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Engines Running

Posted on Thu Apr 15th, 2021 @ 10:24am by Commodore Keiben Haistro & Commander Lillian Carter & Lieutenant Commander Junjie Han & Lieutenant JG Sher'ra Verona & Lieutenant JG Adrian Sage

2,171 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 2 - Echoes Of An Empire
Location: Deck 1 - Main Bridge
Timeline: Mission Day 10 @ 1500 Hours

ON

Keiben limped onto the bridge, still not feeling one hundred percent, quickly followed and looking equally as beaten was Ensign Carter and Sage, young Charlie bringing up the rear.
"I know non of us are up for this but we need to get this ship prepped to launch and find a way to get us airborn without crashing!"

The muscular framed Captain dropped into his chair like a unconscious drunk Klingon, making a feeble attempt to correct his posture but soon giving it up as a bad idea. The important thing was he was on the bridge, in his chair and able to bark orders.

"Sage I need you on Tactical since we have no Security left on board. Carter, work your magic and get our engines operational... Charlie, I'm sorry sweet heart but I need you on Ops, just find the sensor grid and point it directly in front of us... the moment you see anything moving you let us know! And yes you can consider this a glowing recommendation on your entrance exam letter to the academy!""

Charlie winced. Was it at being informally addressed as sweetheart on the bridge? or the idea and stress of her having to submit an entrance exam? She didn't know but she knew certainly there wasn't time to ponder it. And whatever was going on her mother was out there. She nodded moving to Ops and opened up the sensors menu.

Adrian gulped in a few breaths as he glanced around the bridge. he had never been up here before, he wasn't a bridge officer at all. Lost, he glanced back at the center seat. "Uhm... where's tactical?" he asked, feeling utterly stupid for even having to ask.

Keiben pointed at the station to the right of the viewscreen as he got up with some effort and stumbled across to Charlie to help her navigate the ops console. He pointed at a few controls, allowing her to do the work.

"Keep a cool head kiddo, I know you can do this!"

Charlie did as she was told trying to ignore the fact he was now referring to her as kiddo on the bridge too.

Next he moved on to Engineering at the rear right of the bridge, dropping down into the chair as heavily as he had his command chair. "Lilly, what can you tell me?"

Lillian had limped onto the bridge in much the same way as the Captain. The Doctor had fixed her broken leg but had told her it would be a bit tender for a week or so. Once she was sat a the helm, she didn't really think about it. She reported "Whatever brought down the waverider is not showing on sensors, Captain but I would recommend avoiding that area. I can plot an ascent that takes us out over the water but keeps us close enough to a landmass just in case. I'm showing a green board, thrusters are online. Intertial dampeners are configured for flight. Impulse engines are on standby."

"Lets boot the engines up and see if they give us any jip!"

Keiben suggested as he started to direct extra power to the inertial dampeners and the engines at large. The last thing they needed was for everything to look in the green but then lift off to find they had no way to maintain altitude because of this damned interreference. "Inertial dampeners now at twenty percent above tolerance and engines have every extra milliwatt I can coax out of the impulse reactors and from emergency power!"

Lillians hands flew over the console. "Acknoweledged. We're as ready as we'll ever be."

"Sir," Charlie said noticing a reading. "We have people incoming - running. Human, Trill, Vulcan .... not alien monsters," she sighed in relief. "Shall I patch you through."

'Mel is that you?' he broadcast in hopes of a reply but had already gone by Starfleet protocol. "Can you confirm that Yeoman?"
Keiben switched to her designation, having picked up on her dislike of the terms kiddo and so forth but actually he was brimming with pride. No real training on ship board systems and she had managed to interpret the data being fed to her.

YES Mel screamed in her head. Not sure if he could hear her or not. =^=Copernicus. D'BrooNi. We have a surgical emergency. Can myself, Commander Horn, Commander Holt and Ensign Olowe be beamed immediately to sickbay as soon as we are in the ship?=^=

Keiben was about to give the order for the transporter but realised the Charlie wouldn't know how to do it, Carter and Sage had their hands full which left himself.
"Stand bye" was all he said as he engaged the beam.

"Dropping the boarding ramp now, sage how are we doing on flight preparations and Carter stand ready to lift off... if we can!"
He himself turned back to the engineering console, all thought of his aches and pains gone from the adrenalin now coursing through his system. "Structural integrity field now at one hundred and twenty percent of standard and landing struts on standby for retraction".

Sweat pouring down his face as he studied his console, Adrian pulled up a PADD with instructions. "Uhm...shields ready to go when we take off," he offered anxiously, "I think anyway. Can we fire phasers at those things, while we're on the ground?"

Lillian's head shot up "I wouldn't recommend it Sir. At this range, we're like to get pretty singed ourselves.

Keiben tapped his combadge, still feeling as rough as anything.

"All Senior Officers, report to the bridge on the double! " but he already knew that Mel would be heading for sickbay with Horn, Yojar, and Olowe. It came through so strong, stronger than he would have thought for a non telepath. Something had changed within her while on the planet.
"Carter, get us airborne if you can!"

"I'll Try Sir!" Carter replied. "I'd hang on to something. This ain't going to be subtle. Engaging thrusters. We won't be able to use impulse till we clear the atmosphere."

