Lt. Cmdr. Kirsty Carpenter - Catch a Wave

[Justin Partridge]

((Bridge, Deck 3, U.S.S. Ronin.))

Carpenter: I plan on bein' around long enough to bring those buzzards down.

The lights of the Bridge plunged downward in a darkness that would have been dryly hilarious if it wasn't for Kirsty's already pitched and frayed nerves. Adding a slightly terrifying insult to injury, the whole of the compartment gave another one of those bone-juttering shudders, as if they needed any more reminder that the very thing that was keeping them "in the air" as it were was mere minutes away from fracturing completely and taking whatever and whoever was around it into the never...

But before Kirsty allowed herself her second raspy and near-exhausted breath, the Bridge sprang back to a grimly life once again. Bringing everyone's bewildered but still determined glances back to the here and now. Kirsty, miraculously, was able to find her voice first. 

Carpenter: How'd we make sure that happens?

The new Ensign, Sims, was johnnie-on-the-spot. 

Sims: We need to make repairs immediately. It doesn’t even matter if it’s just a quick five minute patch job, most of our systems are still offline or on the verge of it. Our first priority should be getting the warp core stabilized or, at least, patched enough to keep us from getting blown apart. Doesn’t matter how much strength we feed into the shields if we implode from within…

Kirsty nodded toward the practical wisdom of the plan, glancing then back toward Marty to see if he had anything to add. He usually did and it usually was the difference between salvation and disaster. 

Tucker: RESPONSE

Before they could go on, however, a newish sound started to crackle through the activity of the Bridge. A lone comm signal. The Captain clocked it first, pivoting his body carefully toward one of the consoles and bringing forth...the harried, but still-breathing voice of Gra'vel! Kirsty felt her heart leap even as the flight commander delivered even more dire news, though she did spare a darkened wonder toward where Captain Singh might could be... 

But she would get her answer...

Gra'vel:  =/\= Scuttles To Ronin, Scuttles To Ronin, Come In Please! =/\=

The Captain caught the call carefully and quickly.

Niac: =/\= We're here Scuttles, glad to hear from you.  What's your status? =/\=

Gra'vel:  =/\= It's bad sir, the only vessels from the defense screen still in the fight are Scuttles and Snowball and neither of us have any torpedoes left.  We're both heavily damaged and Snowball is wounded.  Snowball won't give me her status but I'm getting med-alerts from her fighter...they're critical. =/\=

Niac:  =/\= Understood Scuttles, standby one. =/\=

Niac:  Looks like the idea of taking on another starship is a little too much for some of them.  Two of the damaged leviathans are breaking off and the smaller vessels are streaming away in all directions.  

Sims: Damage reports are finally coming in from that last attack run by the gun ship. Most of the damage seems to have been concentrated on the lower decks – 15 through 18 to be particular. Several of the hull microfractures in those areas have been torn open into full hull breaches. No major damage to critical systems, as far as I can tell. I can’t stress enough how lucky we were – main engineering is on deck 14, and if those shots had just been a little bit farther up on the hull..I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.

Niac:  Then it's time to finish this fight.  Chief Tucker, shut down life support on decks fifteen through eighteen and reroute it to the lateral phaser arrays.  We have to finish off that final Alliance ship before they decide concentrate whatever they have left on the station or the Khitomer.  

Carpenter: Sir, yes, SIR!

Kirsty's hands started to dance their trained contact gathering dance across the haptics of the terminal. The fighter forms were coming back around once more, the frenzied ones who hadn't broken off during even their explosive attempt at a Tholian web, so Kirsty gladly painted them as hostile as possible. And they would be transformed into so much ash once the ship's primary weapons arrays kicked back a'light.

For a moment, Kirsty's almost instantaneous immolate death from the exploding warp core is forgotten. There is only the re-quickening pulse of the battle and her part in it. It brings both a shame and clarity to her actions now as more voices spindle around her and her trembling, but still-working hands. 

Tucker: RESPONSE

Sims: Minimal. That last beating we took completely evaporated our shield strength and I don’t have any other systems to pull more power from. That last drip of power diverted from the non-essential decks was all we had left for power reserves.

Niac:  Understood, I'm going to move us into a blocking position to screen the station with the last of our impulse power.  We just need a little more time Chief.

As the ship started to barrel slightly to the port side, a new weapon slot flipped back to green under Kirsty's thumb.

Carpenter: Projectile defense grid back online! 

As if to punctuate her point, a thin bead of pulse pellets shot from the prow of the ship and sliced through a pair of approaching, ruddy looking torpedoes, lobbed from one of the disembarking L.A. frigates that were shrinking under the heavy gaze and guns of the U.S.S. Excalibur. 

But there was still only so much they could do. 

Tucker: RESPONSE

Sims: Sir! I just detected a launch from the shuttle bay on deck eleven. It’s definitely the Sagan but what in the world are they doing? That shuttlecraft will be blown to pieces if an Alliance vessel so much as looks at it the wrong way!

