Arrival in the Pinwheel Galaxy

Posted on Sun Oct 27th, 2019 @ 11:05pm by Captain Gary Alexander & Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Kincaid & Lieutenant Ciara Perlit & Lieutenant Fiona Stanzel & Lieutenant JG Alexandra Campa & Lieutenant JG Serenity Hayes & Lieutenant JG Jennifer Bullock & Karina Tell

1,625 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Mission 1 - Leaving Sigma Iotia II
Location: Somewhere in the Pinwheel Galaxy
Timeline: 2168/07/25 1800

The slurred effects stopped. The white light disappeared from the inside and surrounding of Horizon. After an indeterminable time, the white abruptly disappeared, as did the stress on Horizon's shields. A visual appeared on Horizon's screen, though it was not much of a visual: it was a screen full of pink swirling cloud. Horizon was cutting through them with ease.

He looked around at the bridge and pressed his hands hard against the arms of his Captain's chair. Hitting the comms, he ordered, =^= All stations and decks, report. =^= He looked to his left, hoping that his trusty yeoman was there or was alright.

Swallowing the nausea down as she scanned the Bridge, her pale face was as expressionless as she could muster. Otherwise, whatever breakfast had been partially digested might have decided to make a reappearance. "Yeoman Tell present and accounted for, Captain."

Her voice was soft but strong and her hands squeezed tightly to the PADD she never let go of. Her equivalent of a security blanket. There was no expected response. After all, the rest of the Horizon needed to check in.

Regulating her breathing, she noted everyone that checked in, annotated the computer's log and willed herself vertical.

Bullock picked her head up off her console. She began to fly through buttons and displays one by one. After a few moments she spoke, "Captain, weapons are online 100%, shields are another story. There is no damage to the emitters but they are depleted, we have 4 or 5% remaining. We will need time for them to recharge before we are combat effective at all."

“Engine room to bridge,” cams Nick’s voice, having successfully restored the signal. “We’re in one piece but I want to shut down the matter/antimatter reactor at first opportunity. It took a lot of stress. I can give you low warp power, but we will need a few days without engines for me to get in there and fix it properly.”

"No comm traffic," Serenity reported. "Wherever we are, its quiet."

"Helm is responsive, sir," Alex said as she performed a few checks. She looked over to the navigator and then back at her console. She didn't say anything else but she was clearly wondering how much good that did without knowing where they were.

"I will be in Sickbay," Fiona said. "Several broken bones, and assortment of injuries." She added. "Page me if I am needed."

Gary watched as the Doctor excused herself from the bridge.

Looking around the bridge for a moment, Ciara quickly looked back to her sensors, then raised an eyebrow. "Um...recalibrating sensors. Ze readings make no sense."

Gary listened carefully to all the reports and allowed his mind to sift through them. As a former engineer, he knew that he could sort through these logically and methodically.

"Campa, I want you to keep us on this course but go to full impulse."

"Full impulse, captain," Alex answered as she worked her controls.

He then hit the comm, =^= Kincaid, I'm ordering us down to full impulse. Get us back to full capacity ASAP. I want it done in 24 hours. =^=

Nick was about to object, saying it was impossible. But he knew the circumstance. He understood that they needed to be at 100% as soon as possible. “Aye, sir. We’ll get it done. I’ll need some extra hands though. If you can spare her, can you send me Lieutenant Hayes?”

Gary answered, =^= You can have her. =^= Gary gave a wry smile at his response, knowing the communications officer had rebuffed his efforts. He then turned to Serenity and said, "You heard the XO. Hurry up."

"On my way, Sir," Serenity said and did her best not to flee the Bridge. And while she moved quickly but (hopefully) calmly, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief once the doors had closed again.

Gary then turned to Bullock and asked, "What's the estimated time of recharge? It is good to know that we're not dead in the water."

Jenn tapped at her console and then did some quick math in her head before she replied, "Pending we don't try to activate them, six maybe seven hours. If we use them that will only slow the recharge time."

He then turned to his trusty yeoman and said, "Get me reports on every bit of this ship, hydroponics and anything else that one of my chiefs are too busy to handle. I want to know every status of this ship." Something in the tone of his voice, though calm and collected hinted to KAT that he suspected something was very wrong.

