Into the Stronghold, Part I

Posted on Sat Oct 15th, 2022 @ 6:04pm by Captain Temperance Harding & Lieutenant Commander Andromeda Lightfeather & Lieutenant Commander Nyx Valentine & Lieutenant Xavon Starkweather & Lieutenant Scott Mitchell "Ghost"
Edited on on Sat Oct 15th, 2022 @ 6:13pm

Mission: Mission 2: Chasing Shadows
Location: Various

[ON]

When the remaining members of the Away Team beamed to their destination they found a locked door that led out of the cargo bay, Andi turned to Nyx with a smile.

"Okay Commander get to work, we need to get out of this Cargo Bay and onto our next task," Andi said and was scanned outside the cargo bay to see if the corridor was empty, which thankfully it was "okay the corridor is empty get us out of this bay Commander" Lightfeather added.

Nyx leaned her rifle up against the console and cracked her knuckle as she looked over the display for a moment and began to methodically tap buttons with a look of concentration on her face, "They put some light security on here, password protection to just let authorized personnel in." She was in already as she spoke, "And now we're authorized to leave." She stated as she hit the activation command and the door to the cargo bay slid open, "Code is Six-Two-One-Seven-Eight for entry into most rooms."

Smiling "Nice and well done Chief," Lightfeather said as she led them out of the Cargo Bay "okay, we head to the research lab, expect a lot of security on the way there" she added.

Nyx's shoulder felt far too light as she brought her rifle back up and into the normal carry position again, ready for action if it came down to it. She didn't know the rest of the group, but while she was skilled with swords, at least in a one-on-one situation, and definitely with bows, she wasn't a combat-hardened veteran. "I really hope not, ma'am, but I'm set to stun unless we need otherwise."

As they made their way through, they encountered another locked door looking at it and tapping the open command, it bleeped and nothing happened then she remembered the code she was told and then tried the Six-Two-One-Seven-Eight code and the door opened, she looked at Valentine "that code worked, but be ready because the next one might not work" Lightfeather said to the Chief Engineer.

"Yes, ma'am. If I need to slice into their security again, it should be easier, but may take a minute or two." Nyx was watching both ways the best she could, even though she knew that others on the team were doing the same thing. She felt giddy and knew it was her nerves working overtime.

Looking around "I know this place is disused, but I would have thought that there would be at least a skeleton security detail left by Pirates if memory serves, I do not trust things that are too quiet or too easy, but I also do not question them either.

Xavon was walking behind the rest of the away team, taking readings and making sure medically there was nothing untoward that could affect the away team "Ma'am I'm reading little to no traces of residue isotopes so we should be ok to proceed" He said noting things down in his old fashioned notebook.

Looking back at Starkweather "Excellent news," Lightfeather said and they encountered another locked door, she tried the known code, but it set off the sirens and Andi sighed and looked at Valentine "Okay Chief see if you can silence this alarm and find us a new code, but something tells me it is not going to be so easy now" Lightfeather said as she readied her Phaser.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even if I can get this thing turned off, we're blown." Nyx had already stepped up to the keypad and brushed Andi just off to the side. She set her PADD up to connect to the pad and shivered slightly while she rapidly sliced past the initial programming shell and into subroutines. She searched for and input the code to get past the door and the door slid open while she searched for the alarm, but that wasn't a surface program and she shook her head, "Can't get to the alarm from here, ma'am, we gotta be on our toes."

Scott followed behind the rest of the away team as they made their way through the base. The phaser felt strange in his hand as he tried to remember his elementary training on how to move through an enemy compound. He would rather have stayed on the runabout not making his way through these dark halls.

As Valentine got to work Andi looked at their Pilot "relax Lieutenant, you seem tighter than a Ferengi's platinum pouch, expect some defenders, but due to how run down this station is, there will not be much resistance, it will likely be fierce" Lightfeather said to the pilot.

A side door opened without warning as the team passed by. Darkness is broken only by the emergency lighting. Then a bolt of disruptor energy. A second. "Run, Starfleet!" A voice called from the side passage. "Run, or die!"

Xavon's head snapped around, stowing the tricorder he grabbed his phase pistol and took point with the rest "Lieutenant commander I am reading life signs I can't pick up exactly what species they are but that's due to the disruption of the atmosphere"

Nyx all but sped up their movement to a headlong dash at the disruptor bolt's sound, glancing at doors to try to find somewhere defensible that had the right place for her to really access the station's systems. She skidded to a stop by one with markings she recognized as a... "System's sub-annexe, I can silence the alarms from in here! Maybe even redirect any security response, not sure on that bit, but at least silence alarms."

