Status Report (Time Zone 3)

Posted on 27 Aug 2018 @ 10:37pm by Commander Thiago Teixeira & Captain Harvey Geisler & Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Lucas Abrams M.D. & Ensign Kelly Khan

2,104 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Fractured
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: TZ3 || 1030 hours

An hour had passed since the crew had awakened to their tragic fate. Over half of the crew was dead, and at least a quarter of it was still missing. Among the dead were several senior officers, including their Chief Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Joelle Geisler. The time to mourn would have to be later. For now, the crew of the Black Hawk was left with a giant mystery. What had happened to them? Why did the ship seem like it was mysteriously powered down? Why could they not initialize the warp core? And, why was the ship being flooded with theta radiation.

Captain Geisler fought the urge to pace in the conference room, though he instead stood by the window to look out into the nebula that they sought to hide in while figuring out their next move. Except now this nebula threatened to become their grave. He'd posed the question to all who remained, including the temporary additions to his senior staff, Doctor Abrams and Ensign Khan, "What do we know?"

Lucas looked around at the others to see if anyone else was going to speak up, but decided to kick things off with the information he'd been able to gather during the last hour. "What happened to your neck was a reaction to medication that expired, Captain. The good news, is replicators are back online and new medications are being produced as we speak," the big guy said, pausing for just a moment before he continued. "The reason for that, and why the equipment drained so quickly, is because we're roughly fifty years in the future." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not the worst of it, either. What's left of the crew is being exposed to lethal levels of theta radiation. We've got a matter of days to figure this all out before we start to succumb to it."

"Fifty years is about right from what the logs said," the young Ensign said in a subdued voice. "After the sensors got back online, they confirmed what the logs said, Captain. We ran into a nebula to hide and were hit by several quantum filaments. They disabled the rest of the shields that were still operational, then the impulse engines. We were hit by several more after that which passed through the warp core and that's when the power failed. We could try to maneuver out of here with the thrusters, or we could reverse a tractor beam and try to push ourselves out of this area. Propulsion systems aren't an option other than that."

Fifty years! Teixeira thought. Nothing about their current situation sounded good. He turned his attention to Hawthorn. "Your thoughts, Lieutenant?"

Lieutenant JG Karen O'Malley, the ship's senior most engineer, simply shook her head. "The very laws o' physics and temporal mechanics are clearly broken. I really have no idea what has happened."

"Sirs, I'm picking up one of our buoys near the ship," Kelly reported. "It's running on very low power."

"A buoy?" Harvey asked, turning to look inquisitively at the young ensign. That seemed like a rather unorthodox way of handling the situation. "Anything of note?"

"It's one of ours, Captain," Kelly repeated after double checking it. "And...it's been out there for about fifty years, Sir. Orders?"

"Is there enough power to interface with it, or do we need to bring it aboard?" Harvey inquired, folding his arms in front of him.

The young Ensign looked at the Senior Petty Officer. "I think we can interface with it, but do you concur, Sir?" she asked Stephens.

"You want to interface with a fifty year old comm buoy?" Karen asked, shocked at the young woman's assumption. "Federation comm buoys are rated at twenty years, but we're talkin' about fifty! We'll have better luck directly interacting with it if it were in our grasp."

Terry walked in, shaking his head. "Captain, I'm afraid there's not much of the Squadron left. From what I can gather, the Flight Deck mostly looks like the Bridge. Some of the Gryphons are sluggish while other seem to be okay. I suppose if we needed to, we could use them as lifeboats. Those qualified to fly, well, anything, can fly a fighter. Others can sit backseat. And even others could sit in the fighters and be towed by the onboard tractor beams."

Harvey shook his head. "Four hundred people appear to have died due to natural causes, or at least as natural as prolonged exposure to theta radiation can allow. If they didn't use the lifeboats, we have to assume that they're not an option. My question is, why didn't they try to move the ship? And, we know that there are more missing. It's obvious we've been translated through time. Could others have as well?"

"With time travel," Thiago said grimly, "anything is possible. Just one reason why its so strongly discouraged." Though he hadn't had any run-ins with the Department of Temporal Investigations personally, he had friends who had. And none of them had positive things to say about it. "The question, in my mind at least, is how would we know?"

"So do we beam it aboard or interface with it from here?" Kelly asked since she didn't really get an answer. "It's running on very low power and looks like it was intended to maintain position with the ship at that power level."

"See if you can interface with it from here first," Harvey replied to the Ensign. "Given the amount of theta radiation out there, I'd prefer to not have someone swim in it if we can avoid it."

To the ship's seasoned Executive Officer, Harvey replied, "Aside from verifying quantum signatures and checking our position against known star charts, it's hard to really determine anything. The physical evidence, the dead crew, even the dust around the ship and expired medications, that just doesn't happen. There are a lot of questions, and I know I've spoken several. One of my foremost is, can we go back? Can we stop all of this?"

