Cold Comfort pt 8: The Die Hards
Posted on 26 Oct 2022 @ 1:14am by Commander Calliope Zahn & Command Master Chief Tāne HaiRoa
Edited on on 06 Feb 2024 @ 10:25pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: DSSO 717
Timeline: M3 - Backstory following Cold Comfort pt 7: Along Came a Spider
4709 words - 9.4 OF Standard Post Measure
“Find them! Find them now! Kill some if you need to, I don’t care! But get my control chips back!” Jor screamed “And if that creature has thrown in with the Federationers, kill it as well!”
They had made their way down from the Control Room, using the ladders cautiously as they were wary of another ambush. Outside the air lock they had found a discarded environmental suit, proof one of the Humanoids had been on the ship and more disturbingly, a single control chip.
Once on board their fears were confirmed, Jor had surveyed the wrecked computer core and exploded in fury.
Her crew had rushed to the armory to gather what they needed.
“Stay down!” HaiRoa yelled “Another one!” He threw himself back down on the deck, closed his eyes tightly, clapped his hands over his ears, pushed his face into the deck and held his breath.
The Breen flash-bang grenade rattled and clattered down the empty elevator shaft, tumbled into the barricade he and Malmrose had erected in the shaft well and three seconds later exploded.
There was a blindingly bright flash, then the concussion waved slammed out of the shaft, bounced off the corridor walls and stomped all over Zahn, HaiRoa and Malmrose.
That was the seventh or eighth grenade in quick succession, HaiRoa was losing count. His head hurt; his hearing was damaged; he was bleeding from his nose and he felt as though he’d been bounced around by some big surf waves and tossed onto the beach like driftwood.
A cloud of dust and debris poured out of the shaft, then gray smoke, something in the shaft well had caught fire again. Only this time they were out of extinguishers, the three they had found earlier, now lay empty on the deck.
They had cranked the life support and air circulation flow rate to the maximum setting and only a steady breeze of air from the corridor vents was keeping the worst of the smoke away now
He waited a full minute or more this time before trying to get up. Raising his head, he saw the other two moving slowly and they looked as bad as he felt. The effects of the flash bangs were starting to take a toll, and this was at least the sixth assault the Breen had tried in the last ten hours.
He spat to clear the dust from his throat and wiped the blood from his nose with a grubby sleeve. His jacket was filthy, his pants torn over his left knee and the makeshift bandage over a gash on his leg had a dark stain where the blood had leaked through.
He caught Zahn’s eye as she got up. “We need to check the ladders again!”
In response, Calliope struggled to he feet and righted herself with support against a wall. They were all dirtied and harried, herself included. HaiRoa was shouting, probably unable to hear well. Calliope's head was ringing so painfully it was causing her to feel dizzy and to have trouble righting herself anymore. The mobile structural fields she and Malmrose had set up behind the barricades had held out a long time, but the barrages were taking their toll on the SIF controllers. She wasn't sure they would hold out any longer.
The Breen had tried some diversionary attacks earlier, making a show of going after one ladder hatch, while trying to cut through another. The attackers had nearly succeeded in shaft four, the furthest from the elevators, they had breached the hatch and broken it off its hinges. The crew had now barricaded that end of the corridor to keep them out.
The big fear had been that the Breen would simply use their transporter to outflank them, but that had not occurred. Zahn believed she had probably managed to cripple their transporter as well as the rest of the Breen ship’s systems.
“Malmrose, stay here.” HaiRoa said and nodded to Zahn, they would take the opposite ends of the corridor each.
Calliope slung the other rifle they had acquired over her head, and staggered off around the bend in the corridor, coughing against the smoke. She was walking in bare feet, the boots left behind with her coat in the locker room where she had donned the space suit, and even her socks abandoned when they had taken up some oily substance during one of their efforts to gather cut away parts for the barricades.
HaiRoa hefted his rifle and turned to move down the corridor. The feeling was starting to come back to his right arm, but he was clumsy with it and his hand tingled. He limped down the corridor, checking the few side rooms as well. Another concern was the Breen would simply cut down through the ceiling from the deck above. They were hoping the reactor piping and conduits was stopping them, but for how long…
He reached the end of the corridor, both ladder hatches appeared to be undamaged and the barricade at the end was still in place. Satisfied, he turned around and began to move back. When he was some twenty feet from where Malmrose was hunkered down, near the elevators, there was a sudden flash and blast!
