Benedict Cumbermove Part 2

Posted on Sat Apr 2nd, 2022 @ 7:02am by Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Didrea Zade & Lieutenant JG FalenvralLi Zh’kyhrihr

Mission: Ares Ascending
Location: Shuttle, Ithaca II
Timeline: MD05: Right after: Benedict Cumbermove
3129 words - 6.3 OF Standard Post Measure

“Almost there Benedict,” Finn whispered to the giant egg as they completed loading it into the shuttle. “Just a short shuttle ride now and then you’ll be back with your family! And you get the privilege of flying with the best pilot Starfleet has to offer,” she smiled, pressing her cheek lightly against the creature as if to offer a hug. For someone that had made it a point to not get too close to others, Finn had certainly made a connection with the unborn baby space cow.

Li moved toward the cockpit but found herself staring at Athena's chief engineer cuddling with a strange alien orb. She turned her gaze to exchange a look with Leiko. The shuttle offered a small space, but she tried to lower her voice so that Keating might not hear. "You aren't feeling an overwhelming sense of affection for this thing, are you? I mean it's not some sort of psychic field the egg is generating that's just missing me?"

"Definitely not," Xavier said, shaking his head inside of his helmet. He turned to look at Finn and Benedict. "She is acting strange though," he continued, a wry smile on his face, "maybe we should run some medical scans, get her locked in sickbay for a few months," he added, raising his voice now so that Finn could hear the conversation.

Finn rolled her eyes and pushed away from the egg. "What? An engineer can't show a little affection for our baby space cow? Poor things all alone. Separated from its loved ones." A feeling she knew well enough and though she was terrible at providing comfort to others it was somehow easier to give such a service to the seemingly inanimate object. "And I will shove you out of the airlock and make it look like an accident if you ever attempt to put me in sickbay," Finn threateningly smirked at Xavier before turning towards the cockpit. "Let's get Ben home."

"Well I'm dressed for it," Xavier replied, his arms spread wide showing off his EV suit. "You heard the chief Lieutenant, let's hustle," he said to the Trill security officer who was keeping guard outside of the ship, doing security things or something of the sort.

Zade turned her head when she heard Xavier summon her, and she entered the shuttle after taking one last look around the area. Even though she had spent the last several minutes watchin Finn show affection toward this egg, it was still odd yet somewhat amusing to the Trill. "Outside looked clear, no sign of anyone searching for their missing egg," she reported, taking a seat near the back of the shuttle.

After running through a quick pre-flight of the shuttle's systems, Li glanced over her shoulder to be sure everyone - and everything - that was supposed to be on board was. "Okay then. Securing shutting hatch. And, if we can all keep our hands off Be- the egg for a moment, I'm engaging in-flight stasis to keep it from shifting and contain any. . . emanations." A faint shimmer around the egg was accompanied by a momentary buzz. "Ready for launch," she said before lifting the shuttle from the surface.

Take off went smoothly and Finn, wanting to avoid being chastised for actually caring for Benedict, decided to check out the front of the shuttle. "I haven't seen you in a while," she smiled at Li before sitting in the chair opposite her. "Been busy?" She asked, right before a blip appeared on the screen in front of them. Finn furrowed a brow at the flash and then looked at their pilot. "What's this? Company?"

"Yeah, since we got in system it's been pretty hectic between runs like this and helping manage the pilot roster and coordinate with ops for equipment readiness." She double-checked their planned flight path and confirmed the anticipated position of Athena then continued. "Actually, I did stop by engineering once to see if you had time to help me out with one of these shuttles but I caught one of your ensigns instead. I promised to put in a good word for him but I'm blanking on his name now. Trill, darker skin, kind of hot actually. . ."

Her head snapped around at the momentary contact on-screen. It was gone as soon as it had appeared but she tapped, trying to find the source while Keating asked about it. "Shouldn't be anything. The Cardassians are supposed to have this corridor cleared for us." She keyed the comms. "Athena flight, this is Li, shuttle 2 on scheduled return. I showed a brief contact along our path but then lost it. Can you id from your vantage?"

"That's negative shuttle two. We are not line of sight with your current location. You should be on our side of the horizon in three minutes."

Three minutes was a long time to fly with no cover into murky territory so Li backed off the speed and set active, high detail scans of the forest beneath and sky above then. "So, if we deviate from the flight path the Cardassians might get pissed. If I just keep going. . . I don't see anything right now but we both saw something. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it's something we're not prepared to handle."

Turning her attention from the egg, Zade heard a faint 'what's this' from the front of the shuttle and grew curious about the conversation, so she stood and made her way closer. All she confidently heard was everything after the reply from the Athena, but the shift to a more serious tone was not lost on her. Something was up. Zade stopped behind the two seats, looking at the console to see active scans being taken. "It might be a good idea to confirm the presence of whatever you saw before making any decisions," she suggested. "If we can get evidence of it, we can use that as justification if anything happens."

