From the Ground Up
Posted on Sat Aug 22nd, 2026 @ 6:23pm by Commander Alexander Espersen & Petty Officer 3rd Class Fulvia Benvenuto & Crewman Apprentice T'Vel & Major Clay McEntyre III & Lieutenant JG Raven Windancer & Lieutenant JG Katie Kellerman & Senior Chief Petty Officer Jadizon Enor
3,382 words; about a 17 minute read
Mission:
Die Hard: Chimera Edition (main)
Location: Museum/Base Station
Katie burst through a door, running full speed through the antechamber. She dodged past two pillar displays and rushed straight at the guard at the door. She brought her stick in front of her, lowered her shoulder, and plowed right into him, driving her shoulder into his sternum, crushing his chest against the door and knocking the wind out of him. He stood weakly against the door, trying to breathe, then felt his eyes threaten to pop out as a wooden mop handle made contact with his throat. He dropped to the floor gasping and rolling away as Katie threw open the door and rushed forward.
Another terrorist agent was in the next section and tried raising her weapon, but Katie risked a high-stick violation and knocked it out of the Orgrannian’s hand. She quickly switched stance and swung hard, cracking her mop across the woman’s jaw and dropping her to the floor.
Jadizon came charging in a moment later and got in front of Katie before she could rush into the next room. “Katie--”
“Two weeks?” Katie said, rounding on him. “You got a transfer offer two weeks ago and you ‘didn’t know how to bring it up’?”
“I didn’t say I accepted it, I just didn’t know how to broach the subject,” Jadizon said. “Clearly it’s striking a nerve.”
“Yeah that’s putting it mildly!” she said, stepping around him. She opened the next door and let out a squeak as he yanked her back as a shot whizzed past her. He returned fire quickly and when the assailant had retreated, they went into the next room more carefully. “You still should’ve just told me,” she hissed under her breath.
Jadizon didn’t respond. He was focused on keeping them out of firing range. He quickly pulled her through a side door, but realized they were in another storage room. There was little in there to help, with the room’s main features being an air grate on the ceiling, some half-stocked shelves of cleaning and paper supplies, and a bucket.
“Stay here,” Jadizon said. “I’m going to thin their numbers a bit. I’ll be back within thirty minutes.”
“Fine,” Katie said, sitting down against some shelves and folding her arms over her knees.
Jadizon paused, wanting to say more, but knew that it wasn’t the time, nor the place. They would resolve it later when he knew Katie was safe. He leaned down and kissed her temple, then turned and carefully went out the door.
The HVAC system was about as horrible as either the First Officer or the Marine had expected. Filters may have caught most dust and grime before it got into the museum, but the ducts themselves had not been cleaned in…had they been cleaned? Alex fumed as he and Clay crawled through it, reminding himself that when this was over he would give the museum’s maintenance officer a piece of his mind.
"They couldn't have made these vents bigger?" He asked sarcastically as he crawled behind his XO. He had barely fit into the vent and it was a tight squeeze to begin with considering his body armor and phaser rifle. He grunted softly with each crawl he made.
They emerged into the museum’s maintenance room, sidearms at the ready. Alex checked his commbadge, wincing as it made a sad chirp. “Communications are still down, We’ll need to find our people the old fashioned way.”
Clay dropped down from the vent with a soft "oof" and cracked his knuckles. "Sounds like fun." He pulled out his tricorder, fliping it open.
“The way I see it,” T’Vel explained in a whisper as she pointed to a paper map of the massive ground station complex, “our priority should be to rendezvous with other Starfleet personnel.”
“Strength in numbers,” Fulvia said, nodding. “Logical.”
"Sounds good to me...we just gotta make sure no one gets in our way." Raven kept her voice low as she constantly scanned their surroundings.
“We know at minimum that Commander Espersen and Lieutenant Kellerman will be here, in the museum,” T’Vel continued. “Maybe others too. And maybe others will be elsewhere. I recommend we attempt to unlock this door, connecting the museum with the rest of the complex.”
"Solid...and doable." Raven grinned as she produced a set of lockpicks.
"When you've raced some of the places I have, you learn to keep a set of these on you at all times." Was Raven's only explanation before turning her attention to examining the lock. After a few moments, she reached into the toolkit, pulled out a few pieces, and started working.
