Home Front - Part V
Posted on Wed Mar 17, 2021 @ 10:10pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Means III & Lieutenant Kivan Ta'Gas & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Captain Tam "Demon" Haican
1,888 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Location: DS5, various
Timeline: MD04 0500
Previously in
Lt. Kivan was struck in the face by a black blur. His body slammed into the corridor wall and he slowly slumped to the deck floor.
Gil Morsah turned away as the other Cardassian began to bind Lt. Kivan's hands together.
"Gil Morsah to Fire Team. Respond!" he yelled into his comm unit again. He had lost contact with three of his men as they made their way towards the secondary junctions within the Main Computer Core. The last they had informed him they were near the command access turbolift near the Starfighter Control. He had ordered them to sabotage as many starfighters as they could. However, their lack of response to his numerous comms told the Cardassian gil that his men had been captured or even killed.
And now the continuation
Main Computer Core
Gil Mursah saw the signal from the Xi'Cadian and looked towards Lt. Kivan, who was slowly regaining consciousness. "Get him up!" the Cardassian said. "Activate the security override routine," he said to Lt. Kivan. "Use your authorization to deactivate the system's bilateral security subroutine," the gil repeated firmly.
"G-Go fuck yourself," the half-Cardassian Operations Chief said groggily as he tried to regain his senses. "There's no way I'll comply. Kill me first," Lt. Kivan said defiantly.
"I knew you'd say that, half-breed. You would rather die than cooperate with the enemy. It's that Cardassian spirit inside of you," Gil Mursah said. "But I'm equally certain that the Bajoran side of you will regret that decision," he said as he gestured to the other Cardassian to grab the barely conscious form of Petty Officer Kujall. The Cardassian grabbed the crewman and dragged him towards an EPS manifold panel that had been pried open. He grabbed the young crewman by the gold tunic collar and hoisted him into the panel, shoving his face onto the searing heat of the exposed panel.
Pain radiated through PO Kujall's face and into the rest of his body as he struggled to escape the grasp of the Cardassian and remove his face from the exposed panel. It was the most excruciating thirty seconds of his life. Finally, the Cardassian released him, throwing him back onto the deck.
"You see, Ta'Gas, we studied you for a long time. We know all about you and how your righteous sense of duty compelled you to stop Legate U'mar from carrying out his mission," Gil Mursah said, anger rising in his voice. "You stopped Cardassia from reclaiming its greatness, you son of a Bajoran whore!" He spat. He turned again towards the other Cardassian and gestured for him to continue.
PO Kujall whimpered in pain as he tried in vain to fight off the Cardassian, but he was too weak to stop from being grabbed by the arms and dragged back over to the still-exposed panel.
"Wait! Just let him go!" Lt. Kivan said, his chest heaving with anger. If it were just him, he would have sacrificed himself. But he had to think about the lives of those under his supervision. He couldn't allow his pride to blind him to the reality that these sadists would torture the young man just for the hell of it.
Lt. Kivan dragged himself to his feet and slowly made his way over to the console. The panel had already been brought up to the relevant screen to deactivate the system's self-defense subroutine. Lt. Kivan placed his hand on the panel and spoke his authorization code. Within several seconds, the subsystem's computer had gone into a self-diagnostic, taking its defensive countermeasures offline for several cycles.
Almost immediately, the teams in Torpedo Control and Secondary Shielding Generator received confirmation that the defensive countermeasures had gone offline for their respective systems.
Gil Mursah nearly shoved Lt. Kivan out of the way as he and the other Cardassian dragged over a large cylindrical device. They worked fast to connect the various wires into the exposed EPS panel. Lt. Kivan stared at it quizicoally as they worked furiously to connect it and bring the device online. The only thing that Lt. Kivan could make out on the device was the corporate symbol for Raddon Corporation.
"Connect with the subjunction’s power distribution system. I've already connected with the teams in Torpedo Control and Secondary Shield Generators," Gil Mursah said quickly as he stood and inputed several commands into the console beside him. He looked back towards the view screen towards Elot'oX.
"It's done," he said.
Dilithium Chamber
Elot'oX nodded as he received the confirmation and looked down several levels towards J'resh's melodramatic performance.
The Xi'Cadian sighed. "That fool is going to be killed. It's just a matter of how long it'll take Starfleet to pull the trigger," he said, moreso to himself than to anybody. He turned back towards Melvyn.
"Input your biometric authorization," Elot'oX said to Melvyn.
"You are dumber than I originally believed you to be. There is no way I will assist you and your gang of thugs, especially not while you are holding my people hostage," Melvyn said definitely.
"Technically, we only need his handprint and retinal scan. Nobody ever said they had to still be attached to him," a nearby Xi'Cadian said as he withdrew his dagger.
Elot'oX smirked at the idea. "Good point,” he said as he stood aside as Melvyn was shoved onto the deck face first and the other Xi'Cadian stood over him.
