Shuttle bay 1
Posted on Sat Dec 24th, 2022 @ 11:25am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Lieutenant Commander Malakai Starr [Taylor] & Legate Imik S'Niohun [Lia Taylor] & Avalon [ADMIN NPC]
Edited on on Sat Dec 24th, 2022 @ 8:06pm
Mission:
Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: Shuttle Bay 1
Timeline: MD3 - 04h40
2480 words - 5 OF Standard Post Measure
Previously in Solutions to Our Problems
Miraj took off down the tube. At the very core of the saucer section, it was clean and debris free, until she reached the very end. The tube had cracked open, the edge of a gouge through the back end of the saucer section, like something had dropped in through the shuttle bay ceiling and passed out through the door. Bright blue light from the extra ferocious SIF that surrounded the shuttle bay during normal operations filled the gaps, leaving the bay itself sealed, and largely unharmed. The casualties seemed limited to half a dozen type 9s that had been parked long the path of whatever had pierced the saucer, the other jolly boats safely secured in their clamps.
"Eric!? Coco!?" Miraj called out. They'd be the only two on duty down here for the Graveyard shift. "Are you okay?"
Ensign Eric Kyler appeared from behind one of the type nines, an anti-matter container in hand. "Yeah." There's as a bruise on the side of his head that proved that to be at best a partial truth. "Hath and I are just making the casualties safe in case of breach. Echo and Foxtrot took the brunt, but Hotel and India are looking ropey too." He held up the antimatter container to prove a point. "What the fuck happened?"
And now the continuation
"There's no comms anywhere I don't think. We can't raise anywhere." Miraj pointed at Phlegathon, the Runabout sitting quietly nearer the sealed bay doors. "I came to see if I could get a position, since we can't raise the battle bridge. Was it just you and Coco here?"
"Yeah." Eric said, "Quiet night until it all went bump. So, what's next?"
Malakai had come down the ladder and was behind Miraj. "What's the status of the bay and the shuttles or is it too early to get an idea?"
"Apart from the type nines, everything's held, so they should be okay." Eric shrugged.
Miraj moved towards the closest runabout, Phelgathon, and opened the hatch. "Lets get a position then," She scrambled up to the helm and initialised. Data streamed past, and then settled. Miraj frowned, though her orbital arches were too stiff to really move. "That's not right."
"What's not right?" Eric leaned over her shoulder. "Oh. That's not right."
"I know." Miraj stared at the helm. "It has to be a mistake. Check Acheron, I'll check Cocytus." The two pilots hurried out of Phlegathon, splitting up to the next two runabouts.
Inside Cocytus Miraj went through initialisation again. "Fuck." she muttered a moment later. The same results. It wasn't, couldn't, be possible. She slumped back in the pilots chair, not wanting to believe, when she heard Eric's raging shout.
"You stupid brat!" The human man stormed out of Acheron flushed red and eyes wide, storming around the nose of Cocytus, oblivious to Malakai and the two NCOs present. "You fucking idiot!"
Miraj hurried to the door to meet him. "I didn't know it would do that! It was a good idea at the time."
Eric stormed upto the door, looming over her so close she could feel his breath in her face. "Well, we're completely fucked now, aren't we?"
Mirage cringed away, "I didn't mean for this to happen!"
Malakai could see and hear Eric was hot and the object of his anger was Miraj. He moved quickly to get between Eric and Miraj. "Hold it right there."He said to Eric and turned to face Miraj. "Okay, I keep hearing that's not right. What isn't right?"
"The astrometrics. I thought they were wrong - " Miraj started only to be interuppted by Eric's angry, sarcastic, "But they're not".
Miraj flinched, "All three runabouts say the same thing. We're about thirteen million lightyears from Sol."
Mal felt like he had been sucker punched HARD in the stomach. He reeled slightly. He felt the air leave his lungs as he looked between Miraj and Eric. "Thirteen million light years from Earth? How is that possible? He asked, the question directed at Miraj.
"Because someone had to show off and try the QSD at warp 2." Eric snarled, throwing his hands up. "
"It was that or lose the ship." Miraj didn't look up, didn't dare look at the others. Because Eric was right. The damage to the ship might not be her fault, but being half the universe from help was.
