Adrift

Posted on 02 Mar 2015 @ 1:11am by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Emily Carter & Commander C. Kos & Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Hictus Dicon & Lieutenant JG Ken Rogers & Lieutenant JG Perei & Chief Petty Officer Tarsa Rogers

2,594 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Boarded
Location: USS Black Hawk || Multiple Locations
Timeline: MD 4 - 0800 hours

:: Holodeck ::

Chief Petty Officer Tarsa Rogers was sweating. Heavily. It was very common when she was cycling, particularly at this cadence. Although she had the option to use the stationary bikes in the ship's gym, she had always preferred riding a real bike. So she booked regular time in the holodeck to cycle across her favorite landscapes. Today, she was tackling a long Alpine segment in Switzerland.

And then the power went out.

Because she was on a real bike, and not a holographic one, she kept moving forward. Right into the wall. She had to assume it was the wall since there were no lights. It wasn't until after she was pulling herself to her feet that the emergency lights activated.

"Rogers to Engineering," she called out. The computer did not respond with the typical response noise.

"Rogers to Bridge." There was still no reaction from the computer. Nor from another person.

"Guess I'm on my own," she said out loud, but to an audience of one: herself.


:: Lieutenant Rogers Quarters ::

Lieutenant Rogers was in his quarters, checking over a padd with info on the latest mission, when suddenly darkness happened. Just as quickly as came the darkness, that was disspelled by the emergency lighting. Rogers noted that his padd was dark, and hit his com bage. "Rogers to the Bridge..come in.." Nothing... "Rogers to Engineering." Nothing... He shrugged and said to himself ' What the heck..' "Rogers to Rogers.." Nothing. He looked around and approached his room's door. When it didn't open as supposed to, he began to fiddle with the manual override. Grunting with some effort, he got the doors to open half way. "Hey!" He shouted."Can anybody hear me?" Rogers thought to himself; "The heck with this," and kept working on the door untill it opened. He slowly stuck his head out and looked around. Ducking back into his cabin, he grabbed a light and phaser(which unbeknownst to many he kept taped under his bunk,) and ventured out and into the corridor. He knew Commander Kos's quarters were in this corridor along with a few others. The thing to do now was to knock on a few doors and see whom would answer. He first approached the Commander's door and knocked hard. "Commander Kos! Are you in there?"


:: Science Lab ::

Perei had her nose down, eyes in a scope, her hands in the middle of a delicate procedure. The sample she looked at was magnified seven hundred times in size. Just as the sample she had finished and set aside and now prepared to do the next when the power went out. She sighed and called out, her head stayed where it was "computer lights" the lights came on but they were not the usual bright bright ones. Her equipment was still dark Perei sighed once more and tapped her comm-badge

"Perei to Ops" she waited for a response, none came.

Perei tapped her com-badge again and it responded or rather did not even emit the sound of the high pitched sound of metallic radio squeak responded in reply when it did not function properly. She gently placed her instruments down and disengaged her hands from the attached gloves. She stood too head to the door, she paused when it did not open.


:: Sick Bay ::

Jayla had been in Sick Bay for nearly an hour already. She'd been called for an emergency; a child had fallen off the top bunk and had the rotten luck to crack his head on a toy that had been left out. Being that head wounds bled profusely, even if it was the tiniest prick of a wound, the boy was more frightened than hurt. She had worked her magic- doing the silly things that made children laugh, even though they were afraid and hurt- and sent the child and father on their way. Since it was nearly 0800- and the start of Alpha shift- she opted to stay in Sick Bay.

She wrote up the report on the child- one Raymond Burns- quickly and began preparations for her day.

Or she would have, but the lights suddenly went out. Jayla blinked. The emergency lights came on. "What the devil?" she muttered, tapping her com badge. "Kij... to...." She stopped. There had been no beep indicating that the channel was open. She tapped it again. Nothing. "Well that's just lovely," she said, standing from her desk and walking towards the door.

It didn't open as expected, however, and Jayla's nose hit the closed door. She rubbed it, vaguely thinking that it was a good thing nobody had been around to see that. Now it was time to see if she could remember how to manually open the door....


