Earning Our Wings, Pt. 2a - Securing the Prize

Posted on Tue Dec 15th, 2020 @ 10:55pm by Plot-Related NPC & Centurion Nancy Gable & Major Ashley Rogers & Lieutenant Hatham tr'Krotash

2,795 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Chapter II: Spreading our Wings
Location: I.R.W. Ourainavassa
Timeline: 238701.12

Confusion reigned on the bridge of the Ourainavassa. As the pirates had still not been able to get through the code lock on most of the systems, only a rump crew was on board, to ensure nobody could come and steal the ship from them.

It had been an ordinary, boring day, as the young Orion commanding the crew lounged in the command chair. Keeping watch on a disabled ship certainly was not a very exciting job. He envied even those serving on the two Birds-of-Prey that formed the warbird's guard, laying in wait to decloak and ambush any would-be liberators.

All the quiet and boredom, however, ended, when the Klingons arrived, and immediately destroyed one of the guard ships. The four other people on the bridge began to panic, but their commander held up his hand. "Boys," he said, "keep your cool. We have 60 people on this ship, and we do have some weapons. This should do the trick."

He smirked, as he tapped a button on the console set into the armrest of the chair. His smirk, however, was short-lived, as nothing happened.

Before he could even ask what was going on, five green lights appeared around the bridge. "Fuck!" He reached for his pistol, and fired at the nearest transporter beam.

Just as the boarding party materialised, the people on the bridge opened fire. Five of them, Ford counted quickly, before levelling his rifle and loosing a shot at the nearest pirate. As the Nausicaan fell, he looked over, to find Harrison lying on the floor. The pirate commander had taken him out just as he materialised. Cursing under his breath, Ford took cover and scanned the room for his next target.

Ash dove for cover as soon as she materialized and returned fire at the bridge crew. She managed to clip one of the pirates in the shoulder as she made her way to Harrison. "Dammit, did I tell you to get hit as soon as we beamed it?" she muttered as she dragged him towards Nancy under the covering fire of the rest of the team. She looked over at Hatham and Ford, "Just giving you a headstart, there are plenty more before this is all said and done..."

"Sure, boss," Hatham shot back while shooting the target closest and leaping over the rail to grab the wounded man and throw him at the pirate taking aim at him. He then blasted both of them. "But you're starting down two."

Nancy had ducked while firing at the center chair as soon as transport was complete. Unfortunately, the shot missed, but it did make the Orion dive for cover rather than use his central position to fire at anyone else. "I've got him," Nancy told Ash, slapping a compression bandage on the wound and applying a hypo to counter shock and pain. "See if you can take the kid in the center hostage. He strikes me as the someone's nephew type."

Ash smirked and nodded at Nancy's suggestion. Finally, some fun.

Ford leaned over the console he was hiding behind, and with a well-aimed shot, dispatched the last of the Nausicaans. Now, the Orion was the only pirate left standing, and, predictably, tried in panic to rally reinforcements. However, the shutdown command had not only disabled the warbird's weapons and propulsion systems, it had also taken out internal communications. Realising his situation, he ran for the door.

Ash stood up and fired a well placed shot into the Orion's knee, dropping him straight to the ground. "This one is mine," she growled.

The pirate yelled in pain as he grabbed his knee. He then tried to reach for a weapon. "Oh, why would you do a thing like that?" Ash said as she shot the weapon out of his hand, "Are you going to behave?"

He struggled to stand up and Ash shot his other leg out from under him. "Now I really wish you would just stop resisting, it would make both of our lives much easier. We are taking this ship and if you want to live, you really need to be more compliant."

Ash looked over at Ford, "Think you can guard him while we take the rest of the ship? He can't use his legs and both of his hands..." she paused and looked over at the pirate writhing in pain and fired her weapon at his uninjured hand, "As I was saying... both of his hands..."

Ford nodded weakly. The disruptor bolt had knocked him out cold, but Dr Gable's quick attention had made sure there were no long-term consequences.

"BaQa'," Nancy cursed, coming over to keep the man from bleeding out or passing out. She shot a glare at Ash. "When I said 'take him hostage', I meant use him to make taking this ship easier, not disable him for comic relief." She held a hypo up in front of the Orion. "I can make this hurt more or hurt less. How many crew are on this ship and where are they?"

