Slow going and tensions rise

Posted on Tue Dec 6th, 2022 @ 8:02am by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Crewman Adelaide Kirkby & Gunnery Sergeant Luxa Gami [Naxea]

Mission: Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: DECK 32
Timeline: MD03 - 0345
2331 words - 4.7 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

DECK 30 – LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Captain Woolheater and three marines worked for an hour and finally, with great effort and the assistance of a hand phaser they were able to cut into a Jeffries tube. It was a messy, dirty affair. They didn’t know that they had severed hydraulic fluid lines that ran the servo motors to several door systems that now were non-functional. Like blood, the hydraulic fluid dripped down the sides of the Jeffries tube. It got onto their arms and hands and stained their exposed uniforms. But, finally, it was wide enough for the men to enter.

They dropped down from the Jeffries tube at a regular access door that they could manually open. Now they were on the other side of the bulkhead and onto deck 30. Woolheater used his torchlight and, in the darkness, read, “Design and Schematic Storage Computer System”. He smiled, “Awww fuckin’ ay! That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! Let’s get this door open. Who has the maglock?”

“Sir.” And the marine handed him the device. “Thanks” Sam said as he attached it to the outer panel and activated it. The door mechanism unlocked, and it popped open a few inches. Large enough for the guy to muscle the doors open and enter the computer room.

Sam and the IT guy gathered a few parts, two independent, mobile computer cores, a toolkit, and a bag of computer supplies and a few battery packs. On the wall, still intact, were the Master Situations Displays for the ship. These were the original schematics. They were not reporting live data. But this is what they needed to get the MSD table in Marine Country working again.

While Sam and the IT guy worked on gathering spare components, the other two Marines came back and made a sobering report. “Cap? Nah man…we can’t get in number one. Nd number two, the door is hot. Probably a fire of some kind on the other side. Combat tricorder giving us all kind of…bullshit….fucked up readings too. It’s a piece-of-crap is what it is.” Sam listened and he knew that the guy was just venting. “May I see?” he asked, and the marine tilted his forearm so Sam could read. “The door wouldn’t even open manually at all?”

“Nope! And we’ve manually cranked a few of these god damn bulkheads open the hard way” he responded. Sam sighed, “OK. Let’s get back to marine country with these parts and see if we can get the MSD online in the office.” The marines looked dejected, and Sam said, “It’s OK. We’ll find another way.” He looked at them. There was smoke in the air, no lights and it was hot. Only their body armor lights and their flashlights to see their faces. Sam said, “The ship did what it as supposed to do OK? All of this…that we find so annoying and difficult…. that is on purpose, ok? Don’t get mad at the ship or the systems. It saved our lives. This is on purpose guys. Take it easy, we will get through this.” They took a breath, and this time Sam was able to calm some rattled nerves.



TWENTY-MINUTES LATER – DECK THIRTY-TWO – MARDET OFFICE

Woolheater’s team arrived back at the MARDET office. People had been cleaning it up as best as they could. They recovered and cleaned up one of the working MSD tables and now that there were working replacement parts, the IT marine started making repairs. Sam put a hand on his shoulder, “Quick as you can?” The marine nodded, “I’m on it.”

Sam found a bottle of water and gulped it down. He asked, “Anybody seen Gami?” Adele replied, “I saw her. She is working with a few others on the power system. She’s almost done.”

Sam nodded to Adelaide, surprised and happy to see her, “Thank you crewman. It’s good to see you Adele” Sam said and nodded.

Woolheater’s attention was drawn to the four approaching marines. These four had been dispatched to try and get access to Engineering and find out what happened. They didn’t look like they were bringing good news. The one in charge was Sgt. Ibarra. They came into the office and saluted. Woolheater, tired as he was, returned the salute. “Report Sergeant?”

“Captain. We…didn’t find a way in to Engineering. Every door is sealed but good. We lost pressure to a few other areas, somehow, and other entry ways are blocked or inaccessible. Tricorder didn’t pick up any life signs either. But the readings are…inconclusive.” Ibarra said.

