Playing Tugboat

Posted on 27 Jun 2024 @ 7:33pm by Captain Bane Plase & Lieutenant JG Lisald Vaat & Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast & Lieutenant Commander Stovek & Lieutenant JG Dylan McConnor & Ensign Emilie D'Astous

2,725 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Enigma Variations
Location: Bridge
Timeline: Current

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USS Cygnus - Main Bridge
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Lieutenant Commander Bast felt more than a little hot under the collar. He tried very hard not to turn and stare at Lieutenant Lisald, after the recent blunder that had nearly caused the destruction of both ships. There would be time enough for recriminations later, but for now, the Bajoran Science officer's stooped posture at his console was manifestation enough of his remorse.

Bast turned to the Engineering station, where a young Ensign was stationed.

"Mr McConnor, what's the status of the freighter's structural integrity?"

"Holding at seventy-five percent, Sir," reported the young man. "Stable enough for low Warp."

"Ensign D'Astous," called out the First Officer, "move us into position to tow that thing back to Deep Space Nine," instructed Bast.

Émilie D'Astous nodded and tapped into her console. Inwardly she was cursing the last person who had manned the helm. Roberts was a competent enough helmsman, but he never could get it through his head that he was a good head taller than she was, and always forgot to reset the ergonomics to the baseline. If she was called upon to replace him, she had a good ten minutes of manual adjustments to perform to get the console adapted to her petite size. She made a mental note to bring it up at the next flight briefing - but then, she thought, she'd already made similar remarks at the last briefing, and at the one before that, too. Maybe Engineering could develop some kind of automatic adjustment system that would memorize her ergonomic settings and could reapply them when she logged into the console...

Noticing that the young Ensign next to him was more or less resetting the console configuration, Stovek leaned closer to her and whispered. "After you log into the console, access the 'Preferences' menu at the main control interface, then 'Personal Settings.' The console will readjust itself every time you login."

She piloted the ship to a point two thousand meters ahead of the freighter, and held the position.

"We're in position," she announced.

Bast turned to Captain Bane, who was sitting in the center seat, and waited for the ship's commanding officer to give the word.

The Captain winked slyly at his Executive Officer (and closest friend), a non-verbal cue of his approval of the second-in-command's actions and abilities. Bast was really growing into the First Officer position, and Bane, for one, really enjoyed watching him grow and come into his own. "Good job, Commander. At your discretion, engage the tractor beam. One both ships are stable, make best speed to Deep Space 9."

"Commander Stovek, engage tractor beam. Miss D'Astous, take us to full Impulse. Mister McConnor, keep a close eye on the freighter's structural integrity. Let us know if it drops below sixty percent."

Checking the frequency of the emitter array one final time, the Vulcan verified that it was within stated parameters. "Contact points verified," he said. "Locking on to the freighter, and engaging tractor beam...now." The greenish-blue beam flashed into existence, issued forth from its primary emitter just below the Cygnus's main deflector dish. The Cygnus shook ever so slightly as it nearly doubled its towing mass. "Tractor beam stable. Ready to initiate transit."

"Engaging Impulse engines," called out D'Astous.

The motion was imperceptible on the viewscreen. The stars were not streaking by in multicolored patterns, and there were no asteroids nearby to drift across the screen as they soared past at a quarter of the speed of light. Perhaps it was just a figment of Bast's imagination that made him hear the strain on the Cygnus's engines. Once they were in motion, the laws of physics in space made them remain in motion. All the tractor beam had to accomplish was to make sure the freighter didn't drift away and remained aligned with the Nebula-class starship as they performed routine course adjustments.

"Structural integrity holding on the freighter at seventy-three percent," reported McConnor when the First Officer looked in his direction.

"Good," replied Bast. "Ensign D'Astous, take us to Warp One."

"Aye, Sir."

The young woman manning the helm tapped the controls, and in short order, the Warp bubble formed, enveloping both ships as they jumped to the speed of light, the bubble protecting them from the effects of Einstein's theory of relativity.

Beside the First Officer, the Captain monitored the status of the Cygnus and the Freighter. With all the power being used during the acceleration to light speed, it was a wonder that Lieutenant Hartley down in Engineering could keep the lights on, but she had managed. Plase was also pleased with the way Commander Bast was coming into his own as second in command of the Cygnus. If Bane weren't careful, Bast would supercede him soon, he humorously mused. "Watch that vibration," Bane called out to the officers. It was a small shimmy, nothing that couldn't be compensated for.

Behind the horseshoe and along the aft wall, Lisald could not help but notice that Commander Bast had given him a stern look more than once since he had been back from the Freighter. He also could not help notice that some of the tasks that he would be responsible for as Science Officer had gone to Ensign McConnor and Lieutenant Commander Stovek.

