Core Approach
Posted on Wed Apr 29th, 2020 @ 1:42pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Petty Officer 2nd Class Ila Dedjoy & Kodria Mizu & Riov (Captain) Dalia Rendal & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant Commander Sonak & Lieutenant JG Tovanna Mah & Ensign Tanaak Sado & Ensign Weiaex & Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Ensign Fiona O'Dell & Petty Officer 3rd Class S'Rina Wil'I'Ams & Petty Officer 3rd Class V'Nus Wil'I'Ams
Edited on on Wed Apr 29th, 2020 @ 1:57pm
Mission:
Return to the Core
Location: USS Hera Bridge
Timeline: 2397
"Captain's log, stardate 72333 point... ehhh, close enough."
"We're en route to the Galorndon Core system yet again to investigate Captain Dalia Rendal's activities in the area. We suspect she's found a way to retrieve her station... Another thought just occurred to me... What if there's something on the planet?" Enalia paused her log entry as she looked up the next time the ionic storms were supposed to clear enough for a transporter to cut through them. She didn't often record her logs while on the bridge, but this time, she made an exception.
"Looks like it'll be several more months, so that rules that idea out. Anyway, we're currently under full stealth and at warp six, approaching from the northern pole of the system. Once we're in the system, we'll be launching the Banshee, the Thunderchicken, the Warchicken, both type 11 shuttles, the two cyclones, and all five of our runabouts as support. At the same time, we'll be dropping our stealth and pumping our sensors and shields to full power. As we are currently running a bit low on pilots, Commander Paris will be at the helm rather than at tactical, and anyone with a class 4 license or above will be in cockpits. We'll be keeping a lock on all pilots just in case, but I can't help but worry. End log."
Tucking the PaDD away, Enalia glanced around the dimmed bridge. The red lighting of the alert status definitely set a mood, and not one she enjoyed. It felt like the whole crew was on edge.
"ETA three minutes," came the call from ops. "Sensors show four D'Deridex, one Leosa class, and one unknown class, as well as several probes and satellites all, centered around a singularity."
"Thank you Ensign..." Enalia had to turn around and look at the nondescript human sitting at the operations console. Brown hair, brown eyes, the definition of average build... It had to be Ensign John Jones, the most forgettable person on the ship. "Thank you, Ensign Jones. Please continue to keep us apprised of the situation. All hands, final checks. We are three minutes out."
Sonak turned from his science station to report.
''Long-range sensors do not register any tachyon or gravimetric disturbances; this would seem to indicate that no other cloaked ships are within the sector. Short-range scans are monitoring the storms. Navigation will receive an automated warning for every clearing appearing in them. Tactical will have shields snap-on automatically if any potentially damaging energy focuses on our position.''
"Thank you, Commander Sonak. With luck we won't have to get too close to the storms. If you see any signs that they've detected us, let me know immediately." Eyeing the countdown timer warily as the system slowly closed in on the main viewscreen, Enalia took a deep breath and let it out, trying to relax.
Projecting their approach vector onscreen, Paris laid out the tactical map of the situation from the helm. "I wasn't counting on this level of tactical support, Captain. None of the intel we received indicated this level of support, so our previous plan is... scrapped. If we launch support craft those D'Deredix battle cruisers are just going to turn them into debris. Unless we have one amazing strategy, they're going to do the same to us in a firefight, Captain."
"If our goal is to disrupt their recapture of the space station, we can just blow it up- damage it structurally so that it's useless to her." Paris muttered at the helm, then turned to eye the Captain. "I mean, it doesn't have its shields on yet, and they shouldn't see us coming. And we can bring how many torpedoes to bear?" Paris asked over the Captain's shoulder.
"Four quantum torpedoes at the ready with two photon torpedoes," the beefy dark-skinned tactical officer reported. "In addition to the eight Type XIV phaser arrays that can be brought to bear. As well as these dozen package delivery systems you have stacked on the edge of the flight deck, but they can only be aft deployed... ah, proximity detection guidance systems. Mines, Clever, Commander. Tractor beams at the ready with... 'grapnel for boarding' protocols online." The Klingon petty officer had worked the tactical panel of the USS Hera before. But this was the first time she was working it with the tactical officer herself actually onboard, who'd had time to prepare for the encounter and set up some surprises for 'just in case'.
