Star Trek: Starbase 777 - etd-engineering

The 5 foot woman entered the room so fast the automatic doors nearly didn’t open quickly enough and she almost face planted the metal. That would have definitely hurt. “Alright Tarsek, we are coming!” She hoped everyone taken was hanging on tight. (edited)

The dull hum of the warp core filled the room like a heartbeat finally steadied. Gene drew in a deep breath, leaning against the console to ground himself. Systems were back online-shields and communications-thank goodness. But the silence left in their wake was heavy. Too heavy. People were still missing. His crewmates. Kidnapped, whisked away. Dwyer's hands, trembling faintly, hovered over the console displays as if expecting them to flicker and die again. He sighed, forcing his shoulders to relax, though the tension in his chest wouldn’t ease. (edited)

2

Silver stood ready at a console, feet planted so firmly that even the ship jumping to warp would have a hard time shaking her about. She was stiff, not even bothering to relax her artificial muscles. Her hair was pinned up in a braided bun, as tight as she could possibly get it in order to get it away from anything it could get caught in. All in all, her posture suggested alertness, poised to fix anything that might go wrong at a moment’s notice. Internally, though, she was a mess. They’d taken Tavek. They’d taken Allan. They’d taken Tarsek. They took her friends, and she wanted them back. She wanted them back more than anything, and a new emotion she felt so rarely that she barely knew how to describe it was finally, FINALLY, coursing through her. Anger, white-hot and melting any trace of melancholic ice that might have lingered from her years of abandonment in sub-zero hell. Now, it filled her with relentless drive. Her friends, and everyone else, would be returned to her. She would not dare rest until that was so.

Gene glanced over his shoulder at his fellow crewmate a few feet from him. He blinked, then cleared his throat, awkwardness evident in the way his eyes darted around the room to find the right words. "Uh- Hi. I'm Ensign D-...I'm Gene. Dwyer." He sighed, shaking his head at himself. This situation wasn't exactly the best time to introduce himself to everyone around Engineering, but he might as well get aquainted in a time of crisis like this.

At the sound of someone addressing her, she whipped around towards the source of the noise, horrifyingly fast for someone so tall. Her bright yellow eyes locked onto him, wider than they probably were normally. She just stared at him for a moment before her mind finally decided on what to say, still trying to be polite even if her voice took on more of a colder tone than usual- the tone that was actually baseline for her, she had to make an actual effort to sound friendlier most days because her usual voice was more robotic. “Hello, Gene. You can call me Silver.” Not really a proper introduction on her part, at least by her standards, but she was a bit busy getting last-minute things ready to jump to warp.

At this point, Garcia was kind of oblivious to the others around her. Her fingers moved fast as she checked the systems again and again, ensuring that not one indicator was off the standard. She wanted to have the Eventide in pristine condition for the race ahead of them.

Gene jolted and froze as she turned to face him, his eyes widening a little. He blinked as she took a moment to reply, then he exhaled, slowly through pursed lips. "Silver! Right- cool name. I mean- yes- hah- good to meet'cha!" He smiled awkwardly, cursing himself internally, his pricked ears burning with shame. Turning back towards his console, he clenched his fist, trying to focus in on the priority at hand, and not this bad introduction of his. "Hope we're all ready to uh...y'know what I'm gonna actually shut my mouth for 2 seconds." He growled at himself.

“We’re ready for warp.” She said coldly, face steeled and ready for anything that might happen next.

"Shit-" Gene's eyes shot down to the system's console display power distribution, seeing the tell-tale energy-draw of a torpedo launch. "Guess we're firing up there--" (edited)

Releasing his fingers from his com badge, Gene shifted over to the EPS Control Station, hands floating near it. He sighed shakily, panic settling into focused control. Hearing the lieutenant over comms again, he sharply barked a reply, and got to work. "Preparing redistribution to forward deflector inertial dampers; expect transient EPS voltage !" He cried, fingers flying as he redistiputed power.

”Oh pilots and their moves!” Garcia was not new to this game. Chasing meant maneuvering. Chasing enemies meant maneuvering and firing. Chasing armed enemies meant maneuvering, firing and being hit. “Make sure to not overload those, ensign! We will need our deflectors for as long as we are in this chase if our current pilot is anything like my last one!”

"Yes, Lieutenant-" Gene gave a quick nod as kept a close eye on the system read-out. He could feel his heart beating rapidly, but his expression was deadly focused.

Gene bit his lip, steadying his nerves as the prospect of being mid-chase made him sweat. He promptly returned distribution to default power output.

Garcia had a sense Whisper and their new friends were also taking some part in this chase. And if her tone had been any indicator, she had been more than eager to shoot some Tal Shiar bastards. She moved fast as she redistributed energy between thrusters and weapons after their little deflectors move. The ensign was taking care of their aft defenses for the time being. Her main focus now was to give them as much speed as possible while also maintaining fire power and everything else operational under normal parameters. Easy peasy, not.

Suddenly, all shield indicators went down. Something had shut them completely off! “What the hell?! We lost shields!” Garcia probed into the system. A malfunction? Did they overpower it? Was the power diverged completely? This was terrible!

Looked like they'd been overloaded all at once..?

1

”Mas que cacete!!” Overloaded. Overloaded did not necessarily mean destroyed though, as these systems could surely have failsafes on them to shut down before irreparable damage. No time to waste! She quickly begun to work on trying to set them back up and discovering where the power diversion command had come from.

It seemed to be something done remotely. Something lying under the hood, waiting to be triggered — no sign of its source, however, but those giant warbirds looming outside might have had something to do with it.

“Engine down! The bastards got us!” Strong words to come from Silver, considering she never cursed, especially not at people. She fired up the consoles related to the propulsion systems, but they were well and truly useless now. Silver looked positively furious, face twisted in anger that shouldn’t even be possible for her to feel.

Something inside…. Some sort of trigger planted in their systems to get their shields down. Think Garcia…. Where had the power been diverged from? What were the routes taken for this maneuver? Where in their code could have this trigger been conveniently placed to be able to control all of those rotes? She probed and probed. Hoping to find anything amiss, any trojan horse deep hidden.