Impulse Burn (Part 4)

Posted on 14 Mar 2014 @ 12:03pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Riley Cameron & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Lieutenant Olsam Mott & Ensign K'os Beaumont & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov & Crewman Ash Rowe & Lieutenant Theron Rhodes & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Petty Officer 3rd Class David Emerson
Edited on on 14 Mar 2014 @ 12:05pm

2,642 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 05 - Solstice
Location: Sol System - Luna/Mars
Timeline: MD 57 - 1410 hrs

Previously, on Impulse Burn (Part 3)...

"11.5 G's! We're maxed out!" came the frantic call from the former marine. The weight of his body now felt like it was crushing his chest, and he was barely able to breathe and concentrate. "...10 seconds....." His vision was now fully blurred, and he took his hands off the controls to let Isaac Newton control the rest of the maneuver.

The Scot couldn't manage a single word, instead just a garbled sequence of grunts and retching came from his mouth as he prayed to any deity in particular who might have been able to intervene on his behalf.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Shuttle Pisa

Alexion just laughed to himself as he saw the tussle between the two shuttles out in front, tsking to himself as he shook his head and glanced across to his pilot. "Let them burn it out so early on. We can ride the wake and pull forward for the final sprint."


USS Padua

K'os nearly fell out of his seat to get closer to the holoprojection. The shuttles were hurtling around the moon in various trajectories and speeds. "Look at them go!" He laughed heartily. He had no idea what the out come of the race would be, but he was thoroughly enjoying the different maneuvers each team were preforming. He enjoyed the waves of excitement as the lead shuttle changed and he clapped loudly in applause.

Olsam turned in his seat to see who was making all the ruckus and spotted the half-Vulcan petty officer who'd practically been bouncing around since the race began. He sat back in his seat and reached for the medkit, half talking to Asahi.

"I think he needs a sedative," he said, looking through the various hypospray vials he'd packed into the kit. "Something light, just enough to settle him down a little bit."

'Ohmigod, I'm going to give you a sedative.' Asahi's frustration with the Bolian would have been more vocal had it not been for the extremely excitable half-Vulcan. As self-proclaimed sort of mentor-type to the younger man, he had to keep a calm demeanor in most cases. The doctor was just making it incredibly difficult.

Instead, he changed the subject ever so slightly, eying the kit curiously as he drove. "How much did you end up packing in that kit of yours, Doctor?"

"I packed everything I might need of course: three types of sedatives, two analgesics and basic equipment for repair, like a dermal regenerator. Also, I brought one of the forensic tricorders to scan for trace DNA in case something catastrophic happened and people were vaporized," Olsam replied, lowering his voice. "Do you think that might happen? I kinda like using this thing..."


Shuttle Galilei

Whiteness creeped at the edges of Lamar's vision and he slowly regained consciousness. A few blinks helped to eliminate his blurred vision, and soon he was fully awake and staring down at the shuttle's navigation console. "You still with me, Cameron?" he called out as he attempted to verify their position. From the looks of it, their craft had successfully completed its slingshot maneuver, and they were now streaking towards Mars at high velocity. Unfortunately, several warning lights could be seen on the overhead auxiliary LCARS console, and there appeared to be several stress fractures on the hull. "We're on course for Mars, I'm shutting down the engines to let the manifolds cool down. Inertia will take us there just fine. Looks like we also have micro-fractures on the primary hull and the starboard nacelle," he added.

Riley took a moment for his power of speech to return, the gargling and retching subsiding as the gravity returned to something a little more manageable. The array of red and orange alarms displayed in front of him and overhead was however more than concerning.

"Aye...I'm still here...just about Mr Darius. Lemme see what I can do here."

The pilot was right about the condition of the shuttle, they had blown half a dozen power converters in the warp assembly - thankfully something they did not need at present, and the emergency discharge of excess energy through the phaser couplings had all but fried the weapons systems, again, a casualty that nobody would care much about.

Pulling back on the intermix ratio to allow the manifolds to cool, Riley watched some of the warnings disappeared back from whence they came.

"I've tied warp power into the structural integrity field. That nacelle is pretty bashed up but it's not going anywhere....nice flying if I do say so myself sir."

