A wolf in sheep's clothing Pt2.

Posted on Mon Apr 15th, 2024 @ 3:17pm by Commodore Finchley Kerr & Lieutenant Commander Shr'Nesh Karadis & Lieutenant Commander Wyatt Steele & Lieutenant Evelyn Steele

Mission: The missions never over.
Location: Sestus One, Outer rim Federation colony.
Timeline: Current.

With the ship now safely landed, albeit damaged with no knowing how badly, Finchley wanted to know the lay of the land outside so had sent Lieutenant Lorut to find out and report back. It had been a while and they hadn't returned, this made him a little on edge.

"Captain to Lieutenant Lorut" he said, as he tapped his COMM's badge.

There was no reply so he tried again, "Captain to Lieutenant Lorut, are you there?", but there was still no reply.

Kilbane, you have the CON, I'm going to see where our Chief Science Officer is, they're not answering their COMM.

Kilbane nodded and replied "Sure thing Bird, you be safe out there, we don't have scanners so the cavalry might be a little slow getting to you if you get in trouble."

Finchley just smiled, "You know me your Grace, I'm always careful."

Kilbane made a 'really, did you have to say that' as he silently nodded towards Wyatt.

Finchley just gave Kilbane an 'aww shucks' wave of his hand and walked off.

The turbolifts and transporters were offline, so it was shanksy's pony for Finchley as he made his was down through the ship to the landing ramp, primarily used for taking onboard supplies, and down onto the plateau the Thall had touched down on. As he looked round, there was no sign of the Bajoran Officer, but he did notice a fresh rock fall had formed about fifty yards away.

He called out for Lorut a few times, but there was no reply. Curiosity over the rock fall made him make his way over to it, and as he approached, he saw a leg sticking out from between two small boulders. He rushed over, his gut already telling him it was Lorutbut he had to make sure. Moving the boulders and other rocks, he saw that it was Lorut, and immediately felt for a pulse, but there was none. He sighed and dropped his head, she'd probably not seen it coming, and he hoped it was a quick death.

Lifting her body.he made his way back to through the ship to the Sickbay and placed her body in a chamber so that it could hopefully be sent back to her family for proper burial. He didn't have time to reflect on what had happened, he barely knew her, and there were more pressing matters like how the ship was. Making his way back to the bridge, he didn't say anything about Lorut but instead looked at Wyatt and said "Lieutenant Steele, what damage have you come across to the ship?"

Wyatt turned to face the captain. "Sir." He replied, "Damage to the ship is as follows. Sensors are back online but as of now operating at 63 percent. Lateral thrusters are also online and functioning at 100 percent. Shields are iffy right now. Best we can get is 47 percent. Weapons are currently offline but phasers should be restored within the hour. Torpedoes in six hours. Warp engines are also offline but engineering is working on them. Impulse engines are in fair shape. We can achieve orbit with them. Life support is at 100 percent. There was also some minor structural damage on decks 8 and 9 but nothing to affect the integrity of the ship." He finished.

The report was better than Finchley had thought it would be, thankfully.

"Use the sensors as bets you can, see if you can boost them, find out what cities, towns or settlements are close by" Finchley replied to Wyatt, "We need to corroborate the information on the attacks, but given the information we have, we can almost be certain it was the Klingon's. We also need to find out if any of them are on the surface of the planet and if they are, where?"

"Yes sir. I'll do what I can in boosting the sensors to get the information you requested sir. I can run a sensor sweep to detect Klingon life signs." Wyatt offered.

“Yes, that’s a good idea Mr Steele” Finchley replied, “Also, and I know this sounds odd, other than those of this crew, check for human signs as well, I just have a feeling…”

"Yes sir. I can do that. I'll need to recalibrate the sensors to detect human life signs as well as Klingons." Wyatt replied. "It will take me some time to have the calibrations done." Wyatt finished as he turned back to the console to recalibrate the sensors for Klingon life signs as well as those of humans, along with tweaking their effectiveness.


“Just try your best Lieutenant Steele, keep me informed” Finchly replied.

