A broken leg will only take you so far
Posted on Thu Jun 29th, 2017 @ 12:07pm by Lieutenant (P) Finnley Rothbort
Mission:
The Band (Episode 1)
Location: Near Lembatta Nebula
"WAH-HOO!"
Roth smiled to himself at the cries of celebration from his crewmates in this particular job. They had just passed the outer range at which the scheme's mastermind had determined the Tholians would be most likely to chase after them - in essence they had reached the safe zone, where all they needed to do now was fly on home. The Old Rust Bucket - as Roth had dubbed their ship - cruised along smoothly at warp 6, heading towards the Lembatta Nebula to mask their approach to Renavi, their stolen Tholian Web Generator in the cargo hold. Someone had brought a bottle of cheap champagne up to the cockpit and was filling mis-matched cups up with the bubbling liquid to kick off the celebrations.
"Ah man, I couldn't have imagined that job going any smoother," Hogan, one of the crew who had beamed aboard the Tholian shipyards to place the transporter beacon on the generator said from just behind Roth's seat. "I mean, those sensor nets on the border, the Syndicate has been trying to get through them undetected for years. I thought for sure that even if we could get through one way, they'd detect us for sure on the way out. How the hell did you do it man?"
"The trick is to paint pretty pink unicorns on the side of the ship," Roth quipped, his hands not leaving the controls. "The Tholians get so distracted by them that they just forget to chase you."
"Ha-ha, very funny. What, you not going to share your secrets with us?"
"Well if I did that they would hardly be secrets, would they?" Confirming that the ship wouldn't need his attention for the next few minutes, he finally spun his chair around to face the others. He was the only one seated, though Marl, the leader of their little heist, was perched on the edge of a console on the back wall of the cockpit. "Besides, if I spilt all my secrets how would I be able to jack my prices up for my next job?"
"Well you were more than worth the money on this job, partner," Marl said, pushing himself up from his perch and walking over, hand outstretched to shake Roth's. "Are you sure I can't convince you to take up a permanent position in our organisation? We could really use somebody like you."
"I'm sure you could, but I like being freelance," Roth responded."The pay is much better and the ladies you meet in the freelance bars? Woo-wee, I wouldn't give that up for the world." The crew all laughed at that.
The jovial celebratory atmosphere was interrupted by a beeping from the console, and Roth turned around to see the accompanying red light. "Oh gao yang jong dug goo yang," he muttered under his breath as his hands started darting over the console.
"What? What is it?" Marl demanded, the entire crew suddenly alert, expecting a Tholian ship to be on their tail.
"It's the damn thruster assembly!" Roth told them. "The piece of junk is falling apart - it's going to blow!"
The crew all rushed aft, looking for anything they could do to avert the upcoming disaster. Roth knew there was nothing they could do - even though the thrusters weren't in use at warp, the aged and failing systems had started pumping fuel into the injectors. It was only a matter of time before they ignited. The only thing Roth could do to try and avert disaster was to cut all power and dump the fuel. If they were lucky, they could power back up and at least get to Renavi orbit. If they were unlucky, there could be any number of faulty components to cause a spark around the fuel and cause an explosion. But there was nothing else for it - Roth cut the power and started the manual fuel dump. Then the ship lurched violently as the port-side thrusters exploded.
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EIGHTEEN HOURS LATER
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Hoban was able to restore the ship's power after everyone had scrambled to their feet, but the ship had been unable to go anywhere. The ship was old and small, with few redundancies, and the explosion had damaged systems necessary for both the impulse and warp engines. On top of that, the explosion coupled with the fuel dump had emptied their conventional fuel reserves, so they couldn't even use the remaining thrusters to limp anywhere. It had also taken out their communications array so they couldn't call for help. To make matters worse, the explosion had caused them to light up on the sensors of any ship within range - which just so happened to include a Starfleet vessel, which was now just minutes out. Wash had spent the last several hours sat at his console, useless as it was, playing with the toy robots he took everywhere with him. The rest of the heist crew had gone to the cargo hold to try and dismantle and hide the components of the web generator around the ship so that the Starfleet crew would hopefully be unaware of their theft. Roth didn't have high hopes for that plan. Starfleet sensors would be able to detect the signature of Tholian technology even before they arrived, hidden from sight or not.
When the Starfleet officers finally beamed aboard, he was proven right. Two beamed into the cockpit, and he heard more beaming in to the aft section. The two in the cockpit were clearly Starfleet Security, and armed. "Sir, please stand up and put your hands on your head."
Roth knew the procedure. This wasn't his first arrest. He put his toys back on top of his console and stood as ordered, turning around as they placed restraining cuffs on his wrists. "You know, I usually insist that someone buys me dinner before we get into the kinky stuff," he quipped, before they beamed him back to their ship.
Roth
Helmsman
