=/\= USS Chimera, Bridge =/\= Andy and Rangi emerged from the ready room. Rangi relieved York, and Andy took the main tactical station, nodding a greeting to Dexter, manning his regular station at ops. "Mr. York," said Rangi, "have you picked up anything from Cmdr. Guzman's away team?" "Negative, Ma'am," replied York. "I would have contacted you immediately if anything changed." Rangi nodded, and took a few moments resting her chin on her knuckles. She turned to Andy. "Mr. Foster, what's the position of the asteroid, and how far will we need to travel to make a successful transport, if we can find the shuttle?" Andy scanned the asteroid, and plotted out the rotation. “The far side should come about again within the next 20 minutes,” he said while fingers rapidly tapped on his screen. “We could be within transporter range in a little less than an hour, at full impulse.” Rangi looked apprehensively out the main viewscreen toward the area where the cloaked Warbird was last seen. "Mr. Dexter. Has that Warbird moved yet?" "No, Ma'am." She frowned, still looking at the viewscreen. She shook her head, then seemed to remember something. "Bridge to Sick Bay," she said, activating the comm at her console, then asked about the status of the crew who'd fallen into comas ... unfortunately, there was still no change. Rangi frowned again, and moved her gaze back toward the main viewscreen. Finally, staring hard toward the space where the warbird stayed, she asked in a quiet voice. "How soon could we determine the location of Walsh's shuttle?" Andy turned, and regarded her somberly, shaking his head. "There are too many variables to estimate that, Ma'am ... where the shuttle is on the asteroid ... if the shuttle is on the asteroid ... if it has any cover -- did they land in a cave or on the surface." He shrugged. "Anywhere from minutes to hours ... and we'd also have to be careful about those weapon platforms. We don't know their range. Hopefully, it'll be less than that of our sensors and transporter." She turned to York, looking almost defeated. "Nothing on scans of the Warbird?" "Nothing, Commander." Rangi nodded grimly. "Very well," she said, and took a deep breath. "Mr. Foster, set course for the asteroid; Mr. York, prepare to engage, best speed." Andy turned toward Rangi. "Permission to report to engineering, Ma'am?" Rangi nodded, seemingly preoccupied, and waved him off with a flick of her hand. =/\= USS Chimera, Engineering =/\= It was a standard Starfleet multipurpose armband, with the disruption unit inside a type 3 housing, making it kind of bulky ... but the potential use of the device would make the fact that it was somewhat unwieldly well worth it, when the kzenti warrior standing in front of you was trapped, struggling inside a nonfuctioning bio-armor suit. "Now the only detail is whether we can find Walsh's shuttle," said Andy, more to himself than anyone else, "let alone whether it was destroyed or not." He nodded in thanks to Kirkland's staff, and carried the dozen units in a large container to the transporter room. With the box safely ready for transport, Andy made his way back to the bridge. =/\= Bridge =/\= Andy took the seat at tactical, noting the Chimera's progress toward the edge of the asteroid field. Nothing significant had happened up here since he'd left, and now they were due to arrive in minutes. "Still nothing of the shuttle on scanners?" asked Andy. Rangi shook her head silently, and Andy looked at his scanner display, puzzled. Well, that's discouraging, he thought, the far side of the asteroid had come into phase about a half hour ago, and still no shuttle. There was a chance that McKnight might have touched down under partial cover on the asteroid, or even might have found a cave ... but still, the Chimera's sensors should be able to penetrate it at this relatively small distance. The scans continued, still to no avail. Finally, they reached the minimum safe cargo transporting distance from the asteroid, and the Chimera slowly came to a halt. "Where are they?" asked Andy, annoyed. "Ma'am?" asked Dexter. Rangi turned and acknowledged him. "The shuttle has a standard beacon, doesn't it? If we're in cargo transport range, we'd certainly be in range for a remote activation," he suggested. "It'd give us a location, all right." Rangi considered the suggestion. "A good idea, Mr. Dexter, but it would also give their location away to anyone else in the area -- particularly the Kzenti," she countered. "And they're probably a lot closer to them than we are. If the kzenti are anywhere close to the shuttle, and Walsh's crew aren't already there, his team would be cut off from returning. If they can't get to the disruptors, they certainly won't do them any good." She seemed to think for a few moments. "Is there any way you can think of to silence the beacon? Or