Posted by Lieutenant Issac Forgrave (Chief of Security) in Main Sim [Bridge]: Belly of the Beast

Posted by Kvasir (Story Teller) in Main Sim [Bridge]: Belly of the Beast

Posted by Captain Rende Asam (Captain) in Main Sim [Bridge]: Belly of the Beast
Posted by… suppressed (14) by the Post Ghost! 👻

—[SNIP]—

Yorba had been hard at work at his station, dozens of holodisplays floating around his head with various points of information. The screen before him displayed the alien ship, and the lieutenant was diligently pouring over the entire vessel deck by deck. Several times he would be so transfixed that one might have thought him a statue, still and unwavering in studious intensity; other times one would have thought him quite mad, swiping furiously at the floating holos or tapping aggressively at the controls. Finally he pushed away from his station with a heavy sigh and turned to the other officers.

“I have a few ideas of where someone might put something they don’t necessarily want others to have access to,” he announced almost proudly, frowning for a brief moment as he dismissed his halo of holos. “While I’m no shipwright, most starships operate on the same general principle and design based on function. With the computer’s help and a little guesswork, I’ve been able to piece together the general layout of the alien ship.”

Turning, he pulled up the exterior view of Hab’rabi’s colony ship drifting lazily in the blackness of space. A few quick taps of the console brought up a wireframe overlay complete with several notations. “The rear quarter of the ship is the drive section, and though we can’t get an accurate reading of every deck, I’d guess this is also where main life support is handled. Our scans have at least been able to approximate their core’s location, and the engineering section seems rather extensive. There are a few holes in our sensor readings in this section, places where either the radiation is too dense or where composite plating muddles our sensors. These could be storage lockers for special substances, or a secure area in case of emergency.”

“Forward of that is the docking ring and cargo areas,” Yorba continued, gesturing to the circular protrusion cinching the behemoth’s body. “It’s largely bare of unnecessary comforts beyond environmental controls. Quite a bit of heavy machinery and storage containers; probably supplies to terraform their new world, if they ever get that far. Many of the larger containers are so densely shielded that we can’t detect what’s inside. There’s also a large area amidship that has refused to be scanned by any trick I could come up with; judging by the power consumption and ambient readings, it’s some kind of cryostorage.”

The front half of the vessel brightened as the lieutenant tapped away at his controls. “This sections is habitation for the crew and their families. Well clear of the radiation, we can see almost everything they’ve got inside. There’s a small impulse drive nestled at the core with a lot of auxiliary subsystems—water and waste reclamation, monitoring, supply storage, and the like—which I can only assume would come online if the rear section was somehow compromised. We found Hab’rabi a few decks above and forward in one of the many clusters of stasis chambers. There are a few heavily shielded areas in this section, such as the bridge, as well as several smaller, evenly-spaced closet-sized compartments. Weapon or tool storage would be my guess.”

Yorba’s face soured a bit, taking on a more serious expression. “Captain, I feel compelled to point out that we’ll have to decide what to do with Hab’rabi and his vessel soon. According to my calculations, the power that we were able to transfer to the colony ship will be exhausted in thirty-seven hours at current consumption. Repairing their leaking drive might buy us some time; they’ve also got solar sails for auxiliary recharge, but I’ve no idea what condition they’re in or how to deploy them. I’d… hate for them to come all this way—have endured this much—for them to suffocate and die in their sleep.”

He turned back to his console and reactivated the holodisplays, obscuring his face. One did not need to be a telepath to know Yorba’s mind: he was a Starfleet man through and through, with a high regard for the sanctity of life. “We’ll figure this out,” he whispered. “We have to.”

She listened looking at the diagram, finger tapping on the console of her chair. She’d taken installations over the years with less intel. She would really like to know more, but first her crew, then they would help Hab’rabi if they could. Rende walked up behind Yorba and placed a hand on his shoulder giving it a squeeze. “We will Yorba. But for now, let’s try to get back in touch with Legion. Open a channel.” Rende waited for the familiar whistle of the comms opening. =/\=Legion this Cpt Rende of the USS Viking. I have a message for you from your Lord Hab’rabi.=/\=

Rende, CO

Forgrave tensed when Rende opened a line to Legion; but it was her call, after all. But still.... “If you’re sure Ma’am; after all, we don’t know what that command does…” His voice was pitched low; outside of the pickup range but still within range for those on the bridge to hear.

Yorba nodded, tapped at his console for a moment. There was a chirp across the comm system followed by a deep silence. The lieutenant frowned, tried the channel again. More silence. Checking his instrumentation, he shrugged at Rende.

“No response, Captain. Could be it used up too much power, or is still in diagnos—”

“PURSUANT RENDE ASAM OF THE USS VIKING,” Legion’s voice thundered from every speaker on the bridge. “DIAGNOSTIC MODE INCOMPLETE. INSUFFICIENT POWER TO MAINTAIN COMMUNICATIONS. REQUESTING TWO LITERS OF ANTIMATTER. TERMINATING LINK. UNITY IN PEACE, PURSUANT RENDE.“

With a harsh click, the bridge was plunged into almost deafening silence. Yobra tried to squint away the ringing in his ears, then consulted his console.

“Well, that did it. Their communications array is completely dead.” He shook his head and gestured to the image of the alien ship, to the room where the away team had encountered Hab’rabi. “Sir, I’m detecting power fluctuations in one of the stasis tubes. It… looks like the ship is diverting power from it to the still-functioning systems. The life sign inside is still stable, but I’m not sure for how long.”
—Jas—
[Edited Jen’s post to account for accurate information and link. Happy writing!]