Then another and another, a further series of flashbangs had been dropped down the shaft. Malmrose was thrown onto his back and bounced around. The blast ripped out of the elevator shaft, the safety barrier and bits of the barricade were spewed out and slammed into Malmrose, who lay still.
There was another noise, a crump and hiss. Seconds later, dense white smoke poured out of the shaft, this was more than whisps from the small fire and the draft from the vents was unable to clear it. Quickly the corridor filled with the heavy cloud, taking visibility with it. The bright over head lights were now just a dim yellow glow in the fog.
HaiRoa started forward to check on Malmrose but his eyes began to water and with each breath his throat burned, there was something in the smoke! Some kind of chemical irritant or even sedative?
He pulled his tunic up over his mouth and nose and squinted his eyes, still trying to move forward. Then up ahead in the whiteness there was a different glow, brighter than the lights, and coming from the left, where the grounded elevator should be.
The glow became brighter and seemed to cascade almost like a waterfall. What was that?
He suddenly realized what it was, it was a shower of sparks!
The Breen were cutting through the roof of the elevator!
A moment later a green energy bolt cut cleanly through the cloud. It came from the left and went right, down the corridor away from him. But towards where Malmrose had been.
HaiRoa brought his rifle up and fired at where the bolt had come from, sending his own rapid three shot green burst.
The response came a moment later, two green blasts came back at him. He just dodged one that tore into the bulkhead near his head, the metal glowed bright red and began to melt. The gloves were off now, that had been a full power shot, the Breen were trying to kill them!
He pumped back two shots and ducked away from his former position. Two more bolts came back both following his movements. He stumbled back, firing down the corridor into the white cloud.
One of his shots must have hit something as a green bolt suddenly jerked upwards and went into the ceiling.
Another one quickly came out of the smoke though and the material of his jacket was scorched by the heat of it.
He realized they could see him and target him, their helmet visors were compensating for the smoke!
He fired two more shots and stumbled into the open doorway of a storeroom. A disrupter blast punched into the frame just as he did so, he winced away from the glowing metal by his face.
- - - -
As the Turbolift exploded and a series of blasts shook the deck, a strut fell out of the ceiling, pulling down all manner of panels and conduit with it. Seeing herself cut off from her crew Calliope tried to examine the settling collapse. There was no way to simply run around the loop with their other barricade in place! Her crew was under assault and there was no way to get back to help them. Pulling aside small pieces of trim, she found herself unable to shift anything large enough to make a difference, and ultimately only managed to pierce her foot on some bit of shrapnel during the attempt.
Her fingers were not articulate enough to grab the embedded shard- there was no finer sense of feeling in the tips of them, but she was flexible enough that she just lifted her foot to her mouth and yanked it out with her teeth. That left the ball of her right foot oozing dark green blood. When she looked up to spit it out, there was a figure dropping out of the ladder she was meant to be securing. They'd broken through there as well. She reached for the rifle hanging loose at her side, but the breen hefted the gun pointed at her more seriously, as if to suggest that was a very bad idea.
So, Calliope put down her foot and held her hands out to the sides where they could be seen. She tried to think through the ringing in her ears.
It had been a long siege, but it seemed they hadn't held on long enough for the rescue to answer the distress signal she had managed to send out through the back up subspace antenna. Maybe if she could just hold out a little bit longer.
Calliope's whole body was heaving with labored breathing, and she noticed something familiar on the Breen. A device on a belt clip, which was softly glowing yellow not unlike the Drellex's collar had been. Was it Jor's control key?
"Are you Ak'ched Jor?" Calliope asked. "I'm Calliope Zahn, Commander of this station. I want to deal with Jor."
"You had plenty of opportunities to make a deal with me. You chose violence."
"For the record, I just thought you guys would take some stuff and leave. You upped the ante when you captured my men. So it's come to this now. I can tell them to lay down arms *and* I can return your chips to you." Calliope took a few out of her pocket, slowly, so Jor could see them. "I'll even go with you and help reinstall them if you get me a proper suit. I'll concede. Whatever you want with me, I'll surrender. All you have to do is swear to me you'll leave my team alone."
"It's a trick! Another trick!"
"I have them here, on me." Calliope took a couple of slow steps towards Jor, who the computer was rendering in a female voice through the translator. She took off her shredded and stained service jacket and laid it on the floor, emptying the pockets onto it. Then she stood over it and peeled off her shirt, the rest of the chips raining into the collection.
