SCENE 2 - U.S.S. Merrimac

[tomcat]

Ramos looked to Downer as he relayed the information that he and Marshal had discovered. The engineer's hands stopped the elecronic shutdown of ship's systems, and even reversed a couple of settings which caused the Ops console to reactivate. It was Grahm that spoke first, "So they can move via data or electrical conduit? What could we possibly have that such an entity would be interested? How do you draw, or corral such a thing?"

His thoughts still hanging in the air, Grahm touched the internal comm channel on the captain's chair. "Captain Stonn, please report to the bridge."

Stonn righted himself as the struggle continued in his mind. Using his innate psionic abilities, the Vulcan set about making a barrier to the parts of his brain that the entity was interested by using a series of changing thoughts and feelings. The effect was to literally create biological and mental noise that caused the regions of his brain to disappear, or be shielded. It was only a moment when he knew that he was no longer under assault, and then the shadow was gone from environment.

"Captain?" came a concerned voice behind Stonn.

[sdrotar]

"If it's a life form, then perhaps it needs conductive material to feed on and grow," offered Ramos. "Like humans on land."
He thought about the latter for a moment.
"If that were the case, then we'd something so enticing that they couldn't resist it. We could lure and trap them there, if we could isolate the circuitry."

The ship's engines, the computer core and its navigational deflector were home to the most conductive material on the ship. but the Columbia could hardly spare any of those.

"Downer," he asked, "what if we were to overcharge some of the ship's batteries? Any energy would likely be attracted to it - provided the laws of electricity still apply - and they could be completely isolated physically. Even ejected into space, if necessary. Would there be a way to track these surges if I could lay the trap?"

[sdrotar]

Stonn righted himself as the struggle continued in his mind. Using his innate psionic abilities, the Vulcan set about making a barrier to the parts of his brain that the entity was interested by using a series of changing thoughts and feelings. The effect was to literally create biological and mental noise that caused the regions of his brain to disappear, or be shielded. It was only a moment when he knew that he was no longer under assault, and then the shadow was gone from environment.

"Captain?" came a concerned voice behind Stonn.

For a moment, Stonn didn't know where he was - but at least he knew that he was himself himself again.

He turned to the security officer. "I am uninjured. Thank you. There is an intruder on board; non-corporeal with unknown capabilities, but it is undoubtedly hostile. Assign officers in pairs at all priority positions - anyone with anything to report, even a 'feeling', is to do so immediately. Is that understood?"

As the man nodded and rushed to his superior, Stonn heard the page to the bridge.
"Bridge, this is the Captain. I am en route," he replied. "Sound Intruder Alert."

[tomcat]

With the captain's words, the amber alert panels went crimson and the droning of the computer began. The voice, this time, was male gendered and had more of an electronic sound to it, "INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

Marshal spoke to Ramos, "Chief, we can definitely track it as it moves through the Columbia's power grid and electronics. We can try the lure to see if it is drawn to power sources. I can isolate a grid of batteries on Deck 8. We can direct more energy from the impulse engines to them to charge them over-capicity and leave them as bait. See what happens."

The science officer stood there looking at the engineer, waiting to get approval. It was Grahm that responded, "Start it Mr. Marshal." He then looked at Juan, "What about a phaser bank? The phaser capacitors when charged are highly energized. If we were able to draw them on this premise, it might also be a way to jettison them from the ship by simply firing. What do you think?"

The discussion went on between the officers. A few moments later, the doors to the bridge opened and Stonn entered the room.

Throughout the Columbia, crewmen were reporting to stations. Security personnel were moving about the multiple decks making sure the corridors were clear and vital areas secured. Groups of two to four armed crewmen took up positions at entrances to life support, engineering, jeffries tubes, and the ship's computer core access. In each department, the crew locked down their perspective stations and awaited any orders.

Ensign Cynthia Daniels was a first year graduate from Starfleet and had been assigned to the Columbia after a brief stint on Earth Station. She filled the same capacity as she had on the massive space station being the deck officer for all inbound shuttle pod flights. Her station on the Columbia was at Docking Port Four on Deck seven. She had secured the area, including entrance to the staging area due to the intruder alert. Now she sat looking at the master situation display with her earpiece transceiver firmly in her ear. She nodded to herself at all the green lights for each of the secured air locks that led out to the docking collar, and then to the massive hangar doors themselves. All were tight and locked down. There was currently no shuttle pod within her bay, it was locked in place on collar Three on the opposite side of the Columbia, and so her job was actually harder. With no collared shuttlepod, the integrity of Columbia's environment was contained only be the airlock and the bay doors - like a bottle missing a cork.

That was when the whispers began. It had moved almost at the speed of light through the Columbia's miles of conduit and took residence within her console. Ensign Daniels shook her head at first to clear it, then spoke to her companion, "Did you say something?"

"What?" was the answer, to which Daniels pressed her earpiece and called to dock Three, "Tohn' La? Did you call us?" A female voice answered to the negative. Then it was there again. A sudden, horrible feeling filled her being and then terrible thoughts - or were they words - filled her mind. The impact was dramatic. Her will deflated. Her spirit was immediately crushed and she felt alone, terribly alone. Pain and heartache erupted inside and with it came an overwhelming feeling of desperation. Daniels in mere moments was reduced to a panicked and suicidal individual. She pulled the earpiece from her ear, crying as she did, "No....no.... no.... get out of my head!"

Her fellow flight officer, Ensign Jeanine Masterman, turned to her, "Cindy?? What is it?"

