Adapt and Overcome

Posted on 03 Feb 2023 @ 7:17pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Ensign Mimi & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Chief Petty Officer Afthinam Naime & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Petty Officer 1st Class T'Lin & Petty Officer 1st Class Ember Locksley & Petty Officer 2nd Class Leon Inaros & Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeysa Zeror & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday & Petty Officer 3rd Class Helliun 'Hel' Inant & Petty Officer 3rd Class Raine Ni-ya & Lily Blake & Laeon Wylde & Verity Thorne & Nesh Saalm & Petty Officer 2nd Class Amul

4,613 words; about a 23 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: USS Galileo-A - Various Decks
Timeline: MD 10, 1510 hrs

Previously, on Praxis (Part 2)...

KehG glanced to his left then his right, observing the subtle yet visible reactions of scorn from his officers. He looked back to Rice and her commander. "We are honored to accept you invitation." He smiled again from his mouth, his narrowed eyes subtly contradicting his pleasantries. "Prepare for our arrival in six hours. Qapla'!" The entrance to the war chamber hissed open and two guards entered to escort the Federation cadre back to the transporter room.

"Qapla'," Aria echoed, because that was one clean word she knew of Klingon. Since Aria's vocabulary of Klingon was limited to swear words and insults, she had decided against saying anything. Because of universal translators, languages were sort of a lost skill. She walked out with the Klingon guards, with Tarin and Mimi with her. She glanced at Mimi, taking a deeper breath before she glanced at Tarin. It was going to be a long six hours.

"That went better than I expected." Mimi said after a breath of relief, glad that all of them had made it out of the negotiations with all of their body parts and their prides intact. "Though I would like to be excused from anything more to do with these Klingons."

Aria glanced at her, taking a deeper breath. "It isn't my call anymore," she said, her voice soft. "I understand your position though. If we can avoid it, I see no issue with it. You have a ship to make sure is up and running properly again, so those duties may see you...too busy to entertain." She glanced over at Tarin as they went up on the transporter pad, before looking ahead. "No matter what, it is going to be interesting."

Overhearing the conversation between Mimi and Rice, Tarin spoke curtly in reply as she took her place within the beaming chamber. "You're not excused, ensign. None of us are." The Klingon transporter operator paused for only a fraction of a second to ensure the Starfleet officers were in their proper places before initiating the transport sequence. Crimson transporter beams dematerialized the team back to Galileo. The respite was welcome yet only a delay in the inevitable diplomatic encounter with Captain KehG and his crew.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Within Galileo's primary transporter room, three blue and white transporter beams materialized then shimmered away, depositing Tarin, Rice and Mimi back aboard their starship. At the transporter console was Petty Officer Goldie Brown who quickly tapped her commbadge. "All our people are back on board," she relayed to the bridge before nodding to the officers. "Welcome back, sirs."

"Thanks Brown," Aria gave a small nod, taking a deeper breath. She looked at Tarin, meeting her eyes. "With your permission, Captain, can I suggest we go back to the bridge and make sure arrangements are made for our Klingon visitors? I gave the orders to get the warp core repairs started before we beamed over, so we should be able to get a status update on that. I'll also get you the crew status, I suspect sickbay is a rather busy place at the moment."

"I'll meet you there. You have," Tarin gestured to Rice's disheveled appearance which wasn't much better than her own or Mimi's, "Ferengi blood all over you. Get to the shower and get a fresh uniform first." Her hazel eyes turned to the Nekomi. "You too, ensign. Make it quick. Both of you."

"Aye Sir." Mimi replied after letting out a pleasant sigh at being back on the Galileo. She certainly didn't have any Ferengi blood on her, a little of her own maybe from the Ferengi's nails scratching her face but a quick freshen up, a quick brush of the fur and a snack would certainly feel good.

"Yes Captain," Aria said, letting out a breath. She headed off at once, after all she was dirty, sweaty and bloody. A quick shower, a change of clothes and a moment of silence might be just what she needed.


Sickbay, Deck 3

The fighting stopping hadn't slowed things down in sickbay, rather it had allowed those with injuries to make their way to sickbay. Both Ferengi and the Galileo crewmembers in need of medical assistance were welcome, although there were still a couple of Klingons around just to make sure that the Ferengi did not get any clever ideas.

