Through the Fold (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 09 Oct 2012 @ 3:44pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman & Lieutenant Theron Rhodes & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Commander Andreus Kohl & Commander Scarlet Blake & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Amril & Rachel Hardaway Ph.D. & Anthony Hardaway Ph.D.

4,203 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo - Main Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 01 - 0025 hrs

Previously, on Through the Fold (Part 1)...

Quinn looked intently at the MSD. "Yeah, we could. Except both the primary and secondaries are..." the Chief Engineer paused for a moment, then an instant later his fingers were rerouting power supplies through tertiary junctions and various backups. "There ya go, sir. We have at the least, minimal power back. Full emergency and main gravity controls shouldn't take muck longer either. After that, I'm not sure." Quinn took another look over the MSD and then looked back to Holliday. Then pointed to a system display on the MSD. "See that? That is the anti-matter injectors. They are dead. Completely seized up. I was afraid that would happen, but we did manage to get that damn Sienna Device to operate off of our power-plant . Warp is gone, sir. We'll do what we can, but I'm not a miracle worker."

Holliday couldn't help but look a little disappointed as his eyes moved over towards the injectors. It was true that as a critical component within the warp drive, they wouldn't be going anywhere fast any time soon without replacements, and they certainly didn't have the power to replicate them.

"Do what you can Mr. Quinn...I'll check in with the Captain and head on back to the Bridge...communications are a priority - at least we can send a distress call."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Bridge

Lirha looked around as some of the bridge's consoles suddenly came to life in a colorful display. Overhead, the white emergency lights finally activated, illuminating the control center in a dim hue. The artificial gravity was next to come, and she suddenly felt her butt slam down hard into her command chair. Luckily she had only been a meter or so above it when the gravity reactivated, but the sudden jolt sent a sharp spike of pain through her injured thigh.

=^=Holliday to Bridge. We've managed to restore partial auxiliary power to life support and a few other systems, but the warp core is completely dead, looks like the anti-matter injectors are completely fried...we aren't going to be going anywhere fast. =^=

The pain in her leg began to subside and Lirha felt a wave of relief wash over her as the internal comm system finally came back online. The news about the anti-matter injectors was not good, but for now at least they had partial power and life support. "Bridge, acknowledged." she replied, "On your way back, stop by Deck 4 and see if sickbay needs a hand."

=^=Yes ma'am...I'm not much of a medic but I'll see what I can do. Turbolifts should be back up shortly....I don't fancy spending any more time in those Jeffries tubes unless I really have to....Holliday out. =^=

Starting to realise that she appeared rather odd right now, Kiri had attempted to settle herself back onto her stool once the consoles started to come back online. The transition for her was easier than most, it was the sudden feeling of warm on her lip that snapped her back to reality. Without thinking her fingers had already shut down most of the sensors to provide power for the basic grid, backing up her readings from the computers memory to storage. Trying to staunch the flow, pitching the bridge of her nose she tried not to drip onto her uniform, already it was clotting.

When the call from engineering came through Dea had been checking the status of her console once again. Thankfully she wasn't too far away from her chair. Even with that the return of gravity was not something she could miss. Because there had been no real warning Dea had no way to prepare causing the harder than usual landing to jar her shoulder. News of their warp capability didn't sit well with her but she'd make the best of it to get Galileo and her crew some place safe. For now Dea remained quiet letting the implications of their current situation sink in.

With the confirmation from her XO, the captain turned her attention back towards her bridge crew. It was time to assess the situation. "Mister Amril, do we have external communications online?"

"Why yes, captain," Amril said, looking at the ops console he was now standing behind, "Some, at least, but you are able to receive short-range audio communications."

Ens. Rhodes' tactical console had also come to life. He was very greatful that he could provide some important information. He went right to checking systems. He began to babble the obvious, "Shields are down, phasers are down, sensors are operable, but only short range sensors." He dared not look up until he had some decent information to report. "The computer is having difficulty triangulating our position." It was very odd to have the computer operate so slowly. Yet, without the major star clusters as points of reference, he was sure that the few stars around were being run through the search program.

