Plot Log | "The Burn" | USS Vindicator & Romulan Fleet

Posted on Thu Aug 8th, 2013 @ 8:35pm by Captain Landon Neyes

1,247 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Secret Meetings
Location: Vindicator Bridge
Timeline: Half-hour after "Kindling"

=/\= USS Vindicator, Bridge =/\=

Romulans had never fully understood the necessity of a space-faring moderator and police force on a united front. In their eyes their space was theirs for no other reason than they held claim to it. Had the Romulans gotten their way, they’d know everything about everyone. To them, knowing what their neighbors were doing was of the utmost importance, a directive above all others with the possible exception of keep their borders secure. A tidal, and innate suspicion flowed through their veins, ebbing and flowing with each passing decade. Now it seemed, they were willing to incite further chaos in the local space simply to be thrown a bone.

Was the Romulan empire, really so desperate? Was the stability of knowing what your potential adversary had for breakfast so paramount it could justify attempting to destroy a peaceful vessel carrying more than 1000 souls? Was Starfleet so willing to turn attention to another area of their battle with the devious aliens of the Alpha Quadrant that they would turn their own eyes away from the suffering of their very own officers? This crew had done its fare share of battle, and now they were tossed aside by some nameless admiral in Starfleet Operations. Someone was willing to sacrifice Landon, this ship and all who traveled on board.

In their eyes, maybe that act of conspicuous apathy was amenable. Wartime had a way of stemming the pressure of moral inhibitions normally pushing upon powerful leadership. Men and woman once as strong as the monumental structures and statues which hailed homage to their predecessors, crumbled beneath the demands of war. As Landon Neyes, the new commanding officer of the Vindicator, her crew and her powerful abilities, that pressure had finally caught up with them.

“Structural integrity has reached 75%, Captain! Primary forward shields are at 15%, switching to auxiliary shielding!” Williams called out from his station near the far side of the bridge. A massive rain of sparks exploded from a console while he shouted over the crashing weapons pounding into the ship.

Neyes’ arm was growing fatigued from clinging to his chair as the ship rocked and bucked under the assault. A stretch of slightly burnt skin seared across his left cheek from the mission ops panel’s rupture nearly a half-hour earlier. “How long until the primary shields are recharged!?”

“Five minutes, sir!” The security chief replied, not looking away from his console.

“Lieutenant, keep our bow away from the brunt of the fire!” Neyes commanded the helm.

Another report, “We’ve lost four fighters, sir! But Keggle reports more than two dozen bogies destroyed.”

Neyes was unaccustomed to fighting with several wings of fighters as support; of course it was necessary with such a large and tactically vulnerable ship like theirs.

The Vindicator came about as another volley of plasma torpedoes came thundering at her. Two of the green, streaming weapons skimmed the edges of their shield bubble, glancing off into open space. A massive flare of shielding blue waves absorbed the other four torpedoes, and the Vindicator bucked hard as her defenses repelled the explosion. Her hull was scorched heavily from the battle so far, and yet she remained ready to defend herself.

“Ready the starboard phaser arrays! Full power! Target the lead vessel at these coordinates, Commander!” Landon entered a few commands into his arm console.

“Let’s see how they like this…”, Neyes glanced up at the view screen, which covered much of the forward section of the large bridge. It was large enough to cover most of the fleet and their weapons constantly pumping out disruptor and torpedo fire. A thin, angry smile appeared on his lips.

“Fire!”

A bright red light lit up the broadside of the Vindicator as her phasers fired in tandem with one another, and four massive beams shot across the space between her and the Romulan command ship. The D’deridex warbird, massive in scale, had already had her shields beaten in by a volley of tri-cobalt devices, and attempted to veer away from its assault. Too slow to outpace the phasers, though, she was caught bow-on as the red beams sliced into her hull, carving their way downward into the flesh of the ship. Green hull and bulkheads charred and peeled off as the phasers continued to fire, unrelenting. It only took a few second for the intensely powerful weapons to cut straight through to the other side of the ship.

The bridge crew on the Vindicator looked on in a moment, watching. The warbird’s hull erupted into a blinding series of secondary explosions, and for a moment the ship literally split into two.
“Report!” Ivanova’s face alight with the view of the destruction on the view screen. “Those bastards better to dead!”

“We took out the lead ship! But there are still twelve varying warbirds out there. We’re outgunned, and I’m showing power fluctuations in the warp core!”

Roswell’s console trilled a series of alarms, and turned to report as well, “They’re signaling for backup! I’m showing six more Romulan ships on an intercept course!”

Neyes shrugged, sighing heavily. There was little point to this battle, really. He’d hoped he could convince the Romulan commander to call a retreat, but not his ship was a glittering cloud of debris. So there went that idea. “Recall the fighters as soon as possible. I’m thinking it’s time we got out of here.”

As if tempting the fates, a hard strike threw the deck from under their feet, and the crew was tossed to the floor almost instantly. Landon was tossed from his seat and collided with the steps leading down to the conn, his chest slamming down with an audible thud.

“Report!” He cried out, reaching up for a railing to bring himself back up. The ship still shook hard, though, and he barely managed to crawl back to the command chair. “What the hell was THAT?”

Roswell was the one to reply, her voice shaky as she managed to work her console, “A Romulan frigate rammed us! Massive damage to the port nacelle and primary hull! Comm lines to Engineering are down! The deuterium tanks took a hit! Warp drive and launch bay two are non-functional. The doors to shuttle-bay one are bent closed, and we have four hull breaches from decks 16 to 20, sections 22 to 59-gamma!”

“Slip stream!?” Rochelle shouted back over the rumbling bulkheads.

Williams steadied himself at the tactical station, “It’s not charged, but yes, it’s still online!”

Neyes grabbed a crewman running across the bridge, “Get to engineering and tell them to power up the Slipstream drive! NOW!” The man immediately nodded and disappeared behind the corridor to the rest of the ship.

Roswell, wasn’t finished, though she suddenly sounded much more relieved, “Captain! I’m detecting Federation signatures! The Romulan jamming signals are preventing them from communicating with us, but it looks like they’re passing nearby at high-warp!”

“Where are they going in such a hurry, I wonder.” Neyes laughed despite himself. It seemed Starfleet was going out of its way to try and be rid of him and this ship. “Hail them, Lieutenant. Find a way to cut through that jamming signal!”

Landon gripped his armrest as he looked back out at the fleet trying to kill them.

“Resume fire at-will! Let’s hope those ships hurry their asses up!”

=/\= END LOG =/\=

USS VINDICATOR BRIDGE CREW

 

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