Taking the Tirpitz for a spin, Part 2

Posted on Tue Jun 23rd, 2015 @ 3:04pm by Major Percival 'Percy' Morris & Lieutenant Ariel Gilmore & Colonel Danny Lennox & Master Warrant Officer Gaius Aquila & Corporal Warner Schmidt

2,635 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 88 - Memories Lost, Trouble Found
Location: Kaleb III
Timeline: MD4, Following 'Asking for help...'

ON:

Kaleb System

The Tirpitz appeared in a flash of light, just outside the controlling gravity wells of Kaleb III. Morris instructed the Helmsman to take them into high orbit. "Mr. Lennox, Mr. Aquila, full sensor sweep - tactical analysis of the system, please."

Lennox looked over the sensors on the Tactical Console. "Class-K, uninhabited. Minor traces remain of the old Klingon monitoring station that was there one hundred fifty years ago, but other wise undisturbed. Nothing in orbit, Sir."

Aquila just watched the Captain work the console. He knew that he was never too old to learn new things. He also knew that his experience in adverse environments would come in handy on this mission as well. So it was just a matter of time before he would be told to kit up for an away team.

Morris turned to the science station. "Ms. Gilmore, a scan of the surface if you would. Let's find out what we're facing before we head down."

"Aye, aye, Major. Scanning the surface." Gilmore said, as her hands glided over the Science Station. The surface of the planet was already mapped from previous generations that had come through this region, such as the Klingons that had a base there in the mid-22nd century. However, there hadn't been a mapping mission to the planet for anything this large in quite some time.

As she scanned, she said, "Normal type-K planet. Small, trace amounts of water throughout the planet. Planet is approximately 7,800 kilometers in diameter. The planet was formed approximately 5,000,000,000 years ago, if my readings are correct. The planet surface looks clear of any habitation aside from where the Klingons left it one and a half centuries ago. It appears that all should be good for going down to the planet, Major."

Percy grinned, almost childlike. He was not that great at starship command, although he got the job done. But he was a great marine and a great scout. "Alright, suit up, we're going down. Major, Gilmore, Lennox, Aquila, Vaal, and Schmidt - you're all with me."

Aquila responded, "Yes Sir!"

Morris stood, ignoring any surprising looks he may have gotten. He looked over at the highest ranking crewman who would remain on board. "Keep the engines running, and keep us tagged."

The petty officer was in awe and headed up to the chair, but didn't sit. "Aye sir," he said in a sheepish voice.

Morris went whether the others followed or not. He was going to explore that planet alone if he had to. But he'd rather obey orders and take the contingent with him. And he was in a hurry - they had to suit up for this particular planet.

Fortunately for Giaus, he had stowed MARSOC gear on both Marine starships when his group joined Starbase 400. It did not take long for him to locate the brown,tan,and green "ATACS" camouflaged EVA suit preferred by MARSOC operators. He quickly donned it on, and threw extra power cells, and a tricorder in the built in pouches. He then holstered a Phaser 2E, and hooked a Phaser 3E rifle on the single point sling he was wearing over his suit. Due to his training, this only took a few minutes to do, including an equipment check. He then double timed to the transporter room.

Olga was an old hand on suiting up quickly. She was suited up in no time. She had been preparing her pack since the start of the trip. Olga had plenty of extra power cells in her pack and some extra Targ jerky in her cargo pockets.

Lennox took a little extra time suiting up, he didn’t like anything to do with Zero-G, Micro-G, or any other types of lighter than normal gravity missions. It made him sick to his stomach. Still, he knew it was something he had to do, and he suited up nonetheless. Several minutes later he arrived in the transporter room with the rest, fully suited up, armed, and ready as he was going to be.


Kaleb III Surface

The group materialized on the surface, in protective suits, and armed as they normally would be. Hoorah! Morris left the scanning and such to the team and the experts. "Alright, let's get to work." He immediately turned on a HUD on his helmet, which had a built-in zoom and various scanners like infrared and such. As a trained sniper, it was one thing he never left home without.

Aquila also had his HUD on as soon as they materialized. He did a 360 visual check around their location. And, as he suspected, scanned negative for life signs. The scenery was typical Class K, barren and featuring a rocky desert like terrain. He was no scientist or engineer, so he just assumed a security posture, awaiting orders.

Olga pushed a little out and took up a security position behind some rocks. The planet looked devoid of anything as she scanned the horizon.

"Major Morris, I'm thinking if there was anything dangerous on this planet the Klingons would have hunted them down back when they occupied Kaleb IV." Olga conjectured.

Lennox was making sure he wasn’t going to throw up in his helmet, but couldn’t help but to smile at Vaal’s comment. After a moment or so he felt a little better and activated his HUD and took a look around. They had beamed in close to the old Klingon base, what was left of it.

“I’m going to have a peak at the old base, make sure no one has been here since the Klingons left, and make sure they didn’t leave any surprises of their own.” Lennox announced.

"I'll have your back Sir," responded Aquila, as he took position 25 meters to the Captain's left.

Lennox nodded to the Warrant Officer, then had to swallow hard, the motion almost made him sick. "Let's go." He raised his rifle to a ready position and started moving forward.

Giaus turned his head to nod at the Major before he returned his attention to Lennox, and moved forward, maintaining his interval with the Captain as he visually scanned the area in front of him.

Morris nodded to Lennox and Aquila as they headed off in a separate direction. It was good to have trained soldiers scouting this out, and it was also good to have the naval experts here with them. "You're probably right," Percy responded to Olga finally. He was still looking keenly through his HUD at colors and heat patterns, scanning for anything alive. As was posited, this place was devoid of anything.

"Captain Lennox," added Morris. "Let's see if anything at all is salvageable with the base. If valid structures are in place, and we intend to use this planet for anything, we might save some cycles."

“Yes sir.” Lennox replied. Scanned from the planet suggested at least part of the old Klingon base was intact and useable, once it’s life support systems were replaced with modern Starfleet units. Until then, the gravity would be lighter and breathing would be out of the question, so the pressure suit Lennox hated so much would be his only life support.

“Aquila, there’s two entrances, take the rear and I’ll take the front. We’ll meet in the old command center.” Watch your step, and your head.” Lennox advised.

The defacto lead continued on. The main group was more meandering than anything, picking up samples of soil, air, wind speeds, temperature and radiation readings - anything that could be dumped in the Tirpitz or SB400 computer systems for analysis. Morris chortled after a few moments. "This dustball would be perfect for recruits..."

"It would be nice to have a live fire range for exercises instead of using the Holodeck." Olga added. She was still kneeling in her position. She took the targ jerky out from her pocket and slipped a few pieces under her mask.

Meanwhile, Gilmore and her small team were collecting all the samples and readings of the planet that they could. Kaleb III reminded her quite a bit of her training in the Academy and while in starfleet as a science officer. During her third year at the Academy, her microbiology class were shuttled to Mars in order to test for various types of micro-organism that had been transplanted to Mars due to human colonization. Kaleb III was similar due to the old Klingon colony several meters away.

After running a few scans of the surface around their location, she walked up to Morris and Olga as they admired the landscape. Gilmore said, "How many recruits are we going to be stationing down here on planetside, Major?"

"I am not sure," responded Morris. "All of us could be down here training if it were warranted." He scratched his strubble on his face as Gilmore continued.

Gilmore nodded and said, "Well, my preliminary scans of the planet itself reveals that the planet would be well suited for the base for the Marines. The various domes could be set-up and made operation within a decent amount of time. As for any sign of life, the only signs I could find are micro-organism that were transplanted to the planet with the Klingon several centuries ago. Not many thrived while the Klingon were here, but even less thrived after they abandoned the planet. We wouldn't be disturbing much of anything, except the dirt, sir."

"Well, that's good... I suppose." Morris was out of his league a bit. Not because he couldn't command, not because he wasn't a good marine - but building a base was not his expertise. Of course that's not why they were here, and he remembered that. "Let's get what samples we can and head back."

Lennox made his way inside the old Klingon base. He scanned the old nonfunctional airlock. It was totally powered down, and even if it wasn’t the door fused open so it wouldn’t matter anyway. Since the facility was built with Duranium he activated his magnetic boots. With a thud, his feet settled onto the deck, and some of his nausea went away.

Aquila's boots thudded along as well. He turned towards one direction, the Captain went the other.The dust he kicked up was made evident by the light of his weapon. He turned another corner, and the Captain was now out of sight.

Lennox moved onto the next room, what looked like an old decon chamber with storage spaces for EVA suits, weapons, and other gear. The room was dark and the deck was covered with dust and sand that had blown in over time. The structure of the base seemed sound enough, just needing cleaning, power, and fixing of the doors.

Moving forward, Lennox passed through a section of the base’s old barracks, the hard slabs the Klingons slept on looked so uncomfortable, and he wondered how any one, Klingon or Human, could stand it. From there, Lennox found himself in a long corridor with several doors to each side. His HUD beeped to alert him to an energy signal. It was minor, but present nonetheless, and because it was such a low power signal, his EVA suit’s HUD had a hard time locating it. Lennox looked down and pulled his Tricorder from a pouch to try and take more detailed scans, but as he looked up he was greeted with the sight of three Klingon Warriors in full battle armor and each with a bat'leth.

“SoH 'Iv!” The closest Klingon said.

Lennox took a step back and into a defensive stance, raising his weapon. The Klingons weren’t in EVA suits, so ‘holograms’ he thought...and pretty good ones for being so old.

“qatlh naDev” The Klingon then asked.

Before Lennox could answer, the Klingons rushed at him. He fired a pulse one low stun hoping to disrupt the holograms’ matrix but it just passed through. With the Klingons closing fast, he scanned the area again, and found the source of the holograms. It was on the far end of the corridor and he couldn’t get a clear shot with the on rushing Klingons. Not wanting to find out if they were just visual holograms, or more stable ones without safeties, Lennox grabbed a ‘flash bang’ grenade and tossed it. It landed about three quarters the way down the corridor and slide another meter before exploding. The low intensity photonic and sonic pulses expanded out in all directions. The old holographic equipment never stood a chance and it shorted out just before the Klingons slashed their blades into Lennox’s neck and chest.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. Leave it to the Klingons to booby trap an abandoned base. He activated his comm, “Lennox to Aquilla and the rest of the Away Team, if you’re entering the Klingon base, watch out for booby traps.”

Meanwhile, fifty meters away from Lennox, Aquila was fighting for his life against holograms of his own. While the Marine issue rifles are much more durable than their Fleet counterparts, the dents from the Klingon weapons were beginning to show. Lucky for him, the beams of the old style holographic projectors could be faintly seen with all of the dust that was now being kicked up. He set his weapon to full auto pulse, and started to spray bolts in the direction of the projectors until the angry warriors disappeared. His optical sight was now useless due to damage, so he took it off his rails, and flipped up the back up sight. "Aquila to Lennox, thanks for the warning. Aquila out." He saw the glimmer of an old mevak. Once he wiped the dust off, he could see it to be in excellent condition. He placed the dagger into his dump pouch, and proceeded to explore the rest of his section.

Morris heard the comm chatter and cocked his head as if they were standing right next to him. "Booby traps? Please tell me you got some sort of recording or record of that?"

"Holographic welcoming committee. I picked up a minor power signature, an old style holoemitter on standby. It must also have a proximity sensor that triggers the emitter to activate. I'm not sure if they are just visual or not, but knock out the emitter before you find out the hard way." Lennox reported.

Giaus walked up to Lennox as he overheard that the Captain said on the comm. He pointed out the dents on his pulse rifle, "Oh Captain, these were so much more than a light show."

Percy's comm began to chirp, even though he hadn't even had a chance to contact the gents at the old Klingon base... "Morris here."

=^= Sir, we're approaching the end of our runtime parameters. =^=

Morris sighed. "Alright, can you get a signal on all of us?"

=^= Affirmative. =^=

Percy nodded to the voice of the enlisted operations staff. "Ok, as soon as we're signed in, beam us up. Morris out." He flipped his comm over to the team channel. "Alright team, time's up. Prepare to beam out."

Whether they knew it or not, whether they were ready or not, whether they had gotten everything wanted or not, and whether they were bandaged up enough - none of that mattered. The mission was over and Percy had to take the home. What was supposed to be a quick orbital tour turned into a recon mission that lasted the better part of a day. Little did he know it also turned into a fight for a couple of the others.

The major dwelled on it very little after that as the blue particles of the Tirpitz' transporter began to pull the team up off the surface.

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