Starships Were Meant to Fly

Posted on Sun Jan 24th, 2016 @ 9:20pm by Petty Officer 2nd Class Amelia Takethen & Commander Angelica Fairchild & Commander Sinek & Lieutenant Daln Hadren

Mission: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Location: USS Hera, Bridge

With Enalia still out of commission after whatever had happened during that away mission, Angel had found herself in command of the ship, a seat she'd thought to be so unlikely when she'd first come aboard. She still had no idea just what sort of object they were orbiting or how long Enalia planned for them to stay there, and she wasn't looking forward to finding out what it was either. With their luck it was probably some sort of ancient planet killing weapon that could swat the Hera like a fly. The thought wasn't exactly comforting. Even with the strange object looming, Angel still had other things on her mind. Like where her second in command was. She knew Sinek was having a tough time, but being entirely absent was so unlike him that thoughts of him poked in even as she tried to contemplate what their next course of action should be... along with other things.

Somehow, Amelia had brought Ven back from the dead. Angel didn't pretend to understand it, but naturally Enalia had left it up to her to figure out what had happened and if any sort of... consequences were in order. She hated the idea of punishing Amelia for rescuing a member of the crew thought to be dead, but at the same time she didn't want to encourage any of their other science-inclined people to try doing the same thing. Just having it happen once was mind-boggling, and they didn't know how dangerous it was. She hadn't been able to come up with any suitable actions beyond keeping Amelia nearby and within sight, but she also knew that wasn't likely to stop any sciencey shenanigans. Amelia was a crafty sort, crafty enough to keep Angel guessing, even if Angel didn't like to admit it. Keeping her nearby and within sight didn't mean the Andorian woman wasn't plotting more impossible things to do before the Hera left the bizarre structure behind.

Not really sure what orders to give or whether the ship should leave this place, Angel looked at the odd thing on the viewscreen, wishing it was someone else who had to figure all this out.

The ride on the turbo lift brought mixed feelings to the Vulcan. It meant the urges had passed; he was his logical self once again. It was a good thing to be back on duty; he had missed the routine of his life.

Sinek also missed she who gave him breaks from the routine. He wondered if she would understand he did what he did for her. She was the one person with whom he shared his emotions. Sinek felt to subject Angel to the rampant animal emotions would hinder their relationship. She would feel like a mere piece of meat to fulfill the thriving hunger of the predator.

When the door hissed open, Sinek could see her in the Captain's seat. A sudden flush of emotion caused the Vulcan to wonder if the Pon Farr had actually passed. However, Sinek gained control and suppressed the feeling before any tears formed in his eyes.

Quietly, Sinek approached the chair to her right. He looked at the one he chose to love. I did the logical thing, but was it the right thing? Folding his hands before him, he silently sank into the chair next to her.

Softly he spoke, "I have missed much..." It was a statement, not a question. A statement full of meaning that Sinek hoped to get across to Angel. He had missed what had happened to the Captain and why Angel now sat in her seat. That was true. But more than anything, Sinek hoped Angel heard how much he had missed her.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," Angel countered just as softly, though there was a warmth in her voice as she lightly scolded him. Disappearing like that had her so worried, and here he was... normal as ever. "I'll fill you in on the specifics later. It's been really strange around here lately." That was an understatement, one that Sinek wouldn't understand until she had the time to explain everything. Even then, Angel feared he might find her to be a raving lunatic.

Sinek raised a brow. Did later mean privately, the two of them alone? Or was it more of an official capacity? True, Angel's tone was softer than Sinek had a expected, but he couldn't help but wonder where he stood with Angel.

The past few weeks drained him physically and emotionally. She showed a desire to be with him - to help him through the suffering and pain, to allow him to feed those emotions that raged through his mind. Despite Angel's willingness and strong will, Sinek wouldn't allow her to stay. It was another first for him - going through Pon Farr without a partner. It was extremely painful and dangerous, but he had conquered through meditation.

"Indeed," Sinek spoke in a flat tone, "later."

Sinek looked at the view screen, "What is our current mission?"

"Good question." To be honest, Angel wasn't entirely sure what all of the mission parameters were. All this science stuff went over her head. "We picked up a distress call from that... thing." She gestured at the moon-sized structure orbiting the binary stars below, which she supposed was some sort of ship. "We've been taking scans, but so far all we can tell about it is it's old... older than the Iconians, if you can believe that. I was hoping you'd know more about it."

