Cmdr. Agatha Stergis - Falling Sideways
12 views
Skip to first unread message
Karrod Niac
Sep 1, 2024, 12:41:59 AM9/1/24
to USS Ronin – StarBase 118 Star Trek PBEM RPG
((Ops, Deck One, Central Module, Deep Space Thirty Three))
The short range sensors or more precisely the sensors which were still functional tracked the Khitomer streaking by, their phaser and torpedo fire now focused on the Alliances forces breaking off their assault on the station and hurrying to pursue this new and confounding threat. Just as she was silently offering thanks to the Khitomer the sensors began alerting once more, announcing an imminent arrival.
Mackenna: The Ronin has just dropped out of warp. Looks like a strafing run.
The viewscreen updated with the relative positions of the Khitomer, Ronin and the assaulting Alliance forces an instant later and Agatha saw the trap the Lattice had fallen into.
Stergis: The Khitomer's arrival pulled these ships out of position and the Ronin is in a perfect position to exploit it.
A new cascade of alarms filled her display and Agatha's mouth dropped open.
Stergis: Strategic ordinance launch...those can't all be...
MacKenna: Hmm. Tricobalt torpedoes.
Agatha looked between the viewscreen and it's dozens of blinking alerts, each signifying enough destructive potential to decimate planetoids, and the disaffected intelligence officer who seemed quite unimpressed by the sudden and awesome display.
Stergis: Were you hoping for something bigger?
The sensor picture collapsed as the Ronin's alpha strike found its targets, carving a huge wedge out of the enemies suddenly exposed flank. The shockwaves reached the station a few seconds later and Agatha could feel the whole massive structure of Thirty Three groan through the soles of her boots. She placed a sympathetic hand palm down on the Ops console and urged the station to hold.
MacKenna: Not sure much of that will matter. Whatever that is...
Agatha's attention snapped back to the viewscreen which had cleared enough to give them a picture of the larger formation of Alliance vessels further out from the station and well beyond the reach of their limited weapons. At the center of the group and with a vast flotilla of large Alliance ships ringing it an enormous weblike superstructure had erected itself from an enormous vessel, all of which rippled with crackling lightning. The Ronin swung by to get close sensor readings as the Khitomer arced around the station, firing in every direction at the fighters threatening to envelop it. She redirected the stations meager phaser fire to target the pursuers but her shots found no targets as the whole vast swarm of smaller ships fled away from the station in every direction, leaving almost completely empty space between the Alliance's big toy and the station.
Stergis: They're getting ready to fire. =/\= Stergis to all defense wings, break break break, evacuate the A.O. at best possible speed! =/\=
There was little she could do for the station at this point but, with fatalistic focus on her duties, perhaps she could save a few of the pilots who'd fought so fiercely for them.
oO As last orders go it's not a bad one...Oo
Agatha's heartbeat thundered in her ears as she watched the Khitomer and Ronin take up a desperate blocking position between the station and the Alliance weapon. For a moment she considered contacting them and trying to get them to abandon their suicidally noble defense but the moment passed and the Alliance weapon fired, a vortex of energy erupting and ripping its way across space towards them. The Khitomer and Ronin joined together and hurled back their own lance of energy. The resultant cataclysm was more than the sensors could take and their very last reading, right before the viewscreen failed entirely, was a shockwave of stupendous proportions.
MacKenna: BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!!
The moment stretched and Agatha's mind wandered. As a child she had read a book about fishing the ancient seas of Earth and had been engrossed by a chapter which described a something called a rogue wave. She'd always found the idea of the sudden, unexpected arrival of such a powerful force both terrifying and fascinating. She imagined herself gripping the rail of her tiny seagoing vessel and riding the wave, borne aloft on its power.
She'd never imagined being thrown across a room as it exploded around her, people and equipment and the very bones of the station all shattering and becoming deadly shrapnel as they tumbled. Her perspective went mad as she collided with something and spun laterally, landing in a heap somewhere on the far side of the compartment, heaving and shocked.
There was a long terrible silence in Ops broken only by the sparking of a shattered power conduit somewhere behind her. She focused on breathing, too stunned to do anything more than struggle for consciousness. Slowly the pained sounds of other survivors got past the ringing in her ears and Agatha rolled gingerly, a horrible wave of vertigo keeping her pinned to the deck. A detached part of her mind, the one that had been exhaustively trained for emergencies, began warning of a severe concussion.
MacKenna: For the afterlife, this seems a bit underwhelming.
