Over Reactor

Posted on Fri Jan 18th, 2019 @ 12:19pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Alex Sexton & Petty Officer 2nd Class Ila Dedjoy

Mission: Section 31-B
Location: Sector 31 base 'Castillo De Muerte'
Timeline: 2396, picking up from 'Castillo De Muerte'

Alex nodded to the Commander. "I'll keep her by my side." He said with a smile and then looked at the map on his tricorder that had been down loaded earlier. "We have roughly 100 meters to go. Since there is no gravity it should be pretty easy going if we apply ourselves. No heroics and no stragglers. Let's go." He waited for the artificial gravity to be turned off. And he turned off his boots gravitational hold on the deck and lightly propelled himself downward encouraging Dox to do the same.

Disengaging her magnetic boots, Dox pushed off the deck plates to float in formation beside Lieutenant Sexton. Zero gravity was an environment the former childhood smuggler was fairly comfortable in, having had to repair the artificial gravity almost weekly growing up on a perpetually failing smuggling ship.

The first ten to twenty meters were pretty uneventful. Alex was on point when he saw their first obstacle. There was a reason they had begun calling these horrid things Zombie Sharks. Because with no gravity, they floated through the non atmosphere like sharks did in water, and the mouth looked like a sharks mouth. Two of which were drifting their way growling and reaching for Alex though he was several meters away. A blast came past him and one was done, then another blast, and the second was done. "Don't mention it boss." Came they comment from Reynolds and Johnson in unison. With a smirk. "Well done, keep it up and we might just do this damned thing!" Replied Alex, not sure if Dox even had her eyes open.

For her part, the young pilots eyes were quite busy watching the full sensor reading from her visor display that provided her with thermal data, a full 3-D wireframe of her surroundings and motion sensor data. She spun around, raised her weapon to aim and in one motion, opened fire on one of the creature so that was pulling itself out of a Jeffries tube directly behind Sexton.

Its head gone, the limp form hovered slowly back into the tube eerily. "There's six more ventilation shafts and Jeffries tube access points in this shaft looking at the schematics. The rest appear to be sealed on the radar scan data I'm getting back, but we should seal this one as well." Dox followed as she checked the sensor readings from her helmets HUD.

"Ok hold here for a moment, we seal this access point and then we move, but we dont split up at any point for any reason. We go in together and we come out together." said Sexton.

While Dox and Sexton both shared the same rank, the young part-Romulan pilot knew that while their part of the away teams task was to get to the reactor core and set it to explode, her specific task was to support Sexton and follow his orders. He had the experience here and was in charge of the security detail.

"Aye, Lieutenant." She replied, deferring to his orders as the remaining security officers sealed the Jefferies tube entrance.

But Dox was still a senior staff officer and problem solving was second nature to her. She began collecting scan data from the otherwise pitch black bottom of the turbolift shaft that was her destination and didn't like what she was seeing. "Mr. Sexton... my HUD is showing me massive amounts of movement down there. So much that it's clouding the data. Tricorder scans can't confirm the size or number of potential hostiles."

Looking back up at the more experienced security officer, Dox continued. "if it's one big hostile or a thousand little ones, the sensors can't get a fix on. Just that the reactor chamber is filled with whatever's down there."

"Ok, based on your experience and knowledge of your equipment, I'm of a mind that going down there would be suicidal at best. And I see no sense in getting killed for a rock we can destroy from the ship or enough well placed explosives right here. Do you concur?" Asked Alex speaking to Dox.

Thinking for a second, Dox replied. "Without knowing exactly what kind of shielding the reactor core has or how far it actually is from the bottom of the shaft, that seems too risky. Our orders were to set the core to self distruct. The bottom of the shaft is a good... 45 meters down from here and we need to be 100 percent sure we can destroy this station utterly. The reactor core will atomize everything here where the ships weapons might just scatter the station into debris flying in every direction. Which means potential zombies and who knows what else floating through the system."

Looking down into the darkness below, Dox pondered their situation and their orders from Commander Paris. "Obviously, we can't just drop charges down there and risk blowing the station while we're in it, but..." Suddenly, her armors sensors began sounding off.

"Wait. Whatever's down there might be aware we're up here. I've got activity. Several motion signatures moving toward us. Really small." Dox continued, moving her weapon to a ready position."

"Phaser rifles to wide beam dispersal patterns, and fire as soon as you see something. Watch friendly fire."

