Siege of the Sunfire

Posted on Wed May 6th, 2026 @ 4:55am by Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant JG Jacob Rosen & Lieutenant JG Micheal Stevens & Lieutenant JG T'Lar & Lieutenant JG Olivia Voight & Ensign Kitiuas Thenis ie-Jia'anKahr & Commodore S'thenosis Gorgox & Commander Jennifer Baldric & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

3,314 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Pirates!
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: Current

“Most Boarding actions rarely begin with courage, but rather something weaker... a moment where the lights dim and everyone realizes they are suddenly mortal.”

U.S.S. Sunfire

The USS Sunfire drifted through the asteroid field with wounded grace, her great hull moving on fading momentum as the last of her shield envelope collapsed into darkness. A ripple of failing light rolled across the ship’s surface before vanishing entirely, leaving only the cold gleam of emergency illumination flickering through scattered viewports.

Inside the vessel, the deck itself carried a subtle vibration beneath every footstep, the sound of a ship fighting to keep her heart beating while something unseen tightened around her throat.

Two Nausicaan raiders slid into view like predators leaving cover, their hulls scarred and angular against the pale scatter of the asteroid field. Running lights remained dark. Weapons arrays glowed with restrained heat along their flanks as they maneuvered into attack position around the crippled Federation vessel.

No warning hailed across subspace. No demand for surrender followed. Only transporter signatures.

Three at a time.

Small bursts of light flared across the Sunfire’s outer hull, then deeper inside her decks as armed Nausicaans materialized in coordinated hunter cells. Their boots struck metal almost in unison each time, heavy disruptors already raised before the transporter haze had fully dispersed around them. They moved with practiced violence.

One group emerged near environmental control and immediately opened fire down the corridor, green disruptor bolts tearing through the dim emergency lighting as crew scattered for cover. Another transporter team appeared outside auxiliary engineering, advancing shoulder to shoulder through the smoke and flashing alarms while their leader barked sharp commands in a guttural growl.

Elsewhere, a security officer rounded a corner and died before the warning reached his lips.

The raiders hunted through the Sunfire the way predators flushed prey from dense brush, aggressive bursts of movement followed by disciplined pauses as they listened for return fire, footsteps, breathing, panic. Their disruptors carved bright scars into the ship’s corridors, filling the air with sparks, smoke, and the sharp scent of scorched metal.

And throughout it all, the Sunfire’s lights continued to dim.

U.S.S. Sunfire - Below Decks

Cathaur rounded the corner at a controlled run just as the emergency lighting flickered again, washing the corridor in violent pulses of red. The smell of scorched circuitry reached her before the patient did. Baldric lay twisted near the ruptured conduit panel, smoke curling faintly from the ruined coupling beside her.

She dropped to one knee immediately, tricorder already active in her hand. “Concussion possible. Neuromuscular disruption localized along the left side,” she noted aloud, more for herself than anyone else. Her free hand pressed lightly against Baldric’s shoulder. “Commander Baldric. Remain conscious if convenient.”

Cathaur tapped her combadge. \>“Sickbay, medical emergency on...”\> Static bit through the channel in a harsh burst of dead noise. Her expression shifted only slightly as she tried again. Nothing. “Communications are no longer functioning,” she observed flatly.

The deck thrummed beneath them as distant weapons fire rattled through the ship. Without waiting for agreement, Cathaur slipped Baldric’s arm across her shoulders and carefully hauled her upright. “You are ambulatory enough,” she said, adjusting to Baldric’s weight with surprising steadiness. “Let us exploit that before conditions worsen.”

They made it only a few meters before three transporter beams erupted ahead of them in sharp columns of light. Nausicaans.
Large. Armed. Already raising disruptors.

Cathaur stopped instantly, one arm still anchoring Baldric upright as her eyes flicked once across the corridor geometry, exits, cover, firing angles. Then the first disruptor blast screamed toward them.

Baldric despised pain, it was an annoyance that hindered opportunity. She had anticipated the entire power conduit would blow - in her face. Thankfully the cover had taken the brunt of the heat - but she'd bashed her head and hit the wall hard - much harder than she had anticipated.

Still - the blue shirt that came toward her hadn't twigged she wasn't theirs - which was a good thing. And with the reduced power she could create chaos within chaos - just as soon as her body decided to function again.

