Wall of Disaster

Posted on Fri Dec 29th, 2017 @ 12:37am by Captain Enalia Telvan & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie & Aewia Larani & Commander Mal Xustos & Akira Zhuri
Edited on on Wed Jan 31st, 2018 @ 10:24pm

Mission: When Iconians Deserve to Die
Location: USS Hera Bridge

The starcharts they had obtained rom the information broker on Tortuga station had been useful. The Hera had successfully been navigating the Ooort Nightmarelands for three days now successfully taking regular shifts. There had been a couple injuries from turbulence and some space sickness, but nothing too major. So far they had almost reached the coordinates of the Master's last secret lab. They just had two problems. The crew was worn out from the journey so far and they had run out of starcharts.

Not even the pirates had ventured this deep into the Nightmarelands, which meant they were both flying blind and trying to chart their own path. it wasn't easy and it was even slower going, but they had to make it that last AU.

Then the Ensign at Ops called out another reading. "Large metallic object dead ahead. Scanning. Size..."

Not getting any more from the young Ensign, Enalia turned slightly towards his station. "Size?"

"Indeterminate, Captain. I think... Readings... Yes, readings closest match that of the Jenolen Dyson Sphere but are just a bit off." The young Ensign then brought up an overlay of the sensor analysis on part of the main viewscreen and several gasps went around the bridge.

"Did he really..." Enalia began, but cut herself short before finishing the thought. "Confirm that it is a sphere and that the coordinates we're looking for are inside of it."

The young Ensign spoke up again, just as the night shift whistle went off and interrupted him. "Confirmed, Captain, I'm reading the same entry door configuration not far from our position as well as several familiar structures, though most of the surface is definitely of Iconian construction. The coordinates should be right about where the sun is inside of it."

"Ok... Helm hold position here and let's get shift change out of the way. Sorry everyone. I know you're excited, but get some rest, ok?" Enalia couldn't help but grin. She was a bit excited too. Not only was this a huge scientific and historical find, but they were so close to the Master's hidden secret base she could taste it.

Staring at the purplish silver metal peeking through the red plasma plumes on the viewscreen as night shift was relieved and dayshift came on, Enalia thought about the past few years they'd been looking for the Master. Was he her nemesis? Did they have that sort of relationship by this point? Did he consider her to be a thorn in his side or more of an annoying bug? Either way, he'd soon find out how annoying this crew as a whole could be.

Mal entered the bridge with a travel mug filled with iced green tea in one hand and a bottle of purified water in the other. He walked over to the center seat and handed Enalia the bottle of water.

"Good morning my dear," Mal said. "I'd ask if anything interesting happened over Gamma Shift, but I can see the something interesting on the view screen now."

Taking the bottle, Enalia motioned to the viewscreen as day shift crew filtered in. "Yeah, the Master's secret base is in the center of an iconian Dyson Sphere. The coordinates we have are probably for some sort of solar observatory or something."

"A Dyson Sphere?" Mal responded. "This should be...interesting. What's our next move?"

"We scan it carefully. There's an entry structure similar to the one on the Jenolan sphere that disabled the USS Enterprise and almost threw her into the sun inside of it. We need to make sure we don't make that same mistake and don't trip any other traps or defenses, which is going to be even harder, given the nature of the enemy." Enalia punched up an overlay readout on the viewscreen as she sipped at the bottle of water. "Science is already working on a metallurgical analysis, but neutronium is the only thing we can really get a reading on. The gases in the area are only part of the problem. Iconian tech is just hard to scan."

"Miss Zhuri..." Mal said, stopping when he noticed she wasn't there. He rapidly pushed thoughts and images of reasons for her tardiness that might involve Daytona out of his mind. Besides, Mal had no room to complain. He was almost late for similar reasons. He tapped his commbadge. "Xustos to Zhuri. Are you on your way?"

At that moment, Akira blinked onto the bridge. "I'm so sorry sir! I was on my way in for the shift change when one of my- i-it doesn't matter, I'm late, I'm sorry, it will not happen again," she stated in a flustered rush, then stepped up to her station to begin scanning the mysterious wall in front of them. Dyson Sphere, clearly of Iconian origin, careful, must proceed very carefully... Trying to find a way to scan the tech without it attacking them in return was tricky, but she was nothing if not determined! "Might want to settle in and get comfortable, this could take a while," Akira cautioned.

"I have absolute faith in you," Mal said.

