Post by Timothy Rouse on Feb 10, 2015 20:46:26 GMT
Reflections...
En route to the USS Portland
Authors: Ensign Sera Williams, Lt JG Amata Zan, Ensign Jeromy Grossnick (written by Jason Beauvoir), Ensign Nikki Barclay (written by Alenis Meru) and Captain Andrew Rouse, (written by Timothy Rouse)
"So, Sera, did you have any pets growing up?" Sitting in the right seat of the shuttle during her turn as co-pilot on a long and boring journey, Ensign Nikki Barclay tried to pass the time by twiddling her thumbs, counting stars, and fidgeting with a loose fitting on her control panel. But, unable to nap and with no better way to pass the time and keep herself awake with talking, she decided a little chatter with Sera, seated next to her in the pilot's seat, wouldn't hurt.
Sera took her eyes off the pilot's console and looked at Nikki to reply, "We had a cat named Freckles. We joked that her rent was paid by keeping the rodents and birds away from dad's garden." Sera had spent a little time with Nikki during their layover at DS9 and had begun the beginnings of a friendship, at least Sera hoped. "What about you?"
"That's nice. I had a dog growing up, his name was--"
WHAM!
Nikki's causal conversation was interrupted by a loud slamming sound and the shuttle being thrown about violently, too sudden for the inertial dampeners to fully compensate. As she put on her seat belt, she saw her console light up like a Christmas tree. A mostly red Christmas tree. "What just happened!" she exclaimed as the shuttle spiraled out of control.
Sera rushed to regain control of the hurtling shuttlecraft. "Inertial dampeners are struggling to compensate and hull integrity is critical." With her hands flying across the console, Sera added, "Compensating...."
"No good," exclaimed Nikki. "We've snagged some kind of subspace vacuole, it's going to tear the ship apart!"
"We have 30 seconds until the hull buckles, taking inertial dampeners offline, rerouting power to hull integrity." replied Sera mainly to herself.
With Sera unable to free the ship from the vacuole, Nikki decided to try something risky. "If we can't free ourselves we'll have to go through the vacuole," said Nikki, seemingly in slow-motion. "Sera, cut power to engines." Nikki's fingers danced across the control panel. "If I reverse the polarity of the shields at just the right moment, we should be able to weather this without too much damage."
Sera nodded and replied, "Right, we should bounce off... or rip a hole through space." Sera cut the power to the engines and let the shuttle drift towards the vacuole. "I am rerouting engine power to the shields." Here goes nothing. If we make it out of this, I'll have to send my thanks to the builders at whichever shipyard this came from." she added while mentally crossing her fingers.
The shuttle shuddered violently as it was pulled into the vacuole, and Nikki could hear the creaking of structural elements being stressed almost to their breaking point. Whether it was just adrenaline or some sort of relativistic effects, time seemed to slow to a crawl for her. When they were about to hit the event horizon of the vacuole, she closed her eyes and reached for the button to reverse the polarity.
Sera took a look out the viewscreen, and smiled. Nothing but empty black space. "Well, well, it looks like I have some thank you letters to write. Nikki, can you see if you can find the Portland while I run a diagnostic on the systems to check for damage? I'd hate to be late for my first assignment." The last comment was filled with a bit of embarrassment. If her fellow Delta Squad members could only see her now, Sera thought. A Rigel Cup winner almost destroying her shuttle on the way to her first real assignment. She could have kicked herself.
“So are we dead now?” asked a dry-toned voice from the aft cabin, coming from Amata as he struggled to the front of the shuttle, duty jacket missing and sleep in his eyes. He moved to an auxiliary display on the wall and started flipping through the ship’s data, sparing only a moment for in-progress diagnostic and instead focused on the sensor readings, understanding only one thing fully, they’d had contact with some sort of anomaly. Being about twenty years from his last astronomy lesson, the readings were far beyond his scientific literacy.
