Going...Going...Gorn

Posted on Tue Oct 1st, 2024 @ 3:29pm by Lieutenant Calliope Ito & Lieutenant Fang Lee & Lieutenant Commander Kelly Kerrigan & Lieutenant Commander Oscar McDonald MD & Lieutenant K’Var & Lieutenant Adrianna Baciami & Lieutenant Lanna Alexander & Lieutenant JG Nasir Patel

2,189 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Lacertae Mortis
Location: Main Bridge | USS Arcadia
Timeline: Current

ON:

Ito sat beside Nasir on the floor. "The shuttle is going into drift. I hope the ship got our distress call." She pressed her hand to her ribs. The surge from the message send really did a number on her and the forced transport too. She knew she had to get to the medical bay or transporter shock would get a hold of her. "Listen...Make sure all the data is given to the ship, just in case."

"Arcadia will have to find us first," Nasir Patel quipped. "That stunt you pulled..." he shook his head. Don't fight with her now he reprimanded himself. "I just hope we they are able to locate us, but I'm glad we made it away from the Gorn." For now at least.

"Not to worry...I have a plan." She coughed a bit a small trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. She used her sleeve to wipe it. "In the corner," She pointed to the right. "The panel marked waste chute...to the right there should be a small device secured to the wall."

"Do you always modify everything?" Nasir shook his head. He inched over to the panel marked waste chute to recover the device.

"I certainly do...and most is not up to code so...let's not talk about that." She coughed a bit. "Okay turn it three times counter clockwise and once and only after 5 seconds clock wise. Now here's the deal. It is....a scramble beacon. So it will emit a tracker, great news, bad news our ship has to be close, someone in engineering...and I mean only two other people in engineering know what to look for and if it's left on too long it broadens and brings the Gorn here and we'll be so Gorn retrieval will be moot."

He did as instructed and prayed internally to himself that it would work. "If the Gorn show up before our people, I'm blowing this shuttlecraft up with us inside. I'm not going to become host to their children."

She smiled. "I'm not fond of that idea myself." She coughed a little more blood trickling down the right side of her mouth and down her chin. "Mr. Nasir ...may I ask something of you?"

She took his silence to mean Go Ahead

"If I don't make it. Make sure the ship gets all the info and...just vent me into space. I...don't want a funeral."

The silence again.

Ito sat with her head back against the wall of the shuttle. The pain was increasing and her window to go through the transporter again to fix the damage was narrowing.

Her shuttle mate had been quiet and she didn't know if she preferred this or him being antagonistic. The truth was she enjoyed the verbal sparring.


__________________
[USS Arcadia]

Aboard the Arcadia, Lieutenant Commander Kelly Kerrigan was seated in the Captain's chair as the starship neared the last coordinates they knew their shuttlecraft had been. "Helm, full stop" he instructed the young lieutenant. "Is that...debris? Take us close, quarter impulse" added Kelly having caught sight on the view screen.

TAG Sawyer

"Lieutenant K'Var, analysis on the debris. Anything from the shuttlecraft?" The Gorn were notorious for ravaging ships and craft, tearing them to pieces and just leaving the debris behind in their destructive wake.

“The debris have been stripped down and nothing of value remains, sir” the tactical officer reported after a quick review of her scans.

Practically everyone had come to the bridge. Baciami was at the communications station. Doctor McDonald and Ship’s Psychologist Lanna Alexander perched against the railing, eyes on officers at work and the view screen.

Lanna was sensing the urgency and concern from all of the crew, they had to find the shuttle and the missing crew.

For his part, the ship’s Chief Medical Officer was - quite literally- an observer. This was not his domain, nor his time to be able to help the missing crew. His time would be after they found the missing crewman. Not if. When. Too many were already lost to the Gorn.

"Lanna, your people... they..." Kelly was unsure how to approach what he wanted to ask. "Gifted. People say your species has unique talents to sense things."

Lanna looked towards Kerrigan. “Yes Sir” she nodded. “I can’t promise I’ll find them, emotions on the ship are high, but I can try.”

"Just to know they are alive..." he did not want to think about that not being an option.

All routes needed to be explored. Kelly would ensure that. "Lieutenant Baciami, keep your ears open for anything out there. I don't care if it's so much as a subspace whisper."

Baciami nodded, watching her screen closely, "yes, captain." The woman was keen to find out anything she could to help.

Lanna moved from beside McDonald, she would pick up on the crew regardless but she still wanted to put a little space between herself and anyone close to her. She took a deep breath as she strolled around the bridge eventually pausing by the viewscreen to let her senses reach out as far into the depths of space around them as she could.

Fang had left Engineering to Zai and was now on the bridge monitoring the situation. As always there was a window open so that they could transmit data and conversation quickly. Engines were working so all he had to do is monitor things. "Sir...I may have an idea." He turned to Kerrigan.

"I'm open to ideas. If you have one..." Kelly was not going to turn away any idea.

"I don't know what the status is of the shuttle but if Ito is alive ... she's going to have a locator. Since this is Gorn territory it will be dangerous to activate it but...if she's as smart as I know she is it's low rez and can be hidden. Down side is we'll have to be really close to the shuttle to pick it up...I could use Lieutenant Alexander's help here with targeted location."

