Away Mission Day 2/3 (making contact), part 4

Posted on Fri Jan 8th, 2010 @ 6:39am by Commodore Samantha York & Colonel Damon Raine & Commander John Sheridan

906 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Devils Snare
Location: Planetside

ON

[OLD]

By way of avoiding any more questions, Damon turned and walked away from the Commander. His next few steps found him near where the Starfleet engineers had just set up the sighted drills. He watched as the drill began to hum slightly a second before a brilliant light lanced out and struck the rubble. Great gouts of smoke poured out of the hole it was creating as the rocks and soil began vaporising under the sustained blast.

[NEW]

His eyes fell on the caves entrance, eyes burning with the same intensity as the blast. ~We're coming.~

The engineer beside Damon grunted and looked back and forth between his tricorder readings and the drills sub-harmonic read-outs with a perplexed look on his face.

"What is it?" Damon asked as he moved closer to get a look.

"Well," the engineer started "the composition of this soil and rock is a LOT more dense than what this drill's used to. If these read-outs are accurate, it's almost like we are cutting into a material nearly as strong as diamonds."

"In terms of timing what does this mean for us?"

"Hard to tell at this point. I can't get a sure number from my instruments. It's anywhere between 30 and 40 meters to drill at this point." He shrugged "At current progress I would guess two hours, a bit more perhaps."

Damon swore under his breath and looked back at the tunnel. "Do what you can." He said without looking back at the officer.

Halfway through the hard-packed rubble they heard a faint explosion that seemed to come from inside the cave.

Damon, who was standing watch for the engineers safety heard the soft thump. With a look back to the operators of the drill he drew his hand across his throat to indicate a cut of power to the noisy Type six phaser. Once done, Damon moved closer to the mouth of the cave. What had he heard? It sounded like an explosion...but it could have also been more of the cave falling in. He shook his head and stood back. "Can't we make this thing work faster damn it?" He was getting frustrated with standing idly while someone he cared about was in distress.

It took longer than expected, but finally there was a small opening in the compact rubble. The engineers cut the power. "We'll use hand phasers from here. Safer."

== Inside the cave ==

Samantha was sitting beside the machine, mentally going over what the machine could do and trying to find a way to use it to get a message out when she became aware of other minds nearby. It had been so quiet with just the five of them that she almost didn't notice. She looked over at Riley. "They're coming."

"Huh?" He asked from the corner of the room. He stood up and dusted of his fatigues. "I don't hear anything." He said skeptically.

"Damon and some others. They're breaking through the rock. I can feel their minds," Sam replied. "Get everyone together and away from the tunnel."

The relief in the room was palpable. Everyone began talking as they gathered near the machine to wait. Sam could hardly wait for Damon to break through the rock. She looked at Riley and smiled. “It looks like this is not a good day to die.â€

== Outside ==

Sheridan was feeling a bit useless as he didn't understand the complexities of Drilling, but he did know how to chase Gunmen. He saw everything was on track and checked in and gave a progress report to the Bridge, he asked for another squad of Marines and strolled up the trail towards the pursuit. He watched as a marine checked one of the recently expired pirates for any Intel.

"Finding anything interesting Corporal?"

"Found a few satchel charges Sir, They don't have very much ammo either."

John laughed, "That's good for our side buddy, lets make sure we get a live one if we can, OK?"

== Outside the cave ==

The engineers pulled out their phasers and cleared away the last of the debris. There was now a hole big enough to walk through. As Sheridan had wandered off, they looked to Damon for instructions.

He didn't wait to give orders, instead he rushed forward and started to enter the tunnel..."Get me a shovel." He called back to the waiting group. There were still a number of inches of soil to dig through before they could gain access to the other side. They decided to leave a bit of rubble in case one of the phasers should punch through and injure someone. One of the engineers was quick to grab the tool and follow the Marine in. Damon was handed the shovel before he exited the confined space.

Damon was quick to start chipping away at the charred dirt and small stones. Despite being incredibly dense and difficult to burn through, the soil gave way easily with a shovel. The remaining few inches only took a couple of minutes to chip away before Damon saw a small glimmer of light pierce through a small hole of where the barrier had been broken through.

(To be continued...)

OFF

1st Lieutenant Damon Raine
Marine CO

Sergeant Kara Melo (NPC)
Marine Scout

Corporal Peter Marshall (NPC)
Marine

Staff Sergeant Allen Riley (NPC)
Marine

Lieutenant Commander Samantha York
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant Commander John Sheridan
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Alexandra Adeyemon
Chief Engineer

 

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