The Most Dangerous Game VIII: Longshot

Posted on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 12:04am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray & Lieutenant Commander Selune
Edited on on Tue May 29th, 2018 @ 12:05am

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Past Tense
Location: Risa, Ohma Province, private cabin #7
Timeline: 2265
Tags: BonneChanceTrio

It didn't take Selune long to find the first Risan marksman out back, as she had thought his attention had been on the first thing that moved and he appeared to not be looking for her at all. A telescopic nightvision lens was glued to his eye as she swept the house, at a guess he had been put here just on the off chance that he got a shot while the others clustered around the better angles.

After observing him for several seconds, painstakingly trying to find signs of any other hostile forces around her she noticed a quick intake of breath from her prey and a sudden jerkiness as he swung his weapon, having found a potential target. Selune didn't wait a moment longer, stalking forward and striking him with two sharp jabs to the jaw followed by a knee to the stomach, then dropping a elbow onto the base of his neck. He hit the ground with a dull thud - never voicing anything more than a dull gasp - and didn't move.

She shuddered internally as the wash of hormones fled, looking at his prone - possibly dead - form before forcing herself to think. Picking up the disruptor rifle and performing a quick search of his body to find a data card and a pistol, she took another quick scan of the area. Finding what she was looking for and scampering to a better angle, now at least she was armed and as the old axiom went: "if you're going to fight, it helps to have the big guns."



"Fi... I need you to set my shoulder, please, or I'm completely useless... I can't think in this much pain and I can't move much, either," Fiona had heard a lot come out of the mouth of the pointy-eared puzzle that was her friend, but this was the first time she had recognized fear in her voice. She must have been in considerable pain, and considering that she wasn't expressing an escape plan, it was likely one wasn't formulating in her mind.

Fi nodded once . She crawled over to her pile of luggage and fished out the little medkit and tricorder she'd packed. She scooted over to Char and very gently examined her wound then scanned her. Before she reset her friend's shoulder she took care of the disrupter burn, treating it with a topical number and broad spectrum antibiotic before spraying some nuskin over it. She worked quickly and efficiently, silently blessing the time she'd spent in her dad's medlabs.

She help Char sit up and placed her heavy tookit in her hand to hold then let her arm drop, hoping gravity and the toolkit's weight would do the trick and pop her shoulder back in. The strangled scream that escaped the young woman was the best she could manage to stifle the expression of agony, but her arm moved once again and she flexed the fingers of her right hand experimentally.

There was a DING from downstairs followed by a WHUMP that shook the house. The remaining windows on the first floor exploded outward, to the tune of screaming outside. Char wrapped her arms around Fiona's head, futilely trying to shield her from the blast. Secondary and tertiary explosions went off as well, in sequence after the first.

"They booby-trapped the doors... very professional," Charybdis muttered as disruptor fire resumed peppering what was left of the cabin. "I think the Lieutenant disobeyed my orders... at least I hope she did. So it's you and me, Sundance... time for us to figure out how to shoot our way out of this."

"I'll settle fer bein' able tae git duin stairs... if we have stairs."




While she watched, the bottom floor of the cabin belched orange and blue fire and glass, followed by cursing and a few screams in the darkness. Selune moved up to a small ridge that overlooked where she had seen most of the forces gathering earlier, periodic shots blasting into the house as several of the men began working their way forward. A sudden cacophony of shots erupted from the small nest providing cover as the men suddenly rushed forward to storm the lower level of the house.

Making a snap choice Selune aimed into the small cluster offering cover fire, the scope bringing them up clear as day and she began firing randomly into the group. After the first two or three shots they realized that they were under attack and scattered like professionals into the surrounding terrain, their comrades in the house forgotten as they ducked and ran before beginning to turn their attention to the new problem. Hopefully she had given the girls room to maneuver inside she thought as she took one last quick scan of the area before darting back under cover and making a hasty but fluidly careful retreat to a new spot.

Chances are they would be coming for her and she didn't really know how much damage she had done with her opening barrage, if she was lucky she might have dropped three, but now they were playing a game of cat and mouse. Once again she hoped she had brought enough attention to herself to give the other two a fighting chance, and that she simply wasn't too late

A few were willing to brave open ground, and they paid for it with phaser fire. There were far fewer bolts coming their way now... apparently Selune was using the darkness to her advantage, and Char realized that she had been quite wrong in her assumption that the Caitan would need backup- on the contrary, she was likely much better off working solo out there without them. One of the hitmen on the scorched lawn began struggling to his feet, and before Char could get off a shot Fiona stunned him again. "What, yuir a terrible shot..."