The three other marines looked like they had something to say but were holding back. Samuel waited and could tell that the tension was thick. “Is there anything else you want to report?” Ibarra shook his head ‘no’. Sam said, “Alright. Thank you Sgt.”

Another marine spoke up, angrily, “We could have gotten access Captain. If we pushed a little harder we could have maybe gotten there before the other bulkhead closed.” Sam crossed his arms and listened, “Go on Private.” Ibarra hung his head but said nothing.

“We were standing…outside….deck 29. Main. Fucking. Engineering. And there was a forcefield and emergency bulkheads in place. I thought I heard…people…I couldn’t be sure because of the noise. I opened my combat tricorder and I couldn’t get no good readings! I told the Sgt. I told him what I heard. And he was a chickenshit…he didn’t even want to try to disable the system. And I told him I was going to blast through there and get some answers.” The tension was thick.

“Sergeant Ibarra said ‘no’. We can’t do that. Yeah? How does he know?” The other two didn’t say anything but Sam saw that in their faces they were mad too. Ibarra raised his head and sighed. The other, angry marine continued, “We left those people. Maybe. The ship shuddered, we heard an explosion and we just barely made it to the next compartment before that door came down on us. And now….we couldn’t go any further….”

Ibarra snapped, “What are you saying? You saying this is my fault? Huh? My fault that the forcefield is up? My fault that the door was locked, and the bulkhead closed. My fault that there are people inside?”

“YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” the angry marine said. And Ibarra turned and yelled at him and they went at it, yelling at each other, “THIS ISN’T MY FAULT. I DID WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO. I FOLLOWED MY ORDERS. ITS NOT MY FAULT THAT THE DAMN SHIP IS BROKEN.” The other two marines just looked at Ibarra. “I WAS PUT IN CHARGE TO TRY AND FIND A WAY INTO ENGINEERING. AND I DID MY JOB. I DID MY JOB!”

Sam calmy said in a firm voice, “Sergeant! Stop beating yourself up.”

Ibarra was too angry and continued, “THIS IS NOT MY FAULT!”

Adele saw the whole thing and she was scared. She had never seen soldiers come apart like this. She had never seen marines so stressed. She listened to what Sam said next.

“Nobody is saying it is.” Woolheater said with his hand out to calm the man down. “Sergeant? It’s nobody’s fault. Stop kicking yourself down with guilt. You did your orders. You tried. That’s all that I asked you to do. And now we know.”

Sam got to his feet, “You all did your job. You did what I asked.”

Ibarra looked at Woolheater and Sam was successful in restoring order. “We’re marines; not magicians. We’ll try something else. I need you guys. OK? I need you. We. Need you. You’ve been gone a while. Get something to eat. Let the medic look you over OK? Get some rest. Four hours. Then report to Gunny Gami and help her out.”

Ibarra nodded. It was over. Adele watched as the tension left the room. Nobody said anything. The marines left the room and everyone got back to work in the office. Sam hadn’t realized that everybody had stopped and was watching. Adele came by and asked, “Are you alright?”

Sam nodded, “Yeah. Everybody is stressed out. We need to start getting things working again.”

At that moment, 2nd Lieutenant Jamaal Kingman entered the room, “Captain Woolheater?”

Sam acknowledged him, “Kingman. Where’s the rest of your team Lieutenant?”

Jamaal answered, “They were needed elsewhere. Deck twenty-three. A secondary medical bay is setup there sir. I made it Captain. I made it.”

Sam looked hopeful and the faint smile crossed his face, “You made? The bridge! Is everyone alive? What’s the condition?”

Kingman smiled back, “Bridge is intact. Going to need a shitload of screen doors but they’re still there. Captain Taylor, I gave him your message. He wrote you back. Here it is sir.” Jamaal removed Captain Taylor’s note and put it into Samuel hand.