A number of the museum security doors, Espersen and McEntyre had quickly found, had come down. The lockdown protocols were designed to keep patrons and artifacts safe, but they also assumed a responsive and mobile security force. Once they were out of the maintenance, their mobility had been limited.
Alex’s only solution was to try the ventilation shafts again, if only to get to a more accessible place, while he had Clay look for another way to restore comms and/or thin the number of enemies.
The tricorder pinged. A life sign ahead. A human one.
Katie heard movement in the ceiling above her. She stood up quickly, grabbing her wooden staff and getting ready for whoever tried to get the drop on her.
Alex dropped down just in time to get whacked by a large stick. “Stand down, Lieutenant, it’s me!” he protested. “We came to find you, stop hitting me.”
Katie paused and stared wide-eyed. "Oh...crap, Commander, I'm so sorry," she said, putting her weapon aside and moving in to check where she’d hit him."
“I’m glad to see you’re okay,” the XO said, looking at her. “Do you know if there’s anyone else here, friend or foe?”
"Several foes. I took a couple out, Jadizon took a couple out. He's currently off hunting since my stick isn't enough to stop a projectile weapon," Katie said. She let out a breath and felt weak in her knees as her adrenaline dropped, leaning against the shelves. "Gimme a minute," she said. "It's been a day."
“Of course,” Alex said. He put a hand under her armpit and guided her gently to the floor so she could sit. “Take a moment. We’re safe here for now.” He kept his eyes on the corridor, watching for opposition.
"I'm okay," she said. "Kinda wish Kally was here. She could lower my blood pressure and fix the bruises I gave you all in one." She rubbed her arms. "Just...sit with me for a second? I need a moment then we can go follow the bodies."
He quietly took a seat next to her, keeping his eye out but mainly just being there for her. “Your message out was inspired,” he said. “I happened to have a screen on when it came through. I’ve not seen how they’re blocking communications yet though.”
Katie smiled slightly. "Thanks," she said. "I'd guess it's a combination of a system lockout for their own network combined with a multi-frequency suppressor with relays on the base station and orbital station." She grinned. "I'd have nailed your final exam, I bet," she said.
“What makes you think that?” he asked. “Not that I doubt it, from what I’ve seen of your work.”
"Let's just say, I got a chance to appreciate you as a teacher," she said, wearily, "but it's really not what you think, and I know how you feel about it all and the bad blood between you two and I really am so so sorry for causing it."
Alex perked up at that. “Causing it?” What’s she talking about?
Katie stared at him wide-eyed as she realized what she'd babbled. "God, she is going to hate me for this," she said.
The XO smirked at her and turned his head to look straight ahead, toward the opposite hallway wall. “Probably. But it’s too late now. Let’s hear it.”
Katie sighed. "All right...so...you know she had the biggest crush on you, right?" she said.
Alex scoffed.
"I'm serious," Katie said. "She came home from her first class gushing over you. Would not stop talking about you for days. I figured, 'it's Kally, she'll see some cute fourth year, jump him and move on' but it only got worse. I mean she lost a boyfriend over you."
“What? How?” This was all getting confusing.
"Evidently 'role playing,'" she said with exaggerated finger quotes, "got too real when she called out your name a couple times and he beamed out of it. So, she decided to just stop beating around the bush."
He sighed and nodded. “She met with me during office hours. Came onto me. Quite hard, if I remember. Your sister is many things but subtle isn’t one of them. I said no. Probably not politely, knowing how I was.” Was was an okay verb tense. Right? He knew he could still be a hard-ass sometimes but he certainly mellowed among his found family on Chimera.
Katie nodded. "Yup. But you shooting her down wasn't what did it, it was what happened the week after."
He shook his head. “Nothing specific comes to mind. Classes continued. She didn’t do well, but that was a lot of students.”
"You failed her on her 'Properties of Dilithium Crystal interaction' paper. Pretty much made it look like if you could've given her negative points, you would have." She shook her head. "I read it...it was a C- if I'm being generous, a D+ if not. You...may have gotten a bit too harsh...and I told her that. It crushed her. That's why we swapped out for a few weeks. She just needed space. And, it turned out when she wasn't focused on dreaming about you, and she actually studied, she did okay. All the work 'we' turned in was hers." She glanced at him. "With a little coaching, admittedly, but still." She let out a long sigh. "Just give me a shuttle and a head start before you tell her I told you."
