Target practice part 2

Posted on Tue Jun 7th, 2022 @ 10:55am by Captain Xavier Carey & Lieutenant Talsi Carey & Ensign Sherri Element (Carey) & Ensign Cobal (Johnson) & Commander Antonia 'Tony" Stoffels & Lieutenant Commander Diane Doctrine & Lieutenant Etan tar-Lexros & Lieutenant Commander Rutherford (RJ) Milton & Lieutenant Sky Jansen-Carey

Mission: Free write
Location: battle Bridge and saucer bridge
Timeline: Current

Ensign Cobal stood at the tactical station, this being his first assignment, and one of his first at the station there was a bit of anxiety going through him right now. Hoping the commander wouldnt see.

"Commander, the stardrive seems to be going to red alert, and raising weapons." He stated as he went over diagnostics. "There must be some sort of glitch in the system."

"Run the diagnostics again, ensign." Tony said. She remembered what the captain had said about trusting the crew to know their jobs. Tactical was not one of hers.

"Running them again sir. I've been locked out of the controls of the stardrive, it is deliberate."

Tony swore under her breath. "Comms get in touch with the stardrive section." She ordered making her voice sound steady and making sure her body language mirrored the same. She tapped her badge lightly. "Captain to the bridge." Exhaling. "Tactical officer take us to red alert please. This is probably a test but stay awake every one, there is always the chance it is not."

Sky was sitting in her seat simply taking everything in, at least she had been until now. “If it helps I’m not sensing any signs of distress or anything else to worry about over there, Perhaps they’ve decided to test us out and see how we do?”

Tony sauntered over to where the chief counsellor was sitting still maintaining her casual exterior. Sky was probably the only one who knew how nervous she was inside. "We will show them something." She said with a laugh in her voice. But closer to Sky she whispered for the counsellors ears only. "If he is testing me this way I will have his guts for breakfast, I swear to god."

Sky lowered her voice. “I don’t think Xavier would do that Tony.” She raised her voice again. “Let’s see what the Captain has to say about it.” She hoped she was right about Xavier not having arranged a surprise test.

Tony nodded and hoped he would turn up soon.

Xavier walked out of the ready room, surprised at the red alert. "Report Commander." He looked at the screen. "Why is the stardrive veering away from us."

"Stardrive is firing on us." Cobal replied, as he braced for the hit.

Sky looked towards Xavier. “I’m not sensing anything wrong over there Captain, maybe they’re just testing us.”

"Shields to maximum and evasive maneuvers!" Tony bellowed before filling in the captain completely. "Do you take command, sir?"

Nodding, "What is the strength of the phasers?" He inquired.

Cobal went through the procedure, "No power what so ever."

"Very well, leave it to the Commander to throw a curve ball." Xavier replied, "Place settings to training mode, and come about, lets take care of the weapons." Turning to sky, "Looks like your thoughts are correct. With us in training mode, the hits that we take will show just as they would a real battle."

**Star Drive**

"Direct hit Commander, I think they realized what's going on, I'm reading weapons ready on their end." Tal replied updating the commander.

Diane gripped the ends of the arm rests on the captain's chair. She realized she was testing herself as much as the rest of the crew. "The game is officially afoot folks. Helm, evasive maneuver delta six, tactical, fire the phasers on their engines again and spread of photons aimed at their shield generators. We're gonna try and stay behind them." Diane knew the saucer section didn't have much in the way of armaments to aim aft. She was reasonably certain the Captain Carey would recognize what she was doing so her back up plan was ready. She took a moment to send a short text message to the Captain's console on the saucer, 'Hope you don't mind the impromptu training exercise'


**Saucer section**

"Don't mind at all." He responded back both in text and verbally. "Commander Doctrine thought it be a good time to test the readiness of the ship in battle." He settled into his chair a little bit too comfortable. "Ensign, status of the stardrive?"

"Keeping behind us, they are more maneuverable than we are Captain."

"Commander, have you ever flipped a pancake?" He asked with a grin.

