The Battle Commences

Posted on Sun Apr 19th, 2015 @ 10:54pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Commander Angelica Fairchild & Commander Sinek & Lieutenant Commander Ethan Chaparral MD & Lieutenant K’a’mirh’un Tenm & Lieutenant Vi Mingenbach PhD & Lieutenant Dylan Santiago & Lieutenant JG Ellery Bretton M.D. & Lieutenant JG Rhett Beaumont

Mission: Temporal Kickback
Location: Bridge/Various
Timeline: 6 hours after being sucked into the temporal anomaly

Enalia was on the bridge, nervously awaiting the imminent historical battle between the first of the Aries class ships and the Klingon D-6 cruisers. Sensors were giving them some unusual data though. According to history records, the USS Pirandello wasn't directly involved with this battle, yet there it was on sensors. The science and medical ship wasn't a common class in the Starfleet of this era, but the design would eventually lead to the Oberth, Miranda, and even the Nebula class designs with its saucer, twin nacelle, and sensor pod configuration. It was really little more than an old light cruiser with a starbase class sensor array cobbled together and strapped to the underbelly of the ship but it would serve well for long range recon and deep space exploration before it would be decommissioned.

As Enalia watched the sensors, the Pirandello pulled away from the main group and headed towards the asteroid ring. The same part of the asteroid ring the Hera was currently hiding in... Then she saw something else on sensors... A cloaked Klingon patrol craft was almost on top of them.

"All hands, prepare for contact. Go to red alert but maintain our stealth and sensor scrambling. Keep those holo-emitters online. I want them to think we're just a derelict Federation carrier as long as possible. Helm and weapons at the ready and start that thing charging with the weapons just in case."

"Red alert... weapons ready... shields up." Having anticipated the order to come eventually, Angelica had her panel ready in a matter of seconds, carefully disguising her weapon and shield signatures so they wouldn't break the Hera's disguise and give away what type of ship they really were. Weaving Amelia's triolic modification took more time, but soon she'd colored their phasers that distinctive blue color native to the period. "The 'thing' is charged. We're ready... if we need it."


Sick Bay:
Ethan was looking in the mirror at his new arm, when the Red Alert klaxon went off. He had wanted some time for it to integrate with the rest of his body, but that was probably not going to happen. He began prepping the ER for causalities.

Cameron emerged from the corridor in a hurry. His uniform jacket wasn't even pulled up all the way, and the collar was split far enough to give his throat some room to move. He moved around to the bio bed and started going over his tray. These Klingons were 22nd century beings facing a 25th century Starfleet vessel. The odds of them being able to do serious damage would have been remote had there not been so damned many of them.

"Chaparral, go to the replicator and replicate fifteen units of Neurotropan," the newly minted CMO ordered.

"Aye, aye sir," the junior officer responded as he moved to the replicator to carry out the order, "coming right up."

Ellery envied Ethan for having something relatively normal to focus on, such as a medication run. Activity like that could almost make her forget they were in the wrong era at all. To their new CMO, she offered, "May I be of assistance, Doctor?"

"Who are you?" Cameron asked, looking at the red-head. Granted, he'd not met his entire staff yet, so for all he knew she could have been one of his nurses.

Ellery shook her head, having forgotten he didn't know who she was yet. "Forgive me, Doctor. I'm Doctor Ellery Bretton, psychiatrist. It's been a while since I've worked a regular sickbay rotation, but I'd be happy to help with triage."

"I'll take whatever help I can, doctor," he glanced up towards the ceiling at the sound which he recognized as inertial dampeners increasing for a potential attack. "Let's get to work. These Klingons might be a few centuries behind us, but God knows they make up for it in aggressiveness."

As Ethan was returning with the list of supplies, he was almost knocked to the floor as the ship shook. The shields must have held, because the shaking subsided. He was about to breath a sigh of relief thinking the worse was over when an Ensign came into the sickbay with a dislocated shoulder, then a Lieutenant Junior Grade with a gash to his forehead, then a civilian bartender with a broken wrist. Then the trickle became a stream and the stream a flood, most of them talking about some kind internal attack.

