Episode 52: "It's one small trap for man..."

Being a fugitive wasn't easy: the crew of the Gibraltar were starting to see that now. Hunted by the Klingon empire *and* Starfleet, there were very little safe havens to hide, restock and repair. Luckily, they still had some friends: Tana Dos for instance, a member of the Bajoran militia. He was a close personal friend of Captain McMillan, as he had known the Captain's father.

 

McMillan smiled as he saw his old friend again. It had been too long. "Welcome on board, Dos," he said, giving the older man a friendly tap on the shoulder. "It's good to see you again."

"Same here, RoB." Tana answered. "And it looks like you've got yourself in a bit of a bind?"

"I guess you could say that." McMillan said with a nod. "Both Starfleet and the Klingon empire believe that we've attacked a Klingon outpost of the House of Kar'Tog. We need to prove our innocence before they catch up with us."

Tana smiled faintly. "Then I might have some information you could use."

A little over an hour later, Captain McMillan, Mr. Tana, Commander Braveheart, Science Officer Bixby, Lieutenant Commander Weatherwax, Lieutenant Desade, Ensigns Debbydo and Johnson, and chief petty officer Thunderstorm beamed down at an abandoned lunar complex. McMillan immediately noticed an atmospheric shield over the base, which kept the vacuum of space out, and the precious atmosphere in. That would make it much easier to walk around and have a look around.

Tana had told the crew of the Gibraltar that he had remotely picked up some sensor readings, coming from this place. Someone had used the base's incredibly powerful sensors to scan one of the new ships of the House of Kar'Tog, and it seemed that this ship was an upgrade of the already impressive Negh'var class. It looked as if the house of Kar'Tog was preparing for war.

But that hadn't been the full reason why McMillan had ordered Lieutenant Desade to plot a course here. After all, if those sensors had been this powerful, they might have recorded the exact chain of events that lead to the destruction of that Klingon outpost. Perhaps if they could prove that it wasn't really the Gibraltar that attacked it, then Starfleet would accept them back.

Now though, they had to find the sensors first. "Let's have a look around." McMillan ordered. "But stay together." He didn't want a repeat of last time, when Admiral Delacroix had been killed on a supposedly abandoned ship.

"You know Rob, I've got a bad feeling about this," Tana said from behind him. McMillan nodded at this: he too didn't like it. But perhaps their luck was changing, and this was just as it seemed to be: an abandoned base with an extremely sensitive sensor array.

"Captain, look at this," Lieutenant Commander Weatherwax, the crew's resident hologram, spoke up. "There are several airlocks here, as well as an elevator down." He tried one of the doors, but to no avail. "Seems they're stuck. . . the electronics are failing."

"I don't suppose we can blast our way through?" Ensign Johnson asked. She was always a bit too violent for McMillan's taste, but it had served them in the past. Johnson seemed to understand the look on McMillan's face, though. "Alright, I'll just shoot the locking mechanism. That should open it up."

The rest of the crew stood back, when Ensign Johnson aimed her rifle. She pressed the firing button. . . but nothing happened. Quickly, she checked her rifle: it wasn't functioning. "Captain?" she asked, a look of horror on her face. This was all too familiar.

Science Officer Bixby quickly checked her tricorder, before that too, lost power. "An energy dampening field, Captain." she reported.

McMillan cursed under his breath. "Just like last time." he said out loud. He wasn't going to stick around to find out what kind of terror would await them now though. "McMillan to Gibraltar, emergency beamout, now."

But there was no response. The dampening field was blocking communications with the ship too. "Looks like we'll need to find the dampening field generator and shut it down." McMillan said to his crew, only to add softly "again".

"This way Sir." Ensign Debbydo said, gesturing at the elevator. "I believe this leads down."

"There's nothing up here anyway." McMillan said with a gesture, which indicated that everyone should be standing on the elevator. "Let's go."

The first group got down alright, but the second, consisting of Weatherwax and Johnson, were stuck half-way. It seemed as if this elevator wasn't responding all that well to the dampening field either. "You two find another way around," McMillan ordered. "We'll see what we can find here."

It didn't take the two officers too long to rejoin the others. By then, the away team had already figured out that this was a storage chamber of some sorts. There were spacesuits hanging here, and another airlock door. . . which sadly didn't open. "There's nothing of interest here." Braveheart spoke up. "Perhaps we should go up one floor?"

The group walked towards the elevator. . . but it failed to operate. Whatever power it had, was now drained by the dampening field. There was no way out now: the crew was trapped down here.

This called for some creative thinking. Luckily, with an XO who had been Chief Science Officer before, and a hologram who was partnered to a trigger-happy Ensign, a plan was soon formed. "You see those spacesuits, Sir?" Weatherwax spoke up. "I suggest you all put them on. I'll try to interact with the power generator here, and shut it down." It proved to be impossible to just shut down the energy dampening field, but by shutting down all the power, the field would drop too. The only downside to that plan was that the air would escape, since the atmospheric shield would no longer work anymore. But then again, that was what the spacesuits were for.

Weatherwax started executing the plan, while the rest of the crew put on the unfamiliar spacesuits. "It smells like they haven't been used for a long time," McMillan said, trying to lighten up the situation a bit. Tana smiled at this. "It looks like you've learned how to deal with dangerous situations like these, much better." he told the Captain. "Your father would be proud."

McMillan wanted to answer, but Weatherwax interrupted by reporting that they were ready. "Alright," The Captain said, closing his helmet. "Let's do it."

As Weatherwax shut down the power, air started wheezing out of the chamber they were in. It only lasted for a few seconds, after which the entire crew started to hover in mid-air. Well, all but Weatherwax: he was a hologram, so he could just walk around. Around him, McMillan could hear complaints about zero-g training, and he himself had to admit that he didn't particularly enjoy the experience. Still, it was better than dying. "Alright, let's go." he said, floating his way towards the elevator shaft, and to freedom.

Once out of the lunar base, the crew was able to contact the Gibraltar. "Ensign Johnson," McMillan started, "Tell the Gibraltar to beam us back. . . and to beam the computer core of this facility up as well." If they couldn't get the sensor data one way, perhaps there was another way. "Energise."

Back on the Gibraltar, McMillan sat down in his chair. Today's mission was a success. . . luckily not a repeat of what happened last time. Still, encountering two dampening fields in just a couple of days, was more than a coincidence. Someone had left it here for them. But who? Perhaps they would know, once they had analysed the data from the base's computer core. Who knew what kind of useful data they could get from there...