Here's what you've missed so far

Posted on Saturday 1 May 2021 @ 16:15 by Captain Melody Jones & Lieutenant Commander Hayley Godding

Mission: A Cry from the Darkness
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD7 0400
1368 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Lieutenant Richards entered sickbay. "Can I see Commander Godding?" He asked one of the passing nurses.

The nurse stopped."Yes. The Doctor finished her arm last night but it still needs time to heal. She needs something to keep her occupied, I think she's starting to climb the walls in here. The Captain's daughter just left to get some sleep. She's been by her bed any time she could." She pointed over to Godding's biobed.

Richards nodded. "Yeah, She's a real tough that one." He smiled "Thanks."

He continued over and stood by her bedside. "Good morning Commander. Is this going to be your excuse when I beat your high score on the firing range? I suppose you're going to milk this to pass all the hard work to me now?"

She had been sitting there flexing her new arm, mostly to get used to the tactile feel of her bionic hand. It was still just the metal structure at the moment, the poly-synthetic skin would be grafted once everyone was satisfied with its installation. Then there was still the question of her bionic eye. But that'd come later, she was assured.

Hayley looked up when Bob Richards came over spouting his nonsensical nonsense. "Good Morning Richards. I'm not overly concerned on that account, since you can barely hit the broad side of a Galaxy class with your shooting record." She smirked. "As if you'd actually do any real work! I'm pretty sure that until I took over, you didn't even know what the definition of the word was!"

"Hey! my aim is getting better!" He laughed for a moment before getting a more serious tone. "Do you want the good news first or the bad news?"

"Why is it always 'good news, bad news' with you people?" Hayley sighed. "Better give me the bad news first - which I'm assuming is our butchers bill in the department?"

Richards nodded slowly, all humour left his face. "We'll track these bastards down Commander. I sware. We had 30 injured, including yourself. Some critical. Mostly lacerations and blunt force traumas and..." He took a breath "12 fatalities. They made it onto the bridge." He banged his fist on the wall and tried to keep his emotions in check as he continued "They reduced Ricky to a pile of ash and left Colins to bleed to death, sliced his throat.... they took the Captain."

Hayley visibly flinched at the delivery of the news, each blow being the worse than the previous. The breach of the bridge was hard to take - it was the sanctum santorium of the entire ship, the fact that it had been breached at all was a huge blow to the Security department's morale. The horrific deaths of Ensign Ricky and Lieutenant Collins really struck a cord. She'd handpicked them for bridge duty... every single death and injury was one more condemnation of her command. The final suckerpunch was the capture of the Captain...

"Sansa... does she know? Is someone with her right now?" She asked, trying to get up and off the bed.

"Lieutenant Draxx is with her. She's a tough cookie that one. Got some serious stones, that kind of thing could really mess you up."

Hayley paused in her movments at the description of her girlfriend. "Having the Captain taken? She's experienced that before..."

He frowned. "Didn't she tell you what happened? When you went down she physically tore herself away from the guy who was holding her to get to you. She grabbed your phaser and turned it on him as he lunged for her."

"Oh that!" Hayley said, relaxing. "Yeah, she mentioned that. Poor thing. Never fired a phaser in anger before. Probably a bit distressed when the guy fell down, but once she sees he's fine and in our brig, she'll come around. The first time is always the worst..."

"Commander... The phaser was set on maximum. The guy vaporised less than a meter from her face."

Hayley visibly paled as all colour drained from her at that pronouncement. She hadn't checked its setting when she'd holstered it. She'd grabbed it from the rack of weapons that had been pre-checked, not bothering to consult the setting herself. It was a rookie move, but in combat, it could almost be forgiven. It was as if Hayley had put the weapon in Sansa's hand herself... had set her up to experience that... Oh God what had she done?!

Trying to put that aside, she swallowed a large amount of water from the glass beside her. "Status of the away team?" She asked. With the ship in tatters and the Captain MIA, they would need to inform the First Officer who was down on the planet.

"Ship to surface communications are still down. We don't know exactly what happened that but we can tell they reduced the hospital complex to a pile of rubble. You want the good news now?"

"You mean there's GOOD news?!" Hayley exclaimed. "What're you going to tell me? That the kitchen is serving pizza?!" She asked incredulously.

"We captured 12 prisoners. DeSoto is roughing them over in turn as we speak. We've managed to determine they're hired thugs. It looks like someone created this disease and then sent in the heavy squad to keep the locals in line. Probably explains why the colony leader looked so whipped. Paid them in latinum too. Lots of it. But, they still won't give away the name of who hired them. They simply refer to her as 'Mistress'. I've seen enough interrogations to know when someone is frightened and these guys might look tough but they are terrified of her. We're trying to get the location on their base and hopefully the location of the Captain. We're dealing with one sick individual here, and evil. Anyone who can poison a colony and frighten a Nasuican into silence...."

She supposed decent intel was 'good' news compared to the horrific bad news prior to it. However, it was still a gloomy outlook on things. "My concern is that whoever this 'mistress' is, knew we were the one's who'd be coming. That virus was incredibly specific to Federation tech, specifically our rather unique computer systems. That probe was intended specifically for us, not just any old Federation vessel. Whoever we're up against, knows who we, what we do and how we do it."

The irony was not lost on Hayley that the exact points that the intruders had beamed onto the ship were areas that were not covered under standard deployment process during an alert. It was as if whoever this person was, could read Merlin's security playbook and put their pieces on the board to counteract whatever preplanned moves that Hayley's people had devised. All the beam-in points were as far away from pre-planned positions as they could possibly be, making counter-attack moves very difficult.

He nodded. "They're cleaver. Not only did they engineer this disease, but they also engineered a computer virus to cripple a Federation starship. I'm going to enjoy looking at them through the forcefield in our brig. That's if they're lucky enough to be taken alive. I could go either way at this point."

"Can't say I blame that attitude." Hayley said, sighing, not really in the mood to have a discussion on Federation ethics. "In any case, I expect that the Acting Captain has her hands full. I'm assuming that it's Commander Miller in command, since Commander Rejal is unaccounted for?"

He nodded. "We're just waiting for the word and then hopefully we'll be going down to the surface to return the favour. We'll get the Captain back." He placed his hand on hers "We'll bring them all home."

Hayley wondered how they'd pull that off, since the enemy clearly knew what they could do. Either way, until she was fit for duty, it was up to DeSoto to make the calls, and if he had any sense, he'd be listening to Nicholls and Grufford. Either way, Hayley was sitting this one out...

OFF:

○●● Lieutenant Commander Hayley Godding
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Merlin


Lieutenant Richards
Security
NPC Jones