The Battle at Science Station D5, Part IV: Adrift

Posted on Sat Mar 31st, 2018 @ 10:29am by Captain Alistar McKeon & Lieutenant JG Zoe Ellija & Commander Isabella dei`Silvisi & Lieutenant Commander Akira-Ri Sato & Lieutenant Kev Walker & Lieutenant Jordan Spencer & Civilian Specialist Kaylyn Wolfe

1,928 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Memento Mori
Location: USS Endeavour

-- Previously, on the USS Endeavour --

The Endeavour took the hits directly her her backside. The plasma torpedoes buckled the aft shields and allowed the warbird's disruptors to slice at the lighter ship's hull. The shock wave of the explosions boiled out and hit the Raptor as well, it's already weakened shields giving out and exposing its hull to share some of the Endeavour's damage. Alarms rang out as Endeavour took the hits, some were the same general alarms, but a few were the bone chilling alarms that every Starfleet officer dreaded. The Endeavour staggered out of the fray and drifted onwards, her opponent banking away. Both ships staggered away from each other, both heavily damaged.

On the bridge, Alistar picked himself up from the deck. He could feel blood oozing from a gash somewhere along his hair line, but he ignored it. Moving forward, he grabbed Petty Officer Ellija and shook her, rousing her back to the helm before he turned and took in the sight of the bridge. "Status report," he managed to call out.

-- Conclusion --

-- Engineering --

Kev opened his eyes and groaned as he picked himself off of the console he had ended up being draped over like a towel. Sparks were constantly flying from several consoles around engineering and alarms rang out from nearly every station. Shaking his head, Kev took a hard look at the engineering master systems control board and wondered just what the hell had them them. Typing up a brief report, he sent it on up the bridge before he started focusing on what needed to be done.

-- Bridge --

Kaylyn groaned in pain as she pulled herself back up to her station. Typing in a command series, she pulled up a systems status report and scrolled through the readouts. "We've got multiple micro hull breaches on the aft dorsal section, decks eight and nine. Engineering reports power flow interruptions across all decks and limited engine capabilities. Repair teams are being dispatched."

Akira rolled over on the deck where she had landed and coughed. The entire aft panel of the Security/Tactical station had exploded, and a thick acid-like cloud drifted about her station. The ventilation system seemed to be working, although it was taking longer than usual to clear the air. Standing, she climbed back into her seat and typed in a query for a status report. What the monitor displayed wasn't hopeful. "Sir, aft phaser capacitors are offline, targeting sensors for the torpedo launchers are down, shields are recharging but we're at seventeen percent and the power disruptions are slowing the recharge. Sensors are showing the Raptor adrift nearby. She appears to have internal power, but it looks like her warp engines and weapons are offline, Akira reported.

-- Engineering --

Closing the access panel on a sub system access port, Kev sighed and nodded to the petty officer who was helping him with repairs. There were times he wondered if he should have gone into operations since he spent more time doing things associated with ops than engineering.

"Alright, we just need to check on the fusion reactors and see if we can bring the impulse engines up to full power. Then we'll worry about the next thing on the list," Kev said.

"Sir, warp core temperature is rising. System monitoring says we're one fifteen above red line and rising," one of the junior officers shouted.

"Oh shi.... We got a coolant leak in the main lines. Alert the bridge and prepare to eject the primary core. All nonessential personnel need to evac to secondary engineering bay NOW!" Kev snapped.

-- Bridge --

Isabella stumbled out of the turbo-lift and onto the bridge. Taking a quick look around, she spied the captain and headed towards him, having to pause and side step around a piece of debris as she made her way to the lower level. "I see you're still picking fights with people who prove to be a little better equipped for said fight," she said drily as she sat down in her seat beside the command chair. "Can we just for once find a quiet, boring, planetary survey and spend a few months doing that?"

"I'd be the first to jump on a boring survey mission, just as soon as the universe stops throwing every combat disaster our way," Alistar said with a heavy sigh. "How bad were our casualties?"

"Bad enough, but it could have been a lot worse," Isabella replied softly. She shuddered, thinking of the last crewman that Lieutenant Spencer had brought into sickbay before she had left. That had definitely been among the worst of the injuries, but for the most part, the injuries of those sent to sickbay hadn't been that bad. When compared to some of the casualties that the Endeavour had suffered before, she knew that truly could have been worse. "I haven't been able to check the relief stations, but sickbay had some of the worse injuries and most of those weren't that bad. There were several injured who will have to be transferred to a medical facility for recovery, though."

"We may have to return to Starbase Typhoon for repairs, so that won't be an issue," Alsitar said. He wondered just for a minute who was in charge of sickbay if she was on the bridge, but he left it go. Knowing her, she had left someone who could be counted on in charge, so he thought on to the next issue of the situation: What to do next.

