The Vigilante class starship was cloaked as it approached the asteroid field. Sensor readings had picked up elevated levels of radiation emissions within the field. Closer investigation had the crew of the Unimatrix edgy. A Gorn Dreadnaught Cruiser loomed large in the view screen. It was determined that they were laying down photon mines along the perimeter of the field. Hunter knew he had found something, but were the Gorn responsible for the radiation...or had they found something that they planned to use for themselves. "Science station, give me another scan of the field see if we can determine what kind of radiation we are looking at." He spoke without looking at the officer standing in place. "Helm bring her down to one quarter impulse. I don't want them picking up on our tetryon emissions. "Engineering...How are the engines set for a quick get away' We may need it before this is done." "Just say the word go, Chief." Fingers dashing across a console making sure things were in place for just that, always trying to stay a few steps ahead of him. Glowing green eyes glances at the projects scattered around the room making sure the most vital and volatile were locked down. "Sickbay, I will be taking you off main power to feed of the backup supply to keep the emissions down. Any issues let me know and I will make the adjustments." Jack rolled her shoulders as a few other engineers scurried by. That bad" Eyebrow raise and a shrug this meant she was going to need an extra cup of coffee. To the replicator! Hunter kept adjusting course, even at a quarter he was gaining on the massive ship. "Keep her steady helm...those mines won't have any problem finding us even cloaked, and we can't raise the shields without decloaking. Coms have you picked up on their signal yet' I want to know what they are hiding from everyone. It can't be a simple mining operation...not this extensively guarded and not with that much radiation. This feels more like a blockade tactic." He leaned back to wait for word from Maybelle at the science station. Before he could wait for an answer, Hunter was already switching channels to bug Jack. Let's see how she would handle this request. "Can you get a fix on the mines down there Absinthe and find me a course through them?" He wanted to delve deeper into the radiation mystery, but that was well beyond the edge of the asteroid belt and Dr Lang would throw a fit soon enough about exposure

"On your mark then Absinthe. I'll head back along the mine field and go in further from the Gorn ship. The last thing we need is twenty five hundred eight foot reptiles trying to find a way onto the ship." Hunter muted the microphone so that he could give orders based off of her information. It might be better to keep Jack in the dark on their moves so that she could focus solely on the mines. "Helm...come about and follow our course back...I hope you can make those calculations in your head for course corrections." It might have been a joke, but no one except Lacha took it that way. The helmsman gave a tight lipped nod to the question. "Make it so then..." He tapped the mic back open. "Alright Absinthe we are extending our position from the Dreadnaught to 200,000 kilometers. That should be far enough to make our run undetected by them." Taking a deep breath, this was going to be different. Very different actually from the game she used to play. For one the object was not to blow anything up! "Let's do a little test roll." Directing the magnetic field towards one of the mines it slowly began to drift off course. It was almost like nudging a stone with her pinky. Tiny taps to keep the course you wished without running into another mine or being so obvious about moving it. Overall it wasn't much, but it gave them more room to move without giving away their positions. "Does that work for you? It will be slow going, but better than the alternative." Why did she have to be tested so early in the day' Oh wait...COFFEE!!! Hunter watched the mine move, and turned to the helmsman. "Thrusters only Mr. Gimble." He reopened the coms to Jack and began talking. "We'll manage with that, plenty of time before that dreadnaught makes its next pass." The ship slowed and turned towards the mine barrier. "Keep your sensors on, I don't want to run smack into a surprise." Hunter rose from his chair and walked to the view screen taking a position off to the side so that he didn't obstruct Gimble's view. One by one the ship nudged the mines out of the way. She really couldn't help it. Blame all the cherry coke or the lack of sleep, but it had to be said. "Are we out of this death trap yet or what?" Basically focused on one mine at a time, her view was relatively the same and had been for the past hour. There had to be another side to this. "I'm starting to feel like we are going in circles, Chief." The engineering staff that dove in and out of her lab check and bringing more cherry coke were still in shock over her talking to the admiral this way.