Sylver gave a small grimace as he sat, his eyes going over to Verity. The world was still somewhat blurry, but the hypo had dampened the pain and sickness, although he was still sleepy. He blinked, realising that Locksley had said something. "Sorry, doctor...I..." he looked at her, eyes somewhat narrowed. "I was miles away."

"As I suspected," Doctor Locksley shook her head with concern, loading another hypo to press to his neck. "This should help with the concussion, but you can't fly yet," she said firmly, shaking her head as she met his eyes, to make sure he understood she wasn't being casual with that instruction. "You can recover in your quarters, but you come back here if you start feeling worse."

He nodded, slowly, before he looked down. "I'll head there now, Doc...get out of your hair," he said, pushing himself up to stand. He looked around, a bit lost for a moment before he took a deeper breath and straightened. "How long until I can be back on the helm?"

"Not today," Ember replied lightly, lifting her hand to catch Verity's eye. She'd noticed the looks Sylver had been passing his way. "Chaplain, if you could accompany Humpty Dumpty here back to his quarters please?" she asked casually, clearing up the trolley. "But get back as soon as you can."

Sylver nodded, looking over at Verity with a small smile. He moved to his side, taking a deeper breath. "I'm okay," he promised, quietly, before giving a weak shrug. He was alive. He was in one piece.

"You didn't look very okay," Thorne whispered with worry, his arm around him as he led him out, trying to take some of his weight for him. His heart may have stopped for a moment or two when he'd seen him come in.

"Well not sure about the rest, but we damn well need to get this tub fixed. Now pump me with a shot, but I need to get to fixin' what the captain just broke!" John was shouting and trying to head for the door.

Nurse Inaros intercepted him, taking a firm grip on his arm. "You need to sit down and be examined," he repeated, meeting his eyes as he guided him back to the bio bed. "We have a system here. Doctors let you know when you can go, not you. Stay put, the ship's no longer under fire, I don't hear an evacuation order...in other words, we're fine for now."

"Your not going to have a ship to have anyone examined in. Trust me! We are so short-staffed in engineering. Please, once we get out of this you can confine me here. Just give me a little something to handle the pain." John pleaded but was dead serious at the same time.

"No," Leon's voice was firm as he looked at him, holding his eyes. "That is a hard negative. You are not in a position to help anyone right now. Sit tight, or else I will sedate you until the Doctor can look you over."

"Fine, but hurry the hell up or you will have way more people dead or dying if we take another hit. Things are in bad shape and we are short on nut busters."

"John Hollenday," Doctor Wylde moved over, his eyes on the man's readouts as he stopped close, starting to load a hypospray for him. "I do not go down to your engineering and start making a lot of noise and commotion in there while you are trying to work, and I do not expect you to do the same in my Sickbay," he said sharply, pressing the hypo to his neck. Alexion had a bad bedside manner on a good day...and this was not a good day. His expression made it clear that he'd had just about enough of everyone's nonsense and wasn't going to take prisoners. "Last I checked, you are a member of Starfleet, so you need to follow the rules, no matter how dull we might find them," he was running his tricorder over him to get a more detailed diagnosis.

"Just a bit of burn from a Ferengi whip. All right so what you need to do, but if you can patch me up, I really need to get to engineering doc."

"Deal," Wylde nodded firmly, snapping the tricorder shut and carefully peeling fabric away from the burn. He started to repair the damaged tissue, glancing to him with a slight frown. "So how bad is the ship this time?" he asked quietly.


Main Engineering, Deck 7

"Piece of space trash...sorry, didn't mean you, you beautiful queen you..."

The mutterings came from Inant were, to say the least, a gentle mixture of lovely words and harsh swearing as she was sat on the deck, a panel open and various bits and pieces around her. Getting the warp core back online was proving to be a difficult challenge, especially with the lack of personnel. Petty Officer Lucrete was in a similar position, although currently hanging securely on a harness at the back of the warp core, back to the containment field, changing circuitry.

The doors to engineering had barley hissed open before Naime's voice, authoritative but also clearly concerned, was calling out ahead of her "A report please! What's going on with our warp core?" The chief burst in, she'd been in a rush to get back from from dropping John off and though some of her concerns faded upon seeing Inant at work they instantly came back as she started to understand the scope of what had gone wrong.

"You know our anti-matter flow converter, Boss?" Hel poked her head up, meeting her eyes. "It's decided it doesn't want to play anymore. We need to replace some parts, would really be brilliant with more hands."

