*** Deep underground * Einhoften Compund *** The massive elevator slowly descended into the intestines of the planet. For the moment nothing than a deep humming of the gravitation relays, disturbed the silence. Terek has always had good hearing. He could recognize a bit above and below the normal frequencies scale and a slight nuances in the sound variations. This ability only helped him in Starfleet as he had no problems to hear variances in the sensor systems and tuning them out. Deep sounds have always been interesting to hear. Well, more appropriate term would be 'to feel' as when the deep sounds of the certain frequency hit the humanoid bodies and it couldn't be heard by ears anymore, but it wasn't so low yet, you could feel something like an echo in your body, unconscious, below the normal layer of vigilance. In this case, an audible humming of the grav relays was accompanied by a bit lower sound which in this very situation could invoke the 'sense' of deep sound. Terek had to admit that it was somehow relaxing. It flowed through his body as some dark liquid. In an immediate blink of a mind as they could now only wait to get down, he put out the tricorder, set it on sound frequency scales and captured the frequencies made by the lift. It took only about fifteen seconds and as he closed the small device and put it on his belt again, he made a mental note that as soon as he'll get back to the ship, he'll analyze it and find which frequency was that pleasant one. After a few minutes as Terek ignored the annoying music that was interfering with the irregular pleasant sounds emitted by machinery, which almost resembled sounds of some animal, the lift reached its bottom.The door opened and they stepped into the vast hall. Right in front of them was the mouth of the biggest tunnel Terek ever seen. Large enough for the Defiant class to fly through, if the pilot would be skilled. In the diagonal on the right was the mouth of the second tunnel. On the opposite wall of the second mouth was another elevator, the same as the one they used to get here. Both tunnels were brightly lit and their mouths were marked with warning signs that indicated that in case of emergency blast doors can be sealed. Terek also noticed several force field emitters so it looked that those tunnels were pretty good secured. As they came more into the hall, they discovered that on the right side, just between the two cargo elevators was a free space where something like hovercars were parked, so they moved in that direction as walking through the tunnels on foot wasn't too tempting an image. A strange thought struck Tereks mind. It was still too quiet. Despite that they triggered the alarm, none seemed to pursue them and they got here without any big problems. He looked nervously around, nothing. Absolutely nothing was suspicious in that large area. Only strange thing he noticed were two pairs of doors placed on the opposing walls perpendicular to the axis connecting the tunnels and elevators. Those doors were all closed. Their footsteps echoed in the cavern like area and each looked around them as they walked into the central space, Weaver and Cross took protective positions for the small group. "Which tunnel do we need to take?" Rangi asked N'et'vor in a quiet voice, looking towards the largest. "They both go directly to the shuttle bay." he replied, also lowering his voice. "..a two way transport...but we should take this one." "What do you bring in here?" she asked, wondering at the scale of it all. "Supplies...equipment.....personnel." "Personnel?" Rangi snapped her attention to him for there was something in his tone that seemed odd. "It's the arrival area" he answered. "For the Jem'hadar who are to be..educated.But we must hurry..." he said quickly before she asked more questions " Each transport can carry four..so three in each?" Rangi glanced at the small hover craft. "Yes" she said and turned to Weaver. "Corporal you will come with N'et'vor and me. We'll go first. Okrin?..Terek?..you'll follow us with Cross." Thinking it agreed, she made to move towards the nearest transport but N'et'vor seized her arm, pulling her to a halt, firmly yet not harshly.She looked at his hand grasping her arm and from the corner of her eye,saw Weavor raise his rifle. N'et'vor released her. "Please..give me a weapon. I need to defend myself when they come..which they will." For a moment Rangi wavered in her decision. {He's done as he promised ..we're almost in the shuttle bay if what he says is true. He seems genuine.....even Okrins attempt to make him angry failed. 'Can I call you Lucy?' ! ..he would have been flattened long before by any normal Jem'hadar....but....} She glanced towards the tunnel and the waiting transport. Weavor, standing motionless, met her eye. "No." she said looking up at N'et'vor. "I can't do that." In the moment N'et'vor asked for the gun and Rangi refused, their small group arrived to the lot where three personal transports and two cargo ones were parked. They were about to board two of the transport ones, when a sharp buzzing sound disturbed the quiet. "What is that?...." asked Terek into the air, but as he said it, he already knew. He looked over his shoulder to see that entrances to both of the tunnels were covered by a weak blue haze. "Himlhergot...." he swore in his language as he recognized that the forcefield emitters were activated. "I think we've got a problem..." He expressed the obvious. But the activated forcefield wasn't their only problem. On both sides of the hall, the double blast door opened and about twenty Jem'Hadars marched