Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1

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Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

September 28, 2023, 03:22:43 PM

[ Lt. Cmdr Cross | Battle Bridge | V. 2 | Deck 8 | The Ranger ] @rae @Pierce @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz

“Stand by to disengage the Ranger,” Cross imagined he heard the collective breath held by those on the battle bridge, the reality of their mission weighing heavily not only on those in this room but aboard all decks about to be separated from vector one of Theurgy.

Farewells had been tended to in the hours leading up to this moment, some more tearful than others, he supposed, but the overall feeling from the crew aboard the Ranger was that of gritty determination. While only a few key members aboard knew the temporal details of what they were facing, everyone at least understood they were conducting an extraction mission of great importance. Cross hated temporal mechanics with every iota of his being and pitied Lieutenant Morali for his constant dalliance with the concept. Dealing with the Infested and the Scions and even wily Romulans was annoying enough without adding in the temporal complications and to say that added layer was merely annoying as fuck was an understatement.

Watching the chronometer on the armrest of his chair, Cross counted down, “Disengage in five, four, three, two, one. Initiate.”

As the various departments connected to overseeing the disengagement procedures followed through with procedures and protocol, Cross turned his attention to the data padd cradled in his prosthetic hand. It would take some time before all stations signaled the all-clear to move away from the Helmet and engage warp drive. If everything went according to plan, they would be crossing into the Neutral Zone at maximum warp by 1400 hrs, right when the Erudite was slated to depart with both the Apache and Allegient in its docking bay. Brows furrowing, lips turned downward in a pensive frown, Cross knew better than to give out the audible sigh he was tempted to heave in that moment. There was so much going on it was inevitable someone somewhere was going to fuck up.

“All departments signal clear to use impulse,” Helm reported, pulling Cross from his “everything is going to go to shit” thoughts.

“Very well, engage impulse, move us away from the Helmet.”

Cross studied the Helmet as they moved away, marginally amused at how it looked, sitting like an oddly shaped space hat minus a head to perch on. Stark would do right by the crew aboard the smaller vector. Thoughts straying to those within the Erudite, the massive Savi ship sitting adjacent to the Helmet, Cross shifted in his chair. There was no other way but through from here, regardless of the path taken.

Notes: As rae is the GM of this chapter she will go first. This is an opening chapter to get things going, so everyone involved in the Ch 2 Ranger mission should post at least once to establish their character onboard and in motion. Now that this chapter is in motion, you may refer to the calendar here (https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Cosmic_Imperative_Calendar) and remember to make threads like this Ch # S [ Day # | Time ] Title for supplemental threads.

The official NPC’s slated for this mission who need assistance getting onboard are: Jonathan Byrne, Evelyn Rawley, Andram Obair, Talera Emlott, Sarah Bjorge, and Liam Herrold. I’d suggest you take a gander at the other NPC’s that can be deemed useful for cannon fodder once things go south on the facility here: https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Non-Player_Characters. And for the record, all NPC’s are open for maiming and/or killing as long as it fits the story objectives and the narrative, and you ask nicely (TL;DR: ask the GM before you maim/kill a Theurgy-based NPC). If you have questions regarding this, please let any of the GM’s know. GM’s indicated earlier that if you are maneuvering an NPC, try to stick to NPC’s in your own department.

Also, for funsies, there is a list of serious and silly in-game “side quest” prompts that you can opt-in for to add to the fun and mayhem of the game. These prompts are considered “private,” so once you have your prompt, only you and the GM will know, and it’ll be your task to work it into the story to earn the credit. Successfully working four or more private prompts into the game during the chapter will earn 1 token.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #1 – October 27, 2023, 01:54:28 PM

[ Ensign Liam Herrold | Maintenance Bay 1 | Deck 16 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy] @rae @Pierce @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus

Eyes darting from the padd in his hand and the actual supplies lining the shelves, his jaw moving instinctively over the stick of gum he’d shoved in just before heading here, Liam let the tension in his shoulders release once it was reported that the Ranger finished disengaging. He hated leaving the Helmet behind, though he knew they were likely about to get more dents knocking into their hull than those left with the Klingons and awaiting the Romulans. Just because a ship could split into different sections didn’t mean it meant great tidings for all when it did, and this seemed one such occasion. They were on the cusp of something that could go either great or terrible, and even then, Liam didn’t know all the details regarding this mission and doubted he’d ever be told.

