Bastion (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 06 Jun 2023 @ 5:43pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Commander Scarlet Blake & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Rafe Caradec & Ensign Amanda Turell & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Petty Officer 1st Class T'Lin & Petty Officer 2nd Class Donald Andrews & Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeysa Zeror
Edited on on 06 Jun 2023 @ 5:45pm

2,319 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Alcyone Sector, Cold Station 31
Timeline: MD 11, 0747 hrs

Previously, on Bastion (Part 1)...

Rafe looked out the shuttle window, wondering where the Galileo could be. In this region of space, with all the craziness going on, there was no telling. "No luck here, Vansen. We'll try to boost our long range sensors with auxiliary power and see if we don't get any blips. While we're getting out of this debris field, let's make sure everybody that needs medical care gets as much as we can offer. Caradec, out." Rafe was running on fumes, but then so was everyone else. "Computer," Rafe said, "set up an alert for the Galileo if it comes within sensor range as well as a proximity alert for any non-Federation ships within 1 parsec." The computer responded in the affirmative while Rafe started working on the comms to get a signal out.

Allyndra moved back toward the front to check on Darius. "Instead of both of us broadcasting, would it be possible to boost one of the shuttles signals by using the other shuttles power?"

"I'm game, Commander", said Rafe. "Caradec to the Livia, please transmit a message to the Galileo but send it directly to us at maximum gain along with any additional auxiliary power you have available. I'll boost it with our auxiliary power and at our maximum gain and hopefully that will be enough to get through."

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

USS Galileo-A, Somewhere in the nearby vicinity

Morgan was officially tired. Multiple days of minimal sleep was extracting its toll on her body and mind. No immediate relief appeared to be in sight; with the vessel's first and second officers both deployed on away teams, she'd run her crew management skills to the limit. The only officers who remained aboard the small Nova-class were Sylver at the conn and Wylde in sickbay. One had duties to pilot the starship while the other was dealing with the recent debacle in sickbay.

Rubbing the sensation of fatigue from her eyes, Tarin leaned forward and squinted at the boring view of non-moving stars through the bridge's main viewscreen. Then she looked down to her long fingers and started to inspect her nails to look for imperfections. Anything to take her mind off the thought of sleep.

Getting quite the tour of stations she was never trained to operate Jeysa sat at the Ops station with only a slight idea of what she was supposed to be doing. "Captain... I have something." She said as the ops console beeped an alert. "It's a transmission, very distorted, definitely a Starfleet comm signature though." Jeysa tapped at the panel checking how to run the transmission through a scrubber to attempt to clean it up.

A Starfleet comm signal? Tarin diverted her full attention to the operations alcove where the red-collared yeoman was stationed. She was up and out of her seat within a matter of seconds then quickly walked and stood behind Zeror to hover over her shoulder. "Boost power to our subspace transceivers and RF arrays." She pointed to one of audio waveforms being displayed on the console along with its intermittent signal strength. "Isolate that one and play the audio."

"Coming up now Sir." Jeysa said after taking a minute to do what Tarin had asked.

A garbled transmission finally sounded through the bridge's overhead speakers. "... alil--o....is --ivia......ready... ick..." The transmission continued, "Liv-- ...leo.....--ou...read--?" The distinctive female voice caught Tarin's ear after it finished replaying several consecutive times.

"That sounds like Commander Blake," commented Tarin with a subtle dose of enthusiasm in her normally-dry tone of voice. "T'Lin -- can you determine the transmission's location of origin?"

T'Lin ran through an analysis and then turned in her seat. "It is coming approximately in the direction of the station. There is some other energy I'm reading. It maybe why the signal is being interfered with."

So. It was coming from the away teams. Galileo had lost contact with them more than 24 hours ago when their scheduled rendezvous had been busted. The appearance of the Ferengi then the Klingons had forced the Nova-class away from her optimal position...and whatever had transpired aboard the cold station meant the away teams had likely experienced a similar, unpredicted change in plans as well.

Still standing tall next to the yeoman, Tarin plotted her next course of action. "Zeror, double-check and confirm this is an authentic Starfleet transmission. Chief Warrant Officer Sylver, plot us a course for best possible speed to our original rendezvous location. How long will it take us at low warp?"

"Checking now." Jeysa said. Slowly she tapped at the console checking the frequency matched the one the ship was using for that period, the transponder code of the sender matched the Livia or Virginia. Out of everything she was being asked to do communications was something she did have experience in. "All the signs show it as genuine Sir."

"It will take us about...30 minutes, Captain," Sylver said, frowning as he put in the coordinates. Could be less if they pushed, but somehow he doubted that Engineering would appreciate him asking for anything more than warp 2.

Morgan returned to her station at the center of the bridge then sat back down in the captain's chair. She thumbed her lip while weighing her options, which happened to be few. "T'Lin...you mentioned energy readings in the cold station's vicinity. Can you identify them? Find a way to boost our communications to achieve a clear signal?"

T'Lin tunred back to the console and ran through various scans. "If would appear to correspond to quantum torpedo and then a high energy spike as if a warp core exploding. There is quite a bit of matter anti-matter signature. I will see what I can do, but I'm not sure that it will be possible until some of the energy dies down. Also the nearest I can pinpoint is the reading is near the asteroid field in the vicinity."

"Helm, engage at best possible speed." Galileo's warp reactor was still not operating anywhere near standard efficiency. The battle damage sustained during the skirmish with the Ferengi cruiser had left the small Nova-class slow, inefficient and vulnerable. But there was no time to continue delaying for repairs. The away teams needed retrieval...and Tarin needed an update on the status of the cold station.

