USS POLARIS (USS HORIZON): Marrooned on the rogue planet

"He's coming around."

The only thing Redding remembered was the jarring shock and the awful roar that came before the blackness, because, as he emerged from it, there was still and echo of both in his head.

"Commander Redding?"

A soft, soothing warmth slowly eased his aching head and body. It took him a moment to feel the delicate fingers touching his temple and to smell the faint sweet odor that came from the sensuous body close to his prostrated form. Then the hazy pain went away and he blinked to see the beautiful smile of Doctor Osaro-Lyth so close to him that he felt himself blush involuntarily. Deltan sensulality was difficult to contain when so close to one of them.

But she had had no choice if she were to apply her nerve-manipulating techniques and natural soothing powers to ease his pain and bring him back to consciousness. After all, she didn't have a medkit with her because of their abrupt transport from the crashing ship.

When she released him and stepped back to let him regain his full awareness and free him from her too sensuous presence, the first officer of the Horizon could see that he was lying on some soft moss covering most of the grey porous rocks surrounding him and the five dozen members of his crew, many assuming guard duty at the edge of the rocks, others taking care of a makeshift camp in best Starfleet Academy survival style. The sky was dark but starry, with some distant light undulating at the edge of the jagged rocks around them, like an aurora borealis playing against the night sky. There was also an eerie sound playing around him that he had thought at first to be some remaining ringing in his head but now showed itself to be coming from somewhere in the distance.

Nathaniel Gray stepped in front of him, helping him to get to his feet.

"Are you okay, Commander?"

"Better than I expected to be Gray, thanks." he said shaking off the soreness.

"Why don't you ask your friendly doctor?" Sheelya said with a mock smirk. "The emergency landing program Sheeneea activated slowed the ship just enough to land it roughly but smoothly enough for the commander's PID to protect him from a deadly impact. His hardy constitution did the rest... and my ministrations of course."

Redding smiled at her as he worked a muscle on his right arm. "Looks like I'll live another day."

"Speaking of the ship," engineer Jeonghun reported then, "I'm afraid it is salvageable but not with the resources we have. It will not leave ground again until the Horizon comes to pick us up."

"That will be in about ten hours, if nothing holds them back," Sheeneea the Andorian woman added.

"We can salvage enough rations and material to survive easily until then," S'tron assured them.

"Forget it," then said Carmillia Julian as she appeared from around a large mossy rock, the strange skylights playing on her stern face. "It's crawling with Klingons over there. Lieutenant Aron'Son is still watching them just at the horizon's limit with his enhanced tricorder. Doesn't seem like they found our tracks... and these strange lights are certainly interfering with their obsolete instruments. But they're not dumb; when they will find no bodies inside the wreck, they will immediately realize that we transported out, somewhere on the planet."

"I suggest we move out," Gray said, looking at his commanding officer.

"But where?" the muscular chief of security asked with a frown.

"How about... this way?" Valencia Irksos said, her eyes on her tricorder while her hand pointed in the direction of the bizarre lightshow in the sky.

"Why over there?" wondered the Edoan engineer a bit nervously.

"For one, it is the farthest direction from the Klingons," the black-skinned astrophysicist answered. "Second, it is the source of those atmospheric radiations that are disrupting their detection devices... and third, it is the point of origin of the disrupting waves we encountered in space. And my tricorder identify an immense area of confusing ruins around it. Whatever this is, it is possibly linked to the presence of those strange 'Klingon colonists' back there; I can make no more sense of those ruins than I can make sense of them."

"How far?" Gray wondered, a hand shielding his eyes as he looked at the strange luminescent display beyond the rocks.

"Five point three kilometers of very rough but manageable terrain."

They now all waited for Aron'Son to return and for Redding to give them his orders.

Aron'Son walked back over to the group of officers to make a report with the same stoic look that normally appeared on his face leaving them wondering if his news was good or bad until he spoke. 

"They are still searching the wreck. They will probably try stripping whatever technology they can from it which may delay them from searching for us for the moment. It is what I would do in their position. Much of it including the weapons in the armory requires biometric verification, but they do not know that yet so they will try. We, on the other hand, need to find a much more defensive position. Am I the only one who made it out with a weapon?" 

The last query was made with his hand resting on the phaser strapped to his right hip that continually rested there whether he was on duty or not as was his prerogative as the Horizon's security chief. 

"We have our hand phasers as per standard regulation, Sir," the twelve security officers of the Polaris reported to their chief, " along with the combat knife Captain Kheren has made mandatory for all security personnel aboard his vessel."

"And us, Sir," the twelve men of the Marines detachment assigned to the Polaris said. "We have twelve phaser rifles, as many hand phasers, three photon grenades each, two photon grenade launchers and one reserve ammunition pack for each type of weapons... and the captain's mandatory combat knife as well, of course."

But they were the only ones. The beam out had been unannounced and so sudden, no one else had time to grab anything. By the time they had all regrouped and extracted Redding from the downed ship to this secured position, the Klingons had started moving in.

"This is most worrisome," Gray then said to Redding. " If these Klingons crack open the Polaris, they will get the very latest advancements in Federation technology. That could cause a major shift in the balance of power back home. And if they are modern remnants of the twenty-third century Klingon Empire, we might be looking at the same dire situation Earth faced with the worldwide terrorist threat of the twenty-first century; bloodthirsty, fanatic barbarians with modern warfare resources."

He looked at Aron'son seriously.

"What are their numbers? I'd rather take the Polaris back and hold it until the Horizon gets here than let them get their hands on it."