Akira looked up briefly, offering a meek smile at his approval before returning her attention to her scans. At first, the Sphere seemed impenetrable; well, that wasn't precise, there was clearly a way into to the Sphere, but how to get in without the Iconian programming trying to take over was the real trick. But then she found a communication tower and it seemed to be striking up 'conversation' with the Hera's communications array, but it was not yet showing any signs of being invasive; was this their way in?

"Captain, I believe I've found something," Akira spoke up. "I've identified a communications array that is somehow exchanging information with the Hera. I'm placing a series of firewalls around our communications array to be safe, but would you like me to probe its defenses to see if I can get into the Sphere's computer?"

"Yeah, but be careful. That Iconian worm may be secured in the intel lab, but this may work another into our systems." Enalia checked her status displays on her chair again as Ensign Gonadie took the helm. "Ensign Gonadie, take us to sixty thousand kilometers of that tower but make sure you don't trip the automated entry protocols of the nearby gateway, if you please."

"Aye, Captain. Bringing us in line now with maneuvering thrusters," the Ensign replied as she expertly guided the ship through the plasma jets guarding the Iconian Dyson sphere.

That was when Maica III stepped off the turbolift and gave a small gasp at the sight on the viewscreen. Enalia glanced over at her wife before returning her attention back to the situation at hand. "You shouldn't be on the bridge."

"I know, but the view from our quarters isn't much better." Maica replied. "Besides, I sensed some intrusive activity in the comm lines I use so I thought I might be of some help."

Enalia nodded and motioned towards Akira's station. "Akira, see if she can help."

"I would appreciate the assistance," Akira said with a small smile, stepping over to give Maica room to look at what she was doing. "Can you double check my work and make sure the firewalls I have placed around our communications array are secure? I'm about to test the Iconian computer's defenses to find a way in," she informed her not-mother/sort of aunt.

"Yeah, I think I can do that." Maica tapped on the controls for a few to look over the various firewalls before making a recommendation. "These all look good and against a normal enemy, they'd work wonderfully. I don't think even my combined network could get past them. However, these are Iconians... You might want to use one of those polymorphic security arrays Intel uses. I went into their offices the other day to see how Aewia was doing and I couldn't even see the unsecure screens because of them."

"A reasonable precaution," Akira replied with a nod as she applied this additional layer of protection to her firewalls, adding in Borg fractal encryptions that Mother Andy had programmed into her as well. She looked over to Maica for one last approval, then she placed her palm on the console to connect directly with the computer and began the dive into the Iconian computer. It probably wasn't the wisest choice attempting to pick at the dangerous Iconian programming this way, but she could anticipate and react much faster to the computer's defenses this way than at a console, and with so many layers of encryption and firewalls protecting her, what could possibly go wrong?

The Iconian defenses didn't take long to figure out that the Hera wasn't under the control of the Master's program. It also didn't take long to figure out that it wasn't some random ship and that this was a ship flagged as high priority by the Master. It even told Akira this as it continued trying to get past the firewalls and attempted unsuccessfully to take over both Akira and the Hera's systems.

Then it gave up and went with a different avenue of attack.

Ensign Gonadie's station lit up like the Las Vegas strip as the gate into the interior of the sphere partially activated, firing an energy beam at the Hera. "Captain, I've lost helm control! Power is down!"

The ensign at engineering called out next. "Captain, the warp engines just went offline. Auxiliary refuses to come online. Batteries are at thirty percent and dropping. At this rate, life support will fail in nine minutes."

Then tactical... "Captain, weapons and shields are non responsive. Tractor control isn't even responding."

Then a black transporter beam swept through the ship and teleported every sentient being off the ship, leaving the sound of alarms the only thing left with Akira and Maica on the bridge.

Then it somehow got worse.

"Collision alert," came the voice of the computer as the surface of the dyson sphere started growing closer in the viewscreen. "Ninety three seconds to impact."

Akira felt it when the Iconian computer abandoned its attempts to take control of the Hera's communication array and she immediately pulled back out of the computer, but only in time to see every biological being on the Bridge disappear and in a strange black transporter matter stream.

"Oh no!" Akira called out, both mortified and ashamed that she had put the Hera's crew in danger. "No no no no no no no!" She said in a very Andy-esque way as her fingers flew over the console to try to get the crew back, but there was simply nothing for the transporters to lock onto. Then the other shoe dropped and she heard the collision warning from the computer. "Well fuck!" she blurted out; okay, maybe she needed to spend more time talking with the less foul-mouthed mother...

