The Search for Venture (Part 4 of 4)

Posted on 06 Aug 2013 @ 12:59pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Scarlet Blake & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley & Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Lieutenant JG Jacrux & Ensign Natalie Chevalier & Ensign Ariadne Fleming & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Amril & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis

3,287 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 04 - Exodus
Location: USS Galileo - Main Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 01 - 1115 hrs

Previously, on The Search for Venture (Part 3)...

Kohl was staring, again, at the image on the viewer. He could only nod at first, to acknowledge Wylde's question, and then he turned his back on to the LCARS panel. The look in Kohl's eyes made him look like a lost child, but as soon as he made eye-contact with the much older man, it didn't take long for grim determination to set in. Kohl set his jaw. "You've got Sickbay," he ordered Wylde. "Doctor Warraquim will manage triage in the cargo bay with Carlisle. Varek and I will support the away teams aboard the shuttles."

Alexion gave a firm nod before slapping his hand against Kohl's shoulder in a comradely fashion. "I've got it covered. Go and get out there."

Allydnra had turned and begun to get round up orderlies for getting prepared. It appeared there would be little time and she directed what was turning into a gentle chaos of getting supplies to the cargo bay.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Bridge

Hearing the captain's distress John moved to take command of the situation, this was now a rescue mission more than anything else - those were Starfleet people out in those escape pods, the Galileo had a duty to assist.

"Alright people, you all know what to do. Science and Ops stations start coordinating a rescue flight pattern and relay it to the helm - bring all tractor emitters online and clear the shuttlebay of anything we don't need sat out in the open. We'll bring the pods in, empty the crew, and eject the empties to make space for the next group."

Nat turned to Lt. Cho. "Maybe we should scan the pods to see whether any of the lifesigns are showing critical? That could help the Medical teams with their triage." Her voice was glum, though, as she considered how much she might like to wait around in a Starfleet standard escape pod, however stable her lifesign on some anonymous sensor readout.

"We have to be closer for that kind of information," Jac muttered to Nat through his distraction. His mind flew through the possible flight trajectories that would allow the most efficiency and protection. "Hey, Nat, do you have another trick to account for this level of debris? I don't want to miss anything." He meant anything suspicious, but he added a clarification that would hold more meaning to the female scientists, "Any escape pods, I mean, outside of the main cluster."

Nat shook her head vaguely. Her earlier little flourish had been kind of a one off: she was no sensor expert. Part of her wondered if Jac were trying to get back at her; but she thought they were on friendly terms still, so she shrugged that off an unkind anti-Romulan prejudice. "I don't," she admitted.

"One moment," It was a Federation craft, escape pods weren't nearly as well protected as a ship was. Kiri's fingers flew over the controls, she was tapping directly into the internal sensors, "Review this information, check against species databases and relay it to sickbay," Readouts for each of the pods flickered across the screen, there was always another way to do things.

Amril caught Mor'an's eye as she turned from her console and said, "Oversee all medical requests."

With a silent nod, Mor'an acknowledged Amril's order.

Standing up from his chair John slapped his commbadge and called down to the soon-to-be-swamped medical teams.

=^=Bridge to Sickbay - Mr Kohl we are about to undertake a rescue mission, I am expecting a fair few casualties - have your teams report to the shuttlebay immediately to assist with recovery operations and prepare Sickbay accordingly.=^=

From a communications node in the Bridge, Andreus Kohl's disembodied voice replied, "Understood, Commander. We've been monitoring the situation from here. I'll get my team underway. Kohl out." The computer chirped to signal the closing of the communications channel before Holliday gave his next order.

"Mr Rhodes - those people are likely to be in some distress - have security teams posted to the shuttle bay and work with Operations to have Cargo Bay 1 converted into makeshift quarters for our new guests - again, I want security teams there just in case."

"Rhodes was called down in to Security...it was urgent," Rice said and met his eyes. She didn't attempt to smile. She knew that the entire bridge had been busy and most likely not noticed the exchange. "I shall get the security teams posted and ready," she looked at Amril, giving a nod to him.