The Orion looked up at the hypo and snarled. They were going to kill him anyway. Who were they, pirates? Mercenaries? He noticed the badges worn by his attackers. Romulan privateers. Of course. He tried to spit blood in the woman's face. "You... you better run to your green-blooded, pointy-eared masters before the Vulture hears of this, or you'll wish you'd never been born. I don't know what kind of dirty Tal Shiar trickery you used. But you will not get off this ship alive."

Ash turned her attention back to the Orion, "Did you say Vulture?" She grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him into a bulkhead. "Vulture is going to regret ever crossing paths with me... You're not going to die, my friend. You're going to tell me everything I want to know about who you work for... this ship is ours and either you cooperate or we'll let Vulture know you handed the ship over to us." Ash drove her knee into the pirates wounded leg, "Talk."

Drawn by the word 'Vulture', Hatham went to assist Rogers. Or, from the standpoint of anyone else, loomed threateningly over her shoulder. He drew a knife. "Talk or this green-blooded pointy-ear will peel your balls like vhilat fruit."

Stepping back, Nancy crossed her arms. "Don't expect me to stop him. My only concern is keeping you alive and frankly anything that makes you tell them what they want is the best way to ensure that."

The Orion spat out more blood, and coughed an expletive addressed at the group, before finally managing to press a button on the communicator attached to his belt. In a flash of green light, he disappeared, his body disintegrating.

"Shit," Ford cursed. "I heard about pirates using personal self-disruptors when captured, but I always thought those were stories."

Harrison shook his head. "Obviously not. So what do we do now? We can't contact the ship while they're cloaked, so what do we do now?"

Hatham sheathed the knife with a disappointed frown, then looked at Ash. "I guess you get a chance to catch up on kill count."

Ash slammed her hand on the bulkhead in frustration. Vulture is just going to be a pain in their asses. She smirked at Hatham as she walked over to the command chair and started tapping in commands. "Raven gave me the command codes," she said as she pulled up the schematics for the ship, displaying where every pirate is. "Looks to be about 60 of them... 5 of us. We could just vent them all into space using the Ourainavassa's internal security capabilities... or we can have some fun... because after that, I need some fun."

"Yes." Hatham cracked his knuckles. "Fun. And maybe one of them will be more ...cooperative."

"How about you vent 2/3rds of them?" Nancy suggested in a tone that did not at all suggest a mere suggestion. "Fun for you usually means work for me."

"Aww," Hatham nearly pouted.

Gable rolled her eyes. "Fine. Half." She pointed a finger at him and then at Rogers. "But only so there's a chance you'll leave enough of them alive to get some answers."

Ash smiled as she input the commands, "Half it is...." They watched at the number of lifesigns on the ship shrunk. She then turned to Nancy, "Getting answers just might be more fun..." Ash checked her weapons again, starting to head off the bridge.
"Looks like I'm in the lead now, Hatham," she said as she winked at the big Romulan.

"Hey, no fair," Hatham objected. "Venting half of them was the doctor's idea." He threw a grin at Gable and winked back at Rogers.

Nancy laughed. "He's right - I win. Which means the lot of you can stop competing and just do your jobs."

Ford interrupted their banter. "Um, not to rain on the parade, but, we have some new life signs on board?" He pointed at the viewscreen, that still displayed the internal scanners. "Who invited a dozen Klingons?"

"No one," Nancy said flatly, and looked at Rogers - not quite accusing, but she almost wondered if the woman had wished it on them. "Get the shields up. I assume they came prepared to resist following the pirates out an airlock. Can we pull Burnie's old trick of transporting them just into the shields so get zapped like big bugs?"

Ash turned her attention to the monitor tracking the new arrivals, "The more the merrier..." she looked at Hatham with a slightly apologetic look. As much as she would love to go toe to toe with some Klingons, she's sure her Romulan friend would enjoy it more. But there's Nancy is right, there's a lot more at stake than their enjoyment. They were here to get the Ourainavassa and it seems like the more time they spend on board without securing the vessel, the greater the likelihood that they might not. "But the doctor is right, we have to get this ship," Ash input the commands in the computer, "Shields up. Hopefully no one else joins us. I think we have enough on board to keep us occupied. Hatham, you want to do the honors of getting rid of our new guests?" Ash stepped aside from the console to give Hatham access to the controls.

It wouldn't be as satisfying as the idea of seeing Klingon faces when he pulled out the tiny disruptor and put a hole in them with it, but he wasn't going to argue with the offer. "Very sporting of you, boss," Hatham said with a nod and accessed the controls. Within moments a number of Klingons vanished from the internal scanners and the display read an equal number of tiny fluctuations in the shields - not much since even an armed and armored Klingon was still substantially less impact than even a very small asteroid.

