Quell’ish - Away Team - Day 2 - Part 2

Posted on Sat Feb 27th, 2021 @ 4:51pm by Avalon [ADMIN NPC] & Lieutenant Commander S'hib & Lieutenant Baeryn Whavi-Tonelly & Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Ensign Ethal Luen & Captain David Tonelly [Reece] & Lieutenant Tonya King ( Barclay de Tolly ) & Lieutenant JG T'Kek [Naxea] & Senior Chief Petty Officer Fernando De La Rosa [Taylor]

Mission: Season 5: Episode 1: No Exit
Location: Quell’ish
Timeline: -MD5 - 09h00
2180 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

IC

The away team beamed back into the runabout. The body of the late private was beamed to cold storage.

Once the beam in was complete, the Runabout sensors went berserk and alarms pierced the air at extremely high pitch!

Woo-Woo-Woo!Woo-Woo-Woo!Woo-Woo-Woo!Woo-Woo-Woo!Woo-Woo-Woo!

Tonya's ears were very sensitive as she discovers she had a case of vertigo for the first time in her life because she was use to skydiving and bungee jumping where vertigo never comes up. "Can not stand. Inner ear is .....that hurts." She beamed in the equipment before bumping her head.

Following the beam in, David started to get to his feet. When the alarm began, he initially flinched. Quickly deactivating his auditory sensors, the sound dropped several decibels. "What the hell is that?!"

Miraj was already in the pilot seat, and as soon as the transporter had finished was lifting off, her instinct to get into the air overuling anything else in the absence of an order. "There's something in orbit. No, lots of somethings." The pings kept multiplying.

An energy trace lit up the sensors panels, filling the sky, runing from point to point, as more and more small objects appeared and added their own energy to the field building between them. Streams of data filled the sensors panels, duranium, styrolite, trevium, dolamide, heavy metals, whatever these satellites were, they weren't natural.

And then more pings, bigger, closer pings, ships decloaking, small ones. More complex metals and fuels, too dense and concentrated to be natural. And then energy outputs to small and steady to be natural. Impusle engines, the remains of cloaking fields, phasers and torpedo batteries. But small. Not big enough to be cap ships, more like shuttles. Or fighters.

Miraj craned her neck to see up through the runabout's widows. She couldn't see anything of course, the mystery objects were all still in high atmosphere, out of the range of natural eyes, but she did it anyway. "Shiver me timbers!"

"How about disabling that damn alarm," T'Kek complained as the alarm assaulted his hearing. Vulcan hearing was more sensitive to such noises than humans. "What is going on?"

"Sorry!!" Miraj scrambled to cut the alarms. "Bogeys, lots of bogeys, right above us in upper atmosphere and low orbit."

"Great. Can we escape?" T'Kek asked, thankful for that cursed alarm being silenced.

Baeryn's ears were still ringing as she processed the information Miraj had given. Before looking at the senor panels to make sense of the readings she shouted, "Get us out of here Ensign!"

"everyone strap in!" Miraj shouted. towing off her boots and scrunching her toes against the deck as the thrusters built power. Flying in atmosphere severely limited options. You couldn't go straight to warp unless exploding into a thousand pieces was your thing. And the force of impulse engines would scar the biosphere until they were at least fifty thousand meters up. All she could do was aim at the empty patch of sky to the far left and slam the maneuvering thrusters to full.

Acheron leapt forward, the inertial dampers turning the bone liquifying acceleration into little more than a lurch as they raced for upper atmosphere. But as the altimeter climbed, the slight shimmer of the atmospheric energy field began to roll close around the exit point.

"Bugger." Miraj muttered, holding course, finger twitching over the control, waiting for the moment she could switch to impulse. They weren't going to make it, based on how fast those fields were joining up.

"Ensign." Fernando's voice came from the crew compartment. "This shuttle is equipped wit Type VII phasers as well as 12 micro quantum torpedoes and 12 micro photon torpedoes.'"

