Ensign Mi'shune sh'Sonora - You Got to Have Faith
d.reinhart
sh’Sonora: Hey, if I ever proposed this crazy stunt to my tactical professor back at the academy he would fail me on the spot. Still, beats being killed or captured, right?
Willow: Ensign, I don’t mean to dismiss it out right. However, taking into account risk versus reward, we are at a tactically indisposed position that would produce significant damage, or risk to our persons by entering near the Theirr. I do not see the reason to enter close combat at this particular time.
sh’Sonora: oO Well of course not, because you didn’t think to bring the proper equipment for potential boarding and interdiction scenarios, oh like say… GRENADES?! Nope, no gas bombs, no photonic stun grenades, not even some flashbangs… What kind of insane hippy security officer did we get saddled with?! Oo
Such incredulity hid behind Mi’shune’s disciplined mask. She wasn’t a soft, smart-alecky pinkskin or descended from utopianists from a resort planet. She was an Andorian. Born in the cold, raised under Empress and Ushaan, hard-wired from the cerebral cortex to the hardened knuckles on her fist for ruthless efficiency and cold-blooded survival of the greater core. Celebrants of life and death in equal measure.
There was no doubt in her mind after seeing those dead bodies drift across her viewscreen that she was dealing with an equally ruthless enemy, and after she destroyed one of their vessels that she had her blood up. In that moment her Andorian evolution showed a killer of the tundra, dispatching a threat to her clan. There was a threat to her people, her charges. The urge to fight, to defend, to end the mother-loving existences of those who threaten her comrades was strong within her.
Not, however, stronger at this time than the other quintessential Andorian trait of discipline.
Whether or not she harbored any fundamental differences when it came to the utilization of violence with her superior officer was irrelevant. She was an Andorian. Merchant caste, not from the military clans, and not expected to be as obedient as a true warrior, but still an Andorian. Violence was tempered by discipline. Starfleet discipline.
A discipline that also told her she had to chill out and listen to her superior officer before her attempt at glory got the people she was supposed to protect killed.
Wethern: I must remember to add photonic grenades to my Christmas list.
sh’Sonora: It’s much easier to accept risk for one’s self than for others. Okay, I understand Sir.
Willow: It would do well to keep our hideout, attempting to regain our tactical advantage once we reignite the engines. Once we blind the Orion vessel, disabling their electronic systems - an EMP will suffice - we can attempt to establish communication and have them stand down.
Wethern: Once we send out a comm, even a burst communication we would paint a target on us.
sh’Sonora: As long as they’re powered down that’s not a problem. Once they get systems back online we’re as vulnerable as a neutered tribble. We’ve seen what they’ve done to the helpless. I’m afraid that they’ll just as easily do that to us.
Mi’shune eyed the viewscreen, in the general direction of the ejected pilot, and a cold-blooded thought came to her.
sh’Sonora’s Inner Dialogue: oO Detonating one of the Theirr’s plasma torpedoes in their general direction? That’s cold, even for you. And so not Starfleet. Oo
sh’Sonora: oO Yeah? Well I don’t think my superiors get that we’re not dealing with the most gentle and enlightened of sentient peoples. Listen, not only I can’t disobey, I don't have any better ideas so what do you want from me? Oo
Unsure as to whether or not she was doing the right thing, Mi’shune sighed heavily. Abdicating responsibility, leaving the burden to Lieutenant Haukea-Willow was a difficult decision, one lifting a lot of mental workload off her mind. In a way she was relieved, if still afraid of where these decisions will take them.
sh’Sonora: Let’s do this, Sir. ::She adjusted her aviator glasses, spun the seat to face her console, and rested her hands on the controls. oO I’m putting my faith in you, Lieutenant. Please don’t let us down. Oo
Opening hailing frequencies would likely produce merely static, the Orion vessel declining both to respond and stand down. Nevertheless, one had to give it a sustained effort before agreeing to significantly more risky combat oriented routes.
Willow: I will only appeal to more direct, close quarters methods once all other avenues have been exhausted. A last hail mary if you will.
Wethern: As much as I would hate to say it I think the old saying of a good defence is a good offence.
sh’Sonora: I’m good at hail mary’s, Sir. I can get close enough to smack their warp core with a ushaan-tor if you want. Let me know when.
Wethern: The way I see it is that we have a couple of options, we wait til they leave....: pausing looking at the console: hold on a minute.
Sensing a presence over the Theirr’s canopy, the diminutive Andorian looked up, and her antennae began to wilt.
The pirate vessel dropped out of warp directly above them.
Overhead was the slim, graceful, and deceptively brutal Wanderer class blockade runner. Its bulbous forward crew compartment, like a broad-leaf spearhead, loomed a large shadow on the smaller, birdlike scoutship. She could see the slender keel running from the main hull down to its aft, two lean warp nacelles spread horizontally away from the engineering section, and two smaller pods, like smaller versions of its warp nacelles, protruding from the middle.
Wethern: That might be our decision made, that was a tachyon ping and the vessel is moving on an intercept course to their floating icicle we spaced.
Proximity sensors detected tachyon particles absorbing into and bouncing off the Theirr’s stealthy skin. Any bounceback would be hard to notice on sensors. Thank the gods, Mi’shune thought, they didn’t engage the cloak, or else their subspace distortions would buzz the particles around like a centrifuge and light them up brighter than terran fireworks.
The thought also occurred to her which, on realization, aroused her antennae.
The pirate ship seemed to be taking its sweet time, putting priority on finding them rather than retrieving their missing pilot.
And, in dropping out of war, was only several hundred metres away.
sh’Sonora: Right on top of us…
Wethern: Whilst I'm normally one happy to wait in the bar for things like this. Hiding in the shadow of their shield and warp bubble would provide us some safety before we can come up with a plan and is technically a non confrontational option.
Willow:
sh’Sonora: Huh… hey…. HEY! ::Mi’shune dashed to her duffel back, digging in fiercely until she found what she was looking for, a PADD. She began to tap furiously at the controls.::
Willow:
Wethern: All I'm saying is we would have some power for a coffee and if we decided to take an EVA walk for some shaped ship charges it might be a good change of scenery.
sh’Sonora: We may not have to! Okay, a dry fire of the ion mine launchers can propel the mines a. ::beep beep beeeeep:: And we have a distance of… :: She eyeballed the looming pirate vessel, then turned to her PADD to rapidly enter in more numbers.:: Carry the four… ::beep beep beeeeeeep:: And their estimated response time between being hit by the EMP and rebooting their systems to full functionality… ::Beep beep beep…. DING!:: Hmmmm… a little close for my liking. Does anyone want to check my math? It’s not my strong suite.
She tossed her PADD over to Wethern to inspect, waiting for him to pass it onto Willow.
Any: ?
sh’Sonora: ::Excitedly:: Can’t you see? The ion mines. They aren’t just proximity explosives. They’re magnetic too! If we can EMP the pirate vessel, that might give us enough time for the ion mine to drift and clamp onto their hull. Then we don’t have to close combat them. They have to do what we say or we disable their vessel. Nobody has to fight, nobody has to die, unless those pirates aren't the post-capitalist freebooters we think they are and have serious self-preservation issues. All we need to do is buy some time, hope to the gods my calculations are right, and make them stay still before they realize we’ve mined them. How’s that for a negotiating position?
Any: ?
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Ensign Mi’shune sh’Sonora
Helm Officer
Starbase 118 - Ops Department
O240208MS1