The Cavalry Arrives

Posted on Tue Jan 15th, 2013 @ 6:59am by Admiral Ricky Wegener & Captain Li Hawke & Commander Sakkath & Lieutenant Commander Michael Darwin & Suresh

Mission: The Struggle Within
Location: Alternate SB900
Timeline: Current

With news of ships coming through the wormhole to assist the base, many of the crew were elated, to say the least. And with the deck clearing, and round up of the Archadians still on the base, the way from the arboretum to C&C was clear. After conferring with Sakkath it was decided that a group should go up to the control deck to assist the incoming ships in any way that they could. The group had use of the computers in the arboretum section but even they were still limited in what they could access, simply because of their location. Higher command functions wouldn’t normally need to be accessed there or, say, the computers in the Cherry Pit or the Promenade, so they were permanently locked out of many functions.

Rick, Sakkath, Darwin and a few more personnel took a lift to the deck and fired up the terminals. Out of habit, Rick began to sit in the command chair but stopped mid-sit and sheepishly stood erect again. “Sorry, Commander,” he said to Sakkath. “Old habits, you know.”

Taking a seat at the primary Ops console he logged in and smiled briefly before a frown took over. “Well, sonofabitch...” he blurted out. “The good news is that we have the Cerberus halfway to us,” he said, commenting on the small Steamrunner class that was closer to them, “and the Explorer, an Akira class, about thirty minutes behind. The bad news is that it appears the Archadians are sending three ships to intercept the Cerberus. Their shields are up and weapons are arming now.” Being used to barking out orders he yelled out to Darwin, “Status of our defense systems?”

Looking over the readings on the terminals, Darwin grimaced. “Shields are at forty-two percent, sir; eighty percent of phasers are off line and refusing to behave. Even the ones we do have are... at twenty percent efficiency.” He swiped at the screen and switched to another mode. “We have torpedoes,” he realized now that part of his recommendations to Sakkath should have included getting engineers to the weapons’ systems, “...but the portside tubes in sectors 200 through 350 are damaged.” In other words: he hoped they could keep the Archadians on the starboard side.

Sakkath nodded as he took in Darwin's report, and - if truth be told - he had been heading to where Rick now sat at Ops. He found it strange seating himself in the command chair.

Raise the shields, Lieutenant, and load the torpedo bays," he declared. "And Admiral, I hate to admit this, but there was never a formal transfer of power given the situation, and your other self's untimely end... If you wouldn't mind, you can ask the computer to formally upgrade my command codes."

"Oh, uh, yes. I can do that," Rick said. "Computer, recognize Rick Wegener, Admiral, Starbase 900 Commanding Officer." After the computer's recognition, he continued, "Effective immediately, Commander Sakkath is the acting commander of this facility. Upgrade his command level access to that of station commander at this time."

Most of the time the computer's changes only took a few seconds, of sometimes just nanoseconds. Upgrading command access codes, however, seemed to take forever. The computer had to take the codes Sakkath used currently and make them so that they were above anyone else's codes on the station. This took several moments and during times when nothing was happening was nothing more than a slight frustration. But at times when a battle was sure to occur, it became downright irritating.

Command access for Commander Sakkath updated.

"She's all yours, son," Rick said as he turned back to his console. "And the first two ships are within firing range of the Cerberus. If we were to fire upon them we would risk shooting long and striking our vessel. But that third is lagging a bit. We may be able to take it out before it gets into range of the Cerberus." He turned to Sakkath and awaited his decision. It also occurred to him that the Archadians probably didn’t suspect the station to be operational in any way. As far as they knew, the station was dead in the water with limited life support. So any actions taken by the station could be one hell of a “Yoo hoo!” to the Archadians, but doing so could also let the Archadians know that the station was still operational and could bring an attack on them.

Hoping for just such an order, Darwin quickly plotted out the numbers and, glancing back, said, “Firing solution ready, on your mark, Commander.”

"Then let the Amazonian bitches know we're here," Sakkath said, quite uncharacteristically for the one that these two men knew. As he leaned forward in his chair to observe the displays, his thoughts were less of the station and more of lost love... of all the lost loves on 900, and vaguely of just how ridiculous his thoughts would have seemed on Vulcan.

