Quietly Does It Part I
Posted on Thu Aug 22nd, 2024 @ 2:05pm by Commander Mariko Tao & Captain Marc Kidd & Lieutenant Christopher Blake & Lieutenant Sorine Kaida & Lieutenant Vincent 'Ghost' Zandrell & Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn & Cassandra Frost
Edited on on Thu Aug 29th, 2024 @ 1:44am
2,826 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2 - The Sins of History
Location: Shuttlebay - Deck 8 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD010 1400 hrs
Mariko had given Zandrell a quick 5 minutes to go and replicate his transporter-gun as she'd started to call it. She was sure though it had a much better and catchier name. Walking into the shuttlebay she nodded to the petty officer manning the station by the door. "There will be a few of us potentially going onto the station currently on scanners. We'll be using a shuttlecraft as transporters don't work in the Badlands, I'll let you know which when Captain Kidd let's me know what the plan is."
"Yes, ma'am." the petty officer responded.
Mariko internally flinched. She hated ma'am, she felt it made her sound old. However, she quickly brushed it off and nodded at the younger man as she waited for Frost, Zandrell and any others to arrive.
Walking into the shuttlebay, Cassie nodded to Mariko before moving off to one side and starting one last check on her equipment, "Looking forward to stretching your legs?"
"Ms Frost, nice to finally meet you. We'll be stretching our wings first." Mariko bowed her head slightly as she spoke. "Lieutenant Zandrell is just quickly replicating a transporter-gun like weapon and will join us soon, and I've called Lieutenant Blake down to get us there. I'm sure they won't be long. The Cardassian's wont give Vamcet up unless it is for their benefit. Do you have any experience of a Nor class station?"
Sarah stepped into the shuttlebay, engineering kit in hand, just in time to overhear Mariko's question to Cassandra and she approached the duo. She too checked her equipment and then glanced over the other two quietly. "Sorry to interject, I know that you weren't addressing me but as I am joining the situation a touch late it seems I thought it prudent to let you know what I didn't mention earlier; that being that I have experience and familiarity with Cardassian systems, though I haven't been aboard a Nor class station."
Mariko turned to face the red haired woman and nodded. "Thank you Lieutenant. I'm sure your experience with their systems will prove to be quite helpful when we board. Hopefully Lieutenant Blake can get us there with little cause for concern." she said with hope as she waited for the others to arrive.
“The Nor Class station isn’t the kind of station you want to mess around with” Cassie said as she looked to Mariko, “even the with the way the Cardassians used to run them, they are quite a formidable defence platform. Most of my experience comes from Deep Space 9 and Empok Nor so I’ve never actually seen a fully functional Cardassian run station”
Chris walked into the shuttle bay just as the deck trembled. His replacement better keep the ship in one piece while he was gone. He walked over to the Leto and tapped in his command code, opening the rear facing hatch of the Delta Flyer class runabout. It was bigger, but they needed something with enough maneuverability in these storms.
Kaida followed shortly behind him feeling as if she were late. She'd been distracted lately. Distracted from this mission, and she couldn't explain why. It was just a feeling. A feeling she wasn't familiar with and didn't understand where it was coming from. Kaida followed Chris into the shuttle and sat down, forgoing any small talk with the others as she usually did.
"We'll be ready to leave shortly," The pilot said as he walked inside and took his place at the pilot console. Unlike the Paris design, this had the standard touch screens common to the rest of the Starfleet craft. Part of him wondered what it would feel like to have an actual throttle in his hands. "Let me know when you're all here and kitted out."
Vincent jogged through the doors of the shuttlebay. He had his EM-33 in his shoulder holster and a long suitcase in his hand. He was able to access the schematics, but it took a bit longer than necessary. A message here and a promise there finally got him what he needed. All that was left to see if there would be any backlash from it.
As he stepped onto the shuttle, he placed the long case onto a shelf and motioned for Frost and Tao to approach. "It took some jumping but I got it." Vincent tapped in the code to unlock the case and opened it. Inside were four Naussican hand-held weapons that have been modified to fire the projectiles that held the transporter rounds. He removed one from its holder and held it up. "Watch closely, boys and girls, because this is transporter gun 101. You take the cartridge with the projectiles that hold the transporter tag. You slide it in, like so." He took a cartridge from inside the case and slipped it into the slot under the square body. "Click means you are locked in." Vincent tilted the weapon slightly to show a red light. "Red means safety is on. Flip this switch right here." He ease a small switch on the handle by his thumb upwards as the light turned green. "Green means safety is off." Vincent than flipped the switch again and handed the weapon to Mao. "Six rounds. I replicated each of us one clip so, lets not get sloppy, yeah?"