Blowing a tight bubble with the gum, Liam continued the to-do list he’d given himself for today. Even with their mission's super secret nature, routine work was still to be done. There was a certain comfort to be had in that.

[ Lt. Jonathan Byrne| Temporary Central Intelligence Suite: Conference Lounge | Deck 11 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy ]

His mind was abuzz with all the potentials they would soon face. The Ranger now separated from the Helmet and moving toward the RNZ border, Jonathan couldn’t help but wonder which among their numbers were the lucky ones. Staying with the Helmet, undoubtedly, there would be sabotage and intrigue – and if there wasn’t, then he would be almost disappointed in both the Klingons and the Romulans. Being with the Ranger meant they would cross into “no man’s land” during the middle of a Romulan Civil War, while the accusations against the Theurgy as a culprit in the attacks on Paris were still ringing in the ears of their allies, to conduct an extraction mission from an operative embedded in the Romulan ranks. It seemed to Jonathan that both scenarios offered their own brand of inevitable pain and destruction, making it more of a matter of who could come out with more successes than their counterpart.

Of course, explicit details regarding their mission were not told to them, but that was nothing new to the Intelligence operative. This would not be the first time he’d had to operate on a need-to-know-basis, and Jonathan doubted it would be his last – unless, of course, he died during this upcoming mission, in which case, it would be. Chuckling at his own morbid pragmatic outlook, Jonathan saluted the last he could see of the Helmet from the lounge observation windows.

[ Lt. Talera Emlott & Ensign Sarah Bjorge | Medical Supply Storage Room 1 | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | USS Theurgy ]

“Ensign,” Talera resisted the urge to press her fingers against her temples as she regarded the shorter, plumper blonde ensign hovering in the supply room doorway, “why don’t you give me the supply list for this room and you go and check on supply room two?” Ensign Bjorge handed the list over with pink cheeks. “And please don’t rearrange the supplies this time. They are arranged by serial number, not alphabetically.”

“Yes, Lieutenant Emlott.” The human scurried off to do Talera’s bidding, leaving the hybrid to clean up the mess the woman had made of this closet.

It should’ve been a routine check, but Bjorge had taken the initiative to organize things alphabetically. Talera knew this was standard practice on some ships and did not fault the woman for trying to follow the practices of her previous assignments. But, on Theurgy, so long as Talera was called upon to keep an eye on these things, they would be organized by serial numbers. She’d learned the technique sometime before and found it quite helpful, especially when working with Androids or AI. More often than not, they would list something by its serial number instead of its precise location in the closet, and Talera found this organizational practice more suitable for working with a diverse team.

Sarah sighed when she made her way to the second supply closet, another padd with all the materials that were supposed to be there in hand. She realized now that it would’ve been much better to have checked with the lieutenant before changing things around. However, the lieutenant had checked into duty looking a bit tired and rubbed at her temples more than once as if she were fighting off a headache. Sarah had thought maybe by doing something like this, having initiative instead of leaning too heavily on top-down instructions, would improve Talera’s day. How so very wrong she’d been.

Both women resumed their work, doing their best to stay focused on the tasks at hand and not wandering into the dangerous territories of all the things that could and likely would go wrong in the next few hours.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #2 – November 05, 2023, 10:48:49 PM

[Lieutenant (J.G. Foval| Enlisted quarters | Deck 19 |Vector 3 | USS Theurgy]
Attn: @rae @Pierce @Ellen Fitz @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus

Foval tried to focus on the holographic flame being projected on the table in the guest quarters that he had been allocated for this trip. The thing about diplomacy was that classified missions happen but the diplomats have some idea about what is happening. Foval wasn't entirely sure what was on the cards, just that he was assigned to the ranger for a classified mission.    Given that he didn't know why he was assigned to the mission there were two possibilities.

The first possibility was that diplomacy was intended as a last resort. Foval knew that given the advanced tech of Theurgy it would be bad if they were going into a fight they couldn't win.

The second possibility was that the mission somehow required Foval specially.    He gazed down at his arm. The cybernetic replacement to his arm was the key clue to that possibility - they need a Borg.    The possibility didn't fill him with much anticipation either way.

