1stLt Samuel Woolheater – Hope, it turns out, is loud
Radamio
(( Flight Deck - USS Talents – Tlugani Nebula ))
Being entrusted with power meant answering for how it was used. Colonel Greaves knew that well enough. The problem was deciding which responsibility mattered most when the clock wouldn’t stop running. Captain Luriaa spoke with authority and urgency. Greaves had to weigh the current situation and past history with Luriaa and the clock, ever ticking, continued to run down.
Luriaa: I appreciate your assistance. I formally request that Starfleet aid us in getting medical supplies to their intended destination.
Greaves: Response?
Luriaa: We were taking a greatly needed serum to a planet called Guranis which is now part of the United Dominion of Planets where a plague has swept through the population. The nebula is about half way there, and we had just come into this sector of space when we were attacked.
JoNz: ::slight purring trill as she checks a reading::
Greaves: =/\= Ensign Ragh, go with Woolheater just in case you three stumble on more survivors. If anything in those cargo bays are shielded we might have missed casualties in our scans. We’re going to meet with their Captain. Closing this line for now, but we’ll keep an eye on you. Call if you need something. =/\=
Ragh: =/\= Understood, Sir. Ragh out. =/\=
When the Doc walked into what was left of the cargo bay, Sam turned to see him.
Woolheater: Atmosphere is good in here. There are no leaks and the bulkheads are holding. Gravity plating is weak but…given all that this ship has been through. No biohazards detected. I’m saving my oxygen for later if we have to go spelunking in the lower decks.
Sam tapped a few buttons on the suit and the helmet retracted and disappeared into the neck portion of the EVA suit. The others did the same
Ragh: ::To Woolheater:: What do you think is going on? A few of the things the captain said are giving me pause.
The team used their tricorders to scan for and identify medical supplies.
Woolheater: I don’t know…::scanning with the tricorder::…doesn’t mean I don’t care. But the Colonel has the ball and we have our orders. Speculation ain’t on that list. Besides, nobody’s going to play Greaves for a sucker. Vorta or no. Discernment level ten on the Colonel y’know?
The doctor still seemed cautious.
Ragh: It is possible. She was eager to talk to Greaves, so if it was something nefarious I doubt she'd be so willing to talk. Perhaps it's not so much the supplies, but who they're supplying them to.
Ragh pulled out his tricoder, anyways.
Woolheater: You fixed up that crew pretty quick, I gotta say. We’re lucky…heck…they’re lucky you make ‘house calls’ ay?
Sam jested to both compliment and to ease the tension. The room was ransacked. Crates opened, shot open, dumped out onto the floor. Many of the supplies were lost. But, towards the rear of the bay, there was a section that had tipped over and scattered. It looked like it had been gone through, but the seals were still intact. And one of the crates, that larger of them, by far, was still firmly attached to the deck. Not only that. It was still powered with its own power supply.
Ragh: ::startled:: I am getting a life sign in.. ::looking around:: cargo bay 1. It's weak but it's there.
Weak was an understatement. It kept fluctuating and appeared to be small.
Woolheater: Affirm. I’m reading it too. We might have someone crushed under these crates. ::Sam whistled, Navarro and Ionescu responded and came over:: Help me with these crates? Doc? I hope you aren’t out of miracles…yet.
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Luriaa: Whoever attacked us did so while cloaked. I never saw them, nor did any of my crew for when they boarded, they were within suits that hid their forms. They went for medical supplies but didn’t actually take anything, just tried to destroy as much as they could. We ran and hid here. Somewhere during our flight, whomever was on board must have been transported back to their ship, for all they left behind were our injured and our dead.
JoNz: That style of attack - the cloaking, the incognito boarding party - sounds like some of the more radical factions of the Black Kris; they’re a pirate syndicate that have ties across several of the sectors.
Greaves: Response?
Luriaa: Fortunately, they missed a crate of the serum, so we have some intact. It needs to be delivered to the planet to begin treatment, and so more can be made.