"Thank you Lieutenant Rice, carry on."

With his orders issued John turned back to the still-concerned face of his captain, and settled back into his chair alongside her.

"Any further orders Captain?"

Mialin's attention shifted in Lirha's direction at the XO's words. Right now she was feeling totally helpless and needed to do something more than just sit at her station looking at a wrecked starship.

Hastily returning back to her seat and thumbing through a multitude of operational statuses and information presented on her console, Lirha briefly glanced up and towards the conn. With the pending arrival of so many escape pods and personnel for which her ship was barely able to accommodate, she needed all resources available at her disposal to be deployed, and quickly. "Lieutenant Mialin, get down to the auxiliary shuttlebay at once. I want our new Polaris transport assisting with the rescue operation." she ordered, then turned back to the Andorian to honor his request. "Mister Keval, please accompany her."

Dea stood from her station as she answered the Captain, "Aye Ma'am." Quickly making her way to the turbolift.

"Aye,aye sir," Keval snapped as he moved to the turbo lift waiting for Mialin. Inside his heart was beating double time, outwardly his stride was purposeful, his face determined.

Swivelling even further around in her chair, the captain set her sights on the new engineer who was currently idling at the large MSD. "Mister Cameron, I need you to head down there as well. I believe we have a workbee which I want you to pilot and use to scout through the debris. I would like to retrieve Venture's bridge transponder, if possible. Perhaps it will provide us more clues as to what occurred here."

"Aye aye captain!" The young engineer replied, turning on his heels and heading for the turbolift. The small workbee might not have been the largest or most impressive of Galileo's support craft, but she would stand the best chance of finding out exactly what had happened here.

As her bridge crew expertly hustled to their designated assignments, Lirha turned back towards the viewscreen and noticed the now-vacant helm console. "Commander, please take the helm." she instructed John.

With a silent nod, John leapt from his chair and padded over towards the helm, settling into the chair and bringing the flight controls up ahead of him, reconfigured to his own particular layout.

"I have the helm. Holding position, impulse engines offline, thrusters at station keeping."


Runabout Marina

Quinn looked out the window and shook his head. Quinn looked back at Quinn..."What the hell?"

Quinn patted him on the shoulder, "Look sharp on those sensors, lad." He looked over to S'Ranna. "Ensign? Think we could get a tad bit closer to that nacelle? I want to get a look at the shearing point if possible."

S'Ranna had been gazing at the wreckage in horror, her golden eyes wide, her claws instinctively bared, her tail fuzzy with fear. She could not believe what had happened to the ship she had been on just a few days ago; a ship she might still have been on had the Marina not transferred over.

Quinn's voice broke her gaze, and she turned to him. "Sorrrry? Oh, ah-ah, my apologies. Of courrrse."

She input the nacelle coordinates to the navigational computer and adjusted their heading. Sticking to thrusters, she piloted the runabout closer towards the nacelle, bringing them towards the large hole torn in the side.

"That is just....amazing." stated the CoB as he tried to figure out what had happened.

The CoB then looked back at Scarlet. "Commander? Have you ever seen something that that before?"

"Never," Scarlet had to admit, frowning as she stared with dark blue eyes, leaning forward instinctively to study it, her eyes narrowing. "Whatever it was, it must have had incredible power behind it."

Quinn activated the ship to ship comlink. =^=Quinn to Galileo. Skipper, I'd like to get into the nacelles control room and get the flight recording box from it if possible. I think we could get close enough to it. I just have an old engineer's hunch that it may provide us some answers and..there may be a few survivors in there as well.=^=

"Acknowledged, Marina, proceed. Be advised, we are deploying additional support craft to survey the escape pods and provide support. There will be a lot of debris and small craft in the area, so please be vigilant." sounded Lirha's familiar voice over the comm.

=^=Acknowledged, Captain. Marina, out.=^= Quinn ended the transmission. "Ensign, any ideas what could shear a nacelle apart from its support strut, ma'am?"