"All this, and whatever you can collect on me." Calliope slowly teased a hand through her hair, drew her hands together pointedly downward across her breast, over her undergarments, and played at being submissive and a hint sultry, letting her eyes grow sad and wide. She knew it would have no effect on Jor, except to cause the Breen to calculate a higher market value, which she suspected was the only remaining factor keeping her from being shot through the face.
As her eyes came up slightly from a gentle bow she noticed a series of long shadows filing out of the computer core control room. Quickly, Calliope ducked her head back down.
Jor moved in with the rifle pointed against Calliope's ear. She motioned for her to move to the nearest comm panel on the wall. Calliope felt the pressure of the barrel dig in as her skull was pinned between it and the bulkhead. She gulped as she pressed the switch.
=^=This is Ensign Calliope Zahn. I am ordering a complete stand down. Jor and I have come to a cease fire agreement. Jor will order the same. I'm going with the Breen crew and you are to remain here.=^=
=^="This is Ak'ched Jor— =^= As Jor began to speak, she was suddenly cut off.
- - - -
HaiRoa looked down and checked the charge reading on his rifle, it was nearly depleted, and he had no spare power pack for the Breen weapon.
His communicator beeped and he heard Zahn's voice, although he could barely make out the words with his ears ringing.
=^=This is Ensign Calliope Zahn. I am ordering a complete stand down. Jor and I have come to a cease fire agreement. Jor will order the same. I'm going with the Breen crew and you are to remain here.=^=
"What the-?!" he muttered No way was he letting them take Zahn!
Then another green bolt slammed into the bulkhead.
"That's the end of the cease fire!" he spat out and quickly fired another shot down the smoke-filled corridor and ducked back. His eyes were stinging now, and he let loose a hacking cough, trying to clear his lungs.
There was a rattle on the deck and he looked down to see a round black disc, like a hockey puck, roll into the doorway. He threw himself back but not quickly enough and the blast from the flash-bang punched into him.
His vision flared into a shower of stars, his eardrums were blown instantly, the air was torn from his lungs and his head rang like a bell. The rifle fell from his hands and tangled in the sling, he flew backwards and landed in a crumbled heap against the wall.
Slumped there, he struggled for breath, feeling the dark grasp of unconsciousness clawing for him, He gulped deeply, finally feeling his empty burning lungs fill, not with fresh air but the nasty acrid smoke. He coughed and spluttered trying to focus and groped for the rifle. They would be coming, in seconds, following up on the flash bang to get him while he was incapacitated.
He got his hands on the rifle but could not get it free of the sling to raise it fully. Then there was a darker shape in the smoke, he could barely see through the flaring stars in his vision, but the shape moved towards him. Dragging the barrel up as high as he could, he fired, keeping his finger on the trigger, the shot impacted the shape and something heavy flopped down on him, pinning the rifle between the shape and his legs.
Through his blurry vision he could make out the shape of a Breen helmet and suit slumped over his legs. He scrambled to drag the rifle out from under it.
Before he could so, another dark shape came out of the smoke. It moved in on him, a red targeting dot appeared on the deck and moved up onto his chest. The Breen could see his predicament and was moving its aim into position to kill him.
The dark figure came out of the smoke, and became full-sized, Breen shaped. HaiRoa managed to jerk the rifle free but knew he’d never get a shot off in time, still he roared in defiance, even though he was unable to hear his own shout.
“Ko Aotearoa, e ngunguru nei! Hi, au! Aue, ha! Taringa whakarongo! Kia whakawhenua au i ahau!”
New Zealand thunders now! It is my time! My moment! I will go back to my first breath, back to the earth!
The distinctive Breen helmet cocked to one side as it studied him, just before pulling the trigger.
Then an orange flare engulfed the Breen and slammed it into the bulkhead, where it dropped to the floor and lay still. HaiRoa gawped open mouthed, trying to comprehend what had happened.
Another shape came out of the smoke, it was big, like the Breen but it was white and had a silver visored helmet. The figure was carrying a weapon, the muzzle carefully tracked around the room, passed over him but lingeried on both Breen forms for a moment. Then the figure approached HaiRoa, slung its weapon over a shoulder and knelt, it rolled the Breen off his legs.
