Episode 7- Cause & Effect (SM-3 + Sun Tzu)

[Paul Riley]

1512
Bridge
BC-304 Sun Tzu

The Colonel was down and out, on his way to the infirmary on a stretcher, and his assailant had been taken down using lethal force. Said assailant was still alive, but had taken a couple of rounds for his trouble. As the corridor began to fill with airmen who would remove the male to the brig, in the care of a corpsman, something peculiar happened that only a few of them would notice. A small puff of black smoke would leave the man's mouth. His wounds began to heal...

The remaining officers were in a state of confusion. Their commander had just been blatantly attacked in the halls, they had lost contact with SM-3 and there was a distress signal from Meropis. An emergency contingency measure had been put in place for situations like this, it was kind of like the secret envelope nuclear submarines had in the event of total communications loss with the mainland. Something no commander wanted to action but, nevertheless, the time was upon them to act.

Just as the officers were beginning to get their heads together and formulate a plan, the ship jolted harshly and threw herself out of hyperspace. They were suddenly sat in the void between planets, reasonably far away from the nearest star system. Alarms and buzzers began sounding across the bridge as crew members began to hurry back and forth. One of them approached Decker, Hawkins and the other officers huddled around the command chair, it was Major Hunter.
"Sirs, we've just lost all hyper drive engines. They are totally non-responsive."
He waited for their acknowledgement before he gave them the worst part of the news,
"There's more Sirs... We've just started broadcasting a distress beacon, and we can't shut it off."

They were sitting ducks.

<tag Dylan Hawkins Shawn Booth Ryan Decker Jaya Bakshi @adaofhearts Blueberry Yagami>

[Ryan Decker]

1510-1512
Bridge
BC-304 Sun Tzu
Hyperspace-Unknown

Decker didn't like resorting to emergency orders any more than anyone else but their was no choice, the last times he'd been party to situations like this it had been Anubis's attack on Earth in 2004, When the Ori came to finish off Earth before SG-1 saved them and most recently when he'd almost become a 302 ace, the superhive's attack on Earth, the first and last times in that until now rated the worst.

"He hasn't, And that worries me. For all we know, he's been targeted by another one of them a-holes" Ryan nodded, that made his day even worse, that placed in certain contexts both Commander Hawkins and himself in command, He reached into one of the pockets on his flight suit and produced a key for Hawkins to take. "A key to the ship's command safes, I still have my own, but the Chinese requested I have two, for just this such occasion." Decker then handed him the envelope and key together.

"What's in the envelope, Flight Lieutenant?" Decker looked down then back to the commander. "nothing good sir, I must now inform you that if you do not act as necessary I will be forced to replace you with someone else or myself, I would do so under the Authority of the IOA and Homeworld Command." Technically he was supposed to draw his weapon for this part if he was giving this to the command or Major Hunter, but he felt he Hawkins could be counted on to do the right thing.

When the commander opened the envelope he spoke again. "Section three subsection three sir, no contact or distress call from Meropis and both CO and XO incapacitated, or reasonably believed so, but we've already agree'd on that point." He wasn't a fan of having to talk this way to the Commander, but people far higher up than either of them had decided the wording of these orders not him. "We must make all haste to assist Meropis as best we can, the third page lists the required persons or positions needed at a minimum, however this security threat on board..." His faced changed back to anger. "Our prime concern is securing the ship, by any and all means necessary and then assisting the base as needed, if the base in overrun sir, we must also take all steps to remove or if not possible lessen the risk to Earth and then ourselves, that includes destroying the base and this ship, of which only four of us are able to authorize though the self destruct, You and either, Major hunter, the chief engineer or myself." he paused giving Commander Hawkins time to take in the document and his slightly cut down verbal version. "Do you accept these orders sir?" 

Almost immediately there was shift in the ships momentum, it wasn't overly noticeable, but when you spent a lot of time on the ships you could feel it. He looked around the bridge was lighting up with alarms and warnings. I took only a couple of moments before Major Hunter had a handle on it. "Sirs, we've just lost all hyper drive engines. They are totally non-responsive." Decker looked back at Hawkins then back at Hunter. "There's more Sirs... We've just started broadcasting a distress beacon, and we can't shut it off."

"We need to stop broadcasting immediately, we need to destroy our long range comms array, we can still beam up and down, it will take a little more, but us all having those transponders makes it a lot easier." He said as he turned towards Hawkins.