:: Deck Five Corridor ::

"Captain!"

Harvey, just beginning his morning inspection, turned around to see Petty Officer Carter walking towards him. "Good morning," he greeted, taking a sip of his coffee.

After serving as his yeoman for a couple months, Emily knew Captain Geisler's routine well. Promptly at 0755, he would arrive in the Mess Hall for a mug of freshly brewed coffee, to which he would add two sweeteners and one pump of cream before embarking on his daily inspection. He'd start with a random selection of one of the Science Labs and work down deck by deck through Main Engineering before ending with Sickbay and the Bridge.

"What can I do for you, Petty Officer?" Harvey asked, lowering his mug.

"Lieutenant Sherman asked me to give you this report, Captain," Emily said, falling into step with the Captain and handing over the PADD she carried.

Harvey walked while thumbing through the readouts. They had entered the nebula the evening prior and already its unusual effects were doing a number on the ship's deflector grid. He hoped he wouldn't have to pull out to make some modifications before continuing. "Thanks, Emily," he said.

He handed the PADD back to Carter. "I'm afraid my new yeoman is missing once again this morning. I don't suppose you'd mind tagging along for a while, would you?"

Before Emily had a chance to respond, the lights began to flicker. Harvey was now standing next to a interface station, and a quick glance informed him that the internal systems were starting to go crazy.

Just as quickly as the flickering started did the lights go out completely. The familiar sounds in the corridor also went out. Harvey tapped his badge. "Geisler to Engineering." There was no response. He tapped again, "Geisler to Bridge."

"Comms must be out," Emily said, walking over to the interface, only to find that it too was out.

"Looks like everything is out," Harvey said as the emergency lights came to life. "Let's head for Engineering."


:: Engineering ::

Dicon had been working in Jeffrey's Tube when the power died. Cursing he tried his com badge for a few abortive tries before realizing something. Even the back up power sources in the Tubes he had installed had shut down. This was not the ship running into a stellar phenomena. Wordlessly, he reached into his disruptor, beginning to crawl through the tube. "Great, now we have invaders. I can't worry about the other sections now, I need to get the power back on, then I can worry about the invaders." Dicon stopped moving after about twenty mintues to check his surroundings by the plate above the hatch he had climbed out off he had dropped four decks. "Right, now drop downwards one level and turn left, is my emergency power shunt. Even if the ships power is being drained the shunt should restore and least partial power for a time. Grimly he began to work.


:: Outside the Ship::

Grunts were heard as the two who had been assigned to this detail shoved at one another they laughed quietly. Their grav boots suctioned to part of the ship.

"Can you believe this crummy detail?" one said to the other

"Shush yo mouth, we have works to do." the second replied as he tried to spark the cutting tool that they would use to cut through to the hull. "Hold still"

"Am holdin still yo work faster"

Finally the much more powerful then normal type plasma type torch was lit, and the men leaned into the tool to hold it still while it sliced through the hull." Sparks were minimal, but the actual noise could not be helped. The noise as metal scrapped against metal as they worked on it. The job was quick, soon they knew they would be able to drop inside and start the real work.


:: Bridge ::

Eric was sitting on the Bridge going over various things, he had been early today to get through some reports on the various drills he did. He had just sat down with a cup of coffee and was just starting when he noticed the power on his station flicker, the next thing the lights all over the Bridge went out, 'What the,' the Emergency lights came on. Eric reached down and attached a phaser to his hip as was part of the regulations he implemented.


:: Deck Five Corridor ::

The two that had cut the hull of the ship placed their tools down. They both looked in the hole at the same time. They missed each others cranials by a hairs breath. One lifted his wrist and spoke, it would have been translated to the federation standard to be "We are in, send the rest." With that the comm was closed. "Yo go first."

They each landed upright as a hollow thud heard from boots of their grav suits that hit the deck plates. They pulled out weapons and started towards the end of the corridor.

Harvey and Emily had been making their way to a Jeffries tube junction when he suddenly froze. The sounds were unmistakable, a soft groaning of metal flexing in ways it was not meant to. Though he could not see it, he could smell the faint whiffs of smoke that were leaking into the corridor. He had no idea where it was coming from, but it was certainly distant.

