ronin Lt. Cmdr. Kirsty Carpenter - Walking the Walk

[Alieth]

Goddess, I KNEW @Kirsty L. Carpenter was going to DELIVER at the end of act 1 but SWEET SURAK is even better. Great job mate!

 

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((The Raided Ship.))

Carpenter: What the hell happened here? 

It was a simple question, Kirsty knew that intellectually.

But grappling with the practicality of the answer...was an entirely different matter. Especially as more and more reminders of Phobos and the brutality of the Breen faced her with renewed, dispassionate displays of violence. As Kirsty and her team followed the embattled survivor into another section of the ship, the Robot Things still in pitched, unrelenting pursuit behind and the sounds of  more gunplay ahead of them, Kirsty could find herself focusing on nothing but the blood.

From first glances it seemed like the compartment had maybe been one of the main holds for the...let's say "illicit" activities of the original ship's crew, but the impacted gore and piled furniture of the space suggested an attempt at a bulwark against the encroaching Robot Things. But it did them little good as more frozen blood and glittering viscera of the bodies "decorated" the interior in a hellish display of the Robot Things' capacity for death-dealing. It chilled Kirsty's own blood to near frozen.

But the real skittering across her skin came from Alieth's wisely draconian answer to her question.

Alieth: A trap

The boy, Kirsty could see his obvious youth and terror playing across his features, hefted himself up and out of Kirsty's grip with surprising strength in his diminutive frame. But the blaze of his eye was anything but diminutive. 

Survivor: I told you, I told you to leave, I had a safe place, you screwed up, you screwed up!

Tucker:  It seems the bug hunt turned into an us hunt. I don’t think we should be standing still for much longer, and those things::pointing at the monsters:: aren’t going to dilly dally much longer.

More movement and sound ahead of them drew the conversation back into a tight silence. Robot Things, at least three of them, skittered and morphed their improbable shapes across...more bodies. But as Kirsty found cover, peering carefully over the top of a spilled collection of footlockers that had been likely thrown into the corridor with desperate hands, she could see that these bodies were different.

They were from the Ronin.

A sort of righteous bloodlust surged through Kirsty, threatening to spill her into a fight she couldn't win before she took a white-knuckled grip of herself once more. Forcing herself to keep cover, she retrained her eyes on the horror of the scene, trying (and mostly failing) to keep her emotions in check before more people, more crewmen, fell to the hellishly efficient "creatures".  But God in Heaven, did she want to fight. Wanted to rip and tear and show these Things the same sort of dispassionate contact they had ripped through the ship with. 

Thankfully, and with little knowing that she did so, Chief Alieth cooled her tendons and slowed her breath with only a few phrases. A sliver of hope amid the red, wet astonishment of the scene ahead.

Alieth: Osiris is alive. Wounded but alive. The others are dead.

Carpenter: ::under her breath, but audible all the same.:: Thank God...

XO Alieth wasted little time.

Alieth: We have to get him out of there, options?

Kirsty thought for a moment, shifting herself into a crouch and turning back to the new team, but keeping the words cycling in her mind. "Osiris is alive." There was still something they could do. Bravo was still ahead and fighting too. There was still something they could do.

Tucker::: unsuret:: Can we distract them long enough to get Osiris out? Commander Carpenter, did you happen to bring any explosive devices? If we can distract them long enough, we can pull the Lieutenant out. It’s risky, but that’s what we’ve got at the moment.

She had left the det-packs but she did have...

Carpenter: I've got my holdout weapon. It's no semtex, but it would have a decent punch if we overclocked the clip maybe.

She reached down with a momentarily free hand, drawing the smallish hand phaser and holding it out for the assembly to see. It was only a Type 3, but what it lacked in newness, it made up for in expendability. The interior of the ship was already ruined, what would another mid-sized explosion be to the whole scheme of things? 

But even more importantly, Tuck's plan would give them some much needed distance from the Robot Things and likely enough of a distraction to be able to sweep up Osiris's slightly supine lupine form. Kirsty was already trying to gig out her movement paths as The New XO started to nod in quiet understanding.

Alieth: So let us combine both plans. Tucker, do the part you suggested. Carpenter, you have plenty of targets for range practice. Can you take them all?

Kirsty turned back toward the other end of the corridor, eyeballing carefully the free-floating, but intentioned targets. White-hot rage that threatened to spill over into self-destruction for the sake of destruction itself started to bubble behind her chest.

Carpenter: I can certainly try.

Now it was Tucker's turn to reorient Kirsty. As she passed the Type 2 toward the Engineer, his slight (but wholly understandable) apprehension once more grounded the worst impulses of the Security Chief. 

Tucker: I’d rather take my chances out on the hull, than inside at this moment. ::fidgeting with his phaser:: The max setting doesn’t seem to be working as effectively as you’d hope. I still say we overload just one phaser, a little boom might be what the doctor ordered.

Kirsty nodded resolutely.

Carpenter: I can truck with that. ::she leaned slightly toward her superior:: Sir?

