Main Story; Chapter #1: It's Quiet...

[Dr. Sabina Jackson]

Location: Sickbay

It may be quiet now, but Sabina knows that the nature of their missions means it won't be quiet much longer. Upon returning to sickbay, she called a staff meeting in her office so she can tell the new people about what to expect and advise them to get some rest and a good meal now while they still have a chance. She will have to rely on the veteran nurses to be an example to the new folks.

Once everyone has gone back to work or to relax for a bit, Sabina takes her own advice and gets some rest herself.

[Samuel J. Grant]

Location: Main Bridge

Colonel Grant was in a sour mood; he waited just sitting around with his hands in his pocket. Unfortunately, his temper and mood did always allow him to be at his best at all times, and sometimes his mouth worked faster then his mind. He knew that Sabal was upset when she reported in, but he had to let it go; there were times to discuss the odd sociological differences between Humans and Species 8472, this just wasn’t one of them. He took a deep breath, and opened the com-line, “I know you’re doing your best Sabal; please dispatch two fights to check the debris field we’re scanning and have the rest take up a CAP position around The Cold Harbor and the Harbringer.”

He turned to listen to Captain Zek’dyn as he voiced some concerns, and sighed. “You know, I miss the days when it was just simply a ‘cloaked’ ship that you had to worry about; now things just get so complicated.” He said with a smile, his humor showing even during stressful situations. “Problem is, there are many ‘telepathic resistant’ species; The Founders, Jemhi'dar, Feringi, Species 8472, some Vulcans and Romulans…” He just shook his head. He noticed Zek draw his tri-corder and start scanning around, he wanted to know why, but he bit his tongue and realized that he needed to let his CSEC do his job, even though it was hard for Colonel Grant to just ‘sit there’.

He found himself constantly drawn to the debris field. He wasn’t sure why, but something about it bothered him. They’d preformed scans on the debris, but all they could tell was that it was made out of material of standard Federation Starships, the debris signatures matched that of The Saber Class that was assigned to The Harbringer, but they still couldn’t decipher what had caused the ships destruction, yet, not far from it, they had The Harbringer completely intact, but no crew around to be found; it was very perplexing. While in thought, the report came in from the Away Team.

“Away team to Cold Harbor. We haven't found anyone, and it looks like everyone just dropped everything and vanished. However... they had time to lock down engineering and the bridge. Chief Murkeye is working on it.” Colonel Grant thought that was odd. To just drop what they were doing, and be gone, would be understandable during an emergency, but to still have time to lock down the computer systems before ‘disappearing’… odd indeed. “Acknowledged Away Team. We’ve directed a couple of the fighters to check the debris field in question, while the others provide CAP for us and The Harbringer. Keep your eyes open.” Colonel Grant’s mind chewed on the information, then came up with an odd question. “The Armories…” he said softly, as an idea came to the forefront of his mind. “Sgt. Major, check the ships Armory, see if the weapon caches are all accounted for. Maybe they took steps to defend themselves, or maybe the weapons got ‘looted’ if they didn’t leave by choice, but it may be important.”

Location: Main Bridge

[* Cold Harbor Story / Action *]

Cold Harbor Story / Action

The Harbringer:

After checking Main Engineering, and Chief Murkeye getting into and through the lockouts, they discovered that there wasn’t much to discover… The ships logs showed no sign of what happened, only that it seemed to be a normal day aboard a Federation Starship and that one minute they were fighting boredom, the next they were just gone… yet they locked out the systems.

The investigation of the Armory would show that they were empty; the weapons, medical kits, ration packs, all gone. The locks would show that the code had been used, as there was no damage done to the locking mechanisms or the storage areas. The ‘stalkers’ would continue to follow, just far enough to keep a good eye on the members of the Away Team. The team on The Bridge wouldn’t find anything that was different from the team in Main Engineering; it simply looked like everybody packed up and just left, there was no battle damage and no signs of any confrontation, even the Captain’s Ready Room looked undisturbed.