Crouching 15 feet above the ground in her surprisingly comfortable tree, Selune - not for the first time - wondered how humans and their seemingly related facsimiles had managed to evolve into the galactic powerhouses of Starfleet that they had. They were slow, their senses were at best bland and she was fairly sure they didn't know what up was. That she was a pilot who naturally thought in three dimensions from a race that happened to have heightened reflexes, night vision, smell, flexibility and origins as an ambush predator, not to mention unparalleled bursts for speed, didn't factor into it one bit, at least not in her mind.

This was reaffirmed as she watched the two men below her hesitantly stalking forward, intent on finding their elusive quarry, without a thought to even look up. She noted that not all of them had night vision goggles, some like her earlier victim relied on a weapon scope and his companion to see through the darkness. Her observations were shattered by the distinctive sound of phaser fire and the sudden light show that accompanied such sounds.

Her pre... targets both turned to the sound, totally engrossed in the firefight within the house giving Selune the perfect opportunity to drop onto one, heels coming down solidly on his shoulders as the disruptor pistol discharged into the other. Her landing was far from flawless and the dull groan from beneath her suggested she had at least one other person who would agree. Gingerly pulling herself up, she struck the wounded man across the jaw with the rifle. Watching his eyes roll back as he slipped into unconsciousness before stripping him of weapons and binding his feet and wrists. It wouldn't hold forever if he was really determined but it would have to do. Casting her eyes around once more, she began limping away to hunt for a new perch. Hopefully there weren't many left or she was going to be seriously pressed.


"If we can get close enough to the shuttlecraft, you can still access it with your PDD, Fiona?" The question was mostly rhetorical, as Char knew the answer as well as Fiona- probably, but hard to tell since they didn't know what sort of jamming device was being used nor where it was located, and without those facts the answer was an unknowable variant. "I just need for you to open the hatch remotely- if they've booby-trapped it then we can trigger it remotely, we may still be able to use the shuttle as cover. The duranium hull should protect us if we're on the other side of it."

"Aye, most likely. If I have time I might be able tae do it" Fiona said with a nod.

"Then I'll buy you that time," the pointy-eared young woman said confidently.

Fiona nodded once then gave Char's good shoulder a light squeeze. "Alreet. Boot dinna do anythin' crazy. I prefer keepin' me friends in once piece." The little Scot shoved her feet into her boots and grabbed a couple of her cases, then dropped them out the window. She listened for weapons fire in response and hearing none, she tossed a blanket over the battered window sill to keep from slicing her hands to ribbons then very carefully lowered herself out. She dropped the rest of the way down to land on top of the two cases. The soft duffles weren't perfect but they beat hard glass covered ground. She rolled to her feet then cleared the landing zone in case Char wanted to make use of the impromptu crash bags.

For her part Charybdis had gathered a few things of her own and found her duty boots, slipped into them and by the time Fiona had made her way down, the nimble minx of the Bonaventure simply flipped end over end down from the second story, landing in a three-point crouch. Strapped to her right arm she had duct taped one of the mirrors from the bathroom medicine cabinet. Fiona began to laugh when she raised it at an angle and deflected a disruptor bolt, sending it winging off with an altered trajectory.

"It isn't foolproof but it will give me something," she said as she scooped up both duffels with her good arm and motioned. "I know a little more than most about disruptor physics. Go, go, I'll cover you!"

Together the duo circled the house, and it was then that Selune's parking job came into play- she had parked the shuttle with the hatch pointed away from the stone wall of the cabin, so they now had a very defensible position with the shuttle in front of them providing cover. they squatted, keeping low and Chary positioned herself in front of Fiona as she worked feverishly to overcome the jamming device.

"If it's too complex for you I can probably crack it..." the science officer teased as she kept a sharp eye out for their attackers, who were either becoming a whole lot more cautious or were losing interest in shooting at them.

What Fiona said in exchange dyed the air around the duo a lovely shade of blue. The little PDD emitted a series of beeps and Char heard the locks on the shuttle hatches cycle. "...tae complex me lily white arse..."

The sultry scientist patted her best friend on the back as she moved her out from behind the shuttle, then called out none too loudly, "Lieutenant, front and center. We're leaving- but first cover your ears, I suspect this will be loud. Five, four, three, two, one..."

There was no need to instruct the efficient engineer... she knew the plan and they had worked together quite a bit now. Charybdis had her fingers in her ears as Fiona opened the hatch, and nothing happened until the hatch had fully opened, at which point a small explosion occurred and flechettes filled the space where anyone boarding the shuttle would have occupied. The duo exchanged glances.