"There seems to be only that last Bird of prey left," Carmillia Julian reminded them. "That kind of scoutship usually carries a complement of about a dozen officers and men and that's about what we saw going over the wreckage."

Then she grinned.

"We certainly have the numerical advantage... and of firepower too; the only thing I saw on them were antiquated disruptor weapons and D'Ktaghs. These... New Klingons of old were probably not allowed to have their honored bath'leths."

"Is there a possibility we could take their ship while most of them are stripping ours? that way we could contain them while we check this place out."

He was checking over his own weapon, a slightly modified assault phaser, for any damage from the crash.

"It wont matter what they get from the Polaris if they can't keep it."

His strategic ops officer answered him.

"Judging by the number of them scrounging over the Polaris and standard Klingon protocols, they should have left at least one guard on the ship, maybe one more outside... and one officer in their base. If I recall my military history correctly, that officer would be their commander. Twenty-third century Klingons were much less eager to lead from the front than those we are familiar with today. They were still relatively new at their promotion through assassination system back then..."

"With our weaponry we could very well take both vessels," Aron'Son stated "The Klingons scavenging the Polaris are not expecting an assault, and they have no idea how many people were aboard the ship. We could down them all with a coordinated assault before they know what is happening."

"I'm sure that's true." Redding nodded. "But the BoP is of more concern. As soon as we hit their salvage team, whatever's left over there will not be happy about it."

He thought it over quickly, but the plan was already in place in his head before he finished the sentence.

This would make the seventh time he attempted this exact same thing, and all were a success.

"Well split into three teams. I'll take a fire team and secure the BoP, I have the most familiarity with Klingon ships around that time period, Hell.. I used to captain one." he said with a shrug. "Gray, you hold for my signal then make your attack run and re-secure the ship, then see what you can do to get it running again."

He pointed upward.

"It's still possible reinforcements might show up. Lets see if we can not be sitting ducks if that happens."

Then looked at Aron'Son.

"You take two people and hit their base, fast and hard. Taking out the big gun is a priority but we need their commander alive. The Polaris might not be targetable at the moment but the Bird of Prey is, and they might just shoot it out of spite so we don't get it. I know I would,"

"You know those old-fashion Klingons well, Commander," acknowledged Nathaniel Gray.

"Valencia.." Redding started to say and noticed the woman was a bit nervous. He smiled; "Don't worry, Lieutenant, I've done this sort of thing several times; we'll be fine. But right now, I need to know if we can jam their short range communications with what we have, It only has to be for a few minuets if that helps."

She smiled back and took a deep breath.

"Well, Sir, you ousted us so fast from the ship, we didn't have time to take anything; and when we went to get you, we had to move out quick before those scavengers get to us. However, this planet's peculiar energy waves from those ruins is strong enough to interfere with any  communicators not powered by a major energy source like a starship core. We've tested our combadges and they are not powerful enough to get through the interference... and they are way more powerful and hardened against static discharges than these antiquated handheld communicators they have at their belt. As it stands now, Sir, they already can't communicate beyond earshot... and same with us."

"Any questions or thoughts? be quick about it." And passed Aron'Son his grenades.

"Commander; Doctor Osaro-Lyth and Lieutenant Irksos should accompany the main assault force with our security forces to retake the ship as you order," Gray said. "Since Lieutenant Julian must escort you and Chief Jeonghun best suited to understand their ship's tech, I recommend the marines go with you.  I beleive it is Ensign S'Tron and I that should accompany Lieutenant Aron'Son. I speak fluent Klingon and know more about them than anyone here but maybe for you, Sir... and S'tron's Vulcan death grip will supplement nicely our phasers."

"There is no such thing as a Vulcan death grip," S'tron retorted.

"But do those Klingons know that?" shot back the man with a devious smile.

"There's no such thing as a Vulcan death grip? I thought Vulcan's didn't lie." Redding looked completely sincere. "Okay, we'll go with Gray's set up. Without communications this will be trickier. How about the tricorders? If I set off a static pulse a few kilometers away would you be able to read it?."

He held up his phaser tapping at the 'Heavy Stun' setting so everyone got the point.

"Basically, it's like sending up a flare you can only see with the right equipment."

"We only have one tricorder, Sir," Jeonghun reminded him as he showed . " And it's an engineering one with a limited dataset. One of my junior technicians was checking it for maintenance when he was beamed out. And the interference in the area will prevent any signal to reach it beyond a few meters. However, if I jurry-rig it to receive only one spoecific kind of signal, it should boost it's range significantly, especially if it is electromagnetic as you suggest. It will be faint but if we are activelyt watch for it, we should not miss it."

"Our combadges could be so modified to receive the same signal," S'Tron suggested in turn, "but such tampering will render them useless as communications devices after that."

"And there is the basic method of synchronizing ourselves by counting in our heads from a common starting point," Julian offered. "And we have one Vulcan with a counscious biological clock and Lieutenant Irksos who I beleive has a natural affinity with mathematical precision as well; our living chronometers as it were."

"Okay, great." Redding nodded along.

"Modify two combadges, one for each team, We'll take the tricorder with us. At our signal we will start our attack run on the Bop and that will be your cue to engage."

"Aron'son, I'm giving you full leeway our your mission, if you can't wait for the signal don't." He simply stopped there, It was seldom necessary to go into great detail with a warrior such as a Jem'Hadar, or show any kind of sentiment such as saying 'be careful' or 'good luck'.

"Move out as soon as you get your badge, and good luck everyone."