To the rescue
They rematerialized, arriving Klingon style, phasers drawn, and in pairs facing outwards.
Seven Starfleet cadets found themselves standing in a confusing and intricate maze as thick, steel catwalks ran across to a gigantic central chimney, suspended about one hundred meters above the ground. A simple railing, barely a meter and a half high ran along the sides. A large metallic dome covering the entire complex. The rusty looking catwalk reminded Stryker of Kitsilano's dark, dismal service tunnels, largely unused, that run under and through the oldest and poorest parts of the cities.
Alice lowered her phaser, "Some welcome, huh. No one's even here to greet us."
Wiuen gave her a roguish grin. Stryker held up a cautionary finger, "Let's not let our guard down."
MRess listened very carefully. After about ten seconds of silence, he let out an odd sound, something that might qualify as a Caitian version of the sigh of relief. "I do not hear any alarms. I doubt we have been detected."
MRess flipped out his tricorder, scanning the surroundings, he then pointed to his left. They started to walk through the irrationally arranged catwalks, ascending a flight of metal stairs.
The hum of vast amounts of energy thrummed in the distance. The intruders could feel the vibrations of gargantuan generators fill their chests, creating the unsettling feeling of being part of a greater machine. Lucida and Stryker were clearly uneasy at the rhythmic humming. Alice didn't seem to care, but there was a slight tension in her shoulders that spoke of strained nerves.
They walked until they reached a Y-junction. "Which way ?" Stryker asked.
The Caitian stepped forward and scanning the alien writing on the walls with his tricorder. "The panel says the left corridor leads the lower levels and a command center."
He paused as pointed to the right. "This corridor seems to lead to the upper levels. This is where the generators running the defense network and the cloak is located."
Stryker considered options based on the new information. "Ray, Wiuen, MRess, Lucida. Take the upper levels, and see if you can disable these generators."
They nodded. He continued. "We will take the lower levels. Whoever is in first to locate the Romulan or our ambassador contact the other group."
"Be careful Mouse." Ray whispered.
"You too Island boy." she replied with a wink.
The group split into two, and they went their separate ways.
Anxiety and fear
Alice, Mouse and Stryker walked through the corridors, phasers drawn and ready, side by side and back to back. A compact and highly effective unit. Stryker led them and Alice watched their backs.
Walking down another flight of stairs, Stryker stopped, standing in the open entrance of a small room. He felt a nervous, almost tangible energy in his gut, and it spread eagerly as he examined the room. The tiled floor was slick with some liquid spilled from broken metal coils that dangled from the high-vaulted walls and ceiling. A shredded skin of tubing sprawled across the floor, and all around them there were bits of soft multi-coloured matter.
Mouse scanned the fluid. "Its coolant of some kind. Do not touch it."
A thought struck Stryker, this is typical battle damage. He wondered who attacked this base. Maybe another group of mercenaries, rivals. Or maybe, just maybe the torpedoes Specky fired caused this damage. That might also explain why we have not encountered anyone yet. Everyone must be busy repairing.
They continued to walk. Mouse closed her tricorder, feeling safer equipped with her phaser while Alice silently battled with low-level anxiety and tension.
Fifty long minutes passed. They crossed catwalks, up and down staircases in the proximity of the central chimney but avoiding going in, where they will likely be seen or just as easily detected by security.
Mouse, Stryker and Alice proceeded very cautiously, carefully avoiding anyone walking around and technians working at various stations. Tricorders set to passive scans instead of active mode to prevent setting off any detection devices that may be present. The trio walked across another catwalk when Mouse's tricorder beeped on her belt. Stryker froze.
Mouse holstered her phaser and pulled out her tricorder. Her eyes betrayed the shock she felt, "A dampening field has been activated. Some kind of nadion dispersion."
"What does that mean ?" Stryker asked.
"Phasers does not work anymore."
Trouble, Stryker thought. He hefted his rifle, slinging it over one shoulder. "I guess they know we are here." Alice sighed, dread colouring her voice.
