Regrouping

Posted on 10 Nov 2020 @ 12:42pm by Commander Terry Walsh & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,446 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Ghosts
Timeline: MD4 || 1400 hours

With the pirates gone, Harvey had ordered the Black Hawk to remain where it was, and to keep its sensors working overtime trying to find any sort of trace of their ship, not to mention to see if there was anything else left behind for them in the nebula. The remainder of the senior staff was otherwise engaged with their own objectives, leaving Harvey alone with a junior bridge crew in Auxiliary Control.

Having left the others from the away team on the Flight Deck with instructions to check-in with their departments, Terry made for Auxiliary Control. There were way too many questions and not enough answers to go around. Hopefully, he could find out a little more from here. He entered and found the Captain and a host of junior officers for bridge crew.

"As fast as I could, Captain," Terry said to Harvey. "And that wasn't fast enough for my liking."

Harvey turned in his chair to the sound of the new arrival. "Not fast enough?" he echoed. "That sounds like the understatement of the day, Commander. With me." The Captain stood up and led the man off the bridge into the nearby anteroom.

Terry, still in his EVA suit with helmet under arm, followed the Captain into the room. It was odd that they weren't on the Bridge, but that reason might come to light soon. Hopefully.

"Before you give your report," Harvey stated, turning around to face his first officer, "not long after you left, we started experiencing environmental fluctuations on the bridge, including it turning into a deep freeze. We relocated here. Computer malfunctions are still running rampant on the ship, which Lieutenant Akorem is addressing by initiating a purge of the computer core. Commander Djinx and Lieutenant McCullen returned from their inspection and discovered an explosive attached to one of our nacelles. The Squadron's been grounded thanks to our computer malfunctions, and to top it all off, we had a standoff with a second Saber-class ship led by some guy named Kelly or something."

"Okay, that's a lot to process all at once...." He trailed off as he quickly took it all in. So much had happened to them since he'd come aboard, but this...this was all once on every front. "Well let's hope that the purge of the core works. An explosive, huh. We're trying to remove it, right? I don't imagine the nacelle is a good place for it. And a second Saber-class ship...could it have been a Consortium ship getting what they could from the Shran? All things considered."

"Commander Djinx is supervising the disarming process." Harvey sighed. "He wasn't my first choice, but with security occupied, and the explosive having organic components, it was best to send a scientist to analyze. As for the other ship, it'd been stripped of any markings, repainted even. But their actions, they certainly weren't anything like the Consortium. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd been stripping the Shran."

"If it's part organic, yeah, a scientist was a good call. Maybe some medical personnel, too. This other ship, though, doesn't sound like anything we've ever run into before. If they were stripping the Shran, then they would've needed to have someone...." Terry paused. "Oh damn. Harvey," he said, accidently slipping into the familiar thanks to the weight of what he just realized, "we gathered as much information as we could from the Shran's computer. And it looked like the battle had taken place inside, like a mutiny. But we ran into someone else over there. From what I heard over Di Pasquale's open comm channel, he called himself Kelinor."

Harvey raised an eyebrow. He wasn't surprised that Kelinor had been over on the Shran, especially since it was easy to assume the Shran had been raided for parts to keep the other Saber-class running. The Captain dismissed Terry's use of the familiar and stated, "Well, we can at least confirm that the person she and we met is one and the same. He first told me his name was Etam and that he was hiding from pirates. He then played dumb when I asked him about the bomb on our nacelle, and then someone sent him a transmission from our ship. That's when everything went down and he fired on the Black Hawk."

"Well either he's quick on his feet or well prepared," said Terry. "Did we catch the person who sent the transmission?"

The Captain shook his head. "Security's still hunting down the saboteur." He then sighed and looked at to the former Marine. "That's the gist of what you missed during your excursion. What's your sitrep?"

"Oh boy," said Terry. "Well, we found lots of damage once we got onto the bridge. Even had a hole near the viewscreen. Nebula gasses had seeped in and messed with our tricorders. And bodies, there were bodies floating around inside. Our new Medical Chief tagged some for transport back here. I'd imagine he's probably already started the autopsies. There was also no power and no way to restore it from the bridge. So we split into two teams with Commander's Di Pasquale and Geisler heading to the Security area and the rest of us to Engineering. Turbolift shafts are a lot roomier than tubes when you're in one of theses things." He paused a minute to let all of that sink in before continuing.

"I can imagine," Harvey remarked. He considered the report thus far. No power, dead bodies everywhere, and plenty of damage. It was the perfect set up for a ghost story if there ever was one. "Were you able to determine what happened to the ship and the crew?"

"Not exactly," said Terry. "Commander Geisler has what little we could get from the computer core; sensor readings, damage reports, ship's logs, security dispatches...things like that. Intel should be analyzing them right now. But my gut tells me it was an internal battle. The hole near the viewscreen was blown outward instead of inward. Like someone detonated a bomb on the bridge. There were sections sealed off and burn marks on the closed doors like someone was trying to prevent, and gain access. I have a feeling that the Consortium had a mutiny on their hands. But we won't know for sure until we get the Intel report."

Sighing, Harvey gave Terry a nod. His mind played brief flashbacks of an attempted Consortium takeover of the Black Hawk, which had climaxed with Harvey getting phasered at point-blank range in the ready room. He'd been lucky to survive that. Instinctively, a hand went to cover that spot on his chest where the beam had found him long ago. "More than likely, that's exactly what happened. But, as you said, we'll have to wait and see. Let's get you out of that EVA suit. Security should have updates for us soon, and I'm going to need all the help we can get."

"I like that idea," he said, putting the helmet down momentarily. The fact that they were in Auxiliary Control hadn't gone unnoticed by the Executive Officer. "I assume some of those updates and that help is getting the Bridge back?"

Harvey nodded. "Lieutenant Fairchild is leading an EVA team as we speak. We're assuming whomever is in control of the bridge is watching all access points, so an unconventional method was warranted."

"Unconventional seems to be the watchword lately. At least we have some creative minds aboard to combat the unconventional with more of the same," he said. "So now it's just a matter of getting control of the ship back. What's the next step after that?"

"Gain control," Harvey said, raising an index finger. Joining his middled finger with the index, Harvey added, "Defuse the bomb." Now the ring finger. "Head back to Gamma Command since we're in no condition to continue the shakedown."

Terry shook his head. "Shortest damn shakedown I've ever been on."

Harvey scoffed. It was Harvey's shortest too, and definitely the most problematic. "Unless you've got anything else, I recommend you take care of that EVA suit and get back here. We've still got quite a bit in front of us."

"Nothing else from me," said Terry. "And yeah, it'll be nice to get out of this as soon as possible. I'll be back in a few minutes, Captain."

The Captain nodded. "Dismissed, Commander."

Terry gave his CO a quick nod and turned to leave the anteroom and Auxiliary Control. Getting back into a regular uniform would be nice. Getting back into a regular routine would be even better. He scoffed at that last bit as he went to the nearest turbolift.

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