The Final Frontier 8

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Text File | 1995-02-23 | 14.1 KB | 361 lines

TF01 3,The Hunter - Part 3 4,by Stuart Mackaness The Vanguard Chronicles - "The Hunter" ---------------------------------------- by Stuart Mackaness --------------------- PART THREE Warner forced his way through the crowed of security and engineering crews in the corridor outside medical. The burn marks in the corridor leading to sickbay had grown more and more severe until now he was faced with most of the corridor being blackend and twisted. He felt a strange hollow sensation fill his body. The Vanguard had taken knocks in her time, but nothing like this. Death hung like an apparition over his ship, he only hoped that it would be satisfied with the lives already taken. Flames were still visible furher down the corridor but forcefields projected by the engineers seemed to be containing them. He could make out the partialy disintegrated doors to medical lying askew either side of the entrance. Presumably they had to phaser the doors open. As Warner stepped inside, the temperature rose by a few degrees. The room was completely destroyed, several bodies lay in a semi-charred state on the scarred deck. One was an Andorian with a shrapnel wound, another was a Human nurse with a badly broken arm. The body bags they were placed in and the writing on the padd attached meant that they had asphyxiated before the doors to medical could be opened. Warner only hoped that Li hadn't met the same fate. He was slightly relieved when he saw the doctor very much alive, instructing two medical technicians on how to heal his leg. "Pass the bone regenerator over the lower portion of the fibula." he ordered. The nearest technician grabbed the device and began rythmic passes of the location specified by Levitt. Li looked up. "Ah Jonathan, I was just on my way to tell you that most of the light casualties can now return to duty. I would normally ask them to stay for observation but..." he indicated to the skeletal traces of his workplace. "How's Captain Chenery?" "He's dead, Jon." Li replied. "I wanted to thank him, his sacrifice saved us all." Warner explained. "Aparently it was some kind of navigational error." Li replied. "Oh. So it wasn't intentional. I thought we had all misjudged Chenery." "Maybe we all had. He was the last person to beam off." "We were the one's doing the beaming, he had no choice when he was beamed." "Aparently he took off his communicator and gave it to a wounded civilian. Then he told him to find as many survivors as possible on the deck and to hit the communicator three times. It activated the bridge transporter and beamed the families over to us." "How do you know all this?" Warner asked amazed. Li gave him a knowing look. "People talk to their doctor." Taking in the latest turn of events, Warner looked around the weckage. "It was a living hell in here." Li said, putting a friendly arm on Warner's shoulder. Warner nodded sympathetically. "I bet you were in your element Doctor." "That's not funny, my past is my own business." Li snapped. "Take it easy Li, I was just trying to-" "Well don't!" Levitt cut in. Deciding that a tactful withdrawal was in order, Warner moved off to a nearby Jefferies tube. With the turboshafts damaged on this deck, he had to get to the deck below via the narrow artery which ran between and along the ships decks in order to allow maintanance crews to get to secluded areas of the ship. They weren't designed to allow half a dozen crewmembers to make their way to a deck at the same time as another four tried to go in the opposite direction in the two and a half foot wide tunnel. This was the situation which Warner faced as he entered the access tube. "What's going on?" he demanded. A gaunt Selelvian looked at him sharply and then realised who he was. "Captain Warner!" he said in a loud voice. All the other crew members turned to face their superior officer. "What's the problem ensign?" Warner inquired. The Selelvian looked at him slightly sheepishly. "We were trying to get this equipment to the damaged area underneath sickbay, the damage had weakened the support struts down there and the area is partially unsafe." Warner looked at the dozen bulky pieces of equipment that the group were carrying. "Why not use the transporter?" he asked. "The power systems are off line sir, including transporter power." A junior grade lieutenant reminded him. "Of course." Warner replied. He tapped his communicator. "Warner to Gart." He called. "Gart here sir." Came the . "How's it going, Chief?" He