Time's Up

Posted on Tue Aug 22nd, 2023 @ 7:39pm by Captain Freya Mannerheim & Subcommander Kaiae t'Lien & Centurion Nancy Gable & Five of Eight & Major Ashley Rogers

2,790 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Chapter VII: Into the Storm
Location: Space
Timeline: 238704.31

"See, we've improved the efficiency of our shields by thirty per cent. So, we can either stay at the same energy levels and have our shield capacity increased, or we can shift energy to weapons or propulsion and maintain previous shield strength. All thanks to that data you provided." Mila Lynn smiled as she finished her explanation to Captain Mannerheim.

The Captain nodded as she looked around Ourainavassa's bridge. With the modifications complete and both Olmert's and Rogers' teams selected and briefed for the sabotage plan, the day had finally arrived. Freya had moved into a guest cabin on board Ourainavassa as Skidbladnir and the other ships in the evacuation flotilla were preparing to depart to the rendezvous point, before continuing on to the Romulus system once Ourainavassa met them there. The only thing left to do was to take care of the Terran problem.

Freya glanced up at the chronometer - 0730 hours. In one hour, the rag-tag assortment of ships would depart, and the boarding parties would start their mission.

Miles Lynn turned around in his seat at the helm to look at his sister and the Captain. "Subcommander should be on the bridge in a few moments. Undocking from the station is complete and we are standing by for orders."

The Captain nodded. "Run a ship-wide diagnostic to make sure everything is ready to go."

"Of course, Captain." Mila immediately got to work as the Captain walked across the bridge to the centre chair, before shaking her head and simply turning towards the viewscreen. Out there, in full view, ISS Amelia was probably also busy preparing for combat, but for now, the Terran timeship remained quiet.

"Captain, we have a problem." Freya was taken from her thoughts by Mila's exclamation. "You asked me to keep a sensor lock on Amelia. Well, they're powering up weapons and shields, and they have launched several shuttlecraft heading in our direction. Looks like they're planning a boarding action of their own."

Mannerheim cursed. "Well, time's up it would seem." She sat down in the Commander's chair, and began shouting out a flurry of orders. "Red alert, all hands to battle stations. Alert the flotilla, tell them to get the hell out of here. Shields up, charge weapons, and tell our own boarding parties to cancel their plans. They're coming to us instead it seems. Get the Subcommander and Olmert up here, stat. I'll be taking command until Kaiae gets here to relieve me. Lieutenant Lynn, you're on tactical until Olmert gets here."

Arriving via Turbolift, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Ashix Zirda quickly entered the Bridge as the Red Alert lighting came alive throughout the chamber. Immediately locking eyes on her workstation, the xB ran toward it and took her seat after the Crewman had exited. Logging in, she reviewed their situation quickly and noted that the Terran vessel, the Amelia, may have finally broken through to launch her assault.

Based on the ship's status reports they had, successfully, brought the shield efficiency up by an additional 30% power. Lacking several of the advanced processors of her former life, Ashix tried to process their situation as she adjusted indicators on her console. Looking at the readouts, she spoke up, "What would you like me to work on in preparation?"

The Captain looked over to Ashix. "At the moment, just monitor systems, make sure everything's running smoothly. Especially weapons and shields, we'll be needing those soon."

The Technician nodded as she focused on the workstation before her, "Don't worry, Captain, we'll make sure that this ship is in tip top condition, even if I have to go outside in an EV Suit and check the fusion welds myself." Accessing the interface controls, the Systems Officer began reviewing system energy assignments and protocols.

Five of Eight as soon as the Red Alert sounded moved to his post in engineering, something was going on, which came as no surprise to Five of Eight.

Kaiae's entrance to the bridge was not exactly the sort of graceful, controlled visage most Romulan commanders worked to present; but more of a frantic stumble through the doors, sash askew and dark-green shadows under her eyes, as the alarms blared. "Status!" She barked at no one in particular.

The Captain turned her head towards the Subcommander, still sat in the central chair. "Amelia is readying combat systems, and they're sending over shuttles for a boarding party. I've taken command for the moment. Now, I know you don't trust me that much, and want to kick me out of this chair and out of the nearest airlock right now, I think I have a better idea. Take the communications station, coordinate the withdrawal of our allied ships, while I command Ourainavassa as we fight the Terrans. That over there was, until a few hours ago, my ship. Captain Rogers, as she now calls herself, was my XO. I know what that ship can do, and I know how Rogers thinks. Between that, and the tricks this warbird has up its wings, we'll blow them up quite handily."

