Lieutenant Richard Dunham, has been aboard DS5 for less than a year, but averages a solid 10 posts per month.
He started as a pilot, but soon became embroiled in so many Joint Posts, that he is involved for his writing and passion for the character that he plays.
He is now romantically linked with the stations CMO, Chelsea Adams and he brings both humour, compassion and indeed a sense of logic to each post which he is involved in.
He has started many JPs, contributing to both plot and sub plot, sometimes taking things in a totally different direction.
He worked on a JM with the Sarek, being the only character to write across both sims and managing to help both the USS Sarek and DS5 to overcome the situation that DS5 found itself in with the anomaly.
He was badly injured in a small series of posts, which brought both he and Dr Adams together.
Sample post 1
A Post By Captain Tasha Tahir & Lieutenant Richard Dunham & Ensign Petro & Lieutenant Commander Chelsea Adams
Location: In the vicinity of the anomaly
Timeline: SD15 {Time distorted}
Tag:
ON:
Wingman, Ensign Robbie Swan, was horrified. He had never seen bodies, or worse still body parts, floating about in space -charred remains of fellow crewmen and women just wafting past his fighter. It was surreal and hideous. He was fighting to keep the contents of his stomach down.
=^= Blue Delta Five to Blue Delta One =^= he put in a call to his Squadron Leader, hoping his voice wouldn't give away how queasy he felt.
=^= Delta one over. Reading you.=^= Dunham played around with the comms system controls trying to clear up the static and time delay as best he could. =^= Make that sort of receiving you. Over=^=
Blue 3 trundled behind on low impulse, avoiding the trail of flotsam and jetsam that was making piloting a nightmare, awaiting the lead from Blue 1, who seemed to be having problems of his own.
The fighter was usually a dream to fly, but the gravimetric forces were doing more than just creating a wave to ride upon, they were pulling and pushing the small fighters to the extreme.
Hearing Blue Delta Five call, it was easy to hear the strain in his voice and Mills felt exactly the same, nauseous.
=^= Blue Delta Five, Copy =^= Robbie replied to Dunham, setting his controls and following his leader, still in as close formation as he could manage. The flight didn't get any easier as the fighter herself struggled to hold course and speed. That was something she would normally do without effort. Swan didn't like this at all, this whole mission gave him the chills, but then perhaps that was simply the debris and it's macabre nature that was spooking him.
Not wanting to be left out, Julian Mills pressed the button on his console, initiating his comm.
=^= "Blue Delta Three. Copy." He responded, tapping hard on the port thruster to get the ship back into some sort of plane, "We're getting a bit of a rough ride out here skipper!"=^= The sweat beginning to show on his brow.
Dunham tried to keep his cool under pressure. He was a good pilot ~No~ he thought to himself ~I'm a damn fine pilot.~ But this was new even to him he thought maybe only the CAG Lieutenant Commander Rianni Monteros-t'Khellian would be able to keep her head in this one. The reading that were on his screen made little to no sense to the fighter jock. He wished for a moment that Tovan the stations new science officer was out in the sticks with him. He shook off the thought. The current situation was no place for inexperienced pilots. Hell, it was no place for experienced fly boys either.
His readings were now off the charts, and the small Peregrine Heavy Fighter was getting more and more pounded by the temporal eddies coming from the anomaly. His structural integrity field was almost out and he could swear that he could hear the warping of metal from outside of the ship as it moved under the pressure. Dunham tried re-routing power from every non-essential system into the reverse thrusters.
Still no luck, he was still being pulled in. In a last ditch attempt to pull out and break free he pulled part of the flight control panel out and moved several chips containing subroutines into different parts of the now bare systems. The aim was to try and re-route life support and shield power into the fighters thrusters. Moments later the reverse thrusters hummed into life lighting up in blue on the sides of his ship. He smiled with glee as the fighter backed off from the anomaly. It would be a tricky bit of piloting though.
With no shields his inertial stabilisers were taking a heavy blow the ship was shaking violently and every bone in his body ached from the shaking. He gritted his teeth against it and opened a comm to the rest of the squadron to let them know what he had done to get his ship into reverse.
