Lt. JG Ollie Bergmen - Captain! That drone is eating the sky!
CPT Arianus
(( Courier-Bug A-7D-HG9, Kobyar, Galaris IV ))
Bergmen: ::speaking into intercom:: Drone down! Drone down!
The lieutenant swiftly got a response in his helmet's headset through the intercom.
Jovenan: Good job! Keep going
Oolwi: Nice shooting.
The bugcraft made a sharp turn to slide into an opening left by two drones that had fallen out of formation, engulfed in flames and disintegrating. The fireballs they turned into on the ground were more than a clear sign that the initial intention of preserving them for future study was simply left behind when it came to survival.
Bergmen watched the dark shapes emerging from the shadows of the forest trees, swelling in size as they soared toward the bugcraft. The drones didn't give up.
oO Who knows no fear will hardly be afraid… Oo
But the lieutenant had no more time for his contemplation as the closer and more dangerous threat of those already in their midst came into his view. The bugcraft resembled a sea urchin, with fiery barbs shooting out in all directions from every angle as the craft passed the border.
Jovenan: Let’s hope the Grunden don’t mind us coming to save their town…
MacKenzie: Maybe this finally be the thing that allows them to see that there’s actually common ground…
Oolwi: ::Muttering to herself but still audible over helmet mics:: Let’s hope we don't crash into it.
Ollie let the Major's words fade into the cacophony of the ammunition belt feeding into the tail guns, drowned out by the sharp bursts of gunfire from the lieutenant as he focused on keeping the drones at bay, not only to protect himself but also to safeguard those he served with and respected.
The bugcraft sped the Grunden settlement towards. Towards more Kobyari drones. Towards the havoc they had wreaked. Towards the place where the other Starfleet away team was last known to be...
Jovenan: Should we try to lure them all after us? It’s better they don’t attack our friends, but we’d need to somehow fight them all.
A phaser sting of wrath from the captain's side came sooner than her reply.
MacKenzie: Take it out, Lieutenant!
Jovenan: Response
Bergmen swung the tail turret to engage the incoming drone and fired a quick burst in a short exchange. The drone erupted into a flash and then plummeted, leaving behind a cloud of slowly descending smoke. Another projectile rang out, causing another microrupture in the already fogged sightport. At this point, Ollie chose to focus solely on the instruments of his palpost, realizing that it made no sense to continue relying on visual cues, nor was it worth bothering to announce yet another drone brought down. There were simply too many, yet not enough.
MacKenzie: Major, can you get us down there? I think that will likely be far enough away from the drones that we’d be able to set down and mount a rescue…
Oolwi: Yes. But there’s a few more drones between us and the village.
Jovenan: Response
The bugcraft followed a turn to the point Captain MacKenzie pointed. The lieutenant's gaze remained fixed on the targeting computer as he tracked four dots racing toward him at breakneck speeds, following a now-familiar path. The tail guns fired off like excited dogs. The first two drones vanished just as expected, but the lieutenant wasn't the only one who had learned how the enemy is thinking. The second pair of drones split up, veering off in opposite directions. This strategy provided them with a slight advantage, though not as much as their AI had hoped for, when the third drone vanished from the weapon sensors entirely.
MacKenzie: Commander, can you tell how many of our people are down there?
Jovenan: Response
MacKenzie: Then take us down, Major. We have to get our people out of there.
Oolwi: ::To Hui’Jel:: Take us in.
The intercom clicked as Major Oolwi switched her channel to external comms.
Oolwi: =/\= This is Kobyar Defense Service Bugcraft A-7D-HG9, on route to Tevire Village with intent to eliminate the drones currently attacking the area. We carry Federation personnel on a mission of rescue. Repeat: Mission of rescue. Do not fire upon us. We come in peace. We mean no harm to Grunden people or property. Please respond. =/\=
There was no answer. No incoming fire from Grunden positions, luckily, but still...radio silence. The distant light of fires and smoke slowly rising and settling over a still distant settlement. The last drone still held on their tail, maneuvered just beyond range as if looking for a point where it could slip through. The lieutenant watched him, waited, and played a game of dice and mouse with him. Suddenly, the drone halted its delicate maneuvers and positioned itself directly behind them. If Bergmen had been able to glance outside, it would have seemed as if they were engaging in a silent exchange—his gaze meeting the drone’s sensor nodes.
Bergmen: ::whispers:: Ra jan, drone. Ra jan…
The drone suddenly turned on its axis, and Ollie's targeting display lit up like a zemei candlestick.
Bergmen: ::intercom:: Rockets in the air!
Jovenan: Response
The bugcraft immediately turned into an evasive maneuver and deployed countermeasures, a decision that likely saved their lives. The missile guidance system triggered the proximity fuses too early, causing the warhead to detonate the shrapnels at a distance, where most of them lost their lethal effectiveness. Some, however, still gnawed at the lower sides and underside of the tail, creating jagged holes as if they were attempting to turn the bug into confetti.
