Getting Back on the Road (part 2)

Posted on Thu Feb 22nd, 2018 @ 3:29am by Captain Daniel Westphalen & Lieutenant Commander Amber Quinn & Lieutenant Azusa Nakano & Lieutenant Trei Jansum & Lieutenant Xander Oroyo DSci & Captain Ka'Tock & Lieutenant JG Sevel

1,733 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Cloud Surfing

[CONTINUED]

[OLD]

"Stress is now more than our thrust, sir! We'll be inside the anomaly in less than thirty seconds!"

Daniel righted himself and said, "Fine then. Helm. Turn us into the anomaly, and give us a burst from the impulse engines. Once we're moving towards it, I want all power to shields and structural integrity. Let's hope you're right, Lieutenant Oroyo."

As do I, Captain. As do I, said Xander to himself.

[NEW]

Amber opened a comm channel to the entire ship. "Brace for possible impact." Then she held on.

Amber's comm came at almost exactly the right time, because shortly after she closed the channel, the ship shuddered as its nose met the event horizon of the anomaly. The lights on the bridge winked out as the automatic systems shunted power away from environmental controls to the shields. The inertial dampeners couldn't quite compensate for the shearing effect that the anomaly presented to the Aurora, and the bridge felt very suddenly like it was at a forty-five degree angle. A console, the Ops power distribution console, exploded in a hail of sparks as the ship seemed to twist and then fall into the anomaly dorsal-side first.

In spite of Amber bracing herself, she was thrown violently onto the deck and lost consciousness.

Lieutenant Oroyo was thrown from the science station to the deck a few feet away. Despite years spent on the freighter run from Brekka to Ornara and back again, the fall still phased him though he was luckily not to have been knocked unconscious. Picking himself up from the deck, he turned to his console, immediately called up the data they had collected so far and he went ghost white. This could not possibly be the truth.

Some time later, he wasn't exactly sure when, Daniel came to, lying on the floor of his bridge looking up at the viewport built into the ceiling. Above him was swirling blue, not the starfield that he remembered.

Amber slowly came to. She carefully checked for broken bones. When she got to her arm, the pain caused her to sucked in her breath. Okay. Don't do that again until you talk to the doctor. Everything else seemed fine, except for her head that throbbed. She rolled onto her good side and pushed herself to a sitting position and looked around. She noticed that the science station where Nastari had been had exploded. It was a good thing she'd left.

She tapped her combadge. "Medical to the bridge." She grabbed her chair and used it to pull herself up. She sat heavily in her seat and pulled up the damage reports.

Trei, at the tactical console, had been tossed around as well. His little cubby hole allowed him to stay on his feet, more or less. Well, probably less as he was draped over his console when they got loose from the wave.

He took a quick inventory to make sure nothing had been broken, and then consulted his computer. "Tactical systems are at 42 percent. Shields are at 38, weapons at 46, and targeting systems at 40." He looked over at Westphalen and Quinn. "We're gonna be sitting ducks if anyone comes over here."

"Captain, sensors are functioning at 23% efficiency. Most of the labs have taken damage and the navigation deflector is down," Xander said shakily.

Daniel hauled himself to his feet via the armrest of the command chair and staggered over to the helm, where the console had surged, shocking the poor ensign manning the station. He confirmed a pulse in the helmsman, then tapped a few controls on the console. It seemed as though he had at least partial helm control, so he attempted to right the ship. "Helm control's functional," he said, mostly for the edification of the rest of the bridge staff. "Sluggish, though."

He turned back to Amber. "What's the rest of the ship look like?"

"All decks report damage," she said. "No fatalities."

She tapped the comm panel. "Ka'Tock to the bridge."

=^= I am on my way. =^= Came the reply over the channel.

"Engineering, report."

"What are you trying to do up there?" Azusa's voice asked over the comm channel. "We're still picking up the pieces down here" she coughed over the smoke from several consoles which had exploded in the room.

Two medical officers came onto the bridge. One went to the Captain. The other began to make the rounds of the bridge, helping anyone injured. Daniel waved off the corpsman, pointing him to the ensign at the helm instead. He stepped back from the helm console, surveying the mess that was, until moments ago, his pristine bridge.

It was only a mere moment later that Ka'Tock came onto the bridge, A strip from his sleeve torn away and quickly wrapped around his head, blood spot growing over his left eye. He looked around and saw the empty Helm station ; with that instinct took over as he went to the console. Slipping into the chair he began a quick visual exam of the readings.

"Thank you," Amber said when she saw Ka'Tock take the helm.

