Subject: FRONTIER: Taking over the base

SD 70926

>They were rocked by an explosion from down the corridor. when they 
>got there they found the corridor was blocked with rubble. "Blake to
>Ramsay, our route is blocked we're going to find another way round."


Teri did not hear the reply. They back tracked to a intersection and  
took the right path. The corrider twisted and turned every five of so 
meters then opened into a large hanger bay, in front of them hung the 
U.S.S Intrepid in its mooring clamps two large tractor beams held it 
in place. On the far side of the bay the was a contol room, a Kzinti 
worked at a control pannel with great speed.

[Docking clamps, retracted,] said the computer's male voice.

The tractor beams hummed louder as they took the strain of the ship.
The Kzinti turned and saw Teri and her team, he turned back to the 
console and pressed a few more buttons. Teri fired, the Kzinti fell 
on the spot.

But not before the computer said, [Warning. Tractor beams deactivation 
sequence activated...10...9...8...7...]

Teri turned to her team, "Get out of here! Now!" They turned and ran 
towards the door they had entered. They reached the door with only 
seconds to spare.

[2...1...Tractor beams deactivated.] The hum of the tractor beams 
stopped suddenly, there was an eerie silence.


Elsewhere, moments earlier

        Angus' team were approaching the control centre of the base, 
they had already located the prisoners and Anne's team were overseeing
moving them outside until the complex was secured.

        They hadn't met any resistance for some time now and scans 
were coming up with no life signs, there weren't any left *to* 
resist. 

        He noticed a deep humming noise, it seemed to be getting 
louder as they approached the control centre.  He speculated briefly as
to what it might be, and then it stopped, there was a brief silence
and then they felt the ground rumble under their feet, there was a loud
crash followed by a thunderous explosion that shook the ground under
his feet, he lost balance and fell to his knees, other members of his
team were also taken by surprise but before anyone could speak, it
stopped.

"What the hell was that?" Angus exclaimed.

"I'm not sure, an explosion of some sort, perhaps it was the 
containment field generator?" someone behind him suggested.

Just then Angus' communicator chirped, "Blake to Murray, a Kzinti 
managed to get into the control centre.  He just destroyed the 
Intrepid, he released the morring clamps and when it hit the ground 
the impulse reactors went critical."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"No, we weren't close enough to the explosion."

"Start making your way back to the surface, the Scharnhorst has been 
secured and we need to start making plans for the evacuation."

"Acknowledged."

Angus then turned and made his way back along the corridor and as he 
walked he tapped his wrist-comm *damn he hated these wrist-comms* and 
reported to Ramsay, "Murray to Ramsay, the base is secured, we're on 
our way back up.  By the way we have a problem, you may have noticed 
it already, we've lost the Intrepid."

[Yeah, we noticed.  But the base is secure and we still have the 
Scharnhorst, let's just hope we can fit everyone on her.]

"I'd guess we might have to take a few extra passengers as well. How 
many did Houston say the life-support could handle?"

[If we take into account our losses, I'd say we could take another 
fifteen people. Bring us up to around forty,] replied Ramsay.


Sixty-odd yards away

Caroline surveyed the room cautiously - a tricorder in one hand, a 
phaser in the other. There didn't seem to be anything alive in here, 
but the equipment in the room seemed to be giving off some pretty 
unusual power signatures. There was a clear observation window to one 
side.

As she moved forward to investigate more closely, Caroline heard a 
faint whoosh from behind. She whirled round to see the door closing. 
She hadn't thought it was automatic - she'd found it open.

As Caroline examined the now-shut door, she realised with a grim 
expression that it was locked. A few seconds later, something *very* 
unusual started to happen.

Her tricorder squawked frantically as the power readings crept higher.
Something was on a power-up sequence. The consoles and screens in the 
mini-laboratory came to life with unintelligable writing flowing 
across them.

She turned back to the door, tried to figure out a way to activate the
opening mechanism. After a few moments, Caroline determined that it 
was being overriden by the computer in the room.

Time to get out. She flicked the power settings on the phaser up, 
pointed, and pressed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

She pressed the trigger again.

Nothing happened.

Then Caroline studied the phaser's miniature graphic display, and 
found it was depleted. A quick scan with the tricorder showed that it 
had been drained in the last couple of minutes - but she hadn't fired 
a shot for about ten minutes.

*So, you're trapped in a room with no way to get out and some weird 
equipment powering up for God-knows-what, what the hell do you do?* 
she mused. *Call for help,* she instantly added.

She tapped her wristcom, which seemed to be working. "Neil, can you 
hear me?" He'd been with her until a few minutes ago, he'd probably be
the closest.

[Sykes here. What is it?]

"I'm in a room, probably back about one section from you. The door's 
been overridden and something's drained my phaser. And I'm getting a 
weird power reading from in here. Send help, quickly."