Cathaur moved before the blast finished crossing the space between them. She pulled Baldric sharply out of line, the disruptor fire scorching past where they had stood a heartbeat earlier. “This direction,” she said, not loudly, but with absolute certainty. There was no hesitation in her movement as she pivoted them toward a narrow junction just off the main corridor, her grip firm, guiding rather than dragging.

A second blast struck the bulkhead behind them as Cathaur angled Baldric through a half-open access door, forcing it wider with her shoulder. The moment they cleared the threshold, she reached back and slapped the manual override, sealing it just as another shot splashed against the outer panel. The room beyond was dim, quiet, storage or maintenance, irrelevant. Cathaur eased Baldric against the wall, already scanning again. “You are currently a poor combatant,” she said evenly, as if stating a weather condition. “We will remain here until that changes, or the situation outside becomes less lethal.”

"That's a bit harsh" Baldric retorted indignantly as the room swam in lazy circles around her. "I coulda handles them... " She hadn't recalled seeing this particular face on the crew manifest, making her wonder just how many other changes had been made since the last time they got an update.

Cathaur’s eyes flicked to Baldric for the briefest moment, something like dry interest touching her expression. “I do not doubt your confidence,” she said evenly. “Only its current structural integrity.” A slight pause as she adjusted the scanner. “You may attempt heroics once your vestibular system agrees with you.”

She rose smoothly to her feet and turned away from Baldric, attention shifting to the door, the walls, the faint tremor of combat beyond. Her head tilted, listening as much as scanning. “Three hostiles, close,” she noted quietly. “Still present. Still highly motivated.”

" So am I" Baldric took the oppotunity to strike the back of her rescue's head whilst her back was turned, dropping her to the ground before stepping (slightly wobbling almost) over her fallen body. "Thanks for the rescue - you'll be safe in here. I got shit to do"

U.S.S. Sunfire - Bridge

Back on the Bridge three Nausicaans beamed in, weapons already raised and firing. Rhenora dived out of her command chair just as a bolt hit the back of it - rolling with the momentum and coming up firing.

"Intruder alert!" She shouted, unaware that the comm system probably wasn't functioning.

Jacob tossed his PaDD aft in a wide arc, causing the Nausicaans to track the movement as a new threat. Already in motion, he tackled the nearest one to the ground, engaging in that furious frenetic dance that is grappling. Squirming to cause pain and distraction just long enough to wrench the enemy's phaser away took time. Jacob received an elbow to the head and a knee to the ribs as they rolled, vying for the weapon.

T'Lar for her part was crouched behind her station, already taking aim as soon as the first shimmer of transporter light appeared. As soon as the Naussicans materialized she transfixed one center mass, dropping him in a smoldering heap to the deck. She turned to see Jacob fighting desperately for his life, just as a disrupter bolt tore into her console. She dove into a tuck and roll, returning fire, catching the second Nausicaan in the shoulder and sending him spiraling backwards, dropping his disruptor. Her first instinct was to assist Jacob, however discipline took over and she steadily advanced on the downed Nausicaan firing another phaser blast into his chest. Picking up his discarded weapon she tossed it to Bonnie.

T’Lar’s throw came fast and clean, the disruptor spinning once through the air toward Bonnie’s station. Bonnie saw it coming and immediately regretted existing. Her hands came up on instinct. “Oh...” she started, which was not a plan, and definitely not training. The weapon smacked into her palm, bounced, clipped the edge of her console, and for one terrible, suspended second existed in that precise state between 'caught' and 'this is about to become a problem.'

It became a problem. She grabbed for it again, this time getting hold of it backwards, thumb landing squarely on the trigger. The disruptor discharged with a sharp, violent crack of green energy that tore across the bridge, close enough to T’Lar to kiss the air past her shoulder and slam into a Nausicaan just behind her. The blast threw him back in a spray of sparks and smoke, collapsing in a heap before he ever had the chance to fire.

Bonnie froze, wide-eyed, still holding the weapon like it might personally apologize. “...I, uh, meant to do that,” she whispered with a shrug of her shoulders, immediately unconvincing even to herself.

The bridge was mayhem, with more Nausicaans beaming in to replace the fallen. Rhenora crouched, keeping her profile as low as possible and a harder target to hit in the chaos. She fired when she had clear shots, not wanting to hit her own people. Seeing Jacob go down she moved quickly over to him. Grabbing him under the arms and dragging him to cover and pressing two fingers into his neck to check his pulse.