into the cavern, all of them armed to teeth. "I think you're right!" Rangi said in the same instant that the Jem'hadar split into two bands. "Get into the transports...quickly" she cried, already sprinting the short distance to the nearest personel carrier. From somewhere behind her she heard shouted orders and almost immediately the area erupted into sizzling beams of phaser fire that burned into walls florr and anything else in the vicinity, causing one or two minor explosions and larger ones too. She ended up on the far side of the transport, not exactly sure how she got there. Cross was beside her and firing sustained bursts at the Jem'hadar who seemed for the most part to be immune to the hits. N'et;vor growled something unintelligable and grabbing her phaser, sent a long beam of fire onto the leading soldier who fell to the ground with a dreadful scream. N'et'vor glanced at Rangi who met his eye, reading the expression. "Take this" she said, the decision made, and pushed the rifle at him. Wordlessly he took it, dropping the phaser and aiming again at the approaching hoard.She hastily retrieved the phaser and aimed too. The Battle began. The two groups of Jemmies joined in the middle of the hall to have them aimed, but then split again into two separated groups, each counting of ten men. The small away team resisted as they were able to. Terek saw that Rangi and Cross took cover behind one of the personal transports, Nejor and Weaver were behind another, N'et'vor now with the rifle was crouched behind the large crate at the wall and Terek himself was behind the transport platform of one of the cargo crafts. He was firing his hand phaser, but it seemed to have no effect so he was thinking what to do to get out of this situation. Then an idea occured to him. He disappeared under the cargo craft, after a few minutes got out, climbed into the cockpit and in a few moments the cargo transport came to life humming quietly. Terek tapped a few commands and the transport went on the way. He got out just as it was passing Rangi's and Cross's cover point. It was not exactly what Terek intended, as only a backup power source blew up, creating a hole instead of a cockpit, but it served its purpose. Jemmies were confused, some of them looked really badly damaged and, what was most important, the forcefield on the left tunnel flickered and then collapsed. "Now..... we must go now...!" he shouted again, starting the personal transport they were covering behind. Meanwhile, Jem'hadars were getting on foot again and fire slowly resumed. Moreover the voice echoed through the room [Containment Field collapsed. Closing main Blast Door] And in that moment a huge bulkhead door began to move slowly on their closed position, trying to block their only escape route. Rangi scrambled into the passenger seat as Terek engaged full power, the sudden velocity causing her to fall back in the seat. The small carrier zigzagged around the one giving cover to Weaver and Okrin . "Wait!" Okrin shouted holding up his tricorder at arms length, desperate that she should see it.. "STOP" Rangi yelled, and Terek, keen to be gone, slowed the carrier as fast as he had accelerated it. "Catch it" Okrin shouted, hurling the tricorder in Rangis direction. "Its the autopsy!" The tricorder ricoched off the front of the carrier and like a juggler, Rangi grabbed for it as it fell toward the floor. "Get out of here" she yelled at Terek and they shot forward toward the closing gap of the door. Clutching the tricorder, Rangi looked back in time to see Okrin fall back to his cover and fire a long stream of phaser blast. Rangis eyes widened in horror when she turned back to look forward and the carrier hurtled through the closing gap that was only slightly larger now than the small vehicle. With a sickening crunch, one door hit the rear of the vehicle causing it to spin sideways, turn 180 degrees and slam into the wall. With a resounding thud, the blast doors closed and all was suddenly silent in the tunnel. With a loud 'dumm' the blast door fell to its position. But neither Terek or Rangi had time to hear that as the hovercraft spinned wildly and Terek had a hard time to stop it. But finally he managed. They both got out and Terek ran back to the door and to the access pannel on the wall. "We have to help them, we can't just leave them there..." he said desperatly to Rangi, not looking on her and wildly tapping on the command console. But after at least five minutes of tapping that increased it's frequency and loudness and after a five minutes of rejectfully sounding noises from the console, Terek only helplessly punched into the wall: "I can't get there, I can't get it open... " he said with bitterness in his voice. "The system is under a security override and it can be cancelled only by a commanding officer of the base.... Those damned door won't open at any case now..." Then he just slid onto the ground by the wall of the tunnel and said quietly like he was burying some feelings deep into his head: "The craft is broken" Rangi watched him and as he sat staring at the wall, walked to him and bent down."You tried it..and it was a good try..thats all we can do. But we have this." she tapped the tricorder Okrin had thrown to her. "...and your findings too, plus mine. We 'have' to get them back to Chimera..so we need the shuttle." She straightened up as Terek looked up to her and got to his feet. "You're ok?" she asked. He nodded slowly. "Then we run." she said. *** End Log *** LTjg Terek Weranis ASciO USS Chimera & Commander Rangi Summers XO USS Chimera & N'et'vor Jem'hadar (npc) Rangi