He decided to get some firm answers.    He got up from the table, deactivating the holographic flame. The scant mission profile showed that the conference lounge was re-purposed as a temporary central intelligence suite.   It seemed like a good place to start to Foval.

He made his way to the suite, there was nothing on the door indicator to say there was a meeting in progress in fact, the dooe hissed open and there was a not unattractive full Lieutenant male in Command red.

Instinctively he clapsed both of his arms behind his back to hide his Borg one.

"I am Lieutenant Foval, from the diplomatic team."

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #3 – November 07, 2023, 08:21:51 PM

[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory | Deck 09| Vector 02| USS Theurgy ] Attn:
[Show/Hide]

Unlike most of the members of the secondary and tertiary vectors of the USS Theurgy, collectively referred to as the Ranger, Sarresh Morali was well aware of the specifics of their mission behind enemy lines. The importance of the agent to be extracted. The danger to the time-stream if they were to fail. They had failed before. A cycle had been reignited. Things had changed. They had their successes too. Sarresh wasn't about to take that away from anyone either. But what was undeniable was that things had changed.

For hours now, he had been fighting a headache. Seeing faces imposed over other faces as he walked the decks of the massive ship, his mind sorting out what had happened. What was supposed to happen. What would, or might, or could, happen. And what had, or might have, maybe, changed between when he went to sleep the night before, and this present moment, standing in self-imposed isolation within the confines of the Temporal observatory. He pinched the bridge his nose, turning away from the mapping flow that floated above the central display desk, and to a substation nestled against the bulkhead. He looked a the personnel file on display.

Not that there was much to see, he thought. A name. A general estimate of age. A less than crystal clear image of a man that had - not yet - taken actions that would stabilize and protect the timeline. Shield centuries of history from interference. Something he hadn't yet done. Something that the chaotic agents determined to unravel reality itself had determined to prevent him from doing. Someone that - if Sarresh, and by extension, the crew of the Ranger failed today - would be snuffed out before the ship that man was currently on would reach the RNZ.

Almost everyone aboard thought they were setting out to stop a ship carrying a deadly weapon. That wasn't untrue. But it wasn't the whole truth either. The former Ash'reem scratched at his chin, pondering the man that they were going to try to keep alive. Preventing his premature death while also keeping the ship he was on from reaching the RNZ and unleashing the Thalron weapon on those gathered there. Neither option was permissible. That left a narrow window to act within. There was also the question of what to do with the target, once things were done. They had a chance...a narrow, slim chance, to change the course of history for the better. Not just prevent further interference from the infested and their twisted machinations, but push some time tables up. Pull into the past a weapon, a defense, from the near future. Snap something into place to hamper their opponent, gain some room to breathe.

"Presuming we don't kill ourselves in the process before we can do that." He told himself he needed to be optimistic about this, but it was hard. Damned hard. He'd prevented mass assimilation by the Borg, while also keeping the Infested from taking over the Collective. But so many other things had gone wrong. Would they go wrong here?

"Can we save you, Revad? Or will your loss doom us all?"

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #4 – November 20, 2023, 06:05:06 AM

[Ens. Joseph Adams | Transporter Room 3 | Deck 12 | Vector 02 USS Theurgy | Attn: @rae @Pierce @Ellen Fitz @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @Number6 @chXinya @Brutus

The Ranger. His personal favourite configuration of any of the three decks. Aside from the full starship itself, of course. It reminded him of the old Constellation class starships, with their four nacelled design, and of course the Odyssey class that Theurgy so closely resembled. Like some illegitimate child of the two.

A pause. He was supposed to be on duty! He knew the ship was undergoing an operation and, judging by the whispers he'd heard from the few people he knew, it was set to be the biggest that the ship had been involved in since he'd woken up from cryosleep. He couldn't afford to screw up! Even if he was only on standby for the time being. He shouldn't allow his mind to wander in such a way. Although, that being said, he'd been in this small room for three hours. And nothing had happened yet, he felt like he wouldn't even be sure that the Helmet had undocked yet, were it not for the shipwide announcement beforehand. The room was strangely isolated. Quiet even.

"Calm before the storm.."