Like 'just in case' there were four Romulan battle cruisers, the pride of the Star Empire. A dozen signals, the Admiral had indicated. Rendal was supposed to be on the outs with the Romulans, but...
"Is it just me, or does this NOT look like she is on the outs or a renegade AT ALL?" Paris asked hypothetically as she plotted a pair of vectors, to bring them up onscreen in realtime as the Hera approached the singularity. "We could sneak in with a warp hop to make a strafing run, or we could just try a respectable distance torpedo launch, by the book," Paris broke what bare-bones she had for a plan into two options. Because the Captain didn't need questions, she needed options. "One is far more dangerous, but practically guarantees success. If we survive it, we'll make a run for it. Best I've got in under three minutes, ma'am."
"It doesn't look like that at all, no..." Enalia muttered as she pulled out her PaDD and started scribbling battle plans furiously while occasionally tapping at the sensor feeds on the arm of her command chair. "Sonak, analysis of the beams those D'Deridex are firing into the singularity, please. I assume they're keeping it stable, but I need more information. Can they fire? Raise shields? Can you get any readings on what's on the other end of that singularity?"
The Vulcan looked at his console before replying.
''Since a singularity is a collapse of local gravity, the only way to stabilize it is by manipulating graviton fields. The level of output needed would depend on the severity of the instability. That being said, sensors indicate these four ships are old first-generation D'Deridex dating back a quarter of a century. Life signs aboard are lower than standard crew complement and power output is significantly lower than current norm- all of it seemingly directed at maintaining their shields and the graviton generators. Calculations would indicate that they cannot engage with any appreciable combat capabilities while undergoing this power transfer.''
He pushed a few buttons to shift the readout of his sensors before continuing.
''As for what lies beyond this singularity, energy readings suggest tractoring efforts from a greater number of other vessels with a higher energy output than these four. To obtain more data, we would need to get much closer; essentially, right there with these.''
"Okay, seeing all those gravitons adding into the equation, just my ROUGH estimate of the turbulence and gravimetric shearing forces, that's..." Paris brought up just the base readings from their incoming position and ran projections onscreen. "Definitely lowers our odds of a safe passage for a strafing run."
"Those graviton generators the D'Deredix are employing, though... if they're that undermanned, a lot of that is just engineering and ops, of what we know of that starship's crew allotment. Which means they can't employ the majority of their heavy weaponry, even with automated command, plus the power drain for those generators looks pretty severe- I confirm Mr. Sonak's assessment. I retract my earlier statement, Captain," Paris admitted, turning to make eye contact with the starship's commander behind her.
"Deploying the support craft might be our most viable option at this point, in order to make a coordinated strike on those generators, Captain," the first officer reported. "The smaller craft can 'go with the flow' for the graviton waves with much less cavitation, then get inside their shields while we work on drawing their fire, to take out those graviton generators. Which might strand their tow vessels on the other side of the... rift? Stargate? Singularity? What do we call this sort of artificially generated phenomenon?."
"Computer reports that we've recorded an almost identical singularity before," came the report from ops. "Something about a being called Gaia?"
Muttering a light curse under her breath, Enalia thought back to one of Dox's reports on her time as a captive aboard Rendal's ships. She had been cleared as not affected by the Jurot device, but she had said she had fried it somehow, embedding something into the screens and monitoring devices. "Now it's starting to make sense. When they used that mind altering device on Commander Dox, she resisted it... But they still got something out of her. This is it. The knowledge of how to open a Gaia singularity."
The spotted captain tapped her arm rest nervously, seriously thinking about calling the whole thing off as the countdown passed the thirty-second mark. Then she thought better of it, recalculating their odds once more. "All support craft, ready for immediate launch. Open shuttle bay doors. As soon as we hit the first marker drop to impulse, drop stealth, and raise shields to full. Have a full salvo of torpedoes ready both fore and aft. Target those four battlecruisers."
"We'll soften them up for the runabouts, then engage them and the Iurret directly. Let's just hope the readings on the big one are correct and it has no real weapons systems."