"Then someone blow me a hole, or we're going to have a really sudden stop!" Miraj didn't slow down for an instant.

"On it!" Fernando replied as he slid into the tactical chair, his fingers flying over the console. Stabbing down on the firing button. the runabout jerked slightly as the torpedoes left the ship, streaking towards the rapidly closing hole.

"Lieutenant!" S'hib barked as he thumped his way into the cockpit, his arms still burning from strained muscles. "Get on Ops..." He ordered firmly, taking a seat beside Miraj and bringing up tactical.

Baeryn's heart pounded in response to S'hibs command. Bracing herself on whatever sturdy surface she could she quickly took her set at ops bringing the console to life.

"Ensign," He snorted, spotting the shimmer of the colossal planetary shield rippling together. "If we aren't going to make it Miraj," S'hib added, glancing over to her. "Dive..."

"I just need a tiny hole." Miraj insisted. "As longs as its big enough to get through, I can get through it."

Having nothing to add to the crisis, even with his long life of experiences, David decided to stay quiet and out of the way.

The torpedoes hit home, the forcefield peeling back away from the blast. Miraj whooped a cackle of laughter and pushed the throttle to impulse, Archeron streaking up towards the gap barely big enough to get through. "Here we go!" The field was so close its brightness nearly blinded them, only the little patch of space beyond

And then the forcefield stopped peeling open, and rippled back, closing the the gap in barely a blink.

"Oh, poop."

Miraj's handss flew, throwing everything into reverse, fighting to overcome momentum in the bare kilometer left to her. She hit the landing thrustors hard, and the runabout flipped up and around, piroutting on its nose. The bulkeahds groaned and the inertial dampeners screamed, at their limits, only able to cut the inexorable forward forces down to 5G, crushing everyone back into their seats for a second or two.

The engines only just held, slowing the Acheron from its kamikaze charge at the shields, the rear end of the runabout dodging impact by a matter of meters.

"Sorry," Miraj said, to the Acheron. And then the sensors started to bleat again. The larger bogeys, the ones that looked like ships, were starting to move.

T'Kek was thankful for Miraj's flying ability but it seemed they were now trapped on the planet. "Lieutenant Whavi, can we get a message through to the Elysium, ma'am?" he asked, though a part of him already knew the answer but again he was a doctor, not and engineer.

Ethal had made sure she was strapped in tightly to the seat she had chosen as the team had scrambled to leave. Her eyes were sealed shut as they tried to escape, she was trying to blur the world around her out and just focus on her breathing. Now wasn't the time to panic. She would be letting the team down if she did.

Several of the bogies peeled off to flank behind the Archeron, while others headed straight for the runabout. But they did not land. They held position above the Runabout.

Tonya felt herself strapped into seat as she woke up. Feeling grateful for whoever did it. She kept silent observing what was going on.

"Why aren't they attacking... they have us surrounded with an aggressive posture, yet nothing..." S'hib muttered as he monitored the readouts in front of him. "Lieutenant, hail them... let's see if we can talk our way out... Miraj, head for the surface... see if we can find any more of those caverns... ones big enough for the Acheron."

Whavi attempted contact, sending a hail to all ships in their vicinity. No response. Her frustration grew and she tried again marking the communication as urgent. She ground her teeth waiting. "Lieutenant, they aren't responding to any of my hails." She continued to modify the hail. Expressing their desire to proceed without violence.

The young pilot didn't have to be told twice, making a bee line for the Fungus forest they'd flown over on their initial approach. It probably wouldn't block them from the sensors, but it was worth a shot.

Thankfully, David’s suit allowed him to magnetize himself to the deck, the whole trip, thus far, had been one hell of a rollercoaster ride. If the situation wasn't as tense as it was, he might have been having fun with the adrenaline rush he was feeling.

The flanking craft fell into pursuit mode and fired their phaser banks across their path.