<TAG: Dylan Hawkins  >

[Dylan Hawkins]

SPOILER: Click to show

Sorry. I could simply not resist....[/spoiler]
1510-1512
Bridge
BC-304 Sun Tzu
Hyperspace-Unknown

Hawkins took the key from the Australian officer, and hung the chain around his neck. He didn't entirely understand why one officer had two keys, as the reason for having to use two keys was entirely so that no one man could arm the nuclear devices. This was not his concern for now. Though he'd be sure to ask the Captain once this was all over. Then the Commander took the envelope, and unsealed it by breaking the wax with the little string attached to it. The he turned it over, and let the documents inside slide into his other hand. Having emptied the envelope, he put it down on the Captain's desk, and then proceeded to quickly read over the orders.

What the Lieutenant then said didn't bode well for the rest of the message. The officer then referred to a specific section of the orders. Section three, subsection three. Hawkins quickly flipped the pages to find it, and once he had, he quickly read over it before the Lieutenant continued. HE listened intently, and at the end he had but one question. "How long do you suppose we could reasonably wait? Meropis has to be our primary concern, but I'm not going to leave Collins and his team stranded for God knows how long." Hawkins asked. He knew firsthand how bad it was to be left behind, having been shot down over Iraq in '05. He wasn't going to leave them there if he could help it.

The Australian continued. In the end, there was very little left for him to say. "Very well. Let the records show that I do accept these orders" Hawkins stated.

Then the ship started to decelerate. It wasn't overly noticeable. However, when you spend most of your days in a small ship without inertial dampeners (Or, at least, non-active ones), one tends to feel the slightest of motions. They were sending a distress signal, and had to destroy the antennae. "That planet that Collins is on... It has a gate, right? If so, I want to send a message to Collins telling him to scrub, and for him to gate to a planet that roughly intersects with our course to Meropis so we can pick them up." Hawkins stated.

Then he looked at the Australian. He sat down in the command chair, lifted his right hand, and made something of a sweeping motion forward. "Make it so, number one" he said.

[Ryan Decker]

1513
Bridge
BC-304 Sun Tzu
Unknown

It was written all over Commander Hawkins face that he was more than a little suspicious of the orders and in particular the two keys he had on him (among others but that pair related to this ships main safe, all senior crew minus those assigned to the 302s had them. "The keys... it's a political thing with the Chinese..." he shrugged he didn't like it, but he was sure everyone else wouldn't like the alternatives, but soon they might have a way out of this.

"How long do you suppose we could reasonably wait? Meropis has to be our primary concern, but I'm not going to leave Collins and his team stranded for God knows how long." The Flight Lieutenant nodded. "I Agree, however our first priority should be getting Collins back on board, if It's as bad as we fear, we'll need everyone we can get."

"Very well. Let the records show that I do accept these orders" He was about to go back and have it entered in the log when they decelerated.

"That planet that Collins is on... It has a gate, right? If so, I want to send a message to Collins telling him to scrub, and for him to gate to a planet that roughly intersects with our course to Meropis so we can pick them up." There was a brief pause as they moved toward the command chairs and formulated their plan to stop the broadcast of their position.

"Make it so, number one" he smirked a little. "Yes, sir..."

Decker turned to his assistant currently at the weapons console. "Lieutenant, target a rail gun at the long range array, when it disallows fie upon self enter this code; Zulu-Alpha-One-Seven-Eight-Niner." Ryan then turned back to Hawkins.

"Commander... the planet we left Collins on... it did have a gate, Ten Thousand years ago." He pasued. "And it didn't have a working one before we left... we have to regain control of the ship. Or Collins will have to get inventive about getting home sir..." stuck between a rock and a hard place but before they could do anything they needed to get their ship back.

His assistant then interrupted. "It's destroyed sir." He nodded then motioned for the woman to vacate the station. Sitting down he began to make his way through the ships computer systems, he needed to find out what was causing it.

<TAG: Dylan Hawkins , Paul Riley , Shawn Booth , @anyone else>

[Dylan Hawkins]

1520
Sun Tzu Bridge

Decker had his assistant fire on the antennae, which were disabled with a slight rumble.


"Alright. Muster the Marines. Airman, tell the Master-at-Arms to distribute small-arms. Number One, have your deputy take over, and lead the search for these interlopers. I'm authorizing you to use lethal force if you deem it necessary." Hawkins said, the first part to the Marine Captain that had stood in a corner of the bridge. The second part was aimed at an Airman who would have easy access to the intercom system. And finally the last part was to Decker. He realized that Decker had been trying to figure out what was going on, but making sure that there were no other enemies took priority for the Commander.

