Posted by Ensign Aiden Conlon (Linguist/Comms Officer) in Bridge - Readying the Ship for Departure

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Alexander Stewart (Chief Armory Officer) in Bridge - Readying the Ship for Departure

Posted by Captain Marceau Renault (Commanding Officer) in Bridge - Readying the Ship for Departure
Posted by… suppressed (74) by the Post Ghost! 👻
<Big snip>
“Stewart, scan for signatures or anomalies, Conlon, search for signals and hails and try a general hail, anything that someone might pick up.” Marceau said, and then used the comm system to page engineering: =/\= “Bridge to engineering, I need a power status. Is there any way we can move faster?” =/\=

~ Capt Renault

“Scanning, sirr.” Stewart said as he had already been scanning and watching for anything out of the normal.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

Sickbay sent confirmation to the Comms station that Rachel and her small staff were ready to receive any potential injured as well as read to head away at a moments notice.

Dr Grey- CMO

[O]Faster Captain? I’m an engineer Captain, not a miracle worker. We’ve already got one of the fastest ships in the fleet. How much faster are you wanting us to go?[O]

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

“Aye, Captain,” Aiden replied. “Sickbay reports full mission readiness.” He set the system for a wide-band transmission. “Civilian Vessels, this is the Starship Sojourner. Please Respond.”

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer

“I want to reach the first coordinates quickly. We don’t know how many supplies the ship had left.” Renault said into the comms. He nodded to Conlon’s notification.

~ Capt Renault

OOC: I read back .. we are doing our max cruising speed of 3.8. Can do 3.9 for up to 12 hours and 4.0 for 3 hours. We’ve not been upgraded yet to post Xindi upgrade. Gene

Natalia was humming quietly to herself at the Science station as she listened and waited.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov, XO/CSO

OOC: thanks, Gene.

IC:

“Helena, bring us to warp 3.9, try to cover some more ground.” Marceau said.

~ Capt Renault

“Aye, Sir.” Her hand moved over to the throttle, slowly bringing the ship up to 3.9. The hum of the engines increased, Helena could feel it in her hands on the controls and through the soles of her feet. She loved the feel of how smoothly the Sojo responded to the controls.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

[O]Bridge, Engineering here. You’ve got about…12 hours before our systems start to over heat and shut down. Then we are definitely going have slow down Captain.[O]

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

No one answered the hails and no anomalies were within sensor range. The Sojourner had been at maximum warp for almost nine of the twelve hour shut off time. It was beginning to look like they’d need to slow down and vent the engines soon. But… a faint transmission was received though it was full of static.

~Creeping Dread

“Transmission coming in, Captain. Trying to clarify.”

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer

“Can we tell where it’s coming from? It could tell us which direction to go.” Marceau said, looking around the bridge.

~ Capt Renault

The engines were going to start showing the extra work that had been placed on them. Helena spoke over her shoulder, “We’re reaching the nine of twelve hour mark for the engines, Captain. Should I drop to impulse to vent the engines while we search for a signal?”

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

Only fragments of words were coming through. Nothing that could be made sense of. Any attempt to triangulate the signal would conclude that their course needs to turn to port 23 degrees but distance is still undetermined.

~Creeping Dread
OOC: I am returned from LOA. Had a great vacation!
IC:
Stewart immediately began to triangulate and scan in the area where the signal was coming from to see if there any ships in the area.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

Marceau nodded. “Drop to impulse, vent the engines. Keep triangulating the signal and follow it.”

~ Capt Renault

“Aye Sir, dropping to impulse,” Helena responded. The constant noise of the engines’ hum lowered as the ship dropped from warp. Her hands rested over the controls, waiting for a possible course correction.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

Natalia ran a scan for any vessels in the surrounding area and tried to locate where the signal could be coming from paying close attention to any warp signatures.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov, XO/CSO

The Sojourner exited warp in the proximity of what seemed to be an asteroid field. There were still no ships on scan but the asteroid field could very well be making any signatures. The triangulation of the signal indicated it was coming from somewhere deep in the field.

