Tractor beams at the ready, prepare to board- part 2

Posted on Tue Oct 27th, 2020 @ 2:49pm by Ensign Will Raynada & Ensign Amanda Turell & Lieutenant JG Amelia Barron
Edited on on Tue Oct 27th, 2020 @ 2:54pm

Mission: To catch a thief
Location: Pirate ship

The transporter effect dissipated and the sounds of machinery met the away team. Amelia crouched slightly as she scanned the area they had been deposited in. She rotated her wrist to view the tricorder she had affixed there for easy viewing and nodded as a more complete image of the insides of the ship formed on the display. They were midway between the bridge and engineering as the transporter placed them on deck two.

“To reiterate Amanda, take Will, and Hernendez. Your team Bravo. I’ll take the rest, we’re team Alpha. Bravo your job is to take over Engineering, capture it and take down that scattering field and shields so we can get off this boat. Alpha will proceed to the bridge and take over there to secure the ship and give us time to find out why the Captain wants this thing so bad.” Amelia said as she made eye contact with each of the officers.

"Copy that, Will, Hernendez, lets go."

Before the teams parted Gabe caught Amanda’s attention “Ensign, the concussion grenades I wouldn’t go much above setting 2.5, that will be enough to stun most biologics. Setting 3 and your getting close to terminal range for your less dense species and mild damage to surrounding equipment with a lesser field of effect the further away you get. Just a warning.” He said as he grinned, twisted his wrist and linked his rifle aiming to the tricorders readings.

Amanda nodded and took off leading her team down the corridor.

Amelia patted the four grenades dangling from her vest as she listened to the warning from the Chief. “Alpha team, lets move. Weapons on heavy stun, fire at targets of opportunity at need.” She said as she couched and began to make her way to the nearest Jeffries tube using the small map that was being updated by her tricorder in the scope of her rifle’s optics.

Alpha team made its way up the Jeffries tubes of the little corvette-like ship. As they exited onto deck one, Amelia held up her left fist and the group went to their knees, weapons pressed out, as the first contact they had seen walked into view. Two crewmen oblivious to the small group behind them jogged across the corridor mere meters in front of the hatch that Alpha team had just stepped out of. She held her breath as she watched the crewmen disappear behind a bulkhead and her eyes flitted to the tricorder screen to watch their blips move further down the corridor to a turbolift. They crept closer to the main corridor from their initial insertion point, one eye on the tricorder readout and the other down her rifles scope; she crossed the corridor quickly scanning both sides as she moved to the bulkhead of the side corridor. She pressed her rifle out to cover the walk to the bridge and nodded to herself as she watched the security officer take an opposite position from her covering the other egress point.

She re-twisted her wrist and looked over the readings from the tricorder and noticed five lifesigns emanating from what could only be the bridge of the ship. She groaned to herself as she noticed two lifesigns outside the entrance to the bridge. “Nothing is ever easy.” She said to herself as she updated the others in her group to the hiccup.

From what she could make out by looking at the readings a well placed concussion grenade in the middle of the bridge should render everyone unconscious and make taking the command area quick and easy. She had her doubts as no plan ever survives contact with the enemy but she would roll with it until she had to get creative.

In a whisper she relayed the plan to the other two in her small team. “We take out the guards at the door, then grenade the center of the bridge go in and stun everyone with phaser fire to make sure they are not a threat and secure the bridge. I’m on point, you are rearguard.” She motioned Theodore “You sweep left I go right.” she instructed Gabe. This was greeted by a round of nods and they leapfrogged to sniping positions to take out the guards and she looked to Gabe. He was pressed out eyes down his rifle scope pointed at the nearest guard. She knew he knew which his target was as she aimed at the guard on the right. “Three, two…” and the countdown was started on one Gabe and she both pressed the triggers on their rifles and sent lances of phased energy into the chests of their targets. As the two guards dropped and an alarm went off as the deck lighting dimmed and went red. The solid sound of large pieces of reinforced metal thumped into place at the door of the bridge. Though they were well away they could feel the deep thump of the locks falling into place.

“Shit.” She said softly to herself as she moved to the door to the bridge. “Chief.” She said as she made it to the door and grimaced as it didn’t part for them reinforcing what she already knew, it had locked. “Get us in there.” Gabe moved to the door, looked at his tricorder and nodded. He looked at Amelia and said simply.

“SF-210/D, in triplicate. Setting 10?” As he stepped back.

"Dammit I just want to blow something up! 10.”

