A New Reality

Posted on Mon Nov 11th, 2019 @ 10:28pm 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

2,997 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Mission 1 - Leaving Sigma Iotia II
Location: Meeting Room
Timeline: 2168/07/26 0600

Gary did not want to look at the Ticker Tape. He was certain that it was going to be thoroughly active once the news broke out that they were in the Pinwheel Galaxy and home was not likely ever to be seen again.

Certainly this offered a new set of possibilities. They would be the first humans to ever encounter this galaxy. Who knew, though, if anyone would ever get their reports. Once Gary thought that, he knew that they would have to keep reporting. After all, if humans ever got this way, perhaps their reports might alert some future human beings as to what was out here and the Horizon's encounters. It might save problems in the future.

He called for all Chiefs to be at this meeting. They had much to discuss. The ultimate decisions still were his, as long as military rules held. But, something more was needed here, he sensed. Waiting for everyone to arrive, Gary sat at the head of the meeting table.

KAT took a seat to the side of the conference table, PADD and Stylus at the ready.

Ciara came in, though wanted to still sort through the sensor data instead of being pulled into a chief meeting. But, seeing as she didn't have a choice, she brought what she could with her to report on. When she stepped into the room, she noticed only Gary there. She wasn't sure if she wanted to say anything or not, so instead just sat down at her normal seat, still pouring over everything.

Fiona walked into the meeting, she carried a clipboard under arm. She nodded to the Captain and Ciara as she found her chair. "Good Morning all!"

Alex join the others and took a seat. "Good morning," she said to the room as she looked around the room. Her expression was calm but appropriately somber.

Nick was next, his hands covered in grease stains that he just couldn’t remove. He was exhausted, having worked almost twenty-four hours straight. But he and Ser had managed to get the warp core online shortly before coming to the meeting. They could probably rest when this was done. He had arrived just as Alex said good morning. “Is it morning?” he asked as he took his seat, oblivious to the hour.

"I think so, sir," Alex answered, taking the question literally.

Serenity entered, her hair bound up in an untidy knot, as she took a seat near the end of the table, leaving the seats on either side of her empty. She smothered a yawn behind one slender hand and tried to remember the last time she'd had any sleep. And while she profoundly wished for a cup of tea, it was a healthy sort of tired for a change. The warp core was back online having passed its final checks. Course, there was still a long list of maintenance tasks to be done but, truth be told, she enjoyed the work.

"'Tis a morning with no coffee or tea, I believe," Ciara stated, her accent very thick with how tired she was.

Gary smiled warmly at KAT. Of all the people that could understand what he was thinking and going through now, he knew that she would. Was there anything that KAT did not know about him? He wondered. He subtly encouraged her to move closer to him.

KAT smiled at the Captain and nodded slightly, moving her chair closer to the head of the table. In case he needed anything further.

Jenn walked in and found her way to a chair. She refused to look at the Captain right now. While the situation was serious, she still had the meeting encounter fresh in her mind. She took out her padd and pulled up the information for her department then waited for the meeting to begin.

Once everyone was seated and the chit chat ended, Gary looked at his Chiefs and started seriously and somberly. "I do not believe that I have to tell you why I've called all of you here, so I will be as blunt and short as possible. Somehow, we are in the Pinwheel Galaxy. We're alive, which is the good news. The ship seems to have held, which is also good news. The bad news is that we are not likely ever to see our homes again. What the full consequences of that are, I leave to all of you to speculate and discuss in this meeting. However, I think we first need to marshall our assets. We need to know what we have before we can make any intelligent decisions. We need to know what is likely to fail first and how to deal with it. We need to know life spans on everything. What are our supplies? When will they be exhausted? And so on. I expect those to be given to KAT in the next 16 hours. Now, I open the floor to discussion of this unique situation."

KAT watched some information get rerouted, with 'pending more analysis' on a number of reports. Sleep was going to be a very precious commodity for her. And it seemed as she looked around the table, for them all.

Ciara looked up with a heavy sigh, "I am still attempting to see how we ended up here in ze first place, and how we survived whatever it was we went through. I'll have ze report to KAT on ze science systems once I have it, my team are working on it."

“We have a stable power supply,” Nick reported, “and I can give you Warp Three. Anything more will need a bit more time.

"Helm systems are still fully operational," Alex chimed in. "I'll do a full check on the shuttlepods and bays today."