~Creeping Dread

Stewart frowned, “It will be verry difficult to find ships in tharr, whetherr frriend orr foe.” He warned as he put the scanners on shorter scan to enhance the definition of the scans.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

The shorter scan narrowed the direction of the signal origin but didn’t discover what was sending it. There was nothing that could be down to narrow it down further without getting closer.

~Creeping Dread

“Sojourner to unidentified vessel. Please repeat with as strengthened a signal as possible,” Aiden transmitted, just on the off chance they were capable of replying.

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer

The signal continued as it was though the Sojourner’s proximity did make some of the message decipherable. “static disabled static unknown static assistance static oh no…” The message repeats.

~Creeping Dread

“We need to get closerr, sirr, forr the signal to get clearrerr.” Stewart said as he worked on the sensors to try and get a sense of what it was coming from.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

“That sounded a little ominous, no? Let’s keep on our guards and move in,” Marceau said.

~ Capt Renault

Helena looked at the field un front of them. Navigating an asteroid field in a ship the size of Sojourner was not the same as doing it in a shuttle. “Aye Captain. Moving to enter the asteroid field a one quarter impulse.” She would need time and careful thrusters to maneuver safely.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

A quarter impulse was going to prove a bit optimistic. As the Sojourner neared the outer edges of the field Helena would see that the spacing and speed of the rocks, big and small, was chaotic. Trying to fit the ship in there was going to need a deft hand at a much slower speed.

~Creeping Dread

Helena brought the ship to a full stop. “Captain, I can take the ship in there,” Helena had the skill, “but it’s going to be a tight fit. Those rocks are moving more wildly than I would like to take Sojourner in there. We could take a shuttle, but a smaller craft would take more damage if we get hit.” Helena reminded herself sternly to not think about 3rd year right now.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

“If the shuttle gets in trrouble in therre, we canna get in to get it out. We could use the Main Deflectorr to make ourrselves a path.” Stewart suggested.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

Natalia stood thinking for a second, then had an idea. She began to try and track the movement of the asteroids to see if they could predict where they were going to move. It was her hope that she could help plot a course through the field.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

Marceau couldn’t help but remember third year and shuddered involuntarily. He nodded to Stewart, “We should polarize our hull plating. I’m not entirely confident the deflector can do it, but we may have to try that.”

~ Capt Renault

“Aye sirr, hull polarrized.” Stewart said crisply.

Helena waited for confirmation that the hull had been polarized. “Dropping to one-thirty-second impulse.” It was enough to give them a bit of momentum from full stop and then Helena used just the thrusters to move them through the field. It was tense and required a quick and very steady hand on the controls. Luckily Helena had both in full measure.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

OOC: Choose a number between one and ten please.

The ship drifted into the field under that low impulse and Helena’s piloting with the thrusters got them past the perimeter successfully but then density and speed of the rocks increased. The deflector was able to push some of the forward oriented ones out of the way but the armor took some hits the others it couldn’t. Armor integrity dropped by fifteen percent and the ship shook moderately. So far the danger wasn’t extreme but continuing on was going to increase that.

~Creeping Dread

“Arrmorr integrity down 15%, Captain.” Stewart said with a frown as he held onto his board with one hand and began rerouting systems with the other. “Rrerrouting non essential systems to give morre powerr to the hull polarrization , Captain.”

Helena slowed almost to a stop to let some of the rocks pass. “Captain,” she spoke over her shoulder. She was loathe to say she couldn’t do it. She could, but she didn’t think it was wise. “Space is three-dimensional. Maybe we can back out and go around. Circle above or below the belt to get closer to the signal.”

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

OOC: Ya don’t have shields. The polarized hull is your armor.

~Creeping Dread

OOC: 7

IC:

Natalia held onto the edge of the Science station as the ship shook. She took a breath as her pulse began to quicken. She continued to see if she could see if the movement of the asteroids could be predicted.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

OOC:fixed:)
~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

OOC: I’m going to let Lucas respond before I take Tom’s number choice and put it in effect.

