Search but Don't Destroy

Posted on Sun Dec 19th, 2021 @ 6:05pm by Lieutenant Commander Deanna Celes & Lieutenant Aiko Kato & Ensign James Phoenix

Mission: Sinister Intentions
Location: Nausicaan ship

The away team materialized in the rear of the bridge of the Nausicaan ship, away from all the personnel that were currently present. Celes spoke emphatically, "Drop your weapons and stand down."

The Nausicaans unsurprisingly were not about to surrender the ship peacefully. One of the Nausicaans fired a disruptor at the away team, missing them but causing them all to take up a defensive posture. The captain of the ship quickly followed suit and fired a disruptor at the away team as well, followed by the other two Nausicaans, none of them hitting the away team but showing they were all hostile.

Aiko ducked and quickly returned fire towards the first Nausicaan that had fired at them while simultaneously trying to find cover. She watched satisfactorily as her phaser fire scored a hit on the Nausicaan's back, instantly causing him to collapse to the floor unconscious.

Being a relatively open concept Bridge, there were very few hiding spot, which left her significantly exposed. But Aiko made sure she was moving while also trying to count the number of enemies in the room.

Celes fired her phaser at the presumed captain, hitting his chair rather than him. She crept forward and took aim, and as the captain popped up to fire she fired again, this time hitting her mark and catching the Nausicaan in the upper chest and putting him out of commission, leaving two Nausicaans on the bridge still combative.

Having just dodged disruptor fire, Phoenix ducked behind a console near the edge of the bridge. The Ensign quickly ducked up again to fire his phaser. The blast from his phaser hit a Nausicaan in the upper right arm, forcing him to drop his weapon. This didn't down him however, as the Nausicaan charged the Ensign. Phoenix's eyes widened as the enemy came running at him. Before he could fire, the Nausicaan attempted to disarm him. However, it didn't work as James kept his phaser in his hand, and used it as a melee against his opponent, at a 75 degree angle against the Nausicaan's head. The Nausicaan threw a punch, but missed due to James fleeing the incoming attack. He returned the favor, by throwing a punch at the Nausicaan.

Dazed, the Nausicaan unholstered a knife and tried to charge him once more. Ensign Phoenix fired his phaser on his opponent, finally downing him. "Never bring a knife to a gunfight," he said in a serious tone while looking down at the unconscious Nausicaan.

Celes moved forward and fired on the last remaining Nausicaan, hitting him and putting him out of commission. She looked around to ensure they had pacified everyone and upon seeing things were calm for the moment began to give orders, "Secure the stations and the door." Celes walked over and began looking at the controls. They were a standard layout and she had no problem taking complete control over everything. "Aiko, disengage the engines and then take main power offline. I'm locking down all crew quarters and filling them with anesthesizine. We'll still have some mop up to do afterwards, but it should pacify the majority of the crew with a touch of luck."

Aiko nodded as she jumped on what was likely the helm station based on the layout. It took a few seconds to get acquainted with the command interface of the Nausicaan ship, but once she got the hang of it. It was relatively easy to power down the ship's impulse engines and then she entered the command sequence to shut down the warp engines and take main power offline.

"Engines and main power are offline Lieutenant," Aiko replied. "I've also limited power use to the absolute essentials like life support and inertia dampeners."

Celes entered a few additional commands into the computer and then looked up, a glance towards Aiko, "Very well. Time to do some mop up work and then check the cargo hold and see what they are so interested in keeping secret." She turned to Phoenix, "Ensign, take point. Keep a sharp eye. Last thing I want is to be caught in a Nausicaan ambush in close quarters."

"Aye." James swiftly moved to the front of the group as ordered with his phaser rifle ready.

Celes looked to another security officer, "Remain here and signal for the engineers to beam over to your location. They can start their work here on the bridge while we secure the rest of the ship." She looked to Phoenix, "Let's go." As they headed out Deanna looked at Aiko, "You take rear guard."

Aiko nodded and fell in line at the back of the group, phaser at the ready.

The group began the trek down the corridor, moving tactically slow, everyone's head on a swivel. They stopped and checked each door as they came to them, the crew quarters either empty or occupied by Nausicaans currently unconscious thanks to the gas. Celes gave each room a quick sweep with her tricorder before they moved on to the next, an eerie silence their only companion at the moment.

