TRIBUNAL Part 9 - Operation: Thunderchicken

Posted on Mon Jun 17th, 2019 @ 10:13am by Captain Enalia Telvan & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie & Kodria Mizu & Lieutenant Samuel Clemens XV & Lieutenant JG Thav Th'ovohrot & Ensign Fiona O'Dell & Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Petty Officer 2nd Class 'Big Ethel' Jablonski
Edited on on Mon Jul 1st, 2019 @ 11:14am

Mission: Fractured Fairy Tales
Location: USS Hera, Deck 3, R&D Department
Timeline: 2396, Tribunal part 9
Tags: Arenara, Bloody Rose, Thunderchicken, Dr. Mudd, Agonizers

On the bridge of the starship Hera, the first officer poked at a blurry tab onscreen. Transmitting the telemetry of the target and the order to use the doppler shift for location purposes, she had given every advantage she could. Summoning the best voice of command she could muster, she transmitted to the R&D department on Deck 3 the command phrase preset to launch the counterstrike she'd prepared.

"Operation: Thunderchicken is a go!"

The pipsqueak pilot who could make the Thunderchicken dance offered a thumbs-up to her porcine partner in the booth, the mechanoid mimicking the motion. The duo had put the experimental, transforming craft through it's paces and they were as ready as they were ever going to be.

From the control booth, Gavarus had gotten into the zone and her thick, three-fingered hands danced across her console. "All systems are green. You are good to go and I've got your back from here."

With a smirk, the grouchy technologist ran her thick fingers down the three lit amber sliders on the console, and a shimmering hum of the Hera's cargo transporters enveloped the Thunderchicken at it began to transport. "Kick their frickin' pirate asses, Fee!"


Two decks down, on Deck 6 in Transporter Room 3, the armed and armored Security force were standing on the pad, accompanied by the Hera's resident spook. The Master At Arms was commanding this away team, whose purpose was to provide backup to the mech that would ferry them in through the ship's shields. If all went according to plan, it would gain them entry to the enemy bridge. Which might or might not result in his squad tagging space pirates hurtling to their frozen doom with transporter tags. If not, then their job was to take the bridge and stand down the HMS Bloody Rose.

The hulking Petty Officer Jablonski stood at the back, a phaser rifle in one hand looking like a large-ish pistol to her, with the TR-116C2 slugthrower slung over her left shoulder. Bumping fists with Petty Officer Lu, Big Ethel nodded to Wagner and Grell, offering them thumbs-up. While they were no space marines, the security force of the USS Hera was well-equipped, well-trained and well-disciplined. They knew the danger, they knew their jobs, and they were prepared.

Clemens had prepared for this mission by loading up a combination of kinetic, energy, concussive, restrictive, and explosive munitions, both onboard his cybernetic limbs and slung over his shoulder. His grav-units were engaged, in case they beamed into a screwy-situation, and his IDF and life support systems were active. His Friend or Foe ID tags were active, so the rest of the team's munitions would try to avoid him, if possible, even if he needed to activate his holographic cloaking systems. His virtual intelligence subsystems were active, so semi-independent operation of medical, offensive, and movement systems would keep him free from distraction during the fight.

As soon as the comms announced the Executive Officer's go orders, he sent a commtext response...

LTCLEMENS: As previously discussed, the Special Surprise Gifts are awaiting intruders in all corridors. They are coded to be friendly to all pre-authorized crew and guests, and a big mess of trouble for anyone else. It's Duck Season.

Master-At-Arms Thav moved his neck to work out a kink, before closing his helmet and looked at his team. "Okay, people- we're here to kick some pirate ass and keep them off the mech. We don't know what surprises they might have for us over there, so I want everyone's suits synched-up. Watch each others' backs and remain calm, and we'll get through this," he said calmly, with the tone of someone who had done this many times before.

Sam added, "Remember, ya'll- use everything you got t'make these folks regret their choice of vocation, and do what ya hafta to take this ship out their toolbag. They asked for this mess, and they're gonna foot th'bill. We're th'things that bump in their night."

"Uhhhh, question?" Jablonski raised her hand. "Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, but the Commander said we were to capture the queen alive at all costs and do our best to minimize casualties. And she really stressed that 'at all costs' part. So are we here for maximum demolition, or a capture mission?"

The last lawful order superseded any other order save a standing order, after all.

"Capture the Queen, Petty Officer, with minimal casualties," the Andorian Master-At-Arms said, speaking up. "We're Starfleet, and we won't be sinking to the level of pirates."

