Encounters of the Dangerous Kind

Posted on Tue Oct 18th, 2022 @ 9:54pm by Captain Calypso Skyie & Lieutenant Commander Alexander Espersen & Lieutenant Mark Valleroy & Lieutenant JG Faith Vianelli & Captain Natalya Markova & Ensign Raven Windancer & Lieutenant F'Arra MD

Mission: Pirates! (Or Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Yum)

***Formerly on Chimera***

Her thousand-yard stare seemed to fade as the voice no longer came over the comm. Damien Penweather, the man who'd killed her last ship, her last Captain and most of her friends. Her voice didn't seem like her own, but it was cool, calm and collected. "Lieutenant Valleroy, forget the Venture. Take the Intrepid out. Now."

"Captain?" Mark said, a bit confused. "We go after the Intrepid first, I can't guarantee we'd survive in a firefight against the others."

"Captain, it'll take some doing, but I feel that we CAN do it. At your command of course," Raven locked eyes with Cally, conveying that she was willing to try if the Captain was.

Her eyes stared at the viewscreen, at the ship in the center of it, then they closed for a moment as she composed herself and keyed a holographic screen to appear in front of her and nodded, "I understand, Mark. Let me handle that. Ensign Windancer, attack pattern Skyie Delta. Engage."

*****

It all happened quickly. The containers attached to Chimera were jettisoned, the ship engaging her engines and slewing to one side and orienting itself on the Intrepid-class Vanguard. Drones slid out of the cargo containers and locked tractor beams onto every one of the pirate ships, slowing or stopping their slow drift towards the starship.

The first shots were fired from Vanguard, a spatter of phaser fire as the Intrepid got underway, then began to turn with the momentum as the tractor beam took hold. The return fire from Chimera was far less pathetic, six torpedoes, three from each of the tubes, streaking out to follow the phasers that were firing at their maximum rate. All impacted on the dorsal shield, shaking the ship.

The Steamrunner began a slow but methodical pattern of torpedoes, but instead of focusing fire on Chimera herself, only devoted two launchers to that task, targeting the drones instead. The small starship never even noticed the flickers of motion before first one freighter, then a second rammed her.

Cally's commands, input by her own hand, had been directions to the four smallish freighters that were operated by remote controls. It was a refinement from the Kobayashi Maru test she'd taken before her first stint as an XO. Freighters tended to have powerful sublight engines to overcome the mass of their massive cargoes. These four weren't loaded with anything which made them far more quick on the helm than they should be. Two were sent each at the Miranda and the Steamrunner.

The first freighter rocked the small artillery ship as it broke up, but the second cracked the hull, spilling atmosphere and stopping the barrage after only a pair of volleys. But the torpedoes had done their job, annihilating most of the tractor drones. The Captain of the Venture-class scout ship saw survival as the better part of valour and shot off as if out of a cannon as the tractor beam dissipated.

The Miranda was luckier, having only started to fire her phasers at Chimera before the freighters came at her. She pivoted on the spot and retargeted on one of the freighters, shredding it with her rapid-fire weapons, but was clipped by the second, destroying one of the nacelles and spinning the disk of her remains off into an uncontrolled vector.

The rest of the battle was just as quick, the tractors holding the Intrepid prevented the nimble cruiser from readjusting her orientation to Chimera so she was unable to engage with anything other than her dorsal phaser arrays while Chimera unloaded everything into her fully exposed profile. Energy danced across her shields, explosions of photon torpedoes punctuating across the breadth of the protection until suddenly they didn't.

The primary hull of the Intrepid was finally exposed and a quartet of torpedoes hit in quick succession. The first exploded against the ablative armor, the second blew a hole in the hull that the last two exploited. The saucer blew apart in a pair of explosions that sent the engineering hull cartwheeling through space.

************
On Chimera's Bridge
************

Cally's eyes had locked onto Vanguard as soon as she'd finished assigning the targets for the freighters to ram. Whether they'd actually do their assigned functions and destroy or disable the Steamrunner and the Miranda were irrelevant, they'd distract them in the least. The REAL target...

"Helm, keep us in this orientation on the target." She snapped the command, "Weapons, hit him, hit him, hit him." She punctuated each iteration with a hand coming down flat on her armrest. She was even leaning forward in her seat.

Faith tensed at Cally's response. She clasped her hands behind her back, a sickening feeling rising in her stomach. "Captain," she cautioned softly.

Alexander walked onto the bridge, his drones destroyed and thus he was no longer needed in the fake bridge, arriving just in time to hear the Captain’s command. He stiffened at the door to the turbolift, worried. Cally’s tests hadn’t prepared him for this being personal.

"What's wrong with Cally? So much anger and hatred. Who was that guy to her?" Raven cringed, feeling the room go ice cold at the Captain's demeanor. There had been the usual 'we might get hit' kind of vibe on the Bridge before the other Captain had spoken, but after that, Cally had gone emotionless, which for her, was a NEVER type thing. Raven was worried for the safety of her Captain's psyche.