~Creeping Dread

OOC: Tom’s 7 stands XD

IC:

“Try to circle below,” Marceau said, voice tight, though he was trying to keep it relaxed. The man was terrified to fly and the shaking was terrifying to him. “Allez, Helena, maintenant,” he added, slipping into his native language.

~ Capt Renault

Luckily Helena had heard that order enough to know what he meant. “Aye, Captain.” Helena watched her nav display and then the display and chose the shortest distance out of the field. She angled the ship and began to weave through the asteroids to get out of the field.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

Helena’s skills enabled her to successfully pilot the ship out the way they came with no further incidents.

~Creeping Dread

“We’ve cleared the field, Captain. Plotting new course to approach the signal by circling beneath the field,” Helena reported.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

Stewart kept a weather eye out for any other ships in the region while they were looking for a better place to find the signal.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

[o] Bridge this is Engineering [c] There was a pause. The bridge could hear a shout in the background ‘Catch the ..’ and ‘I’ve the hose!’ and a clanging sound of metal on metal .. [o] We have an overloading power junction. Possible fire. Explosion hazard. Evacuating non essential personnel. Damage control on site. [c]
- Green, NL Eng

Natalia raised an eyebrow as the comm came through. She stood and listened intently.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

Helena’s eyes widened, but other than that, she didn’t react. Her job was to focus on getting out of the field. Now, that was especially important that they get out without being hit again.

“I’ll let you know as soon as signal strength improves,” Aiden said, not looking up from his console. “We’re still a little far out.”

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer

It wasn’t felt on the bridge but the explosion in engineering became very apparent as gravity, helm control, and communications went down. As bad as that really is for a ship, it was compounded by the fact that they were still moving but not under any sort of control. The asteroids around them were sparse but the possibility of getting struck wasn’t zero.

~Creeping Dread

“Helm is not responding,” Helena announced as she hooked her feet around the base support of her chair to stay in place. “We really need seatbelts,” Laursen muttered.

“Rrerrouting non essential systems, if therre be any left, to bolsterr the hull polarrization, sirr!” Stewart said as he old eyes widened as he realized the danger they were in. His hands flew over his boards.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

There wasn’t much to reroute as Stewart surmised. Thankfully they hadn’t taken many hits on the way in so the armor integrity was boosted to about 80%.

Marceau felt the gravity disengage. Panic hit him hard and fast and in his mind, he was reliving another time. His breath quickened and he gripped the captain’s chair like his life depended on it. “La gravité. La gravité ! Activez la gravité !”

~ Capt Renault

“Can we manually fire thrusters?” Helena called over her shoulder to the officer at engineering. “We still have momentum and have mostly cleared the field. We just need to get around these last few rocks.”

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

The engineering NE was frantically tapping on her console with one hand as she held herself in place with the other. They hadn’t yet heard from Engineering since gravity went out so she was doing what she could to damage control from the bridge. First was trying to get gravity back online… no good from here.

“I can’t get gravity online from here!” She called out.

Then she checked to see if the thrusters were operable. Well some good news there but not great. “Aft thrusters only and at half power is all we got!”

~Creeping Dread

The ship jolted and Natalia gripped the Science console tightly.
“What the......” She said to herself underneath her breath. She turned to the Engineer.
“Where do you need to get to Ensign? Do we have internal comms?” She asked, trying to establish some sort of control amongst the panic and confusion.

Cmdr Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

The Engineer looked to the XO. “I’m honestly not sure because it’d depend on which power junctions are affected and redirecting the power needed through available ones to get gravity control back up. Without knowing that I’m blind up here. And no, comms are down sir.”

~Creeping Dread

Natalia nodded and then turned to the Captain.
“Captain, with your permission I’d like to head down to Engineering, we need to know what’s going on. I can help coordinate the efforts there. Unless there’s anything you need from a Science perspective up here?” She asked.