asked. There was a momentary silence as Gart presumably received an update. "Great sir," he said his voice going to a more cheerful (for a Tellarite) tone, "Primary power will be restored in under three hours." "Can you restore power to the transporters?" Warner queried. There was a faint bleep. "You now have full power to the transporters and replicators." Gart announced. "I didn't ask for the replicators to be put back on full power." Warner said puzzled. "Do you want to be on TKL's for the next few hours?" Gart retorted. The thought of the half-edible standard rations sent a shiver down Warner's spine. "Excellent work, Chief, there'll be commendations all round if we make it through the next twenty four hours." Warner smiled. "Aye, sir." Gart said slowly. "What is it? " Warner asked, sensing the unspoken question on Gart's lips. "D'you think there might be a promotion in the offering?" Gart inquired. "Don't push it, Chief!" Warner chuckled. Tellarites were an argumentative bunch, Gart was trying to draw him into a heated discussion for enjoyment, now was not the time for it. "Warner out." He signed off. He suddenly felt selfconcious of the fact that he was blocking the entrance to the Jefferies tube, behind him was the beginning of a queue, he could see Lieutenant Dean just joining the end. He turned back to the gaggle of junior officers which were still trying to get their equipment to the deck below. "You need to get to the deck below?" He asked. There was a collective nodding of heads, except for the Eutronian technician who rolled his shoulders in the equivalent gesture for his culture. Warner slapped his badge again. "Captain Warner to transporter room two." he called. "Transporter room here sir, Ensign Briggs on duty." came the response. "Lock onto the group of officers in Jefferies tube..." he paused to read the label on the entrance, "Nine G. Beam them to deck ten." "Locked on." Briggs acknowledged. "Energise." Warner commanded with a cocking of his head. The Selelvian smiled at him and spoke. "Thank you s-" The group dematerialised. The tube clear, Warner began the arduous climb to the bridge on deck one. Warner arrived just in time to see Dean hand Hermandez a report. Warner intercepted the padd exchange and read it over. "Just a damage report update sir." Hermandez said quickly. Warner arched his eyebrow in a Vulcan-eque style. "I didn't doubt it was." Hermandez realised her mistake and busied herself with tapping in something on her panal. Warner read through the report and was surprised to see an addition on the readout. He looked up sharply at Dean. "This report is very organised Mr. Dean, well done." He gave the padd back to the nervous helmsman. As he turned to leave, Warner called out to him. "Oh, the message was a nice touch, I would be glad to join you for dinner in the galley." Dean stood there looking confused for a moment and then decided to believe his superior officer had misinterpreted the intended receiver of the message. Hermandez looked at him, smiled briefly and then pointed at his station. Dean instantly understood what she meant and casually made his way back to the conn. Warner had also seen this exchange of smiles and gestures and briskly made his way to the conn just ahead of Dean. "Very kind of you Mr. Dean." Warner continued. "I would be glad to share a meal with you." he looked at the data collection screen on the conn, "And so would Lieutenant Hermandez!" he said in false surprise. "Won't that be cosy Mr. Dean?!". He smiled broadly at them both. They obviously didn't share this sentiment as the look of pure terror on Dean's face and the paralysed smile on Hermandez's made it quite clear what their true feelings were. Warner blanked them both and, still smiling, sat down in the command chair. "Engineering." He called into his communication channel he had opened on his armrest. "Ensign Meltzer here." "How long until I can have my ship back?" Warner asked. "Chief Gart has cut the time down to fourty-five minutes. Apparently the molten power couplings weren't as molten as he thought." Meltzer replied. "Excellent, tell him I'm looking into that request of his." Warner said. "Aye sir, out." Meltzer cut the channel. Smiling to himself, Warner leaned back in his chair and wondered what he was going to pick for dinner. * * * Captains Log: Stardate 47345.8 With repairs to the Vanguard's propulsion systems now complete, We are now enroute to Deep Space Nine. After the destruction of Starbase Jarened and the Cardassian warship Falen, Starfleet has thought it wise to station a starship near