The Nausicaan advanced, but tripped on a piece of falling bulkhead from the ceiling and landing on top of Jacob and Rhenora.

Jenna had no weapon, only motion, only instinct, and that old, carved-in training her mother had etched into bone and nerve. One of them turned toward her, towering, blade already in hand, a guttural snarl cutting through the chaos as he lunged.

Jenna moved before thought could catch her. She pivoted inside the strike, the blade grazing fabric as her hand snapped up to seize his wrist, momentum carrying him forward. Her other arm drove hard into his throat, a sharp, practiced blow that staggered him just enough. He came back at her with brute strength, forcing her down, but she shifted her weight, hooked her leg behind his knee, and wrenched. The Nausicaan crashed to the deck with a heavy, jarring thud. She followed him down, driving an elbow into his jaw, once, twice, until the fight bled out of him and he went still.

She did not linger. Jenna turned in time to see the bulkhead come down over Rhenora, Jacob and the fallen Nausicaan, the impact echoing through the bridge. She crossed the distance in a breath, dropping to one knee, hands already finding leverage against twisted metal and dead weight. “I got you, Captain.” There was strain in it, and something steadier beneath as she heaved, shifting the debris just enough to pull Rhenora free, her grip firm as she brought her up from the wreckage and back into the fight.

"And I shall cover you Commander as you free the captain." Savar replied leveling his phaser at the nearest Nausicaan and firing.

Commodore S’thenosis Gorgox did not move from her position as the first disruption fractured the order of the bridge, the sharp exchange of weapons fire and the violent arrival of Nausicaan boarders registering as escalation. Where others reacted, she continued, her stylus tracing deliberate lines across the surface of her PADD with unbroken cadence, each notation measured against unfolding action rather than interrupted by it.

Her gaze lifted only as required, not to follow the chaos, but to assess the decisions emerging within it, who engaged, who adapted, who preserved clarity under pressure, and though a disruptor blast scorched the bulkhead within proximity, her posture remained unchanged, her composure neither forced nor feigned. The bridge descended into close-quarters conflict, bodies in motion, voices raised, structure strained, and yet still she recorded, not the violence itself, but the discipline within it, They were all variables to be understood, catalogued, and ultimately weighed.

Rhenora grunted as the Nausicaan was hauled off her, finally able to breathe properly without being compressed.

"Thanks" She nodded to Jenna, dragged Jacob further behind the workstation, and grabbed her weapon again - firing at those that were intent on capturing their ship.

Groggily returning to consciousness with a groan, Jacob rolled over and rose to a crouch. Looking up at the partially destroyed overhead, he sighed. "For the record, I think I had that one until, you know." Jacob gestured around, and popped up to survey the scene. He briefly gazed at T'Lar as she moved through her opponents with a dazzling efficiency. Nothing like a woman who can kill you, Jacob thought was a smirk. Clearing his throat he returned to the task at hand, looking up at the Captain.

"What's the play Skipper?"

"Retake our bridge and send these buggers back where they came from." Rhenora shouted whilst nailing another Nausicaan. There seemed to be a pause in their reinforcements - something the Sunfire bridge crew were going to take advantage of.

T'Lar fought furiously, trying to get to Jacob. Seeing him pinned under the bulkhead had triggered her mightily, her memory flashing back to Brian being crushed under a similar beam. She was relieved to see him pulled free and able to pop his head up briefly. She dispatched another Nausicaan as she made her way over to his position. Looking around, there seemed to be a lull in the fighting. The attackers were down and no new raiders were materializing for the moment. She picked up one of the raider's heavy disruptors.

"Captain, we seem to have the upper hand for the time being," T'Lar said, handing the disruptor to Jacob, a look of relief passing across her green-flecke face, bleeding from a dozen small cuts.

"It is agreeable to see you in one piece, Lieutenant. I was... concerned."

Rhenora made her way to the command chair and dropped into it. "Alright people, we need to restore main power." She ordered, flicking the controls on her chair and seeing a sea of red indicators. They had no shields, no weapons, no engines, patchy comms, the list continued.

U.S.S. Sunfire - Main Engineering

Thriss had been back in engineering for a little while now. He had left the bridge well before the chaos to oversee things from down there due to the escalating conflict; it had escalated alright, and fast too. The Chief was still in his civvies; he didn't have time to change but that was not important.