"Enough Ensign! Not here to cast blame, we're here to figure out a solution." Malakai snapped at Eric before turning to Miraj. he took a deep breath, "Okay, we're thirteen million light years from Earth. What do we do? Besides assessing damage to the ship, can we get back home?"
"If the QSD isn't scuppered? 3 months and a bit if we run it full time. But if its broken beyond repair?" Miraj swallowed, took a breath. Then shook her head. "No. we won't get home. Not in our lifetimes."
Mal shook his head, "I refuse to accept that. You and your team are the best and the brightest. Assess the damage to the QSD. Figure out a way try everything in the book. If nothing works, throw the book away and write a new book! But understand this, we are getting home in our lifetime."
Miraj nodded, trying to feel the confidence he had, and failing. "I need engineering. They'd be able to say if its bilged. And science. Maybe they can figure out how we made the jump, and reverse engineer it, I don't know."
Malakai nodded at Miraj's answer. "Very good. First breathe. Next...." He looked at Eric as he said his next. " No one is to blame for this. Let it go. Miraj did what she thought was right and she saved the ship and crew. I have no problem or issue with her actions. Next, do this by the numbers, assess the damage. Get with engineering and science put your collective heads together and come up with a plan of action."
Finding a exit, Imik now pushed and slowly it opened. As she exited the companionway, she saw three people standing there. "I am Legate Imik, who are you?"
Malakai faced the new individual who exited a J-tube. "I am Lieutenant Commander Starr, and this is Ensign Derani and Warrant Officer Sandtail." He replied gesturing to Miraj an Sandtail. "What brings you to the shuttle bay Legate?"
Popping his head out of the Jefferies tube, O’Keefe introduced himself. “An I be Chief Pe’ty Officer O’Keefe! It’s good ta see life!” Sean added as he climbed from the opening.
O’Keefe looked about seeing the three. One appeared to be an able-bodied man. That must be Starr. There was a feline, perhaps worthy of O’Keefe’s friend and pseudo-sister, Kitty. The young lady with the bright hair? Well, if Imik earned the name Leggy, then this was surely Busty.
“Now, we’d be takin’ one o’ these shu’tles,” O’Keefe stated.
"What?" Miraj said, "why?"
“Search and rescue,” Sean replied to the Ensign. “We’re gonna loo’ fer life signs an beam ‘em aboar’.”
"Look where?" Malakai questioned. "If there outside the ship they are dead. However until we know more about the damage to the ship. No one is taking anything. We need to check ship damage, so when we begin search and rescue there is a ship to come back to."
O’Keefe’s face took on a cross look. “Ye thin’ I be dense, don’ ye?” Everyone knew a person couldn’t survive without the proper gear. “We intern’ ta use the shut’le’s sensors ta scan fer life away from oth’rs. Then we will beam them to safety aboar’ the shut’le. As far as seein’ the damage o’ the hull, ye will ‘ave a grander view from outsi’e the Elysium.”
"I didn't say you were dense Chief." Malakai replied his tone light. "However your statement was rather vague."
“We nae be a couple o’ dossers,” Sean interjected. “This situa’ion ‘as e’er body as on edge. It’s a complete haymes. We jes’ wanna ‘elp as bes’ we can.”
Malakai nodded, "It does indeed have everyone on edge. It is a mess to be sure. We'll take all the help we can get. We're all in this together. Only by working together are we going to come out of this."
"Commander, our original plan was made before we knew of your survival. The plan was simple, exit this vessel and use the shuttle to scan for any survivors. Once found, beam them aboard the shuttle and find a safe space to deposit them." Imik now crossed the bay to stand before Starr, "Now I know that we are not alone, a revised plan is needed. But I still believe a shuttle scanning this vessel is needed to determine just how many have indeed survived."
"Phelgathon and Cocytus have both got general load outs," Miraj offered Commander Starr. "If they stay behind us, they won't get hit by the spin."
O’Keefe wasn’t the officer type, which is why he was content with his NCO rank. He spoke his mind too much and it often got him into trouble. He almost lost control, but calmed down when Starr calmly smoothed things over. Sean realized that Imik was likely better to state their idea in a diplomatic fashion than he, so he was content to remain silent for the time being.
