Tala sighed and leaned against the nearest available surface. Dr. Reynolds came up and offered a PADD.
"Well Kayla?" Tala asked. "My own preliminary examination confirms what the docs here found. I'll have to run some tests in the next few days on one other detail but... I have a feeling he left her with a reminder of this day," Reynolds replied. "I have a feeling he did intend to kill her, but not before making her suffer in every way possible, and on the off chance she survived... still make her suffer. Admiral... perhaps it would be best to discuss this somewhere a little less public."
Nat replied, "agreed", and 8 of 14 motioned to the empty medical lab on the other side of his office. Nat walked over in there, waited for Kayla to follow him in, then closed the door behind them.
"I do not know." Lyras replied, "Currently, I have not been given a mission, though that will no doubt change soon enough..."
"Captain! Y-you're alive!" A young man with fiery red hair and a slight Irish accent, made his way to where the two captains were standing. "I can't believe it! When I talked to Commander Lissan earlier, she said that she couldn't sense you! We all thought you were-"
"O'Donnell..." Lyras interjected, raising her brow slightly in warning. "How many of the crew made it?"
His expression sobered. "Only... only those of us who were on the bridge when... well, you know..." he trailed off. "So... five, including you."
"Five..." Lyras whispered, closing her eyes for a moment, before remembering captain Elric. "Captain Elric, this is Lieutenant Commander Kieran O'Donnell, my Chief of Operations."
"Pleasure to meet you, Commander," Elric nodded to the Chief. He then looked at both of them. "I'm sorry about your crew, Captain Lyras. Sounds like things were rough? I lost my own crew as well during a Na'khul attack. I'm still in mission limbo. Though, I'm forced to wonder if they just want to keep me around Spacedock as a result."
Captain Sarah Walker and Captain Sarah Walker - Earth Spacedock
Sarah walked in, and waved to Elric, then continued over to center area, glancing at the holographic display of the system, and then looking over various reports.
Minutes later, another Sarah came in, seemingly didn't notice the Sarah standing by the center console, and walking over to Elric. "Heya. How's the whole thing going on with those Caitians and that El-Aurian artifact?"
Upon hearing Elric mention the Na'kuhl, Lyras narrowed her eyes. So they're active in this timeline as well... Lyras watched a woman come up to the three of them, a woman who looked exactly like the one who was studying a console nearby. Just then, she felt a nudge from O'Donnell. So he'd noticed it, too. She gave him the tiniest of nods.
"Well, Captain, I'd better go round up the others. It was nice meeting you, sir." he bobbed his head at Captain Elric, good-natured as ever despite the situation.
Just then, she heard the combadge Daniels had given her chirp. Ignoring it, she nodded to the duo.
"I had better go as well. It was nice meeting you, Captain." With that, she ambled casually over so that she was now on the other side of the woman currently in conversation with Captain Elric.
In a flurry of action, she tapped her combadge, spun around, and aiming for the nerves at the base of the neck, attempted to deliver a Vulcan Neck Pinch.
O'Donnell heard his combadge chirp. The signal! As smoothly and discreetly as he could he pulled out his phaser, and having previously walked over to stand behind the woman examining the console, aimed his weapon at her head. "Excuse me, Miss," the Irishman said conversationally, "Would you mind turning around slowly? I've got a phaser trained at your head right now, and I'd hate to have to use it."
Sarah and Sarah quickly glanced at the two officers. The Sarah by the console raised an eyebrow. "What's your problem?"
The Sarah by Elric dodged the incoming nerve pinch, grabbed Lyras' arm and twisted it behind her, pulling out her phaser. "So you mind explaining why you're running around delivering nerve pinches, captain?"
Scott, still by the ensign, glanced over at the various events, pulling out his phaser, not sure which Sarah to aim the weapon at, but eventually aimed for the Sarah that had now subdued Lyras. "Alright, which one of you is the real one, and which one of you in the Undine... or Changeling... or other assorted shapeshifter..."
The 2 Sarahs glanced at each other. They seemed confused.
Elric crossed his arms. "Hm. Let's run a blood test," he suggested as Doctor Melzine was entering Operations.
"What??" the human Doctor widened his eyes in shock. "If I had known you guys were engaging in shenanigans, I would've stayed in the Infirmary!"
The Captain rolled his eyes at the old man. "Just do the thing, please."
