Into the Badlands

Posted on Fri Jan 18, 2019 @ 8:08pm by Ensign Jonathan Baker & Warrant Officer William Fontaine & Captain Madelina Weisz & Lieutenant Colonel S'er'in'e & Ensign Isabel Robinson & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes

Mission: On Slippery Ground
Location: Docking Bay/Badlands
Timeline: MD 1 || 1200 Hours

It was an hour later than the Commodore had wanted for the launch of the Victorious but more supplies and crew had joined the ship at the last minute to cause the delay. As the crew of the Aquarius class destroyer loaded up and went to their assigned positions, the flight deck cleared of personnel prior to the launch.

Warrant Officer William Fontaine stood in the tiny sickbay which was really nothing more than a biobed and a counter and drawers for instruments and medicines. "Well, this is going to be my little slice of paradise."

On the bridge, Ensign Jon Baker sat at the Ops console and ran a check on the internal and external sensors, then settled back to wait for launch.

A Lieutenant JG male Andorian pilot sat at the helm doing the pre-flight checks while waiting for clearance to undock from the Triumphant

Maddy made her way onto the bridge and paused when she began to make her way toward the center chair. She wasn't going to be in charge this time. No, this time, the Captain would be manning the Tactical station, something she hat done in some time. "Here goes nothing," she said to no one in particular as she made her way toward her station and signed on. This would definitely be interesting given the very different personalities on the bridge.

S'er'in'e stepped on to the Bridge and made for the centre chair. It was going to be an interesting experience since Captain Weisz, the proper First Officer was in attendance and yet not commanding since she did outrank him. He saw her at the Tactical station as he sat down. "Departure stations everyone." He spoke before opening a channel to Engineering.

=^= Chief Barnes, did you find Engineering? =^= Marriage had seemed to soften the large feline slightly, but only slightly as he played with the newly minted Chief Engineer.

His familiarity with Captain Weisz had helped Tom Barnes acclimate to his senior staff position. Aside from her, he still kept things as formal as possible with the rest of the senior staff, especially since he was outranked by practically everyone. That familiarity, as well as his own jovial nature, helped him to recognize the Colonel's jest, but he was not in a position to respond in kind. "I have, Colonel," he replied over the comm. "The warp core is primed, and all systems show green."

"Very well." He used the console on his chair arm to open a channel to the Triumphant. "Triumphant, this is Victorious, we are ready to separate and get underway."

=^=You are clear to get underway, Victorious. Don't stay too far ahead.=^= The Flight Controller told them.

Now that they had been given the all clear they could launch. "Helm, begin separation sequence."

Ahead of them a Nebula class ship came out from behind the station and took up a position behind the Victorious after it separated from the main ship.

Jon looked over at the Marine Colonel. "The cloak is ready to use, Sir," he reported.

"Understood." S'er'in'e replied acknowledging the report. "But we are here to escort that vessel, we don't need to invite trouble upon her and hiding from view does so even more." S'er'in'e felt that by hiding his presence he would invite trouble, if they were seen then perhaps it might, maybe, be enough to dissuade anyone's interest.

"Aye, Colonel," Jon said before he turned his attention to the sensors.

The Andorian undocked the Victorious from the main ship and swung it around before deploying the nacelles. "Nacelles deployed, ready for launch in t-minus thirty seconds, Sir."

Down in Engineering, Tom monitored warp power from a console near the warp core. He hadn't served on something as small as the Victorious before, but he had seen a few Defiant classes under construction at shipyards, even helped install a few transporter systems on those. But he hadn't been prepared for the smaller engine room, and the small handful of crewmembers under his command. Systems at least still remained green, and all defensive systems were ready for use.

"This is Triumphant," Michael voice came over the comm. "Launch is a go. Proceed to first nav point at warp three."

"Understood." S'er'in'e replied. "Helm, set course for the first navigational point, warp three if you please. Engage when ready."

"Ahead warp three, aye Sir," the Andorian said before engaging the warp drive of the Victorious and headed for the first nav point.

S'er'in'e sat pondering, while this shipment was indeed important, seldom did something sounding so easy in fact turn out such. A mole, a spy, a leak always ruined the secrecy, assuming secrecy was a thing with two warships escorting the Nebula class vessel. "Ensign Baker, report all sensor contacts?"