S'Ranna thought back to the engine experiments at the Test Flight Range. "Perrrhaps some kind of accident, an overrrload in the warp coil. But - werrre it an accident, I do not think they would have boarded escape pods," she gestured towards the glittering spray of metal containers with a paw. The implication hung unpleasantly in the air: if it were not an accident, then...

Willis nodded his head. "Okay Chief. There are no lifesigns but a minimal amount of atmosphere is still present within the control room. Get suited up and I'll find a spot to drop you into.

Quinn moved over to a console and began to enter a log.


Workbee Celeste

Preflight had been more of a necessity than a formality, the small workbee was barely larger than a cargo container, compact enough to take a single occupant and give them access to a variety of tools with which to perform external starship inspection and repairs. Settling into the single chair, Riley wasted no time in powering up the ship's small thrusters and slipping through the forcefield into the blackness of space.

After a moment of floating freely, the young engineer pulled up the HUD which illuminated the small canopy in front of him, highlighting the larger pieces of debris, as well as the Galileo and her support ships.

"Right then...now where are ya?" Cameron muttered to himself as he began scanning through the debris. There were so many duranium and tritanium signatures that there were sensor shadows throughout this section of the nebula - things that looked like they were there were not, and those that were didn't register on the scanners - they were simply overworked trying to track every single piece of debris.

It took a few minutes of searching before the small radioisotope signature of the Bridge transponder flashed up on the sensors. Starfleet had at least designed their ships well - in the event of a catastrophic failure, even the most hardened transponders were at risk of electrical damage, so the engineering corps had redesigned the units to contain a small portion of an artificial element that would show up on sensors like a firework in the night sky.

=^=Cameron to Galileo - I think I've found the transponder. It's floating a few hundred metres from what's left of Venture's Bridge...attempting to retrieve. =^=

With a few beads of sweat forming on his forehead, the Scot leant forward on the controls, pulsing the thrusters to push him slowly towards his target. Weaving in and out of the debris field, it took a few minutes to reach his target, the tiny box floating freely in space. With his other hand, Cameron activated the small grabbing arm attached to the workpod, designed for manipulating tools and components in space as an extension of the operator's hand, and reached out. Clasping the recorder tightly, he retracted the appendage.

=^=Galileo - I got it. Heading on back. =^=

"Understood, Celeste, good work. Watch your approach vector when you land as we have several escape pods en route to the auxiliary bay." the captain responded over the comm, not wanting to create a traffic jam at the entrance to the small secondary shuttlebay.

=^=Nae bother Cap'n - I'll watch where I land this wee thing. Celeste out. =^=


Polaris Transport Pisa

Dea had quickly powered up the Pisa once they had arrived in the aux shuttle bay. They had launched and were now headed towards Venture's debris. "Scan for escape pods and life signs. We have to be careful of the debris but want to get as close as possible," she addressed Keval. "I've got a clear flight vector now but I need to know if that changes." She also knew time was working against them.

Keval turned in his seat and began fiddling with the controls. "Yes sir," he responded. Then after a pause he said. The three closest escape pods are 150 meters out bearing 187 mark 4. There is minor debris field you should be able to manoeuvre around. I have faint life signs from two of them, nothing from the third.'

In the aft of the transport, Lieutenant Kohl sat silently with a medkit in his lap. His mind had wandered again --he was drifting amid fears of Galileo meeting a similar fate to Venture-- and he wrung his hands to give them something to do until they reached transporter range of a patient or two.

Keval glanced back in Kohl's direction. He was still trying to sort out in his head, what kind of relationship that was developing between the two of them or even indeed if there was anything, but that was secondary now, so he pushed those thoughts aside.

He turned back towards Dea, "Ready?" he asked.

Dea had been concentrating on her piloting. Shoving unpleasant memories out of her mind. "We're nearing the first of the three pods. Transporter range in 30 seconds."