"Not for a while, sir." Tony said. Now the captain had taken command she was not exactly sure what she was supposed to do.

"Helm, lets flip the saucer 180. Use both top and bottom thrusters" Xavier nodded, the looks he got, "What's the worst that can happen, right?" He turned to the Commander. "Just to be safe, keep an eye on the structural integrity. As far as I know, this is the first flip." He made a mental note, to book some holodeck time for himself and the Commander. This would probably be good for her to practice.

Tony tried to look like she knew what was going on where she really didn't have a clue. "Yes sir."

Sky looked towards Xavier. “Captain, May I remind you that we have families onboard. If you’re going to try flipping this saucer like a pancake then advising everyone of your intentions, with a warning to secure themselves might be a good idea. Otherwise you’re going to have a lot of injuries.”

"Ships systems will compensate... I'm talking flip, but something this big, it won't be fast enough for the systems to not compensate with ease." Xavier assured her. "Big and bulky does not move very fast around sharp turns."

**Star Drive**

Diane watched the saucer trying to flip over on the view screen. "We don't want them to get us in firing range of the main phaser array. Helm, we're going to do a small warp burst on course, two, nine, zero, mark zero, zero, that should get us behind them again. Tal, have our main phasers ready to fire once we get turned around." Their tactic would take them behind and below the saucer section once they were done with their flip. The star drive would be in position to fire at the saucer's impulse engine and hopefully rob them of their mobility.

"Sorry Xav...." Tal replied as she readied phasers. Though it reminded her of her days at home watching some of the Meh'sha, attack its prey from its underside. Though a smaller animal, it was no match in battle. "Firing phasers...."


**Saucer**

"That flip did nothing, they are under us again Captain." Cobal replied once again. This time there was a flicker. "Direct hit, impulse engines, we have 25 percent mobility left sir."

Unfazed, Xavier looked around. "Commander your thoughts. Any of your fathers stories stand out about now?"

"My father is a marine, sir. He would not know how to fly a ship if his life depended on it We would need my uncle Wain's stories for this." Well not technically an uncle. But she had grown up with the London children. "Maybe we can fool them we are dead and then strike?" Tony offered.

"Very well Commander," Xavier approved, "make it so."

"All stations." Tony said. "Let's fool them. Go to dead in the water mode. Let them think we have won." She knew they could survive for a while on very low settings which would hopefully fool the star drive into thinking they had won. "On my mark, now! Silent running!"

**Star Drive**

All the lights went out on the saucer and all electro-magnetic readings ceased. Diane watched the main viewscreen with narrowed eyes. "Helm, all stop." There is no way we've inflicted that much damage Diane thought.

She stood up from the command chair and took a step forward. A short wry chuckle emanated from Diane. It was the kind of chuckle that let everyone else know she knew and now it was time to test the crew. "Can anyone tell me what's going on?"

Tal paused a moment, this was new, though not unlike Xavier. His go to would never be playing dead. He would use it as a last ditch.

The saucer section very suddenly went dark - a little too suddenly for Etan's comfort. So he turned the sensors on the 'enemy vessel', and what he saw bothered him. "Commander, they've deactivated external power sources to a trace, but I'm still reading weapons at full power. Conclusion from Ops is, they're on silent running and preparing an alpha strike. Suggest we maintain range, reinforce forward shields around our weapons systems, and be ready to hit back when they've emptied their guns." Etan was often awkward and socially maladjusted, but he seemed to become more confident with this panel under his hands. Maybe it was access to the data that did it. "If you want, sir, I can track movement from their torpedo tubes. When they open a hole in the shield to fire torpedoes, we can do a microburst beam in - not a boarding action, but to leave a torpedo on their Bridge, or I may be able to hit their sensors with a tachyon beam from the main deflector. Should I make ready for either maneuver, sir?"

"Excellent Lieutenant," Diane was pleased someone else saw through the ruse, "I like that suggestion but make sure it's only a torpedo casing, unarmed and empty, make it so."

