The Rock (part 1)

Posted on Sat Feb 18th, 2017 @ 5:55pm by Brigadier General Christopher Mitchell & Commander Andrew Knight

Mission: Another Day in Paradise
Location: Forward Operating Base Anchorage- Lower Section
Timeline: Appox. Thirty Minutes Following Rendezvous with Destiny

ON:

====Hopper Transporter Room Two=====

When the call came through, Cara, now dressed in a medical jumpsuit, hugged Ashley and promised to return then hurried to the transporter room, her Field Trauma Kit slung over one shoulder and the strap to a tricorder slung over the other. She walked through the transporter room door and looked around. She was the first to arrive so she stepped up on the pad and waited for the others.

Bran entered the transporter room, another security officer in tow. This one made Bran look small and made him feel puny. As much as he preferred to bring Aide with him, the sad truth was, he needed Aide on the ship to carry out Bran's orders. There was no one else in the galaxy Bran trusted more to be his second. Plus their strong bond made for much more reliable and efficient communication.

Another person entered, a petite younger lady with red hair pulled into a loose bun, but was already escaping into a chestnut halo around her face. She appeared scuffed up and leaned into the heavy tool case she carried by a strap around her shoulders.

"Captain," Bran said, "This is Petty Officer First Jorrel, security and Tiffany Renee, apparently an engineer." He indicated each in turn. Both Bran and Jorrel were armed with sidearms, tacvests and rifles. Both wore packs that appeared to be overly stuffed. "We ready or were you expecting others?"

The recently appointed Captain, Lieutenant Commander Gunnbjorn, was in the transporter room to see off the away team. "You're ready." he said, "I don't believe anyone else will be coming."


==== Zumwalt Boarding Prep Room ====

Christopher stood with the rest of the Away Team, his rifle in hand. "Everyone ready?" he asked quietly as he checked and double checked every item strapped to his body armor. Snapping an optical sensor array onto his helmet, he fitted it onto his head. Tapping the comm panel on the wall, he opened a channel to the Hopper.

Drew was outfitted much the way he would be for a Special Warfare Op; helmet with a polarized face plate, body armor, phaser carbine slung on his right shoulder, phaser pistol on his right side, slug thrower pistol in a shoulder rig, stun baton mounted in a right calf holster rig and two combat knives mounted in sheaths on his ankle high boots. He gave Christopher a nod. "Roger that Colonel." He cast a quick glance at Chief Special Warfare Operator Kawalsky who was similarly outfitted. "Ready Chief?"

Kawalsky nodded.

Ja'xon was wearing the same thing he had been wearing all along. Standard issue Marine combat suit, his helmet was current hanging off of a clip attached to his chest. His phaser rifle was slung across his back, pistol on his right leg, a kut'luch Klingon knife was sheathed on the small of his back, a boot knife hidden in his right boot, another knife was attached to his chest in a forty-five degree angle, and along the left side of his belt he had two stun grenades and one photon grenade.

Along with Ja'xon were three other marines, one of his fire teams. Corporal Butler, Lance Corporal Mackie, and Private First Class Lucas. This team was Ja'xon's best and has his full confidence to complete even the toughest of missions. Each of the three were human and were outfitted uniformly with the same combat suit, phaser rifle, side arm, and each had their own assortment of knives on their person. Once they all had their helmets on the only way to tell them apart was by their rank and name tags.

All four Marines were grouped up together off to the side. Ja'xon spoke up, "Like usual, we have no idea what we are getting in to here. Only thing we know is that this base has been set up as a fall out plan if SB900 ever needed to be abandoned. Very likely this place could be empty, a ghost town. But be prepared for anything."

"Roger that, sir." Corporal Butler said.

Ja'xon nodded his head, "Very well, now form up and stand by." At that the three marines lined up by rank and assumed the position of attention. "At ease fellas, stay loose." The Marine CO then walked over to where Chris and Drew were and gave a nod to confirm that he and his men were ready to go.

"Zumwalt to Hopper Boarding Team. Are you receiving?" Christopher asked.

Cara nodded to the transporter operator who keyed the companel. "We are, Colonel. Awaiting transporter coordinates," she said.