Regrettably, there was an error made. When Chief Murkeye unlocked the computers, it set of a subspace alarm, a simple quick tri-note tone, that was detected by a ship in the system along with them. It was not noticeable, and caused no damage, and pulsed only quickly enough for it to be picked up. With the amount of energy it took to open a door to someone’s quarters, the pulse shot out from the ships deflector dish into the surrounding space. Even with all the ‘banging away’ of The Cold Harbor’s sensor net, it wasn’t enough for it to detect, as it was there and not at the same time. But, for those ears that it was meant for, they’d heard it as if a ships warp core had gone critical while they were standing next to it.

Suddenly, The Cold Harbor crew would find they weren’t alone…

The Cold Harbor:

Two of the fighters had broken formation to make a closer scan of the debris field, while the others kept in close vicinity to the two Capital Ships. Colonel Grant had had The Cold Harbor take up a station in between the debris field and The Harbgringer, and had kept itself facing the debris field, as Grant had felt that was were the possible danger could come from; he wasn’t sure why, but that was where his gut had told him to watch. The Cold Harbor’s targeting sensors kept playing over the area, ready should a target present itself.

But, an order came from the darkness, that stunned the crew completely. “Decloak… and bring the weapons to full power…” came the order off to The Cold Harbor’s starboard side. Sensors would pick up the decloaking ship almost immediately, but they had caught The Cold Harbor in its error. Although The Cold Harbor had her shields up and were standing to battle stations, The Harbringer was defenseless. Sensors would show that a D’derix Class Romulan Warbird was decloaking, and targeting The Harbringer, her weapons at full power as soon as the cloak cleared. The Warbird had position and angle of attack on The Cold Harbor, there was no way that she could react quick enough to protect The Harbringer.

“Stand by to fire…” The Romulan Captain said, a smile hinting at his lips, as he stared at the two Federation Starships in front of him…

[Ahn Lau]

“Sgt. Major, check the ships Armory, see if the weapon caches are all accounted for. Maybe they took steps to defend themselves, or maybe the weapons got ‘looted’ if they didn’t leave by choice, but it may be important.”


Location: Harbinger engineering

"Aye, acknowledged sir. I'll report back soon." Ahn goes over to where Bob was working. "I guess we should regain control of the vessel and see what we can find out from internal sensors too. I'm going to the armory."

She heads for the door to engineering, guesturing to two marines to go with her. The other three would stay with Bob to help him. She checks a schematic of the ship's layout, then goes to the armory, marines in tow. The armory doors open and she's not really surprised at this point when they find it empty. She contacts the Cold Harbor again, "Lau to Colonel Grant. It's as you suspected, sir. Completely empty. And someone with the security code opened the door. It's not certain however, that the same person is the one who took everything."

As they are taking scans, she gets a panicked call from the bridge, "Romulans decloaking! We're sitting ducks!"

Ahn is quick to respond, running to the turbolift as she answers the call, "Get to the tactical station and go to red alert. Power up the shields and weapons and return fire if they make the first move." She tells the other two marines to return to engineering to protect it and help Chief Bob and tell him what was happening.

The turbolift opens onto the bridge. Ahn skids out and takes tactical. "Hennesey, helm. Treban, ops. Tell the Cold Harbor we're ready to back them up." She never expected to be in command of a starship, even if it was just because of a technicality.

['Chief' Bob]

Location: Harbinger engineering

"Aye, acknowledged sir. I'll report back soon." Ahn returns to where Bob was working. "I guess we should regain control of the vessel and see what we can find out from internal sensors too. I'm going to the armory."

Bob rolled his large eyes, “Way ahead of you, the internal sensors aren’t showing anything worth writing home about. I’m downloading the remaining information and locking out the system again.”[/b] Bob returned to his work while she headed for the door gesturing to two marines to go with her, while other three would stay in engineering. Bob was finished uploading in just a few moments and started re-locking the system and uploading his virus.

