Getting what we came for...

Posted on Mon Feb 21st, 2011 @ 7:19pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia DeVries & Lieutenant Dravic Rixx (MIA) & Lieutenant Three of Seven

Mission: Hippocratic Hijacking
Location: Various
Timeline: Shortly after 'Cold Shoulders, Dead Ends...'

=Bridge, USS Arizona=

The entire bridge was a den of nerves and apprehension. While it could be said that no news was good news, it could also be said that in a place like this backwater station no news could be very bad news. Nathan wasn't prone to worrying about people, regardless of the fact that he eclipsed most of them by well over five centuries, they were all grown in their own rights and he didn't feel like he had to 'hover' and make sure everyone was alright.

"Liz, anything showing up on active sensors?" Nathan asked, his impatience flaring up.

"No, Captain..." Lt. JG Marion began to say before her panel squealed and she turned to the side, "Scratch that, we have weapons fire at the transport site!"

"Arizona to Away Team, Major, what the hell is going on down there?!" Nathan asked.

"Looks like someone didn't like the questions we were asking. They took to throwing phaser fire at us. Mind getting us out of here? Please, kay, thanks..." the Marine replied.

Nathan turned his attention to the back of Marion's head, "You heard the lady, get them the hell out of that station, now!"

"Already working on it," Liz called out, her fingers working hard to do her Captain's bidding. Tense seconds passed by in silence before the woman looked back at Nathan, "We've got them."

Doc Cowell turned to the Tactical Officer, "Shields to standby, charge weapon systems. If anything moves, I want it scanned for our cargo."

"Aye sir..." the man replied.

"Sir!" one of the crewmen manning Mission Ops called out, "I'm reading a large site to site transport from the station to one of the vessels. Pattern is consistent with the same manner of confinement beam that would need to be used to keep our medical supplies stable in transit. Looks like they're being taken aboard a cargo vessel."

"Intercept course!" Nathan ordered.

"Sir, the ship is already moving away and charging up her warp engines!" Tactical called out.

"Match course, don't you dare let them get ahead of us!" Nathan ordered.

Major DeVries appeared from out of the turbolift, the Borg Operations Officer behind her.

"Well that didn't go the way I'd planned," Stace declared as she took over her station on the bridge, "So what's going on?"

"It appears in pursuit of that vessel. Our proverbial wild ornithoid leading us on a chase, perhaps?" the drone pondered aloud, sliding next to Lieutenant Marion as it quickly assessed the operational status of the Arizona.

"If you're trying to say we're on a wild goose chase, then just say it!" Nathan grumbled before he hit the communication control on his chair, "Bridge to Engineering, we're going to be punching these engines into full gear in a second, you got everything nailed down?"

Rixx shuffled around the consoles in Engineering monitoring all of the systems, he knew that the away team had been down on the surface, and he silently presumed the Captain would have brought them up before taking off, touching his combadge, "Everything is ready, you have full Warp Power at your convenience, and," his voice trailing off for a moment, "Both Offensive and Defensive Systems ready to go."

"Outstanding," Nathan said, turning to the view screen just in time to watch the transport disappear into warp.

"Let's go!" Nathan ordered. The helmsman nodded and struck the command that sent the Arizona hurling into Warp. The ship easily matched the leading ship's speed, a praiseworthy Warp 9.3 given the kind of ship it was.

"Do you think hailing them would do any good?" Nathan asked, looking back at Major DeVries.

"Captain, perhaps a magneton pulse from the deflector array would get their attention," Three stated, speaking up from the Ops console. "At precise calibration, the pulse would polarize their warp coils and collapse their warp field. Perhaps at impulse our discussions could proceed more smoothly."

"And if it doesn't, we can blow them to hell and not worry about it. Good thinking... make it happen," Nathan said, giving it the requisite five seconds of thought.

"I hope I won't have to apologize to Lieutenant Rixx for this," the drone remarked candidly, even as it began funnel additional power from the impulse deck into the navigational deflector, overloading the circuits as Three began to prepare the magnetic resonance pulse. Dividing attention between the circuit load, polarity of the deflector, and the sensor scans, the drone finally looked back up. "Firing the pulse, sir."