“Kosst,” he muttered in response to the situation, before turning back to the aft cabin and shouting, “Hey, star scientist, get up here if you’re conscience, sh’Kor too.” Grossnick would have a better understanding of what was going on than the three of them, and the Andorian was technically the ranking officer aboard. He turned back to the front of the space craft, basically next to the engineers, “Did you two do something to the shields? The anomaly’s giving off some kind of sensor echo effect and it's clinging to them.”
Jeromy, a little unsettled from the 'turbulence', got up from his seat and moved carefully forward. Approaching Lieutenant Amata he asked. "How can I be of assistance, sir?"
Sera, who had not really been listening and was only vaguely aware of the voices behind her, turned and said, "Well, the good news is that we aren't going to explode. The bad news is that I can't seem to find the Portland on my scanners. We are close enough to the rendezvous point that we should be seeing them... only we can't."
"That is strange, sensors are operating within normal param--" Nikki was interrupted by a large energy reading suddenly appearing at very close range. "Something's right on top of us, it's--"
She looked up out the windshield of the shuttle just in time to see the shimmering of a decloaking vessel at very close range. With a saucer section attached directly to the old warp nacelles, and clean lines which betrayed its age and the era in which it was designed, there was no mistaking this ship.
"That's strange," mused Nikki. "I didn't know that the Portland had a cloaking device."
"Grossnick, I need you on these scanners," ordered Amata, finally responding the Ensign's nearly forgotten arrival, a decloaking ship somewhat stealing his thunder. The lieutenant moved back from the panel, giving the other officer room to work, take a look at our shield readings and tell me if their are any concerns, and tell me anything you can 'bout the 'nomoly." Though he had no clue as to the teal trimmed human's scientific specialty, he knew that the PhD would serve better at the station than himself.
Moving to stand behind to two co-pilot chairs, Amata could clearly see the now decloaked Miranda floating just ahead of the shuttle, unfortunately he could not clearly make out the Federation markings, standard being hard for him to read at his current angle, "All 9th Fleet vessels have one, but most Captain's don't cruise 'round cloaked, something might be up," after a few seconds he stopped musing."
"Ping their transponder to identify and then hail them, tell them what happened and advise them that we may need medical attention," He didn't like that sh'Kor and Carlisle had yet to respond, but couldn't check on them until the situation was green.
Sera nodded her head, then pinged the ships transponders. "Nikki, can you verify the sensor readings? This can't be right. The transponder is pinging back the ISS Portland?" Sera asked the woman to her side, emphasizing the letter "I" where a "U" should have been.
"Hmmmm, that's strange," said Nikki, "Opening hailing--"
She was interrupted by a bump as the Portland engaged its tractor beams, enveloping the shuttle in blue energy. "Maybe they're just guiding us into the shuttlebay," mused Nikki. But something just didn't feel right, she thought as she linked the center screen to the hailing frequencies. "Hailing frequencies open. Portland, this is the shuttle Kasai-4. We hit some kind of anomaly, and need medical attention--"
Again she was interrupted as a picture of the Portland's bridge appeared on screen. But even it was unusual for it was darker than usual for a Miranda-class bridge. And the captain's uniform was all wrong.
"Identify yourself" Tim barked at the people that stared at him through the view screen. His officers had already told him that the shuttle wasn't to be trusted and judging from the people in the shuttle and the shuttles appearance he just knew this to be another ploy of the opposition. "And don't give me the bullshit you've been ordered to tell. We all know that too be a lie." He sliced his fingers through his pitch black hair. "There is no way to go. You'll be in the brig where you belong in no time. This is your one and only chance to save your sorry asses by telling who your working for? Who it is that send you to us."
As the pilot, and thus the closest one to the viewscreen, Sera answered, "Lt. Commander Rouse? Is this some sort of hazing ritual? We are newly assigned officers to the USS Portland, inbound from Deep Space Nine."
Tim raised an eyebrow, followed by a big laugh. He looked around his bridge. When he returned his attention back to the view screen he said. "As you are surely aware of my name is Captain Andrew Rouse. Commanding Officer of the ISS Portland."
