This is the ‘kicking off’ post for the disaster that is our season 6 premier episode!
Written by Staff Sergeant Leilani Charles {Kelea-Salik} & Captain Gary Taylor & Ensign Miraj Derani & Commodore Phoenix Lalor-Richardson & Lieutenant Commander Malakai Starr [Taylor] & Lieutenant Samaire MacBride-Reece [Lalor] & Captain Mattias Richardson [Tonelly] & Lieutenant JG Jason Danvers [Taylor] & Staff Warrant Officer Reo’thanra Sandtail & Senior Chief Petty Officer Fernando De La Rosa [Taylor] & Avalon [Lalor]
Mission: Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: Bridge and others
Timeline: MD3 – 01h30 – 02h00
3808 words – 7.6 OF Standard Post Measure
The USS Elysium glided through the vastness of space along the boarder of the Romulan/Federation Neutral zone. They knew, from sensors, that they were shadowed on the other side of it by Romulan Forces, but as the Elysium was not currently considered a threat to them, they knew they were safe enough. They were between planets on their ‘fly the flag’ mission, and would reach their next destination, in 10 hours or so. The Night shift was on duty and aside from running passive scans as they cruised along at Warp 6, there was not much to do.
At ops, Samaire sat considering the next move against Avalon on the holographic chess board set up beside the operations console
Jason sat at the helm as the Elysium cruised along at a leisurely warp six. She wasn’t even breathing hard and another glance at his board showed all systems in the green and operating at peak efficiently.
Malakai sat in the center seat and slowly pivoted in it as he took in the other stations and the people manning them. He looked at Ops where Samaire was playing chess against Avalon. It looked like Avalon was ready to pounce. At Helm, Jason was tapping his hands on his knees as he sang some song. Turning some more he saw Fernando at the Security station and calling for status updates. He swung back so he was looking out through the main viewscreen. Nothing going on it was in a word …boring.
Staff Warrant Officer Rea’thanra Sandtail quietly grunted to himself as he shifted his posture on the small stool he needed to reach the console itself, Making a mental report to add in a provision about the Proportions of the Humanoid designed ship to his superiors. “Fusion plants and Warp Core are reading within acceptable parameters Commander, Slight deviation in Antimatter intermix Chamber Charlie…but Engineering teams report that it will be balanced within an hour.”
At the Science station, Leilani was finding it just as slow. “Nothing exciting here Commander.”
At the Security station, Fernando was thinking of getting back to Heather and Cody and catching a few minutes of snuggle time with Heather before her shift started. He looked at his board all green. “All green Commander.” He told Malakai.
Malakai nodded and smiled, “I’d be amazed if they weren’t Fernando.” Malakai was very informal on the bridge, especially with Commodore Lalor and Captain Taylor not present. He looked to Samaire and her chess match. “Think Avalon got you Samaire.”
“Hmm yes but that’s normal. I am glad its not 3D chess.” the Ops officer replied as she studied the board.
“There is that.” Malakai agreed with a nod and a grin.
He turned to address Leilani, “No supernovas? No strange and mysterious nebulas? No quasars or pulsars to investigate Leilani?” He said with a grin.
“I wish!” Leilani grinned as she looked at Malakai. “If things get much slower I’ll start snoring!”
“I heard that.” Malakai replied. “If things get any slower, may have to contact the Romulans and see if they are as bored as we are.” He teased.
“Hmm they are probably playing chess as well” Samire quipped as she lost to Avalon with a sigh.
“Or their version of it.” Malakai quipped from the center seat. “Why don’t you try checkers Samaire?” He teased.
She gave him a look. “Now now Commander, be nice” She said. “You try and beat her at Chess”
Malakai put his hands up in mock surrender.” “Oh no. I know I’m over matched in that regard.”
She smirked and turned back to her console “That’s what I thought.” she said casually. “Rather chicken of you though.”
“Chicken?” Malakai repeated, “Hardly Samaire, It shows good sense. Command thinking.” He bantered.
