'Deckers'

Posted on Thu Nov 3rd, 2022 @ 6:12am by Petty Officer 3rd Class Sam Saghir & Commodore Jacob Kane & Commander N'Garzi Zora & Ensign Alex Brewster & Ensign George Paxton & Lieutenant JG Nayisa Wrea & Petty Officer 2nd Class Henry Washington

Mission: Scylla and Charybdis
Location: Main Bridge - Alpha section.
Timeline: After Away Teams Beam Over.
Tags: K
2773 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Sam's whimper was replaced an involuntary "Shhhhit...." which coincided with the soft whooshing of the doors as they opened onto the bridge. Unable to retreat back into the turbolift, he was forced to walk forwards to allow whomever was behind him to also step out. Not once. Not ever. Not so much even in an induction tour had he ever been on the bridge, and the sight of Ensign Wrea already working at what he assumed was an Intelligence station had made what few remaining nerves he had control, finally give way with an anxious passing of gas. It could have been worse, he mused, Finn might have been there as well - and they hadn't spoken at all since her return with Lieutenant P'rel.

His frantic eyes darting around the bridge, the heavy pulse throbbing in Sam's neck was at least somewhat abated by noticing that the Captain wasn't there. From what he knew of the people he did see - which was, he admitted, limited - it seemed that most of the current bridge crew were people with a particular skill in sensor operations. With most of the senior staff off-ship, it seemed that the Captain had drafted anyone and everyone who could help operate and analyse the sensors which were doubtlessly triple tasked with tracking the Romulans, the Avalon and the chaotic maelstrom outside. Rooted in place, he had no idea what to do. He hadn't so much as looked at the bridge certification syllabus...

"Erm... are you okay?" Henry asked from his position at the mission ops station near the turbolift. He suddenly caught a whiff of something before the air circulation system could remove the offence from all present. "Jeez, did you sh-" The terminal he was working on bleeped loudly. "Short-range sensors are picking up another echo," he said to the room.

"Nothing on the navigational array," Ensign Brewster replied, glancing around. "If it's another echo, we don't need to worry all that much. Right?"

"What if the sensors are wrong and this is the real deal?" Henry asked as his fingers danced over the controls. "Can you jump on tactical and see what the sensors are saying?" He asked, turning to the smelly guy who just entered the bridge.

"I..uhm...." Sam looked around, seemingly the entire bridge crew were burning him alive with the level nine phaser beams shooting from their eyes. His head down, her nervously scuttled over to where Ensign Wrea had just stood to free up the console for him. "H, hi- fuuuuc...." his greeting was interrupted as he tripped over the stool sitting adjacent to the console. His hands flailing out to catch his fall, they landed either side of Wrea's torso. Opening his eyes his audibly grimaced as his eyes were level with her chest, and as he looked down slowly to find his hands, he groaned in horror seeing them gripping the Ensign's petite waist; whatever stability he had found in gripping a firmly stood person was immediately abated by the absolute lack of any muscle control in his legs.

Nayisa was about to return the greeting when she felt hands where they shouldn't belong. There were several worse spots for his hands to land, but it still came as a surprise. She paused, partly out of shock and partly to gauge if this was the right time to poke fun at Sam for it, but given the news of another of what present bridge company was calling an echo, she decided to shelf the idea of tormenting this poor soul. Where would be many other moments for that. "Console's over there, bud," she said, pointing her thumb to the console next to her. After she spoke, her nose slightly crinkled at a very faint but sour smell that wasn't there before Sam arrived.

Whimpering slightly, he released Ensign Wrea and gingerly sat on the stool, sliding himself into the console recess. The silence on the bridge was deafening. It seemed that even the steady thrum of the plasma network had briefly paused to stare at him in incredulous and pitiful humour. He stared at the visual sensor display, and focused in tight on a straight edge. The secondary readout confirmed that the Avalon, the real Avalon sat in the middle of the circling Alpha, Beta and Gamma sections of the Athena - that at least was not in any doubt. The away teams had beamed over to the very much solid Intrepid Class starship, and not into the middle of some sensor echo. The Romulan were the issue at hand now. Since the Taleth had set off towards their position, any number of "Taleths" were appearing and disappearing at random. Sensor echos were one thing, but pointing visual sensors at a bogey and physically seeing it really only meant that either you were looking at the real thing, or a deliberate holographic deception; in terms of the latter it was usually evident in the slight fuzziness of a supposedly straight edge which would give it away. Shaking his head, he wished he could at least salvage some dignity by giving a definitive report, but alas he was unable. The visual sensors kept locking on and producing a straight edge along the leading dorsal section of a wing, though it was unable to sustain a lock on that straight edge. "H...erm...Helm...sir...? C- could err.... could we raise our erm...raise our our orbit of the Av, Avalon a b, bit...?". He asked the helm officer, not daring to look away from his screens.

