Flying Dark (Part I of VIII)
Posted on Tue Mar 17, 2020 @ 4:28am by Captain Maritza Soran & Civilian 'Key Holder' Dorian Gabriel & Civilian 'Arrival' Geral Lasuma & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Alanna Wells & Captain Lazanos Torena & Lieutenant JG Erich Hartmann & Lieutenant JG Scaliontis Lovok & Lieutenant JG Natalie Cross & Lieutenant Kivan Ta'Gas & Ensign Jessica Mayhew & Lieutenant JG Brianthe Oaxaca & Gunnery Sergeant Terry Henderson & Civilian T'gan & Qinee & Civilian Aleczandra Naqiis-Ryan & Civilian Tianys Dalav’ni
1,632 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Various
Timeline: MD01 1500
Previously on Gremlins
It started on the Promenade four hours ago. The water filters in the ornamental lake had failed, and the whole thing had been flooded in sewage from around the Prom. And then the main replimat had served nothing but white fish hasperat regardless of what was ordered. Operations had pulled their hair out, and then it had solved itself twenty minutes later.
An hour later, the gravity had failed in the Creche that served the Square Mile, and whilst no one had been hurt, it made the third surprise malfunction. And that did not bode well. Operations and Engineering were running around trying to fix things, and then it seemed to be everywhere, random power fluxes and glitches all over the Square Mile.
And then everything failed.
And now the continuation
All across the station, every light went out. Every gravity plate failed, and everything floated gently upwards. A strange silence descended as the air scrubbers and environmental system failed. Turbolifts breaks cut in, locking them in place in their tubes, sealing thousands of people in the cars.
In Ops, screens and stations went blank, not even the red alert klaxon sounding. The endless pulse of the subspace relay stopped beating.
In Sickbay, the biobeds died, treatment systems withdrew, and life support cut out. In the brig, the containment fields failed and locks opened.
In the power plants, the huge fusion reactors went dark, and began to cool.
In the main docking area, umbilicals fell away, and atmosphere containment fields flickered out. And whilst three sets of doors slowly rolled shut, the jammed one remained so. With no structural integrity field, hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of atmosphere rushed out, dragging hapless repair crews with it.
The doors of smaller bays in the secondary docking ring all rolled shut, regardless of what was coming in or out, causing small crashes and large crushes alike, and more hands swept out to space.
Docking Bay - Lasuma's Yacht
Geral had already had the shop closed when the malfunctions had started, fortunately before the fights broke out. He had been on the comm getting an update when all hell broke loose.
The yacht lurched as the gravity and the containment fields failed. Both Dorian and Sha'rae had been entering the yacht as the field collapsed, and had Dorian been in front and not behind her she would have been lost.
Dorian had grabbed the yacht’s rails and held fast to her as the air within the bay and the yacht was sucked out. The yacht's emergency systems kicked in and the door slammed shut.
The yacht's cockpit was hit by several other small craft, and the cockpit hull was compromised and sealed off. As quickly as it had started it was over, and Dorian was moving. His hands moved quickly over one of the yacht’s consoles, scanned the area.
The bay was completely without power, and was now decompressed. But there were still people in the bay, and he beamed the four aboard.
There was a shout in the aft section from his boss, and he was already moving.
Geral was working on a Bolian officer whose legs had been crushed to nothing, probably by one of the craft in the bay, with a crude tourniquet. "We don't have means to take care of these injuries."
No sooner had the words left his lips than they were looking at each other, both saying the same thing. "The holo-suite!"
Primary Brig - Deck 575
Lieutenant Trellis did not realize the sudden weightlessness due to the sensation of darkness that completely enveloped him. He looked to his left and right, but could only see absolute darkness. The sensation of floating along with the absence of light made him realize if he was even still alive. It was only a few minutes later he heard the grunt of CPO Rhukh as he, too, tried to get ahold of his senses.
"What the hell happened!?" the Rigelian said angrily. He reached out quickly and was able to grab the end of a console and keep himself from floating upwards to the ceiling. He was able to steady himself and tried to tap at the console below him. It was useless, the entire system was offline and non-responsive. In fact, every screen, padd, and console within the chamber was deactivated and not responding to the simplest command as he tried various systems.