Tamaska, once she got on the ship was immediately beamed to sickbay to gently place Horn onto a medical bed, after untying him from her back. When she heard Keiben's call she headed up there quickly, leaving her tunic behind and going up to the bridge with her undershirt, her hair all mussed up.

Walking into the bridge, Sher’ra quickly moved to take over the tactical station, “can we not do that again”

Junjie stepped off the turbolift and head straight for his seat at the science station. " Reporting as ordered Sir! Science station up and running, Or do you need me somewhere else? " He asked seeing how thin the bridge was staffed.

He considered for the briefest of moments. Sage was inexperienced but had more training in the science systems than he did any other the others so Keiben vacated the seat at the engineering station and motioned for Han to take that seat, not having seen Chief Stoun arrive as of yet.
"Keep the power levels balanced and if you can find any extra power to transfer to engines then do so."

" Aye Sir!!! " Came the response from Junjie as he began looking for a solution.

The ship started to rise, slowly, the deck plates rumbling under foot ominously but she was gaining altitude. Slowly but surly they could do this. Keiben had made it back to his command chair and dropped down into it, wishing they still has seat belts on these things.

Lillian reported. "Thrusters online and firing. We've got a positive rate of climb. I'm retracting the landing struts. We're at 500 meters.... 600 meters..... Wait..... our accent is slowing." A frown crossed Lillian's features. "Sir! Our engine output is not matching our velocity. What the hell!"

Copernicus suddenly pitched forward, throwing everyone from their seats as the inertial dampeners struggled to compensate. The ship was almost in a complete freefall towards the same mountain that the Captain had visited with his team.

"Lilly... I hate to point out the obvious but have you seen that mountain?"
Keiben asked so calmly that it could have almost been funny while he was dragging himself back into the nearest seat, pulling young Ensign Sage with him as he went.

Adrian yelped as he was pitched from his seat, then again as he was unceremoniously dragged back to his feet and dropped into a different seat. He shook his head to clear it, then moved back to his original position. "You shouldn't be on your feet sir," he said, noticing the bedraggled look of the captain, "you should be in bed." He was no medical doctor, but he could see the man was unwell.

Keiben replied to the comment with nothing more than an icy glare. He knew he looked less than his best and that he should have been recuperating but who would have been taking charge and getting this ship airborne. He let the comment slide for now.

Carter was still working the controls, a determined look on her face. "Air sir! I'm attempting to reconfigure the thrusters power couplings." A crazy idea popped into her head. "Sir If I can generate a low-level warp field around the ship, it should reduce our weight. The trick will be keeping the field stable in the atmosphere."

" Captain!! " Junjie called out. " I Could reconfigure some of the isolinear chips from the lateral array and reroute the power to assist with the warp bubble. It will take a few of the sensors offline, but it won't leave us blind and we can change it back later easy enough. "

"Don't ask, just do it!"
Keiben barked from the floor in front of his command chair, trying to fight against the gravity and pull himself back into his chair.

Without hesitation Junjie pulled the panel at the base and rapidly started working, After a minute he slapped the panel back into place. " Bypass complete Captain, We should have move power now."

"Acknowledged. Establishing warp field. Stand by." Carter replied from the helm

The engines surged and the strain on the structure of Copernicus could be heard as gravity fought with the large airborne object. Hull plating started to shriek, as if the ship itself was in pain from the effort, her nose starting to lift again but would it be soon enough?
The nose of Copernicus grazed the mountain top before the navigational deflector ripped through the dirt and rocky peek. Everyone was again pitched forward, explosions from below decks could be heard.
"Damage report!"

Being flung about wasn't Tamaska's favorite thing, picking herself up off the floor where she had been tossed when she had neared her seat beside the captain. "Gah, this isn't fun." pulling herself up to the chair.

Holding tight to her station, Sher’ra looked between her displays making sure none of her systems were going to overload or otherwise react negatively to the sudden jolts.

Lillian's face dropped "The main deflector dish sustained a direct impact. There's considerable damage to the particle emitters. It's offline. There's also a hull breach on deck 8 but forcefields are operational. We're climbing again, the warp field is at 95% integrity. We should be in orbit in 50 seconds, providing nothing else goes wrong."

"Tell me the secondary deflector dish is still functioning?"
He demanded of anyone with the answer. His fear was that if that dish was out of action as well then they were stranded when they reached orbit. Without the deflector they would be blow to smithereens by space dust!

"Uhm..." Adrian glanced around the blinking lights on his console as again he crawled back into his chair. "I think it's functional, but uhm... it could use a little attention. Shields are functional, phasers are online. But I'm not sure about the dish..." He leaned forward on his console, rubbing his temple and staring at his fingers as they came away red. Had he hit his head without noticing?

Below, Amalia was racing around to try to fix things that were smoking and sputtering, "C'mon girl, hold together."

The strain on the small vessel was almost a visceral experience for everyone on Copernicus. ripples of the damage from below decks could still be felt, the twisting and compressing of the hull plating and he hoped that no one had been in those sections when the impact had happened. It was weighing on his heart enough having to speak to Yelena's family let alone adding more to that list.

Slow and surly the stead fast little ship rose, like a phoenix from the ashes it finally made orbit, the strain on the vessel finally releasing and a collective exhalation across the bridge could be felt.
"Good work everyone" Keiben announced from the command chair, his posture on something of a tilt given the pain he was in. "Now can someone please carry me down to sickbay while I pass out for a moment!"

OFF

 

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