[To be Continued]
En route to the USS Portland
Authors: Ensign Sera Williams, Lt JG Amata Zan, Ensign Jeromy Grossnick (written by Jason Beauvoir), Ensign Nikki Barclay (written by Alenis Meru) and Captain Andrew Rouse, (written by Timothy Rouse)
"So, Sera, did you have any pets growing up?" Sitting in the right seat of the shuttle during her turn as co-pilot on a long and boring journey, Ensign Nikki Barclay tried to pass the time by twiddling her thumbs, counting stars, and fidgeting with a loose fitting on her control panel. But, unable to nap and with no better way to pass the time and keep herself awake with talking, she decided a little chatter with Sera, seated next to her in the pilot's seat, wouldn't hurt.
Sera took her eyes off the pilot's console and looked at Nikki to reply, "We had a cat named Freckles. We joked that her rent was paid by keeping the rodents and birds away from dad's garden." Sera had spent a little time with Nikki during their layover at DS9 and had begun the beginnings of a friendship, at least Sera hoped. "What about you?"
"That's nice. I had a dog growing up, his name was--"
WHAM!
Nikki's causal conversation was interrupted by a loud slamming sound and the shuttle being thrown about violently, too sudden for the inertial dampeners to fully compensate. As she put on her seat belt, she saw her console light up like a Christmas tree. A mostly red Christmas tree. "What just happened!" she exclaimed as the shuttle spiraled out of control.
Sera rushed to regain control of the hurtling shuttlecraft. "Inertial dampeners are struggling to compensate and hull integrity is critical." With her hands flying across the console, Sera added, "Compensating...."
"No good," exclaimed Nikki. "We've snagged some kind of subspace vacuole, it's going to tear the ship apart!"
"We have 30 seconds until the hull buckles, taking inertial dampeners offline, rerouting power to hull integrity." replied Sera mainly to herself.
With Sera unable to free the ship from the vacuole, Nikki decided to try something risky. "If we can't free ourselves we'll have to go through the vacuole," said Nikki, seemingly in slow-motion. "Sera, cut power to engines." Nikki's fingers danced across the control panel. "If I reverse the polarity of the shields at just the right moment, we should be able to weather this without too much damage."
Sera nodded and replied, "Right, we should bounce off... or rip a hole through space." Sera cut the power to the engines and let the shuttle drift towards the vacuole. "I am rerouting engine power to the shields." Here goes nothing. If we make it out of this, I'll have to send my thanks to the builders at whichever shipyard this came from." she added while mentally crossing her fingers.
The shuttle shuddered violently as it was pulled into the vacuole, and Nikki could hear the creaking of structural elements being stressed almost to their breaking point. Whether it was just adrenaline or some sort of relativistic effects, time seemed to slow to a crawl for her. When they were about to hit the event horizon of the vacuole, she closed her eyes and reached for the button to reverse the polarity.
Sera took a look out the viewscreen, and smiled. Nothing but empty black space. "Well, well, it looks like I have some thank you letters to write. Nikki, can you see if you can find the Portland while I run a diagnostic on the systems to check for damage? I'd hate to be late for my first assignment." The last comment was filled with a bit of embarrassment. If her fellow Delta Squad members could only see her now, Sera thought. A Rigel Cup winner almost destroying her shuttle on the way to her first real assignment. She could have kicked herself.
“So are we dead now?” asked a dry-toned voice from the aft cabin, coming from Amata as he struggled to the front of the shuttle, duty jacket missing and sleep in his eyes. He moved to an auxiliary display on the wall and started flipping through the ship’s data, sparing only a moment for in-progress diagnostic and instead focused on the sensor readings, understanding only one thing fully, they’d had contact with some sort of anomaly. Being about twenty years from his last astronomy lesson, the readings were far beyond his scientific literacy.