"Our objectives are simple: Beam aboard and sweep essential areas. Team One will consist of my group aboard the Zumwalt, we'll need to locate the Operations Center to establish a command and control area and get a backup team in to bring everything online. We'll sweep out there. Team Two, your job will be to locate and get a team into Main Engineering and make sure power is online. After that, we need to sweep and clear every deck, space, corridor, and vent. We need to make sure there are no failsafes in place that could pose a danger. I don't care how long it takes, understood?" Christopher said, the edge clear in his voice. This was going to be a long and arduous mission and they would all be ready to drop by the time they were done.

"I can have more of my team here in about four minutes, three if I really incentivize them," Bran said, scowling at the idea of what was sounding like a long slog with few resources. "And we have other engineers on the ship, we can nab them as well."

More and more he was starting to regret the decision to not waste the resources on their combat armor. But, they didn't know how long the supplies were needed for the Hopper and he couldn't, in good conscious, use up resources that could have become meals for hungry children in a week's time.

"We have a team of six with the addition of some of my Marines." Ja'xon said to Colonel Mitchell and CWO Bran, "I can have my men rendezvous with Team Two to provide extra security."

Off the communication channel he spoke directly to Chris and Drew, "The three of us carry a lot of combat experience, and Kawalsky here looks more than capable. I am not familiar with the See Wo (CWO) over there, but I cannot imagine a doc and there engineer being very combat ready. If you all agree, my men can add some extra muscle to their team."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Bran said, a little affronted, "however I was not fully briefed on the magnitude of the situation. I'll have a few more of my team ready to go forthwith and beamed directly from their locations to the beam down point. Thank you for your offer." He wasn't sure why it rankled him the second lieutenant's offer, but it did. Maybe it was just a point of pride that he did the rescuing, not being rescued. "Though, if the job is as big as it sounds, we'll do better having the extra manpower." Make sure they're ready, he sent to Aide, trying his best to hide his irritation at the situation.

Ja'xon replied over coms, "As you wish. Just want to make sure everyone is secure down there."

"Understood, Lieutenant," Bran said, while muting his comms to mutter "patronizing git". Only to glare at Jorrel's rumble of laughter.

As soon as the Hopper transporter operator had the coordinates he looked at those gathered on the pad and said, "ready to transport."

=====Base - Team Two=====

"Energize," Cara said and Team B disappeared from the pad and materialized on an open catwalk of the abandoned base, overlooking what was once the Promenade.

As soon as the beamout completed, Bran took a quick look around, noting that four more of his team, loaded the same as he and Jorrell, were with the group. With just a signal they spread out, scanning the area with tech and eyes, working to make sure they don't miss anything.

"Atmospheric scrubbers are online," Tiffany said as she coughed a bit at the stale, thin air. "Life support appears to be working but from these readings, it's still got a ways to catch up. Nobody told me it was going to be this cold or I would have worn a jacket." She shivered at the frigid air. "But there seems to be some automated systems. I'll know more when we get to engineering. So I guess that makes us team two, let's go," she said smacking Bran in the chest while hitching the heavy kit back onto her shoulder.

Cara looked around for the other team but they hadn't arrived yet. She leaned out over the railing of the open catwalk and looked down...then up. "Mr. Bran....any idea where Engineering might be?" she asked.

Bran joined the doctor at the railing and took his own look around. "What the hell is this place, Captain?" he asked, then smiled, "I'm sorry, Doctor. It has a definite homey feeling but-"

"Engineering is going to be about thirty decks down," Tiffany said as she stared at her tricorder, the view obviously lost on her. "At least that's where the largest power spike is coming from, so that's where engineering should be."

Bran held his breath while he looked straight up and through the central atria at space beyond them. "Appears we're still in the asteroid field," he said, tracking the slow movement of one brightly lit rock as it drifted across the view. But was it rotating out due to gravitational factors on the asteroid belt, or was it because this particular base was also rotating? Questions for squints, he supposed, right now they had a job to do.

Bran looked around him though. Thirty decks down? He was up for it, as were his men, even as laden as they were with supplied. But he wasn't sure about the doctor or annoying engineer. "Computer?" he questioned cautiously. If it felt like a Federation installation then maybe it was Federation? "Please recognize Chief Warrant Officer Curither Bran, security."

