Die Hard: Time Ship Edition - Part 2

Posted on Tue Jan 2nd, 2024 @ 12:54am by Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein

Mission: Fractures
Location: USS Etesian
Timeline: 8 years ago
7700 words - 15.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Yavid had been taken by surprise. He had begun to trust Burnstein and just as quickly the young engineer had betrayed him.  Moreso, he was enraged that Burnstein had sabotaged the purge process and managed to jam up the works of the temporal drive so badly that the entire thing would need torn apart to fully repair it.  Time travel was now off the table.

Yavid, shook his head to clear it as he stood from where he had been knocked off his feet, and surveyed the scene.  The damage to the temporal drive was worse than he feared.  It appeared part of the matrix assembly had been badly warped by the sudden power surge and the initiators had all been blown out by the overpressure.  Not only had he managed to blow out all of the helium needed for the purge, he had managed to cause enough structural damage that the drive itself would need a complete overhaul before it could be safely used. "BURNSTEIN!  YOU FOOL!"


I'm sure you'll realize I can't be inside there, Yavid, Burnie thought as he ditched his commbadge into the temporal core and then ducked up a Jeffries tube and then down another before pulling out an instrument and running it over himself. But you can either try to get the ship back online or search for me. And after that - God willing! - someone should have an idea of where to search for us. Now we'll see if that trick for masking biosigns works.  It should at least hold down here where the internal sensors are fried...


=/\= Starbase Aeon, Hirsch's Office =/\=

Despite DeBlois' promise of coordinates within ten minutes, the truth had been that they were at the mercy of the men aboard the Etesian itself.  If they had already done the neutrino purge, the resultant spike in chronitons would be undetectable at any range, or if they were looking in the wrong direction, they wouldn't detect it at all.  Erich had left the two scientists to conduct their search in peace.  Having him hover over them wouldn't add anything to the search or speed it up in any way.  As Sanya like to say "a watched pot never boils."  Of course, the concept was lost on him as rapid heating was easily possible and he could make any pot of water boil in less than a second.

He had elected to head back to his office and wait there when his comm badge chirped.

"DeBlois to Hirsch, I have a bearing sir.  There was a detectable chroniton surge just a few minutes ago."

"Range?"

"This method can't detect range sir," she explained. "But it's distant. We barely detected it with the sensor gains way beyond their rated maximums.  The burst only lasted a third of a second so we couldn't bring other panels to bear for triangulation."

"Relay the bearing to operations tactical plot." Hirsch exited his office in his usual purposeful way.  Commander Drake was speaking with a flight control officer and noticed his exit.  The look on his face conveyed news so she broke off the conversation and met him halfway across the spacious control room that more resembled a combat information center than it did a starship's bridge.

In the center of the room above the large station status console was a holographic projection of the starbase.  It was larger than life and lit the room partially due to its brilliance.  The display also showed starships coming and going, work shuttles moving about, and the occasionally path of a fighter or fighters in a tight protective pattern or moving in for landing procedures.  A beacon appeared on the tactical operations display and came into view as a triangular point relative to the starbase and began to pulse.

He pointed to the pulsing icon. "DeBlois picked up a chroniton burst on this bearing.  Range unknown."

"How long ago?" Drake asked.

"Minutes," he replied. "It appears to be stationary since it was recorded for a third of a second with aspect change."

"Why do I feel like a submarine commander for the ancient past?" Her rhetorical question went unanswered. "Without a firm track though, we could be dispatching a starship to where they were rather than where they are going or where they are at."

"Unless they were destroyed during the purge," Hirsch noted.

Hopefully that's not the case.  "I'm reticent to dispatch more than a single ship."

"That's prudent," he agreed. "I would suggest one of the carriers would be best as their search window will be larger given their fighter compliments. The Rudd just finished a refit if I recall."

"Signal the Rudd to head down that bearing on the hunt." She paused, debating. The Etesian was supposed to be classified, but it was rapidly becoming the worst kept secret on the base, and Marine boarding and, if Burnie was being held,  hostage rescue skills might be required. "Put the Marines aboard.  And Lt. Rogers." 

Hirsch's brows rose. "Lt. Rogers?"

"She's worked with Ferrari and, from what I recall of the brief on your last mission on the Etesian, she knows the ship.  Ismael is a saboteur, possibly a murderer, and reputedly a genius.  We can use any advantage we can muster," she explained.  And if worst comes to worst, I'll take a half-mad former Section assassin against a mad genius...

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge=/\=

Yavid walked over to a computer panel and locked out the system again, then vanished in a transporter beam. Rematerializing on the bridge he crossed to the conn. "Activate internal protective measures Ismael Secure One."

"Bridge security activated," the computer confirm. "Denial system activated."