"Yes sir." Wyatt replied his head already under the console and his reply somewhat muffled

*Some Time Later*

Wyatt slid out from under the console. "Sir." he said standing, "Calibrations to the sensors are complete. Sensor efficiently has also been increased to 83 percent."

"Very good Lieutenant, well done, keep me informed" Finchley replied.

"Yes sir." Wyatt turned back to the console and began to run a sensor scan. Several minutes later the scan was done and he turned back to the captain. "Sir, scan is complete. I have detected Klingon life signs and a human life sign in a small city approximately 50 kilometers from our location."

"Thank you Lieutenant Steele" Finchley said. Fifty kilometers was quite a distance, they had no way of getting the ship there undetected if it was repaired, and they had no shuttles. Transporters were out as well, so he had a decision to make, stay and repair the ship and hope they could fight their way out, or go by foot over terrain they knew nothing about.

~ Meanwhile In Sickbay ~

Having made it to Sickbay Eve had made her way across to a biobed, sitting on one to allow Karadis to get on with healing her hand. “I guess that landing wasn’t so bad after all, you know what they say, any landing you can walk away from...” she smiled warmly.

Karadis gave a wistful laugh, "Well, there's been two forced landings I haven't walked away from, and your Uncle's had one...we were carried on stretchers. But, given what we we went through, I'd say that landing was about as good as we could have hoped for, you and Lieutenant Steele both did well."

“Thank you” Eve smiled warmly. “You’ve been watching out for me for long enough, you won’t have to any longer. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to find myself manning the ship for a crash landing, I’m just assigned here as a Counsellor!”

“Yes, well you must have subconsciously remembered the piloting lessons you were taught in basic training” Karadis replied, “and don’t let Bird hear you saying I won’t have to look out for you any longer, he’s an absolute stickler that everyone looks out for everyone else in the team.”

Eve nodded. “Understood.” She held out her hand for Karadis to treat, her entire palm was covered in burns.” Perhaps it’ll give me a chance to repay the number of times you saved me. I owe you my life Karadis, at the time I may not have known it but now I do.”

Karadis first gently cleaned the wounds and burns, then using a dermal regenerator, Eve’s hand was soon looking almost back to normal.

“Try not to use your hand for half an hour or so, allow the cells to knit and heal” she told Eve.

She looked deep into the woman’s eyes, “I appreciate what you’ve said, and that’s coming from a Klingon, all I ask is that you try to make sure you yourself come back alive from each mission, and if you happen to make sure the rest of us do as well, job done. I get you love Lieutenant Steele a lot, but a word of warning, it’s actually showing that you care more for each other than your job at hand, or how the team as a whole are doing. The Captain hasn’t said anything, but I can see it in his demeanour, it’s already grating on him. I never said anything to you though, have you got that?” she ended, raising her eyebrows.

Eve have Karadis a concerned look. “We do care for each other, we’re married now and as much as it’s showing through we wouldn’t let it interfere with our duties to this ship or crew. We just worked our asses off saving the lives of everybody onboard, the fact that Wyatt was concerned I was injured is only natural. There wasn’t anyone else on the bridge who was hurt, if there was they’d have been attended to or brought here with us. If it’s a problem then I’ll stay in my office in future!” She frowned.

“You think you both were the only ones working your arses off to get this ship landed!!!” Karadis shouted at Eve, enraged at her naivety, what the fuck do you think Kilbane and I were doing, filing our nails and swapping sun tan stories??? Grow the fuck up, everybody worked towards that, and if you think it was just the two of you, then you’ve got a lot to learn. Your hands healed, don’t use it for half an hour like I said!”, then she stormed out of Sickbay. As she thundered down the corridor, she’d never been so angry in a long time. She couldn’t believe that Eve thought it was just her and Wyatt that got the ship down, she was angrier than all hell.

“Karadis...Wait!” Eve followed on quickly behind Karadis. “I’m sorry! That’s not what I meant it to sound like. Please stop!”