“Aye, Commander,” Darwin hit the remaining command and launched a volley of torpedoes towards the trailing member of the Archadian attack trio. Tense seconds ticked by, each seemingly longer than the last before Darwin announced, “Successful impact.” He’d timed the torpedoes to be a cascade; three hit, taking out the vessel’s shields. The remainder of his volley ripped through the ship’s hull, disabling her engines and causing her to tumble out of control. All this, he reported back to Sakkath and the Admiral.

“The Cerberus has fired a few warning shots at them,” Rick said, going through the console’s displays. “I guess the Archadians took that to mean that they were poor shots because they’re firing phasers. Cerberus has taken four hits, very minimal damage.” Rick read the display as the action occurred. “Cerberus returning fire, two direct hits to the first Archadian vessel, it’s shields are down and they have a hull breach in the aft section. Their last ship appears to be bugging out, Commander Sakkath.”

Li’s voice came over the comm following Ricky’s pronouncement. “Hawke from Engineering. We’ve made it here and getting to work on the essentials, starting with shields just in case.” There was no clarification as to who ‘we’ was.

Sakkath lifted a brow at Li’s cryptic message and smirked for the briefest of moments. Some things, it appeared, did not change, regardless of universe.

“Continue to harry the Archadian ships as opportunities present themselves, Mister Darwin,” the Vulcan said as he stood from the command chair, making his way over to communications. “If we garner too much attention, use the phasers to drive them starboard where our torpedoes are most effective.”

In the meantime, the acting CO began his work of encoding the station’s status for transmission to the fleet.

As Darwin kept the rest of the Archan fleet busy, Rick’s mind wandered--not far, mind you--about how this Sakkath was handling things. ‘Amazonian Bitches’? Even that seemed like a little more than what he would suspect from a very devout Vulcan, no matter that his spouse had been ripped from him. He wondered if his own Sakkath would be prone to this type of response should anything happen to Li, and if he did, may the gods help whomever stood in his way.

The display in front of him pulled his attention back to the situation at hand. “Commander, four more Archan ships entering the sector. Looks like they were either out on patrols or hiding behind one of the other aligned planets. They’re arming weapons and targeting us.”

Adding that information swiftly to the encrypted data burst, Sakkath sent it off. He had his station back, and possessed no intention of losing it to some upstarts from the planet below. Not again.

"Time to weapons range? Are any of the Federation vessels moving to intercept?" he asked as he settled back into the command chair.

“Archadians are four minutes out,” Darwin reported, sounding distracted. He was already plotting the trajectories and determining what firing solutions might work best. He left it to the Admiral to answer about incoming Federation vessels.

Nodding, the Vulcan keyed his comm. "Engineering, our shields are four minutes from being tested. Anything you can give me will be most appreciated."

“We will have you covered. Currently, shields are up to sixty percent but we have four minutes. I'll be monitoring your comms. Hawke out for now,” came Li’s reply. Down in engineering she turned to the man at her side and gave him a quick list of instructions. With a nod of understanding, Suresh turned and went to work.

"If you have extra bodies," Sakkath added, knowing the line was monitored, "get some of my people to see if they can't give me full phasers. 20% against four ships isn't likely to push them into our torpedo firing lane."

Sitting back in his chair, he began to ponder alternatives. This was usually such a simple thing, but between the state of the station, his lack of sleep and his emotional involvement, his normal thought processes were... muddled to say the least.

“We’re on it,” came a man’s voice over the comm. “We’ll get you something at least, Commander.”

“The Explorer and the Cerberus are moving to intercept those Archadian ships, Cerberus being the closest,” Rick said. “And it appears that three more ships are exiting the wormhole. A Galaxy, Sovereign and...” he paused, to get the signature of the ship on his sensors, “...a Defiant.” After a beat the ship codes were on his screen. “The Pensacola, Tuscawilla and Liberty, in that order, and the Pensacola is charging on ahead to assist the Explorer and Cerberus.”

“The big guns,” Sakkath affirmed, quite pleased. “Let’s just make sure there’s still a station for them to save.”

Sakkath began to lean forward, still intent on the displays before him, when he instead looked down at the arm of his command chair. He keyed the base-wide intercom, realizing in that moment the sheer impact all of this could have on his crew’s already-improved morale.

“Starbase crew, this is Commander Sakkath. By now many of you will have heard that reinforcements are on their way. With sensors disabled throughout much of the station, it is my privilege to inform you that a task force of five vessels have come to our assistance through the wormhole and are currently engaging the Archadian forces. The cavalry has arrived, and our long night ends. You have all performed admirably in this crisis; I ask only that you continue to do so a while longer. Sakkath out.”

