Star Trek: Starbase 777

The small cargo room that housed the turbolift seemed to exit out into some kind of foyer. It looked as though it was equally used for the movement and storage of cargo, what with there being high shelves and filing cabinets of equipment placed around the room, plus large container crates stacked here and there. There seemed to be some sort of dual set of airlock-style doors right to the back - presumably they entered into another area, maybe a section that required a sterile environment be upkept - but beyond the glass it seemed that another bulkhead was down, sealing the team off from whatever lay beyond.

Eshen followed Sam into the foyer.

C'Telle followed, head swiveling to survey the room.

She walked into the room and checked each corner they approached to make sure they wouldn't get jumped on. Hell, she even checked the damn ceiling. She didn't trust this one bit. "Eshen, Allan. Door." She said as she nodded to it.

He kept silent, walking after his team to the room. Voris looked at one of the crates, whatever one was closest to the door.

He growled lowly. This didn't feel right. The back of his neck prickled. He didn't expect to get this far without meeting some resistance.

She moved in, her Romi-senses tingling. There had to be a trap somewhere, and she had a feeling they were falling into it, without knowing exactly what they were falling into.

C’Sara walked in, uneasy.

There was no one on the ceiling, this time. The room seemed to be deserted, but there was no way of knowing what lay beyond those airlock-style doors with the bulkhead being down beyond them, completely obscuring any view into the room. The crates continued to pour that freezing mist out onto the floor. The tricorder beeped here and there at the detection of different chemicals or warning the team of the drop in temperature, but it didn't detect any other signs of life. The only issue was that Am'el had been quite right - she should trust in her Romulan paranoia more. Crossing over the flooring, at one point, a panel felt slightly off compared to the others - almost like it hadn't been properly set into the ground. A small 'click' reverberated throughout the room as soon as she stood on it. A further series of clicks began to sound - exactly one every second.

"Fall back!" She said the moment she heard the clicking. "To the lift and take cover!" She said as she lowered her rifle and ran back to the area they just came from, all the while scanning to see what the hell just happened.

Eshen fell back, swiftly but calmly, back to #left-turbolift-exit, and as he did he listened, trying to identify where the clicking was coming from.

They ran back and took cover.

Startled, the doctor attempts to take cover back into the turbolift. Had he not taken the hypospray, he probably would had tripped from stiff jointed. Voris did stumble a bit though, nearly crashing into the walls in the turbolift.

C'Telle stumbled back and growled again, taking cover.

She moved back quickly, rifle moving about as if to find a target. She felt both fear and paranoia crawl down her spine, it seems she had forgotten how to suppress it like she used to, especially on a mission like this.

As soon as Am'el released the pressure that she had upon the panel, a myriad of purple and blue sparks began to course up from the edges of the panel, catching Am'el in the back. That high-voltage burst of electricity only coursed for a matter of seconds - three additional clicks, to be exact - but having caught the Romulan square in the back, she was immediately downed - unconscious, and any form of breathing coming out in low, gurgling gasps, taking more than eight seconds in between.

11

She yelled out in pain, dropping to the ground as her rifle skidded away.

She rushed in as quickly as she deemed safe and went over to Am'el, waiting for Saren to join her so that they could lift them out of here.

Eshen entered the room, ready to assist if need be. He took out his tricorder and scanned the room to see if that gave them any clues.

Where before there hadn't been any indication of traps, now under individual panels, the floor coursed with charges of electricity - ready to spark upwards through the gaps in the panelled flooring. One step out of line had been all it took to activate the rest.

6

He ran up to them, following Sam's steps - until he was hunched over Am'el, gently turning her upper body over and into his arms, mumbling something under his breath that was probably just some calming nonsense. "Let's go, Lieutenant..."

She nodded and grabbed the other's legs in order to keep the unconscious person from activating the trap any further. "Let's go." She said as she slowly moved back to the turbolift, making some haste.

There wasn't any electricity coursing between tiles this time, and with the help of the tricorder, the team could work out the generic area of where to avoid. Those sections indicated high electrical charges and coursing voltages beneath the tiles, but it was hard to isolate it to just one. Going ahead with finding a way to nullify the electricity would definitely be a good plan.

Walking around the danger zones, Saren was slowly making his eay to the replicator. Repeating the same fate Am'el just almost had would be highly inconvenient. "Do we want it to be plain red or with some sort of fancy carpet design?" he inquired, an attempt at lightening up the atmosphere.