"Command code not recognized. Failure to input command codes in one minute will result in activation of fail safes."

"Uhm, guys?" Tiffany said, "The atmospheric scrubbers and life support systems just went off line."

"Krptxc," Bran swore, the universal translator unable to recognize the word.

Cara looked around them and spotted a panel in the wall a few yards away from where they were standing with a gold engineering insignia on it. "Is that and emergency engineering console?" she asked, pointing to the panel.

"Can't be," Bran said, "who would possibly put something so important just right out here for anybody to get into?"

"Well, Muscles," Tiffany said as she opened the panel and set it aside. "The good news is I can restart the atmospheric scrubbers and life support, but not the countdown to open up the seals to the vacuum of space. So in about thirty seconds, those of us without the ability to survive in space are gonna be not surviving in space."

"Engineers," Bran muttered rolling his eyes. "Computer...recognize Chief Warrant Officer Curither Bran omega omega deontology five maxim."

"Code not recognized as authorized user."

"Dammit Chief, stop doing that! I didn't survive the Borg attack just to become a Popsicle blownapart!" Devorak said from his position.


=====Base - Team One=====

Ja'xon and the rest of the members from the Zumwalt were making their way, methodically, to the most logical location of where the operations center would be.

Kawalsky who was looking at a nearby computer station, suddenly spoke up with a bit of alarm, "Atmospheric scrubbers and life support systems just went off line!"

Ja'xon ran over to the engineer, "Why? What happened?"

"Unauthorized user attempt." Kawalsky said confidently. "We apparently have less than 60 seconds to input the correct codes."

"Maybe your codes will work like it did on the ship?" Ja'xon said to Colonel Mitchel and Lieutenant Knight.

Chirstopher let out a string of curses under his breath. "Computer, deactivate failsafes. Authorization Mitchell-Four-Nine-Zero-Sigma! Authenticate!

=A=Command Codes recognized- =A=

Suddenly, the computer started to stutter it's countdown and the alarms stopped. "What in the hell?" Christopher asked rhetorically as he turned to the Gunny and Lieutenant Knight. "Anybody know what's going on here?" he inquired again.

Lucinda shook her head wildly, whipping out a Tricorder and proceeding to take some immediate reading. "Not yet, Sir" she said in a shrill tone of voice, agitated by what had just happened. "More questions than answers at this point, but I am working on it" she said swiftly. "If it starts any sort of count down again though, I'll be ready to force it into maintenance mode or postpone it the best that I can with an intentional virus. Though I'd like to leave that as a last resort" she added.

Drew had no idea what a computer virus could do to the base's operating systems, nor was he inclined to find out. He eyed the Gunny dubiously and nodded his head. "Hopefully it won't come to that Gunny."

Exhaling slowly, Christopher held onto his rifle a bit more tightly. "Got it. Let's see if we can find a map to locate that Ops Center" he said with the weariness becoming evident in his voice as he trudged forward. Looking to the center of the concourse, he saw a massive transparent column with open ports on alternating sides. "I think I found an elevator. Let's move." Walking towards it, Christopher saw a miniature control console with a glowing red button. Out of curiosity, he gave it a tap and heard the sound of rushing air growing closer as a platform rose to meet them. As the floating disc slid to a stop, Christopher motioned. "Shall we?" he asked as he stepped aboard.

Gunnery Sergeant Vasquez glared at the man. "HEY!" she shouted shaking her head. "You should be more cautious with things. Go around pushing buttons, tapping controls on a console...there's no telling what you might trigger" she lectured. "We cannot afford to lose you this early on" she teased with a small smirk. "People would talk, our reputation would be tossed out the airlock, and it would cripple morale."

Drew stepped aboard the strange looking turbolift, Kawalsky at his side. Both men unshouldered their carbines and gave them a quick check.

Ja'xon did his best to hide his annoyance with the Gunny, how someone like her reached a senior enlisted rank is beyond him. The best course of action he has found in situations like this is to simply ignore and avoid interaction. He stepped on to the turbolift, followed by his Marines.

Drew watched as the last person stepped aboard. He looked at the others, then at the turbolift controls and identified the voice command button. He pressed it. "Ops." The turbolift went into motion, presumably en route to the base's Operations Center. He just looked at the others and shrugged. "Sometimes the obvious approach works."