After a tense few quiet seconds, a cluster of what could best be described as small, pirannah-like fish creatures swam through the weightless environment towards the away team. They bared enhanced, metallic teeth and had the same infected palor to their flesh as the other creatures encountered thus far as they moved quickly out of the shadows up the shaft.

The group opened fire as instructed by Sexton, but the high setting at a wide dispersal field burnt away the organics of the first wave, leaving a metalized endoskeleton and chattering teath to float away in the zero gravity. But the waves of creatures were coming faster then they could fire and we're advancing too close too fast.

The level of Sexton's voice rose to a yell. "Dox detach. Get back to that jefferies tube and get it open. The rest of you help me lay down a steady stream of fire that will slow them until she gets that tube open. It's the only one we know has nothing alive or dead alive in it. Now move!" Yelled Alex as he lit up the on coming flesh eaters.

"On it." Dox pushed off the side of the shaft wall up towards the sealed Jefferies Tube, moving quickly through the air aided by the enhancements of the EVA armor. Once there, she adjusted the settings of her phaser to cut through the sealed hatch and yank it back open.

"The tube is open." She yelled down to the advancing team while she rejoind the effort to keep the advancing creatures at bay from her position.

They were getting very close. And Alex Happy to hear about the progress on the jefferies tube hatch. When all of a sudden a hand grabbed Alex from behind and yanked him out of reach of several flesh eaters. He had lost track of where they were but Johnson saw them trying to flank him and came to his rescue. Thereby finding himself in a bit of danger. Alex quickly regrouped and returned the favor. They leap frogged back up the shaft until they reached Dox.

"We still need to get down there to set the self destruct." Dox was thinking out loud as Sexton and the security detail reached her position, which was much more defendable. "And we can't risk grenades down the shaft. We..." Then a thought occurred to her.

"Those things can only attack us currently because there's no gravity. If we can restore even minimal gravity at the bottom of the shaft, we can ground them." She looked at Sexton as she spoke for feedback one way or another.

Alex knew this was dangerous.

Tapping the side of her helmet, Dox tried calling up to the rest of the away team. "Dox to Dedjoy, are you..." Then she paused for a second as she heard nothing but static. "Dox to away team... Dox to Hera."

Looking back at Sexton while they all maintained fire on the advancing pirannah-like creatures, Dox cursed in Romulan. "Hnave! Something's causing interference."

"Everybody in the Jeffries tube quickly." As a couple munchi creatures got close enough to bite the armour, but not pierce the suit itself. Truly a frightening moment. As they pulled the hatch on the jefferies tube, they could hear the monsters biting at the hatch.

Just then the station shook violently, as the stations weapons fired once and then went dead!

Pausing for a second, Dox looked up as she spoke. "Sounds like the external defenses." Then she refocused on the threat gnawing at the hatch they were hiding behind.

"Which still leaves us with our dilemma. We can't sit here forever and we can't not deal with the reactor as ordered. Plus, now we have no idea if those things are going to try going further up the turbolift shaft to come up behind the rest of the away team."

Tapping on the side of her helmets heads up display, she sighed slightly. "The sensor data says that they're still focused on that hatch. Good, that means they aren't going after Paris, Dael and Dedjoy."

Then the anxious officer called out to her armors built in computer. "Computer. Call up station schematics. Locate the nearest access terminal to the stations internal gravitational systems."

After a moment, there was a light chirp as the data came up on her HUD and Dox smiled slighlty. "Thank you, Jefferies tubes. Lieutenant Sexton, The nearest access point is 18 meters back down this tube. I'm going to reinstate partial gravity in the bottom of the shaft. It should pull those things out of the shaft to the bottom where you and your team can deal with them a lot easier."

Realizing she was basically making orders at this point, Dox pulled back slightly to defer to the experienced Security officer. "Sound good?"

"That sounds good, let me know when the gravity is restored below, and me and my guys will get down there and clear the way for you too do your thing with the reactor core overload." Said Sexton

Floating over to the access terminal, Dox pulled the access cable out of the control panel and plugged her EVA suit into the stations systems. After a few seconds the system schematics came up on the young Lieutenant's HUD.

"Hnave." Dox cursed under her breath in Romulan. "Okay... need to reroute just enough power to restore gravity to this lower section without taking any power from the hangar or the upper levels." She muttered to herself as she worked her way through the complex computer system.

"There's not enough power available to..." Then Dox stopped and looked down at her own EVA suit and reached around to the small of her back and pulled the extra battery pack for her weapons systems and plugged the dense cartridge into the interface.