Just as Bob was patting himself on the back for a simple information/lock down mission well done and packing his sea shell cover lucky tool box, when the red alert went off. Bob dropped his tools and looked to the remaining marines questioningly. “What in the underworld is going on!?” [/b] The marines looked clueless; then again, Bob noted to himself, marines looked that way normally. Bob ran for the consol that he was working at. Sure enough they had accessed the bridge stations, but Bob was unsure if it was an enemy accessing them or the marines. His question was answered a few seconds later when two marines skittered in and filled him in on the situation. “Mggrrrrruuuglrwlrwlrwll! Need to know information!” [/b] Bob swore loudly, and started undoing the damage that he had just done to the system. The marines would have no problem accessing the systems nor have any idea the drama going on down in engineering; at least that’s what it would appear.

But Bob already noted that his virus was going to work and the silent self destruct had already been activated, Bob had less than 30 seconds to get the proper prefix codes in, unlock the systems, stop the virus, and stop the self destruct. Bob would have told the marines standing guard what was going on, but there was nothing that they could do to help, same for those on the bridge, it would just be a distraction. Plus it would take time away from Bob’s highly productive swearing. “Gods damn people always messing with shit, why? Who knows, maybe just to make Bob’s day, stupid PEOPLE!!!” [/b] Bob wasn’t sure who he was most mad at, all he knew was that he was pissed. 15 seconds left, Bob had the systems unlocked and was chasing down the virus, while he was busy doing that the computer system was wide open to any and all intruders. “Mggrrrrruuuglrwlrwlrwll!” [/b]

Location: Harbinger engineering

[Samuel J. Grant]

Location: Main Bridge

Colonel Grant acknowledge Sgt. Major Lau’s report regarding the Armories, yet know he found that he wasn’t sure if he was comforted or more worried because of it. “Acknowledged Sgt. Major, please finish up your sweep and ge…” he didn’t get a chance to finish his report. From the Tactical Station behind him came a stunned voice “Tetryon displacement… It’s a cloaked ship!” Colonel Grant snapped back in his chair, looking at the stunned Officer “Cloaked Ship? Who is it?” But, the Main View changed to lock on the area where the ship was de-cloaking, and before the Officer could reply, Samuel knew what that ship was “Romulans…” he said under barred teeth.

With a quick glance at his armrest consoles layout, he saw that the ship had the angle on The Cold Harbor, even at battle conditions, the ship couldn’t get turned to face it properly in time before it suffered at least good volleys from The Warbird; he was sure that the shields would hold against the initial attack, and if some got through, the armor would protect them as well, but it would still put them ‘two shots behind’; which was a poor place to be in a ship battle. “Open hailing frequencies!” He shouted, as he stood up from his chair, he’d been apprised that they had already charged weapons, which put them ahead of The Cold Harbor as well; even at battle conditions, it was an excessive drain to keep the phaser arrays full charged, as it simply drained power, but the shields could be raised and kept at minimum loss.

“This is Colonel Samuel Grant from the Federation Starship USS Cold Harbor; disarm your weapons and explain yourselves!” With no reply, he noticed that The Warbird wasn’t targeting them, they were targeting The Harbringer. The ship was un-crewed, save for The Away Team, and had all it’s defenses down, it was in no position to fight, let alone even survive the initial volley. “Oh damn…” he said, his mind working out the catastrophic explosion that would occur if The Harbringer was destroyed at such close range. “Transporter Room, get The Away Team back now!” he said, as he mashed his combadge on his chest. “I can’t Sir, there’s too much interference and the ships trying to raise her shields; I can’t get a lock.”

Colonel Grant knew he had only a few moments to come up with a plan of action to save his ship, his crew, his Away Team and this mission; he just didn’t have any…

Location: Main Bridge

[Capt. Zek'dyn]

Location: Main Bridge

Zek watched in horror as the Romulan warbird de-cloaked and turned its guns on the Harbringer. The away team was about to be blasted to space dust. “If the away team is trying to get the Harbringer’s shields up they might just need a few minutes, can we maneuver in-between the Warbird and the Harbringer to take the shots for them, or extend our shields to protect them?”[/b] Zek knew that extending shields would weaken the overall strength, but it was the only solution that he could see at the moment.