"Can we possibly find a way to blame Patrick for this?"

"Oh I'm sure I cuid figure oot some reason tae..." the engineer went completely still. "Jaysus... maybe I shuid send him thank you flowers. If he hadn't been sooch an arse I wuid hae been here by m'self." Fiona shook off the shivers and inched forward towards the relative safety of the shuttlecraft.

"I'll be sure to give him credit for it..." Char wisecracked, though it made her wonder if perhaps he were fighting his own battle in her tropical paradise bungalow even now.

Covering one another they swept the interior of the shuttle to anticipate ambush, then they cautiously entered and took stock. The interior looked fine- apparently the assassins had only booby-trapped the door, assuming that would do the trick. Donning night vision gear from within the shuttlecraft, the duo kept the lights turned off as they worked- the engineer bringing the systems online and beginning diagnostics just in case, while the scientist watched the woods for incoming fire or the appearance of their compatriot.

"Just bring it online, she'll be here..." Char muttered, hoping that if nothing else the sound of the shuttle engines powering up would bring their friend and helmsman running back for the vessel. After all, she somehow doubted the Caitan trusted either of them to pilot.

A muffled curse, a small squeak and a dull thud followed by the muffled crump of the hatch being slammed shut announced the limping Caitian as she glared at the two of them, "And just who said you could power up my shuttle?" she scathingly demanding before hobbling to the pilot seat and sitting herself down, "Oh and the hatch got shotup a bit when I was closing it, might need to get it seen to," she cheerfully informed Fiona.

Fiona's fingers danced across the controls bringing the engines and communications online. "Add thet hatchway tae my growing list oov things tae fix." she grumbled as she worked. "Tain't gonna open agin without a cuttin torch I'd wager." Showing back up on the Bonaventure in her pjs wasn't high on her list of happy thoughts but her shiny new uniform was laying on the bed of the burning cabin. She gave a soft sigh for the loss of her guitar and a couple of odds and ends but things were easy to replace... people were not.

"Hmm... thet's odd," she muttered. "Fluctuation in the noomber two. Damned experiments... I'm going tae be verra pissed if thet interferes with our timely departure," she shrugged a shoulder. "This is one oov tha warp core experiment shootles," she explained to Char.

Frowning, the comely commander engaged the scanners. "I'm reading a buildup of some sort of exotic energy particle, one I've never seen before..." even as she spoke and monitored the shuttle's sensors she was pulling out a tricorder and beginning to scan without looking away from the instrument panel. "The port nacelle is diverting power to something that is building up some sort of reaction- Fiona, is this one of your modifications?"

"Ah... No?" Fiona frowned as she looked at the readings, "wrong sart oov energy... ah crap... those bastids rigged her tae blow." She closed her eyes tightly knowing they were way past the point of no return just from what she saw on the scans. "Jaysus."

The renegade Romulan's mind raced. Not here, not now, not like this... and not her friends, all for her lack of foresight and poor leadership. "Fiona... I don't know what sort of bomb they've rigged, but these are some sort of particles I'm completely unfamiliar with. If it blows the matter/antimatter bottles then we die here... but you can create a warp bubble, can't you? I've read your specs... what, so I snoop... a warp field inside the gravity of a planet like this is suicide, but in thirteen seconds we're going to be dead anyway."

"Take a chance? Leap of faith?" Char grinned that lopsided smirk of hers. Better to take a gamble with the universe than meekly submit to the inevitable. She ran calculations in her head at a fevered pace and decided to vent some of the anti-matter to offset the atmospheric conditions and add some punch to the proceedings with a little explosive thrust... at this point she may as well add a tail to the kite, she reasoned as she punched in the commands and coordinated with her compatriots.

"Got noothin tae loose..." Fiona flipped the switches, then nodded decisively. "Punch it, Kitteh!"

Giving an evil grin as she "punched it" Selune idly mused aloud, "Who am I to argue with insanity?"

Fiona reached out and grabbed Char's hand then put her free hand on Selune's shoulder.

"Ladies, it has been a privilege and an honor..." Charybdis managed to choke out, placing her hand on Selune's other shoulder.

Letting out a theatrical sigh Selune quietly murmured half to herself, "Next time we get shore leave, I'm staying on the ship."

"Ah, bugger!" it was shameful that a McCray's last words were going to be profane rather than profound but that's all the little Engineer could manage to say as the world lit up with a thousand rainbows.

 

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