Chris shrugged. "What do we have to lose, Gunnery Sergeant?" he asked, referring to the rather stocky woman by her formal rank. "I'm just one more person that's here by virtue of what I wear on my collar. Anyone of you could assume command of this little mission without a problem."

"I suggest we contact Team Two, sir." Ja'xon said to Colonel Mitchell, "They must have been the ones to attempt access and triggered the countdown. I'd like to ensure that they don't attempt anything else that will put our lives in danger. Also, we may need to set up regular updates so we can monitor their progress."

Chris nodded and turned back to Gunny Vazquez. "Get the other team on the horn and get me a SitRep." he ordered as the lift continued upward with no signs of shopping, the air rushing by them. "You know, if this place wasn't trying to kill us, it would look kind of nice from where we're standing." Chris said, slightly amused.

=====Base - Team Two=====

"Relax, Beefaroni," Tiffany said, her voice echoing around her from inside the panel. "Muscles is only doing what that limited part of his brain that isn't concerned with shooting things tells him to do. On the other hand, us 'squints', dedicate a lot more random access memory and cerebral processing units to get things done." She came out of the panel holding some sort of device attached with a series of glowing wires. She seemed to tap one end of it and the wires blinked on and off for several seconds before Tiffany grinned, the action lighting up her eyes. "And voila, Muscles's mistake becomes easily fixed."

"What do you mean?" Devorak asked, walking toward her with Bran and Jorrel. "Did you get us access to the base computer?"

"Oh, that? No, of course not, didn't you hear, it requires command codes for that. But I was able to move the system into a near infinite diagnostic loop."

"Near infinite diagnostic loop?" Bran asked, looking to Nichols to see if that made any sense to her.

Cara shrugged as if to say, don't look at me.

"Of course," Tiffany said, "so long as nobody tries to input the wrong command codes again, the computer will continue recounting the same second -" she glanced at something inside the panel, "which is currently 'twenty-two' forever. If someone does enter an incorrect command code, it starts counting down again."

"We need to get to engineering before we run out of air or freeze to death," Cara said.

"I'm much more concerned that we'll get spaced before that ever happens," Tiffany said as she slung the heavy toolkit crosswise over her shoulders.

"Oh, that's very comforting," Devorak muttered to quiet chuckling from his fellow security officers.

"Lock it up, all of you, we've got our orders. Jorrell, Devorak, on point. Wagner, Verdei take up the rear. Doctor, you and Squints are in the middle with me and Chyor."

Renee went up to Bran, staring up at him with a hand raised, finger threatening to poke him in the lower chest. "Don't. Call. Me. Squints. Muscles."

Bran shook his head, "Squints, fall in or I'll have you stuffed into a pack and carried to where we need to go. Otherwise, get us coordinates to get to engineering." Dismissing the 'fury' of the diminutive engineer, Bran turned to Nichols. "You ready to move out, Doctor?"

Cara adjusted the strap of her tricorder so she could view it without removing it from its case. She wanted to keep an eye on the oxygen levels. "Let's do this," she said and fell into step behind Jorrell and Devorak.

"Thirty three decks below?" Bran asked, eying the civvies among them. His team was fit enough for that but he doubted whether the engineer or doctor worked out that strenuously to get them there double time. Of course there were faster ways. "If this is Federation, shouldn't there be jeffrey tube access nearby?"

"Of course," Tiffany said, still glaring sideways at 'Muscles'. "Every deck has several entrances for maintenance and repair on various systems. With an emergency access panel, there should be an entrance right there," she said, pointing to a panel that looked like much of the others. "But I don't see why you're asking-" Then, suddenly her eyes widened and she took a step back. "NO! Not a chance! There are turbolifts and transporters and you can't be serious!" she said as Bran had already nodded to his mean. Each turned to his partner and allowed for a belt device to be removed from a side in their packs. Taking them, each was donning the belts while Bran turned back to the engineer.

"We don't have a lot of time and we need to get control of this station, not to mention make sure we don't activate any other failsafes. I'd rather not be caught up in a turbolift in case that happens, nor not have good coordinates for the transporter team and get beamed halfway into the rock of this asteroid. So open the panel, take us to the main tube line because that's what happening whether you object or not." Then Bran smiled. It wasn't warm. "Don't worry, you're with Starfleet's finest, you'll be perfectly safe. Beefaroni there will see to it."

