The Fall of Caleb Xeod (Part IV of V)
Posted on Fri Oct 16, 2020 @ 3:06am by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Jason Haines
1,927 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Asteroid field near Xi'cadian Space
Timeline: MD 08
Previously in the fall of Caleb Xeod
X'eod laughed.
"Mister Ryan, I am not a fool to leave certain details to automated systems," Xeod replied. "I was pretty certain this was a trap, but I wanted to see if I could get Mr. and Mr. Haines. I know that this ship is no longer useful, which is why there are so few people on board. Did you miss the five photon torpedoes in the bay? They and a few others in other places on the ship are armed and I have the trigger. Your relay station and ships won't be able to get a lock on you fast enough to get out of the blast radius. You now have nine minutes and twenty-five seconds to get me what I asked for."
And now the continuation
USS Pioneer - Bridge
Commodore Stewart came to her feet. "Have we got transporter locks on those crew?"
Her operations officer shook his head. "There's scrambling in effect. It's interfering with the lock."
Maritza had her arm wrapped around her, chewing on her knuckle. This was the moment they were expecting. "He's already taken Jason." She looked over at the elder Haines. "He's got to drop the shields and scrambler to let you in."
"Which is when we'll grab him," Stewart confirmed. She turned to the Andorian, Commander Ch'escat. "Put the fighters on standby. We don't want Xeod running anywhere."
"What about our people?" Maritza asked. "How does Xeod even have nanites?" She closed her eyes, knowing that Xeod had his methods. There were nanites. A transporter clean would work. "How many can we transport at once? Site to site?"
"Eight. We need the other pad to send the commander."
It wasn't enough.
Stewart looked over to Robert Haines. "Are you ready?"
"Aye, Commodore, just give the word," Rob said. "You might want to scan for cloaked vessels. Either that or something on the edge of Xi'Cadian space. If he blows the ship, he isn't going to be sticking around to watch the fireworks.
"Open a channel," Stewart said. "Caleb Xeod. Robert Haines is prepared to meet your terms. Standby for transport."
"Good to hear someone is coming to their senses," Xeod replied. "No tricks. Your teams' lives depend on it. Once I get him and his son, you can have your people back."
Martiza pulled out her tricorder and double checked the tracking chip in his arm. It was working. "They'll be expecting it, I'm not expecting it to last very long on you. But it's better than nothing. Good luck."
Rob nodded. "Thank you, Captain. I'll be back soon along with my son."
Rob looked to the Commodore, gave a thumbs up, and said, "Ready to go, Commodore. Permission to disembark and get this mission finished up."
"Permission granted," Commodore Stewart said. "Let's put him in a cage where he belongs."
Runabout
The Andorian chuckled, confident that he had all the cards. "Patch us into the ship. Let's see if we can watch all your mates die."
"You know what is better than that?" Jason replied. "Why don't you take me over there, or I'll kill you right here."
The Andorian gave him a look. "Yeah. Right. Calm your britches, princess."
"I thought you might say something like that," Jason replied, stamping his boot down and twisting so the blade in it slid out. He then threw a kick out.
His mother was a doctor, who worked on many races, so anatomy knowledge was a must have. His father, being the black ops man he was, studied her anatomy books regularly. She would often curse at him for “perverting her work,” but she knew in the end that it would increase the chance of him coming home safely, so she didn't hide the books on him. Jason learned most of his first aid from her, so he too learned anatomy, but only recently had he started to pervert it.
Humans were pretty easy, tibia, fibia, knees and collar bones, were weak points that could be accessed easily. Like most humanoid males, external genitalia would bring pain, but most men were aware of that and fought appropriately. Vulcans and Romulans had stronger bone structures, but ears and kidneys, oddly enough, were weak points. Klingons were brutes, and they had many redundant systems. When ready for combat, their eyes and in the arm pits were pretty much the only true weak points. Although they appeared thin and flimsy, Andorians were almost as strong as Vulcans and Klingons. Their antennae were the most obvious weak points, but difficult to get at unless in a wrestling match. There was a very sensitive nerve structure between the hip and ribs, but it was hard to hit. The other weak point of Andorians, at least in a blade fight, was that they had more and wider blood vessels due to the cold temperatures of Andoria, especially in the legs and extremities. So even small cuts would be problematic if there were enough of them or if you hit an artery. That would work to Jason's advantage.
Jason didn't like launching an attack with a kick unless he had to. Given his hands were cuffed, he would have to though. He kicked out with his bladed boot, nicking the Andorian just above the knee, enough to draw blood, but not a lot, to start anyways.
