[Galaxy] 2161.09.25 - Now or Never

[Ethan Armstrong]

[ Xantia System ]

The freighter ship Oregonian with her cargo of dilithium rigged to
explode, takes heavy damage as attempts are made by the defending
Romulan forces to halt her progress. Yet she continues relentlessly in
her journey closing in on the enemy shipyard whilst the battle rages
on around her.

The Andorians have taken heavy casualties, allied ships have pulled
back to safety and the Earth ships Yorktown and Intrepid continue to
hold together, drawing fire, whilst Romulan ships regroup and begin a
coordinated fightback after the surprise factor wears off.

[ Oregonian, near engineering ]

A shower of sparks rained down on Yearly in the jeffries tube as she
cooly made some adjustments in the open panel before her. Around her
the freighter had begun a steady shuddering, punctuated by a few
larger shakes every now and again as the incoming fire of the Romulans
struck the outside hull.

"Inertial dampeners are all but shot." She called out through the comm
in her helmet. "Life support is non-existent, let alone artificial
gravity. They seem to be attempting to target out propulsion systems,
but our people seem to be keeping them away from that system at
least."

She completed a few more adjustments and slid out of the tube, her
magnetic boots holding her to the hallway floor. "I've managed to
reroute the plasma flow through some secondary systems. That ought to
provide the system a little more protection, but they're not designed
to handle the boost in input. In short, the ship is going to be eating
itself from here on out." She smiled sardonically as she dropped the
spanner she had been holding. It floated away, clanging against a
bulkhead before spinning off down the corridor. "It's a good thing
fleet is footing the bill for this, I'd hate to meet the owner."

"If this doesn't work then I get the feeling we could all be footing
the bill... for a long long time" Ethan replied. He stood in front of
a console monitoring their distance from the shipyard. They were
almost upon it as Yearly made final modifications. The ground shook
under him, "that one felt damn close" he muttered. From here he had no
idea if Intrepid was still intact and flying as they had no sensor
readings, only a visual on the approaching installation. As big as the
freighter was it was dwarfed by the size of the shipyard construction.
A simple impact of the two would result in some serious damage to the
enemy hulk, but they'd survive and continue to wipe out whomever
stood in their way. This had to work!

The seconds ticked by as the Oregonian drew closer and closer. Yearly
crouched in the far section of engineering, bracing herself against
the wall as the shuddering grew worse and worse. "Won't be long now...
one way or another. What the hell's taking so long?"

= "Intrepid to Oregonian. If y'all are done playing kamikaze pilot, we'd
really like to get going while the going is good. You know, before
we're unable to get going at all." =

Ethan grinned as the voice of LtCmdr Case piped in through his suit's
helmet. Intrepid was still up and about. "Glad to hear you are still
around. Stand by Cmdr. Just another minute." he said as his elation
collapsed into momentary panic. There was another crash and the
hull beside him disintegrated opening up their compartment to the
cold rush of space.

"Hull breach!" Ethan yelled as he gripped onto anything he could find.
The magnetic boots went into overdrive, clamping his feet down but
they strained under the force of vacuum. The panel he was monitoring
went black, severed from main power. He barely needed it though as
through the giant crack in the hull he could see they were right down
the shipyard's throat.

[ Intrepid: Bridge ]

Tony Murddock's fingers flew over the helms console. The fight was
continually dangerous to the Intrepid. He banked and rolled the ship.
He was sure he had several strange looks when he put the ship into a
nosedive twirling the ship as he did so. It almost ended with the ship
flying directly into a particle beam from the Romulans but Tony pulled
up the beam almost grazing the underside of the ship.

At that moment he saw the freighters hull rupture, he could almost
hear the sound of it tearing. This only made his resolve stronger, the
Intrepid had to survive. The fight was growing harder as Tony's
fingers flew over the controls but a slight miscalculation in the
degree of his vector ended up with a large impact almost throwing Tony
over the console.

[ Oregonian ]

Yearly braced herself behind a railing and reached out a hand to
Armstrong as the section of hull fell away. "This is it!" She screamed
into her helmet over the tortured groan of twisting metal. "It's now
or never!" She held up the detonator that would start the countdown on
the dilithium. "It's your call Captain..." Her eyes locked with
Ethan's as she pulled him back against the outrushing atmosphere.

The milliseconds that went by felt like minutes as Ethan took one last
visual check of their position. He took the detonator from the Chief
as the vacuum of space completely took over the compartment and
pressed the trigger. "Intrepid, get us out of here!" he said. If the
transporters failed now they would only had a matter of seconds to
live. He tried to picture his family in the chaos of his mind as these
could be his final thoughts, but was left frustrated.

[Intrepid: Transporter]

The young woman who had taken the call to head to the transporter was
none other then PO1 Joanna Reading. She had taken the call from the
bridge to get the transporter ready simply because she wasn't one of
the CPOs assisting Ensign Hu in keeping the ship running. She wasn't
in charge of a damage control team, though those where spread far and
wide now across the ship. They weren't so much damage control as
damage triage teams right now.

