Ensign Tho'Bi - Fire and Ice (Part 1)

[Tobi]

((MAIN BRIDGE, DECK ONE - USS ARTEMIS-A ))

The red wash of emergency lightning rendered the bridge a claustrophobic panic room of bulkheads enlarged by shadow, gleaming consoles, and the dull murk of the spaces in between.

Cole: ::tapping commands:: Echoes are bouncing, comms are seeded, and our imaginary cavalry is on its way. Let’s see if they blink first.

Jovenan: Good. Hopefully their panic reaction is to run first and ask questions later, not shoot first.

The Orions Blinked.  A volley of phased energy bolts screamed across the darkness, collapsing the shields in a shuddering instance of electric-emerald sparks.  The Artemis shook violently.  With the Inertial Dampeners stuck at minimum, they did little to compensate.  Bulkheads flexed and cracked.  Power conduits overloaded and erupted in plumes of golden sparks.  Shards of display consoles blew out across the bridge.  A crack spat down the center of the main viewscreen.          

Tho’Bi:  ::shouting over the explosions:: It’s taking all we have just to maintain the fake warp signatures.  

Gnai: Sir, this can’t seem to find the precise signal that the Orions are sending, the power just isn’t there for the sensors!

Jovenan: Do not disengage the fake warp signatures! Get power from somewhere and move it to the shields! We have to maintain the masquerade a little longer and they might run away or start talking! ::to Gnai:: Do we have other options to stop the signal?

Cole: Response 

They needed power and fast.   The Orion Energy Spike had done for them.

Tho’Bi: oO Energy Spike Oo

The Andorian switched his console to raw code, faster than LCARS.  His fingers flew across the inputs, bypassing EPS protocols and firebreaks.  Lines of code extended before him, three-dimensional in his mind’s eye; representing conduit and relay, hub and emitter.  The lines of code stretched outwards from the bridge, accelerated down through pathways and subroutines to deck five.     

Tho’Bi: ::to himself:: It’s gotta be the ugliest hack I have ever done.

Without blinking the Engineer switched from Starfleet Operational Base Code to the missmash of Ferengi-coopted Orion code.  Growing up on Deep Space 3 with a Ferengi for a best friend had instilled some unique life lessons in the young Starfleet graduate.  Synced the Orion Reactor Control to his PADD.  With that done, he snapped back to Starfleet Operational Base Code on his main terminal.

A second volley of phased energy bolts burst outwards from the Orion Dreadnaught.

Gnai: ::bobbing in its tank:: This recommends trying a broadband inversion - the Klingons and other aliens that the Orions sent would be completely cut off, which would allow Security the chance to properly detain them. The only problem is… that would leave the Artemis blind momentarily.

Jovenan: Prepare for it. Make sure the Orions are affected as well. Ensign Cole, make it look like the backups are getting closer. If we go with the broadband inversion, the Orions can’t see the signatures again and might just start panicking.

Cole: Response

Code extended deeper into the ship, dragging a connection from the Shuttle docked on Deck Five.  Sequences of routing plummeted down, decks raced by, subway stops ignored and gone vertical.

Electric-Emerald snorted and growled as it hurted across the expanse.

Deck 13.  Push the sub-routines. Bypass the safety protocol.  Hook up the Emitters.

The phaser volleys born down upon them.

The Andorian Engineer snapped up his Engineering Tricorder and keyed in the activation code.  Power surged from the Orion Shuttle Reactor, through the conduits and relays of Artemis’ EPS Network, into the Primary Shield Emitters on Deck 13. 

The space in front of the Artemis lit up with jagged bolts of electric-emerald, spitting and biting, as though choked in the suffocating state of amber.  The chaotic wall of electric-emerald spasmed for a moment, then ricocheted back towards the Orion Dreadnaught.   The mess of jagged bolts passed through the Orion Shield Bubble unhindered, slamming into the Dreadnaught and ripped across its hull.  

Tho’Bi: ::quietly simply:: The weapons of every ship are synced to their shields ::beat:: so they can fire through them. 

Contorted shards of armor plating and weapons array cannoned off the Dreadnaught, spiralling outward in all directions, until lost in the dark.

Tho’Bi:  I know Kung-Fu.

Gnai: On second thought, sir, they might not be in a position to broadcast their signal anymore… ::tapping at its console:: This isn’t reading any further phaser fire on Deck 5.

Jovenan: Ensign Cole, check if Lieutenant Udesky and the others have managed to reconnect the internal communications by now. If the security teams report the Klingons have become suddenly pacified, they can be placed to guarded quarters or a similar space. Otherwise, the brig.

Cole: Response 

A sudden beeping noise from his console drew the Engineer’s attention.  He called up a three dimensional rendering of the docked Orion Shuttle.  It slowly rotated on the screen, floating just above its Warp Core, a red circle flashed on and off.  The reactor was about to go critical.

Tho’Bi: Uh Oh.

Gnai: The security team and the Klingons are still near the shuttle! Maybe one of them could detach it…?

Jovenan: Send the message. ::to everyone:: Ideas how to not get damage from the warp core?

Cole: Response 

Given the potential force of the explosion and the condition of Artemis’s shields, they needed the Orion Shuttle’s Auto-Pilot to help increase the distance between core detonation and their ship.  First, though, before he could do anything, he needed to sever the connection between the Shuttl’s reactor and the Artemis.

Tho’Bi: ::attention on his console:: Cutting the EPS link between the Shuttle and Artemis.

The Andorian Engineer’s fingers moved across the inputs of the console, un-hacking the ugliest of hacks that had connected the shuttle’s reactor core to the Artemis EPS Network.  Code etched its way in blue, across the darkness of otherwise empty screens.

The bridge emergency lighting shuddered as the connection was severed and a slight tremor traveled through the Saucer Section.

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((SPACE SURROUNDING MORIC - MOON IN ORBIT AROUND THE GAS GIANT GALARIS VI))

Floating in a cloud of its own debris, the Orion Deadnaught’s engines stuttered on and off, on and off, and then… died.   The great scared hulk began to tilt aft about its center axis.  The shadow of the listing Dreadnaught spread outwards, consuming the silver grace of the Artemis, Orion Shuttle still docked the saucer section, Warp Nacelles still grey and neutered.  The shadow continued to spread outwards, tracking across the cratered pale blue surface of Moric, and across the wrecked Moonbase.  Moric hung in a delicate state of gravitational balance, above the swirling mass of orange and red, the gas giant, Galaris VI.

The universe works on such a vastly different timescale to mortals, it is forgivable that we see permanence, where in fact there is constant change.  Our lifetimes, even when measured over the countless generations of our entire species, are but shifting grains of sand.  We should not be mistaken, though, our universe is in an ever-changing state of birth, death, and rebirth.

The moon of Moric had hung in the space above the gas giant for as long as Grunden or Kobyar had had the capacity to observe it.  What then, would they have made of the rolling tremor that traveled around it, in a great wave of rising blue ice and crater?

((OOC: Part 1 of 2.  Re-introducing the self-destruct on the Moon that Liv thought up. And introducing the idea that the Orion ship is dead in space.))  

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Ensign Tho’Bi

Engineering

USS Artemis-A

A240203T11