Issac sighed, half in frustration, half in relief. “Well, reckon that delays things; though I don’t think I appreciate it when it’s combined with our fuzzy time limit. Do we have anyone from engineering working on antimatter transfer? I know that was a question raised from the start; but I’ve not been following that point at all. And hell; much as I hate the question, I reckon it’s gotta be asked - do we want to transfer any antimatter? I ain’t one ta leave a ship stranded; but I can play devil’s advocate if I need to - and we got enough reason ta cut bait and run.” His face was drawn but steady; though he shared Yorba’s views.

-Forgrave, CoS

Rende ground her teeth rather than growling in frustration. “Chief Asam had it ready to go before Sacco shot Hab’rabi. But then everyone started acting strange and Hab’rabi was being dodgy.” She shook her head, “We could cut and run, but that’s not who we are. I am not inclined to give them all of it. Let’s go with 1/2 a liter. Enough to stabilize them, but not enough for anything else. But how to get it there? Transporters are down and I’m not sending a shuttle…” She grinned, “Yorba, get engineering to send 1/2 a liter to the shuttle bay. Use the transporter in the Hugin to send it over. Forgrave keep an eye on that ship. It even looks like it’s thinking of being aggressive, blow it up.”. She turned to Woods, “Anything to add Lt?”

Rende, CO

Markus shook his head. “Not as far as that goes.”

“Sounds reasonable enough, Ma’am.”

Yorba nodded without looking up from his work, tapped away while the captain finished her thought. Before Woods could respond, however, he made a confused noise. “Captain, Engineering reports that the antimatter has already been moved to Cargo Bay Two. Commander Kohr’s orders. I’ll notify the containment team of your orders, sir.”

“The good news,” he added almost cheerily, “is that it looks like we’ll have transporters back online within the hour.”
—Jas—

Issac’s head cocked in question. “Yorba; how recent are those orders? I remember hearing there was some ah.... kerfuffle with Commander Kohr; I take it he’s been cleared for duty then?” Maybe it was nothing, but Issac felt that suspicious part of his mind itching at something; though he wasn’t quite sure what.

-Forgrave, CoS

Yorba brought up the logs. “Less than an hour ago, sir. About the time we dropped out of warp. Security just reported the anti-matter’s arrival, and it looks like they’re setting up some kind of containment for it.”

Rende shook her head slowly, “When I left sickbay Cmdr Kohr had been ordered to his quarters to recover. He had not been removed from duty but he hadn’t been cleared either. And he was feeling rather volatile toward Hab’rabi. I think I had better go speak with him.” Just what she needed, her CIO and now her XO acting strangely. “Yorba.” Poor Yorba was going to need two weeks shore leave after this. He was trained to run the bridge but she doubted he ever expected to like this. “Woods, see where we are in creating a containment unit for these things, Forgrave…” she shook her head. Confining him to bridge duty wasn’t the best use of his talents. “Do what you need to.” Rende stepped off the bridge and headed straight for Kohr’s quarters.

Rende, CO

As Rende exited, Mark watched her go as much as he could afford, craning his head around. Then scrubbed his face with his hands in an exasperated sigh. It wasn’t directed at the Captain by any means. Merely the situation they were all in. Things were stable for now. That could very well be an illusion though.

A report from Engineering states that they have a sound theory on how to contain the energy beings now that the static warp field prevents them from slipping in and out from the folds of subspace, but the measures have yet to be proven and are purely theoretical. No sightings of wayward energy motes have been reported since the incident on Deck 34; the motes could very well be laying low, or they’ve discovered a way to evade detection. Either way, the Viking crew is about as prepared to deal with them as possible given the current circumstances.
—Jas—

Issac was silent for a moment, brow furrowed as he contemplated what little he knew. Damn but a cup of coffee would be nice… “Captain’s headed ta Kohr, right? Reckon I’ll head ta the cargo bay; see what that all looks like. I’m hoping it ain’t so, but if someone were ta dabble in sabotage… well, I can’t think of a better place. Yorba; please keep in touch.”

With that, Forgrave left the bridge; pausing only to give the replicator a longing glance. But coffee could wait until later.

Forgrave, CoS

Markus listened to report on the containment for the Remnants and nodded. Theory was his area, and sure he could make things, but he wasn’t the same level of makers that the ship’s dedicated engineering team was. All that was left was to try it. Quietly he sent orders to Engineering to test it when they got the opportunity.

Still sitting just off of center, he let out another sigh and cast his gaze about at the walls, then leaned back in the seat. Closing his eyes he let his mind drift, opening up, widening the channels, widening his perception once more. Impressions began to float in. Mixtures of frustration, determination, worry, stress and more. The crew was over-stretched and stressed. Tired. But still pressing on, like the best Starfleet had to offer. In that moment, he was proud of all of them. Despite a situation none of them had considered, they were performing admirably.

But among them was a pained spark, a mind reeling after their encounter with one of the Remnants. Guilt, shame, grief… Profound grief. And disorientation. He recognized the texture of the mind as the doctor he’d encountered earlier, first in the cargo bay then in engineering. A troubled expression crossed his features then, and he seemed to come back to himself.

“Mister Yorba, I need to attend to something in Sickbay that may give us a little more light on the situation. You have the conn. Notify me if anything… else unusual crops up, if you would.” With that he pushed himself to his feet.

A moment later he slipped into the turbolift. =^=Sickbay.=^=

Lt Woods, CSO/aXO