Unwanted Attention | Part II

Posted on Sunday, 15 August 2021 - 5:34pm by Captain Barret Stillwater & Commander Soral & Lieutenant T'Lanna Vali & Lieutenant Ryan Rose MD & Lieutenant Alex Kingsley & Lieutenant JG Adrianna Eberhardt

Mission: Operation: Lazarus
Location: USS Standing Bear | Deck 01 | Bridge

Unbeknownst to the crew of the USS Standing Bear, their recent launch of a volley of probes for scientific purposes had attracted the attention of another starship, one that had been in the region for the past several days, had noticed the USS Standing Bear and was stalking it, waiting to see what it was doing. It was the launch of the probes that had finally crossed the line. The Gin'tak was a fast and agile vessel, armed to the teeth, a good match for the USS Standing Bear if the Gin'tak was operating at 100% and if the crew of the Klingon Bird-of-prey was the least bit competent. Aboard another vessel more familiar to them, they may have been well trained and competent, but they had no vessels as fast as nor fierce as the Gin'tak.

Captain Kaizen was a young man, only a few years into adulthood by Human comparison at least. He was a man among his own people, his caramel long hair pulled back into a ponytail and his dark eyes were glistening as he watched the aft of the USS Standing Bear on the viewscreen of the Klingon vessel's bridge. How his people managed to secure such a vessel was a tale with twists and unexpected turns, and maybe the legend of how he came to be the Captain of the Gin'tak was best left unspoken. All the crew needed to know was that they were his crew. This was his ship, and they answered to their Captain who's present order was to follow the Federation starship.

Their cloak was engaged, a device that the crew of adolescents knew close to nothing about. The armory of Klingon disruptors was easier to learn and handle, but an early accident had cost the life of one of their crew. This voyage had already taken its toll on the crew, decreasing the number of crew from sixteen down to ten with the last incident. Some of them perished in combat, the rest by foolish accident and mishaps in handling the impressive starship. Their cloak was faulty, however, the Klingon crew before them may have been competent enough to bandage the systems, but they had not entirely repaired the issue. The Bird-of-prey was stalking a starship with superior sensor technology, and the volley of probes launched would detect the vessel's leaking of neutron radiation and the small pockets of concentrated plasma exhaust that developed while the vessel lingered, stalking the Standing Bear.

Aboard the Standing Bear, Lieutenant Kingsley was at her station. Her attention focused solely on the suite of sensor data at her disposal not only from the ship itself, but from the probes they had deployed. At the present moment in time she was oblivious to all else on the bridge, her brow furrowed as she ran comparisons on the data from the ship's lateral sensor array and the data transmitted from the first probe which was still on course. Either both were experiencing a malfunction or something was wrong.

"Captain," her voice was calm as she caught the commanding officer's attention, her hands flying over her workstation as the computer ran a comparison for a likely source. "I think you should take a look at this..."

Stillwater made his way over to the science console where Alex was. "What do you have, Lieutenant?"

As she heard him approach, she called up the data on the central screen of her console, "the readings are fluctuating but we have a radiation signature on the edge of our sensor range. It only appears for a few seconds before it disappears again which is making analysis difficult. At first it appeared to just be localised phenomena but whatever it is, it has moved and seems to be following us. I've adjusted Huey's... erm, probe one's course to try and get a clearer reading but this looks like-"

She was interrupted when her workstation bleeped, the computer listing potential matches based on the limited data. She looked up at Stillwater, "I think we have company, sir."

Captain Stillwater nodded. "That is what I'd deduce as well," he said. He looked over his shoulder at Soral at tactical. "Commander," he said raising his voice slightly. "Your wife and I think we have some company. How are things looking through a tactical scope?"

Soral's hands flew over the console his right ear twitching. He smelled trouble too and oddly it felt exciting. "Indeed. I see them. My recommendation would be to raise shields, however that may alert them that we know they are there, however the safety and logic of the situation warrants it, however I am not making the decision." He raised an eyebrow. "All you, Sir."

Stillwater nodded. "I don't like it," noted the Captain. "Clearly a cloaked vessel of some sort, but we are a bit far away from any remnants of the Romulans unless it's a colony that was resettled, but we weren't resetting Romuluans to rebuild a military presence. Klingon?" He looked at Soral. "Best analysis of what it is based on the emissions?"

"No sir...the signal that ship is sending is unlike anything in our databases nor is it anything in the Vulcan ones too."

The Captain made his way down to his chair and opened a comm channel to Lieutenant Vali's comm badge. She was down in the lower decks dealing with the Trellium-D. "Lieutenant, we're being stalked cloaked vessel. I don't know if the Doc has those blockers entirely removed yet, but can you shed any light on our predator?"

T’Lanna paused her work as she heard Stillwater’s voice. “I’m sorry Sir, I need all my concentration on what I’m doing down here. I don’t think my senses would be of much use to you anyway.”

Soral supressed a groan. "I could take the Lieutenant's place," he said to Stillwater.

From her station, Alex shot him a warning look that made it clear he’d be doing that over her dead body.

Soral rubbed the back of his neck. His wives glace was...deadlier then a Vulcan sand storm.

T’Lanna’s voice came over the comms. “I can come up to the bridge if you need me to Sir?”

Stillwater shook his head instinctively though she was not there. "No, stay where you are Lieutenant. We have things under control up -" before Stillwater could finish the starship shook violently and a console on the bridge exploded.

