===== USS Congo - cocpit ===== With Jem'hadars on their heels, Terek and Rangi saw Jer and rest of his group running through the hangar bay door. {Thanks the Prophets...} he thought and after a few moments they get on board and Terek pressed a button to close the hatch and seal it. "Good to see you are alive..." he said as they entered a cockpit, but there wasn't time to see in how bad shape they all were, as the new Jemmie group was closing to their position. So the young Bajoran at the navigation console reached for his padd, tapped a few commands and immediately saw that the right surface access door are opening. Rangi stood from the seat she had recently taken. "Okrin is wounded..I need to attend to him...you'll have to pilot this alone." She was gone in the next moment leaving him on his own. "Lady and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts and pray that we'll survive this ride...." he said with a weak smile as he felt like falling into the abyss. He never flew the runabout before, he just knew only the basic principles from the academy and few times he flew a small personal shuttle, but this was completely different. This thing even had its own warp drive. {All right, all right, calm down... it doesn't matter that you have to get them out of here alive.... it doesn't matter that their lives depend on your ability to fly which is reaching an absolute zero.... Kurniksopa co to melu, dyt to prece musim zvladnout. to the hell with all the worries, it is now or never} He took a deep breath and pressed the last set of buttons that he hoped would get them airborn and out of there. The humming of the runabout grew stronger as they lifted from the ground. Then he thought quickly... {All right what now... yes... a nav points... I remember learning about nav points... there has to be some....} And surely after a few seconds he found a screen where about five nav points were defined by computer that counted their best course through the exit tunnel. So he has chosen one, set its coordinates and set off. The runabout passengers were pressed to their seats as he set too fast speed and grav relays and inertial dampers weren't ready for this."Ooops, sorry..." but in that moment the ship shot through the entrance to the tunnel, leaving the hangar bay below. {Now lets hope that those open commands were as well for the outer door or this flight will be the shortest one we take....} An observer from a high ground outside the complex would be able to have see a very interesting thing in the next few moments. The group of trees about half a mile behind the main compound suddenly disappeared and the holo-image projectors masking the entrance to the shuttle bay deactivated, thus revealing the massive outer door. Beacons in the corners of the construction lit and a door slowly opened. For a few moments nothing happened, but suddenly a single runabout shot outside of the hole like a bullet. The air wave behind it made an aerodynamic crack and then it was silence again and only a runabout could be seen disappearing in the clouds. Then the gate closed and masking reactivated. The jungle around looked as though nothing happened there. "All right folks, we're out of the main complex, switching to manual..." reported Terek, tapping a few buttons to regain control of the ship which almost immediately shook from one side to another as he wasn;t ready for the sensitivity of system... "Whoa... sorry again. I swear that I won't fly again until I'll take some requalification course..." Then a quiet fell as all were in their own thoughts, He only heard Rangi talking to Nejor in the rear of the runabout, treating his injuries. For the next few minutes Terek struggled with the controls, but finally he managed to get the runabout to the low orbit and settle it. They could see the Chimera from here now. it was at quite a big distance, but clearly visible. "There it is... but I don't think we can send a message yet, we're still too deep in the dampening field of the compound." he said looking at the rear of the Congo to see what is happening there. Rangi broke her attention from the injured AMO and met Tereks slightly worried expression. "Keep trying" she called." Just get us home in one piece...and lieutenant...if you DO make contact..ask them to beam Okrin straight to sickbay" Terek nodded, stretched his fingers and returned to the nav console again. He was getting into it. Now he could see where are which systems at least. Despite he didn't know what exact use of them was , but now it didn't bother him. It was working so he could take some flight crash course later or he could just sit in the holodeck and try one crash by another until he'll learn how to do this. Tapping the console a few times, he set in the new coordinates that led them towards the Chimera. {Alright where is that stupid engage button?.... Ah, here. 1/2 impulse... engage.} In that moment he didn't even think that he didn't know how to land with this thing either. His priority now was to get them to the Chimera, and he'll cross that bridge when he'll some to it. The computer showed that they were less than three minutes from the Chimera floating in front of them, slowly growing bigger. He decided that perhaps now it would be possible to contact the ship, but in the moment he was searching the comm console alarm sounded. "Damn it what is happening?..." "Computer what is it?" [The USS Chimera activated shields and powering the weapons] {Great, now they want to shoot us out of the face of the universe. Where are those bloody comm channels....} In that time a voice sounded: "USS Chimera to the unknown shuttle, identify yourself ... this is the final warning ... you have 10 seconds to identify yourself or we open fire". It was the voice of the Commander. "Yeah, Yeah, I know, I know, I'm on it... just give me few seconds..." murmured Terek sweating, but finally he reached the comm console and opened a channel: "This is USS Congo, please don't shoot, we have injured aboard, requiring immediate assistance. One member of the team needs to be transported directly to the sickbay." Terek waited for a reply, then as he saw that Nejor disappeared in the blue haze, he tapped last sequence. The ship made a semicircle around the Chimera to its tail, where the hangar door were already opened. Then it slowed down and nicely slid into the intestines of the ship. Terek saw that the hangar wass quite full of the ships that didn't seem to originate from Chimera, but one place was vacant so he led the Congo there. Then with a last struggle he found the landing command, but he forgot to lower energy to the engines so the ship shook violently once more, scaring the hangar bay personell to death and then with a loud noise it fell to the floor as Terek realized his mistake and was trying to correct it, but now he lowered the power too rapidly and ship fell from half a meter to the ground. With a loud "Uffff...." he leaned back to his chair, wiped sweat of his forehead and said "All right, welcome at home...." ===== End log ===== ASCiO Lt.J.G. Terek Weranis USS-Chimera-A