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
Frontier Logs