Stowaway

Posted on Mon Aug 31st, 2020 @ 10:03am by Petty Officer 3rd Class Sam Saghir & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Kevan Dash & Senior Chief Petty Officer Mason Malone

Mission: The Shadow of Arachne
Location: USS Athena
2785 words - 5.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Finnley felt uneasy ever since she had spotted the Bolian Lt.Commander working on a console in engineering a couple of hours earlier. There were too many repairs on the list to worry about who was working where, but she couldn’t push aside the feeling that he didn’t belong.

The CEO queried the computer about the number of Bolians assigned to the Athena and the number currently on board. It quickly became apparent that the Athena had gained an extra blue skinned Lt.Commander at some point while the shields were down and that he was hiding out on deck 8.

"Engineering to security, I need you to meet with Lt. Keating in the phaser control room on Deck 8 on the double,” The CEO’s voice rang through the combadge.

"This is Lt Dash. Lieutenant Sar is indisposed, but I'll get down there."

Finnley turned to exit engineering when she saw Mason in the corner of her eye. It seemed like two days had passed since Mason had reported to engineering to help with the coolant leak, but it had only been a few hours. She turned to face him, “Senior Chief, why don’t you come with me to deck 8? A security detail seems a bit more up your alley than engineering repairs.”

Mason looked up, still wiggling his burnt fingers in the attempt to get some sensation back into them. "Yes ma'am," he answered, falling into stride with her. "If you want a detail, won't we need more people ma'am? I'm hardly a detail..."

“Well, you, me and it sounds like Lieutenant Dash will be joining us too.” Finnley responded as she grabbed a couple of phasers and threw one at Mason. “I don’t know how many people typically make up a security detail, but certainly 3 will be enough to take down one bolian, right?”

Side by side, they exited main engineering and made straight for the turbolift. Finnley entered first followed closely by Mason. “Deck 8,” she announced as the doors closed behind Mason. The turbolift sprung to life.

"Yeah..." Mason looked down at his phaser. "Who's the third?"

“Someone named Lt.Dash, I’ve never met him. Have you?” FInnley replied.

A few moments later the doors opened back up. Finnley hopped out, but something seemed off.

“Computer, what deck are we on?” She inquired.

“You are currently on Deck 12.”

“What?” Finnley looked at Mason, perplexed. “I did say Deck 8 when we got in the turbolift right?”

"Yeah... we've met," Mason answered distractedly, "and uh...I think so?" He sighed to himself, distraction from a job to do was not a good thing, but what if Kevan didn't want to work with him? "I uhm..." He hesitated. "Maybe try again? Otherwise we'll climb to get there." Even if he probably couldn't with his burned hand.

Finnley lept back into the turbolift. "Deck 8," she said, adding an extra emphasis on the 8 to make sure the computer heard her correctly this time. A few moments later and the doors opened again.

"Computer, what deck are we on?" She inquired, hoping for the correct answer this time.

“You are currently on Deck 9."

"Ughh," Finnley let out an audible sound of annoyance. "At least it's closer than Deck 12. We'll climb up from here." She stated as she took a mental note to come back and fix the turbolift later. "Do you think you can make it up a ladder with your hands like that?" She asked Mason with a concerned look on her face.

"One deck ought to be doable ma'am?" The young man answered bravely. Was he a marine or... He shook his head mentally kicking himself to stop thinking like a marine. "I'll be fine," he tried to reassure her. "Lead the way."

He seemed somewhat distracted and unsure, Finnley thought to herself, but it was better than trying to capture a potential saboteur by herself. “Alright then, let’s go,” she said as she entered the jefferies tube.

They crawled for a ways until they came to an intersection with a ladder reaching up. “You go first,” she said, thinking she could stop the Senior Chief’s fall if his hands gave out. About half way up, she called up to Mason, “Are you ok up there? It looks like we’re about half way there.”

Mason grimaced, not wanting to appear weak. "I'm fine," he replied through gritted teeth, "glad it's only one deck ma'am." He climbed as fast as he could, trying to ignore the pain, panting for breath and flexing his fingers as soon as he flopped down on the designated deck. "Let's...not do that again," he breathed.

Finnley chuckled as she crawled onto the deck, “I’d be happy to not crawl around in another jefferies tube for a whole week after all of the chaos from today.” She looked at Mason. “Are you still okay? It shouldn’t be very far down this tunnel. Once we exit we’ll be pretty close to the phaser control room, but we can stop here and take a quick break if you need."

"I'm fine as long as this doesn't take much longer.." His left hand was properly throbbing now. "Lets keep moving, I might not want to if we take a break."

