In the Thick of Things, part 2

Posted on Tue Aug 30th, 2011 @ 1:09am by Commander Raven Adams & Khiy Tal'ehrihn & Captain Jackson Hawkins

1,120 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Orbital Yard Project Athena I
Location: TGT Khellian

ON

[OLD]

The weapons officer nodded as she prepared the weapons. "Commander, I cannot guarantee a hit. We're speculating on their location."

[NEW]

Travara nodded as she pushed herself back into her chair.

"Commander," The science officer turned from her position along the wall of the bridge. "There is something trying to access our systems."

"Well shut them out." Travara ordered.

The science officer nodded as she diverted power from the engine core and began transmitting it along the connection established with their computer systems. She hoped it would either overload or confuse the accessing system.

Travara looked over to the opposite side of the bridge at the communications officer. "Have the Yarsiad and the Prosa converge on our position."

***

Raven knew immediately when she'd been detected. This ship was more advanced than the other one. She smiled darkly. Good. She liked challenges.

Raven activated another program and reflected the overload back into the replicator system. At the same time she set up a phantom system and make it appear to take damage. She sent another program with the apparent backlash. The first thing she did was blind the science officer's computer.

The remainder of the bridge crew watched the view screen as a Yerdi warship suddenly appeared out of the black space in front of the Khellian.

"Raising shields." Called out the tactical officer. "Weapons ready, Sir." His tone read even and confident, a testimate to his years of experience.

Less than a second later they all watched as the warship opened fire upon their location. Fortunately it was a blind shot and the force of the impact largely missed.

Aside from a slight bump Khiy felt little from the impact of their weapons as it lightly grazed across the shields. "Get us out of here." He demanded. There was no hiding it now. He turned to see Raven working furiously at something at her station. He trusted that she knew what she was doing.

The Khellian Banked heavily from the lead ship and went to full impulse away from their attackers. They wouldn't be able to go to warp any time soon as the system was crawling with cloaked ships. Going into warp and hitting one would be...unfortunate.

***

The science officer aboard the Ervasa shook her head. "They're good. They've deactivated an internal system protocol at my station."

Travara sighed. "Open fire. Full spread!"

She watched as her phaser fire danced across the shields of the unknown ship.

"Minimal impact." Replied the weapons officer. "Adjusting the beam intensity."

***

Raven looked over to Khiy. "They're powering up weapons." She turned back to her computer. "Next, communications," she said quietly, disabling their ability to send or receive communications. "Let's see how they deal with that."

***

When the other two battle cruisers lost communications with the Ervasa, they immediately began opening fire on the alien ship. Now three battle ships were bearing down on the alien.

***

The Khellian shook from the impacts of multiple attacks, little more than bumps at first, but as the attacks came faster and from multiple angles the kinetic energy bounced the Klingon made ship back and forth with increasing intensity.

Khiy gritted his teeth as he watched the view screen in front of him display multiple lances of weapons fire on his position.

"Shields down to 80 percent, Sir." Called out the weapons officer. His tone hinted at his eagerness to return the favour. "One of the warships is angling to cut us off."

"Still no solution on going to warp. It's just too thick out there, Sir." The helmsman offered. It was clear his thoughts were in line with the weapons officer's.

Khiy quickly looked over to Raven; he hoped she would understand. "Open fire on the ship closing in. Full spread. Target their engines." He knew it would be a gamble. With no idea how this ship was built there was a chance the shots could hit a critical system.

The weapons officer and helmsman worked in silent conjunction with each other as they lined up their ship for a strafing assault.

The Khellian turned into the path of the large warship as it bore down on her.

The Yerdisian warship fired first having a good target solution, its yellow beams lancing out and making solid contact on the white ship's shields. The kinetic energy of a frontal assault adding to the weapons strength.

The Khellian, having been silent up until now, finally answered with a volley of her own. Multiple green pulses raced forth from the wing mounted weapons at the same time as three torpedoes shot out from the nose of the K'vort class battle cruiser.

The damage was apparent almost immediately. The weapon bursts softened up the aft shields just enough for the torpedoes to take maximum effect. Each blast punched into the shields hard enough that a lesser ship would have been destroyed. The shields flickered at first having barely weathered the attack. The follow up volley of pulse fire saw the shields fade away completely and instead made solid contact on the ship's hull. Gouts of fire ripped away at the tail of the warship as the blasts punched into and then straight through its hull.

The Yerdi warship instantly listed on its side as its engines along with much of its tail had been torn away from the hull. Emergency bulkheads and forcefields dropped into place around the gapping holes in the super structure to prevent decompression. That did nothing, however, to stem the fires that raged behind the protective barriers. LIghts that lined the outside hull flickered and died on many of the decks as the ship drifted through space.

"Engines destroyed, Sir!" The weapons officer almost cheered. He was clearly impressed by the Khellian's weapons system and less so about the people that likely died in the assault.

Khiy didn't need to hear the prognosis. He could see for himself the effect of the attack on the view screen as they raced over the drifting Yerdisian warship. The rear end of the ship was a twisted mess of metal and he could clearly see fires from behind the flickering forefields. He held his breath as they passed over, hoping that the attack wouldn't lead to a cascade failure and accidentally destroy the ship.

Raven switched from scanning and hacking to setting up a containment field in one of the cargo bays. "I've secured cargo bay 2 for transporting survivors."

"Wait to see what they do first." Khiy reluctantly ordered. The last thing they needed was a ship full of prisoners.

(To be continued...)

Commander Raven Adams
Chief

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