A very wrong turn...

Posted on Mon Feb 24th, 2025 @ 7:50pm by Captain Jason Elliot & Lieutenant JG Annika Wiseman & Commander Zera Tirado & Lieutenant Commander Jorel Torin II & Lieutenant Commander Bellona Juventus & Lieutenant Commander Johanna Lyngstad & Lieutenant Hamlyn Ambrose & Lieutenant Daniel Martin & Lieutenant Eira Cortez

2,157 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Into the unknown
Location: Main Bridge
Timeline: Day 1 1005hrs

On:

The alert klaxon echoed throughout the bridge, the deck shook as the sinister red lights filled the area as Jason and the senior staff stumbled through the passageway, Jason looked at the main viewer, the cylindrical corridor was filled with wreckage and chunks of asteroids. Jason ran through the door from the conference room too the main bridge, "REPORT!" he yelled at the top of his voice.

"We're stuck in some kind of wormhole like phenomena, being pulled at through the effect, I'm attempting to avoid debris in the conduit." an ensign called out from the helm,

"Hobb damage report!" Jason called out next seeing his engineer running too the damage control station.

'Shields down to Ninety percent, and falling!' Hobb called as his rough fingers danced across the damage control station's console. 'Inertial dampers are down fifty percent - it's going to be a bumpy ride!'

"Casualty report." Jason asked the Doctor next

[ Multiple injuries Captain. Too busy to talk] Dr. Martin replied.

Jason looked at a readout overlay, "Put inertial dampeners on manual, helm look for an exit!" he called out looking to Zera "Commander let's try to get out of this mess!"

Zera gripped the arms of her chair as she nodded in response. "Look for anything we can use to get out of this... whatever it is." She called down to the helm.

Bellona took the opportunity to smack her comm badge. "Juventus to security! Get me casualty and damage reports! I'll be with you all when I can!"

Johanna took over at the Science station. She scanned for possible larger chunks of rubble as well as scanning the wormhole itself.

The helmsman called out "Sir! I found an exit!"

Jason looked at the main display "Get us there!"

As Columbia dodged its' way through the opening it came out in what could almost be called a skid Jason called out "Full stop!"

The massive starship strained too come to a stop as it slid out of the subspace opening an audible moan, Jason looked back at the damage control station only seeing a few warning messages he looked too the first officer "Commander let's get a handle on this, and figure out where the hell we are."

Zera pulled herself up from her chair and made her way over to the helm. "Scan the stars around the ship, try to lock onto one we know."

Johanna looked for familiar stars to try to get a fix on their current position.

Jorel had gone down to the diplomatic center to make a few calls before the ship was pulled into the wormhole. So, he made his way up to the Bridge as the ship was pulled out of whatever wormhole they were in. As he exited the turbolift, Jorel asked, "What the heck just happened?"

Annika looked over too the diplomat who'd come too the bridge to see if she was needed "Wormhole, or something hauled us to somewhere, I don't recognize a single constellation on screen."

Jason slid a look toward the other intelligence officer "okay, let's get a handle on the damage to the ship and any injuries first," he turned too look at the screen "Where the hell are we." he echoed his officers. He looked to the helmsman "Can you get a starfix on our location."

the young officer looked at his information, redoing a calculation "We're on the far side of the beta quadrant, my best guess at the moment is we're on our own right now."

Jason looked at the display on the navigation station, "That looks like a debris field about half a light year away."

The helm officer added "It's massive."

'We don't want to get too close,' Hobb warned, 'It'll take us some time to get everything back ship-shape again, and we don't want any rogue pieces of debris hitting the ship.'

Jason looked back at his Chief engineer "Let's get the repairs done and figure out where we are before we wander off, plus if there's a chance that mess out there is fresh I don't want to be caught unprepaired."

"Depending on which side of the Beta Quadrant we're in, I might be able to reach out to some contacts that I have to see what might've happened out there with that debris field. I'd just need to know where we are asap," Jorel offered up, knowing that information was key at this point.

The helmsman spoke without thinking "The closest federation colony is Jouret four, maybe three or four jumps at Quantum slipstream speed."

Annika let out an angry chuckle "That's just great." she paused knowing she'd get in trouble from her superiors "That rules out subspace communications unless we go for another wild ride through that wormhole or whatever it was."

"Let's not focus on that right now," Zera stated. "We shouldn't risk a slipstream jump if the ship is damaged." She told them all. "As you all know it puts enormous stress on the hull and ships systems, the last thing we want is to get back to Federation space in a million pieces."

"Full ship status report people. Go over every inch stem to stern." Zera ordered. She looked back at Elliot hoping he'd agree with her order.

Jason just nodded as he turned to Eira, "Lieutenant Cortez help the first officer up here, Hobb let's get down to engineering and get a handle on that, Lieutenant Commander Lyngstad let's get a fix on where we are, Bellona see if the doctor needs any muscle to help with any injuries." he paused "Lieutenant Wiseman assist the first officer."

"Yes, sir." Eira nodded and went to where the First Officer was, "Tell me what you need and where I'm needed."

"Working on it." Johanna answered from the Science station. She pulled up maps of the Beta Quadrant. Antares was in the Beta Quadrant. By finding it and measuring red shift, she could pinpoint their position.

Jason made a quick circuit of the bridge checking in with everyone, he looked at Johanna's station, "We're going to be here a few hours if you need time to figure this out."

