Ensign Gates strolled over and stood by Lt. Ivanovna. "That looks terrible," she said, referring to a large bruise the Bristol's security chief had on her face. Ivanovna had received it in a struggle with her captors as they fought, in hand to hand combat for control of the Bridge. She and her fellow officers had lost, and that was eating away at her.
"Thanks," Katrina replied sarcastically. "I'll be sure and have it looked at by Dr. Giovanni just as soon as I can." She then went over to the new prisoner, who was awakening from what looked like a phaser stun. "Good to see you're still in one piece Lt. O'Shea," she said to him. He frowned at her and grunted for a reply as she helped him to his feet. "How do you feel?" Ivanovna asked him.
"Stupid," he replied, and then went into detail about the adventure he'd just had.
When he was done, Ivanovna merely shrugged her shoulders. "Don't worry about it too much Lieutenant; at least you tried. Now what we have to do is get out of here." She paced about for awhile, finally grabbing a crate and heaving it against the imprisoning force fields with all her might. It, of course, merely caused the field to shimmer, as the crate bounced harmlessly off. She growled at it and cursed their predicament under her breath.
"So, what do we do now?" Gates asked, with her hands on her hips. "How do we get out of this?"
"We wait patiently for an opportunity. I think time is on our side here; the longer they hold us, the greater the chance for an opportunity to escape," Lt. Ivanovna replied.
O'Shea shook his head. "We can't wait. We can't wait at all, Lieutenant!" He then went on to explain to the two other bridge officers the theory he'd formulated earlier, regarding the attack upon Del Ghulax Five.
Ivanovna sighed, a long irritated sigh, as she made a fist and smacked her other open palm with it. "Well, we still have time to play with. But, we'll have to make our own opportunity. The next time they feed us, we'll act. Some of us might get stunned, but if we're lucky, we'll be able to escape." She then looked at the others with a quizzical grin, "I wonder how Reiv is faring? All those years dodging Cardassians and all; you'd think he would've escaped by now." The others chuckled slightly at her teasing of the Bajoran helmsman, and tensions eased somewhat.
Reiv, in fact, had not escaped. He'd been given the 'honor' of watching, as his Romulan captors ruthlessly beat on his captain. It didn't even seem as though they even wanted anything out of him, they just wanted to beat him senseless. Despite all the things he'd seen under Cardassian occupation, little had compared to what he was seeing now. He didn't even understand why he, and Dr. Giovanni, and some others, were being made to watch this. He'd imagined that his captors were hoping to break their spirits by the display, but as far as he could tell, the only effect it was having was to anger the Bristol crew.
Thankfully, the captain eventually lapsed into unconsciousness, whereupon the Romulans laughed heartily and dragged him off. As the spectacle drew to a close, Reiv was nearly overcome by a wave of nausea over what he'd seen, all the while not understanding truly how this was so different than everything he'd witnessed on Bajor. He knew one thing though; he was beginning to hate Romulans as much as he hated the Cardassians. As he struggled to stay standing up, the doctor came over and grabbed his arm.
"You okay, Lieutenant?" she asked, her normally hyperactive and jovial attitude replaced by one more somber. Her eyes were both haunted and concerned.
Reiv merely nodded, and she left him alone with his thoughts.
Time passed for Lt. Ivanovna back in the cargo bay, as she quietly informed the other Bristol prisoners to be ready. As the time for their next meal came around, Ivanovna found herself lingering amongst a pile of crates; somewhat out of the way, but very close to the force fields protecting the door. At the appropriate time, the fields dropped, and an officer from the Monroe carrying trays of barely edible fare came in, flanked by two guards. Ivanovna's captors had seen fit to further insult their former Federation comrades by having the computer generate G-type standard rations. To many, including Ivanovna, "G" stood for 'gross' instead of 'general nutrition,' and she had vowed to make them pay for that, if nothing else. Months ago, she'd programmed the computer with several good recipes for her favorite Russian dishes, passed on to her by her aunt and her mother, and she was looking forward to eating them all upon her release.
As the crewman with the trays of food took a few steps into the room, O'Shea stepped forward out of the group of prisoners. "Hey!" he called out. "Ensign! Hey, didn't we go to the academy together?"