"'Going back' is generally always a possibility. It's just a matter of how to do it. And in order to figure that out, we might well need more time than the radiation will give us," Thiago answered. "I know that's not what you want to hear, Captain."

"Yes, Sir," Kelly responded and began to manipulate the controls to interface with the old probe. She made a few minute adjustments, then cleared her throat. "Audio only, Captain."

"We are currently stuck in space with almost all the power on the ship drained. We have approximately one hundred and twenty-nine personnel on the ship with no trace of the others. Sensors have revealed quantum filaments which have struck the ship in several places." The voice of the ombre hair Security Chief came from the hidden speakers in the conference room.

Next, came the voice of the Chief of Intelligence Officer, "We've been exposed to lethal levels of theta radiation, and if we don't do something about our currently situation quickly, we'll all succumb to it and die. The ship cannot stay where it is now, so we're going to attempt to use the Mississippi and Euphrates to tow it out. We're unsure at this time if it will work, but it seems to be one of the only options we have presently," there was a brief pause. "If any of our crew finds this, and you're out there, we will find you and bring you home."

"That's it, Captain," Kelly announced, having already been shocked nearly senseless once already and numb to the new realization.

"If Lieutenants Geisler and Di Pasquale are the ones that sent the buoy, then how is Lieutenant Geisler dead on the bridge?" Lucas asked.

Harvey, who had been standing, found himself leaning against the wall, forcing it to keep him standing while he grew numb at the sound of Joey's voice. Earlier on the bridge, he'd forced his feelings deep inside, behind what remained of the walls he'd built following his losing Alison during the Dominion War. For the sake of the remaining crew, he couldn't go there right now. He would have to grieve later. Looking to the behemoth of a doctor, Harvey answered the question, "The buoy had to have been launched before she died. Which means we're definitely dealing with time travel. And that they couldn't overcome what we're now facing."

The large man didn't know if he bought that explanation, but any other one he could come up with just didn't seem to make any sense. "If that's the case, then why haven't we found Lieutenant Di Pasquale yet?" Luc asked, wondering if they should tell what remained of the rest of the crew to keep their eyes out for her. "Not only that, but it would seem that towing the ship out didn't work for them, which means it wouldn't work for us. How do we get out of here?"

"There's over four hundred dead on board, and that's a lot of bodies to inspect. We probably just haven't seen her yet," Harvey answered the question about the missing security chief. "Before we try to get out of here, I'd like to see what happened with the rest of the crew. Maybe the reason why the ship is still in the nebula is because of us. Moving the ship probably means killing everyone."

"The only way to know that for sure is to send someone out to get a bird's eye view of what we're up against," Lucas stated. It was risky, but did they really have any other option at this point? "I would suggest sending a fighter out. With a skilled pilot at the helm, I think they'd be better able to navigate through anything that might cause trouble. An EVA suit is also recommended. I'm sure the ones we have on board the ship are in bad shape, but one could be replicated easily enough. It would provide more protection against what's out there."

"I've trained in the fighters a few times," Kelly said. "But I pick things up like that very quickly."

"She has," add Terry. "She's trained under me a bit. But as far as the EVA suits, that might be a tight fit in a fighter. Those things are bulky and would limit movement in a cockpit. We have flight suits and helmets, but it's not the same as an EVA suit."

"I think you should both go out there," Harvey pointed out to his squadron chief. "I understand we're short handed, but I need every bit of experience precisely where it's been trained to be. Especially since Commander Teixeira and I are both here to maintain the integrity of the command team. We can try to access the buoy from here, but I need you both to see what's around us. Check for external damage and the like."

"Yes, Sir," Kelly responded before she headed for the turbolift and waited for Commander Walsh before heading for the flight deck to suit up and prepare a couple fighters.

Harvey just shook his head as the Ensign dismissed herself from the meeting. To think that just a few months ago he'd breveted her from Cadet to Ensign. This situation was certainly taxing for them all, Harvey himself no exception. He would provide a little latitude, for now, but this would certainly be dealt with, Captain's Mast if necessary. To Commander Walsh, he said, "Keep that Ensign on a short leash. Maintain open comms at all times. Dismissed, Commander."

"Understood, Captain," replied Terry. "Short leashes and open comms, business of the day." He nodded and then left the conference room for the turbolift. Finding that Ensign Khan had kept the lift car waiting, he stepped on in and they were off to the flight deck.

To the remainder of the personnel in the conference room, he stated, "Let's get to work. Consolidate all personnel to the bridge, engineering, and critical areas only. Shut down all non-essentials and seal off decks we don't need. Everyone's on duty until further notice. We'll roll with the punches as they come. Dismissed."

"Yes, Captain," Lucas said, rising to his feet. He was so far out of his comfort zone right now, but was fairly certain that most of the crew was as well. They needed to band together, and that meant he'd do his part. With the Captain's orders in mind, the large man rose to his feet and left the conference room to get things started.

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