Meet Me Inside

Posted on Oct 04, 2016 @ 1:11am by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Oct 04, 2016 @ 1:12am

Mission: Fortress: Earth

= Meet Me Inside =

(cont’d from “History Has Its Eyes On You”)

LOCATION: Point Bonita Facility

SCENE: Transporter Room -> Corridor

STARDATE: [2.16] 1003.2100

Starfleet security - regular security, not the black-shirted goons who’d patrolled the streets of San Francisco - stepped forward. They roughly seized Barton and Raxl, hauling them up to the feet and clapping them in handcuffs, though it took two of them to raise up James Barton. Selyara was not treated to wrist-cuffs; instead, a guard stepped forward, phaser drawn and trained right at her midsection. Selyara’s head was still spinning from Edgerton’s parting shot, and she was feigning a worse injury than she’d actually received, hoping the security officer would lose patience and pull up back to her feet, but the guard wasn’t moving. Apparently, Edgerton had briefed his security teams on Selyara, and what could happen if any of them were foolish enough to let her get her hands on them.

Eventually, Selyara stood, wiping a trickle of greenish blood away from her lip as she fixed the guard with an icy stare.

“Couldn’t help a lady to her feet?”

“Say anything else, and we’ll stun you and drag you to the brig,” the guard said. He looked young, not out of his twenties, and Selyara spotted the fear hiding underneath his commanding tone almost immediately. She glanced over her shoulder at the trio of guards watching Barton and Raxl; they were older, but she thought she could see the same uncertainty in their eyes.

It was an opening, and she intended to use it.

“Starfleet security now shoots prisoners for talking?” Selyara asked, arching an eyebrow.

Her breath caught in her throat as she watched the guard debate making good on his threat. When she saw his brow furrowing, she decided to press her advantage while she had it.

“And your head of state beats unarmed women, too,” she said, sounding almost casual. “Things have changed around here. You could almost be Klingons.”

“Shut up,” the young guard with the phaser said. “Get moving.”

The young guard gave Selyara a wide berth as she started towards the door and stepped out into the corridor. He came behind her, his phaser never wavering, and the remaining three guards started hauling Barton and Raxl out behind her. In the corridor, they saw red alert lights flashing along the walls, but no alarm klaxons. Several other uniformed security officers were jogging up the hallway towards them, but they didn’t stop; instead, they continued around the curve and out of sight, most likely on their way to conduct security sweeps for whoever it was that had intruded on Edgerton’s system.

That was a strange development. Of course the most logical explanation was that Michael’s backup had somehow beaten her to the facility, and had either infiltrated it without her help or had somehow gained remote access to the bunker’s systems. But as logical as this was, it still seemed unlikely: Edgerton’s bunker was locked down tight, which was why Selyara had needed to come in as a prisoner. Furthermore, if Edgerton’s satellites were really capable of unleashing attacks powerful enough to obliterate whole cities, why would Michael allow his team to tip their hands and risk a reprisal from the old man? Selyara knew Michael Kane was not one to shy away from what he considered “necessary losses”, but such a plan would be reckless, even for him.

So who else was in the facility?

From behind her, Selyara heard the rumbling baritone of James Barton’s voice.

“You boys were going to stand back and watch your Admiral execute an unarmed prisoner.” It wasn’t spoken as a question, but rather as an accusation. None of the guards seemed to want to rise to Barton’s bait, though.

Now it was Raxl’s turn: “I admit, it’s been awhile since I was ‘official’, but that wasn’t how we used to do things back in my day.”

“How did they do things back in your day, Dreyton?” asked Barton.

“With class,” Rax said, shrugging even though his hands were bound behind him. “And style.”

“Class and style,” Barton repeated. “Selyara’s right; things have changed.”

“Shut up!” one of the guards holding Barton said, as he roughly tightened his grip on the big man’s arm.

“Sorry, I forgot,” Barton said. “Starfleet’s a ‘shoot people in handcuffs’ kind of organization now.”

“Hey, go easy on them, big man,” Rax said. “Must be hard doing this to folks they gotta look in the eye. I bet the next generation gets standard-issue black bags for prisoners, just to keep all that pesky empathy from creeping in.”

