Retribution Unleashed

Posted on Sun Aug 9th, 2020 @ 5:59pm by Commodore Jacob Kane & Lieutenant Commander Thy'lissa Shan & Commander Taeler Santu M.D. & Lieutenant Dessame Sar & Lieutenant Commander Savin & Lieutenant Ausra Danton & Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D

Mission: The Shadow of Arachne
Location: USS Athena
Timeline: MD-03 (immediately after 'The Rendezvous')
1799 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Kane's head was spinning. Was that smoke he could smell? The lights weren't as bright as they usually were.

As the ringing in his head dissipated, he realised he was no longer in his chair. Wiping something - probably a little blood - away from his hairless forehead, he scrambled for his seat.

"...report?" he managed to choke out, glancing around. It took a few seconds for the answer to come.

"The USS Pico has been destroyed, sir. The shockwave must have taken out half our systems. Shields are barely functional, weapons barely online, Warp and Quantum Slipstream drives out of action." Thy'lissa sounded equally dazed.

"Impulse power...move us...away from the storms..." Kane growled. A lack of warp - not even one of the several they had - meant very little in the Badlands anyway. The QSD was an unknown variable; he wasn't sure if it had even been tested in these conditions. "Sensors...?"

The shockwave had thrown Savin from his seat and now he was crouched on the deck, slowly shaking his head. A quick inventory told him that he was still in one piece and had no injuries that he could tell so far. Just his head was spinning a little, but it should clear in a few seconds. He looked up, glancing around the bridge, watching people pick themselves up, sensing the disorientation, shock and even fear from those around him. Savin crawled back to his seat, mostly on touch as his vision seemed clouded. Or was the air so cloudy? He wasn't quite sure. "Jerant?" he called out.

Jerant moaned as he sat up, cradling his right arm to his chest. He'd been on his feet as the ship was struck and he'd been thrown quite a distance before connecting with one of the consoles. He'd heard the sickening snap, and even felt it. He grimaced, the violently vomited, feeling very sick all of a sudden. "Here," he called, though his voice was laced with pain. "I'm fine, stay where you are. Help others first." He gritted his teeth, and could almost smack himself before telepathically repeating the message.

Savin touched the captain's arm. "Are you injured?" he asked, "is anyone else injured? How can I help?"

Kane almost didn't hear the voice without the touch on his arm. He waved away the attention, trying to refocus on understanding the wider situation. "Check the others," he said, pushing aside any of his own discomfort. "Someone get me a damage report!"

"Coolant leak in the primary warp core, sir. I think I should head down to Engineering to help them get it under control," Thy'lissa responded.

"Go." Kane waved his hand, dismissing her too. "Helm...if you still have impulse power I want us moving as soon as feasibly possible. Without shields we're a sitting duck here."

P’rel had hit the deck hard, somewhere on the way down her head had struck the wall and she could feel a pulsing head wound closing her left eye with pain. As she felt around the deck plates of the Warspite in an effort to gather herself she was vaguely aware of distant shouting, cries of shock and all multitude of alert klaxons competing with each other. Looking over to the centre of the bridge, she saw the tangled mess of bulkhead and support beam and realised that Captain Kane and Commander Taeler had been pulled up into space, but hadn’t this already happened... somehow...? Struggling through a few movements forward on her knees and elbows, she was thrown fully to the floor by another violent jerking of the ship. Now on her back, her head hanging over the lip of the command pit, she could see the back of Kane as he rose up, but somehow they were no longer on the Warspite, and the sounds of the Athena bridge began to come into focus. She fumbled upwards, trying clumsily to get a purchase on the wooden beam which encircled the pit, failing as yet another blast kept her down. Trying to ground herself, dazed from the trauma and the memories, she eyed the bridge looking for Taeler, to be certain what had actually happened and indeed not happened. Instead of the Bajoran, her eyes fell upon the Borg drone marching purposefully towards Counsellor Savin and Captain Kane, the drone from her nightmares with the single pointed ear still visible amongst whirring implants, “M’Ttan...” she mumbled; her head wound deeply pulsating now, she knew she was hurt.

Ausra found herself on the deck without realizing how she'd gotten there, she was also twisted, her arm an odd angle from the way it usually looked and it was broken, she was quite sure. She started sucking in breaths to try and manage the pain that came next with the realization that she was injured. Pushing herself to her feet through she resumed her station. It was only her left arm and she could use her right to man her station.

