Judgement – Into the soup
by Lieutenant Commander Jarred Wallace
Post Details
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The USS Phobos looked tiny in comparison to the monstrous Paulson Nebula, and out of place too. The Ninety seven year old ship was a relic from the days of Captain James T Kirk, and the legendary crew of the Enterprise. The Phobos herself was a design from a bygone era, but this ship was special, saved from the scrap heap by starfleet operations she was retro fitted with as much new technology as the ship could hold, loaded with the latest in shields, weaponry and shuttle craft. Her engines were comparable to that of the more modern Sovereign class, but this little ship had only one mission, Search and rescue.
Standing on the port side observation deck was a lone figure staring deeply into the grayish blue mass that was the nebula, he stood there alone, no one was nearby talking to him or even acknowledging him. As he scanned the massive nebula a massive static discharge skipped across the clouds like lightning.
An Andorian ensign walked up to the figure and spoke softly "We have the location you were looking for, the shuttle is being prepared as we speak."
The man simply nodded and resumed looking deep into the nebula, as if he was trying to understand the vary nature of the anomaly. He turned and followed the ensign through the corridors of the ship too the massive shuttle bay. Compared to the observation deck it was a hive of activity, engineers were going over every inch of the runabout ensuring that even the most violent of electrical discharges wouldn't impact the crafts operation.
Too his left other shuttle craft were loading with medical and engineering teams, but they would have to wait for the lone man, he now began his own inspection of the shuttle, much too the annoyance of the tellarite engineer who was supervising, finding only a minor flaw with the specialized static dissipation units that had been installed on the hull of the shuttle the figure looked up too the commanding officer of the Phobos and simply nodded.
The Captain of the Phobos had seen this ritual before by this man, he knew that there wasn't anyone in starfleet like him. But a mission like this didn't require just anyone, they had to be fearless and insane to take risks like this. Flying a runabout or shuttle into a dangerous nebula then taking a space walk to board the crippled ship while static electricity was jumping around like lightning, and more dangerous than being exposed to a solar flare, the captain walked over and spoke "You'll have enough time to figure out what needs to be done then start the evacuation, there's' only about a twenty minute window to get there before the next lightning front passes over them."
"If the ship is crippled in any way I'll attempt too evacuate the ship, if we can salvage the ship I'll try to move it away from the center of all of this electrical activity so we can get medical and engineering in to assist."
The captain nodded, "Good luck Lieutenant."
As he boarded the shuttle that sense of doom or some kind of danger came back again, this wasn't any ordinary rescue mission, it was a suicide mission in one sense. He'd done this before, but why was this time different he didn't know why. He did his normal pre-flight check, then looked ahead, "This is golden eye to flight control departure sequence under way."
As the runabout exited the shuttle bay he looked over to the space suit and the pack he had to carry, hopefully he could pull this stunt off on the first try they'd have to rescue him as well. As the front view became nothing more than a blue mass, he switched to auto pilot and proceeded to put on his space suit.
Looking down at his pack he saw a trusty side kick for this situation, the line-gun. The line-gun was another spur of the moment contraption, taking a shot gun from the armory they retrofitted it with a pod to hold three hundred meters of monofilament rope with a magnetic grapple. While effective the draw back was the need to be so close too the ship, hence the use of a shuttle or runabout.
As the minutes passed he drew closer too his destination he readied himself, for what could be one of the more dangerous events in his life. Minutes passed then he saw the Obreth class ship that had taken him away from his other duties, as he began his survey of the ship it was more that clear that they had been hit by the static discharges that had been going on. the hull was scarred and scored with clear signs of impacts, but there weren't any hull breaches, that was a positive sign.
He maneuvered the smaller ship into position 200 meters away from the airlock and came to a stop, matching his speed to the rate of drift the ship. He lifted the pack on to his back and then picked up the line gun, he activated the force field and depressurized the cabin, the click of the mag-lock was the only sound as the door opened.
The barrel of the line-gun was pointed at a spot just above the airlock, he slowed his breathing as he lined up the shot. Squeezing the trigger the compressed charged pushed the grapple quickly across the gap between the two ships and with a click the magnet engaged and lock onto the hull, then securing the line at the other end he locked a carabiner onto the and began the process of crossing between the two ships.
As he dangled from the metallic rope there was a dim flickering light inside the ship, the airlock was on emergency power so reaching into his pants pocket he produced a small handle with a flat disk attached, placing it on the airlock and twisting the door opened enough for a person to slide in, then after the door closed and the airlock began to pressurize.
The inner door opened to reveal a gold uniformed security officer, "What the hell?"
"Lieutenant Jarred Wallace, I'm here to assist in rescue operations."
"Good luck your stranded here with the rest of us now, our warp drive is totally useless and the impulse barely has enough to keep us from drifting too much, most of the engineers were killed or injured when we got hit by the static discharges."