“I’ll shield you as long as I can,” he replied with a smile. “In fairness, my grading curve usually was lower than most other professors. There were no ‘general C-‘s in my class. But… yeah there’s a good chance her grades were biased further downwards, especially right after.”
He took a deep breath and leaned his head back. “She couldn’t have known. But she picked a truly awful time to make her move. Perhaps the worst timing imaginable.”
"How so?" Katie said. "She should've waited until the Semester break?" she smiled at him, but it dropped when she saw his face.
“I’d been teaching about a year when Kally joined my class,” he explained. “To essentially no one’s enjoyment. Heh. Looking back on it, it’s easier to see. I’d been a wreck for years before that, ever since Mars.”
Katie's face fell. "So that was it," she said, quietly.
“I’d decided that I needed to stay close to home,” Alex continued. “Took shitty assignments around Sol. Forgot any ambition.” He smiled weakly and took another breath. “All my old friends stopped calling, I guess when the guy on the other line got colder and more distant. My wife left, and who could blame her? But she found happiness again. In fact, one day when I went to lunch, I saw her and her new husband and baby shopping out in SoMa.” He turned to look at Katie, not with any kind of anger; just a hint of melancholy behind his eyes. “Care to guess who came to office hours that afternoon?”
Katie winced hard. "She'd been talking about how you seemed so lonely," she said. "She thought you needed companionship and figured if she provided that, you'd be more relaxed in class, and happier. That's all she wanted, to put a smile on your face and show you she cared." She sighed heavily. "Then, when it all went wrong, all that care turned to resentment and...well here we are."
“And here we are,” he agreed. “She had real feelings, and she meant well. But I misread. I thought she was trying to manipulate me for a grade, and on a day I was forcibly reminded how alone I was. It felt cruel, even if it couldn’t possibly have been intentional. But in my mind, she may as well have said ‘You give me a better grade, and I fuck you since no one else will.’ Gods, she was trying to be kind. I mishandled that one badly, didn’t I?”
"I think it's more than fair to say mistakes were made on both sides," Katie said. "And there's no reason she should still be taking so much delight in messing with you this much. At this point she's just getting petty enjoyment, I think." She grinned and blushed a bit. "The look on your face on the beach was great, though."
Alex smiled and sighed dramatically, lowering his head. “Yeah you both got me good then. Worth it though. That was a good day.” He paused a second. “I need to ask you something though, and I hope you’ll be as honest with me as you’ve been so far.”
"I've always tried to be honest with you, Sir," Katie said. "No point stopping now."
“That picture,” he said. “You know the one. ‘You win the prize.’ That was her and not you, right?”
Katie's eyes lit up as she realized what he was asking and she giggled almost maniacally, then erupted into a full laugh. When she finally calmed down, she leaned up and kissed his cheek. "You win," she said, snickering.
“Damn right I win,” he said with a smirk.
She bit her lip and bobbed her eyebrows. "Okay, your turn for honesty...who'd you want it to be?"
Before he could answer, the lights in the room flickered, dimmed, nearly went out, then came back on, but flickered again. "Someone's tampering with the system," she said. "Jadizon might have gotten through the lockdown, or someone else is attempting to get control of the facility."
Alex quickly got to his feet and held his hand out to Katie. “Are you okay to move?”
Katie took his hand and jumped to her feet. She rolled her mop handle onto her foot and kicked it up, swinging it into position. "Let's go," she said.
Raven’s work with the lockpicks was beyond impressive, making even the Iotian with her giddy with excitement. This broad knows her stuff, Fulvia had said as the door between the terminal and the museum came open.
A few minutes later and she’d worked her magic again, this time into a security room. One opponent sitting on guard was felled with a nerve pinch courtesy of T’Vel.
“Does anyone know this computer system?” Fulvia asked.
"I can give it a whirl. It's not too different from a racer's mainframe...EYOW!" Raven yelped as she crossed the wrong wires and the lights flickered.
"Most of the time anyway, hehe. Hey, did you guys hear something?" Raven's head jerked up at a strange sound.
