Okay, Who Brought the Dog? Part 1

Posted on 19 Jul 2020 @ 5:29pm by Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant Dijaat Parker & Lieutenant Jennin Rhula & Lieutenant Zayna Ryler & Story Teller

3,785 words; about a 19 minute read

Mission: Ghosts
Location: USS Shran
Timeline: MD 4 || 1200 hours

Terry had stopped by the science department and pulled Lieutenant Ryler aside to brief her on their discovery and their orders. And to let her know that she was joining the away team. Find someone to take over for you, get an EVA suit, and head to Transporter Room One, he'd told her. Right before he left to get one and follow his own orders. He had gotten his suit on a little quickly as he'd been accustomed to suiting up with flight suits. Granted, they were very different, but the process was similar enough and urgency pushed him. Well, the urgency and getting to investigate a ghost ship. He took a helmet and headed down to Transporter Room One.

Camila was already in the transporter room while fiddling with the Tactical belt before she hooked it over her right shoulder of the EVA suit instead of around her waist. She gave a nod to Terry before putting her helmet on and secured it. "Commander," she said, her voice coming over the comm.

Having been stunned when she was pulled aside and told about the mission, Zayna gave her tasks to one of the ensigns and did exactly as she was told. Once she managed to find an EVA suit in her size, she found her way to the transporter room, but was still carrying her helmet for the time being. She gave a small smile to the two already there that she saw. "Commanders."

Joey, who wasn't standing too far away from Camila with her helmet of her EVA suit tucked under her arm, turned her attention toward the newcomers and offered a friendly smile in their direction. She held something that looked close to a Tactical belt in her free hand, but instead of Security related devices, hers was equipped with things like stun gloves, a tricorder geared toward Intel and some other gear she felt might come in handy on a ship that was reported missing a year and a half ago. There were bound to be some surprises waiting for them on the Shran, and right now, she was mentally trying to prepare herself for as many as those as possible.

Dijaat carried his EVA helmet in front of him, "Bloody menace these things are..." He muttered as he walked into the transporter room. He immediately spotted Commander Geisler and grinned as he got closer to the transporter pad, "Hope my engineering personnel were able to get all the tapioca pudding out of the Captain and your's quarters?" He asked her just as he stepped up. "Heard that was a fairly severe mess."

Joey turned her attention to the Engineer. She managed to take a few seconds to run to their quarters before arriving. "That's one way to describe it. I have two babies, and two dogs, Lieutenant. All four of them thought it would be a great idea to play in tapioca pudding and track it everywhere. My poor cousin, who happens to take care of the four of them while I'm on duty, looked like she wanted to rip her hair out as well as mine," she stated. "Bald works for Commander Walsh, but not so much for me. However, your personnel were there fixing the issue."

The doors to the transporter room opened. Rhula entered, encumbered by the EVA suit. He had just made it back to Sickbay when he'd been summoned for this mission. I could have assigned someone, he thought, wishing he'd been given that chance. But he'd been ordered to join the team, not send a representative. Hopefully this won't take long.

Camila couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the two dogs, who of whom had long fur, and then the two small children dragging pudding everywhere. "My quarters may have gotten it, too, but man...I can't imagine yours, Joey."

"Good. Don't imagine it," the Intel Chief said.

Terry nodded to those already present and to the rest of the team as they entered. He'd been about to put his helmet on when Commander Geisler commented about his bald head. He looked over at her and smirked, raising an eyebrow. "It works well," he said as he ran his hand over his head. He put his helmet on and secured it while walking up to the transporter pad. "Let's get going. We'll beam in to the Bridge first and see what we can find out from there. Standard investigative procedures and try to find out what happened over there. We'll also need to find out if we can tow it out of the nebula."

"Commander," said the transporter operator, a Bolian that looked up from his console to face the Executive Officer. "It looks like the bridge has been open to space long enough for nebula to seep in. I'll have to transport all of you into the Ready Room. It may be a tight fit."

"May be...," Terry said as he looked around at the away team. He was big enough himself, but add the EVA suits to them all... "Suck 'em in if you've got 'em."

Joey lifted her helmet and placed it over her head, then secured it into place. A tight fit? Suck 'em in if you've got 'em? What level of hell did she wake up in this morning? The Intel Chief was thankful she didn't have her big belly given their current situation, but as she glanced down, a new issue arose. There was no way she was sucking those in. "Wonderful..." She muttered as she stepped up onto the transporter pad.