=^= Medical at the ready for incoming casualties Captain =^= reported Dr. Mah from sickbay.
"Well THERE'S a vote of confidence," Paris muttered as she tapped furiously with both hands at the keyboard in her flight control display, as she dispatched new orders to all flight wings, assigned duties, declared strategies for Tactical and ran the rough calculations for the untested maneuver she was about to attempt. Internally she decided on a number of very strong words she planned to have with Admiral Meowlith about advance intelligence... assuming they survived the next five minutes.
"Dropping out of warp in six seconds, red alert, all hands to battle stations," Paris called out over the comms as the Hera popped out of warp, already moving at full impulse as she slid across the Romulan theater of operations, the Hera moving in a high-speed circular pattern, paralleling the 'flat' spatial 'disc' of the singularity as she deployed torpedoes which came to life in their wake, and support craft who immediately moved in on their targets at high impulse speed. Meanwhile, the torpedo and phaser salvos impacted the shields of the D'Deridex class battlecruisers shields.
"Their shields were already damaged when we arrived, now down to 42 to 49 percent strength, Captain," S'Rina reported from tactical. "It seems their shields are taking damage from the pulses being put out by the," S'Rina gripped the console as the Hera's shields rocked a bit in the turbulence of local space. "Singularity. Shields holding at 97 percent, Captain."
"More good news," Paris noted with some optimism from the helm. "Captain Telvan, perhaps contacting Captain Rendal and dialoguing a bit to stall might be advantageous at this point?" Paris offered as she began banking and weaving in anticipation of the multiple disruptor beams, plasma torpedoes and tractor beams that were not currently angling their way from four starships, each twice the size and firepower of the Hera. Instead, the great green behemoths simply sat there as their shields flickered and flared to life as phasers and torpedoes were still being launched according to plan, with the expected result of one starship's weaponry spread out to assault the shields of four battle cruisers. A slow but steady attrition.
Thus far, the Iurret had yet to make itself known.
''Captain;" Sonak turned towards the command dais. "If we need to buy a moment of surprise, we can send a torpedo salvo at minimal yield but with the widest dispersal pattern. The overflow of photons will completely blind all sensors and all direct line of sight aimed at the area for at least four point seven seconds. If we shut down ours at the precise moment of detonation, they will remain fully functional.''
"That would blind our support craft as well so let's save that for just the right moment," Enalia replied, checking her own tactical readouts on the command chair as light disruptor fire rocked the ship. "Excellent idea though, as always. For now, let's..."
A grin spread across the Trill woman's face as a thought occurred to her. "There's a lot of gravimetric distortion coming off of the singularity, right? Can we disrupt the beams they're putting out? I assume losing just one or two of them should collapse the thing."
"Also, mask the biosignatures of everyone in the support craft and aboard the Hera so that we all read as Romulan. I think I have a taunt for our dear Dalia..."
Sonak nodded.
''Tractor beams use gravitons. One aimed anywhere in the flow will disrupt it. Any small disruption will be enough.''
"Biosignature masking in place, captain," came the call from ops.
"Bring us about for another salvo of torpedoes, ready tractor beams to target their emitters, and open a channel to the Iurret." Enalia had a grin on her face as she leaned back in her chair. "Dalia..." She started off in a sing-song voice. "Commander Dox is on one of those shuttles. Oh, or is she not? I don't remember where I assigned her now. Can you guess?"
"A shell game, Captain? Mean," Paris grinned from the helm as she sent the order to tactical to target the D'Deredix class coming up on their flight plan as a subtle humming vibration began rattling the superstructure of the starship Hera.
IRW Iurret Bridge
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Riov Rendal was on her feet in a flash, hovering over the sensor station, frantically looking over the readings herself for Romulan lifesigns. "Where is she? Which ship is she on?"
"I'm sorry, Riov. Every biosign reads the same. They're all Rihannsu!" The distraught centurion frantically tried to cut through the masking but it was too late as Rendal was out of patience. He gave a sharp intake of breath as she impaled him from behind with her sword and shoved him out of the way.
"Fools! Get me an operator that knows their job properly!" Not even bothering to sit down or sheathe her sword, she stood on the bridge and fumed at the viewscreen. "For now, do not fire on the smaller craft. Fire to disable the Hera."