Nodding, Li said, "Okay. I'll see if I can get the sensors a better angle or maybe flush them out." She raised her voice to announce, "Everyone hang on, strap in," then with little warning she climbed and banked toward one edge of the negotiated flight path before swooping lower and rising up along the other edge. Another blip appeared on the screen, this time long enough for the computer to register it. "We have contact bearing 40 mark 340 range. . . close and coming up fast."

She pulled into a steep climb to get more distance as it registered again, barely moving while they headed right for it, still unable to lock on or get visual. Then she saw it climbing almost straight up out of of a river gorge close to a collision course. "Shit, that's a Cardassian fighter. Old, like Dominion War era old, but an attack ship." She banked hard to starboard since that's where there was room in the flight path but the fighter followed.

The shuttle rocked hard, this time not from Li's flying but from what felt like a phaser strike. The console closest to Xavier exploded with a shower of sparks, close enough that had he not been in an EV suit, he would have needed medical treatment about now. He pictured Finn wielding a dermal regenerator, trying her best to put have a positive bedside manner, it would have been funny if he wasn't worried that this dogfight might destabilise the egg.

"No, no, no," Xavier said as he flew out of his seat towards the rear of the craft. He flicked open his tricorder expertly and started to check that the containment they had set up was still in place. Benedict was too unstable to be thrown about the inside of a shuttle. "Anymore hits like that and none of us is making it back to the ship," he said to everyone in the small craft.

Zade gripped the headrests of the two front seats, not having enough time to get to a seat fast enough for the change in flight path, and she moved into one of the side chairs the moment there was a long enough pause to do so. What Li did was not exactly what Zade had in mind, but she did stay within the flight corridor and got said evidence, so she couldn't really argue. "Shields are up," she reported as she tapped the console. If the corridor was cleared for them, why the hell were they being attacked? Her head turned slightly when Xavier spoke up, but otherwise kept her attention on the console in front of her. "Li, evasive maneuvers, don't let them touch us. Finn, how's communications? Can we call for backup, or tell the fighter to disengage?" With the fighter immediately engaging, she doubted it would respond to hails, but it was worth a shot.

"I've been trying to hail them since they showed up, but surprise surprise, no response," Finn's fingers were flying across the controls. "I'm trying to find something that'll help us lose them. We're one minute and thirty seconds from the Athena's line of sight, we should meet with cover there."

A thought finally came to mind and Finn looked over at Li. "I can vent plasma from the engines which should screw with their sensors long enough for us to make it, but you'll have to pull off some fancy maneuvers to keep them guessing." With any other pilot, she'd have followed that up with a question asking if they felt capable but with Li, she didn't have to. "Zade, can you take over here?" She asked the curly haired security officer, assuming she had more expertise at a flight panel than she did. "I'll vent the plasma from the aft console and help Xavier keep Benedict together."

"We'll need it," Li said, not turning, focused on the controls. "That thing's old, but it is a fighter. It's faster, better armed, and more maneuverable than us - especially in atmo." She eyed the bandit on sensors as it brought them in line, then dived just as it unleashed disruptor fire that grazed the shields, making the ship feel like it just dropped a dozen meters. Pulling the shuttle into an uneven corkscrew made it harder for the enemy craft to get a shot on them immediately, but easier to close. "Am I clear to take us out of the negotiated flight path? It'd give us more room . . ."

"Go, Finn," Zade said with a nod to Finn, moving to quickly take over the chair. The timing couldn't have been better for her, because she barely had time to grab the console as the shuttle dove. She looked at the console and muttered something that one didn't need to know Trill to understand. "Ground control says none of their ships are in our flight path..." she scoffed, incredulous. More to herself, she added, "then explain this." Zade quickly sent the fighter's ID from the scan and it's last known coordinates back, holding onto the console as the shuttle swayed. "Come on, respond..."

Finn half stumbled towards the back, smacking into the bulkhead on the way as the shuttle maneuvered. "You know, sometimes I think it would actually be easier to walk around if the grav plating didn't work," she noted under her breath.

Xavier tried to keep his balance whilst holding his tricorder steady. The readings were erratic and changed from one moment to the next. He registered a power spike that he didn't understand and gave him cause for concern.

The delay in their response was cutting it way too close for comfort, but eventually Zade got a reply. "We got clearance, just don't stray too far," she reported to Li, sending the new boundaries of the corridor to her console. Ground control didn't give them free reign to fly where they wanted, but it was definitely less restrictive. "They said it's a rogue fighter and will send reinforcements to deal with it."

"Oh, sure, I'll believe that when the Grand Nagus declares humility and generosity as a rule of acquisition," the sarcasm dripped from Finn's mouth as she typed in the sequences needed to vent the plasma. "Everyone ready? Venting in 3, 2, 1, go!" She shouted towards the front and hung on, anticipating some wild flight maneuvers to follow.