Ellery wasted no time in getting to work. As she had said, it had been a long time since she'd done any straight medical work, but the triage protocols came back to her just like an old familiar song. She prioritized people according to the severity of their injuries, sending the most severe injuries to Ethan and Cameron while she focused on the less critical patients in order of severity. Even if she knew she wasn't going to be able to get to a patient for a while, she made it a priority to acknowledge their presence and to offer symptoms and sensations to look for that signaled a worsening of their conditions. The medical staff couldn't treat everyone simultaneously, but the least they could do was acknowledge their presence and offer a reassuring word in the meantime.


Bridge:
Lieutenant Commander Sinek monitored sensor readings. He kept his ears tuned to all on the bridge ready to comply with any orders that came his way.

Watching everything from his station like a hawk, Dylan tried to work out what Angelica had meant by 'the thing'.

Watching the sensors like a hawk, Enalia looked up at the viewscreen just in time to see the old Klingon D-6 Cruiser decloak and begin firing on the Pirandello. They were a bit too close for comfort and soon it was obvious who would win this battle. "Helm, move us into firing position. Shift our sensor signatures to match the Pirandello. Let's give them something else to think about."

"Matching power and weapons signatures." Double checking the scans of the Pirandello, Angelica quickly matched the Hera's outputs to the other ship.

"Captain," Sinek evenly expressed, "The danger exists that we may inadvertently reveal ourselves in the process. If the Klingons pick up the Hera's capabilities, they may begin to design ships ahead of our time to defend against a ship such as ours. They will gain an advantage in superiority that they did not have at this time in history."

Glancing up at her CSO, Enalia suppressed a grin. He was as spot on as she expected him to be. "Thankfully, these old Klingon ships don't have many windows. As long as no one is looking out of them, they should see an identical ship on every sensor and camera. Besides, according to history, the D-7 and Constitution classes will both be deployed soon so their R&D is about as high as it gets right now."

Almost lethargically, the Nebula class ship moved into position, presenting an identical sensor image to that of the Pirandello to the Klingon D-6 battle cruiser. Within moments, it was firing on both ships. From the back of the bridge, the Ensign monitoring comms called out. "Captain, the Pirandello Captain is expressing his thanks and is curious as to who we are."

Damn... The Pirandello had a lot more windows and were less easily fooled... "Relay a text only message to them of only 3 words. Temporal Prime Directive. Commander Fairchild, please fire conservatively on the Klingon vessel. They'll want a good death or victory so use your discretion on targeting."

"Yes, ma'am." Not wanting to destroy the offending Klingon ship - at least, not too quickly - Angelica took the order to mean she should be creative as well. She took her time choosing targets that ships of this era were likely to aim at, then began a methodical counter-assault on the bird of prey, mimicking the firing pattern of the ships already in combat.

Suddenly the turbolift doors swung opened revealing a pink haired officer in a sciences uniform. She looked frustrated. She walked onto the bridge. "Doctor Vi Mingenbach reporting for duty..." She sighed. "My shuttle docked just in time before things got nasty."

"Ah, our last shuttle before we were sucked back in time. Welcome aboard." Suddenly, the lights all went to a creepy blue for several seconds and several ghost like shapes moved across the bridge. "Someone please tell me that was a lighting malfunction."

"Oh no..." Angelica whispered under her breath, accessing the internal sensors to confirm what her eyes told her. To her dismay, the triolic radiation hadn't stayed locked inside the phaser beams. They'd made a terrible mistake.

"Okay...what are they?" Dylan looked around at the others then at the ghost like shapes as he reached for the phaser on his belt.

Sinek was getting sensor readings as well. He glanced at Commander Fairchild and realized she was picking up the readings. Looking to his new Science Officer, Sinek motioned toward the Science Station. "Lieutenant, you may take the post."

Vi nodded with a smile. "Thank you, commander."

Sinek now spoke toward Captain Telvan. "Captain, sensors are picking up readings of triolic radiation. If the levels increase it will be dangerous to those aboard. However, if we could somehow harness the energy, it could be most useful. The Devidian race used triolic waves for time travel."

"Great... We have Devidians, but also the possibility of flying the ship into a Triolic energy portal." Enalia grumbled, punching up commands on her console. "Arm all security teams and post them at key junctions and public areas. No one is to go anywhere in any group less than 3. I want to know why they're here and ideas for getting rid of them."

Vi shivered a little. She didn't like the thought of going against Devidians. "I think I may be able to answer that question, captain," Vi replied, "Although I'm not that familiar in alien anthropology, I know a little bit." She bit her lip. "The Devidians frequently use time portals to feed off of humans from the past. They hunger intensively for neural energy, sir. This is their only form of nourishment, and this portal back in time gives them easy access to feed." She looked at her science chief for recognition that she knew what she was talking about and then back at her new captain.