"Computer, plot a course for the Briar Patch.... best speed possible.  Engage."  He sat back for a moment - his head pounding from where he had hit it. "Now Michael, the game is afoot."  He looked at the internal sensors - which struck him as particularly odd - Burnstein's biosigns weren't appearing on them anywhere.  "Clever.  Not clever enough though.  Computer, seal main engineering and activate personnel denial systems."

Ever efficient, Yavid had combined engineering personnel denial system and a fire suppression system flood.  The caustic gas was nearly impossible for anyone to remain in for long as it caused chemical burns on the skin and was toxic to breathe.  Decks below, the fire suppression system engaged.

=/\= USS Etesian, Engineering =/\=

Burnie saw the internal transport register on his tricorder.  That was an advantage he needed to remove, but it would wait.  His improvised explosion had caused severe damage to the temporal drive and since it was linked to the warp reactor, the ship was essentially limping.  But it was limping at low warp, which would have it away from the neutrino burst before anyone searching was likely to get there.

So, stop the ship and leave a trail... He'd had days of hanging in space waiting for orders to familiarize himself with everything about the Etesian, so there were several options.  Yavid, as expected, had resumed the lock-out of computer functions, but that was okay.  Burnie's experience on starships had been earned during a border conflict, so he had a very solid understanding of manual over rides.  The one for ejecting the warp core would stop the ship AND put out a nice big marker for anyone looking...

He'd descended to the base of the warp core and began to open the emergency access when he heard the bulkheads sealing.  It was something so standard in the drills for situations when you'd have to eject the core this way that for a second he didn't react.

Then he smelled the gas.

Frak! He dropped the panel and dashed for the nearest hazmat gear, muttering under his breath about morons who designed fire suppression that's toxic to the people caught in the fire...

He quickly donning the mask to protect his face and lungs, but the gas was pouring in fast.  He could already feel the chemicals burning momentarily exposed skin as he pulled on the rest of the suit.  He needed to get somewhere out of this where he can wash that off.

His eyes went instinctively to the escape pods. It was part of the drill - even if there was a running joke that if the core was breaching you might as well die at your station as in one of those.  In this case, he'd be safe, but it would mean abandoning the ship to Yavid and hoping a distress beacon would draw another ship quickly. Burnie gritted his teeth - the back of his hands felt like they were on fire - and ran to the nearest pod.  He climbed in, and as soon as the automatic controls dispelled the residual gas, pulled off the suit and yanked out the medkit. The ship wasn't exploding so launch could wait.  Wash. Ointment. Plastakin on the worst burns.

He flexed a hand experimentally. Ahh. MUCH better. I am never going to complain about a drill again. Glancing at the chronometer, he vaguely noted that he was still not that far off record time for the drill, as he reached to pull the launch lever. And stopped. A smile crept over his face.  Drill's over. Time to get back to work.

Quickly wiping down the hazmat suit, he got it back on and stepped out of the pod. The gas was thick as pea soup and with a sinking feeling he realized that with the panel off, by now it had probably hopelessly corroded the manual releases.  And until the gas subsided he couldn't try the other options he'd had in mind. I'm going to have to find another way ...if I can at least send a signal... He looked at the row of flashing lights showing the escape pod locations.  ...or a beacon...

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

At a chirp from the computer, Ismael looked up from scrolling through a listing of damage.

The computer cut into reporting "Escape pod has been launched from engineering.  Deck 12, Level A. Escape pod has been launched from engineering.  Deck 12, Level A.  Escape pod has been launched from engineering.  Deck 12, Level A..."

=/\= USS Rudd, Underway =/\=

The Rudd was a Canberra class support carrier.  She was fat and stout for a starship - essentially a flight deck with a fuselage and nacelles for warp travel, not heavily armed with only a half dozen phaser strips, a single forward and a single aft torpedo launcher, but she was well-armored and well-shielded. The benefit to the Canberras though was that they were able to be used as a special operations launching platform.  It wasn't their preferred method, but the hangar was large enough for 3 Trojans to be squeezed in with half a squadron of Crescent class fighters in support. Ferrari had opted for the smaller Hoplites though.  Trojans were better suited to ground assault operations anyway.  The hangar held a large cargo container that would be used by the spec ops team as a mobile combat control center - it contained their own armory, and full equipment packs for each team member.

The Rudd had dispatched just 20 minutes ago and having settled his team in the hangar bay, Ferrari had just departed to head to the bridge with Chief Cibola. Walking on to the bridge, he was pleasantly surprised on his way up to see this was a mixed crew - about 2/3rds Starfleet and 1/3rd Marines.  The flight squadron was closer to 50/50 in terms of pilots and maintenance crews.  The command staff though was mostly Starfleet except the ship's CO. "You must be Major Golovko."