“Good point,” Barton said. “These kids are very brave.”

“You broke into this facility with a known terrorist,” said the guard holding Rax. “You don’t get to tell us about what it means to serve in Starfleet.”

“I know it means opening your goddamn eyes,” Rax shot back. “Mission of peaceful exploration, if I remember the pitch right.”

“What is it you think you’re leading us to?” Barton asked. “Edgerton doesn’t strike me as a ‘right to a fair trial’ kind of guy. You’re taking us to our death room, boys.”

“And so what if we are?” asked Barton’s guard #1. “Traitors deserve what they get.”

“Oh, I get it,” Barton said. “You’re hoping today’s your day to pull the trigger.”

“Shut up!” shouted the guard with the phaser. His eyes flicked to the trio of guards holding onto Raxl and Barton. “We’re not supposed to speak to prisoners, admiral’s orders!”

“The old man isn’t here,” said guard #1. “And I’m not afraid of anything these traitors have to say.”

“Edgerton isn’t really going to execute them, is he?” asked guard #2. “He looked like he was about to shoot her.”

“Stow that talk, ensign!” The guard with the phaser took his eyes of Selyara for an instant, to turn his scowl on the trio of guards behind them. It was all Selyara needed; in a flash, her hands seized the guard about his head. The guard had enough time to begin a startled cry, but it was choked off as the thinkstrike scrambled his brain. The phaser tumbled from the guard’s now senseless fingers as his eyes rolled backwards into his head. Selyara threw him aside, his body falling bonelessly to the floor, as the other three guards released their charges and began to fumble at the phasers clipped to their belts.

Rax and Barton didn’t waste any time. Rax shoulder-checked his man hard into the wall, then reared back and did it again. The back of the guard’s head hit the bulkhead with a crack, and he slid to the floor, unconscious. Meanwhile, Barton had twisted his body, bringing his knee savagely up into guard #1’s solar plexus, driving the wind from him. The other guard had managed to draw and raise his phaser, but Barton was on him in an instant, stepping forward and bringing his forehead down to crack hard against the bridge of guard #2’s nose. Guard #2 stumbled backward, his face now a mess of blood from his broken nose, but his hand still clutched his phaser. Before he could regain the sense to aim it, Selyara clamped a hand down hard at the base of the guard’s neck. The nerve-pinch worked fast, dropping the guard into unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.

Selyara looked up and down the hall, searching for any sign of more guards or officers. The corridor was empty for now, but there was no way it would be for long. Selyara turned to look at her two companions.

“Well done,” she said, nodding approvingly. “You provided me with the opening I needed.”

“It’s what you pay me for,” Rax shrugged. “Hypothetically, I mean.”

“Get these cuffs off,” Barton said. “We need to get moving. There’s no way we’re going to fight off Edgerton’s entire security team, and I think we’ve used up the last of our good luck for today.”

Selyara had already taken the key from phaser-guard, and was moving behind Raxl. “I tend to agree with you, Mr. Barton,” she said. “Our work here isn’t finished yet.”

“Isn’t finished?” Rax asked, rubbing his wrists. “You heard Edgerton; someone’s inside the facility’s command system, so that’s got to be your backup from the fleet, right? Sounds like the cavalry’s here.”

“I don’t think so,” Selyara said, moving to release Barton now. “If Edgerton thought the loyalist fleet had infiltrated this facility, there’d be nothing to stop him from detonating all those satellites. This has to be something else.”

“Someone else with a bug up their butt about getting rid of Edgerton?”

“Or maybe someone who’s seen through his bullshit,” Barton said. “These kids can’t be the only ones with doubts about the way Edgerton does things.”

“Whoever it is, they’ve provided us with the cover we need,” Selyara said. “If Edgerton is chasing them, he isn’t looking for us. And since the planetary shield is still active, Edgerton has no reason to believe that the loyalists have managed to get a team down here, which means he’ll likely attribute any problems with his control system to the internal security threat.”

“So what do we do?” Raxl asked.

“Our objective is now two-fold,” Selyara said. “Find a way to get Michael’s team inside this facility, and provide our mystery guest with as much backup as we can.”

