Flying Dark (Part VII of VIII)
Posted on Thu Mar 19, 2020 @ 6:29pm by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant Commander River Morgan & Ensign Jessica Mayhew & Gunnery Sergeant Terry Henderson & Civilian T'gan
1,926 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: DS5, various
Timeline: MD 01 1530
Previously on
Once Lovok, Molok, and Morgan floated at the access panel, Molok got into position to pull the panel off. Scaliontis was ready to grab the panel and gently put it against the tube wall. Molok then directed his torch to the conduit hub. It was bursting with some kind of brownish yellow crystalline substance that seemed to shine in the torch light.
Before Scaliontis knew it and could stop it, Molok, the Caitian male, touched the crystals while stating, "What the hell--"
In the first moment, the crystals retracted for a second, leaving a fine powder on Molok's finger tip. Then they began to grow, fast, like watching a normal growth in time-lapse. They were stretching towards the Caitian’s fingers, growing out in the general direction of his hand, the long, hexagonal crystals growing off at odd angles here and there.
And now the continuation
Science
T'gan found half a dozen lost-looking personnel as she made her way to sickbay and herded them with her. When she ran into a group handing out rebreathers, she swapped the personnel for the devices and headed back to science to pass them out.
The arboretum was large, and filled with trees. That would give them a bit more oxygen, so when she got back to Alanna, she took most of the scientists and headed with them to the arboretum, picking up anyone they encountered as they went..
Alanna took three rebreathers and continued to search the labs for anyone hiding there. She wasn't sure where to send them. The arboretum or their quarters, but the labs weren't the best choice right now.
Primary Sickbay
Terry moved deliberately, and as quickly as he could without throwing himself off too much. It took him about fifteen minutes in the zero-g, but he managed to get the restraints set on the bio-beds.
"Alright," he said. "Things are set."
"Thank you," River replied. "I'm sorry. It's just an overused thing to say when you've taken so much trouble, but it's heartfelt," she reassured him.
"You are welcome, Doctor," Terry replied. "Do you need more assistance? I don't mind, but if not, I want to try to get some of the things floating out of the way. If the gravity comes back on suddenly, people could get hurt."
"Good point Lieutenant. I think we can spare you for a while so you can get that in hand and anyway, you're close by and with the comms coming back on, we can still call if something more urgent crops up. " River agreed and took the large regenerator, putting it back inside her drawer with something of a bit of a struggle as it kept trying to return to anywhere else. River rolled her eyes and fought on until it was safely stashed again.
Main Promenade
Annora and her staff arrived to find the Promenade in excitable chaos. Emergency lights were active in only about half the locations, but many of the visitors were making do with lights from personal devices and other battery powered items. A few trees strung with fairy lights marked the bottom of the Promenade space, some hundred meters below. People were calling out for ropes and life lines to haul in those unfortunates who'd been on the bottom floor, open to the roof and now floating stuck in the middle of space, surrounded by shadowy items of furniture, or a food cart.
Jessica floated into the open, helping to direct the efforts to get people off the ceiling of the Promenade. They didn’t know when gravity would return, and it would be a fatal fall for anyone still up there. It was slow going. If they still had power, she might have used the replicators to create some netting or something to string across the opening, to at least arrest any falls, but as it was, they had to work almost individually.
“Try to organize into groups!” Jessica yelled up to the trapped civilians. That would make it easier to rescue more at a time with one safety line.
On her way to the Promenade, Annora had collected several other members of her department. Many were already doing their best to keep order among the chaos. As they approached a large group of mainly civilians, a red haired man floated up to the team.
"What's the situation, Lieutenant?" Annora reached out with a gloved hand to help stabilize the man.
"Complete and total power failure. Beyond that, I can't tell you much. Right now our focus is on safety."
The security officer turned restaurateur wasted no time. "Already on it. My employees are helping Ensign Mayhew get people to a lower level."
She was sure others were helping as well, which was encouraging. Sending the others to go assist, she headed to where Jessica was at.
"How goes it, Ensign?"
“Some panic, ma’am. We restrained them.” She nodded over to where a line of civilians were shackled to the railing. Some looked stunned. “But most are keeping their heads. Some of the younger ones are being a bit too...daredevil,” she admitted. “We’re slowly peeling them off the ceiling and getting them onto a deck. This would be easier if the replicators were still functioning and we could make more safety harnesses.”
The situation could certainly have been worse, but thankfully Jessica and the others mostly had kept it from further deteriorating. "Good work, Ensign. I've spoken with Soran. It appears the station has suffered a complete system-wide power loss. Any engineers are to begin by checking the EPS trunks. Our job is to get people down to the ground level so they don't plummet down once gravity is restored."
