Ship Wrecked

Posted on Tue Mar 12th, 2013 @ 2:13pm by Lieutenant Commander Kadie Mora & Captain Elsie Halliwell & Captain Alexsa Kendrick & Captain T'mpest Michaels
Edited on on Wed Mar 13th, 2013 @ 3:49am

2,359 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Sowing the Seeds
Location: Cargo Bay
Timeline: Mission Day 5: 1030 hours

ON:

The massive hull fragment towered above them in Cargo Bay One. Despite its technological familiarity, it still imposed itself in the room, intimidating Elsie more than she was admit. The external, exposed outer hull still bore the residue of scorching from the explosion and it sent shivers down her spine. She waited with Commander Michaels and Captain Kendrick before stepping around it, ignoring Chief Mel for the moment.

"So, what do we have here? A hunk of metal?"

"A hunk of hull," T'mpest corrected. "It is hoped there will be some residue or imprint on it we can use."

Mel stood looking slightly uncomfortable. He had partial answers on the padd in his hands but seemed unwilling to relinquish anything before the final member of this particular quartet arrived.

Elsie looked towards T'mpest but then held up a PADD and skimmed it again. She must have read the analysis three times in detail and other than scorch marks consistent with a self-destruct warp-core breach, there didn't seem much more to comment on. "Did we pull much more information from the rest of the data we retrieved?"

"Bits and pieces. We're going through crew logs now to see if there's anything that can help paint a broader picture," T'mpest replied.

The doors to the cargo bay finally opened, relieving the breath Chief Mel had been holding for almost two minutes when Lieutenant Commander Mora entered exclaiming immediately, "I see the chief got you three up ridiculously early as well." She continued to march over to the chief as he offered the PADD to her.

When nothing came from anyone, Kendrick broke the silence, hoping that Mora could be broken away from the PADD, "What else is there, commander?"

Mora looked up and then back at the padd. She didn't answer for a few seconds drawing the information presented in her mind, then finally handed the padd to Kendrick, who in turn handed it to Halliwell. "Structural analysis confirms it, captain. The Dubai was destroyed by a warp core breach."

Chief Mel offered in some further information while the information on his padd was disseminated, "As you can see from the information on the padd, the blast pattern on the outer hull is consistent with a matter, anti-matter explosion similar to a photon torpedo hit, the edges of the hull are sharp, malformed and the jagged edge profile suggests the same. Given that there are zero detectable weapon signatures anywhere on this piece of the hull, I think that this was one of those accidents that may happen."

Elsie took the PADD whilst listening to Mel and slid it in front of the now out-dated one she held. Her eyes didn't fall upon Mel until she'd finished reading but then she looked up to the Bolian. She nodded and then her attention was swayed to Kendrick's interjection.

"Something still doesn't add up," Kendrick said, "A warp core breach should have annihilated the entire ship, there should be nothing left for us to drag into the cargo bay and investigate in the first place."

Mora's brow furrowed slightly. "The piece that we have here though is from the forward saucer, by ten forward, and is one of the points furthest from the warp core. The blast pattern suggests a breach, but the size of the hull fragment here seems to be too small to suggest it was an uncontrolled breach."

"The teams pulled up the same theory, commander. An uncontrolled matter, anti-matter explosion like a core failure where the anti-matter containment pods fail, deliver such an explosion which would leave a lot more, and larger debris floating around--we might be talking a quarter of the saucer section on a ship like the Galaxy-class. I think we can determine without tricorders that this is not as big as that."

"Which only leaves a controlled explosion." Mora said thoughtfully.

To which Kendrick replied, "Someone activated the self-destruct."

Elsie nodded and then regarded the hull with a sorrowful, glassy eye. She sighed and then conceded to offer her own hypothesis. "I thought as much," she added, now breaking away from the group and stepping up closer to it. With her back to the room, she continued. "Lieutenant Augusta ran the explosion pattern through the computer once the away team had left Ranger. He came to the same conclusion and showed me some interesting similarities to other Galaxy class controlled explosions."

She now turned around and faced the four. "Self-destruct," she confirmed in a low, almost defeated tone; a sense of anguish now filling her thoughts. She glanced up at Mora but broke eye-contact before she could gauge a reaction. "The question now is why. And I don't think we'll get more from the logs we've retrieved. They've been picked apart."

She spun back around again and places an emotive hand on the cool, charred metal. It felt rougher than she'd anticipated and then black debris fell to the floor about her feet from her hands. "So, our only hope now is our destination."

There was still more going on that they didn't understand. T'mpest practically itched from the feelings of anxiety and paranoia. She was going to go through the logs again, but this time, she was going to look for unrest and discord. Circumstantial, yes, but she was looking for a pattern. She placed her hand on the hull for a moment, then pulled it back. There was a strong telepathic signature on the metal. It made her want to find someplace safe and hide. Odd. "Yes, we definitely need to find out what's going on here."

"How long until we arrive?" Kendrick asked no-one in particular, she wanted answers quickly, and not just to her own question.

Without thinking, T'mpest replied. "Six hours, forty-two minutes and thirteen seconds."

Kendrick turned to Halliwell, "I suggest we increase speed, the sooner we arrive at the planet the better." Then she addressed Mora, "Is there any chance of getting more speed from the engines?"

"We're still being plagued by these power problems," Mora said not speaking exclusively about the EPS conduits, "warp two point five is all I can really advise. We could push it to warp three but that will really push it above and beyond, in my opinion."

"On this matter," Elsie interjected, "I'll have to trust the advice of my chief engineer, Captain. We'll remain at warp two five"

Kendrick inaudibly sighed--what was the point of a mission advisor if no advice was going to be taken. "Of course."