"Okay, Lieutenant Sexton. This will give us limited area gravity for approximately ten minutes tops! I'm rerouting the system now." Dox worked feverishly to route the power pack into the system. "Get ready. I've almost got the connections made."

"Ok guys this is the plan. Once gravity is restored, I'm going to frag the area twice, and we pop in, kill anything moving and secure the area. Dox will join us and we get out of here with plenty time to retrieve the rest of the team and we get back on Thor and get out of here. Any questions?" He asked, but the security team knew what they had to do and they knew the risks involved.

With a hum, the power to the section they were in was restored as the sound of hundreds and hundreds of zombie Piranhas flopping to the bottom of the turbolift shaft could be heard. "There we are. Ten minutes!" Dox yelled.

"Ok they are playing our song, let's do this." Said Alex as he released the hatch just far enough to drop in a grenade. It went off about half way down the shaft. Then he removed another one, changed the timing so this one would make it to the bottom of the shaft. "Fire in the hole." He yelled and threw the second one in. It fell to the bottom of the shaft and went off on impact. Anything within ten meters should have been toast.

"No grenades!" Dox yelled. "The reactor core is just off the bottom of that shaft!" But Sexton and his men were already on the move. "Imirrhlhhse!" The young pilot cursed to herself as she disconnected her suits system from the interface to follow the trigger happy soldiers.

"Ok, that's our cue, I'll go first." Replied Alex, but the bigger of the two men, Johnson pushed past him. "Sorry Lt, but you got to get us home. I'll go first." Offered the ex Marine turned Star Fleet Security. "That's very generous, soldier, but I lead from the front." Replied Alex "I'll split the difference with you, we go together back to back." And the security officer nodded. Alex gave a four count and pushed the hatch open. Anchored to the edge of the hatch the two men floated up and out then angled downward. The momentum changed as the gravitational pull got greater. Ten meters from the bottom, Alex yelled. "Recon by fire, wide beam, you sweep right I'll sweep left." The grenades had done their job, the shaft was clear so they started firing the moment they entered the chamber to the reactor room.

The Piranhas flopped on the floor like fish out of water. A few bipedal creatures not seen before also emerged. Johnson took out the first two, and Sexton the next two. This was indeed a hot LZ and no one man on his own would have made it. Just then Reynolds and Smith dropped in and picked up the slack. They were clearing an area of roughly room size. 20/30 and there was stuff still coming at them from every possible angle.

Just as they had things under control, Dox ran past the soldiers and headed straight for the terminal. No body had to say anything. They all knew what to do and got on with the business at hand.

At one point, Johnson turned to tell Alex they were looking good. No sooner than the last word left his mouth did a spurt of blood stain the inside of his visor and he fell to his knees. Behind him stood a thing with what looked like silver swords for hands. Alex yelled, "Johnson". Too late to help him. But just in time to kill that monstrosity before it killed another member of his team, so far that was Jones and Johnson lost to them. Who would be next? Thought Alex to himself. "Tighten the perimeter around Dox." Yelled Sexton

As they did so, the very deck they stood on seemed to be creeping toward them. "Frag out." Yelled Sexton as he threw a grenade into a dark area that seemed to be teaming with creatures slowly progressing on them. He knew it was dangerous to use a grenade but he had no choice. The flow stemmed for a moment and then slowly started again. "Soon the phasers will need mag changes, we go left to right, how copy." Yelled Alex as he reminded the team, Smith and Reynolds responded as Dox plugged her suits interface into the reactor cores computer to initiate the self destruct cycle.

Smith stopped firing and changed his power pack on his Phaser rifle, Reynolds was next. And last was Alex. As the cycle of phaser fire continued, they could see they were running out of time. Smith was going into A frantic meltdown. His eyes had glazed over. Sexton had seen this before in combat. There would be no reaching him now, he was on autopilot.

"OH SO YOU WANT SOME OF THIS, HERE YOU GO, TAKE THAT YOU MAD MONSTER SHITS. AND YOU OVER THERE, YOU WANT SOME TOO. HERE YOU GO, EAT SHIT AND DIE YOU GENETICALLY ENHANCED FREAKS. I won't BE LETTING YOU LEAVE THIS ROCK YOU SONS OF BITCHES." Yelled Smith in his berserker Rage. But he was, in fact, being very effective, though his advancing in one direction started to cause a shift and allowed things to get through on either side of him. Alex managed to kill the ones that Smith missed or got to close to Reynolds.

