Those Who Remained

Posted on Mon Nov 14th, 2022 @ 12:42am by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Ensign Kitiuas Thenis & Lieutenant Thomas Haldeman & Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronson Mitchell

Mission: Planet of the Dinosaurs
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: tbd

Ensign Kitiuas watched as the crew of the USS Sunfire disembarked from the ship. She then turned to the remaining crew and looked at each one, wondering which she should address as team leader. The natural choice for her would be Lieutenant Thriss Kla’ren, as he was the Chief Engineering officer, however, she had heard rumors that Lieutenant Thomas Hadleman had been a captain at one time. She, of course, knew her role, to crawl through the Jefferies tubes and manually open each of the vents created to vent the atmosphere and hazardous smoke and toxins.

Tom met Kitnuas's gaze, "I think the first order of business is that we should find a secure base of operation for us or as secure as possible. Possibly the bridge?" He posed. "Then we should work on venting the smoke as well as making sure the emergency beacon is transmitting."

"Agreed" Thriss stated as he also gazed at the rest of the crew as they were continuing to leave the ship. He looked back at Tom and Kituas. "The bridge will probably be the best, at least for starting out. I can try and control engineering functions from there" the Chief added.

"Sounds good. Let's get to the bridge and set up base there and get to the bridge and see what we can do from there." Tom suggested.

Ensign Thenis nodded and replied “Aye, aye Sirs. To the Bridge to set up base. Once that is done, I will suit up and begin crawling through the Jefferies tubes and opening the vents manually. The backup batteries designed for atmospheric venting should still be good. If I see any spot fires, I will put them out.” With that, she reached down with her left arm and slung her duffel onto her shoulder. Very gingerly with her right arm, she grabbed her canteen and took several deep swallows of water. Trying her best to hide the weakness in her right arm and shoulder, which was supposed to be in a sling.

Ronson had chosen to remain behind, happy to help wherever possible to get the ship back into space or at the very least ensure the crew were rescued. Someone would need to get the communications systems running, long-range coms as a priority. Hopefully, he would be able to help with that.

Bonnie had watched the back and forth commence with many concerns. She was only there to assist in repairing her mistake, or what she still felt was hers. She had not seen the bridge, but she understood the problems they would be facing. With the warp core offline, the ship had been operating on battery reserves for hours now. The sun would be setting soon and there was still much work to be done. She felt they should secure power first, and failed to see the point of doing that from the bridge.

At the end of her millings, she watched as Kit acted tough letting her arm loose from the sling. Shaking her head disapprovingly, she made only one motherly comment as she stood to follow the group, "No one works alone, just in case." She was certain someone could easily get injured, specifically in the lower decks which had to be a disaster area. No longer had she said it when the bulk of the ship shifted ever so slightly as it continued to settle into it's new home.

"Good point and good advice, Lieutenant." Tom replied agreeing with Bonnie. "Everyone understand, no one goes or works by themselves. Now, let's get to the bridge."

"Yessir" Ronson nodded, realising that the Captain's beloved coffee machine was damaged beyond repair and she would be without coffee for the forseeable future. 'Pity those poor people working with her' he thought sadly, pregnant and uncaffinated - her mood would be sour indeed. Thankfully for him he was on the ship and would do his darndest to have it repaired for when she returned.

The smoke was getting thicker as they headed towards the bridge, the lack of fresh air starting to dampen the fires as they ran out of oxygen to consume. "Sirs, could we use the smoke against the fire? Suffocate it so to speak and use rebreathers ourselves until we can vent the smoke after they are out?" He asked, having no real idea if it were possible.

"I don't know. It is a good question." Tom admitted. "Chief is Mr. Mitchell's idea feasible?"

He looked at Tom. "I'm no firefighter, but the concept does make sense. Fire essentially needs oxygen to survive. Breathing in smoke is harder than breathing in normal air. So, if you take the concept of a fire extinguisher and apply it here, but instead of an extinguisher or any type of fire suppression system, you use smoke, I think that it could work" the Chief Engineer reported.

"Alright and what have we got to do to make this work and put out the remaining fires?" Tom asked.

Kit saw Lieutenant Durnell look in her direction and saw her scowl when she no longer had her arm in the sling. She smiled in her direction and winked.

“Some of the more minor ones will suffocate, but the main problem are the Plasma and other specialized gases that are burning. They only require a fuel source to continue burning. That is why we completely lost Main Environmental Control, major plasma fire. So, to put them out it requires putting on respirators, fire/blast suits; the silver hooded suits, going to one of the diagonals opening the emergency fire cabinets and drag the hoses either through the corridors to the fire or the Jefferies tubes, which is preferable. If in the Jefferies tubes and the automatic shut-offs didn’t kick in, which they didn’t in this case, you manually close the valves and open the vents manually.

