Away Team 1 (Part1)
Posted on Fri Oct 8th, 2021 @ 2:50pm by Commander Finchley Kerr & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant Sarah Wilson
Mission:
Gamma Quadrant
Location: Bajoran Ship 1
Timeline: Current.
Savar stood in the transporter room of the Sunfire as he waited for the other members of the away team to join him, They were tasked with retrieving the Bajorans and transporting them back to the Sunfire. He was sure they would be met with questions along with panic and fear. Not to mention any injuries they might encountered. He was glad to have both Aurora and Sarah as members of the team and Commander Kerr would also provide useful assistance in dealing with the Bajorans.
Finchley entered the transporter room and walked over to Savar saying "Reporting as ordered Sir. I've also brought a couple of Med kits in case we need to carry out triage before transporting anyone back to the ship."
"Very Good Mr. Kerr. I am sure they will come in handy when we begin transport as well as deal with any injuries. I know Dr. Wilson will be most appreciative of your resourceful thinking." Savar replied to the strategic ops officer.
Aurora arrived at the transporter room offering a warm smile as she walked in. “Gentlemen, my apologies I was detained by someone wanting to organise a Counselling appointment.”
"It is quite alright Aurora. No apology is needed or required. Your counseling duties come first. You are here now and that is the most important aspect." Savar replied to his wife.
Aurora nodded. “Thank you Commander.” She smiled warmly at her husband as she stepped up onto the transporter PADD Ready to depart once everyone arrived.
Dr Sarah Wilson jogged into the transporter room, medkit over her shoulder, tricorder on her hip and a gleam in her eye. She lived to help people and the thought of an away team made her excited.
She joined the team on the transporter platform and waited for instruction.
Savar nodded at Sarah as she entered the transporter room. "Dr. Wilson, I am pleased you could join us. I fear your services are going to be needed."
" That's why I'm here Sir" Sarah smiled as she adjusted the shoulder strap on her medkit "Do we have any prelims on what we're heading into?"
Finchley turned to Sarah and said "Good to see you again as well Lieutenant. I'm triage trained, so if you require any help please let me know."
"I will, thank you Commander" Sarah smiled as they waited for the beam out.
They disappeared in a myriad of sparkles and reappeared on the smokey bridge of the Bajoran ship.
It took Aurora a few moments to adjust as a wave of emotions hit her, clamping down hard on her mental defences she looked around. “We have wounded over here!” She knelt down to feel for a pulse. “Never mind...it’s too late.” She shook her head.
"Hello. We are from the Federation ship Sunfire. Is there anyone who can hear me?" Savar called out as his eyes tried to penetrate the smoke and look for survivors.
A figure emerged from through the smoke, heading towards the away team. Coming to a slow halt before them, a ragged looking Bajoran officer, uniform blood soaked and their face smoke stained, replied "Lieutenant Holan of the...Bajoran Militia Carrier Iolis...Sir" the Bajoran officer managed through bouts of coughing, "Major L'arisan is the Senior Officer of the...ship, but he's...been injured so I've had to take temporary command as the surviving ranking officer. Thank...thank you..for com...coming to ou..", then it became to much and they collapsed to the floor.
"Dr. Wilson. this man needs your services." Savar called out. "Aurora, Mr. Kerr let us see if we can find any other survivors. We will start with the bridge."
"Yes sir" Sarah was already on her knees with a tricorder and medkit in the first stages of diagnostic analysis. The man was injured, dehydrated and exhausted, not surprising considering the conditions.
"Sir, may I make a suggestion, it may speed up our search?" Finchley asked hesitantly "Perhaps we could each take a section of the ship to search, yourself the bridge, the Counsellor could take the living quarters and I could see to engineering. We'd cover more ground, get a better, larger picture of the situation and what's needed to help anyone onboard who needs it" he finished, hoping what he had suggested made sense.
Savar considered Kerr's suggestion. It made sense but he was hesitant to split the away team up with each member on their own. "A modification if you will Mr. Kerr. Aurora and i will search the living quarters. You and Dr. Wilson will remain here and search the bridge and treat any survivors you come across. I do not wish any member of the away team to be alone."
"Very good Sir" Finchley replied.
In the meantime Aurora had checked the status of the ship’s systems. “Whatever we’re doing we need to make it quick, life support systems are damaged, this ship is running out of breathable air! From what I’m sensing there are still people alive here, but I can’t pinpoint where from here.”
Finchley walked across to one of the access consoles and looked at it "Oh man, this is old, and when I say old...I mean o...l...d!"
He had a fairy good take on reading the Bajoran console configuration and information buttons, even still, it was vastly outdated.
"This ship must be fifty or so years old" he said to Sarah, given how basic it is, and how lightly it's armoured, it's surprising it still in one piece!"
" From what the Captain has said last time she was in sickbay, they used to fly them way older than this. Something about gaffa tape and no.5 fencing wire" Sarah smirked as she tended the man on the ground, applying a hypo to keep him stable.
Finchley began to try and access the main frame computer, and after a few tries managed to get into it. As the readout came streaming onscreen, he began translating what he could.
