Let her Rip

Posted on Sun Sep 17th, 2023 @ 1:08am by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Chester "Duo" Maxwell & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant T'Ka O’Drisscol & Lieutenant JG S’Ers-a Kelek t’LyrZor, Maa t'Lyr'Zor & 1st Lieutenant Kate Score & Lieutenant Thomas Haldeman & Lieutenant Alison Haldeman & Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronson Mitchell

Mission: Repairs and Retribution
Location: Cardassian Shipping Lane

The ship slowed, essentially killing time whilst the engineering team worked their magic. Within several hours there was the positive news that they had all been waiting for.

"Captain, I have Engineering for you with an update"

Score stood nearby engross in a PADD.

"This is Engineering" Thriss' voice came over the comm. The drive is up and running however when we use it, that run will be our test run. However, we are pushing the injectors. Lieutenant Durnell thinks that we can push 32 pascals before the injector fails. However the injectors are pushing 29 because if the injector fails, the results would be highly catastrophic" he sighed. "The Lieutenant is looking into a fail-safe option but I recommend high caution."

After Thriss finished speaking he looked around to see if he spotted Bonnie for an update on the fail-safe.

She was in the back corner of the warp core, ratcheting away at the 'fail-safe' manifold they had agreed upon. As if she had felt his gaze in her direction, she lost focus, slipped the wrench and smacked her knuckles into the warp core, for the third time. Several loud expletives rang out, filling the Engineering bay, followed by some colorful grumblings. And then the ratcheting continued.

Feeling bad for distracting the Lieutenant, he spoke back into the comm. "Progress on the fail-safe is almost complete. If all goes well we should get past undetected. Hopefully. We just have to be careful when using the drive in it's current state" he said in a concerned tone, hoping that everything would work out alright.

Ronson sighed in relief, they weren't going to get blown to bits. Well, maybe but not certainly.

A few minutes later Bonnie walked up to Thriss, "Alright, we've done everything imaginable to make this work. It's now or never." She gave an odd little smile, her face a mess of grease and machine oil. Her forehead held beads of sweat.

Bridge

With the favorable results from Engineering, the bridge hummed with a renewed energy, soon they would be on their way to save their Captain, XO and counsellor.

Dean glanced up at the hum a moment, smiling a little. First time in a number of days at this point. "Driver picks the music."

Ronson looked up in dismay as "another one bites the dust" piped from the speakers on the bridge before he quickly changed the music to "Living on a Prayer"

As the music piped through-out the ship and resonated in Engineering Bonnie found her head bopping in time. She nudged Kla'ren, "Classical Earth music, John Bonhovi I think. Saw him in a holovid once, he had, uh, large hair." She made a motion to show a head of hair twice the size of her own.

Score Looked up to Dean. "Commander Permission to Take Over Tactical Station"

It didn't particularly matter right now if that was Dean's primary job. He had another job to fill, and hopefully he was doing it just as well or at least close to how Nora did. "Get after it, Lieutenant."

Score Nodded and took up the Tactical Position

The Sunfire leapt into transwarp, the crew waiting with baited breath to see if they would be detected by the checkpoint or any other vessels until they reached their exit point in the Kunar system.

The ship had a low subtle, but noticeable, shake that caused stomachs to fill with worry. What was worse was that every 20 seconds or so there was a sudden jolt throughout. It was akin to driving fast on a well laid gravel road. If it was smooth, the ride was relatively tolerable. But if there were pits or dips in the road, the jolting was magnified.

Bonnie held onto the nearest console as she watched the pascals rise and tried to time their exit in the Kunar system. Sure the ships computer had done that for them, but it helped rest her worried mind as she stared at the numbers. What would have taken hours, would now only be a matter of minutes and they would emerge a moons distance from the planet itself.

Alison was holding onto her console as well, she wasn’t even going to attempt getting up and walking around, one jerk at the wrong time and a nasty tumble could prove a problem for her pregnancy. She stayed seated and kept an eye on her console readouts instead.

Dean actually stood up from the main chair during all this. Just slipping his hands to the small of his back, clasped. Riding out all of these eddies and shudders. Giving off, or trying to give off, an aire of confidence. She, the Sunfire, was going to hold up. She still has, they made it back from the ground, dinosaurs. They had this. "Steady. Steady."

As the Pascals rose and began to approach what Bonnie had deemed to be a critical level of no return, she counted them down to their destination. "8... 7... 6... 5... looks like we're going to be okay." She boldly stated. "3... 2... 1..." Just as the ship dropped out of warp sparks erupted around the fail-safe device coupled to the warp core. The power fluctuated momentarily but then the crew erupted in celebration.