Eshen followed him, tricorder in hand. "I don't think we have time to decorate it to my standards, unfortunately."

3

"Doesn't take any more time to replicate it if you have an idea in mind already, though," Allan added. "If you don't, though, nothing wrong with the classics."

"Well, I don't know how ornate I can make it when it's rubber, but... But making it resemble one of the ardabil carpets..." Eshen said as he walked, paying attention to the tricorder but somehow still bougie enough to remember something this specific.

1

Thanks to the tricorder's readings it was alright getting over to the replicator - the main group of rigged tiles seemed to be in the direction of the airlock doors, like they were purposefully there to keep people out.

"Ardabil carpet?" he couldn't help but ask, genuinely curious now. It was also a nice distraction for all the insanity happening with and around them. Still, he was mindful of the deathly electricity around them - no talk about fancy art things would distract him from that.

He kept scanning the floor as he walked to the crates. There has to be something of biological origin in there.... he thought to himself. Maybe it could be useful for the mission. (edited)

C'Telle, who had definitely been there the whole time, decided to go with Voris and Am'el to investigate the crates.

After replying to Voris quickly over comms, Eshen said, "Famous persian carpets. You'll see. Wait, do we even have permission to use the replicators here?" He tried to use it to create a large, rolled-up rubber carpet with a pattern on it that resembled the specified carpet.

The crates were set to a cold temperature but weren't currently producing active stasis. It was like they had been set to be pre-prepared for stasis, but were currently sitting idle. All the tricorder picked up at present was that they were cold -- there was no indication of anything biological inside. Over at the replicator, it made no protest against Eshen using it. While the turbolift had been shut down, it seemed that the replicator wasn't part of the systems being locked out -- presumably so anyone, including people who weren't agents, could still use it if required. With a strange thwump noise the carpet slapped down from the replicator as it came into existence, unrolling itself rapidly across the floor.

He then spoke in a hushed tone. "Hm." Voris knew better not to open something that a tricorder didn't scan. It could be empty cold air, or something undetected. "Something seems off about this." What the hell were the Section 31 people doing with this? He checked the tricorder again, scanning for inorganic material this time.

"Help me with this, guys!" Eshen attempted to move the carpet so it unrolled in a straight line from where they were to where they needed to go. (edited)

C’Sara helped move the carpet.

She rushed over to assist.

C'Telle also moved over to help, and lifted part of the carpet.

He also went to assist with the carpet. Though he's not quite done investigating those crates yet. (edited)

Well, if the carpet needed anyone else helping with it, Allan was not investigating the crates and therefore was fine to help if still needed.

He also helped to unroll it - considering it's lenght and the weight of rubber, the more people helped to move it, the better. Hopefully this will work, he thought, because frankly, the idea of solving Section 31's trap by literally red carpet walking over it was quite something.

2

Really something? More like really funny. And also kind of wholesome? It was kind of fun - just some friends making a fancy carpet as part of a super dangerous sec 31 mission.

3

The tricorder indicated that there was something in one of the crates - something made of various metals and synthetic properties. That carpet really was fancy. It was also heavy, as Saren had mentioned, but with the joint effort it was soon rolled out over the floor. It marked the way directly to the two airlock doors. The carpet itself didn't set any of the floor panels off - maybe it had to be direct pressure. It was going to take someone to walk across and test it. Any volunteers?

"What if we rolled something heavy across it first?" He looked around to see if there were any more of those handy armchairs. Probably not. Any sort of barrel, maybe?

“I’ll take one for the team and walk over it.” They said.

"Won't matter much. The point of it being rubber is even if it sets off a panel it won't conduct electricity up into us." As he spoke, Eshen very quickly took a picture with his PADD and sent it to Jericho.

2

20:24

"Also, C'Sara, you can go - but remember to do a pose at the end!" He added.

"I'm wondering if we should take a sample of the contents in those crates back. It looks like they were making something with metal. A device?"

They walked across the carpet and T-Posed at the other side.

7

6

"I mean, every insulator has a breakdown voltage at which it fails through and arcs overrr, but-" he looked at C'Sara. "It should lessen the voltage significantly even still."

“Perhaps we should tag it to beam out, maybe it would be useful.” She glanced over that C’sara, a bit disappointed at the pose they used.