“Kosst,” he muttered in response to the situation, before turning back to the aft cabin and shouting, “Hey, star scientist, get up here if you’re conscience, sh’Kor too.” Grossnick would have a better understanding of what was going on than the three of them, and the Andorian was technically the ranking officer aboard. He turned back to the front of the space craft, basically next to the engineers, “Did you two do something to the shields? The anomaly’s giving off some kind of sensor echo effect and it's clinging to them.”
Jeromy, a little unsettled from the 'turbulence', got up from his seat and moved carefully forward. Approaching Lieutenant Amata he asked. "How can I be of assistance, sir?"
Sera, who had not really been listening and was only vaguely aware of the voices behind her, turned and said, "Well, the good news is that we aren't going to explode. The bad news is that I can't seem to find the Portland on my scanners. We are close enough to the rendezvous point that we should be seeing them... only we can't."
"That is strange, sensors are operating within normal param--" Nikki was interrupted by a large energy reading suddenly appearing at very close range. "Something's right on top of us, it's--"
She looked up out the windshield of the shuttle just in time to see the shimmering of a decloaking vessel at very close range. With a saucer section attached directly to the old warp nacelles, and clean lines which betrayed its age and the era in which it was designed, there was no mistaking this ship.
"That's strange," mused Nikki. "I didn't know that the Portland had a cloaking device."
"Grossnick, I need you on these scanners," ordered Amata, finally responding the Ensign's nearly forgotten arrival, a decloaking ship somewhat stealing his thunder. The lieutenant moved back from the panel, giving the other officer room to work, take a look at our shield readings and tell me if their are any concerns, and tell me anything you can 'bout the 'nomoly." Though he had no clue as to the teal trimmed human's scientific specialty, he knew that the PhD would serve better at the station than himself.
Moving to stand behind to two co-pilot chairs, Amata could clearly see the now decloaked Miranda floating just ahead of the shuttle, unfortunately he could not clearly make out the Federation markings, standard being hard for him to read at his current angle, "All 9th Fleet vessels have one, but most Captain's don't cruise 'round cloaked, something might be up," after a few seconds he stopped musing."
"Ping their transponder to identify and then hail them, tell them what happened and advise them that we may need medical attention," He didn't like that sh'Kor and Carlisle had yet to respond, but couldn't check on them until the situation was green.
Sera nodded her head, then pinged the ships transponders. "Nikki, can you verify the sensor readings? This can't be right. The transponder is pinging back the ISS Portland?" Sera asked the woman to her side, emphasizing the letter "I" where a "U" should have been.
"Hmmmm, that's strange," said Nikki, "Opening hailing--"
She was interrupted by a bump as the Portland engaged its tractor beams, enveloping the shuttle in blue energy. "Maybe they're just guiding us into the shuttlebay," mused Nikki. But something just didn't feel right, she thought as she linked the center screen to the hailing frequencies. "Hailing frequencies open. Portland, this is the shuttle Kasai-4. We hit some kind of anomaly, and need medical attention--"
Again she was interrupted as a picture of the Portland's bridge appeared on screen. But even it was unusual for it was darker than usual for a Miranda-class bridge. And the captain's uniform was all wrong.
"Identify yourself" Tim barked at the people that stared at him through the view screen. His officers had already told him that the shuttle wasn't to be trusted and judging from the people in the shuttle and the shuttles appearance he just knew this to be another ploy of the opposition. "And don't give me the bullshit you've been ordered to tell. We all know that too be a lie." He sliced his fingers through his pitch black hair. "There is no way to go. You'll be in the brig where you belong in no time. This is your one and only chance to save your sorry asses by telling who your working for? Who it is that send you to us."
As the pilot, and thus the closest one to the viewscreen, Sera answered, "Lt. Commander Rouse? Is this some sort of hazing ritual? We are newly assigned officers to the USS Portland, inbound from Deep Space Nine."
Tim raised an eyebrow, followed by a big laugh. He looked around his bridge. When he returned his attention back to the view screen he said. "As you are surely aware of my name is Captain Andrew Rouse. Commanding Officer of the ISS Portland."
[To be Continued]