Akira abandoned Ops and blinked to the Conn to see what, if anything, would respond. Warp drive? No. Impulse Engines? No. Thrusters? Maybe, if they weren't hemorrhaging power like a Klingon pissing after a drinking contest!

"Power, power, I need power from... somewhere... ANYWHERE!" Akira said frantically as she blinked back to the Ops station to find some power. Okay, just shut down life support, there were no longer any biological life-forms aboard. Wait, scratch that, Moriko was still on board, as well as a dog and a couple other cats! Okay, they were small and there was still plenty of air for the moment, she could sacrifice life support and other related systems like replicators and waste management for the moment. She shut down weapons and any other auxiliary system that wasn't immediately necessary and put everything into the thrusters.

"Aunt Maica, take the helm!" Akira called out as her fingers danced over the console. "I can't stop us from crashing, but I think I can get us enough power to use the thrusters to slow our descent and save the ship, but I can't pilot and do this at the same time."

Maica rushed to the helm and sat there looking at it like it had just sprouted three heads and said hello to her. "Shit... Computer, download a manual on how to operate this shit into my matrix! Now!"

"Unable to comply. Primary storage is offline. Seventy seconds to impact." The computer spoke dispassionately as it replied, as if it didn't care that it was about to slam into the side of a giant neutronium sphere the size of a solar system. "No authorized biological lifeforms detected aboard. Celium protocol three enacted. Ship will self destruct in forty eight hours if no authorized crew return."

Maica threw her hands up before pressing a few of the thruster controls to try and figure them out and steady their descent. "Thank you for adding insult to injury, Computer! I'll just figure this shit out myself."

"AM I NOT AN AUTHORIZED LIFE FORM!" Akira bellowed. She was definitely going to have a talk with Enalia about this if and when Akira was able to figure out how to get them all back. But for now, she focused on providing as much power as possible to thrusters, watching as the Dyson Sphere grew closer on the view screen.

"Fifty seconds to impact."

Akira pulled power from the labs, holodecks, but still it was not enough; the ship was starting to level its descent, but it wasn't enough!

"Thirty seconds to impact."

Lights and consoles not on the bridge were shut down, and now Akira was turning her attention to more vital systems like the Warp core and some of its secondary systems; they couldn't use the warp drive now anyway, right? The could reinitialise the intermix chamber once they were able to get off this thing!

"Ten seconds to impact."

HA! There was a slight delay in that last announcement, they were making a difference! Oh shit, but this was the final count, so Akira shut off the secondary computer as well as medical and intel computers, and the pod was completely powered down now too, and all back-up generators that powered these systems were rerouted to thrusters as well.

"Eight seconds to impact."

Maica was doing her best as she tried to level them off and slow their descent. She also knew that that last two seconds that the computer counted took at least six seconds according to her own internal chronometer. Doing a little math in her own head, she calculated the stresses the ship would have to endure just sitting on the outside of the sphere. It was a lot. "I think I've slowed our decent enough. Is our structure going to survive if I can set us down soft enough to not blow up? Or is it going to shear off our nacelles?"

"Six seconds to impact."

"I don't know!" Akira answered, but she managed to squeeze a little bit of power out of the Bridge by shutting off the lights and the other consoles they weren't using and she rerouted it to structural integrity.

"5, 4-"

Akira knew she couldn't be harmed in the collision, yet she braced herself for impact anyway.

"3,2-"

Maica held on and hoped her matrix didn't destabilize as there was a metal on metal crunching as the ship made solid contact with the outer skin of the sphere. There was a slight rocking and grinding and a loud popping explosion could be heard as stress on the starboard bussard scoop literally shattered it into shards, but other than that and the sound of slightly straining duranium, after a few seconds the ship settled somewhat peacefully.

As the ship finally came to rest, Akira stood there panting; yes, panting, and she had one hell of a death grip on her console.

"Well..." Akira said after a moment, her voice soft and shaky, "I think that went rather well..." She was afraid to check to check the Hera's structural integrity, more like she was terrified of how Enalia was going to yell at her for breaking her ship! She was, however, going to run a full diagnostic on herself and Maica III "You okay, Aunt Maica?" Akira asked as she pried her fingers off the console to start running checks.

"My matrix is stable... If I could, I'd have wet my pants..." Maica tapped at the console in front of her, trying to get what readings she could. "I think I have something on what remaining sensors we have. Around six hundred life signs just at the edge of sensor range. And I've lost those sensors..."

