Liftoff (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 22 Jan 2013 @ 3:58pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Theron Rhodes & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Ensign Jessica Wilson M.D. & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn

2,453 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo - Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 16 - 2340 hrs

Previously, on Liftoff (Part 1)...

Jessica glanced up with excitement. Her first week or so aboard Galileo had been rough to say the least, full of ups and downs, and although she had got through it, well it had been a difficult period of time. She was more than happy to head up to the bridge to watch her first, ever, planetary take-off by a Federation Starship, shuttles and the like didn't count.

"Aye-Aye, Ma'am." Jessica nodded happily.

Smiling at Jessica's enthusiasm, Pola went back in her memory as she tried to remember the new bridge layout. "You know yourself what the layout of the bridge is. I'll have a live feed to the bridge, so unless you feel something needs to be done on the spot, I'll take care of the rest.

"Thank You, Ma'am," Jessica smiled.

And Now, the Conclusion...

[ON]

Waving her hand, Pola dismissed Jessica before turning back to her PADD on the desk, one ear being left on the live stream coming from the bridge and wondering where Cyrus was, he'd been very quiet in the last few days. It was amazing how sometimes you could go days on end without running into a person on a ship as small as the Galileo.

"Care for some company?" Delainey asked, coming into the office with a grin. Like Pola, Carlisle had chosen to watch the departure from a live feed rather than the bridge. Although Delainey could have chosen to take her seat among the bridge officers, she felt a little silly taking up a spot just to sit back and watch others do the work. Unless there was a problem or her guidance was needed, she felt much more comfortable in sickbay with the rest of the team.

Having gotten into the report she was reading, Pola found herself startled as she heard somebody addressing her. Glancing up at the source, she found herself smiling as she recognised the woman. "Counsellor. Sure..I'm always up for company. I'd figure you'd have found yourself a window to watch the launch from."

Delainey found herself smiling back. "I thought about it, but I decided I didn't want to be alone for this. I promise not to bother you, I just needed to be around the team."


Officers' Mess

Lt. Rhodes was sitting in the Officers' Mess with a handful of other officers when the Captain's announcement came over the ship. They all scurried out of the mess. All, except Theron. It was not his shift and he would have to be on duty in a little over 8 hours. He chose to remain in the Mess. It did not have a view port, but the large screen on the walk was displaying what was on the Bridge's view screen. He enjoyed a lift off just as much as the next guy, but there was something nagging him. The muscles in the back of his neck were tight and ached. He wasn't sure why. The Security personnel were set. There was no need for him to follow up on them. He thought it best to remain here, unless called upon.


Bridge

Quinn stepped onto the Bridge and walked past Stone, and his....pet, but decided now was not the time to make a comment. Instead he continued on and stopped to the right of the Captain with arms behind his back. "All hatches and doors are closed and sealed, Captain."

Tiffany kept looking at her chrono, noting the countdown for departure. This was exciting and she knew many people, like herself, were carrying PADDs attuned to the main bridge screen so they could watch the ship takeoff. She would have preferred to have a front view seat, but her duty station didn't allow windows. She sighed to herself. Someday she would be where all the action was!

Having been effectively ordered to head up to the bridge, at least that was what Jessica would say if she was challenged, Jessica arrived on the bridge after a short turbolift ride and settled into one of the spare science stations that she had typically stood post at during her own shifts on the bridge, typically during Gamma Shift at the dead of night, it was certainly different seeing it in the 'light of day' as it were.

Hearing the various status reports coming in from the different ship departments, Lirha nodded to herself in approval. All ship functions appeared to be online and a quick glance down at the center console between her and John's chair revealed that indeed, Galileo was ready for launch. Turning to her XO, she gave him a small smile and affectionately squeezed his arm. "Just like back on Earth..." she whispered, then took a final glance around the bridge and took note of both the familiar and new faces present. Her gaze eventually settled on the forward tactical position where she noticed the crew's most recent creature companion, Sidious. She wasn't exactly sure how she felt about an animal being on the bridge, but decided to give Lieutenant Stone the benefit of the doubt and allow the dog's presence...as long as he didn't disrupt any of the ship's bridge crew or operations.

"We've done this once, let's do it again shall we?" The XO replied, returning her smile as the adrenalin of preparing to leave Vega's surface came flooding through his veins in just as great an amount as it had done on Earth.

Taking a seat in her command chair, she gave a final ship-wide command before departure. "Set condition blue, all hands brace for atmospheric flight," she said, then watched as the voice-activated alert command turned the bridge into a dimly lit hue of pulsing blue alert lights. "Commander Holliday, if you will do the honors, please," she said, turning the details of the liftoff over to her XO.

"With pleasure Captain," John replied, settling himself back in his chair and sitting up straight as his captain gave the responsibility entirely over to him. Last time they had left a planet, John had been sat at the helm and only concerned with one small element of the process, now he was the ringleader, the quarterback, the team captain.

"Helm, bring atmospheric thrusters online and begin ascent sequence, keep impulse engines on hold until we clear the lower atmosphere. Mr. Stone standby shields in case of any unexpected surprises. Engineering - as soon as we clear the surface retract the landing struts and engage inertial dampeners."

"Yes, sir," Lilou's voice barely raised enough to be heard. Her eyes were focused on the console in front of her.

Jeremy gave Sidi the down command as his fingers danced over the station, preparing the shields, checking sensors along the flight plan for threats. He frowned. "Shields standing by, route shows clear. Commander, sensors show that a small crowd has formed around the landing port."

Quinn moved from his position by the CO to the left bulkhead where the Ops and Mission Ops consoles were located. Quinn gave a quick study of the displayed information. "We have received clearance from Vega Colony Flight Control, and have been given a clear flight pattern up to high orbit, sir."