Clemens stared at Jablonski for a moment, and added,"...did y'all not hear Herself? Killin' em' is like givin' someone a styrofoam graduation cake. Sure, th' icing's sweet, but once it's gone, it's all empty air," he shook his head, with a haunted look. "...that shit'll ruin a kid's life, it will..."

He blinked, and further clarified, "You folks got skills... don't do anything that Thex or th'Doc can't fix. But make sure these people decide that th'path they're on is A. Bad. Idea."

“Coordinates are coming in now,” the transporter technician reported, verifying that everyone was ready on the pad, as helmets snapped shut over heads and weapons warmed up. At a nod from the Master-At-Arms, the technician declared, “Energizing!”

Which was when the transporter room slipped away, and the boarding / landing party found themselves hanging in empty space. Well, mostly empty, as the experimental variable mode fighter craft dubbed the ‘Thunderchicken' was moving in on them with the 'boot' thrusters engaged.

“Alreet, everybody grab hold and secure yuirselves,” came the squeaky voice of the pilot over the specific comm channel of the mission. “We’re already on Plan B since our target is on the move. I kin catch ‘em, but we’re g’win ta be doin it at impulse power, so ye’d best be attached, because if ye fall off we’ll have the devil’s own time trackin ye doown in this soup!”

With that, the pearlescent and oddly humanoid vehicle hove into view, it’s dark underlit hull standing out boldly in the colorful nebula, the arms opened wide even as the thrusters in the ‘feet’ of the mech pointed forward to brake the momentum she had gained moving into position. While in flight it looked somewhat ridiculous, the assault vehicle moved with precision and surety. In one ‘hand’ was a larger version of the TR-116C2 carried by the Security forces, while on the dorsal of the mech, behind the cockpit, was a phaser cannon. On the starboard ‘shoulder’ was mounted a can that all involved recognized as a variable fire rocket pod.

It was abundantly clear that the war machine offering the boarding party a ride to their target was well prepared for a battle. Even if visible inside the cockpit was perhaps one the USS Hera’s smallest officers, one Ensign Fiona O’Dell, who was clad in her own small suit of EVA armor like the rest.

An alert flashed on Clemens' HUD as soon as the transport completed, alerting him that the target ship wasn't where it was projected to be. The rest of the display told the story, and he immediately launched a grapple to lock onto the hull of the mech, just port of the phaser cannon, amidships, and reeled himself in at high speed, to avoid fouling maneuvers with the cable. He landed with a *THUNK, his gravplates locking to the hull, and hunkered down, using the phaser cannon's outer casing for cover and a forward fire position.

"Clemens t’ O'Dell. I'm aboard an' secured, aft of ya."

"Aye, I seeya there Lieutenant. I've got one heck of a lot of room fuir displays in here and sensors like the eyes a'the Almighty himself." Even as she chattered, Jablonski grabbed Wagner and Grell, while Petty Officer Lu latched onto Lieutenant Junior Grade Th'ovohrot and rather ably, the tiny test pilot scooped them into the arms of the mech, giving them something to brace themselves against.

"Ach! Steer clear'a that manifold, Lu, it's aboot to get hot, that's one on me impulse drive... Jablonski, get ye a grip but dinna ye be crimpin me hull noow. Alreet, we all secure, everyone got a gravlock, aye?" The little stereotype paused to insure everyone was ready.

Clemens signaled ready via the FOF interface, and reeled out just enough line to give himself a grav lock with the grappler, as a backup tether to keep him with the tiny ship (or huge EVA suit, depending upon one's POV), even if he got smacked off it.

"Alreet... get ready for a ride ye'll tell yuiur grandkids aboot... assuming we should live s'long." With that said, the pixie pilot punched it, as the impulse drive glowed to life and began to propel them through the particles of the nebula. A small wedge before them seemed to part the dust and small meteorites they were rocketing past, as the deflector screen of the craft cleared their path... but not by a very wide margin. Jablonski, even hunkered down, was still pinging particles off her back. Her bodily volume was simply too large for the deflectors to fully cover.

His HUD indicators giving him a visual of the particle flow over the local area, Clemens could see the abrasive stream raking across the big Security officer, and knew it could only go downhill from here.

Leaving his grapple in place, he kicked loose his grav pads while initiating a forward tuck and roll, to bring him within reach of Jablonski's heel as he landed in a flattened crouch behind her. "Hang on, Ethel, and lean into it!"

