ON: Bridge

Evan listened carefully, focusing to hear Cmdr. Mez’s words through the static. The signal was poor – either due to the interference that had rendered the Hiroshima’s transporters ineffectual or the residual energy field now increasingly blanketing the area thanks to the intense weapons fire from the unidentified drones. He could almost hear the shots crackling over the channel.

“We’re working on a way to beam you and the others out, Commander,” he said. Drones, he thought. What an ignominious way to go out. “How far is it to safety?”

But all he got in response was a few badly distorted words.

“Say again, Commander,” he said. This time, he couldn’t even make out the words.

The situation was intolerable. Telling the Tactical officer to keep the channel open and try to clear it up, Evan made his way to the rear of the bridge to where Lt. Xarbe was still working at the Ops console. “How’re we looking, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“The anionic beam is prepared. I estimate it will take about three minutes to saturate a column area through the atmosphere.” Xarbe looked up. “Which is fairly fast considering the volume we need to flood and the fact that as we continue, the particles first anionized will already be ionizing again, so, something like trying to flood a tub while the drain plug is out, Sir.”

It was fast, but it was still far from immediate. It occurred to Evan that a volley of modified torpedoes detonated at various strata in the atmosphere could augment the beam, but the situation on the surface was fraught enough without sudden explosions overhead.

“We’ll divert power to the main deflector if necessary,” he said. Strictly speaking, the Hiroshima had one of the most advanced deflector arrays in Starfleet, but in sheer power, flexibility and non-navigational functionality, it was only marginally better than a Luna. So far, at least. Some innovative engineer somewhere would undoubtedly figure out how to get more out of its technology at some point. “Charge the deflector and initiate the beam when you’re ready, Lieutenant.”

“Aye, Captain.” Xarbe drew up the settings he had prepared for the anion beam and put the array fully on the priority task, switching off all background assignments from the computer and closing out all other secondary access so as to not interfere. He called up the progress setting as he drew some directional information from the tactical station concerning the exact location of the team they hoped to beam out. It was best to be as tight as possible with the coordinates. As it was the ship and the planet would both be in motion and for the best concentration of the beam the computer would have to counter the orbital motion to keep the beam tracking through the same piece of sky. It was hardly difficult as calculations went. It would just be a painfully rookie mistake not to have it accounted for.

“The deflector is charged, Sir. Initiating.” There was a new display Xarbe shared on the viewer in sidebar with a progress reading and a modeled column of charged atmosphere readings, comparing the model to the actuality. There were some dynamics introduced by the air that the computer had generalized in the model, but nothing that hadn’t been anticipated in the buffer of the estimation. Three minutes passed fairly quickly, as the false colors started to show a complete signal clearance from orbit to ground. “It’s open, Captain. Deterioration back to ionic state has already started. I will maintain the beam as long as the power required doesn’t start fusing the deflector.”

<Main Engineering>

LTJG Stephanie Davies-Muir wouldn’t quite admit to being bored, yet was far closer to that than anything else at the moment. Atoms were still being crushed into bigger atoms, releasing energy for ship systems and propulsion, at a mere fraction of capacity. It was, she knew, how the business went: everything was silky smooth, until, and usually without preamble, it suddenly wasn’t. Such as now, she mused.

A cacophonic cascade of alerts and alarms rolled across the Power Systems Control panel, demanding her immediate attention. “High energy pulse,” she concluded, as a significant power spike had just traveled, through conduits and junctions, to the active elements of the ship’s highly modified deflector array.

“Indeed,” Ensign P’Lor, her current watch officer, intoned. “Nature of which is unknown at the moment.” Yet not for long. She was quick, competent, and logical in her fact-finding.

“Active deflector transmission,” Ensign Wilks clarified, as he had a knack for injecting himself into just about anything that occurred anywhere within earshot.

The deflector array, by nature of its required capabilities to protect the ship from hazards on the bow, had a wide range of uses, and was seemingly only limited by the creativity of its operators. However, the rather extensive set of modifications made to it by the installation of Quantum Slipstream capabilities took away some of the deflector’s additional utility. Enough so that Stephanie’s interest was piqued.

“Clearly,” P’Lor replied, not at all surprised by Wilks’ outburst. She left it at that for the moment, as she was busy tracing the genesis and nature of the burst. “Originating in the replicator system.”

“Particle emission,” Stephanie concluded. It might, or might not, then, have implications for Engineering, she surmised. She wasn’t wrong in that, as the Bridge was far too aggressive with its loading of the array, forcing the power converters into overdrive: something they could not handle for long. “Watch the thermals!”

“Indeed,” P’Lor replied. However, her advanced intellect did not equate to fast decision-making. Her brain recognized the need to manually dump the energy stream to the navigation deflector, isolating the dish from whatever they were attempting on the Bridge, her hands were slow to respond.

“Noo,” Stephanie exclaimed, leaping toward the main power disconnect. She had to protect the Bridge from itself, it seemed…

<Bridge>

“Good work, Lieutenant,” Evan replied, and turned to the Tactical officer. “Let the away team know we’re getting ready to beam them out.”

The words had barely left his mouth when a warning sounded from behind him. Turning back, he saw a flashing red system alert. “What’s wrong?”

“The ionization output required to maintain the open tunnel is overwhelming the capacity load. There’s a safety warning on the power supply overheat to the deflector. It’s just a lot of atmospheric particle bombardment. Too much to maintain this volume at this level. We have the power required, but the deflector capacitors themselves can’t maintain the plasma cycle rate required for much longer.” Lt. Xarbe was shaking his head as he tried to compensate by managing several relays in the grid, individually. But the heat sinks were already saturating and there was nothing he could do with the power system itself. Besides, the array it self would blow if he continued to override. “We can’t bleed the overheat fast enough.” The alert tone was beeping incessantly now in protest.

Evan watched as the system went from dangerous to critical levels. Apparently, they’d encountered one of the new deflector array’s limitations. He didn’t want to sacrifice the progress they’d made, though, not when they were this close to rescuing the away team. “Align the secondary deflector and reroute part of the anionic beam through it,” he said. If they couldn’t stop the rapid build-up of heat in the main array, they could at least take some of the strain off it.

“Aye Captain,” Xarbe agreed, flicking the holographic display to his left online and coming up with the secondary unit. It was already on line, and he brought it into alignment with the primary, then shunted part of the process load to secondaries. “Secondary deflector is online and initiated.” The beeping did not decline in urgency, however. Several relays shut down on auto safety, but there was a quick snap in the lighting as it flashed on and off when one of the relay auto shut downs didn’t complete before the circuit blew, somewhere below decks. Xarbe bit his bottom lip. That wasn’t good. The anionic readouts were showing loss of progress as the atmospheric ionization started to overcome all the particle bombardment the Hiroshima had managed up until that point, the effort erasing itself in the false color image.

“Sorry, Captain.” Xarbe apologized.

“We’re not done yet.” Maybe they could bring the QSD’s heat sinks into play. They were rated to a much, much higher level than the deflector array’s. But how to—

That train of thought evaporated as the Tactical officer announced, “Captain, casualties are being reported on deck 22.”

The main deflector assembly. Damn it. “How serious?”

“No fatalities, but several crew members have been injured.”

“Alert Sickbay and tell them to prepare for incoming casualties,” Evan said. So much for suppressing the interference, he thought.

JP by:

LTJG Stephanie Davies-Muir (NPCed by Hanmore)

 

Lt. Xarbe (NPCed by Elin)

Captain Evan Yearling

Commanding Officer

USS Hiroshima-B