But for some reason, Reynolds jumped out from behind Alex and went shoulder to shoulder with Smith. This was not looking good. Two of his team now succumbed to the pressures of combat. Alex looked to Dox. "What's the hold-up? We got a get out of here!" He yelled

For her part, Dox ignored the posturing as she navigated through the stations complex security protocols to access the self destruct protocols. The system was layered with redundancies like a maze that the Romulan redhead was struggling to crack. 'Ila or Thex would be through this and back in the damn Runabout by now. Focus, Mnhei'sahe.' she thought to herself as she worked.

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Dox had accessed the systems self destruct mechanism and set the countdown to begin, cued by the sensors in the hangar bay for when the Runabout was clear.

Unplugging from the system, Dox turned to Sexton. "It's set!"

Alex who had never released his line, looked up. He could swear he heard voices, so he yelled. "Get to the shuttle, now!" Hoping it was the rest of the away team. Lot of good it did with his visor down. Hopefully, the Comms picked it up since they were in a more or less straight line. Alex Looked back at Dox and confirmed that it was done.

He gave the order to get out. "Guys it's time we left this party. Everybody on me, let's go." But the rage had taken them, Smith and Reynolds, in the few seconds, that he looked up and then to Dox, Smith and Reynolds had moved too far forward to pull them out. There were organisms on their EVA suits and one had all but breached Reynolds helmet from the rear. It would, in fact, reach her skull in a matter of seconds.

"Dox, get gone now. I'll handle this." Said Alex. But the young pilot had not seen what Sexton had seen entering the two soldiers helmets and hesitantly deferred to him in a situation he had the greater experience in. She connected her EVA suit to Sexton's line and was hoisted by the recall gear up into the shaft.

He was tempted to hit his line and go forward, but he knew it would be suicide. Smith and Reynolds were firing on pure instinct and had long given up on making it out. But he could spare them any pain. He raised himself up a safe distance and then reached down and pulled his Colt Commander .45 as a tear of compassion came to his eye. He blinked took aim and fired two rounds. One to the back of each of his last two remaining team members. As they fell forward and were engulfed by the tide of creatures one aiming for him. He took one final shot, killed it and hit the retrieval gear on his suit and was whisked away to a somewhat safe distance. But his team was lost.

Finally, Dox's battery pack had failed and the gravity had released, leaving Sexton floating free again.

As he met up with Dox near the edge of the shaft. His face told the story.

"They did not suffer!" Was all he said as the two reached the edge of the open shaft to the main corridor to the hangar bay. Dox looked at Sexton with a stern expression on her face. "What does that mean, Lieutenant?" But Sexton didn't answer as he floated up past her.

At the edge of the shaft, they encountered Commander Paris, who had doubled back to retrieve the team. Or what was left of them.

"Where are the rest of your men, Lieutenant?" Paris asked grimly.

Alex paused only a fraction of a second. “All gave some and some gave all. Unfortunately, they carried out their duties to the very end.” And he turned and headed for the Shuttle. The tears would come later. Right now he was mad as hell.

On the platform behind him as he walked away, Dox was staring at the security officer with thinly veiled anger in her eyes. In front of those eyes, in her HUD displays was a three-dimensional replay of the events of the last few minutes recorded and saved by her EVA suits computer. Of Reynolds and Smith shot in the back of the head by Sexton for reasons unknown.

The young Lieutenant ran the scenario of failures through her head, rethinking every step that she should have exerted command and didn't. But all of this was thought and processed in a matter of brief seconds as the angry aviatrix resaved the suit data as she looked at Paris. "When we get out of here, I'll be filing a full report, Commander."

The pilot's tone was one of barely restrained Anger. Anger at Sexton and anger at herself for allowing the mission to have gone so wrong. But that anger was checked as Dox continued. "But first, we have to get out of here."

"I very much look forward to that report," Paris growled. Six dead security personnel on one mission bespoke of a serious failure of leadership, and those six men's blood was now on her hands for bringing them along. Those six men had families that would have to be contacted and told the news. Those six men were dead because she had sent them off with a flippant undisciplined commander who had a jingoistic slogan for a report. The deaths of those six men was the result of Rita Paris' command.

And she would by god know why.

Alex stood looking off into the distance. As a security officer, he was good and did his job. But as an investigator, he was going to find out why this required such a big sacrifice, and somebody was going to pay.