Jarred looked at the security chief, "your kidding me? there's no one on board with an engineering rating above four?"
"No sir, but I'll escort you too the bridge to speak with the captain."
"Lead the way." Jarred said trying to hide his confusion.
As the turbo lift sped the three decks up too the bridge Jarred had the feeling that something had gone horribly wrong and now there needed to be a way to fix it. As it came to a stop on the bridge there was a sudden air of confusion and relief as Jarred stepped out of the turbo lift.
The security officer spoke, "This is Lieutenant Jarred Wallace from the search party."
"I'm Captain Leah Montoya, this is my first officer Commander T'ser."
"Captain, Commander" Jarred said acknowledging both women "I assume that you've been struck by the static discharges that have been occurring?"
"Yes lieutenant, the discharges blew out a plasma conduit in engineering injuring or killing most of the engineering staff." there was a pause "We have three technicians and an engineering mate left and they have been in sickbay for two days with burns and other injuries."
"So out of seventy crew roughly fifty five are left" Jarred paused trying to figure out how to get that many people out of this stellar gumbo and save his own bacon in the process. "First things first lets tow my runabout into your shuttle bay, then we'll start to make plans to escape, I've got a high energy burst transmitter and if I don't signal in the next thirty minutes the three ships circling the nebula are going to leave us for dead."
"After we signal your ship what next its obvious that one runabout isn't enough, and transporters don't work this deep inside the nebula so I'm assuming that your going to attempt something high risk." the First officer spoke.
"Exactly" Jarred said "We're going to try and move this ship as close to the edge of the nebula as possible and hopefully that will give the search party a chance to transport all of us off this ship."
"The next front of static discharges has started." A crewman reported.
The group looked on the main viewer as what looked like a tidal wave of lightning progressed toward them, in minutes the mass had covered the distance towards the ship then the unthinkable happened, The ship rocked violently, a console blew-up throwing chunks of debris everywhere, then another explosion two decks down rocked the ship as the power went off line, Jarred looked at a read out his runabout hadn't been hit yet, he sent a remote command for it to depart on a return course.
Hours later the starships Portland and Phobos found the runabout scared and damaged, and empty. They transmitted a report to both starfleet and deep space five that there efforts for the moment had failed and that now Lieutenant Wallace was among the missing.
End
Lt Jarred Wallace
CIO DS5
by Lieutenant Commander Jarred Wallace
Post Details
| Title | Into the soup | |
| Mission | Judgement | |
| Author(s) | Lieutenant Commander Jarred Wallace | |
| Posted | Tue Nov 30, 2010 @ 7:36pm | |
| Location | Paulson Nebula | |
| Timeline | 0312 hrs MD 35 |
The USS Phobos looked tiny in comparison to the monstrous Paulson Nebula, and out of place too. The Ninety seven year old ship was a relic from the days of Captain James T Kirk, and the legendary crew of the Enterprise. The Phobos herself was a design from a bygone era, but this ship was special, saved from the scrap heap by starfleet operations she was retro fitted with as much new technology as the ship could hold, loaded with the latest in shields, weaponry and shuttle craft. Her engines were comparable to that of the more modern Sovereign class, but this little ship had only one mission, Search and rescue.
Standing on the port side observation deck was a lone figure staring deeply into the grayish blue mass that was the nebula, he stood there alone, no one was nearby talking to him or even acknowledging him. As he scanned the massive nebula a massive static discharge skipped across the clouds like lightning.
An Andorian ensign walked up to the figure and spoke softly "We have the location you were looking for, the shuttle is being prepared as we speak."
The man simply nodded and resumed looking deep into the nebula, as if he was trying to understand the vary nature of the anomaly. He turned and followed the ensign through the corridors of the ship too the massive shuttle bay. Compared to the observation deck it was a hive of activity, engineers were going over every inch of the runabout ensuring that even the most violent of electrical discharges wouldn't impact the crafts operation.
Too his left other shuttle craft were loading with medical and engineering teams, but they would have to wait for the lone man, he now began his own inspection of the shuttle, much too the annoyance of the tellarite engineer who was supervising, finding only a minor flaw with the specialized static dissipation units that had been installed on the hull of the shuttle the figure looked up too the commanding officer of the Phobos and simply nodded.
The Captain of the Phobos had seen this ritual before by this man, he knew that there wasn't anyone in starfleet like him. But a mission like this didn't require just anyone, they had to be fearless and insane to take risks like this. Flying a runabout or shuttle into a dangerous nebula then taking a space walk to board the crippled ship while static electricity was jumping around like lightning, and more dangerous than being exposed to a solar flare, the captain walked over and spoke "You'll have enough time to figure out what needs to be done then start the evacuation, there's' only about a twenty minute window to get there before the next lightning front passes over them."
"If the ship is crippled in any way I'll attempt too evacuate the ship, if we can salvage the ship I'll try to move it away from the center of all of this electrical activity so we can get medical and engineering in to assist."