** Saucer Section **

Sky looked towards Tony. “I can’t be 100% sure but I don’t think they’re buying it. I’m sensing... conflicting emotions from over there.”

"Then maybe now is the time to strike." She looked at the captain. "Sir?"

"I agree with Sky... I doubt we fooled them, but it did stall them. Fire at will focus on their weapons array."

Cobalt nodded, firing everything they had at the stardrive's arrays. Watching as the phasers and torpedoes.

** Star Drive**

"Our shields are still at one hundred percent," Diane glanced at the operations console. She went back and sat in the center seat while issuing orders "Tactical, fire at will. Helm, plot a circular course going around the saucer keeping us to their aft, distance, fifteen hundred meters." Things looked to be going in their favor but Diane was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. She knew Captain Carey would have some other trick up his sleeve.

The situation had now gone further into the favor of the stardrive section's crew. That was good. As soon as he saw active power to the torpedo tubes and the (usually insignificant) hole in the shields where the torpedoes would be fired, the Saucer section was going to receive a rather interesting gift. "Yes, sir. Shields holding, auxilliary power ready for deployment. Ops reports phasers running to optimal temperature and torpedo autoloaders functioning correctly. And... there we go. Point-to-point transport through the torpedo shield gap successful. Captain Carey may have an interesting new foot rest."

In truth, the empty torpedo tube had been beamed in about 15 centimeters off the floor of the bridge, in the open central area between the Command seats and the Ops/Helm block - in other words, Etan was being careful not to hit anyone with it, but drop it in with just enough of a thump to scare the rest of the command crew. If that was a live torpedo and not just an empty casing, that would have spelled true disaster for the Command staff and the ship as a whole.

**Saucer**

Tony just managed not to jump up when the torpedo appeared. It took all her willpower to remain calm and radiate calmness to the crew. 'What the..."

Xavier stood, less than a foot away stood a torpedo casing. "Very well." He had to admit, effective. But he wouldn't roll over yet. Walking over to the computer, he tapped a few buttons and smiled as he realized what was about to happen.

Sky looked at the torpedo casing in horror, it just went to prove what could have happened. It brought home just how vulnerable she was, and how vulnerable families could be on a starship.

Cobal looked at him puzzled.

Bringing up a diagram of the stardrives bridge, he marked three spots. "We are going to transport over some Butyl seleno-mercaptan to those locations on the battle bridge, its harmless, but when this works, doubt they will try that again."

Tony raised an eyebrow. Not sure what the captain was about.

"Ever have a pet sprayed by a skunk?" Xavier inquired to the crew. "That chemical is what the skunk sprays. Three ten kilo packages distributed around will be effective." Walking over to the console, it took a few minutes, managing to work a little magic and hack into the stardrives system, just enough to weaken the shields to transport three gifts to the stardrive. The gifts would dissipate the gas within seconds, and with immediate effect.

It began to dawn and Tony grinned. "Oh nice one, sir."

**Star Drive**

Diane did her best to keep herself from gagging. "All right people... let's keep it together... and keep firing..." Between each phrase she dry heaved or coughed. Well played Xavier... well played. she thought as she went over to the engineering console. There, she amped up the battle bridge's ventilation system to aid in clearing the stench.

Tal paused, she felt her body go weak, "that smell... What...." She collapsed on the ground.

Diane tapped her commbadge, "Bridge to sickbay, please dispatch a medical team to this location." While she was speaking she left the command chair to man the tactical station. She kept up the phaser barrage on the saucer section looking for weak points in their shields. "Lieutenant tar-Lexros, we know the saucer's prefix code, use it to prank them back somehow... and try to do something about the ventilation in here."

Etan nodded, glad for the fact that his senses were just a bit duller than the average human's - and obviously, Tal's were sharper than that. He couldn't help the woman, but Sickbay was en route. After a moment, he had an idea of how to fix the situation on the Bridge. It would just scare the pants off everyone there if they weren't ready for it. "Apologies, everyone. An old professor of mine said, desperate times call for desperate measures. Disabling Bridge life-support.. now."