With the vents since we do not have main power, you have to set the emergency battery to on so the fans kick on in an atmosphere crash landing, if we were in space it would vent into the vacuum. Folks we got the worst of worst-case scenarios, as my Advanced Firefighting Instructor, a Vulcan, said it is ‘Highly improbable you will ever encounter this scenario.’ So, the question is how in the hell did this happen outside of a major ship-to-ship conflict?”

Oblivious, Bonnie misunderstood the wink, but she stood and moved to stand near the group. "Sounds like a lot, but point me in the right direction and I'll do whatever it takes." She was raring and ready. "As for how; there are redundancies upon redundancies in place for just such a situation. The fire that is. There would have had to have been a cascade failure started at a specific point, or some form of," she waved her hands in circles, "I don't know, sabotage, I guess?"

“Well then, if you're eager enough to follow me, we can begin the process. Start on Jefferies tubes on Deck one and work our way down.” Said Kit looking at Lieutenant Durnell. “We will need someone either manning the Ops station or Secondary Environmental Control, if we can maintain the power to the station, to assist in diverting any of the Plasma gas and various assorted other gases if we encounter a fire involving them or a broken valve system.” She looked at her fellow officer’s, hoping she had not stepped on any “toes” as the Terrans were fond of saying.

Bonnie's enthusiasm for the amount of work was waning or was that her confidence? Either way, she knew Kit was gungho about fighting these fires and making a difference, and therefore so was she. Kit had a way of driving that made Bonnie want to tag along.

"If there are no objections, I'll take the Ops station." Tom replied, "Unless someone else wants to man it. I just want to get the fires out and the smoke vented, so we can get to work on making repairs."

"I'll take the engineering station myself and see what I can repair now and from up here. Unless anyone needs my assistance elsewhere?" Thriss inquired.

Ensign Thenis nodded, "Okay then. If your ready Lieutenant Durnell, we can suit up. If we should need to fight any fires your job is the hose dragger, simple enough, pull the hose along and ensure no kinks in the hose. Remember we will be in the Jefferies tubes where the smoke can be really bad, sometimes unable to see your hand in front of your face, do not panic, also the smoke can play tricks on you. Are you ready or any questions?"

"Um, I'm ready as I'll ever be, I guess." She was immediately uncertain about the idea of smoke playing tricks on her in the darkness. If she only had a computer terminal working she'd be able to determine the location of the first series of release nodes. To show her spirit though, she moved across towards where they could suit up, leading the charge to get started.

Meanwhile, Ronson and the rest of the team were heading towards the bridge, pausing at an intact emergency cupboard to retrieve the small portable rebreathers to avoid inhaling the toxic smoke. The turbolift crept slowly towards the bridge, rattling and pausing in an eerily creepy fashion before stopping at the bridge deck, refusing however to open the doors.

Bonnie heard the lift stop and noticed the doors didn't part, "Looks like the batteries are almost exhausted. We'll have to use access shafts to move about the ship. It will take longer and I don't recommend using them until the smoke is clear." She stated matter of factly.

"Bonnie, once the smoke is vented and the fires out. Can we recharge the batteries? It would help if we had battery power at least." Tom asked as he moved to open the lift doors.

"Well, mostly they charge off the warp core power, buuut, we could raise a solar sail. Lieutenant Kla'ren could fill you in better, but I believe there are four sails which when deployed, would give a bare minimum of power to keep things like life support online. Since we don't need life support, it would just be a matter of routing it to where we need it most." She answered as she began placing a belt around her waist with climbing gear, a light and a tricorder. It wasn't connected to the central computer, but it would retain the basics in the very least. Plus it had a benefit of a scanner.

"I see. Alright we'll discuss once we get the smoke vented and the fires out." Tom replied. "We can decide where we want the power routed to,"

Ronson stepped through the narrow opening onto the deserted bridge. It looked thoroughly destroyed and with the occasional bloodstain on the carpet, he know those who had been here had had a rough time of the landing. Not as bad as those in Engineering though, he hastily corrected himself. Setting himself up at a console he tried to coax some power out of it. "Batteries are reading at 5% Sirs, emergency force fields have failed, fire suppression is offline, we're pretty much cactus in a can. A Smokey can that is"

"Then we best get to work on venting the smoke and putting out the fires. Then we can work on rigging a solar sail to recharge the batteries." Tom observed.

TBC