The Vulcan merely raised a brow and said, "Indeed. The are also shape-shifters."

"Um..." Unusually, Angelica sounded timid, as if she were afraid of Enalia's response. "It's my fault... when I was working with Crewman Takethen to change the color of our phasers, she suggested triolic waves. It should have been safe... no temporal anomalies nearby, no weird comets..." As she spoke, Angelica was signaling her teams to split into groups of three and start purging the Devidian presence. "I'm sorry, Captain. I should have told her to come up with something different."

"What's done is done. I'll throw both of you out an airlock later. For now, lets..." Enalia was interrupted by a larger Devidian with a serpentine tool coming from a portal onto the bridge. "Kill it! Get that staff!"

The words had barely left Enalia's mouth as Angelica vaulted over her station, drawing her phaser and firing it before she'd hit the ground again. She might not be able to kill it herself, but she could distract it long enough for someone else to get a weapon!

Sinek saw Angel's quick reaction. He also noticed the Devidian's attention was upon her. The CSO had no phaser, but began to move behind the Devidian. Perhaps, if he drew the being's attention from Angel, she would can an upper hand.

Vi watched from behind her console as the CSO tried to distract the Devidian. She clutched the edges of her monitor, frozen with fear, and not wanting to move. "Please kill it..." she muttered under her breath silently.

Having no idea whether it would work, Dylan, who was positioned behind the whole kerfuffle, quickly unholstered his phaser and set it to kill before firing at the alien, hitting it square in the back.

Two thoughts entered Angelica's mind as the Devidian turned to face the new attack from the rear. The first was, That's helpful. It was quickly followed by the second. What the hell is Santiago doing carrying a phaser on the ship?! She couldn't yell at him while he was distracting the floating phatasm, but boy was he going to get it later. She hadn't cleared anyone outside of the security department to carry a sidearm on board yet. Resolving to deal with the situation later, she took advantage of Dylan and Sinek trying to distract the invader, quickly tweaking the settings on her phaser to be as close to 'out of phase' as she could get without a positron adaptation module. Finished, she dialed the setting as high as it would go and fired again.

After a few seconds of the phaser fire, the Devidian dissolved, the Ophidian cane falling to the deck and writhing a few moments before turning into an ivory gentleman's cane. Enalia stood and walked towards it, the lights flickering back to normal as the ship rocked from weapons fire. Glancing to the ops console, she cursed under her breath. "Hurry up with that Klingon ship. We have a new enemy to focus on. And someone see if we can use that cane to get us home."

Holstering her phaser, Angelica had barely a moment to breathe before the Hera rocked under weapons fire, sending her scrambling back around to her station to shoot back. "If you still want blue phasers, there's going to be more of those things. The cane's a better weapon than phasers, but we only have the one."

Plopping her spotted butt back in her chair, Enalia braced for another salvo of weapons fire. "Stick with torpedoes then. Those aren't much different. Fire a full spread from all forward launchers."

"Torpedoes only, got it." Shutting off the controls for the phasers so they couldn't be fired accidentally, Angelica switched to torpedoes only.

Sinek approached the spot where the Devidian was last standing. The others were engaged in the battle with the Klingon cruiser. Battle was not his concern; Science was. The cane drew his attention. Stooping down next to it, the CSO picked up the cane and began to examine it, looking for a means to activate it.


Sensor Pod Lab 4:
"Ven! Ven!" Amelia screamed, crying into his shoulder. Ven and Amelia had been in one of the science labs in the pod when the Devidians had attacked and she had survived unscathed because Ven had tried to protect her valiantly. Unfortunately, he now lay limply on the deck floor.


Bridge:
The battle was going well, the Klingons now functionally disabled and no longer a threat to the Hera or the Pirandello, who was adrift as well, but stable and still able to relay sensor data to the rest of the fleet fighting on the other side of the system.

With the Klingon ship no longer causing them trouble, Angelica turned to the incoming reports from various decks on the ship. "Damn... we've got portals opening all over the place. Devidians everywhere..." Pausing, she looked up at Sinek, who was holding the cane. "Think you can get that thing working for us? Quickly?"

Lieutenant Commander Sinek examined the cane. He found that at the precise area the Devidian held the cane, he sensed the life force of the Ophidian. He sensed it's drive to feed on neural energy.

