Re-born – Aye, there's the rub...
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Ensign Jason Hawk & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' HIchop Matlh

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Title   Aye, there's the rub...
Mission   Re-born
Author(s)   HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Ensign Jason Hawk & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' HIchop Matlh
Posted   Thu Apr 12, 2012 @ 11:47am
Location   Fhew
Timeline   During the chase
Marie bounced and lurched in the command chair as Borg fire struck the shields and Hawk tried to dodge wildly. She tried hard not to flinch or cry out, despite her body rapidly become one single bruise from top to bottom.

Asteroids whizzed by as Hawk sought to stay close to the Borg ship but stay away from its weapons arrays. She had to admit he was doing a good job of darting in almost close enough for her to reach out and touch the Borg then racing away before it could get a lock on them. Each time, they did a bit more damage. She doubted it was affecting the Borg much; she just hoped it was distracting them enough to keep their attention from homing in on the rescue party.

A particularly nasty blast sent them careening away to starboard, nearly flinging them straight into the side of the Borg before Hawk could regain control.

“Where's our shields?” Marie yelled. She got no response. She punched a button on the control arm. “Where's our shields?” she repeated.

Damit, thought Tell. What am I, a flaming miricle worker? "Nearly there," she told her.

"Make it sooner!" Marie snapped.

"Almost... and try now," Tell shouted, wiping blood and oil from her face.

"Damage report," Maried shouted.

Cha'a' had reported to the bridge when the fighting began. Cha'a' was fighting with the weapons but there was no real power and no specific part of the Borg ship to target. Most of their disruptor fire was being soaked up by the Borg shields. 'Iw'a'na' was at the transporter control room waiting to pull the away teams out. Currently there was no one else to be able to give a damage report. Cha'a' slamed her fist on the tactical console and strode quickly to the damage control station behind her.

"Minimal structural damage. their weapons are designed to drain our shields. Emergency Power at 13%."

Jared, with his tail wrapped firmly for balance, was better able to stay at the science station. Borg shields were ridiculously complicated in their rotational harmonics, and the Klingon Computers were really not up to the task. Jared had to make up half the figures on the fly.

Elsewhere HIchop was trying to pull out the corpse of a drone that had fallen into the Targ pit and been half eaten. The Targ seemed unbothered by the experience, but HIchop made a mental note to check them for puncture wounds later.

Ro' was stalking between the various weapons bay, while Tell was trying furiously to patch the plasma leak in Engineering to get them more drive power.

With a sudden shudder the Port engines gave out altogether and Jason knew they were down to thrusters. He couldn't fly or manoeuvrer at speed with only those. Time for a new plan.

"Hawk, report," Marie yelled over the din of battle and screaming engines.

When Hawk failed to respond Cha'a' reported, "Cloak off line. Emergency power has all been put to the Transporter. Disruptors and Launchers are no longer functional. Shields failing! "

Her mind worked furiously. She had faith in Tell's ability as a miracle worker but until those engines came back on-line they might as well have a target pinned on the hull. Unless.... ^=^St. Clair to Ro'. HoD, how are you going with boarders?^=^

Ro' pressed the wall comm panel, "We are all clear this decks 1 and 2."

HIchop reported in, "Decks 3-5, clear as well."

"Our shields are down. If Hawk can bring us close enough, can you beam across? Jared should be able to pinpoint where you can do some damage. Even if you can only do enough to give them second thoughts about continuing pursuit of Hope."

Tell was sick and tired of being bounced round from pillar to post and had more bruises than Ro' had had hot showers. She had no sooner repaired one piece of kit than another would blow. What the hell were they supposed to do now? Her nimble and quick fingers darted from panel to panel as she routed and re-routed power from one system to another. Nice ship, good engine, bad crew. Just stay together long enough and give me time to get off. she thought. I need to get away, nice quiet little place by the sea with no hassle, no bother and certainly nobody.

"We could bring their shields down," Marie argued. "Jared would know how. Listen, Ro', they sent over only a small number of drones, far fewer than I expected. Hawk's doing a reasonable job of keeping us out of the firing line but they don't seem to be trying too hard to bring us down. Then there's the away team.... Against all odds, Hope is still with us. I think something's wrong on that Borg ship. One good blow from the inside could cripple it."

Ro' had to bite back his instincts. She is a human, he reminded himself, she doesn't understand. He pressed the comm again.

"I am Captain of this vessel, Sogh St. Helene. I will hold my post to the death. We have a team over there, including my top two assault officers. It is up to them to drop the shields so we can beam them off. If they fail, we will all die with honour."

He pulled his finger off the comm and began to head towards the bridge. Much of what Marie had observed about the ship rang true and, if the Borg were crippled, he wanted to take full advantage.

Suddenly the engineer's voice could be heard in between crackles on the comm.

"You have minimum power on the starboard engine." Tell informed them, wiping a greasy smear of oil from her face. "What ever it is you're doing on the Bridge make it quick. I don't know how long she'll last. It's a no go on the port side as of yet unless Marie tells me where her secret stash of duct tape is. Tell out."

“Corridor three, Bay 13, left hand cupboard, middle drawer,” Marie replied without thinking. Then her brain kicked back into gear.

She drew a very deep breath. She wanted to yell that she was in charge of the bridge so she gave the orders but what was the point? Who would listen? Not Ro' and without him she was alone.

“Jared. Where are the shield generators?”

Jared threw his hands up in frustration.

"It's a borg ship! Multiple redundancy is practically their motto. There's a shield generator on every ten meters of the hull!"

“I don't need the whole thing to collapse. All I want is a window; all I ask is that we can put a torpedo through to somewhere vulnerable. I don't even care if we don't destroy the thing, just so long as they can't follow us.”

"Easier said than done. Only half our systems are even activ..."

He suddenly paused as a thought occurred. He began furiously tapping keys.

“Oh, and it would be good if they can't contact their Unimatrix,” she added almost apologetically.

Ro' arrived on the bridge, "Agreed." He marched to the Captain's chair, "Jared, your option."

"We need to shut everything down. Weapons, engines, cloak... everything except medium range sensors and the emergency generator."

“Belay that,” Marie yelled. “You will do....” Then she saw Ro' standing beside her. With decided relief she realised she wasn't in charge any more.

"Continue," Ro' said, settling into his chair.

"There's no way we can outfight or out adapt them in this condition. But with some of the modifications I've made to sensors, if I overload the emergency generator into the sensor grid, I should be able to emit a broad spectrum Verteron pulse. Should cripple any energetic technology with power still running though it over about ten thousand meters."

"Normally Borg would be resistant, but in their current state of repair and in battle, those systems won't be on hot standby. If it works we'll have about thirty to sixty seconds to power back up and do what we have to do before they'll start coming back on line."

"It's my only option at this point captain! We're in over our heads here!"

Tell, who had been listening in on the conversation from engineering came over the comm. "I can jury rig us for silent running if that's what you want Captain. It shouldn't be too difficult and could work as long as you don't take us into battle... er to soon. I can't guarantee the end result if you do... well yes I can actually. Not all of the systems might come back on but if you are willing to take the risk."

"I don't have time for your science and explanations, Ancient. Just get it done. Marie, man tactical."