Hostages Part 5: Time to Go

Posted on Mon Feb 25th, 2019 @ 7:26am by Lieutenant Commander Aurelia Taylor

Mission: Season 2: Episode 3: Determination is not always a good thing
Location: Dunphy's Hideaway
Timeline: after One Way Mission
2959 words - 5.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Liorga had eaten and slept for a short while after her discussion with Syren, though the sound of Syren... distracting Dunphy had made sleeping a little hard. She was dreaming of being back with Estelle on Elysium, eating that dish Gallia bragged about so much... what was it? HAGGIS! They were tucking into Gallia's 'famous haggis' when she felt a gentle push on her shoulder, rolling over to find Syren standing beside her, "Syren..." She said in a semi-conscious haze.

"Right, love." Syren smiled, "It's time for you to go now, Princess, you've been 'ere long enough." She helped Liorga to her feet, wrapping a heavy hooded garment around her, "This'll make runnin' through the brambles easier, keep you from scarrin' up your pretty head."

"Come with me." Liorga asked, "I can keep you safe..."

"That's sweet, love." Syren shook her head, "Is also misguided. If I'm not here when he wakes up an' realizes you've gone, he's gonna take it all out on the other girls, might even kill 'em the way he did Nancy."

"Then he'll kill you." Liorga whispered, though her voice was frantic.

"An' if that happens it's what had to happen." Syren shrugged, she'd accepted the day she became his number one that Quinton Dunphy was going to be the death of her, "Now, no more arguments, love. I've gotta stay and you've gotta go." She pointed to an open hatch, "Out that door, bear right and stick close to the wall for about five hundred meters or so, then cut through the bush. It'll take 'bout three hours on foot to get through there to your camp." She pushed Liorga towards the hatch, "Go on, go."

Liorga wanted so badly to say something else, try to persuade her to come, too, but knew it would be futile, so she simply nodded and turned to the outside, to freedom, pressed hard against the wall.

Slinking along the wall the way she was had to, especially while also looking out for patrols and what sounded like wild pigs of some variety, made five hundred meters take, she figured, about fifteen minutes before she was finally able to start into the thick bush Syren had told her about. She found herself grateful for the hooded garment less than ten feet into the brush as she heard the tangle of briars and vines above scraping on it. In places she'd had to duck, in others she'd actually had to crawl on her hands and knees. She'd figured she'd been going about an hour when she heard phaser fire and shouting from the direction of the hideout. Damn it, she thought, they know I'm gone. Another, more painful, thought hit her then; Syren's probably dead...

She wanted to cry, but there wasn't time for that. She was going to live, she was going home to Estelle, and she'd mourn Syren and punish Dunphy after that was done. Crawling along the ground, she saw a pair of feet, a pair of feet in what looked to be Starfleet issued boots. Is that even possible? She wondered, moving closer to the person in the boots, not believing that she could possibly have gotten that lucky.

Sitting on a small hump, Lia was looking at the area where the gun was situated. Her attention was focused on attempting gaining entry to the facility, when a sound caught her ear. She slowly unclipped her fighting knife and pulled it out ready to strike, turning her head in the direction of the sound she could vaguely see a heavily hooded figure looking in her direction. *Bollocks I've been spotted* she thought. Moving fast with her knife held in her right hand, she rushed the figure and knocked it down. Grabbing the hood she pulled it back to gain access to the person under it, "Make one move or a single sound, and I'll slit your throat". And found a woman staring back at her, *Who the hell is this?* she wondered.

While the other person was staring at her, Liorga rolled to the right, tossing the other woman from atop her, "My name is Chief Petty Officer Liorga." She began, gasping, "I'm a hostage and there are people coming after me. And why do you look so familiar?"

"Commander Lia Holmes, Chief Security and Tactical Officer. Perhaps you've seen me on board Elysium, how the hell did you get away?" She looked around for anyone following Liorga, "We should get you back to the ship, and you can let Estella know your safe". Then she remembered the bomb she was carrying, "Scratch that, there's a rescue team about to assault that location you've just busted out of. I was attempting to place this to knockout the large gun emplaced there. I think it might be better if we let them know your out, and they don't have to rescue anyone".

"You're wrong, we've got a lot of people to rescue in there, but we need to go about it subtly, and that bomb will set that gun off and kill everybody in a ten kilometer radius." Liorga shook her head, "Look, I'll explain as we're leaving, okay, you're definitely right we need to vacate the premises, you do not want to know these guys."

Lia stood her ground, "Slow down there Chief, you want to start again. Are you saying there are other people being held in there? Who are they and why are they being held?" She slowly looked around, "Without more information we could walk right into one of their patrols, how about we beam to the rescue jump off point and inform them that way?"