Cmdr Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

Stewart manned his board as there wasn’t much else he could do at the moment. This was an engineer’s problem, “Hull polarrization is steady at 80%, sirr.” To give the Captain an update. That was good, at least while they were dead in the water they had some protection.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

“Okay, so I’m going to use the gravity around the asteroids to try and bounce and slingshot around. We only have port thrusters, so, Cmdr Stewart, it would be hugely helpful if you could aim the deflector towards the smaller ones.”

“Aye, Lieutenant. Ah will do that.” Stewart said as his hands flew over his boards as he tried to adjust the deflectors as she had asked. He certainly hoped this would work, he was no engineer though so couldn’t say it would or wouldn’t.

Helena had done this before. Renault had been with her then too. It had saved their lives, but they had been in a shuttle and had both thrusters.

Helena focused all her attention on the view screen and the chaotic movement of the asteroids. She used small taps of the thrusters to line them up at angles with the asteroids and longer burns with the thrusters to bounce/slingshot around them.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

OOC: Jenn, if you would kindly choose a number between 1 and 10.

~Creeping Dread

OOC: Uummmm, me? Why me? I don’t wanna choose!

*gets out a d10, rolls 3 times and takes the average.

5

Marceau trusted Helena. But the situation was different now. This wasn’t a shuttle with the two of them, it was a full size ship, with an entire crew under his responsibility. “Helena,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Be careful.”

~ Capt Renault

Helena responded with some kind of half audible hummm. She was completely focused on moving the ship safely.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

OOC: Because you’re the one doing the action. More fun this way for me.

The first slingshot around a giant rock was successful. Helena was really showing her skills with how much of a handicap the ship put her under considering she could really only roll and rotate the ship to port.

When two smaller rocks beelined for the Sojo, Stewart quickly found out that while the deflector dish was emitting straight fore the controls to angle it was not functioning.

The ship rocked hard as the armor integrity dropped 20% from the two hits.

~Creeping Dread

Stewart stumbled and grabbed at his console as the ship rocked, a Gaelic oath coming out under his breath.
“Apologies, sirr! The contrrols for the deflectorr dish inna be worrking. That did take off a few shavings of hull.”

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

Force plus zero gravity equalled.... Uncontested motion as Marceau was removed from his seat by the impact with a French swear of his own (and the crew would know by now, Marceau did not frequently swear, English or French). Reaching desperately for a seat or handhold out of his reach, he collided with the top of the bridge.

~ Capt Renault

Aiden, too, was thrown, through not nearly as badly. His knee slammed into the comms station, accelerating him negatively just enough for the linguist to catch the top of his chair and pull himself back into it. He winced as he checked the damage to his console.

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer

The console itself was fine but it still was non-functional.

~Creeping Dread

OOC: I’m going to make a assumption about the location of jeffries tube, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong!
IC:
Natalia just managed to brace herself and keep steady during the impacts of the asteroids, she gripped tightly to the Science console as she floated in zero g. Having been completely ignored by the panicking Captain Natalia turned to the Engineer.
“Ensign, stay here. I’m going to go and find out what has happened.” How she was going to do that, she didn’t really know. Her first assumption was that the lifts would be down, that meant she’d have to go through the crawl spaces, a particularly challenging prospect in zero g. She sighed as she looked around for a crawl space entrance. She found, to the back and centre wall of the bridge. Not far to go at all. She drew herself back as much as she could and launched herself in the direction of the crawl space. She rather enjoyed the feeling of gliding through zero g, it felt like flying. She smiled to herself as she grabbed the wall and did her best to shimmy down towards the crawl space. Once there she released the door and grabbed the top edge to lever herself down and in head first.
“I’m making me way towards Engineering, if anyone wants to know.” She stated to the room. With that, she was gone.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

The hit jarred Helena and she lost the grip she had with her feet around the supports of her chair. She quickly grabbed the chair with her hands and pulled herself back down. Her muscles were screaming at the strain of trying to keep her seated. “We need seat belts,” she muttered again. She was pretty sure she hit her head on the top edge of the chair when she got thrown into the chair with the impact. She would have to check later.

