Game plan

Posted on Mon Apr 29th, 2024 @ 10:00am by Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Ensign Kitiuas Thenis & Commander Jennifer Baldric
Edited on on Mon Apr 29th, 2024 @ 12:00pm

Mission: Lost in Space
Location: Out there
Timeline: Current

Commander Jennifer Baldric called a senior staff meeting after main power had been restored and they had started getting an idea as to where exactly they were. She paged Ronson to prep the briefing room, and that it may be a long meeting. The ever ready Yeoman vanished in the blink of an eye to prepare.

As the meeting convened 30 minutes later the table was laid out with brain food and snacks, coffee and tea, cold drinks and the odd sugary treat to keep them going.

"You have outdone yourself this time Ronson" Jennifer praised as she entered the room first to prepare mentally for the meeting. Taking her seat she waited for the rest of the senior staff to arrive.

Dean took a minute or two to set a few things up to auto-send to the PaDD he was carrying with him. Calling in his replacement at Tactical before turning to head to the briefing room. Giving a nod to Baldric and when he got in there.

"Commander" she acknowledged with a nod, watching him take a seat whilst the others filed in.

The PaDD was set down on the table top for now, looking back at her. "How's the transition?" Leaning forward a little, "Let's see here.." of course, now to the food there as well.

"Well you haven't shoved me out an airlock yet so I'm taking that as a positive sign" she smirked as a reply.

"Come now, why would we do that?" Giving a glance to the doors a moment and then back to the food. If there were any finger sandwiches or the like, Dean would grab a few of those.

Entering through the doors Aurora’s stomach rumbled at the sight of food on the table. “Commander, and Commander.” She nodded politely to Dean and to Baldric as she moved to her seat and chose herself a selection of food. “Apologies, the whole eating for two thing definitely seems to be true.”

Savar entered behind Aurora. "Commander Baldric, Commander House." He greeted as he took his seat. "I can vouch that Aurora has a very healthy appetite."

Bonnie approached the conference room doors, an odd assortment of badly stacked PADDs in her arms. Jenna approached from the other direction and noted the odd way in which Bonnie carried herself. Always looking as if she were a step behind. Bonnie, not able to easily see her own feet, stumbled, sending several PADDs falling.

Instead of them clattering to the floor, however, Jenna reached out and snagged them from the air mid-flight. Her reflexes quick, agile even as she plucked them 1, 2, 3 and 4 and tucked them against her chest. They then acknowledged one another for the first time, "Careful there Lieutenant, there is no rush."

"Thank you, sorry Commander, I'm always running behind. I had to make certain all of the data was accurate and cross-checked thoroughly before submitting my findings which put me behind, again." Bonnie admonished.

Jenna handed the PADDs back to Bonnie in a neat stack. "I'm sure your data will reflect your findings to the best of your ability and the crew will be understanding." She nodded her head in acute understanding having once been in a similar situation many years ago. "Now, after you."

The doors parted and Bonnie took her cue and entered first, found a seat at the far end of the table from Baldric. She proceeded to set the PADDs down on the table with little clatter and took her seat.

Jenna entered, and noted the snacks and a lack of orange juice, her favorite. She then nodded to each of the Commanding officers in turn and found her seat near the front of the table where she could look out at the stars beyond.

Dean raised an eyebrow a little at the two, there was no way Bonnie stacked those PaDDs up that well. Giving a glance to Jenna as she moved by and back, "I brought one."

Bonnie glared at Dean over her stack of PADDs as she resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him. "Well you didn't have to figure out where we are and how long it will take to get back did you?" She said as quietly as possible.

"Yeah..well...um.." Crinching his nose a little, "I came up with the idea that even Mister Vulcan agreed with, so neh."

Kit entered the conference room, PaDD in hand. She was extremely pissed off, several of her spiders had escaped in the lab. Plus, the ship was lost, how the hell did that happen.

Thriss swiftly slid into the conference room just behind Kit. Seeing as he was one of the last, he quickly made it to his seat. He would have gotten there sooner, but with the repairs engineering had been hectic.

As the last few people took their seats Jen took a hearty swing of coffee to bolster her confidence and called for everyone's attention.
"I'm sure you're all very aware of why I have called you here" she started, making eye contact with everyone.

"Our first dilemma is to find out where we are. Bonnie, do you have any further progress on that front?"

Bonnie perked up, and promptly knocked her stack of PADDs forward spreading them across the table. She then took a breath to center herself, looked at Baldric and spoke clearly, "About that, we have determined, based on spatial recognition, that we have somehow been shot 29.5 Million Lightyears out from where we started and are now in the M104 Galaxy, commonly known as the, um, Sombrero Galaxy."

She pulled out one of the PADDs with her calculations on it and continued, "It has long believed there is a super black hole at the center of this galaxy which is emitting an enormous amount of cosmic x-ray radiation. And according to calculations it would take us at least 20.35 Million years to get back to our own galaxy even using Transwarp." Bonnie gave a half smile and then slunk back into her chair, deflated.

Aurora’s heart sank at that news, her immediate thought was Sidak and her unborn baby. She didn’t want to be raising her children whilst lost so far from home.

Savar read Aurora's body language at hearing the dismal news as to where they were. he turned his head slightly to give her a supportive look. Hopefully conveying the thought that everything would be alright.

