Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 5: Go!
3.5
Go!
“Go!”
Commodore Yui was not the type to make snap decisions. Not the sort to trust her instincts. But on very few, rare occasions, she had trusted her gut when there really wasn’t time for thought. In this moment, she wasn’t trusting her instincts. She was trusting Skip Howard’s.
“Take us in, full impulse!,” Howard said, then his visage vanished from the U.S.S. Mako’s viewscreen. The U.S.S Escort’s bridge still took up half of the screen as the other half switched to an external view.
“Commodore!” It was General Krank on Escort’s bridge. “You must put our astral dreamers into stasis!”
“Dr. Moorman,” Yui said, “Place Trader Pel in stasis and have Captain Carter and Lieutenant Kresid beamed into stasis.”
“Sir?” came Moorman’s voice over the comm system.
“Now, Doctor.” Yui said.
“General?” said the Escort’s new bolian 1st officer. She gestured toward the captain’s chair as the unconscious Captain Rhonda Carter was beamed out of it.
“That is your chair, Lieutenant Commander. I am your ally, not your commanding officer,” Krank said.
This scene played out in front of Commodore Yui and her bridge crew. “Lieutenant Commander Gross,” Yui said, “the probability that we will need to rescue the Beagle from the instability area has just gone up. We’re going to play lifeline. The Escort will advance to the edge of the area of instability - 3.5 kilometers from the station - and engage in station keeping relative to the Dolnok Nor station. I will take the Mako in as far as necessary to provide support to the U.S.S. Beagle. You will be our beacon and will be prepared to assist with a tractor beam if needed to assist either or both ships to exit the area of instability.”
“Understood, Commodore,” Gross responded.
Both the U.S.S. Escort and the U.S.S. Mako were considerably faster than the vulcan-constructed U.S.S. Beagle and despite his head start, by the time Skip Howard’s ship arrived at the boundary, both of the other ships were there waiting for him. The Beagle proceeded in toward the space station while both the Mako and the Escort maintained station keeping at 3.5 kilometers from the station.
“We just received several large files from the dogfish,” Lt. Cmdr. Senek reported.
“Approaching at full impulse, E.T.A. 2 minutes,” reported 2nd Lt. Piper Akrele.
Captain Howard turned his chair to face the pilot’s station and its wall-sized monitor. The Beagle’s bridge was laid out in an equilateral triangle, with the throne-like chair in the center that could turn to face any of the 3 walls. Each wall had 2 available stations that could be assigned to any function - helm, navigation, ops, life science, engineering or any other function. Oddly, none of these walls faced forward, so when the ship was traveling forward, the captain’s chair was typically oriented toward the starboard bow.
“Are you planning to impact the tug, Captain?” Senek asked.
“Reverse engines now!” Howard ordered. “Sakura, stand by to engage the tractor the moment we reach all stop.”
“Programming it now.” Sakura Nakamura Holland responded from the operations panel, currently located at the port bow oriented wall. Lt. Cmdr. Senek’s station at the rear-facing wall was currently set up for sensors and engineering monitoring.
Any standard build Star Fleet vessel would be able to answer all-stop from full impulse within a few seconds. The antique, vulcan-built Beagle required a full minute at full reverse to answer all-stop and begin moving away.
“Responding to all stop, but the tractor beam is not latching,” Sakura reported. “Repeat, tractor not latching.”
Skip Howard hit the comm switch on the arm of his chair. “Dutchie!! Get me that ship…”
“Partial latch,” Sakura reported. “Recommend you slow to 1/4 reverse impulse, Captain. Any faster and we’re going to lose our grip.”
“Akerele, throttle down to 1/4 reverse,” Howard ordered.
“Responding to 1/4 reverse,” 2nd Lt. Piper Akerele replied.
“We’ve got increasing subspace interference,” came Commander Dutch Holland’s voice over the comm system. “I reconfigured the tractor. I think you can throttle up to 3/4 reverse impulse, Skip, but not any faster. We need to make sure no one opens a warp field, or it will play havoc with local spacetime. It’s under a lot of stress as is.”
“Bring us up to 3/4 impulse, nice and slow, Piper,” Howard ordered. "With this ship you should be able to feel the pull from the tractor. If you feel it start to slip a little, ease up on the acceleration. You wouldn't get that kind of feedback in a standard Star Fleet ship."
“Bringing it up to three quarters reverse impulse, sir,” Piper Akerele responded.
“Live feed from the dogfish,” said Sakura Nakamura Holland.
Captain Howard turned the captain’s chair to face the ops station and its wall-sized monitor. Sprites were racing through ops, frying out the remaining robots and undoing their repairs. Bolts of lightning from the brightly colored, amorphous blobs of light destroyed circuits, smashed smoking holes in entire panels. The master dogfish - the original robot - was moving quickly in response to Sakura’s remote commands, but it could not evade the sprites for long. Sakura screamed in agony as bolts of lightning blanked out the feed from the chihuahua-sized robot and came straight through the ops panel, destroying part of it and burning her hands.
“Medical emergency! Med team to the bridge!” Howard ordered as he came out of his chair and retrieved an emergency medkit from a compartment below the left arm rest.
“We just lost the tractor beam!” came Dutch Holland’s voice over the comm system.
“Akerele, full impulse, get us out of here!” Howard ordered as he unlimbered a device from the medkit and began spraying a foam onto Sakura's burnt hands. “Senek, re-route ops to your panel and get us full shields." Then more quietly: "Keep your hands loose, fingers slightly spread but don't stretch them,” he said to Sakura. She was whimpering and crying in pain and fear, but no longer screaming in agony. "Steady now," Howard said as he used a vulcan fabric knife to easily slice her sleeves open, revealing more burns that needed treatment. He sprayed more foam onto her arms.
As the U.S.S. Beagle backed away from the Dolnok Nor station, the station’s shield emitters began sparking with massive bolts of electricity. These reached out and destroyed part of the cardassian tug that was still moving away from the station. The tug’s nacelles had already been destroyed, apparently by a similar effect.
A second bolt reached out, but the tug was still moving away and had apparently moved out of effective range. The bolt struck the tug several times, but did little further damage.
One of the doctors arrived on the bridge of the Beagle and examined Sakura’s burned hands. “I need to get her down to medical for emergency treatment…”
Howard responded with a single word:
“Go!”
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