[Round 1] The Race to the Shuttle

[AlexV]

Not a short one, but I thought it worth putting up As you may notice, there are some blanks left in it, but that's mostly 'cause we just haven't had the responses yet... )

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((Pride O'Rigel Freighter – Engineering – Access Crawlway))

:: Through the thick hatch T'Lea couldn't hear a [...] thing on the other side. She had no clue if anybody was out there or what was taking so frakking long for them to get her out this hell hole. All she could hear was her own yelling, and the multitude of squeaking and squealing voles that she was trying to fend off with her butterfly knife. For the quantity of those little buggers that she was now facing they were clearly a very fertile critter. The young ones were the worst. They were relentless little [...]s, nipping, biting and scratching to the last breath.::

:: As one vicious vole launched itself at T'Lea's face she snagged it in mid air with the tip of her blade and then skewered another right into the metal grate floor. But whenever two were eliminated two more took their place, one latching onto her pant leg like a playful, but not as cute, puppy tugging every which way it could before ripping the fabric loose and swallowing it. Honestly would this ever end!::

:: An answer to that question came quickly and loudly, scaring both T'Lea and the voles into a short-lived peace agreement. With the controls on the outside of the hatch blown away, the filthy, tattered hybrid turned to face the hatch with a pile of little dead bodies all around her. Hope glistened in her eyes. Was she about to be rescued?::

:: Getting T'Lea's back was a sign of weakness to the voles and they moved in all at once for the kill. At that same moment something with a lot of force yanked the Romu-vulc through the now open hatch, and for a split second T'Lea, the voles, and someone underneath her were all free falling together, and then…::

:: THUD!::

:: They hit the ground in a pile of bodies with T'Lea landing smack on top of what she would soon discover to be her favorite Trill.::

:: Meanwhile, the nasty little critters washed out of the tube and scattered like roaches across engineering, darting between Grace's and Turner's feet, and leaving behind the dead voles that had spilled out of the hatch with T'Lea. Later the varmints would come back and feast on their own dead, but for now they ran to safety and hid.::

T'Lea: Ow. Frak you guys… what took you so long!

Aleia: ?

Turner: T'Lea you're out now. Save the theatrics until after we find Ben'thal.

:: Skittish of *everything* especially if it was touching her unexpectedly, T'Lea almost heard what Toni had said before Della's hand made her flinch in an involuntary reaction when she'd brushed it against her ear. By the time T'Lea had realized it was Della touching her and not a nasty vole, her hand was removed.::

Vetri: Hey.

:: Curious to see the beautiful Trill squished beneath her, T'Lea tilted her head ever-so-slightly, and then more when her Trill suddenly winced in pain. As Della looked down to the source of her injury, so did T'Lea only to realize that her hand was mysteriously warm, wet, and still firmly gripping the balisong. The wet stuff was Della's blood, and the blade of the knife was buried deep in the Trill's side. Immediately, T'Lea's heart sunk.::

Vetri: ::softly:: If you didn't want a date, all you had to do was say...

:: Afraid to move an inch for fear of hurting the woman any more than she already had, all T'Lea could do was lock eyes with her Trill exposing an expression that absolutely *no one* had ever seen before, mostly because she'd never felt the emotion before – at least not like this. Repentance::

T'Lea: ::softly: …no… ::wagging her head:: … Della… no… I'm so sorry…

:: She was about slide her hand onto the Trill's face when, for the second time in the past few minutes, something abruptly removed her from her current location.::

Turner: Aleia, look after the wounds on T'Lea's legs and arms.

Aleia: ?

:: Discarded off the Trill, T'Lea sat there on the floor in a daze of disbelief, watching as Toni applied first aide to Della's injury. From one horrible nightmare to the next, the voles were nothing compared to this, she thought. Nothing was a scary as the possibility of losing Della. That thought alone brought about a whole new level of fear that the Romu-vulc wasn't prepared for -- and the fact that *she* was responsible for Della's life threatening wound made it that much worse.::

Aleia: ?