Lamar's hands were still shaking a bit from all the adrenaline which had been coursing through his veins, but he was slowly managing to calm himself down. "Thanks, but remind me to never try that again. Or to enter another shuttle race," he nervously laughed. "Anyway, we should be reaching Mars in a little bit. I'm going to get started on plotting a course around the planet which should take us into the asteroid belt. I think if I can put us on a good entry vector, it'll be easier to navigate the field's debris...but just in case, some extra power to the shields might help.

Cameron replied with a mocking salute, shutting down the extra power taps he had ploughed into the inertial dampeners prior to their somewhat suicidal maneuvering and instead dumped the power into the shields.

"Give that a go...just watch out for the bigger chunks, I dinnae want to be a splat on an asteroid eh?"

"Shield strength looks good, should come in handy once we get into the main belt. Don't worry, I'll try and keep us in one piece," he winked, then slowly rose from his seat to stretch his legs and get some water. "I'll be back in a few minutes."



****Mars Checkpoint****

Shuttle Galilei

"Approaching Mars checkpoint," Lamar informed his co-pilot now that they were both back at the helm with the red planet growing larger and larger in the viewscreen. "I've plotted us a course which should take us close to Phobos and let us slingshot around it to send us clear of Mars without getting slowed down by the planet's gravity," he briefly explained, then transferred the navigational course plot to Cameron's console for him to observe. "Kind of genius, if you ask me. Right now, Deimos is on the other side of the planet, so we won't even have to worry about navigating it...and if we can do another thirty-second burn around Phobos, we'll cruise right past Mars without having to deal with its atmosphere."

"Agreed. Set your inbound trajectory 37 degrees from the moon's axis of rotation...that way we should minimise drag on the hull."

Cameron replied, looking down at the data coming into the console ahead of him. Avoiding having to break into the Martian atmosphere would be helpful to their chances of winning, and also minimise the probability of them slamming into the planet and having to explain to Captain Holliday why they broke his home planet.

"Restoring impulse manifold flow rate. Preparing for engine burn on your command."

Adjusting the planned trajectory around Phobos by 37 degrees as instructed, Lamar made a slight heading correction to the shuttle then prepared to re-engage the impulse engines. "Engines coming online in three...two...one...here we go..."

A simple tap on the impulse master control button brought the engines online at full thrust. Similar to the burn around Luna, there was a slight jolt to the craft which pinned them both back into their seats, but fortunately this burn was not as severe and would (hopefully) not compromise the structural integrity of the shuttle.

"Fifteen seconds left, approaching 5 G's...5.5....5.8..." Lamar once again slowed his breathing and took long and deep gulps of air to counteract the pressure on his chest. "Three...two...one...burn complete," he called out to Cameron, then shut down the impulse engines as they came around the moon and began to pass by Mars with a decent amount of clearance. "Now comes the tough part. Asteroids."

"Reserve power transferred to shields. Extending sensor range to maximum and sending incoming to the helm. She's all yours Mr Lamar." Riley acknowledged, knowing that the most likely chance of something going wrong would be either because an asteroid clipped the shields, or the shuttle ploughed into one.

"Structural integrity is compromised from our burn around the moon...don't get too excited eh?"


Shuttle Livia

Allyndra had not blacked out but her hearts were racing as if she had storm surfed. That delicate balance of flying and soaring along on the edge of a storm avoiding being sucked in. She thought that had been hard flying but it was mild compared to the slingshot from around Earth's moon.

Mars was coming up and again another shot but this would have to be not so high otherwise the speed through the asteroid belt field would be too high to maneuver. She had lost track of most of the competitors but smiled as she recognized the one with Lamar.

"Everything is still looking pretty good. I suggest we power back again to 95% Keval. It will make sure we have plenty of power for the shields. I think I have a good course mapped in but there are always extraneous material that was not mapped out. At even this speed a small size rock could prove dangerous. Allyndra was still hoping to hold back the way over power on the engines until the last leg. Once out of the asteroid belt push them past limits. It should not matter if they even burned out the boost should give them a degree of momentum.

"Mars checkpoint coming up and course laid in for asteroid belt Keval."

Keval had blacked out but only momentarily. It took him another minute or so before he had fully returned to his senses. He just hoped that she was able to keep the small craft on course, or at least from blowing up.

