Not leaving it till later to track the freighter Pt 2

Posted on Sunday August 21st, 2022 @ 10:17pm by Lieutenant JG Talerian Maxx

Mission: New Worlds
Location: Desert region, Southern continent of Halacha, Vein II
Timeline: Current.

Karadis reached up and took a hold of Branna by his robe collar "You said you fixed wounds like this during the war...then fix mine, now. We don't have the time or the luxury of going to this village, Commander Kerr needs to know if the freighters here, how it's defended, who's i it and how to get to it. That's what's important, the mission come first, and I intend to see it gets carried out!"

Jason restrained Karadis only to discover the bleeding had intensified, he grabbed another hypospray and fired it into the wound, "You're bleeding out more, either get medical attention or a casket!"

“Then you might want to find me a bastard big casket then Lieutenant” Karadis replied, forcing herself to her feet “because that’s the only way I’ll be stopped from carrying out Commander Kerr’s orders!”

Brianna stepped forward and produced a small laser that would seal the wound “This is a temporary fix only, it may hold for three perhaps four time units, but no more.”

“That’s good enough…healer” Karadis nodded. Branna handed her her pack, and slightly shook his head “Some may never learn.”

Karadis glared at him “Some of us accepted it’s part of their duty that they may not come back, but the duty and the mission are all that matter.”

Jason deciding too ignore another act of insubordination looked too Maxx "Rescan where the person entered, find the receiver for the door, I have a rather crude idea."

Maxx replied, "Sure I just need to triangulate my drones for a 3D scan." Maxx smirked under his mask as he tapped his fingers across his remote armband to give new commands to his invisible drones. Once he was done the invisible drones zipped off through the air and headed for the freighter. Then they began using a seismic scan to scan the entire freighter as the display appeared in the goggles of Maxx. He was excited since he knew of the sand worms around could take the blame for the seismic activity. If the sensors could pick up seismic activity the sand worms would set it off non stop so Maxx figured it would be the best option to scan the freighter while the crew inside were unaware. After a few minutes Maxx reached into his bag and pulled out a holographic cube and turned it on with his forearm pad as he spoke up, "This is a 3D hologram of the freighter and it is tough sensitive so you can move the image by swiping it with your finger to see it from all angles. Also if you zoom in you can see the number of lifeforms that are inside even though they are hard to identify. Was there anything else you needed me to find?" Maxx was hard to read since he had his face covered with his mask and goggles but he was smirking on the inside.

Jason looked at the images, it only took a few minutes to find what he wanted. "I'm gonna go knock on the door." he said picking up his pack and walking back too the outcrop of rocks where the unknown figure entered. The slight crunch of the sand under his boots combined with the random rantings of Karadis just pushed Jason harder, as he approached the opening he got a clear look at a metal door, he dropped his pack on the ground and walked over physically examining the door, aside from the warmth it was almost seamless, the sensor port was the problem, it was too deeply embedded into the rocks. Jason stepped back then reached into his pack, he pulled out a food bar, his eyes rolled over the door. he tossed the wrapper into his pack pulled out a metal cylinder with a three by three grid of buttons on it, he pushed the four corners. He set it on the ground and stepped back, it let out a whistle followed by a green laser pulse aimed at the sensor.

"Here comes the fun part." Jason said as he drew his phaser.

There was an audible click followed by a thump as the door mechanism disengaged, "We're in."

"About fuckin' time" Karadis said "Was that so hard" she added, passing Jason and entering the tunnel that had now opened up. She moved down the corridor quietly, drawing a phaser from her back as she went. A few meters in, and she heard footsteps coming towards her so she dropped to one knee, waiting on whoever it was to show themselves. Sure enough, moments later a figure appeared in front of her and she felled them with a stun shot. There wasn't anymore movement she could hear, so beckoned the others to come forward.

Jason resisted the urge too set his phaser too a level three stun instead made a mental note to speak with the command staff about dismissing Karadis for three separate acts of insubordination. "Ensign Karadis, Stop now!"

Maxx waited outside the freighter as his drones continued to monitor the area and the freighter. Its not that he was afraid of entering the freighter in case of danger from an enemy. He was more concerned about in in a closed deck with a "Shoot First and Ask Questions Later" Kardis nearby. He saw her as the type to engage in friendly fire and make up an excuse later on for her bad judgement. So he made the choice of watching the exit of the freighter and scan the area with his drones in case others showed up or a new danger popped up. Maxx used his coms to let Jason know when life forms were heading his way.

Karadis saw the disdain Jason had for her after she had felled the figure who had come towards them, but that could wait for another time. What mattered to her was carrying out the orders their team had been given. It wasn't the first time her actions had been questioned, and probably wouldn't be the last, what mattered to her was the result. She grimaced as she stood once again, her side hurting, but she ignored it.