"Oh you have to be kidding me," Zayna mumbled as she put her own helmet on, "These things make you feel confined enough...but then beaming into the Ready Room? Just great."

The Security Chief gave the person next to her suit a check, then had hers checked for seals. "I don't think you're going be to able to suck those," she quipped.

"No, and I'm extremely grateful Khan isn't here," Joey spoke, hoping they'd be transported over to the other ship soon so attention would be focused elsewhere.

"Engorgement is normal," Rhula interjected. "I'm sure the quartermaster can get you a suit to accommodate your current situation. For the next away mission, at least."

This is uncomfortable, Joey thought, wishing the transporter pad would open up and swallow her. "Don't we have a ship full of nebula gases to explore?" She asked, thinking that would be a lot more fun than their current topic of discussion.

"Is that what we're doing?" Jennin asked. "Sounds like we're unlikely to find anyone alive, right? Commander?" He looked to Walsh, his excitement at potentially not having to deal with live patients visible.

"Indeed we do, Commander Geisler," Terry said as he locked his helmet in place. Terry then turned to Rhula and smiled. He wasn't sure if he should feel happy or odd regarding the Doctor's excitement about not finding anyone alive. But honestly, he was leaning towards happy after the last few hours. "Why do you think I wanted you to come along this trip? A little peace and quiet with the dead might just be what the Doctor ordered. Huh, Doc?"

"I didn't order anything," he deadpanned in response. One of his Human colleagues at the Hendrikspool Province clinic had been like Commander Walsh. For whatever reason, Doctor Remington had thought himself quite funny too.

Terry chuckled and looked around the transporter pad to make sure they had everyone. "Okay," he said, turning to the Bolian, "whenever you're ready, energize."

"Energizing," said the transporter operator. His right blue fingers were placed on the three slider controls. His left hand locked in the coordinates and opened the pattern buffer. With a smooth, yet slow motion, he pushed the sliders upward. The occupants on the transporter pad were surrounded in iridescent blue light as their bodies began to be converted into pure energy. In less than two seconds, the pad was empty, leaving the operator alone in the control room.

He tapped his combadge. "Transporter Room to Bridge. Transport complete."

* * *

"I knew these Sabre class ready rooms were small," said Terry, "but for crap's sake, couldn't Starfleet Corp of Engineers at least left some of the furniture out." It wasn't too cramped, but with six people wearing EVA suits, it wasn't easy to move around without bumping into someone. Case in point... "Oh, uh, sorry Commander Geisler," said Terry as he backed up and turned around to try to find the door. "My sincerest apologies."

Joey blinked when Walsh bumped into her. She shook her head. "No need to apologize, Commander. We knew it was going to be rather cramped, and you kept your hands to yourself. I consider that a win."

"Well, that's a good thing. It may be the only win we get over here." After the accident, Terry took a moment to look around the ready room. It was certainly sealed and most things were still in their place. Picture frames and baubles on the Captain's desk had been knocked down, though. He dared not lift it to see who it was...wife, family, or friends...it didn't really matter at this point. And there was an 'air' in the room. A deathly silence that crept into the soul. This had been a Consortium ship and now it was dead. A year and a half dead. And so were the crew...if any of them were left behind. A shiver ran down Terry Walsh's spine like he'd never felt before. And the cramped feeling only made it worse.

Door. There is was. He pushed his way over and input a standard code to unlock it. Terry had to pry the doors apart just enough so they could get out. The seal broke and the stale air escaped the ready room into a bridge with small hole blown through a third of the viewscreen. Why the whole thing hadn't been taken out was unknown. But it had been just enough to decompress the bridge. It was dark, being without power. No lights came from the damaged consoles. He turned on his wrist light and shined it over them. Whether it had been an explosion or phaser fire, Terry couldn't tell. Then suddenly, he felt a tap on the top his helmet followed by another as he passed the helm station. "The hell!" he yelled, and jumped back. Looking up with his light, he saw a body floating in the gases. Had the gasses preserved it to some degree? As it floated by, face down, he saw. It was Trill.

When the Commander manually pulled the door open, Camila wanted to remind him that she had a door opener on her Tactical belt, but it was a moot point as he pried it open. The Security Chief stepped out and shinned her wrist lights around the small bridge and took note of the bodies. "Clear. Watch your heads," she said as she stepped aside and made her way towards the tactical station.