The chief closed her eyes in an attempt to hold back exasperation. "We did warn them." She allowed herself just a tiny moment of frustration with the higher ups before her brain turned to the task at hand. "Okay, flow converter, we've had to repair worse... It could be worse." It couldn't actually be all that much worse but Naime pushed that thought from her head and she began her own inspection of the damage to the converter.

The chamber in which the converter was normally held had clearly been damaged. A long crack on the side casing of the converter itself showed the intense stresses it must have been put under when the starboard nacelle had failed. This shouldn't in and of itself have caused so much damage and as the chief's eyes glanced over the rows of ruptured cables she speculated as to the real culprits. "The casing is ruptured and there's going to be more shearing throughout the anti-matter flow network." she called out to no one in particular "Now isn't the time for a full repair, right now it would be nice just to be able to limp." Naime pulled back from the chamber to allow Inant back, not really room enough for a pair "You've got this Hel, make the flow thing flow again. I need to check on the antiproton injectors."

Hel chuckled as she looked at her, taking her kit. "As long as you don't fail an inspection on me for this, I'll make sure she can get us moving. We fix it pretty once we're in a better place." She crawled in, letting out a soft breath. It was not going to be pretty, but she could do it. Besides. Half the stuff here was just redundancies, that were now useless. So she might as well plug things in more directly. It was also safe, just not the Starfleet way.

"Love ya Hel!" Naime called back as she jumped up to the reaction chamber. The chief chuckled to herself as she took off the inspection panel and gently laid it down next to her. They might be moving again soon but that would just be the beginning of the mess down here.


Security Office, Deck 3

At times, the Galileo attempted to beat records of amount of people in the brig. With the current situation of Ferengi, it would appear to outsiders that they were trying to break their personal best. It wasn't quite standing room only behind the forcefields, but it was still early.

The Klingon warrior looked over at the Security officer, a human male, before back at the forcefield. "Would be easier to put them out of the airlock," she said, the first word she had said since she had arrived with three Ferengi squirming in her grasp. "Also, less blood to clean up after." She spoke Standard, not relying on the universal translator. Although heavily accented, her words were clear, and she looked back over at the Ferengi. "A Klingon Captain would not keep them alive."

"I mean, there's pros and cons..." Gabriel Stark was stood behind the panel, finishing up with processing the new arrivals. He looked...a mess, quite frankly. It was clear he'd been in a fight and a half. "I should imagine that would mean a lot...less...noise...!" the second half of the sentence became a shout directed at the prisoners, to try and get them to shut up.

She smiled, her eyes lingering on Gabriel for a moment before she moved to the forcefield, sneering at the prisoner. "Praise the Starfleet Mercy, that sees you still drawing breath. Silence!" she bellowed the last word, looking over at Gabriel before walking away from it, to the desk. She gave a small shrug, her dark eyes studying the human. "What? It looked fun to shout words at them."

Stark made a play at rubbing his ear as if it were ringing, but he was chuckling softly with it. "We could do with you when we have to clear the bar..." he lifted his eyebrows, stretching out carefully. "How did your ship fare?"

For a moment, the Klingon almost looked thoughtful before she smiled, slowly, a wicked grin. "She will have battle scars. Suits a warrior like her," she looked Gabriel dead in the eye, before she took a slow and deep breath. "But there will be a few empty beds tonight and new warriors arriving in Sto'Vo'Kor." She paused, considering something for a moment. "What is your name, Starfleet?"


Mess Hall, Deck 2

The amount of pots and pans around was, to say the least, staggering. And currently, a lot of them were on the ground, scattered remains of a battle. Nesh Saalm grimaced as she knelt, picking up slowly, glancing over at where Laeon and Lily were. Now that the excitement was over, she found herself in the familiar post we are all going to die routine of the USS Galileo-A; cleaning up the mess. She stood, carrying the pots back to dump them for cleaning. She suddenly laughed, looking at Lily. "Look at the mashed potato on the window!" she said, pointing at the smear of fluffy beige with specks of herbs just sploshed across the window, with the stars in the background like little lights of warmth.

Lily wrinkled her nose in a laugh, running over with her cloth to take a look. So long as she was given something to do, she was mostly distracted. "Looks like Christmas decsorations..." she made a good go at trying to clean it off...and achieved little more than smearing it more fully across the panel.

"Lily, that is an amazing way of looking at it!" Nesh declared, already moving to get a cloth and help Lily clean it. "And I suppose it's just as well we didn't...put too much effort in this meal. Seeing as it is all over the floor, if you know..."