Liorga stopped for a second to compose herself, knowing she must sound like a lunatic in that moment, "Okay, there are a group of hosta..." A sound stopped her dead in her tracks, "Do you hear that? We've got company coming..."

Throwing her phaser to Liorga, Lia hit the ground. She pointed at a figure that could just about be made out approaching them, behind that figure sounds seemed to confirm other people. Whispering Lia spoke, "I'll draw them towards me, you stun as many as you can. If I have to use this, I will". She produced her fighting knife, and started to move to the right.

Eddie and Jo were newbies to the Dunphy gang, they'd yet to even go on a snatch and grab job, so they were pretty confused when he handed them rifles and told them to go out searching for a bald woman, "What do you think he wants with her, Eddie?" Jo asked, pushing her long, white blonde bangs out of her face.

"I dunno." Edwina 'Eddie' Jackson shrugged, "Maybe he likes 'em with even less hair than Syren..."

"You don't think Syren really let this woman out do you?" Jo pressed, Syren didn't seem a traitor type to her.

"I don't know." Eddie sighed, "But I know he's going to kill her if she did. Hell, he might have already done it. You know how Quin is."

"And you bitches both need to shut up or he might end up killing you." A large man with a thunderous voice, even when speaking low, snarled the order at them, "You two keep a loyal tongue in your heads or Quin might twist them off and roll them down the road, got it?"

"Yes, Bull." Eddie answered, looking at her feet.

"Ok, Bull." Jo chimed in, though, truth being told, she feared Bull far more than she did Quin.

"Shut up. Both of you." Bull hissed, "We got people out here?"

"More of ours?" Jo asked.

"No, dumbass." Bull replied, he knew exactly where all of their people were, "Shut up. Alright, whoever you are, come on out and maybe we don't kill you. Make me hunt you and it's a guarantee."

Lia stood up and replied, "If the three stooges are quite finished giving a command performance, how's about we settle our little problem. You have something that belongs to me, give it back". She hoped by getting all three to focus on her Liorga would get a clean shot on all three of them, that was the plan at this time.

"Hey, Bull, she's right pretty." Jo began, "If we stun her and shave her hair off we can just tell Quin we found the Deltan woman and we can all go get some food..."

"I dunno who's dumber." Bull shook his head, leveling his rifle at the blonde woman, "Her or you. Listen up, sexy, you might not notice but you're outnumbered here. It's us three, you one, in case ya can't count, right? So why don't you drop whatever the hell that is and come along quiet with Dumb and Dumber here while I go find us a Deltan?"

Bull was clearly the biggest threat, but if Liorga shot him she wondered if the other two would turn to her or immediately shoot Holmes in reactive fire. Either way, she had to take him out because that was no phaser he was toting, it was a TR-116. How the Hell did these idiots get that? She thought, taking careful aim before launching a stun blast his way.

The shot hit Bull in his left side, causing him to stagger and bump against Jo, but he never dropped or dropped his weapon, the phaser setting was too low to get the desired effect on the behemoth, especially performance enhanced as he was. Jo, however, was sent sprawling into Eddie, who dropped her weapon, which went off, hitting Jo and knocking her unconscious....

Diving to the ground, Lia shouted to Liorga, "HIT HIM AGAIN!!!! Don't worry about me, just take that gorilla down!!" She rolled to one side as Eddie looked like she was about to land on her, spinning her knife around she hit Eddie on the back of the head with the hilt. Eddie seemed to loose interest after that. Now all they had to worry about was the man mountain who was getting back to his feet, and not looking all that happy.

With the two women out of the fight, the one they called Bull was the only threat left, and Liorga snapped off three quick shots, two of them striking him and sending him to the ground, "He's down!" She yelled to Holmes, running over to help the Commander to her feet, "Just hope he stays there for a minute..."

As she helped Cdr. Holmes to her feet Liorga's ears picked up a strange sound, one that was semi-familiar, but she couldn't place it; it was a low, electronic sound, combined with some wind interference, "Oh, you've got to be shitting me..." She moaned when she realized what she was hearing, "We've got a whole new problem, Commander...."

Before Holmes had a chance to ask or Liorga had a chance to explain, the new problem swooped in firing to introduce itself; a Cardassian gun drone. Pulling Holmes down to the ground with her, Liorga was barely missed by disruptor fire, "Well, this is some pretty shit." She sighed, "What are the chances you got something will take down a shielded drone?" Liorga figured the odds were slim, anorexic in fact, but she also know her phaser and Holmes' combat knife wouldn't do the job.