For the briefest of moments, he completely disabled the life-support systems on the Battle Bridge. Every spacer knew that sound deep in their bones, when the vents stopped blowing and the fans stopped turning - knowing that next, things would get warm. It was the most terrifying way to die in space, choking on your own exhaust. But Etan didn't let it get warm; he beamed out huge volumes of air into unoccupied sections of the star drive section of the vessel (like the cargo bays), beaming the air from those sections first into the buffer and then into the Battle Bridge. A few terrifying moments later, the air smelled much better, and the life-support system for the Bridge came back online. "Readings are five-by-five. Reduced pollutant parts-per-million such that most Federation species will not be able to sense it."

With that duty concluded, he turned his attention outwards. He had no doubt but that the thing which had done real harm to his predecessor in Ops was a form of payback for his little spook on the Saucer's Bridge; that made this personal. Having just been given carte blanche for a prefix code attack on the other half of the ship, Etan actually smiled as he started typing in a program to transmit the prefix to the saucer - or at least, part of it. The command was simple, elegant, and utterly diabolical. He turned the inertial dampeners and SIF generators across the saucer up to maximum safe, then issued an immediate shutdown command to all directional thrusters in the starboard side of the disc; and activated the port-side thrusters at the same time, to set them spinning in circles like the flying saucers in old movies. Of course, there were various overrides, but since he allowed the computer to pull a random password using the multiple processing cores of the secondary hull's computer, he expected that they'd be resorting to hardware. The dampeners and SIF, of course, were on full to protect everyone aboard there; they'd barely even feel the rotation. Unlike the Captain's reckless action, Etan would not let himself be blamed for a medical emergency over a prank. The fact that they 'just happened' to be of a higher system priority for power than the weapons, greatly reducing the saucer's already limited tactical ability even further (if they could even get a weapons lock while the ship was being spun wildly), hadn't even entered his mind as he sent the program to the saucer's computer. As soon as he sent it, he looked over at Commander Doctrine, still smiling. "Commander, prefix attack transmitted."

<>

"Starboard side directional thrusters are down Captain." Helm replied as he tried to regain control. "They have been locked out, I am unable to reactivate them."

Xavier paused for a brief moment, "commander..."

"Sir, Communications coming over from stardrive's medical, Lt Carey, fell unconscious on the bridge." Helm replied as communications was briefly routed through there.

Xavier paused, "Ensign Cobal, send out a flare, signaling end of exercise."

"Aye sir," he replied as he did as he was ordered, disappointed that the exercise was coming to an end.

"Commander, once the shields are down, beam me over to the stardrive, and begin sequence for saucer reintegration." Xavier stated as he sat down... "Tal collapsing has never happened before."

'Will do, sir." Tony said calmly. She looked at Sky. "Do you want to go as well?"

Sky nodded. “Yes, please. I’d like to know what’s happened.”

Then Tony began to give the orders to integrate the ship again.

**Stardrive**

"Orders from the Captain, stand down red alert, training exercise is over." Diane announced to her bridge crew. "Good work people. Follow Commander Stoffel's orders to reconnect with the saucer section." She moved over to where the medical team was working to try and revive Talsi. "How is she?" she asked with concern clearly written on her features.

Milton burst onto the bridge with his field medical kit, looking about while wearing a surgical mask he saw Lt Cary and darted in her direction as he flipped out his Tricorder open while in motion.

"Clear the way. " He ordered as he moved to kneel beside her and ran the quick scan he needed to verify she was physically injured to rate a Beam Out or not being able to be rolled over so he could check her breathing pathways for obstruction.

Scanning he did note some intense muscles contractions in the upper torso and head region. Running the scan told him a direction to physically check. With greater effort he managed to gently roll Talsi onto her back. He dropped the tricorder as her breathing pathways were slightly constricted and there was some abnormal coloring to her skin; only luck would have it that he had given Talsi an Physical and had a baseline for comparison.