A brief pause. [On my way. See if you can shut whatever it is down. 
When we get there... well, you'll know to keep back from the door.]


Barely twenty yards away

"The Commander's in trouble, bring some people with phasers - we need 
to cut through that door quickly," said Sykes to a couple of security 
personnel. "Notify the captain, she's his wife."

When they reached the room, following Caroline's communicator signal
with a tricorder, she was quite plainly agitated by her confinement. 
The sight of the door being slowly cut by phaser didn't pep her up
much.

By the time the captain arrived, the door was still only half-done and
apparently their time was almost up. The energy signature from the 
equipment was quite simply phenomenal.

Will looked at the readings and whistled in astonishment. Whatever was
in there was creating something he'd never seen before. He tried to 
interpret the data, but the best he could come up with was that it 
would be something which would influence time.

When he saw a thin mist of gas escaping from a nozzle, Will pointed 
the tricorder and found that it contained proteins, minerals, and 
sugars. It dawned on him that these were required for human growth, 
but why introduce them in a airborne suspension?

Well, they would be readily absorbed by the body, in much the same way
they would if administered by hypospray. Still, the question was why?

Something to do with time... it clicked. The room was probably an 
advanced prototype for accelerating growth in higher organisms. The 
presence of several empty cages would seem to support that. Someone 
had obviously left the machines on line as a trap for some 
unsuspecting person.

Of course, that was perhaps a paranoid conjecture, but it was all he 
had to work with. "How's the door coming?" he shouted over the 
harmonic din of the phasers.

"Almost there," was the phaser-drowned reply.

Almost just wasn't good enough. He shielded his eyes as a bright flash
emanated from within the room. When it faded, Caroline was still 
there, but she was definitely unconscious. As he'd expected, growth 
had been accelerated. Her hair and nails were significantly longer, 
but the one aspect which really caught the eye was the fullness of her
abdominal bulge. It looked pretty much like she would be giving birth 
very soon... he cursed as the security team finished the door just 
tens of seconds too late, and dashed inside with Sykes to get a better
look at her.

"She's pretty slowed down," commented Sykes after completing a quick 
scan with his tricorder. "She might take a while to come around. And I
think we'd better get her to the ship quickly."

"Ramsay to Blake. Put the dampening field down, we need to transport 
someone up immediately."

[We were just leaving the command centre, sir. I'll get to it straight
away.]

He waited for an agonising forty seconds before hearing her add, [The 
field's down, Captain.]

"Ramsay to Frontier. Three to beam directly to Sickbay."

The transporter gripped himself, Sykes, and Caroline. As he 
rematerialised in Sickbay, he almost regretted not having brought 
Sampter up with them - he realised that he'd signed himself up as a 
temporary nurse. Of course, he was a little too concerned with 
Caroline's well-being to worry about being bossed around by someone, 
especially if they were more competent in the field.

With the free moments he had, Will instructed the teams on the planet 
to prep the other ship for departure and get the Starfleet people on 
it. And to watch out for any other 'traps'.

After about fifteen minutes of frantic activity with various items of 
Sickbay's instrumentation, Neil declared her condition as stable. "She
ought to be awake in under a day, but I'm predicting that when she 
does wake up she'll be confused, disorientated, and tired. I mean, 
six months of her biological life just zoomed past and she didn't get 
a wink of sleep," he said. Then, "And another thing. Her baby's grown 
with her, almost to term. She'll probably be going into labour any day
now."

"I see," he replied. "I'll just sit with her for a while, if you don't
mind."

"Not at all," said Sykes, who left to examine the data he'd gathered 
on the device which had brought about this sudden and dramatic change.

<nrpg>
yes, the 'plot' device <BG>
<rpg>

Will leaned over and brushed a long strand of hair from Caroline's 
face. She looked pale and drained, and needed a manicure urgently, but
he could still see why he married her. Come to think of it, she seemed
to suit the long-haired look. He'd have to beg her not to cut it 
though.

He stayed there for four hours maintaining a bedside vigil, leaving 
only to grab a coffee and a sandwich. After being given a 
go-to-your-quarters-and-get-some-sleep lecture by Sykes, he left 
Sickbay and headed to the bridge to get an update on the situation.


                       Respectfully submitted:

                           Allan MacLennan
                 [Lt.] Angus Murray, Tac/CSO FRONTIER

                             Dale Forster
                  [Lt.] Keanu Maren, CEO FRONTIER

                            Sam M. Edwards
                  [Captain] Will Ramsay, CO FRONTIER
                 [Cmdr] Caroline Ramsay, XO FRONTIER


          "Any man who wins renown will prosper among any people."
                             from Beowulf

                 "Time is the fire in which we burn"
                          Dr. Tolian Soren                            

      "Rom's an idiot, he couldn't fix a straw if it was bent."
                                Odo