"The evacuation of the New Bajor Government officials began...the ship takes off looking to head for the wormhole. They were buzzed by a Cardassian ship, a small one, it fired twice then leaves them alone and flies away. The second Carrier has now joined them and together they look to head for the wormhole. A second, bigger, Cardassian ship now attacks them both, but it knows it's not big enough to bring down both Carriers, so a call is sent out from them for other Cardassian ships to help track and destroy the Carriers...but then they to leave. The Carriers don't know if they can't make it to the wormhole before being obliterated, so they decide to try and hide...the ion cloud is perfect they think, so head there. However, as they near the cloud, a series of explosions happen on this Carrier and some of the crew and civilians are killed. A second series of explosions happen, and the main navigation is heavily damaged, but not before they can programme the Carrier to make a landing on this asteroid."
He looked at Sarah "Coincidence, bad luck, or sabotage Doctor, what's your choice here?" Finchley asaked.
" I call all three, it IS an old ship as you mentioned, the Cardassians are bad luck and there may be an element of sabotage" Sarah mused, running a dermal regenerator over some burns.
"We're missing something" Finchley replied thoughtfully "it doesn't fit any Cardassian attack pattern that I've ever come across. They never attack singularly, always in two's or three's, so why did these individual ships do that, and why didn't they press on with their attack instead of firing once or twice, then suddenly leaving?
Aurora added her thoughts. “It could be there’s something that they want, something they don’t want to risk destroying, or this was just...to lure a bigger target?” She looked at Savar concernedly.
Sarah looked up at the different possibilities, not liking any of them. "Ok the sooner we get off this tub the better then. Have you located any more passengers?"
"I don't think they were looking to lure anyone else here" Finchley said "What they did was to...precise, there's more to this than meets the ey..." then he stopped talking and went back to the console he was at moments earlier. After a minute or so he stood back and said "According to the ships sensors, there was a kinetic spike here on this carrier just moments before the first attack, and that normally happens when a transporter is used" he finished.
"For those of us who like things simple - what are you suggesting?" Sarah finished up with her first patient, tagged him for transport then moved on to the next.
"When a transporter beam appears at it's destination to deposit it's load, it generates kinetic energy, which then dissipates once that load is deposited" Finchley said "this is a sub-light Carrier, it doesn't have a transporter, you have to physically come onboard or load cargo manually, which means that something or someone was beamed onboard here. I think the reason the first attack ship only fired a couple of times and then left was because they transported something or someone here. When we scanned this Carrier, the damage that was done was to specific area's...bridge, engines, secondary systems...that's to specific for beaming explosive devices onboard, so my gut instinct is that someone was beamed over to plant the devices. I believe we have a saboteur onboard!"
" We need to get out of here then" Sarah stood, a shocked expression in her eyes and the feeling of dread creeping into her gut. She looked to Commander Savar and Commander Kerr for leadership.
"They had time to finish the job but they didn't" Finchley replied "that suggests to me that they got caught up in the explosions and are either injured or dead. If they were alive, they'd have set all the charges, the Cardassian ship would have returned and beamed them back and warped off. No, they're still here, I can sense it. I have an idea, and I'm only volunteering myself to carry it out, but to be on the safe side so no-one else gets hurt, I believe it's best for you, the wounded and the survivors of this ship to beam back to the Sunfire as those wounded will require your physician skills. I can't speak for Commander Savar or Lieutenant Vali, it's up to them as to whether they stay or beam back as well, but if I'm right, this will be very dangerous."
" You shouldn't be on your own, the Captain would have a conniption" Sarah laughed wryly, " And I for one wouldn't want to face her when you got back. We should stay in pairs at the very least" She suggested. " Can you scan for any further explosive devices?"
"I'll be alright here Doctor and if the Captain wishes to chew out my backside for remaining on my own, let's just say it won't be my first rodeo in that kind of situation. Your duty is to see to the injured and make sure they're taken back to the Sunfire and treated, please see to it" Finchley said "If Commander Savar and Lieutenant Vali want to stay and remain paired up, that's fine, we have our communicators to keep ourselves appraised of how the others are doing" he finished.
Moving back to the console, he tried his best to use the internal scanners to, as Sarah had said, look for other explosive devices. The scanners were crude, vastly outdated, older than any Bajoran vessel he'd come across before. It wasn't working, to much damage had been caused by the explosions, and the scanners that were working were useless for what he was attempting to do.
"Damn it" Finchley said, lightly banging the console top "I'll just have to do this the old fashioned way, in a deck by deck grid search. Best get to it then."
He tapped his COMM badge and filled the XO in on what had happened so far. Once he'd done that he carried on saying "Lieutenant Wilson will be returning to the Sunfire with the injured, so I'll be carrying out a deck by deck grid search to see if I can find if we do indeed have a saboteur onboard. I'll keep in contact with you to let you know how it's going, Kerr out."
The last thing he did before leaving the area he was in was check the console he'd been using for a deck plan. There weren't many decks that had crucial department in them, most of the lower decks were cargo storage and quarters, there were only two decks he could see that would need thoroughly checked out. Taking our his phaser he said "No time like the present..."
" Very good Sir" Sarah placed transporter tags on the wounded and started to beam them back to sickbay, remaining behind until the last was ready to be transporter.
" Stay safe you guys - please" She looked at her teamates as she left the Bajoran ship, ready to start treating the passengers in earnest.
Savar spoke, "Aurora and I will stay together. I recommend we stay in contact with each other to apprise each team of progress or any trouble they may have."
Aurora nodded. “We need to be extremely cautious, I’ll keep my senses alert for any trouble while we’re here.”
TBC