Agatha blinked slowly and, when no other thought occurred, groaned out a laugh which broke up into a fit of coughing.
Stergis: With jokes like that you're wasted on Starfleet, Ash. Can you move? I'm having...a little trouble.
MacKenna: I believe I am in one piece, but not everyone made it.
Agatha forced herself to put the thought into a vault for another time, her limited faculties still struggling to get her back to her feet.
Stergis: Can you get to a console? We need...find out what happened.
Agatha could barely see as the emergency lighting kept flickering but she shuffled herself to her knees and, after the dizziness passed, to her feet and towards the center of the room. The Ops console was blinking on and off, displays showing snapshots of broken data and offline systems.
MacKenna: Response
She tried tapping a few commands into the console without success before realizing she was wasting her time. Vision narrowing Agatha propped herself on the ops table and reached under, popping open an emergency compartment and retrieving the medkit inside. She dropped the case to the table but found her fingers unequal to the task of opening the latch.
Stergis: I need a hand, Commander. Seems like some of my nervous system is still on break.
MacKenna: Response
Agatha groaned as she turned and set her back against the ops table, taking some of the weight off her legs. She felt so deeply tired but shrieking warnings within her mind insisted she fight the feeling with all her remaining strength.
Stergis: Just..keep me on my feet. I'm not leaving my post.
MacKenna: Response
Leaning back as the tricorder chirped in alarm Agatha reached towards her commbadge and fumbled several times before tapping it. The computer blatted an error several times.
Stergis: =/\= Stergis to any defense team...report in. =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Agatha felt relief that had nothing to do with a hypospray at the sound of another voice.
Stergis: =/\= It's good to hear from you, Commander. What's your status? =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Stergis: =/\= The last thing we saw up here was our ships attempting to defend the station from a huge Alliance weapon. Judging by the fact we're still here I'd say they were successful...mostly. =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Agatha considered it for a moment and looked around what remained of the ops center. If they had any chance of surviving more than the next few minutes, they'd need to get it back online and hold it long enough to do something with it.
Stergis: =/\= Commander, I think it's time to pull all the surviving defense teams back, collapse our perimeter as small as possible. Do you think you can get up to Ops? =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Tags/TBC!
=================================================
Commander Agatha Stergis
Starfleet Liaison Officer
Deep Space Thirty Three
V239509GT0
The short range sensors or more precisely the sensors which were still functional tracked the Khitomer streaking by, their phaser and torpedo fire now focused on the Alliances forces breaking off their assault on the station and hurrying to pursue this new and confounding threat. Just as she was silently offering thanks to the Khitomer the sensors began alerting once more, announcing an imminent arrival.
Mackenna: The Ronin has just dropped out of warp. Looks like a strafing run.
The viewscreen updated with the relative positions of the Khitomer, Ronin and the assaulting Alliance forces an instant later and Agatha saw the trap the Lattice had fallen into.
Stergis: The Khitomer's arrival pulled these ships out of position and the Ronin is in a perfect position to exploit it.
A new cascade of alarms filled her display and Agatha's mouth dropped open.
Stergis: Strategic ordinance launch...those can't all be...
MacKenna: Hmm. Tricobalt torpedoes.
Agatha looked between the viewscreen and it's dozens of blinking alerts, each signifying enough destructive potential to decimate planetoids, and the disaffected intelligence officer who seemed quite unimpressed by the sudden and awesome display.
Stergis: Were you hoping for something bigger?
The sensor picture collapsed as the Ronin's alpha strike found its targets, carving a huge wedge out of the enemies suddenly exposed flank. The shockwaves reached the station a few seconds later and Agatha could feel the whole massive structure of Thirty Three groan through the soles of her boots. She placed a sympathetic hand palm down on the Ops console and urged the station to hold.
MacKenna: Not sure much of that will matter. Whatever that is...
Agatha's attention snapped back to the viewscreen which had cleared enough to give them a picture of the larger formation of Alliance vessels further out from the station and well beyond the reach of their limited weapons. At the center of the group and with a vast flotilla of large Alliance ships ringing it an enormous weblike superstructure had erected itself from an enormous vessel, all of which rippled with crackling lightning. The Ronin swung by to get close sensor readings as the Khitomer arced around the station, firing in every direction at the fighters threatening to envelop it. She redirected the stations meager phaser fire to target the pursuers but her shots found no targets as the whole vast swarm of smaller ships fled away from the station in every direction, leaving almost completely empty space between the Alliance's big toy and the station.