While the nervous wreck that summed up Sam's persona took over the tactical station, Nayisa moved to one of the auxiliary stations that was in the same corner as him but as far away as she could get. She could still be useful while avoiding the lingering hint of whatever crawled up Sam's butt and died. Thank the gods for air circulation filters. Accessing the sensor data, she spotted the echo that ops guy pointed out and told the computer to cross check it with the readings the bridge crew got before the Avalon was located.

George silently chuckled to himself as the scene unfolded. Poor Sam, he thought, knowing that he himself was prone to many faults that sometimes included social anxiety. He had made a fool of himself more than once, stumbling over words and panicking about this or that. In fact, only in the past months had he really found some confidence and become calmer in situations like this one. Probably at least partly due to his relationship with Mason. He cringed slightly with the thought, hoping that his partner on the away team was doing alright.

The readings started to come in clearer as the orbit between the Athena and the Avalon was more separated. George focused on the data and raised a brow. "I'm not so sure that's an echo. There's a propulsion signature coming from it that's more defined than the others. Do you see what I'm talking about?" He asked Henry, seeing as how he was more of a sensor specialist.

"I think you're right," Henry replied as he intentionally ignored all of the drama going on around him. He loved a good puzzle and mystery and he needed the distraction, he was missing Charlie who had been on the Beta module when the ship had separated a few hours ago. "It has a similar energy reading to the Taleth but it's not as profound or distinct. It might be some kind of auxiliary craft, can anyone confirm?"

"You'd better be sure if you're going to page the Captain," Ensign Brewster said, glancing between the rest of them. It was still a little amusing that George was calling 'sir' to a fellow junior officer of the same rank, but he stashed that one away to pull out when they all got together later.

"It looks like either a shuttle or scout ship," Nayisa piped up from her corner of the room. She watched it on sensors for a moment before adding, "based off its flight path, it's headed directly for the Avalon." Her brow furrowed, "rather brave, given it should know it's outnumbered."

Sam squinted hard at the display; he was looking for the telltale signs of deception. All the leading edges of the craft appeared to be stable, there was no distortion and the flat surfaces were consistent in their colour and texture. "Spooling up recognition now..." he said, to whomever was taking reports. A few seconds later and ID tags appeared. "Kestral Class...designating Kestral one..." he looked harder at the images from the visual sensors. "Uhh erm....S - sir...?" he focused the sensors on the bow; usually a rounded front. This one was different, there was thick lateral lines along the hull all culminating in a sharper arrow-like bow, as if the thick point on the fore edge was reinforced. The windows. too, had been replaced and now sat beneath a thick sheath of what looked to be reinforced hull. "That's um...that's a ram...." he concluded aloud. He turned around to look at the Avalon on the view screen, and spun back to briefing composite the image from the sensors falsely onto the moving image of Avalon; behind her at relative roughly 300 degrees and relative roughly 50 degrees where the Beta and Gamma sections of Athena. Kestral One appeared as a false overlay, heading right for the listing Intrepid Class Avalon; the ship was powered right down and there were many easy targets to penetrate the hull if that was what a boarding party were en route to do. Even smashing right through the deflector array, he imagined, would gain rapid entry to the primary section without risking overloads. The view screen overlays gave the designation, along with the speed and distance from Avalon, and an ETA counting down from nearly four minutes.

Ut oh, George thought as he fumbled through options on the screen in front of him. "There's too much interference to try to tractor beam it and I'm not sure we could get a lock anyway," he noted out loud to the group, hoping someone had another idea already in mind.

"Erm...helm person," Henry said, a note of panic in his voice. "Didn't you say something about calling the captain? Cause I really think we need the Captain right now."

Nayisa turned to face the main viewscreen after taking in what Sam pulled up on the nearby monitors. That was... not good. "Whatever we do, we don't want to fire something at it, because that could give the Romulan ship the reason they need to attack. Can we extend our shields or like... get in its way so it doesn't hit the Avalon?" Her mind repeated what one of the guys said about getting the Captain, but at the same time it was just a shuttle on a collision course... right?