Santu had been heading for the turbo lift in order to get over to the Pico when the explosion happened. She only half caught what the recording had said, and the fact that it had been in retribution of something. Next thing she knew is was she was on her back, looking up at the ceiling, smoke starting to roll around the dome above her from some of the blown conduits around the command hub. Quickly she scrambled to her feet, looking around to take stock of the damage. In a daze of reflexes and years of training she stepped over to where the medical kit was stashed at the back of the command pit, she kicked it open with her foot, then pulled out the small case. There were a lot of people directly around her in need of medical care, so she went into triage mode.

Head trauma was high on the list, and the Vulcan intelligence officer clearly took a hard blow to the head, the mumbling was not a good sign, "Lieutenant P'Rel, can you tell me where you are?" She popped open the medical kit and grabbed the medical tricorder and calibrated it for a Vulcan before starting her scan.

Vaguely aware that someone was knelt beside her, “Warspite...bridge....the Captain’s dead...” she managed to get out, mostly through a strained whisper. “Where is M’Ttan...? Her eyes rolled around looking for the drone “he was here...”

'Alright then, severe it is, Santu noted to herself, "It's alright, we'll find M'Ttan in a moment, I'll give you something against the pain, alright?" Her hands were already automatically putting together a hypo with the right mixture of pain relief and other medication, as she said this, "Don't worry, we'll make sure to get you to safety." She pressed the hypo in the woman's neck, it would relieve the pain and hopefully some of the initial swelling as well, her Vulcan anatomy was a bit rusty, so she hoped that she had remembered the right mix.

Eyes rolling around her head, P’rel managed a moment of clarity as a cooling calm washed over her, spreading from her neck; “oh not you...” she mumbled, looking up at Taeler in the few seconds before another wave of delirium hit. “M’Ttan...?”

In the corner of her eyes she saw someone stumble back to their console, arm cradled close to their body, clearly at an awkward angle. The officer seemed like she still had her wits about her, and probably would protest to being ordered to the sickbay, "Lieutenant Danton, I need your help," that didn't take away the fact that she needed to go to the sickbay because a complex fracture like that could easily cause circulation issues with all sorts of nasty consequences later down the line.

Ausra blinked, "Yes ma'am," she said as she stood up from her station. She didn't know what sort of help that might be given that she only had one arm working at the moment but Ausra resisted the urge to ask.

Dessame's vision was blurry as the smoke cleared from above her. She was on her stomach and only the Goddess knew how that happened being she was sitting down at her console at the time. The console in front of her was in pieces, crushed by falling beams that once held the ceiling in place. Pushing herself up, debris and shattered ship falling off her she swore loudly in Betazoid before it came back into translated focus. "Can I not just have one normal day on this ship?" she said to herself as she moved towards an auxiliary display. The back of her head stung no doubt from the force of the fall but she was more concerned with what was going on.

"We are operating on minimal power, shields are practically non-existent due to the force of the explosion but should we need weapons they are not as badly affected due to the fact they were not activated at the time of impact." Dessame reported. "Don't get me wrong they are still damaged but not as badly. Casualty reports are coming in from all decks, but connections to internal comms are spotty at best."

"Do what you can to get those shields operational, Lieutenant," Kane responded, holding onto his command chair. The bridge was a mess. But nobody seemed too seriously injured, which was a relief. No telling what the situation was elsewhere. "If that Breen captain set us up to take the brunt of that blast, there's a damn good bet he'll be wanting to finish the job. Keep your eye on those sensors."

"Taeler!" Savin called out, as he saw her help the Intelligence chief and managed to catch something about sickbay, "take Jerant as well, he is injured." He glanced around the bridge, wondering just where to start. Help others, the captain had said, but who first?

Dessame smacked the console with her fist in frustration. "I cannot fix them from here. I'll need to go down to the emitters and take a look at them myself. I only ask that we don't get in to any trouble when I'm gone?" She asked rhetorically hoping not to be shaken about in this tin can once more.

"Go," Kane nodded over at her. "Take Savin with you, looks like you might need an extra pair of hands." He motioned for the Counsellor to go too. His attention turned back to the crackling viewscreen, and the debris cloud that was once their fellow starship. Now it was gone, with all hands. "Ensign, make your course bearing 210-mark-45. Best speed." He had to hope that Dessame's remark about trouble wasn't prophetic. Otherwise they were in trouble.