"Attitude controls 72%, Full thrusters capable." Ka'Tock reported as he read the list and slight axis rotation. "Compensating for roll and lateral spin." He used the thrusters in short bursts to bring the spin to a stop on the center axis; giving some relief to the dampeners before he took to the harder Lateral rotation requiring longer bursts to being the ship to slow drift. "Ship is reporting all stop sir." Ka'Tock reported. "Warp Drive is off line and Impulse is negligible at best, I think I can get us some forward motion." He glanced over his shoulder. "I could use an old Klingon trick if using longer bursts of Impulse as much as I can like what humans called a ramjet series of Forward jolts to about one quarter Impulse."

Daniel nodded to Ka'Tock. "Get ready to implement that when we have a destination. For now though, we need to take stock and get our bearings."

Once the med tech repaired Amber's arm and gave her something for her headache, she turned to Xander. "Where are we?"

"Captain, I've checked and rechecked these readings but according to sensors, we're about 10,000 light years from where we were. We're inside the Beta Quadrant," Xander said astonished.

"That's... more than ten years' travel off course," Daniel breathed. He limped over to Oroyo's station, looking over his analysis.

"Damage reports are coming in," Amber said. "All decks report injuries, no fatalities." So far. She hoped that wouldn't change.

Trei leaned on his console. "Well, we have power and supplies. We'll be okay for a while, at least."

"The lieutenant's right. For now, at least, anyhow," Oroyo responded.

"Power and supplies for a two-month survey," Daniel said quietly. "This is... problematic."

The captain shook his head, clearing cobwebs and also restoring his calm. This wasn't the moment to panic. This wasn't the first time a Starfleet ship had been tossed to an unexplored region. There were things to be done. He turned around, meeting the eyes of everyone on the bridge one by one. "Alright people, let's get some things done. First and foremost, we need to get our systems back in working order. Anyone who has even a little systems expertise, get on it. Life support, navigation, and warp drive are our priorities. Everything else after.

"Amber, Xander, get down to astrometrics. It seems we still have the lateral sensor arrays. Find out what happened, and whether we can reproduce it. Trei, you and Ka'tock take a shuttle, survey the area around us. We're dead in the water for now, but the shuttles aren't. If you can find a class L or M planet, then we can set down and effect lasting repairs and save poor Azusa's team from trying to fix the ship in EVA.

"Any questions?"

"On it, Captain," Xander said as he turned to the first officer and nodded. He was intrigued by this happenstance. He ran through a list of possible indications that could have caused this to happen and what could possibly work to reverse it.

A comm line opened, and a measuredly calm voice filtered through, "Sickbay to Bridge. We are at capacity with thirteen wounded here, and possibly as much as three times as much across the ship. None have been reported as immediately life-threatening." It might be customary to wait for acknowledgment of the communication, especially in a crisis, but the voice continued on in the same steady way, saying what needed to be said as quickly and efficiently as possible, protocol ignored. "However, we need assistance in responding to those injured that cannot leave their posts by providing first aid where appropriate. Any head or spinal injuries need to report to Sickbay as soon as possible."

"Doctor, I'm going to be heading to engineering," Daniel said. "I'll check in there after assessing the needs there and send anyone down that needs attention."

Amber sent the data from the anomaly down to Astrometrics and main science so they could analyze it. She checked that the lateral arrays were still bringing in data and set the data to go straight to science. Then she followed Xander off the bridge. While they could monitor the data from here, science was better equipped for analysis.

"I will prepare the shuttle." Ka'Tock rose from his chair." I have set the helm for this location." He informed. "The attitude Thrusters should keep the ship stationary provided we do not catch any gales in the solar winds." He Nod to the Captain as he played with the Helm control. "I have left the shuttle Bay doors opened for remote use and will do so from the shuttle." He moved around the station. "It will take seven minutes to get the shuttle ready for departure." It was not an estimate as he moved to the turbo lift.

Trei commed security offices for someone to come up to man his station then followed Ka'Tock to the shuttle bay.


Captain Daniel Westphalen
Commanding Officer
USS Aurora

Lieutenant Commander Amber Quinn
Executive Officer
USS Aurora

Lieutenant Trei Jansum
Chief of Security
USS Aurora

Lieutenant Xander Oroyo
Chief Science Officer
USS Aurora

Lieutenant Azusa Nakano
Chief Engineer
USS Aurora

Lieutenant (J.G.) Ka'Tock
Counselor
USS Aurora

Lieutenant (J.G.) Sevel
Chief Medical Officer
USS Aurora

RSS Feed