You could see tiny crackles here and there from where the panels sat closer to the edges of the carpet, but C'Sara managed to get across the carpet to the airlock doors perfectly fine.

3

"Well, I made it of very good Starfleet-issue insulating rubber, so there." Yup. Definitely did that.

He smirked. He knew exactly what that pose was thanks to some human classmates at the Academy. Realizing he grinned, he did an "ahem" and resumed keeping a straight face. "Tagging it sounds like a good idea. Better to keep it in the crate, wouldn't want to know what would happen if we opened it."

3

“Come across.” They said.

"Tag it and let's go!" Eshen took Allan by the hand and walked gracefully across the catwalk, hips swaying, then when they reached the end he dipped Allan like they'd been dancing.

3

5

2

2

He went over to the crates, tagging them before going back with the rest of his group. The carpet deemed the floor safe, Voris doing a little quick moonwalk strut before acting like he definitely did not do that. So he does have a bit of a fun side.

3

Tired and not giving a fuck, C'Telle sighed and joined them.

Allan laughed when the two of them walked along the catwalk, hand in hand, and found himself grinning for the first time in a bit since they'd gotten down here. When he was dipped also, he couldn't help but reach up to pull Eshen down to kiss him quickly. Just a bit of happiness in this silly trapped chamber, all because of a red carpet and his boyfriend, who was consistently the one to keep having him smile. Nice.

1

1

1

At the other end of the carpet sat the two airlock doors. The first slid open to allow someone in, immediately flooding the area between with blue, sterile light. It seemed that power to this floor was still on, but the issue was going to be getting through the bulkhead on the other side.

Making sure that nothing and no one was left behind - because he do be Caring Very Much - Saren walked after them, quietly humming something to the tune of crackling electricity under them.

2

"Allan, seems like you're up." She said with a small chuckle as she looked at the team having some fun.

Allan nodded, still beaming with a smile as he walked over, still holding Eshen's hand if Eshen followed, to look at the bulkhead. "Well, we want to make sure nobody's waiting for us on the other side first, right?" He took out a tricorder and tried to see if it could detect any life signs beyond the bulkhead.

[Comms] "I'm afraid that there are a whole multitude of people waiting for you. They seem to be in some sort of formation - eight at either side, then two at the back of that room. Then there are... There are lifeforms, but they're irregular. Weaker than the others. They're dotted about indiscriminately."

1

"Who's up for a game of catch? With stun nades, that is." She said with a sly smirk as she looked over at the group.

She moved back, trying to find cover for the inevitability of a firefight. “I’m up for one.”

C'Telle did the same, grinning. "As am I."

They grinned. “Oh, I’m ready.”

He flashed a quick irritated look before returning to a normal expression. "Not like I have a choice." He also looked for cover, grabbing onto his phaser.

Surprisingly, the Klingon was cautious. "...I would actually rather we came up with a better plan than stun grenades. As I recall from hearing things over comms, that didn't work out so well last time, and since they're waiting for us we have time to plan."

"Weaker than... he's talking about hostages, isn't he?" Saren murmured, readying his phaser and finding cover. "This ain't gonna be pretty. And we should proceed with caution, I agree with Eshen. Our and other lives are at stake, this time."

"That's correct, but we could try the phaser tactic? We could set phasers to heavy stun - level 8. Aim for the gaps in the armour; joints, neck. Those kind of spots. That could end the encounter rather quickly, no?" She said as she too went to cover.

"Sounds about right...." He also mentally prepared himself to use his medical equipment again.

"We don't know if they'll also shoot the hostages once we do that, though," Allan said, but he didn't actually have other ideas either.

[Comms] "There are two rooms where the lifeforms are condensed - the ones that we had pinpointed on the map. Those are likely where the hostages are. There are another four within that next room, however. I'm not sure who they are..."

6

4

"Holding cells, maybe?" She asked as she looked over at Eshen.

“Anyway we could know more about who we are going up against? Maybe Section 31 still uses the ever lasting human doctrine of comically large vents.” She muttered.

Eshen squeezed Allan's hand. "We could. Or - Allan, could you hack into that bulkhead so that it opens remotely, or on some kind of timer? Then we could go back to around the corner, near the turbolift, and they'll have to come in here with us, funnel down the carpet, and we can just sort of pick them off in a line with high intensity continuous beams from behind cover."

