Orbit, Part 2

Posted on Sun May 25th, 2025 @ 4:01am by Commander Saul Whitford & Commander Gunnar Magnusson & Sub-Commander T'shir & Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Calhoun & Lieutenant Commander Alexander Coleman & Major Dranoel Leomas & Lieutenant Kayoko Himeji

2,729 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: The Campaign for Coridan
Location: Coridan Orbit
Timeline: Current

---USS Unicorn - Hangar Bay---

Whitford raced out of the turbolift two of his Armoury crew hot on his heels. Making a bee-line towards the single-man construction pods, he ordered them to open up the cockpits, and begin tearing out the unneeded systems. Awkwardly shoving himself underneath the pilot's console, he began systematically tearing out the elements they no longer needed to fly the contraption, leaving a nest of trailing wires in the space.

Hearing his name called, he moved too quickly to get up, smashing his temple against the underside of the stick control, and yelped. Pressing a palm to his forehead, he maneuvered himself more carefully out of the well, and slipped on to the deck to see who had arrived.

“That’s gonna leave a mark, Commander,” joked Calhoun. He showed up in the cargo bay right after Whitford. “You need a hand? And, I see you left a trail of wires and parts to follow. My team and I are perfectly capable of making y these modifications. You don’t have to be here. We got this, sir. The design is rudimentary, really. Two to three hours, max.”

Grinning in response, Whitford shook his head, 'we don't have three hours, Chief, we got men on the ground who need these bees to make a big impact, and soon - think you can do that? Strip it back to basics if you have to!'

“Say no more, Commander. Stick and rudder and basic weapons capability. Thirty minutes?”

'If we strip out the weapons control, could it go any faster? We really just need them to enter atmo at the fastest possible speed so they can impact the ground - should clear off some Romulan ground forces!' Whitford's mind was racing, knowing he should be back at the Bridge, even if T'Shir was an able deputy.

“That definitely would make things go faster. Probably get them ready to go in half that time. Fifteen and they’re all yours!” Calhoun replied. Before he turned back to Whitford, he announced to his team. “Listen up! Stick and rudder! Weapons out! Got it? Stick and rudder system-no weapons. Alright, Commander, get prepped. These will be done before you can say ‘Olly olly oxen free!”

Whitford shook his head, and grinned, 'I don't get the reference,' he replied, 'but I'm looking forward to seeing those results - give me a whistle when you're done! I'll be back up on the Bridge. Use any of my men here you need to.' Setting off at a jog, he reached the turbolift, and sent it straight to the Bridge.

He felt the ship shudder as Romulan vessels fired at them. Whitford uttered a silent prayer while alone in the 'lift, not quite willing to let the others see his worry. As the doors to the Bridge opened, Whitford flashed a smile at their enigmatic Vulcan Sub-Commander.

'Ship status?'

At the sight of Commander Whitford, T'shir stood up and quickly returned to her station at comms. "Commander, we've just arrived to the perimeter of the asteroid belt to assist the flagship. One of the warbirds has turned its attention toward us. The others are still focused on the Admiral's vessel and our flagship."

T'shir simply delivered the facts as she knew them, but by the way the Romulans were dividing their attention she suspected they may have knowledge that high ranking officers were on board those vessels.

Nodding his understanding, Whitford sat in the center chair again, stroking the arms of the chair unconsciously. He swiveled in his chair. 'How long can we ignore the warbird firing at us, and concentrate on the vessels taking on the flagship, and the Admirals' ship?'

A quick check on his console, Dranoel looked up at the Commander. "Maximum of 8 minutes, if I may offer, permission to task some Tactical officers to personally control a phase cannon or two that will target that warbird while the rest of the cannons focus on the others?" He requested.

'Keep her busy,' Whitford nodded, sitting forward in the chair as he watched the viewscreen. 'But keep the majority of our fire on those two warbirds hitting our flag officers.' He thought a moment, 'any data we can use to knock em out quickly?' Eight minutes might seem like an eternity in a battle, but it would be over shortly.

Gunnar nodded. “I have been kicking around a few ideas in my brain. I was thinking that if we stripped the antimatter out of a photonic warhead and just left behind the deuterium, then enriched that with Helium-5 and hit it with a phase cannon pulse…if detonated close enough to the warbirds, the resulting high-intensity kappa band radiation burst would penetrate their hull. Could cause severe burns and loss of consciousness.”

'Excellent thinking, Commander,' Whitford replied with a wolfish smile. He pointed to Dranoel, 'get working with Leomas to get it happening for us, as quickly as possible.'

"Aye," Dranoel replied as he dispatched the instructions down to the armoury and opened an intraship channel. =/\=Leomas to Armoury, keep me updated as to your progress."=/\=

=/\="Yes sir,"=/\= the tactical officer on duty reply and Dranoel could hear them shifting a warhead into a workstation and work on it in low voices.

