Malfunctions on the Bridge

Posted on 15 Jul 2020 @ 7:48pm by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant JG Damian Akorem & Ensign Kelly Khan & Master Warrant Officer Karyna Fordyce

1,477 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Ghosts
Location: Bridge
Timeline: MD 4 || 1200 hours

"Transporter Room to Bridge. Transport complete."

The words had broken Harvey's concentration on the listing Saber-class ship before them. Clearly the Away Team had been in no hurry to transfer over. Harvey could understand that. The Black Hawk was under no time constraint, nor did they detect any life on the Shran. Time was the only item besides animosity that the crew had in abundance.

No, what Harvey needed now was patience. He tapped a button on his armrest and spoke, "Acknowledged. Maintain your locks in case of emergency beamout."

"Aye, Captain. Transporter Room out."

Kelly couldn't believe that she was back on the bridge during Alpha Shift and had made an extra strong iced Raktajino and gulped it before she slid into uniform and had darted to the bridge. What she wouldn't give for a piece of that amazing chocolate that Quinn had gotten her before but they had run out of that and everything else while in the Convergence Zone. Which she did not want to think about. Ever.

Now she sat at the helm and maintained the position of the Black Hawk relative to the Shran and wondered what fate had befallen the ship that had once been taken by the Consortium. What had happened to the crew that had blindly followed orders? What had happened to the ones behind it? As a cadet at the time of the crisis and later as an Ensign, she still hadn't learned much and probably wouldn't for a few more ranks.

Harvey rose from the command chair and crossed the bridge to the replicator. "Coffee, strong, hot." he ordered. The device whirred for a moment before producing an ice cream sundae. The Captain was momentarily perplexed by the result. He looked at the device's readouts, which indicated that coffee was what was ordered.

"But that's not what I ordered," he muttered, pressing the recycle button. "Coffee, strong, hot!' he repeated.

The replicator bay glowed for a moment, and then disappeared, leaving behind a banana split.

"What the hell," he muttered.

Ensign Khan watched, a bit perplexed, then she got a bright idea. "How about asking it for a Ktarian Chocolate Puff?" She suggested. "It might give you coffee."

Harvey recycled the banana split. "Well, I've heard crazier ideas," he told the ensign. Sighing, he requested the desert from the replicator. The bay glowed for a moment as it produced...

"A baked potato." Harvey pulled out the steaming bowl. "With cottage cheese."

"That's nasty," Kelly said before she shut up after realizing she said it out loud. "Sir," she belatedly added.

Damian turned away from the Captain and his replicator issues and began tapping on his console. "Running some diagnostics now." He took a sip of the drink he had underneath his console, remembering that he had brought it with him, which turned out to be a good thing. "I'll see if this is the same problem from the other reports of replicators malfunctions."

Harvey placed the bowl back into the replicator and pressed the recycle button. "I suppose I've already had enough to drink anyway." He had started to feel the effects of the Bolian whiskey, and sooner or later, he was going to need to counteract that.

From the science console, Karyna watched everything play out. She didn't normally spent time on the Bridge, which was beyond fine with her; she much preferred sticking to Astrometrics. But it was her turn to woman the Bridge station, so here she was. She didn't really know the others that well. That was mostly her own fault since she wasn't that social. She had no actual friends on the ship and had considered putting in for reassignment after finding out Commander Teixeira had left. He was why she had joined the Black Hawk in the first place, after Teixeira's temporary tenure as Commanding Officer of the Cochrane. While he was still aboard, they'd shared meals once a week and occasionally hit up the holodeck together.

But he was gone. And she was alone now.

She stared at her console, not wanting to get involved in the interactions of the others, who clearly were friends.

Harvey sat down in the command chair and began to settle back in. It was at that moment that he heard a change in the bridge's sounds. Normally, the bridge would be a flutter with keys being tapped, sound acknowledgment from on-screen modals, and the usual whirring of the environmental systems. It was that familiar whirr that had shifted, its pitch lowering while its speed slowed as well. "What was that?" he asked to no one in particular.

"What's what?" Kelly asked as she turned and stopped what she was doing. She listened, but all she heard was the normal quiet of the Alpha shift bridge. On the other shifts she usually found herself on, the bridge was full of chatter, camaraderie and reports.

The Captain wasn't sure how to answer that. He looked up at the ceiling where the air ducts were. He turned the chair to the left and started to look up at one of the grills trying to see if they were still blowing. What he did feel, however, was a blast of cold air. "What the!?" he shouted, leaping up from the air. The blast was colder than he had ever felt. "Someone check the environmental controls!"

Something new that's going to try to kill us, I'm sure, Fordyce thought. Seems like there's always something trying to kill us.

"Who turned the cold air on?" Kelly asked as she felt the blast of cold air. She switched her console to environmental mode and blinked. "Captain, the temperature for the bridge has changed from twenty-five celcius to minus three point nine celsius. It's dropping five celsius a minute!"

"Trying to override" Damian replied as he faced the Captain momentarily. Tapping away on his console, it didn't make sense why the environmental system was doing what it was doing. "I can't override. I'm trying to trace where it came from, but whatever subroutine has changed has been routed throughout the ship, it's going to take time."

By now, Harvey had begun to shiver. He could already see his breath turn to fog as soon as it left his mouth. "If we don't get control quick, we're going to be flash frozen up here. All non-essential personnel, clear the bridge." Several ensigns and lieutenants stood up to evacuate, stopping short of the turbolift doors that refused to open.

"Computer, status on the turbolifts?" Harvey demanded.

As expected, the computer buzzed in reply. "Turbolift access to the bridge has been restricted due to environmental hazards."

"What about the ac-access hatch?" Kelly chattered as it started to get colder and now the environmental controls showed the new temperature setting for minus twenty-three celcius. "Captain, it's going d-down even m-m-more."

Harvey moved to the port turbolift alcove and knelt on the floor. He couldn't see it outright, but he felt around for the handle that would let him left the access hatch. After a moment, he found it. The hatch opened nice and easy. "Regroup on Deck Two!" he called out, waving everyone to go down the ladder.

"Ca-ca-Captain," the petite brunette chattered. "What if t-t-this is a p-ploy to get us off the b-b-bridge?" she asked.

"Unless you can fix the environmental controls in the next sixty seconds," Harvey replied, his hands beginning to turn red under the cold conditions. "T-Then it's certainly working." Still, the Ensign had a point. "Computer, implement command override on the bridge. Authorization Geisler Seven Nine Two Two Gamma Epsilon."

The computer whirred and beeped and replied as all of consoles immediately went dark.

Damian was one of the last to leave his station, his hands were beginning to sting. He had transferred his progress to some memory so he could pick up exactly where he left off. He stood up and moved toward the hatch.

"Down the hole," Kelly said as she entered the hatch and started climbing down as quickly as she could.

Karyna wasn't going to sit around and freeze to death. She hightailed it to the hatch and half slid down to the next level. This ship isn't going to take me!

Captain Geisler remained at the open hatch. He looked briefly around his now vacant and freezing bridge, reminded of the last time he had to abandon the ship's control center due to situations behind his control. At least this time it wasn't on fire and was totally repairable without a starbase.

Or so he hoped.

Harvey scaled down the ladder, closing the hatch behind him. "Regroup in Auxiliary Control," he informed the crew below him. "We'll reestablish control of the ship from there."

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