Alieth: It will have to suffice. :: Both of Alieth's hands clasped around the young Romulan's shoulders:: I will take care of this one.

Tucker: ::turning to look behind them:: I’ll watch our six.

As she started to move back into action, a dark, sudden thought occurred to her. Something they hadn't been as specific as she had hoped about.

Carpenter: Wait...but once we get Osiris, where to then?

Even with the cranking, consistent presence of the Robot Things, Kirsty could almost feel a sort of...confident radiance from the Chief/XO. One that was so pure and potent that she couldn't help a slight, spitefully wry grin twinge at the edge of her own lips in response. 

What did the kids say back in the day? XO Alieth was cooking and Kirsty, for one, couldn't wait to try it. Whatever it was. If she was to take a few of the Robot Things out and save one of her people in the meantime? Well, then, all the better, right?

Alieth: Then? :: The Vulcan's eyes turned toward the hull breach, now clear of machines, and to the cold stars shining on the other side. :: Then we got out of there.

Kirsty's grin arched in a full on (slightly insane) smile. She had liked and respected Chief Alieth, pint-sized powerhouse of Science. She was starting to LOVE XO Alieth, short-stack lightning Vulcan of action. 

Tucker checked and rechecked his weapon quickly, drawing more appreciation and steadiness for his accumine from Kirsty. This whole op had been...insane. Ghoulishly so, almost from the jump. But both XO Alieth and Tuck had kept their heads far better even than Kirsty had thus far. Though her mind was still a mess, her blood roared for revenge, and harsh flashes of memory that seemed eerily reminiscent of the scenes that had greeted them in the ship's interior...she was happy to know she had stout hearts and steady hands by her side and awaiting them once more back on the ship.

Movement and keen light once more dominated the interior of the radied ship, pounding more adrenaline and blood through her ears. The Robot Things who had shredded the Worene's team started to whirl on them once again. Kirsty set her feet and took aim in a practiced and smooth single motion, keenly aware of keeping XO Alieth and her new charge behind her and Tucker's ad-hoc firing line. 

Tucker: We’ve got clangers in front of us, and behind us, we need to shake a tail feather. 

On a silent, sustained motion, the team started up and out of their cover. Kirsty picked her targets carefully, worried still about the condition of her fallen comrades and their new charge still floating defenceless in the center of the melee. But as their DIY charge was tossed into the fracas, seemingly unnoticed by the now advancing Robot Things, Marty gave them another leg up.

As Kirsty cleared the fallen footlockers, a sustained beam lanced across the space between them, crashing more of the ruined ship across the path of the Robot Things. But miraculously, between the still floating body of Osiris. Kirsty nodded a grateful look over her shoulder.

Tucker: Okay, I slowed the ones behind us for the moment. Are you ready? ::He turned to Kirsty:: Commander?

Carpenter: Hit it.

Kirsty turned, fanned the trigger of her weapon, and kept a steady pace forward. Ever forward. Even as the Robot Things scrabbled and screamed through the debris and constant light and heat of their weapons. 

oO Good. Oo she thought darkly, hoping their sandy, oddly blocky bodies felt some sort of pain. Kirsty Carpenter would never be the sort to shed a tear over the lives of slavers and pirates, especially those that seemed that have as little regard for life as the ones that once occupied this space. But the Robot Things had taken more than just the lives of the former crew, it had spilled Starfleet souls to the expanse and likely, in the constant assaults the ship had undergone, taken more innocent lives of the "cargo" as well. 

Kirsty Carpenter was more than happy to give a little in the outset. And she did. At least three clips worth. Unfortunately, in her tunnel-vision, she lost sight of the rest of her team.

But as she threw aside her spent weapon, clamping her hands mightily across the scarred chestplate of her favorite Worene, their improvised explosion had triggered finally, drawing more hollow noise and harsh light into the corridor. The hull gave way almost instantly and Kirsty kept her hands holding heavy across her peer's armor.

They spun once...twice...but were magnetized jerkily out of a third as Kirsty re-triggered her boots as close as she could to the ruined ship, praying silently once more that she could see her team through the rapidly fogging helmet (it was her ragged and slightly panicked breath that was causing the buildup). 

However, another violent expulsion of activity backdropped her scanning eyeline. Shattered out plasglass and a few more bolts from phasers and...Bravo Team! Apparently with the same idea as Alieth, taking the fight outside and with it, gaining the advantage over their unrelenting attackers. 

Soon after, comms chatter followed soon by transporter signals scooping them all back into the embrace of the Ronin and out of this listing house of horrors, reassured Kirsty that she wasn't alone.

Though she might have lost people, losses she would carry forever as she would all the others, she would never be alone again.

--

TBC! End of Act 1 for Kirsty!

--

Lieutenant Commander 

Kirsty L. Carpenter

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Chief of Security & Tactical

Starfleet SAR

(Marine Rank: Major)

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U.S.S. RONIN

 NCC-34523

ID: E239512QC0

//\\

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