Amelia pulled a stun grenade from her vest and thumbed it to a setting of 2.5 and pressed the button to activate it with a 2 second trigger as she and the two others moved to the end of the corridor and took covered firing positions. She thumbed the setting on her rifle to 10 and took aim with a grenade in one hand she braced the rifle against the bulkhead and sighted down the scope.

She nodded to Gabe and they counted down to three before pressing the triggers and sending two lances of phased energy towards the reinforced door of the bridge. The metal didn’t explode inwards as it would have with a charge Gabe knew but instead it started to glow as the bonds of the atoms in the metal reached the extent of their ability to contain the energy being pumped into them. As they reached the breaking point the layer of metal being hit first began to bubble away and become but dust in the wind. As the pair continued their assault the door glowed first a yellow then a red then an angry cherry red as each successive layer of metal was vaporized away bringing the assault team one heartbeat closer to the bridge. Then they broke through and a mixture of disruptor and phased energy lanced out of the hole from the interior of the bridge and Gabe looked at Amelia who was already moving.

Amelia grunted and swung herself away from the bulkhead and sprinted down the corridor to the destroyed door passing it to reach the other side and relative safety. As she passed the underhand lobbed the grenade into the center of the bridge then pirouetted to the left side of the ruined door’s bulkhead.

The grenade let out a loud thump that was only barely muffled by the soundproofing of the bulkhead due in large part to the hole in the door. There was a stifled scream that was drowned out by the gut punch of the grenade going off and a bright flash of light that was like looking into the soul of a supernova. Amelia had her eyes squeezed shut knowing that the stun grenade would be loud, bright and powerful and wanting to protect herself as much as possible to stay mission ready. As the light and sound passed over her she opened her eyes and swept quickly onto the bridge firing her rifle, now brought down to high stun instead of instant vaporization. She dropped two as she exited the ‘fatal funnel’ of the door and crossed to the right of the bridge. Amelia grinned wolfishly as she noticed return fire from the left of the bridge. Gabe had made it onto the command deck and was engaging targets just as quickly.

“ON THE GROUND, ON THE GROUND!” she yelled as her rifle swept the room. They were on cloud nine for all of three seconds, then the bridge’s automated security system kicked in and three turrets began firing at the two. Amelia dove for cover behind a console barely missing a lance of energy that would have knocked her on her bum. As she fell she thumbed her phaser’s power to max and locked onto the closest turret and fired two quick three round bursts missing it on the first shot but hitting it on the second. She watched it as it fizzled out.

Amelia’s heart sank as she saw out of the corner of her eye Gabe take a direct blast to his chest. She rolled bringing her phaser up and took aim at the second of the three phaser turrets. A shower of sparks greeted the pulses of phased energy as one turret went offline. She heard echoing fire from the third member of her team as they engaged a turret on the other wall from behind the relative safety of the entrance to the bridge.

Amelia heard the pop and fizzle of that turret getting manually placed in ‘safe’ mode. She moved quickly to the stunned Chief and pressed her fingers to his neck noting the pulse and nodding. He had been stunned but would live. She popped open a case at her belt and pulled out a hypo of adrenalin which she had used during the war to revive stunned teammates. She pressed it to Gabe’s neck and injected the dose. Done once it was not life threatening but she couldn’t do it again else his heart might give out.

He grunted as the adrenaline surged into his system and he growled “Feckin’ turrets.” He pressed a hand to his body armor and nodded, the normally fatal bolt of energy had been dissipated by the armor each of the members of the team wore. His chest hurt but he was able to push through the pain.

“Get up soldier.” She said as her eyes roamed the bridge she noticed the large Klingon in the center chair was beginning to stir and she thumbed the power setting of her rifle back down from lethal to heavy stun and fired a blast at the man’s chest. He twitched then relaxed back into unconsciousness. The other four members of the little ships bridge crew had been knocked into a stupor by the concussive force of the grenade going off in such a confined space. One woman who had, what Amelia thought, extremely quick reflexes had apparently picked up the grenade and was preparing to throw it back out when it went off and ripped her fingers off.

"Theodore secure the bridge crew but pay special attention to that one. I think the Captain would like to talk to him.” She said motioning to the Klingon in the center seat. That order was met with a chipper.

“Aye, aye.” As Gabe began to push himself up to a sitting position he turned to face the door.

“Good get your ass up Chief we have work to do.” Amelia said as she moved him out of the way of the door and began to look over the closest console for information.

TBC