EP 8 "EROWOON: PART II" - ACT III
Thirty volunteers were gathered on the sub-bridge of the
Fantasy yacht with Jackson addressing them from the top of the short flight of
stairs on the upper main bridge.
“Okay, so you know the plan.
Now for the teams,” people quietened, most in anticipation, some
from excitement and just a handful knowing all too well that this mission could
prove instantly fatal to any or all of them.
“Lieutenant O’Hara, you will be our point person,” she watched as all
the blood seemed to rush out of O’Hara’s face.
She appeared to immediately compose herself.
“Something wrong, Lieutenant?” the Commodore didn’t want
there to be any mistakes, so she couldn’t have someone who hesitated or fearful
of the task required of them. Knowing
her profile well, Jackson had thought that as an ex-marine with field
experience, O’Hara would be exemplary in carrying out her duties.
“No, Sir, you can count on me,” O’Hara said with pride.
She then cast her eyes down before looking
up at the Commodore again. Was there
some kind of distrust, or was it hate in the Nurse’s eyes?
Jackson wasn’t sure.
“Karless, Narli and Madison,” she continued, nodding at the
three big men, “you will provide cover, should you need to, and pull the
Lieutenant out if it becomes necessary.
Kluless, Lessing and Quatro, you will be in the secondary assault team
under the orders of Mister Car Pernalias-”
“Perrnahlius,” the gentrified brute corrected.
The resin skinned humanoid had been told
repeatedly to shut up, but his race had an affliction for speaking their mind,
and correcting others of any and all mistakes.
It was impossible for them to resist – only their clerics could manage
that, and then only after years and years of training.
Nevertheless, he was a real find for the Commodore.
He was not only a former soldier in the
Sharleyzi People’s Army, but he was honoured four times over for combat duty
while serving under the United Planets Reserve Force.
They were a back up peacekeeping force for the UFP, most often
despatched to far flung places of conflict to take over when Starfleet forces
and the Marine Corps moved out.
“Whatever,” Jackson wasn’t about to enter into another
debate. “In the meantime, Commander
Leonard with Crewman Able and Mister Dronus will disable the Romulan ship’s
systems. I will make our settlement
with the station’s clerk for a designated departure and coordinate things from
here with the Helan, who will be on standby to bring you out if things go
wrong.”
Ganhedra puffed and shook his head at this, the other Helan
seeming to hide behind him.
“Won’t the station authorities try to stop us?” Dronus
called out.
The German engineer replied for the Commodore.
“Only if they know it’s happening.
Right, Reb?”
“Right,” the half-Ferengi didn’t smile, as he thought his
task was the most dangerous of all.
* * *
“Oh, my head,” Christian moaned as he came to and managed to
haul himself up to a sitting position.
Ensign Souveson was crouched in the corner of their ‘cell’ in
shadow. “Ensign?”
She didn’t react at first, but then lifted her head.
“How are you feeling, Sir?”
Her voice was cracked.
“Come here, Fabrice,” he said warmly.
“Come on.”
He was speaking to her the way a parent would to a hurt child.
As the Ensign shuffled over, he could see she had been
crying. She also sported a black eye,
presumably from a beating while he’d been unconscious.
“Were we not together when the K’Tani holograms took over
the ship?” he asked.
“You know we were,” she said, almost disrespectfully.
“And we survived that one,” he said.
“Barely!” she snapped, thinking of her injuries.
“We’ll be fine,” he reassured her, but without any
foundation. He hoped Murak would help
them, or that Jackson would manage to pull something off.
Certainly he knew no-one would give up the
Yacht without a fight, but then most of them weren’t used to the metal of the
Romulans.
The Ensign wasn’t convinced of his reassurances either.
Her thoughts had turned to all those horror
stories relayed to her class about the Romulans while studying them at the
Academy. Initially she put them down to
mostly superstition, but when shown actual archive recordings of Romulan
torture and interrogation tactics during her Tactical Risks classes, she saw
the race for what they truly were. In a
sense, this was her worst nightmare – having been proud of joining up, eager to
get out into space and explore, her fate was only to die in terror and
humiliation with a man who barely knew her.
* * *
Yeoman Lirik had done his duty.
His mind was still reeling from the data obtained on each and
every ship in the Marina. Access to the
maintenance bay above was cut off due to substantial rupturing of that deck’s
inner hull and insufficient protective shields were in place.