Having said all that, Hawkins sat down in the central command chair. He looked out the window in front of him, and looked at the emptiness of space. They had better find a solution soon, or everyone would be in big, big trouble.

[Paul Riley]

1520-1525
Infirmary
BC-304 Sun Tzu
Unknown Co-ordinates

A slight rumble gently vibrated the bed Colonel Paul Riley was laying on. Slowly, he came to and blinked his eyes against the bright lights of the medical bay. He pushed himself up with his elbows and rubbed the back of his neck, it was his first time being shot with a zat gun and now he realized why everyone complained about it.
"Sir? How are you feeling?" the nurse asked, rushing over to the commander's bedside.
"Like I've been hit with a baseball bat, ugh..." He cricked his neck from side to side, working out the cobwebs, "How long was I out?"
"About fifteen minutes Sir. Emergency protocol has been activated, Commander Hawkins is currently running the ship."
"Good, let him carry on for now," the Colonel replied whilst observing the armed marine detail currently guarding the infirmary. His memory was coming back now, somebody had attacked him and declared allegiance to Laran, the Etruscan God of War. Then, they'd shot him. Whats more is they still had the distress beacon from Meropis to figure out.

He needed a plan, and fast at that. The man who attacked him had been dealt with but what did it all mean? Before he could think up a genius idea though, a further problem presented itself. A thick, black oozing cloud began making it's way out of the vents. Almost like something was on fire but, no... There was something more, the cloud had electric sparks flickering through it, and it was moving with a purpose. Nurses and medical staff began backing away, with one shouting something about alerting the bridge. The two marines positioned themselves near Paul's bed and aimed weapons but, it was too late. In a lightning fast movement the black, noxious gas shot straight into one of the marines. Paul and the others could only watch in horror as the gas made it's way in through the man's mouth, nose and ears, causing the man to arch his back and out stretch his hands in agony.

Moments later it was all over and the marine stood with his chin against chest, seemingly alive but not responding. A stunned silence filled the room. Paul made a gesture and the other marine brought a zat gun to bear on his stunned comrade while Paul slipped off the bed and slowly approached the man. Just as Paul suspected, the stunned marine sprung to life and drew his sidearm, before he could get any further the tell-tale blue lightning coursed through his body as the zat gun was fired. Once it was clear, Paul bent down to take a hold of the marine as he crumpled to the floor. Medical staff rushed to his aid,
"No." He ordered, anger seething through him, "This is an Etruscan. And this asshole has some explaining to do. Help me take him to the bridge!" He barked the last part at the other marine who nodded, taking hold of the other side of his now possessed comrade. They began dragging the man's unconscious body toward the bridge.

A few minutes later Decker and Hawkins were alerted to Colonel Riley's presence by a contingent of soldiers near the door standing to attention and the words 'at ease' muttered through gritted teeth. An unconscious marine body was thrown to the floor in front of the command chair. Riley nodded to Hawkins, recognizing his command of the ship, then gestured to the male on the floor,
"Commander. We need to talk."

<tag Dylan Hawkins Ryan Decker Shawn Booth>

[Ryan Decker]

He was working incredibly fast moving through the ships systems, he was sure they were lucky he had a degree in computer science he sure felt he was, otherwise they'd have been in very bad shape more than once on this ship, those skills he'd learned while at ADFA had allowed him to make modifications to this ships systems more than once before.

He found the cause it had to do with the control crystals, it seemed as far as his terminal would tell him the hyperdrive itself was in perfect order, after having flown across the Triangulum Galaxy at max power for three weeks it was.

Decker looked up as Commander Hawkins spoke.

"Alright. Muster the Marines. Airman, tell the Master-at-Arms to distribute small-arms. Number One, have your deputy take over, and lead the search for these interlopers. I'm authorizing you to use lethal force if you deem it necessary."

The Flight Lieutenant Nodded. "Yes sir." He nodded back to his assistant and she took her position at the weapons console. He would try to take anyone alive is possible, it could help them repair and/or guard against an attack like this in the future, however he mostly wanted to know how his own people had been taken over, as much as he was the weapons officer, he was responsible for all the Australian crew on board.

As he was about to leave, Colonel Riley reappeared with an unconscious marine being tossed in front of the command chairs. The Colonel Looked to the Commander. "Commander. We need to talk." Decker immediately motioned for one of the guards on the bridge to come over. "Keep an eye on him." 

He then looked to Riley and Hawkins, "Good to have you back sir, in case you haven't noticed, we've dropped out of hyperspace and can't re-engage the engines, I beleive the problem is in the control interfaces in engineering, but I ca't be sure until I get down there." He awaited a response from one of them again clearing him to leave, he had a ship to save after all.

