Checking In

Posted on 27 May 2024 @ 7:28pm by Captain Bane Plase & Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast

719 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Enigma Variations
Timeline: After Checkpoint and just before Tripwire

ON

Captain Bane sat in the center seat on the bridge of the Cygnus, waiting. He found himself, more than a few times, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, and crossing his legs at the ankles over and over again. The silence on the Bridge, well, as silent as it could be, what with regular reports coming in from various points on the ship, the chirrups of various consoles, and the occasional command going out from one of the junior bridge officers to other sections of the ship.

The silence Bane was thinking about was staring him right in the face. On the main viewscreen was the Freighter, heavily damaged, hanging in space, and aboard that ship was his officers, led by the Away Team Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast. The Captain had already made up his mind that he was going to give the Away Team another ten minutes, then he was going to call them to get a status report. As luck would have it, Ensign Veenak, manning the secondary Ops position along the standing stations behind the Security and Tactical systems, which was directly behind Bane, spoke up.

"Captain, incoming message from Commander Bast."

With relief in his voice, Bane responded. "Excellent. On speakers," he ordered.

"Captain," began the Trill officer. "We're preparing to have the Bixilfiz towed to Deep Space Nine." He began detailing the derelict freighter's status, and it's issues with propulsion and structural integrity. "I'm afraid this means we'll have to tow it at a maximum speed of Warp Three. Sir, I know this means a five-week journey back to DS9. But it will give us time to pursue our analysis of the isolinium and interrogate the crew when Doctor Winters says they're ready."

Bane nodded. "Warp 3 is slow, but safety is key here. What safety measures do you and your team recommend to secure the isolinium aboard that ship? I am sure we do not want it over here on the Cygnus," he stated.

"Actually, I think it would be safer on the Cygnus than it would be here. Lieutenant Lisald has expressed doubts about the freighter's power distribution. If power to the magnetic constrictors drops below twenty percent, the isolinium could become volatile and trigger an explosion that would destroy the freighter, the Cygnus, and make it impossible to navigate this region for the next one hundred thousand years. I've asked Engineering to prepare a level-three containment field so we can secure it in our cargo hold."

The Captain whistled. "Damn. That is a long time. Ok, yeah," Plase said, agreeing with the decision of his Executive Officer and Acting Chief Science Officer to bring it to the ship. "It would also ensure better security of the thing. We can transport it over to Cargo Bay three, and then we can have Lieutenant Seitha set up guards to ensure safe keeping during the voyage home."

"Agreed, Sir. Engineering informs me that they can have the containment field ready in four hours. Repairs to the freighter's structural integrity should be completed in six, at which point we can get under way."

"Any word on getting into the main computer core to see where this freighter came from, where it's going, and the nature of how it came to have this material aboard her?"

"The freighter's logs are heavily encrypted. Once we're under way I'll have Commander Stovek assign someone from Computer Sciences to download the logs and decrypt them. It'll be a huge challenge to bypass what seems like positronic-level encryption, but it's worth a try. If all else fails we'll send a copy to Starfleet's engineers at Daystrom."

"Hmm," Bane mumbled. "Doesn't do much for us to be able to get a head start on whatever is going on, but at least this is all in safe hands now. Keep up the good work. I know you have a lot to do over there, so I wont keep you. Please send updates at the top of the hour every hour until we are ready to get going. And Commander, please be safe," Plase said, his voice softening a bit.

"Thank you Sir, we'll do our best. Bast out."

OFF

A JP by

Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast
Executive Officer
USS Cygnus

and

Bane Plase, Captain
USS Cygnus, Commanding

 

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