"Report!" He barked while monitoring the power drain from the center console.

Rynn looked up from her position across from Thriss. "Half of the ship's comms are down. We have reported intruders in the places we can still communicated with. We're gushing power all over the place."

Thriss had a concerned look on his face. "How long until we go 100 percent dark with emergency protocol?"

"Uncertain. It won't conserve anything if we keep it off. With the intruders, our best bet is to go by the book."

"Noted," Thriss looked up. "Computer activate main engineering lock-down protocol authorization Kla'ren-Theta-One.

The blast doors shut. Nobody in or out of the engineering hall without command authorization from the Chief or higher. The warp core external security shields went up. The transwarp annex aboard the ship went into lock-down as well.

He turned to Rynn. "Unlock the weapons lockers. I suspect it's going to be a while before security gets here."

"Aye," His best friend said before moving away from the console to get the weapons ready.

Thriss tapped his badge. "Kla'ren to bridge, please respond."

The sound of weapons fire could be heard and static filled the room. "Chief...do you read?" Kaylen's static shadowed voice sounded a thousand miles away.

"I read skipper. I've locked down the engineering hall and the transwarp drive annex. We're making attempts to mitigate the power drain, and we're arming up to defend ourselves," Thriss reported quickly, unsure of how much time he had before the comm cut out. "I'd ask for a platoon down here, but it sounds like you guys need it more," he quipped.

Bonnie turned to her console, the disruptor still clutched in her hand like it had betrayed her personally. She crouched lower as her free hand slapped at the comm panel, trying to punch a signal through the static. “Lieutenant Kla’ren, come on... come on...” she muttered, riding the interference instead of fighting it. The channel opened, weak and unstable. “Lieutenant, this is Durnell. I think I understand what they did.”

She swallowed, eyes flicking over the cascading power loss as another system dimmed out. “Those nanites on the shields... they weren’t just asteroid debris. They were attracted to energy signatures. First the shields, then the hull. Once they latched on, they turned the whole ship into a conduit for that tachyon net. We’re basically... plugged into it.”

She kept going, words coming faster now as the idea took shape. “What if we cut the plug?” She took a breath, then, “I mean everything. Full power down. Life support, gravity, all of it. We go dark on purpose. Then... we invert the polarity through the hull plating itself, push it back along the same pathway.”

Her voice wavered just slightly, not from fear, but from the scale of it. “It could overload the nanites. Burn them out. Maybe even force a feedback and pull some of that energy back into our grid.” Bonnie winced as the deck shuddered again, tightening her grip on the console. “It’s... not exactly in the manual,” she admitted, quieter. “But, you know, neither is being eaten by microscopic power thieves.”

Thriss turned to his number two. "What do you think?"

Rynn handed the last phaser to the last engineer and setup her own before taking her place across from Thriss. "It could subdue the intruders. We'd need time to transfer to eva suits if it takes long enough."

"How long would it take?" He asked Bonnie. "And how much would it affect the lockdown down here? I'd rather not leave engineering ripe for the taking."

"I... I am not sure exactly. A few minutes. Just enough for them to lose interest or draw the last of the residual energy." She stopped long enough to contemplate the Lockdown protocol. "Um... Shields would be down, but the bulkhead doors would be locked in place. Bonus... any enemies would be caught of guard by the sudden loss of gravity."

"It's the reversal of polarity, I think, that would be the hard part. With the main computer off, we'd have to do it manually." She gulped hard on her words as she realized just how difficult that task might be.

Thriss tapped a few buttons before exchanging a long look of collective understanding with Rynn, who nodded before moving off to prepare for the incoming operation. She knew him well. "Alright, Let's do it."

Deck 3 - Counsellor’s Office

In her office, Aurora had just been leaving her office when the ship was plunged into darkness, fortunately the office door had frozen partially open as the power cut before it close,d leaving just enough room for Aurora to get back inside for her phaser. Grabbing it out of a drawer along with a pocket torch she moved back to the door, it was a toss up whether to try getting to the bridge or going down to sickbay to help out there. Though one deck down seemed the better idea to climbing up two decks to the bridge. Choice made she headed for Sickbay hoping not to meet up with the intruders she was sensing onboard.

 

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