"Soral, shields up!"

"Shields up, minor damage," He said.

The Captain stood on the bridge, braved himself and looked at Adrianna. "Petty Officer,"

Adrianna looked up to Stillwater, "B'Rel Bird-of-prey, sir. Likely Klingon crew, though there are a few that enjoy flying one of those things, since they are well armed and fit for a trigger happy person."

Captain Stillwater let out a low growl. Damn Klingons he thought to himself. He immediately tapped his comm badge. "Bridge to Rose, we're under attack. Prep Sickbay."

"We're ready sir." Ryan responded. He nodded to the small contingent of medical personnel, all of them were prepped and ready for an influx of patients. Unfortunately, they had plenty of experience with it.

“They are firing again,” Kingsley warned, not especially liking that she currently had an enhanced sensor suite to tell her that fact. Whoever they were, it was one hell of a hello.

"Evasive maneuvers, Lieutenant Harley!" shouted Stillwater as he fell into his Captain's chair and shook his head. "They keep shooting at us and I'l going to ensure they have a glorious fucking death" muttered the Captain, clearly not a fan of being rocked by a Klingon bird-of-prey. "Commander Soral, tactical analyses...find a weakness and exploit it fast!"

In the Trellium D containment area all hell was breaking loose. “T’Lanna to bridge! We need to activate emergency containment fields around the Trellium D containment area!”

"Kolani, you heard the lieutenant! Reserve power to those labs, reinforce those containment fields now!" shouted Stillwater as another heavy volley of torpedoes hit the USS Standing Bear's shielding, buckling it. The disruption left them vulnerable, and a disruptor shot blew a hole on the port side of the starship.

"Disable that damn Klingon ship," Stillwater said to Commander Soral at tactical. "With whatever the hell we have" he added bitterly. There was a hole in the hull on the port side of the starship, emergency force fields had gone up, but Stillwater knew things were bad. There were going to be casualties, probably even fatalities.

"Aye sir," Soral's hands flew over the panel, familiar to him. His demeanor was calm and cool but he was anything but as the reports started rolling into tactical.

The ship shook again, enough to jar everyone.

A report was coming in that containment fields in the labs were up, but one lab's containment field did not go up in time. There were internal sensor readings of Trellium D. "Shit," he said to himself. T'Lanna was in that lab he did not say anything about it to the rest of the bridge crew, but everyone would be seeing similar reports. They knew where she was just moments ago.

“There is a power fluctuation in their starboard shield emitters,” Alex called over the noise towards Soral, transmitting the data to him as she wiped the blood away from just above her eye, “if we focus fire there…”

She was cut off as the ship rocked again. She was really beginning to hate these people.

In the lab all hell was breaking loose, T’Lanna and those with her were now in a containment breach situation one they couldn’t escape from! They were trapped and right now all they could do was try to limit the damage being done.

The attack was quick, unprovoked, and had come without much warning though Stillwater was kicking himself in the ass for not raising shields and just dealing with the Klingons that way. "Enemy vessel?" Stillwater said rising from his seat and looking to Soral for a report.

"They are...pulling back sir. Most illogical, they could have destroyed us."

Captain Stillwater was taken aback by the First Officer's report from the tactical station. They could have done a lot more damage to the Standing Bear, perhaps even destroyed it. Stillwater himself had been teetering on calling for the ship to be abandoned. Now, it was heavily damaged and there were serious issues to tend to. The Trellium D thought Stillwater. They had to have taken it. That had to be what they were after. "Trellium D?" Stillwater inquired, shooting a look over at Kingsley.

“Internal sensors in that section are … erratic. From what I can tell there is a high level still present but about ten percent is unaccounted for. I’d need to get down there to be sure.”

They could have cleaned us out with shields down thought Stillwater. "Soral, what the hell did they take?" asked Stillwater, knowing that their shields had been down. The Klingons activated their transporters but had not boarded the Standing Bear. They barely even grabbed the most valuable item: the Trellium D.

"Medical overstalk supplies, Food ration backs, several stad by replicator, Engineering stock..." That last one he'd be hearing about from Hamura. "And ... clothing replication units...absolutly illogical."

There was no telling what Lieutenant Vali's situation was. Alive or not. Something wasn't allowing comms to connect with anyone on that deck and internal sensors were not at peak performance, they couldn't cut through the radiation. This was either going to become a rescue mission or a body recovery operation.

Stillwater tapped his comm badge. "Stillwater to Rose, take any available personnel from whatever department and start clearing the decks and tending to the wounded, deck five is currently radioactive...avoid it and report to the Briefing Room as soon as you can."

"I've got wounded trickling in. Security is sweeping now. I can't get a hold of engineering for a status on the Trellium." Ryan was a bit patchy, but hopefully the message had gotten through. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Understood. Keep trying Engineering when you have...yeah a moment. Like you'll have one."

"Soral, Kingsley, Eberhard," Stillwater said gesturing towards the Briefing Room. "Get Ensign Hamura up here as soon as she can." The threat of the Klingon Bird-of-prey was gone for the time being, but the Standing Bear was crippled.

Soral gave a nod. "I'm trying to reach Hamura but coms is cutting in and out." Soral motioned for Mac to take tactical. "I shall be in the brief room with the Ensign shortly." he headed out into the turbo lift glad it was functioning.