"No active contacts, Colonel," Jon said. "The plasma storms in the Badlands look especially bad today and could be masking signatures."

"Thank you Ensign, Chief Barnes, last time I mastered this vessel her port forward thrusters felt...off, sluggish." S'er'in'e spoke. "Has this issue been addressed?" S'er'in'e was not sure if the previous Chief had already logged, fixed and closed the issue or it was still pending.

Tom didn't reply immediately. He hadn't been involved in repairs on the Victorious, so he couldn't answer with offhand knowledge. Tom quickly access the repair logs and determined that the issue had been noted, but somehow it had been overlooked. "Colonel, I'm afraid the answer is no. I'll look into it right away and see if there's something I can do to get us by."

"Very good Chief." S'er'in'e replied, as long as the issue was known, it would be handled. "Helm, position us directly ahead of the transport ship's current course projection, range 5km's. Match speed and attitude. Charge the deflector dish for an emitted energy pulse. We are going to use it as old earth underwater vessels did, as sonar."

S'er'in'e had manoeuvred the Triumphant and the transport ship into the deflectors blind spot, blind because the physical mass of the Victorious was in the way. "With sensors as they are any ships will reflect our pulse back at us. With this ship ahead of the flagship and transport, we mask them from being revealed by our physical mass."

The Andorian pilot brought the Victorious to the requested position and looked at his sensors and back to the Marine. "We'll be in the Badlands in roughly forty-five seconds, Sir," he said.

"There's a number of plasma vortexes near the edge, but we should be able to slide between them with no problems," Jon reported.

"We yes, will the other two vessels fair so?" The Victorious was tiny in comparison, with its size came agility, manoeuvrability. Things much larger ships couldn't boast to the same level on.

"Reasonable certain, Colonel," Jon responded. "They have better shields than we do."

"As soon as we enter the badlands will go to yellow alert. We will begin emitting energy pulses which will reflect back to us should anything be out there since sensors will be compromised by the regions effects. We will be openly broadcasting our location so I'd like weapons ready for use at a moments notice, we may not seek a fight but we should prepare for one." S'er'in'e replied outlining the next few steps.

In the tiny stellar lab, a crewman removed an isolinear chip and replaced it with another, then entered a command into their station before resuming normal operations.

Isabel was sitting at the engineering station on the bridge. With all of the engineers down in engineering, and the bridge helmsman station also having operations attached to it, she decided the best way she could help out, was to sit at the engineering station.

She stook LCARS certification and basic engineering courses at the academy. They were less than 10 seconds from entering the badlands, and Isabel was monitoring the power flow between the manifold intakes and the warp corps. The ships struts were fully extended at the moment. "Engineering reports were are in the green and ready to proceed." Isabel said with a big smile on her face.

This was her first away mission, on her first day of serving in Starfleet as an Ensign. What a great moment she thought, as she forgot about the embarrassment of earlier in sickbay.

Down below in Engineering, Tom moved over to the three-dimensional master situation display where full status reports scrolled by on rotating monitors. His twenty years of service had taught him what to look for, glazing over dozens of positive status indicators hidden in typical LCARS code.

Wait.

Tom looked back at one of the monitors that had just floated by. He reached out, grabbed the holographic display and pulled it back towards him. Using his right index finger, he scrolled the log backwards to confirm what he saw. The situation down below had suddenly become not so green. "Engineering to bridge. I'm picking up abnormalities in the main computer. I'm looking at some sort of checksum errors near some of the primary systems."

S'er'in'e was no computer wizard, he was no engineer, his trade often required the destruction of things. So what ever the Chief Engineer just said, while he didn't understand it, didn't sound good. "In English if you please Chief, I'm a marine not a technical trade. Abnormalities I understand, but the rest....."

"Think of it as the early warnings of a cascade system failure," Tom called back over the comm. "I'm going to have to start rerouting critical functions to the secondary core. We're going to experience some hiccups over the next few minutes."

"Colonel, I'm picking up a minor variance in the shield algorithms which could lead to a possible failure," Maddy stated.