=^=Ok people.=^= He said trying to keep calm in his voice. =^= keep it tight and stay in formation. We have to pull out of the anomaly radius. Re-route deflector control, shield energy and life support into your reverse thrusters give it everything you have! Punch it=^=
Robbie tried but he wasn't sure. ~Yeah but which one is the deflector?~ he wondered to himself, getting a bit panicky as the anomaly tore at his craft, tossing her about like a leaf on the wind. The more he tried to mess with the panel the more the juddering seemed to jog his fingers and he kept pressing the wrong relay by accident.
=^= Delta blue 3 - I have no navigation readouts, and no.... =^= Robbie even got his call sign back to front. He'd always been easily confused under pressure.
Dunham looked out of either side of his cockpit plexi glass window. The sensors were totally scrambled from the time distortion field. Making the pilots virtually blind electronically. Everything had to be done by eye. In formation the fighters were lighted by a blue corona around them as their thrusters kicked in as one. The light formed a blue halo around them as the battered craft began to pull away on their limp home.
Dunham felt it before he saw it. That foresight gifted to every combat pilot. Some could it precognition or the act of a higher being what ever it was it had saved lives and it was about to save Dunham's. He looked to his Left Robbie's fighter was perilously close to his, their wing tips almost touching.
=^=Robbie you're too close. Repeat. You're too....=^=
Julian was to the left of the formation and he could see what was about to happen and his reflex was to rudder right. The joystick was sluggish to respond and eh engines whined like a cat in agony as the power increase forced the fighter to bank right. Julian lost sight of Delta 1 & 5. His head bounced around inside his helmet, trying desperately to place hi comrades against the black background, but all he saw was a myriad of spectral colours that danced vividly on his visor.
=^= "Blue Delta 5, Blue Delta 1, respond. My gyros are unresponsive 'nd engines are at 97% and I cannot get a bearing..." and suddenly the eruption of fuel to his far left brought him back to his senses.
~ Swan? Duham? ~ He thought to himself as he realised he was alone with the anomaly.
It was too late. Robbie's head spun first to his left and that lost him the critical split second before he spun back to his right and saw Blue 1 right there.
"Oh GOD!" he cried out loud and wrenched his fighter fiercely to his left but she fought in the currents from the anomaly and instead of veering right as his joystick commander her, she spiralled downwards, her nose tucked under like a Terran Sea-bird diving for a fish.
=^= BOSS? =^= Robbie screamed into his comm. =^= Oh Frack! I've killed the skipper. Mayday. Mayday. =^= Lost in the misery of knowing what his mistake had cost, Ensign Robert Swan, aged 24, dived helplessly, wrestling with his stricken craft whilst on a personal rack of guilt and misery.
Every alarm bell and warning light went off insistently as Dunhams fighter went into a spin. With his shields down he had been totally blown off course and the tip of a wing had come clear off. Sparks flew above his head fire erupted inside his cockpit. He could feel his leg burning but he dared not or could not look as his concentration was purely on trying to the fighter out of her flat spin.
She was now tumbling wildly towards the anomaly. A tidal wave of temporal distortion hit the fighter. In his small cockpit, the exposed navigation console blew outward. chunks of burning metal embedded themselves in his upper chest making sizzling noises as they cooked the meat that they had lodged into.
Dunhams attack fighter was out of control and tumbled into the glow of the temporal anomaly. It was soon absorbed buy energy disappearing from sight. The only thing left in its wake was static over the comm.
=^= "Deep Space 5, this is Blue Delta 3, respond!" =^= Mills called for the fifth time and was getting more than a little frustrated at the lack of response from the station as he limped the damaged fighter back towards the behemoth he knew as home, feeling saddened and guilty for leaving his comrades behind..
Careering out of the anomaly out of control and out of luck Dunham found himself on the other side of the time distortion. However he had little time to come to grasps or terms with this. As in front of him bold as brass was the USS Sarek, and not just in front of him practically on top of him.
He had no time or control of his vessel to move out of its way ~Hell!~. He thought to himself. He whispered a prayer then pulled the ejection cord. The fighter exploded on impact against the Sarek's shields in a fireball. Shooting out of this fireball like a cork from a champagne bottle was Dunham. Broken, Burnt and beaten.