The turbolift doors open in the rear of the Bridge, and Rixx enters just in time to hear "Firing the Pulse, Sir," prompting the Chief Engineer to run to the Engineering Console and yell, "What the hell are you doing!"

"Judging by the amount of burn-out in the deflector bio-neural subbus... apologizing to you," Three confessed sheepishly.

"We'll sort it out later, ladies," Nathan cut them off.

"The vessel's warp field is collapsing, Captain," Three said, getting back on the actual topic. "They are dropping to impulse."

Had Nathan not cut the conversation short, the rocking of the ship being buffeted by phaser fire surely would have.

"Oh good, they don't want to talk after all... Major, give them all they can handle!" the Captain ordered.

Rixx looked at the Engineering Console and quickly brought up the information he needed to see what the configuration of the pulse had been and shrugged, he realized that this ship had a very powerful structural integrity field, powerful engines, "Captain, if their Structural Integrity Field and Engines are any indication, we may be dealing with a heavily modified vessel, expect them to pack one hell of a punch."

Stace laughed at the Engineer's comment, "They haven't met me yet."

Even as the woman spoke, her fingers hit the firing commands and the ship began raining phaser energy and torpedoes down upon the transport.

"Their shields appear to be... unimpressed, Major," the drone reported from the front of the bridge, as a shudder rumbled through the ship. "Ours may require some additional power allocations..."

The transport took the punishment just about as well as Rixx had predicted, which annoyed the Captain greatly. He drummed his fingers over his armrest for a moment before looking over at Three, "Damage on the other ship?"

"Their primary shields are in full operational capacity, with what appear to be secondary shield emitters behind those. These sensors are showing what appear to be duranium ghosts, but I presume the hull plating to be quite thick, and intact. I would say they have taken no damage, sir," the drone reported, as Three cycled through a variety of readings.

Rixx turned to the Captain, "Sir, Our shields are designed to discern the frequencies and harmonics that the Enemy Weapons are operating on, while these systems are in no way as close to the Borg's ability to adapt, this is the technology they were based on. If we can take a few dozen more hits, and give as good as we are getting, I might be able to discern the frequency and harmonics of thier shields, allowing us to bypass them."

Nathan frowned, "To hell with this pussy footing around. Major, load the quantum torpedoes, full spread, then follow it up with a few of our tricobalt devices, just to see what happens."

The Security Chief just grinned and sooner rather than later, the screen in front of the bridge lit up with the brilliant white of a massive spread of quantum torpedoes. It wasn't until the tricobalt devices behind them impacted that Nathan was truly impressed. The things sliced through the holes the quantum torpedoes had managed to punch just enough for them to impact the hull of the transport.

Even before the little Borg Ops Officer said it, Nathan knew the full force of the torpedoes had been felt. Too bad Nathan liked hearing it too.

"Report," Nathan said calmly.

The drone was silent for a moment as it shifted through a variety of sensor readings. "Massive internal hemorrhaging, with fractures exposing outer sections to space," the Borg reported stoically finally. "They appear to be turning back towards the station, sir... however, I am detecting a large quantity of debris being released into space from their cargo pods."

"Holy Hell," Rixx shook his head, "I know they were criminals, but..." trailing off and shaking his head, he pulls out a flask from within his Engineer's coat and takes a long swig, before turning back to his screen.

"Is it the supplies?" Nathan asked.

"I am detecting storage containers of appropriate size as well as proper isotope tagging," Three answered neatly.

"Move to collect them. Once they're all aboard, get us back to Brakken at maximum warp," Nathan ordered his Operations Officer before turning to the Engineer, "You best fix whatever he broke and whatever they did to us in this little skirmish. Who knows when they'll be back with friends, and I don't have enough tricobalt devices on board to do that more than twice."

Rixx shrugged, "You didnt give them a chance to do much, you went right to the proverbial Dynamite to kill a cockroach," touching the Console, "Yeah, Damage Control teams are already fixing the minor damage we suffered."

"I'll go to Cargo Bay Three and handle the transport from there," the drone commented, sliding away from its station and walking toward the turbolift.

"Sometimes, when lives are on the line, you can't swat flies with anything less than napalm..." Nathan said with a shrug, "What matters is we got what we came for. Now we can get back and see how the kid is doing..."