Lt. Cmdr Robin Hopper: I’m A Physicist, Not A Pugilist!
Robin Hopper
((Deck 4, USS Artemis-A))
The plan was straightforward, if not simple. Access the EPS controls within the maintenance panel, overload the transporter control terminal in order to distract the drones, take the transporter room, empty the weapons locker.
Fortunately, the ship had only just been put back together in a hurry. The EPS maintenance panel had not yet been fully locked down, to allow easier access for repair crews. It came off relatively easily and quietly. Looking inside, Robin found herself wishing Nate was there. He’d know how to make sense of the jumble of connections within.
Hopper: Anyone here know how to do this without it blowing up in our faces?
MacKenzie: Give me your tricorder.
Hopper’s eyebrows rose as she looked over her shoulder at MacKenzie – but she passed her device to the Captain without question. Her own experiences serving aboard the USS Wall Street had proven to her that an experienced CO was often as familiar with her ship’s inner workings as any engineer. If MacKenzie felt confident, so did Robin.
Taking the tricorder in hand, MacKenzie set to work rerouting the powerflow to achieve their objective. Hopper, meanwhile, looked around the corridor nervously. There were no assimilated crew present, but the turbolift door remained ominously behind them. Any second, the door could slide open and a group of heavily-armed drones could step out and put them down…
Only then, in that interstitial moment where she had nothing else to do, did Robin truly begin to ruminate on the situation they were facing. Not only were they in mortal danger, and Starfleet rendered nearly inoperable in defense of Earth and the headquarters of the Federation – but nearly half the crew had been turned into mindless killing machines… no doubt the death toll would be catastrophic. Even if they managed to retake the ship and found a way to reverse the borg’s remote assimilation – the dead couldn’t be brought back to life, and the liberated drones would carry the weight of what they had unwillingly done… probably for the rest of their lives.
Her heart ached with the thought of it all, and the guilt of having failed so spectacularly to prevent it from happening. All they could do was fix it as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the Captain to finish the task.
MacKenzie: As soon as you initiate the sequence, that should shunt power directly to the main console. (beat) …but we’ll likely blow out the relays in the entire transporter room as a result.
Silveira: I wasn’t thinking of us using it anyway.
Robin nodded. Escape wasn’t an option. There was nowhere safe to run anyways.
Jovenan: Once the exploding begins, all drones from this sector of the deck will likely swarm here. I don’t know how fast they are, but I’d say we have two minutes or less to be out or be ready for them.
Hopper: We’ll just have to play that by ear.
MacKenzie: When we get inside, there’s a small weapons locker located in an alcove behind the far wall. Remember, these are still our people – heavy stun only.
There was a moment of silent understanding between Hopper and the others, a covenant of agreement that while a chance of saving anyone remained, nobody would die by their hands.
Silveira: That’s my setting Captain. Just get that console out the second before we go in. Commander Hopper, since there’s only two I will take left and break forward. If I don’t stop them both, I am relying on your hand to hand skills.
Hopper: ::A quick uneasy nod:: Yeah, great.
MacKenzie: Vitor, call it. Robin, on his mark.
Following Silveira to the edge of safety, just outside the transporter room, Hopper tried to picture how things would go down. Blow the console. Run in… Then what? oO You’ll figure it out. Your training will kick in… Oo Not reassuring.
Silveira: Ready. One… Two… Mark.
A violent blast could be heard from the transporter room as the console and a number of EPS relays burst just before the door opened. Silveira rushed in, Robin right on his heels, entering the room through the cloud of acrid gas emanating from the overloaded terminal which burned at her eyes and nostrils.
Silveira: COMMANDER CONTACT RIGHT.
oO Huh? Where? Oo She looked to the right, looking for the drone – but the drone found her first. Less affected by the burning eyes and throat that Robin was now struggling with, the unfeeling protoborg grabbed at her through the cloud. Robin stepped back, narrowly avoiding their grip, and bumped against the smoking console.
Hopper: ::Startled:: Ah!
Taking a split second to adjust her position, she pushed back off the console, launching herself at the drone’s center of mass, throwing them both off balance and tumbling backward out of the smoke. They landed in a heap, Robin on top of the drone, whose back crunched disconcertingly against the steps of the transporter pad.
Robin winced, and barely suppressed the urge to apologize. But the unflinching gaze of the pale-faced veiny assimilated Coverian officer disturbed her just enough to render her momentarily speechless.
Coverian Drone: You will be eliminated.
The purple-hued woman grabbed at Robin’s throat. Immediately, she felt the pressure on her neck and the inability to breathe, or even gasp in shock, instead managing only a surprised gurgle. She gripped the drone’s strong arms, but was unable to pry them away.
Using what little advantage she had, Robin tucked her left leg up, pressing the metallic prosthetic knee into the crewman’s sternum and trying to push herself away. It was enough, at least, to loosen the drone’s grip on her sufficient for her to take a breath.
Hopper: ::Ragged breath:: Nuh-uh!
From behind, she could hear the sounds of the Captain and Jovenan near the entrance to the transporter room – but her attention was laser-focused on her current co-combatant.
