Hide and Seek (Excalibur)
| USS Excalibur-A | ||
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 INACTIVE STATUS | ||
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When Cmdr Mackenzie and Lt Dakora receive a message about possible information regarding the recent poisoning attack they embark on an unsanctioned investigation, sending the crew of the Excalibur on a mission to find out the whereabouts of the officers and the cause of their secrecy.
Plot Summary
Unbeknownst to the rest of the Excalibur's crew, Commander MacKenzie received a cryptic message from an unknown source, informing her of possible information about the poisoning in the previous mission. Confiding the communication with Lieutenant Dakora, the two officers agreed to meet with the sender covertly in an attempt to maintain the trust already extended, and find some answers to the attack. Taking the retired Maquis raider, the MV Daisy, from DS-224, they set off toward K-7. After a few days' travel, they arrive at K-7, but are captured by a group of hostile Klingons in the station's cargo bay. When MacKenzie and Dakora regained consciousness, they found themselves in a very small room or container. It wasn't until after Dakora was dragged away and tortured in an attempt to extract the Excalibur's security codes they learned the box in which they were being held was in fact aboard the MV Daisy. Fortunately for the pair, the Intelligence Officer had installed a "back door" access to the Daisy's voice command protocols. Commander MacKenzie used the override to activate the cargo arm to raise the makeshift prison and drop it repeatedly, resulting in a broken arm for her but more to their purpose: a broken container. The two were able to escape their cell, but currently remain in danger of being found by the Klingon force currently in control of the Daisy.
Crawling away from the cargo hold of the Daisy, MacKenzie and Dakora made their way as silently as possible through a ventilation/maintenance duct to the communications room in the Daisy, where Commander MacKenzie managed to send a message to the Excalibur, though they were uncertain if the message was received - or even successfully sent. After completing this task, MacKenzie and Dakora proceeded through the ductwork until they came to the Daisy's galley. Hoping to find something they could use as a weapon, they instead found one of the occupying Klingons. Dakora swung down from the duct, neutralizing the enemy silently and efficiently. On him, they found a hand phaser and a dagger. Now armed, such as the armaments were, they turned their attentions to retaking the ship.
Winding their way through the Daisy as quietly as possible, given their condition, MacKenzie and Dakora are eventually accosted by two Klingons, but through teamwork and a touch of lucky timing, they gain the upper hand. This began an extermination mission of sorts, clearing the corridors of the small ship of hostiles, while working their way to the bridge.
Meanwhile aboard the USS Excalibur-A:
Commodore Nicholotti recalled the crew to the Excalibur. In the XO's absence, she'd made Dr. Cmdr Adea the acting first officer, shifting the newly-arrived Ens Jones to acting CMO. In the meeting with all senior staff, Nicholotti briefed them on the situation as far as she was able. Teams were set to try to first find all the pieces to this puzzle then fit them together into something that made more sense than a First Officer and CIO simply vanishing. While one team remained on the bridge to work through trajectory data, another headed to the Counseling Suite to try and suss out the motivation for the excursion (and hopefully their intended final destination). It was quickly decided the Excalibur's command codes - namely those assigned to the missing officers - should be secured, so team was sent from the bridge to main engineering to work on this task.
En route to K-7, the sensors picked up a distress signal being sent from an automated distress beacon, whose registration matched that of the Daisy. After a scan to determine there was no wreckage in the area to indicate the destruction of the Daisy, the beacon was beamed into cargo bay 1 and a team lead by Commander Adea was dispatched to investigate. While this team rode the turbolift, on their way to the bay, the beacon exploded, causing a disruption in the ship's power, communications, and computing systems. The turbolift lost power, trapping the trio. Ensign Jones responded to the call of medical emergency in Cargo Bay One via the Jefferies Tube parallel to the broken-down turbolift, stopping in to assess injuries there.