The captain nodded, "Good luck Lieutenant."
As he boarded the shuttle that sense of doom or some kind of danger came back again, this wasn't any ordinary rescue mission, it was a suicide mission in one sense. He'd done this before, but why was this time different he didn't know why. He did his normal pre-flight check, then looked ahead, "This is golden eye to flight control departure sequence under way."
As the runabout exited the shuttle bay he looked over to the space suit and the pack he had to carry, hopefully he could pull this stunt off on the first try they'd have to rescue him as well. As the front view became nothing more than a blue mass, he switched to auto pilot and proceeded to put on his space suit.
Looking down at his pack he saw a trusty side kick for this situation, the line-gun. The line-gun was another spur of the moment contraption, taking a shot gun from the armory they retrofitted it with a pod to hold three hundred meters of monofilament rope with a magnetic grapple. While effective the draw back was the need to be so close too the ship, hence the use of a shuttle or runabout.
As the minutes passed he drew closer too his destination he readied himself, for what could be one of the more dangerous events in his life. Minutes passed then he saw the Obreth class ship that had taken him away from his other duties, as he began his survey of the ship it was more that clear that they had been hit by the static discharges that had been going on. the hull was scarred and scored with clear signs of impacts, but there weren't any hull breaches, that was a positive sign.
He maneuvered the smaller ship into position 200 meters away from the airlock and came to a stop, matching his speed to the rate of drift the ship. He lifted the pack on to his back and then picked up the line gun, he activated the force field and depressurized the cabin, the click of the mag-lock was the only sound as the door opened.
The barrel of the line-gun was pointed at a spot just above the airlock, he slowed his breathing as he lined up the shot. Squeezing the trigger the compressed charged pushed the grapple quickly across the gap between the two ships and with a click the magnet engaged and lock onto the hull, then securing the line at the other end he locked a carabiner onto the and began the process of crossing between the two ships.
As he dangled from the metallic rope there was a dim flickering light inside the ship, the airlock was on emergency power so reaching into his pants pocket he produced a small handle with a flat disk attached, placing it on the airlock and twisting the door opened enough for a person to slide in, then after the door closed and the airlock began to pressurize.
The inner door opened to reveal a gold uniformed security officer, "What the hell?"
"Lieutenant Jarred Wallace, I'm here to assist in rescue operations."
"Good luck your stranded here with the rest of us now, our warp drive is totally useless and the impulse barely has enough to keep us from drifting too much, most of the engineers were killed or injured when we got hit by the static discharges."
Jarred looked at the security chief, "your kidding me? there's no one on board with an engineering rating above four?"
"No sir, but I'll escort you too the bridge to speak with the captain."
"Lead the way." Jarred said trying to hide his confusion.
As the turbo lift sped the three decks up too the bridge Jarred had the feeling that something had gone horribly wrong and now there needed to be a way to fix it. As it came to a stop on the bridge there was a sudden air of confusion and relief as Jarred stepped out of the turbo lift.
The security officer spoke, "This is Lieutenant Jarred Wallace from the search party."
"I'm Captain Leah Montoya, this is my first officer Commander T'ser."
"Captain, Commander" Jarred said acknowledging both women "I assume that you've been struck by the static discharges that have been occurring?"
"Yes lieutenant, the discharges blew out a plasma conduit in engineering injuring or killing most of the engineering staff." there was a pause "We have three technicians and an engineering mate left and they have been in sickbay for two days with burns and other injuries."
"So out of seventy crew roughly fifty five are left" Jarred paused trying to figure out how to get that many people out of this stellar gumbo and save his own bacon in the process. "First things first lets tow my runabout into your shuttle bay, then we'll start to make plans to escape, I've got a high energy burst transmitter and if I don't signal in the next thirty minutes the three ships circling the nebula are going to leave us for dead."
"After we signal your ship what next its obvious that one runabout isn't enough, and transporters don't work this deep inside the nebula so I'm assuming that your going to attempt something high risk." the First officer spoke.
"Exactly" Jarred said "We're going to try and move this ship as close to the edge of the nebula as possible and hopefully that will give the search party a chance to transport all of us off this ship."
"The next front of static discharges has started." A crewman reported.
The group looked on the main viewer as what looked like a tidal wave of lightning progressed toward them, in minutes the mass had covered the distance towards the ship then the unthinkable happened, The ship rocked violently, a console blew-up throwing chunks of debris everywhere, then another explosion two decks down rocked the ship as the power went off line, Jarred looked at a read out his runabout hadn't been hit yet, he sent a remote command for it to depart on a return course.
Hours later the starships Portland and Phobos found the runabout scared and damaged, and empty. They transmitted a report to both starfleet and deep space five that there efforts for the moment had failed and that now Lieutenant Wallace was among the missing.
End
Lt Jarred Wallace
CIO DS5