"Fine, but you owe me an hour of calibration and review for your cybernetic arm for each test I take. Since that's two tests, that's two hours," the cranky man took out a blood screener from his carrying case and approached the Sarah in front of Elric first. He pressed it to her arm.
Nothing happened. The Sarah by the console seemed genuinely surprised that the Sarah by Elric was a fake. Scott looked horrified. "THEY'RE BOTH FAAAAAAAKES!"
The Sarah by Elric started growing into a large, imposing looking Undine, and swatted the nearby officers away with ease. The Sarah by O'Donnell grabbed him with an extended changeling arm and threw him into a wall, then glared at the Undine, who glared back, as Scott moved to try to prevent them from reaching Admiral Quinn in his office, but the Undine lunged at him, knocking him down while the changeling started fighting off security officers.
Elric leapt to his feet and accessed a nearby console. "Clear the Changeling!" he ordered. He then put a forcefield around Changeling Sarah. On another console, he noticed a warning message notifying Operations that there was suddenly invasive technology located in the cargo bays. It appeared as if the anti-Undine devices were phase-shifting into their universe and malfunctioning.
He brought up the cargo bay scans and looked at the data quickly.
"Well, there they are. But they appear to be broken now, possibly by what suppressant this Undine is using."
Doctor Melzine got up, annoyed. "Are you going scan things, or are you going to deal with the situation?" He threw Elric a hypo. "Anti-Undine nanoprobes. I never pack a medical kit without them."
"You sure are prepared for things," Elric observed. He then approached the Undine Sarah and readied the hypo in his cybernetic hand. "Stand down. Are you with Captain Jade's armada?"
The Undine, seemingly angered by the thought, swatted Elric away, glaring at him. Now, Elric somehow just knew that the Undine was very angry now; they were probably an enemy of the armada. Armor materialized on the Undine, as did a ground-scale antiproton cannon on the Undine's wrist, aiming the miniature planet-killer at Melzine, while motioning for them all to put their weapons down.
The changeling, by now, was standing there, glancing at the Undine. "For some reason I sense that we're here for the same thing." They turned to Elric, continuing. "Stand down and give us what we want, and no one will be harmed."
The changeling went to say something, but the Undine motioned them to stop, whilst looking at the Sally, hovering outside the window.
The Undine narrowed it's eyes at the dreadnought, quickly turned to Elric, then abruptly shot the window, blasting it open and venting the air and numerous redshirts out into space, as the Undine darted out the window moments before a force field materialized and went flying at the Sally. Before the Undine even hit the ship, the ship had already visibly lost power.
Undine - U.S.S. Sally, Outside
The Undine smashed a window open and forced itself inside the vessel before a force field (powered by emergency power) appeared.
Admiral Nat - U.S.S. Sally, Main Sickbay
The lights went out completely, but then the room lit up from the lights on the armor of the two MACOs, and a red glow from 8 of 14's eyepiece. Nat turned to them furiously. "What the hell was that!?"
The MACO paused for a moment, evidently communicating with someone outside, then replied to the admiral. "Main power and auxiliary power were taken down by an Iconian computer virus. We have a security breach, apparently from a single Undine operative. Internal sensors and all communications are down, aside from the MACO comms, which are barely online."
Nat sighed, and turned to 8 of 14. "8, recommendations?"
8 of 14 replied. "I'd guess the Undine may be affiliated with the Undine faction of the Behemoth. They may be here for Krystal."
Unpredictably, an Elachi skitterer jumped out of nowhere and attached itself to one of the MACOs, but was fortunately shot down before it exploded. 8 of 14 motioned to a panel on the wall. "We have a couple of weapons stored here for emergencies. I recommend we arm ourselves."
Nat pulled out a phaser rifle, then a personal shield unit, passing the other shield unit to 8 of 14, which he denied. Nat passed it, and the other rifle, to the Lexington officers. 8 of 14 spoke up. "I always have personal shields. They're built-in, remember?"
The admiral nodded. "Yeah, I know. Let's plan... something."
"O'Donnell, you all right?" Lyras asked, as O'Donnell made his way over to her after the confusion.
"I guess..." he lowered his voice, "But what the hell is happening? What were those... things?"
"I don't know." The Vulcan replied quietly. "But whatever they are, they're obviously hostile. But never mind that now. We still have to deal with... that other shapeshifter. Listen, get the rest of the crew together, let them know what's happened. I'll contact you if there's any further developments."
Lryas watched O'Donnell leave for a moment, before walking over to captain Elric.