The sensors finally confirmed their location, "Sir!" Rhodes said excitedly, "We are only a few light years from the Vega Colony." This was very good news, "And I am now picking up what appears to be a freighter, traveling at Warp 2." Rhodes looked toward the Captain, "It is headed in our general direction, toward the Vega Colony."

The captain arched her eyebrows and swiveled in her chair to face the tactical chief, then towards Amril. The Vega system... she thought to herself with approval. She had spent much time at that colony during her youth as a trader, and was rather familiar with its facilities and operations. And the news of a passing freighter was very pleasing, considering that only the short-range comm system was functioning. For now, the slow-moving trade ship seemed to be their only ride.

"Open an audio channel to the freighter," she ordered without much hesitation. Hopefully, the captain of the vessel wouldn't mind lending a hand to a Starfleet science ship.

"Of course, captain," the vorta declared, leaning over the console and squinting as he looked for the proper controls. "One moment... ah- here we are."

A chirp echoed across the bridge signifying an open comm line, and Lirha quickly identified herself and her vessel. "This is Commander Saalm of the Federation starship Galileo. We require assistance... please respond." she said, then waited a long moment for a response. Finally, and to Lirha's relief, a female voice crackled over the speakers after a few short seconds.

"This is Captain Moore of the SS Nautica." the woman answered in a light voice, "State your position and emergency."

Lirha quickly held her hand up and pointed towards Ensign Rhodes, indicating for him to give an exact fix on their position.

Theron knew that the captain wanted galactic coordinates, but the long range sensors were inoperable, but based on the location of Vega Colony, he had to transpose the galactic coordinates in his head. His mind was spinning. He finally gave up the requested information. "Sir. We are at Galactic coordinates - 67.63 by 18.95 by 23.98. We are on their heading of 278.3 mark 23."

As the ensign reported the ship's position, Lirha looked down at her console and tapped away at it, sending their coordinates to the freighter captain on the audio channel's data subset. "I've transmitted our coordinates." she confirmed to the woman over the comm, "Our propulsion systems are offline and we are operating on minimum power. Life support is stable....for now." she reported.

Another moment passed before the woman replied. "Acknowledged, captain. We're on our way to Vega Colony, but we can divert briefly to transfer repair supplies." she offered.

The Orion captain frowned then shook her head, not wanting to reveal the presence or knowledge of Project Sienna in any way, whether it be from helpful traders or an innocent sensor scan alike. "Thank you for the offer, however...I was hoping we could get simply get a tow and tag along. My ship is currently stocked with supplies, however we would prefer to conduct repairs planet-side." she said, twisting the truth of the situation.

An audible sigh sounded across the comm, a sign of mild annoyance. "Very well." the woman replied simply before continuing. "We're diverting course now, ETA fifteen minutes. You owe us all a drink when we arrive, captain." she said dryly, then promptly closed the comm channel.

Lirha let out a deep breath and swiveled in her chair, looking across the faces of her bridge crew. They were hitching a ride and that was certainly good news.

Rhodes felt uneasy about the whole situation. This intergalactic jump. No one knew just how it has effected the ship nor just how much damage had taken place, let alone to the individual crew members. If the effects of the jump could scramble most of the ship's systems, a person's electro-chemical nature may also have been effected. Now, this trade vessel is going to be close enough to get a good scan of the ship. The tactical officer thought, 'Sienna will need to be shielded in some way.'

Kiri didn't share the concerns some of the others had. The data she had in front of her was so complex, so entwined and some of it even random that there was no start point to deciphering it. She was coping, it felt like something terrible had happened to her, now there there were numbers. Something she could take comfort in, at the very least a distraction, her body had stopped shaking. The girl wasn't really thinking though, just sorting data, trying to find patterns, clues. Her nose felt heavy and stuffy, a headache ebbed back and forth, it was cold.


Sickbay

As minimal lighting started to flicker around them, Instruments and people fell back down to earth with a crash. The patients who hadn't managed to be secured, some screamed as bones broke where they had already been fragile from earlier damage.