Allyndra was glad Keval came around so quickly. Luckily it had been fairly simple to keep the craft on course but the tricky part once they got past Mars checkpoint. That would require flying that if it was on a world she could manage but she did not have those skills in a craft.

"Welcome back," she said and transferred control back.

"Damn, I hate when that happens, I feel like l was kicked in the, well you get the picture.


Team: Ostillo

Ash grinned to herself as she started singing the rock song she'd been humming on the way to the shuttle. She lifted her hand to hit the top of the arch over her head with the beat of the song, her other hand making some adjustments as they swept round Mars.

Theron smiled gently to himself. He understood the joy or enjoy-ability of music as one works, but had never seemed to experience that himself. Music had been in his life as well, but not to this extent. He was pleased for Ash.

Her hand came down and hit the panel in front of her to open the comm across all shuttles. =^= Spit sand, boys and girls! Try not to choke too bad! =^= She called across it with a laugh, letting out a 'whoop' before taking the curve around Mars wider than the others, translating the basic idea of 'drift' that she'd used in motor racing to get the angle right, wider than others might take it, so she could keep them on full throttle before touching the breaks to make them swing and drift out to the angle she needed to get round and then slamming them back into high power. Her body swung in the chair with it, pulled to the side before snapping back front, just making her grin more.

Of course, this was all just the warm up for the real fun, the bit she couldn't wait for. Asteroids. And if her co-pilot thought they'd made some close scrapes so far, they'd be nothing to how close she'd take the asteroids.

Theron had no desire to be negative. Ash had proved, beyond her history and experience, that she knew what she was doing. Her apparent enjoyment for the edge was something that he would have to deal with.

Glancing over to Ash, then back at the controls Theron said, "You are an amazing pilot . . Ash." He was about to say something more, but felt a very light tingling about his head, almost a touch of euphoria. He turned to her with a quizzical eye.

Ash smiled, glancing across to him with a quick tap to her forehead, her foot tapping on the floor with the beat of the song she had been singing. "I can read you...what you're doing, what you're planning, why you're doing it. Nothing like a little Betazoid luck, huh?"

Theron of course had been exposed to telepathy at the Academy in a clinical setting, but he never really had the opportunity to experience it in a real life situation. It was a touch unsettling, because of his nature to protect himself from other's touch, but this truly seemed different and was not afraid of it. The Tandaran smiled back at Ash, "Have you been reading me this whole time?"

"Maybe..." she said lightly, a small smile pulling on her lips even as she kept her eyes on the prize. "Can't really help it. Telepathy is hard work you know! Don't worry, it's only surface though, your secrets are safe, honey."

Honey? he questioned in his mind. Why would she call me that? Ah yes, a familiaritive pronoun. Theron glanced over at Ash, "This type of communication could be quite an advantage when we come to the asteroid belt."

"I'm counting on it," Ash laughed warmly, visibly looking forward to the asteroids. "Although, ignorance might be bliss for the kind of flying I have in mind...."


Shuttle Pisa

"Perfect..." Alexion frowned with concentration as he started switching up the controls, his hands moving with practiced ease as he kept his gaze on the view out the frown. "Switching for a short boost on power, let's kick through the next checkpoint and make up the difference..." he nodded to Rayne as he gave him what he needed to make up some ground now that they could make up the difference.


Shuttle Virginia

The slingshot around the moon has given them a bit of an edge and pushed them into a tie for second place with (whom?) as they approached Mars. David was feeling a bit embarrased about blacking out during the slingshot around the moon and focused on his instruments as they prepared for the leg around mars.

"Your turn to figure out the trajectory for Mars Commander. I'll handle the navigation during the Asteroid portion if that's okay?"


To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

MWO Lamar Darius
Chief Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Saalm]

WO Riley Cameron
Engineer
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Holliday]

CN Ash Rowe
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC Blake]

WO Alexion Wylde
Doctor
USS Galileo
[PNPC Blake]

Lt. Theron Rhodes
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Asahi Kita
Asst. Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

PO3 K'os Beaumont
Matter/Energy specialist
USS Galileo

PO Lyras Ueda
Diplomatic Officer
USSGalileo
[PNPC Kita]

CPO Keval Grayson
Operations
USSGalileo
{PNPC} Nicholas

LT Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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