"Yes, Captain," Sylver said and took a deeper breath. He went for warp 1.5, a little under the threshold suggested by the systems. Because if you gave it all, you had nothing as a back up in case something was wrong.

The Galileo went into warp with the grace and elegance of a penguin...a stuttering start, before the stars around them stretched into the familiar streaks of light as the ship went to warp.

The thirty minutes time was actually more 28.6 minutes, but the ballpark had been close enough to satisfy the bridge crew. The additional time before rendezvous gave the various departments some time to act. Engineering could continue repairs and make sure that the warp core was not overtaxed by the speed, Medical could prep for any possibilities that the two shuttles they had sent into the asteroid field carried wounded crewmembers...and the rest of the ship tried to just get their duties together after what had seemed longer than some days of trials and tribulations.

"Captain, approaching the coordinates," Sylver said, at the 28th minute, getting ready to drop out of warp. The moment the Galileo dropped out, the viewscreen filled...with the two shuttles that they had sent out, the Livia and the Virginia.

Caradec saw the familiar blip on the nav screen and looked up. He couldn't have seen a more beautiful sight! Finally, the Galileo was in view. All he could think of was rest! A good seven days of uninterrupted sleep would be great, he thought. But before that, he would make sure those that were injured would be attended to.

Blake gripped the console as she half stood from her seat, peering out at the welcomed sight of the Galileo. She had feared they'd need to find somewhere to put down until they could be rescued. And after the last mission where that had been extremely touch and go, she had not been eager to give the order. "Galileo, this is Livia, we have several injuries here and I'd recommend all team members be beamed in for quarantine and examination."

A brief moment of silence ensued within the Nova-class' command center before official communications transmitted from the shuttles' mothership. Tarin's voice sounded as prominent as ever and was serenaded with subtle relief. "Livia and Virginia, Galileo acknowledges. Good to have you back. You're cleared for the primary shuttlebay. Establish position 100 meters aft for auto-docking. The medical team is on its way."

The transmission to the shuttles ceased and Tarin quickly slapped the commbadge on her breast. "Bridge to sickbay, we've rendezvoused with both shuttles. Commander Blake reports several injuries and is requesting quarantine protocols. They'll be docking momentarily."

"We'll use Cargo Bay 3, on my way..." it was Alexion Wylde who answered from Sickbay. He called in his already exhausted team, not yet recovered from the night of the blades. "Anything else that would like to go wrong and cross my desk today?" he muttered as he started to work the computer console to prepare the cargo bay to receive their away teams in a secure quarantine and medical zone, beaming in the equipment they needed.

The appearance of the Galileo was a relief. Allyndra put a hand on Caradec. "Good job, lieutenant. It looks like we got through. Take us in, I have wounded to attend to." She turned her attention to Darius. "Darius come on, back to the biobed."

Groggily opening his eyes, the red-collared chief warrant officer grunted a simple acknowledgement. He felt like hell and his body really didn't want to move. But orders were orders. He reached out with a weak hand and grasped the doctor's shoulder for support, then followed her instructions and moved to the back of the shuttle to lay down and rest.

Donald smiled when he saw the Galileo appear, that smiled quickly faded when he saw what condition the ship was in. It didn't take an engineer to notice the ship had been in some sort of a battle and that meant no rest for him soon as he was out of this quarantine he'd be fixing the ship.

Sat down in the back of the shuttle Amanda was barely awake, the pain hypo had mostly warn off and she was tired from the exertion of the day but she was alive and for that she was happy.

Rafe received instructions to remain aft at 100 meters and the tractor beam would pull the shuttles in. "Understood, Rafe out." Rafe called to Blake. "Rafe to Commander Blake. Due to what happened over there I recommend we download any data collected to a protected environment, separated from the ship's main computer to ensure Galileo's protection."

"Do it," Blake agreed with a firm nod, even if he couldn't see it. At the very least, it would mean that they had come back with something after everything they had gone through.

Rafe did as ordered. He transmitted the data via an encrypted data stream to the isolated server, purged the shuttle's memory logs, and shut the power down.

Transporters were far from Jeysa's forte so she quickly relayed Tarin's orders down to the whoever was operating one of the transporters. "Standby for transport." She announced to both shuttle teams.

The cargo bay felt like home after the past experience as Allyndra and the rest materialized in the space. "We need emergency transport for one member to sickbay with full quarantine in place, right now!" She called out. She was worried about Darius. They all could use help, but her assessment is that he was the most critical.

Alexion nodded firmly in acknowledgment, already moving over to the computer to set up the quarantine and activate the EMH there. "Wylde to Sickbay, I am beaming over Darius, he will need to stay in quarantine while you see to him. Let us know if his condition worsens or you need assistance," he instructed the EMH before putting the call in for the beam out, watching as Darius disappeared from the group.

Blake let out a long, tired breath, sitting down awkwardly, grimacing with the ache in her cold, bloodstained body. She settled against the wall in the corner, her knees drawn up as she rubbed her forehead with the side of her hand. She knew it could have been worse. They'd made it back. They'd even found survivors, but not enough. But she just couldn't shake the unsettled feeling that washed over her.

[OFF]

--

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

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

LTJG Rafe Caradec
Conn Officer
Cold Station 31

Cmdr. Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second Officer and Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

Ensign Amanda Turell
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

PO2 Donald Andrews
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

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

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

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

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

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