Ensign Jovenan contacted Ensign Kawarda to begin running scans in Astrometrics of the area surrounding K-7 when their comm line was severed by the blast. Using the diminished computer capacity following the explosion, Kawarda initiated the scans before determining the most likely place for Jovenan to have been trapped and coming to aid her release. Once freed, the acting department lead joined the Vulcan, thereby doubling their research efforts in the hope of providing something useful for the bridge team to act upon.
With the communications down, both the science team and the bridge crew employ the isolated comms systems of the shuttlecraft. In the case of the bridge crew, the shuttle was used as a carrier for the comms channel, allowing the Commodore to communicate with the team in Engineering, who were frantically working to assess and mitigate the cascading systems failures. The science team decided to use the onboard communications array of a shuttle to decode two intercepted messages.
With all the disparate teams attempting to solve the myriad issues facing them, it seemed like things couldn't really get much worse ... until the nanobots injected by the beacon began to take the form of a mist or small cloud in strategic locations around the ship. Once in mist-form, the swarm started reaching out with tendrils of energy, shorting out panels, causing power surges, and generally making repair efforts exponentially harder than they already were. The team in Engineering successfully managed to contain a sample of this swarm in an isolation field, and began working on a way to neutralize the threat. Soon, whether due to the combined efforts of the individual teams working against the attack or the unseen hand of fate, select systems began coming back online.
The bridge team, with what power they could cobble together, had minimal sensor and transporter functionality, but was able to not only determine the two missing officers were not only still alive, but were on the verge of breaching the bridge of the Daisy. Rather than beam them back to the Excalibur, the call was made to support the officers by sending them a weapons locker from the armory to assist in taking back the raider.
On the Bridge of the Daisy:
Disgraced Klingon Captain Vo'Kor, feeling the time was right to attack the Excalibur and regain the honor that had been stripped from him, warped to where the currently immobile and listing Federation ship hung in space. His hail to the ship was simple: "Your two officers are dead. Surrender or die." He informed Commodore Nicholotti through the broken channel she had five minutes before he opened fire.
The waiting period expired, Vo'Kor opened fire, blasting the Excalibur with the Daisy's phasers, sending shockwaves through the larger, but currently defenseless vessel.
Just outside the doors to the Bridge however, and unbeknownst to Vo'Kor, Commander MacKenzie and Lieutenant Dakora stood beaten, broken, but determined to take control of this side of the situation.
Mere seconds before breaching the door to the bridge of the Maquis vessel, the care package in the form of a weapons locker materialized next to the two Starfleet officers. Now armed and better-protected, the duo entered the bridge and confronted the unaware Vo'Kor. With the speed and efficiency expected from combatants of their experience, MacKenzie and Dakora secured the bridge of the Daisy and took Vo'Kor into custody. Commander MacKenzie hailed the Excalibur, informing the Commodore of the sudden shift in the situation.
With the bombardment ended, Vo'Kor in custody, and the Excalibur on her way back to a functional state, the two missing officers beamed directly to sickbay with their captive. All three were in need of medical attention, but once his wounds were assessed as non-lethal, Vo'Kor was escorted to a holding cell until a determination of his fate could be made.
MSNPCs
- Vo'kor, a disgraced Klingon Captain, hell-bent on revenge for the perceived dishonor from his recent inaction in combat. (played by Talos Dakora).
Vo'kor
- Name: Vo'kor
- Species: Klingon
- Sex: Male
- Age: 50
- Height: 1.75m/5'-9"
- Weight: 118kg/260lbs
- Hair: Black, Long, Braided
- Facial Hair: Black with silver/gray starting to streak it, Medium-length, Cut into the traditional Klingon goatee
- Eyes: Dark
- Spouse: D'ner
- Daughter: Ja'nai
Overview: - The (Former) Captain of the Bird of Prey that ferried Ambassador Tork to the Excalibur.
Personality (OOC Knowledge): Though he managed to come through the situation without violence and his Ambassador safe and sound, his crew considered his inaction to be a show of weakness. He was challenged by his First Officer and ultimately defeated. Having lost his ship, his crew and his honor, Vo'kor aims his formidable skills and connections towards a singular focus; Revenge.
References