He tapped his combadge, "Stryker to MRess. Watch out, it appears we have been detected. They activated some kind of a dampening field, our phasers just become useless."
"Acknowledged. Specky thinks she found something, we are proceeding to that location. MRess out."
Lucida did indeed find the main generator room. But a few seconds later; MRess, Ray, Wiuen, and Lucida suddenly found themselves surrounded by six guard sentries. MRess's hair were standing on end, and deep low growl of anger was emanating from him. Lucida winked at her friends, "Don't you just hate these little delays ?"
Command Center
Alice, Stryker and Mouse found themselves walking into a strange room. A soft glow of blue light washed over the trio.
The floors and walls of this room were lined with circuitry, and the narrow path leading through them ended in a metal door formed into the body of a female.
Three planets; one sandy yellow, one icy-blue, one green were painted on her stomach. The eyes of the face glowed, projecting the image of a lovely woman with four arms spread as though to encompass the stars. It held an aura of power, majesty; along with a palpable feeling of menace and fear. The 'benevolent' Mother Brain. He'd seen this image before, in the Gamma Quadrant.
Stryker tensed up as a small knot of apprehension made its chilly presence felt. "Command center, dead ahead."
Alice shot an odd look at Stryker. "Sorry, bad choice of words, " he apologised. She nodded.
Mouse scanned the room beyond with her tricorder. After a moment she held up four fingers, indicating four sentries. She holstered her tricorder and Alice started working to open the door. After a few moments, Alice nodded to him. Stryker nodded to them 'now.'
Alice pressed the button to open the door. The room beyond revealed three control sub-decks that were arranged around the base in a wide hexagon. Mouse rushed in first, grabbing the closest guard and sent her flying into a bulkhead. The guard slid down the wall like a broken doll. "When I want in, I want in!" Mouse yelled to the badly bruised woman lying on the floor.
Before the second guard could react, Stryker was upon him. His first strike sent the guard's weapon flying across the room. He swept one leg out, catching him just below the knees. A swift blow to the chest left the guard gasping for breath, another punch knocked him unconscious.
The next guard did not fare much better either as Mouse and Alice knocked him down too. Behind the fallen guard, a shorter Nelkarite spun around and tried to run away. Stryker dashed forward, "Uh no, you don't !"
He grabbed the retreating sentry by the back of her loose neck collar and yanked her off the ground. She was young, prehaps too young to be working as a sentry, yet wearing the uniform of a security guard. She was struggling against Stryker. "I really do not want to hurt you little girl. Stop squirming dammit."
"I am not a kid," she protested while trying to kick Stryker.
Mouse walked over to Stryker, "Hold her still."
"Why ?" he asked suspiciously.
"Do not touch me !" the girl screamed. Mouse placed her hand on the kid's shoulder near the neck and squeezed. She went limp. Stryker blinked, wondering if his eyes was playing tricks on him, "That was amazing Mouse. But I thought only Vulcans can do that, " he then said in surprise.
"Yes," Mouse said humbly. "Well, I am an amazing person."
A door opened on the opposite side of the command center and a older man walked through it, apparently lost in thought. But he noticed something was wrong immediately and looked around, his eyes fell on the three aliens in Starfleet uniform.
Alice dashed across the room towards him. The man reached for a sidearm and fired once. Feinting, Alice instinctively hurled herself to one side as the disruptor blast tore through the air where she had been moments ago and charred the wall behind her. Mouse and Stryker dived behind cover as he fired his weapon at them.
He pressed a series of buttons on his weapon. It responded by making a whining sound, getting louder and louder. Alice realized he was overcharging the weapon, its next blast can vapourize anything.
With the commander temporarily distracted, and adrenaline surging through her, Alice leapt to her feet. Dashing towards him, she knocked his weapon out of his hands as she cornered the commander. The weapon flew through the air in a perfect arc is its whine become louder. It landed near the command center's entrance and slided across the metal floor.
