"Boot It All Up"

[Kansas_Jones 0]

04.30.08

USS Yellowjacket NCC-1609

“Boot It All Up”

 

Alpha Quadrant

 

It had taken less then fifteen minutes for the Norway class ship to be ripped to shreds.

 

The crew of the Yellowjacket had mobilized and moved quickly, responding to the warning being broadcast by the USS Agincourt, their sister ship. Other ships in the Alpha quadrant had responded to the threat to Earth just as quickly, according to the ship to ship chatter over the wireless. The Yellowjacket herself had made it about halfway between Pluto and Earth when the first salvo from the enemy fleet hit them dead on.

 

Something had hit the ship. Hard. It was like a death rain of torpedoes, but there was nothing to track. One second the ordnance hadn’t been there, and the next the salvos appeared out of nowhere and kept hitting the Yellowjacket over and over. The unknown alien Fleet was well armed.

 

It was possible to track the torpedoes, or whatever the long range weapons were, it was probably just a matter of tuning the tactical sensors. But, considering the former tactical officer was now lying on the bridge decking in a pool of her own blood and her original calculations had been lost when the console had blown out, she wouldn’t be offering the Yellowjackets commanders any tactical insight. Commander MVess “Left Ear” JoNs had re-routed the tactical board through one of the auxiliary consoles and had taken the posting over herself.

 

Meanwhile, Captain Zarathon Sh’Fasz was manning the engineering console, as that officer had also been compromised. Damage control teams had finally arrived on the bridge and were dousing the small fires that peppered the entire area with coolant or carefully moving the dead bodies out of the immediate area; the captains Ready Room had been turned into a temporary morgue storage area for those officers that had perished on the bridge. Other one man teams were trying - and in some cases failing miserably - to get the fried consoles working again.

 

“Helm! Move us off about thirty kilometers to aft! MVess!”

 

Zarathon was barking orders left and right in true battle captain fashion, and the ships second officer was not immune nor an exception. The feline turned to her commanding officer, the look on her panther-like face expectant for any new orders or directives.

 

The Caitian feline had turned just in time to see the main engineering console finally overload and explode.

 

Plastic, packet gel, internal wiring, circuit boards, and metal shunts all flew outward in a superheated spray of shrapnel. Zar caught at least ten pieces of shrapnel in the stomach and chest, and one dagger shaped shard lanced full on into his right eyeball; Captain Sh’Fasz was dead before he hit the decking.

 

Commander JoNs broke the protocol that she herself had mercilessly drilled into the crew and bolted over to the fallen Andorian captain, leaving the auxiliary tactical console unmanned. She didn’t care.

 

Zar was down, his torso was a mess and the smell of perforated bowel permeated the immediate area. The Caitian went down on her knees, visually and mentally ignoring the fact that there was a metal shard protruding from the man’s eyeball that had probably already pierced his gray matter as well.

 

“Get a medical team up here stat! The captain is down …”

 

Blood was still being pumped through his body, but the carotid artery could take no more and blue blood suddenly burst outward from the Andorian captains ripped up neck, going in a stream spray pattern. JoNs was caught full on with the spray, taking it on the upper chest area of her uniform and her face and the feline accidentally got some in her mouth. MVess lurched to once side, gagging and retching as she reflexively rid her body of the foreign substance.

 

Strong arms wrapped around her midsection, lifting her and pulling the feline officer away from the dead man. Lieutenant junior grade Biko Matubi held the senior officer to his body, not caring that she puked bile and blood all over his pant leg. The big African man just maintained his grip on her, holding the panther-like officer upright until she got her gagging cough under control.

 

Well trained, the remaining bridge officers maintained their composure and relayed updates to each other while the whole spectacle was going on.

 

A strong paw gently patted at his arm, and Matubi took that as the signal to let her go. The feline turned and spoke to him. “Thank you Biko.”

 

The big man, whose own skin tone almost exactly matched the dark fur of MVess, just nodded once. “Aye Ma’am.”

 

“Track down Commander Thrace, and get him back up here…” Her voice came out weak and scratchy.

 

A pause. “Commander, Commander Thrace was killed.”

 

Left Ear blanched. “How?”

 

“The report came in just before the Captain went down. Breach on deck ten. He was evacuating some of the personnel and there was a hiccup in the stabilization field … he got sucked out the breach hole along with several others before the power could be re-established.”

 

“… get the engineering and security chiefs up here, discreetly. They don’t know it yet, but they’ve just got themselves a battlefield promotion.”

 

“As do you sir. And I think they do know as well.” He stated this matter of fact, with perhaps a touch of sympathy, and then hurried back over to his operations console.

 

 

The Yellowjacket rocked again as one of the ordnance salvos being employed by the Soltan fleet detonated again at their last known position. Some bodies – both live and otherwise – and equipment flew across the bridge, but mostly everyone managed to keep their footing. Another console at the back of the bridge sparked.

 

JoNs limped over to the command chair and flicked the control for the ship wide PA system. “This is Commander JoNs. As of fourteen hundred hours, I have taken command of the Yellowjacket …the captain has passed … “ Left Ear abruptly cut the PA comm. line, not really knowing what else to say. Her mind then went into command mode, shutting down on any personal or physical pain.

 

The panther-like Caitian turned her attention to the harried looking young female ensign manning the Helm console. “Ensign, remand to the Captains original orders. Get us out of this immediate bombardment area. Use something - Hell, one of the Alpha system planets - as cover. We need time to regroup.”

 

“Biko. Get on the ship to ship wireless and inform the remaining ships active in the area what our plans are.”

 

Now her attention swung to a junior officer that had been sent up as bridge personnel replacement. “Ensign! Forget that auxiliary systems console – as long as we can breath, the life support is working and the damage control teams are doing their jobs. Move over to the re-established tactical board. That’s more important right now … “