"Are you all right?" she asked, "We still need to deal with the other shifter, remember. Do you know who's ship that is?" the Vulcan inquired, indicating the one that the other creature had leapt on after breaking the Spacedock's window.
Scott walked over, glancing at Lyras. "The creature that jumped out the window was an Undine. The guy in the forcefield is a Changeling, more specifically one of the Founders, leaders of the Dominion. That ship is the U.S.S. Sally, Admiral Nat's flagship, and current host to Captain Krystal Jade, secret leader of a massive armada that is spread across the galaxy. My guess is they're all here to catch her."
Scott turned to Elric. "We need to get Krystal out of there. Any ideas?"
U.S.S. Sally, Deck 12, Main Sickbay
Nat, 8 of 14, and the MACOs aimed weapons at the door. 8 of 14 eyed the door closely. "Na'kuhl weapons."
The door blasted open and Na'kuhl operatives came in, as the MACOs opened fire.
One of the operatives fell down as a MACO shot him, and the only other operative summoned a distortion. Nat shot down the distortion, and they took out the other operative. The living one groaned, and Nat walked over, grabbing him by the uniform.
"Who are you? How'd you get on my ship?"
The Na'kuhl replied. "Your stupid transporter inhibitors don't work against our technology, admiral. I'll tell you nothing."
Nat replied sharply. "You were here for Krystal so you could steal the Infamous armada command codes to use the armada in the temporal war. You also failed."
The operative groaned, discreetly reaching for a hypo. "Good guess." Before anyone could stop him, the Na'kuhl injected himself with the hypo, killing him instantly. Nat looked up at Tala. "We need to get off the ship."
"Lexington's still undergoing repairs, and some wiseguy decided it was a good time to perform a refit as well," Tala replied. "So that's not exactly an option."
"I'd hate to do this to her but she'll be more mobile if we wake her up," Kayla said. "Right now she's just dead weight and would slow us down unless you got a particularly strong soldier."
Nat shrugged. "We've got really strong soldiers, but they're all off duty. They could be anywhere. Wake her up."
8 of 14 didn't seem to like the idea, but kept quiet. Nat continued. "If main power is down, the transporters are probably offline. We'll have to make a run for the shuttlebay if we..."
They heard a noise that rocked the ship. After that, it was quiet again. "...huh?"
They heard screams in the distance, and loud clicking of Tholians barking orders to other Tholians. Nat sighed. "Hurry. The ship may have been taken elsewhere, given the noise. We really need to go find our other guys, probably in main engineering, and take control of the situation."
Earth Spacedock
Scott rushed over to the nonexistent window filled with forcefield, at the empty space that once contained the Sally. "They just disappeared into subspace. The Elachi probably took the ship."
U.S.S. Sally, Bridge
Most of the crew had already left the bridge to contact other officers to begin making repairs, so only a few junior officers remained. An Elachi Predator walked in the door, gunning down the officers. One screamed as he died. Another reached for a phaser to return fire, but he too was shot down. In moments, the bridge was under Elachi control. The Elachi reached to his communicator. "I have the bridge. Lock the tractor beam and set course for the base."
Winning.
"Got the guy who did this to her?" she asked.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
"Well Kayla?" Tala asked.
"My own preliminary examination confirms what the docs here found. I'll have to run some tests in the next few days on one other detail but... I have a feeling he left her with a reminder of this day," Reynolds replied. "I have a feeling he did intend to kill her, but not before making her suffer in every way possible, and on the off chance she survived... still make her suffer. Admiral... perhaps it would be best to discuss this somewhere a little less public."
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
"Captain! Y-you're alive!" A young man with fiery red hair and a slight Irish accent, made his way to where the two captains were standing. "I can't believe it! When I talked to Commander Lissan earlier, she said that she couldn't sense you! We all thought you were-"
"O'Donnell..." Lyras interjected, raising her brow slightly in warning. "How many of the crew made it?"
His expression sobered. "Only... only those of us who were on the bridge when... well, you know..." he trailed off. "So... five, including you."
"Five..." Lyras whispered, closing her eyes for a moment, before remembering captain Elric. "Captain Elric, this is Lieutenant Commander Kieran O'Donnell, my Chief of Operations."
USS Phoenix-X Literary Index | Comics | New story: "Sea of Artifacts"
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Nat came out as well.