“Commander, phasers are at fifty percent,” came Suresh’s voice over the comm. “We just need a few more minutes. If those ships can hold their attention a bit longer, I think we’ll be out of the woods. Li’s going to make it work through sheer force of will if nothing else.” He laughed briefly at his joke. “We’ll keep you posted.”

“Thank you, Mister Suresh,” the Vulcan replied, though for a moment he couldn’t actually believe he was being civil to this man, or that Suresh was actually helping them. Desperate times, he thought.

“Whoo, damn!” Rick hooted as the display provided him some welcome information. “The Pensacola’s trigger man must be on his game. They fired a torpedo well out of range and it just crushed one of the Archadian ships. The Cerberus is taking on two of the ships and the Explorer is about to engage a third.”

“What’s headed our way, Admiral?” This time it was Li on the comm. “And Darwin, we’re almost there. I’ll give you the word when the phasers are at full power.”

“Thank you, Commander. I’d be happy just with full shields,” Darwin said the first out loud and only mumbled the second part. “We still have a firing solution, so long as the Archadians stay on Starboard.”

Answering Li, Rick said, “So far the only ships they have are engaging ours, are destroyed or--oh, uh...Commander? Were you aware that the Archadians had energy weapons on the planet? Because if you didn’t, we’re about to find out just how effective they are. Li, we’re gonna’ need those shields now!”

“I’m on it!” she yelled.

Moments later, they could see on the viewscreen a beam blasting up from the planet. The station rocked on impact, setting off the red alert.

“Holy shit!” Rick exclaimed. “I don’t know where they’re getting their gear, but that was a hell of a lot more powerful than their ships.” He made a mental note of where the canons were on the planet so that he could have intel snoop around in his universe for the same thing, assuming they were able to get back. “That was a direct hit to the port side docking bay. I don’t think anyone is in there, but we’re venting atmosphere. Trying to set up force fields now, just in case.”

“Shields are up. Now,” Darwin reported. “One hundred percent except outside the port side docking bay. And another shot is incoming!” He held on as the Station rocked from the impact on its shields. “Location of the planet’s weapon is locked in. We could hit it with torpedoes, Commander.”

“The Tuscawilla and Liberty are on station with us,” Rick offered. “We should be in good shape if any other ships attempt to take the station. The other ships have the Archadian vessels disabled.”

Sakkath was scowling in the command chair, even after having the station rocked by the impact from the surface below. “I want station thrusters,” he said, his voice low. “Put our starboard side to the planet.” He had to admit, if there were not several other Federation vessels present, he might have gone so far as to order an orbital bombardment on the capital city. The Archadians should count themselves unusually fortunate for having had their forces repulsed by several Starfleet ships.

But if they tried that again, they would suffer.

“As soon as the situation in space is resolved, I want a channel open to the Queen’s chamber. I’ll be in my office,” he said, vanishing into what Rick would consider his office, in another universe.

“Thrusters are online,” Li informed them. “Initiating. We should be set in twenty minutes. Hawke out.” This time the line did close.

Inside, Sakkath paced. What he was going to say to the Queen, he was not sure. It would almost certainly be ugly, though. His respect for the government on the planet below had reached levels unknown, and now that he knew they had weapons... Weapons beyond their technology... Nahi. His thoughts turned suddenly to Nahi, and his entire body shook with rage. He wished there was something, anything, in here that he could grab and throw, but instead he found himself storming back into Command and Control.

“Tell me you still have a lock on the weapons on the planet’s surface, Mr. Darwin,” his voice brooked no room for doubt.

As if Darwin would have let the weapon fall out of target. Glancing up, he answered, “Yes, sir, I do. Permission to fire?” He sounded eager.

The moment of hesitation was due only to the consideration that the Archadians may have placed their pilfered technology in the middle of a populated area. If they had... well, that was their mistake. “Granted.”

Smiling grimly, Darwin let loose with the torpedoes. A moment later, he reported, “Target obliterated.” That was the problem with planet-based weapons: they tended to be easy to find and destroy.

"Good, let's get some more of our people up here to start coordinating damage control with the Fleet," the Vulcan decreed. "And gentlemen... very well done."

***************

Commander Sakkath
CO, AU 900
Through a glass, darkly

Lieutenant Michael Darwin
Displaced

VADM Ricky Wegener
Play-by-play Announcer

Commander Li Hawke
Grease Monkey

Suresh
Tinkerer