<TAG:Paul Riley , Dylan Hawkins , @anyone else>

[Derek Banks]

1525
Engineering
BC-304 Sun Tzu

Lieutenant Derek Banks examined the readouts on a tablet from one of his engineers. He clearly didn't like what he saw. He shook his head and handed it back to the young engineer. "Run it again," he said. "If we're not moving, then this isn't right. We've got way to many people counting on us to be a lame duck floating in the middle of space. Full diagnostic... every system." He heard the 'Aye, sir' and sighed as they departed. He knew that it was frustrating, and he knew that his team shared those frustrations as well. Yet, they had a mission, and they had way too many people counting on them. Not only did they need to get back to Meropis, but SM-3 was also planet-side and possibly stranded.

"Sir, I think I've found something!" called out Faraday. Rudy Faraday was a young up-and-comer. He'd come aboard the Sun Tzu with the last batch of new recruits and seemed determined to impress Banks at every turn. If he had truly uncovered the reason for even some of the malfunctions, Banks would find a way to make sure he ate steak for a month.

"What do you have?" Derek asked as he reached the mouth of a maintenance access chute. He peered into the tunnel to see Rudy on his back looking up at something.

"I don't know, sir," said Rudy. "But it doesn't belong here. In fact... whatever it is... is somehow jamming my scans. For now, all I can tell you is that it's attached to one of the primary control interfaces. There's appears to be a central hub, but it's branching out in several directions, possibly accessing more systems than are currently malfunctioning"

"Banks to Bridge," Derek said as he pressed one of the nearest comms. He didn't like what he'd heard. It meant that they could probably expect more to go wrong if they didn't get whatever that was out of there. "I think we may have found the problem. It looks like we have a foreign object attach--"

"I'm going to try to remove it," Rudy said.

"Wait, Rudy d--"

The only thing Derek could recall after that was the scream... and the smell. Hearing the sound, he rushed towards the port only to see Faraday's legs shaking violently as he was electrocuted. Another one of the engineers started to rush towards Rudy to pull him away, but another reached out to stop him. After a few seconds, the violent shakes ceased. The deck began to fill with smoke and the stench of charred flesh. Banks slowly moved towards the port, and upon peering inside, he averted his eyes.

Standing up, Derek clinched his fist tightly. "Contact Sickbay... have them send someone to retrieve the body," Banks said to his assistant. He then moved to the comm panel once again, hearing the pleas for an answer coming through the speaker. "Sir... the device is... equipped with countermeasures to prevent it's removal. It's already claimed one soul... Faraday." Banks paused before going on. "Once his remains have been removed, I'll personally take a look at it. Probably wise to send down a demolitions expert as well. Banks out."


<TAG: Paul Riley , Dylan Hawkins , Ryan Decker , Shawn Booth , others(?)>

ooc1: just thought i'd give Banks ago, see if I should hang onto him after this mission, and couldn't resist the temptation to jump in.

ooc2: i figured the device could look like this; feel free to nudge me if changes need to be made.

[Paul Riley]

1530
Bridge
BC-304 Sun Tzu

The guard on the bridge immediately brought the weapons to bear on the marine that Colonel Paul Riley had dragged up to the bridge with him. He looked a little worse for wear and sweat was running down his face, but Riley had that little vain popping on the side of his temple and that meant he was either enraged or stressed, or perhaps a combination of the two.
"Good to have you back sir, in case you haven't noticed, we've dropped out of hyperspace and can't re-engage the engines, I believe the problem is in the control interfaces in engineering, but I can't be sure until I get down there." Decker updated him.
"Go figure. Looks like this ship as been infiltrated by some sort of Etruscan spy, the technology they are using is far beyond my understanding but it has allowed them to take the bodies of at least three of the crew and try to mount attacks on the Senior staff. As of right now I want the bridge on lock down." Nodding at his orders, the first officer and some of the marines formed a guard on both entrances to the bridge, while two of them still watched their captive who had now been positioned so as to be slumped up against the back of a control panel.

"Banks to Bridge," the intercom sounded. Riley looked to Hawkins who was currently at in the command chair as Riley was out of action and technically shouldn't have discharged himself from the infirmary.
"I like that chair..." He muttered before walking over next to the command chair and pushing the intercom button to allow the transmission to be heard across the larger bridge area, "Banks, this is bridge, go ahead." He replied
"I think we may have found the problem. It looks like we have a foreign object attach--"
The transmission cut off.
"Banks, you broke off." There was a pause, nothing came back, "Banks, this is Bridge, do you read?" Yet more silence followed. After a few tense moments a call went across the comm for medical staff to head to engineering on the hurry-up. Riley shared a concerned expression with Hawkins, who he noted was sat forward in the chair and gripping the arm - he was fitting right in.