Captain Sarah Walker and Captain Sarah Walker - Earth Spacedock
Sarah walked in, and waved to Elric, then continued over to center area, glancing at the holographic display of the system, and then looking over various reports.
Minutes later, another Sarah came in, seemingly didn't notice the Sarah standing by the center console, and walking over to Elric. "Heya. How's the whole thing going on with those Caitians and that El-Aurian artifact?"
Winning.
Lyras watched a woman come up to the three of them, a woman who looked exactly like the one who was studying a console nearby. Just then, she felt a nudge from O'Donnell. So he'd noticed it, too. She gave him the tiniest of nods.
"Well, Captain, I'd better go round up the others. It was nice meeting you, sir." he bobbed his head at Captain Elric, good-natured as ever despite the situation.
Just then, she heard the combadge Daniels had given her chirp. Ignoring it, she nodded to the duo.
"I had better go as well. It was nice meeting you, Captain." With that, she ambled casually over so that she was now on the other side of the woman currently in conversation with Captain Elric.
In a flurry of action, she tapped her combadge, spun around, and aiming for the nerves at the base of the neck, attempted to deliver a Vulcan Neck Pinch.
O'Donnell heard his combadge chirp. The signal! As smoothly and discreetly as he could he pulled out his phaser, and having previously walked over to stand behind the woman examining the console, aimed his weapon at her head. "Excuse me, Miss," the Irishman said conversationally, "Would you mind turning around slowly? I've got a phaser trained at your head right now, and I'd hate to have to use it."
The Sarah by Elric dodged the incoming nerve pinch, grabbed Lyras' arm and twisted it behind her, pulling out her phaser. "So you mind explaining why you're running around delivering nerve pinches, captain?"
Scott, still by the ensign, glanced over at the various events, pulling out his phaser, not sure which Sarah to aim the weapon at, but eventually aimed for the Sarah that had now subdued Lyras. "Alright, which one of you is the real one, and which one of you in the Undine... or Changeling... or other assorted shapeshifter..."
The 2 Sarahs glanced at each other. They seemed confused.
Winning.
"What??" the human Doctor widened his eyes in shock. "If I had known you guys were engaging in shenanigans, I would've stayed in the Infirmary!"
The Captain rolled his eyes at the old man. "Just do the thing, please."
"Fine, but you owe me an hour of calibration and review for your cybernetic arm for each test I take. Since that's two tests, that's two hours," the cranky man took out a blood screener from his carrying case and approached the Sarah in front of Elric first. He pressed it to her arm.
USS Phoenix-X Literary Index | Comics | New story: "Sea of Artifacts"
The Sarah by Elric started growing into a large, imposing looking Undine, and swatted the nearby officers away with ease. The Sarah by O'Donnell grabbed him with an extended changeling arm and threw him into a wall, then glared at the Undine, who glared back, as Scott moved to try to prevent them from reaching Admiral Quinn in his office, but the Undine lunged at him, knocking him down while the changeling started fighting off security officers.
Winning.
He brought up the cargo bay scans and looked at the data quickly.
"Well, there they are. But they appear to be broken now, possibly by what suppressant this Undine is using."
Doctor Melzine got up, annoyed. "Are you going scan things, or are you going to deal with the situation?" He threw Elric a hypo. "Anti-Undine nanoprobes. I never pack a medical kit without them."
"You sure are prepared for things," Elric observed. He then approached the Undine Sarah and readied the hypo in his cybernetic hand. "Stand down. Are you with Captain Jade's armada?"
USS Phoenix-X Literary Index | Comics | New story: "Sea of Artifacts"
The changeling, by now, was standing there, glancing at the Undine. "For some reason I sense that we're here for the same thing."
They turned to Elric, continuing. "Stand down and give us what we want, and no one will be harmed."
Winning.
USS Phoenix-X Literary Index | Comics | New story: "Sea of Artifacts"
The Undine narrowed it's eyes at the dreadnought, quickly turned to Elric, then abruptly shot the window, blasting it open and venting the air and numerous redshirts out into space, as the Undine darted out the window moments before a force field materialized and went flying at the Sally. Before the Undine even hit the ship, the ship had already visibly lost power.
Undine - U.S.S. Sally, Outside
The Undine smashed a window open and forced itself inside the vessel before a force field (powered by emergency power) appeared.
Admiral Nat - U.S.S. Sally, Main Sickbay
The lights went out completely, but then the room lit up from the lights on the armor of the two MACOs, and a red glow from 8 of 14's eyepiece. Nat turned to them furiously. "What the hell was that!?"