"Welcome aboard," Golovko said with a thick Russian accent. "Care to tell me why we're chasing a ship that supposedly doesn't exist?  I tried to call up ship schematics, loadouts, and capabilities and the computer almost reached out and slapped me for trying."

"I'm afraid, Major, that information is need to know."

"Sirs," the Tac officer interrupted. "We have a new possible datum."

This got both men's attention. "What is it?" Ferrari demanded.

Golovko looked irritated that the special forces officer seemed as comfortable in command of his ship as he was, but the information was more important. He nodded to his officer to continue.

"A long range emergency beacon was detected flashing the registry code Aeon supplied us for tracking. Five hundred thousand kilometers distant from the projected track and about six hours away at current speed." 

=/\= USS Etesian, Engineering =/\=

Burnie stepped off a ladder onto level B, found a containment canister and began vacuuming gas into it.  He might not be able to ignite anything until the fire suppression gas subsides, but the gas isn't without its uses.

Ismael's voice came over shipwide comm. "Michael... you have betrayed my trust.  I offered you a chance to serve the Federation in a way that no one has before.  I offered you a chance to guide history, rather than suffer from the inadequacies of it.  Instead of trusting me and working with me to make a better future, you disrespect me and try to sabotage me."

Says the guy who sabotaged my station... Burnie smirked to himself as he closed the container. ...I guess karma's a bitch even for god-wannabes.

"I will repair the temporal drive, and continue on my holy crusade. You unfortunately will no longer be able to assist me."

Dude, I never wanted to play Boy Wonder to your batty Crusader. Burnie headed to the nearest electro-plasma conduit. My favorite superhero was Captain Destructo....

"And your attempt to call for help, while creative, is full of false hope.  Computer, lock target, drop the phase cloak, and fire phasers at target one."

A smile crept over Burnie's face as he listened to the explosions from the escape pods.  Blam! ... Boom! ... Blam!  Those sounds never failed to cheer him, especially knowing all three should have been able to send out a signal while Ismael was dialoguing at him. And if anyone picked that up, those explosions would provide a nice big marker for last known location.  The next ones he released would provide trajectory.

"For now Michael, you can run and hide.... but I built this ship.  I know it better than anyone, and I will find you.  Then I will make you pay for delaying me through your treachery."

Then I guess there's no reason not to delay you further. He opened a sampling port in an EPS conduit, attached the canister and hit the release valve.

The gas, formulated to suppress a plasma fire, shoots into the warp plasma feeding the port nacelle.  POP!  There's not enough to do more than create a small break in the flow, but the effect is like introducing a bubble of air in a vein.  The ship shudders and alarms sound.

"Warning!" the computer blared. "Imbalance in Port Nacelle Wasp Plasma Field!"

Burnie waited for the automatic emergency system response providing the engineer on duty with the option of shutting down the conduit and tapped it the instant it displayed.  One nacelle down.  He walked away, waiting for the shift in the feel of the ship that indicated Ismael shifted all power to the remaining nacelle.  He's sure Ismael will be able to get the ship to continue at only slightly reduced warp, but there's going to be a ripple.

Burnie quietly whistled to himself as he headed toward another escape pod, counted three beats, and released it.  The starboard nacelle is the next obvious target, so that means I should hit something else... and maybe lay a few traps of my own...

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

Yavid fumed at how foolish he had been to trust Burnstein.  He was too short-sighted to understand it all.  He was below him figuratively and physically. 

He shunted plasma flow to deal with the now-shutdown warp nacelle from the remote control systems on the bridge.  Since he could access all ship's systems without standing up from his station, it was a minor inconvenience, but one which would wear on him mentally.  "You caught me in a monologue, Michael.  Clever, but now I know where you are and that you managed to get in a containment suit to protect yourself from the gas."

Shunting the flow fully, he began running a diagnostic on the shutdown nacelle’s subspace coils to ensure that the momentary lapse in plasma hadn't caused any meaningful damage to the long linear drive coils.  You think yourself so clever, but I can restart that nacelle from here.  He glanced at the diagnostic, knowing it had a few more minutes to finish.  I can't have you running about unsupervised now..  Let's see how you can handle this.... He triggered the initiate button and waited to see that his new countermeasure began operating.  He knew that if Michael wanted to shut down the unaffected nacelle, he would've had the time to do it already and that was not his next target, but Michael was an unpracticed saboteur and Yavid had more than enough experience to go around now.

=/\= USS Etesian, Engineering =/\=

Burnie heard the nacelle restart. He was slightly disappointed - obviously Yavid seemed to think he wouldn't do anything that would make that restart potentially explosive, so his reputation wasn't as well established as he'd thought.  On the other hand, that will make the IED he'd wired into the matter/anti-matter chamber a real surprise if he has to use it.