=[/\]=

SCENE: Maintenance Tunnel

Lynette was getting uncomfortable. Her position in the tunnels seemed secure enough, but maintenance tunnels were not built with comfort in mind. She had to hunch over to avoid hitting her head on the bulkhead above her, and her shoulders and back were starting to ache. Mackie was getting restless, too; so much so that she’d had to put him back into his carrier to keep him from wandering off. She couldn’t say how long she’d been hidden here, but she estimated it was getting close to an hour, and still no sign of Sam.

A thousand horrible thoughts tried to crowd in. What if he’d been captured? Would Edgerton blame him for her security breach? The guards she’d run into before hadn’t been shy about opening fire; did that mean Sam could be dead? Or worse, what if he’d given her up? What if right now, Edgerton’s men were closing on her position?

Lynette tried to push the doubts away. Sam would come for her. He’d promised. And even if Edgerton’s goons found her, she still had her hold-out phaser. It probably wouldn’t do her much good against an armed security team, but in the cramped conditions of the maintenance tunnels, they’d have to come at her one at a time. That might give her a chance. And if things were looking really bleak, she could always set it to overload to buy herself some more time to retreat into the tunnels. She’d probably have to leave Mackie behind for that - and the thought of doing so turned her stomach - but it was better than summary execution, which was the security teams apparently had in mind.

Lynette tried to get a firm grasp on how exactly her life had spun out of control. She’d gone from loyal Starfleet officer to fugitive in a matter of hours, and now she found she could hardly recognize anything around her. Security officers who had once smiled at her as she passed in the hall were now hunting her, ready to kill her on sight. Whatever that was, it wasn’t the Starfleet Lynette had known. Neither was the horrific thalaron weapon she’d discovered plans for in the facility’s central computer. And with those thoughts came a wave of other, uneasy realizations; the assassination of the Federation Council, the suspension of the Federation Charter, this sudden war with Romulus, the adoption of martial law… Lynette saw in all those things the gradual erosion of all the values she had pledged her life to, and found herself wondering how she hadn’t been able to see it at the time.

Not everyone had been fooled. Lynette remembered the news reports of the ex-Starfleet “terrorists” with their stolen starship. They’d been painted as villains who sought to undo Federation society… but of course, it had been Edgerton who had done that. Edgerton, all along, with his cries for unity and strength in time of crisis. Lynette had gone along with it. She’d had her issues at the academy, including what she considered a healthy distaste for authority, but she’d still gone along with it.

“No more,” Lynette whispered in the low light of the maintenance tunnel. No more going along with things, no more looking away. Edgerton was a monster, and people had to be told. They had to know what Lynette had seen, and that meant she had to make it out of here alive.

Which meant she couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, gripping Mackie’s cat carrier once more. Then, she started to crawl.

=[/\]=

LOCATION: Red October

SCENE: Cockpit

Aerdan Jos throttled back on the controls and pointed.

“There it is.”

Ahead of them, its outline barely visible in what little light filtered down from the surface, was the Point Bonita facility.

“Running a scan now,” Varn said. “The walls are a tritanium alloy. We could cut through with phasers, but not without alerting Edgerton to our presence.”

“Any way inside?” Jake asked.

“I’m showing what appears to be airlock on the far-side of the base,” Varn said. “Large enough for a submersible, probably for emergency evacuation of the facility. It’s likely programmed to open with the proper command code.”



“But we can’t ring the doorbell,” Jake said. He looked at Jos. “The captain didn’t happen to mention what Selyara’s plan was, did he?”

“She said she was moving to infiltrate the facility as well,” Jos said. “She may be trying to open the way for us.”

“There has to be something else we can do,” said Cindy Rochemonte. “We can’t just sit here.”

“Nor can we let Edgerton know his bolt hole is under attack,” said Jos. “If he realizes we’ve managed to breach the shield, there’s nothing left to stop him triggering the rest of those satellites. Unfortunately, our best course of action right now is to wait.”

“And what happens when that’s not an option anymore?” Jake asked.

Jos’ antennae twitched, “Then we may have no choice but to try to destroy the entire facility outright.”

“Sir,” Jake said. “We don’t know how many people Edgerton’s got in there. They can’t all be Neo-Essentialists.”