Checking the sky, Lia watched the drone intently. "How strong is that things shield?" She felt the weight of her bomb, "If we can get it to come in low and I mean very low, this damn thing just might do the trick. But we're gonna have to find a hole to bury ourselves in, or we risk taking ourselves out along with it". She looked around at the ground around them, she noticed a small dip with a piled up spoil heat next to it. "Over there would seem to be the best place to try, do ya think we can bring it down with this?"

"That's a lot more likely to work than anything else we've got." Liorga replied, the shields on the drone were strong, but not impenetrable, "How much explosive do you have there?"

She looked at Liorga, "There's two pounds of Amatol with a three minute fuse, placed in the right location it can take out most things. Can't say I've ever used it against one of those things before". Lia pointed at the drone as it passed over head searching for them, "It's sensors don't appear to working at full capacity, maybe its shields aren't at full charge either".

"I've got an idea." Liorga began, "Give me your commbadge. If we set the timer, hopefully it picks up the signal from the badge and comes in for a look, then goes boom." She didn't know if it would work, but she also didn't have another idea.

Unpinning her badge she handed it over, "Just don't disappear on me, or else I'll be stuck here". Then a thought struck her, "Don't worry about the timer, just put the phaser on the highest setting and when the damn thing is over the bomb fire here". Lia pointed at the where her commbadge rested,"The small electrical field put out by the badge will help set the Amatol off, this stuff hates electricity".

"Perfect." Liorga agreed, handing the Commander's badge back, along with the phaser, "But all things considered maybe you should take the shot. I used my phaser in training and qualifying only, been that way since the Dominion War."

Lia looked at Liorga and handed everything back to her, "If you qualified then you can take the shot, have confidence in yourself". She placed a hand on liorga's arm, "I won't order you to do it, but I think your more than able. Hell you took down the gorilla over there, go ahead try". She smiled and waited to see what reaction she got.

"Okay, so you're some sort of lunatic." Liorga laughed, leveling the phaser and waiting for the drone to come in close, "Clearly I should be the one with the gun then." When the drone finally registered their presence it swooped hard in their direction, "There we go." A single blast sent the explosive and the drone up in smoke and the two of them down onto their backs.

Struggling to her feet, Liorga offered her hand to Cdr. Holmes, "Well, that was fun." She sighed, though most of her hurt like Hell, "You know, you're a special kind of crazy to do this, especially alone. If you were a duck obsessed doctor you'd totally be my type."

Taking Liorga's hand, Lia stood back up. "Nothing like the smell of explosives to make a girl feel wanted". She smiled to herself as Liorga spoke, "Not a duck obsessed Doc, just a guy obsessed girl. No insult intended Chief, but Estella would cut my heart out if I made a move on you". She brushed the dirt from her uniform and looked around, "We need to get the hell outta here, I'd say the rescue team is where we need to be. You can give them the intel they need to save your fellow captives, then you can contact that overprotective girlfriend of yours and let her know your free". Lia stopped and looked as Liorga seemed to be shaking a little, "Hey Chief, you did good. And if your other friend is still alive, we'll get her out I promise". This was a total guess on Lia's part, but she could tell that someone in that facility meant something to this woman in front of her.

"I'm actually trying not to laugh at the image of Estelle cutting your heart out." Liorga half-lied, "I mean, if anyone would know how it would be the Chief Surgeon, right?" She chuckled a little and turned serious again, "And, yeah, there are nine women in there, well, five of them are basically children, who need rescue from the son of a bitch who took Dorso and I. Plus that guy's got some source of top of the line weapons, we need to find out who. AFTER I see my overprotective girlfriend that is. Safer for both of us that way."

"Well we have a problem, neither of us now has a comm Badge", Lia pointed at the horizon. "Over there somewhere, is where we gotta go. You got any idea just which direction we should travel?" She thought hard as to how to contact the Elysium, her only solution was to head away from the instillation and find another away team.

Liorga pointed to the commbadge she'd returned to the Commander and said, "In all the excitement I guess you forgot." She then turned serious, "Not that it's worth a damn anyway, atmospheric interference is too high, why I had to take Dorso in the Argo. I think it's this way."

"Oh, I didn't know that. Ok Chief, lead on", she followed Liorga as she lead the way. *I'll have to recommend her to the Captain when we get back, she's good* thought Lia. The dawn was breaking and thin light streaked the sky, "I hope Estella doesn't do anything stupid, before we let her know your safe". The two women walked slowly away, leaving the three criminals behind. They couldn't go anywhere as Lia had hog tied them, she'd send a shuttle to pick them up later.

"I'm hoping Gallia is sitting on her." Liorga said, then sighed, "My hopes for Estelle's safety are based on a hot tempered, red headed Scot. Yeah, we better move it."

Commander Lia Holmes Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Elysium

Chief Petty Officer Liorga
Engineering Officer/Former Hostage
USS Elysium