Operation Intercept, Part 2 (Freecloud's Getting More Crowded)
Posted on Tue Apr 1st, 2025 @ 12:57pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Enam Nemec & Commander Maxun Spello & Lieutenant Commander Razka Kas & Major Clay McEntyre III & Lieutenant Xalanth & Lieutenant JG Jezra Siv MD & Ensign Cha'joga d/o H'gren & Corporal Eden McKenzie
1,331 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Gone, Without Ever Knowing the Way
Location: Freecloud, the outskirts of Rag City
Timeline: MD 01, late afternoon, after Part 1
Inside the Warehouse
The Nausicaans were met with a little more than a half a dozen or so Breen who were fanned out inside the warehouse. The lighting inside was dim, with most of the light coming from frosted glass windows that were mostly hidden behind storage containers on a far wall. There were lights, but the Breen had deliberately kept them off.
Breen soldiers had formed something of a perimeter inside of the warehouse, standing neatly in formation. They were armed with precision energy weapons that they currently displayed by holding them near their hips, clearly ready to aim at a moment's notice. In the center of the warehouse was one Breen wearing adornments on his uniform indicating rank and power, and he was flanked by two armed officers.
The ranking officer spoke, the buzz of his vocalizations sounding angry through his helmet, as the Nausicaans picked up the translations on their universal translators. The Breen were angry that the Nausicaans presented themselves empty handed, and were upset about the extra force outside, despite the fact that the Breen had clearly planned to outnumber the Nausicaan traders.
The Nausicaan Kuuth, a bit too arrogant for his current position, stepped forward. "Where is the payment," he demanded. "No product without payment."
The soldiers in the back maintained their positions, though some exchanged glances through their helmet, wondering what the next move was going to be.
One of the officers who was flanking the Breen commander stepped forward. "You should know better than to show up to a business transaction with the Breen empty handed. No payment, until we inspect the product. We should kill you now for your insolence."
Kuth took a few steps back from the Breen contingent and put his palms up submissively. "No, no insolence intended. We have the weapon. Our associates are outside. We just want to make sure that everyone is happy with our deal today. Let me call them, in?" Kuuth pleaded.
The Breen Commander mouthed something inaudible and stormed back to his troops.
"You have two minutes," the Breen officer told the Nausicaan.
Starfleet's Position
Petty Officer Enam's voice came over the comms shortly after the Nausicaans disappeared into the warehouse. "There is some kind of scrambler being used to mask the warehouse. If you go in, I won't be able to beam you out."
Xalanth had guessed that as he was struggling to get his listener to work. Letting out a sigh he looked over at his team. "Cover me. I need to get this against the warehouse wall. " He said to his team before he began to look for an opportunity.
"I can toss one of these at them and distract them." Cha'joga grinned, picked up what appeared to be a solid, round metal object she found on the floor and tossed it at the thugs - ask a Klingon to help, you get a Klingon solution. Easy! A resounding metal clang rang out, causing them to hiss - which was when she raised her rifle and fired upon them.
The Nausicaans began firing back, taking aim toward where Cha'joga had fired her weapon. There were angry shouts among them as they attempted to organize and isolate the threat.
Noha muttered something that sounded strangely poetic about Klingons to the untrained ears as he settled into position to lay down cover fire with Cha'joga. His position was offset from his partner's, which prevented either of them from immediately being gunned down or pinned.
Xalanth was taking his time and weaving between a few piles of trash and other junk on his way to the warehouse. He had just made it to the warehouse door when the shooting started. Letting out a curse he managed to slap his listener onto the door before one of the guards wheeled turned and fired. The lizard's shields took the hit before the lizard dropped and began returning fire. "Xalanth to all teams situation FUBAR," he yelled as he returned fire.
"Shit!" Clay exclaimed as he heard the FUBAR call on the comms, turning to McKenzie. "Let's move, McKenzie!" He says, picking up his rifle, dashing towards the roof ladder and sliding down to the ground before rushing towards Xalanth's position.
"Ah, shit." Eden swore under her breath as she followed Clay, slinging her rifle over her back as she went down the ladder after him and jumped off it a few rungs short and landing awkwardly but not enough for it to hurt. Maybe later it would, who knew. "Covering, sir!" she called out to Clay as they ran.
As Clay hit the ground running, he tapped his comms, "Commander Razka, we're moving on Xalanth's position, cover us!"
=/\=Copy that=/\= Kas said monitoring the perimeter. Cha'joga had fired far enough away from the warehouse that from Razka's birds eye view, the commotion didn't seem to be drawing any extra attention toward the warehouse. She had her hands full, but was holding her own.
As Razka shifted views to Cha'joga's position, the scope on his phaser rifle happened to catch a good shot of one of the Nausicaans that was giving her trouble, and he took a clean shot on stun to bide her some time, before turning his attention back to Xalanth who had earned his own attention from the Nausicaans.
Once Xalanth returned fire, he began getting return fire from the Nausicaans in three different directions, the Nausicaan's covering themselves from Xalanth's fire with some of the same obstacles Xalanth had used to mask his approach to the warehouse.
One Nausican was situated on a partially enclosed porch, the short, but solid porch wall making a perfect bunker for him to take his shots. Two others were looking out from either side of industrial sized dumpster that appeared to be from an abandoned remodeling project. There were also people shooting from around the far corner of the warehouse. Cha'joga was still preoccupied with three of the Nausicaans she had rattled a few blocks away.
Xalanth had begun cursing in Dragonian as he returned fire from the ground his phaser sending a bolt of energy into one of the Nausicans who fell to the floor. A bright flash of energy burst into his eyesight as one of the disrupters hit his suit shields taking the blow but nearly depleting his shield reserves. " Flying saucer out." He yelled as he grabbed one of the grenades from his belt and chucked the small silver disk as hard as he could. The grenade flew through the sky and landed behind one of the attackers as it jumped back into the air and began spinning around violently firing out small weaker phaser blasts as it did so. Not enough to stop the Nausicaan but enough to get him out of his cover.
With now only one attacker the lizard rolled, rose and ran behind the nearest and thickest bit of junk he could find. The rest of the team had better get here fast.
From her partially hidden position, Eden could had clear line of sight on the Nausican on the porch and she turned to Clay, "I've got clear sight on the one up top. Permission to take him down, sir?"
Clay nodded. “Light ‘em up.”
"Gotcha," She replied with a nod before taking up her rifle again and looking through the sight. Eden hadn't been the best in her weapons training classes, but she definitely wasn't the worst at it either. A deep inhale steadied her hands as she fired, the shot catching her target in the shoulder and sending the Nausicaan falling backwards and off the porch. "Target is down, sir. Unclear if it was a kill shot though," She confirmed.
~tbc~
Lieutenant (JG) Xalanth
Assistant Chief Security/Tactical Officer
LT Jezra Siv (Noha)
Chief Medical Officer
ENS Cha'joga
Helmsman
Corporal Eden McKenzie (NPC - Eirly)
Combat Engineer
Lieutenant Commander Razka Kas
Chief Flight Control Officer
Johansen & Spello
Breen soldiers & Nausicaan entrepreneurs
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