JoNz: It’s unusual for any raiders to destroy medical cargo as anything medical brings a fair amount of credit chits on the black market.
The Caitian pilot was right. Medical supplies could easily become currency. As easy to trade as gold pressed latinum.
Luriaa: We need to get it to them quickly.
Out of curiosity, the gray furred Cait silently pulled up information on Guranis on the secondary tactical screen.
Luriaa/Greaves: Response?
JoNz: ::looks to Greaves:: Colonel, once we get our team back on board, I can get us to that planet faster than a Tellerite checking out a buffet.
Luriaa/Greaves: Response?
=====
With the smaller medical sterile crates moved and set aside; they were undamaged, the situation became clearer. About the size of a worker-bee shuttle pod was the larger, battery powered crate. It seemed to be intact and no seals were broken. However, there was no life sign outside of the crate. Which meant that whatever it was, it was fading fast and it was on the inside.
Woolheater: ::scanning with the tricorder:: The material of this crate is…or was…using a material to scatter sensor scans. But look, it’s been hastily applied. It’s good stuff, the kind pirates would use. I’ve seen it before on a previous deployment. But…its not perfect. They missed a few spots. Here. And here.
On the front was a lit door panel. The life sign was faint, and the door was waiting to open. Sam flipped the tricorder closed and withdrew his sidearm. Samuel activated his helmet cam, and the helmet came on over his head automatically. He nodded for the rest of the team to do likewise. All the live camera feeds were restored and transmitted. Then…he pressed the button after counting to three and the doors opened.
The doors parted with a soft pneumatic hiss.
Inside wasn’t equipment. Inside was a child.
Curled on her side in a padded restraint frame, small enough that the cradle had been adjusted down from its original size. A thermal blanket had been tucked around narrow shoulders with deliberate care, not factory precision. Medical leads traced from chest and neck into a compact monitoring unit mounted along the crate’s inner wall. The display pulsed weakly, heart rate slow, uneven, but present.
Breathing. Barely.
The child’s skin was pale beneath a sheen of sweat. Dark circles shadowed their eyes. A faint injection mark stood out along the side of the neck, clean, recent, clinical.
Ragh: Response?
Woolheater: ::to the group:: I gotta call this in. =/\= Talents actual? We found another survivor. Inside a special crate. Its own backup power.
The camera came on and the live video feed was sent to the Talents.
Doctor Ragh was taking medical scans. Sam didn’t move. No one but Ragh was moving. Sam fixed his gaze and that of the helmet cam on the child’s face, on the rise and fall of a chest that had no business still rising at all.
Greaves/JoNz/Luriaa/Ragh: Response?
The child was connected to serum collection units.
Greaves/JoNz/Luriaa/Ragh: Response?
A Valkyrie fighter sounded the alarm first. Valkyrie fighter 4, bearing 120, mark 040 spotted a vessel. At this distance, it might be a Black Kris ship. Whatever it was, it was coming at them at full impulse. The UDP freighter had drifted out of the cloud because the dilithium particulate cloud had changed shape. Leaking warp plasma, air, coolant and open fractures in the hull made the freighter an easy target.
Greaves/JoNz/Luriaa/Ragh: Response?
Sam looked at the team and gave the order.
Woolheater: ::to the team:: Target. Incoming. Hot. We’re leaving. Right now. Grab those supplies, Gunny? I help the Doc. You three gather everything you can that we id’d and haul ass back to the Talents. The kid is too weak to transport. We’ve got 5 crates of supplies, easy carry. The kid is a different story and it’s the Doc’s call on how we unhook her from…whatever this is.
Greaves/JoNz/Luriaa/Ragh: Response?
Woolheater: =/\= Understood. We are on our way! =/\= ::to himself:: I'd like to see how 'Mama Cee' computes THIS variable!
(Tags/TBC)
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Scout Sniper / Infantry Officer
MARDET, Starfleet Marine Corps
USS Octavia E. Butler NCC-82850