“You’re right,” Jos nodded slowly. “Which is why I am praying it doesn’t come to that.”

=[/\]=

LOCATION: Point Bonita Facility

SCENE: Corridor

Lynette peeked her head out, then ducked quickly back in as she saw a door on the other side of the corridor open. The officers stepped out, not noticing the open maintenance hatch as they continued on their way. The facility-wide red alert was still flashing, which meant non-essential areas were being shut down into the security breach was contained. The officers manning those areas were to report to nearby checkpoints, keeping them out of the way as Edgerton’s security teams swept the facility in search of the threat.

When the officer rounded the bend at the far end of the corridor, Lynette crept out and slowly got to her feet. Mackie yowled in annoyance, and Lynette shushed him, flicking her eyes left and right in search of any more officers. Satisfied that there were none, she began moving up the corridor, in the direction of the evacuation airlock.

In the event of a power failure or loss of structural integrity, the Point Bonita facility was equipped with a small escape sub. It was large enough to hold four or five people, probably only Edgerton’s most trusted advisors. Lynette had never really given this much thought before; after all, all traffic in and out of Point Bonita was via transporter, and it was hard to imagine a power issue so severe that it would knock out their ability to beam back to the surface. Of course, Lynette didn’t know the command codes to active Edgerton’s escape sub, or to open the airlock doors… but she *did* know the facility’s systems inside and out. Her best bet would be to try to bypass security and take the sub back to the surface.

But before she did that, she had to find Sam. She had to give Sam a chance.

Lynette stepped up to a wall terminal and activated it. The flashing red alert sign filled the screen immediately, but Lynette ran a quick bypass to circumvent it and restore functionality to the terminal. A moment later, the flashing red alert was replaced by the calming blue of the United Federation of Planets logo. Lynette ignored this - she’d recently been given cause to be very suspicious of that symbol, after all - and began punching in commands, trying to locate the signal from Sam’s comm badge.

“Come on, come on,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Where are you, Sam?”

A lance of orange fire suddenly exploded against the bulkhead next her. Lynette cried out, falling to Mackie’s cat carrier at her feet in an attempt to shield the cat from the shower of sparks. She could hear yelling from the far end of the corridor, and when she looked up, she saw two security officers, phasers trained on her position. In the instant their eyes met, Lynette could see that the guards did not intend to give her a chance to plead her case. Lynette squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the fire to burn its way through her…

There was the sound of a phaser discharging, followed by one of the guards crying out. Lynette opened her eyes to see another phaser beam slicing through the air to impact full on in the security officer’s chest, toppling him backwards to lay in a heap on the floor next to his companion. A second later, an unfamiliar trio - a woman flanked by two men, one of whom was noticeably big for a human - rounded the bend, then came to a halt as they spotted Lynette still hunched over her cat carrier.

“Think we found the security breach,” the big one rumbled.

Lynette immediately put her hands up. “Don’t shoot! I’m not armed!”

“Yeah, but what about your friend there?” said the shorter of the two men, nodding towards Mackie’s cat carrier.

The woman stepped forward. As she approached, Lynette could see she was Vulcan, or at least partially so. She looked familiar, but it was a resemblance that Lynette couldn’t quite place. She seemed to remember it from FedCom news broadcasts, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“Cadet Lynette Ryan,” Lynette said.

The Vulcan woman arched an eyebrow, and the two men behind her traded glances.

“Edgerton’s got a *cadet* working down here?” the shorter man asked. “What, is he your uncle or something?”

“Of course not,” Lynette frowned. “It was a special assignment. I was handpicked.”

“Why?” the Vulcan woman asked.

“Why should I talk to you?” Lynette asked, clutching Mackie’s cat carrier a little tighter. “I don’t have any idea who you are.”

“We’re the people who just saved your life, cadet,” the Vulcan woman said cooly. “Now. What were you doing down here?”

“I’m in engineering,” Lynette said. “Edgerton had us trying to optimize his computer core.”

“And he needs a cadet to do that?” the big man asked.

“Apparently,” Lynette said, getting back to her feet. “This facility’s computer core had undergone some serious upgrades in the last few months, and Edgerton’s people were having trouble with the new quadritronic sub processors. Computer systems are kind of my area, so I was pulled from my class at the academy to come down and have a look, along with some other engineers.”