Although they’d found a transport conduit
large enough for runabout size vessels to move from the maintenance deck up
through the Command section to beneath the main shuttle bay, this was firmly
sealed at either end. Entry had not
been possible so far.
So with time being of the essence, Lirik had inspected only
those ships stored in the many bays of the Marina.
Seventeen of the 37 vehicles were all differing types of Fantasy
launch, mostly for the purposes of ferrying passengers and cargo, or for
touring. The twenty others turned out
to be either ‘classics’ en route to the Federation Archive or private vehicles
left behind from the penultimate owner.
Only twelve of these turned out to be space-worthy, and only 8 of the 12
had shields and tactical capability.
Over a hurriedly installed temporary intercom to the M Deck,
Struckchev had requested that they meet to assign crew to the vessels for a
recon and possible assault on the unidentified craft beyond the nebula, and
could Lirik please report to Deck 7 Corridor ‘Zero’.
The turbolift took him the full distance to the uppermost,
rear-most area of the Command Section where the Yeoman exited into a very
narrow corridor. This ran even further
aft to a T-junction with steps going down on either side.
“To your right, Yeoman,” came the echoing voice of
Struckchev. Lirik descended the steep
stairs holding onto the guide rail, then along a short, spot-lit passage with
small doors spaced occasionally either side.
Another flight of steep stairs took him back up and into a corridor that
curved anticlockwise. Almost at the
midpoint, the corridor opened onto a circular room about 8 metres in
diameter. The corridor then continued
opposite, presumably back round the opposite side of the section and back to
the T junction, just like on Deck 1.
Half of the low domed room was panelled with black struts
arcing from floor to ceiling. This
forward part of the circle to his left was interrupted across the middle by a
large, also curved, smoked glass observation window.
One of the volunteer Helan engineers was beyond this in what
looked like a control room together with Hedrik.
Both seemed to be concentrating on something out of his vision.
To his right the aft-most circular wall was painted white
and made up of five small hatches, spaced slightly apart, and two observation
portholes at each end. The portholes
revealed a brightly lit chamber beyond.
Lirik worked out that each hatch led to a small ‘pod’ - peering through
the hatch observation windows, he could see the pods had some kind of padded
interior.
Beside the opposite corridor and next to the farthest
observation porthole, Struckchev was reaching inside an opened panel, attended
by two of the Helan assigned to Engineering.
Lirik, not wanting to disturb the tense concentration, walked to the
nearest pod hatch and peered inside.
The pod, it seemed, was similar to a four person lifeboat, only it
was more egg shaped, with the upper half made almost entirely from
plexiglass. The interior was plush.
The wide seat immediately in front of him
extended back into a day bed of sorts, surrounded by a low shelf which
contained a small food replicator and lcars panels to control lighting, heat,
atmosphere and music. Lirik smiled
looking at the small studs across and around the inside of the pod – incredible,
he thought, even HERE there was holographic capability.
He realised these were the famous ‘Love Bugs’ he’d read
about in one of Leonard’s reports – private egg shaped rooms for passengers to
be winched out into space for total privacy.
They could be towed – presumably not at warp! – behind the Fantasy,
surrounded by nothing but the stars.
What on Earth, Lirik wondered, could the Commander be doing here?
Struckchev finally withdrew from the maintenance pipe and
closed the panel. “Okay, open her up,”
the Commander yelled.
Lirik instinctively turned to watch the engineer behind the
glass reach out and press an unseen control.
The lighting around the pods in the brilliant white airlock died and
slowly a single bay door slid down into its housing behind the pods.
Some gasses were leaking inside the airlock,
but Struckchev activated some kind of fan to disperse them outside again.
This caused the nebula just outside the ship
to swirl more actively, and quickly he shut the fans off for fear of the
billowing movements to reveal their location to the K’Tani.
Slowly, Lirik saw that a small device was being winched out
on the end of a thin cable into the nebula outside.
Some kind of energy field kept the line taught and pointing
straight out. It was now clear, the
device was some kind of sensor node.
Struckchev was winching it out to the perimeter of the nebula where they
could obtain clearer sensor data of the space (and the vessel or vessels)
around them.
“Very good,” Lirik smiled and nodded his approval.
