And She fell from the Heavens <3

Posted on Sun Mar 21st, 2021 @ 10:27pm by Administrator LordeEmp

Mission: Heroes of the Hov'hurgh
Location: M-Class Moon / Klingon Space
Timeline: 2356

“Gah!” Exclaimed the normally jovial behemoth of a Klingon, “I hate these long flights! Nothing to do except eat, sleep and pace the floor.” JoH’qIj then stretched his taut, muscled arms upwards and pressed against the ceiling, actually causing the old supports to groan slightly in protest. “Besides these damn ships are always so small.”

“It is not the ship’s fault that your mother birthed a giant fit for the old legends,” Kyran quipped with a bit of a snort. The others in the bunk-room chuckled and nodded. Most of them were at least six inches shorter than the rather imposing engineer and not one of them matched his impressive shoulder width. By comparison, the team’s first was positively tiny, almost petite by Human standards. But there was a fire in her eyes that no warrior on the ship dared to face.

“I just wish there was something that we could do to be useful, sir. All this standing around is driving me crazy,” he said through slightly gritted teeth.

The red-braided recruit stood slowly and nearly prowled towards the beefy marine, a grin forming on her lips, “Oh, JoH’qIj... when will you ever learn patience...” VaQ’taj teased as she ran her fingernails roughly down his chest, then winked suggestively, strolling towards her bunk.

Out of sheer frustration the burly recruit punched the bulkhead. Suddenly the entire ship rocked with a violent tremor as, unbeknownst to all of those in the bunk-room, a plasma torpedo slammed against the transport vessel’s armored hull. The almost stunned Klingon looked down at his clenched fist, staring in disbelief, “Tell me that was not me!?”

But before anyone could respond, the harsh Staccato voice of the ships computer blasted out over the internal comm system, “ALERT! ALERT! All hands to battle stations!”

Catching herself on one of the bunks as another blast jolted several of the bleary-eyed recruits out of their beds, depositing them unceremoniously onto the cold, hard deck plating, VaQ’taj shouted, “Something tells me this is not a drill! Warriors, move!”

“Thank Kahless, something to DO!” shouted JoH’qij as he grabbed his combat gear and headed for the blast door. Only to hear the disapproving buzz of a jammed hatch. “Oh! You have got to be kidding me!”

Roaring he lunged at the door, strong fingers grasping the reinforcing struts and pulling with all his tremendous strength. “I will not be denied the one bit of excitement on this whole damn voyage by a frozen door!” he said through clenched teeth, and straining neck muscles.

The already considerable knots in his bare arms bulged underneath his dark skin, giving the appearance that they might burst. Slowly at first but with increasing speed, almost unbelievably, the door began to shudder then came creaking open, sparks showering down around him. “Are we going?!” he groused to no one in particular, as the rest of the recruits scrambled to grab whatever gear that they could get their hands on and squeeze through the opening that he had created for them.

As the squad of Klingon officer’s candidates exited the room into one of the small corridors, the computer voice returned “ALERT! ALERT! Sixty seconds to warp core breach!” suddenly a much gruffer voice shouted over the comms, “All hands abandon ship!” then sounding like he turned away from the comm he ordered “Prepare for ramming spe..” But they heard no more as the comm fell silent.

All eyes in the squad turned to Kyran looking for an order, only to find him seemingly caught in thought and looking right through them. His eyes moved from expectant face to expectant face blankly, his lips moving slightly with half thought words.

Pushing the vapor locked team leader out of her way, the short-statured First stepped in, her tone one of unmistakable command, “To the shuttle bay! Quickly!” she ordered as she stepped ahead of the rest of the squad, taking point through the beleaguered and embattled ship as panels exploded and the ever familiar sound of disruptor cannons reverberated through the failing structure around them.

Arriving at the shuttle bay only slightly singed from the hurried evacuation, the squad quickly boarded the last remaining shuttle. As they prepared to make way, the familiar thrumming of the warp core stuttered a beat. VaQ’taj sucked in an expectant breath as she forced the shuttle out of the bay that was beginning to drop large pieces of glowing metal onto the launchpad that they had recently departed.

“Brace for impact!” Kyran shouted as he dropped himself into the secondary seat, watching as his first expertly piloted through the debris field and secondary explosions that were rocking the vessel. Eyes widening as they watched from the view-ports, the sparking and limping B’rel slammed into the now visible Orion battle-cruiser. The aging ship crumpled as it impacted the heavy armor of the enemy.

