Rescue mission

Posted on Fri Jul 24, 2015 @ 3:19am by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caden Aldrex & Lieutenant Kyle "Loki" Carter

1,094 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Eye of the Beholder
Location: MD 03 1730

[ON]

As one could imagine getting the various ships, shuttles, and fighters docked was a headache. The subspace channel was alive with voices either asking for instructions or coordinating movements so there would be no further accidents. Several ships had already been damaged by the meteor storm. One debris field near the planet matched the size and composition of the science vessel Sunesis. A few fighters were also missing.

Petty Officer Holtz, a comms specialist, was at his station working up search-and-rescue mission profiles with the sensor techs. They had already brought in a few survivors including Lieutenant Carter. Now they were working on scanning the debris field near the Sunesis for any sign of life. There was none, and with a grim look on his face Holtz knew he wouldn't find any. The little science vessel had been obliterated by whatever hit it. "Stupid," he muttered under his breath. What could they have been thinking? They had been ordered to get away from the planet. Not closer to it.

The sensor tech sitting next to him gave him a light punch in the shoulder. "Hey, Holtz, I'm getting a weak signal on one of the frequencies." He grabbed an earpiece and pressed it into his ear, concentrating closely.

"What is it?" Holtz asked.

"It sounds like a distress beacon but it's very faint. Almost like it's in another system. But it's coming from the direction of the planet."

Holtz grabbed his own earpiece and listened. For the first few seconds he heard only hisses and static, and figured his partner must be imagining things. But then he heard it, too. "Yeah, I hear it. Sounds like one of ours for sure. It's either behind the planet or on it. Question is, where?" He turned his chair to see who the senior-ranking officer on deck was at the moment. "Commander Soran?"

The trill straightened up from where she was looking at the Strat Ops panel as if it was personally defiying her. A whole new solar system, multiple planets, untapped resources, scientific opportunity, an amazing discovery. This was going to open up a whole new can of worms when she reported back to Starfleet Command. "Yes, Mr Holtz?"

Holtz reported somewhat hesitantly. If this turned out to be nothing he was going to look stupid. "Ma'am, we're hearing a faint signal on the subspace frequency that's consistent with a distress beacon. It's coming from the direction of the new planet but the signal is so weak it might as well be a million light years away."

"WHo's frequency is it on? Fleet or another agency?"

"It's a Fleet frequency," Holtz confirmed. He typed some commands into his station and played it on the overhead speakers for Soran. Some enhancement was necessary to make it more audible.

"filter out any interference from solar sources, and reconstruct any gaps using the Manhaim Algorithm." Communications technology had been her specialty from her days in Ops. "And we get..." she waited a moment whilst Holtz did as bidden. "Not a great deal more, but that sounds like a fighter command broadcast. well done." Then she frowned. "And the CAG's unconscious."

She reached for her comm badge =^="Soran to Fighter Group. I need to speak with the Deputy CAG"=^=

=^="This is Lieutenant Re. What can we do for you Commander?"=^= The Bajoran Ltjg. TSO responded over the comm.

=^="We're picking up a distress call with a fighter command id on it. We can't tell if its a pilot down or just a lump of Carter's Valkyrie. I want a head count." She didn't add 'right now' to that. If the Deputy CAG couldn't figure that out, they wouldn't be Deputy CAG for much longer.

Down in the fighter operations office Lieutenant Re waited expectantly for an answer from the wing's ops manager, who tapped his commbadge. "Ma'am, this is Warrant Officer Lezal. Nine craft have been confirmed destroyed so far. All others have checked in except for Prowler 115 which we sent to the far side of the planet to tow back a wayward science vessel. We assumed that the subspace interference must be giving them radio issues but if you're picking up a distress signal, then it could very well be them."

"Thank you, Mr Lezal, stand by" Soran replied, and turned to Holtz "Where and when did we last have Prowler 115's transponder?"

Holtz tapped in some more commands to his console and waited, then shook his head. "It's coming from the direction of the planet but I can't pinpoint the exact location. It must be the residual interference. I think we'd have to send a shuttle to fly at atmospheric level and surveil the ground for them. That's our best shot, ma'am."

Soran scowled to herself. With the chaos of evacuating, then repopulating, she wasn't sure there was anything spare. "What do we have free? And if we don't have anything free, how soon can we make something free? That planet might decide to vanish at any moment. We can't afford to leave anyone on brigadoon if it does."

Holtz checked the operations register on his screen. "The Ararat and Deloraine are still out there on patrol. We've also got several runabouts helping with traffic management. It shouldn't inconvenience anyone to pull one away from assigned duties and re-task it to a SAR mission."

"Pull in the Ararat," Soran ordered. "I'll take it from here." The Ararat was nominally her command anyway. It would take a little while to load S&R equipment into it. She entered the commands on her console, sending the request to Ops for the QM to sort out. "Mr Holtz, can you send back to the origin? Boradcast at least. I want to let them know we've heard them, and are on our way."

"Yes, ma'am," Holtz replied. He wasn't sure if any message would get through but it was worth a try.

Meanwhile, on the traffic scope, the symbol that represented the USS Ararat came about from her normal patrol track and headed for the station at a rapid clip.

=^="Lieutenant Re, Mr Lezal. I'm going to need officers for search and rescue. Preferably someone with experience, but definteily someone who can advise on finding lost fighter pilots in particular."=^=

"Aye Ma'am. We'll get a list of qualified officers and have it on your desk within half an hour." Re called over the comm.


::OFF::

Lt Commander Maritza Soran
2XO/Chief of Strategic OPerations
DS5

Petty Officer Holtz
Comms
(NPC Bert)

Warrant Officer Lezal
Fighter Wing Operations
(NPC Bert)

 

RSS Feed