Hunter wasn't waiting for responses from anyone, the coms cutting off even as Lang was saying 'Aye Sir'. Now he was looking at Lacha, putting the ball in his court so to speak. "Put a team together and get ready to beam down to the surface. See if Absinthe has anyone that wants a planet side play date." Had he left the coms open for her to hear that, although knowing her she was more than likely listening in at all times. Snorting as Hunter's words floated over the coms, it was interesting this little game they were playing. There were many in engineering that would come with her just because it was a request she could make per the admiral. On the other hand to take the Admiral would be most playful, but then again the admiral really couldn't leave the ship unless this was political or Lacha took over command. Musing on the matter all the way up to Lang calling her into the medical bay it was clear there was only one real choice for her. Inoculations were ready and that meant they would be planet side soon enough. "This is Absinthe to Admiral K'lar. I am being vaccinated for crazy or put to sleep. It is Lang so I never can tell." Laughing as the needle was jabbed a bit harder into her arm. Hunter put his elbow on the chair and bit at his thumbnail. That was something he hadn't wanted to hear, but understood. He knew the channel was still open and more than one set of ears listening, waiting to see what he would do. "The radiation has been identified Absinthe and from the signature it belongs most likely to an Iconian gateway. Best guess is that down there it is malfunctioning. The Gorn are sure to try and repair it. I want to destroy it, and that's crazy, so I definitely need the crazy squad to go down and make sure that happens." He had just included Lacha in that, and the man made a sound in his throat of protest. Hunter looked at his first officer and simply said, "Galina Six." Lacha's eyebrows went up, he lifted is hand and coughed into it. Hunter was enjoying watching is first officer squirm. "And here I thought the ice man qualified over the mad six, but who am I to bark orders." Lang was trying her best not to chuckle ramming the needle into another engineer's arm. Jack had a feeling her mission was to make something go boom. Seemed right considering it had started off with mines for gears sake! "So you are turning me loose on a planet, to blow something up? Stay out of my head and wait til Christmas damn it."

The big Rigelian spread out his security forces and sent them in teams of three ahead of them into the complex that housed the gateway. He took command of the frontal assault on the place, phaser rifle coming up as his team hit the main door. As big as he was, the Gorn that occupied the place were much bigger. Their eight foot tall, massive forms made more intimidating by the rows of poison inflicting teeth that lined their jaws. Surprise was on Lacha's side though. His crew entered with phasers cutting into the reptilian ranks that were working on repairing the gateway. Despite the swiftness of the blitz a message was sent out. A voice cut across the coms that went unanswered. Lacha signaled Jack and her engineers, leaning in to her and speaking in low tones. "Time is against us, I'll let Hunter know to expect company. I'm sorry I know this isn't ideal" "Time was never my friend anyway." Her tone more serious and personal than most of the crew had ever heard her. Jack was shouting over the coms as her team charged in behind Lacha. She wasn't as good a shot with a phaser, but she was trying to give them some cover. "Horndog! Gut the wiring! I want it striped, sparking and altogether missing if possible. Flirt, you get to work on loosening any and all panels. Above all stay away from Horndog! I want shrapnel when I make this thing blow." Jack on the other hand dove into the middle of the pad pulling up panels and taking wire cutters to what she was finding inside. "I can't promise anything less than 20 minutes to get this thing to look like an accident. Otherwise 10 minutes to gather what we can use and make it blow. Chief's choice." She knew that this could go down one of two ways. Either they would go after the ship and come to the planet later or the planet first and deal with the ship second. Either way one of them was going to be a target and soon. Hunter knew even before Lacha had told him that something had gone wrong. The dreadnaught had altered course and was headed their way. "Stay cloaked and do whatever it takes to mask our ion trail. I want position on that big boat and no surprises."

The first shots were fired as a door opened, the front wave went down leaving the bodies to be climbed over by those behind them. That was the good part, it made the next ones easy to pick off. The bad part was that the bodies had stopped the doors from closing. The phasers on the front of the ship hit the first of the mines offset by the magnetic field. The path the Unimatrix had taken was quickly engulfed. The altered proximity to the other mines started a chain reaction that worked its way quickly toward the huge Gorn vessel. Shrapnel was flying in all directions, rattling both ships to the core. For a brief moment the Gorn ship vanished from sight, lost to the mass destruction of the mines. "The Gorn ships shields are down to fifty percent, Admiral." He'd hoped for more but at the very least their escape route was clear. "Get us back under cloak while their blind and use evasive maneuvers beta 2. I want to get on that weak shield and pound them like they've never known. No matter what stay within transporter range of the planet. We will not leave our team behind." The moon shook with the force of the mines causing some of Jack 's team to stop and Flirt even screamed. "Pull yourself together! We have 5 minutes!" Jack rose out of the guts of the pad trying not to stagger. The stone walls around them rumbled sending a few rocks to crash down on them, nothing too serious. Jack noted the crack and hiss in her helmet and kept working. "We are well over 80%. Finish it!" Doing her best to put the panels back in place. The last of her duties lay in programming. Coding was easy, it was the matter of making it seem like Gorn coding that was going to eat up nearly all 5 minutes. She needed to set either a remote detonator or a programming trigger. The result would be this moon reduced to dust. Fingers flying over a roll out keyboard, she looked at Lacha. "You have five minutes. Make it count and no matter what get them out of here." Lacha looked at Jack and then gave her a broad grin. He tapped his badge and spoke to the defenders. "Stage two, clear the exits. I want photon grenades and blast assault weapons on those doors now. Precision fire teams keep those reptiles pinned down. Everybody watch your buddies, nobody left behind am I clear?" He knew time was running out long before Jack had told him. The hiss hadn't gone unnoticed from behind, but his trust was in Jack handling it.