OFF:
Sample post 2
A Post By Lieutenant Richard Dunham
Location: Marine Barracks DS5
Timeline: After the closing of the Anomaly SD15 (backpost)
Tag:
On:
Kim just kept on running. Tears streaming down her face. The thirteen year old girl lost herself in the maze of corridors in the lower decks of the space station. Nothing made sense in her world anymore. It was all crazy. First she had run away to this spinning metal can to see her uncle after her mum had run off on another of her 'Missions' for Starfleet Intel and now that same uncle could die on her. Just like her old man. Just like her farther that went missing in action during the war on the assault on Betazed by the Dominion. He had promised her he was going to come home that, when the war was over he would leave it all behind him.
Just thinking about it was making Kim both upset and angry at the same time. She couldn't put a noose on these damn emotions. She heard herself scream in rage. but it didn't really seem real to her. Almost like a dream as the thunderous river of emotions poured through.
Her vision had become a wet red haze of anger and she had not been paying any attention to where she was going. It was then that she went head long into a pair of armored legs.
Darson had been going about his business after the closure of the anomaly, and had been headed down to the Marine Barracks to conduct a quick inspection of the facility when he a small blur appeared around the corner and headed straight for his legs.
Reacting quickly, he stepped back and quickly moved his hand inside his cloak just in case he needed to draw his pistol from the holster at his side. His enemies had sent one too many midget assassins after him for him to take any chances.
As the blur tripped and came to a stop though, he could see that it was merely a little girl. An upset little girl. Correction, a very upset little girl. Still somewhat suspicious (assassins came in all forms after all, and one like this would be able to avoid arousing suspicion pretty well), he moved forward and loomed over her staring down at her. After a moment of silence, he said, "What are you crying about?"
Kim rubbed away the tears from her eyes with the back of her sleeve then gave a little sniff. It was at this point that she looked up at the man she had bumped into to. In front of her was an armored and caped figure, his face hidden by a grim mask. At first she was a little taken back. Then she saw the armor and uniform was that of the marines. She sniffed again. "I'm sorry sir I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
Taking the sudden addition of the respectful moniker in her sentence in stride, Darson continued undeterred, “That still doesn’t answer my question Miss. What are you crying about?”
"It's my uncle he is very sick."
Darson mask was unreadable, but inside it he had a slight frown on his face. The story was believable, but he still didn’t trust it completely.
She looked around a bit not recognizing were she was. ""Where am I?"
"You're currently on Deck 73, right outside the Marine Complex. Specifically, the entrance to the Marine enlisted Barracks. Who is your uncle, the sick one?"
"Uncle Rick sir. I mean Lieutenant Richard Dunham" Kim continued to look around the now familiar setting of the marine barracks. She had seen many places like it in her childhood across the Federation. Going from posting to posting with her dad the marine sergeant.
Suddenly she felt a little awkward realising the situation she had put herself in. Hoping to explain herself further to the menacing Colonel she stammered a bit. "Sorry sir. I was just looking for somewhere familiar..... My dad you see he is a marine. Master sergeant Franz"
Darson was silent again. Lt. Dunham? Very, very interesting. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have much sympathy, but the fact that she was the daughter of a Marine changed everything. He quickly ran a search on the Marine, Master Sergeant Franz. What came up gave him pause. He had been marked as MIA a long time ago, sometime during the Dominion war.
He looked down at her and said, "Well...I am very sorry about your father. But rest assured that while you're here, you're with family. We Marines always take care of our own. So come on inside, and we'll see if we can't get you something good to eat. There's a celebration going on after the closing of the anomaly...and as you know, nobody parties as well as we do."
Kim smiled, gave another sniff and wiped her runny nose with the back of her sleeve "that would be great!" she said with enthusiasm. As only a child's logic could, she began to speak her mind. "I always thought that my dad abandoned me when he went MIA at the battle for Betazed. But The marines.....they are family aren't they? In way my dad never got lossed." The bitterness of a lonely fatherless childhood was subsiding and for the first time in a long time she was feeling a bit better. "One day I'm going to be a marine like my dad"
As they moved down the corridor towards the sounds of a raucous celebration, Darson nodded and said, "I'm sure you will. But you're still a little bit to young to join up yet, but I'll tell you what. You keep your nose clean for the next couple of years, and I'll make sure that you get fast tracked into Officer Candidacy School. And even if you don't want that, I'll help you fill out your enlistment papers myself. How does that sound?"
"That sounds great!" said Kim with a smile on her face. Though her eyes were puffed up and red by crying they sparkled with a new found understanding of her farther and the people he worked with.
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Nomination by
Captain Tasha Tahir
CO:DS5