The visor slid upwards, revealing the face of Master Chief Petty Officer Jenny Alvarez, Master at Arms of the USS Skorpion.
- - - -
A shadow overtook Jor as the Drellex came blindingly fast, running a corkscrew through the hallway and landing on the Breen from a complete drop from the ceiling. Jor's finger having been on the trigger, the disruptor put a hole through the bulkhead just a foot away from her head as Calliope ducked away into the billowing smoke and cooling plasma steam for cover.
There were screams and shrieks. Here and there through the smoke, Calliope could make out a spidery limb or the flash of a brown environmental suit—
—And then a sickening cracking sound. Jor's gun, and severed gun arm slid to Calliope's bare feet.
Calliope gave a short yelp of surprised disgust and took a step back into the open.
The Drellex lay down struggling on the deck, extracting her mandibles from Jor's throat and releasing a sudden pool of blood and condensation from the exo suit. In Jor's remaining gloved hand was the small conditioning device which was now ultra violet in color, as was the collar around the Drellex. Slowly the light of the collar dimmed to nothing and the Drellex heaved a couple of times, shaking with the deadly poison the collar had administered.
Calliope put her head against the body of the Drellex and patted her exoskeleton. "You should have stayed hidden!" She choked out with pity.
"She did not want Jor to take another prisoner. She is free now." The Drellex responded, laying down completely. "She is free to go home."
Not knowing what else to do for the Drellex in her final moments, through her aching throat Calliope hummed to her again, but was pretty sure her friend was no longer respirating by the end of the verse. Calliope removed the collar, the latch now free, and she cast it across the hall, with a helpless shout. Even so, she couldn't even work up a wave of anger for Jor. She couldn't even bear to glance at the dismembered body of the Breen raider. The Drellex had repaid her evenly.
Turning away, Calliope moved to try to squeeze through the fallen ceiling. The smoke had cleared and she thought she could see light in places that maybe she could thread herself through and find out what had become of the rest of her team.
- - - -
The Master at Arm's lips moved but HaiRoa could barely hear her words. He pointed to his ears, "I can't hear you! The others?" he asked her, his voice over loud he knew, "They alright? Did you find Ensign Zahn?!"
Alavrez gave a non-committal look, said something else he did not understand and helped him to his feet. He got up and pushed past her, moving into the corridor, the smoke was still there but it was clearing now, it looked like they had got the fire out.
He was worried about the others, but one in particular.
There were three other EVO-suited Skorpion Security crew there, standing over another motionless Breen.
He pushed passed them and started down the corridor back to the elevators, walking quickly, he coughed on the residue of the acrid smoke and wiped tears from his eyes. There was another group of Skorpion crew, they had medical packs and were tending to Rowle and Malmrose.
One stood up and came towards him, he waved them away. "Where's Zahn? Where's the Ensign?" His voice over loud again. He could not explain it but he was desperately worried about her.
Then he saw her further down the corridor, being tended by a Medic, and the relief swept over him. She looked as banged up as he felt and was not wearing much of her clothing but... She's alright!
That urge to hug her again was strong, really strong, but he knew now that could not be, so he resolved himself to just be satisfied she was alive. And he was, truly, it was just nice having her around. He caught her eye and hoped she would not read what he was thinking, but she probably could.
Calliope had heard HaiRoa demanding to locate her before she came around the bend and into sight. And as they matched their gazes she could see she'd genuinely wrenched something inside him, something that had cracked inside and was now flooding with relief; probably it had snapped when she'd announced she was going with Jor. On reflection, she was fairly certain she'd given him an order he wouldn't have followed when she'd tried to arrange the cease fire. She'd get her pheromone inhibitors back, but she knew HaiRoa would not forget his feelings anytime soon.
"It's over," she said, her shoulders falling with the relief of it all. She powered off the disruptor rifle and let it drop to the floor beside her.
HaiRoa dipped and tugged a blanket out of the Medic's open pack. He unfolded it, came over to Zahn, and wrapped it around her, holding out the corners to her hands
"Thanks, Tane," Calliope said quietly, pulling the edges around her shoulders for a little warmth and decency. After everything was recounted, she knew Lt. Franks was probably going to take the most heat for arranging the mission without proper precautions. But at least he'd sent along someone with the guts to see them through it.
He nodded, gave her a smile and shrugged. "Don't think you're getting out of your shift in the electroplating shop by trading yourself to the Breen! We've still got eleven more scrubbers to do!"