"That sounds like a plan." She said with a nod. "We could make it even less dangerous if we set up pattern enhancers in the corners of the room to set up a grid. That way we can just beam them out right away without firing a single shot."

"I could..." he squeezed his hand back before letting go of it to rummage through his bag and get out his equipment. "I could definitely try that out, especially if there's a control panel nearby it would be easy." He looked around to see if he could find a control panel nearby.

The closest option would be the control panel at the replicator. With any luck, perhaps Allan would be able to get into the other systems via it.

He nodded enthusiastically. "So they just walk right in and get teleported away? That would be fantastic, actually!"

21:12

"...Although we can't actually get to the corners of the room, because there's electricity in the way, but maybe we can set up a smaller grid near the door?"

"Exactly!" She said with a snap of her fingers and a grin on her face. "Alright, let's get this set up." She said as she walked on over and picked up an enhancer. "We need to keep the enhancers out of sight though. So let's put them behind the doorframe and against those back pillars over at the lift."

He waited patiently, with phaser in his hand. Though he then went to help out with the enchancers. Less fighting he did, and more helping was what he preferred to do.

Eshen picked up another enhancer from wherever Sam was getting them from. "Woo, teamwork!"

Allan went back to the replicator control panel and attempted to go through its programming into the rest of the rooms's systems, trying to go through the same route he usually did to hack any other replicator to do benign things like making real alcohol and shit like that.

She moved off and attempt to assist in any way possible, setting the enhancers up primarily, making sure they worked and configuring them to disable weapons upon transport.

1

It didn't take too long to have the pattern enhancers set up just around the corner from the foyer, in that little section of archway that connected it and the turbolift room. They were soon programmed to automatically beam any approaching person out and straight to the brig. At the console control panel, Allan was easily able to get into the controls of other areas of the computer. He had already got through Section 31's systems before, after all.

She set up the enhancer before she set hers to remove the armour on the agents as well. That would definitely simplify things back on the ship.

"What kind of delay we want here?" Allan asked once he had gotten into the system. "Or do we want the remote thing more? Might take a bit longer to set that up, though," he said as he looked into the settings for the bulkhead, coding in a block for a small delay on the release as was pretty standard in... most any mechanical door or moving part.

"Let's do 60 seconds. That should be enough for everyone to clear the room and to activate the enhancers." She said as she looked over at Allan, grabbing her rifle and pointing it to the floor, keeping her finger off the trigger. "Call out when you're ready."

With everything set up, Eshen went into that little bit of hallway between the turbolift area and the foyer.

After a brief moment of considering whether to ask if he could make it 69 seconds instead, he made it 60. However, any good programmer knows buffering time should be loaded into anything, no matter how advanced, so he added in 9 seconds for that purpose. "Should be about 10 seconds delay after saving before the timer starts. And it should be saved... now," he said as he saved the programming and assumedly the counter started, before, well, booking it out of the room of course before the timer would assumedly go off.

With everyone in position it was a decidedly tense 60 seconds (...69, technically,) but as soon as the timer was up, there came the reverberating sound of the bulkhead raising, it seeming to vibrate through the walls. Even through the two sealed doors it was still audible. There was silence. More silence. More silence... And then the sound of one door sliding open, followed by the other.

"They'll be here somewhere," one agent stated to the other, two having exited from the interior room. They stopped at the edge of the carpet, giving it a nudge with their boot. "You don't think they've hidden in the crates, do you? They'll fuckin' freeze." "There are only three crates large enough and there are supposedly eight officers, dipshit," came the other guard's reply. "They'll be around the corner. Duh."

Eshen said nothing, but put a finger up to his lips in an attempt to suggest everyone should be quiet. All those Forever 21 agents needed to do was walk into the room...

4

3

She put an open hand in the air, out of sight for the agents, of course. She needed more than just two to spring a trap.

As if to prove their partner right, the second guard walked straight around the corner... And directly into the middle of the pattern enhancers. In an instant they were engulfed in the familiar gold of transporter-beam light, immediately whisked away to the ship. Agent One, who had been lagging behind the first, came screeching to a halt. Their rifle was only partially raised as they tried to look for anyone around the corner without stepping too close to the enhancers. "H-Hey! Get out here! Where the fuck did you just send Sarah?!"

