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Tag the Bridge

Humans were much more rigid about rank and standing than Caitians were. But then, most Caitian vessels were crewed by family. Nevertheless, K'lizh was glad to be developing a rapport with his commanding officers. The first captain he had served under had been an intimidating woman. The Tempest... well... he could see this crew becoming his family.

Assuming he survived. Chaos erupted around them! The shuttle shook under the heavy assault of alien firepower, collapsing their shields faster than K'lizh could compensate. Before he could even get them back up, the alien began to transport out. "Attempting to compensate!" he called out reflexively, forgetting the shields to try to scramble the transport signal, but it did no good. By the time he had a field established, the prisoner was gone.

And without their prisoner to "protect" them, they were sitting ducks.

"Must get the shields-" he tried to say, before his console exploded and shrapnel lodged into his face and chest. K'lizh screeched in shock and pain. The shuttlecraft began to spin out of control as the starboard nacelle ruptured, which also caused a hull breach above it. Another hit, and they would be stardust.

[Bridge]

Ian saw the Van Buren shudder and knew he had to do something immediately.

"Galloway ta Van Buren, we're goin' ta do an old crazy maneuver called a barn swallow, we're comin' ta ya. Just hold her as steady as ya can and hang on fer dear life!"

Ian closed the comm to the shuttle and spoke intraship.

"Galloway ta shuttle bay four, we have a damaged bird comin' in hot. Clear all personnel from the immediate area and have rescue crew on stand by!"

After he finished speaking, Ian cut impulse speed, then fired both the starboard aft and the port forward thrusters at maximum, which caused the Tempest to slew sideways and present the open shuttle bay to the Van Buren in an attempt to get the damaged shuttle out of the line of fire in the fastest time possible.

"Sweet Merciful Maker, I will nae allow the Commander ta die on the same day that he promotes me. THIS WILL WORK!"

Ian muttered as he held on against the centrifugal force his insane maneuver generated that far exceeded the ship's inertia dampeners ability to counter.

2 hours later...

[Bridge]

He entered the bridge with the hope that most of the plan were already in place.  The most important one was the Deflector dish, it was one of the backup's plans.  He still had concerns about the Deflector Dish and the ability to do the power output.
He walked into the Bridge and confidently sat on the chair in the center of the bridge.  The Excelsior bridge unlike other more modern bridges only had the Captain's chair in the middle.  In a way it felt like taking a historical tour.

James moved his chair towards Lizzie and said "XO, have all departments report in"�

Then then turned into Ops in the front of the screen and requested "Ops...so a shipside transmission"�

He waited a second and began speaking.

"Attention, crewmembers this is the Captain.  Within a couple of minutes we will be engaging the Borg.  The Borg an enemy that strikes fear on every one of us.  In a way they are a reflection of our overreliance on technology and our quest to seek perfection.  However, no matter how advance their technology might be to ours on this ship...we have one thing they don't have...creativity...cunning....and each other.  I am sure all of you know, our mission is simple...Destroy one of the Borg Cubes before they make contact with the Enterprise in 46 hours.  Let's go an kick some ass"� James responded.

Someone addressed him "Sir, we have a visual of the borg"�

James then responded "On Screen"�

The image of the Borg Ship appeared on the screen

He turned to Lizzie and nooded for her to give the order to go to Red Alert.

All of the sudden the ship became quiet and a message came through the entire ship.  It was transmitted on the ship's speakers for everyone to hear.   It was a mechanical voice and something that he had heard early in his carrier on Shadow Fleet.  "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile"�

James remained standing and starred at the Borg Cube.  "I have always wondered if that ever worked?  We should asked them for their surrender"  James gave a small smile at it was his attempt to make a joke.

Chief Engineer, Ian what's the status of your big gun

Before he finished, a green laser appeared on the bridge.  James then ordered "Don't do anything...they are scanning us...remember this is the first time they have ever seen a Federation Ship...let's use this to our advantage"  James reminded everyone.  This was technically a first contact mission, but he didn't care about the protocots.

[Bridge]

Ian had returned to the helm station only minutes ago as he and Commander Tintus had flown through preparing the deflector dish to make it as close to the model first attempted by the Enterprise-D that an Excelsior could replicate.

Ordered by the captain to prepare a secondary task, Ian had those calculated and ready should the order come to execute. As the captain commented on the Borg's usual greeting, Ian felt it was proper to try and lighten the mood.

