06-20-2025, 12:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2025, 12:58 AM by Hallowette Maxas-Darl.)
The focus that accompanied the myriad orders given by Commander Jolan was just what the bridge crew had needed to break out of 'wait and see' and engage in the much preferable 'let's do this'.
Hally listened as the science team took on their assignment with the probes, finishing what calculations and automated actions that the computer could take care of. Before she knew it, the boarding team had finished their tasks, set the scuttling charges, and evacuated the doomed vessel without further incident. Hally had to admit, she was impressed by the teams professionalism. It seemed to take far less time to wrap up their mission than she expected.
"Commander, the shuttle is back aboard and all teams are accounted for." Hallowette announced as the ships operations team checked in with the bridge.
"Alright, people, let's get a move on. Helm, take us out, best speed. And send the detonation signal when you're ready."
Commander Jolan had just finished the sentence, leaving Hally to reel slightly under the massive responsibility of being the one to actually send the destruction code. Looking back, she would be thankful that Mara, still wearing her boarding gear and what appeared to be...is that klingon blood???
"That would be where I come in." said the large woman that Hally had gotten to know over drinks and song not long after joining the crew. The calm in her booming voice belayed her combat battered visage, though it seemed oddly on brand given the context of the moment. "Tell me when we're clear. I've been lookin' forward to this for the last couple of hours."
The curly haired helmsman grinned at her budding friend, silently relieved to see her intact and non the worse for the wear. "Of course Lieutenant." Hally said before inputting a quick series of commands into the console before her and moving the Artemis a short distance away.
She turned slightly in her seat, making sure that her next announcement could be seen by both the Commander and Calleja. "The Artemis is safely outside the scuttle zone Sirs. Computer shows all chargepak signals strong and awaiting the detonation code."
Mara nodded without a word and for a moment - a very long moment - it seemed nothing happened.
Hallowette would later tell her father of how oddly unexpected her first real encounter with destroying a ship would be.
Hally looked on, her breath held with anticipation, her teal eyes transfixed on the viewing screen, some primordial fascination with destruction demanding she see every moment of what would come next.
The Klingon freighter, proudly built and operated for what was likely decades had finally, and ultimately met its fate this day at the hand of the Artemis. The grey-green hull hung silently stoic among the swirling chaotic darkness of the nebula, ionized gases dancing like sprites as they interacted with the still venting and rapidly freezing vapor from the earlier explosion at its side. Hallowette found it curious that during the time they had watched over the overtaken vessel that it was only now that she noticed how the nebula's plasma glowed slightly against the qoH's exterior, and she spared a moment to wonder if the Artemis might have a similar effect going on that she was just as unaware of. Her gaze ran along the qoH's lines, a witness to its final moments before she finally settled on the faded and ill maintained house sigil - long since applied to the ship, pockmarked by micrometeor's' and ill repaired battle damage.
Then suddenly out of the silence, a simple, dull thump.
Then another.
Then another.
The fourth was betrayed by a rending, violent flash that erupted from the bottom of the ship like lightning, its only evidence reflected by the softly glowing nebula surrounding it, charged by excited ambient energy escaping from the doomed vessel. But again silence - a last, final gasp among the cosmos - desperate - yet ultimately in vain.
Hallowette's curiosity though turned to something darker as the freighter's actual destruction became much more visceral than the young woman could have expected.
The qoH' did not erupt. It UNFOLDED.
From deep within the engine core, a controlled antimatter reaction bloomed, white-hot and precise. An instant later, expertly placed internal charges set along the structure of the ship fired in perfect synchronicity, severing the ship’s key bulkheads like a naughty child pulling apart an insect. The warp nacelles flared briefly, likely some automated energy surge grasping at life before being shattered in a blooming scream of light. The hull rippled outward, then back in on itself as pressure equalized, sections peeling back like the petals of a dying flower.
The nebula’s volatile gases, not to be forgotten, rushed into the now vacuous spaces of the torn vessel before catching the volatile mixture of energy, heat, oxygen and unbound plasma. It flared angrily in violent response— green fire curling around the wreckage like the fingers of an angry god, tearing away pieces, liquid fire flaring against it, before giving way to the unkind void of gravitational shears and plasma currents. What little remained of the freighter began to spiral, sinking away into the depths of the nebula, slowly consumed by the deliberate chaos inflicted upon it.
Within moments, all traces of its purpose, its history, its existence were swallowed whole.
Hallowette caught the breath in her throat and forced it away. She watched as the last embers of what was once the qoH' faded away.
"Sensors report total destruction Sir." she said with as little emotion as possible. Without turning to face the senior officers on the bridge, she continued, "Laying in a course to follow the probe's path Sir, best speed."
The probe's had proven a godsend, and the journey to join them proved far easier than it would have been otherwise. Eventually, and surprisingly emerging into what appeared to be a white dwarf system.
"Commander, we appear to be in the center of the nebula - a white dwarf system. Telemetry scans show a single small planet...class M?" Hally looked quizzically towards Aeryn before turning back to the tactical feed. "Uhm, also sir, there appear to be active weapon platforms online protecting the world and the star itself. I'm withholding scans of the hardware until your order Sir."