Stergis: They're getting ready to fire. =/\= Stergis to all defense wings, break break break, evacuate the A.O. at best possible speed! =/\=
There was little she could do for the station at this point but, with fatalistic focus on her duties, perhaps she could save a few of the pilots who'd fought so fiercely for them.
oO As last orders go it's not a bad one...Oo
Agatha's heartbeat thundered in her ears as she watched the Khitomer and Ronin take up a desperate blocking position between the station and the Alliance weapon. For a moment she considered contacting them and trying to get them to abandon their suicidally noble defense but the moment passed and the Alliance weapon fired, a vortex of energy erupting and ripping its way across space towards them. The Khitomer and Ronin joined together and hurled back their own lance of energy. The resultant cataclysm was more than the sensors could take and their very last reading, right before the viewscreen failed entirely, was a shockwave of stupendous proportions.
MacKenna: BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!!
The moment stretched and Agatha's mind wandered. As a child she had read a book about fishing the ancient seas of Earth and had been engrossed by a chapter which described a something called a rogue wave. She'd always found the idea of the sudden, unexpected arrival of such a powerful force both terrifying and fascinating. She imagined herself gripping the rail of her tiny seagoing vessel and riding the wave, borne aloft on its power.
She'd never imagined being thrown across a room as it exploded around her, people and equipment and the very bones of the station all shattering and becoming deadly shrapnel as they tumbled. Her perspective went mad as she collided with something and spun laterally, landing in a heap somewhere on the far side of the compartment, heaving and shocked.
There was a long terrible silence in Ops broken only by the sparking of a shattered power conduit somewhere behind her. She focused on breathing, too stunned to do anything more than struggle for consciousness. Slowly the pained sounds of other survivors got past the ringing in her ears and Agatha rolled gingerly, a horrible wave of vertigo keeping her pinned to the deck. A detached part of her mind, the one that had been exhaustively trained for emergencies, began warning of a severe concussion.
MacKenna: For the afterlife, this seems a bit underwhelming.
Agatha blinked slowly and, when no other thought occurred, groaned out a laugh which broke up into a fit of coughing.
Stergis: With jokes like that you're wasted on Starfleet, Ash. Can you move? I'm having...a little trouble.
MacKenna: I believe I am in one piece, but not everyone made it.
Agatha forced herself to put the thought into a vault for another time, her limited faculties still struggling to get her back to her feet.
Stergis: Can you get to a console? We need...find out what happened.
Agatha could barely see as the emergency lighting kept flickering but she shuffled herself to her knees and, after the dizziness passed, to her feet and towards the center of the room. The Ops console was blinking on and off, displays showing snapshots of broken data and offline systems.
MacKenna: Response
She tried tapping a few commands into the console without success before realizing she was wasting her time. Vision narrowing Agatha propped herself on the ops table and reached under, popping open an emergency compartment and retrieving the medkit inside. She dropped the case to the table but found her fingers unequal to the task of opening the latch.
Stergis: I need a hand, Commander. Seems like some of my nervous system is still on break.
MacKenna: Response
Agatha groaned as she turned and set her back against the ops table, taking some of the weight off her legs. She felt so deeply tired but shrieking warnings within her mind insisted she fight the feeling with all her remaining strength.
Stergis: Just..keep me on my feet. I'm not leaving my post.
MacKenna: Response
Leaning back as the tricorder chirped in alarm Agatha reached towards her commbadge and fumbled several times before tapping it. The computer blatted an error several times.
Stergis: =/\= Stergis to any defense team...report in. =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Agatha felt relief that had nothing to do with a hypospray at the sound of another voice.
Stergis: =/\= It's good to hear from you, Commander. What's your status? =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Stergis: =/\= The last thing we saw up here was our ships attempting to defend the station from a huge Alliance weapon. Judging by the fact we're still here I'd say they were successful...mostly. =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Agatha considered it for a moment and looked around what remained of the ops center. If they had any chance of surviving more than the next few minutes, they'd need to get it back online and hold it long enough to do something with it.
Stergis: =/\= Commander, I think it's time to pull all the surviving defense teams back, collapse our perimeter as small as possible. Do you think you can get up to Ops? =/\=
Raga/MacKenna: =/\= Response =/\=
Tags/TBC!
=================================================
Commander Agatha Stergis
Starfleet Liaison Officer
Deep Space Thirty Three
V239509GT0
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages