Ghosts of the past

Posted on Wed Jul 28, 2021 @ 10:38am by Commander Ajani Carter

Mission: Episode 5: Escalation
Location: Bridge
Timeline: During the 'Arrival' Post
554 words - 1.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Commander Ajani Carter was sat at her station on the bridge of the Eagle. Her stare was fixed to the fix screen as the Borg vessel grow closer. She had decided on the shooting first, ask questions later tactic. As such a trio of very powerful torpedoes were already speeding ahead of the Eagle, they would arrive around the same time but as their last few minutes of flight would be un-powered the Borg were unlikely to see them coming.

It was only later that she would become aware that she had been so focused on the Sphere that she had tuned out the rest of the bridge noises. In her minds eye she was back on the Bridge of Excelsior class USS Hood during the closing moments of a brutal battle at the edge of the Illiran system. Four starships, equipped with the latest in weapons technology had faced two cubes and a sphere.

The Hood was the last ship standing, they others had been disabled and fallen back. Carter was in command of the Hood, her CO and XO were both in sickbay and not expected to survive, hell she wasn't expecting any of them to survive.

The Borg cube was badly damaged and it was running. The Hood was chasing it down, firing their rapidly dwindling torpedo stores. Over half their phaser emitters had burnt out from over use. She was trying to get close enough beam a bomb on board. But she was already pushing their engines just trying to keep up, and they were down four impulse reactors.

Ajani didn't know why the Borg cube hadn't jumped to warp speed but she didn't want to give them the chance to. From operations a junior officer she hadn't yet got to know called that they had beamed a dozen torpedoes into different sections of the cube.

Hearing this the helmsmen pulled the Hood around in a tight arc and sped them away from the impending explosion, but even with that quick thinking they were all thrown around as the shock front from the exploding cube slammed into the Hood's weakened shields flipping her end over end.

Carter had just enough time to wonder if they would survive through this before she hit head on a random console. The world went dark and them black.

When she came around she saw a medic, she was smiling at her, "Commander, i have given you something to wake you and stem the pain." She looked around "But Mark said you'd be needed to command" Mark was the Chief of Engineering, and he was right. With the XO and Captain out of action she was next in line, and they were running out of senior officers.

Carter closed her eyes again for a moment, trying to take stock. "I guess we are still alive then" she muttered and, with the help of the medic, Carter go to her feet. Looking around the bridge she saw repair crews already working to replace consoles, bringing them back online. "How long have i been out for?" she asked.

"Half an hour, we had problems getting up to the bridge" the medic half shrugged and then turned to help others.

The explosion of the Borg Sphere brought her back to the present. "Well... okay then" she muttered aloud.