"Yeah, that figures..." Akira replied with a sigh at the news that the sensors were gone. "I'm dead, aren't I? Enalia's gonna kill me..."

"The ship is still in one piece and we still have forty eight hours to get the crew back. Let's not jump to conclusions just yet, ok?" Tapping furiously at the navigational sensor systems, Maica got one of the palettes to respond for just long enough to get some interesting readings. "I don't believe this... Akira, your matrix has more sophistication than mine. Do you have any experience with telepresence control? I just picked up an entire rack of what just identified themselves as Herald class android probes. And that sensor palette is down..."

"Heralds? Ohhh... I, uh- I don't know, Aunt Maica; what if... what if take control of one and it corrupts my matrix?" Akira replied uneasily. "I shut down all but the main computer and I don't think it's working at full capacity, I don't know if I can set up the necessary precautions to protect my matrix!"

Maica turned to look at Akira, a somber look on her face. "It's up to you, of course. We just need to do something. I'm not sure if there's really much more I can do now though. My matrix runs on a separate system from the ship and unfortunately, you had to cut the main power to it and my backup battery isn't going to last much longer."

"No..." Akira said, a well of sadness dawning on her face. "I'm so sorry, but- I had to... I had to, I didn't have a choice, I had to protect the ship!" Tears were forming in her eyes, she was so scared, but she knew Maica was right, and what had to be done had to be done. "I'm sorry, Aunt Maica, please don't go, I can't do this alone!" She knew it was irrational to ask, she knew Maica would have to shut down to conserve battery power, but much of her mentality was still so juvenile, and she was just scared and didn't want to be all alone.

Maica shook her head and smiled softly. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. You can do this. You're the only one that can do this. Just remember - the safety of the ship comes first. As for those Heralds, I do have a tiny bit of information about them from my sibling that chose to exist as a pillar of light. One of his research companions discovered the remains of one and it seems they're the remains of a time when the Iconians were exploring the universe. It was packed with sensors and scanners the likes of which they'd never seen before. In fact, the neural net was completely blank and unprotec..."

Suddenly Maica flickered and for a moment her form was motionless before it just dissolved.

Then the computer spoke up in a slightly lethargic voice. "Connection to MAICA III holomatrix core lost-t-t."

Akira gasped when Maica dissolved away, and it was then that she let the tears fall, suddenly feeling the chill of air which was growing ever colder without the aid of the life support system to counter the cold void of space. She let herself cry for a moment, but only a moment knowing that the computer wasn't in the best shape, so time of of the essence. Then she wiped the tears away and got to work, because she was not going to let her crew down! She ran diagnostics on the computer to assess how long it could hold out before it shut down and the numbers weren't good. Maybe she shouldn't do a remote control of the Herald, maybe... maybe she should transfer her matrix to the neural net! After all, Maica said they were blank and unprotected, and she could add a few layers of encrypted firewalls to her matrix to protect herself from invasive Iconian programming! Yeah, that could work!

Akira knew she had little time to waste, but she took her time to get her protection properly set up, she couldn't afford to mess this up! Once she had enough layers of protection around her matrix, she packaged her matrix up into a compressed kernel, then tried to get one of the sensors working to locate the probes.

"Computer, activate the Emergency Command Hologram," Akira said softly.

"Please state the nature of the-" the ECH started to say as he came online. "Bloody hell, what has happened to the ship?!" he asked.

"Bad things," Akira said sadly. "We've crashed onto an Iconian Dyson Sphere, the crew has been beamed away, and I'm about to transfer myself to an Iconian Herald Probe so I can go find the crew to bring them back before the 48-hour countdown causes the ship to self destruct."

The ECH stared at Akira for a long while, completely dumbstruck.

"Well what do you want me to do about all this?" he asked.

"Try to get life support back online so there's an atmosphere when the crew returns," Akira said. "If you need help, restore power to Maica III, her storage bank is in the Captain's quarters. And if you have a few spare minutes, try to find the ship pets, they will probably be cold and need to be fed."

"So I go from miracle worker to pet sitter, nice," the ECH said in dull dry tone. "I have my orders, so do what you need to do."

Akira took a deep breath and looked to the view screen, at the vast expanse of the surface of the Dyson Sphere and the stars beyond. She steeled her nerves, double checked her contingencies with her matrix, then with a press of button she was gone.