“Have you ascertained which vessels we should employ?” the
Russian Commander rubbed his thumb and index finger down his lengthening
moustache.
Lirik handed Struckchev the padd which gave small three
dimensional skeleton images of each ship and the primary statistics and
parameters for each. The Commander
nodded his way down the list, approving them all – a couple caused a raising of
eyebrows, clearly impressed.
“What about the pilots?” Struckchev asked.
Lirik knew who he would choose and was curious to find out
if the Commander would choose the same.
“I wanted to ask your opinion, actually.”
The Commander smiled, but didn’t mind being tested by the
Yeoman. As far as he was concerned,
their bet was still on – he was determined to show the Englishman he was better
than him.
“Well, myself and you, of course, Warnerburg, that Akabarian
woman Trigg, and the Berodan merchant,” the Commander gazed into the nebula,
watching the line disappear into the mists.
Lirik voiced his immediate concern.
“As the commander of this vessel, your place
is here, on the ship.”
Struckchev knew the rule book, but he felt in this instance
he should bend the rules – there was no other pilot he knew of, and there was
also no one he could leave behind in command.
Lirik could see the mental whirring in the Commander’s expression.
Was he scared?
Or did he realise Lirik was correct?
He couldn’t believe Struckchev would stand to be corrected in
front of others.
“You are right, of course,” Struckchev backed down, to the
Yeoman’s amazement.
Struckchev had decided it would look better to the Captain
if he followed protocol, even though he wanted to prove his piloting skills to
Lirik. He smiled to himself – perhaps
Lirik might perish and the contest would then be a moot point – and then he
chastised himself for such an awful, wicked thought.
“Well, we’re all set then.
Now, it’s just a waiting game,” Struckchev walked away into the far
corridor and adjoining passage leading to the control booth.
Lirik remained where he was for a while, he would return to
the M Deck to make preparations momentarily, but wanted to take the opportunity
to reflect on their current situation.
He paced the perimeter of the deck, but as he neared the
window he was distracted by a movement inside the booth.
The Helan engineer, facing him, could not
see that behind, Struckchev was gazing luridly at Hedrik’s rear end as she was
leaning over a console. The Russian
continued to ogle her for over a minute, all the while the Yeoman watching him.
Finally, Struckchev looked up, saw Lirik watching
him and quickly turned away to do something else.
Lirik smiled. The
guy was a letch of the worst kind. No
wonder it had led him to such an indis
* * *
Lieutenant O’Hara checked herself in the glass of a shop
window, closely studying the slightly distorted reflection.
To make their plan work smoothly, she had
ditched her foul stained uniform and borrowed a colourful blouse and pair of
slippers from the Helan. She had used a
scarf as a skirt and wrapped it around herself in a way that would expose most
of one leg up to the thigh. She untied
her hair and bunched it into a loose, flowing pony tail.
As a parting gesture, the Commodore had
unbuttoned more of the Lieutenant’s blouse to reveal her ample bosom.
O’Hara wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Her intention was to look enticing, but her
feeling was just of looking ‘cheap’.
Leonard had swallowed hard as he saw her walk down the ramp
into the station. She had given him a
wise crack, something like “What, never seen a pair of boobs before, Commander?”
and regretted her words since. The
German was clearly perfectly shy, and there she had gone with her big mouth
upsetting an innocent again.
Safely housed in her knickers was the lock scanner as
provided by Reb – he’d asked that no-one tell Lirik that he’d ‘borrowed’ it
from the Hudson – as well as the medical scanner, enhanced to almost tricorder
capability. Her phaser was strapped to
her hidden thigh, set on wide beam maximum stun, just in case.
She figured she could haul the Captain
easily, and Souveson wasn’t exactly large.
At that moment she remembered her findings that morning and hesitated.
She pressed on through the crowded corridors of the
station’s docking ring, glancing over her shoulder though not seeing the back
up team following stealthily some way behind.
Leonard should be at the pylon docking arm by now, she thought.
O’Hara knew she should easily spot the
disguised secondary assault team amongst the throngs once she reached the main
docking entrance.
Sure enough, there was Quatro and the three men – strangely
playing the part of drunks having a good time on bales of plas-sheeting someone
had ditched opposite the airlock to the Romulan ship.