Bridge

While the bridge crew celebrated, the pilot confirmed their location. "Captain, we have indeed arrived at Kunar. Not detecting anything from the patrol, but..." the woman at navigation reported.

"Report," Dean finally sat down in the chair. Turning his head up to Score, "Is that a weapons platform, or a satellite Over there I see?"

"Yes Sir It is, And Now The Problem we have is it thinks we are a Cardassian Freighter but It saying we need an Access code...Or We will get fired at...Give me a Moment Trying to Get a Code Now..."

"I'm detecting an energy build-up and a weapons lock..." Her voice trailed off as they heard Scores report from the tactical station.

Dean gripped the chair a moment, taking a breath. "Hold keeping. Tactical."

"Shields up captain?"

Tom spoke from Ops. "Power grid is seriously overloaded Sir. "We're living on a prayer. I need to shut down some of the non-essential departments. Lower the power demand."

" Take it from everything bar the engines, I'll moderate life support to minimum levels" Ronson agreed as he turned back to his panel and made the appropriate adjustments.

"Working on it now Chief." Tom replied. "I'm leaving the engines as well as life support untouched for now. Also shunting power from science and sending it to the engines."

Alison monitored the changes. “Looks good from here Tom, the overload is lowering...for now. Let’s just hope it stays that way.”

"Thanks, Alie." Jon replied as he looked at the power grid and let out a sigh of relief as he saw the power consumption dropping, moving away from the danger zone.

There was now a clear red glow at the tips of the primary satellite turret and the others were rotating and beginning to lock on. "Captain, if they fire with our Shields down there won't be anyone left here to respond. "

"Shields up captain?"

It was one of those moments where everyone paused and waited for the Captain's instruction. If they raised shields they would tip their hand, if they didn't they could get blown out of the sky.

"Captain?" Ronson prompted. The ship continued to shake around them.

Dean shook his head, "Keep us steady." It was a gamble, but maybe they'd miss?

Alison looked worriedly at Tom, the sudden thought of their teenage daughter Mandy being left alone if anything happened to them, not to mention the fact that their unborn son would die with them.

Tom met Alison's worried gaze with a reassuring smile. He knew what she was thinking. Alie was worried about Mandy and their unborn son. He was worried about that as well, but they had jobs to do. He could only hope they would be successful in rescuing the captain and the others. Then returning to see their daughter and being a family.

Sera’s hands skimmed across the console as she brought up a code-breaking algorithm she designed years ago at the academy. It wasn’t something that was often used – but it had proved particularly effective against Cardassian codes…

“I require approximately 9 seconds…” She said to no one in particular, but belatedly figured someone might want to know why the ‘new kid’ was suddenly verbalizing non-sequiturs.

“I have an algorithm that has proven particularly effective against Cardassian security protocols…not the higher-level encrypted ones but I…postulate that the system in use here was not a high-security one.”

A look of Vulcan triumph crossed her features. “Got it. I have…hypothetically…an active access code. Transmit?”

Ronson looked on, nodding imperceptively at least there wouldn't be any hesitation from command. This could save their backsides and then some.

"There we go! Transmit it, now!" Dean half stood up from the chair at that moment. Glad he didn't have them raise shields.

Sera did not need to be told twice and transmitted the codes to the weapon's platform that was more than ready to send them all to Sha Ka Ree. She may have held her breath as she studied the view screen for any sign that the turrets would reject the codes.

She turned to look at the rest of the bridge crew with a slight brow raise in question; her subtle change of expression communicating without words, "Did it work?"

Alison looked at her readouts. “I think it did” She looked towards Tom for double confirmation.

Tom bent back to look at the readings, for a moment nothing had changed then suddenly he straightened up and turned back to Alie, a huge grin on his face. "It worked!" He shouted.

Alison breathed a huge sigh of relief, but they still had the hard part to come, rescuing Rhenora, Aurora and Savar.

Sera nodded once at confirmation that the codes worked. She could 'feel' the momentary shift of energy in the bridge - one 'crisis' had been averted. What had begun as a self-initiated challenging hobby during the academy had paid off.

Even as the commotion began to settle down, Patin entered the bridge, still in full tactical gear. On the screen a series of satelite turrets she was familiar with. They weren't being shot at which was a plus. She spotted Dean at the center of the bridge and Patin being Patin she asked the most obvious question, "Now what?"

TBC