When the shields finally dropped on the Intrepid-class ship and the saucer blew apart, Calypso sagged in her chair as if all the energy had drained out of her. There hadn't been any more communication, no attempt to surrender, no nothing. And with how the ship had gone up, Penweather had to be dead... It was over.

Faith cringed, looking away from the view screen as the ship exploded. Instead of watching the carnage, she fixed her gaze on the Captain, just watching.

“My god,” Alexander said quietly. He hadn’t exactly signed up for that level of destruction.

Raven was just as relieved as everyone else...but she was also scared. That unnatural, hate filled feeling was still prevalent in the Captain, though it was now mixed with fatigue and...relief? "Captain, are you alright?" Raven tentatively asked.

"I'm... Okay." Cally said softly, gathering herself back together again, closing her emotions off from the world once more. "Scan for survivors."

"Captain," Mark said, "internal sensors indicate multiple transports onto the Chimera. Directing security and Marine details to intercept. Sorry, Captain, I just don't know where they came from..." Another alarm beeped. "Sensors also indicating another ship incoming, Captain, abov-"

************
On USS Oracle
************

Damien Penweather had watched the carnage almost impassively. He'd expected to lose a ship or two, and Lieutenant Eran had done well to get the scout ship out of the system, but his own helmsman had taken too long to get into position and he watched the wreckage of Vanguard spin off into space. His own passive sensors had noted his boarding shuttles on approach and he watched as the low velocity stealthed shuttles penetrated the flickering shields of the Luna-class ship and latched onto the hull, burning their way in with a flash.

"Fire." He stated to his tactical officer, the engineer disabling Oracle's own stealth systems and illuminating the running lights. "Helm, activate our IFF. Use the original one that came with the ship." He gave a smile, "Let's give them a show."

It was a wide array of torpedoes that flashed through space at the Luna-class starship, followed by a spray of phaser fire that laced the shields of Chimera. The torpedoes were intended to strike the shields on the edges, and they didn't fail to disappoint, collapsing the protection while the ones that didn't explode flashed past the ship and exploded once they were just past the point they'd damage the hull.

Another flash of phasers danced across the hull, half power, but still burned away some of the armor that protected the hull even as the ship heeled upwards as Cally commanded an evasion maneuver.

*********
USS Chimera
*********

"Raven, Evasion Delta." Cally snapped automatically as the new ship appeared on sensors, "Onscreen."

The ship on the screen was black, even as the lights blazed over her hull and points along the phaser strips glowed with power as well as additional wells of darkness as more torpedoes were loaded and powered up. It was a display of power and the promise of destruction. The name was clearly visible on the top front: 'Oracle' it said, but...

The pip on the screen showed a different name, one that made Cally's blood run colder than it had before. Despite the name on the hull, the Identification Friend/Foe beacon showed a Starfleet name: USS Perseus. Cally went paper-white as her eyes sought familiar markings at various points on the screen. That went on for several aching seconds.

“Shit,” said Alexander, knowing exactly what that ship was, and what its presence meant. He ran to the engineering station, pushing the Ensign there out of the way. He opened a comm channel. “Engineering, bridge. Jenna, more power to impulse drive. Give helm every drop they can use.”

=/\= "Yes, sir, emergency power to the engines coming online." Jenna responded, suiting actions to word.=/\=

Raven went off in a stream of Bajoran curses as she impute the commands and the ship responded, but not fast enough to escape the full onslaught. "Those lowlife's are gonna pay for that!" Raven snarled, clinging to the console as the ship rocked.

The indicator on the screen showed an incoming signal from the new arrival, but Cally couldn't speak. Her eyes were focused on the ship she's been the XO on. Had nearly died on. Had thought was gone forever.

"Captain? Captain! Snap out of it for crying out loud! Show those buggers for brains we can kick butt!" Raven snarled, shooting to her feet and stomping over to the Captain's chair and pushed the call button before she even realize what she was doing. "Alright you lowlife scum of the universe! Surrender now, and we MIGHT go easy on you!" Raven blinked...then gulped as she felt the blood drain from her face. "Did...did I just do what I think I just did?" Raven stuttered out, looking down at Cally in complete embarrassment.

"The hell?" The deep, gravel tone of the Caitian doctor came over the Bridge, she had just come up from Sickbay, after making sure that Doctor Westlake had things under control. Her trip up had been mere curiosity, but now, finding the Ensign stood over the Captain's chair.

That was when the communication sunk in. "Oh..." The doctor's jaw dropped slightly, giving her a slightly amusing expression, as fear started to set in.

The look on the man's face on the screen was amused as he beheld the outburst from the obviously very young officer. He was so amused that he started to laugh, starting low and then leading to a full belly laugh.