Sinek thought got a moment, then input some inquiries into a PADD. "The Ambimorphs were capable of building a structure this large. The USS Independence stumbled upon them, thinking their ship to be a planet. However, it was discovered to be hollow. When the crew of the Independence were determined to be peaceful, the Ambimorphs revealed themselves. Apparently, they were able to shapeshift down to the molecular structure of the item."

Sinek paused to allow Angel to take in what he had said. It was a possibility. The Ambimorphs were an ancient advanced civilization. The Vulcan then added, "If they are capable of morphing down to the molecular level, it may explain why scans are not picking up life forms. A word of caution: the Ambimorphs the Independence discovered carried a deadly virus that killed many of the Independence's crew."

Before Angel could respond though, a familiar face stepped off of the turbolift and headed straight for her, a security guard at the person's side. Standing at crisp attention, Amelia offered the Commander a PaDD. "Ma'am, this is a report of how I reconstituted Ven. I accept all consequences for my actions."

At the words "reconstituted Ven," Sinek's left brow rose. It seems I did miss quite a bit. Sinek turned to look at Angel, his brain churning to fully understand just what this reconstitution meant. He had heard of the famous ancient earth theories of regeneration. He knew of the hybrid - Ambassador Spock, a man whom Sinek had actually met - and his regeneration through Project Genesis. It would be interesting to study this subject - Ven - and determine how effective this reconstitution was and exactly how it was done.

Just then, Daln came out of the other turbolift and caught thoughts that made him wonder if everything was alright or if he was going to have to place someone in the brig. Quietly, he came up closer to Cmdr Fairchild, thinking that she could use him if she wished. "Ma'am, do you need assistance?" Daln asked her, glancing at the Andorian before looking back at Angel.

Her head already reeling from the barrage of bizarre happenings in recent weeks coupled with the sudden dropping of the Hera command in her lap, Angel just looked at the three of them for a moment, trying to process each comment and come up with an appropriate response. Her woozy brain wasn't making much headway on that. "Okay. Tiny Ambimorphs we can't see or scan could explain the absence of life signs, but not the giant chairs that Enalia put in her report. Unless she's crazy and was seeing things, which isn't out of the realm of possibility." There. One thing handled. Now for the other two. She gingerly took the PaDD that Amelia offered her, tucking it between her leg and the side of the command chair. "Thank you, Petty Officer. I'll go over it later." Reading it later gave her some time also to come up with some sort of reasonable response to Amelia fiddling with necromancy... or whatever it's scientific equivalent was. She couldn't really fault Amelia for bringing back the love of her life, but Angel didn't want other scientists on the ship thinking they could get away with it too. Finally she looked at Daln with something of a weary smile, shaking her head slightly. "I'm all right, but I wouldn't mind if you stuck around either. Apparently we have science-y types resurrecting the dead, and seeing as I don't carry a phaser anymore, I'm not up for fighting any zombies if something goes wrong." It was meant as a joke, but Angel thought it sounded wrong somehow. She just couldn't figure out just what was wrong with it.

Daln frowned, sensing something was seriously wrong...besides the problems with the captain. "Aye, ma'am...I'll be at my station if you need me." He gestured to the tactical station just behind her. Zombies? What kind of ship have I been assigned to? he wondered.

Just then, the lights on the bridge dimmed noticeably for a few seconds, returning to normal brightness after a brief flicker at the bottom of their lighting capabilities. With that, the hum of the ship noticeably died down as well as the EPS conduits were drained of energy by an unknown source. Amelia looked up a bit startled, but was the first in motion, reaching one of the bridge's rear engineering stations in record time. "Captain, there was power failure on decks one through three and parts of deck four. A diagnostic is already in progress to determine the cause but nothing's popped up yet and power levels are back up to normal."

When the lights dimmed, Angel's posture had perceptively stiffened, and she found herself wishing she'd kept carrying her sidearm despite Starfleet's dislike of having armed officers outside of security. The last time they'd had lighting issues, there had been an army of Devidians on board. People had been sucked dry of their life force. "Lieutenant Haldren, I want security teams posted at those locations before the engineering teams go in to take a closer look."

"The computer says the source was just outside of environmental control on deck two. There's a turbolift stuck... no, it's moving again..." Glancing up from the console, Amelia stared at the turbolift in question, waiting for it to open.

And open it did, revealing a passed out Enalia Telvan collapsed on the floor.

Looking at Amelia, Sinek calmly ordered, "Transport the Captain to Sick Bay and avert auxiliary power to those decks. Also, were there any fluxes in power coming from that ship?" Pushing his Comm, he added, "Lieutenant Commander Sinek to Sick Bay, the Captain is being beamed directly to you."