Location: Main Bridge

[* Cold Harbor Story / Action *]

Cold Harbor Story / Action

The Warbird:

Aboard The Warbird, there was general excitement. The Captain and his crew were excited at the prospect of engaging and destroying a Federation Starship. Regardless of their ‘alliance’ during The Dominion War, it hadn’t taken long for the two sides to fall back into disfavor; even after the whole Shinzon incident. The majority of The Romulan Empire blame The Federation for the situation that their in, and that they’ll continue to eat away at The Empire even without firing a shot; it’ll be nice to get some pay back.

The Romulan Captain knew that they, even with their good positioning, couldn’t defeat The Cold Harbor flat out, as it had its shields raised, and could survive the initial impacts of several hits. However, even a shielded ship, was hard pressed to survive the warp core explosion of a nearby starship, as it could easily overload the shield array. By allowing The Cold Harbor to come in, beam over an Away Team and keep close enough to beam them out, that put them in a good range to suffer enough damage from the destruction of the abandoned starship that they’d be easy prey; maybe even The Empire could get a few prisoners, that was always possible.

The Captain looked over at his weapons officer, “Focus you’re fire on the engineering section of the abandoned starship; punch through the armor with a sustained disruptor blast and follow it up with a volley of torpedoes. That’ll crack the casing and cause the explosion.” He leaned back in his chair, and began to utter the words that he’d hope to utter since they arrived in system “Open F…” but he was cut off by his Sensory Officer “De-cloaking ship off the starboard bow; it’s raising shields and charging weapons… It’s targeting us!” The Romulan Captain sprung up out of his seat, and looked at the main viewer “What?!”

To the port side of The Cold Harbor, a Klingon Vor’cha Class battle cruiser de-cloaked, it too was at battle alert. “Plot a firing pattern to attack the Romulan’s and the Federation Starship in quick succession…” The Klingon Captain said.

From ‘behind’ Almata 5’s secondary moon, a sensor contact filled all of the ships sensor screens; the return was the size of the capital ships already arrayed closely together. Powering up and rising out of the low orbit of the moon, a Dominion battle cruiser came into view and approached the ships already aiming at each other around The Harbringer, it too powering up it’s weapons and coming to battle stations.

It was an odd, an frightening sight; arrayed in to close for comfort formation were ships powerful enough to destroy each other in a head to head fight, but now there were 4 different races represented and none of them were exactly friends. All of the Starships were ready for a fight, but nobody had yet fired; everyone just appeared to be staring at each other, waiting to see who would do what first.

The Harbinger:

The passive sensors would detect the de-cloaking, and the approaching one, and automatically alert the bridge stations; so it was no surprise that The Away Team knew of the escalating situation in the space around them. Sgt. Major’s Lau’s attempt to defend herself and help her Ship, by brining the ships systems on line, was the catalyst factor in two separate issues. One, by mistake and her not knowing, she’d triggered the security virus that Chief Murkeye had put into place to safe guard the ship once they transported off until they could ensure that they could transport it back. Two, the activation of the ships systems had sprung a separate trap, one also set in the systems, which programmed several of the ships systems to overload. As soon as the ship’s power relays registered the increase in power demand, dozens of conduits blew out across the ship, filling many primary decks with plasma gas and other hazardous chemicals. Several Bridge and Main Engineering stations overloaded as well.

The booby-trap would have been very damaging had it worked properly, however, The Away Team was lucky. The trap was planned to go off when the ship was re-crewed, causing the casualties to be well into the several hundred, yet thankfully, with only The Away Team aboard, the primary areas effected were completely empty. Although there would be exploding consoles in the affected areas, the explosions would cause only slight injuries if people were near the destructing stations, however, resulting gases and fumes would still affect both The Bridge and Main Engineering; the second part of the trap was to cause the exhaust and vapor evacuation systems to malfunction.

[Ahn Lau]

Location: Harbinger bridge

Dumbfounded, Ahn watches as a Klingon ship, then a Dominion ship appear. "Well isn't this fun." She works on getting the shields up, but before she can make much progress against the sluggishly acting system, the tactical console overloads.