Sarah had paused on her way to the runabouts front seats to man the Engineering side of the flight controls. She gave a small whistle at the design of the transporter gun and made a mental note to examine them outside of the field later. She patted her hip to check that she had her phaser and then stepped past the group gathered around the suitcase and took the seat behind Chris. “Very nice work on those transporter guns, Lieutenant Zandrell.” She glanced over to Mariko and then turned in her seat to face forward. “I will handle the engineering station on the flight over, Lieutenant Blake.”
"Acknowledged." Chris replied as he completed the final pre-flight checks. "We're working on a narrower shield modulation than usual, between the storms and possible sensors from the station we don't want to attract attention."
"Good idea, Lieutenant. I'd rather not show our hand before we need to and once the captain gives us notification of how his conversation has gone with the stations commander we'll know if we need to leave at all." Mariko responded to Blake.
looking over the weapon, Cassie thought it felt a little heavy for its purpose, but then again she'd never designed one before so who was she to speak. "Seems simple enough."
Vincent approached Lieutenant Graesyn and took a seat by her. "Lieutenant... I had a thought. Maybe you can help me with the execution."
“I am listening.” Sarah set to work getting Engineering pre-flights started while she waited to hear Zandrell’s idea.
"The way these transporter rounds work is as a tag for the transporter system it’s linked to. Shoot someone. It hits them and the transporter then runs a program that locks onto that tag and runs the sequence to transport them. Normally, this leads to the transporter pad of choice or the brig." He paused slightly and took a second to gather his wording before continuing. "Being in the Badlands, we can't transport Vamcet or whoever onto the Artemis, which leaves the shuttle. Without a proper secured area to hold them, having them on the shuttle, may be risky. So, I had a thought." Vincent paused again, taking a slight breath before clearing his throat. "Is there a way to adjust the program to stop mid-sequence so, the pattern we send, is locked in the buffer? I heard rumors of Starfleet Officers, even other species, using the transporter system to capture their patterns in the buffer itself which. If done properly, the pattern gets preserved, which prevents it from being lost. What do you think?"
Sarah cocked her head slightly as she mulled the idea over and then held out a hand. “Let me see one of the guns? I’m going to have to work quickly to get it achieved but I think I can adjust the program they trigger to achieve that effect. I highly recommend that we erect a level-10 force field at the back of the runabout so that if my adjustment fails we can set the program to alternately transport into the area contained by it.”
Vincent smiled back as he reached to his side and removed the transport gun he took for himself out of its holster. He flipped it slightly so the handle end was facing Sarah as he handed it to her. "Here you go." He held onto his smile as he continued. "Smart idea, by the way. Thinking of a back-up in the event the program doesn't kick in."
Sarah let slip a small grin at the praise as she took the weapon. “Thanks, but it’s really just a measure born of CYA, something I had to learn to do the hard way.” Once she had the weapon in hand she laid it on the front of her console and pulled out a tricorder, doing an in depth scan of it and after a few moments she was able to pull up the program on one of the auxiliary screens of the console. “Got it; Lieutenant Blake how long is the flight over going to take in your estimate? If all goes according to plan?”
"Not long at all. 15 to 20 minutes from launch to transporter range." Chris replied as the lights within the Leto dimmed in preparation for launch. The shuttle bay doors slowly slid open and the orange and red storms lit up the room and caused the shadows to dance across the consoles.
“I’ll have to work fast then; Lieutenant Zandrell how familiar with the program are you? It might be faster if we work together to make the adjustments…. I am going to have to re-align the pattern buffers for the runabout in order to ensure that we can get a solid lock… may have to tap directly into runabout sensors to do it but I’m not sure.” Came Sarah’s response even as she adjusted the runabouts shield frequency slightly to hopefully avoid direct plasma discharges.
A conversation then took place between Lieutenants Zandrell and Graesyn.
"We have permission to launch," Chris continued. "Buckle in and hold on."