Looking to Daln, Sinek intoned, "Get a team to deck two and investigate the area outside of environmental control."

Daln nodded, then tapped his commbadge. "Daln to security. Hernandes, Thorne, meet me in environmental control."

Sinek was beginning to wonder how the ship figured into everything that happened. He had been to binary systems before. They didn't cause strange things to happen. The only thing different was the ship. He even wondered if it had anything to do with Amelia bringing Ven back.

Amelia nodded and programmed in the site to site transport, sending the Captain safely to the receiving ward of sickbay on deck twelve. Once she was sure the cycle was complete, she looked up and nodded to Sinek.

Then another alarm went off, throwing the ship into yellow alert.

Looking back at the engineering console, Amelia read off the status display for that alarm. "Deck twelve is on emergency power and parts of decks ten through fifteen are without power. It's like something's draining it straight out of the EPS conduits... And levels are returning to normal now. No... The primary inertial dampener generators on deck thirteen isn't coming back online. Secondaries kicking in, but it's not enough to keep us in orbit for very long."

And when we fall out of orbit do we hit the giant ship or the stars? Either end spelled bad news for the ship.... but they couldn't go to warp with failing inertial dampeners either. "Break orbit!" Angel snapped at the young officer in control of the helm, whoever it was she didn't know them. "Put as much distance between us and the binary stars as you can before the dampeners fail."

"But sir... without the primary inertial dampeners we can't go to warp..." The young officer looked over his shoulder, trailing off as he saw the look Angel was giving him. "Yes, sir, breaking orbit."

As efforts started to move the Hera away, Angel slowly looked at Sinek and Amelia. "You sent Enalia to sickbay. It's on deck 12."

Amelia stared blankly at Angel for a moment before the engineering panel called to her again. "Fusion reactors three and four are being drained now. They're on deck ten right above where I beamed the Captain... Starboard impulse engines are at zero output. Port side is at full power. I'm routing power to the secondary hull's impulse drive to compensate."

"It's the Captain," Sinek logically surmised outloud. "She previously was on the turbo- lift where the initial problem occurred. If we place her within a secured force field, would it prevent this draining?"

"I don't know. This is going way over my head." Even with the secondary hull's impulse drive firing, Angel could feel the ship starting to slip into a slow turn to starboard. "Try it."

Sinek knew the force field meant that if the Captain needed medical attention, they would have to drop the it. However at this point, Sinek's logic told him that the entire crew's safety trumped that of one person, even if that person was the Captain. He was certain the Captain would agree. He input the commands to place the field around the Captain's bio-bed. He alerted Sick Bay and advised them to monitor and report the Captain's vital signs.

Now, they would have to see if it helped their situation. Sinek's mind turned back to the alien ship. "Commander, permission to board the alien ship in an EV suit once we are stabilized."

"And expose you to whatever the hell happened to Enalia over there? Absolutely not," Angel replied firmly. She didn't know what had happened for sure on that ship, and she sure as hell wasn't sending anyone else over to it.

The unnamed helmsman was clearly having some difficulty getting the ship out of orbit, all but pounding on the console in front of him. "Commander, engines seem to be losing power. I can get us into a stable orbit a bit higher than we were but unless we get more power, we're stuck here."

Amelia piped up from the back of the bridge right after he finished talking. "The forcefield in sickbay won't hold - there's just not enough power left there to generate one. Also, we only have about forty percent impulse power left. We'll need double that to break out of this gravity well. On the bright side, primary IDF generators are coming back online." As soon as Amelia finished talking, the bridge lights dimmed again, this time for a bit longer than last time and several consoles around the outside of the bridge went blank.

Angel made a distressed noise as the lights nearly went out again, gripping the arm rests to the chair she suddenly didn't feel qualified to sit in. She didn't know exactly what was happening or how to fight it; her career thus far had generally presented her with problems that could be solved with superior weaponry. Nowhere had she encountered anything quite like this. "Get us in a stable orbit then," she said tightly, hoping she imagined the quiver in her voice. "And find a way to shut off that damned power drain!"

No matter how large the alien ship was, something had crippled it, now the same thing seemed to be happening to the Hera. "Commander, it seems whatever stopped that ship is now doing the same to us. It seems to be working through the Captain. I would recommend stunning her, but it appears she will absorb the energy generated. We need to neutralize whatever is draining off power through her. Do we have any scans back from Sick Bay?" Sinek asked.