"Wait!" Jhene shouted as she saw the dagger beginning to come down. "I have Level 12-Director Access. I'll do it. Just...just let him go," she said. She knew that Melvyn had put up a strong face, but she knew that at his age he would never be able to survive the trauma of the attack, especially without immediate medical care.
She was quickly dragged to her feet and over to the console. She took a deep breath as she leaned forward with her hand and looked directly into the retina scanner, providing her biometric information. The computer received the information and quickly processed it as he fed the information through the conduit established by the Xi'Cadians directly into the Main Computer Core.
Almost instantaneously the Raddon Corporation device came online, syncing with the other assault teams in the various points of the station.
Seeing that the enemy had relaxed a little in their thoughts of victory, Mot signaled his Marines, who had worked to fully surround the Cardassians and the Xi'Cadian allies, and as one, a half dozen stun grenades flew into the middle of the enemy group.
There was a moment of activity as they tried to reach cover, but no-one was quick enough.
A beat after the grenades hit the deck plating, all six detonated in a cacophony of high-pitched noise and bright strobe flashes. In the confusion caused by the pyrotechnics, Mot and his Marines moved in, either killing or capturing the remaining enemy. In a span of ten seconds, the standoff was over.
Mot pointed to the Marine closest to the door. "Unlock that door, so Security can get in here and mop up." He moved over to the civilians, who were still recovering from the shock of the sudden attack. Kneeling in front of them, he spoke in a calm voice. "You're safe now. My name is Major Mot Rixx. Do any of you require immediate medical attention?”
Security almost had the doors unlocked when they slid open, catching them by surprise. Seeing the green trimmed uniforms of the Marines, and a handful of the hostiles on the ground was a welcome sight. Tihr and the others moved into the room, sweeping the area as they went. As one of the Cardassians started to shrug off the stun grenade, they reached for a disrupter pistol lying nearby. Seeing this, Crewman Erbsen took a big step. His foot landed on top of the weapon seconds before the Cardassian's hand reached it.
"Nice try, but you'll have to be quicker than that."
While the Betazoid reached down to retrieve the pistol, Ensign Brooks hauled the Cardassian up to his feet before placing cuffs on him. The remaining members of the assault team were similarly dealt with, now the question arose of what to do with the prisoners.
Tihr considered the options before responding. "Ensure they have no other weapons on their person, then set them against the wall. If they try anything, stun 'em. That way we can easily get the civilians out of here and allow our Marine friends to continue to the next hotspot."
Seeing that Security had things in hand, Rixx signaled for his Marines to form up and head out. They had more uninvited guests to deal with.
Cardassian Fleet
"Ma'am, the Federation station has begun scrambling their fighters and they are heading towards the planet," the tactical officer said from her station.
Gul Vashur sighed inwardly. "It appears that the station has decided to ignore our request for noninterference," she said as she settled back into her chair and looked at the display screen. The screen had increased magnification to display the group of fighters exiting the station in formation.
"Order the Warships Arvawn and Beldon and tell them to take up defensive positions around the Ghemor, defensive pattern Omicron-5. Direct the Ghemor to scramble Hideki fighters and stop any more Federation fighters from reaching the surface," Gul Vashur said sternly as she gripped her chair rest.
The two escorting Cardassian warships maneuvered skillfully through the fleet and took up defensive positions around the Cardassian fleet carrier. Each vessel took up a position on both the port and starboard side of the carrier, but then began to perform a series of slow rotations along the opposite side of the carrier, providing a rotating coverage of fire from any engaging vessel.
The Ghemor began launching a portion of its Hideki fighter complement from its aft bay. The fighters quickly came into a tight formation and made their way to engage the next wave of Starfleet fighters that were making their way towards the planet surface.
The area of space outside the station quickly devolved into a chaotic swirling storm of dogfighting starfighters and heavy weapons fire between the attacking Cardassian capital ships and the gargantuan space station.
Ensign Aranis looked up from the tactical station. "They're launching more fighters, sir. Permission to open fire?"
“Permission granted,” Caleb said. “Light ‘em up, Ensign.”
The Hekaran gave a brief nod, and then her fingers danced across the tactical station, and phasers flashed out, aiming for the tiny ships that dropped out of the Ghemor. She couldn't reach the capital ships, but the fighters had to pass into their arc of fire. Though hitting the small craft was far trickier than blasting a typical battleship. Then a handful of torpedoes streaked away. Aranis frowned. "Hardly any torpedoes responded, even from the upper batteries." She tried again. "Upper torpedo batteries are not responding at all now.”
Caleb cursed. “Keep firing. Hit what you can. We need to wait for Security to clear the torpedoes.”
To be Continued…
Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer
Major Mot Rixx
MXO
NPC-Haican
RSS Feed