Aurora’s gaze met Savar’s they didn’t need words to support one another. She offered a nod accepting his support, he always kept her strong.

Savar met Aurora's gaze and returned her nod. Their love was eternal and forever.

Thriss' expression remained blank. He felt partially responsible, but there wasn't any knowing that they would have ended up here regardless. However, the Sunfire wasn't the first ship to get lost this far from home.

"The second, is to find out how we ended up here. Does anyone have any insights they can share?"

Shifting forward and pulling another PADD, Bonnie started, "Preliminary information suggests a subspace eddie, much like a wormhole, but faster, um, like a portal. It literally shot us speeds only one other ship has ever reported before."

Jenna then added her comment, "I can confirm this felt like a river current latched on and swept us into it. Even once we arrived it was difficult to maintain position as if the ship were fighting against a current, albeit a slower-moving one. Makes me wonder if it only flows in the one direction?" She raised her brow as she looked about the room.

Savar spoke, "I would say not Commander. Where one eddie exists there is another running in the opposite direction." He looked to Bonnie, "Bonnie can you configure the sensors to identify another eddie?"

Kit listened intently to the discussion. She was not a subspace or cosmologist, but she knew some of the theories. She would need to do further research to confirm a few things, but it was a possibility. She spoke up "It is possible we rode a slip bridge. A barrier between both universes and fluidic space. Best analogy I can use is like the pleura space of the lung or the pericardium of the heart. Therefore, it may be possible to recreate the conditions and return to our galaxy and space. Problem is these spaces are not yet fully understood, theory actually, Starfleet has only observed one in the entire history of its studies of cosmology."

"It's a workable theory, I want you to take the lead on that" Baldric looked at Kit and then back to Bonnie "you as well, see if you can find another one of these 'rivers' as you call them that may help get us back." Her hopes of getting out of this mess rose just a tad. "Use whatever resources arnt being used for repairs"

Bonnie leaned towards Kit and whispered, "Slip bridge? Why didn't I think of that?" She finished by berating herself.

"Wait what, they're the same thing?" Baldric asked confused, her expression befuddled.

Bonnie just shrugged, "Yes... and no?" There were in fact many possible theoretical ways a ship could traverse galaxies in a matter of moments and in her research to identify which one may have brought them to their location, she had stuck to some of the more familiar. Leaving out a slip bridge was only because it involved fluidic space, something they were only just understanding from the Voyager reports.

Kit gave one of her most dazzling smiles at Bonnie, "Because I seriously doubt you read the same scientific journals I do. We will need to get caught up on the theories quickly. I have some of the most recent research journals in my quarters."


Speaking of repairs, the ship's almost commanding officer looked towards Thriss. "Chief, tell me we have some good news on the repairs."

"Engineering is working around the clock. We should have warp and impulse soon, and once we get done with those, I'll be able to work on the transwarp drive" the Chief Engineer replied.

Thriss continued. "In addition, I recommend we use the transwarp drive once it's online to get to an eddie once we find it, or any other way of getting back home or at least closer" he trailed off before having a muse. He looked at Bonnie. "What was the other ship?"

"Um, the Enterprise D reported, years ago, with the help of a being called the Traveler. Funny enough, their initial jump landed them in the M33 Galaxy only 2.7 Million Light years from home. It was their next jump that flung them so far away they believed themselves to be at the outer rim... oh and then there was that one time with Q, but that was mostly just to the Delta quadrant so not really that far away. Really Voyager got sent further by the Gatekeeper..." She noticed she had everyone's gaze and so trailed off and grew quiet.

"Could we use the same way the Enterprise D's used to get home from the M33 Galaxy, but modify it for the Sunfire with the transwarp drive, and the galaxy we are in as another backup?" Thriss trusted the primary plan at hand, but since they were stranded, it was always good to have backups.


Just as Baldric was about to close the session, Jenna piped up one last time, "Before we go, Commander, I feel like we may be missing out on an opportunity here. No other Starfleet ship has ever been here before. This is a first for any one of us and it would be a shame to come all this way only to turn around and return home. I suggest we explore a little, maybe even try to understand what brought us here better. I for one would love a souvenir from the Sombrero Galaxy and I don't mean Tequila."

Jennifer paused, internally smacking herself for not thinking of anything other than getting the crew back home. There had been no thought as to exploring where they actually were.

"Work out a way to get us home that's not time sensitive, and we may be able to explore a little. But for now, our priority is getting home" she finally spoke her truth.

Kit spoke up again, "I will get several research probes up and running while Commander Durnell catches up on the current theories of Slip bridges."

"Exploration while enticing may not be feasible Commander." Savar spoke and continued, "Shields and sensors are yet fully functional or reliable. Our searches would be most cautious."

"Repairs are the top priority, then finding a way home, working out where exactly we are, then if we can fit any exploring in after that, then all will be good with the universe." Baldric finished up, setting the priorities clearly. "Alright, you have your assignments, those that don't, you're on bridge duty. Dismissed"

The food had been mostly consumed during the long meeting, the coffee and tea post almost empty. It had been productive and definitely worth the long haul of tossing ideas and situations around to get to a working solution. Now they just had to pull it off.