Finally they approached the cargo bay and Celes sensed that they would encounter hostility when they entered. She motioned to Phoenix and the Aiko to be at the ready as they made their way in. With each step Celes waited for the shoe to drop and hostilities to begin, and as Aiko entered her wish, or perhaps fear was realized.

The blade came out of nowhere, cutting through the air with ferocious speed on target for her neck. Reflexively, Aiko leaned back just in time to see the blade sail across her face, mere inches from her flesh. She looked to her right and saw the wielder of the blade, a rather stocky Nausicaan. She saw the evil intent in his eyes and the murderous anticipation of another kill as it slowly morphed to disappointment and anger.

Luckily for Aiko, the Nausicaan had struck out with such force that his miss made him less steady on his feet. She realized this was her chance and she struck. Letting herself drop to the ground, she whirled herself around and extended her left leg in a sweeping low kick which knocked her attacker off his feet. Without another moment's pause, Aiko aimed her phaser and fired her two shots in quick succession and watched the Nausicaan fall unconscious.

At this point she could hear several howls coming from the interior of the room and quickly realized what this was...an ambush.

Disruptor blast flew through the air in the proximity of the away team and Celes knew now that the one thing she had hoped to avoid had happened; they had walked into an ambush. She quickly took cover behind some crates and returned fire almost blindly, looking to see what the situation was in general and for the others with her, Aiko and Phoenix. Her vantage point didn't allow her to see Phoenix at the moment, though she could sense him when she opened her mind. Aiko on the other hand was clearly visible to her and she watched the tail end of Aiko putting down a Nausicaan in an up close and personal manner. She had no time to think in terms of grand strategy. She could hear the Nausicaans inching closer as they continued to fire on the StarFleet positions and she knew this would soon turn into something worse than a phaser fight, hand to hand combat, which meant bladed weapons, the Nausicaan preferred way. The only hope was to thin their ranks before it got to that point.

Aiko took her cue from Celes and quickly found a defensive position, behind a stack of crates that were adjacent from Celes' position. She realized that the exit out of the cargo room was closed, likely sealed. To the front of her, the Nausicaans were amassing, hiding behind structures or objects for cover and also to obscure their full strength. Nevertheless, Aiko counted five of them so far, but could not tell if there were more.

Her immediate worry however was that she could not see Phoenix. She turned to Celes.

"Any ideas Lieutenant?" Aiko asked. She had fairly good security training that was also significantly honed during the Dominion War but she did not possess the depth of knowledge for advanced close quarters combat. To her, it was either they stood their ground and tried to fight their way out of this and hope the superior numbers of the Nausicaans did not overwhelm them.

Or, they could try to leave the room but that also had its own risks. The Nausicaans had spent time planning this ambush. The door was locked. The fact that they did not pick up this many of them on tricorders and the ship's internal scanners, meant they had some sort of shielding technology that masked their presence and likely prevented inbound and outbound transport.

Celes smiled. "They are going to regret trying to ambush us. Heavy suppression fire lieutenant. They'll try to charge us, and that is when we take them down."

Celes began to fire multiple shots in the direction of the Nausicaans. She wasn't necessarily trying to hit them, just rattle them a bit with the excessive amount of fire being put on their position. She could sense that Phoenix was holding his position waiting for them to come into the open, and she knew they were getting more and more annoyed and were getting closer to making that mistake. Finally, after actually hitting one, they gave a guttural roar and rushed out towards the StarFleet trio.

James was currently in a firefight with two other Nausicaans. He had ducked behind a crate for cover. He quickly came up from his cover and shot one of the Nausicaans, quickly downing him. He then fired on the other, rendering him unconscious. Phoenix then heard a loud roar from one of the Nausicaans which was coming from his left. Quickly, the Ensign ran and jump over the crates to his left. As he slid off he hit the Nausicaan that was charging Celes and Aiko. The Nausicaan was now pissed.

He hit Phoenix in the chest, which dazed the officer for a second. As the Nausicaan pulled out a knife, James came out of his daze he fired his phaser several times. The Nausicaan was stunned but tried to continue fighting the security officer, but dropped cold to the floor after James fired another stun at him. Then one of the other Nausicaans that were fighting Aiko and Celes then charged Phoenix. James quickly fired another shot at the enemy, downing the Nausicaan. The other Nausicaan ran at James at full speed. The Ensign's eyes widened as he made an attempt to flee the charging Nausicaan.