A new contact signal bleeped tawnily from the new Tactical 2 console. It seemed as if the entire Bridge shuffled over to see it...and all seemed as equally baffled by the readout as Kirsty was. It was one of theirs. Unauthorized launch, of course, and it was reading only two life signs. That would be Beck and Ian's. She clicked her tongue in audible astonishment.

Carpenter: Now where the devil did THEY come from?!

The Captain seemed to have near the same thought, dashing back over once more to the Comm terminal and hammering open a channel to the wayward 

Niac:  =/\= Ronin to Sagan, what the hell do you think you're doing?! =/\=

 

A sort of silence thrummed through the air and Kirsty, despite her exhaustion and near despair, nearly guffawed like a total lunatic at it. It was just so perfectly Beck to cause a scene in the middle of a major battle. But she held her tongue.

More bit it. And then finally voices carried through the haze. 

 

Beck: =/\= Oh, we thought we'd just take the Sagan out for a little spin, sir. Get some fresh air before the warp core breach. =/\=

 

Another theatrical beat hammered home the absurdity of the moment. 

 

O'Connor: =/\= Not to mention the view, it’s…well, it’s something =/\=

 

Niac:  =/\= That is not what I had in mind when I issued that order, Lieutenant!  Wait one. =/\=

The comm control "died" under his hand, but he still whipped his gaze up and around himself toward Kirsty. She craned her aching body over the top of her battered console to hear him better. 

Niac:  Kirsty, try to contact Scuttles and advise them to cover the Sagan as best they can.  Advise them we're making a final firing pass on the weapon ship.  Chief, Mr. Sims, put every gigawatt we've got left into those phaser banks.  

Tucker: RESPONSE

Kirsty sent a signal as best she could through the cloud of the conflict to the still operational fighters on their side. Thankfully, Beck and Ian made it a lot easier differentiating themselves as an ally after lashing out with the shuttlecraft's meager but manageable weapons systems against the L.A. fighter-forms. 

But another crushing realization dawned on her.

Carpenter: They aren't going to last long out there. ::she points severely to the now phaser-firing Gun-Ship:: Especially with that monster out there still. 

Sims:  RESPONSE

Niac:  Try to raise the Excalibur...if we coordinate our fire we might be able to finish that damn thing off.  

Tucker: RESPONSE

She turned a wolfish grin toward Tucker and then toward her almost filled targeting display. No torpedoes. No support craft left to deploy. Everything at risk. Everything to lose.

But Kirsty had phasers again. She started out a repeating comm pulse to the Excalibur and then tensed her hands to return to the work of dealing out photonic punishment. An anachronistic, but all-too-apt ancient saying came to her. 

Carpenter: Filling 'em fulla daylight, boss! 

Sims:  RESPONSE

Lances of molten energy crossed and crisscrossed the space between the four vessels. Nothing but the stars and the implacable vacuum of space witnessed the titantic conflict, but the light cast from the weapons fire alone shone through the sector like a small star. 

The three Federation vessels had the "Gun-Ship" beaten on the sheer amount of beams crossing from their end, but the two massive columns of fire that spiked from the top of the improbable ship were no less impressive. And no less unforgiving. Kirsty fired and fired and fired and fired again, her knuckles heating once more with the pain and effort to keep up the ground they were holding with everything and more

But from the corner of her eye, a new signal, one this time from the still-being-hailed Excalibur caught her eye. It looked like...a data package? Marked highest priority. Kirsty disengaged her left hand for a half a second and accepted the data transfer, making sure it was funneled up to where The Captain could see it too. 

His incredulous eyes told her even before he said anything.

Niac: RESPONSE

Carpenter: Chief Alieth wants to try ANOTHER web? An "anti-Web"?!

Tucker: RESPONSE

Sims: RESPONSE

Her mind reeled as she continued to shoot as much as she could. The power levels were waning once more and the stuttering that had once been momentary were starting to grow nearer and nearer to constant, but if they were going to try this...

oO We need all the power we can get. Maybe that's more literal than we think...Oo

She took her hands from the controls, bringing their few operational guns to silence once more. She caught her Captain's gaze.

Niac: RESPONSE

Carpenter: Then we use it all. We funnel everything, and I mean EVERYTHING into the deflector pulse to match the Khitomer's. Weapons, shields, life support, the core, we push it all out with the Kitty's chronoton and into their stupid slimy, crystalline faces. We already have the counterwave formula, if we just-

Another hollow TH-THOOOM boomed through the phaser fire. The "Gun-Ship"'s massive barrel was starting to gather energy once more. And their battered scopes and sensors were screaming out the proof. They were gathering a last ditch S-Wave. It was...

Carpenter: Now or never, sir. If we don't push them back now...we won't at all.

Niac/Tucker/Sims: RESPONSE

--

TAG/TBC

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Lieutenant Commander

Kirsty L. Carpenter

//\\

Chief of Security & Tactical

Starfleet SAR

(Marine Rank: Major)

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U.S.S. RONIN

NCC-34523

ID: E239512QC0

//\\

F.N.S. Contributor