The Leto lifted easily from the flight deck and hummed as it moved forward through the shields and into the storms outside the safety of the Artemis. Even with the inertial dampeners, as soon as they were clear of the ship the Flyer rocked to the port before Chris managed to stabilize it once again. There were two schools of flying in The Badlands; 'slow and steady' or 'get in and out as fast as you can'. Chris was a fan of the second school as was evidenced by the barrel roll to avoid a plasma discharge that came close to their starboard nacelle.
Kaida caught herself off guard as the shuttle suddenly rolled but she smiled at the compliment given to Chris and adjusted her legs to a wider stance in her chair. He was really coming out of his shell lately and it made her happy to see it.
Sarah held onto her console as Blake executed and chuckled slightly. “I can see the kind of pilot you are, glad we have someone skilled to man the helm.”
Chris nodded, only a few short days ago he'd have really went inside himself and shied away from such a comment. Between talking with Kaida and some of the other crew, he was getting more comfortable with his position and accepting of what others thought of them. "Just trying to get us in and out in one piece."
"One piece is definitely preferable." Kaida finally spoke up. "I hate having to clean up other people's messes."
Another plasma discharge shot along the underside of the Leto before arcing into another turbulent area of The Badlands. A warning light flashed on his console but Chris ignored it after a quick glance. Either a sensor was malfunctioning with all the interference or they'd just blown both nacelles and lost cabin pressure. They were still moving and breathing so he wasn't concerned.
Sarah exclaimed “Got it!” As the plasma discharge arced away and she eyed the diagram of the runabouts shields as the modulation inputs she had been working on took effect. “That should buy you a little breathing room and as long as the shields hold up the plasma discharges should redirect off of us harmlessly.” should she repeated internally and offered a small silent prayer before she pulled up the code for the transporter gun again and went back to work on it.
There was something oddly beautiful about the Badlands, at least to Mariko. She sat next to Blake up front and even though he was doing most of the work she still had some time to be in awe of his piloting abilities as much as the rest of the crew on board. "The station still hasn't detected us. You're doing a good job, Lieutenant Blake." she then looked towards Graesyn and then back to Blake. "We need to dock with/board the station without being detected. If there is an area that is powered down or if we can mask our docking process that should make our job a lot easier. I'd like to avoid a firefight at all costs."
Sarah activated a series of half-second sensor bursts and watched the readout as it came up, still making adjustments to the program for the transporter gun and when she spotted a section of the station that was on minimal power she grinned. “It looks like there is an auxiliary maintenance port that we can dock with on the underside of the inner ring. The section is running on minimal power so we will have to open the inner port manually.”
Taking a deep breath in, Cassie slowly released it as she looked out the window. "Here we go again. They aren't getting away this time." she said under her breath.
After a few more minutes Sarah shook her hands out and looked to Lieutenant Zandrell. “I think I’ve got the adjustments to the transpo-gun finished; go ahead and establish the force field in the aft section, level 10”
Seeing his chance, Chris banked the shuttle sharply and snapped them around to line up with the docking port. He fired the thrusters to slow them down and match rotation before easing them against the hull where the air lock engaged.
"All ashore who's going ashore." He said with a slight grin. The feeling of being out and piloting like this was an adrenaline surge he'd missed.
"Good job, Lieutenant." Mariko commended the man. "We will all follow Ms Frost's lead, as she is the apprehension officer. Keep your eyes open, listen out for anything and keep focussed. We'll follow the tracker on Vamcet and hopefully get him back onto the shuttle before anyone knows we were there." she said hoping that no-one else would be with him. That would certainly complicate things.
Sarah confirmed the docking and then moved to get up from her station, transferring engineering display back to the helm while simultaneously loading a trojan to the system that would buy them a few minutes of operational time without hassle. “I just bought us a couple of minutes by forcing the station systems into diagnostics mode…. I estimate no longer than seven minutes before they begin to reboot internal sensor grids starting with the station command center and spreading out one section at a time.”
A Joint Post By
Commander Mariko Tao
Executive Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Christopher Blake
Chief Flight Control Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Sorine Kaida
Criminal Investigations Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Captain Marc Kidd
Commanding Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Vincent Zandrell
Tactical Officer, USS Artemis
Executive Officer, Emergency Services Unit
Starfleet criminal Investigations Unit
Cassandra Frost
Criminal Apprehension Officer, USS Artemis
Commanding Officer, Emergency Services Unit
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn
Chief Engineering Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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