The giant of a Klingon saw, for a brief moment, a scene of surreal peace as both ships appeared to merge into one. Then the calm blackness of space was shattered by the light of a million stars, as the cores of the two vessels combined into one gigantic explosion. Sending out a shock-wave that quickly overtook the fleeing shuttles.

“Reinforcing rear shields.. Bringing the engines offline, engaging maneuvering thrusters!” VaQ’taj shouted, her fingers flying furiously over the console in front of her. She gritted her teeth and shook her head; the data was not boding well for their survival.

Their squad leader started shrieking, “We will be killed, you fo..!” just as the initial wake hit, sending sparks flying throughout the small bay along with anything not tied down. Including crew that stumbled and righted themselves, eyes wide as the very real possibility of still falling victim to their attackers and left to the void of space loomed up before them.

A bright flash of light told them that the other shuttle hadn’t escaped the explosion, yet somehow, while battered, they had managed to survive the initial brunt of the shockwave. Even with the engines off, they were moving at a high rate of speed and VaQ’taj struggled at the fried out controls with the maneuvering thrusters. Having managed to shut down the engines before they could spark a catastrophic reaction, they were now riding out the kinetic force of the wave on nothing but emergency power and reinforced shields.

Straight towards a large, M-class moon that was orbiting a looming gas giant.

“Inertial dampeners offline! Brace yourselves, we are going in fast!” VaQ’taj warned as she maneuvered the shuttle into the cloud studded atmosphere. From what she was seeing, it was quite likely that they were going to be shot into the ground like an errant meteorite, but that was information that the red-headed engineer kept to herself as the atmospheric alarms began to sound and flames began erupting around their small, already beleaguered craft.

The damaged and rattling shuttle plunged into the alien atmosphere, a fiery streak across a purple hued sky. As the ground raced closer, VaQ’taj fell silent, all of her concentration trained on the thruster controls.

“Level out!” Kyran bellowed, echoing the young Klingon woman’s own harried thoughts.

Through clenched teeth, the red-braided woman barked in response, “Brace yourselves!”

Her fingers slid over one of the flickering consoles and there was a tooth-chattering vibration as she tried to shunt energy to the all but dead drive system. The panel sparked, then exploded, setting the fur sleeve of her uniform on fire to no avail. Ignoring the flames, VaQ’taj remained intent on surviving the landing. Burns could be seen to when and if they walked away.

Knowing there was no place in Stov’vo’kor for those who die in “training accidents” there was a mad rush to find seat restraints. Some of the few remaining beleaguered Cadets were wedging themselves into various nooks in the small craft. Joh’qIj managed to put his impressive size to good use stuffing himself near one of the smaller Cadets and helping to pin her in.

Knowing that she was going to have to bring the shuttle fairly close to the ground, the small Klingon woman managed to turn them towards what appeared to be a stretch of open plains. Making a few quick calculations and muttering a curse to long dead gods, VaQ’taj pulled the speeding craft level. As the vectored current of the smoking craft began to fire, flora ignited and spiraled in smoky, spark laden tendrils behind the struggling craft.

Strange animals of the field fled in a panic, some bounding towards the distant cover of rock and tree, still others took to the smoke tinged sky. While her efforts had managed to slow them considerably, the battered star ship was still coming in too fast.

Suddenly there was a groan and the craft faltered as one of the overtaxed forward thrusters suffered a catastrophic failure. The shuttle tipped, righted, then slammed into the ground, grinding out a smoldering path through the tall grasses. VaQ’taj used what little that the ship had left to keep the rounded nose off of the ground while dirt rapidly piled up in front of the craft creating a berm that stopped the shuttle to bone-jarring effect, tossing everyone and everything forward.

Well... almost everyone. As the lights inside the ship slowly came back on after the mighty impact, a scene of faux tranquility played out. Obviously everyone was a bit dazed after such a landing, many were looking around somewhat confused.

It was quiet until a rich deep voice chuckled and said, “And this is the day we will tell our children that the Fek’lhr came to drag us into Gre’thor. And we were saved by the actions of the Littlest Klingon.”

His statement was met with a few laughs and grunts. “Huzzah!” someone shouted from underneath a foot locker. “Now would someone, get this thing off me!”