Lanna was concentrating hard, until she suddenly gasped out loud. “Calliope...” Focussing on the sensation she was feeling she slowly sank to her knees. “Pain...it hurts...” she took a few moments before she managed to snap herself out of it and turn towards Kerrigan. “Commander... we have to get to them quickly! Calliope...she’s hurt and it doesn’t feel good.”

"The question remains where are they" mused the Acting Captain. "We need to find them before more Gorn show up."

"If Ito is Ito she may have built a fail safe...it's a long shot and it hasn't been used since we were prisoners of the Klingons but...I could scan for her signal. I need coms and an empath." Fang pointed at Lanna. "Commander Kerrigan do you wish me to explain the um...not so by the book method?"

“Whatever it is you can count me in” Lanna raised her mental barriers as she got to her feet and made her way across to Fang waiting to see what his idea was.

Fang waited to get the captain's okay and then explained quickly. Within ten minutes he'd set up his station on the bridge and asked the counselor to head to engineering. Zai was at the other end to great her.

Fang looked up. "Captain, ready. We need sensors on and we need to scan slow area by area. I'm sending the information to navigation. Tactical I will need you keep an eye out for Gorn ships and Ms. Baciami I will need your help to scan the areas I'm sending to navigation for a mix of all standard Federation languages random words that have no meaning but we need to be 100 percent sure they are repeated at a five second interval. It will be faint but I know you have a good ear. Just yell stop when you can hear it."

"This is a crew working as a team," Kelly stated. He appreciated what Fang was bringing to the table as it were. "Lieutenant Alexander, whatever you can do, we may be able to use you as a bit of a secondary sensor system."

Fang gave a nod. "Lieutenant Baciami can you please start scanning the methodical scanning for the random words. Counselor can you work with the Lieutenant to try and narrow down the search grid?"

Adrianna confirmed her role and got to work.


Lanna was focusing in on Calliope, the last time she’d sensed a lot of pain so she took more care in how far down she let her mental ‘walls’ go. “I can...feel her...” she paused as she sensed waves of pain. “She’s in pain, I can feel it.”

Fang listened as the counselor spoke. He sent some new coordinates to the sensors and tactical. "Counselor there will be two scans now...tell me out of the two areas where is the feeling the strongest?"

K'Var started tapping commands into the tactical console and the sensors immediately went to work scanning the area of space she was asked to. However she found nothing out of the ordinary and reported just that "there is no sign of the shuttle at those scanning coordinates."


Lanna nodded. “I can try” She refocused, but given what she was sensing was weak she found it difficult to tell. “I’m sorry...what I’m sensing is so weak..” she sighed and gave it another try. “Come on Calliope...where are you?” She shook her head.

Fang gave a nod. "Let's try another couple of sectors."

Adrianna frowned trying to make out what she was seeing and hearing. "I think I may have something. It's weak, but I think I've got a signal." She paused trying desperately to figure it out, "at best I can narrow it down to three regions, but it's difficult."

"Calibrating scanners" Three regions was good. It took no time to narrow it down to the best possibility. The ship slowly inched towards the region. "Counsellor can you get anything?" Fang asked as they moved deeper into the area.

Lanna nodded. “We’re getting closer! I can feel more from Calliope now.” She paused to shield her mind a little more from the increasing input. “We have to hurry!”

“I shall go ensure Sickbay is ready for them,” McDonald announced to nobody in particular as he headed out. On the Bridge he was of no use, but in sickbay he could do what his ex-wife had brought him here to do - save lives.

Fang gave a nod to the doc. "Thanks doc. I'll send you readings as much as I can will tie the sensors in to your terminal in the bay."

Fang's hands flew over the consoles.

The ship moved with a new drive towards the shuttle. The deeper they entered the sector the stronger the readings were. "Shuttle on sensors. No Gorn yet but that could change." He looked at Kelly as Yellow alert was called.

"Zai to bridge I need you up here Zee."

"On my way." Zai said through the little screen where he was monitoring Fang on the bridge with.

The atmosphere changed on the bridge. Everyone had their task. Tactical to keep watch to keep the ship safe, navigation to more towards the shuttle, engineers to get the tractor beams ready, medical to prep for getting their wounded people back. The CO shouldered the most difficult task, keeping everyone calm and ensuring that all went smoothly. Reports were flying left and right, and the team was communicating well. In no time at all the shuttle was visible on the big screen and a collective gasp went out at the outer damage.

From his station he sighed. "Counselor." He waved her over.

Lanna walked across moving to stand next to Fang. “What do you need me to do?”

"Just wanted to thank you for helping with this. I'm going to head for the med bay. I'm guessing after this is over maybe Ito might need to talk." He smiled.

From there things became a blur. The ship sailed towards the shuttle the Gorn, mercifully were busy with the damage Ito caused and busy enough not to notice them. The ship was able to inch closer and as they did the shuttles state became more and more apparent. They tractor towed the shuttle farther away from Gorn sensors and when the Tactical/security team was convinced it was clear they started to tow the shuttle into the bay. with a brief pause to transport Ito out for emergency surgery.

With the shuttle stowed in the bay safely the ship got out of dodge as fast as possible everyone breathing a sigh of relief for every light year away from the Gorn. They had gotten out well this time, with only a shuttle and away crew to fix. What came next for the ship was unknown but for now everyone would be able to rest easy.

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