Turning to Jason she said "Your hatred of me and my actions is obvious Sir. My actions may not be to your liking, but your failure to carry out direct orders won't go amiss in my own report to the Commander. Should you wish to call off this mission come up, I'll be more than willing to speak up and say you waned to call this off simply because one of your team was injured. Make no bones, you may not like me or the way I act, but your inaction will also be called into question, and that the Commander doesn't forgive. You don't know him like I do, I've served with him for fifteen years, and the one thing he doesn't forgive is cowardice, and that's how my report will read. Now, I'm going down that tunnel, you can lead or you can stay here, either way, I'm carrying out Kerr's orders."

She moved off down the tunnel, at the next junction, she came across a door which was closed. Reaching into her pack, she took out a decoder and plugged it in. Within seconds, it had the code and she punched it in and the doors opened. There was no-one on the other side, so she carefully moved out. A room opened out before her, and she noted a lab to her left, yes, she was now inside the freighter itself which was a good sign. Moving forward, she saw a room to her right, and inside, an argument was ensuing about moving the ship.

Meanwhile Maxx still outside the freighter with his invisible drones that were scanning the freighter to give Jason an update on any lifeforms nearby. He considered giving Karadis the same intel, but she was lacking in patience, strategy and intelligence which was ironic given her job in Intelligence. If she was being compared to a surgical tool it would be a sledge hammer. However complaining was pointless since he was stuck with her on this mission. As he was feeding intel to Jason and monitoring his scans he took out his thermos and sipped on his coffee to calm his nerves since he was hoping to finish this mission before Karadis blew up the freighter.

Jason stood there, he pulled out his canteen taking a very long drink. His thoughts of the wording of his report to Starfleet, insubordination, dangerous conduct, weapons fire on a civilian, and so on were interrupted but noise from his tricorder again, he pulled it out of his pocket, the display showed Uplink Established.

He keyed in a command too it, Confirmed. "Maxx communications are back online, upload the data and mission files too the Oberon asap!"

Maxx replied, "On it." Then he tapped on his forearm Padd to begin the file upload.

Jason stood next too the entrance, he weighed his options. His first option was to arrest Karadis and deal with the consequences later, his second option was to risk an interstellar incident and let her do who knows what too the freighter. He looked around and walked over to where Karadis was initially wounded, the blood stains on the ground were starting to dry, he looked at where the stun grenade was, he picked up a large fragment and examined it, "Maxx come here for a second." Motioning too him.

He held up the larger fragment "Does that look like it was hit by a phaser, say kill setting 5?"

Maxx scanned the fragments in Jason's hand and replied, "Well levels 1 to 3 are for stun and a thermal effect is added to levels 4 and 5. At levels 6 to 10 you will see stages of disruption and you will see explosions from levels 11 to 16. However some people forget that can be changed when the discharge is to close since you can kill some one with a stun setting if its at point blank range. However by the looks of this grenade it looks old and modified. It looks like it was redesigned to damage the nervous system or explode when hit. I would be surprised the one who put it there didn't set it off. This model is illegal in the Federation and several other nations. My guess is the ones on this freighter are involved with illegal technology and bioterrorism. It may be a good idea to let Karadis know the shrapnel inside her is going to mess up her nervous system if we don't remove it soon.
Also we should be careful and use the same path we came by to leave in case there are more of those traps.

Inside the tunnels, by the freighter, Karadis realized she was on her own, that's when she saw Maxx and Elliot for the cowards they were with them staying outside and not following the mission protocol. She was about to move to the door to hear what was being argued about when a voice behind her whispered "Be very careful, these people are pretty ruthless."

She whirled round, phaser at the ready, to see Branna standing there. She lowered her weapon whispering vehemently back "I could have shot you!"

"Just as well for you that you didn't, who else could patch you up, certainly not those two out there, they're more concerned with saving their own skins than doing what you are" Branna answered.

"Don't worry, if I get back, that'll be in my report to Commander Kerr, Starfleet and Starfleet intelligence" Karadis said.

"What's your plan?" Branna asked.

"To come here and do what I was ordered to, find the freighter and find out who's involved with this genetics horror show" Karadis replied.

"Well, if those two aren't going to help you follow your orders, I guess I'll have to, you see, I to am wanting to see who it is who's been doing this genetics change to my people" Branna answered.

"Get yourself ready then because I'm going in" Karadis replied back "There's only two guards in there and three others and I'm assuming they're the geneticists."

Branna readied himself and nodded to Karadis.

Maxx looked at Jason and sighed as he tapped his com badge to call to Karadis and whispered, "Hey Karadis you remember that grenade that hit you earlier? (pause) Well anyway we are gonna need to get the shrapnel out soon before you end up with damage to your nervous system. This type of trap is used to incapacitate a victim by pirates and bio terrorists. Oh also is that girl Branna with you?"