"Little bit awkward to maneuver one of the sections over. They must have angled their approach to make that really difficult," Ensign Brewster replied. "We should really have called the Captain by now..."

Sam felt the back of his neck become very hot as he held his finger over the comm button, one quick tap later and the bridge shortcuts were available; Ready Room, Briefing Room, Main Engineering, Main Shuttlebay, Transporter Room…. Sam’s sweaty, shaking finger held over the ready room button, before he squeaked with the overwhelming anxiety. “Am I even allowed to speak to the Captain….?” He asked aloud, withdrawing his hand from the panel.

Realizing that she was in a room of people who were too nervous to call the Captain, Nayisa sighed and walked over to Sam. Take one for the team. His hesitant hand was in the way, so she put her hand on the back of his and pushed toward the console, ignoring the nervous sweat on his skin. She watched his hand, guided by hers, touch the Ready Room button, and even Nayisa felt a little giddy at the idea of making this call. How often did the lower ranks contact the big man? It felt like both an achievement and a brig sentence. "Capt-" Nayisa paused to fix the squeak in her voice, an evident sign of her own giddiness. "Captain, there's a small vessel with a Romulan signature on a collision course with the Avalon." As she said it, she realized that she was basically asking the Captain to hold their hands over a shuttle. But at the same time, this was an important mission, so maybe she wouldn't get judged too hard for it. "What's our course of action?"

Sam squeaked at Nayisa's hand touched the back of his, his fingers seemingly flung forward at warp speed to the comm panel. Internally he was screaming, his heart was thumping in his neck and he could feel an eruption of hot sweat burst from his temples. His stomach cramped again only to be relieved immediately with a terrified breach of atmospheric containment in his knitting bowels.

Of all the possible responses to having a hand touched, releasing enough explosive power from the rear to take out a Klingon raging on ten chalices of bloodwine was a new one. Nayisa soon smelled it and grimaced, taking a step back. There was no way that was just gas. "You could have waited until comms were turned off, dummy," she gagged, waving a hand in front of her face to fan away the offensive scent. "I'm gonna just... go over here." She pointed toward the arch behind the two big seats as she quickly walked to it, just wanting to get away from the smell before the Captain showed up.

There was a muffled sound of acknowledgement from the other side of the comm before the door slid sharply open and the Captain almost bundled the pair of junior officers over as he exited his Ready Room.

"What in the-?" Kane growled, confused and a little annoyed. Forcing his way around the pair of hapless Ensigns, the Captain strode to his chair. "Distance to impact?"

"Two thousand kilometers," Alex responded.

Not enough time to respond, Kane decided. He touched the comm on his seat's armrest. "Kane to Commander Zora. You're about to have company. I want you to regroup the away teams and pull nonessentials out. I'm going to deploy a security detail to help defend the boarding action."

"Acknowledge," Zora's voice boomed over the comline. "Radiation levels are still on the rise here, transporter functions may be limited. I would recommend docking with the Avalon," she reported in her matter-of-fact way.

"Alpha Section only," Kane noted. "Have the other two sections continue to operate in reserve coverage." Nothing like having the other two parts of his ship acting like mobile linebackers if the need arose. Glancing over at the pair of silent junior officers, Kane just nodded slightly. "Good work on picking those transports up. It gives our people time to withdraw."

The back of his neck red hot from the presence of the Captain - he was pretty sure that he shouldn’t even really be at a bridge station - Sam kept his head down and his eyes firmly on the visual sensor read in front of him. A telltale glow of impulse reactors brightened along the hull of the Romulan shuttle, as if several lines of glowing dashes looking something like stitch wok suddenly flared to life. He tugged at Nayisa’s sleeve, and then again harder still when she hadn’t immediately acknowledged him. “S-s-sir….” Sam rasped in a dreadful urgency to get the Captains attention, albeit stifled with as much fear as urgency. In the brief moment which passed, it wouldn’t have mattered if the Captain had heard him or not anyway; the shuttle suddenly rapidly accelerated and Sam’s conclusions about the modified bow were confirmed. Roaring towards the Avalon, the shuttle didn’t even slow down as it barrelled straight into the port side ventral airlock on the saucer of the lifeless intrepid class vessel. A great plume of plasma fire and hull debris was flung into space from the impact, and the Avalon - lacking any kind of engine power - began to very slowly list and barrel to her starboard.

This was it now. The Romulans had attacked. Without a major secondary explosion, the only conclusion was that a strike team was now aboard the Avalon, hunting his friends and colleagues. Hunting Finnley.