The Andorian swore, and dived for the disruptor, reaching it a fraction of a second before Jason did. He didn't' waste any time with threats, just rolled over, aimed for a flicker of an eyelid, and pulled the trigger
Jason rolled and then cursed as he was grazed by the disruptor shot in the shoulder. The smell of burnt flesh wafted from his shoulder. He rolled back towards the Andorian and swung his cuffed hands down towards the leg he had cut.
"Your boss might not want you killing me," Jason said. "And only shooting partial shots like you just did, you are going to put a hole through our ride."
The only answer he got was another shot, aiming at Jason's head.
Jason saw the disruptor and did the only two things he could. He first grabbed the Andorian's leg and pushed it up in front of where his face was and pushed his own head to the deck, hoping the man would miss at worst, and at best disintegrate his own foot. Second, he started kicking with his bladed boot.
There were a number of screams from the Andorian, but then they stopped. Jason felt some pain along his right ear and neck. The Andorian shot and took his own foot off, combined with Jason's few kicks, had caused his assailant to pass out. Jason briefly touched his neck. It must have caught some of the energy from the disruptor.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Jason looked up and mentally cursed as the runabout came to a stop and the pilot stood above him pointing a phaser at him.
"You can't blame a guy for trying," Jason said. "Come on, just get me to Xeod and this will be over."
"No," the pilot said simply. "A lot of us are tired of his games. He says he is going to blow that damn ship up and we'll start over. I want to see it, but I am not going to give him one of the prizes he wants, and that's you. He has a cloaked vessel out there that he is going to beam to when he presses a button. He plans to go regroup with the rest of the crew. Once the Akira blows up, I will give you the transmitter frequency I put on it so Starfleet can track it down and get him and the rest of the crew. That ship has caused too much pain, as well as he and those who followed him."
He kicked the disruptor away, looked at the Andorian, and muttered, "Dumb-ass."
Jason's mind raced. This plan rested on him and his dad getting on that ship to be bait, to be distractions, so the rest of the teams could do their jobs.
"At least let me warn my command team so they can get our teams out," Jason said. "If you help, perhaps we can get you a lighter sentence."
"No." The pilot turned back. "The moment he gets what he wants, he's gone. The longer you stay here, the greater the chance things go wrong for Xeod. You're staying put for as long as I can safely do it."
"Come on, things are going wrong for him already," Jason replied. "You can help us."
"Sorry mate." The pilot turned away. "Still too much can go right. I'm not going to risk it. We're staying here.”
Akira Shuttle Bay
“We’ve got some of yer crew in custody too,” Caleb reminded. “Ya gonna leave ‘em ta die? Ya can’t beam outta here with that dampenin’ field up.”
Caleb’s lieutenant motioned him over. They’d manage to pry off one of the panels to get at the force field emitters. Caleb nodded indicating they should get the field down.
"Well, my crew will do a lot for me," Xeod replied. "Now, I have a new guest to welcome."
At that moment on the shuttle side of the force field Haines senior materialized. He scanned the room briefly with his eyes, giving Ryan’s team a brief nod. He looked up to the control and saw Xeod.
"You know, Caleb, I'm getting too old for this crap," Rob said, knowing he could probably keep Xeod talking enough to give Ryan's team time to work. "Why don't you come down here and we can finish this?"
Caleb Ryan cursed a bit and urged his team to hurry. They had to get through that force field, maybe into one of those shuttles. He recognized that Haines might buy them some time, but then again, it was one more person to have to rescue off this shit storm.
"Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, Mister Haines," Caleb replied. "Until your son is on board, you are just going to have to be patient."
Rob nodded his head and said, "Well, seeing how you have me, why don't you let the boarders go back? You've got me, you killed a few of them, and someone snatched my son off the listening post, so you have him."
"Not, until he is here," Xeod answered.
"Hey, neither of us are exactly citizen of the year candidates," Rob replied. "but you have some honor, or at least you used to. At least let half of them go."
Xeod was silent for a few moments, then spoke. "Very well," Xeod said. "Ryan, pick those on your crew who go back."
Ryan frowned. Tessaro was going to hate him, but she wasn’t here, and his team was. “The other team,” Caleb said.
Xeod tapped a couple of buttons, and after a moment he said, "As promised. Do feel free to confirm if you wish, Commander. As Mister Haines here said, I do have some honor, but I can understand if you don't quite trust me."
Caleb tapped his comm. “Ryan to Tessaro. Are you safe?” he inquired.
To be Continued…
Captain Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer
Deep Space 5
Jason Haines
Bait Extraordinaire
Deep Space 5
Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer
Deep Space 5
Lt Annora Tessaro
Chief Security Officer
DS5
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