Daniels looked at the other officer and there was absolute terror in her eyes. She began to back away from her shipmate and bumped into the doors that led to the outer passage of Deck Seven. She continued to glare a contemptuous, accusatory look at her fellow and hit the manual door release, backing out as she did. The doors closed in front of her and the remaining flight officer turned to her station, "Dock Four to Bridge. Ensign Masterman reporting... sir, we have a problem down here. My fellow control officer just kinda... lost her mind."

While busy with her call, Masterman did not notice as Daniels ran by the window that looked in to the staging area. She did see the control panel signal the release and quickly turned to watch as Cindy engaged the inner airlock. Masterman punched the commands to stop the door from opening, but nested within her console was the black-hearted entity. It negated all electronic commands causing Masterman to stare in absolute confusion and then sudden fear. With the release of the inner airlock, Daniels activated the outer bay doors to open and in seconds the airlock, staging area, and outer crew corridor became a torrent of wind. The vacuum of space began to suck the environment out of the Columbia, literally lifting and dragging people and loose items as it did. The ship's emergency systems immediately activated and airtight bulkheads and environmental shields went into place stopping the disastrous, explosive vacuum.

But the damage had been done. Daniels who was the first in line had been picked up and slammed into the outer bay doors along its opening. The force of the vacuum had yanked her through the long crack leaving nothing but an awful spray of blood and human remains. In the outer corridor, five crewmen had been pulled off their feet and slammed into walls, and emergency shields. Three were lucky with just minor wounds, two had died with bone-crushing injuries.

Masterman hit her commlink even though the ship's computer was already lighting up Downer, Grahm and and Ramos's diplays, "Dock Four to Bridge! Masterman here! We just had a terrible incident..."

The woman's voice faded away as she gagged and then threw up. Inside her console, the dark energy moved on.

[donimator]

Downer took in the message and info that flashed on his screen. "Emergency decompression containment was activated in Docking Port Four. Not a glitch. It was a manual override by the deck officer...I...I don't know why." Downer continued to look for other strange events as he provided Marshal with whatever aid was needed to carry out the plan.

[tomcat]

Marshal touched a command and had his console do a time-incremental display of the Columbia's power grid. Downer's announcement had given the science officer cause to perform his current test, and Marshal requested the computer to give him a replay of the grid over the last three minutes, but broken down in increments of .010 seconds per frame. The screen fluttered rapidly as the computer displayed the time passage and the science officer watched as a surge of energy - one of three - disappeared from one location, only to spike within the Docking Port Four grid.

"GOT IT!" he yelled with his discovery. "They move at almost luminal speed!" Even with the time increment broken down as it was, the surge was indefinite in its path, only that it was at one place and then another. Marshal switched the timestamp to current and his eyes widened at the immense power surge that was enveloping all of Operations controls!

"DYLAN!" cried Marshal.

Through all the intraship communications that filled Downer's earpiece transceiver, a faint whisper began on the edge of his aural sensitivity.



I need Downer to give me a Willpower save TN 14.

[donimator]

Downer found that the greatest lesson learned as a junior officer was discovering just how much you didn't know. There was little he did today that was a written protocol. Little that could be found in an operations manual. He just hoped that they would narrow the possibilites down quickly to something that might work. He worked with Marshal to track the path of the entity and saw his cause of concern when he felt what could be best described as a 'tickle' in the back of his mind...

Dylan's Willpower test
Willpower +5, vs. TN14

Rolled 2d6+5 : 4, 3 + 5, total 12

[tomcat]

Courage use here, or leaving the results as they stand? Let me know.

[donimator]

Courage use here, or leaving the results as they stand? Let me know.

Sorry, yes. I'll use a Courage (I've lost track of what I've spent - have you been ticking them off on the char sheet or did I check the 'unused' boxes?). Failing a Willpower check can never be a good thing!

[tomcat]

I keep track of the Courage usage and gains on the char sheets for you guys. 

It looks like Downer has used his last Courage. So you know, I have them return 1 per game day.

[sdrotar]

Stonn and Ramos both turned at Marshal's cry. There was no longer any question - the Columbia was under attack.

"Mr. Ramos," Stonn said sternly, "we need that trap readied immediately."

In the meantime, Stonn's mind leaped from option to option in case it failed. They were being assaulted by energy-based creatures, who apparently needed electrically-conductive elements to move rapidly, but they could move by energy transmission, as well - though more slowly - that would seem to be how they got on board the ship. But they were also capable of interacting - directly - with the minds of organic beings. How?

They were very short on information, and Stonn was aware that their time was growing even shorter.

[tomcat]

A new voice called out to the command officers from the tactical station, "Commander Grahm! I have something."

Grahm quickly strode over to his own station, just next to his subordinates, and looked at his mirrored tactical display. His face took on a grim look, "Captain... we have an unknown starship inbound to our location. ETA is fifteen minutes."

[donimator]

Downer barely registered the threat of a new ship. That was something they could deal with. There were protocols for that. He desperately tried to control what Ops functionality was left and execute one of the plans. He tried to quickly jump past the security locks and surge power to the Deck 8 batteries. That sounded as good a plan as any and something discrete they could hopefully control. If it worked it was a tool they could refine later. Time to put theory to practice.

[sdrotar]

"We are in no condition to interact with another vessel at this point," said Stonn. Whether the vessel was friend or foe didn't matter - another Federation starship could face the same fate, and they could not engage a foe with their own systems in revolt.

"Attempt to identify the vessel before initiating any contact, and continue with the effort to trap our intruders."

[tomcat]

Marshal attempts to identify the incoming vessel with Hi Res long range sensors
TN 18 -2 range mod = 16 Sys Ops +4, Spec +2, Ship bonus +3 = +9
-------------------------

Rolled 2d6+9 : 4, 5 + 9, total 18