Boarded

Posted on Fri Apr 23rd, 2010 @ 7:18pm by Captain Alexander Gunning & Commander Dietrich Reinhart & Lieutenant Commander Nilani Prax

Mission: Commissioned
Location: Transporter Room 1 - USS Jackal, IKS Rendaar
Timeline: MD04 2200

[ON]

The three-pipper tried to scratch at his arm, realizing that the act was in vain because of the padding and air circulation system because of the EV suit he was wearing. He sighed, and then checked his remaining oxygen meter. His magnetic boots were heavy, and he was quite warm in it. Sweating, however, was the enemy. To sweat in a cool environment would drastically drop his bodies internal temperature and put him at serious risk if he lost power to his suit.

It wouldn't be his first time on a non-environmentally controlled ship. In fact, he did so not long ago on another classified mission in which he had no intentions of reliving. At least, this time, they hopefully won't be stuck in a time distortion. "Chief, any minute now would be great."

The Transporter Chief stood poised over the console. Her first act. She was shaking with excitement for some reason. Finally, after three days just traveling and helping Lieutenant Allein with inventory of the ship's engineering supplies. Two of the officers entered, resplendent in their EV suits. Reinhart was already impatiently waiting there. All right, she admitted, resplendent is a bit of a strong word but I'm just glad we've got enough.

She turned to Commander Reinhart who was standing on the pad expectantly. "Co-ordinates are locked Commander. This should place you in the engineering section of the vessel."

"Great," Reinhart said as the others took their places on the transporter pad. "Three to beam. Energize."

Her hand moved across the top of the panel and the patterns of the away team began to disappear. It was momentarily stored in the buffer of the Jackal before being projected across to the destination co-ordinates aboard the Bird of Prey. She dragged her hand back up, making sure that the away team were in the right area.

"Transporter room to bridge," she said, "I am transferring the vital signs of the away team to the science console."

The reply came from the commander himself. "Acknowledged."

[IKS Rendaar - Engineering Deck]

"Ahoy, maties," Reinhart said as they energized onto the deck of the Rendar, "We've got a shipwreck off the port bow." The gravity was off, not surprisingly. The engineering section was a disaster. Probably a flash-fire when the ship's hull was breached by phaser fire and caused a super-explosion with the high concentration of oxygen. He highly doubted that anyone got out of there alive. But then he saw phaser burns on the bulkheads, which meant that before the ship received its fatal blow, there were boarders with rifles. But the fatal hit to the Bird of Prey was after the boarders, because there weren't bodies. And it wouldn't fit with the account from that survivor they found.

Dietrich floated towards one of the bulkheads and gripped a ledge, then swung his feet towards the deck. Pressing a button on his suit, he immediately had gravity thanks to wearing oversize magnets on his feet. I really wonder what attaching giant magnets would do to the iron content in my blood. He tried not to think about it as he clicked his way across the deck. "Ok, tricorders out. Let's try to figure out the status of the ship and it's energy systems."

Nilani elected not to activate the magnets in her boots, instead expertly manoeuvring expertly in the gravity-free environment. Melissa, having been a hands-on starship designer, had become very skilled in moving precisely in a lack of gravity, and since then Prax had come to enjoy floating free. Taking out her tricorder, she began running scans.

Mara had activated her own boots and hurried (which, admittedly, wasn't that quickly in the bulky suit) over to the nearest station and ran her tricorder over it. She glanced at it over the top of her tricorder and then closed her tricorder. She couldn't believe it: the system still had power. She clunked over to it and touched it, bringing it, stuttering dimly to life. Immediately she began analysing the systems, trying to see just how much work it would take to bring the life-support, at least, back to life. It didn't occur to her that she should check in with the Commander and after isolating a large part of the problem picked up her toolkit and headed for, what she thought, was the support system itself.

Noticing the engineer immediately going to work, he figured that he might as well figure out what was going on. "Status, Lieutenant?"

"Marginal power. It should take two hours to restore life support," she reported without looking up from the system. There was a clunk as the panel opened and she scowled into the bundled nest of wires.

"Don't waste your time then, Lieutenant," Reinhart suggested as he moved around the deck slowly. Using his own tricorder, he tried to pinpoint the open gash in the Bird of Prey's hull. "We aren't going to get compression anyways. These things don't have the best blast doors." Dietrich turned and looked at Allein and Nilani, "Let's get system power back online and get to the bridge. I don't speak Klingon too well, so I am going to need your help to get the sensor logs and captain's diary."

The engineer scowled, but didn't argue back. She highly suspected that what this man knew about Klingon ship design would fit in the pinky finger of her EV glove, but chose not to say anything. She had promised herself not to make any more enemies than she already had, especially not when she was floating around in an EV suit. Allein fitted the panel back in place and turned to the engine.

She removed her tricorder again and rolled it over the system. It began to bleep quickly and she punched a few commands with a frown. Ignoring the others again she snapped the device closed and stowed it before moving with a solid thunk-thunk over to the power distribution system. Again, she removed the panel and got to work patching up the frayed system.