The ops console suddenly beeped and Samaire frowned “Hey Leilani, I have a weird reading on my sensors, patching it through to science for you”
Malakai turned to look over at Leilani, “What about that Leilani? Anything we need to be concerned with?” He asked, his interest and concern peaked.
Leilani frowned as she looked at the readings. “We’re picking up very weird gravimetric readings” she tapped away at her console. “I can’t ascertain where the readings are coming from.”
Malakai took the information and made a decision, “Jason reduce our speed down to warp four, give science a chance to get a better handle on these readings.”
“Jason nodded, “Aye sir, reducing speed to warp four.”
Leilani was glued to the readings she was getting. “Commander, whatever this is the readings are growing! From what I can tell it seems to be behind us… I think it might be following our warp trail, though that’s just a guess.”
“Leilani, do you think our core is attracting it?” Malakai asked as he thought on a course of action.
“It’s possible Sir” Leilani nodded. “That’s just a guess though, it could be something else.”
“I understand Leilani, I just want to have something to tell the Commodore and Captain when they come to the bridge. Continue to monitor the readings and let me know of any changes.” Malakai replied.
“Of course Sir” Leilani nodded and smiled, she liked Malakai’s relaxed Command style.
“Thanks Leilani. I know you’ll keep me posted of any changes.” Malakai answered giving Leilani a smile in return.
Samaire spoke up “Should I disturb the Commodore Sir?”
Malakai hesitated, he didn’t want to disturb Commodore Lalor or Captain Taylor needlessly nor did he want to wait too long and suddenly have them thrust into a problem that they may have been able to handle if they had been called earlier. “Give it five more minutes Samaire, if this doesn’t change, wake the Commodore and Captain both and advise them of the situation.” He looked Leilani, “Any changes Leilani?”
Leilani looked up. “Yes Sir, and not a good one. Whatever this is it appears to be catching up with us, distance has decreased. I still say it’s being drawn by the ship’s engines, the only way to find out would be to cut all power to the engines.”
Malakai frowned, “Don’t know if I want to go that option, Leilani but we may have to.” He admitted. Cutting the power to the engines would leave them unable to maneuver. They could ‘coast’ along for a while but eventually they would need to restart the engines. He looked to Samaire, “Stand ready to notify the Commodore and Captain.”
“Aye Sir”Came the Operations Officer’s reply.
Leilani looked at Malakai. “If this is attracted to our engines maybe we could create a diversion to draw it away from us? A torpedo loaded with antimatter fired and detonated far enough away from us to catch this thing’s interest. It might give us chance to leap into warp and get out of here.”
Malakai nodded, “Its worth a shot. Go ahead Leilani, load the torpedo and set it on a course away from us.” He ordered.
“Aye Sir” Leilani set about organising between departments. A short while later the torpedo was loaded and ready to go. “Commander… torpedo is loaded and ready to go, I suggest dropping out of warp long enough to fire, and detonate the torpedo.”
“Jason, drop us out of warp long enough for us to fire and detonate the torpedo.” Malakai ordered.
“Aye sir, dropping us out of warp.” Jason answered as the Elysium dropped from warp.
“Now Leilani. Fire the torpedo and detonate when far enough away from us.” Malakai ordered.
“Firing torpedo…” Leilani hit the controls watching as the torpedo headed away from the ship. She gave it until it was a good enough distance from the ship then detonated.
Malakai watched as the torpedo streaked away from the Elysium and then detonate once it was a safe distance from the ship. Even after the explosion he waited a few seconds before he asked Leilani the question that was on all their minds. “Any change in the readings?” He asked.
Leilani has been dreading that question. “It’s gone for it Commander!…wait…” she double checked her readings. “Hit the warp drive, it took it alright but it looks like it might be coming back for more!”
Malakai didn’t hesitate as he issued a series of orders. “Jason punch it, warp eight. Let’s see if we can outrun it. Samaire alert Commodore Lalor and Captain Taylor. Tell them we have a developing situation. Potentially serious.”