Sam,

Bridge extensively damaged. Multiple injuries but none life threatening. We are attempting to bring the ship under control. May have to use battle bridge if unsuccessful here. Understand your situation and extent of damage to ship. See if you can contact main engineering and get power even partial restored. We are attempting to restore power from here to sensors and other systems as well as bring Avalon online. If successful, bulkheads will be released. Set up temporary command post for you and your personnel. Set up triage area for injured. Continue to evac areas of ship that you can and move personnel to a central holding area. We will work on restoring ship wide coms to make communication easier. Above all else ensure safety of personal as integrity of ship is suspect.

Gary


Sam read the paper in his hand and tears of joy threatened to fall. His hand shook slightly as he read the paper. He sighed and read it again.

Jamaal pretty much knew how the Captain must have felt. Sam looked up at Kingman and he could only nod. Woolheater had no voice for a moment. Jamaal knew, for sure, exactly how the man felt. Sam managed, “Yeah. This is good. This is very good.” Sam pushed all of his feelings away and composed himself as a marine captain should. Nodding again and folding the note into his body armor Woolheater said, “Well done Lieutenant. Report?”

“Captain, there are people alive all over the ship. We’re in a bad way. I couldn’t get access to a few decks from the turbolift. And we didn’t go venturing off. Captain Taylor said that we hit a quantum filament. They think. Everything is offline except for the most basic independent systems. But they think that they can gain control of the ship from the battle bridge. That’s where Ensign Derani…” here Jamaal made a gesture with both arms to indicate big breasts.

Sam nodded, “Yes..ahem….I noticed. I mean, I know....I have met the Ensign before. I know her, yes. Please continue.”

Jamaal nodded, “Yeah so…I'm just sayin' I could really meet her again you know, if you need me to go back up there. I…was going to head there. But there wasn’t time to even see if that area of the ship is passable.”

Sam, thinking of Andrinn asked, “Did you happen to see if any of the diplomatic staff were there? On the bridge or on deck two?”

“Sir? Diplomatictic staff?” Kingman asked.

“Consul Orin? Andrinn Orin? Was he…on the bridge or did anyone talk about deck two?”

Jamaal answered, “No sir. No mention of any of the diplomatic staff.”

“But when you went back down…if you wanted to…could you have accessed deck two?” Sam asked.

Kingman shook his head, “No, no I don’t think so sir. I didn’t try though honestly. I know that from that turboshaft, getting to deck two was not possible. But, I didn’t see anything to tell me that there was no way. There is is a deck two is what I’m trying to say. On my way back, I must have taken a wrong turn and I didn’t go back the way I came. I had to go aft side of the ship, down by Engineering.”

Sam nodded, his thoughts turned to Andrinn. Was he alive? Was he safe or injured? Sam couldn’t do anything about that right now. His duty was exactly what he was doing. And there were new orders from Captain Taylor that he had to work on. “OK…”

Kingman wondered to himself who Woolheater was concerned about. But he said nothing.

Sam said, “Good work LT. We’re working on getting a map of the ship back on the MSD. Get some food? I see you have a few cuts. Get a medic to patch you up and meet back here in an hour? You good?”

“Aw, hell’s yes, Captain. I’m good. I was just happy to know that there people out there alive.” Kingman said.

Adele offered, “I’ll take you to the medic Lieutenant? If you’ll follow me”

Sam inclined his head and Kingman indicating he was dismissed with a head nod and Jamaal was dismissed. Adele and Jamaal left.

Gami walked down the corridor, exhausted. Her body still ached from the impact she took from the forcefield earlier and the feelings of frustrations throughout the ship that she was sensing didn't help matters as she stepped into Captain Woolheater's office. "Captain, we've gained access to the emergency batteries. We should have emergency power restored any minute now but then again, we're not engineers."


[OFF:]

GSgt. Luxa Gami (signed off by Woolheater)

&

CA Adelaide Kirkby

&

Captain Samuel Woolheater

 

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