Blackbird Down

[Chirakis 1]

Blackbird Down

A Log by Raven Benjamin, Alpha Team Leader

 

Missions never go exactly as planned, but Raven was hoping it would take a little longer before it went sideways in the Romulan renegades' lair known as Mist Station 3.

 

Their Romulan engineer, tr’Korjata, had slipped them through the side door and into the chaos of the station as their systems blinked in and out. The teams moved covertly through the labyrinthine corridors looking for an access panel and the situation escalated until suddenly the station seemed to begin dissolving around them. When they did find the access panel all hell broke loose.

 

Just fifteen minutes ago she was sitting in the Romulan shuttle, trying not to scratch her prosthetic. Dressed in the same fashion as the Romulan renegades who invaded Aegis, she felt like a mummy in a coffin - and yes, she had been in that situation. No, it wasn’t fun.

 

Taylor Miles, team point man, sat next to her, checking his disruptor for the umpteenth time: seating it, reseating it, checking the charge, adjusting his backup antique projectile weapon and several assorted knives he kept hidden “just in case.”

 

Across the way, Corey Alexander rested against the bulkhead with the calm, collected attitude that had become his trademark. It made him a good team medic as well as a dependable scout, the one Raven leaned on the most when things went south. He always seemed to know what was going on and what was about to happen. He said it came with the territory, but Raven had decided long ago that it was genetic.

 

She remembered getting antsy. Patience wasn't her strong suit, but she had mastered it to the degree needed for the job, which was considerable. She’d endured days bunched up in bunkers, jammed in crevices, and stranded in a disabled fighter. But the shuttle seemed to get to her. At least in her fighter she had controls to monitor or adjust, something to fiddle with, to take her mind off the dwindling life support. On the shuttle she just... waited....

 

The team shrink said she was a Type-A personality and that’s why she was so good at her job. Raven wasn’t sure how to take that, but she let it ride because 1) she’d gotten through one of the toughest, most physically and mentally demanding courses in Starfleet, and 2) it’d kept her alive thus far.

 

While she waited she had memorized every inch of the station - its corridors, its likely security stations, quarters, weapons areas, armaments, shield generators, ingress and egress, likely escape routes to either cover for escapees or use herself when things turned bad....

 

...and sure enough, as she moved aft for deploy a low hum in her communication implant sure sounded like a dampening field - the one that was supposed to be down? Yeah, things were going sideways... and they got worse the deeper into the mission they went.

 

She didn’t know much Romulan, but she did know the word for move, and it seemed to be shouted frequently around them, along with several words that should never be repeated. The ceiling had started to cave in and it felt like the entire asteroid was about to collapse.

 

Then there was a little matter about that deep cover operative. How would they find him? Her? Were they supposed to...?

 

A scream down the corridor drew her attention... then a shout from Miles, on their left flank... and one from Alexander, on their right. Just above them, a large section of ceiling ruptured, echoing through the station like a snapped piano wire. Raven looked up just as a ceiling support beam began to give way. Half a second later it ripped loose. Raven gripped tr’Korjata’s arm, jerked him up against a blast door, pressed him into it and sheltered him with her body.

 

Minutes later the dust cleared and the air filled with agonized screams. Maybe her Type-A personality wouldn’t keep her alive this time. Or any of them.