SD 12/11/04 - "Jailbreak" aka "The Wrath of Ironbottom #2" This may very well be the end.
Ironbottom ordered not only my arrest, but the entire Bridge crew. He then began harsh interrogations of the redshirts and yeomen, stripping them to their waists, putting plastic bags on their heads, and threatening them with Klingon painsticks. Ironbottom's goons had one group of them stacked like a pyramid! This looks less like an interrogation than twisted tales of Academy initiations in the past. Where did they get such sick ideas?
The Bridge crew and I were taken to one room, Lynx, Tarra, Lera, and myself were handcuffed. Lera also had leg restraints, and I think I noticed a few signs of bruises. She must have put up a fight. The guards mocked the officers with comments like "ratcat" and "dog," then left, with Ensign Benjamin Dover walking in before the door closed.
There were a couple relevations. One was the reason I could remember nothing after Lera handed me some herbal tea was because it wasn't herbal tea. It was a love potion she had gotten from Megas-Tu! We had, in the words of Halfpipe, "went freaky." Lera insisted she had done nothing wrong, "I only helped you around." How dare she drug me like that! Good grief, somehow I can't help but wonder if it was truly coincidence that Ironbottom showed up after she did that. It's a good thing I take birth control reguarly in case something like that happens.
Benjamin "Ben" Dover had a few things to say. To begin with, he was from the same alternate Earth we had gotten Melvin Orlan from. He was one of the audience who had been beamed up in the chaos, and was unable to return. Unable to get back to his old life, he apparently found making a new one difficult. With every place he went to demanding records of his past, he found himself "with nowhere to go," and when Ironbottom offered him a job, he accepted. Without 4 years of Academy, he became an Ensign on our ship. No wonder I found getting into his records so hard. But his real job was spying for Ironbottom, getting info, and carrying out occasional tasks. He felt he inavertently caused the disapperance of Dammers and M'Rander after slipping Demian a tiny electronic probe in his food. He had also gotten a PADD from someone, Lynx, who had been threatening Ironbottom with blackmail. What did she find out about him and what was she getting him to do? In any event, the more Ben Dover found, the more he wanted out. But Ironbottom of course wouldn't let him, "He even threatened to tell Lynx I made her fiance disappear." So he went on, "I learned a long time ago you can't fight City Hall."
We discussed what to do. Lott had the idea of having the computer do a phony self-destruct countdown, and since most of us were locked out of computer access, Ben Dover would have to do it. Then Ironbottom and a few of his goons walked in. Then someone with a container walked in, asking Ironbottom "Where do I put these hamsters?" Lott bumped into it, it fell, and over a hundred of the critters ran out. Lynx took advantage of the distraction to floor about half the guards in one sweep, then the rest of us joined in. Although handcuffed, Tarra did wonders with leg sweeps. Despite her handcuffs and leg restraints, Lera managed to knee one in the groin. Me, I managed to knock one down, but got the painstick right in my own groin. Not a pleasant feeling.
When I came to, getting up with Ennin's help, the fight as over. The restraints had been taken off, and we even found a few phasers on the guards. Ironbottom himself had fled, and Lynx was lying on the ground in pain. Ben Dover commed with some bad news. A goon trying to shoot the hamsters got the one keeping Demian under control. Then Ironbottom called us over the speakers, giving us five minutes before he sends in more goons, "we're going in blasting." After he signed off, "Demian" came back online. Lott and Orlan tried to talk him into taking some action to hinder Ironbottom, "flood the decks with hydrogen." In response, the crazy computer flooded the decks with gas all right, our deck, with helium, leaving us sounding like cartoon characters.
What are we going to do? Just us few against over a hundred of Ironbottom's "Section 42" as he calls it. Was this the "42" the seer on Megas-Tu warned us about? In any event, they may be our demise. "Demian" is a wild card we can't rely on, though he may be our only hope. Perhaps, just perhaps, the chaos it sows can work to our advantage.
Even so, the odds are still against us.
Should this log end up in someone else's hands, let it be used to help clear the names of my teammates whom Ironbottom intends to put away with a list of trumphed-up charges. That conspiratorial maniac has to be stopped, somehow.