“NO!” Karadis replied, “ That’s exactly what you meant. You’re so wrapped up in your relationship with Lieutenant Steele that you think both of you are the only ones who are the ones who mean anything and it’s just you both who matter. Now fuck off before I get really mad!”

She turned away and stormed off down the corridor.

“Fine!” Eve rushed ahead. “Then you get really mad...I made a mistake, I did not intend to offend you!” She stood her ground. “If you want to hit me, then hit me! I’m not here to make enemies.”

“Don’t tempt me” Karadis replied, “You have no idea what I’m capable of, and the damage I could inflict would change your life forever and I won’t bat an eyelid. If you feel regret, then apologise to the Captain, not me!”

She pushed past Eve and walked on.

Eve sighed and headed for her office, right now she wasn’t doing a very good job of getting along with Karadis. It was probably better if she wasn’t on the bridge right now. She tapped her comm badge. “Steele to bridge, I’m done in Sickbay, I’ll be in my office if I’m needed.”

Finchley was about to reply, when Karadis came storming onto the bridge. He could tell by her demeanor that she was angry, and he closed his eyes. He put two and two together, "What happened Karadis ?"

"You know damn well what happened, Sir!" Karadis replied, swinging round to look at Finchley. "Because of what was said and how it was said, I ended up laying out the truth because you wouldn't", and with that she turned back and wen't to her console.

Finchley knew she was right, he ought to have said something, but the very recent events had taken over their situation.

Kilbane walked down and laid a hand on Finchley's shoulder, "We need to focus on the now Bird, whatever it is, it needs to be put to one side."

Finchley sighed, he knew Kilbane was right, "Yes...yes, you're correct."

Wyatt saw Karadis' angry demeanor and wondered what could have happened in the brief time she and Eve had been down in Sickbay. He would ask Eve about it later.

Finchley made his choice, they had to find out what the Klingon's were up to, it was that simple. He'd never failed or pulled out of an SFI mission yet, and he wasn't about to now.

"Right, we leave engineering to try and get this crate fixed and space worthy again and walk to our target" he said, "Everyone pack two days of provisions, get kitted out for rough terrain travel, tricorders, and draw a phaser. Ten minutes and we meet at the airlock, you all got that?"

"Aye Sir" Kilbane replied.

"Got it Captain" Karadis said.

Wyatt replied with "Yes sir, got it."

He relayed the same message to Eve at her Counsellors office.

Receiving the message Eve sent an acknowledgment and started preparing for the away team.

He looked at Wyatt, "Mr Steele, I don't want any delays, and I don't want any reason for friction in this mission. Am I perfectly clear?"

Several thoughts went through Wyatt's mind the most prevalent one being he was getting tired of being singled out for perceived.
friction or misconduct. He wanted to say *Check on your commander.* But refrained from making anything other than "Yes sir. Crystal clear."

Finchley nodded and made his way off the bridge, as he did, he looked at Karadis and said "A word with you when we set off."

Karadis acknowledged him with a nod and, "Aye Sir."

[Ten minutes later]

Standing at the airlock, Finchley addressed the team, "I've had a look at the scans Lieutenant Steele took of the terrain and the city. The terrain's going to be tough going, but it's doable, and the city looks like it's set up in an hour glass shape with one main building as the centre piece. To maximize our chances of success in capturing our main target, we're going to split into two teams, Lieutenants Steele will be team one heading overground and coming in from the south, myself, Karadis and Kilbane heading overground and coming in from the North. As I said earlier, it'll take a couple of days walking to reach the city, so we'll have to keep our wits about us, I'd imagine there will be Klingon patrols going about. How far out from the city will they patrol, I don't know, but stay sharp. To try and stop detection, I suggest we use our COMM badges to send morse code, but only in emergencies, but also to let the other team know we've reached our separate ends of the city. Once both teams are in place, then we go in, however, if there's a delay of more than twelve hours, whichever team is at the city goes in, chances are that if the 'is' a delay from either team, it's because they've been captured or are dead. Under no circumstances are either team to try a rescue mission of the other, the primary goal is the asset's capture and return to SFIHQ. Right, good luck everyone, let's go."

TBC...