Eshen was so tempted to say they'd fucking evaporated Sarah and they were next, but didn't because that would be a bit mean and also they needed to be quiet.

6

Saren just watched the agents disappear with mild amusement on his face. Poof, like a vintage magic show! Shame that no one's gonna pull out a bunny out of their hat. Because no one here had hats.

It seemed like they'd reached a stalemate. They'd turned the situation from one in which they would be walking into a trap to one in which both of them had laid traps and were waiting for the other to walk into them. They just needed a way to drive the Sec 31 agents from that room to this one...

"...Please?" They asked, again falling out around the corridor. "I'm not gonna just walk into that transporter thing, so I can just like... Stand here all day if I have to..." But that sounded boring.

5

He looked towards his teammates, eyebrow raised, and then nodded towards the corridor. "What shall we do now?" was the silent question.

They glared at the guard.

Eshen whispered very quietly. "Do you think I could... Talk to him? Convince him to switch sides?"

She shook her head and put her finger on her lips. Then she did a very simple thing; she tapped the wall with the tip of her rifle, making a single "ting" sound. That would lure a guy.

With one boot they scuffed their toes off the floor and then kicked one of the pattern enhancers, just enough to make it wobble. At the sound they stopped again, looking in the direction of the turbolift once more. "Dude or multiple dudes, I literally know you're there! The turbolift hasn't gone off again so I know you're not downstairs! I'm not walking into your dumb transporter, so you might as well just come out here so I can get this over and done with and shoot you or whatever!"

"Please?" Eshen asked quietly. "We're in a stalemate and we can communicate with this guy, and he doesn't sound so bad. We know a lot of Sec 31 agents are in a bad situation and looking for a way out; I think we could convince him to join Sarah." Diplomat time?

5

5

5

“It could work.” They observed.

"UuUUUUGH this sucks," they called and kicked the pattern transporter again. "Mam was right when she told me to stay in school! This is bORING! Just do something already!"

6

Huh. "They sound... young. It's worth a try, in my opinion," Saren whispered, shrugging his shoulders.

“I could. I was like them once.” She had doubts, it wasn’t that easy to turn someone to your side, but maybe it was worth a shot.

"Fine, just don't pop your head out." She said quietly, looking at Eshen.

"I won't. I'm the diplomat so I'll take the lead, but Am'el, if you have anything to contribute you can chime in. Same goes for the rest of you." He increased his volume so that the Sec 31 agent would be able to hear him. "Sarah is fine. What's your name?"

Oh, so they were speaking now? Okay... They stopped kicking the pattern enhancer tube thing for just now. "It's Derek. And I knew you were round there. ...You sent Sarah to your ship, wherever it is, right?"

"Yes. Were you and Sarah friends?" He asked. A short question, but it was pretty important to know for the things he was going to say next.

"I mean... Kind of, I guess." They had now started swinging their rifle around in both hands, obviously feeling the need to fidget with something. "We train together. And we guard the lab. We're not meant to do much, though. The others were meant to take all of you guys out like, an hour ago. But clearly they were shit at that."

3

Eshen took a deep breath to keep himself sounding calm, level-headed, and in control. "Mhm. We're quite formidable; I wouldn't want to get in a fight with us, if I were you. Tell me something - did you join Section 31 voluntarily?"

"I mean-" It seemed the agent went to answer but stopped half-way through. "Wouldn't you like to know, Starfleet boy?"

5

Sam checked if her rifle was on heavy stun, just in case. You never know if people are gonna attack or not, and besides they had an elevator right behind them. "Allan. Can you lock the turbolift in place? Make it impossible to get flanked from behind?" She said as quietly as possible, tapping Allan on the shoulder.

Eshen laughed. It was low and warm, the kind of laugh you'd hear from a friend after you made an inside joke. He was trying to dissolve the tension and the barrier between them and him. "I would, yes. Don't worry, we're not going to be using this information against you in the fight somehow. I'm asking because if you joined unwillingly, we have a way out."

"I mean like. Ish." No point in not answering if they were going to go back to the dumb stalemate. "I left home and went travelling and I was by myself. It was okay, but people out there are like. Criminals and shit. You could be robbed at any backpackers'. These people offered me a job and said I could learn to defend myself, and I did."