"Thanks to the Commanders excellent engineering team and their effort, shields are fully recharged as are the lasers and the torpedo launchers. So, at least if we have to, we can fight. All security officers are accounted for and all hand weapons and communicators are accounted for and working. We are not toothless if we have to take a bite out of something, sir", Bullock reported avoiding eye contact with the Captain as much as possible.

"But what are our reserves, people?" he asked with a sense of urgency. "What of food supplies and the like?" He sighed, hating to bring the topic up so immediately but it had to be dealt with. "If we are truly in the Pinwheel Galaxy, home is not a likely outcome. We have to know what we need to do to survive. As far as we know, we're the only humans or humanoids out here. We must think practically about what all of this means."

KAT blinked. Practical thinking was not going to stop everyone from their emotional reactions to the news. Or their need to process this information for them, for their departments... for loved ones that were left behind... "Captain," KAT murmured softly. "I understand your urgency, but you might consider the emotional needs of the crew as well."

Though she had thought about it, Ciara didn't like the thoughts of not seeing home again, and not seeing the one she loved again. She shook her head, "I have not had a chance to check ze damage to ze sensors, if there truly is any. I have been too busy trying to look over the readings from our trip."

Gary turned to his trusty yeoman. So often, she was the sensitive and sensible one when it came to the non-running of the ship. Perhaps it was a failing of his, having been an engineer for most of his career. There was an order to things. Yet, here, perhaps the order could wait a little.

Turning to Ciara, Gary replied, still looking at KAT, "Thank you, Perlit. There is a lot to consider. Check the moment you are able."

After several moments, he turned to his crew, "KAT is also right. We have to handle the emotions of the crew and ourselves, as well. There are no studies that have been done on anything like this. Who knows might have just lost a spouse or children because of this? We have to find a way to adapt and survive this abrupt change. I need all of your assistance in coming up with ideas."

Ci let out a shaky breath and put her reports down so she could focus more on the conversation. "Ze crew needs to know, Captain. And I think ze report needs to come from you, not the department heads."

"It will come from me. Have no fear about that. But before I make that announcement, I need to know all the information I can to make sure that we can survive out here. I believe the crew needs some optimism."

“The safety of the crew is one of my responsibilities as First Officer,” Nick affirmed. “KAT, my door will be open to anyone at any time. Any rank, any position, are welcome to talk with me about this experience.”

Gary turned to Nick, his eyes sharp. Is he hitting on my yeoman in front of me? How dare he?!

"Of course, Commander. I'm sure the entire crew will appreciate that resource," KAT said as she noted the information down.

That's my girl, Gary thought as he shifted his eyes back to his meeting.

Serenity sat quietly, listening, and trying to bring her thoughts into some semblance of order. For her part, if there was one magic wand in the entire Pinwheel Galaxy that could get them home, she'd be looking for it. She'd have a team investigating every possibility of getting home but it seemed the Captain was already half-way toward giving up on that notion. Her mind traveled back to the ship she grew up on and she thought about the vegetables and fruits they grew in hydroponics, how they'd decorated the ship with living plants and artwork, and how they made friends wherever they could ... for trade and to feel like they weren't alone. There were things they could do, sure, but not giving up? That would go a long way toward boosting morale ... or was she alone in that?

"I know we have raw stock for the replicators but if it helps," Serenity said, "I have a seed vault. It was going to be a gift but maybe the ship needs it more? It's a good-sized one ... well, unless Science already has that covered. I was just thinking that on the ship I grew up on, we had plants everywhere and most of them produced something .. fruit, herbs, vegetables, flowers. Sometimes, just seeing that bit of green or a tiny flower blossoming, well, it made all the difference."

It sounded lovely to KAT, it really did. Making the rather sterile looking Starship more homey, but that... wouldn't that send the wrong message to the Crew? Why would they need to follow orders, even stay aboard? Why would anyone want to be part of a Starship that wasn't even interested in trying to make it back home?

Sure Science still had some work to do, but no one had to be a quantum physicist to see that they'd gone through some sort of anomaly. Something pink and... maybe bidirectional? Omnidirectional? She hadn't left anything back there on Earth except heartache and regrets. Perhaps this Galaxy provided an opportunity to start fresh. But as she glanced outside the ship and saw a group of unfamiliar stars, she realized that they, this ship... everyone aboard... were the only familiar things to her now.

Looking at the people sitting around the table, she understood something more deeply than she had anything up until now: they were the ones that stood between the Crew and the Unknown. And there would have to be trust between them all.

Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly thinking, 'This could be messy as hell.'

"Hold that thought, Miss Hayes," Gary told Serenity. "That may be a very good idea in the future but right now, we don't even know what our water supplies might be or if anything we have is destroyed by our trip through whatever it was that brought us here. Worse, we do not even know where to go. Has anyone picked up any signals of any kind yet? Any scans on any stars with M class or other habitable planets?"

"My teams are working on zat, but nothing yet, Captain. They are wanting to make sure that there is enough power for any repairs that are necessary so the long range sensors on currently on minimum power. Once we can, we will extend the scans." Ciara was still distracted, but at least had heard what was said.

"Three hours," Nick said. "Power is stable now, but in three hours we'll have more than enough to improve sensor range and resolution."

"I don't think we're abandoning hope of ever going home just because we prepare for the reality that we might be here for awhile. To get home, we have to survive. Maybe we can try to find a way to go back through the anomaly that brought us here but, if not, we'll need to do some exploring to find what local resources we can use."

She looked to Nicholas and then to the captain. "I think we should implement power saving measures everywhere we can. Even when power's back up, it might be that antimatter and dilithium are a lot harder to restock than food and water."

"I agree. Power saving is a wise choice. What non-essential areas can we shut down or reduce to minimum power levels?" Gary asked his Chiefs.

"Take science down to one lab but given our situation I'd suggest not pulling any power from sensors. Leave the lab for things we find out here but not personal experiments. Unfortunately, there isn't much to pull from science," Ci finally said.

"There's no need to keep the shuttlebay heated and lit when they're not in use," Alex said. "The Helm itself does need to be kept at full power and the bay needs to stay pressurized. We need to be able to respond instantly if something happens. We could also reduce heat and light in the corridors by maybe 15% without seriously impairing safety or efficiency, I think?" She looked unsure of the last. "We could also reduce our reliance on the lift."

"Food and water and power reserves are one thing, but Captain, we have a finite number of torpedoes. What are we going to do when we run out of those. Our lasers won't last forever and there are times when a good ol' fashioned kinetic explosion is needed", Jenn asked with a bit of emotion in her tone.

"For a short while, we could cannibalize the shuttles to give us some extra umph," the Captain replied, agreeing with Jenn. "But finding some natural resources will be helpful. I think that science will likely be critical in that effort. Depending on what we find out here, we may have to consider creating industry and our own colony." He sighed. "Of course, the minute that we set up a colony or industry, this crew will know that we officially gave up hope on a way back. I should like to put that off as long as possible."

Energy and resource saving measures were essential. The idea of setting up a colony had never occurred to her and she wondered at how it could so easily spring to the Captain's mind ... or anyone's. Serenity resolved to speak with Nick later about going over ship systems and seeing what they could do to streamline performance and eliminate waste. In essence, the ship's mission had changed, at least in part, to survival whereas the ship's systems were designed for mission performance within range of repair and resupply facilities.

"Would that mean we gave up home, sir?" Alex asked. "It might help to establish a mine somewhere to help fuel our ship and shuttlepods for our efforts to get home. We do need specific and not easily found elements and we could have sustainable food sources at the same facility." She let out a small sigh as she settled back in the chair. "If we adjusted to that, it would also allow for an easier and less abrupt transition if we didn't find a way home."

"Once we have full sensors...I can start to scan for any planet that can give us anything useful." Ciara looked to Gary, "But I will need to know how far out you want me to search."

It took Gary a moment to draw in his breath and let it out when Alex asked her question. "I do not want to say that we are giving up on home. However, pragmatically, we do not know how to travel such a distance, even in our lifetime. Logically speaking, however we got here was likely a one way trip. We must keep the option of home open but practically speaking, we should plan on being here for the foreseeable future."

'Forseeable future.' KAT's green eyes widened slightly and took in everyone in the room. That was his code word for 'let go of everything you ever knew. Because home is now this ship, and whatever we have aboard is everything that we have.' No refueling. No restocking. No... Sol-based humanoids. Nothing from Starfleet at all.

What might that mean for the Crew? And what that might mean for the Captain?

Turning to Ci, Gary said, "Let's see whatever we can get to within a month at warp 3 for starters."

Nodding, Ci made a mental note. From what Nick had said, she had three hours before she could run the scans. She should be able to get the information Gary wanted quickly once she could do that, but now was a waiting game.

 

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