For now, he still hopes to avoid that.  The Etesian is a beautiful ship and he'd hate to have to blow her up.  A little constructive destruction on the other hand...  while Ismael might be an experienced saboteur, his experience had required subtlety to avoid detection.  Burnie was working to outright cripple the ship, and when it came to creative approaches to demolition, few could match him.

He continued disconnecting or rerouting relays and removing isolinear chips.  Yavid had set the ship up so he could control everything from the bridge using the computer and, at least for the moment, the computer core was beyond Burnie's reach, but he was not going to waste time trying to hack past another expert's codes to transfer computer control to the engine room.  No, the computer's control depended on its connections to ship systems and most of those, at least for the vital systems, were accessible from engineering.

Rewiring a rectilinear expansion module to an interlink shunt, Burnie checked a read out - not only was the cloaking device off line, it was now producing a noisy stream of sensor static.  How about that? he thought with a smiles. I just invented the anti-cloak.

He replaced the access panel, and began using a laser welder to seal it so it would take a while for any maintenance drone to get it open and undo his work.  Just as he was finishing the last corner, he heard one of the drones approaching.

"Go back to your bay, little dude," he said, making a shoo-ing motion. "I've got this covered."

Normally a drone picking up a human at work would leave.  Burnie was so used to that fact that he turned back at his task and just barely picked up motion toward him in time to dodge when a laser drill shot toward his head.

"Frak!" He rolled behind a console and aimed his welder at the advancing drone. Unlike his combat drones, maintenance drones aren't designed for swift evasive action, so he easily brought it down with a swift slicing cut. I should've realized! Lotor said the mole was using maintenance drones...and now the rest know where to find me...

He got up and ran, pulling out his tricorder and tapping commands as he went. He could hear the drones forming up in pursuit behind him and realized they must be using motion sensors, just as a laser cut close enough to singe his ear.

Frak. Frak. Frak.  Skidding around a corner into the space between condenser towers and he pulled a magna-spanner out of his belt as the swarm of drones streamed around the corner after him. This better work. He touched the magna-spanner to his tricorder and hits a key.  A concentrated burst of EM pulse hit the tight formation of drones.  One or two got a shot off, then the only sound was the crackle of frying circuitry followed by the sound of inert drones hitting the deck.

Burnie breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't relax for long.  If Ismael was monitoring the drones, he'd have this location.  Just before dashing off, Burnie takes a moment to kick and toss drones across the floor like little land mines - most people wouldn't try beaming into engineering with the internal sensors down, but an engineer who knows the ship well enough might believe he could program the coordinates for the nearest open space.  If Yavid tries it, he's likely to wind up with a part of a foot materialized in a dead drone.  Very painful, but after several grazing cuts from laser drills, Burnie was feeling pretty low on sympathy.

Sticking to tight spaces, he followed the feed loop from condenser to energy turbine.  The latent heat generated by electro-plasma was transferred through heat exchangers and a series of condensers for conversion to energy for running the ship's low energy systems. Like doors.  Burnie severed the power lines.  And then he hurried on.  He stopped for only a few moments to cut a weapons locker open.  Now that the fire suppressant gas is subsiding, he should be able to concentrate fire on a plasma conduit and bring the rest of the power in ship down.

=/\= USS Rudd, Hangar, MCCC =/\=

Leviathan team were all inside the mobile command center now.  Everything was a smaller version of their usual digs on the starbase, but with little loss in functionality, just fewer creature comforts and far more condensed. For now they were just studying schematics of the Etesian for when or if they intercepted the ship.  Ferrari, Tango and Nash were reviewing personnel files for Yavid and Burnstein.  While none of them suspected the latter was anything more than a hostage, there was never a way to be certain and his presence at least complicated things in the best case.  

The MCCC door chime sounded and the small security display indicated that the ship's XO was standing outside. "Tango, with me."

The two officers exited the MCCC to find the Tac officer waiting. "We have long range sensor contact on the target ship.  Major Golovko adjusted our course to intercept."

"Good. TTI?" Ferrari asked.

"Three hours unless they try to evade," she reported.

"OK." Not ideal he thought, but at least they had a course. "How'd you pick them up?"

She smiled. "It's hard not to right now. They're leaving a subspace wake that we could detect from a sector away."

Tango's tail swished. "Burnie's leaving breadcrumbs for us, sir. The pods... now the warp trail." 

"Sounds like it," he agreed.  "Let's hope he doesn't get himself killed doing it.  Thanks Lieutenant, keep us informed."

Returning the MCCC, Ferrari plugged the data-chip provided by the Tac into the MCCC's tactical computer.  The Rudd and Etesian's plots appeared on the main screen. "There's our target. Here's the specifics.  We know that the ship is run by one, or at most two, engineers.  Lt. Burnstein is one of them, although it is suspected that he was taken against his will."