"Right. And has it been all that you signed up for, or have you ever been made to do something you're uncomfortable with?" Like, you know, killing people - or worse.

Silence for a bit, and then, "we do other things. We go on away missions and we take people back. They say it's because we're helping them, and that we're rescuing people from worlds that are dangerous, so then we can give them the means to live there safely? But I don't know." Another kick of something. "Sometimes we just take children. Sometimes their parents. People get split up either way." There was an elongated pause, voice a little more choked this time. "...I shouldn't have left my mam."

"Can do, if..." Allan whispered back to Sam, "If I could find something to do that from." He looked around for some sort of control panel from outside the turbolift or in this hall they were in, because the replicator panel was obviously in the room they weren't going back into. Just as a first attempt, he took out a sort of scanning device (maybe the tricorder had a function such as this?) and scanned for nearby network connections to try and connect into.

Aw. Their mam. Wait, were they northern? Or Scottish? "The way Sarah left - you could step through and follow her, and leave this place behind, not have to do anything you don't want to any more, and see your mam again. Starfleet will help you with that - you and any of the other agents. We've helped Sec 31 agents leave before and we'll do it again. All you have to do is walk a couple of paces." (edited)

6

5

He stayed quiet and hidden, his antennae swivelling a bit as he listened to the conversation. Voris frowned. A part of him felt empathetic but was still aware this wasn't the time to feel emotional to the enemy.

"But they say we can't leave. They say that if we tell anyone anything, that we'll be punished. That if we leave they'll just hunt us down. I shouldn't even be telling you any of this anyway. It's why I haven't tried to leave. I don't want to have five minutes of freedom just to die..."

"You won't die, kid. We'll make sure that you don't." She chimed in, staying calm but having a rather sweet tone to her voice. "We'll get you back to your mam in one piece."

"And we'll keep her safe, too," he added.

22:48

Eshen whispered to Jericho over comms: [COMMS] "Am I allowed to namedrop you to help convince this agent to defect? Do you think that would help?" (edited)

[Comms] "You're the diplomat, Lieutenant. Do whatever you think would work - I don't mind."

Eshen nodded, even though Jericho couldn't see it. "If you know of an ex-agent called Jericho Giles, he's an example of someone who's left, stayed alive - thrived, even - and doesn't regret it." Those last two were kind of assumptions, since he had no idea if Giles considered himself to be thriving or had no regrets, but it helped his case to put it in such a way. (edited)

"Don't know 'im. But everyone says if you leave, that they'll come after you... Or if they don't for whatever reason that they just sit there and wait so they can get back at you some other way one day. Like you'll get a friend and then they'll go for them instead. You live your life all scared. I don't want that..." Derek's voice lowered. "But don't tell them, but I don't want here either. I want the kids to go back home, and the adults can too..."

"They didn't come after me when I left, I doubt they'll come after you, kid." She said in a comforting tone. "Look, if you take a step forwards, we'll take care of you and your family and friends. They won't be harmed."

"Well, you could be scared on your side, or you could be scared on our side, but on ours you get to see your mam again. We're trying to help all the adults and kids, too. If you have any way to help us free the hostages..."

There was a very quiet moment lasting a good thirty-odd seconds. There was no more scuffing boots off the floor or kicking anything out of boredom: instead they just stood there, slowly rotating the rifle in their hands. "Being scared is for pussies anyway. I want to help. What do you want me to do?"

3

"Lure the rest here. We'll do the rest." She said as she gestured to Eshen to disable to trap. "Activate it again when all of them are in the zone." She whispered quietly.

"They're not gonna come out. They're not agents or anything, just scientists. They've got phasers and stuff but they're not gonna come out here and fight you direct."

"Use the samples as bait. Scientists care a lot for them." She said as she looked at the group for a moment before she leaned against the wall again.

"Or you can tell them if they come out here, all that'll happen to them is they'll be transported away and we won't have to fight them. Otherwise, we will have to come in there and fight them, but we're Starfleet; we don't want to fight non-combatants."

"I don't think they'll do that. They've all been told the same things that I have - that if they try to leave, then they'd just get killed later on. And some of them are... Weird. They care a lot about their work. Not about the people they're doing their work to."

"Alright, you could try the samples thing. Or... Hold on." He whispered to Sam. "Do you think we could convince him to just walk right in there with a stun grenade? That way it definitely won't get thrown back."