[Environmental Control]

Jenny, Bart and Hernandes got to Environmental Control before Daln, and the dog looked on edge, like he sensed something. It had Daln on edge, too, but he didn't know why. Bart growled.

"Steady, boy," Thorne said.

Daln tapped his commbadge again. =A= Gates, take Lwordin and some teams and get to Decks 3, 4, and 12 and keep an eye on things. I don't want anything taking us by surprise. =A=

They went in, wristlights on, but nothing was there. Daln aimed his light everywhere. "Anything, Hernandes?"

Hernandes likewise was looking around, unable to find anything. "No. I can't find anything. It's giving me the creeps."

Bart, meanwhile was sniffing around, trying to find anything, but coming up empty. Jenny was shining the flashlight wherever he was headed but finally he just snorted and sat on his haunches and looked at Jenny. He'd found nothing.

Jenny looked at Daln. "Nothing. Bart didn't find anything and if he can't smell it, it probably isn't here."

"Right," Daln said curtly. He trusted the canine's senses, but the lack of evidence frustrated him. "Let's head back." He led the way back to the turbolift, hoping it wouldn't stall on him.

They entered the turbolift and were heading back to the bridge, all of them ill at ease, even the dog.


[Bridge]

Back on the bridge, the helmsman finally got the ship into a stable orbit. "We're there, Commander. Solid and stable for at least a year according to the computer."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the lights came back.

And then a sound came from the intercom.

A crackling, guttural sound that was vaguely speech patterned.

It continued for a few moments before it morphed and cleared up into a densely male voice. "Thank you for this chariot. I've been trapped here for so many millennia without food. Your society will satisfy my unslaked thirst." Then with a slight squelch, the voice went silent.

At the sudden sound of a voice speaking from the comms system, Angel squeaked and froze in place, her breath caught in her throat. Any moment she expected that voice to start singing that infernal 'Bonnie-kin' rhyme that still occasionally haunted her nightmares. It was her place to respond to whatever this being was, but no words came. Instead she sat stone-still, barely breathing as the memory of being chased by the assimilated dog-zombie creatures surfaced and cheerfully traumatized her all over again.

"Who are you?" Sinek evenly inquired. Even though there seemed to be malice in the voice, Sinek attempted to open communication. It seemed the Vulcan thing to do. "Is the other ship yours? If not, did you harm the inhabitants of the ship? How do you intend to satisfy your thirst."

Perhaps if they knew the entity's plan, they could better defend it. Calmly sending a quick message to the Captain's chair, Sinek hoped that Angel would see it without alerting the entity. It read: "If this entity thirsts for energy, perhaps we should shutdown all systems."

Daln and the others had come in in the middle of the entity's speech. Bart bared his teeth and growled, uneasy. Daln froze in place, sensing the absolute malice of the thing. It was rare that he ever felt that kind of cruelty. "What was that?" he asked, disturbed.

With a brief squelch, the voice came back. "That ship... Yes, it tried to destroy me here... To save their own dying society. I have seen civilizations rise and fall. I have eaten whole suns. I have seen the collapse of galaxy spanning civilizations. Yes, I was their downfall. They fed me in the hopes of slaking my thirst but it just made me stronger. They served well their purpose, just as yours will. This ship will be a fine chariot for my return to the universe after half a billion years."

"If it is energy for which you hunger," Sinek calmly suggested, "Perhaps you will be more satisfied by the binary system. We have evidence it will be colliding soon and going supernova."

Sinek looked at Angel and mouthed the words without sound, "Mag-net-tic Ent-ti-ty."

While it was nice that Sinek appeared to know what the creepy voice might be, Angel could do little more than nod at him. Her personal universe was getting rather small, as the relative lack of air moving into her lungs had her brain rapidly spiraling into oblivion.

Amelia knew her ideas were crazy and had gotten people killed, but she'd saved someone too, so she hoped this would work... Or at least be considered... Punching up a basic outline on a PaDD, she headed back around the horseshoe and offered it to Angel. "It seems power is back to normal levels for the moment at least. I mean, we're still lacking the power to escape the gravity well, but with any luck..." On that PaDD was the trajectory for a slingshot past the ancient derelict, coming within a few meters of it, and flying the Hera straight between the binary neutron stars in a slingshot maneuver that would throw the ship clear of the system. It would either fry the entire crew with radiation, crush the ship to the size of a strawberry, or they'd survive and escape... Hopefully with the gravity pulling the entity now in the ship out on the way. Her quick calculations gave the plan a 1.2% chance of both surviving and without their new 'friend'.