"Hostage situation?" Imaru asked

"We'll resolve that when and if we encounter it," he replied. "My gut says that Burnie isn't part of the scheme and may actively be trying to hamper it." 

Nash nodded. "That would explain the lengthy detection range here."

"Hopefully.  We need to close that distance though and the Rudd is already maxed out.  If Ismael decides to push the Etesian faster, we're going to fall behind."

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

Yavid was stewing now.  Burnstein had managed to somehow repolarize the phase cloak emitter manually.  What made it worse was that more than half of his automated maintenance drones had been disabled in engineering.  The remaining four were busy trying to repair the disabled ones and restore small instances of sabotage that Burnie was leaving behind.  Thankfully the drones were "smart" machines and could prioritize repair well without needing minute-by-minute supervision.

The phase cloak was perplexing to Yavid though.  Burnstein had somehow inverted the field coils without accessing it directly.  Instead of masking their signature at long range it was elevating it.  The Etesian was basically "screaming" through subspace to anyone listening.  Everything he tried to reverse it was failing.  Whatever he did, he managed to muck up the phase cloak so bad that it was actually a hindrance now and he elected to shut it down entirely rather than continue sending out a beacon to every Starfleet ship paying attention.

Ismael pulled up a ship's schematic on the main viewer and studied it.  He was looking for a pattern - either a direction of travel or a systematic progression, but Burnstein was doing his best to appear random.  Yavid knew differently though. He knew where Burnstein was going now and he was planning to cut him off.  "I have you now."

=/\= USS Etesian, Impulse Reactor 2 =/\=

Burnie closed the heavy blast door and cinched it down manually.  He had disabled the door sensor before going in so the door being opened wouldn't register on the fire control station's blast door status screen.  What he didn't expect was that Yavid was no longer trying to track him via usual means, but was waiting for a sensor that shouldn't go offline to go offline.  It was a mistake the civilian contractor had nearly made once and such a sensor would not normally be actively monitored.

The goal was to cause the reactor to begin an overload. The computer would automatically shut it down, and the automatic shut down would drop the ship from warp so the energy-laden plasma flow in the section could be diverted in the event of a cascade failure in containment with the reactor.  Burnie worked popped the control board, knowing exactly what he needed to do and doing it quickly. 

Suddenly he heard a hiss of gas.

"Michael." Ismael's voice came from the ship comm. "You are trying to break my ship."

"This isn't your ship regardless of whatever messianic vision you have for yourself," he shot back, heedless of giving his position away since it was clear he'd been made.

"I extended my hand to you in friendship, and you bit it." There was snarl in the voice now.  "Like a dog, you must be brought to heel."

Burnie suddenly felt the artificial gravity shut off.  He grabbed a an exposed rail, and held on. "I know a few 'dogs' who will take exception to that idea.... are you ready to surrender?"

Ismael actually laughed and then the hiss of gas began again. "You have hampered me long enough, Michael.  Goodbye."

The internal comms cut off.

"Frak!" burnie grabbed the charging handle and pulled it toward him. It didn't budge - he had no leverage in the zero gravity environment. Swiveling, he planted his feet on the reactor itself and pushed with his legs while he pulled at the handle.  This time it moved.

Automated alarms sounded. "Warning.  Warning.  Reactor control plates have been withdrawn past safety margins.  Core temperature rising."

The computer tried to use the reactor servos to lower the plates back into the proper placement, and Burnie wedged a microtorch in place to prevent them from dropping into place. "Slag already!" he muttered as the torch cracked and bent under the strength of the small motors. 

"Warning," the computer chirped again.  "Control plate damage detected.  Cascade reaction in process.  Automatic safety measures activated."

Finally! Burnie took his last breath of seemingly clean air as the gas became visibly thick.  He heard the injection ports open and the beryllium fluoride gas flooding the reactor and immediately shut the fusion reaction down.  The only downside was that it was at the expense of the entire fusion reactor.

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

The Etesian spilled out of warp - klaxon blaring and lights flashing bright blue.

"Warning.  Fusion reactants compromised, safety measures compromised.  Automatic shutdown initiated.  Warp drive offline."

Ismael reddened in anger.  He knew Burnie was in the compartment, but the engineer had done something he hadn't expected.  Instead of trying to initiate an uncontrolled reaction and thus a bomb, something which the incapacitant gas would give him time to reverse, Burnie had managed to turn the core into a tool that pried them out of warp.  Without both fusion reactors online, the inertial dampeners would siphon plasma instead and the ship wasn't designed with that kind of redundancy - instead of killing them both by underpowering the dampeners, the ship's safety protocols had shutdown the subspace generators and dropped them to sub-warp speed.

