Bandits on the Surface

The Sull Path

After the repairs to the USS Boudicca performed at Starbase Geneva following the fight with the Borg at Dovek II the ship is finally assigned a new mission.

With an almost entirely new crew, commanded by the combined command team of Captain Calvin Capps and Lt. Commander Thomas Jackson, the ship was assigned to patrol an area of space, known as the Sull Path, currently being plagued by pirate attacks.

With as many as eight different species, including the United Federation of Planets dependent upon the lifeline of trade, and with no real leads as to the culprits identities, the Boudicca crew begins their 10-day journey towards the last reported incident.

The Sull Path

Upon her arrival at the Sull Path the USS Boudicca began conducting patrol scans in an attempt to locate or identify any information that may lead them to the location of either a pirate stronghold or a pirate vessel.

The Sull Path Minefield

Due to the very long nature of the Sull Path, it quickly became apparent that the ship would be required to spend several days on patrol in order to cover the entirety of the afflicted area.

As it happened, however, the crew was not forced to wait very long before they made contact with the pirates. On their second day in the path, while patrolling, the ship suddenly jolted.

With the crew rushing to their red alert stations, it was quickly ascertained that the ship had blundering into an undocumented minefield filled with mines that were armed with cloaking devices.

Although they had struck several of these mines, they proved to be superficial impacts as the ship suffered no damage. However the order was given to come to a full stop, only to find that the ship continued to be pulled along the path, albeit slowly.

A reading on the Subspace Current found in the Sull Path

Scans indicated the possibility that a Subspace Current was also present, and while this accounted for the unexpected movement of the ship, there was still reason to worry due to the presence of the mines.

Ensign Henry Jacobs using a suggestion put forth by Detron Trei and Thomas Jackson utilized the Bussard Collectors to emit a specially ionized gas that caused the cloaked mines to become visible. initial scans indicated that there were nearly half-a-million of the devices with in span of roughly a quarter of a light Year.

Before any further action could be taken however, a sudden loss of power plagued the boudicca, caused by some sort of massive power drain, which rendered all the ship's primary and secondary systems, including tactical useless.

Lieutenant Deynyk Rinn quickly placed the ship on Emergency power. Only a few moments later, the pirates led by the unseen Captain Toulin hailed the Boudicca and ordered her to turn over their cargo. In exchange the pirates agreed to release the Boudicca.

Boarded

Toulin and a number of his pirate crew, including a woman named Becks, beamed abaord the Boudicca, with the intention of taking the Boudicca's medical and other cargo by force from her Cargo Bay.

This attempt was foiled by Detron Trei and Captain Calvin Capps who led a counter-boarding party into the compartment. A heavy firefight took place, and Only Toulin managed to escape capture.

With the majority of his men captured, Toulin had to develop a new plan to acquire the goods that he wanted.

The Mine Field Revealed

Henry Jacobs and Deynyk Rinn managed to figure out a way to detect the individual mines that encompassed the minefield that threatened the Boudicca. They also managed to develop a method to restore power to the Boudicca.

A Hazmat suit

The mines had relatively low explosive yields, but they flooded the ship's EPS Conduits with a type of radiation called Transitional Balyric Radiation. The radiation has the affect of creating a magnetic charge in the casings of an EPS Conduit, which in turn constricts the flow of Electro-plasma through the conduits. This is akin to constricting a water pipe to the point that no water or very little water can flow along the conduit.

The solution to this problem is to bombard the EPS conduits affected by Balyric Radiation with a Saltoric Radiation burst. The later causes the rapid decay of the Balyric radiation, and releases the constriction of the plasma flow.

The drawback is that this process is hazardous to personnel, and must be carried out using a hand-held emitter by personnel wearing HazMat suits. It was also determined that using a sheathing of Tricobalt-carbon ceramic alloy will protect the conduits going forward. Repeated exposure of the alloy to Baylric Radiation creates a Subspace charge that can be tracked effectively over long distances. The Charge interacts with a warp capable ship's Warp Coils and warp field.

Clearing the Minefield

The Cartecay

A runabout was modified to use the specialized EPS Conduit shielding to allow Henry Jacobs and Deynyk Rinn to sweep a path for the Boudicca through the mine field. With Jacobs piloting and Rinn helping to plot the path of the runabout, the two managed to guide the Boudicca through the minefield without incident.

This had occurred after Toulin managed to acquire the cargo from the cargo hold after threatening to destroy the helpless Boudicca. He also managed to recover all of his crew except Becks, who remained a prisoner in the Brig.

Once they were clear of the minefield, Becks managed to effect her escape from the Brig and made her way down to the shuttlebay.

There, Deynyk Rinn was in access crawl space of the Cartecay, while Jacobs was working in the primary compartment. becks entered the compartment and using a stolen phaser managed to stun Jacobs.

Rinn trapped in the crawl way and unarmed, was unable to act, and decided that he should remain hidden when he realized that the shuttlecraft was in motion.

Using a computer virus uploaded to the USS Boudicca's main computer, Becks managed to shut down the ship's warp systems, rendering any attempts at pursuit moot at this juncture.

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MORE COMING SOON!

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