In My Darkest Hour

Posted on Fri Dec 8th, 2023 @ 9:15pm by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Remal Kajun & Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Ensign Aubrie Fox & Lieutenant Thomas Haldeman & Lieutenant Alison Haldeman

Mission: Halloween
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: Current

The drone of the Sunfire's engines changed as the warp core began its progressive overload.

"This ship will autodestruct in 4 minutes and 30 seconds" the computer intoned.

Rhenora was slumped on the console, struggling for breath in the superheated environment. Tom and Thriss were coping better although neither was going to be functional when the ship went boom.

Transporter Room

Hearing the audible Bonnie started to panic, "No, no no... that doesn't give me enough time." She grabbed the helmet as though she was grabbing at her own head. "Think, think, think...." She looked over at Remal who was barely hanging on, more focused on saving everyone else he had neglected himself.

"Think Bonnie, not enough time to modulate the shields, nor power for that matter." She rolled her eyes to the side, "At least the main power. I mean certain things operate on independent systems, like the emergency shields, the transporter systems, and the holodecks."

She carried on talking to herself, "Which coincidentally was a design choice made after the Enterprise D experienced one too many issues where a being from the holodeck tried to take over the ship." She stopped as she watched the condensation build within her helmet and dissipate shortly after.

Remal, hearing her piped up, "Can you use the transporter and... I don't know, trap them somehow?"

"Four minutes until self-destruct!" The ship announced.

Bonnie's eyes lit up and she moved over to the manual transporter circuits. After pulling off the control panel she swapped several control modules and isolinear chips within the transport pad. She then stood up and moved to the wall panel, yanked it off the wall and reached in grabbed hold of a power module and paused.

"Three minutes until self-destruct!"

"What are you waiting for?" Remal asked, his breathing heavy.

She eyed him, "I'm waiting for something to go wrong. I'm about to pull a main power conduit for the tranporter shield array. I intend to create a negative energy field barrier within the transporter circuit. This is usually where things go... wrong." She said in earnest.

Remal, smiled, then yelled, "DO IT!"

Engineering

He continued working with whatever energy he had left. He wasn't sure who was still conscious or breathing. He looked towards Tom and then Rhenora, and then the rest of those who were present in engineering. "It was an honor serving with you all" he trailed off.

Alison was out for the count, the draining of the energy from her body coupled with her pregnancy had all been too much for her body to take. She was alive but in a severely weakened
state.

Tom lay on the deck, next to the console he had been working from. His last thought had been how much he loved Alie and their daughter Mandy and he hadn't saved them. Then he knew no more as darkness claimed him.

Transporter Room

Bonnie pulled the power circuit, careful not to touch the leads together with the casing. She then pulled enough line to reach the transport pad. She took a breath and then jammed the lines into the padd causing the power to spike leading everything to spark.

The control console lit up like a Christmas tree even as energy arcs bounced out of the lines. She moved over to the controls and immediately began programming the coordinates. The transporter hummed as she slid the sliders up. Within the chamber the bright blue light of a transporter beam filled the room. Then she slid them down again.

Within the transport area was filled with a green glowing light of energy. She had transported all of the alien entity at once onto the Pad. Then came the test. They realized what had happened and began to spread until they struck the shield. As they did, they retracted as if in pain. The negative energy barrier was countering their ability to move freely. They were trapped.

"30 Seconds until self-destruct." The computer announced.

Horror struck, Bonnie could only hope there was someone left to cancel the countdown and stop the ship.

Engineering

A young Ensign was monitoring the power usage to keep the ship on course and the warp core build up in progress. There was a flicker then her board lit up, someone was using the transporters. What the actual? Barely having enough breath she announced her finding to anyone who was conscious and cared. Then using what little power was available she noted that it was Bonnie and Remal in said control room. Funny thing was when Bonnie was involved things usually went boom, or wrong.

Thriss looked at the Ensign after her report. He was feeling tired. He was struggling to keep himself working. He took a moment to think. Then he realized something. The transporters could be used to trap the entities. He looked towards the Captain. She appeared to be fully unconscious at this point. He was the only person authorized to do this at this moment if that was the case. Quickly he called out to the computer.

"Computer, this is Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren, deactivate the auto-destruct sequence, authorization Kla'ren-Delta-Alpha-Three-Seven-Beta-Niner."

"Affirmative. Deactivating auto-destruct sequence" the computer announced.

The Andorian hadn't even been paying attention to the countdown. Regardless he knew it was close. Too close. He let out a sigh of relief but they weren't out of the woods yet. They needed to get away from the star they were approaching fast.

"We're not gonna go boom?" The young Ensign looked up from the console at her boss. "That's cool"

Another crewman, this time a Vulcan approached the Andorian from behind. "Sir, logic would assume you have a solution to our current predicament. One that does not involve us flying into the sun or the warp core detonating. What assistance do you require?"

"The Captain appears to be incapacitated at the moment. Get to the helm controls and take us about immediately" he ordered.

While he had an idea of what Bonnie did, he didn't know if there was still entity influence, so he didn't want to make calls over the comms just yet. He yelled out. "Anyone who has medical training please assist those who are incapacitated, including the Captain."

The humans were mostly down for the count, as were the Bajorans, Betazoids and others like them. The Klingons, Andorians, and Vulcans possessed increased stamina and endurance and were the only ones still functional without breathing assistance.

A Klingon security officer appeared nearby and began treating those that were unconscious. "Life support is offline still, I am unable to revive them without increased oxygen nitrogen in the ship's air supply." He grumbled, running a tricorder over several of them including the Captain. "They have limited time"

Thriss nodded and began to take a look at the life support systems on the console. "I can reroute power from the engines. If Bonnie's plan worked we can work with less thrust for a while" He looked towards the Vulcan that he had ordered to take the helm. "Are we turned away from the sun yet?"

The Vulcan who has taken over the helm console nodded. "I have rerouted power from the port thrusters to the starboard to initiate a change in course. Given our current trajectory and speed, I estimate we will return to our point of origin in approximately one hour"

TBC