As Keating gave the word, Li slammed to the controls down and to the side, trading elevation for speed as she drew them into the sharpest turn the shuttle could manage at speed, taking them out of the old flight path. The fighter let off a shot that wasn't close and showed no sign of reacting to their drastic course change for a long moment. Unfortunately, the new course also meant it would be longer before they shared the sky with Athena and Li barked as she saw new contacts light up the screen, "Two more bogies dead ahead!"

The two newer Cardassian fighters were on an intercept course for the first though, which was only now coming around in pursuit of the shuttle and reacted slowly to the new threat. They made quick work of it, blowing it out of the sky with a barrage of disrupter fire then opening a channel to issue tersely, "Federation shuttle, resume your previous course and return to your ship. This planet's airspace is closed." One began to circle the crash site while the other made a wider arc.

"So, um." Li gulped. "Home?"

Zade was tensed and ready to fire some warning shots, then relaxed slightly when she saw the two fighters take out their unwanted company. "Pleasant group," she commented sarcastically. Tapping on the console, the Trill acknowledged in the same terse tone before ending the comm link. "I'd keep eyes on them, just in case," she told Li, otherwise giving a nod to her question. Turning around to face the back, she called out "you two good back there? How's the egg?"

"Not great," Xavier replied. "Power levels are dropping, radiation rising." He turned to Finn for her input. "I'm not sure if this thing is dying or hatching but I don't know how long we can keep it here for."

"Agreed. I don't think we have time to make a pit stop at the ship," Finn was frantically scanning and reading the data while attempting to keep things under control with Xavier. She had hoped that everything meant Benedict was hatching, but with what limited information they had on this species, she couldn't be sure. "Li, head towards the ship until we're out of range of the Cardassians, then take us towards space cow territory, max speed. We definitely don't have long."

Li frowned as something on the starboard side of the ship shuddered. Shuttles had phasers and shielding, but they were not fighters meant for combat or high-stress maneuvers, especially as hard as they'd been working the shuttle fleet on this mission. Luckily, most of the systems she'd just pushed beyond specs would be less of an issue once they broke atmosphere. Most. She thought.

"We're taking it back to Iuvat on this shuttle? Or was there a briefing about them grazing closer that I missed?"

"I heard some of the science guys talking about a group of them somewhere close by. Try long range scanners, or hail the Athena. We just need whatever is closest," Finn replied.

Zade tapped on the console. "Shuttle 2 to the Athena. The egg is losing stability. Is there a herd of space cows nearby where we can drop it off?" The shudder concerned the Trill, and as she spoke she was checking the shuttle's status to make sure something wasn't going to immediately fail.

There was a pause, then, "This is the Athena. Sensors picked up a herd nearby. Sending their location now." A beep from the console alerted Zade and Li of the incoming coordinates.

"Huh," Li said while punching in the coordinates and working out an intercept path that wouldn't just slam them right into a herd. "So Benedict's a local maybe. I was wondering how they come up with h- it." She turned to face the pair in the back. "And what exactly is the plan? You're going to dump the egg out into space? Was this an animal welfare mission all along, not a scientific one?"

"Stop! Don't engage the engines yet," Xavier yelled before Li could plot the course. "We're taking this thing back to the ship."

"Belaying that," Li confirmed, her hands hovering over the control panel for a moment before she got to work clearing the laid-in course. "Bringing us back around and requesting a berth in the shuttle bay."

"What?" Finn looked from Xavier to Li and back. "What do you mean stop? We have to get Ben back where he belongs before he hatches!"

"I've recalibrated the tricorder," Xavier explained, chastising himself for not checking things as thoroughly as he should have done, "and if I'm making heads and tails of these readings, baring in mind I'm no scientist, the incubation period isn't complete. Returning Benny to outer space now might do more damage than good, we need to get him to the ship, he needs artificial power until he's ready to hatch."

Finn looked at the data again. He could be right, she thought, reviewing the numbers. It was difficult to tell without a background in biology. "You had better be right Xav," her eyes locked with his with a weighty and unwaveringly serious expression. "and if you are right, then what he actually needs is more power."

Xavier thought about it and considered the options they had. Benny needed a lot of power and radiation to help him grow. The Cardassians had already done the damage, now they just needed to manage the situation in the best way possible. "Finn, what if we used one of the secondary warp cores as an incubator?" He knew the idea was crazy, but it seemed like the only option they had right now and luckily the ship had multiple cores, so it wouldn't affect the ship's performance until they could come up with a better solution, or the damn thing hatched. "I know it's crazy but I think it could work."

Finn's lips smoothed into a smile and her face lit up with hope. "We can make that happen. We'll keep him in tertiary engineering on deck 12. It'll be easy to keep an eye on him there."

Xavier smiled, not only would they be able to save this damn egg, he was going to get out of this EV suit. "Then what are we waiting for? Full speed Li, Finn tell your people to get the silverware out, we have a guest staying over."