"Sadly, in space we can't hear them scream," he remarked. "But there is something ...satisfying... about imagining it." A grin creased his face, then grew larger as he checked the display. "Hey, looks like a couple of them had the presence of mind to flip on transport inhibitors after they materialized. We better hurry if we want in on the fun before they and the pirates start killing each other."

Ash smirked as she looked at Nancy, "Permission to have some fun? We'll be sure to leave a couple alive for intel purposes... if these pirates have any linkage to Vulture, we'll find it."

"Fine," Nancy sighed. She pointed to Harrison. "But you stay here. You're wounded. And it might be useful to have someone in the command center," she added at the near pout on the man's face.

Ash was practically out the proverbial door before Nancy had finished talking. She took one last look at the display showing where the enemy are, "If these pirates work for Vulture, they don't deserve any mercy. "I'll be heading to engineering, we need to secure that section for the rest of the team. I'm going to be avoiding the turbolifts. It might take me longer but I'd rather have the element of surprise going through the Jeffries Tubes and using site to site transport." She looked at the rest of the boarding party as she dematerialized, "Try to keep up."

Ash rematerialized in the corridor outside of Main Engineering, it would appear that some of the Klingons had a similar idea. She set her phaser to kill and shot one of them in the back of the head before he even realized she was there. One of the other Klingons yelled out something insulting about her honor, but Ash didn't care... there is no room for honor in this line of work.

She dematerialized again as she created chaos amongst her targets.

Both Harrison and Ford had decided to stay on the bridge with Doctor Gable. The injured man was keeping an eye on the situation on the scanner, while the other was standing guard by the door.

"Son of a -" After a quick glance at the monitor to see where Rogers had gone, Hatham transported into engineering. Right behind six pirates who were all waiting for the Klingons they could hear yelling out in the corridor. He ran at one, shooting two others before they could fully react to what was happening. By the time they had their weapons aimed at him, the man he'd rushed was held in front of him by an arm around the throat.

Hatham fired from over his Orion shield's shoulder, but only clipped his target. The next pirate dove out of the way while the other two fired. The man in Hatham's hold went limp. Killed his own man rather than let him be a hostage.... Hatham hadn't planned to use him as hostage, but still, he had to respect that. He did not drop the dead body though - it was still useful, as proved when it took another shot before Hatham took out the shooter and then threw the body at the last man standing and he pivoted to fire at the one peaking out from behind a console.

The pirate ducked down at his shot, which allowed him lunge forward, grabbing a toolkit with one hand as he fired at the pirate just struggling out from under his dead comrade with the other.

One left. He flung the tool kit hard over the console. Wham! The pirate flattened into the side of the console to avoid being brained. When he looked up a very large Romulan was pointing a very small disruptor at him. Hatham smiled. "You can surrender, or you can find out how lethal my little friend really is."

Ash materialized to see Hatham with his tiny disruptor aimed at a pirate and she had to stifle a laugh. He clearly was in the middle of something and she didn't want to disrupt the mood.

She walked up and just punched the man in the face as she turned to the large Romulan, "Can't have you having all the fun." She directed her attention at the pirate, there was seemingly much more going on here than simple piracy. They're more scared of Vulture than a boarding party full of Klingons, but why. "You're the only one left... and we can help you, if you help us..."

The pirate - this one appeared Andorian, but with some Klingon features as well - snarled. "Right. Who's to say you won't just kill me either way? I can see from those badges that you work for the Romulans. Let me guess, Tal Shiar hired you to do their dirty work?"

He shook his head. "You can shoot me, or you can take me to whoever is holding your leash. I am not talking to some hired targs."

Hatham grabbed the guy's neck and made a deep targ-like grunting sound as he lifted him off his feet. And shook him a little for good measure. "I'm the hired targ." He turned the man slightly to look at Rogers. "She's in charge."

The Pirate laughed. "Maybe she's holding your leash, but someone is her boss. And that is who I want to talk to."

Ash smirked, "You really think I hold his leash? Or anyone really holds mine? I'm here for the paycheck. The dirty work is a nice bonus. Who holds your leash? I'll show you mine if you show me your's."

"That's the point. I want to talk to whoever is paying you."

Suddenly, the ship was rocked as if hit by an explosion.

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