Lieutenant Marty Tucker - High Voltage [Pt. 1]
Martin Tucker
((Deck 3, Main Bridge, USS Ronin, Approximately Twenty Minutes After the Explosion))
The Ronin rocked from side to side, tossing around the bridge crew that weren’t holding on to their stations. Marty could only watch as the shields drained and now offered no protection, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Ceiling panels fell, and more EPS conduits blew, venting into the bridge, giving it an eerie look with the red lighting and haze.
Marty was keeping one eye on the warp core at all times. They were getting tossed about, and that didn’t help the microfractures of the intermix chamber. One wrong thing, and they’d lose containment. At that point, it might be senseless to eject the warp core because there is no way the Ronin would have the speed to get out of the blast radius, never mind the Khitomer and the station.
Alarms started beeping on his console, and he shut off the audible alarm. From all the information he was getting the Ronin was on its last legs, and once the impulse generators melt, she’ll be dead in the water and sitting there like a nice Georgia peach, begging to be picked. For the most part, Tuck was along for the ride; he could keep things somewhat together but could only do so much.
Sims: We can’t take many more hits like that! The shields are pretty much depleted, and there’s not many systems left we can divert power from that are non-essential to bolster them!
Carpenter: Forward tubes away!
Carpenter fired what Marty was sure were the last torpedoes in the ship's complement. The torpedoes rained down hell on the Alliance, turning the Alliance vessel into Swiss cheese. Secondary explosions rippled across the ship, starting from the aft of the ship, and made it forward like someone had skipped a deadly rock across the pond of metal that made up the Alliance frigate.
The frigate started to drift, lifeless, lights flickering amidships; she was done.
Sims: Great shot!
Tucker: Nice shootin’ Tex!
Carpenter: I'm makin' it easier for Beck and O'Connor. Then...::she pointed toward the main viewer and the looming L.A. forces still itching for the full conflict to erupt once more:: I plan on bein' around long enough to bring those buzzards down.
Then, because things had been going well, the power grid flickered and died, sending the bridge into blackness. As quick as it was gone, it flickered back to life. The emergency lights coupled with the red from the red alert made for an eerie look casting everything with a red shadow.
Carpenter: How'd we make sure that happens?
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…
He had a point, but the microfractures were a bit of an obstacle.
Tucker: ::to Niac:: I’ve got crews deployed, and engineering is working on a solution to patch up the warp core, though I’m not sure what can be done. And I’m begging, borrowing, and outright stealing any power I can. I was able to get a bit more to the grid by rechanneling the energy from the security complex’s holo-deck. It’s not much, but it’ll have to do.
The captain was about to respond when a comm channel crackled to life. It was the voice of one of the Valkrye, the ship's resident Horta, to be exact.
Gra'vel: =/\= Scuttles To Ronin, Scuttles To Ronin, Come In Please! =/\=
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. =/\=
Karrod turned to the short range sensors and the limited view it gave him of the immediate space around them. There was a shift in the remaining Alliance ships and for a moment he simply couldn't believe what he was seeing but as the first ship clumsily broke formation and jumped to warp it hit him like a supernova.
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.
Marty winced, Sims was right –if those shots had been up the hull a bit, they’d be spread throughout the Alpha Isles.
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.
Marty had started shutting things down on those decks just before he was given the order. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt it in his gut. Being able to anticipate the Captain was a good thing.
Carpenter: Sir, yes, SIR!
To be honest, the Ronin had barely any fight left in her. Even shutting off those systems on those decks, they could amass just a fraction of the needed power. They were like a prize fighter on the ropes, looking to continue even though the body had told him to stop.
Tucker: I shut everything down; how much power did we get?
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.
Carpenter: Projectile defense grid back online!
Time was a tall ask, but Marty was up to it...
Tucker: I'm buying you some time, sir—the minimal power we have been rerouted to the phasers. And if you don’t mind blowing out the impulse drive coil assembly, you can give the impulse drive another fifteen-second burst, and then it’ll be dry docks problems.
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!
Marty’s head snapped to face Sims.
oO Did he just say a shuttle launched? The hell? Oo
Marty looked at the sensors on his station, and sure enough, the Carl Sagan had launched. He couldn’t even imagine who was in it. Whoever it was had a big set of brass ones for blowing town during a firefight, though in their defense, the captain did call to abandon ship.
Niac: =/\= Ronin to Sagan, what the hell do you think you're doing?! =/\=
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. =/\=
All Marty could do was put his face in his palm, shaking his head, trying not to chuckle at the absurdity of it all..
O'Connor: =/\= Not to mention the view, it’s…well, it’s something =/\=
Niac, on the other hand, didn’t look that amused by Mutt and Jeff's comedy.
Niac: =/\= That is not what I had in mind when I issued that order, Lieutenant! Wait one. =/\=
The flickering comm controls failed under his hands and Karrod called out behind him.
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: You got it, skipper.
Marty put his head down and went to work fingers dancing over the LCARS with practiced speed. He went about rerouting whatever power they had left into the phasers, if they were going to go out, they were going out in a blaze of glory.
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.
Communication was one of the few things that were working (somewhat).
Tucker: I’m working to get a signal to the Excalibur, but the build-up of S-waves is wrecking our comm systems.