otherwise protect Walsh's return to it, if they're away?" Andy shook his head. "Not with their scanning technology ... they're obviously far beyond us on that front, and most any attempt we'd make to hide it would be picked up on plenty of bands. But," he continuted, "there might be something to be said for protecting a path of retreat." He hit his commbadge. "Foster to Engineering." "Engineering here, Lieutenant," came the voice back over the comm. "Lt. Bailor," he said, after being directed to the officer who helped construct the armband disruptors, "is the main prototype disruptor still operating?" "Aye, sir, I'm standing right beside it." "I know the armbands were designed to send out pulses every 15 seconds or so, and affects a five or six meter radius around the device, right?" asked Andy. When Bailor agreed, he went on. "What's the maximum range for the prototype? And how long could it keep broadcasting the disruptor wave?" "Two or three hundred meters at least, sir," Lt. Bailor answered, "though I'm not sure how long it could continuously operate. Probably as long as a few hours, maybe as little as 30 minutes. If you're asking for that wide a radius, though, I'd say it's likely you'd be on the shorter end of it." "Three hundred meters," pondered Rangi. "Why didn't they just take the prototype with them?" Andy turned to the CMO with a smile. "Not practical. It weighs about 200 kilos, and stands nearly 2 meters tall." "Ah." "But," countered Andy, "if they don't need to move it, there's no reason we can't send it to them." Rangi nodded, following, "Just activate it on the shuttle, and they'd have a protective field to return ..." Andy nodded. "All we'd have to do is outfit it with a timer to activate a few moments after transport." "Very good, Mr. Foster," said Rangi, then raising her voice for the benefit of the comm "Mr. Bailor, did you follow that?" The engineer said he did, and Rangi instructed him to get right on it. A few minutes later, the prototype generator with timer was ready, and was brought alongside the container with the armbands in the transporter room. When they reported that everything was set, Andy got a nod from Rangi, and he activated the shuttle's beacon and waited. Tense moments went by, and finally sensors picked up a signal. Andy looked around the asteroid, and was baffled. They were clearly hearing a signal, but there was no sign of it near the kzenti station. For a time he began to think in dread that the shuttle was destroyed after all, and they were picking up the beacon all by itself. Finally, after searching a wider and wider radius, Andy was surprised to find the shuttle. Intact, seemingly in fair condition, parked on an entirely different asteroid! Small, with a rapid spin to it. Aw, hell, thought Andy. They must have landed for cover, and beamed over. Well, nothing to do but carry through. Andy nodded to Dexter, and the ensign gave the coordinates and signal to the transporter personnel, and the two packages were away. At least if the shuttle was going to be advertising its presence, they might as well give it some type of defense. Suddenly, Andy's tactical sensors started beeping rapidly. Damn! "Commander," said Andy. "Weapons platforms on the asteroid are charging ... they're going to try to target the smaller asteroid with Walsh's shuttle." Damn! Damn Damn! Things were unravelling quickly. "Can we target them?" asked Rangi. "I can try, ma'am," replied Andy dubiously. He brought up their own phaser systems, and tried getting a lock on the kzenti weapons palettes, but it wasn't going well. Phaser bursts streamed out both from the Chimera, taking random-looking shots at the asteroid's surface, and weapons systems from the kzenti station were making similar progress trying to shoot at the shuttle on the rapidly-spinning asteroid. As Andy continued to take pot shots at the asteroid's laser cannons, Dexter's voice cut through the ambient noise of the bridge: "Ma'am, I'm detecting a massive power buildup on the kzenti asteroid ..." "Power buildup?" asked Rangi, and Andy wondered if maybe he'd gotten in a lucky shot and hit a generator. "Detecting Federation-signature transport signals!" interrupted Dexter suddenly, and the bridge crew realized that someone, at least, had made it back to the shuttle. Leaning back in his chair, Andy relaxed for a moment, until a flashing caught his eye. The sensors that were still tracking the area around Kzenti and the warbird was showing something odd happing. Andy brought the alert up on his screen and watched with an ashen face at what he saw. "Ma'am," said Andy, his voice full of dread, "a shuttle just blasted its way out of the Warbird's shuttle bay." "Oh, god," said Rangi, realizing the Chimera was nearly an hour away from it. --------- Lt. Andersen Foster Operations Officer USS Chimera