The Chase

Posted on Fri Sep 18th, 2020 @ 2:27am by Captain Dyllon McMahon

1,314 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: State of the Union
Location: USS Challenger/USS Ganymede
Timeline: Dominion War/Prime

Location: USS Challenger, near the end of the Dominion War

Commander McMahon rounded the corridor, and stopped in front of an open escape pod hatch. They had retrofitted it with additional armor plating and upgraded the thrusters so that it could act as a breaching pod. He opened the weapons rack that was situated across from the open escape pod. He grabbed two phaser rifles.

"=/\=Rutledge to Commander McMahon." Lt Rutledge's voice came over his commbadge. "We're approacing the convoy. It doesn't look like they've noticed us. I guess Solek's plan to polarize the warp field to match the surrounding asteroids worked.=/\="

Dyllon tapped his commbadge, "=/\=Good to hear, Jess. Ensign Rychek better get a move on, or we'll miss our window.=/\="

"=/\=He should be getting there any minute now. Are you sure you still want to go through with this, Mick?" She questioned. "You should be on the bridge=/\="

"=/\=You need experience running these ops. If something happens to me, the ship needs an experienced commander.=/\=" he replied.

She sighed, "=/\=You mean if something happens to you, if say, you were to get fired at high velocity at another ship in an escape pod and something goes wrong?=/\="

"=/\=Yeah, something like that. Just... don't miss. I'll see you on the other side. I have the utmost faith in you, Jess. McMahon out=/\="

It was at that moment Ensign Rychek walked around the corner. "Sorry I'm late sir. Turbolift died again, had to crawl through the jeffries tubes."

Dyllon tossed one of the rifles to Rychek, "That's fine, didn't miss the boat. Set to kill. We don't know if they've got Jimmies or Cardies or both operating on the cargo vessel. Jimmies won't go down on stun."

Rychek grabbed the rifle and began setting it. Dyllon climbed aboard the escape pod, and started strapping himself in. Rychek followed suit.

Dyllon reached over and grabbed an oxygen mask and put it on, then hit the console to close the hatch. "You know, the worst part is the wait," he said, jokingly.

Rychek smiled nervously through his mask, and nodded.

"So, where you from, ensign", Dyllon asked, to lighten the mood.

"I'm from Proxima colony, sir. The Challenger was my first assignment out of the academy"

"Ahh.. tough break." Dyllon shook his head.

The pod rocked as the Challenger took fire, and Rychek turned ghost white as he anticipated the launch.

Dyllon smiled, "Heh, not yet, Rych---"

The bottom fell out as the pod launched, hurting towards the freighter. There was a shudder as it plowed through the outer armor, and the escape pod touched down inside of the cargo pod, bouncing a few times along the way. Dyllon righted himself, took off his restraints, and popped open the hatch. As he peered out, he looked down at his wrist-tricorder.

"Cargo area's clear. Looks like automatic forcefields sealed the breach. We don't need the ventilators." Dyllon took off his mask, and reached a hand in to help Rychek out, who looked like he was still clearly trying to shake off the effects of the drop.

As Dyllon pulled him out, he looked at his tricorder again. "Not detecting any further weapons fire outside of the ship. They likely didn't detect our pod, or thought it was a torpedo, and are still chasing the Challenger. These freighters usually don't have more than one or two soldiers manning them. We should head for the command module." He gestured for Rychek to follow him into a freight elevator.

As they stepped on, Dyllon tapped a few buttons, and the elevator was on its way to the command module.

"Do you think they know we're here?" Rychek asked.

"Doubtful. They don't put a lot of resources into these freighters. Likely not much in the way of internal sensors." Dyllon replied.

The elevator stopped, and they stepped out. Dyllon brought his rifle to the ready, and gestured for Rychek to be quiet. He looked around the corners, and noticed the corridor split in two directions. He motioned for Rychek to go left as he went right.

Dyllon continued to keep an eye on his wrist tricorder as he walked. It was pretty clear at this point they were looking at two life forms, but there was too much interference to get their exact locations or what race they were. He heard phaser fire up ahead, and picked up his pace. Standing in the doorway with his back turned was a Cardassian soldier. Dyllon didn't hesitate to fire, rushing into the room.

The moment he entered the room, another Cardassian soldier rushed him, knocking his rifle out of his hand and pushing him up against the wall, while attempting to aim his hand phaser at his head. Dyllon grabbed the wrist of the hand the phaser was held in, and gripped as hard as he could with his prosthetic hand, hearing the bones snap underneath. He then headbutted the soldier, who stumbled back and fell onto the floor. Dyllon quickly knelt down and grabbed his phaser rifle, keeping it pointed at the Cardassian.

Dyllon yelled, "All clear! Rychek, sound off!"

He heard no response. Turning around, he saw the young ensign lying on the floor, and burn mark in his chest.

The Cardassian who was still alive started chuckling as he sat on the floor, nursing his broken wrist, "Well, you win some, you lose some..."

Dyllon turned back, and lifted his rifle to aim.

the Cardassian raised his hands, "I surrender. You got me. I'll cooperate. Now, be a good Starfleet officer and arrest me."

"Sorry, had to convert our brig to a med bay." Dyllon squeezed the trigger, firing a blast directly into his chest.

He walked into the small bridge, and sat at the console, beginning to type in the warp coordinates. Luckily, they had left their station unlocked, so he wouldn't need to pursuade the system to give him access. He pulled a subspace transciever from his belt, and opened it up. "=/\=McMahon to Challenger=/\="

"=/\=Challenger here. What's your status?=/\=" he heard the reply from Rutledge.

"=/\=Freighter is secure. We lost Rychek. Lose your tail and meet me at the rendezvous coordinates. McMahon out.=/\="

Location: Captain's Quarters, USS Ganymede, Present Day

Dyllon shuddered awake as he felt a gentle tug on his shoulder. He looked up, and above him stood Alyx.

"Apologies for disturbing your sleep, Captain. There is an urgent holo-comm for you from Deep Space Nine."

Dyllon rolled out of bed, and quickly pulled a pair of pants over his shorts. "Put it through."

As he zipped up his pants, Alyx shimmered out of view and Captain Kira shimmered in.

"Well, looks like someone's happy to see me", she said, smiling.

"Ha ha. You caught me sleeping. What can I do for you?" Dyllon asked.

"I just thought you would want to know. I have some friends with connections to the New Maquis. Not long after your ship left, one of my friends picked up some comm traffic" she said.

"Anything of note?"

"Nothing specific. They communicate in cipher. But, exactly one hour after the Ganymede left, to the second, the freighter docked at Docking Port 5 disembarked, and went to warp on the exact same trajectory you headed out on." Kira replied.

"Alright. Thanks for the info. We'll keep a look out." Dyllon headed over to his cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of scotch, which had levels marked on it with days of the week. He began pouring out half of the day's ration into a glass.

"Be safe out there. Kira out."

Dyllon tapped his commbadge. "=/\=McMahon to the bridge. Allocate all sensor pallettes to long range tactical scans. There's a good chance we have a tail. I'll be up momentarily.=/\="

He downed the glass of scotch, and replicated a large mug of coffee. "It's gonna be a long day..."

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