“Be careful careful,” said Gunnar tightly. Deuterium and Helium-5 should be at a five to one ratio.”

T'shir was monitoring comms when a signal from one of the ground teams at Coridan came through. While the others were battling the Romulan Warbirds, T'shir responded to the call, "You have SS Unicorn, SOD-Alpha, do you copy?"

When Sgt. Basset responded the hiss and crackle of the static pierced T'shir's ears in an almost painful, causing her to reach up and pull the earpiece away from her head. Through the offensive static she focused on the voice that trying to speak over it. "Line is bad, Unicorn, but we copy, 'Our location is surrounded, and we're about to be overrun - requesting immediate evac, do you copy?!"

T'shir could find no immediate cause for the bad connection, but she adjusted a few settings to try to boost the signal. "Copy, Sod-Alpha, Negative for immediate evac. Stand by."

"Commander Whitford," T'shir stated calmly to the open Bridge. "SOD Alpha reports that they are surrounded and are requesting assistance with an immediate evacuation."

Watching the wreckage of the flagship pull apart under the Romulan bombardment, Whitford's face went white, realising there were no easy choices at this point. 'Turn us around, make best speed for Coridan orbit,' he decided, gripping the arms of the command chair tightly as the ship bucked and shuddered under the persistent fire of the Romulan warbirds. 'Prep the transports to pick up as many of our people as we can.' A console sparked as it overloaded. 'And get me a status rundown on the Unicorn!'

It seemed that the armoury crew were sealing the warhead back up and about to put it on the launch tube. =/\="Bridge, custom warhead ready!"=/\=

Dranoel smiled as he turned to Gunnar. "Commander, do we know how best to deploy the warhead? Perhaps we should look into using it in a way that it will affect more then one Warbird?" He asked.

“Lagrange two,” said Gunnar calmly. “There is a group clustered near that. The tidal forces there will disperse the radiation over a million kilometers.”

T'shir deftly managed communications, delivering the Commander's orders to flight control to prepare the shuttles and to engineering.

"T'shir to Commander Calhoun, we are executing course to Coridan for an emergency evacuation. We will need the Unicorn's engines at maximum efficiency."

“Calhoun here. Acknowledged, Commander. You can count it. Injectors are primed and ready, warp reactor stable and good to go. Calhoun out.”

As the ship began to make a ponderous about-turn, Whitford forced himself to stop tapping the chair with impatience. There was nothing now but power Unicorn across the system as fast as she could go. Coridan was lost, in his eyes, the only thing that mattered was to rescue what little they could from the wreckage of the fight.

'I need to know what the Romulans are doing?' he asked Dranoel at his station.

After a quick scan, Dranoel frowned. "They are attempting to cut us off from getting to orbit, Commander."

'Looks like now would be the opportune moment to deploy those new warheads you've scienced together,' Whitford observed to Gunnar and Dranoel dryly as the Romulans began opening fire. 'Perhaps we can use those pods we jury-rigged with Engineering?'

The Unicorn began to register the impacts of more Romulan fire, Whitford had to grab the arms of the command chair to keep himself from being thrown out of it. 'Helm, evasive maneuvers! Get us through that Romulan blockade!'

"I'm on it!" Kayoko called from the helm as she gripped the controls. "This is going to be tight, everyone hold on!". The Unicorn banked sharply, before running through the Romulan ships straight towards Coridan.

About to shift weapons targetting to a closer warbird when Kayoko altered the Unicorn's course hard and called out to hold on. Dranoel managed to grab the console to keep him in his chair just in time. After they made it through, Dranoel quickly activated a targetting macro he had in reserve that all he had to add was what to target. The warbirds. The warheads fired out of their launchers and used the Unicorn as cover until they spread out to each of their targets.

“Stand by phase cannons,” said Gunnar tightly. Timing would need to be perfect. “Stand by. Stand by…and, fire!”

Bright orange-red beams sliced across space, impacting the warheads and detonating them in a fraction of a second. A bluish cloud dispersed in all directions, impacting several of the Romulan vessels.

As the Unicorn reached Coridan orbit, Whitford felt the intertial dampers struggle to compensate for the rapid deceleration required to slow the ship down to allow the transports to launch safely. Once a safe speed was declared, Whitford turned to T'Shir. 'Broad transmission to our teams on the ground, Unicorn in orbit. Launching transports now. Advise any ground transports to head to us - we'll take on any other personnel. Any comms from the Fleet?'

"Commander Whitford," the Vulcan Second Officer shook her head. "There is considerable interference over long range communications. It was present in the line to SOD Alpha. I believe the Fleet is trying to reach us, but there is considerable static interfering on all channels."