Unable to help it, Calliope smiled back at him as he teased in his over loud compensating voice. In spite of everything, HaiRoa was still able to lift the mood. "We can let Lieutenant Franks take a shift."
Calliope sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her dirty socks off, tossing them close to the replicator so she could recycle them next time she went by. She lifted her right foot over her left knee and started to massage the ball of her foot. She paused, tracing the pale scar left through the pad of the foot and rubbed her thumb back and forth over it. There was just the slightest healed over callous there. It had been the first scar she'd gotten in service. She had a few of them. Usually medical got through the whole depth of the tissue, but this one had been slightly more pernicious. She didn't mind leaving the remaining mark. No one ever remarked on something on the sole of her foot.
She remembered how it felt surviving her first violent encounter as an Officer. How grateful she was that her whole team had made it through, and how heartbroken she was that she hadn't saved the Drellex. A fellow ensign from medical had quietly tried to reassure her that the Drellex weren't strictly Sapient by their reckoning of the autopsy. That they had more of an animal mind and a limited meta-cognition potentiality. But Calliope wasn't entirely convinced. She'd never quite had the same knee-jerk disdain for spiders since meeting the Drellex, and did her best to avoid disturbing them in the wild.
The adventure had been the first, but not the last that she and HaiRoa had together on the Scorpion, or later as well aboard the Challenger, when their paths met again later in her career. She'd been so happy for him when he'd found his sweetheart serving aboard the Scorpion. He'd caught the eye of a woman from the engineering department. Calliope remembered Lilly asking her what she thought of Tane when the two of them were first dating.
"You're friends with him," Lilly had said, noticing the unusual familiarity between the young officer and the enlisted man Lilly was interested in. His facial tattoos put a lot of women off, but Lilly liked them. They were common in her culture at home too. "What's he like?"
"Apart from a ball buster at work? He's honest, protective, he demands the best of himself and the people around him. And he's fierce and passionate. I mean," Calliope had elbowed Lilly who leaned in as they were waiting in line together for a turn at the replicator. "Whoever loves him is going to have to be pretty special to handle how intense he can be and pretty intense herself to put up with how obstinate he is." Calliope had smirked, remembering what a surprising softie the Bosun really was, but not giving away his secret.
Calliope had noticed the light of interest in Lilly's eyes. She hadn't seemed dissuaded. It wasn't too long after when Calliope had attended the wedding. Now that had been a raucous party...
She put her foot back on the floor and looked back through the livingroom where Lance was busy at the desk terminal. All the wisdom of having a technical genius on hand aside, she knew if she could, she'd have elected to take this mission with someone like HaiRoa in place of Lance. Her anxious heart was wound tighter and tighter with fear for her husband as they were moving out further and further into unknown space.
She shuffled into the living area, where there was some Terran classical music playing, the kind Lance preferred to listen to when he was focusing, and draped her arms over her husband's shoulders from behind the chair where he was working. She could see now that Lance was reviewing a holographic projection of the revised plans for the rail-gun bodkin Marshal Steiner had asked to have supplied. Lance was defensive in his own way. But that way was never going to be jumping out of cover to ambush anyone. He was never going to war chant anything. But, she had to admit as she watched the mirrored surface reflection of Lance's face in thought, he did have an equally repellent resting face expression to Maori tattoos. Nothing else necessary to put people off there.
"Did you need something, Love?" He finally asked her.
"No, I'm glad you're working on the rail gun. Don't let me interrupt. I'm just going to get ready for bed," she said, ruffling his hair and kissing him over his ear as she slipped away again.
"I'll be there shortly," Lance promised, absently.
But Calliope could see the rest of the project files opened on his holographic workspace and she knew it wasn't really true. From the door of the bedroom cabin, she lingered and watched him a bit longer. She knew it would take very little on her part to get his full attention. But it was a selfish impulse. Once she was out of the room, he was going to get lost in his work again, and tonight she was going to let him burn the midnight oil to make all of the progress he could. It was why Corvus had wanted to bring him after all.
"Goodnight, Lance," she said, her heart swelling. She knew she was going to lie in the dark and cry for Lilly and Kauri, anyway. She'd needed the chance to be alone and let the news of their deaths fully wash through her. "I love you." She said quietly, treasuring the sight of her husband, bent over his models and formulas.