Clay had been clearing rooms and this was the last one they had before moving to a different corridor. Silently, Clay withdrew a stun grenade from his belt pouch, holding it up before he pulled the pin and tossed it into the room.
"CRAP! Hit the deck!" Raven saw the grenade and had a second to slam a trashcan over it...and prayed it would work. The grenade went off with a muffled 'BOOM!' then a 'CLANG!' as it hit the ceiling...then a dull 'THUNK!' as it landed on Raven.
"Really? Ya had ta fall on me?" Raven grumbled before moving the trashcan off her back. "Cough cough! You two ok?" Raven asked through a lungful of smoke.
Fulvia nodded, coughing, though T’Vel clutched her ears. She hadn’t been prepared for the grenade and the trash can hadn’t muffled enough of its intentionally-debilitating high pitch noise for her ultra sensitive hearing.
Once the grenade was tossed and given time, Clay raised his phaser and stormed the room.
"Drop it!" Raven pulled a mini phaser (her own tinkering design) from her belt as the door opened.
“You first, Bitch!” Clay snarled, aiming his phaser at Raven.
"Excuse you!? You did NOT just say that!" Raven snarled, lowering her aim as she glared at the hot-headed trash-talker that was about to loose his manhood if he moved so much as a millimeter.
“Starfleet, Starfleet!” Fulvia called out. “Friendly!” She helped T’Vel to her feet, clutched the sides of her head to get her attention. “You okay?”
T’Vel nodded, though a trickle of green came from both ears.
"Oh...sorry bout that." Raven lowered her weapon, re-engaging the safety as she did so before sliding it back into it's holster.
“We’ll get you to a medic as soon as we can,” Fulvia assured her. She looked to Raven and their new Marine guest. “Not my first stun grenade. Won’t be my last.”
Clay by this time has lowered his phaser. “My apologies, assumed we had found enemy combatants. Major McEntyre, USS Chimera”
“Petty Officer Benvenuto, sir,” Fulvia answered. “Also of Chimera. That’s Lieutenant Windancer, and Crewman T’Vel.”
Having heard the commotion, Alex and Katie caught up to the group. Seeing everyone together (save Jadizon, who was apparently still hunting) gave him much relief. “Anyone get these security systems online?”
"Working on it...got zapped by it right before Mr. Blunder, er, the Major, popped that 'nade. [Dang, I'm dead.]" Raven swallowed on a suddenly very dry throat.
"Lemme see what I can do," Katie said, jumping down to the floor. "Raven, need you down here," she said, flipping onto her back and shimmying underneath the console. She started pulling the console panels off, handing Raven parts to keep safe next to her, and having her remove wires from the next control panel over in sync with Katie's efforts. They rearranged the computer's guts fairly swiftly, and after several minutes, the console beeped obediently. "We're in," Katie said, letting her arms fall down with a sigh of relief, taking Raven's hand and squeezing it in victory. "Good job," she said, grinning.
“Good work you two,” Alex said. Indeed, they seemed to have complete access to the ground station security systems.
T’Vel stood over one of the terminals and began typing quickly. Various red lights started turning green. “We have door control,” she reported. “And the machines interfering with our communications systems have been deactivated.”
The XO tapped his commbadge.
“Espersen to Chimera,”
After a second or two, a familiar (if unexpected) voice came through. "This is um... Um... Shit... Baroness di'Orion?"
Alex couldn’t help but smirk. “Good to hear from you. Stand by for further instructions.” The ship was in…well, if not good hands then at least the right side’s hands. He tapped again. “Espersen to Captain Skyie.”
This response was faster, and more succinct. “Skyie here.”
Good. She and the others are safe too. “Comms restored on the ground and the ship. We’re on our way to you. Stand by.”
He looked over his team. “Major, Lieutenant Kellerman, Lieutenant Windancer, we’re going to take back the ground terminal of the elevator and see if we can send reinforcements up to the Captain. Crewman T’Vel and Petty Officer Benvenuto will take overwatch from here. You two, try to connect with other Chimera crew and have them back us up. We know at minimum that Chief Enor is here.” He double-checked his sidearm and nodded to the group. “Let’s go get our Captain.”
END
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