| Author | Message | ||
     Jarod Bentall |
"Good. Now we wait." The five minute wait seemed to be more like five hours but eventually the capital ships began jumping out of the system one by one. As the last one flashed out of the system Bentall gave the order. "Decloak, shields up. Take out the strike craft weapons and engines and then attack the transport ships!" "Commencing attack Captain." shouted Lieutenant Harvey in the excitement. Blackrazor swooped into the midst of the convoy and decloaked before unleashing her deadly barrage of disrupters and torpedos. Before they could even react the strike craft were disarmed and rendered unmovable. Blackrazor then turned on the transport ships who, by this time, where scrambling to break formation and get out of the way of the surprise attack. Two of them were destroyed in quick fashion and then something unexpected happend. "Captain, one of the transport ships just broke apart!" said a still excited Lieutenant Harvey. "What?" asked Jarod and the ship suddenly rocked with repeated weapons fire. "Helm evasive maneuvers. Mr. Harvey what was that?" "The transport ship was actually a decoy Captain. It had a strike craft inside it." "Time till the capital ships return?" "Three minutes and forty five seconds Captain." replied Sarah. "Tactical keep trageting those transport ships as we go by them, Helm try and avoid that strike craft but keep us on target for the transports." Another explosion rocked Blackrazor as she desperately tried complete her times mission. Gripping his chair tightly Bentall watched the viewscreen. Suddenly the chair lurched out of his grasp and he landed with a thud on the carpeted deck plating. The bridge went dark for a moment before the emergency lighting came up. Getting to his feet he wiped blood from his eye. "Damage report!" Another small shudder went through the ship. "We've lost warp drive, torpedo launchers and we are getting sparadic usage out of the disruptors. Might I suggest we get the hell out of here Captain?" replied Sarah. "No! We've got to complete this mission." shouted Jarod. The crew had seen him like this before but the situation had never been so grim. "I won't let the Admiral down." Another heavy explosion was felt sending a cascade of sparks across most of the bridge's control consoles. "Captain we can't take much more of this. That last one was an internal blast. It appears weve been sabotaged." Jarod looked from Sarah to his tactical officer and back. "Number One, dispatch a security team to the location of the explosion and use internal sensors to detect any more explosive deivces. I don't need this. Not now." Frantically he looked from one station to the other as his XO started for the turbo lift. "Helm, lay in a course out of here at best possible speed." "It might be too late for that Captain." said Lieutenant Harvey. "The Captial ships have returned and they are moving to surround us sir." "Is the warp drive still offline?" "Affirmative sir, as is the slipstream drive." "Activate the cloaking device and get us out of here." ordered Jarod with a note of defeat in his voice. His first failed mission. "Cloaking device activate Captain, but we've got inco....." The ship cloaked but one of the Phfor destroyers had fired a volley of missiles at Blackrazor's last position before she had vanished. One after another they hit or exploded nearby causing sever damage to the already hevily damaged ship. The entire crew was thrown from their stations. After thirty seconds or so Jarod came too and rainsing himself up on one elbow looked around the bridge. The bridge looked like a scene from someones idea of hell, half of the consoles burned out or on fire. Several of the bridge crew were down, those who weren't were using handheld extinguishers to extinguish the flames. "Damage report number 1." he croaked out as he got to his feet, forgetting he had dispatched her to the lower decks. "Captain, the XO is dead." came the voice of his tactical officer. Jarod was stunned into silence. He looked to the prone form of his XO. His grief so great that he couldn't react. He stood as still as a statue not wanting any of this to be happening. His friends, his secret lover, dead all becuase he ignored the little voice that told him this mission was a bad idea. "Captain?" He blamed himself, he blamed Admiral LoraKor, he blamed the Phfor, he blamed the Romulans for such crappy technology. If only he hadn't sent Sarah to the lower decks she'd be sitting at his side and not crushed under part of the bulkhead. "Captain!?!" came the shout again. "The cloaking device is offline, we can't move, our shields are down and the capital ships have surrounded us. What are your orders?" Jarod shook himself out of his thoughts. "Orders? What orders can I possibly give in a no win situation? Our surrender?" The surviving bridge crew looked at each other uncomfortably. Jarod shook his head. "Send out a distress signal. Let's see if we can stall them long enough until help arrives." He settled into his blackened chair. His surviving crew the only thing keeping him going. The ball was clearly in the Phfor's court. They just had to wait to see what would be done with it. |