"Maureen! Life'n'Limb Protocol, auto-adjust for additional load, on mah mark!" he barked, as his left hand came down on Jablonski's armored ankle, while his grav locks reengaged, locking him to the hull at triple their normal intensity, as he bawled out, "MARK!".

Immediately, the SI field around him rippled forward, engulfing "Big Ethel" Jablonski, with a thicker concentration over her leading edge, to divert the incoming particle spray up and over both officers, splashing down over the hull in their wake.

"Engaged, Samuel- we've got you, Petty Officer," a matronly voice advised, as the buffeting smoothed out with the artificially improved fluid dynamics of the hull.

The hulking petty officer breathed a sigh of relief- tough she was, but she couldn't survive her EVA armor being compromised. Over the comms, not terribly the talkative type, she simply offered a heartfelt, "Thanks L-T."

In the distance, the shadowy form of the Miranda class starship with the bloody roses painted on the hull was picking up speed, but O'Dell was having none of it. "Ach! Ye harridan, ye'll nae git away from me s'easily. We've got a mission, and yuir nae g'win ta make Mister O'Dell's wee girl look bad today, ye bluiddy pirate!"

With that said, O'Dell pointed the unique starcraft at a point in space where there was nothing nor did it appear to be an intercept trajectory. But as the two ships drew closer, it was clear that the little leprechaun knew what she was doing, as the two ships drew close.

"Alreet- we get to the hull, I'm goin' in first. If the bridge dinna seal behind me, ye get the bridge crew wi' transporter tags, aye? Dinna worry- once I'm inside their shields won't last long. If it seals, ye gimme an eight count to lay waste then ye follow me in, aye?" While in truth O'Dell likely would have been terrified under normal circumstances, she was here with backup. Muttering to herself, she tabbed off her comms briefly to work herself up as the small spacecraft approached the aged starship of days gone by.

"Yuir a fighter pilot now, Fiona, and ye kin do this. Yuir fast and strong and quick as a fox, and ye're an officer leadin' a boarding party in the best one-man fighter the Federation's ever built. Ye kin do this." Self-confidence bolstered, that was when a bright red sparkling star ejected from the starship, followed by another.

Flipping the comms back on, O'Dell squeaked, "Photon torpedoes this close? They're bluiddy insane! Whist!"

The Thunderchicken quite suddenly picked up speed, as O'Dell had been far from giving her all she had, trying to ensure that she kept her shipmates attached. With the flip of a few switches and a tabbing of a few buttons, the dextrous damsel of daring in the cockpit began pushing the experimental craft to perform rather extreme evasive maneuvers. Changing course, she swung wide and high to draw the torpedoes away from their point of origin, even as the rocket pod opened and started firing. "Here's some chaff, ye spalleens..."

In their wake, one torpedo exploded, the shockwave battering the boarding party even as it hurtled them forward toward the Bloody Rose, as if the tiny terror had planned it that way. The explosion was surprisingly close, as the pixie pilot played a game of chicken with the remaining torpedo, letting it get closer and closer as she closed, not on the bridge, but on the port nacelle of the Bloody Rose, whom had fired upon them. As the boarding party approached, phaser fire opened up on them from the Miranda class that was obviously aware of their approach, causing the anthropomorphic aerospace craft to pinwheel as she flew in, deftly dodging the energy beams as she made her move.

The refractory coating and small size made her hard to get a target lock-on. Adding in her hyperkinetic piloting, and the tactical officer on the Bloody Rose was simply unable to draw a bead on the Thunderchicken, or her charges.

As the sparkling crimson point of death closed in on them, O'Dell added one last burst of speed to loop three-quarters of the way around the underslung port nacelle, then she paused there for three seconds, watching the sensors to time her maneuver. At seemingly the last second, O’Dell launched herself at the starboard nacelle. She managed to interpose it between them and the port nacelle, with just enough time for the torpedo to impact the starboard nacelle, causing a massive shockwave. The interposed nacelle between them softened the blow, but the starship itself was thrown into them, causing red warning lights to light up on her consoles.

At her control console back on the flight deck of the Hera, while the mighty starship was engaged with drama of its own, the Tellarite Engineer pumped her thick, three-fingered fists into the air and let out a loud "WOOOO!!!"

The enthusiastic grunt from the porcine Ensign Gavarus startled the two security officers on duty standing near the bay doors for a second, as she continued to monitor the Thunderchicken’s status from her control board. They were running without an active comm system under red alert, so the inventive engineer could only extrapolate what was happening from the detailed feedback systems designed to assist her in monitoring the flying mech, but what she saw had her shouting.