The important ace of noting the varied 'Xeno' biological changes; no matter how slight, was a basis for his study of all races he had encountered. For Talsi it was lucky his emphasis 'Is' Xeno-Biology and after her physical he 'brushed up' on what is know of her race. She was expe3riancing Irritation of her eyes nose and raspatory system according to the scans. The effects not all that uncommon enough to Milton to allow him to know the first thing to do. Reaching for a hypo he would administer an anti-hystemine with some steroid due to her natural size and biochemistry.

"You are going to be okay Talsi, just give me a moment to work here." He said in a calm tone.

Etan nodded as the call to cancel the exercise went through, and started to undo his hack. There was only one problem, when he transmitted the prefix, it it didn't go through. While Commander Stoffels was giving reintegration orders, the saucer was still spinning. He looked over to Diane while opening a channel to the Main Bridge. "Um, Commanders? The prefix-authorization I fired off seems to have gotten elevated out of exercise mode. We can't reintegrate. Based on readings, the spin is accelerating, too. I can't slow it down."

Tony knew she could not bother the captain now and she did not have the knowledge to deal with this. But the wisdom her uncle Wain had tried to install in her came back to her. "Alright Lieutenant. Continue to try to get it under control. Run a diagnostic if you can and get the an engineer up there at the double to help you figure this out. I'll get engineering on it at our end. Anything else I can supply you with to fix this?" She kept her voice completely level.

Once she knew Doctor Milton had things well in hand, Diane walked over to the operations console while glancing at the main viewer, which showed the saucer spinning. She became acutely aware that her son was still on that part of the ship. "Lieutenant, is there anything we can to do help from here? Can you regain control of their systems at all?"

"Transporter Room Prepare Emergency Medical Beam Out to Isolation Room One." Milton announced.

The two shimmered off the Battle Bridge.

**Saucer Section**

Lieutenant Scott was in the auxiliary engineering department busy trying to regain control of the ship. The prefix code attack by the ops officer on the star drive section was brilliant but wreaked some havoc despite both parts of the Resolution being in training exercise mode. He aggressively tapped his commbadge, “Engineering to bridge, hang in there, we’ve almost got the problem ironed out.” Then he issued orders to the rest of his team. “All right people, this is unorthodox but it should work. We’re manually firing RCS packs to slow the spin slowly. Every one got that?”

A round of ‘aye ayes’ came back to him. “We need to fire them at the same time, Jenkins, take the dorsal port, Leroy, take the ventral starboard, and on my mark… ready… set… go!”

"Engineering. How is it going at your end." Tony's voice came over the commlink.

Lieutenant Scott answered right away. "We've got the rotation slowing, give us a few more minutes and we can return RCS control to helm after we reboot the helm control system."

"Thank you lieutenant, good job." Tony said relieved. She immediately opened a channel to the stardrive. "Commander Doctrine, engineering is working on the problem and shouldn't be more than a few minutes. So stand by for my signal to start integration again."

"Aye aye Commander," came Doctrine's reply over the com.

**Stardrive Section**

Diane went back to the captain's chair and watched the saucer section slowly stop it's rotational motion.

Etan was grimacing as he saw the result of his hurried handiwork - but that meant he'd need to work with Science and Engineering, and figure out how to prevent that kind of thing happening again. After all, if they were under any kind of computer attack, the same thing could have occurred from someone who was actually hostile - someone who might have deactivated safety functions, rather than turned them up to full. It bothered him; not just that he couldn't undo what he'd done, but that the system could be manipulated to fail that way. He glanced up towards Doctrine, obviously upset at himself. "Commander, when we reintegrate, permission to connect a failover circuit to the secondary computer core, to harden the ship against a prefix override signal from a non-friendly-designated vessel?"

Diane tilted her head to one side as the thought for a moment. As she realized what tar-Lexros' was aiming to do a pleased expression showed on her face. "While it's unlikely a hostile force would know the Resolution's prefix code to duplicate what you did, I agree with you. Permission granted. Coordinate with engineering and science if need be and keep Captain Carey, Commander Stoffels, and myself updated on your progress. The best hackers know how to protect themselves from their own attacks."