With just the port thruster, Helena couldn’t dodge all of the asteroids. She could only continue to spin the ship slowly and precisely and try to keep bouncing until they cleared the field.

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

There were a few near misses as the ship was skillfully navigated either around a bigger rock to provide cover or add more momentum. The ship shuddered again as there was one moving too fast to be dodged though fortunately it was on the smaller side. Armor integrity dropped five percent.

Not long after an annoyed looking Spaniard floated up toward Natalia in the same tube. One of the Engineering crewmen, Rosa-Marie Morales was sporting what was forming as a black eye squinted at Natalia, her mutterings relating to just where zero G navigation could get stuffed to. It took several seconds before Rosa placed the XO. “Ma’am. Crewman Morales,” she said as she braced herself on a ladder rung. “Engineering had an explosion at a plasma junction. Knocked out communications to or from Engineering. I’ve come with a communicator to pass off to the Bridge so they can at least talk to the Chief.”

Natalia had been having a terrible time moving through the tube. Zero G made it incredibly difficult. She banged her head at least once and swore, loudly, in Russian. She glanced up as she saw Crewman Morales coming towards her. She swore again, under her breath when told about the explosion.

She hooked a foot under and over another rung. “Two engineers down. The fire is under control and was being tended to at the time that I left. AG as you know is out. Lt Green and another are moving forward to deflector control to see about repairs there. They’re trying to re-route power around the junction but it sounded like they were having troubles with it.” She paused there to take a breath and to pull out the communicator to pass to Natalia if she wanted it.
- Rosa-Marie Morales, Eng Crewman

Two Engineers down, was that down as in dead or just badly wounded, she wondered. It sounded like Engineering was in rough shape. She held off taking the communicator for now.
“Thank you for the update Crewman. Do you need a hand down there? Have you heard from medical? You said you had two engineers down?” Natalia asked, the questions coming thick and fast.

Commander Natalia Petrenkov CSO/XO

“Millicant I think is done for, Ma’am,” Rosa said, her Spanish accent competing with Natalia’s Russian. “Selwyn Lake, I’m not sure. Took a hard hit but I don’t know. Couple of injuries for sure. Fawkes and Grigio were tossed about pretty hard by the look of it. The Chief looked like her arm took a bad knock. I’m not sure of the rest. We have not heard from medical at all. No comms out. Serinde was looking at that before I left. We’re scattered about but no officers down. Lt’s Green and the chief are there and Ensigns Serinde and Gagarin are active. There’s a lot of fires to be put out at the moment, figuratively speaking. You could at least see. We’re not lacking in jobs.”
- Rosa Marie Morales, Eng

While the two were talking the ship jolted from another impact.

~Creeping Dread

Marceau, still stuck floating in zero G near the top of the bridge, let out another French curse. “A l’aide, s’il vous plaît,” he said, voice shaky, glancing around the bridge from his upside down perspective.

~ Capt Renault

Stewart felt ridiculous hanging upside down, one arm wrapped around the supporting strut of his console, the other frantically working on his board to see if he could reroute power. Power for what he didn’t know, he was a past Sea Captain now Security Chief, and had never been in such an undignified position before. He had no idea what the Captain had just ordered.
“By all the gods of Hades,” Stewart muttered, “Is this a common occurrrence?” He asked of no one in particular.

~Lt. Commander Alexander Stewart CAO

Aiden did know what Renault had said - advantages of speaking numerous languages and all that. Given he was effectively useless until someone figured out how to turn back on comms or an alien species showed up on the bridge, he literally leapt to follow the order, and positioned himself carefully, using his dead console as a brace as he launched to intercept the floating CO. He caught Renault’s arm, doing his best to swing the momentum around and send the Capitaine, at least, back down to the deck roughly feet first. He was less lucky, the reactionary force leaving him sliding slowly along the top with his back to the ceiling.

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer

The ship had almost cleared the field and returned to a relatively empty chunk of space. This would mean navigating around the danger of collisions had drastically reduced.

~Creeping Dread