"Roger that," Dea responded checking the data being fed to the flight control station. "Galileo is departing Vega Colony as requested. All systems look good." Mialin was nervous given how they'd landed on Vega.

In the middle of the night, Galileo's landing lights lit up ship's hull and the nearby terrain. The weather was clear with only a few clouds in sight and the stars shone brightly in the dark sky. A loud whirr began to echo from the ship's landing thrusters as they came online, which was quickly followed by a large puff of dust and debris as the engines sent a powerful blast of plasma into the earth. Slowly, inch-by-inch at first, the Nova Class began to ascend until she hovered several meters above the ground. A wake of shimmering hot air formed beneath the vessel and curled outward in tendrils, displaying an awesome sight for any nearby bystander to see. As the ship's thrust stabilized, more power was applied by the chief flight controller and Galileo continued her vertical rise until she was several thousand feet in the air and well clear of any natural or humanoid-made obstacles. The maneuvering thrusters came online and began to take over, causing the starship's nose to dip slightly as she started to pick up airspeed. When the ship reached one hundred knots, it came about in a slow circle around the colony, then turned its nose up towards the stars and began its final ascension stage. It did not take long for Galileo to reach Vega IX's troposphere, after which a slight series of jolts signified their transition between the planet's thermal layers.

Sitting in her chair watching the viewscreen, Lirha felt an excited twinge run through her and she looked over at her XO with a childish grin on her face. "Almost there," she whispered.

"Stay focused ma'am. This isn't the time for getting overexcited. We have a job to do," John replied, with a voice that would have been best suited to a parent disciplining their child for a misdemeanour of one sort or another. After a second however, the XO tilted his head towards his Captain, and grinned. "Although...this never seems to get old."

When movement was felt through the ship, Sidi went to his feet and placed himself between the two front stations, his eyes glued to the main viewscreen. He barked once, going to the end of his lead as a momentary flock of large birds was shown to fly across the screen then seemed to settle again, still watching the viewscreen until they hit the thermal layers.

He went and sat next to Jeremy, putting his head in his lap. Jeremy kept focused on the viewscreen or his tactical station. There was no way Sidi's bark went unnoticed. He sighed knowing he would hear about that later. Absently, though, he scratched Sidi's ear, silently letting him know it would be okay. Once they were out of the atmosphere the turbulence would stop. On cue, he raised the deflector shields, preventing small space debris from damaging their newly repaired craft.

To say that Lirha was not being distracted by the dog in the middle of bridge would have been a complete lie. In fact, she was beginning to think it was a horrible idea. The security-trained animal served no real function on the bridge, as he could not manipulate even the most basic of LCARS consoles. And his barking was less than ideal. No doubt, the captain realized that she was probably not the only one of the bridge crew who felt that way. Letting out an internal sigh of frustration, she made a note to speak to Stone in private as soon as the ship had cleared Vega IX's gravity well and gone to warp.

"Flight Control is responding well; we're reaching the outer atmosphere," Dea tapped a control on her station to increase speed just slightly so Galileo could break that last atmospheric barrier and maintain orbit. The laws of physics for a breaking free of planetary gravity never changed, even a Nova-class starship was still subject to them.

After a few skillful command inputs by Galileo's flight controller, the newly-refitted Nova Class finally reached the planet's thermosphere and punched through into outer space. Her large impulse engine came online with a glowing red flare and propelled the ship through the light orbital traffic, and out towards the perimeter of the solar system.

Silently, Lilou thanked the spirits that stirred and whirred through the Galileo's systems for keeping their eyes on the ball this time. The landing struts had withdrawn safely and smoothly and all her other systems were registering just perfect.

Lirha let out a mental sigh of relief; There had been no major malfunctions, all systems appeared to be functioning normally, and they were now on their way towards their next assignment. She waited several long minutes until Galileo reached a minimum safe distance, then gave the order to depart the solar system.

"Lieutenant Mialin, set a course for Starbase 185, warp eight." she said.

"Roger that Ma'am. Course set for Starbase 185, warp 8," Dea replied. While she didn't show it she was relieved to be out of the atmosphere and back in space. Watching carefully as Galileo transitioned from impulse to warp flight.

Kiri kept her eyes on the controls in front of her, this was the part of the flight where they could tumble out of the air and all die. It was a spaceship and out there it was safe, on the ground it was safe. Between the two of them it was not and even an errant gust of wind could spell doom. Keeping her eyes for those changes she did her best to make sure that didn't happen.

Liyar waved his hand over the screen in front of him, pulling a central map from the LCARs terminal and making a few notations that still needed to be added into the database, attaching his PADD into one of the ports and uploading the remaining information from Vega through to their ship's stores to be kept in case of emergency. After that, he tapped the minimize function and superimposed the map over the entire area, there were several marked routes in different colors. He looked up once he was through, nothing more to do right now but watch as they sailed into the black once more.

Back in the Officer's mess, Theron felt a little more light hearted following the lift off. He had very much enjoyed watching the lights from the Vega colony as they had circled around it prior to moving on into the upper atmosphere. He found looking at the stars interesting; transitioning from how they appear through the atmosphere to seeing them from space.

In space, Galileo's warp engines came online and cast their bluish hue against the Nova Class' secondary hull. With a bright and simultaneous flash from both of the large nacelles, the tiny ship elongated and then snapped into high warp, leaving a puff of cosmic dust in her wake. She was off to her next destination, a mission which would fulfill Starfleet's originally intended purpose: To boldly go where no one has gone before.


[END OF EPISODE 02]

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