"I agree Legate a revised plan is needed." Malakai readily agreed before turning to Miraj. "We don't know is we can get the shuttle bay doors open. So, let me ask you this, can we use the shuttles from inside here to scan for survivors? Other than those on the bridge?"
"Sure. Should be able to do that with the general load out. If not, we can always try and power up the science module, its got bigger sensor packs, but its not attached to a runabou right now." Miraj looked at Sandtail. "We can probably route a lot of internal functions through the runabouts. They're far more capable than doing it off the shuttles." And then a thought came to her. "We could beam new communicators to various points, get them onto, say, Styx's comm network?"
Imik listened as the idea's were expressed, she then held up her hand. "If we can get the Shuttlebay doors open, I could use my fighter as a relay. It was placed here for ease of repair, Commander can we try and open the doors?"
Malakai nodded at Miraj and her idea. "Excellent. We have a plan." He announced before addressing Imak. "I see no reason why we cannot try Legate. If we can open the doors and get your fighter and some shuttles out, we can get eyes on the damage to the ship and see how badly we're hurt."
"I will check out my fighter, and await any information about the doors. From the damage that I encountered on my way here, I would propose the damage is extensive and possibly fatal for some."
Malakai nodded soberly at Imak's words, "Understood Legate. I can tell you; we came from the bridge, and it is in bad shape. However let's not jump to conclusions. First things first. Get the shuttle bay doors open. Take Miraj's idea and beam new communicators to various points in the ship and get an idea where survivors are."
“Yer bang on there, Bu…,” Shite! Watch yer mouth Sean!, O’Keefe almost call the pink-headed Ensign by the nickname he had for her, “…er…Ensign. Where are we ta get the commun’cators?”
Miraj spread her arm wide to take in the shuttle bay. "Twenty Six federation support craft, all with replicators big enough to put out comm badges. And if need be we can probably rig the workers bees to boot."
"Excellent." Malakai replied with have factories to make the coms. Now let's see what we can do with the doors and get some help to the others and our ship."
"Ensign Kyler and I can get on that sir," CPO Hath joined them after having disposed of the last of the antimatter. "Shouldn't take long. The damage seems to have missed it. I can reroute a couple of worker bees if it needs power."
True to her word, a few minutes later a pair of worker bees attached themselves to the edge of the bay doors, and the the heavy doors began to spool apart, the bright lights of the SIF shining in the gap. They got about twenty meters apart, and something went crunch in a very final way.
Miraj winced. "Well, we can at least get out. Persephone and Queen Anne might have to squeeze out sideways if need be."
“Well!” Sean exclaimed, cracking his knuckles and looking at Imik. “Let’s get crackin’!”
"Couldn't agree more." Malakai answered. "The legate is going to take her fighter out, who wants to pilot the shuttles and assess the damage to the ship, while the rest of us get to replicating communicators."
Sean shrugged his shoulders as he realized he would be delegated to replication duties. “I can nae fly, so I’ll be making communicators.”
"Don't be glum Chief, replicating the communicators is vitally important in finding and rescuing other members of the crew." Malakai answered. "Without them, we won't know anything about the survivors or the internal damage to the ship."
“Aye,” the Chief responded, “jes’ thinkin’ o’ me friend Kitty in Communications. We coul’ use ‘er ‘elp.” O’Keefe’s head bowed. “I ‘ope she be fine.”
"I'm sure she will be." Miraj wasn't going to think of the alternative, or that she had stranded them months or worse for any help. She fixed her gaze on the rapid spinning star field beyond the bay doors. That was a problem she could fix. "Battlebridge must be in trouble if they've not tried leveling out. Can someone beam me there? I'll take them their communicators and get us back to even keel."
“Aye,” Sean calmly stated. Thank ye fer the ‘ope.”
There were others that he had met since coming aboard O’Keefe wondered about their safety. There was Etrara and Ginger, even Nobby.
“I got ye covered,” Sean said to Miraj. “Let’s get ye to the transporter.”
Now in her fighter, Imik watched as the others began to start their work. After her checklist, she started her engines up and waited for the doors to open.
Returning from beaming Busty to the battle bridge, when he was certain Imik saw him, O’Keefe gave her a salute with a grin and a wink. Inwardly, he hoped to be able to connect with her after all this mess.