A very, effectively inaudible little whisper passed through Kaiae's lips for a moment in her native tongue that while not a direct translation would basically have come down to a version of: 'And if this goes wrong, let the record show I acted as I best saw fit'; but she took the suggested seat: The Amelia had been the Terran's ship, which meant she knew her weak points best, hopefully; and well, if things went badly, she could make a stand against her then.

Ashix took a quick look at the sensor readings as they came in, having routed them to the console in her role as the Systems Officer for the Ourainavassa. Being careful as she still was not fully comfortable with the systems of the Warbird due to her being from across the galaxy, she was no less ready to defend the ship during combat. Searching through the systems of the vessel for any and all available power, she would be ready when they needed it.

***

When Ash heard the sounds of red alert, she sighed as she looked around at the rest of the boarding party. "Guess we have a change of plans..."

Perez shrugged as they finished strapping on their body armour and slung their swords across their back. "Fine by me, I don't like this sneaky stuff anyway."

Ash chuckled, "The sneaky stuff is my specialty." She then sighed, "Which means we need to be ready for anything. All of things we planned, they're probably planning the same and will likely do it better than we would have..."

T'Ango's ears drooped - she liked the sneaky stuff - but she put a hand on Rogers' shoulder. "We may yet a chance."

"Indeed." Hatham tucked an extra knife in his boot and then straightened. "This, my friends, is why we consider all potential failure points in plan and develop contingencies and back up plans for back up plans." He tugged down his armored vest and looked at T'Ango. "Are your friends in place?"

The felinoid nodded. Her lips parting in a fang-bearing smile as she tapped her comm. "Lightning, Plan Zed is a go."

Perez chuckled and swirled their swords, before sheathing them on their back. "This is going to be fun."

***

Out in open space past the Ourainavassa's shield perimeter, Kali decloaked the little Romulan snakehead ship she'd acquired; and wasted exactly zero time once the cloak was down before she and the one that had decloaked alongside her fired just about everything they had right at the shuttles sent from Amelia. Kali, an experienced (if lapsed) former fighter pilot who cut her chops in the Dominion War days, immediately and drastically went into evasive maneuvers against the inevitable return fire, able to make the maneuverable little ship dance to her whims. Her less experienced partner, unfortunately, wasn't quite as successful, and got hit with a return volley from the Terran vessel that exploded his ship as suddenly as their own fire had the Terran shuttles.

The sacrifice wasn't in vain. Not only had he taken the boarders with him, but in the instant Amelia cracked shields to fire, three Crescent Mk V -E fighters screamed around the docking ring, sending precision volleys of micro torpedoes at Amelia's exposed weapons ports before jinking hard to evade any fire she could return.

"Wave has struck!" Ethan 'Wave' White called out over comms. "Join the storm, Lightning. Let's show these wankers a tsumani!"


***

Mannerheim looked out at the fighters beginning their attack run, and smiled. "Well, why has nobody told me about that little surprise. Where the fuck is our tactical officer now that we need her?" She shook her head. "Lynn, I hope you know how to aim the disruptors. Take out those last few boarding shuttles."

Mila simply nodded to acknowledge the order as her hands flew across the console. While she wasn't a tactical officer by any definition, this was just another algorithm. Soon, Ourainavassa's experimental disruptors came to life, and short bursts of blueish-purple energy tore through the last few remaining Terran shuttlecraft.

"Fine shooting, Lieutenant," the Captain commented. "Kaiae, tell our allies to get the hell out of here, and make it quick. Mr Lynn, keep us between Amelia and the flotilla until they are clear."

***

Captain Ash Rogers walked closer to the viewscreen on the bridge the Amelia and chuckled. She looked at her crew, all performing with precision to engage in battle with the Ourainavassa. "Enough of this bullshit..." She points at the empty Captain's chair. "Our former leader now sits aboard that ship, firing on us. She is a traitor to the Empire and must be eliminated. But we can't underestimate her. She knows all of us. Our strengths, our weaknesses, our tendencies... we mustn't let her have that advantage."

"But we know her's as well," the helmsman spoke up.

Captain Rogers unholstered her phaser and fired a blasted into the man's head giving him no time to react. "We know nothing of any enemy. To pretend that we do is hubris that we can't afford to have," she announces to the crew as she kicks the bloody body off of the helm. "Clean that up and hail them," she sneered.

***

Miles did as he was told, keeping Ourainavassa between the Terran ship and the small flotilla of allies the crew had collected. The small tactical map on the viewscreen showed that three of the ships - the old hospital ship James Bedford, the Nygardian freighter Skidbladnir, and the stolen Tal Shiar freighter - had almost reached safe distance from the station to go to warp.

