Streaks through the Sky (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 21 May 2016 @ 2:11am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Ensign Calin & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Andreus Kohl & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Lieutenant Wilhelm Von Haeften & Lieutenant Benice Gyce Ph.D. & Lieutenant JG Nizan Rydit & Lieutenant JG Natalya Kirilova & Lieutenant JG Noah Khoroushi & Ensign Miraj Derani & Ensign K'os Beaumont & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Anthony Duval & Trisant Myrddin & Crewman Draia Thero

1,954 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 11 - Divinum Mundi
Location: Celes System - Celes III Orbit
Timeline: MD 12 - 2318 hrs

[ON]

A series of two sequential bright flashes in the outskirts of Celes' inner solar system signaled the arrival of USS Galileo and USS Semmes. Both Starfleet vessel dropped out of warp simultaneously in formation after which their headings slowly adjusted to the planetary position of Celes III. On it's journey towards its periapsis, the planet appeared as a mid-sized Class Q Variable world speckled with continents that shared deserts, rain forests, and tundras all in close proximity to each other.

Miraj swung round in her seat, "We have arrived in the Celes system, Admiral. We are at one AU from Celes 3." She swung her chair back around and took the helm off auto-pilot ready for the order to approach.

Lieutenant Von Haeften swiveled in his chair to deliver his report. "Sensors show nothing else of note besides the Semmes Ma'am."

A distinctive and repeating chirp from the primary operations console signaled an incoming hail. Most likely from Semmes if the science chief's report had been correct.

So far so good; as the Galileo moved within range of the colony ship, Noah glanced up to the Command center. "We have an incoming hail from the Semmes, Admiral." His hand hovered over the board as he awaited the anticipated command.

Lirha was grateful to have finally arrived at their destination. Almost two weeks of transit time while at warp had made her a bit irritable, and she was anxious to now get underway with their assigned mission. "Open a channel," she replied. The soft chirp of the comm activated an audio-only communication.

"Admiral, we are standing by and ready to follow you into orbit," he said through the channel.

"Very well, commander. Please prepare your crew and vessel for colony deployment. We will lead the way and wait for your signal to begin our landing sequence. Galileo out." The rear admiral pressed a small red button on her chair's armrest console to terminate the conversation, then looked towards the helm.

"Ensign Derani, set one-quarter impulse to Celes III, then establish a high geostationary orbit around our landing site," Lirha instructed.

Holliday didn't wait to follow up with his own order. It was pretty apparent what needed to happen next if the ship was to be taken down onto the planet's surface. He was rather jealous that this time he wouldn't be at the helm, Ensign Derani would certainly get to enjoy herself maneuvering something the size of the Galileo in a planetary atmosphere. Whilst by starship standards she was a minnow, there would be enough of a challenge for even the most competent of helmsmen.

=^=Bridge to all hands - set Condition Blue throughout the ship. All crew members report to Condition Blue stations and prepare for planetary landing. This is not a drill. =^=

Meanwhile in Main Engineering, the lights began to flash blue as Anthony Duval tapped the display before him. "Blue Alert, I guess we're going planet-side." he commented. "Lets get the ship ready for landing." he said to the engineering personnel around him,.

Up on the bridge, Natalya took a moment longer to react. She had known that the Galileo was capable of atmospheric entry and landing, of course, but as a veteran officer hailing from much larger vessels she'd never before seen a starship landing take place, let alone assisted in one. She had done her homework, however, and with that in mind Natalya was able to at least make it seem that this was all routine.

K'os Beaumont stood firmly in front of the Master Systems Display in Engineering. Over his shoulder he heard Duval mustering the other enlisted to their stations to prepare. His eyes were glued to the system readouts. He watched as the blue alert triggered the projection sphere to power up and watched as Ops from the bridge worked to move inertial dampeners to maximum power. Something on the MSD caught his eye and over his shoulder he called out to Duval, "Vent three over the ventral impulse thrust plates is registering as low power. Can you confirm that? Helm is going to need as smooth a ride as possible in these conditions."

Duval nodded. "Confirmed, adjusting the system now." he responded in his gravely tone. "There we go.... reading as normal.."

Miraj tried not to smile as she shucked off the boots and felt the changing shivers and quivers of Galileo as the ship got its breath after the trip through warp. A fingers touch sent the ship dashing towards their destination, and she was sure she could feel through the bulkheads of the little frigate three different gravity fields tickling at its hull. Her console flashed the proximity alert at the same moment she sensed the flexing of the deck, and with a small swipe, the Galileo's thrusters fired and the ship was slid into geostationary orbit with not even the barest whisper of strain.

Towards the aft of the bridge, Andreus Kohl braced his right hand against the bulkhead in which the Mission Ops console was set-in. It's not as if the single hand against smooth duranium would be terribly helpful in the event of turbulent fluctuations of wind velocities in the atmosphere, but it made Kohl feel better. His left hand swiped and tapped through options menus on the computer interface, adding to the soothing hubbub of LCARS feedback tones.