Nodding briefly and professionally, she began sifting through the various reports per the Captain's orders. Any department not checking in was contacted directly.

She tried to keep her mind on the tasks at hand and off the color of the sky outside the ship. It was easier said than done. It might have been a malfunction of the internal comms system or a departmental emergency that stopped some of them from answering.

"Tell to Flowers," KAT said. "Report in, please."

A rather huffy and breathless sounding voice came through. "Flowers reporting. What the hell is going on up there?"

Raising an eyebrow to convey her displeasure, the gesture was lost on Flowers who had no visual cues since there were no visual communications. "Report to the Bridge," she said. "We need you at Comms."

As it was, Talia had already been on her way and said rather loudly as she burst through the door to the Bridge, "Flowers reporting," and slid her demure ass into the seat at Comms.

KAT was about to say something but Talia waved her hands as though requesting silence. "I have some random wave formations to analyze," she said shortly. "Oh, and I'm fine Yeoman, thanks so much for asking."

That was probably some serious sarcasm right there; KAT bit the inside of her cheek took a deep breath and continued verifying reports. "Your assistance in processing the departmental communications would be greatly appreciated, Ensign," KAT said.

A rather sour look crossed Talia's face and she shrugged. This was the adventure so she might as well accept it. And despite the fact that she was surprised by the sky outside of the ship, she was more interested in any or all of the white noise outside her...

"That's INside the ship, Ensign," KAT said dryly and Talia sucked her teeth in disdain before complying.

"Perlit, it is completely pink out there. I'm sure that nothing makes a lot of sense. What are your readings thus far?"

"Nothing so far. I keep recalibrating but nothing is making any sense." Ci looked at Gary, "We need clear of this pink...thing...before I can get any information."

"Hopefully there's an end somewhere. Continuing to go straight is bound to get us somewhere," he told the Chief Science Officer. "Just keep your scans going."

Ci nodded, "Ze moment I see anything I will speak up."

Jenn reworked the numbers in her head with some new information from her console and spoke again, "Captain, if your willing to take the weapons off line, I can get the shields back up in 2 maybe 3 hours."

Gary nodded. "We seem to be in the pink," he replied with some wry amusement. "We cannot seem to see anything. It is probable that the same is true for anyone out there. Do it. Be quick about it."

Before they trip the charged phaser capacitors and torpedo launchers were able to act as mini-generators for the shields, but now that they too were depleted from the trip, they were just soaking up energy as well. So Jenn disabled the weapons and watched as the charge percent for the shields started to climb slightly quicker than before. She looked up from her station and spoke, "It's done, sir. After some quick math, I estimate the shields will be back to full in about 2 and a half hours."

"Good," Gary replied, leaning forward and looking into the deep swirling pink eddies.

Tag-All

Alex stared ahead into the pink. The situation remained tense. She remained ready to swerve or stop or reverse on a second's notice. She was trained to do so. Still, it was a rather long two hours. She stared straight ahead into the seemingly endless

KAT continued her logging; objectivity was something that she was leaning on heavily. As long as she was only observing, only documenting, only recording for posterity... in the pinkness of the sky outside the... 'Get yourself together, K!' she screamed at herself in her mind. 'Focus on the writing... don't think, observe...'

Closing her eyes briefly to compose herself, she opened them again, more in control of herself. She was on the Bridge. She was trained for such emergencies. But training and reality... well they never quite met up, did they? That too was a personal observation to be addressed OFF the Bridge.

About two hours after flying on impulse power, the pink swirls started to relent. "Anything yet, Perlit? It seems to be getting thinner."

Ci sat and watched the readings, reconfiguring the sensors yet again. "Things are clearing...not going to be able to get anything until at least one of ze external sensors iz clear of this...cloud."

"Can you estimate the time it would take us to get out?" he asked the Chief Science Officer.

"If I knew, I would tell you, Captain. I've been trying to get a position out of all this for a while now." Ci was obviously frustrated more than anything.

"Well, keep at it," Gary replied equally frustrated. There had to be something out here. There just had to be! Where were the stars?

 

RSS Feed