Amelia was talking to her. Still feeling somewhat dazed, Angel gingerly took the offered PaDD and looked at it. The proposal was almost certain to destroy the ship and kill everyone, but what other options did they have? Their orbit would soon decay. Attempting to break orbit would drain all power from the ship. At least this plan had the advantage of not requiring the Hera to expend any power of her own.

It was a bad plan. A terrible one, in fact. But Angel didn't like her other choices either, and a decision had to be made. Rather than speak aloud and alert the entity to what she was doing, she quietly rerouted helm control to the arm console of the command chair, pointing the ship's nose dead center between the twin stars and switching the engines from orbit/stationkeeping to forward momentum. Slowly, the Hera began to pick up speed, heading for a slingshot maneuver that would either send the ship reeling across space far away from this system... or destroy it.

Amelia plopped her but in the empty seat inside the bridge horseshoe and held on for the ride. As soon as the ship started moving, the intercom squelched back on with that same voice, a bit more menacing and with a touch of desperation to it. "What are you doing? That'll destroy you? Why would you do that?"

As the derelict ship grew in the viewscreen, Amelia punched up a power readout on that chair's console, monitoring it as they flew faster towards the binary neutron stars. Soon, they'd be passing that ancient ship and passing between the giant balls of radiation and gravity so she did her best to reinforce both the shields and the structural integrity of the ship.

"I demand that you stop this at once! I must not! Do not!" The entity screeched over the intercom as they raced closer towards seeming death. "Aaargh!" It screamed as the hull of the Hera passed within a few inches of the behemoth drifting in space. Angel was piloting as well as she could to miss it, but even then, there was no way to completely avoid the massive ship and as a screeching and slight shudder went through the ship, the energy being saw its only chance of survival and took it, leaping back through the Hera's hull to the archaic moon sized ship.

"Power levels increasing. No sign of drain." Amelia reported as soon as they cleared the giant vessel. Now they just had to thread the eye of the needle, the tiny neutron stars filling the viewscreen.

"Time to apex, thirty seconds," called out the helmsman, whom by this time had soiled himself in outright fear. "We'll reach escape velocity three seconds before that."

Daln held on to the rail on which his controls resided, trying to steady himself. "Oh, shit!" he yelled. His dark eyes widened in fear as the two stars came closer and closer...

Keeping her eyes on her plotted course, Angel steadied the Hera until it flew straight and true, holding her breath as the ship hurtled toward the impossibly small gap. Three seconds wasn't enough time to pull the ship out of its headlong rush toward the stars; their only hope was to keep flying straight and pray to whatever deity might be listening that the ship survived. Seconds seemed to stretch into hours and then the Hera slammed through the space between the stars, her speed easily doubling and then tripling as the ship entered the slingshot turn that would free them entirely of the system.

As the ship reached escape velocity and beyond, a singularity was forming around the ship - a light was seen streaking at the edges of the viewscreen and tachyons flooded the area, throwing the ship into a temporal pocket that moved them forward in time by a few days as they passed through the binary neutron stars.

On their way out of the system, the ship was at close to the speed of light and still going just on impulse and soon they had cleared the gravity well. "Commander," squeaked the scared shitless helmsman, "We're clear."

"Good." That was all Angel could think of to say about the matter. It wasn't cheerful or inspiring, but she was lacking in both feelings at the moment. "I want reports on Captain Telvan's condition and the overall condition of the ship and crew as soon as they are available. I'll be in the ready room." Perhaps it wasn't proper to flee the bridge so abruptly after their escape, but Angel's renewed hold on her composure was tenuous at best. Rather than take the chance on losing that grip, she got up and disappeared into Enalia's ready room, where at least she could be alone for as long as necessary.

The commander's unease was strong enough for a person of quarter Betazoid blood to pick it up. He gestured for Hernandes to take over and headed to the ready room and sounded the chime.

Lieutenant Commander Sinek had keep his eyes upon the hull integrity indicators throughout the procedure. The were incidents of significant stress being dealt to the hull. However, the Hera held up under stress, which would have imploded lesser ships.

Seeing Commander Fairchild advance to the Ready Room and knowing the condition of the Captain, Sinek assumed command of the bridge. He didn't need an order to do so; it was his duty. Inwardly, his thoughts were concerning the one he chose to love. Outwardly, Sinek was Vulcan.