"Looking to go snooping at who the captain fancied, Commander?" Nilani joked, as she floated alongside the commander, tricorder chirping as she pointed it down the corridor. "According to the map I downloaded before we left, the bridge should be this way."

"Well," he struggled to think of a response to Nilani's joke. "Maybe just a little." He really just wanted to download a copy of all records for the ship. Even though the Klingons and Federation were allied in some fashion or another, it was never a bad idea to gather records from the 'allies' when they could. But after seeing Nilani flying through the decks, grabbing bulkheads and moving a lot faster than he could, Dietrich was tempted to turn off his boots. "Lead the way, Lieutenant," he said, leaping after her.

But it was clearly obvious that he was not as skilled as she was, in fact. Not even close. Quickly, Dietrich ran into a bulkhead. He grunted on impact, his shoulder still hurting like no other from the surgery two days before. "I really should not be doing this," he told himself as he decided to stay on the deck and stay there.

As she flew into the bridge, Nilani used the map on her tricorder to float over to the station that was as close to a science and sensor station as a Klingon ship was likely to get, and tapped it a couple of times. "Power's out in here, Commander," Nilani called back down the corridor, before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a small portable power cell and sticking it to the console's vertical screen. As she activated it, the computer began to glow weakly, allowing her to access its functions.

"Sensor readings are degraded," she reported, as the Commander finally made his way to the bridge. "But the logs are giving me a Starfleet registry number. NCC-62942. That mean anything to you?" She activated the magnets on her boots to bring her to the floor as she accessed the station's controls; it was easier to use a computer when each key press didn't try to send you floating to the other side of the room.

Dietrich came up to the bridge and started looking around, waving his tricorder around aimlessly. He never knew how to use the things in detail, and probably was better off just inspecting with his own eyes. No blood anywhere on the bridge, but phaser burns on the wall. The chair, however, had burns through several sections, probably meaning the Captain himself was targeted. But NCC-62942, that number was not ringing a bell. Reinhart had a better idea than trying to go off his own memory:

"Reinhart to Jackal. Check out Naval Construction Contract six-two-niner-four-two." He did not give a reason, just expected a quick answer from one of the crew.

A minute went by, before the chirp in his ear was back. "Away team, NCC-62942 belongs to the Utica. An Akira-class cruiser. Why, what's the situation?"

Reinhart deferred the question to the other members of the away team. He'll give his analysis later, he figured. Besides, he figured, what the frack do I know about Klingon Birds of Prey?

[Main Bridge - USS Jackal]

The Commander wandered back onto the bridge of the Defiant class escort with a smile to Lieutenant Von, he reinitialised his command codes with a light tap of his command console. The young ensign who was manning Prax's station at Science turned to him.

"Commander, the away team has requested information on the USS Utica." She said. "Thought you might like to know."

"Thank you, Ensign," he replied as he unmuted the channel to the away team, "What do you have for us, Dietrich?"

[Main Bridge - IKS Rendaar]

"Patching you through to the Engineer and the Science Officers," he said briefly, as he motioned to Prax to take it away.

"I'm working on restoring the sensor logs, Commander," Nilani said, opting to keep to Alex's title over the com channels at least. "They're very degraded from the damage the ship has taken, but I managed to retrieve a Starfleet registry number."

Allein reported in. "It should only take another forty minutes to restore main power," she blinked to keep the sweat from running into her eyes as she floated upside down beneath the main power-distribution module. "The shields are gone, weapons irreparable, life support is hanging on, but without shields, useless. Obviously." She took a deep breath and eyed the nest of circuits above her. "If you want warp then you'll need to find us some dylithium because their core is completely destroyed, but lucky for us the electrical systems are based off an independent power source, so the rest of the ship is probably salvageable." She paused. "If you expect me to fix this damn thing on my own, at least send over some other people who can tell a hyperspanner from a bloody wrench."

Immediately the Commander recognized who that was targeted towards. He did not have to be a Betazoid to feel the hostility from the Engineer. Dietrich bit his tongue and let it slide. "Commander, the are several hull breaches that need to be repaired as well. Before we put any energy into her, you will have to tell us what you want to do with it."

Alex allowed his shoulder to drop. "The Utica must be the ship we're looking for. Commander Reinhart and Lieutenant Prax, come back to the Jackal. We're going after them. Lieutenant Allein, I've dispatched an engineering team to assist you in repairs on the Bird of Prey. Focus on getting the defence systems back online before you beam down to the surface. Use the shuttlecraft to relay any additional findings to us. We'll return for you in due course."

[OFF]

Lieutenant Commander Dietrich Reinhart
Executive Officer / Chief Flight Control Officer

Lieutenant Allein Mara
Chief Engineering Officer

Lieutenant (JG) Nilani Prax
Chief Science Officer

&

Commander Alex Gunning
Commanding Officer