The weapon's whine reached a crescendo as it discharged its entire energy supply in one beam. The beam slammed into the wall. The wall oozed to the ground. It bubbled, even frothed, as the duranium melt into formless slag. Exposed wires cracked and sizzled and popped, filling the room with an acrid, burning stench.
"Where is the Romulan and the Federation ambassador ?" she yelled in his face.
"I dont know, " he stummered.
She grabbed the commander by the scruf of his clothes, picking him up. His feet left the ground as Alice glared into his eyes, "Stop beating around the bush. Someone keeping information from me is the sixth most dangerous thing you can do in this galaxy."
He was scared witless, "I will tell you what I know."
"Where are they ?" she repeated.
"In there", he studdered, pointing at the door where he come from. Mouse nerve pitched him too. She then nodded to Stryker and walked into the next room, the doors closing behind her.
Alice felt warm from the exertion, contrary to the coldness that seemed to suddenly pervaded the command center. Stryker noticed she had a long red welt on her left cheek. "Alice. You face is bleeding."
She touched her face and looked at the red liquid on her hand and gasped, "Oh my!"
"You're sure you're okay ?" he said, a hint of doubt in his voice.
"Just a small cut, no problem."
Stryker and Alice started looking around the command center, when she got an idea. "Are you thinking that I am thinking ?" she asked.
"Yes."
He began rapidly tapping in commands, using his tricorder's video sensor to translate the alien interface. After nearly three minutes, Alice shut down the turbolift system and locked all the doors in the crew quarters section while Stryker managed to disable the communications system, offline and stuck in a diagnostic mode loop.
Meanwhile, Alice tried to recall the commands Mouse had shown her a few months ago. Her fingers poised over the console. Stryker moved a little closer to look over her shoulder. "What are you doing ?"
Determination shone in her face. "Attempting... ah! Now I remember." She resumed her orchestra of taps and touches, accessing the security grid. "I'm creating sensory ghosts - I'm using images taken by the grid to compile a false feedback."
"We need to even up the odds. I will see if I can disable their sidearms by creating a similar dampening field."
"Oh, no." She paused, hoping her initial assessment was wrong. It wasn't.
"What - " Stryker inquired.
"Someone is trying to re-route power from the Core to the sensory grid." Stryker turned to his own console, and confirmed it. She shivered at the idea, "We can't let them find us, not now!"
"What are our options ?"
Alice brought up a schematic of the power grid on her display. He moved closer as she highlighted and enlarged a section, rotating it in three dimensions.
"Here," she said, indicating a maintenance duct. "We need to access the circuits there. If we destroy this, this and this - " she enlarged the diagram again to illustrate her plan, " - circuit, and reconfigure the others, we can make it seem like an overload rather than sabotage. Very hard to track down the cause and therefore will buy us some time."
"That is brilliant," he said. "How far from here is it ?"
"It's a bit of a crawl, but not too far."
"I am on it. You and Mouse stay here, I am be back in about ten minutes. See if you can disable their sidearms."
Just as he left, Mouse made a startling discovery in the adjacent room. Six dead Romulans. A young Romulan girl in civilian garb had a charred circle on her right temple, phaser impact at point blank range.
Mouse clutched her stomach and pressed ahead slowly, and tried to block out thoughts and images that were making her depressed and violently sick. She pulled out her tricorder. It beeped in response to strong lifesigns coming from one of the bodies. There seemed to be a survivor here. What the hell, a Romulan with golden hair !
USS Aurora
The Excelsior class, USS Aurora dropped out of warp. Sensor sweeps of the system so far, was not able to find the runabout or its hull signature.
"Sir! erm .. Ma'am!" Lieutenant Throm barked from his tactical console. "Something on the sixth planet is reflecting my scans."
"Try raising the awayteam." Captain Holden ordered.
After twenty seconds of console beeps, Lieutenant Throm was getting angry at his console, "No response sir."
"Standard search pattern." Commander Ramirez told the Helm and OPS officers.
In harm's way
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