To try and make them look more convincing, they had taken up
their position some time earlier.
O’Hara afforded a glance over to them – Quatro was either truly
inebriated, or a damned good little actress.
O’Hara’s luck was in.
From the way ahead, two Romulans approached carrying two large sacks
each. The rough material bulged
slightly, indicating containers within.
She stepped in their path and gave them her best sexy smile, thinking
that she wished Hedrik were here instead of her – she would be far more
convincing.
One of the Romulans nudged the other and grinned a crooked
smile. The other shook his head.
“Come on, we have duties.”
The roguish one stopped and walked over to O’Hara.
“Hi,” she said, coyly.
“Hello,” the man was leering at her less than several inches
away. She tried hard not to let her
repugnance show.
“Tamif!” the older Romulan barked.
The Romulan shrugged.
“Sorry,” he said. As he pulled
away, O’Hara caressed his face with her right hands, leaving a trace of
glitteriness behind.
“Maybe later, then,” she said and blew him a kiss as he went
into the gangway.
The moment his back was turned, O’Hara reached for the lock
scanner and pointed it at the Romulan airlock.
The lights all flashed green as the door opened then closed behind the
two men.
O’Hara turned and quickly tossed the lock device over to
Quatro, who deftly caught it in one hand and returned to her inebriated
behaviour. The Lieutenant took a deep
breath and walked up the gangway to the Romulan airlock.
Fixing a dumb look on her face, she knocked
on the door.
Presently it opened, this time another guard was there – a
female, and wearing a light purple and grey tunic.
O’Hara’s face dropped, she realised there would probably be no
getting around this one. Her mind could
jump to only one alternative – she only hoped the others in the rescue mission
could adapt to it.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” O’Hara
bellowed, imagining the immediate tension in the two groups in the corridors to
her rear as they saw it was a Romulan female and not a male.
“Oh, really?” the woman had a deep voice, and a thin lipped
sneer.
“My husband and sister, they brought you a Romulan man in
good faith,” O’Hara said.
Quatro was panicking.
What was O’Hara saying? Why
didn’t she just retreat? She was about
to signal in to the Commodore, as ordered if something went wrong.
Pernalias gripped her wrist softly shaking
his head while following the conversation across the way intently.
He was staring at the Romulan intently, trying to ‘read’
her. “Our Nurse believes this woman
wouldn’t fall for the planned response, and it was too late to withdraw – she
was committed,” he whispered.
“So she’s given a ridiculous story instead?!” Quatro was
incredulous.
Lessing turned his head toward the pretty Alpha
Centaurian. “All she needs do is get
inside and keep them occupied. That was
her main mission – how she does it is really up to her now.”
Pernalias frowned.
“But why do I sense she is so fearful for her own safety?”
Quatro glanced back toward the airlock as the Romulan drew a
weapon and urged O’Hara inside. She
remembered back to her studies of the Romulan Star Empire with horror while at
the Academy and interpreted the uniform and collar insignia with surprising
ease. “Tal Shiar…” she whispered.
* * *
Leonard, Able and Mister Dronus, a Vekarian colonist and orbital
farmer of the Ororan moon Urvadon in outer Qovakia (the other side of Qovakia),
stood beside the access port to the primary docking latch maintenance
shaft. Leonard checked his tricorder,
using it as a timepiece - Reb should be done about now.
Able glanced nervously at the Commander.
“How exactly is he going to distract station
operations from our activities?”
A small boom sounded from some way off, followed by the
sound of heavy rain on glass. A second
later, the corridor they stood in shuddered and klaxons sounded from the inner
part of the station. A nearby display
lit up with the message: Hull Breach Section One Nine Fifty, All Emergency
Personnel Respond, All Others Proceed Beyond Alert Area Perimeter.
It was an uninhabited, automated section of the station
Leonard had identified as being non-critical and easy to sabotage, a target
that would cause no harm but a great many power problems and such all over the
station if damaged. He figured it would
keep security stretched thin and operations busy for the next forty minutes or
so while they carried out their mission.
Leonard jemmied the lock and cut through part of the
surrounding casing plate with a small laser cutter – the whole hatch, lock
still intact, came away without raising alarm.
Quickly inside, the three scaled the fifteen metre shaft to the
operations booth. The booth was used
for manual docking, sensor downloads and maintenance checks – it also provided
access to the arm’s mechanisms.
