Gorn Hunting

Posted on Sat Jun 1st, 2024 @ 3:41pm by Lieutenant Leah Bailey & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Lieutenant JG Nayisa Wrea & Ensign Myfanwy Cahiracon

Mission: The Trojan Horse
Location: USS Athena
Timeline: Adjacent to Marine/Hostage Rescue
2913 words - 5.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Once NVeid had left, Finn sank into the Captain's chair. Before, she had somewhat avoided sitting in it, but now she just felt relieved for having resolved her first command mistake without too much of a backlash. Please let the rest of the night be a boring one, she silently prayed to whatever deity might be listening in.

"Ma'am, currently all communications are stable and secure," said Myfanwy, she had boosts and countermeasures prepared. She had reviewed the electronic warfare protocols, worked with the Operations team to have reactions to expected threats on hand, and thought she was as ready as she could be if something went wrong.

"Commander?" Leah piped up from the science station, almost tenatively so given the situation. "Sensors are reading a warp signature entering the system. It looks...Gorn?"

Myfanwy called up the later information on Gorn communication protocols. "Ma'am, do you want to hail them?"

"Gorn? What?" Finn's mind was racing as quickly as her heart pounded at the idea of having to contend with a Gorn vessel anywhere nearby and while she was in charge. "Put it on screen," Finn stood from her chair and looked at Myfanwy. "Don't hail them yet, send a message on a secured channel to Commander Zora that a Gorn ship appears to be entering the system. Ask them to let us know if they find anything down there that might indicate a reason for their being here. In the meantime, Lieutenant Bailey, scan the system and see if you can find something that would tell us why they're headed this way." She then looked to Nayisa. "I want a tactical evaluation of that vessel, the quicker the better."

Finn turned back to face the screen, pausing to give a worrisome glance to Xavier. You think I jinxed myself by praying for a quiet night?

"Message sent, ma'am," said Myfanwy. "No hail from the unknown ship."

The mere mention of a Gorn ship sent a wave of emotions that ricocheted around the bridge at warp speed; a wave that Xavier had not prepared for. The feeling was staggering and it took a few seconds for the Betazoid to pull himself out of that state of europhia enough to focus on the present. I think you did, he said telepathically to Finn.

Xavier rose from his seat to stand just behind the blonde engineer. "Ops, tell all decks to prepare for multi-vector-assault mode, but do not power up shields or weapons yet," he added, turning to the tactical station. "The Gorn will see it as an act of aggression and they will attack."

"Nothing to suggest they're here for anything other than us," Leah reported from the science station. "We're pretty close to the border; maybe they see this as a contested system?"

"If so, they are broadcasting no claim," said Myfanwy. She reached a hand for her ear, "Wait, something is coming in," she winced, "it is very loud."

"Play it," Xavier said, thinking that the message would be from the Gorn ship. He was surprised when he heard Zora's voice crackle on the bridge speakers.

"Keating, the marines may have been attacked by the Gorn, we'll be engaging them soon. Stay vigilant and keep the crew alive."

Xavier turned to face Finn, her face slightly more pale than usual. "Well at least we know why that ship is here," he said. "What do we do?" He asked, knowing that the lives of everyone on the ship were in her hands; a fact he was sure was not lost on her too.

Nayisa found it a little funny in a strange way that she was manning Zade's bridge station. They haven't spoken in several days outside of work necessity, and here she was, entrusted with the same responsibility. "I'm watching them closely for signs of escalation," the intelligence officer reported. "We don't want to start a conflict, especially with people on the surface."

"Agreed." The last thing Finn wanted was a battle of any sorts. "Do you have that tactical evaluation of their vessel yet?" She asked Nayisa. Though she would do what she could to prevent a confrontation, they had best be prepared just in case.

"It looks like deflector shields and phaser emitters are what we're up against, ma'am," Nayisa said, her eyes on the console.

Xavier was about to ask the Lieutenant to elaborate, cause surely every ship had shields and phasers as a bare minimum, but before he could speak, warning alarms sounded around the bridge. He didn't need to be at his console to know what they meant; the Gorn ship was about to fire. "Shields!" He screamed to the tactical station.

Nayisa slammed the shields button as fast as she could, hoping they'd raise in time.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Finn's shout followed right behind Xaviers. A million questions seemed to simultaneously shoot through Finn's brain, the most important of which was centered around their probably of survival, but all she had time for in that moment was to react. Take it one step at a time, hope for the best, and pray that she didn't kill everyone on the ship. "Hail them," she said, knowing it was likely to yield no response, but they had to try.

"Hail, sent!" said Myfanwy as she tried to keep the communications link with the away team stable.

The ship rocked but not as violently as Xavier had expected, clearly the evasive manoeuvres had been enough to protect the ship from the brunt of the enemy fire. He turned to face Finn, "negotiations might not be possible with the Gorn."