She shouts to warn the others, and dives out of the way blindly, since the flash of light had made big dancing spots across her field of vision. Explosion noises across several decks ensue and she can tell the damage is bad. The smoke doesn't go away and starts filling the bridge. Aparrently the fire suppression systems and air filters aren't working properly either. With no way to access weapons or shields and presumably most other systems, they would only be a liability to the Cold Harbor. However, they probably would have been beamed back already if it was possible, so she figures they're on their own for now. With a bunch of hostile ships out there, she doesn't want to be in a defenseless little escape pod. Shuttles, however, had some basic propulsion and defensive systems, which seems like the more survivable option. "Alright, let's cut our losses and get out of here! Evacuate to the shuttle bay." She covers her mouth with her slightly singed sleeve and gets into the turbolift with the others.

The medic starts treating those with minor burns and she taps her commbadge. "Lau to Engineering. We're evacuating, get to the shuttlebay. We'll assist those with injuries on the go."

She then taps her badge again and hopes the message can get through, "Lau to Cold Harbor, we're evacuating. Our systems got fried, so we won't be of any use over here."

[Samuel J. Grant]

Location: Main Bridge

Colonel Grant was a pretty good tactician, but he was no master of ships, as he was trained and experienced through and through in security and the tactical processes of shipboard defense and ground attack. That being the case, he was still smart enough to grasp the basics of ship-to-ship combat. He knew that the Excelsior Class Starships were built for combat in mind, thus they had thick shielding and armor, and a good weapons array, but they were by no means agile. Colonel Grant shook his head at his Security Chief’s initial idea “No, we’d never get into position in time before they opened fire…” he then glanced back to his tactical officer and asked looked for an opinion on the extending of shields; granted, it would weaken the overall efficiency of the shields due to having to cover a larger distance, but it could be just enough. The tactical officer knew what he was being asked, and didn’t like the answer “There is some type of interference coming from The Harbringer that’s skewing the shield extension, if we try to ‘force’ our way through it, it could collapse under the weapons fire and temporarily cause a ‘blow back’ in the shield array and leave us without any shielding.”

Colonel Grant slammed his fist down against the arm rests, knowing he was left with very few options. His operations officer didn’t give him any better news, “Colonel, sensors are showing multiple explosions throughout The Harbringer; it seems they’re suffering some type of cascading power feedback pulse that’s running rampant through the ship… I don’t know the cause tho…”

It was now that Grant knew that the Romulan Warbird was about to open fire, and that they would be in for a tough fight, but the shot never came; instead, another surprise began to show itself. As the Klingon ship de-cloaked, he found himself wondering if they were here as an ally or an enemy or simply an opportunity to destroy two ships. Even though the two powers had been allies during The Dominion War, the majority of Starfleet still mistrusted them and harbored tough feelings for them due to this casual disregard for the casualties they inflicted during the brief skirmishes during the invasion of Cardassia by Klingon forces; thus their political relationship was much more ‘solid’ then actually felt by the individual officer in command of their starship far away from their home worlds.

But he didn’t have much time to worry about that, as his tactical officer reported yet another contact coming into range with weapons charged, and Colonel Grant found himself quietly murmuring a comment to The Cold Harbor herself, that she’s as tough as she looks. The Dominion Battlecruiser appeared, and came within weapons range, like the rest of the ships, they had acquired target locks on all of the ships in the vicinity. The Cold Harbor had done the same, but Samuel knew there was nothing he could do other the posture at the moment; since the Federation had to official claim to this sector of space yet, he couldn’t act first, and had to wait to be fired upon… Although deep down he understood the reason for the rigid rules of engagement, but it never meant that he like them…

When the Away Team reported, he diverted his attention to something he could control, maybe, "Lau to Cold Harbor, we're evacuating. Our systems got fried, so we won't be of any use over here." Colonel Grant acknowledged the communiqué “Ackowledged Sgt. Major; casualties?” after getting the reply he continued “If you have noticed, space has gotten a little crowded out here; it’s not ideal, but you should sit tight. If the shooting starts, I don’t think they’ll aim at the one target that can’t shoot back… but if you’re out and about, they probably wouldn’t care if the destroyed the escape pods or the small shuttle craft. Try and regroup, but sit tight, we’ll ge…” then, in mid-sentence, the communication cancel closed. Colonel Grant tried several times to reopen it, but was met with negative results each time, he looked at his operations and science officers for explanations. “Sir, I’m detecting heavy ionizing interference; we’re being blocked.” Colonel Grant sighed again, now becoming very frustrated. “Find a way to break through it, we need to be able to speak with our people… Open general hailing frequencies, I want to speak with these people and know what the hell they are doing here and why everyone’s pointing weapons at everyone in neutral space.”