Stepping back to her command chair, the royal Riov fumed as she flipped open a panel cover with a button underneath it. Her finger hovered over that button for an instant, before a nervous voice interrupted her.
"Good news, my Riov," the comms centurion offered up, hoping he wasn't next. "We have a signal from three of the T'Liss Freight Eagles we sent in. They have retrieved the station and will be exiting the singularity in approximately three minutes."
"Well... At least we have a little good news..." the royal Riov muttered, finally cleaning the green blood from her sword and sheathing it as she closed the panel over the unpressed button, an advantage she would save for later. "Keep the shields up on the D'Deridex no matter what. Drop cloak, red alert. Prepare to engage the enemy in battle. If we lose any of his precious Warbirds..." Rendal let that thought fade as she sat back down and the bridge lighting raised just a hair.
USS Hera Bridge
-------------------
“Captain. The Iurret is uncloaking and is on a heading toward our position.” The young, nondescript Ensign John Jones at Ops said as Enalia grinned at the viewscreen.
“Excellent. She took the bait. Now we only have one ship on us. Commander, let’s draw her away from those D’deridex. Some fancy flying, please. And inform the support craft that it’s time to go after those graviton generators.”
Pushing the throttle, Paris banked the big starship up and back the way they had just come, realigning their flight path on an intercept course for the Iurret as she pushed the speed of the surprisingly swift starship. "Diverting auxiliary power to impulse engines, because we are coming in hot. I'd very much appreciate a firing resolution on the ship, Miss Wil'I'Ams."
Support Craft
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When the shite hit the fan, Angus O'Dell always said the best place to be was not in the room.
The order had come to prepare to launch, then some last minute orders from the Commander had come, to get inside the shields of the enormous Romulan battlecruisers and disable the graviton generators. While Fiona wasn't sure about what happened when a graviton generator exploded, she was reasonably sure she didn't want to be anywhere near one when it did. Particularly if it was holding open a spatial rift. Which begged the question of just how she was going to manage this particular impossible feat and still come back to tell the tale.
There in the R&D break room, she'd hugged her odd makeshift family, then took her protein pills and put her helmet on.
Ground Control to Major Tom, commencing countdown, engines on.
Check ignition and may God's love be with you.
Piloting the Silver Banshee, she had brought the prototype War Chicken and the Lieutenant Commander's cyclone, the Cherry Bomb along, slaved to her controls so that her squadron wasn't undermanned. Because the qualified combat pilots were few and far between on the flight deck, and she'd had plenty of experience in remote piloting, O'Dell volunteered to MacNeille to solo her squadron. Which had been gratefully accepted. After all, O'Dell was the preeminent expert in the Banshee class, and she'd had design input into the War Chicken, while being one of the original test pilots for even the Cyclone series.
Now that she was here, she wasn't entirely sure just how to disable the generator without the gravimetric shear destroying her ship, shattering her body or maybe just sucking her into a singularity. Or possibly all of the above.
Now, as the great jade starship loomed large in her viewscreen, she nipped inside the shields and took a few seconds to consider her options. The War Chicken had the heavy armaments that the Banshee lacked... in truth, she had planned to use the Cherry Bomb's superior offensive capability at this point as well. Whipping the small starship around, she backed up to hug the large assault craft, to hide in its blast shadow reinforcing and concentrating all it's shields to fore. Bringing the Cherry Bomb to bear over the shoulder of the War Chicken, O'Dell brought those weapons systems online and targeted the generator. Hoping the Hera wouldn't breach the shields anytime soon, Fiona remote slaved the War Chicken's weapons system, bringing the two quantum torpedoes it packed online and targeting the graviton generator.
Entering her firing instructions into the computer brought to bare the impressive arsenal that the Cyclone known as the ‘Cherry Bomb’ could bring to bare. 2 phaser pulse cannons, 12 micro-photon torpedos in the top turret. 2 underslung photons in the underslung package delivery system were nothing to sneeze at.