Laeon watched them for a long moment as he threw the leg of a broken chair into the scrap pile. He regarded Nesh with awe. She was so...chipper. Despite what had just happened. How did she do it? Perhaps it was an Orion thing. Or a woman thing.

Nesh hummed as she cleaned, glancing over at Laeon before winking. She took her time though, to do it properly. "Would be hilarious if we had our inspection now," she suddenly said. "Not sure if sauce on the deck is considered a court martial offence..."

"Can you court martial a chef?" he asked with a weak smile, trying to make it reach his eyes as he tossed a broken tray to trash.


Bridge, Deck 1

The turn of events had led T'Lin to sit in the Captain's Chair, with a rather grumpy looking Cereijan sitting at the Helm, and the yeoman stuck at the Science console. The report showed that Commander Tarin, Lieutenant Rice and Ensign Mimi had beamed back over from the Praxis. It also showed that repairs were slowly underway.

"The transporter room reports that the away team has returned, Commander Tarin is with them, Sir." Jeysa reported from the science console, she was happy that Tarin had returned presumably intact and healthy.

T'Lin just observed the rest of bridge at the moment. This was highly irregular but she had been given an order and would follow through.

"Status" she made the call to the bridge crew. "Do we have engines and shields yet?"

"The warp core is still offline," Petty Officer Amul reported, he'd been called to the bridge to take over the ops station after Ensign Mimi had left. "Impulse engines are functional but almost all their power is keeping all our other systems online. Shields are.... 10% at best." It was going to take a good deal of time before the ship was fully functional again.

T'Lin thought about the information. Things would be dicey if the Klingons decided to just take both ships. "Where is the nearest large asteroid? Gently very gently nudge us in that direction as though we are drifting. Hopefully the Klingons won't notice too much and if they do, we will just say we are having trouble."

The turbolift entrance at the aft of the Nova-class' bridge hissed open and provided an audible cognizance of a new arrival. Commander Morgan Tarin, in all her disheveled glory, stepped into the ship's command center in a similar state to that which she left. Her loose, dark brown hair contained many stray locks which seemed to have become sentient. The dried sweat and speckles of blood on her face complimented the look nicely, yet couldn't quite compare to the state of her torn red-collared uniform. Half of the chest fabric on her left side had been torn away and revealed the pale skin surrounding her shoulder and clavicle. A circular, tender pink scar was visible and denoted the location where she'd been struck by the Ferengi disruptor pulse. Her hazel eyes displayed rare and subtle dark circles beneath them, possibly related to fatigue. It was a good time for a long bath and an early evening if she wasn't in command of a starship. "Casualty report and repair status," she asked, walking to the center of the bridge and observing the various crew members at their stations.

"Captain on the bridge." Jeysa called out as she saw Tarin walk out of the turbolift door, she looked up at the woman as she passed glad that she looked more or less alright; though she definitely teetered on the verge of 'less'.

T'Lin swiveled in the command chair and then stood hastily. "Captain." Her voice was still cool and calm compared to earlier. "I have not received injury reports. Repairs are underway but hampered by injured personnel. Currently warp is offline, impulse is nominal but shields are approximately at ten percent. I have ordered that we do a slow drift toward the largest asteroid, ma'am."

Tarin exhaled a fatigued breath then absentmindedly rubbed the side of her neck. The science officer's report was a lot to process. Galileo was still in one piece and the crew appeared vigilant, yet the ship was still in a compromised state. In addition, the pending arrival of the Klingon diplomatic delegation and the cold station rescue mission lingered in the back of her thoughts. "I appreciate your diligence," she replied to T'Lin with a nod, then spoke to the scaled Cereijan at the conn. "Establish standard formation alongside the Klingon warship." She glanced back to the Vulcan then to the Trill yeoman. "Has there been any communication from our away teams? Or the cold station?"

Raine moved her hands on the controls, smiling to herself. "Moving into standard formation," she said, not used to being at this side of ship's life...she had never set foot on this bridge before today, but Starfleet made their ships easy to handle.

"Captain, there has been no contact. Considering the current situation I thought it prudent not to even attempt to make a contact either. We are in a precarious position at the moment. That being said, ma'am, with your permission I shall return to a science station unless you have other orders."

"Yes, you're relieved," ordered Tarin with little outward emotion aside from a curt nod of approval. She appreciated the Vulcan's execution of her duty while she'd been indisposed, but now she was back in command...in non-ideal circumstances. "Petty officer, have you been maintaining the ship's log since the attack?"