Through the small portholes Leonard could see the Romulan
ship, large and green at this proximity, as it was immediately in front and
below the booth. An array of finer
docking arms at rest in the top of the main clamps on either side of the
vessel’s nose – clearly the booth could also manipulate these arms for minor
external repairs.
“Here goes,” Leonard activated the arm mechanisms and placed
a surface sensor cup on the hull of the ship.
Everyone waited for several heartbeats to see if the action would be
detected by those on board. An affirmative
beep came from the computer and all sighed with relief.
Crewman Able, below him, was assisting
Dronus in accessing the data interface.
“We’re in,” Able said.
“He’s accessing computer control-“
Dronus coughed lightly.
“Er…this may take some time, there are many security measures in
operation.”
“Try going via an obscure system, one that’s least likely to
be protected,” Leonard suggested. The
Lt Commander occasionally glanced down
at their progress as he rigged the arm for a number of counter measures should
things go wrong.
* * *
O’Hara was guided along a corridor with the phaser in her
back, observing the damage and guessing what her chances of escape might
be. The more she saw, the better she
felt the odds.
Turning a corner into a wide area, she realised this was a
crew mess of sorts.
“Sit,” the Romulan woman said.
O’Hara did so. Presently,
two other Tal Shiar officers entered the room and proceeded to search her.
They retrieved the phaser and medical
scanner.
“Is this a Tal Shiar covert ship?” O’Hara asked, sizing each
officer up. “What’s it doing in the
Outer Zone?”
No-one spoke. It
seemed they were waiting for someone.
“Look, don’t you think our two crews would be better working
together against the K’Tani?” she continued.
A large, old Romulan wearing regular military garb
entered. “At this rate, we won’t have
to ambush their ship for they will all be here instead,” he laughed
heartily. The Tal Shiar couldn’t bring
themselves to smile, just leer.
“Look, you’re clearly in need of our help,” O’Hara began,
nodding at the extensive damage.
The man laughed. “We
don’t need your help. As I told your
Captain. Or is he really your husband
as well?” Chahleth chuckled.
“With our ship disabled, it’s simpler to
just take yours and regroup with our Romulan forces.”
“What forces?
They’re all gone,” O’Hara frowned.
“Not all of them. We
escaped. So will others have.
And we will use your ship to find them,” he
looked delirious.
“The Fantasy?
Against the entire K’Tani fleet?” O’Hara scoffed.
She shifted to reveal a little more leg,
hoping to distract Chahleth, or failing that, interest him in her.
Chahleth bent close to her face.
“You make it sound like it’s impossible.
Despite the fact that is clearly what you
and your Captain have been doing for the past few weeks.”
The Lieutenant was stumped – he was right.
They had outwitted the K’Tani at every turn,
if only by a hair’s breadth. The ship
suddenly juddered. The intercom called
Chahleth to engineering at once.
“Put her with the others, stun them for the next few hours,”
he said and went to march out. O’Hara
unexpectedly launched herself forward and grabbed his hand with her right
fingers.
“Please, let me go,” she wailed.
“I … I can help you get the Fantasy.”
Chahleth pulled his hand from hers, not noticing the
glittery substance on them and belted O’Hara across the face, bloodying her
nose. Her head pulsated with pain –
there had been a slight whiplash, though she had turned to absorb a little of
the weight of the blow.
“Weaklings…” Chahleth commented and marched out of
site. The Tal Shiar female lifted her
to her feet and hauled her away, closely followed by the two other armed men.
One deck below and now resisting against the two Romulans,
O’Hara spotted Murak crouched just ahead, keenly working on something beyond
the wall.
“You!” O’Hara shouted angrily, pulling forward.
Murak was shocked, but also intrigued as to why the Nurse
was winking at him while trying to get closer.
Wriggling free of one Romulan’s grasp, O’Hara pulled her
foot back and kicked Murak hard in the ribs – winding him and sending him and a
dozen tools scattering across the floor.
The two men securely grasped O’Hara and hauled her forward
with renewed agression. The Romulan Tal
Shiar woman hung back, standing over the prone form of Murak smiling – she had
enjoyed seeing the female Human kick this little pup who had allowed himself to
be captive of the Starfleet people.
* * *
ACT 4