MacKenzie: Response
Jovenan: Drones are approaching!
Silveira: Captain. Lieutenant, get the weapons, I have them covered.
Robin wriggled free and rolled off the drone, the steps of the transporter pad digging into her ribs as she got a few feet of distance between them. She scrambled to her knees between Silveira and the assimilated crewmember, stumbling slightly as she tried to catch her balance – a futile attempt, as a moment later the drone plowed into her, the pair slamming into one of the peripheral imaging scanners with a glassy crack.
Hopper: Any time!
There were footsteps behind them, and the entrance of the Captain seemed to distract the drone again, momentarily. Unfortunately, Robin surmised, that probably meant they were currently sharing MacKenzie’s location (as Priority Target #1) to the other Drones on-board. They were undoubtedly about to get a lot more company.
As the drone turned away, undoubtedly to make a run at the Captain, Robin dove for the Coverian’s legs, wrapping her arms around them. The Drone fell like a sack of bricks (made of flesh and bone), thumping onto the pad.
Jovenan: Should we help?
MacKenzie: Response
Robin crawled up the length of the drone, trying to keep her opponent pinned to the pad while the assimilated woman below her writhed and shook, trying to get her off.
Silveira: Commander Hopper got this. I trust her.
oO Yeah. Great. Thanks. Oo Hopper caught a flash of blue in her peripheral vision as Lt. Jovenan returned to the door with a phaser rifle, presumably to defend against the other incoming drones she had mentioned.
MacKenzie: Response
She reached her arms to the drone’s head, wrapping one around the struggling Coverian’s neck, and the other pressing the woman’s face down into the ribbed glass of the transporter pad. The drone tried to lift herself up off the floor, Robin countering by wrapping her own legs around the drone’s, leading to a haphazard almost push-up that resulted in them both collapsing back to the deck.
Hopper: I wouldn’t… ::Grunt:: Say no… ::Groan:: To a phaser!!!
But the others had bigger fish to fry than just one drone. The sounds of clicking boots from down the hall, followed by Jovenan’s cry of alarm, made it clear that time was up. Reinforcements had arrived – and not for the free thinking side.
Jovenan: I-incoming!
There was a flash of light, the sound of phaser fire, and the exchange had begun – one side, the assimilated, sending bolts of death at them, while the defenders simply tried to keep their would-be-murderers at bay.
MacKenzie: Response
As she tightened her grip around the drone’s neck, Robin grunted at Silveira.
Hopper: I’m fine. Go help!
Silveira: Response
Not waiting for a response, Robin closed her eyes and focused on her opponents’ breaths, hoping to confirm that she’d managed to subdued the drone sufficiently before racing to the arms locker herself.
Coverian Drone: ::Weakly:: Resistance is futile…
Hopper: ::Exasperated:: Yeah, yeah…
Meanwhile, the others were engaged in their own life-and-death struggle.
Jovenan: O-one down! Are you alright?
MacKenzie/Silveira: Response
Finally, Robin was pretty certain the drone was incapacitated – or, at least close enough. The fear now was maintaining the chokehold too long and risking doing serious damage. It wasn’t the crewman’s fault she’d been overtaken, and Robin wasn’t prepared to risk permanently injuring her (or worse), so she relaxed her grip and gingerly pulled herself off the drone, dragging her tired body to the edge of the pad towards the arms locker.
Jovenan: If one of us takes cover in the turbolift doorway, they can secure this part of the corridor while the others get in.
MacKenzie/Silveira: Response
Finally reaching the weapons locker, Robin took the last two remaining hand phasers – a Type 1, which she tucked into the pocket just inside the front flap of her uniform, and a Type 2, which she set to Heavy Stun.
Hearing a commotion behind her, she turned to see the Coverian drone rushing with an eerie crawling gait towards the Captain and the others.
Hopper: Look out!
MacKenzie/Silveira/Jovenan: Response
Hopper fired, striking the crewman in the back, and she collapsed in a heap on the deck. Robin rushed over, placing a couple fingers to the woman’s neck and confirming she was alive, before joining the others in their firefight.
Her eyes burned, her throat ached, and the side of her head throbbed where she’d been punched on the bridge. Given how she felt, she didn’t want to think about how she must look. Wincing as she took a position by the transporter room door, and laying down what suppressing fire she could with the hand phaser, she could feel the dried blood and the knitting wound on her cheek.
Hopper: So – what’s the plan? Did I hear “turbolift”? Then what?
MacKenzie/Silveira/Jovenan: Response
Nodding, Robin watched as another drone officer down the hall fell. A moment later, another took his place, and she narrowly avoided taking the deadly phaser bolt in the shoulder. A moment later, all their combadges crackled with a staticky-yet-audible message.
Savel: =/\= Savel to any officer, requesting immediate assistance at the Intel Suite. Multiple casualties and hostiles present. =/\=
Well, that gave them a third option then.
Hopper: So, Elysium, Sickbay, or Intel…? ::Pausing to fire again:: Unless we can find a way to bring us all together?
MacKenzie/Silveira/Jovenan: Response
TBC