"I have weapons standing by, Commander," Nayisa reported. "Shields are holding, there was minimal damage. Given the sudden action by the Gorn ship, I'd agree with the Lieutenant. They're not looking to talk."

"Target their weapons system and fire, maybe that'll get them talking," Finn said before turning to Bailey and Myfanwy. "I need to know why they're here and 'they're here for us' isn't going to cut it. Run additional scans, look through records, I don't care. I just need answers."

"Gorn are fiercely territorial," Leah answered. "If they sense we're encroaching, their natural reaction is to become defensive. It could be that we've broken some sort of unknown rule of theirs...perhaps they're trying to discourage us from remaining?"

The ship rocked again more violently this time. Enough to knock Finn to the ground. "That felt like a lot more than a standard phaser bank," Finn said with a slight side eye at Nayisa as she picked herself up. "I need more information on those weapons. In the meantime, we need options," it felt almost surreal to be surrounded by this chaos in the command seat, Finn thought as she sat in the chair and put her hand to her chin. "Can we keep the stealth mode modifications running if we split into multi vector assault mode?"

"We should be able to keep the stealth mode," Nayisa began as she picked herself up off the ground. Returning to the station, she initiated scans to figure out what the hell rocked them so badly. "... but it will be briefly interrupted as sections transfer to their own power. Does that sound ballpark?" she asked to ops.

"What? Erm yes," Xavier replied as he clambered back into the XO seat. He had been momentarily lost in the crew's emotions, fear, panic, everything so raw and fresh. "Alpha and Beta will be fine, but Gamma being the only one with a functioning warp core right now, will light up like the Bajoran wormhole during the Gratitude Festival."

Nayisa frowned at the station in front of her. That was odd... she thought, eyeing the blip on her screen. Applying some filters, namely the ones she would occasionally use for stealth missions, she read the results. "Their ship is applying some dense shielding to other weapons. That's why the initial scan didn't detect any other weapons," she reported. "Sensors happened to pick up a brief energy fluctuation when they fired. That last hit came from one of... five torpedo arrays, and I'm reading what could be a more powerful energy weapon. It's nested underneath the forward section of the ship."

The intelligence officer fired back per the previous orders, watching the sensors make sense of the impact. "Gross... they're changing their shield frequency, too." The informality of her added report was less important in Nayisa's mind as she tasked the computer with analyzing the shifting shield frequency for patterns.

"Can we match our weapons to compensate for their shield modifications?" Xavier asked the temporary tactical officer.

"Working on it," was the response. Nayisa suddenly gripped the console in preparation, bracing for the inevitable impact if the helm didn't move the ship in time. "They're firing from their forward torpedo arrays! Two shots incoming!"

"Brace for impact," Finn held onto the chair as her mind raced. They had little time to come up with some sort of solution. "Target their shields and weapons systems...." The ship shook once again with a sudden jolt that sent cables flying lose from their housing and displaced at least a few of the bridge officers. "Send a signal to have everyone to report to the alpha section and prepare for automated separation. If we separate and enable the stealth system while sending gamma on a trajectory towards the gorn ship, will it give us enough of a distraction to hide?"

Thanks to her own preparation, Nayisa didn't move very far from the impact. The silver-haired woman fired back, pleased to see one of their torpedo arrays go out in a ball of fire. "That brought our shields to 50 percent, but the computer's honing in on their shield modulation frequency." She looked up at the command chair. "A distraction might be the thing we need, Commander. Smaller targets move faster. If we can become harder to hit, I can more easily get some disabling shots in." Glancing briefly to the helm, she added, "it's going to require some tight maneuvers."

"No broadcasts from the Gorn ship, perhaps they want to keep this all secret for some reason?" said Myfanwy.

"We might not have time to evacuate everyone to the Alpha section," Xavier said as he got up from the XO chair and moved to the mission operations station behind Finn's seat. "I recommend a regular multi-vector assault mode attack, Sir. All three sections attacking in unison should be able to disable the Gorn ship and we'll be able to do it much faster." His finger hovered over the two command buttons; one for evacuation, the other for MVAM.

Both options had merit. If they could evacuate and enter stealth mode then at least Alpha would be safer than the other two. However, Xavier had a point in his three against one argument. "How long for the crew to evacuate to Alpha?"

"Three to five minutes," Xavier replied giving the best and worst case scenario.

Nayisa knew 3 to 5 minutes was a very long time in combat. She weighed the current probability that they would get an involuntary space walk, and knew that likelihood would only increase the longer they debated it. Was it worth it if it meant most of the crew was in one section? "I think I can hold them off for 3 minutes, Commander," she offered. "But the longer we dawdle, the more likely they'll get their kill shot in. Whatever decision is made needs to be made now!"