Celes saw the Nausicaan charging Phoenix. She rose from her position and moved quickly to intercept, catching the Nausicaan in the chest with a flying roundhouse. This knocked the Nausicaan back but he was still in the fight and he had a large blade drawn. Celes gave a wry smile as she stood ready as the Nausicaan attacked. She dodged his initial attack then used an inside block on the second, moving quickly she disarmed him, twisted and wrenched his arm out of the socket, kicked out his left knee, and then rendered him unconscious with a swift hook kick to the head. Only one Nausicaan remained and he was moving towards Aiko.

Aiko saw the Nausicaan charging and she aimed her phaser and fired but he was nimble on his feet and easily evaded the shots. The distance between them was rapidly closing that Aiko knew she had to act first. She saw him raise his blade, his intent clear.

Aiko smiled thinking back to the words a friend had used back during the war when they had been pinned down by Jem'Hadar soldier. They had decided to do the unthinkable and charge the enemy against superior and overwhelming force.

The friend had simply asked, "You rascals, do you want to live forever?" And had charged the enemy afterwards.

It seemed befitting for this moment. Aiko's smile turned to a grin as she reminisced on that memory despite the gravity of the situation. She jumped over her crate and charged the Nausicaan, phaser in front firing her phaser at him indiscriminately until one struck, sending him stumbling and another hit his hand, knocking the blade off his hand.

Aiko would have fired another but by then she had closed the distance to her enemy that she simply fired a side kick into his rib that dropped him to the ground. Aiko aimed her phaser point blank and fired and watched satisfactorily at his still form.

"Well that was fun," Aiko said sarcastically as she bent over trying to catch her breath and looking to her comrades. "Everyone okay?" she asked.

Celes gave a sly grin, "I like your style lieutenant. You are going to fit in with the crew nicely. You have just the right level of insanity to serve under the captain. You'll find it a necessary trait." Celes pulled out her tricorder and started scanning. "Nausicaans thought they could hide things from us, but they were wrong" she said as she began to move towards what looked like a wall covered with crates. She reached a hand forward and a ripple came across the illusion. "Not the worst holoprojection I've seen, but easily seen through with my tricorder. I'm detecting lifeforms on the other side of the projection, nearly 20, all female, multiple species. I think we have found a group of trafficking victims."

Celes moved through the holoprojection into the holding area and was horrified to see the condition these women were subject to, and worse, many were children. Most were chained to a wall or to the floor to keep them from moving very far, and it appeared several were in what looked to be suspended animation pods. The women themselves looked like they had suffered mild abuse and were showing signs of neglect, malnutrition, and perhaps a few other medical matters that Celes wasn't trained to treat. "Aiko" she called out, "I require your assistance."

Aiko went over to where Celes was, moving though the holographic projection that concealed a large compartment of the cargo bay that had previously been masked. Aiko was stunned by the images in front of her.

"By the stars," Aiko muttered to herself in surprise at the sight. She knew there were dastardly acts that occurred out here in space, but to come in close contact with such an act, and in the vicinity of a Federation world was quite shocking.

She quickly pulled out her tricorder and ran to the closest woman to her, a Bajoran female. She was shackled to the ground, her nose swollen no doubt broken. "It's okay," she said gently as she approached the startled woman. "We are here to help. We are from the Starfleet vessel, USS Washington."

Her scan revealed the Bajoran woman had several bruises and lacerations, including multiple fractures. Interestingly, while her injuries were serious, they were not immediately life threatening. To Aiko, this meant whoever had attacked her knew exactly where to inflict damage without putting her life at risk. The anger in Aiko welled up but she did her best to park it for now. "Lieutenant," Aiko said turning to Celes, "I can do some field dressing of the superficial wounds but I think we are going to need a medical team to assist."

Celes worked quickly on her tricorder and linked up with the engineers on the bridge, cutting power to this facsimile. "We'll beam them directly to sickbay. Unshackle them while I free these in the pods." A minute later Celes and Aiko dematerialized along with the women prisoners, leaving Phoenix to work with additional security units to lock down the ship and Nausicaans while the engineering team made the ship ready for impound.