Karadis looked at Branna, and he in turn shrugged his shoulders. Tapping her COMM badge she replied "Branna is here with me, he's a male Sir. As soon as this task is completed, I'll have myself checked out for any residual shrapnel. Am I to believe that neither yourself or Lieutenant Elliot are coming down here to help us?"

Maxx replied, "Oh......well then." Maxx tapped on his forearm Padd and one of the invisible drones flew into the freighter to meet up with Karadis. Then Maxx spoke up, "Well normally I would go in there but you are rather trigger happy at the moment so I am using a drone instead since I am a science officer and not a commando." For a second the drone uncloaked then recloaked again to reveal itself to Karadis. Maxx spoke up again, "Try not to shoot my drone since I am using it to help you after all. Oh by the way behind this door there are 6 life forms moving around and ten more appear to be in some kind of stasis tubes on the right side along the wall. The 6 life forms are straight ahead and to your left when you open the door. Try to leave one alive for interrogation."

"Every Starfleet Officer is trained for combat, no matter what department they serve in...Sir, it just sounds like you don't have the courage of your convictions to carry the mission orders out as you were given by Commander Kerr and should do, instead hiding behind a drone" Karadis replied, sickened at the Science officers cowardice at not to coming into the freighter to help.

She shut the link and looked at Branna "Can I count on you at least to help out, even though this isn't your fight?"

"Oh, this is my fight" Branna replied, "Those are the ones who altered our soldiers and they are also the ones who can change them back."

"You've got fire in your belly Branna, good...good!" Karadis said, turning back to the door. She moved up so she could look through the glass panel at who was in the room. There were three people on the right hand side of the room, all with weapons, and three people on the left hand side, all of them working at tables, either writing or looking through microscopes.

Karadis readied herself, set her phaser to heavy stun, nodded to Branna saying "Perhaps this is a good day to die!", then opened the door and leapt through. The three on the right hand side were all taken by surprise and Karadis was easily able to take them all out with three quick single shots.
The three on the left hand side of the room all stood up with their hands up saying "Don't shoot, don't shoot...we're scientists!"

"Are there any other soldiers here?" Karadis asked sharply.

"Nnn...nn...no" one of the scientists answered "Only a patrol that left about two time units ago and they won't be back for at least another three."

"Karadis tapped her COMM link "Karadis to Elliot and Maxx. Freighter secure, it's safe you two...it's safe for you to come down" she said, reigning in her urge to say anything more.

Maxx looked at Jason and shook his head as he tapped on his invisible drone hovering above Karadis's head and had it begin hacking the computers and download the data into a separate hard drive incase it contained any malware. He learned from his past experiences from sneaky types who booby trapped their software. Of course this was being done while the other scientists were in fear of angering Karadis any further. Maxx also refrained from telling Karadis what he was doing so she would not tamper with his work. He looked at Jason as he replied, "Karadis is feeling lonely without us. Wanna join her or did you want to wait here for the patrol that will be coming back anytime now? Either way we are on a time crunch."

Jason flipped the safety on his phaser, "Seeing that the ensign thinks she's in charge go catch up with her I'll stay here."

"Actually, both of you will go inside" a voice said from behind them, as one of the returning patrol fired and stunned both Elliot and Maxx, watching them fall unconscious to the ground.

"Take them both inside" the patrol leader said "Check them over thoroughly for weapons, or technology first."

"Yes Leader" one of his men answered. They did as they were ordered and one of them said "This one's got some kind of attachment on his arm" he said, pointing to Maxx. The Leader came over and had a look.

As Maxx and Jason were out cold on the ground they were completely clueless they were ambushed while trying to deal with Karadis. However Maxx was smart enough to have his two drones that were outside set to defence mode. So as the ambushers dropped their guard to inspect Jason and Maxx they had no clue they were being targeted by the cloaked drones. After the drone analysed the targets they began firing level 5 stun blasts at the enemy from behind and to make it hard for them to be located they moved in a circular motion above the targets. The person inspecting Maxx's armband was shot twice in the back before he could react.

Branna stepped out from the tunnel entrance to see the patrol being fired upon. Reaching into his bag, he took out a PADD and switched it on. Within seconds he had the drones codes and shut them down, the firing stopped as the now visible drones fell to the ground. The members of the patrol who were left conscious now fired on them, putting them out of commission permanently.

Branna walked over to the patrol leader and said "Secure those two and get them inside, but be careful, there's another of their group in there with the geneticists. She's injured, but don't let that fool you, she's bloody minded enough to still fight you to the death."

The patrol leader nodded to his second, and the second made sure both Elliot and Maxx were secured before they were dragged unconscious inside.

TBC...