Almost with relief washing over him, Riley heard Banks' voice over the comm once again,
"Sir... the device is... equipped with countermeasures to prevent it's removal. It's already claimed one soul... Faraday... Once his remains have been removed, I'll personally take a look at it. Probably wise to send down a demolitions expert as well. Banks out."

"Well, looks like our intruder helped themselves to the ship's engines then. Hawkins, can we get somebody down there to oversee this thing?" He asked the ship's current commanding officer, "As for this guy," he said crouching down in front of the captive marine that was just now beginning to rouse,
"Decker, give me a hand over here would you? Marine, err..." He grabbed a fistful of the man's clothing and read the name tag, "Johnson, here, is probably still in there. But I'd like to have a word with the parasite in his head first..."

<tag Laran Dylan Hawkins Ryan Decker Shawn Booth Derek Banks>

[Ryan Decker]

1531
Bridge 
BC-304 Sun Tzu

Colonel Riley's arrival wasn't good the mans look was one of anger, something about someone messing with HIS ship he was sure, hopefully engineering wasn't completely out of action he was far more of an expert on the ships computer and weapons systems than the hyperdrive. "Go figure. Looks like this ship as been infiltrated by some sort of Etruscan spy, the technology they are using is far beyond my understanding but it has allowed them to take the bodies of at least three of the crew and try to mount attacks on the Senior staff. As of right now I want the bridge on lock down." The fact they had even gotten on board concerned him, when had they got on the ship was the question that popped into his head.

Before he could come up with an answer engineering finally came in. "Banks to Bridge," The intercom transmitted. "Banks, this is bridge, go ahead." Riley acknowledged.  "I think we may have found the problem. It looks like we have a foreign object attach--" The transmission cut off but not before something that either sounded like the intercom overloading or something similar came through. The Colonel was worried and almost immediately tried to system. 

"Banks, you broke off..... Banks, this is Bridge, do you read?" Decker looked around seeing who he could take down there in case they were all gone. "Sir... the device is... equipped with countermeasures to prevent it's removal. It's already claimed one soul... Faraday... Once his remains have been removed, I'll personally take a look at it. Probably wise to send down a demolitions expert as well. Banks out." The chief engineer replied after a pause, clearly they had been busy. 

"Well, looks like our intruder helped themselves to the ship's engines then. Hawkins, can we get somebody down there to oversee this thing?" Decker didn't have time to add much before the Colonel continued "Decker, give me a hand over here would you? Marine, err... Johnson, here, is probably still in there. But I'd like to have a word with the parasite in his head first..."
He nodded helping the Colonel lift the Marine off the deck. Decker still wasn't sure if he could trust the Colonel, maybe it had jumped host again. They lifted the marine until he was against a bulkhead. "I imagine this thing doesn't have rights sir." He said half suggesting they subject what ever was inside Marine Johnson to some physical pain and if it was what he thought it was it would either leave or relent and give up, after all being a coalescence of energy for a few thousand years probably meant you didn't feel pain all that often. "Also, I have an idea about how it might have got on board... and neither of us is going to like it..." He said, currently the Flight Lieutenant felt if it was an Etruscan it had probably gotten on the ship the last time they met, through one of the 302 pilots, including himself when they blew up that fake asteroid or it after it fizzled away when they destroyed that object.

<TAG: Paul Riley , Dylan Hawkins , Derek Banks , Laran >

[Dylan Hawkins]

The bridge, at Riley's command, got locked down. No-one in or out. Then the Colonel came up to Hawkins in the chair and said he rather liked that chair. "Just keepin' it warm for you, Captain" the Commander said with a teasing grin. Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer tried to reach the bridge and at first succeeded but then broke away. Something about a foreign object attached to something... But what exactly was that something?

Hawkins stood up from the chair, and sat down in one of the forward chairs, allowing Riley to get into it. The Commander checked a few things, and listened to Banks' recent transmission. Then he turned to Riley. "Aye-aye, Sir." Hawkins tapped a few buttons, and then spoke again. "Armoury, this is Hawkins. I want you to send a team of Marines to escort Petty Officer Merlyn to Engineering. I need him to have a look at some 'splosives down there." Then he turned back to Riley. "Merlyn's an EOD tech, Sir. Shouldn't be much of a problem for him." the Commander told his boss.