It seemed like an eternity as the team set foot in the transporter room staring at each other as if this was some sort of victory in and of itself. Coughing and gasping, Jack tore off her helmet. "Get ...cough cough...the pieces to engineering and start...cough cough....re-purposing them." Watching as they marched off at her orders, she braced against a wall helmet still in hand. "Lacha, are all accounted for?" Lacha looked to the transporter chief, who nodded. "All accounted for, the injured were beamed directly to sickbay." The ship lurched as the woman finished speaking sending her sprawling onto the floor. Perhaps Jack could feel the difference in the ships speed as Hunter ordered the deuterium flow to be increased to the impulse engines. Over the internal speakers Hunter's voice echoed throughout the ship. "All hands brace for emergency warp maneuver." He'd probably have to hear about it from Jack later, going to warp while the impulse engines were on overdrive, but the moon was coming apart and he wanted as much distance between the ship and it when the shock wave caught them. It seemed the Gorn had tried to use the gateway on the moon to escape the cascade effect that was happening on their ship setting off Jack's trap much sooner than expected. "What"! Son of a!" Her words lost as she scrambled to grab hold of something and instead tumbled chest first into Lacha. Pulling her face from his chest she was already growling and cursing. "I am going to kill him! Admiral or not! It is going to take me weeks to repair!" Losing her footing again as the ship tried to level out. Jack flopped to the floor with no grace trying to wiggle and pull her way out of the suit. "That is it! Put me in a suit again and I am going to go mad!? Jack tossed the suit in one corner and had the helmet still in hand. Lacha felt the impact of the little Fae, fortunately or maybe unfortunately he was already pinned against the back wall of the transporter pad. He tried to make a grab for Jack, but she was already hitting the floor, and he was left with just the bruises of the impact. He couldn't help, but laugh and perhaps pity Hunter for getting the engineer all riled up. The shock wave outpaced the ship anyway, and sent it careening off in a flat spin that dropped Lacha to the deck as well.

She would never get that message. Crawling and climbing from tube to tube making repairs and best of all not one of the engineering crew could tell where she was. Finally, Horndog reported to the Admiral's quarters. "Sir...I'm sorry to bother you, but Absinthe has been off the grid since she came back from the moon. If I had to guess at where she is, it is by the repairs. Right now my best guess is between tubes ad564 and ac5476. There were several gel packs that were strained or the connections between destroyed in the shock. In relation to the latest repair updates, those would be the next logical packs to work on. As far as the mission I could have a report on your desk by morning sir." He was clearly frightened and nearly shitting his pants as he tried to stand there straight and calm. "Do you mean to tell me you have lost my chief engineer?" Hunter's tone was flat, but something about his eyes, and the way they bored into Horndog would tell the man he was definitely upset. "Write your report, and I'll be certain to compare notes with Absinthe." Hunter stood up and looked down on the man. "Just be sure to inform Jack when you see her that repairs or not, she is still expected for the usual Thursday night debriefing." He stood to his full height, shoulders coming up. To him it was just more comfortable, but the blanch on Horndog's face said it was more than intimidating.

"Sir...I..." He had no real answer. On the one hand he did lose Absinthe even though that was what she wanted, but then again he really couldn't control her."Yes, sir. She does not wish to be found and won't be til her com signal pops up." The poor man visible shrunk as the door closed behind him. Part of him wondered if he should climb into the tubes after Jack, but that could only end in one way. Already rubbing his skull, he marched down to engineering to make sure that all the repairs Jack wanted were done and into the wee hours of the morning he would finish that report he promised. When the man left, Hunter nearly smiled. He wasn't really looking forward to facing Jack about the treatment of the ship, but he was certainly looking forward to seeing her. He had already started to look through the database and see what possible movies appealed to him for their Thursday night debriefing. It was possible that there would be no movie, maybe just the two of them arguing over safety vs. ship integrity. At this point it didn't matter, everyone was alive, and they'd dealt a crippling blow to the Gorn. "Maybe the great train robbery?"

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