He opened the bridge weapons' locker, grabbed a phaser-resistant armor vest and strapped it on and then attached a hand phaser to his hip and grabbed a phaser rifle as well. "Computer, seal him in and vent the gas to low levels... no need to kill him... yet.

=/\= USS Rudd, Hangar, MCCC =/\=

"...The way I see it there are four possibilities," Tango said, going over over scenarios with her team. "The most likely is that Burnie has gotten free in the ship and is doing what he can to oppose Ismael.  The least likely is that Burnstein and Ismael are working together."

"I'd put that at extremely unlikely," Durst remarked. "Unless they're both incompetent enough to wind up creating that subspace trail."

"I agree, but we have to be aware of it.  It's also possible that Ismael is somehow forcing Burnie to help him.  Or Burnie may be pretending to be on his side in order gain enough freedom to slow him down and send signals for us."

Nash frowned. "If so, this last signal will have given the game away."

Tango nodded. "However, Burnie may have arranged an 'accident' to produce that, so when we go in Ismael may still think he's an ally."

"All the better," Morwen said with a fang-bearing grin.

"As long as Burnie isn't within his reach," Imaru noted.  "Ismael's profile suggests he wouldn't hesitate to use even an ally as hostage if it served his purposes."

"True," Durst puffed. "But based on the last time we worked with Burnie, I'd say we have to be at least as worried about him."

Tango's ears snapped up in surprise.  "Surely you don't think Burnie is the hijacker?  I mean, he's good.  The Chief Engineer on the Tarak would like to adopt him.  But the Ismael is the one Lotor ID'ed as the mole."

"No.  But if he sees a chance to take Ismael out before he realizes we're aboard he may take it.  And his methods tend to be ...explosive."

Morwen thought a moment.  "He may also have some limit on how long he can wait for rescue."  

"Meaning?" Nash asked.

"He was willing to take out an entire star system, and himself and all of us with it, to keep Red Matter out of Saba'Nar's hands," she reminded.  "I don't know what this ship is carrying, but whatever it is, it's important. Maybe important enough that Burnie would be willing to blow the thing up to keep it out of a madman's hands."

Great... Nash sighed inwardly.  "Right.  Everyone be aware that there may be an IED."

Cibola pursed his lips.  "Or several.  If it was me, and I was loose on ship and being hunted by an adversary, I'd set whatever traps I could. " 

"And try to lure him into tripping one." Tango grinned thinking of one of Burnie's hobbies.  "Hmm... We should watch out for drones too. This could be a ...potentially explosive situation."

Ferrari was listening to them all talk.  He was still unsure how they would even overtake the faster ship so discussions about tactics and methods to storm the ship at this point would be academic at best, but it was a good time to let them analyze the tactical situation from afar before armor and weapons became necessities.

"What's this?" Tango pointed to the ship track which showed their pursuit of the Etesian no longer showed the range as fairly constant, but now the Rudd seemed to be closing rapidly. "It appears that they aren't traveling at warp any longer. What's the plan then boss?  Take it fast or try to talk him down?"

"Imaru?" Ferrari turned to their profiling specialist.

"God complex at play. He thinks he's infallible. He won't be swayed by negotiations."

"Very well.  We're still about an hour out." He turned the rest. "Tango, Nash... how would you take it down?"

Nash studied the data from sensors. "If Burnstein just shut the warp engines down, that says he's in engineering, but where he'll be an hour from now..."

"Ismael will be gunning for him.  A guy with a god-complex is bound to be seriously hacked off by a mere mortal thwarting his plans." Tango brought up ship schematics.  "So we take it fast and from multiple points. Cibola, Grady and Nash take the bridge.  Imaru, Saris, and Morwen, auxillary control.  Durst, Kurilenko and I will take engineering."

"What if they're playing cat and mouse throughout the ship?" Grady asked.

Tango looked at the Haldanes, and her whiskers flicked forward in a grin.  "This cat has caninoids with excellent noses to help find the mice.  The Etesian isn't that large a ship.  I expect to know where the 'mice' are within moments of boarding."

=/\= USS Etesian, Impulse Reactor 2 =/\=

Burnie had kept a mask with him after Yavid's initial attempt to kill him with gas, but by the time her gets it on his eyes are burning and his chest feels tight from the irritation caused by whatever level of gas had been in his last full breath.  He'd had to act fast to keep the reactor control plates from closing, but he knows he's going to pay for it.  Even if, by some miracle, Starfleet shows up in the next minute.

Burnie listened a moment, hoping for a miracle. He looks vaguely heavenward.  "What? Taking out a false god doesn't warrant a little miracle?" He sighed. "And mom wonders why I stopped going to temple..."