Looking over his shoulder, he saw his First Officer Mr. Tyler attending a station on the bridge, “Tyler, get down to engineering and help them out down there, with Murkeye off the ship, I want a Senior Officer down there with them." He looked back at the view screen, and wondered not only what was going on aboard the Harbringer, but why there were so many other ships in the area, and why did they all appear more then happy to start another war…

Location: Main Bridge

[* Cold Harbor Story / Action *]

* Cold Harbor Story / Action *

Cold Harbor:

It was very nerve racking to have so many capital ships in such close proximity, especially when they weren’t even ‘friends’ in the first place. But, now that everyone seemed to have shown their hand, everyone was just staring at each other, with weapons charged and pointed. The ships continued to stare at each other, mostly completely ignorant of what was transpiring aboard the derelict Federation Starship.

The Harbringer:

As The Harbringer suffered the internal damage, and The Away Team began to evacuate, or at least get to a safer area together, their shadows followed them all the same. Although explosions had shaken those stalking shadows, they had absorbed the movement well, and even the chaos had failed to betray their presence. It wasn’t until they heard the female in charge, aboard the Bridge, that there were multiple enemy ships that had appeared and were ready to engage and destroy the ship they were on, and the one they had come from. Knowing that it was time to leave, the ‘shadows’ intended to do just that; but they weren’t leaving by themselves. As the team members from The Bridge headed down Main Engineering to meet up with Chief Murkeye and his detachment, he stalkers made their move; on both teams.

In Main Engineering, the shadows appeared suddenly, striking quickly and without warning. Not exactly cloaked, not exactly phased, but using ‘light bending technology’, they came out of no-where and descended on already focused marines, who were trying to help Bob keep Engineering in one piece, and still watch out for aggressors. It wasn’t the marines fault, by the time the ‘shadows’ revealed themselves, they were basically on-top of them anyway. In an instant, two of the marines were down and unconscious, never even having the chance to cry out, quickly silenced by needle pricks to the neck. One of the other marines, standing near Chief Murkeye as he worked on one of the systems, turned to see a fellow marine collapse, and shouted a warning. He saw a brief flash, or a blink of something, and opened up with his phaser rifle, spraying the surrounding area with phaser fire, trying to hit a target that was both there and not there at the same time.

Whether Chief Murkeye saw the ‘shadow’ or not, the marine didn’t know, but when he saw another flash, he shoved Murkeye out of the way and stepped in his place, firing wildly at the multiple ‘specters’ that came and went in and out of his vision. As he stepped forward in Murkeye’s place, he was struck in the chest by a long metal quarrel, embedding itself in his body armor. The quarrel was about 25 centimeters long, and was stopped by his armor at length, only allowing a few centimeters of the tip to touch his skin; however, that was enough. Before the marine even knew he was hit, he collapsed without a sound. The other marines continued to fire at the whisps as they flickered in and out of visibility, one of the marines caught a glancing blow, and with the weapon on maximum stun, the shadow crumpled to the ground; but before she could cheer in triumph, another ‘shadow’ appeared behind her and pricked her neck, causing her to collapse.

Chief Murkeye, caught in the hectic fire fight, caught a quarrel in his arm as well, but instead of collapsing, he merely felt a little woozy, and a few seconds later vomited a horrible purplish film, and began to suffer from a mild headache. As the last marine went down, in a hand to hand struggle with one of the shadows, and was blind sided by another who pricked him in the neck as well, Bob found himself alone, surrounded by the downed marines; the shadows beginning to pick up and tamper with the bodies of the casualties. Materializing in front of him, was one of the shadows, coming into the light and into focus. With a slow speech, that struggled through the universal translator, the creature simply said “Federation; come me with if live you want…” and reached a hand out to grab Bob by the shoulder, as a bright light flashed a few meters away from the group…

On The Bridge, The Away Team began to flee the area, in an attempt to regroup and get off the ship. Being grouped up in the turbo lift presented a perfect ‘target rich environment’, and it was the perfect time for the shadows to attack this group. With a single ‘tink’, a small metal quarrel struck the turbo lift doors, and jammed them in place, preventing them from closing. At the same time, a small volley of the projectiles struck the group in the turbo lift, immediately knocking three of the marines out of the fight, by the grace of her height, the Sgt. Major was missed in the initial volley.