Chief Petty Officer Sorbek, of the Engineering Department, and manning the secondary Engineering console, redirected power from the shield grid, which was currently sitting idle anyways, to both the warp field being generated, and the navigational deflectors. From her perspective, it made a lot of sense to ensure that every single effort be made to protect the Cygnus, and her prize being towed, behind her.

"Structural integrity holding," called out McConnor from his seat next to Sorbek. "Tractor beam efficiency at ninety-seven percent."

"Warp two, Ensign," ordered Bast.

"Aye, Sir, Warp two." D'Astous's long, slender fingers tapped the console. Some part of Bast's mind, no doubt from Lamora, his first Host, noticed that she had the long fingers of a pianist. Surprisingly long fingers, for someone on such a small frame, with bitten fingernails.

Stovek suppressed a derisive snort. Everyone was so happy that the tractor beam was working, that they were successfully hauling what was essentially a 1.6 million metric ton hunk of garbage. They didn’t care that Operations had to constantly monitor the reactor beam and its contact points, and make minute adjustments of the fly to keep the Cygnus from flying apart. It was complete and utter madness that they had no idea what his job involved. Madness, indeed.

Captain Bane nodded, pleased with the outcome of towing the damaged freighter. It was, effectively, put together with sticky tape and twine, the miracle genius of Lieutenant Hartley notwithstanding, putting a new system in the ship in a matter of hours, certainly helped things along. "Mr. Bast, hold this velocity for a few minutes, run a level 5 diagnostic, then increase to warp 3, per your recommendation."

"Aye, Sir," replied Bast. He turned toward the Chief of Operations. "Commander Stovek, please proceed."

From his vantage point, standing just a few steps behind the helm and Operations consoles, Bast could see Stovek's fingers dance across his panel. His constant readjustments on the tractor beam hadn't gone unnoticed. Why he felt the need to manually compensate instead of relying on the ship's built-in AI to make the necessary changes, was beyond Bast. But now the level 5 diagnostic would keep him busy on something useful.

“Diagnostic in progress,” said the Vulcan, monitoring the results in real-time as they streamed across the viewer. A level Five diagnostic was the fastest way to ascertain system health, which is why most critical systems undergo constant level five sweeps; the tractor beam systems, because they were seldom used, only received diagnostics manually and when in operation. “Diagnostic complete. All systems are operating within established parameters. I can see no reason why we should not continue.”

"Ensign McConnor, how's the structural integrity on the freighter?" asked Bast, turning back toward the Engineering stations.

"Still holding at seventy percent, Sir," called out the young man. "I'm recalibrating the field buffers to compensate."

"Ensign D'Astous, take us to Warp three."

"Aye, Sir," replied the young woman.

Plase stood from his chair and walked over to Temerant, the lights dimming a bit as the warp power was increased. The power needed to maintain the tractor beam, warp engines, warp bubble and ship systems were taxing the Cygnus reserves, to be sure. "Looks like this old bird still has it in her," he said to his Executive Officer, his tone light and with a hint of humor and pride. "You can bet one of those brand new ships couldn't hold up to this strain," the Captain stated, proudly.

Bast suppressed a smile. "I'm not so sure about that, Sir," he countered. "I've heard the new Argonaut-class packs quite a bit under the hood, and ready to use it, no fluffing required."

Plase shook his head. "Nah. That class is just launching. They still have a year of shakedown. Mark my words, a Nebula-class will be towing that spaceframe back to drydock for emergency repairs."

As soon as the last word escaped his lips, an alert sounded at a station behind him, specifically at Lisald Vaat's station.

McConnor flew his fingers across the console like a musician expertly playing their instrument. By the time Bane and Bast turned their heads to see what the alert was, McConnor had it up on his console. "Captain, Commander. We are reading a sudden drop in the structural integrity field of the freighter. Hull integrity down to forty-seven percent...wait, forty-five percent now, and falling rapidly." He turned his head and shoulders to look at his two senior officers, hopeful they had an answer.

"Reduce speed to Warp two point eight," ordered Bast, as he quickly made his way to McConnor's console. "Can you compensate?" he asked.

"I can try and reroute power from auxiliary systems to the structural field buffers, but I'm not sure if that'll be enough," said the young man. "Two buffers have overloaded, they can't handle that much strain."

Bast reached over the young ensign's shoulder and tapped the controls. "There's a redundancy in grid section six, right there," he said, pointing at the monitor. "Bypass sixty-three delta, reroute power to fifty-two beta, and that should free up power for the sections that are underpowered. Take power from life support, there's no one on the freighter anyway."