""I'll be ready to lock on as soon as we are in range," Keval said the sweat was starting to run down his back. Back at the Academy he had almost failed his psych evaluation because of his fear of tight places. He thought he had put that all behind him, but the new pressure, the uncertainty of what they would find must have triggered his feeling of claustrophobia.

Kohl, meanwhile, was strapping his slim medical tricorder to the back of his forearm. He touched the controls to initiate a general wide-band scan with the device. Kohl feared he was about to need both hands free, and the small crew compliment of Galileo couldn't afford him any medical technicians. Kohl looked over at Keval, but the environmentally-adaptive material of their uniforms meant he couldn't see the build-up of sweat. "Standing by," Kohl reported.

Keval held his hand just above the controls of the transporter console ready to activate it on a moment's notice.


Runabout Marina/Nacelle Control Room

Quinn stood on the transporter pad in his Zero-G Suit. "Energize."

Seconds later he was standing on the deck plate of the control room. A body floated past. Petty officer ranking. =^= I'm in. Almost no gravity in here. I can see a couple bodies, but the O2 level in here is less than sufficient to support much life.=^=

Willis looked over to the two officers in the runabout with him. "I'm glad it's him in there, and not me."

Scarlet just shook her head lightly, letting out a long breath. "I'd rather be over there," she admitted quietly, frowning as she looked to the read out to check if anything new was coming in.

S'Ranna, however, nodded: she was a pilot, and had no desire to go stomping around in an EVA suit. Besides, they always pinched her tail. She maintained a transporter lock on him and kept checking the sensors for any sign of activity.

=^=There is a lot of debris in here. It's making it difficult to make it to the main console.=^=

"Can you do it safely?" Scarlet asked over the comm with concern. She didn't want him putting himself at risk for it; it could be retrieved later when they could get a better equipped team to it.

=^=It'd be easier if there were two of us over here ma'am. Feel like suiting up and joining me over here?" Quinn moved a piece of debris out of his path.

"On my way," Scarlet replied without hesitation, already out of her seat. She didn't need to be asked twice. She looked to Willis and S'Ranna, nodding as she twisted her long, dark hair up to be secured in a bun on the back of her head and out of the way. "Hold the fort. And keep an eye on what's going on around us, we're going to get crowded out here," she reminded, even if she knew they were more than capable as she moved to grab a suit down.

"Yes, Commanderrr," S'Ranna replied, flicking her ears in acknowledgement. She pulled up a second sensor grid on the Marina's flight console, little dots charting the various auxiliary craft moving around on the mission so that she could adjust the runabout's position near the nacelle if necessary.


Armory USS Galileo

Looking more than slightly unimpressed, Amynta Markos glanced at her nails, the brush in her hand. She carefully applied another coat, studying the deep pink that matched her lips. Since Rice had gone to the bridge, she had gone through the logs of what they had of weaponry and decided that was boring. She had reapplied her makeup. And then she had watched the mayhem on the screen whilst doing her nails, observing but not judging. She was quite aware of the severity of it all, yet also accepting of what came next.

"It's going to be a long mission," she said, aloud, to the emptiness she found herself in. She blew on her nails seconds later, sitting back and crossing her legs as she waited for the rest of the shit to hit the metaphorical fan.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Im'er Mor'an
Operations Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley
Psychologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant jg Allyndra illm Warraquim
ACMO
USS Galileo

Lt Commander Scarlet Blake
Chief Counsellor/2XO
USS Galileo

Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh
Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Jacrux
Anthropologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Aria Rice
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Natalie Chevalier
Ecologist
USS Galileo

PO First Class Keval Grayson
Operations
USS Galileo
NPC'd by

Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Ariadne Fleming
Oceanologist
USS Galileo

LCDR Scarlet Blake
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

MCPO Markum Quinn
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo

LT Dea Mialin
Chief Flight COntrol Officer
USS Galileo

LT Kiri Cho
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

LT Amril
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

LT Delainey Carlisle
Asst. Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

WO Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Scarlet Blake

SCPO Arthur Willis
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Markum Quinn

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