As Pola's body feel to the ground, a scream was heard from her lips as her injured ankle hit the ground first before the rest of her. Dazed and in pain, her mind went black for a moment before she forced herself through it and gritted her teeth. "Kohl! Scarlet!"

Kohl was laying on his side on the floor, but he had a hand up, and he gripped the edge of a biobed to pull himself up. "I'm moving, I'm moving," Kohl said, taking it more as push than a check-in.

"Me too!" Scarlet called out, groaning as she sat up slowly, rubbing her head. She moved slowly and awkwardly with a frown, wincing as she put weight on her leg. She moved to start helping a patient, turning him over carefully.

After a few moments of readjusting to the gravity field, the doors to Sickbay began to part, not on their usual automatic servos, but instead by hand, the sound of grating metal echoing through the medical bay as the doors opened wide enough to allow a rather frustrated looking XO to pass through.

"Everyone alright down here?"

Sitting on the ground where shed landed, Pola gritted her teeth more as the one person she didn't want to see entered sickbay. "You'd better not tell me that you've left Lirha in command. It's bad enough she left her quarters against my orders."

"Well unless you thought it would be a better idea to send her crawling through Jeffries tubes to get to Engineering to get the lights back on, that's exactly what I did Doc. Anyway, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and as far as we know the Klingons are nowhere to be seen."

Stumbling into the room, Holliday looked at the scene in front of him, the series of instruments and equipment strewn across the floor that had been lifted free when the gravity net went down. It seemed that anywhere he went on the ship was in a similar situation, so he had no real need to be surprised.

"I'm on my way back up there now...just needed to check this deck was in one piece."

With her ankle screaming in agony, Pola crawled across the floor to where a bunch was equipment was lying. "Do you know how to use dermal and osteo regenerators? 95% of our injuries are doing to be bumps, bruises cuts and broken bones." Extracting both instruments, she threw them in the XO's direction.

"Of course I do." The XO replied sounding a little incredulous. Grabbing the two devices as they clattered to the floor in front of him.

"But I'm no doctor - someone has to keep this ship in working order remember?"

Raising an eyebrow, Pola grabbed a second osteo generator before trying to pull her boot off, without passing out from the agony. "According...to...you..." Pola took a breath as the pain threatened to overwhelm her before she continued, "Lirha..is..doing...THAT!" The last word came out as a scream as her boot finally fell away. Looking down, Pola realised this wasn't good, the ankle was at such an angle she knew that the bone had snapped. Looking around she saw Scarlet and Kohl up to their eyes with other patients. "just take those and use them on the injured on the bridge if that's where you're headed. We are down the EMH. We need all the help we can get."

"Yes ma'am..." The XO replied with a smirk, before catching sight of her damaged ankle. It was obvious what had happened, but it was certainly beyond his ability to heal.

"You..gonna be alright with that? Physician heal thyself?"

Sarcastically, Pola looked up at Jonathan. "No...I'm gonna die...of course Ill be fine, it's not as if I've another choice. As you can see, most of the patients are on the ground anyway." Tired, in pain and just generally angry at this point, the Doctor found herself just wishing that this was all over.

"I'll be on the Bridge if you need me."

Holliday knew that there was very little else he could do from here. Healing his wounded comrades on the Bridge seemed like the best idea for now, scrapes and scratches were easily fixed by any trained officer, but proper medicine was best left in the hands of the doctors. Turning on his heels, he headed out the doors, grateful that the turbolifts at least would be operational once more.

The turbolift doors slide open and Evelyn walked out rubbing her shoulder, walking towards Sickbay. She saw Holliday walking towards her and shook her head, "Word of advice, don't get stuck in a tubolift when the ship loses power." She advised as she walked passed him and entered sickbay, no longer rubbing her shoulder.

Evelyn approached Pola, "Need another medic?" she asked.

Looking up as a familiar face entered the room, Pola smiled slightly. "We could do with a few more but even one extra pair of hand will be fantastic. Have you any injuries you need looked at first?"