"It shouldn't take more than an hour. I will have to find another prominent star to triangulate our position. I'll figure where we are."

"Well, with your permission, I'd love to take a few more scans of that debris field and see if it might be related to something that I was just reading about while we were on our shakedown cruise. I'm just wondering if it might be related to something the Starship Voyager encountered while on their jaunt to the Delta Quadrant," Jorel said, looking at the Captain and First Officer.

Hearing Commander Torin, and with the computer measuring red shift and computing the distance to Antares, Johanna scanned the debris field. It seemed to be starship wreckage. Johanna compared the pieces to known equipment on Federation starships. No match. She then tried non-Federation starships. Some of the pieces matched known Romulan configurations. Others were unknown. But how long had they there, she thought. This was a little tougher to determine. Recalling her Academy training, and the maxim that (You use 5 percent of your skill 95 percent of the time and 95 percent of your ability 5 percent of the time), she was able to determine that the debris had been there between 30 and 40 years.

"Commander Torin, take a look at this." She had the data displayed on a screen at her station.

Torin walked over and took a look at everything that Johanna was working on with the sensors. He was in awe at how much debris there was and how old some of it was. He asked Johanna, "Am I reading that right? There's stuff that's between 30 and 40 years old?"

"That's what the sensors seem to indicate. About half of it is from a Romulan ship or ships, but the other half I cannot identify."

"The Romulan part would make sense, since we're so close to the Beta Quadrant. But, I'd like to know what else is out there? Like, who were the Romulans fighting?" Torin asked as he looked over the data once more.

"That is the 100 credit question. I would guess someone native to this general area. A much smaller empire than the Romulans. Maybe a race they subjugated 40 years ago." The computer beeped; the computer had determined their distance from Antares (within a light year). Now all Johanna had to do was find another prominent star and she could triangulate. "We are somewhere along this arc." She pointed out of the arc to Jorel.

"Well, at least that gives us a start on where we are," Jorel replied as he looked over the data with Johanna.

"I think I will try to find Betelgeuse. There aren't many stars like it. Once I have pinpointed its distance, we should be able to figure out where we are."

< Sickbay >

Dr Martin quickly completed the last of his triage duties and then began the recovery of all the injured. The two twins were fine and mom in full recovery. A security officer had a head wound and needed immediate treatment due to swelling and despite the upgrades in inertial dampeners some folks had lost their lunch everywhere.

Annika had managed to slip away from the bridge, making her way to sickbay "Everything under control down here Doctor?" the young intel officer asked

" Just peachy....I fired this new EMH. Can you reprogram that thing to do its...damn job?" Martin replied.

Annika snickered, she hated the EMH's "I'll put in a ticket with engineering, I'm Annika Wiseman from intelligence by the way."

" Please to meet you Annika. Put your finger here," Daniel asked for help as he was putting pressure of a patients laceration. The EMH acted like it never used demo bond before and that had angered Daniel.

Annika looked at the injury, "Looks like a small ballistic injury from a console explosion, but no burns." she paused as she reached with her free hand to grab a medical sponge from the procedure tray, she made a small wiping gesture away from the wound "Poly Carbide dust which render demo bond useless." she said holding up the sponge with a gray residue on it.

" Well then I guess it's the old catgut sutures for this one." Daniel replied as he pulled out a hook needle and some line from a drawer. " Computer reactivate the EMH."

> Please state the nature if the medical emergency < EMH replied.

"He got caught by shrapnel from a console explosion, the poly carbide dust around the wounds might render contemporary mending techniques." Annika said as she looked at the EMH, Crap a mark three with mods...


> STAND CLEAR AND ALLOW ME ROOM TO OPERATE.< the EMH replied

Annika stepped back, "Doc I'm gonna leave you too things here."


===Engineering===


Hobb strode into his domain, barking orders. Fetching the Assistant Chief over, he had him show on a PADD the estimated schedule.

'You think this is the best we can do?' he asked gently, a deep frown on his face. 'We can't have dampers out for that long - prioritise those first.'

The Rigelian Assistant nodded his head, 'and the engines?'

Blowing out his breath through his teeth, hands on hips, Hobb thought for a moment. 'Run a material stress diagnostic, then make sure the impulse engines are up to ninety-per-cent green, we're gonna be in the area for a while, some debris field needs investigating. Then make sure the Warp drive and QSD are up to scratch.'

The Rigelian assistant nodded his understanding, scratching his beak. 'Dampers and impulse engines first, and ASAP. The QSD needs to be up to the ninety-ninth per cent, right?'

Nodding Hobb agreed, 'yeah. Otherwise it'll break the ship apart.'

Jason as if by magic appeared while things looked like chaos he knew it wasn't. "What are things looking like chief?"

'Impulse engines are down, so those and the dampers are the priority. We'll get us up and going so we're not sitting ducks,' Hobb said reasonably, unruffled by the Captain's sudden appearance in Main Engineering. 'By that point, our stress test should be complete and we can work on the Warp Drive and QSD.' The larger man folded his arms over his chest as he waited for the Captain's feedback.

Jason processed the information, "Prioritize those repairs along with countermeasures to that corridor we went down I'd like to avoid more damage if using it becomes our only way home."

Nodding in agreement, Hobb replied, 'you got it boss - I'll have Science give us the info download from the sensors, and we'll see what we can do to counter it.'

"Alright I'll let you get back too work." Jason said as he dodged a technicial coming by with a tool kit.


End

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