"I've got summat they can assimilate Sir, a deflector dish loaded with hurt and while they're dealin' with that, these Cube drivin' wankers can very politely bugger themselves with a splintered rake!"

[Van Buren]

"I think that might just deserve a commendation K'lizh." He said, chuckling at the Caitlin's toothy grin.

=A= Much appreciated Skipper, we'll see you in ten =A=

"Lets get back to the Tempest shall we" he said as the buzz was heard as they slid out of 621's shields.

"A job we-" Will was interrupted by the warning of their shields being compromised. As he frantically tried to correct the issue he heard a transporter cycle. He turned to face were the prisoner was.

=A= Van Buren to Tempest, our shields were compromised and the prisoner was transported off. Can you trace where the transporter signal came from? =A=

[Bridge]

Ian heard the Commander's message and only just held in a gasp as he felt a strong connection to the Exec and didn't want this to be the last day serving with him.

"These little Caochan Tzenkethi, are persistent buggers."

Despite his anger at the threat to Commander Waring, Ian kept the Van Buren under the saucer of the Tempest to provide maximum cover.

"For all the bloody good it did."

Ah, right. Yes, waiting for whatever the Captain has to say, there may have been confusion between Galloway and Garrison, not certain yet.

If there is a tag for me, I don't see it either in prologue or the battle threads.

[Bridge]

James monitored the situation and found the controls to be operating.   Then yelled at the bridge.  "Mr. Galloway, change into Ops control on the double"  HE then informed the Captain.

"Captain, we do have flight control available, we have rerouted them to Ops for temporary basis.  Ops is now going to be rerouted to Auxilary Engineering. "

Hawke to Enginering, it work...our temporary fix is working.  I am right now optimizing the control but it should work

James felt another hit  as he gave a quick explanation  "We took a hit minimal damage...this ship is tough....we have restored helm control on ops...we can punch it whenever you want to Captain"

James press is comm.

=/\=S'Murr, Good work, on the Helm...I need you to work with Naga on venting the plasma, keep Á,¾ of them in reserve in case we need to warp

James then looked at Naga across the bridge and said "Ms. Rylu...we will have the plasma ready...I will let you do the aiming and the covering aspect...routing controls to you"  James said

He did not notice anything different as he kept his eye on the situation at hand.

[Bridge]

As the battle continued to wage on Julia felt some trepidation about sending her people out into the storm but she knew it was essential to take custody of the prisoner. Those fighters weren't leaving anytime soon.

"Ensign." She looked to the helm. "Move us closer to the starbase and try to give the shuttle some cover. And contact station ops; let them know our shuttle will be penetrating their shields"

[Bridge]

Ian's smile was about as feral as a human's face could manage as he let his fingers dance across the controls.

"With pleasure Sir! I hope the Commander is nae afraid of the dark, 'cause he's goin' ta have ta fly in our shadow all the way ta the station."

Ian then rolled the Tempest hard to starboard to physically shield the Van Buren as she passed in front and then rolled level again with the shuttle under the saucer.

As the Tempest settled into position, Ian thought savagely.

"Now ya Tzenkethi gits, let's see how much ya like ta dance with a Galaxy-Class what is shootin' back!

Tag S'Murr

Tag James Hawk.

Just looking for some applied diplomacy. Seems to fit the situation.

[ENGINEERING]
Reroute the Helm through to Ops? He made it sound so easy! Just move the helm inputs two meters to port, as though S'Murr did it every day... Of course it could be done, and of course S'Murr could do it, of that he was reasonably sure. Precious seconds would be lost as Mr. Hawke shut down the damaged Helm and connected the Ops panel to the ship's attitude controls. Unless...

The Helm command pathways appeared on the display in front of him. He glanced at it, turned to another display and pulled up the OPS station diagram. He looked back and for the between the two for a few long heartbeats. Not too far off from warp control. One of the miracles of Starship design; a command path was a command path. He tapped his com-badge.

Aye, Sir. I am going to reconfigure Ops to Helm. Once Mr. Galloway has quickly changed positions, I will take the Helm console off-line form here so you can focus on routing the Ops panel command to ship's controls. Tempest may give a rough ride during the changeover if the damaged helm is sending false commands, so be ready. I can't talk and do this at the same time, so I will just keep working until the change is complete, or you order me to stop.

With that he went to work. Tapping at LCARS icons, looking back at the schematics. At home, during the festival hunts, S'Murr had never been the one to bring down the prey. But with machines he was different. His prey was what the humans called "Gremlins", and S'Murr hunted them without relent. Never tiring, never losing the scent, never failing to bring them down.