Amelia's weapons, meanwhile, had fallen silent after the fighters had taken out the boarding shuttles. "What are they waiting for?", Lieutenant Lynn asked, looking out at the timeship.

The Captain smirked. "Probably waiting for us to make a move." She turned to Kaiae. "Subcommander, hail them. I want a word with that bitch of a former XO."

Kaiae's fingers tapped away at her console, opening a perfectly-focused narrow angle on Freya: No need to give the enemy a view of the rest of your bridge, generally, or any information they might glean from it.

***

"So... Captain," Captain Rogers said to the viewscreen. "What do you have to say for yourself? Betraying the Empire is punishable by death and I will be happy to oblige. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Captain Mannerheim shook her head. "Captain Rogers. I have no need to explain my actions to you. You are the perfect Terran officer, never questioning orders, always happy to do the bidding of an Empire who couldn't care less who suffers the consequences. We have both seen the history files, we know what is going to happen in a few weeks' time. Except that now we know it happens because of temporal interference. Because instead of trying to fix the incursion, the Empire has decided to simply blow the Hobus installation up. After all, it's not in their universe, so why would they care about the people in this one."

She gestured around the bridge. "Many of these people are about to lose their homeworld. They are doing all they can to try and save their loved ones, so that they don't lose even more. Innocent civilians were left to burn, while I am sure the upper echelons of the Romulan government have long evacuated. And don't doubt for a second that it would be any different if Terra was the world in danger. You know I spent years in this universe, serving the Federation's Starfleet, and even their Section 31. This universe is much more of a home to me than ours ever was. And I will not allow its people to come to harm at the hands of the Sovereign Terran Empire." She nearly spat out the last words and tapped a button on the control panel in the command chair's armrest to briefly mute comms.

"Subcommander Kaiae, I am sending you a code. Transmit it through the communications link now open with I.S.S. Amelia." As she spoke, she entered the activation code for the modified Tal Shiar virus and transmitted it to the Subcommander's station, before unmuting the channel.

An interesting arrogance for the Terrans, to have their main comms channels so fully integrated into the rest of their computers, Kaiae thought as she did so: Most warbirds tried to avoid that, for exactly these sorts of reasons; some designs on ships with a large enough footprint even went so far as to run the system off a separate core.

"So, Captain Rogers. Are we just going to talk, or are you going to back those words up?"

"This universe is more of a home to you?!" Captain Rogers asked loudly so that the Terran crew could hear. "You have admitted your guilt. We owe nothing to this universe. You have grown soft during your time among these people. Prepare to die," she said cutting off the comms.

Rogers turned to her crew, "Fire all weapons."

***
I.S.S. Amelia's tactical officer simply nodded at the order, and entered the command to fire.

"Captain? Something's wrong. I just hit the fire button five times, and nothing is happening. And our shields are dropping!"

The science officer glared at his console. "Something seems to have infected our systems. All tactical controls are locked out, as are warp engines."

Suddenly, the helmsman yelled out. "Captain! Spore drive is charging up, but... I didn't set it! I can't even view the coordinates it's sending us to!"
***

Freya leaned back in the commander's chair and began laughing as energy surges began to appear around Amelia. "I do think they wanted to fire at us, just now. Nakai's virus is working a treat. In about twenty seconds, they'l spore jump right into the middle of the Hobus sun. I've programmed a random jump, but it doesn't matter what the coordinates are. Tactical, prepare to fire all weapons, on my mark."
***

Captain Rogers, realizing what has just happened, went directly to the tactical console, shoving the crewman aside as she typed in commands as quick as she could.

The tactical officer's went wide, "You just jettisoned all of our escape pods!"

"And they're all emitting fake bio-signatures and heading towards their ship...." Rogers said and she continues to work the controls. "We have other plans... I still know the shield frequency of the Ourainavassa... we are going to board their ship while they're focused on the escape pods. We are boarding their ship.... Computer, begin transport. Energize."
***

Blueish-purple bursts of energy streamed from Ourainavassa's cannons, accompanied by a volley of torpedoes, hitting the Terran timeship just as it began to roll into its spore jump. As I.S.S. Amelia disappeared into a cloud of energy and fire, Captain Mannerheim looked around the bridge. "Good job, people."

"Captain, reading escape pods full of Terran life signs heading towards us." Mila looked at the Captain, waiting for orders.

Freya squinted at the viewscreen and cursed, just as another alarm rang through the ship. "Classic gambit. Rogers must have memorised our shield signature." She tapped the intercom. "All hands, battle isn't won yet. Prepare to receive boarding party!"

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