Immediately realizing they were under attack, the Sgt. Major and her remaining marines charged out of the turbo lift to give them some more room to maneuver, granted there wasn’t that much cover on The Bridge either, but it was better then nothing. As they charged out, another marine went down without a sound, a barb sticking out of his thigh, and he lay on the floor entirely quiet. There were not ‘solid’ targets, everything to seem like a blur, the marine next to her open fire with his rifle, hosing the entire area with phaser bolts, doing lots of damage to the consoles, walls and other auxiliary systems, but not any hits on a target. One of the shadows struck out to prick the Sgt. Major, but she saw the attack coming a nano-second before the prick made contact with her neck…

[Ahn Lau]

Location: Bridge Turbolift

The ship rocks as it suffers from the after-effects of the console explosions. However, there will be no escape from the bridge. Horrified, Ahn watches as some sort of metal arrow catches in the door and sticks it open. Three marines fall to the arrows a moment later. Ahn and the others tumble out of the lift and raise their weapons, some beginning to fire at anything that looks like a target. She watches another fall.

Covered momentarily by the wild fire, Ahn turns and tries to pull the arrow out of the door so they can escape in the lift. The medic had been one of the first three to be injured... she desperately hopes that they're only injured. Unsuccessful in pulling the arrow out, she knows she can't waste more time with it. Ahn turns and draws her katana, suddenly very glad she'd brought it as the wild phaser fire was useless against these phantoms. The aliens were shadowy and damn fast. She sees something coming toward her and flicks her blade out to meet it. She barely deflects the bolt by severing some limb off the shadowy figure that weilded it. (It would be completely unrealistic if she was fast enough to stop a speeding arrow thing with her sword, after all) She whirls and turns to face it, knowing it would be pissed about being injured and likely return for a second attack.

[* Cold Harbor Story / Action *]

* Cold Harbor Story / Action *

USS Harbringer:

OOC Note: That’s okay. It wasn’t supposed to be a ‘speedy arrow thing’, I was thinking more along the lines of a direct contact weapon, like a syringe or hypo spray, so good save! *smiles*

The sword strike came quickly. It wasn’t that it was so quick that it wasn’t avoidable, especially by the creatures doing the attacking, but it was the surprise of it that allowed it to strike. The ‘shadows’ were impressed with the doggedness of these ‘humans’ they were fighting, but they still thought themselves superior and didn’t think they’d have such an issue with them. But the Sgt. Major’s strike had been quick, with not warning that it was coming, and it was enough to actually find purchase against its target.

With a howl of pain, the pin-pricked blade fell to the decking, making a clang, along with the hand and wrist that had been holding it only a moment before. A dark, watery, liquid splashed on the floor in large amounts, a puddle quickly forming.

Standing before her, no longer able to keep its concealment due to the injury, a tall, lengthy, figure appeared out of the ‘shadowy haze’. Standing easily two meters tall, covered in dark purple skin and wrongly angled knees, the Almatan warrior no longer howled, and stood clutching its injured stump on its left arm. I peered heavily at Lau, its lime green eyes showing not hatred, but respect, from one warrior to another.

Although not crying out in pain, even with the seriousness of the injury it had suffered, it was obvious that it was hurt. Through a hissing voice, it spoke slowly “A female… odd Federation…” It quickly tied a tourniquet above its severed limb, and the bleeding promptly ceased. “We must… leave… now… if to live… you want…” It’s dark black hair, well beyond its shoulders, but braided heavily, was tucked in to his armor on his back, holding it in place. He made quick hand signal, with its remaining good hand, and the remaining shadows quickly began picking up the rest of her team, as all had been taken out during the fighting.