Ollie curled in the chair, covering his head as the shrapnel blasted past his capsule. The armor of the capsule itself caught some, while the armor of the chair caught others. But not all.
Oolwi: We need to lose that tail before the drones up front redirect to us.
MacKenzie/Jovenan: Response
Ollie felt warmth creeping up his forearms, but it was the sharp pain in his side that dominated his thoughts. He straightened up in the chair and reached to his side, inspecting his fingers. They were clean; whatever had struck him hadn’t pierced through his jacket. However, what truly troubled him were his hands. The sleeves were shredded, and the cuts on his hands were bleeding. Though the wounds didn’t seem deep and there wasn’t a lot of blood, it looked worse than it probably was. But he had survived. The screen in front of him doesn’t.
Bergmen: ::into deaf intercom:: I’m alive. But it's…
It suddenly dawned on him. He realized he couldn't hear anyone else in headphones. Turning slightly, he checked the connection between his helmet and the intercom, but as he felt the severed cable, a sharp sting shot through his side, and the straps suddenly tightened, pinning him deep into the chair. In the back of his mind, a vague sensation felt like something was prodding him in the neck, but he brushed it off. He felt great. The pain in his arms and his side was gone. All the heavy thoughts that had been racing through his head melted away like sand in a tide.
The lieutenant smiled, almost laughed. Of course it made sense that the cable got severed. The connector was on the outside of the chair. Without hesitation or thinking, Bergmen pressed his combadge.
Bergmen: ::happy in voice:: =/\= Bergmen to MacKenzie, Jovenan. I’m ok, alive - but the intercom cable is cut and the electronics got messed up. But don’t worry, working on it! =/\=
MacKenzie/Jovenan: Response?
The bugcraft maneuvered to get the last aerial drones within MacKenzie’s line of fire. However, to do this, it had to lose some altitude and get closer to those still eyeing the Grunden settlement. Half of them veered off in various directions to lay down gunfire that forced the bugcraft into a fresh round of evasions, as tracer rounds blazing bright yellow trails in the air. And the other half moved slightly back and away, biding their time to take well-aimed shots when Hui’Jel made a mistake.
None of that—enemy fire, the craft's maneuvers, sounds of phaser fire—worried Bergman, who, with tricorder in hand, was hacking the tactical mainframe of his tail palpost.
Bergmen: ::whispers:: C'mon, be nice to papa.
He would have been better off with a PADD display, but hey, he worked with what he had. A few last bugfixes later, and he ran the command executable. His tricorder screen flashed through lines of loading code and flashed a second time to show a much-reduced version of the tactical screen. The lieutenant was unfazed by the fact that he could barely see anything on it. He attached the tricorder to the broken screen in front of him and took the fire-by-wire controls in his hands. It didn’t take long for the tail guns to spring back to life, unleashing fire upon anything in the sky that wasn’t their bugcraft.
MacKenzie/Jovenan: Response
As the Kobyari bug/urchin of live fire soared towards the landing zone, it lit up the sky with dead drones. Just then, one of the remaining drones pulled off a surprising shot from its grave, and moments later, it erupted in a fiery explosion of disintegration, taking another with it. The tracers struck the cockpit, splashing against it but not piercing through. Another hit the left wing, eventually making its way to the undercarriage. Yet still, another drone disappeared as the wounded bugcraft continued biting amid a haunting cry of master alerts in the cockpit.
Oolwi: ::Airsacs inflating:: We can’t take many more hits like that one!
Bergmen: ::intercom:: W-ar-stil-irborne! W-hav-it!
The sudden, somewhat jumbled message on the intercom marked that amid the chaos and tail guns' continuous fire, the lieutenant had managed to find the time to tie the ends of the cut intercom cable together as another drone crashed into the ground.
MacKenzie/Jovenan: Response
It felt almost surreal when the last drone vanished from the sky, burying itself in the dirt behind the settlement. They were still alive. The bugcraft, trailing the dark smoke of trouble, still held its ground, and in careful, wide maneuver, it gradually lost altitude toward the landing zone. Ollie climbed out back of the hatch into the transport space and buckled into a nearby seat. Smiling, he glanced at both the captain and Jovenan, his dilated pupils wide as he nodded and gave them both a thumbs-up with etheric ease, despite his hands being smeared with clotted blood.
Bergmen: Upsy… ::chuckles::
His face was almost childishly apologetic as he caught sight of the injury and the concerned glances it drew.
Oolwi/MacKenzie/Jovenan: Response
The landing might have been softer, but Ollie wouldn't have told the pilot even if he hadn't been drugged with whatever the bugcraft AutoMED injected him with. Guiltily, the lieutenant stared down at the floor, hands resting in his lap, waiting for the order to disembark.
Oolwi/MacKenzie/Jovenan: Response
TAGS/TBC
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Lieutenant JG Ollie Bergmen
Operations Officer
U.S.S. Artemis-A
A240009JC1