"As best I could Sir." Jeysa replied as she got up to let T'Lin take over at the science station. "There will be a small gap during the Ferengi's boarding attempt." She added with a gentle tap of the holstered phaser at her hip.

Tarin acknowledged the yeoman's report with subdued and fatigued approval. "Understood." Galileo's crew had performed to the best of their ability during the combat action and she held no misgivings against any of them. The entire ship's compliment did what was needed without hesitation. She was...proud of them. "Get to main engineering and give Chief Naime another set of hands."

Jeysa blinked several times in clear surprise, she certainly was not expecting that sort of order from Tarin. "Aye Sir." she eventually said before heading for the turbolift hoping she could remember any of her basic engineering training.

T'Lin glanced back. It seemed a highly unusual move but so did putting a petty officer in charge of the ship. She turned back to the panel awaiting any further orders.

Freshened up (though she could still smell the scent of Klingon on her) and filled up on snacks Mimi came back up to the bridge, she headed straight for the ops console. "I will take over Petty officer," she told Amul. "Get a quick break then help with the repairs."

"Aye Sir." Amul replied, he stood up and headed for the turbolift, despite the situation he'd enjoyed his time on the bridge and wondered if he'd get the chance again."

T'Lin continued to monitor the position of the three ships. She didn't trust either the Ferengi or the Klingons.

Aria Rice had washed and changed to a new uniform, so looked the part of a Starfleet officer again. She let out a breath as she stepped out of the turbolift, looking around on the bridge. Mimi was there already, but Aria pushed aside that sinking feeling that it was a bad thing to be the last one there. "Captain," she said, giving Tarin a small nod.

"Rice. Mimi." The commander's acknowledgement was recognizably curt. "I just sent Petty Officer Zeror down to engineering to assist with repairs." She wiped her forehead with the back of her grimy hand. "In the meantime, we need to prepare the ship for our evening guests. That means bloodwine and gagh...at a minimum." She looked closer at the freshly-washed and well-presented acting XO. "Can you and the ensign organize the arrangements?"

Aria glanced at Mimi, knowing full well the Ensign would have massive issues with the task. But she also knew Mimi was a professional really, so she wouldn't let that show easily. "Yes, Captain," she said, giving a nod. "We'll start the arrangements straight away." And maybe, if she was lucky, she could tuck Mimi away somewhere during this so that the woman didn't have to deal too much with the Klingons. Situational dependencies on that one, but she could reassess as needed.

Slowly and methodically, Tarin approached Rice. An unorthodox idea had suddenly presented itself, one of which its viability she was unsure. But looking around at the state of the small Nova-class and its limited resources, it was worth asking. "We have a lot of confiscated alcohol in the mess hall, if I recall," she started in a low voice to the lieutenant. "Can we...somehow refine it into bloodwine? Or some form of approximation? We need to conserve our replicator resources right now and prioritize them for system repairs."

"It could be worth a try," Aria said, after a moment. "It may have to be a bit by the seat of our pants, not sure if the database has a recipe for converting types. But I will ask Nesh Saalm, she might have some idea." And if not, at least Nesh knew what bloodwine tasted like.

The answer Tarin received was as good as she could expect under the circumstances. "Make it so. If this sector of space has taught me anything, it's that we need to improvise and adapt in order to overcome." She looked to the Nekomi ensign then back to Rice. "Get to it, on the double. We only have..." she glanced to the chronometer on a nearby console, "five hours before the Klingons arrive."

[OFF]

--

CMDR Morgan Tarin
Acting Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

LT Aria Rice
Acting First Officer
USS Galileo-A

ENS Mimi
Deputy Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

PO2 Goldie Brown
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A
[NPC Saalm]

CWO2 Oliver Sylver
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

PO1 Ember Locksley
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CIV Verity Thorne
Chaplain
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CWO3 Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

PO2 Leon Inaros
Nurse
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

PO3 Helliun Inant
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

CPO Afthinam Naime
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Ullswater]

PO1 Gabriel Stark
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CIV Nesh Saalm
Sous Chef
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

CIV Lily Blake
Child
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CIV Laeon Wylde
Child
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

PO1 T'Lin
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

PO3 Jeysa Zeror
Yeoman
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

PO3 Raine Ni-ya
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

PO2 Amil
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A
[NPC Shared]

PO3 John Hollenday
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

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