“Aye Sir” Samaire replied and sent the call
==Commodore’s Quarters==
[Bridge to Commodore Lalor, We are requesting your presence on the bridge.]
It woke Phoenix out of her deep sleep and she grumbled as she waved her hand towards the comm. Her hand hit it. “Lalor here. What is going on Bridge?”
[Commodore, we have a potentially serious situation and we require your presence.] McBride-Reece’s voice came through.
Phoenix sighed and rolled from the bed. She glanced back at her husband and sighed again. “On my way” she replied and headed to get dressed.
As soon as the comm went off, Mattias was awake. After releasing his hold on Phoenix, he got up and pulled on a pair of shorts. Then, as his wife started to get dressed, he moved to the replicator and ordered up her favorite early morning beverage in a mug, so she could easily carry it up to the bridge.
Once the order finished materializing, he carried it over to her and waited for her to finish dressing. “I’ll make sure the twins, Miran and Tristi are safe. You go do what you need to do, my love.”
She smiled took the mocha as she shoved her feet into boots and kissed him. “Miran knows the emergency procedures. Not that they will be needed. The Romulans are probably poking their noses across the border for fun.”
So saying she left their bedroom and a short moment while later she was in the turbolift “bridge”
After Phoenix left, Mattias moved to check on both Miran and Tristi. They were both sleeping peacefully in their beds. He decided to let them be for now. He then moved to the nursery and found that, while William was asleep, his sister was sitting up and looking around the room.
“Hey, sweetheart!” He said quietly as he moved to her crib. “What are you doing awake? You know it’s way to early for pretty young princesses to be awake, don’t you?” He moved over to the changing table and a few moments later, had her in a clean diaper and onesie. He then moved to where the holonanny had left a warm bottle for her, and moved over to the large rocker, quietly humming a soft lullaby as he fed Elizabeth.
Looking down into her angelic little face, he felt at peace in his soul.
==CAPTAIN TAYLORS CABIN==
[Bridge to Captain Taylor, We are requesting your presence on the bridge.]
In Gary and Lia’s quarters Gary was instantly alert at hearing the summons from the bridge. “On my way.” He announced as he kissed Lia and got out of bed and peeled off his night clothes and began to put on his uniform.
Gary had dressed and was out the door heading for the lift that would take him to the bridge, where he could see first hand what the problem was. Arriving at the lift he summoned it. He guessed Phoenix had gotten the c=same message and was headed for the bridge as well.
==BRIDGE==
Samire looked at Malakai “The Commodore and Captain are on their way sir.”
“Very good Samaire.” Malakai replied as he spoke to Leilani, “What’s happening with our pursuer?”
Leilani had been keeping an eye on whoever, or whatever it was. “It’s still following us Sir, it’s keeping pace for now.”
“Keep close tabs on it Leilani. It feels like we’re being toyed with.” Malakai replied as he had the rear viewer turned on so they could see the ‘wave’ behind them.
“Aye Sir” She couldn’t help but feel she’d only provided this thing with the fuel it needed to follow them.
Malakai saw Leilani’s look, she was definitely down. “Leilani, I would have done the same thing you did. So don’t go beating yourself up. Need your A game right now.”
The door opened behind the bridge and Phoenix exited the Turbolift sipping her Mocha. “Mal this better not be a prank on me or so help me god I will assign you to Mattias’ team for a month” she said as she came down to the command well.
“No joke Phe…. Commodore, Look at the rear viewer.” Malakai suggested. “Um, I thought Captain Taylor was on the way up as well. I wanted to give you both the sit rep at the same time.”
Just then the lift doors parted again and Gary stepped out, He saw Phoenix already there talking with Malakai. “What’s the problem?” He asked getting right to the heart of the matter.
Phoenix studied the rear viewer. “That is indeed weird.” She glanced at Danvers at helm. “What warp are we at Lieutenant?” She asked him.