What she was however was a Transporter Control Technician. Which was
just a fancy way of saying she was an transporter operator. One who
also happened to head the team in charge of keeping the complex device
working, under the direct supervision of the Chief of Engineering that
is.

A light blinked into life on her console in response to a command from
the bridge. No doubt the command from the bridge to Energize was
coming, but someone up there had been quick enough to just jab a
button. By the time the order would come down, she'd already have
started. Every millisecond in a fight was important.

It was all rote work now as she confirmed the targeting sensor lock,
synced in the transporter confinement beam, energized the primary and
secondary coils. The Heisenberg Compensator was brought to bare on the
issue of violating a few laws of quantum mechanics and then the
computers took over the rest of the calculations. All Reading did was
slowly ramp up the power on the transporter. An alarm protested at
her, training kicked in, secondary systems took over for primaries
without interruption.

She was disassembling the Intrepid's Captain and a senior Non-Com from
the Yorktown. She did not want any complications to arise from this.
And as another bleep informed her that she had her targets, their
patterns sitting in the pattern buffer awaiting materialization,
Joanna started that process straight away.

"Bridge to transporter room, bring them aboard." Case watched as the shipyard
closed alarmingly. "Helm, give us some separation and prepare to enter warp."

Ethan felt his body being dragged out of danger atom by atom as the
transporter beam captured him from the wrecked freighter. He counted
the seconds passing as he appeared in the familiar surroundings of the
transporter alcove on Intrepid. The explosion was about to let rip so
without a pause for greeting he hit the nearest comm panel and
reiterated Cmdr Case's orders to everyone. "Helm, get us out of here,
warp speed!". He hoped their allies had also been kept in the loop
about the impending catastrophe.

Materializing on the pad in a crouch, Michelle stood up and removed
the helmet of her enviro-suit, letting her long auburn hair cascade down
around the locking collar. She spared only a moment for a look around
before bracing herself for the jump to warp and the impending explosion.
One thought ran through her head as the seconds ticked by: What
about the Yorktown?

[ Intrepid: Bridge ]

= Helm, get us out of here, warp speed! =

The helmsman poised his hand over the control and looked at Case.
"One second, helm. Ensign Wun? Fire the torpedoes." The Intrepid
shuddered gently as a volley of torpedoes arced gracefully towards
the doomed freighter. "Helm, you are clear to engage warp."

Tony heard the command to go to warp but as he heard it he was a
little preoccupied. The fight was at a new level the Romulans were
battering the Intrepid with everything they had. Tony pushed the ships
to its limits trying to get out into open space so they could get out.

It was like an old game of American Football, ducking and weaving but
eventually getting hit. The Intrepid bucked back as he pushed it to
the very limits. Tony had to counter every shot from the many Romulans
with an equal dangerous maneuver, both probably as dangerous as the
other.

He saw a gap form as a Romulan ship moved to gain targeting on the
Intrepid's engine. Tony didn't give them the chance to get a lock he
rolled between two of the warbirds, almost scraping the paint off the
hull. As soon as he had passed between them he punched the impulse
engines. The inertial dampeners took several seconds to catch up,
pushing Tony into the glove like chair.

The next moment without thinking Tony kicked the warp drive and the
ship left the system in a streak and a flash, leaving the Romulans to
their fate.

[ Xantia System ]

Starting out suddenly as a bright white light the freighter ignited
from within the framework of the shipyard. The light lasted for
several seconds as their planned destruction became obvious to the
Romulan defenders, who had barely any time to react. The white light
collapsed and was overtaken by a shock-wave of destruction as the
shipyard went supernova, a wave of fiery destruction tearing it's way
across space. The closer vessels were enveloped in the blast,
distorting and exploding to add to its magnitude, whilst some ships
further out attempted to engage warp and escape. One, in the early
throes of a jump to light speed was caught short by the expanding,
toxic tide. Several did seem to escape warping in random directions
with no calculation, ending by crashing down into the gravity well of
the nearby planets. The moon which the shipyard orbited was left torn
and scorched with the surface-based ship manufacturing installation
completely obliterated.

On the outskirts of the wave, riding just ahead of danger the NX-05
Yorktown and NX-07 Intrepid along with their surviving Andorian
allies, flew hastily to safety.

---

Cmdr Ethan Armstrong
Commanding Officer
ESS Intrepid

CPO Michelle Yearly
Warp Core Reactor Chief
NX-05 Yorktown
apb Cmdr Ca'daar, CO

Lt. Cmdr Petr Case
XO/Science Officer
ESS Intrepid

PO1 Joanna Reading
Transporter Control Technician
ESS Intrepid
apb Lt Merrick, CEO

Ensign Tony Murrdock
Helmsman
ESS Intrepid