"I would advise you to keep your distance," Sinek announced to Angel. "It will still drain energy from you." He awaited for Angel and others to distance themselves before he activated the Ophidian.

The lights quickly went back to the eerie blue and a portal opened on the bridge, quickly growing larger and moving away, through the hull, towards a strange blue comet nearby. Soon it was big enough for a small starship to fit through and the ship was shaking due to the proximity of it.

Sinek was feeling light on his feet, and for good reason. He was elevated slightly above the bridge deck. "I am not sure how much longer I can hold it, Captain."

Monitoring the size of the portal, Enalia pulled up a scan of it. "Anyone mind going to the year 2392? No? It's big enough for us to fit so helm, get us through it." As the ship moved into the portal, the shaking got a lot worse and on the viewscreen another nebula class ship was seen flying past them and barely missing the Hera going the other way. After a few moments, the ship emerged from the portal and the shaking stopped, the stars returning to their normal pattern.

"Are we back?" Dylan asked, figuring that the year didn't matter, all that mattered was that they were close to their own timeline and in their own universe.

"We'll see." Having taken a few steps back from her panel while Sinek was holding the staff, Angelica returned to her station, sifting through the information there. From what she could tell, they were at least close to when they were supposed to be. "Casualty reports coming in from all over the ship... three reported dead." Reading the names of the deceased, she winced slightly. "Ensign Oreka On, Lieutenant Ventarus Nosplet, and Commander Aelyn Radt. Doctor Tenm is on the critically wounded list."

"Great, another doctor out of commission..." Enalia grumbled. That department seemed cursed. Everyone in it kept dying or worse.

From Main Engineering, Ensign Beaumont chimed in over the comm "Engineering to Bridge, can we try to keep this starship in one God damn piece?!" he shouted over the comm. He was shaking his head and cussing at several engineers in the background "I don't have enough people down here for this shit" he added.

Punching up her comm panel, Enalia spoke calmly. "Everything should be fine now. What's our status down there?" Glancing at her own readouts, she saw that at least the ship was out of danger and there was no sign of the Devidians. They were just 4 years ahead of when they left...

"Status is a lot of damage, Captain. It will be a while before I know exactly how bad. I'll keep you updated...Engineering out."

With the Ophidian cane deactivated, Sinek gently dropped to the deck of the bridge. He glanced around the bridge to gather his bearings. When his eyes met Angel's, a friend, a new concept to him, he gathered his strength and resolve.

The CSO's attention now returned to duty and Science and the cane. Looking it over once again, Sinek wondered if they could learn more from the life form within it. He realized it still posed a danger, but did it have other capabilities? Turning to his new Science officer, he evenly intoned, "Lieutenant, take this to Science lab 2 and place it in containment. I place you in charge of investigating it. Does it have other uses?"

Vi stood there, blinking blanking for a second. She didn't know what to say after what had just happened...she quickly closed her mouth and nodded. "Yes! Yes sir! I will take it to the science lab immediately." She grabbed the cane cautiously. "Um...you mean other uses besides generating temporal vortices?" She started to leave the bridge. "And um commander, just FYI, I prefer the title doctor over lieutenant, just a little quirk." She smiled and left.

Standing and adjusting her uniform, Enalia headed off towards her ready room, pausing at the door for a moment. "Commander Fairchild, you're now my acting XO. Commander Sinek, you're my acting second officer. I'm going to contact Starfleet. Depending on what they say, we might have a senior staff meeting right after." And with that, she vanished into her office.

"I--" Before Angelica had quite completed a thought - let alone a sentence - Enalia was gone. No time to protest, and now that Angelica thought about it... why would she? Other than the whole not really having any experience commanding a ship before. Signalling for one of her junior officers to come take over the tactical station, she instructed him to keep a close eye out for any approaching starships and then went down the ramp to Enalia's chair, a chair she was not prepared to sit in. But she did sit down in it, foreign as it felt. "Commander Sinek, check our internal sensors and make sure there aren't any Devidians left on board."

Sinek gave Angel a nod. "Aye, Commander," he stated , no excitement showing, despite being elevated to Second Officer. He hadn't expected it so soon after his promotion. However, the Captain's choice was logical.

Looking at the sensors, no more Devidian life forms were reflected. "It would appear your orders have been effectively carried out, Commander."