Jason turned in his seat so he could address Phoenix, “Currently at warp eight Commodore.”
She nodded and looked at Malakai. “Go ahead and brief me Mal,” she sipped her drink.
Gary chuckled, “Brief us Mal.”
Malakai nodded, “We were cruising at warp six, all systems operating well within norms when Samaire picked up strange readings and patched it into Leilani’s console. Leilani confirmed strange gravimetric readings and that wave was not only following us but the readings were increasing and so was the wave. We fired a torpedo away from the ship loaded with antimatter. The wave went after it and then came back to us. I ordered an increase to warp eight and had you and Captain Taylor notified.”
Phoenix turned to Ops. “Get Ensign Derani up” she said calmly. She knew Danvers was not cleared on the QSD. “The QSD uses a different type of propulsion. Danvers drop us out of Warp, to half impulse”
“Aye Commodore, dropping out of warp, going to half impulse.” Jason replied crisply.
Samire sent the comm. And said “Contacted, Commodore”
==ENSIGN DERANI’s CABIN==
Miraj had woken at the drop out of warp, the unexpected change in the ships’ speed catching on the edges of her awareness. When she sensed nothing else she rolled over, throwing a hand out to the window sill for the reassurance of the ships vibration, intending to go back to sleep. But the sudden ‘lurch’ to warp 8 that trembled through her fingers had her frowning and she sat up.
[Bridge to Ensign Derani, please report to the bridge.]
The voice of the computer pulled her all the way out of bed, and she quickly fumbled her pants on, tucking her nightgown in and pulling her jacket over it whilst jogging for the lift. She arrived on the bridge a few moments later, chivvying Jason aside even as she was reading data from the navigation panels, “ooooh, thats going fast. Uh, sorry, reporting as ordered, ma’am,”
Gary watched as Miraj reported to the bridge and basically shoved Jason out of the seat. He leaned to Phoenix and whispered. “We need to get others qualified for the QSD. If something happens to Miraj, it becomes useless.”
“I believe I mentioned that at the briefing. ” Phee replied as she struggled not to yawn. She had been in a deep sleep.
“Ensign Derani, I would like to try to have us jump to QSD, for a short time. I want to see if it looses our friend.” Phoenix stated. “30 seconds to a minute?”
“into or away from the neutral zone?” she asked as she added the QSD controls to the helm panel, with one hand, and resting the other on the attitude control?
“Away, lets not piss the Romulans off.” Phoenix said softly as she took a seat.
“Aye Aye,” a flick of the fingers and a twist of the wrist and Elysium’s nose dropped, peeling down like a dive to change direction and then everything was bathed in turquoise as the Slipstream built around them. And endless scroll of ever changing numbers moved across the helm, showing how well they were holding in the stream, and she made small touches to stay in line as it stabilised. “Exiting slip stream in 45 seconds. Drop to real space, or to warp?”
“Real space.” Phoenix stated.
==Commodore’s Quarters==
As Mattias continued to feed and rock Elizabeth, he saw, via a viewscreen showing the outside of the hull, the stars change from stretched, to looking like the ship was taking a nosedive, to slipstream, and back to pinpricks of light, signaling they had dropped to impulse power. Normally, he wouldn’t think too much about it, as the Elysium could transit from a standstill, to warp, to slipstream, and back again effortlessly.
What did cause him to notice this time, was how Phee had been pulled away from their bed. While the red alert klaxons weren’t ringing yet, he nonetheless started to have a bad feeling.
Looking down, he saw that Elizabeth had finally fell asleep. To be safe, he decided to place her in the same crib as her brother. He knew, in an emergency, the crib was designed to act as a self powered emergency pod, sealing them in and holding them in place with micro-force fields.
Standing up, he moved to the crib and started to lay her inside.
==Bridge==
Mere moments after the Elysium dropped out of QSD and back into real space, everything went wrong.
The unexplained readings suddenly showed up all around the Elysium. The large vessel shook tossing crew to the deck or into consoles and walls. The Elysium was flung into an uncontrolled spin, and power went out across all decks even as the Red Alert siren began to wail.