"YES! @#$% those Mother#$%&ing pirates UP, Fee! Take them to #$%^ing SCHOOL!" It was far from professional conduct, but this was her best friend flying into combat for the first time while she watched, and the emotions had gotten the better of Ensign Gavarus.

As the Bloody Rose limped into a slow turn, the Thunderchicken looped around the much larger craft, settling on the saucer section of the vessel’s hull next to the dome of the bridge. Discharging her passengers, O’Dell coordinated her efforts. “Alreet, a bit more to the fore if ye will, and mag yuirselves down. I’m aboot to make an entrance, and I do like to make it loud.”

With the landing party in position, O’Dell pointed the large rifle in the mech’s right hand, and a series of plasma grenades ejected, pummeling the hull in rapid succession as the pint-sized pilot followed her orders. Creating a half-circle of around 4 meters wide and tall, she began breaching the bridge of the enemy starship with plasma weapons that ate through the duranium hull. While the shields would have prevented much of the damage, with the mech so close to the hull, the shields were a non-issue. As the plasma began to do its work, the phaser cannon lit up and carved a great ‘X’ through the center of the scorched and damage area from which atmosphere was already beginning to vent.

Which was when O’Dell raised one large booted ‘foot’ of the mech, to kick down the burning Duranium hull section, followed by her marching onto the bridge of the Bloody Rose. The emergency forcefields kicked in, maintaining the atmosphere, but they did nothing to stop the tiny terror in the experimental war machine from stomping onto the bridge.

Disruptor fire abounded, bolts bouncing out of the hole in the hull where the Agony Device had formerly resided. As the Thunderchicken went to work, O’Dell cued up a sound file that was far more fearsome than her own squeaky, shrill voice.

“PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON! YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY!”

Even as she spoke, the firearm in her right hand belched hollow point rounds, chewing through the helm and tactical stations, even as the pirates using them dove for cover. Which in turn led to the lithe and somehow familiar figure in the Captain’s chair pressing a button on her command chair, and a transporter effect began shimmering over the variable fighter craft.

Which would have been quite the catastrophe for anyone whose personal armature did not include starship shielding.

Fortunately, the Thunderchicken was more starship than armor, and it protected the miniature Mariposian in the pilot’s seat by preventing the transporter from achieving a lock and taking hold. As the mech turned to fire two plasma grenades at the turbolift, the pixie pilot switched to the comm channel.

“That blasted harpy’s got transporters rigged as disintegrators, so take out the personnel!” she conveyed to the boarding party as the mech spewed more hollow point rounds, demolishing the engineering console even as the phaser cannon rotated slightly and powered up, pointed directly at the Captain’s chair.

The Andorian Master-At-Arms didn't need to be told twice, as he fired out three shots from his TR116C2, dropping several of the pirates with narcotic stun rounds. The stunned pirates disappeared as the holo tags activated, sending them right into the Hera's brig. With his team taking down the pirate bridge team, he turned his attention to the transporter. The Andorian began firing hollow point rounds into the deck, sniping the power cables running under the bridge. Let's see the pirate queen use those traps with no power.

With a literal snarl, Clemens flipped forward off the back of the Thunderchicken, landing with a loud *CLANG* on the deck, directly in front of the shocked would-be-Empress, his pearly-white teeth bared in a near-feral rictus. Before her hand could even twitch, the obviously-enraged Intel agent had darted forward, his hands a blur, and grasped the old-design Starfleet Command Chair's arm restraints, meant for securing the occupant in the event of rough maneuvers.

Looking her dead in the eyes, he slammed both clamps down so hard that the latch mechanisms shattered, leaving them locked down tightly over her arms.

Without another word, he reached down to the chair base, and bent the sides inward, wrapping her up in the durasteel frame, like some sort of modern-day iron maiden, being careful not to crush her in the process.

He leaned in, then, as though they were friends, and there was nothing else in the universe but the two of them, and spoke very softly to her, the metal making groaning sounds, as his fingers dug into it, his brilliant blue eyes twinkling like a pair of incoming photon torpedoes.

"Yer daughter has friends, you strumpet. You just tried to murder my team in th'most horrible way possible. Yer gonna rot in prison, an' eventually, in th'bowels of Hell. Ah'll call ahead 'n have 'em gitchyer room ready."

He straightened up suddenly, and spun on his heel, headed back for the team.

"...ya filthy animal..."

To be continued in 'The Agony of Defeat'