==TAGS! Now that was fun to write!==
Hally listened as the science team took on their assignment with the probes, finishing what calculations and automated actions that the computer could take care of. Before she knew it, the boarding team had finished their tasks, set the scuttling charges, and evacuated the doomed vessel without further incident. Hally had to admit, she was impressed by the teams professionalism. It seemed to take far less time to wrap up their mission than she expected.
"Commander, the shuttle is back aboard and all teams are accounted for." Hallowette announced as the ships operations team checked in with the bridge.
"Alright, people, let's get a move on. Helm, take us out, best speed. And send the detonation signal when you're ready."
Commander Jolan had just finished the sentence, leaving Hally to reel slightly under the massive responsibility of being the one to actually send the destruction code. Looking back, she would be thankful that Mara, still wearing her boarding gear and what appeared to be...is that klingon blood???
"That would be where I come in." said the large woman that Hally had gotten to know over drinks and song not long after joining the crew. The calm in her booming voice belayed her combat battered visage, though it seemed oddly on brand given the context of the moment. "Tell me when we're clear. I've been lookin' forward to this for the last couple of hours."
The curly haired helmsman grinned at her budding friend, silently relieved to see her intact and non the worse for the wear. "Of course Lieutenant." Hally said before inputting a quick series of commands into the console before her and moving the Artemis a short distance away.
She turned slightly in her seat, making sure that her next announcement could be seen by both the Commander and Calleja. "The Artemis is safely outside the scuttle zone Sirs. Computer shows all chargepak signals strong and awaiting the detonation code."
Mara nodded without a word and for a moment - a very long moment - it seemed nothing happened.
Hallowette would later tell her father of how oddly unexpected her first real encounter with destroying a ship would be.
Hally looked on, her breath held with anticipation, her teal eyes transfixed on the viewing screen, some primordial fascination with destruction demanding she see every moment of what would come next.
The Klingon freighter, proudly built and operated for what was likely decades had finally, and ultimately met its fate this day at the hand of the Artemis. The grey-green hull hung silently stoic among the swirling chaotic darkness of the nebula, ionized gases dancing like sprites as they interacted with the still venting and rapidly freezing vapor from the earlier explosion at its side. Hallowette found it curious that during the time they had watched over the overtaken vessel that it was only now that she noticed how the nebula's plasma glowed slightly against the qoH's exterior, and she spared a moment to wonder if the Artemis might have a similar effect going on that she was just as unaware of. Her gaze ran along the qoH's lines, a witness to its final moments before she finally settled on the faded and ill maintained house sigil - long since applied to the ship, pockmarked by micrometeor's' and ill repaired battle damage.
Then suddenly out of the silence, a simple, dull thump.
Then another.
Then another.
The fourth was betrayed by a rending, violent flash that erupted from the bottom of the ship like lightning, its only evidence reflected by the softly glowing nebula surrounding it, charged by excited ambient energy escaping from the doomed vessel. But again silence - a last, final gasp among the cosmos - desperate - yet ultimately in vain.
Hallowette's curiosity though turned to something darker as the freighter's actual destruction became much more visceral than the young woman could have expected.
The qoH' did not erupt. It UNFOLDED.
From deep within the engine core, a controlled antimatter reaction bloomed, white-hot and precise. An instant later, expertly placed internal charges set along the structure of the ship fired in perfect synchronicity, severing the ship’s key bulkheads like a naughty child pulling apart an insect. The warp nacelles flared briefly, likely some automated energy surge grasping at life before being shattered in a blooming scream of light. The hull rippled outward, then back in on itself as pressure equalized, sections peeling back like the petals of a dying flower.
The nebula’s volatile gases, not to be forgotten, rushed into the now vacuous spaces of the torn vessel before catching the volatile mixture of energy, heat, oxygen and unbound plasma. It flared angrily in violent response— green fire curling around the wreckage like the fingers of an angry god, tearing away pieces, liquid fire flaring against it, before giving way to the unkind void of gravitational shears and plasma currents. What little remained of the freighter began to spiral, sinking away into the depths of the nebula, slowly consumed by the deliberate chaos inflicted upon it.
Within moments, all traces of its purpose, its history, its existence were swallowed whole.
Hallowette caught the breath in her throat and forced it away. She watched as the last embers of what was once the qoH' faded away.
"Sensors report total destruction Sir." she said with as little emotion as possible. Without turning to face the senior officers on the bridge, she continued, "Laying in a course to follow the probe's path Sir, best speed."
The probe's had proven a godsend, and the journey to join them proved far easier than it would have been otherwise. Eventually, and surprisingly emerging into what appeared to be a white dwarf system.
"Commander, we appear to be in the center of the nebula - a white dwarf system. Telemetry scans show a single small planet...class M?" Hally looked quizzically towards Aeryn before turning back to the tactical feed. "Uhm, also sir, there appear to be active weapon platforms online protecting the world and the star itself. I'm withholding scans of the hardware until your order Sir."
==TAGS! Now that was fun to write!==