Runaway! (part 1)
Posted on Thu Mar 8th, 2018 @ 10:09am by Commodore Samantha York & Commander Hans Munich & Lieutenant Yui Hirasawa & Lieutenant JG Annie Dixon
1,170 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission: Pulling Together
ON
Yui sat at the helm. There wasn't much to do with the ship in orbit of Vulcan. She checked the engines once again and all was normal. Suddenely a light began to blink of the helm.
"Wait..." she said to herself. Without warning the Calypso broke orbit, pointed the bow to deep space and jumped to high warp.
"Bridge to engineering. Did one of you guys engage the warp drive. I'm locked out of helm controls" she said asking engineering over the com.
[Engineering]
Lt Annie Dixon stared, mouth agape, at the rapidly pulsating warp core. As far as she knew, it wasn't supposed to do that. At least, not unless they were answering a distress call or something. "What-" she asked the room in general.
Then Yui's voice came over the com, and she reflexively pressed her commbadge. "Er, Engineering here... N- no, we didn't do that... did you?"
[Bridge]
"No, we didn't engage it up here" Yui said as her fingers tapped over the helm. By now some of the crew would have noticed that the ship had jumped to warp drive and left orbit of Vulcan.
"Ok, this isn't good" she said to herself as she tried to regain control of the Calypso, but the computer wasn't recognising any inputs she put into the helm. According to the helm, the ship thought that it was still in orbit around Vulcan. However the sensors, viewscreen and engines disagreed.
"Red Alert!" Yui said simply. She thought it the best option as she had no idea how to handle a situation like this. Afterall, who had ever heard of a Starship hi-jacking its own crew.
"Computer. Is long range communications still online?" she asked.
"Affirmative" the computer replied in its kind monotone.
"Open a channel to Commodore Burke on Vulcan" Yui said as she tapped at the console once again. "Route it to her comm badge directly, and how long do we have until we are out of range?"
"Establishing channel. Forty Five Seconds for communication range" the computer replied.
"Commodore York, this is Lieutenant Hirasawa. I don't have much time to explain sir, but the Calypso has jumped to high warp and we are heading for deep space. We are at red alert, and neither the bridge of Engineering have helm control. We'll be back for you as soon as we regain control of the ship Commodore" she said simply crossing her fingers, hoping that the message came through. The commodore only had twenty or so seconds to respond at best.
[Vulcan]
"What?" Sam almost shouted. "Beam me aboard."Shut down power." If they attained warp, they wouldn't be able to beam her aboard.
Sam got no reply.
[Bridge]
Yui moved back to the helm console and sat down.
"I'm going to try a manual shutdown of the warp drive" she said outloud to the rest of the crew on the bridge. Her fingers ran over the console only to be met with beeps of disapproval from the console.
"Its not working" she said with a sigh. "We're stuck at warp nine" she reported.
"Who's ranking officer?" an ensign from the aft science station asked. "Both CO and XO are off ship, who's next since we're stuck like this?" he asked.
"Lt. Jhosa, Chief of Communications and Officer of the Deck pending Colonel Raine, Lieutenant Commander Wolfe or Lieutenant Hale to relieve me as the most Senior Officers on the ship right now." The voice came from the Communications Console. "I will take a more traditional position once my need at the Communications Console is no longer required." She put in. "Until then I will relay the Bridge reports to the Commodore until we lose the link."
[Engineering]
Annie's eyes were wide as panic set in. Someone must have ordered the ship to warp. If neither the Bridge or Engineering knew about it, then something was very, very wrong. they had to take back control... but how? Ever since it had been determined that the ship had gone to warp without helm command, the entire department became mobilized. Annie had done very little - just the off-hand remark had spread like wildfire.
She went from console to console, asking if anything was working. She was answered with shakes of the head, and replies in the negative. It seemed all normal shutdown procedures were locked out.
"How much fuel do we have?" she asked.
A technician piped up with, "Enough to last the year."
Annie bit her lip. Waiting for the gas to run out wouldn't be an option. The core would overheat first. Then they'd have a completely different problem on their hands. Namely, vaporization and death.
"Is the manual shutdown available?" she queried.
"Yes, but if we do that, the injectors will fuse and it'll take a week to get at them and open them back up again."
"Better than overheating it and vaporizing the whole ship," someone added.
Well, it'll give us time to fix this mess, at least, Annie mused to herself. She sighed deeply, they were down to very, very few options. She slapped her commbadge a little too hard and rubbed her chest where it hurt while she spoke, "Engineering to Bridge... We are going to do a manual emergency shutdown."
"Understood" Yui replied. "I tried that already, but you might have better luck. Good luck".
------ BRIDGE -----------
Munich came all but running onto the Main bridge; obvious he had been on leave since he wore the Brown slacks and Antique shirt that would have been better on the surface. The slightly wind blown hair was not much outof place but not up to his usual military standards and his casual clothing did not match the regal air he tried to maintain while on teh Bridge or even on duty.
"Vhat da hell Happen-t?" Munich and hsi strong German accent asked while striding in measure but hastened steps from the Turbo Lift to the Command Chairs. "Okay Jhosa; Munich knew the chief well from his time prior to being made the acting then official Executive Offer time as the Chief of Communications. "I have the Bridge." HE knew who was in charge and figured that she would understand. "How are he communications holding up?"
"Confirm Commander has the Bridge." She almost smiled at the sight of Munich so serious as to have his 'German Boy' come out with the contrast of being in civilian clothes. "We have just lost communications range with the Planet." Jhosa reported knowing well the German accent might worsen as it was a 'tick' of the Commander that all the Communication veterans knew well as they had served several years with him. "The horus is planet side and has the possibility to give pursuit and could be a communications relay should they do so."
(To be continued...)
Lieutenant Yui Hirasawa
Chief Flight Control Officer
Lieutenant JG Annie Dixon
Assistant Chief Engineer
Commodore Samantha York
Commanding Officer
Lieutenant Jhosa
Chief of Communications
Commander Hans Munich
Executive Officer
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