“You’re the one who infiltrated Edgerton’s command system,” the Vulcan woman said. “The one Edgerton is looking for.”

“You still haven’t told me who *you* are.”

The Vulcan woman inclined her head in greeting. “My name is Selyara Chen. My associates are Raxl Dreyton and James Barton. We’re here to put a stop to this.”

“You know about Edgerton?” Lynette asked, her eyes widening.

“We know everything,” Selyara nodded. “I’m guessing you found something in Edgerton’s computer that you weren’t supposed to.”

“I found the plans for his thalaron device,” Lynette said. “We can’t let him use a weapon like that, it could kill millions of people.”

“As it happens, we agree,” Selyara said.

“What were you doing at the terminal?” the big man, Barton, asked.

“I was…” Lynette started, then stopped. She wasn’t sure she could trust these new arrivals, even if they did seem to be enemies of Edgerton. “I was looking for a way out of this facility.”

“And did you find one?” Selyara asked.

“Yes,” Lynette nodded. “There’s an emergency airlock, with an escape sub still docked. But the system is locked down, you need Edgerton’s command codes to access it.”

“We do,” Selyara said. “I’m guessing you don’t.”

Lynette sighed. “I was going to try to bypass the security lockdown. But I don’t know if I can even make it to the airlock, not with Edgerton’s security teams everywhere.”

“We’ll get you there,” Barton said. “Lead the way, cadet.”

“Wait a minute,” Lynette said. “I thought you had come here to stop this. Why are you trying to get out?”

“We’re not,” Selyara said. “We’re letting reinforcements in.”

=[/\]=

LOCATION: Red October

SCENE: Cockpit

“Commander Jos,” Varn reported. “I’m picking up a message from the facility. Wide transmission, not directed at us.”

“Put it through.”



A moment later, the sound of Selyara Chen’s voice filled the cockpit.

[[I’m not sure if you’re out there,]] she said. [[But if you are… the time is now.]]

Suddenly a mass of air bubbles exploded out from the far end of the facility. Jos angled the shuttlecraft forward and started towards the rush of air as Varn ran another scan from his console.

“Someone has activated the airlock,” he said. “It’s opening!”

“Selyara came through,” said Jake.

“We’re going in,” said Jos.

=[/\]=

LOCATION: Point Bonita Facility

SCENE: Submarine Bay

Lynette Ryan stepped back from the controls, then turned to Selyara.

“The airlock is open,” she said. “If your people are out there, they’ve got their way in.”



“And it seems you have your way out,” Selyara said, nodding towards the small evacuation sub still docked in its bay. “I’d say you’ve earned your ticket home, cadet.”

Lynette looked at the sub, then at the doors that led back into the facility. She sighed.

“I… can’t,” she said.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Raxl. “Those folks are probably coming in shooting, and you don’t want yourself getting caught in the crossfire.”

“They can’t!” Lynette said. “I know Edgerton is a monster, but the people here aren’t like him! They don’t know… nobody knew!”

“We can’t afford to treat them with kid gloves,” Selyara said. “Edgerton needs to be stopped. This ends here and now, one way or the other.”

“No!” Lynette said. “I won’t let you!”

“Nothing you can do about it now,” Selyara said. “Run, Lynette Ryan. And don’t look back.”

Lynette set her chin; she’d never liked being told what to do. In a flash, she snatched up Mackie’s cat carrier and spun on her heels, jogging back towards the doors into the base. Raxl and Barton both called out for her to stop, but Lynette didn’t turn around. A moment later, she’d disappeared through the doors. Raxl cursed.

“She’s going to get herself killed,” he said.

“She’s not our problem,” Selyara said, turning back to the sub bay. The water inside the bay had started to churn, and she could make out the outline of a Starfleet shuttlecraft ascending towards the surface. A moment later, it broke through, gallons of seawater rushing off it as it bobbed inside the docking bay. The cavalry had arrived.

=[/\]=

Shawn Putnam

A.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX

And

Raxl Dreyton

Bounty Hunter

Founding Member of the Selyara Chen Goon Squad