To Finish the Race

Posted on Thu Aug 13th, 2009 @ 1:20am by Commander Acle Walex

Mission: Dark Discoveries
Location: Guarded Station
Timeline: Immediately after "Heroic Sacrifice"

Acle went through the hatch, rifle held at the ready. His eyes automatically swept the corridor, searching for any hostile activity. Finding none, he hurriedly stepped out. He chose a path and then began to follow the bend of the corridor, jogging with his rifle held up, his finger a hair's breath from the trigger.

Another companion had died while he was powerless to stop it. Acle grimaced before his face once again went back to its normal expressionless mask. He cleared his thoughts, concentrating on only one goal... His mission. This was how it should be. Acle alone, with only his mission before him.

Acle rounded another corner and saw a women ahead of him. A weapon was held negligently in one hand and she appeared to be listening to something. Their eyes met for just an instant before Acle squeezed the trigger. He did not pause to look at the corpse as he jogged by.

In almost all space stations, the shield generators were set near the skin of the station. Although this was not the most practical place for them in case of a battle, it did, however, optimize the amount of power that it would give to the shielding quadrant. The problem with attacking the generators themselves were that there were literally hundreds for a station this size. There was no time to disable all of the generators.

That left Acle with two choices... Disable the station's power grid or disable the shields through the software of the station. He was not sure which would be faster, and the longer that Acle took, the greater the team's chance of detection, and subsequent execution. Either course would mean that he go to the station's engineering section. In all space-going vessels, the engineering section was buried in the core of the vessel, both to protect it and to centralize power capacity.

Acle rounded another corridor, his next objective in sight. The bank of turbo-lifts. A bored-looking armed and armored guard stood in front of them. Acle never hesitated, he fired two shots from his rifle in quick succession. The first shot hit the man in his armored chest, knocking him back, but, not penetrating. The man was trained well enough to bring his own weapon to bear, but, he had barely raised it when the second shot hit him right below his nose.

Acle continued to jog forward, never having stopped. He did pause over the corpse and yanked off the two concussion grenades that still hung on the vest. He hit the call button for the turbo-lift and paused. Luck was on his side as the nearest door opened immediately. Acle stepped inside and pressed the button for the engineering deck. As he waited for the turbo-lift to arrive at the required deck, Acle shouldered his rifle.

Subtly would take time. Time that Acle did not have. The turbo-lift opened in a moment. Beyond, the vast cavernous expanse of the engineering bay loomed. Acle stepped out. Crew were everywhere, but, most did not even bother to look. Those who did took a quick glance and assumed he was security.

Acle quickly moved to one corner of the room. He was no longer jogging, but, he still moved briskly. Several security personnel moved throughout the room, but, none seem to pay attention to what Acle is doing.

Acle makes he way along the edges of the bay to a console. The console was shielded from view of most of the rest of the bay by a bank of equipment, capacitors by the sound of it. A single technician rested in front of the console, his bored eyes scanning the read-outs of information as it appeared. Acle stepped behind the technician, taking care to put his body between what little view existed and the technician's spot. The technician did not notice the presence behind him.

Acle reached forward, putting one hand on the technician's chin, the other on the back of his head. The technician had enough time to register surprise before Acle pushed his hands in opposite directions. A crack resounded and the technician's body slumped. Acle quickly grabbed the body before it fell and moved it to a corner, completely out of sight of the rest of the bay.

Acle began entering in commands. Several password and firewall prompts later, Acle was looking at power allocation for the entire starbase. Acle sighed softly as he manipulated the controls. Power was completely shut off to the shield generators and weapons. That power was in turn diverted to the command consoles for the engineering bay. Any console that could gain access to the power allocation was going to be surged with electricity... Excluding this one. Finally, Acle put a timer on the command, setting it to execute in five minutes.

Acle stepped back and detected a presence behind him.

"Whatcha doin?" A gruff voice asked. The voice came from an armed security man. Acle gave vent to a sigh, then reached out and struck the man in his nose. In rapid succession, Acle hit the man in his knee, blowing it apart, then his collar bone, and finally his neck. The final blow registered a crack and the man fell, gasping for air that would never come.

Shouts began to ring out over the bay. Acle sighed again then pulled out one of the concussion grenades. He armed it, set the delay for ten seconds and threw it back to where the console was. He blessed the designer of the central database, knowing that his command that he had entered in was residing there, and not in the console itself. He then began to sprint.

Acle had made it fifty yards from the console when he felt an over-pressurized wall of air hit his back. Unlike fragmentation grenades, a concussion grenade used pure pressure for its devastation.

Acle fought to keep his balance and barely succeeded. Klaxons began to sound throughout the bay as alarm lights flashed. Acle broke into a sprint, unlimbering the rifle that was on his shoulder as he did so.

Acle made it to the bank of turbo-lifts just as shots began to ring out, the nearest blowing a hole in the wall beside the open turbo-lift door. He flew inside, slapping the control panel of the turbo-lift as he did so. The turbo-lift doors slid closed and the lift began descending.

Acle righted himself and gasped, filling his lungs with much needed air. Now all he had to do was wait for the signal from the lieutenants.

The door to the turbo-lift slowly slid open, revealing a blessedly empty corridor ahead of him. Acle moved out of the lift and into the corridor. He tried the nearest door and disappointingly found it locked. This was not looking good. If they did not find their mission objective soon...

=/= Its placed, lets get out of here. =/=

Acle nearly broke out into a wide grin at hearing that in his sub-dermal communicator. He jogged down the corridor until he found a dark recessed area. Moving into it, he crouched and withdrew a device from inside his pocket. The device was on a tripod and unfolded to have a sizable array. Acle entered a few commands and waited. A moment later, the device beeped, acknowledging that it's message had been sent.

Acle peered around the corner again. His luck was holding, no one had wondered by yet. A minute passed before a green light blinked on the face of the device and another beep sounded. Acle let loose a breath he had not been aware he had been holding. The message had cleared the station and was now on its way. The device used the station's own communications array to send a tight pulse to a designated area in space. A pre-set stealth relay had been deployed at that area in space by the Mosh'Tar. The relay had received transmission of the message and sent the acknowledgment back. From there it would go directly to the USS Iapetus.

Acle quickly refolded the device and stood up. He activated his sub-dermal communications device and whispered, putting the device away as he did so.

=/= Our ride is on the way ladies. Meet up with me at extraction alpha. Don't take to long. If everything goes right we do not have a lot of time to get there. =/=

Acle finished speaking and then took his own advice. He shouldered his rifle once again and briskly set off down the hallway. The scans he had covertly uploaded and quickly memorized showed that the extraction point was on this deck, if on the other side of the station. He had a ways to go in a short amount of time.

Such was life.

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Lieutenant Commander Acle Walex
Chief Intelligence Officer
Acting First Officer
USS Iapetus