"Sir, I'm not getting any response from our systems," CPO Rhukh said, obvious consternation in his voice. "We should try to reach out to---" Before he could finish the sentence, he heard voices through the door and down the corridor connecting the brig cells.
"Oh hell," Trellis said as he came to the realization that if they could hear voices, then that means the power failure had affected the containment fields within the entire deck. Trellis' face fell as he realized that this slight inconvenience had just morphed into a real security concern. If the inmates had been released from their containment units, then it also meant that there was nothing to keep the other secured portions of the brig secure, including the weapon cache.
Promenade
On the Promenade, Jessica Mayhew had been attempting to get a shop door open manually when the power went out completely.
“Oh, crap,” the blonde muttered, as complete darkness enveloped her, and she felt her feet leave the deck plating. Even the emergency lighting was out.
“Nobody panic!” Jessica called out, reaching down to the wrist light that was standard equipment on her belt. She attached it to her wrist and lit up the area, shining it around at the civilians around her. “Everybody find someone to hold on to. Stay together.” She tried her comms, and couldn’t raise anyone. They seemed to be out, too.
The Box of Delights
Yolanthe had spent most of the morning a dirty gold colour, almost brown. She didn't trust the power, as the lights were flickering, and she didn't want someone to try a chip grab when they went out, so she kept the gaming tables closed.
Traffic was also slow. With so many glitches, few people had braved the transit system, and only her most dedicated patrons had found their way in. Her assistant manager, Edward, came down the stairs. "I've been trying to get through to operations and they're not picking up. They must be jammed with all the petty crap that's going on-"
The lights went off. "Shit." Yolanthe said, and then everything started to float. She hadn't really been moving, so she didn't float far, but it was enough. Something wet hit her cheek, ice from a drink she had been mixing.
"Oh great," she said. "That's it. I'm closing. Everyone can stay until the lights come back. But for obvious reasons, no more service."
People were turning on various devices, padds, and tricorders, anything that would give a light, and soon she was able to discern patches of shadow from the overall gloom. She could smell more than see various drinks wafting through the air, unable to stay in their glasses.
"I hope they get the lights on soon."
Turbolift 232, lift shaft Alpha, between decks 137 and 138
There was screeching, at the same time the lift lights went out. The brakes brought the lift to a stop and the security pins popped out, holding the car in place.
Alone inside it, Maritza discovered that just because gravity stops working inertia didn't, and she was slammed into the roof of the car. Her shoulder crunched and white pain flashed through her vision, but she didn't fall back, and stayed bobbing near the ceiling.
When the initial shock passed, she swore a lot until the pain was under control. The arm could be worse. At least gravity wasn't pulling at it. It looked misshapen. Dislocated most like, collar bone broken maybe.
She took another breath, and began to feel for the hatch. She had no tricorder or anything. She had only touch to find her way. Finding the release catch, she slid the hatch aside and looked around. There should be emergency lights inside the shaft.
Holding tight to the rim of the hatch, she looked out. Lights stretched out above her, small pin pricks going up. She was in the main transit corridor, the central passage that ran the length of the station, with tracks for the giant bulk movement cars and for the smaller person lifts that ran out sideways from the main corridor. It was easily a hundred meters wide.
She could just about make out the deck number at the doors to the floor above. 137. Engineering was past 1100. She looked down. Points of light like stars lead down. And down. And down. With no gravity, she wouldn't fall. But the lower decks were almost four miles down. That was a long way under her own power, and if the power came back? Well gravity deliberately took a long time to develop to make sure no one had a sudden long drop, but being in the mass transit corridor, she risked being mowed down by a turbolift more than falling.
But she wasn't going to stay here whilst her station was falling apart.
She pulled herself out of the car. She was at 137, and there were engineering support labs on 145. She would head there, and see if she could get hold of Mr. Lovok and Mr. Hartmann from there. Pushing off, she headed down, and hoped no one turned the power back on in the next five minutes.
To be Continued…
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