:: Bent knees with elbows resting on them, T'Lea ducked her head into her hands and half-way covered her face to hide the swell of emotion breaking across her strict Vulcan features. She was oblivious to whether or not Corporal Grace was tending to her bites and scratches, oblivious to everything except how she was feeling and how her Trill was doing. Among all that turmoil, somehow in T'Lea's mind the incident had gone from an accident, to the plain and simple fact that she had stabbed the woman. She'd stabbed Della. Impaled her. Stuck a knife clean through. Gutted her with her own hand.::

:: They weren't even a couple yet and she'd killed her.::

:: Dropping her hands away from her face, T'Lea looked at the sticky blood on her fingers -- Della's blood. It painted her flesh and a side of her face where her hand had been resting.::

Turner: ::looking around at the nasty room:: We need to get her to the Pontiac

it's too filthy here for surgery and the infirmary is as bad.

:: Swallowing hard at the mention of surgery, T'Lea's gaze fell, racked with guilt.::

Aleia/ Vetri: ?

:: Not hardly finished tending to T'Lea's wounds, the hybrid shoved Corporal Grace away when she saw Toni begin to lift Vetri to her feet.::

T'Lea: Frell off, Corporal.

Aleia: ? if any?

:: In the back of T'Lea's mind she didn't want medical attention until she knew Vetri was okay. Springing into action to help get Della up, T'Lea once more reiterated to the Trill how sorry she was for this. Like it mattered. Sorry wasn't going to make the Trill better.::

:: But before T'Lea had the chance to tell Vetri what was *really* on her mind, Toni had whisked her away. As they moved out, the Romu-vulc had enough presence of mind to grab a phaser on the floor, not realizing that it was Ben'thal's modified weapon, which he had been forced to drop, and she certainly did not realize that it was any different than the standard issue weapon, simply because her mind was totally on Vetri.::

:: Leaving engineering behind, the four women made haste to the turbolift and were greeted by O'Flagherty bleeding a bit from the head. Weapons remained poised until they realized that he wasn't the enemy.::

O'Flagherty: ::mumbling:: They've killed my crew!

Turner: Where are they?

O'Flagherty: From what I heard, they're leaving the ship, but nothing is on the

Pride O'Rigel except your Runabout. We've got to stop them.

:: Bristling at that, knowing that the Pontiac was Vetri's only hope of recovery, T'Lea spat a rather graphic curse, indicating that she was not about to let them take the runabout.::

Turner: ::Shoving him back into the turbolift:: Don't worry, we're get them, just

help me carry Commander Vetri. T'Lea are you okay enough to use a phaser?

:: A phaser? Looking down she noticed that she was choking the handle of one, or a modified one. It had been designed larger in the front in order to accommodate three tips in a triangle configuration, but it had a standard grip, only with two triggers, one black and one red. It was already pre-set to stun, and not knowing how to change the frequency to "obliterate", she didn't try.::

:: The hybrid then looked to Vetri, noticing the colour slowly draining from the Trill's face. In answer to Toni's question....::

T'Lea: I'll manage.

:: T'Lea couldn't take her eyes off Vetri the entire ride. All she could think about was what she'd done to her Trill, and that she might not get the chance to tell her how she felt, I mean *really* felt about her.::

Turner: Aleia, call Tash and Cruise and let them know where we're going. Have

them meet us there.

Aleia: Response

:: The tubrolift parked on the correct deck and the doors opened to flush the group out. T'Lea and Grace exited first. Eyes and weapons rapidly scanning the dark corridor as the two checked every corner before waving the all-clear for Toni and company to proceed up the hall. This routine played out three more times before spotting a Ferengi and a Romulan trying to override the port lock to the shuttle craft.::

:: T'Lea levelled a shot into the wall near the Ferengi's head. Her aim looked like a warning shot, but in fact she'd simply missed. She'd actually been aiming for the Romulan.::

T'Lea: Back the frak away from the docking port, drenheads, or the next shot will permanently drop you both.

Fetbar/Velvich: ?

Turner/Aleia/Vetri/Anyone: ?

TAGS

Lt. Commander T'Lea

Historian & Archaeological Specialist

USS Constitution-B