Shaking her head Evelyn replied, "Nothing a nice bath won't cure." she said, standing beside Pola, "So where you want me to start first?" she asks.

"Grab a dermal regenerator and an osteo generator. We'll assign you some bmps, brusies and broken bones. Do you know how to operate both pieces of equipment? If not we can give you a brief run through." Still on the ground, Pola grabbed a biobed to lever herself up, keeping no weight on the leg with the broken ankle.

Evelyn smirked as she grabbed the equipment Pola mentioned, "Yes I've used both..." Evelyn moved to help Pola up, "want me to take a look at that ankle at you?"

Shaking her head, Pola indicated towards where people were starting to floor into sickbay. "You'll get through more of them quicker then spending time on me. I can do a quick fix and get myself back on my feet and lok after the worst of it later. We'll will need all hands for this."

Evelyn looked at Pola, "Get on the damn bed." she said, "I'll do a quick fix on you now." She said stubbornly, "We'll save more lives and time if you are not struggling with a broken foot." She said looking at the Doctor.

Meeting Evelyn's look with one of her own, Pola bit down hard on her lip before boosting herself onto the biobed she was rested against. "You've got two minutes, if you're not done by then then you leave it and go look after the rest."

Evelyn didn't waist any time. She gently pulled Pola's pant leg up. "I won't need two minutes." She said as she scanned Pola's ankle with tricorder. "Wow, you broke your fibula and there is a fracture in your talus bone." She said shaking her head, as she went to the equipment locker. Grabbed a bone-knitting laser and walked back to Pola. Using her triangle to guide her, she used the knitter on Pola to repair the break in her fibula bone. Once she was done, she grabbed the osteo-regenerator and began working on the talus fracture. With a half of minute to spear, she turned the device off. Placing the equipment on a tray, and moved to wrap a bandage around Pola's ankle. "Don't you feel better?"

Rubbing a hand across her forehead, Pola smiled very slightly. "I'll feel better once this is all over...until then..I'll just just pushing forward." As soon as the bandage was tightened, Pola delicately moved down from the biobed and grabbed her support boot, carefully putting it back on.


Main Engineering

=^=Quinn to bridge. Let me give you a brief update, ma'am. Auxiliary power is up, and running full on, while were are still having to bleed some off of the batteries. I have a theory about a way to maybe get a subwarp burst, but I'll let you know more as I test it. Gravity is back, but it is not active in any of the labs, or holodecks. In fact, all labs are shutdown, and replicators are set to only dispense basic necessities. Maneuvering thrusters are operational, and one of the systems bleeding from the battery. So if you use them, do so sparingly, please.=^= Quinn sighed, he had been in some tough spots before as an engineer, but this one could be one of the toughest.

Lirha's voice replied over the comm after a few short moments. "Acknowledged, Mister Quinn. We've just secured a ride to Vega Colony from a passing freighter, so I'll be taking the ship to orange alert in a moment in order to conserve all of our essential systems. I'll keep you updated. Bridge out."

All around main engineering, the alert strobes suddenly changed from red to a pulsing orange color, signifying the ship's transition to reduced power mode. All non-essential systems powered down, and Level 5 diagnostics began to commence on all primary systems. Weapons systems, transporters, replicators and primary shields all went offline, as well as shuttlebay systems and operations.


Bridge

As he stepped clear of the turbolift, the doors behind Holliday slammed shut at a much faster speed than normal, something which puzzled him for a moment until he saw the amber warning lights start to flicker throughout the ship. News of their power shortage had obviously reached Lirha and she had responded with the most efficient use of their limited resources.

Handing over the collection of medical devices to a nearby crewman to begin distributing to the injured Bridge crew, the XO headed back towards his chair to report into the Captain.

"Mr Quinn says we're in pretty bad shape...Engineering is stable for now, as is Sickbay. How are things up here?"