There was no time to check any math, no time to consider whether or not she'd be inside the blast radius, because she knew she would be... if she planned to be here. A quantum torpedo by itself was a 100 megaton yields with no atmosphere to slow down the shockwave Inside the shields like this, it would be devastating. But she was firing a lot more than that, witht he Cherry Bomb's photon torpedoes added to the mix.
There seemed to be no need to waste the microtorpedoes, what with four torpedoes engaged/ Picking a coordinate, Fiona verified the target locks, as all three vessels made the calculations for a coordinated two second warp hop on course 14 mark 68 bearing 4 mark 7. Leaping somewhat blindly into the universe, Fiona O'Dell whispered a prayer, then fired the torpedoes and warped from the scene.
As behind her, hell unleashed in the belly of a starship powered by a contained singularity of its own.
"One of the graviton generators just exploded, and the shields of that battlecruiser are failing. Their shields are down.... they are redirecting power and changing course, Captain," tactical reported as the Hera rocked dramatically. "She's imploding, captain! Huge surge in graviton particles."
"All hands, brace for impact!" Paris called out as the red alert klaxon still whined.
On the bridge of the shuddering D'deridex known as the IRW Kre, nothing more than the designation of the number ‘Two’, the cool green lights had turned a stark and distressing red. A red alert klaxon was deafening as the crew scrambled at their stations.
Clutching the edge of her command chair was a young Romulan man with the rank markers of Commander shining very fresh and new on his baldric. He had a short military haircut, but his light brown hair was missed and a trickle of green flowed down his smooth, lineless face. In his eyes was a look of mounting panic. A chuckle almost escaped his lips as he remembered his concern about commanding a vessel simply given a number and no proper name. But he had chided himself for putting stock in that old superstition of a ship without a true name being doomed, at the time.
Who knew?
"Commander ir-Ramnau, engineering reports the Singularity core shielding is collapsing. Power is surging past 335 percent. That attack ruptured the leads from the graviton generator. Shields are gone and…" a young woman at one of the oops stations shouted back, gripping the station as it all but shook apart. "By the elements… the containment field has ruptured."
In the command chair, the young man who, only a week earlier was only a Vriha'Erein… a Lieutenant… had hoped that this secret assignment would earn him a house name at last and bring honor to his family. Now, he was a Commander of a doomed ship, and as the reality sunk in, the viewscreen cracked before them all.
Over the sound of screams, then came the wrenching of metal all around them as the hull began to twist in upon itself. While Tarek ir-Ramnau was young, he knew how a Warbird worked. Without containment, the artificial quantum singularity that powered their ships would devour them all in a matter of seconds. Suddenly, the entire bridge wrenched and began to crush in upon them all as the last thing he felt was his own mass tripling as he shut his eyes and prayed to Al'Thindor.
In a flash of light, he felt his bones shatter and blackness overtake him, his moment now over.
As the ship imploded in a brilliant flash, the new source of stress caused the artificial singularity to ripple dangerously and start dragging the other three warbirds towards it.
Seconds later, three T'Liss Freight Eagles… small but immensely powerful towing vessels... ripped a charred and battered starbase from the hole in space, not only showing signs of the battle in which it had been surrendered, but new damage as well. Armor plates that looked like they had almost been digested.
The Hera and crew were a bit too occupied with Rendal and the Iurret to stop the Freight Eagles from towing the remains of the station and docking the four nacelled beast, however.
"Keep focusing fire on the Iurret for now. Don't let her draw us too close to that singularity. Have the support craft..." Enalia paused a moment, trying to decide if she should have them withdraw or go harry the station, but the decision was quickly made for her, as plasma fire rocked the ship.
In her moment of indecision, the station, with the behemoth mystery ship having docked to it within seconds, had warped away while cloaking, striking two of the small tow ships while doing so. "Recall the support craft. Full quantum torpedo spread on the Iurret.
From Ops, Ensign Jones clutched his console as he shouted back. “Sensors detect a massive gravimetric wave coming from the singularity, Captain!”
The Hera's Fight Deck
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On the flight deck of the Hera, the acting Flight Chief in Lieutenant Commander Dox’s absence was the three armed, Edosian pilot, Ensign Wieaex. As the order came in to recall the remaining support craft as the gravimetric shear began to rock the massive starship, the generally chatty, orange shelled junior officer was unusually terse at the control console of the station.