The gas was dissipating and a check of the blast door showed it was sealed tight. He expected Ismael to finally abandon his 'Fortess of Solitude' on the bridge and come for him now.  It should take a little time though.  With the plasma diverted, the transporter won't have enough power to function and after the damage he'd done to the electrical supply, Yavid will have to force most of the doors between the bridge to engineering. And then there are the 'surprises' Burnie had planted for when it came to this...

He checked the phaser he'd meant to use to start an overload, then pulled the cover off and started to hot wire the door's control pad.

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

Yavid was about to disengage the bridge locks to go finish off the engineer that he thought trapped near the now-slagged fusion reactor.  He could depressurize the compartment and kill him in that fashion, but in a way, he wanted to torture him at least mentally a bit - to show that he had been bested.

The phaser rifle was heavier than he remembered, and he was about to discard it for just the sidearm when his eyes noticed a blinking icon on the tactical display near the bridge arms locker. He stepped over quickly and called up the transponder information.

"USS Rudd. Canberra class escort carrier, commanded by a Marine Corps Major."  Fighter compliment typically is a reinforced squadron with mixed role abilities.  What an odd ship to launch a pursuit with..... unless... He rapidly scrolled through the information about the class of ship until he found what he needed to know. The class was an ideal platform for special forces deployment. Michael, it appears that I must leave you waiting for now. 

He thought momentarily.  The ship - with so much of its power relays shunted to route plasma around the various attempts at sabotage that Burnstein had done - was incapable of warp travel, and probably could only muster enough concentrated energy to power one phaser emitter or launch a few torpedoes.  Yavid knew that was Burnstein's plan all along now.  He never expected to retake the ship himself, just hamper it enough to give Starfleet time to catch up.

"They can't catch this ship if they can't find it."  He found what he needed and set the course.  A gas giant in the star system they had fallen from warp within would obscure the ship's energy signature and provide the perfect hiding place where he could make the needed repairs and slip away again unnoticed.

=/\= Hoplite Insertion Shuttle =/\=

Durst's ears flattened back as the Hoplite jigged again.  Bad enough their prey had gotten close enough to the gas giant to make transport impossible, but they couldn't lock on with the Hoplite either because the Etesian was flying like a drunk hummingbird.  "Hard to believe anyone piloting like that isn't stoned."

"I wonder if Ismael is hoping that will count toward an insanity defense," Tango chuckled.

"I doubt he will claim anything,"  Kurilenko said, rechecking her rifle.  "I do not expect someone with a God complex to meekly surrender."

"We won't know until we're there," Chief Cibola evenly.

Durst braced as the Hoplite peels off another spoiled approach angle. "If we get inside."

"We have to," Tango said firmly. "If we can't take the ship before it gets lost in that gas giant, the Rudd will have to destroy it."

=/\= USS Etesian, Central Core =/\=

Burnie slid through a maintenance shaft into the core.  When he'd first gotten out of the reactor compartment, he'd expected Yavid to show up any minute - the contractor had already been doing a good 'wrathful god' impression and he expected this last bit of creative destruction to drive Yavid to try to smite him in person.  Of course, Burnie had acquired a phaser and a couple homemade grenades, so he had had his own ideas about who would be smiting whom...

But then he'd felt the impulse engines surge.  It hadn't taken long to figure out that someone had finally noticed his signal and given chase.  That meant Yavid would not be coming down for their appointed showdown, since it appeared he was actively piloting to try to evade and escape into a gas giant's cover.  Unfortunately, he'd thought to set the computer to monitor and protect the impulse engines' vital components with the remaining and repaired drones. Taking those on would have been more dangerous that fighting Yavid alone and it would've alerted him to the fact that Burnie was free of the reactor chamber.  It was time to stop chipping away at Yavid's control of the ship by wrecking one system at a time.  He needed to strike at its core. The computer core, to be precise.

Burnie took out one of his improvised grenades - basically a phaser power cell rigged to overload on a preset comm signal.  In terms of depriving Yavid of computer control, it would do the trick.  However, blowing the computer core would take a lot of vital systems out with it.  The grenade was just insurance.  He placed it on the deck and took out an ODN recoupler and began decoupling ODN relays to disengage command function lock outs.  He knew he had virtually no hope of hacking Ismael's programs, especially on a computer the contractor designed, but he could pull the plug.  One relay at a time...

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

The gas giant filled the viewscreen now, but he wasn't within it yet, and for the last 20 minutes he had been hounded incessantly by the marines' blasted low-observable boarding shuttles.  Those damnable black and gray craft were agile enough to avoid being side-swiped during his evasive maneuvers, but such was taking all of his concentration. 

Suddenly he noticed the controls no longer responded to him. "Computer, reactivate helm control."