Zayna had followed them out but jumped when Walsh had. She knew it could be possible there would be bodies floating around in this gas, but hadn't quite expected them to be preserved that much. But, she pulled out her tricorder anyways after her heart rate when down a bit and started to walk around the bridge a little towards what would have been the science station.

Joey followed the others out and took a quick look around. She'd seen quite a bit during her career, but the scene before her now was definitely a first. What happened here? The Intelligence Chief had no idea, but she truly hoped they'd find out and be able to bring some kind of closure to their families. That was all going to have to wait for now, though. There were things that needed to be done, and that had her moving toward the Operations console. Maybe, she'd be able to pull something useful from it before going to a new location.

The consoles appeared to be dead, all around the bridge. It was only the lights coming from their EVA suits that provided any illumination among the control center, hampered only by the nebula gases, and the floating dead.

Frowning once she got to the science console, Zayna tried a few different things but nothing would get the systems going. Not even a spark. "I doubt we get anything working here," she stated as she turned to look around the rest of the bridge again. It was far too eerie.

The ship continued to list, rotating slowly to starboard. The bodies themselves remained motionless, though it appeared they were moving to port. One of them stopped against the science officer, her decaying arms moving around the woman upon impact.

Dijaat watched as the corpse made its move and appeared to wrap its arm around the Science Officer. "Awe look the dead body loves Lieutenant Ryler," He quipped sarcastically. In truth he was pretty creeped out being surrounded by so many dead bodies.

Jumping again, Zayna's eyes went wide as she saw what the arms did. Carefully, she moved the arms away and swore under her breath before looking towards Dijaat, "Oh haha, very funny, Lieutenant."

Joey rolled her eyes. Sarcasm or not, there was a time and place for things like that, and this wasn't it. "Commander, permission to explore other areas of the ship?"

His eyes were wide. Rhula hadn't seen an array of deceased like this in years. And, even then, it wasn't in zero-g. "Wonderful," he said quietly. He pulled his tricorder out and scanned the nearest corpse. "They've been exposed to vacuum for a long while now," he announced, not even sure if anyone was paying attention to him. "Whatever the chemical makeup of this nebula matter has slowed their decay though. Do you know what this stuff is, Lieutenant?" he asked Ryler.

Having had her tricorder scanning the whole time to figure that out, Zayna picked it back up to look. "My tricorder is still processing that. Must be something in it though that...I've just never seen nebula chemicals allow bodies to not decay as fast."

Camila had been examining the Tactical station and looked over at the Commander. "Permission to head to the Armory, Sir?"

Terry nodded. "Commander Di Pasquale, take Geisler and head down there. Might take a while as the turbolift has no power, but you two are resourceful. Doctor Jennin, pick a body to take back to the ship later for autopsy. Maybe that'll help with determining what these gasses have done. Ryler, keep getting as much scans as possible. Maybe we could take a sample back with us? At any rate, you two will join Parker and I as we head to Engineering to see if we can get a little power back to the ship." He paused and turned to Parker. "Without power to the lifts, any idea on how we get to Engineering?"

"We can try to bring some back, but I wouldn't trust it without a very strong containment field setup before we even attempt it." Zayna let her tricorder stay on active scan as she tried to think of a way for them to get to engineering.

The Bajoran physician pulled out a hypospray and touched it to one of the bodies, a Human woman in an Operations uniform. "This one," Rhula said to Walsh. "We can beam it back to the pathology lab."

Terry nodded, "We'll take it with us when we go, then."

Something caught his eye. Spots! He scanned it with his tricorder, the results causing him to smile. "And this one too, Commander," he said, approaching a floating Trill woman. He injected the body with a transporter tag.

"Alright," he said. "One more to go. A little extra for confirmation.

Terry nodded as he watched the two women make their way into the bowels of the ship. "Maybe that's something we can work out with Commander Djinx back on the Black Hawk after we're done here. Or maybe there's some kind of container in Engineering to make transport easier and doubly safer." He paused and sighed. "So, should we follow Di Pasquale and Geisler's example or try to get through that hole and go for a walk down to the Engineering section?"

"I'll make sure he knows about needing to set up the containment field," Zayna stated as she looked to where the hole was that Walsh was mentioning. "Are we daring enough? We probably should make sure there isn't anything in there that would tear our suits before we tried to get through."

