Lunis was using the jeffries tubes to move about the ship and go on to the deck below him. He was accompanied by the last surviving security officer from deck 15. After five minutes, Tunis found the access panel and pressed the manual release switch.
The panel slid open to show a deck in somewhat better shape then deck 15. The hall lights were still on in some places but some bulkheads had collapsed.
Lieutenant Tunis crawled out of the jeffries tube first and swung his phaser rifle around to see if there were any Kelvans around. No Kelvans appeared to be on this deck but there were some wounded crewmen.
The two officers heard the moans and cries of the wounded, but Tunis and the security officer were wounded as well. Tunis decided to take care of the security officer's wounds first with a med kit that he had located after stepping onto Deck 16.
After the two officers tended to each others wounds, the both of them went quickly to work on the downed crewmates alive on that deck.
Meanwhile, on the USS Rhine...
"Come about to 3 mark 2 degrees!" Mac yelled over an explosion.
The young Ensign replied and turned the runabout to the direction MacLeod had requested.
The runabout was heading for a Kelvan Cruiser that had lost shields and engine power. The Rhine came within 400 meters and MacLeod fired two torpedoes into the ship's engines.
The Kelvan Cruiser started to rotate 90 degrees downward and then exploded. Mac ran a scan.
"123 dead Kelvans. None escaped the ship," Mac said feeling great joy in the death of the Kelvans.
Then the runabout took a hit near the crew cabin, causing the Rhine to shake hard to port.
In the bridge area, the transporter exploded as did the lights to the rear of the cockpit.
"Damn! Our shields are down. We have no way to fly. Engines are off line, life support holding barely," the ensign said in a panicked voice.
MacLeod knew he had to keep calm and the ship had to fight on despite the damage. "All right Ensign. Get your life support suit on and I'll put mine on in a second." He pressed a few buttons and went to the weapon storage locker and grabbed a few phaser power packs.
"Okay Ensign Johnson, open the main systems hatch underneath the transporter and use the power packs to replace the fried power couplings. I am then going to transfer every bit of power to the weapons and shields and maneuvering thrusters."
Mac then put his suit on and went and sat at the controls. He transferred all the available systems to the weapons.
<Warning. Life support, gravity field will cease in 20 seconds.>
At that moment a Kelvan battle cruiser was passing over the Rhine. The systems came to 45% power.
Ensign Johnson flew the Rhine on a strafing course over the cruiser's right warp engine.
"Mac! Fire with everything you have!"
The Rhine hit the target and the engine blew. As they were pulling out the Rhine took a hit to its left warp engine. Ensign Johnson flew out of his seat landing head first against a bulkhead. Mac flew into the forward window cracking the face plate on his suit.
The Rhine was spinning out of control and was reaching a critical situation.
<Warp core shut down. Warning! Complete systems failure in 12 minutes. Warning! Vessel is heading for the Sun. Impact in 15 minutes.>
Mac was dazed but could grasp the situation. He pressed a comm button.
"This is the USS Rhine. Need assistance. My coordinates are........" Mac then passed out.
<Warning! Computer failure in 9 minutes.> Then a couple of conduits exploded.