The Heart of Darkness (part 8]

Posted on Wed Dec 10th, 2014 @ 5:10pm by Lieutenant JG Rami Miral & Commander Rylie Cattmor & Lieutenant Commander Dylan Blake & Lieutenant Commander Orin ch’Valri & Lieutenant Jensen Foster

1,274 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: What Dreams May Come
Location: Aboard the Edborn

[An excerpt from Part 7]

Cattmor's reply didn't sit well with Jensen. Let alone the panic that still wanted to take control, it was all Jensen could do to keep his breathing even and calm. He just concentrated on breathing while letting the others figure out what to do.

[CONTINUED]


"Any working escape pods or shuttles?" Miral asked. "If not, I suggest Morse Code."

"They're present but we've got no way of jettisoning them." Rylie answered without looking at Miral directly, more glancing around. "Signalling the Ranger would still require power - have we got enough juice in the portable generator to do anything?" she asked no-one in particular, "To say nothing about what the hell we should light up for them to be able to see it at all."

"The generators aren't really designed for that sort of thing Commander," Blake said moving closer. "Without any spares and some of our energy already spent I doubt the remaining amount would sustain for very long."

"Enough for three letters?" Cattmor asked, hope quickly dwindling.

"All we need is a message," Miral said. "Once informing the Ranger of our predicament. Maybe a shuttle can get close enough to get a signal. Or..." She paused for a moment. "Are there any signal boosters around here? Something we can use to transport ourselves back? I can get us the right coordinates."

She glanced at Orin. "I have a few tricks. How about you?"

"I have one. Back when my team and I were working farm more often in cover of darkness and undercover work, we developed a code. Words. Signals. Designs in key locations. If we can get a system link to the Ranger, we can send a message, something simple and small, something that one of my team mates will understand as a sign that we are in trouble." Orin replied, looking to each of the members.

"I would offer a suggestion, but alas I'm a doctor, not a communications expert," Jensen quipped, more to himself than any of the other members in particular. Yet, something in that phrase struck him as hilarious in that moment and he chuckled a bit to himself; not caring what the others thought.

Cattmor was skeptical that either plan would be successful, but she didn't have any ideas of her own. To make matters slightly worse than they were, they only had enough power to try one of them, if indeed that many. She glanced to each member of the away team in turn, gauging their looks and thoughts with Lieutenant Blake's being foremost in their mind, intensified by the general situation, ~Don't make another bad call~.

"You're assuming that someone, specifically someone from your old squad, is going to be looking and paying attention to exactly the point you'd send it. That's a big margin for error," she said turning back to Orin.

"I know my people's shifts."

"So do I, I authorized them, remember?" Cattmor cut in with a hint of frustration.

"More importantly, I know Morgana will not leave the bridge station until I return, because that is the kind of soldier she is." Orin replied sternly, continuing as if no interruption had come. "And as far as I can tell, we don't have many options to go with and all we are doing is throwing out ideas. There are flaws in many plans. The message may not be sent completely. Or sent at all. It might be lost in the Ranger's receivers that might just label it as junk and someone may not even see it. The primary thing is we need to try something."

"Unless you know of something that the Commander will pick up on, I say we go with Lieutenant ch'Valri's idea. He's right," Miral said. "His team will pick up on the keyword and come to the rescue. I can get us enough power for one shot."

Cattmor looked from Miral to ch'Valri and back again, knowing that all eyes were on her, including Lieutenant Foster's who'd probably wisely stayed out of this part of the conversation. Truth be told, she would have never accepted the transfer to command this early in her career if it hadn't been for the series of unfortunate events during their last mission, or the Admiral's insistence that she did. She could sense their need for an answer, any answer, and someone, she couldn't quite get an angle on who, maybe because it was emanating from everyone, was getting impatient. She looked back to ch'Valri once more and addressed him directly, as he was used to, mustering up all the will and confidence she could, "Since we've only got one shot, you better make it a good one, Lieutenant. We'll go with yours, and hope one of your team is looking and paying attention. Mister Blake, please assist with the power needs."

Orin nodded.

The idea of using a specialised code seemed rather pointless in Blake's opinion as he turned away. A simple SOS message would have been enough for the Ranger to take intuitive, either way Dylan didn't want to stay here a moment longer than was necessary.

Rylie found that she could not join them, despite her previous experience as an engineer. For the apparent emptiness of the area, if one didn't count the dead bodies, the room was incessantly loud in its internal chatter and thoughts, and it was extremely draining to her mentally, her head throbbing just that little bit harder than it was a few moments ago. She walked round the console and leant forward and stared at her feint reflection in the darkened but reflective monitor panel.

Jensen knew he'd only start feeling better once he was back aboard their ship, safe and sound with just the crews' emotions bombarding him like a suffocating blanket. What he was feeling from the away team members was beginning to get to be much, and he knew that the sooner they got back the better. After all, he didn't quite understand why communications had been cut, but couldn't get those stupid blips from his tricorder out of his head, nor the shadowy figure... let alone that damn vid.

"Okay," Miral said. "Comms are dead, but if we pull all power to navigation, we can send a signal back through the astrometric computer. From the looks of things, we have enough power to send a quick burst. With the interference, it's likely to be garbled, so the simpler the better. Repeat it as many times as you can. That will increase our chances of it being understood."

Within the safety of his suite Blake rolled his eyes at Miral's obvious explanation. "Thank you, Lieutenant," he replied having already come the same conclusion three minuets ago. "Orin," he continued switching his attention. "What do you wish to say?"

"Depends. What do I have to work with?" Orin said as he walked over to Miral. She sat back and let him see the screen in front of her, sure he would understand the alterations to the program she used. "Voice, fifteen seconds, repeated twice."

Miral worked as quickly as she could to get everything set up. "Okay," she said. "We have one shot at this. Make it good."

After Orin recorded the words, Miral pushed the button to send. "Okay. Now, we cross our fingers."

Just then, the power on the bridge failed.

(Continued in Another Blip)

Lieutenant Commander Rylie Cattmor
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Orin ch'Valri
Chief Security/Tactical Officer

Lieutenant Jensen Foster
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant Dylan Blake
Chief Operations Officer

Lieutenant JG Rami Miral
Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer

 

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