In the background with Allan having been looking for some sort of controls, there hadn't been anything found other than the control panel inside of the turbolift itself. The doors opened when he stepped close enough - it didn't seem that it had been summoned back up to the other level to allow more agents aboard. With any luck, that floor was entirely clear.

"It'll get spotted right away, and then he might get shot right away. It's too risky." She said quietly in return before returning her attention to the agent. "Just tell them the cooling system halted. All of it. They'll come rushing in like flies on honey."

Tell them the cooling system what? What did that mean? Was this some sort of engineering thing he didn't understand? "So we hide it on him somewhere."

"They have all the controls for the systems in the lab, they'd know that nothing had happened with any cooling system. I could throw something in and then run, they couldn't shoot me quick enough if I'm still wearing my suit..." Something else he should probably mention, then. "And they don't have suits. They just have their ugly dumb uniform."

"He's volunteering to throw something into the room. This is the stun grenade plan, but better this time. They don't have suits so they're vulnerable to it." He spoke up again. "Do you have anything to throw? We could give you something, but we'll both have to trust one another for me to hand you anything."

"I don't have anything else, just my weapon. And I'm not going to do anything with it. That would be dumb." They gave a shrug. "The seven other people around that corner would just like immediately shoot me or something."

Eshen looked at Sam. "I can give him a grenade and he can walk right in there, throw it, and then run away. Hell, I could even give him more than one grenade if the first doesn't work."

"Hand him two. Just make sure he doesn't use them on us, alright?" She said as she handed Eshen one of her nades.

"I'll try and stop him if it looks like he's going to do that, but if we expect him to trust us, we have to trust him." He took the stun grenade and then got another one from wherever the fuck they were kept. One of the kits. Maybe he has one. I forgor. "I'm going to come over there and give you something to throw. I won't be holding my phaser, so please don't hold your gun. We have to trust one another for this to work." Then he disabled the field and walked out towards the guard.

The agent slung their rifle over their shoulder by a carry strap and stood there waiting, craning their neck to look around the corner for whoever was coming out. You couldn't see their expression due to the helmet, but you could hear the anticipation as Eshen rounded the corner. "You're a Klingon? A Starfleet Klingon? Ugly uniform, but the rest is cool."

Eshen briefly considered betraying him just for that comment, because the excursion uniform was quite fashionable, thanks, but obviously he didn't. "A Vulcan-Klingon!" He tapped a pointy ear and did the Ta'al, then handed them the grenades. "Here's two stun grenades. Throw one into the room and run away, and there's a spare in case that doesn't get everyone. SoHDaq qeylIS qa' yInjaj¹." ¹May the spirit of Kah'less live within you. (edited)

"If you throw them this way, you'll be sorry real quick. Just so you know." She said affirmatively as she raised her rifle slightly as an unconscious response.

Derek took the two grenades, staring at them for a moment before giving a nod. "Okay. Okay. I'll just... Throw it and run. Like a really shit game of rugby. Okay. Okay." A lot of it seemed like psyching themselves up - and then all of a sudden they set off at a sprint, dashing through the archway and back into the foyer, vanishing out of sight.

Eshen couldn't turn around and glare at Samantha because he was too polite, but he did inside his own head. The worst possible time to make this guy feel threatened and damage the rapport he'd built with them would be when they were holding two stun grenades. Luckily, they didn't seem to care. "Woo, go Derek!" (edited)

"Fall back, Eshen. They still have phasers." She said calmly as she lowered her rifle again.

Eshen fell back, standing next to Allan and holding his hand again.

1

It was under a minute later that there was the sound of hammering footsteps (although partially muffled by the rubber carpet) and Derek came racing back around the corner again, sliding to a stop as soon as they had reached the archway again. "Okay, okay, I threw the thing. I don't know if it got everybody because y'know, I like, had to run, but - it definitely got in the room. So hopefully everybody."

"Hey, good work!" Eshen called. "Should we go out there, guys?"

"Alright, that's our signal. Let's go, people." She said as she lifted her rifle and went around the corner, walking past the helpful agent and towards the next room, looking down the sights of her rifle as she did so.

3

Eshen walked over to Derek and high-fived them. (edited)

4

She followed Sam, giving a smile to Derek.