On the display, he moved pathways and altered parameters, making the Ops panel think and act like a Helm. A far easier thing to do than he had first thought. This gremlin was fleeing before him, but had nowhere left to go; S'Murr smiled, he had it.

=/\=Mr. Hawke, is Ops now Helm?

Ian saw the helm panel go dark and as Klizh stood to go with Commander Waring, he shifted over to the Ops station and quickly snapped the Tempest hard to port, while pitching the ship upward off the elliptical plane.

"Galloway to engineering. Aye, Ops is now Helm."=/\=

Ian sighed in relief to have full pitch, yaw, and roll again, before growling internally.

"Perhaps now, Mr Hawk will bloody well start blastin' these wankers in ta their component atoms!"

[Bridge]

"I know, we will be ready...you are all dismissed, Lieutenant Galloway, do you mind meeting me in my ready room?"  He asked.  His second backup plan was something he did not want to discuss with the crew.  It was a plan he was developing in his head as a last resort, but he wanted someone to get data on it and check the viability.

Ian nodded as the Captain wanted him to assist with the deflectorm which did make sense, but when he was asked to go to the ready room, he frowned, regardless, he stood as he replied.

"Aye Sir."

When Scott took the helm, Ian followed the Captain off the bridge. The Captain gave him a quick run down of what he expected. First, to be ready to cut power to the deflector weapon quickly if it failed to work. Second, to have the calculations ready for a maximum speed ramming of the Cube as a final means of damaging the Borg.

Ian replied softly.

"I understand Sir, I'll be ready."

He then left the Captain's Ready Room to head for engineering and to work with Commander Tintus.

[Bridge]

"Thank you, Sir" Zex replied.  "Preferably, the EMP would go off before the antimatter bombs.  It would improve the chances of the antimatter bombs hitting their targets and doing optimal damage" the Deltan said.

"But if I'm correct, the EMP would not only the electronic devices on the Borg cube but possibly the some of the implants on the nearby Borg as well.   Engineering or possibly science could speak better to that than I.  But that is my working assumption" she added.

[Bridge]

The Deltan turned back toward Ian.  "If the EMP is placed properly, say near their main computer, it would likely do more damage than that.  At least temporarily.  But someone other than I would be better able to determine the size of the pulse and thus the size of the device needed to produce the greatest effect" Zex said.

[Bridge]

Ian spoke from the helm station from the seated position to wait for the bridge to cool down, even though he knew that the environmental controls had not changed.

"One of the things that made stopping the Borg so difficult for the ships of this era was that nothing is centralized on one of their ships. I think the EMP is an excellent idea, but it's probably goin' ta have ta be like the antimatter shuttles and strike with multiple bursts at the same time."

Tag to the bridge

[Bridge]
The golden glow of the yellow alert continued to pulse steadily as the crew rattled off ideas, giving T'Ra the notion of lightbulbs going off in their heads. They were a bright group, and the answer to the desperate dilemma at hand was tucked inside one of them. The question was, how to best go about getting it out.

The mention of the doctors' oath, or the hypocritic oath as Evan liked to call it, gave her pause. The idea of harm did not appeal to her either. But sometimes it was unavoidable, even for doctors. She knew all to well, you can't save them all. So you saved as many as you could.

"What type of emp device did you have in mind, Ensign?" T'Ra asked, focusing on the Deltan. "Depending on the type and severity, we could do quite a bit of damage. That being said, a Borg cube can still function even if over 78% of the cube is damaged."

[Bridge]

Ian half smiled as he responded to the admiral and rhe captain.

"Aye Sirs. We might not have any advanced tech with us, but we've got more'n thirty years of knowledge these Borg do not have. If we can hammer them hard enough with the plans we already have lined up Admiral, we're just goin' ta have ta make sure ta do 79% damage or more with our first salvo.

"And Mister Hawk, it was my understandin' that the alteration ta this timeline was that the Borg Queen sent two Cubes instead of one. If they sent one back from our time, then, all I can offer is that we make peace with whatever higher power that we believe in, because this mission will have gone from suicidal ta pure folly. That concludes my portion of the brief."

Ian then sat back down at the helm and hoped that no one would call attention to his reaction to the Deltan woman.

"Last bloody thing I need is ta have anyone commentin' on my Willie. Damn Deltans."