S'er'in'e opened the link to Engineering. "Chief, why were these faults not detected prior to launch, why now?" What could possibly have changed to such a degree that separating from the Tirumphant would cause some a string of errors? "Could the umbilical connection to Triumphant hidden these problems?"

"Signal Flagship that we are experiencing difficulties, cause unknown, outlook unknown. Will advise with updates." Entering the badlands with questionable shielding, especially not knowing who or what was inside was a risky proposition at best.

"I have no explanation, Colonel," Tom cried back, moving frantically from control panel to control panel. "Preflight diagnostics came back green. It's not like these systems to suddenly fail like this."

In S'er'in'e's mind the ship was good for launch at the time, all systems were good to go but when they separated from the Triumphant, thats when things started to falter. Coincidence was a factor too strong to ignore. "Captain Wiesz, I'd like a security sweep of the ship, all areas, crawl spaces, everywhere. Identities of the crew confirmed with records, integrity of records verified. The timing of these failures is very suspect."

"Acknowledged, Colonel," Maddy stated. She was Security for this particular part of the mission, which meant it was up to her to see to it that those tasks were carried out, however, she could delegate some of those responsibilities. The redhead tapped her combadge. =^=Captain Weisz to all Security personnel, begin patrols on all decks. Leave no area unsearched. Anything out of the ordinary is to be reported immediately.=^= With that order being carried out, she began the second half of his request, transferring information she'd need to a PADD. "Permission to leave the bridge?"

"Granted." S'er'in'e responded turning his attention back to the scene unfolding before him.

Down below in Engineering, Tom worked frantically to isolate the primary systems and shunt their functionality to the secondary core. He barked order after order to his meager staff as a job like this needed a staff quadruple their size.

"No, no, no..." Tom muttered, seeing the rapid increase of checksum errors, coupled with limited functionality of the console. Screens started to flicker, then disappeared altogether. "No!" He slammed the console with his fist before shouting over the comm, "Engineering to bridge. We just lost shields, phasers and launchers. Starting now on establishing a manual override!"

"Helm, all stop. Signal flagship." With shields and weapons offline, and no sure fire way to tell if engines would be stable S'er'in'e was not prepared to risk the ship to a vortex or become prey without the ability to do something about it.

"All stop," the Andorian helmsman responded. "Coms open, Colonel."

"Triumphant this is Victorious, our systems have been compromised, weapons and shields are offline, computer systems have also been effected. Cause is unknown but I have initiated a security sweep of the ship. Possible sabotage." S'er'in'e explained quickly. "Systems cleared prior and just after launch, so whoever or what ever is responsible may still be on board. Would suggest you commence security measures and system sweeps. If they can get to the Victorious, they have had opportunity on the Triumphant."

"Colonel, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Apollo isn't responding," the Commodore responded as the Apollo went by the much smaller ship.

S'er'in'e could only sit and watch as the Nebula class vessel sail on by, and he was helpless right now to do anything about it. What he could do however was focus on his own ship and that, or who, was responsible. A low growl rolled from him as things were painting a poor picture.

Isabel was starting to check the engineering systems and operational systems on the Victorious. The ship was obviously sabotage from her perspective. The systems were failing all over the ship. They were a dead stick at the moment. She knew the engineers were working hard on restoring primary systems. She had nothing to report at the moment, she hated feeling powerless, and nothing to do. "Captain, request permission to help engineering, get the main systems back online. I can not do much from the engineering station." Stated Isabel, hoping that S'er'in'e would agree. She wanted to feel useful.

"Denied." S'er'in'e replied, momentarily watching the Apollo press on away from them. "Reconfigure your station to an Operations overlay and begin work. If Chief Barnes requires help I am confident he will ask for it." While of that he was certain, something or someone on board this ship was responsible for the chaos on board and for whatever's sake, better the Captain find first before he does.

"Aye Captain." Said Isabel, as she started the process to change the helmsman station from helm/operations to just helm and navigation, and transferred primary operations to the station she was sitting at.

With permission granted, Maddy departed with a PADD in hand. If there was something unusual to be found, she planned to find it with the help of the rest of the crew. She thanked her lucky stars not to have to deal with the crew compliment as large as the Triumphant.

TBC