“Aye, Captain! Green Squadron did a warp hop before the shear grabbed us and is clear. Recalling R… Red, Blue and Gold now!” Wieaex said as she scrambled to call up the data on the remaining groups of ships out there. Opening up comm frequencies to the other ships, three more groups of three, each with its own pilot to worry about, Wieaex’s usually energetic and friendly voice was broken and anxious.
“Hera Flight Control to all flight teams. We need to time your returns to the deck carefully. We can only drop shields for a moment with the gravimetric shearing.” The frightened assistant Flight Chief said as she looked at the tactical placement of each squadron of ships. The Runabout Thor and its two support shuttles was closest. Then the Selune, followed by the Frigga.
“Hera to Thor. Ensign Harnell, approach vector… uh… 7 mark… uh…” Even with three arms, Wieaex was having difficulty keeping track of everything. On the other side of the deck, Ensign Jessica MacNielle was busy locking down the remaining craft and prepping an emergency relief team for potential casualties. Swallowing, the Edosian woman who had studied extensively for the Assistant Chief position realized she was panicking and called across the deck. “JESS!!! Please, I need your help over here!”
Hearing the panic in Wieaex’s voice, the plain looking, even tempered human woman with shoulder length brown hair delegated to the deck officer who was assisting her and ran over to the command station. “Okay, Ensign... let me take a look. We got this.”
For the last couple of months, both women had been working with Lieutenant Commander Dox to see who would be best to replace the recently promoted Lieutenant Gonadie as her assistant, and both had done well in tests, but here in the moment, MacNielle was stepping up with a cooler head. “Okay, Wee. I need you to calculate the approach vectors and timing so we can drop those shields as quick as possible. Okay?”
As the orange-skinned woman nodded and started her calculations, MacNielle hit the comm. “Okay, Ensign Harnell, we are sending you your approach vector now. You’re coming in first and you are not slowing down, got it? Then you, Selune. Then you, Frigga. Beam your wing pilots onboard the lead crafts and set the Type 11’s on auto pilot to get clear.”
With a nervous glance, Wieaex stuttered? “W… wait, what?”
“C’mon. We got this. We both aced the sims for this with the Chief and she planned this whole thing out as an emergency contingency. I’m bringing them in and you’re catching them. It’ll be fine. We’ve got this, Ensign. Just relax and remember the training.” MacNielle said, offering a slightly forced smile as she tried to bolster her OWN confidence. Then, with a shout on the loudspeaker to the room, she called out. “All hands, clear the deck. Preparing for Emergency Landing Plan: B!”
“B as in barricade.” She muttered under her breath as a set of long, metal waldo arms lowered from the overhead and between them a blue forcefield snapped on. A modern twist on an old trick that was built by Lieutenant Gonadie to literally catch support craft as they entered the bay hot.
“Flight Deck to Bridge… this is Ensign MacNielle. We are going to need aft shield control routed to this station to get the support craft back on board. ETA is in 32 seconds, mark.”
USS Hera Bridge
------------------
On the bridge, Ensign John Jones was struggling to balance power between all the shielding systems and the structural integrity field and now he was being asked to reinforce the docking bay too? Shaking his head, he decided to employ a little trick he learned back on Mars back when he was knee high to a workbee and pulled power from life support temporarily, cancelling the sixteen warnings and overrides the system had in place not to do so. It wasn't like it would be needed for more than a few minutes anyway, so it would be going right back to life support anyway. Besides, he was pulling it from the less critical parts of the life support right at this moment like waste reclamation and replicators.
No one should be eating on the refresher right now, anyway.
"Power rerouted. Shields at sixty nine percent, SIF at eighty seven percent. Both holding for now."
"Is it just me, or is Rendal fighting more desperately than she was before?" Enalia mused as she punched up a tactical readout of Rendal's ship on her chair's display. Apparently the sensor shielding was still in place though. "Keep unloading all weapons on her."