"Dammit," Finn shook her head. Either choice carried a hefty risk. No evacuation and risk every module for themselves in an all out fire fight or evacuate and hope they could hold off the Gorn long enough to then split and slip into stealth mode without getting caught. No good choice existed so she went with her instinct. "Forget the evacuation. Get us into MVAM. Once we're separated tell each of the sections to fire at will." Her instinct had of course been to enter the decision that resulted in the most potential for explosions.

Myfanwy activated the physical switches that initiated the communication interlocks required for MVAM. "Comm ready for MVAM, ma'am."

"Tactical ready," Nayisa also reported. The activation on her end was less dramatic, just a couple of taps on her console and the targeting sensors were calibrated for MVAM.

Xavier didn't need to be told twice, he pressed the button to initiate the MVAM, confirmed by the ship's readiness lights turning from red to blue.

"Initiating decoupling sequence. Auto-separation in ten seconds," the computer confirmed dully.

"Tactical, attack pattern beta-four," Xavier instructed as the computer continued to count down. "Let's make this nice and easy."

"Copy!" Nayisa entered in the commands into her console. Once the computer finished counting down, there was a light tremor that rolled under their feet as the clamps separated, and her console along with everyone else's got the notification that the separation was complete. The console's display transitioned so the status of all three sections was visible. "Each section is reporting systems ready."

"Then let's not waste any time, you heard the orders. Attack pattern beta-four and fire at will." Finn kept an eye on the bridge screen, watching the battle unfold and secretly praying that they'd all make it out unscathed.

The three sections moved a lot faster, zipping around the Gorn ship and causing more effective damage. The shots that did make it out from the Gorn ship were easier to maneuver around, with the occasional stray shot actually hitting one of the three sections. "Their shields are almost gone," Nayisa reported. "Our shields are sitting at 50 percent, Beta's is at 39 percent, and Gamma's is at 41 percent."

Finn put her hand on her chin. Gamma and Beta's lower shield percentages were worrisome and the last thing she wanted was to be responsible for losing an entire section of the ship, not to mention the crew that went with it. "Activate stealth mode and swap to attack pattern charlie-six. Tell Gamma to take up third position and Beta in second. We'll act as a shield and a distraction, but in stealth mode we'll be a harder target to hit, then Beta and Gamma can finish off their shields and disable their weapons...I hope." Please tell me you think this will work, Finn's mind reached out to her friends though for the first time it almost felt as if something was slightly...off. Perhaps it was just the fog of combat, she thought.

Xavier watched on his screen as the three sections moved into their new positions. The bridge rocked as a stray Gorn phaser strip collided with the edge of Alpha's shields. The makeshift stealth mode seemed to be doing the trick. "The Gorn seem unable to pick a module to keep their weapons on," he reported. He knew that Wrea would be too busy coordinating the three sections to give status updates. "Their shields are buckling. Anything on comms?" He asked Myfanwy.

"No transmission to us," Myfanwy replied. "But I think they are trying to send a message to the planet. It is hard to get a clear read."

"Can we block them from getting a message through?" Finn asked. "The last thing we need is for them to get some sort of warning to their people on the ground and jeopardize our team down there."

"I will do my best, the combat itself is doing a good job," said Myfanwy, activating controls.

Xavier was right, Nayisa was deeply focused on her console as she was managing the three modules. The shields on the Gorn ship were so close to failing, she just needed the right circumstances. Just like a video game... she thought. Seeing an opportunity, she ducked one of the modules below weapons fire and got it into a flanking position. "Yess..." she quietly slipped, her dark eyes closely tracking between vessels at her station. Commanding the sections to fire a few more shots, a sense of satisfaction came when she saw one of the beams of phaser fire take out the Gorn's shields. For good measure, she also knocked out their weapons, a much easier process now that the shields were down.

Finally relaxing slightly, Nayisa blew some of her silver hair out of her face with a puff of air. "Both their weapons and shields are disabled," she reported, a sense of pride in her words.

"Good," Finn heaved a heavy sigh of relief. "Signal to Gamma and Beta to reintegrate. Lets get the ship back together, start repairs, and hope that we don't receive any more unexpected company. Ensign," she looked to Myfanwy, "send a message to the away team with our status and see if you can get an updated status from them. Hopefully, they didn't suffer the same luck we did with unexpected guests. Then hail the Gorn ship. I doubt they'll respond, but if they do maybe we can get some answers."

"Yes, ma'am," said Myfanwy. "Message sent to away team. Hailing the Gorn ship on all channels."

Xavier breathed an internal sigh of relief. He could feel the tension levels of the crew return to normal and a part of him missed the heightened state everyone was in. "I'll coordinate with ops and engineering," he told Finn. "At least the Commodore is returning to a Ready Room this time," he added with a smile.