Startled Andi took cover cursing in her native tongue, if this was a Starfleet facility the translation would happen, but on a foreign base, it did not translate her native tongue. "Do it Commander do it!" Lightfeather said to Valentine as she drew her phaser and returned fire, forcing those attacking to take cover also, she looked over at the others "well shoot back then you pair and cover Valentine" Lightfeather ordered.

Scott's training took over as he quickly fired two bursts from his phaser in rapid succession. He hated having to stand and shoot back rather than the adrenaline rush of a dogfight, but this was the best he would get.

Nyx had once again slid her weapon over her should by the strap and cracked her knuckles before delving into the programming of the door pad, deactivating the lock and basically diving(tripping) through the opening door into the interior. She scrambled back to her feet and towards the console before keying it to life and sighing heavily in relief. Someone had just turned the monitor off rather than logging off, a rookie mistake. It only took her a few seconds to locate the right command tree and the alarms turned off in mid-screech, the lights returning to normal. "There's no tracking!" She called out to the others, "No computer-assisted security response that I can see."

The rest of the team rushed into the room "lock the door Commander, the rest of you check for other entry and exit points" Lightfeather said panting as she came down from the adrenaline rush.

It was merely a few taps of a button and there was a slight click from the door as the actuators deactivated. Nyx paid no attention to anyone else as she began to explore the rest of the computer's contents. This being a security hub helped her significantly, though as she uncovered different computer subsystems, she found she couldn't read more than the base security measures used to protect them. Even when she came to literal dead ends, there was an annotation as to why.

Nyx rubbed her eyes with one hand about seventy seconds in until one of those annotations really came out at her: 'Terminal removed, transported off-station.' That was repeated three times before it changed, 'Data wiped, terminal pending destruction.' Another pair of the other iterations and Nyx brought up another screen, a map of the station. "Commander Lightfeather? Playing a hunch, ma'am, but three rooms down is a data point source. Five terminals were removed, and one had a data wipe. I want to get in there to take a look at it because I think that's what we may be here for."

"No problem Chief, I think this is the outer area of the lab, let's go into the main area and see if we can get you that information, then we will have to make our way to Operations and you know that will have the heaviest of defences," Andi said as the inner door to the lab opened and all entered the room.

"I'm going to have to try to reconstruct the data, but if I can just check the status of the terminal and how it was wiped, I may be able to just yank the terminal out and carry it back with us to reconstruct it at my leisure," Nyx stated absently as she used the console to zorch the door controls of the one they came in from, then levelled her rifle and melted the console itself before following the others. "And yes, getting into Operations is going to be a pain... Unless we can find Environmental Control."

"Make it so Commander, make it so," Lightfeather said and looked at the other two "okay take up defensive positions to cover the Commander," Lightfeather said.

Starkweather got into a defensive position phaser poised and ready to strike "commander do we have a read on what species were dealing with?" his head was snapping around like a mad man, combat situations were something he wasn't used to but now he had to buckle down and get to it.

Looking over my guess would be Romulan leftovers, but I could be wrong all I know is they are hostile and will kill us on sight, Nyx how are you going over there?" Lightfeather asked the Chief Engineer.

"Romulan for sure." Nyx said in a sing-song voice as her eyes danced across the screen, not so much reading the programming as the patterns that were on it, "I'd recognize Romulan script anywhere at any time... Not that I can actually read it." She began a routine of tapping the console in a specific pattern, "The passkey is a reducing code and... I'm in." The tip of her tongue stuck out of her mouth as she began her review.

A less than ladylike squeal of delight came from Nyx and she powered down the terminal and dropped into a squat as she began to rummage on the inside, "I need this whole terminal... And it's disconnected." She stood and with a rough yank grabbed the entire console off its mounting, tucking it under her arm and grabbing the rifle with the other hand, "Ma'am, L-T's? Might I suggest we get outta here?"

Looking at Valentine in surprise at the squeal of delight, she looked over and saw the Chief engineer yank out the console "in the name of the ancestors all we really needed was a simple download *sighs* oh well, okay people form up around Commander Valentine, if you are fired upon you are authorised to return fire" Lightfeather said and looked at Valentine "Commander switch you to hand Phaser, you cannot fire a rifle and carry that hunk of console" she added looking at Nyx as she took the lead and opened the door.

"Okay, let's move" Lightfeather instructed and led the team out of the lab and into the corridor and made for Operations.

To Be Continued...