As the Hera raced into range, the tractor beams lanced out, retarding the Iurret's movement and causing her to drift close to the singularity, which was shrinking quickly as the surviving trio of battlecruisers held their positions. Phasers lanced out, multiple banks coming together to synchronize the band fire in larger and larger successive bursts, as the Iurrettr was the only target at the moment. Thus their was no reason not to bring the full strength of the Hera's phaser system to bear upon her.
It was the torpedoes that caused the problem, this close to an already unstable subspace rift. But a full spread was what the Captain had ordered, so a full spread was what she'd gotten.
The Hera's Fight Deck
-------------------------
Back on the main flight deck, the main doors were opened to space and the blue rimming of the force field disengaged. The internal shielding that kept the bay from decompressing remained in place, but the tension was high as the Runabout Thor approached quickly. At the control console, Ensign Jessica MacNielle was working frantically at the panel as, at her side, Ensign Wieaex did the same. The entire ship was now shaking from the gravimetric shearing forces from the massive singularity that was pulling at it. Hitting the comm, MacNielle called to the Thor’s pilot. “Okay, Harnell. You are locked in your approach. Cut your engines on my mark and brace for controlled stop…”
“Wieaex, you’re on the force field net. Are you ready?” MacNielle said, beads of sweat visible on her furrowed brow as she prepared to perform the insane maneuver she had only ever done in simulations. Looking over to the three-armed Edosian who looked just as anxious, who nodded her reply silently as she hovered her hands over the virtual controls for the massive mechanical arms that had extended the forcefield in the center of the deck.
“Okay, Harnell. On my marrrkkk…. Annnnnd, MARK!” As MacNielle shouted, just outside the main doors, the RUnabout Thor cut its power and MacNielle activated the docking tractor beams which created a virtual rail that directed the speeding shuttle into the massive inertial dampening energy net where it rapidly stopped in mid-air. As it did, MacNielle and Wieaex were almost knocked off of their feet from the force that shook the ship.
As soon as the Runabout slowed to a stop between the massive, shuddering arms, the docking tractor beams took over and began moving the support craft to the other end of the bay as quickly as possible. And as soon as it was moving again, MacNielle pulled herself back over the console, gasping. “O… one down, two to go.”
Next to her, Wieaex looked over and at the display which showed the Runabout Selune rapidly approaching and muttered, “Ah, shit!”
Back on the bridge, Ensign Jones grabbed the edges of his console as the ship was rocked by two more sharp impact shudders over the next fifteen seconds as the singularity continued to pull at the Hera. Then, over the comm, MacNielle’s shaken voice came across. “F… flight d… d… deck to bridge. R… runabouts secured, all crewmembers from the three teams are aboard and the main doors are closed!”
"Roger that," Enalia replied, knowing from the impact that they had used landing plan B, for barricade, and that they had used the catch tractors mounted to the deck echo bars along the flight deck ceiling and floors, hence how the entire ship felt it. "Ok, let's get a little more distance from that singu..."
But she didn't get to finish that thought as suddenly the gravimetric shear intensified several times over, threatening to tear the ship apart.
From Ops, Ensign John Jones was almost thrown to the floor as he read the readings scrolling across his station. "Captain, the Iurret has performed a warp hop out of the system leaving a shadow singularity behind! I'm no longer reading the three D'Deridex warbirds! Residue... They were sucked into the singularity!"
"And we will be too, if we can't get out of here! Rita!" Enalia gripped the arms of her chair with white knuckles.
As the hull shuddered and the superstructure of the solidly-built starship groaned. Rita Paris redirected power even as she primed the warp engines. "I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but it's still dragging us..."
Whatever Paris planned to add was lost as at that moment, shields failing, Riov Rendal leapt to warp, leaving behind a miniature singularity, her usual calling card of a gravity bomb. Save that this time, it was next to a singularity. In a fraction of a second, it caused the entire singularity to compress, causing all three D'deredix class battlecruisers to be pulled close enough for their proximity alert sensors to go off, metal groaning and shearing.
Before the singularity flared outward, to the size of an A-class sun, enveloping everything in its wake.
Before collapsing, leaving only empty space in its wake.
Finger hovering over the commit button after realigning her course and assessing where to go next, Ensign Fiona O'Dell gaped at the empty space where a starship engagement had been happening seconds ago.
"Shite!" she squeaked.