The MACO paused for a moment, evidently communicating with someone outside, then replied to the admiral. "Main power and auxiliary power were taken down by an Iconian computer virus. We have a security breach, apparently from a single Undine operative. Internal sensors and all communications are down, aside from the MACO comms, which are barely online."
Nat sighed, and turned to 8 of 14. "8, recommendations?"
8 of 14 replied. "I'd guess the Undine may be affiliated with the Undine faction of the Behemoth. They may be here for Krystal."
Unpredictably, an Elachi skitterer jumped out of nowhere and attached itself to one of the MACOs, but was fortunately shot down before it exploded. 8 of 14 motioned to a panel on the wall. "We have a couple of weapons stored here for emergencies. I recommend we arm ourselves."
Nat pulled out a phaser rifle, then a personal shield unit, passing the other shield unit to 8 of 14, which he denied. Nat passed it, and the other rifle, to the Lexington officers. 8 of 14 spoke up. "I always have personal shields. They're built-in, remember?"
The admiral nodded. "Yeah, I know. Let's plan... something."
Winning.
"We never get a break..." Tala sighed.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
The MACO turned to Nat. "Word has it there's a changeling on ESD that's probably with the alliance, so there will probably be Heralds here, too."
"And Elachi, too. Given Krystal's connections, there could be anyone here trying to catch her!"
Someone started cutting through the door with a plasma rifle.
Winning.
"O'Donnell, you all right?" Lyras asked, as O'Donnell made his way over to her after the confusion.
"I guess..." he lowered his voice, "But what the hell is happening? What were those... things?"
"I don't know." The Vulcan replied quietly. "But whatever they are, they're obviously hostile. But never mind that now. We still have to deal with... that other shapeshifter. Listen, get the rest of the crew together, let them know what's happened. I'll contact you if there's any further developments."
Lryas watched O'Donnell leave for a moment, before walking over to captain Elric.
"Are you all right?" she asked, "We still need to deal with the other shifter, remember. Do you know who's ship that is?" the Vulcan inquired, indicating the one that the other creature had leapt on after breaking the Spacedock's window.
"I'm open to ideas," she said.
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Scott turned to Elric. "We need to get Krystal out of there. Any ideas?"
U.S.S. Sally, Deck 12, Main Sickbay
Nat, 8 of 14, and the MACOs aimed weapons at the door. 8 of 14 eyed the door closely. "Na'kuhl weapons."
The door blasted open and Na'kuhl operatives came in, as the MACOs opened fire.
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
"Who are you? How'd you get on my ship?"
The Na'kuhl replied. "Your stupid transporter inhibitors don't work against our technology, admiral. I'll tell you nothing."
Nat replied sharply. "You were here for Krystal so you could steal the Infamous armada command codes to use the armada in the temporal war. You also failed."
The operative groaned, discreetly reaching for a hypo. "Good guess."
Before anyone could stop him, the Na'kuhl injected himself with the hypo, killing him instantly.
Nat looked up at Tala. "We need to get off the ship."
Winning.
"I'd hate to do this to her but she'll be more mobile if we wake her up," Kayla said. "Right now she's just dead weight and would slow us down unless you got a particularly strong soldier."
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
8 of 14 didn't seem to like the idea, but kept quiet. Nat continued. "If main power is down, the transporters are probably offline. We'll have to make a run for the shuttlebay if we..."
They heard a noise that rocked the ship. After that, it was quiet again. "...huh?"
They heard screams in the distance, and loud clicking of Tholians barking orders to other Tholians.
Nat sighed. "Hurry. The ship may have been taken elsewhere, given the noise. We really need to go find our other guys, probably in main engineering, and take control of the situation."
Earth Spacedock
Scott rushed over to the nonexistent window filled with forcefield, at the empty space that once contained the Sally. "They just disappeared into subspace. The Elachi probably took the ship."
U.S.S. Sally, Bridge
Most of the crew had already left the bridge to contact other officers to begin making repairs, so only a few junior officers remained. An Elachi Predator walked in the door, gunning down the officers. One screamed as he died. Another reached for a phaser to return fire, but he too was shot down. In moments, the bridge was under Elachi control. The Elachi reached to his communicator. "I have the bridge. Lock the tractor beam and set course for the base."
Winning.
"Well... that's a helluva wake up..." Kayla sighed.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Winning.