Instead of the characteristic chirp from voice commands that signaled confirmation he heard nothing.  He bit his lip as he manually unlocked the helm commands and then found that he could no longer swivel the proximity detectors on the hull to help him track the Hoplites.

"Blast..." He activated the manual control mechanism, but it was getting more complicated for him to fly the ship and keep track of everything go on about him.

Ismael tried to use one hand to target the next nearest Hoplite with a phaser shot, hoping to discourage them from boarding by causing damage at such close range, but it went wide as the pilot anticipated it and then the following attempt to hit them physically with the hull.  The pilot dipped down below the leading edge of the spaceframe and tried to trigger the proximity tractor beams to draw them into physical contact, but the starship lurched away from them before positive lock could be attained.

=/\= Hoplite 3 =/\=

Ferrari, Imaru, and Grady slammed against the side of the Hoplite as the pilot snap rolled them away from the lurching Etesian.  The pilot's path was erratic, hoping to keep the Etesian from having a clean shot at them, and so far, it had worked, but that was too close.  He could see hull plating rivets cleanly without any amplification before he was certain they were clear.

"Damn... try again!"

=/\= USS Etesian, Bridge =/\=

"Hold still damn it!" Ismael swerved again and then rolled the starship about its lateral axis to discourage the one of the 3 harassing craft from latching on to her hull.  This time he managed to graze it, causing it to lose control momentarily before whipping about and rejoining the chase.

Suddenly his helm control powered down entirely.  There was no way to manually restore it this time as the console itself had its power cut... and then he noticed all the rest of the consoles on the bridge had gone dark.

He slammed his fist down out of frustration - now the Etesian was on a steady course and there was nothing he could do. 

=/\= Hoplite 3 =/\=

The 3rd Hoplite had dropped back behind the main starframe and positioned itself directly astern the timeship.

"Pilot, we need to end this... target the Etesian's impulse engines," Ferrari commanded.  "You have permission to fire."

=/\= USS Etesian, Central Core =/\=

Burnie had nearly finished rerouting command functions when he felt the ship shudder with weapons impact. Followed by a sudden lack of vibration from impulse.  Despite all of the damage he'd inflicted on the ship, he was a bit upset at the idea of some else damaging it.

"Frak.  One more minute and I could've shut those down myself..."

=/\= Hoplite 3 =/\=

Ferrari saw the green flashing light indicating the Hoplite had attached to the Etesian. "All-call, Zeus.  Status?"

"Zeus, Hera. Ready," Tango responded.

"Zeus, Ares. Ready on your mark," Nash replied.

Ferrari smiled, allowing himself a brief moment to appreciate the wonderful irony in a guy with a god-complex about to be taken down by a team using ancient deities for call names. "Three, two, one m- "

"Sir!" the pilot called back from the cockpit. "We're being hailed."

"Hold," Ferrari transmitted to his teams, then called to the pilot. "Open a channel. Etesian, this Commander Ferrari. The ship is ours.  Surrender peacefully and you will not be harmed."

"Commander, Burnstein," came the reply through despite intermittent static.  "I've retaken the ship.  I'm more worried that anyone going into engineering will be harmed.  I've got the place rigged like a 3D minefield."

Over his helmet comm Ferrari heard a faint chuff from Tango followed by a muttered 'dammit, Burnie...'

"Lieutenant, where is Mr. Ismael?"

"On the bridge.  He should be out cold." There was more than a little satisfaction in the engineer's voice.  "I just flooded it with anesthesine gas."


---- a short time later ----


Tango found Burnie being checked over by Grady.  The engineer was covered with abrasions and patches of raw skin from chemical burns. His hair was spiky with residue and there were burn holes in his uniform.  And he was wearing a huge grin.

She walked over to him, tail swishing and shook her head. "Burnie, I'm disappointed. You couldn't leave any fun for the rest of us?"

He shrugged. "Well, if you'd gotten here a little sooner..."

Tango snorted. "A little sooner and I could have walked into one of your boobytraps." She widened eyes, then switched to a mock pout. "But anesthezine gas? Really?  You couldn't even leave us the bad guy?" She lets ears droop. "This is the most anti-climatic rescue ever." 

"Hey, after he kept gassing me, it only seemed fair. Besides, I heard enough monologuing from him." He rolled his eyes. Yavid had clearly not read the Evil Overlord Handbook. "I didn't feel like listening to his defeated evil genius rant."

"You mean like..." Tango struck a mock dramatic pose, hamming it up, "...'This cannot be!' or 'You fool!  This isn't over! You cannot destroy my DESTINY!!'"

Burnie laughed, maybe a little louder than the joke warranted, but after hours of stress and tension, he was nearly giddy with post-crisis euphoria. "Yeah. Either one of those. Although when you question him if he says 'I would've gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for that meddling kid.1 I want a recording."

 

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