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Whitford thought a moment. 'Prioritise our troops on the ground - we have to get them out of there before any more nukes are launched.' It was a nasty, brutal tactic to deploy. Whitford despised the arsenal they had aboard and had hoped to never have to encounter atomic weaponry. 'You and Gunnar get to the source of the interference, and try to find a way to break through it.'

"Understood, Commander. I will attempt to inform the Fleet of our intent. Perhaps our outgoing message will be delivered," the Vulcan replied.

“I don't suppose it’s anything simple,” said the Science Officer. “Like lepton particle interference? Something we can block by flooding subspace with complimentary particles?”

"I have been unable to determine a source of the interference at this time," T'shir replied. "It initially appeared to be limited to outgoing communications from the planet's surface. I will continue to try to isolate the signals. The cause may not be one and the same."

An alert sounded on the tactical console after the transports had made atmospheric entry and then the Unicorn shook violently. Dranoel had been thrown on top of his console and when he stood up, he tapped at the sensors. "We had a Romulan mine just explode near the starboard impulse engine." He reported.

'Ah yeah, copy that!' Whitford grunted, hauling himself up from the deck, clutching his ribs. The impact had flung him from his chair, and into the corner of a console. Ignoring the pain, he slipped back into the seat. Pressing a hand against his side, he called out, 'got a solution to the mines?'

Dranoel went through the sensor readings. "Only the one mine Commander," he reported slightly confused as there should be more, usually.

“Calhoun to bridge! That was a close one!,” the engineer shouted. “No structural damage, just some scorching on the hull. Can we not do that again? Backup generators standing by.”

'Not planning on running over any more mines,' Whitford said over the comm, 'we'll try and keep the ship in one piece.' He turned to Dranoel. 'Status on the Romulan fleet?'

"One has cloaked when the mine went off, the others are heading back to orbit." Dranoel reported as he kept firing, impacts on their shields indicated that they were still in range. A warhead impact knocked one warbird off course by a bit and their shields flickered several times. Dranoel fired another warhead, normal one this time.

An alert sounded and another mine decloaked below the ventral hull, it was closer then the last one and exploded. The Unicorn was pushed upwards, Dranoel was thrown back against his chair which did make him black out.

Slapping the comm button on the Captain's chair, Whitford roared into the open channel as best he could, 'medical team to the Bridge - we have a man down here!' Hauling himself out of his chair, he made his way round to the Armory console, and hauled Dranoel on to his back, and then into the recovery position while they waited for a medical team to head for the Bridger.

Dr. Rager's voice came over the comms and said, "Medical teams have been dispatched! They should be there soon, but the turbolift system is down across the ship and they're having to go through the tubes."

Breathing through his own pain, Whitford worked the console, attempting to triangulate where the one cloaked Romulan vessel could be heading. Laying down a general fire suppression pattern, he breathed a sigh of relief as no Romulan vessels turned back to finish them off.

He looked askance at T'Shir, and gave a weak smile. 'Looks like the Romulans are moving off. Should leave us clear to retrieve the MACO.' Every breath was agony at this point. 'Helm,' he said, turning his head, 'move us up out of this minefield - they should all be in relatively close position. We'll figure out how to get rid of them before we leave orbit.'

As he felt the ship move upwards relative to the suspected minefield, Whitford allowed himself to slump slightly at his post, relieved that this was all over.

"Commander Whitford," T'shir spoke from her station, and though the Vulcan showed no emotion her voice suggested she was not bearing good news. "I was able to clear interference from an incoming message we received from Dr. Coleman's mobile medical unit approximately 17 minutes ago. They reported a nuclear explosion and they were within expected fallout range. Their last message was that they were attempting to seek shelter in nearby caves."

Heart skipping a beat, he considered the likely ramifications of what could happen to their people. Gritting his teeth, he nodded. 'Acknowledged, Sub-Commander,' he said neutrally. 'Have a transport lock on to that medical unit's signal, and retrieve them as quickly as possible. Have the other transports do the same with our other teams, and any personnel and civilians they can come across. We'll run a conveyor belt - one in, one out til the ship is at capacity and then some.

'Message any other ships in the vicinity, and have them come on-station too. We'll get as many as we can off-world.'

"Aye, Commander," T'shir replied quickly, sending the messages as directed.

::OFF::

Commander Saul Whitford
Executive and Chief Armoury Officer
Unicorn NX-151

Sub-Commander T'Shir
Chief Communications and Second Officer
Unicorn NX-151

Commander Gunnar Magnusson
Chief Science Officer
Unicorn NX-151

Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Calhoun
Chief Engineering Officer
Unicorn NX-151

Lieutenant Commander Alexander Coleman
Chief Medical Officer
Unicorn NX-151

Major Dranoel Leomas
Assistant Chief Armoury Officer
Unicorn NX-151

Lieutenant Kayako Himeji
Chief Helm Officer
Unicorn NX-151

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