Derek accepted the high-five, grinning behind their helmet. "I'll uh, guard through here or something," they stated as they watched the group march on past. Those guys might have been wearing dumb uniforms but they did look kind of badass. Just a little. Maybe a lot.

"...If you're going to do that, I'd like the second grenade back, if you don't mind?" Eshen asked, holding out the hand he'd just high-fived with.

Sighing, he followed the group. It felt like an ent- OUCH. Yep there went his hips for a moment. He's fine. Voris resumed walking to the group after that small hiccup. He hoped no one saw that. (edited)

"Oh, yeah, sure." It was without resistance that the other stun grenade was handed back over. "Just don't throw it at me at any point. That would suck."

Eshen laughed again. Funny kid. "It would suck. Don't worry, I'm going to throw it at some other people, probably."

00:03

Then he walked to the #biology-lab.

Derek was still messing about through here, currently stomping about on the patterned rubber carpet now that the electrical floor seemed to have shut down.

6

The doctor outstretched his arm to the direction of the replicator. "One of these days... on spare time... I need to find someone to help design a sturdier set of prosthetics. I can't keep having my legs get battered up in a mission like this for the future."

Derek stopped stomping at the sight of the Medical Officer. "Oh, it's you again! Wait - you need a leg? Can that even make legs? Isn't that too big?"

“It made a carpet, didn’t it?” They said.

"Watch and learn." He tapped onto the replicator panel, after a few minutes it should replicate the prosthetic into three segments: thigh, lower leg, and the foot. "Yes the design has it separate. I have to put them together manually." He popped the parts together, twisted off of damged prosthetic, and put on the newly replaced one in place. (edited)

Derek watched, seemingly impressed by the design. "Okay, that's cool! And you're right - it did make an entire carpet after all."

Allan and Eshen went into the foyer and found the pattern enhancers, beginning to reconfigure them to redirect to the ship's transporter room rather than the brigs. Once he had done that, he called back to Sam. "Should be good now!" He looked towards it again. "Anyone wanna give it a try?"

“I’ll try it.” C’Sara said.

2

"Alrighty then, try and walk on through, and you should hopefully end up not in the brig," Allan said to C'Sara.

[Comms]"Operations are setting up emergency accommodation for any of the rescued captives. They advise sending them directly to the cargo bay where they can be tended to. If you alter their tags to a separate frequency then Operations can beam them out first."

C’Sara walked through the pattern enhancer.

Eshen held Allan's hand, and in this strange, liminal moment of calm realised... He was actually kind of exhausted. He'd fought a big beast outside his head and then Kerutep inside his head, not to mention he'd really been putting his brain to work coming up with ideas and keeping on top of things. He let go of Allan's hand. "You lot do your thing, I'm just going to..." He leaned on the wall and closed his eyes.

4

"Understood," Allan said over the comms, but also to Eshen, leaving the pattern enhancer on for themselves. He looked down at Eshen as he leaned on the wall and closed his eyes. Could he really rest standing up like that? Damn. He gave him a soft kiss to the forehead before going back to the room to help alter tags to a different frequency for Operations to beam out, giving Sam the information of whatever frequency he was setting them to as well.

4

2

Entered the Andorian-Vulcan, Voris went to stand near the replicator again. "One large pickle. Please." He took the pickle once it was replicated and immediately took a bite of the pickle.

6

[Comms] The next transmission went through to both teams. "Away Team One, if you could please proceed through the pattern buffers to be beamed back to the first transporter room. Away Team Two, Operations will get a lock on you and beam you out to the second transporter room. Once you're there please start giving your equipment back to Operations and stay there for a debriefing -- someone will be down to speak with you shortly. Thank you all for your work today, and well done."

5

He looked around the room, casually ordering a large jar of pickles before he walked into the pattern enhancer.

3

[Comms] “Well done, everyone. Thank you all so much.” Dagis added in after Jericho finished speaking, her transmission going to both teams as well.

Allan walked out of the biology lab and into the foyer again, giving Eshen another kiss on the forehead and a light shake to the shoulder. "In case you didn't hear the Comms, it's time to get going, and then you can get all the rest you need, I'm sure," he said, giving a quick glance down at the carpet and then back up at Eshen.

Elias entered the foyer as well, waiting to be transported. (edited)

C'Telle did the same and entered the pattern enhancer.

Saying goodbye to the base for the last time, the away teams were beamed out.

3

3