Elsie noticed the look on Kendrick's face and so turned to face her. After her bout with Mora earlier that morning, the captain was not about to engineer another head-butting session, however, she felt she was correct in trusting her engineer's point of view. "Captain?" she asked, her head cocked to one side like a teacher's who's caught her pupils talking in glass or chewing gum.

"Captain... Elsie," Kendrick started putting them on familiarity terms, "we've picked this up from a destroyed Galaxy-class ship from forgive me," she said stealing a quick glance at Mora and Mel, "from undetermined causes. Even if Starfleet didn't want to know exactly what happened, I do, and if there's one thing I think we agree on, the only place we may be able to get some concrete information is the forbidden zone, and more specifically that fourth planet."

"I appreciate that," Elsie replied, attempting to placate the situation. "But with the systems already starting to take a turn for the worse, I don't want to risk any more damage. This may be consistent with a self-destruct explosion but we're not entirely sure, are we? And I for one are not going to put the lives of this crew at risk to shave minutes off our ETA."

Elsie caught Mora's contemptuous look as a reaction, as did most people, but decided to ignore it.

"If we went to warp three which Commander Mora has said we could do, we're not talking mere minutes but a couple of hours. If you're worried this ship is starting to fall apart, I think that time could be vital, don't you?" Alex knew she could be accused of splitting hairs, but this was something she had been doing in her career a long time, and for the most part, it had served her well.

"No," Elsie said defiantly, shaking her head slowly after considering the captain's request. "I'm not going to risk it. If the commander, here, believes that it will push Ranger above and beyond then we'll remain and two point five." She sighed, and then put her hand on her forehead in an attempt to wipe away the paranoia that still plagued her. Something was still etching at her mind, and she couldn't help but acknowledge the dreaded sense that she was losing control of her ship.

"We're all feeling the pinch here," she added, looking about at her most highest ranking officers, "but with the ship acting like she is... and a sense of unrest among the crew, I can't push it."

"As you wish." Kendrick said quietly. She still didn't much like the answer, but as of this moment couldn't do a whole lot about it.

>tag<

As the officers began to file out from the cargo bay, Elsie called out over Mora's shoulder. "Commander..." she said, allowing it to hang in the air with its intention. She waited until the doors had now sealed before she continued. "Have you completed what I asked?"

Mora waited until the cargo bay was completely empty before turning around to face Halliwell. With not so much as the blink of an eye, all she cordially said was "Yes, captain." And then turned back to the exit.

"Before you leave, Commander," Elsie said to her back. She cocked her head to one side and then knowingly added, "Are you absolutely sure? It's just that my own reports tell me that you haven't quite managed it."

Mora still faced the doors not wanting to be thinking what she was--that this captain was beginning to be a bigger problem than her last. She turned slowly and took a few paces forward, while provocatively and almost rhetorically asked "What reports? From whom?" Kadie looked around to ensure that she and the captain were most definitely alone before continuing, "What you have ordered me to do, is circumvent over a dozen security and safety protocols on this ship, as well as keep this action secret from every person on this ship. For me to do this, I have had to make it so that to anyone looking on, including the computer, no changes have taken place at all. So again I should ask what reports and from whom, because captain as your duly appointed chief engineer, I am the liaison between the Engineering department and the rest of the command staff, and so any information regarding that section should go directly through me. Which forces me to make another suggestion, don't go around me to check if I'm doing my job."

Elsie sighed and threw up a dismissive hand as she placed the other one on her hip. "I'm already tired of having this conversation with you, Mora, and I'm not about to indulge you again by going around the houses a second time." She took a small, un-provocative step forward and faced her chief engineer, changing her tack a little. "Commander, I'm not ordering this to bolster my power-trip ego. I'm trying to ensure the safety of my crew. And the events that we've all witnessed on the Dubai leaves me with very few safe-guarding options."

She shook her head in sheer frustration and searched Mora's features for any sign of compassion or understanding but found none. She sighed, more audibly than needed and looked towards the door of the cargo bay as two mustard collared security personnel entered, hands placed delicately on phasers. She indicated to them by a nod and then steely looked back to Mora. "I'd rather dismiss them," she said quietly and with a solemn edge to her voice.

Kadie paused taking in the delicate but steel hard lines of Halliwell's face--the burdens of command she thought, then stealing a glance behind her to the security personnel that had entered virtually on cue, she looked back at Halliwell. "So this is where it's come. We may as well be serving on a damned Romulan Warbird for all the paranoia that's even emanating from the bulkheads. Do you not see what is going on here? Not see what this,"she said discretely motioning to the security personnel, "is representing?"

"I somehow think," Elsie replied honestly, "that the Romulans would be better equipped to deal with what we're facing."

Mora shook her head, half with dismay, half with anger before she acted on her instincts, "Am I dismissed, sir?"

"For now," the captain replied flatly, the subtleties of emotion now draining from her face. She looked up to the detail and dismissed them away with a casual hand and as the rolling doors sealed them both in that vast, atmospheric room for a third time, Elsie decided, above her better judgement, to reach out one final time: "Keep an eye on the secondary systems, Commander. I'm not a believer in ghosts in the machine. Something, and someone, is causing those EPS fluctuations. And it is from them I am trying to safe-guard this ship." She shook her head and then stepped around Kadie, stopping only for a moment and adding, over her shoulder, "It is wrong that I am asking you to put the lives of every crewmember solely in my hands. But that's been my job for the past ten years now and I simply can't trust anyone on this ship besides myself at the moment." She punctuated her sentiment with an appealing glance but then whipped her head about before exiting the cargo bay, leaving both the wreck of the Dubai and her chief engineer.

OFF

 

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