She thought about what was said about harnesses. "Mr. Hogan, you and another employee see what you can do about finding rope material. We'll worry about compensation later if need be. Maybe even check out the arboretum for plants with vines. We need items that several people can grab a hold of without breaking. I'm going to help get people down."
“Hold onto the safety line,” Jessica told Annora, starting to shrug out of her own safety harness to hand it over to her boss.
Engineering Support Lab
Surprised, Maritza looked at the crystal deposits crusting up the EPS. It seemed to be absorbing the power in the plasma circuits. She broke off a bit. It left a residue on her fingers. She brushed it off on her uniform. That was what was blocking the power? There were literally miles of EPS conduits, from the meters wide main trunk to the smaller spurs that fed from junction boxes in the jeffries tube to power individual lights and appliances. And it had to have grown fast through those miles of conduit.
As if to prove her right, she noticed the crystals growing. Damn, they moved fast.
And then her comm badge chirped. "This is the USS Odyssey, to DS5. Can you hear us?"
Maritza slapped her badge with relief. "This is Captain Soran, DS5."
"This is Captain Vora. Apologies, it's taken us a few minutes to register all the commbadges on our system. There's quite a few over there. Can we offer assistance?"
Soran gave an internal snort. There was, on any given day, upwards of a hundred and fifty thousand commbadges registered to the station comms network. And if memory served, the Odyssey was just a Norway class. Their own comms network must be stretched to breaking. "Yes. Let me get a brief from my staff, and I'll be in touch. Soran out."
She cleared the line, and tapped again "Soran to all senior staff? Is anyone receiving it? Please report."
Caleb and Opal had just arrived at Sickbay when Soran’s message came through. Someone must have gotten the comms system working again, though there was still a lot of interference.
“Ryan ta Soran,” he reported in. “Ah’m at Sickbay now. Where do ya need me? Somethin’ that’s taken out all of the power, even the backups to the backups, that might be somethin’ external to the station. Do we have contact with any of the ships out in local space? Can they scan the station?”
"They will. I've found something growing in the EPS. I'm more concerned about casualties right now. How is sickbay?"
“We're coping here, but it's tough on the patients, and if we don't get power back very soon, doing everything the hard way is going to start to overwhelm us and cause harm to some of them,” Amia replied to the question, having heard the captain ask it of Commander Ryan, who had only just arrived so wasn't yet completely up to date.
“What she said,” Caleb told Soran. “Be a lot worse when gravity comes on if there’s anyone still floatin’ around. Ya need me anywhere?” he asked.
"Operations. EPS is their responsibility, and it's going to be all hands to the pump if this thing has filled up enough of the conduits to cut all the power. The Odyssey should be able to get you there.”
Amia watched the XO leave, and in that moment of relative calm she thought of her baby. It had been so hard to keep her concern for Liana out of her 'business head' responses to her duty, but in the whole emergency situation she'd been kept busy enough to be able to keep telling herself "Not until this is sorted" firmly. As soon as the immediate pressure let up, the insistent wail of maternal instinct forced its way through and began to tug violently at her emotions again. If the comms were back on, could she just put in one call? But no, since the comms were so newly returned, they would be full of urgent calls and needed to get other departments to a quiet moment like this too.
Amia was a commander; a Head of Department. She knew how this worked. She was entrusted to see that her own duty to care for the wounded and ill was carried out 100% efficiently and with every shred of energy and effort she could muster. Then, in the same interactive cycle, someone else would be equally committed to take care of the children. That was how it all had to happen to make it work.
Reminding herself of this like a mantra taught at a young age, Amia clenched her fists inside her white coat pockets out of sight and turned to focus on the first needy patient to hand. As she steeled herself against her own heart and it's needs, she concentrated on working on. She knew it was no different for the nurse working next to her, but it didn't stop the pull of the natural feelings of either of them. They all relied on keeping busy to help ease it a little. It was unwritten but relied upon.
To be Continued…
Ensign Jessica Mayhew
Security Officer
NPC Caleb Ryan
Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer
Gunnery Sergeant Terry Henderson
Combat Medic
NPC Jason Haines
Commander Amia Telamon
Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Commander River Morgan
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
NPC Amia Telamon
Doctor Opal Oliver
Civilian Doctor
NPC Amia Telamon
Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief Security Officer
T'gan
Temporal Physicist
NPC Alanna Wells
Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer
Gunnery Sergeant Terry Henderson
Combat Medic
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