pouncing on their prey.
Jek'Lar smiled at the thought of mining the path as they left. It was exactly what he would have done, and it would show them the mettle of the enemy that they faced. He programmed ten torpedoes with the appropriate settings. Jek'Lar released them in a scattered pattern so that they would cover a wide broad area with overlapping coverage. When the task was done he looked toward the command pit. "Torpedoes are away sir." Now he waited to see if the Tholians would take the bait and follow.
Yoshi swung back to the pool table, with two views snapping into being, one showed an overlay of the quantum slipstream system, and with it all the other systems that seemed affected including the warp drive, which was reading back with a zero-point Cochrane level - and the other display the local system. He knew the Tholians would eventually find a way to clear the negative effects of Njalia, so he needed somewhere he didn't have to rely on that trick forever. The nebula came to mind, but it was far enough away that there was no reasonable way the electronic warfare measures would hold that long. They needed a short hop, the warp equivalent of a skip really. He tapped his fingers on the console, before tracing a line to the deflector and impulse, both of which seemed minimally affected.
"Ewan, what if we stretched a temporary warp bubble, nothing sustainable, just enough we can ride the way to the nebula?" He killed the main display from following the tracing ships, and instead showed a two-dimensional map of the local space. "We could realistically use a runabout, create the initial warp bubble and just pull along in the collapsing wake. We'd only get, what, Warp One using the old linear scale and would be lucky to get a light-year out of it, but we should be able to make the jump."
"We could do it..." Ewan called back to Yoshi, still facing into the engineering console. "I think it's radiation that's killing our drives, don't quote me on that though... but whatever it is, it has a limit. We'd never have the time to launch a shuttle and get it in front of us but if we remote into their computers and have them establish a bubble from inside the hangar, large enough to get us going it should work. We'd need to evacuate the bay though. Rufus how good are you at surfing a wave?"
"I can kitesurf with the best of them, sir," Rufus replied, a slightly wolfish grin crossing his face. "Give me a wave and we'll ride it."
Yoshi shoo'd the science officer on the bridge who was desperately trying to avoid being caught in anything, from the console mirrored to Ewan's across the bridge and slid into the seat. Switching the console into an Engineering readout, he pulled the shuttles in the hangar up, and selected the Delta Flyer that was parked - the oversized warp drive was going to be key here. "Ms. Sayffier, I need you to reenforce structural integrity, and page Doctor Sorenson to expect casualties. M'Rnnia evacuate all areas around deflector control and outer hull, prepare for hull breaches." His hands were flying, mentally doing the calculations. "Ewan, control the field and deflector for me, I'll man the Flyer's output from here. Jek'Lar, I need you to get Security Personel to shuttle hangar for fire control support, Engineering is going to have their hands full," this was not a Commander of a Starship at this moment, this was a man who'd spent more time in Engineering pushing buttons and solving problems. There was no hope the shuttle was going to do anything more than overload, and there was a good chance the smaller craft would be damaged beyond repair from the maneuver. As such, this was also not the time for the typical need for rank and file construction, but the smooth operation of a crew who were in tune.
"I'm ready on this side, on your command Ewan and Rufus."
"Ready on your mark," Rufus replied, hands poised on the controls and eyes fixed to the read-out as intently as if the prey was about to emerge from a warren.
"Yes, sir," replied Njalia as her fingers danced over the controls. "Could we slave the Delta Flyer's deflectors to reinforce our structural integrity? As the Venture did in the Yrri gravitic anomaly." She called up the report of the Venture in case the Commander needed to review.
"Do it," Yoshi replied from his console, nodding to the woman.
Jek'Lar dispatched the appropriate teams, making sure to tell them to don fire suppression suits. "Alpha and Tango teams are standing by outside the hangar." The Klingon was always ready to die with honour if need be. However, deep within him, he was glad that today was not that day.
=/\= Medbay prepare for casualties =/\=
As if we haven't already been receiving them, Martin thought, applying a burn patch to a crewman's arm. "Acknowledged," he called back to the page, then looked around his medbay - everyone was busy, either with crew injured during the last hits from the Tholian ships or ready to receive more. What he didn't see yet were members of the away team or the medical team he'd sent to the shuttle bay, but it sounded like he was not going to have time to go check himself. "You heard it, everyone, prep for more. And somebody gets me word on that away team."
Manually firing off the calculations, Yoshi fired up the Delta Flyer's warp core, which flared to life, followed by several warnings about what he was doing going against Starfleet Corps of Engineers regulations and safety guidelines. This warning showed up a lot, but as was rule number two of "Scotty's Engineering Guide" - regulations and guidelines aren't made for actual engineers. The small auxiliary craft's engines began to stress as they pushed the warp bubble out around the Vesta and forced the ship into a small cushion of subspace, pushing the large starship further forward as they climbed up onto the hump and began to accelerate past the speed of light. The transition was rough - the ride was worse - but the gathered crews held strong, keeping the ship on top of the small field. The warnings flared from the Flyer below, this one wasn't a regulatory warning, this was the kind that comes from things actually going wrong, as the craft was no longer able to maintain the overly taxing push, and the bubble was collapsing. He allowed the ship to give up, and the warp field began to deteriorate around the Vesta as she glided across space.
The ship rocked violently, something Minawara had planned for and held onto the edge of the console, the hull groaned under the stress, and the ship rocked forward now, suddenly decelerating from the warp transit. There was another load groan, the ship giving her frustrations in full, and the bridge went dark.