The bearer of food shook his head and scowled at Lt. O'Shea, as he set the food down. "Heh," O'Shea continued. "I always liked you. I never thought you'd sell out." The other man turned his back and began to walk out, as O'Shea proceeded with his insulting monologue. "People like you; your loyalties switch with the wind, and you don't even care, do you? You don't care that you've sold us out to the Romulans, allowed them access to Federation technology, do you?" The man stopped at this point, his back still turned to Lt. O'Shea. "Worst of all, you've shamed your family." O'Shea shook his head in mock pain. "Of course, there's your sister; from what I hear she's pretty much shamed herself alre...."
O'Shea's speech was cut off mid-word as the Ensign in question decided he'd heard enough insults, and the latter whirled around with his phaser and fired. The blast hit O'Shea full in the chest, and the Lieutenant flew backwards and landed awkwardly. Seconds before Ivanovna's charge, the other guards shot their phasers, cutting down two others. Ivanovna, making full use of her six foot six inch frame, gang tackled the three Monroe crewmen. A fierce fistfight broke out at that point, with Ivanovna, Gates, and company, coming out on top. Gates went to check on the three felled Bristol crew, while Ivanovna collected their ex-captor's weapons.
"They're still alive," Gates reported after a minute. "Though O'Shea is going to need medical attention at some point; this is the second or third 'stun' blast he's taken inside an hour. That wears on a person very badly."
Ivanovna nodded as she walked over to where Gates was standing over the barely conscious O'Shea. She knelt down on one knee and said, in a low voice, "Kinda took that one a little far didn't you?" O'Shea managed a smile and a gurgle for a response. She then patted his chest, "You did good, Lieutenant." Katrina then looked up at some of the other crew and made a motion with her arm. "Lift 'em up!" she said, referring to the stunned Bristol people. "We're not leaving anyone behind. And drag those traitors in here; I'll reactivate the fields once we're free, and trap them in the bay." The other officers followed her orders, and soon the group of ex-prisoners were making their way down the corridor. 'That went smoothly,' Ivanovna thought to herself. 'Most wouldn't have fallen for that, but these Monroe people have seemed kind of out of it since this whole thing began. Maybe they're drugged or something.' She almost hoped that was the case.
They reached a service entrance several yards down the hall. "This is where we break up," Ivanovna said. She pointed at an Ensign from the security division. "You," she said, then gesturing at the stunned crew and those that were carrying them, "and all of you, are coming with me to the Auxiliary Control Room. The rest of you; follow Ensign Gates, and retake Engineering. Try and activate the anti-intruder protocols if you can."
The groups split, with Ivanovna's continuing down the hall to a turbolift, and the others taking a ladder within the service entrance, down several decks to Engineering.
Gates' group had two of the three phasers that they'd confiscated from their captors at the cargo bay, so when they encountered resistance, they were slightly better prepared than Ivanovna's group would've been. The crew with Gates took up strategic positions in the hallway and began exchanging phaser fire with their enemies, which, included two Romulans amongst the Monroe crew.
Ensign Hammond, the Bristol officer other than Gates with a phaser, was hit almost immediately. A young woman came up and took his place as he was hauled back out of danger by his shipmates. The two young Ensigns managed a hit on one Romulan and one Monroe officer during the fight. They were so intent on the battle that they failed to notice the opaque gas which had begun pouring out of the ventilation systems, until they started coughing and sputtering because of it. Gates tried to gain access to a nearby room, but the door was locked from the inside. She banged futilely on the door a couple of times, her panic perhaps convincing her that breathable air lay beyond, but to no avail. Soon, she and the others in the corridor, friend and foe alike, were unconscious.
The effect had been ship-wide; everyone had been knocked out by the activation of the gas through out the ventilation systems. Minutes after the last humanoid slipped into unconsciousness, three more beamed aboard; all with life-support belts giving them a bubble of breathable air, along with a regenerative supply. The three, an Andorian, a Tellarite, and a Caitian, walked about the ship and surveyed their handiwork. Caitians were referred to simplistically as "cat-people" by Terrans as they, quite literally, were feline humanoids. The Caitians themselves didn't always appreciate the reference to the common Earth pet, similar to the reaction of some Terrans to being compared with apes.
"Well done Commander," the Tellarite said to the Andorian, with the Caitian purring in agreement, once the three had surveyed most critical areas of the Bristol, and had found everyone quite unconscious.
The Andorian merely smiled. "Aenesthrizine gets 'em every time," he said, shrugging. "Now let's get your ex-shipmates in the Brig, and mine awake and back in control of this ship, shall we?" The other two nodded in agreement.
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