Calypso slowly stood up and placed a hand on Raven's shoulder to gently guide her back towards her helm console before releasing her. "Captain Penweather, I presume." She said calmly, coldly, no inflection in her voice.

"Commodore, actually, of USS Oracle, Captain Skyie." He said with a friendly smile, "But your excitable young Ensign almost had it right but with the roles reversed. Your ship is under my guns, Captain, you have two choices: Fight and get an awful lot of your crew killed, or surrender and they'll live. This is a fight you cannot win."

It took a few seconds for everything to sink into Cally's head. And he was right, Chimera's shields were down, no... They were back up, but weak, and an Akira-class boasted nineteen torpedo launchers. Had she known about this ship, she wouldn't have taken this approach, she would have...

What would she have done? What could she have done? She shook her head, "No, Commodore, this is a Federation starship. As the Ensign said, you have this opportunity to cease your actions and prepare to be boarded."

Penweather leaned forward as his ship slowed to a halt in perfect firing range, "Captain Skyie, this is your last chance, surrender your ship and I will guarantee the lives of your crew." Damien Penweather leaned forward with a death's head grin on his face, "Yours, on the other hand..." The screen cut out back to a starfield, the lights on the starship in front of Chimera went out, then came back in a very limited fashion, her running lights changing color and intensity in a space version of an automatic distress call.

Life came back to Cally's face, the despair of the moment gone, the glimmer of hope on her face, of something else. Determination filled her as her mental guard dropped once more, "Mister Valleroy, target that ship's bridge. Fire when ready."

"Aye, Captain, but might I suggest we start moving to avoid being shot again? They're in a lot better shape than we are at the moment."

Cally nodded at Raven, "Bring us to their dorsal aspect. They're dead in space for at least the moment."

Raven was shaking, not from embarrassment anymore, but from pure rage. That slimeball on the screen had hurt Cally in some way, and Raven was going to make him pay ten fold. This level of anger was new to Raven, and it would have frightened her under different circumstance. "Aye, Captain, coming about to dorsal aspect. (This ends now,)" she and the voice in her head spoke this last part as one in her mind.

Calypso slipped back into the Captain's chair and tapped on the arm console, "Transferring targeting controls to my station." She said, voice as cold as the vacuum itself and a reticle appeared on the main viewscreen as the Oracle's bridge came into view. One of the red-tinted windows that indicated emergency lighting turned dark, as if someone was using it to look out at Chimera and Cally made that her specific target, and waited... Make him contemplate what was about to happen.

"Captain!" Faith's voice rang clearly across the bridge, the single word echoing with alarm. Just a single glance at the pained expression on Faith's face made it clear she was scared, but she stood her ground. "Please..." the plea was more softly spoken, but still equally pained as she watched Cally and waited.

The single word caught Cally’s attention and her head turned to look at Faith, her finger hovering over the button that would unleash the fury of hell onto that man, the one she hated above all others. But the plea from Faith, the warning… Then the emotional content of it hit Cally while she looked into Faith’s eyes and her head shook slowly, “Faith, you can’t ask this… He killed everyone that mattered to me. My ship, my friends. I can’t risk him getting away… Not again.” Her voice quavered, a plea of her own, for understanding. In the meantime, the window had returned to a soft red glow.

"Are you so hellbent on revenge that you would put all of our lives on the line?" Faith demanded in an emotional outburst. "You promised me Captain! You promised you'd have our backs, that you'd put the wellbeing of this ship, of this crew, of my daughter first! You're willing to kill us all for vengeance! You're no better than he is!"

As Faith started her tirade, the fury of her emotions caused Calypso to blink, hard. She began to retort that this would keep everyone of them alive, that it would keep them safe. Then the last words hit her and she clutched at the arm of her chair for balance, instinct avoiding the button that would have fired the weapons.

‘You’re no better than he is.’

It echoed throughout Cally’s head and she shook it quickly. No. She WAS better than him, she had to be. If not, then what would she end up as? A pirate? Never. She’d kill herself before being one of them, but if shot him out of space when he was helpless? Then that would be what she was. If it were only her, that would be fine. Purge one person to safeguard others, to avenge others. But Cally was all too aware of all eyes on her, waiting for her orders, her actions.

And her hands fell away from the console on the side and before she tore her eyes away from Faith’s, she sent a mental wave of appreciation the human woman would never feel, and her eyes softened before looking back towards the main screen and she swiped away her holographic targeting console, “Lieutenant Valleroy, while we handle the boarders, I want constant updates on that ship. If she brings up her engines, shoot to disable, if that doesn’t work, then blow her out of space. I… Need to.” Her eyes flickered shamefully to Faith for an instant, “See to the well-being of the crew.”

Raven went through so many emotions as she listened to the interaction between Faith and Cally that she was surprised her head hadn't come unscrewed! She breathed a quiet sigh of relief that Faith had finally calmed Cally and reminded her of her TRUE nature.

(To Be Continued)