They exited the jefferies tube and headed towards the phaser control room.

=/\= "Saghir to Keating" =/\=

“Keating here, go ahead.” She responded, wondering why he was hailing her.

=/\="Lieutenant, I'm in phaser control on deck 8....there's something here, a device on what I think is a phaser coil....I don't know, it doesn't belong here - think someone could take a look"? =/\=

Sam seemed to be confirming the fear that had crept into FInnley’s mind as she and the CEO were interrogating the computer about the additional Bolian earlier. Sabotage. To make things worse, he was in the phaser control room with Bolian that they were sent after.

“Sure thing, I'll be there in less than a minute!” She piped back, praying that they would make it in time before Sam was discovered.

=/\= "Uhhh, Lieutenant maybe I-"....=/\=

“Sam?....Sam?!” There was no response.

==Meanwhile, in Phaser Control, Deck 8==

The blue man lunged at him, the primal survivalist rage about to send the plasma torch driving through Sam's skull, when the slim doors to the phaser control room opened. As the Bolian grabbed Sam's hair and dragged him to his knees, the young human only recognised Keating. His leg in untold agonies, his nose bleeding, shoulder throbbing and head banging; he knew he was in real trouble. "I have no choice..." the Bolian said, more remorsefully than threateningly. The flame gone but the aperture still hot, Lieutenant Commander Brill held the plasma torch against Sam's right temple, his other hand tightly gripping the Petty Officer's hair...

====

'We have to hurry..." Mason urged, "something's wrong." They hurried along bursting into phaser control not much later. He held back a little even if it went right against all he had ever been taught, drawing his phaser and aiming it at the scene before them. "You don't want to do that," he said, aiming at the blue man and firing a single shot. It wasn't as precise as he'd liked it to be, but it had to do.

Brill twitched as the orange beam lanced past him, close to his head but not close enough. He forcefully tightened his grip on the kneeling human's hair, pulling him closer to cover more of his body. "Don't!" he shouted, his intended firm instruction instead escaping like a panicked cry. "Just...don't" Brill repeated, slower and calmer this time, pressing the torch harder against the human's head.

Despite the burning in his hands, Mason gripped his phaser harder, with both hands now. He aimed at the Bolian, then last second shifted his aim, firing at the poor Human instead. Unconscious, the man would only be dead weight. "Drop the torch!" he snapped, eyes only now for the Bolian.

Brill felt the human slump as the thud of the phaser beam hit his chest, he stepped back, his arms outstretched to the sides. Brill could feel the cold sweat of panic seeping into his face, his legs shook from beneath him and he decided there was really only one thing for he could do. "Don't shoot!" he cried, dropping to one knee and using the movement to flick the torch on. He flung it as hard as he could towards the group, spinning on his feet and pouncing up from the one-kneed crouch. He had no idea if the torch had hit anyone, but it had at least given him chance to make a run for it. A crack of orange energy landed on the bulkhead near him, followed by a brief shower of sparks, as he dived into the thankfully open hatch to the jeffries' tube. Maybe he could still make it, maybe all wasn't lost yet, maybe they could all be saved...

A hand grabbed the Bolian's trouser leg. A sharp yank later and he was pulled from the little hole he'd scrambled towards. Kevan landed a knee to his head almost the moment it appeared back out of the jefferies tube.

"Always wondered if Bolians bruise..." he mused to himself, shoving the dazed man to the deck. "Sorry I'm late, by the way." He waved nonchalantly at Keating. Then caught sight of Mason and just shrugged. "Someone want to explain why this guy attacked someone with a plasma torch?"

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to guess it has something to do with that,” Finnley motioned towards the foreign object that had been placed on the phaser coil.

Mason acknowledged Kevan with a nod while moving to turn off the plasma torch before it set fire to anything. "What is that?" he asked, gesturing over to the object before looking to Kevan again, since he was the most senior officer present. "Shall I secure the intruder and get him to the brig sir?" he asked, "or should we call for Lieutenant Sar to investigate first?"

Barely alert, Brill raised a pleasing hand towards his assailant...”please...” he gasped. “Please...you don’t understand...”

“Then tell us what’s going on!” Finnley said forcefully. Annoyed by the Bolian’s pleas and the fact that they probably had a limited amount of time before the foreign device activated.

"Secure him," Kevan motioned to Mason. "The ship is heavily damaged and for all we know that's just one of several sabotage devices he's planted." He eyed the Bolian, waiting to see if he would answer Keating's question.