Devorak shook his head, his muttering indicated his unhappiness at the 'babysitting' job. But he raised his PaDD as if to make some adjustments.

Tiffany looked between the two men and looked as if she were still going to munity before she finally took off her tookit and shoved it hard at Devorak. "Fine, then you're carrying this as well." Without waiting for him to accept or not, she turned to the panel and had it removed quickly. A small opening appeard, widening only a little once inside. Minimal emergency lighting light the tunnel behind it, but it didn't seem to go far before it branched into a 'T'.

"Dammit, low crawls," Verdei grumbled as he tightened the straps on his pack.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, we weren't given a good brief otherwise I could have prepared a bit better. We don't have enough of the gravbelts for everyone. You trust me enough that I won't drop you?"

Cara quirked an eyebrow for a second as she looked at Bran. "I guess," she said, dubiously.

"Alright, move out. And Squints, don't waste our time on this."

Tiffany only shot him a venomous look before she crawled in after the first two security officers. Being smaller, thinner and not carrying a loaded pack, she as able to crawl on hands and knees, and made her displeasure at the slow progresss of the larger, laden security officers in front of her as they were forced to low crawl until they got to the 'T' junction and were able to drop down, where the corridor widened enough for them to be able to crawl as well.

Minutes passed before Tiffany finally gave indication that the main trunk line was in a small junction just a few meters ahead.

Bran, in front of the doctor stopped to wait while first Jorrel was able to stand, crouched, but at least standing, and then dropped over the opening.

"Stop squirming!" Devorak said as he fitted Tiffany with a makeshift rope harness, then attached it to clips on his rucksack. He took out his PaDD and worked aorund her to make another adjustment. "What do you weigh? About a hundred fifty?" His breath exploded out as he found that her elbow to his diaphragm still held power even as close as they were.

"I'm a hundred ten. Not everyone feels the need to have a big bowl of steroids for breakfast!" she hissed.

Bran laughed as he turned to the doctor, using his wristPaDD. "If I ask your weight to calibrate the gravbelt for us, am I going to get an elbow in the stomach for my trouble as well?"

"Not at all. I'm proud of my 125 pounds," Cara answered. While Bran did his calculations, she switched the function of her tricorder to scan for life signs. Besides those that represented her team she saw that the other team had arrived and was moving upward toward the Operations Center of the base. "Team one is here and on their way to Ops," she said, pointing upward. She did frown when she noticed other, much smaller life signs scattered around them. "Critters," she muttered.

"Critters?" Bran asked, taking a glance at her screen. "Don't you mean 'free range emergency rations'?"

"I wouldn't want to eat anything I am not familiar with," Cara said with a shudder.

"You gotta step off the ledge!" Devorak's raised voice said.

"No I don't! You're nuts if you think I'm going to jump thirty-three decks only to splatter at the end! Do you have any idea what the result of hitting a suddenly solid object at fifty-four meters per second does to a body? 'Splatter' doesn't begin to describe it!" Tiffany screamed, still squirming away from the opening of the main trunk of the jeffries tube. Devorak was trying to get them into a position to where they could control the descent, but with her squirming, he could easily fall into the shaft uncontrolled and that could lead to danger. Bran was about to intervene when Devorak, muttering several curses, wrapped his arms around the petite engineer and easily lifted her up. Though she still shrieked and tried to fight, most of her leverage was gone. Devorak was able to walk to the edge of the shaft and drop off. Tiffany's screams echoed out of the shaft, but disappearing much slower than one would imagine if she were reaching terminal velocity to splatter at the bottom.

Bran shook his head as he stood - well, crouched - and indicated the doctor should do the same. As he began hooking her into his own rucksack harness, he grinned. "Ready to not hit a solid object at fifty-four meters per second?"

"I've repelled before, Mr. Bran," Cara said as she assumed the position.

"Good to know," Bran said as they maneuvered to the edge. "Ready, and we're off," he said as he took the initiative to drop them over the ledge. Though they started with free fall, the gravbelt quickly kicked in and their descent slowed drastically, so much that the descent seemed to take much longer than it should. Eventually though, they landed, Bran making sure to take much of the brunt of the force to keep the doctor from being hurt. Without saying more, however, he moved them to the side and quickly unhooked himself from the doctor. The need for that was apparent as the next security officer came down and then the last.

"Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again!" Tiffany said, punctuating each word with a closed hand slap to Devorak's chest. He glanced at Bran, the irritation with the engineer plainly written on his face. Bran gave a shake of his head and Devorak just took a breath as he moved away from the woman, still muttering.

"If you'd like to file a complaint," Bran said, his tone neutral and rote.

"I don't blame him!" Tiffany said, rounding on Bran. "He's just the goose-stepping "just following orders" moron! You're the uncaring fascist prick that gave them!"

"Actually," Bran said, "I'm a deontologist, but that's easy enough mistake to make for a vainglorious, narcissist. Now, shut your yap and get us to Engineering where we're supposed to be by now. And no, I don't want to hear more out of you at this point because, quite frankly, if you stopped to think about whether or not we're as 'gun happy' as you're trying to claim...it's a large base, there's few of you and lots of us and I'm quite certain there are plenty of places to stash a body."

Tiffany opened her mouth but Bran put one hand on his rifle and held the other up. "Engineering, now." His tone bespoke he wasn't going to put up with more insults or stalling. "And next time, think before you volunteer for the 'adventure of it all'."

Tiffany narrowed her glare but then turned in a huff and moved out.

Sighing, Bran shook his head as he fell in step with the other security forces and indicated Nichols should join him. "As for those 'critters' Doctor," he said, "I wouldn't turn my nose up at what could become our food source if conditions become dire enough."

"Alright everyone," Cara spoke up. "This isn't a hologram game. Let's get serious. If we don't get the environmental and life support systems up and running all of us...including the Colonel and his team will die of suffocation in..." she looked at her tricorder, "..between 1 and 2 hours. If we don't freeze to death first. Mr. Bran...please....lead the way."

"Lock it up," Bran said without much emotion at the irritated grumbling he heard from Nichols's orders. Though it didn't take long for them to make it out of the jeffries tubes and back into the dimly lit deck beyond. Where Bran had Tiffany take the lead to get them to engineering.

"I certainly hope that the doors aren't on the same system as everything else, otherwise we're going to have to take some time to get into Engineering," Tifany said as they rounded a corner to where she declared engineering should be. Devorak put a hand on her shoulder and thumbed her back. Bran wasn't sure why she actually listened and moved back, maybe it was because Devorak didn't even look at her through the entire process but was focused on Jorrell as the two moved forward, quietly, cautiously. Weapons up, though what good that was going to do if the doors were sealed or some other automated system was activated, Bran wasn't sure. But training was training and -

"Ow!" Jorrell said as he approached the door and ran into what was a suddenly erected forcefield.

"Well, answers that," Bran said, moving forward to see what could be done only to run into a second forcefield. At that point the two security officers beyond were stuck between the two. "And if we try to get them deactivated, we get the wrong command code and twenty-two seconds later we all die. And we still haven't heard from the other team."

"Scans are showing a high level of doxacetamite in the asteroid itself, this could be absorbing the signals, even more since we're so much further toward the core of the asteroid," Wagner was saying while he wiped his brow at the increased heat in the area. "Without active boosts, that could help explain the problem. Either way, once we get the power plant back online, things should work out." Wagner took a step closer to them. "But, won't bringing full power back online also require the use of command inputs?"

"One problem at a time, Petty Officer," Bran said while trying to figure out what they could do about the forcefields. The emitters would be hidden behind the bulkheads and they would have to cut through them to get to it which could provoke more of a response, but at the moment, engineering and the engineer was separated by two force fields and a portal that they weren't sure would even open.

"Thoughts, Doctor?" Bran asked, asking the nominal senior officer on the team.

"Yeah," Cara mumbled. "I want to go home." She tapped her combadge and said, "Nichols to Team 1....we are at the doors to Engineering but there is a forcefield in front of it. Has anyone up there figured out how to shut down these blasted security measures?"

"That's a negative, Nichols. What the hell are you guys doing down there? The computer appears to have developed a speech impediment, although it stopped trying to suck us out into space, which is progress," came the Colonel's reply.

TBC