Lt. Commander Foster - Doctor Mode Activated
Jamie LeBlanc
((MFT Maximum Thrusters, Currently in the Temurian Asteroid Field))
Wyn’s cheeks burned a little navy. He had, in the heat of battle, forgotten all about the fact that he was supposed to stay put because the MFT had a mobile science lab that Ross and Voss and A’Mayri had taken time and care to set up.
In his defense, they had made a choice to save the Pigeon, and then it escalated from there.
Foster: Get those mines into position. Mi’sh, get us behind that bigger asteroid, I’m not too proud to hide to block some of those blasts.
Ross: =/\= ...sure. Just... - call me back. =/\=
Evan Ross sounded none too thrilled to hear of the MFT’s predicament.
Then again this was Wyn Foster’s big test of commanding a … souped up freighter. Everyone knew he was a medical genius, but would surgical superiority translate into ship-backed surgical strikes?
sh'Sonora: You got it, Sir!
Ysatch: The mine train is pulling into the station.
Choo choo.
Now now, brain.
The commline closed, giving Wyn the ability to fully focus on the tactical task at hand. A small set of shepherd probes leading a bunch of mines which were doing their level best to wobble away from each other and yet follow the bogey. The probey, if you would. And for a moment Wyn wanted to slap his brain again. But he realized he had become pretty good at keeping his mouth shut so none of that nonsense leaked out.
Good. He was in command and he had to keep what he said confident and clear.
sh’Sonora: Sir, Permission to eject one of our photon torpedoes… unpowered, set for proximity explosion!
His antennae bent forward trying to figure out how that would play out. His first, best guess was: explosive.
Foster: Proximity explosion? Like a match to a powder keg?
For a moment he mentally kicked himself. He had picked up too much Earth slang from his teenage years on Earth.
Slang and a bad accent. It fit him oddly enough.
sh’Sonora: Yeah, it’s a firecracker next to those mines, but it’ll work, I swear!
Ysatch: It's a good plan, Captain. We've got the fuel and the kindling in place, we just need a spark to light it.
Why did he feel like he was going to light the equivalent of a forest fire in these asteroids?
Except asteroids didn’t burn – usually. And the Corsair hadn’t stopped spitting seemingly endless amounts of disruptor fire at them. They had to do something before the MFT was a pile of ash, and all their good intentions were burned away to space dust.
Foster: Permission granted. Get into position. On your mark.
sh’Sonora: Get ready… dry fire torpedo!
What happened next was nothing short of a spectacular chain reaction.
The torpedo blew. The probes overloaded. The mines went wild and first one, then ten then dozens started to blow, growing ever closer to the Corsair.
sh’Sonora: But wait… ::Jerking the controls around forcefully.:: …there’s more!
The MFT swerved giddily against the shockwaves. Wyn’s antennae twitched wildly, keeping his feet, and thinking that the 1812 Overture should be playing somewhere in the background complete with bell towers and canons.
Tey certainly had the fireworks down.
The Corsair’s engines flares, making to move away from the swiftly surging wave of destruction, but a nearby asteroid caught them off guard. The whole thing cracked as explosions rocked its core sending waves of rocky shrapnel through the system.
sh’Sonora: Gotcha!
Ysatch: Wow, I can't look away.
Foster: Neither can I…
Wyn felt that watching was part of the price you paid for being the commanding officer who gave the order to initiate such destruction. By this point the internal telemetry and navigation had gone wildly off course and the mines were colliding into … anything and everything in range.
More asteroids started to crack. More mines exploded. The Corsair was badly buffeted.
And that’s when something was ejected from the Corsair.
And the readings on the MFT lit up with a sudden angry surge, like a vindictive roommate who had turned on every light in the house before tripping the main power breaker on their way out, when it started to light up – it all lit up.
sh’Sonora: Warp core ejection! We have a warp core ejection! Mobility kill! I repeat, mobility kill!
Ysatch: Well the good news is, the Corsair is pretty much out of the fight. Main power down and emergency systems only. The bad news is that thing ::pointing at the warp core::
Foster: What is that thing?
He was not an engineer so he had to ask. But he already assumed it was bad.
sh’Sonora: Oh frell, we have a warp core ejection!
Oh, it was bad alright.
Ysatch: When the core hits those rocks, it's going to lose containment and we are way too close. I'm diverting all available power to shields, but every kilometer we can put between us and it will help.
Foster: Mi’sh, get us away from here, fastest possible speed. Tori, will the xplosion hit the Nybarrite rig?
He knew they were on the opposite side of the planet from the Temurians. That should give the teams and the asteroid enough cover.
Should. Wyn wasn’t aware of the explosive potential of a warp core breach of an Orion Corsair. He was pretty sure a planet would block the shockwave. He knew it could pulverize the MFT if they didn’t get away far enough.
sh'Sonora: ?
Ysatch: We've moved far enough away from the Pigeon and the Nyarrite rig that they should be safe from the blast and radiation, but they might get some bumps from the shockwave.
Foster: Keep full power to engines, take all other power beyond life support and divert it to shields!
The best defense was not getting hit.
But if you were going to get hit… it was a good thing this ship had full on Starfleet shields.
sh'Sonora: ?
Ysatch: Here it comes.
The MFT sped away from the area like a criminal fleeing the scene of a crime. Maybe they were criminals – Wyn didn’t know how many were on the Corsair, or if any escaped to the planet below, but he was starting to feel the weight of the decisions he had made as he watched the warp core spin, inexorably, slowly, unstoppably, towards the jagged asteroid rock formation.
And then it blew.
The viewscreen was bathed in light so bright it made Wyn screw his eyes shut and hiss like a cat covered in gasoline hissing at an oncoming match. His overly sensitive eyesight burned and it took all of his willpower to not scream in pain.
And then the shockwave hit. The MFT was caught up and tossed through space like a bit of flotsam in a torrential floodzone.
The only good thing about the shock wave is that it was also pushed the asteroids along with them, which for the most part kept the MFT from being plastered like a bug against a space rock.
Wyn could hear amid the screeching of the deck plates and the whining of every system onboard the hissing of the consoles in front of him and Tori’s pained cry.
Ysatch: Ahh!
And then, finally, after what seemed like hours (but was actually merely seconds) the shockwave died. The MFT came to a stop.
Wyn could see stars. Streaks of light across his vision. It hurt. He didn’t care. Doctor mode immediately kicked in.
Foster: Tori! Your console’s on fire!
His feet were wobbly, but his body was unbroken. He released his own straps and jumped forward to unclasp Tori.
Ysatch/sh’Sonora: ?
Foster: I don’t think they upgraded fire control. Side locked, starboard side. The thing with the big orange stripe on it, should be handheld extinguishers.
A very manual process. Something that almost certainly wouldn’t happen on a Starfleet ship. The MFT was very nicely upgraded, but at her core she was still a scrappy civilian smuggling ship that wanted to run from danger instead of fight it.
Ysatch/sh’Sonora: ?
As the immediate fire danger died, Wyn started looking his two companions over.
Foster: Are either of you hurt?
Ysatch/sh’Sonora: ?
He reached into his own personal compartment underneath his console and pulled out a slim, well used medkit.
Foster: Of course I brought a medkit… ::he looked towards the viewscreen.:: But first… is anything else after us? Will anything else explode?
Always check your area for danger before you checked for injuries. First rule of battlefield triage. You didn’t live very long as a battlefield medic by getting shot or overcome by dangerous area effects.
Ysatch/sh’Sonora: ?
~*~
tags/tbc
~*~
Lt. Commander Shar’Wyn Foster
Acting Commanding Officer
~Julian Beck
E239010ST0