"Oh, now they're firing..." S'hib sighed as he shuffled his seat closer to the controls and brought the Acherons phasers online.

Miraj and Acheron dodged nimbly, the ship strafing left and right, the shots never getting close. She kept half an eye on the sensor panel, and another on the skies ahead, and still turned to look at S'hib and Baeryn. "Is there a plan?" She weaved through a clusters of phaser fire with barely a glance, moving the ship on muscle memory and instinct. "Because I can dodge for hours, but there's no way of losing them without a cloak, and running for space is not currently option. Unless we want to try ramming the shield?"

Tonya got up from where she was at to go to the Engineering console as she monitor shield integrity. "Mam, there is a deserted cavern 48 kilometers from your port side but that one is a trap because there is a force field generator which would cause us to be trapped in there. There is a 78 kilometer long canyon right pass it."

"Ensign, considering this brick isn't the most elegant craft..." S'hib started, putting a hand gently on the hull between himself and Miraj. "And I mean no disrespect... but, how quickly can you get her to stop?" He asked, monitoring the flight paths of the attack craft in pursuit.

"As long as the inertial dampers hold?" Miraj asked. "At this speed? Couple of seconds if you don't mind some G-force and a bit of whiplash. We're only doing about about Mach 10" They dropped suddenly to avoid another lance of phaser fire. "They're getting closer."

"Let them get closer, take a few hits if you have to... but get ready," S'hib smirked, looking back at the controls. "On my mark." He added, as he tracked their flight paths with the phasers, feeding the targeting computer with more predictive data and potential vectors they would use to evade.

"Everyone not currently holding onto something that won't move when we stop moving, do so..." He snorted as the Acheron shook from a glancing hit.

"You said let them hit us!" Miraj protested, as her hands moved over the controls, and her naked toes dug into the tough carpet. "Ready on your mark." A sudden deceleration would hopefully cause and overshoot, and then someone would light up their pursuit like it was Federation day.

He waited, staring at his console as the ship shook, watching the fighters fall into the bait, eager to claim an easy killing shot on the lumbering starfleet craft. "Now Miraj!" He snorted.

"Brace!" it was the only warning she was giving, as all the thrusters fired, and the engines crashed to a halt, pressing everyone into their seats. The landing jets forced the nose up and for a moment gravity, inertia and backward thrust all balanced out, the Acheron hung in the air, and the pursuing craft shot past them, putting them dead in the sights.

"There is a saying on Sequella..." He said to no one in particular, as he pushed himself forward and placed his hands back on the controls, a small hint of enjoyment mixed in with his words.

Then, Acheron's phaser banks flared to life, emitters firing down either side of the stubby cockpit and streaking out across the open sky, easily able to track the once pursuing craft as their pilots scrambled to avoid a collision.

"It doesn't translate well to Federation standard, but essentially it means... stand in front of a Sequus when you piss him off, that way he can't kick you." He grinned, glancing his head to Miraj.

From the rear of the cabin, still maglocked in place, David gave a quiet, vengeful chuckle. "No, much better to bite him, Sir."

The first pursuing craft almost hit a mushroom but managed to stop. The second however ran right into the first and the ensuing fireball was quite nice.

"Well, we can celebrate later..." S'hib snorted as he watched the two sensor blips flutter and vanish. "First things first, let's get to that cavern..."

"Okay." Miraj cut the power to therepulsors, and the runabout fell out of the sky like a brick, dropping down. The pursuing ships curved down to follow them, banking as they overshot to follow their descent. Which was when she slammed on the power and sent them shooting forward, skimming down under the mushroom canopy and down towards the cavern. The cavern mouth loomed and she swung the ship around, letting the Archeron drift around so as they passed into the mouth of heir intended hiding place, they were pointing out. as soon as they were in, Miaj killed every ounce of power, doing her best to hide them from sensors.

TBC...