"The junction access tunnels are going to be the only way through. There should also be an emergency ladder in behind the turbolift," Dijaat explained to the Exec and the Science Officer. "However, I would recommend finding a way to complete a site to site transport."

"As much as I'd love a site to site transport, I don't know how it'll happen without power," said Terry. "Let's try the emergency ladders behind the turbolift and the tunnels. If we can get to Engineering, maybe we can rig something to get a site to site."

"With the nebula, I wouldn't trust a site to site honestly as it is. Getting us here okay but internal transport around the ship," Zayna shook her head. "I just wouldn't."

"With pattern enhancers that shouldn't be a huge issue. However, let's definitely use the ladders." Dijaat opened his tricorder and walked over to the turbolift that he'd been referring to and scanned it, "I'm not detecting any debris that will get in our way Commander," He said over his shoulder. "However part of the hull breach does expand through the turbolift shaft." He closed it, "I have no way of knowing just how extensive or the exact location because of interference."

Terry nodded. "No debris is a good thing, but as far as the unknowns, we'll just have to be careful. Especially with the interference from the nebula floating around in here. Ladders it is, then."


***Armory Team***

The Security Chief brought up the schematics for a Sabre class ship and accessed the deck listings. "The good news, Commander," she said as she headed over to Joey. "Is that the phaser range, the Brig, the auxiliary weapon control room, and the Ship's Armory are all on Deck Five."

Joey nodded her head. That didn't seem so bad... until the other shoe dropped. "What's the bad news?" She asked. "Because when you start it like that, I can't help but think there's bad news."

"We have five decks of Jeffries Tubes and turbolift shafts to go through," Camila said as she headed for the hatch and took a minute to remove the unused panel off and pull the manual release for it. With a smile, the ombre haired woman crawled into the small space and hoped their EVA suits didn't rip or tear on something as she shined the light into the darkness and made her way forward.

"I had a feeling you were going to say that," Joey muttered as she followed Camila through the hatch, being mindful of her EVA suit. She didn't want any mishaps, and that included rips or tears in her suit. "This isn't the first time we've had to do this, and I've got a strong feeling it's not going to be the last, either."

"You got that right," the other woman said as she led the way and looked over her shoulder even though the murk and gloom made it hard to see without their wrist lights, but there was something about face to face even when in a EVA suit. "Just like always, huh, partner?" she asked with a wry grin before she turned and began to crawl forward to the junction leading down.

"You know it," Joey replied with a grin of her own, but it slowly faded as she thought about the loss of life. It wasn't likely going to be any better further down. "What do you think happened here?"

"I think they got in a battle with someone else and lost," Camila said without hesitation. "There's multiple hull breaches, and I'm betting that when we check the armory and the torpedo magazines, we'll find signs of a fight externally and internally."

The Intel Chief knew Camila was likely right, but who? And why? Aside from reporting the Shran lost, there wasn't anything else to go off of. "What I can't shake... is why they wouldn't call for help if they were engaged in some kind of fight? All we know is that she was lost, presumed destroyed, a year and a half ago. And yet, here she is."

As they reached another deck, the Security Chief looked back at her. "Not if the Consortium were in control of the bridge like they were on most of the ships during that," she said as she crawled out and looked around with her light. "There was no communication going on at all most of the battle."

"True, but as you just pointed out," she began, pulling herself out onto the deck when Camila cleared the hatch and shined her own light around. "There was little to no communication going on... how do we know the Consortium were in control of the bridge? No, this ship went missing in the beginning of the crisis when the Consortium were still playing their hands close to their chests. What if... this is totally unrelated? Maybe I'm reaching, and we both know I've done it before, but it's something to consider."

"The thing is, neither of us know at the moment," Camila said as she checked her PADD and headed for another hatch leading downward to their destination.

Joey nodded her head as they moved toward the next hatch. "You're right, and there's a chance we may never know."

With a sigh in her helmet that went over the comm, the Security Chief gave a nod. "Much like everything else we've encountered. Let's continue on." She popped the hatch and shined her light inside, then crawled in to head down another deck.

Joey knew how the Security Chief felt. She climbed inside behind her colleague and friend, and just like the first time, she was mindful of her EVA suit. "If we dig deep enough, we might be able to find the pieces to the puzzle and put it together."

Camia grunted in response and started down once again. "With a bit of luck."

To be continued...

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