Kaylyn was still sitting at the bridge engineering station, mostly because there wasn't much else for her to do at the moment. It was required for someone to monitor and help manage damage control teams after the ship had taken damage, and the Endeavour had definitely taken a beating. So she was just slightly bored when the update from engineering filtered through the ship wide reports. Kaylyn almost froze but she recovered quickly. "Sir! Engineering reports a warp core breach in progress in the primary warp core. They're evacuating to secondary control and preparing to power up the secondary warp core."

Alistar blinked, his first reaction was pure shock followed by a cold dread. He managed to recovered quickly. "Secure fuel, power and support lines to the warp core. Rotate thirty degrees to port, bring us around to one one nine. Tell engineering to eject the primary core when ready," he snapped. Having the Endeavour turn and rotate would allow the ship to eject the warp core away from everything else, including the heavily damaged warbird and definitely the station and civilian ships. It would also allow the ship room to maneuver away from the danger herself. Fortunately, Endeavour was supplied with a secondary warp core, which meant she wouldn't be totally out and down for the count. As the seconds ticked by, he clawed the armrests of the command chair as he waited.

Isabella felt the blood drain from her face at the mention of a warp core breach. No officer in Starfleet wanted to hear those words, but it was something that always was a risk when a star ship engaged in battle. Turning to her own side console panel, she opened a channel to sickbay. "Bridge to Sickbay; Lieutenant Spencer, I need you to secure all of the wounded and brace for an immediate shock-wave," she said.

-- Main Sickbay --

Minor injuries were pretty much all that had come in since the Commander had left Sick bay in the hands of Jordan Spencer. The nurses and one other Doctor had worked long and hard, along side the acting medical officer in charge to treat the members as they went in and out. When the call came through from the bridge had been heard, they all looked as he did, with a slight eye brow raise and complete and utter confusion of what they had heard.

"Right... still on a ship," Spencer mumbled to himself but loud enough for others around him to hear. "Roger that, Commander. But I expect a raise for us down here," he replied to the officer on the bridge as he quickly finished up his final work on a young female ensign that had received a minor gash on her arm. Once done, he started for the wounded that were stable but mobilized. He and a nurse worked to pull out the straps hidden within the bed. "Get our items magnetized to their storage surfaces and everyone grab onto something."

-- Engineering --

Kev cursed under his breath as he type away on the master control panel in engineering. Alerts constantly streamed across the board, most of which he ignored as he tried to salvage the situation. The core temperature was still slowly rising, and he had already isolated the main problem: the coolant lines feeding the primary warp core had all been breached, which meant that over half of the ship's coolant was venting somewhere other than the warp core. To dump more coolant into the lines and try to repair them was out of the question, and shutting the active core down in its current state wouldn't work either. He finally sighed and shook his head as an updated diagnostic report scrolled across the screen. The primary core was ten minutes away from overheating and causing an explosion that would take the entire ship. With a slow steady breath, Kev reached out and flipped the ejection panel seal cover open and pressed down on the controls. A cylinder slid down around the warp core, sealing the immediate area off, and the ejection hatch at the bottom of the primary hull opened as all of the power and coolant lines to the core were severed. Control explosives fired, launching the warp core down and out of the ship. Tapping his commbadge, Kev hailed the bridge. "Walker to bridge, core ejected. Full containment loss estimated to be in nine minutes," he reported in a tired voice.

-- Bridge --

"Helm, all power to thrusters, get us as far away as possible," Alistar ordered. He spared a second to glance at the monitor for the warbird's status, but he had to shrug the concern away just as quickly. The Raptor still had minimal deflectors and a heavier hull, which meant that she could possibly survive the shockwave if the core went critical. His main concern was his own crew.

Zoe cringed as she tapped the controls and fired the thrusters. Slowly, the Endeavour started moving away. She would have preferred impulse, but with all of the damage there was the possibility for something to go wrong there as well. Glancing at the helm monitor as the Endeavour moved away, she sighed and without orders reached out and fired the RCS thrusters as well. The extra boost helped, and soon the ship was at the minimal safe distance. "Sir, we're at minimal safe distance, continuing to move away," she reported.

The Endeavour's warp core continued to overheat, a cylinder of bright and dangerous power that finally reached its extreme critical point and exploded with the full fury of any warp core. The shockwave lashed out, hitting the Raptor first and knocking the warbird about, but the stolen Romulan ship survived. The Endeavour was next, but her distance helped as the shockwave wasn't as powerful when it reached the wounded ship and rocked her wildly. Just as quickly as it hit, the warp core explosion and the resulting shockwave dissipated, leaving the battlefield quiet and still.

 

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