On the road again....

Posted on 09 May 2012 @ 3:35am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Ensign Im'er Mor'an
Edited on on 09 May 2012 @ 11:11am

1,676 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Bridge
Timeline: MD 04 - 2210 hrs

[ON]

In the darkness of space, Galileo remained at full stop as engineering crews worked diligently through the evening to repair her defective nacelle relay. IKS Na'vi patiently waited alongside the science vessel, content to watch the Starfleet crew conduct repairs from afar. Finally, two hours before midnight, the red bussard collectors began to slowly whirl again and a slow but increasing blue glow of the nacelles signalled the warp core coming back online.

=^= Quinn to Bridge. We are done down here, and ready to roll. Only need to give the word Bridge=^= Quinn looked over to his assistant. "Peers, you have a date, and it's on the bridge. I need someone up there to monitor the Bridge MSD. I'll monitor the modifications from here, just in case something has to be done in a rush."

"Be right there, Chief," Lilou agreed and took the turbo lift up, hurriedly making a slap-dash attempt at righting her wrinkled and sweaty appearance before she hit the deck. She rebraided her hair and shucked the top half of her coveralls, tying the arms around her waist, before the doors opened and she stepped out. At the MSD, she tapped her com badge, =^=Ready, Chief.=^= She looked to Holliday. "We are good to go whenever you are, sir."

Hearing those almost fabled words from their chief engineer, John for a moment wanted to leap up and punch the air, sadly for everyone, that would have been against Starfleet policy and therefore, for now at least, the XO decided to remain calm, and simply tapped the communication panel to acknowledge the chief's message.

=^= Nice work, Chief, just keep us together until we're out of Klingon space and I owe you a beer. =^=

John truly was impressed by the speed at which his crew had repaired their systems, usually it would have taken the better part of half a day to get their warp drive operational, but with a few unorthodox repairs and a huge portion of elbow grease, they were ready. Knowing when his place in the big chair was up, John once again tapped the comm panel.

=^= Bridge to Commander Saalm - could you come out here ma'am?=^=

Lirha was in her quarters when she heard her XO's voice through the comm summoning her to the bridge. The past few hours had been an awful headache for Lirha as she tried to fight off the intoxication that had come from indulging in bloodwine with Captain K'nara. She had stopped briefly in sickbay to receive an injection of dymenodol, but the sobering drug had had only a mild effect on her. Slowly, she got to her feet and gulped down the remainder of her glass of water, then headed out from her quarters on her way to the bridge.

With a swish of the turbolift doors, the Orion captain stepped onto the bridge and walked to the center of the room, taking note of the personnel present. She glanced at John briefly, her green eyes betraying a hint of her intoxicated state. "Report." she said.

"Engineering reports our warp drive is back online ma'am, we have all propulsion available on our order." John replied with a slightly smug look on his face. He was proud of Quinn and his engineers, and was immensely happy to report the work was done.

"Very good, Commander. Send my compliments to Mister Quinn and his team." she answered, moving down into the middle of the bridge and looking out into the stars. She was anxious to get underway again and still not happy that they were behind schedule. "Signal the Na'vi and let Captain K'nara know we are ready to get underway again." she said.

"Aye captain," Remington replied. His hands passed quickly over the communications panel as he input the message. "The Na'vi acknowledges," Will informed the bridge after a moment.

Turning in her chair, the captain looked over into the large science alcove at her young Trill science officer. "Have we had any visitors recently?" she asked, wondering if Galileo's sensors had detected any additional ships, Klingon or otherwise, over the past few hours.

Having had her personal lifestyle choices examined and labelled as damaging even though she knew it was fine. Only to have her mind pulled apart with depressing subjects that she'd hidden from most of her life. Now all of that was floating in her mind, it was most distracting. The only way she knew to combat that, was working until her eyes bled. So her shaken body and mind found itself heading directly to the bridge. From that point on in complete silence she was absorbed in her work, closing out everything else. Right up until the captain came to the bridge when by surprise she was questioned on her results. Still she barely looked up from her terminal, "There has been one Nausicaan freighter on the edge of our sensor range but it left a few minutes ago. Though I can't confirm it, three other cloaked ships have warped into the area and three of them have left, though one likely wasn't one that arrived here recently. I suspect that there are still two cloaked ships in the area, however we are unable to track any of them without making it clear we are looking for them." She spoke very quickly, scared and surprised. Not looking up from where she was, looking rather worried and small.