Samaire, barely holding on at Operations, began calling out as her console lit up like a Christmas tree. “We have multiple hull breaches, decks 4,5, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16,19, 20, and more. Force fields are in place but, damage is extensive!”
Braced against the helm, Miraj kept her fingers on the pitch controls, fighting to correct the spin, feeling the inertia wrench at the bulk of the massive ship as she tried to bring them back under control. But there wasn’t enough power in the thrusters to counter act the spin. The laws of physics were not on her side, and she could go where physics was more co-operative. She threw Elysium back into Warp.
“Commodore, the Warp core is Failing, We have a Polarity shift in the intermix matrix! We’re in the Red!” Chief Sandtail Snapped, his expressive ears folding back with anxiety as he worked his hands over the console. “Core is Near breach!”
“We have to hold warp!” Miraj shot back. “We won’t right before we come apart or spin into the nearest sun” She finally got the pitch under control, but the power from the strained warp core was still fighting the roll and yaw.
Leilani was trying to hold onto her console, “Commodore readings are showing what appears to be a quantum filament!” She held on tightly trying not to be thrown. “but these readings are all off! It doesn’t match any known phenomenon!!”
Phoenix had just managed to grab her chair arm. She had been thru this before she reminded herself.
“We have … oh crap!” Samire called out. “All hands brace for impact!”
Then everything went blank.
Gary had been standing next to his chair as the Elysium dropped out of warp and things went to hell in a hand basket. Power failed, he heard Samaire call out the damage to the ship then he tried to grab Phoenix steady her as the Elysium spun and shook like a drunken whale, but she was out of his reach. Alarms blared and through the din., he heard Samaire’s voice as if far away say brace for impact and then he heard nothing as he had hold of nothing he was flung across the bridge and into a console that sparked and fritzed. He landed heavily, his eyes seeing the chaos on the bridge and then nothing.
Malakai managed to grab to get a hand onto the railing and he wrapped his arms around it and hung on for all he was worth as people were tossed like rag dolls across the bridge. He saw Phoenix had, had a hold of her command chair but Captain Taylor hadn’t been so lucky and had been flung across the bridge where he collided with a bridge console.
Leilani held on but moments later she lost her grip, the sheer force made her head collide with her station before it threw her to the deck unconscious.
At the security console Fernando had precious little time to brace himself for the violent twisting and shaking the Elysium was subjected to. His thoughts weren’t on his safety but the safety and wellbeing of Heather and Cody. Those were the last thoughts he had as he wa slammed backwards in a console and then flung forward where he landed on the deck unconscious.
When everything went balls up, Jason had been standing next to the flight station after being muscled aside by Miraj. So, he had nothing to grab onto when the Elysium started its wild ride. He was tossed about the bridge like a rag doll, trying desperately to grab hold of anything to stop his manic journey. It finally came to an end when he crashed in an ironically into the flight station, breaking his nose and knocking him out.
Miraj saw the markers of the quantum filament rushing up at them as Samaire cried out, and the world narrowed. They were almost surrounded, it was all tangled up in their wake as they span, and pressing closer. There was just a tiny gap left to squeeze through, but it was closing rapidly. The warp was at the end of its tether. They were still spinning, the angles would be all wrong, unless..
Unless she could do the next best thing to teleportation. There was only a split second left before the filament cut the whole ship in half. The filament lashed toward them. She didn’t think, didn’t close off the warp drive, just slammed on the QSD. The tunnel formed around the warp bubble as the filament writhed across its path. The slipstream flashed a panicked orange instead of its usual turquoise. The conn blared red, impossible readings screaming out.
Elysium was thrown into the unknown.
OOC : QUANTUM FILAMENT:
A quantum filament is an astrophysical phenomenon which could be very hazardous to space vehicles. Quantum filaments can be hundreds of light years long, but have almost no mass, making them extremely difficult to detect.