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"The Search Part III"

Author: Cmdr. Richard Wallace
Earthdate: August 21-23, 2386
Location: USS Benjamin Franklin

Lieutenant Erin McGrady was the first officer on the bridge to get to her feet after the last blast had seriously damaged the USS Benjamin Franklin injuring an unknown numbers of the ships crew. She looked around to see Commander Richard Wallace laying on the deck in front the Tactical station he seemed to be unconscious. She quickly went to his side as other members of the bridge crew started to come to.

"Sir, are you ok?" Lieutenant McGrady asked kneeling over Commander Wallace and rolling him to his back.

Upon opening his eyes his right shoulder was emitting immense pain. He looked around and saw the bridge lights were out and the emergency ones were on and flickering.

Wallace turned and saw his right collar bone protruding from the skin and felt the right arm was totally out of place. "Yeah just fine, this a normal event for me Lieutenant." Wallace replied trying to make light on the situation. "Help me up."

Getting to his feet he noticed that many of the bridge crew done injured, he quickly tapped his comm badge with his left hand. "Bridge to sick bay we need a medical team up here."

Looking to where the Captain was standing he saw her body lying what seemed to be lifeless. He managed to walk over there and saw she was breathing and noticed a piece of bulk head in her lower abdomen. Captain Telly was completely knocked out. "Richards mind then went to the rest of the crew. He walked down towards helm and say Lieutenant Myers sitting on the deck totally disoriented.

Looking at the flickering controls to the helm and conn he saw the ship was about 234 meters into the planets atmosphere and was slowly dropping. Know it is time for me take on this burden of Command once more. Wallace thought to himself as a group of Corpsman arrived to the bridge and began treating the Captain and Lieutenant and two others."

"Doc how bad is the Captain?" Richard asked pushing away a medic with his good arm.

"She'll be ok for now, however sir she will be unable to preform he duties." The young Human male said noticing Wallace was getting annoyed by the medical scans being preformed on him.

"Sir you need that look at."

"There are times the needs of the many out way the needs for one. Computer note it in the log Commander Richard Wallace tactical adviser for the current mission is taking over command of the ship. Due to the Commanding officers' inability to serve due to injury. Authorization Beta Alpha, Zulu 31." Wallace then turned and walked towards the Tactical station, and tapped his comm badge.

"Commander Wallace to Engineering what is our status."

[Engineering here. We have several things that important right now. One the impulse drive is off-line. Two The Warp Core is totally fused with the antimatter injector. If we try to restore power to the core it'll overload and cause a complete containment loss. Three the hull compensation Integrity fields are at the Maxim effort if fall any more the 300 meters the ship will implode. Four the shield and phaser couplings are completely shorted out.]

Ok Richard you can handle this? "Listen up get power to the impulse drive as soon as possible shut down all non essential functions, replicators and such. We'll try and use maneuvering thrusters to try and prevent any more elevation loss. Lieutenant McGrady take the helm." Richard said going over to the bridges engineering station and what seemed cold hearted he pulled the dead engineer off the console.

Richard also new the Breen ship was out there looking them and would and could possibly locate them and easily destroy the Franklin. He then decided to come up with a way to locate them and draw them in. However he had to over see the damage control.

"Commander Wallace to sick bay. What is the status down there?"

[Sickbay Doctor Ryan here, we have 4 severely injured officers and 12 non serious, and 3 dead.]

Damn, no time to grieve or think about it.

"Thank you Bridge out."

Impulse drive took nearly 4 hours to repair and some of the damaged systems were on-line except the phasers. During this time he decided to implement his plan of attack so the crew could escape with the ship pretty much in tact.

"Wallace to Engineering."

[Engineering Lieutenant Faller here.]

"I have come up with a way to get us out of here. I need you to listen carefully.

Take one of the atmospheric probes and equip it with antimatter war head. Now this how we're going to do it. Modify the auxiliary deflector array to transmit a tachyon pulse that will attract the Breen Cruiser. It will also notify use where they are. Once they are behind us, eject the core. I'll target the core with the refitted probe." Wallace paused and listen to the open channel and could here the uncertainty in the silence.

[Sounds good but how the hell will be get out of the antimatter explosion shock wave?]

"At the moment of detonation transfer all power to the impulse drive deflector power. Of course the deflector will short out but it's worth it. How long will it take to do the necessary procedures?"

[2 hours to reconfigure the aux deflector and 45 minutes for the torpedo.]

"Ok, you have an hour."

The next hour was nothing compared to the next hour afterwords sending out the pulse and getting nothing. The pain to Wallace's shoulder was very much unbearable but showed no sign of the pain to those around him.

Finally one hour and fifty minutes into the search the Breen cruiser was approaching at 12 meters per second behind the Franklin. Richard was at the tactical station and tapped his comm badge.

"Get ready in five four three two one. Eject the core now." Wallace yield as the Warp core ejected and floated 2 meters in front of the Breen ship. Wallace manually targeted and as soon as the torpedo detonated, Lieutenant McGrady slammed the impulse drive into full speed.

The antimatter explosion was terrific and tore the Breen ship to pieces and a ensuing fire ball started to engulf the atmosphere. The shock wave was jolting the small ship as the fire ball was catching up to it right as the Franklin broke orbit above the planet the ship rocked hard and shook violently and conduits ruptured.

They had made it for now. Wallace had done the impossible take out three Surperior ships and adverted a disaster. Outside the ship the left Nacelle was burning a little and the damage seemed extensive.

"Lieutenant Report."

"Impulse drive is burnt out and auxiliary power is at 32% It'll last maybe 18 hours." McGrady said feeling more scared and happy then she had been in her life.

"Very well done. Send out a distress beacon and call. " The search for the Pirates was over and were they destroyed or where there more?

 

 

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