Pivoting his head towards the viewscreen, Commander Kohl reported, "I've isolated the coordinates for our designated landing site." When he spoke, his right hand didn't budge from the bulkhead. Looking back to his display, Kohl directed an index finger to three more contacts on his interface panel. "Flight control should be receiving the coordinates now, Ensign Derani," he said.

Flight control had indeed got the co-ordinates "Ready and waiting, Sir"

Von Haeften conducted a scan of the atmosphere. "Detecting heavy ion storms in vicinity. Great magentic interference. Terrain is undulating, but landing worthy. Shields highly recommended."

"The storms are going to make life interesting....Tactical bring our shields online - I'd hate to set down only to find Engineering have to get out on the hull to repair scorch damage."

Holliday replied examining the data being fed from the sensors. There were certainly several large storms around the entire circumference of the planet, and one of those storms was currently right above the ship's landing point.

Holliday nodded in acknowledgement to his CoB. The shields were more overkill than anything else - starships were designed to deal with plasma strikes or ion storms, but not having to put in for a new coat of paint at the very least would be a bonus.

"Excellent work. Ms Kirilova, additional power to structural integrity if you have it to spare?"

"Yes, Captain." Natalya said without delay. The auxiliary power reserves were used to being drained by phasers, shields and other costly measures; the SIF generators' power consumption was meager in comparison. "Additional power routed to structural integrity fields." She said after completing her task.

"Very well. Ensign Derani, begin descent at your leisure." Holliday looked towards his helmsman. She was new to the ship, and whilst her record so far seemed exemplary, the Captain was eager to see how the young officer would perform when put in a slightly less orthodox starship landing operation.

Miraj threw power to the inertial dampener, and powered the thrusters to bring Galileo down through the upper atmosphere heading in a big spiral towards the landing zone, avoiding the worst of the closest storm, skimming through its trailing edge whilst the deflector shield whined at the edge of her hearing, drawing more energy as it absorbed the worst of the storm. As they got closer to the ground the artificial gravity dialed back as actual gravity kicked in, and she flipped down the landing struts and brought Galileo to land with less impact than a downy feather.

In what appeared to be a synchronized deployment with Galileo, USS Semmes released her own planetary landing vessels. Such vessels were actually the colony modules attached to the large starship's hull, each supporting a couple-hundred colonists, power generators, housing structures, and provisions.

Each one of them detached from the larger ship's primary hull, piloted by their own conn officers. All six of the modules assumed a large group formation then began to follow Galileo's flight vector down towards the surface while trailing behind by several kilometers. They burned through the planet's dense upper atmosphere with spectacular orange flare from the friction, then attempted to follow the Nova-class on her spiral maneuver through the thermosphere and down into the stratosphere.

Such maneuvers that would have been easy for a starship such as Galileo, were difficult for the cumbersome and un-aerodynamic colony modules. The trailing two modules tried their best to keep up with their thruster inputs, but ultimately ended up veering into the edge of the severe thundercloud. Inside, their hulls were assaulted by a combination of polarized ion strikes, wind sheer, and turbulence.

Keeping a split maintenance watch on both the Galileo's descent as well as those of the nodules, Noah caught the shift of the stragglers toward danger. "We've got a couple of the colony vessels going off course, Admiral." Shifting his full attention to the nodules, he caught the distress signals that were beginning to broadcast and streamed the audio feeds into the main Bridge systems.

"Galileo this is Semmes 1-03...!" Interferic static permeated the comm channel making the transmission hard to make out, and even worse when a second comm band was broadcasted on top of the first. "Semmes...1-06...heavy...ulence...." "1....-03 lost..port thrusters.. decl.... emerg......!" "1-03 emer--losing.... ibility ... est help..."

Lirha snapped her head quickly towards the conn. If anyone was able to guide the vessels down to their landing locations, it was the young ensign who had just completed the same flight herself. "Miss Derani! Can you relay flight instructions to the pilots?"

No. How did you explain something you felt at a molecular level? Miraj swallowed. And all the talking wouldn't help if the flight systems were down. Semmes Three had lost thrusters. It was basically a brick with an impulse engine and enough of a deflector shield to ignore aerodynamics. It was going to go splat.

"Some one better be ready to catch Semmes Three." She opened the channel Semmes vessels, "Semmes ships, come around to" their was a breif pause as she translated from relative to Galileo to relative to them, "two Eighty-five mark fifteen, you're going to use the trailing end of the storm to bounce you round to the landing zone. Give as much power as you can to the pitch thrusters. The wind will help push you in the right direction, but you need all the lift you can get. Don't fight the wind, just the gravity."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

LT Wilhelm Von Haeften
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Noah Khoroushi
Assistant Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

WO2 Anthony Duval
Engineer
USS Galileo

LCmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Natalya Kirilova
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Commander Andreus Kohl
Second Officer
USS Galileo

Trisant Myrddin
Civilian Colonist
Semmes-Three
[PNPC Kohl]

Draia Theroh
Civilian Colonist
Semmes-Three
[PNPC Kohl]

ENS Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

And other Galileans...

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