Based on the report he'd been given, these sounds could not be anything native to this nebula.

No. Someone had to have been lurking in the shadows, waiting for the moment to strike.

Quickly, he looked around and spotted a weapons locker. The keypad, tied to a separate power source, was surprisingly not working, forcing Harvey to use the manual release. The panels groaned as they flipped around with no power to move the motors.

The Captain was not interested in the rifles that awaited him. He'd only carried one once before, and that had been enough. He selected a pistol and activated the internal power cell. Unlike the remainder of the ship, it was working.

Emily selected a hand phaser as well, telling her Captain her accuracy was far better with the smaller weapon.

Harvey nodded and led the Petty Officer in the direction of the unknown sounds.

"Wait yo hear something?" One of the men asked quietly as he held his arm up to stop his compadre. The other tilted his head for a second, then then slid around the corner into a small alcove and waited until the noise they heard got closer then one of them stepped out and waved his weapons at the Captain and the female. "Yo stop moving right there."

"What the hell?" Harvey instantly demanded, not recognizing the voice and raised his phaser to fire.

The other man did not hesitate he leaned around the corner of the alcove and shot at the Captain and hit him. He ducked back and hoped that the man crumpled. He counted to three and leaned back out to look.

Harvey didn't even get the chance to confront the unknown voice. The discharge had grazed his right arm, though the burnt flesh and blood seeping from the wound did little to look like a graze. It also did little to weaken his resolve and despite the pain, Harvey raised his weapon as he slipped into an alcove to return a shot.

"Cover me!" he ordered of Emily, gesturing that she lay down some cover fire for him to advance. There was no way some pirate was going to take advantage of him or his ship. If only he could call security.

Harvey rushed forward into the sound of weapons fire, even squeezing off a shot of his own before slipping into an alcove further down the corridor.

It wasn't until he felt a muzzle in the middle of his back that he realized that the cover fire was never there. Harvey knew he was beaten, and oh how he wished he could at least alert security or Mac. Hell, even alerting Doctor Kij or Stuart would have been a viable option, just someone to come help him defend this ship.

Harvey carefully and slowly turned to see who owned the muzzle, only to grimace in surprise.

"Stand down!" Emily called out to the boarding party. "We have the captain as a prize."

The second of the two leered as he stepped out of the alcove his weapon raised and aimed at the Captain.

The first lowered his and stood next to the other "Yo sure, he seems a bit feisty?" He asked Emily.

The Captain narrowed his eyes, unsure of what to make of the situation. Betrayal was the least of his feelings. Furious, frustrated and more flooded his mind as he attempted to calculate a way to freedom. Alas, it was not to be.

"He's outnumbered," Emily replied, smirking in response to the first man. "And he knows it. We need to get him out of here before any of the crew happen to see him." She gave the Chief Engineer at least an hour just to restore communications. The sabotage she had months to set up within the ship was quite extensive, and not all of her cards were yet played. The quicker they acted now, the sooner the ship would belong to The Syndicate.

"Not a problem, a bit of a shove back through the hole and away we go." The man made a motion with his hands to signify flight. "Or simple site to site transport would work better do yo not think?" With that the man slapped a transport unit on the Captain and activated it. Geisler and the man shimmered in a blur and ended up in the area designated to hold him on the ship the two had come from.

"Come," Emily said to her remaining compatriot, "we have a ship to procure."


:: Syndicate Vessel ::

The shimmering particles dissipated, and before Harvey could react, he was shoved into a small compartment. He tripped over something heavy, clattering and stumbling to the floor. Harvey did his best to collect himself, but he wasn't fast enough. Just before he rose back to his feet, he heard the sound of a forcefield coming to live, trapping him in the small area.

Harvey slammed his fist against the field. "Let me out of here!" he shouted. "Turn the damn thing off!"

"Shut yo mouth yo piece of targ dung!" The man turned after making sure the Captain was safely locked up and he went back to work. He had other tasks to complete before the Black Hawk could be taken over completely.


~TBC~

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