Hitching a ride

Posted on Tue Sep 14th, 2021 @ 4:57am by Lieutenant Mark Valleroy

Mission: The Boneyard Heist

Mark had made arrangements to be beamed over to one of the neighboring derelict ships, the U.S.S. Andreovich. It was an old Centaur-Class ship that was recently decommissioned, and was undergoing the process of being prepared for its new home. Fortunately for Mark, the personnel assigned to handle the decommissioning work looked to be in no hurry to do so (he wondered if it had something to do with a major parrises squares match being held that evening local time), and at the end of their shift today had been quick to head off. Part of what the Andreovich had been assigned for its last few missions (and, fortunately, part of what hadn't been removed yet) had been a Type 11 shuttle and an Argo shuttle.

Mark quickly moved through the derelict ship towards the shuttlebay. He entered to find that while the shuttles hadn't been removed yet, they had been prepped to do so, and were out waiting right there, ripe for the picking. "Oh hello, ladies," Mark said to them with a grin. "Care to take a little nighttime stroll with me?"

He was quick to enter each shuttle, and used a little device that he'd managed to arrange to pilfer from an inattentive maintenance worker earlier that was used in situations like this to reset the command codes for the shuttles being taken off of decommissioned ships. Normally the codes were reset to the maintenance yard where they were being stored until assigned to a new ship, but in this case Mark had loaded up the codes for the Chimera to be downloaded to the shuttle computers.

When he was done, he headed back out to the shuttlebay control room. Opening the shuttlebay doors, he tapped in a delayed closing count that would automatically close them them in 5 minutes. He then hustled back down and hopped into the Argo. Carefully maneuvering the shuttle, he locked a tractor beam onto the type 11 shuttle, and eased both craft out of the shuttlebay, pausing only long enough to watch the shuttlebay doors close behind him.

He then headed back to the Chimera with the shuttles. He'd earlier arranged with one of the ensigns assigned to the shuttlebay to make sure to be there to help him bring the shuttles in, and he opened a comm channel to the ensign, alerting him to Mark's imminent arrival.

"So I take it your mission was a success, Sir?" the ensign asked.

"Indeed it was, ensign. I'll need you to use the shuttlebay tractor beam to bring in the Type 11 shuttle that I'm towing in."

"Acknowledged, Sir. I'll be waiting for your signal."

A few minutes later, when both shuttles secured in the Chimera's shuttlebay, Mark sent a quick message to Commander Skyie informing her of the newest additions to the ship.