"Only two?" Lirha replied jokingly with a raised eyebrow, "Sounds like a rather quiet evening in the sector." she mused to herself. Turning her attention towards the keypad attached to her armrest, she input a quick button sequence and Galileo returned to Green Alert as the flashing yellow warning lights along the walls went dark. "Lieutenant, put us back on our original heading, warp five...Engage."

Dea nodded relieved that they were able to get moving again, "Aye Ma'am. Putting Galileo back on course." Carefully inputting the correct data into her console to get the ship moving again without deviating from their precious flight path.

The small Nova Class's impulse engine glowed bright as the ship began a slow circle and came about in order to put some distance between . With a bright blue flash from her nacelles, Galileo's briefly elongated then snapped into warp.

Glancing up from her console Dea focused her attention on Lirha for a moment, "Warp 1 Captain."

"Warp Core is holding, proceed ahead," Peers reported.

"Now at Warp 3," Dea reported as she checked the helm readouts closely.

Lilou watched the console carefully. Two status needles had run to yellow, but they were low in and steady. "Clear," Peers called.

So far so good, however Dea was still keeping a very close eye on the data coming from her console, "Warp 5." Her gaze never left the console in front of her as she continued to monitor their progress.

A third status needle joined the others in the yellow bracket, but there was no lift towards red. Lilou did the math in her head for the thirtieth time that day, mentally and visually rechecked the data regarding the jury-rigged nacelle repair, and double checked the numerical readouts on the console. "All systems are holding steady, sir."

With Galileo now at cruise velocity and her warp field remaining stable, Lirha let out a mental sigh of relief, leaning back and stretching her neck and shoulders as she adjusted herself in her chair. "Excellent, Miss Peers." she replied as the final status report came in. "Contact Memphis, let them know we're safely underway again." she ordered.

"Aye, ma'am," Mor'an said. "Galileo to Memphis. We are underway. She glanced around the Bridge and saw everyone breathing a bit easier now that they were moving.

With all important matters taken care of for the moment, Lirha glanced down at the small console on her armrest and noticed it was approaching midnight, almost the beginning of Gamma shift. Reading the information on her display, at current course and velocity Galileo still had almost fifteen hours until she reached Federation space. The captain sighed and leaned her head back, rubbing her eyes as she fought to stay awake and sober. Finally returning to her senses, she looked over at her XO. "I'm going to get some rest. Unless it's urgent, I'd like to not be disturbed tonight." she said in a quiet voice as she slowly stood and walked back to the turbolift, on her way to her quarters for the night.

Nodding to his CO, John was rather jealous that he still had several hours of Bridge duty left before he could hand over command to the Gamma shift, but outwardly was trying his best not to show it. As the Orion woman lifted herself from the central chair, Holliday did the same.

"Understood ma'am....I'll try to avoid any cataclysmic breakdowns that risk us being blown out of the sky until at least the end of the shift"

As she departed, John settled himself into the central chair, taking a moment to read over the status reports and diagnostic results that were displayed in full now that their warp engines seemed to be holding, at least for now anyway. The XO felt he could finally relax a little, with the crisis over, this had slowly slipped back into the usual pattern of starship life, and he made himself comfortable by leaning back a little further, feeling the chair supporting his neck and shoulders, as he looked out towards the star-streaked viewscreen.

"Steady as she goes...."


[OFF]


CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Chauncey (Will) Remington III
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

ENS Kiri Cho
Science Officer
USS Galileo

CWO Markum Quinn
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

MWO Lilou Peers
Asst. Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

CDT(SR) Im'er Mor'an
Red Squad Cadet
USS Galileo

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