Trial By Fire

Posted on Mon Aug 3rd, 2020 @ 5:33pm by Commander Andrew Archer & Captain Thomas Devoe & Lieutenant Noa Modi

Mission: Welcome Aboard!
Location: Diplomacy Office & Bridge
Timeline: Present

ON:

“Hey, they fixed it,” Raul said as the lights in their office came back on.

“I don’t think so,” Noa muttered. The datascreen on the wall over Raul’s shoulder had come back to life too, but unlike the lights, it was still flickering. Whatever this was, it was far from a standard power outage. “I don’t like this. We should head up the bridge and find out what’s going on.”

“Especially before we get locked in again,” he needlessly pointed out.

Together, the pair of officers rushed out of their office and down the corridor. While she didn’t know a ton about this ship in particular, there were some things that were standard across all the ships, nothing more so than Jefferies tubes. Depending on where you were on a ship, avoiding the turbolifts in the case of emergency could be as simple as climbing a ladder or two. Since the Diplomacy Office was towards the front of Deck two, that’s exactly what they did.

Though it required a little guess work from both officers, and some luck, Noa found a hatch that opened up on the bridge, next to the door to the captain’s ready room.

Devoe heard a noise but, nothing like a energy crackle. He and Ensign Masters stood by with phasers in hand and at the ready. The hatch opened with a small thud, revealing Lieutenant Modi and the young man he recognized as her aide.

With a sigh of relief, the captain lowered his weapon and offered Modi his free hand. "Welcome to the party Lieutenant."

"All we need is some music to go with the lighting, sir," Noa quipped.

Doing an assessment of the room with her eyes, she made a mental note of who was where, despite not recognizing anyone except Captain Devoe and the Chief Science Officer, who seemed focused on a task at the moment.

"I'm gonna assume that this is unexpected. Any idea as to what we're dealing with?" she asked. Devoe gave her a look, much like the one her father used to give her when she asked a question that she already knew the answer to. "Thought so."

Archer continued to work on the engineering console, practically unaware of the recent arrivals on the bridge. It’s true that as a science officer he wasn’t exactly a leading expert in engineering, but every Starfleet officer in the fleet had basic to moderate engineering knowledge - especially when a certain Tellarite engineer had walked him through what he needed to do.

He turned his head to address the Captain and the two arriving officers. “While I was in the Jefferies tube, the electro-plasma orb helped me reach the bridge."

"Oh, do tell," as Tom looked in his direction.

With a nod, Archer continued. "I think it’s sentient, but I didn’t have much of an opportunity to try to establish contact."

"You know, it's funny you say that, Lieutenant Archer. The consoles and datascreens in the diplomacy office are still flickering. I thought it was just the power, now I'm not so sure." She paused. "I'm Noa Modi, by the way, we didn't get a chance to meet at the ceremony. This is Raul Nuniz-Santos."

Taking her introduction as a opening, the ensign pipped up. "Sir, if the lieutenants are right, we need to figure out how to get this thing to stay in one spot and to figure out what it wants."

"Before it hops over to the space station," Noa added.

Archer agreed. "We are physically docked to the Starbase, so there's every chance that the orb could piggy back over there." The science officer paused for a moment, deep in thought. "Once we are able to re-establish main power, I'll use the internal sensors to try and find it. Now that we know what signatures to look for - electro-plasm - it shouldn't be too hard to track and find. If we could contain it somehow after that, we may be able to figure out a way to communicate with it. But given it slipped through the warp core containment shielding as though it wasn't even there, it might be easier said than done."

Tom thought for a moment. The last thing anyone needed was for this entity to get over onto the station. Not only would it be harder to pin down, but there were a lot more people on the starbase that would be in danger if it started messing with the station's systems.

"Ok, here's what we'll do. We'll release the emergency couplings we'll be technically adrift but, if we can get someone on the hanger deck to tow us free from the station. This could work. The Orlando is more than capable. Its a full size bundle of joy with all the options."

"Once Archer isolates it, Santos and I can attempt to communicate with it," Noa offered. That was the whole point of having language skills, after all.

Devoe gave her a nod as he tapped his comm badge. {Oh, what was her name again, oh yes.} =/\= Devoe to CAG. Ghost, I have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it." =/\=


:OFF:

Lieutenant JG Noa Modi
Chief Diplomatic Officer
USS Sunfire
&
Lieutenant Andrew Archer
Chief Science Officer
USS Sunfire
&
Captain Thomas Devoe
Commanding Officer
USS Sunfire