McConnor nodded, and tapped the controls to do as Bast had recommended. "Structural integrity up to sixty-three percent," he said finally.

Bast let of it a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and turned back to the Captain. "I don't think we can risk going any faster," he said.

The Captain also let out a breath, about the same time Bast had done. "Thank you. That just added, what, roughly four days to our trip back?" Bane sighed. "It is what it is. At least it will give the crew time to complete some of the analysis and catch up on their science work in the meantime." He paused, then continued, making his way back to his chair to sit down. "Please maintain course and speed, Commander."

"Yes, Sir," acknowledged the Trill. He turned back to McConnor. "Continue monitoring the structural integrity, let us know if anything changes."

He made his way back to his chair at the Captain's right, and they sat in silence for the next few minutes, catching their breath after the latest scare.

Once a few minutes had passed, he checked again if the structural integrity was holding. Seeing that it was, he turned to Lieutenant Lisald. "Mister Lisald, I think we can all rest easy for now. You can start downloading those logs from the freighter. Hopefully that'll shed some light on this isolinium."

It was the first time Bast had spoken to Lisald directly since he had beamed back from the freighter, and Lisald visibly jumped with a start. "Oh, aye sir," he said eagerly, happy to finally be a part of the Bridge crew again. He turned and began entering commands to the computer. "Uplink established.....access granted," he reported, watching the readouts. Lisald looked over at the enter button and tapped it, initializing the download of the files from the freighter.

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Freighter Bixilfiz - Memory Core
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Incoming connection request....

Identity confirmed: USS Cygnus - Starfleet registry NCC-71954

Access denied

Incoming connection request....

Identity confirmed: USS Cygnus - Starfleet registry NCC-71954

Request additional information -

Challenge issued: Provide authentication credentials -

Credentials received. Cypher key complete. - Validating......

Validating.......

Validating.......

Credentials approved. User authenticated: USS Cygnus - Starfleet registry NCC-71954

Accessing: Navigation systems

Access granted.

Accessing: Logs

Access granted.

Initiating file transfer - Navigation logs.

ERROR: Access denied.

ALERT: Unauthorized access.
ALERT: System integrity compromised.
ALERT: Initiating Protocol 0000.
ALERT: Immediate action - Dropping antimatter containment field.

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USS Cygnus - Main Bridge
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Lieutenant Commander Bast was in mid-stride, on his way over to Lieutenant Lisald's console, to look over the data transfer, when all of a sudden the Bridge configuration completely changed. He was pulled toward the ceiling as if it was the floor, and a split-second later he crashed into the horseshoe railing. His hearing was suddenly filled with the sounds of consoles exploding all around them, and his eyes were blinded by the brightness of multiple explosions. He felt the ship lurch under his feet, his head hit the horseshoe, and then he heard nothing more.

Captain Bane had looked down at his display monitor. Without warning, he was pushed down hard in his seat, then lifted off of it and slammed into the back of it before he hit the deck, hard. White, blinding flashing lights were coming from all around him, above him, seemingly from within him. A great cacophony of explosions threatened to deafen him from every single degree, and in every dimension. He heard screams from everywhere, and strangely, even heard his own voice added to the chorus, though, he thought, he didn't believe he was screaming. Shrapnel filled the air with the acrid smoke of burning tritanium, plastic and steel, some of it hitting him hard. He was completely without his wits, not understanding what was going on to him, around him.

In the back of the bridge, the Science Station exploded suddenly, the fire and smoke steaming Lisalds body. He did exactly what he had been trained to do in Starfleet Academy: Lisald Vaat dropped to the deck. He felt his body lift up and hit the wall bank, then dropped back to the deck. Like Captain Bane, he heard screams of pain. Vaat figured he was gravely injured in whatever just happened; he felt no pain. He figured he was in shock.

Although sensors had detected the collapsing of the freighter's antimatter containment, it had only been the tiniest fraction of a second before the shockwave produced by the mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter had engulfed the Cygnus. The warp bubble, configured to envelop both vessels, collapsed violently as the Nebula class vessel...as well as a sizable amount of debris from the freighter...streaked back into normal space. A large chunk of the freighter's port side slammed into the Cygnus's deflector dish, tearing a gouge in the lower saucer section sixteen meters long and nearly three meters wide. From the floor near the Operations console, Lieutenant Commander Stovek moaned. There was a throbbing in his skull accompanied by distinctly chaotic thought patterns, classic indicators of a low-grade concussion. He attempted to pull himself upward, then the bridge spun in circles around him and his head collapsed back to the deck.




MISSION END

A thrilling JP by:

Lieutenant Commander Stovek
Chief Operations Officer/Second Officer

Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast
Executive Officer

and

Captain Bane Plase
Commanding Officer

 

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