Glancing over her shoulder, Lirha took notice of her XO's return to the bridge, then turned her attention back towards her chair's console. "The entire ship has sustained heavy damage, the bridge is not much better off." she replied simply as she began entering a coded message into a secure and covert Starfleet subspace frequency. She finished after a short minute and transmitted, then continued to reply. "We have contacted a nearby freighter captain who has agreed to tow us to Vega Colony, the closest place for us to conduct repairs." she informed him. "For now, all we can do is wait."

As the conversation seemed to subside, Ens. Rhodes stepped over toward the Captain, "Sir?"

Lirha looked up at the taller tactical officer. "Yes, Mister Rhodes?"

Rhodes explained, "I am concerned about the . . .device in engineering. I would like your permission to set up a local sensor dampening field so that our . . rescuers may not know that it is present?"

She nodded slowly, pondering the suggestion for a moment before deciding that it was probably a wise precaution. Although the ship was running low on power, keeping Sienna safe and discreet was still the mission priority. "Yes, go ahead." she answered with a nod.

"Yes Sir." Rhodes responded. "I will get a team right on it." He turned smartly and walked back to the tactical console and entered the instructions to the security team for the task.


Twelve Minutes Later...

Galileo jolted slightly as the Antares Class freighter locked their rear tractor arrays onto the small Nova Class and began to tug her along. It had not taken the larger vessel long to arrive, and the captain had kept her word...at least, it seemed so. The comm channel chirped and Lirha promptly opened the channel from her console.

"Galileo, we have established a solid lock on your vessel and have adjusted our warp field to compensate. Prepare to go to warp. Things might be a bit...rough at first." she warned.

"Acknowledged, Nautica. We're standing by." Lirha replied, then opened a channel throughout her ship. "All hands, brace for warp speed." she said, giving her sufficient warning for some initial turbulence.

Ensign Rhodes watched as several crewmembers on the bridge, like himself, grab onto a console or support in anticipation of the transition to warp.

Life was returning to Kiri, still she was more of a wraith than a mortal. Shuffling away from the data that almost called to her she was able to uplink to the freighters rather basic sensor array. It was a basic thing, at least they could see somewhat now, she sort of had a purpose. The sway of warp speed knocked her forwards closer to the numbers, her terminal, seeing her own pale self reflected. Sleep was tempting her eyes drooped despite the force, almost falling over as the pressure gave way. Back to the numbers, back to work.

Quinn grabbed hold of a railing next to the Warp Core. "Hang-on boys, girls, and various asexual crew. May get a tad bit bumpy."

In space, the freighter's warp nacelles flared bright white, and the ship elongated and burst into low warp, dragging the Nova Class along behind her like a horse-drawn carriage. Lirha's body was violently jolted backwards into her chair, then snapped forward as a sustained velocity was established. Still, despite the adjustments the freighter captain had made, Galileo was still trembling rather hard under the added stress.

"Mister Amril," Lirha called out above the shaky noise, "can you adjust our inertial dampeners to compensate for this turbulence?" she asked.

"Of course, captain," came the vorta's reply. He massaged his neck with one hand from the whiplash he'd received and started searching for the proper controls. Though one would never know by looking at him, the inefficient (in his mind) controls Starfleet used frustrated him, as much as a vorta could be frustrated. It would take getting used to, he supposed.

To Lirha's pleasure, the ship's trembles and shimmies began to cease, and they finally established a comfortable mode of travel, one which would hopefully not lead to anymore injuries. With another quick glance at her console, she noted that it would only be a matter of hours until they arrived at the Vega system. For now, their troubles appeared to be solved, however the future was never certain. With her starship at the mercy of the civilian freighter, all she could do was wait...and hope for the best once they arrived at their destination.

[OFF]

--

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ens. Theron Rhodes
Security/Tactical
USS Galileo

Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quinn
Chief Engineer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Evelyn Coleman
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Andreus Kohl
Nurse
USS Galileo

Ensign Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Scarlet Blake
Counselor
USS Galileo

Amril
Vorta Defector
USS Galileo

MWO Lilou Peers
Asst. Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Rachel Hardaway
Lead Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Pola Ni Dhiunn

Anthony Hardaway
Lead Scientist
Project Sienna
NPC'd by Amril

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