one of our key points in the Quadrant. We will be in a position to intercept the enemy, codenamed Hunter by Starfleet, once it inevitably leaves Cardassian space. Warner switched his desk computer off and swivled his chair to face the large painting he had on his wall. The painting was by a famous Terran artist from the mid-twenty first century. The bold lines and three-dimensional holograms imposed onto it gave it a sense of age not found in the art of today. In some respects the art in the twenty first century had more feeling to it than that of the twenty fourth century. Maybe it was the turmoil of emotions with the third world war going on which inspired Brown to paint the picture. Warner didn't know. He preferred his century to Brown's, maybe he just liked to think that he was relatively safe with the Cardassians, Romulans, M'Dok and Kreel trying to destroy him. At least it wasn't Humans trying to commite global genocide with the result of over six million deaths. That was really scary, they had been so close to the end. It almost made him wish he were Deltan, they finished with civil wars before they developed simple projectile weapons. Warner was interrupted from his meditations by his door chime. "Come." He called. The doors parted to admit Dean into his quaters. "Ready sir?" he asked. Warner turned and realised he was wearing his bed clothes. "Thank you Lieutenant but I feel quite tired, you go on ahead with Macha and enjoy yourself." Dean gave a genuine smile and turned to leave. Warner stopped him. "Lieutenant," he called," if I ever catch you using your time on the bridge to set up a date again..." "Sorry sir." Dean apologised. "Get out of my sight Lieutenant." Warner smiled. * * * Gul Ocett continued typing words into her hand held data padd for another three minutes after her subordinate Murvek entered the office. He stood there, hands clasped firmly behind his back while she typed. After the three minutes, Ocett continued to read her notes but her body language conceeded that she was aware he had even entered. "Gul?" Murvek said hesitantly. Ocett, still looking down at her work, finally spoke. "What is it Murvek?" "The second order reports that the Devat Balor - the hunter - is on its way here." he replied. "And?" Ocett prompted. "And we have been ordered to pursue." Murvek finished. Ocett looked up. "The hunter destroyed the Falen, did it not." Murvek checked his data padd. "Yes Gul." "The Central Command will be indebted to whoever destroys this menace to our space." Ocett muttered to herself. "Yes Gul, they would." Murvek replied. "With the backing of the Central Command, my papers on the hologram on Vilmor II will be published intact. Who knows what the Central Command's censor will do to it." Ocett thought out loud. "Vilmor II?" Murvek said puzzled. Ocett suddenly remembered the other incident linked to the origin of life she was witness to on Vilmor II. "Never mind, it's not important." "Oh I remember, the Rahm-Izad incident!" Murvek recalled. A slight smile played across his reptilian lips. "The time the Federation fooled you into thinking the answer lay in the Rahm-Izad system when it was really parsecs away -" "Get to your post!" Ocett hissed. If Cardassians could blush noticably, Murvek would have seen her turn bright green in embarassment. It was the one stain on her career. She knew her crew spoke about it behind her back. She had almost killed herself from the embarasment. Still no matter, once she hunted down the 'hunter' she would be hailed an even greater sucess. Even though she had a type three Galor class warship, she still envied her father's commision - a Liburnium class battle cruiser, the finest in the fleet. They were a year old, but due to military cut-backs only eight had been built. One of them, the Fatal Arrow, had been lost at Megara in the Persius sector. Its commanding officer, Gul Verdun, had deserved to die. He was a fool who was entrusted with Cardassian property far above anything he could handle. Perhaps she would be rewarded with a Liburnium if she destroyed the hunter. With this in mind, Ocett switched her data padd off and stepped out of her office and onto the Sacatur's bridge. Now she would show them who was the Gul on this ship. "Navigation, set course three-two-nine mark one-nine-nine. Once underway I want sensors and weapons control to probe the area until you find any trace of that ship." She waited until all three commands had been laid in to the various stations. "Execute." She snapped. The warship made a graceful turn and dive at which it leapt into warp speed.