Brill whimpered further as strong hands grabbed him from either side, none of this was supposed to have happened, everything had become so out of hand so quickly; one small mistake had led to a slightly larger mistake, and a slightly larger one still, until before he knew it, he had taken the Pico crew to their deaths, and the Athena with them before too long. "Please..." he whispered, urgently, "we have to get out of this room...." he looked over and eyed the device fearfully. "I don't...I don't know how exactly..." he forced between giant sobs, "it causes some kind of....some kind of radiation spike in the phaser coils....they can scan it, know where the ship is...." he moved his feet to try and put some distance between him and that device, only to find his movements halted by the officer holding him. "They can beam over when it's turned on..." he groaned as a wave of pain from the blow came over him; "oh what have I done..?" he pleaded with the group, "they're going to kill you all..." he noticed the small apparatus had become lit and was starting to hum. "We need to leave this room....we need to leave right now!" He feet swept pointlessly across the floor, as he struggled aimlessly and with futility to escape, but was held firmly in place.

Mason had wrenched the Bolian's arms behind his back as he acknowledged Kevan's order with a quick 'yes sir'. "Get me some tie-rips," he ordered, not really caring who handed them to him, "or anything to secure him." He pushed the struggling man down. "Hold still," he ordered, then chanced a look up at Keating. "Can you disable it? Or..at least beam it out of here?"

“I can try,” Finnley replied hesitantly. “The easiest option would be to beam it out…” She shifted her focus to the struggling Bolian. “Is there some sort of trigger that will cause it to go off if we get a lock and beam it elsewhere?”

Brill nodded, he didn’t understand what exactly, but he had been made expressly aware that were a range of failsafes on the devices, the biggest one being that there were two more aboard the crew didn’t know about. “Please...” he begged, looking desperately to the doors.

“It seems as though we don’t have much time,” Finnley said, noting Brill’s increasingly desperate cries to leave. She drew closer to the device to inspect it. “I’m not an expert on this type of thing, but I’ll do what I can. He’s right though, we don’t all need to be in here for this. You guys should go in case radiation levels spike or another unwanted intruder beams over. And someone should probably take the Petty Officer to sickbay.” She nodded in the direction of Sam’s limp body.

"A medical team is on the way," Kevan responded. "More importantly, if that's a bomb then we've got more important things to think about." He tossed a look at Mason. They were probably thinking the same thing. "No chance we're leaving you on your own here, Lieutenant. Either you fix it or we're all screwed anyway."

Brill struggled against the firm hands keeping in place, “you can’t! You can’t!” He yelled, becoming increasingly desperate, “we have to leave or we’ll be irradiated!”. He continued to push against his restraining colleague, but he was a scientist, and an overweight, unhealthy one at that, he had no real chance of overpowering this young officer but survival instinct nonetheless compelled him to try. The device made a clicking sound, and an rapidly increasing rate of beeping. “They’re coming...” he sobbed.

Finnley didn’t even hear the Bolian’s last cry as her focus tunneled in on the device. I’m an engineer not a bomb technician she thought as she carefully removed the face plating on the adapter.

“Let’s see, it looks like this piece siphons power from the coil but it’s not what actually powers the device itself. This looks like some sort of transmitting device, that must be how they track the ship.” The beeping continued to increase as she frantically sifted through the different wires and pieces. “Ah ah! This wire looks like it connects the adapter to the main power source. I think if we pull it…” Finnley pulled the wire from it’s connection, thinking it would either work or they were about to die anyways as the beeping became an almost constant tone. Fortunately, the device appeared to power down.

Brill sighed, something close to relief but not quite. The other two sections of Athena had their own similar devices. Gutted as he was for having to take this action, he was even moreso fearful of Thot Tan and his threats; at least if two of the three devices were operational then the Thot might be convinced enough that he tried his best. It didn’t matter, his life was over one way or another, and his barely stifled sobs overpowered him into succumbing to streaming tears.

A thought occurred to Finnley. Brill had been in engineering for a good while before they even realized that he didn’t belong. Who knows how long he was on the Athena before that. Could there be other sabotages planted on the ship?

She made eye contact with the Bolian as the realization hit her. “Was this the only one? What were you doing in engineering? What else have you done to the ship?”

Brill lowered his head; partly beaten, partly shamed, mostly he had just given up, his entire life force almost evaporating in front of him. “Enough” he whispered...”we’re all dead anyway...”.

OFF


Lt.Cmdr Brill.
Starfleet.

Lieutenant Kevan Dash PNPC
Security Officer

Lieutenant Junior Grade Finnley Keating
Assistant Chief Engineer

Senior Chief Petty Officer Mason Malone
Security Crewman

Petty Officer 3rd Class Sam Saghir
Intelligence Crewman