He mumbled to himself, bringing his head up from the console and sweeping his gaze around the room thoughtfully. Taking in the walls equipped with instruments and devices, the neat carpeted floor, even the lights built into the ceiling.

Wandering up to the transporter pads and then back to the control station for what seemed like the hundredth time, he repeatedly curled and splayed his hand. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.... He didn't even have a window to look out of to pass the time!

Joe thought for a moment, beginning to wonder if there was anyone posted in the other transporter rooms, more specifically anyone he knew. On the Gallagher, there'd been something of a rivalry between the several transporter rooms aboard. Joe began wondering if such a rivalry would form between himself and whoever manned the other 4 transporters aboard Theurgy too.

"Ah, it's not that kind of ship..."

He decided, mumbling to himself thoughtfully as he returned to his console and traced a hand around its edges. A notification of a completed calibration of the pattern buffers demanding his attention. He'd ran that calibration seven or so times, just to pass the time. Flitting from console to console within the small room, making sure with absolute certainty that everything was working normally. Pattern buffers, Biofilters, Molecular Imaging and targeting scanners. Hell, he'd even opened up a panel and examined the Phase Transition Coils to kill 20 minutes or so.

"They could have at least given me a chair.."

He added as he sauntered to the wall console, glancing at the empty spot in front of the standing console where, in his eyes, a chair would be perfect. He didn't particularly need to sit down, of course. He was used to standing around for hours, but still, he would have liked the option to sit.

A second pause now. He was getting restless, he needed to be busy! And as he stared down at the console, he thought for a moment. One more calibration couldn't hurt, right?

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #5 – November 27, 2023, 11:31:32 PM

[ Lt. JG Tessa May Lance & Ensign Lauren Pierce | Battle Bridge | V. 2 | Deck 8 | The Ranger ] Attn: @rae @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz [Show/Hide]

Lauren enjoyed her job. Now more than ever. With the revelation that she'd survived multiple threats to her life in recent weeks, and the fact she had an ancestor aboard, she now sat back in her chair at the CONN. Having the opportunity now to take a little edge off since separating the vector, The Ranger, from the other sections of the ship. She had to admit, she kinda liked the atmosphere to the battle bridge not having been on one in the past, it gave her a sense of excitement. One that she knew might come into play later on if and when they came into opposition. Thankfully, Tessa too was onboard but likely sitting in her quarters aboard this very vector or in the Tac CONN area prepping her ship. Pierce couldn't be sure.

Looking at the viewscreen, she saw the stars blurring as they had since moved from the Helmet and were on their journey to the RNZ. Some place likely to be a frenzy between the Romulans Civil War and the Klingons, and well...everything going on. Last thing they'd want to see is Starfleet and most of all the Theurgy. But it took everything in her to not bounce in her chair as she held in the giddy feeling rising in her as she knew sooner than later, she was going to be playing her song on the helm.

Turning around she nodded at Cross who was with her on her last flight mission on Praxis. Only, this time her vessel was massive by comparison and the maneuvers would be highly difficult to pull off, nigh impossible. Deep down, she knew she had it in her to bring the crew home. Despite being a lowly Ensign, she was a pilot through and through, and this was her specialty. Besides, it wasn't the first time she'd driven a large ship. The Enterprise-E might have faired better had she been at the helm during the battle of the Bassen Rift.... Lost in her thoughts of what must have transpired she refocused on the flight currently underway. "I wonder what Tessa's up to...," she thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Tessa a few decks down was prepping her vessel for the battles she'd no doubt be in. The tricky daredevil of a pilot was itching for a fight having been on leave for a bit since her last escapade and since the crash, and well...it'd been a while aside from holodeck time. Glancing at the PADD, she looked at the armaments that Scruffy had finished in the interim, after the time they spent together in her cockpit. She grinned at the thought before looking back at the spec sheet.

Everything looked good and raring to go. The only lingering thought was the one that she knew came every outing. Who wasn't going to be returning to the ship? Last time it was almost her and they lost others during it all. But undoubtedly, they always lost Wolves during them and this would be no different. Part of her wondered if she would outlast the reaper or if her song would be played. The other part knew, she wouldn't go out this time. But time was uncertain for them all. Now all she could do was wait for the call.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #6 – December 09, 2023, 11:48:41 PM

[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | FAB | Deck 16 | Vector 2 | The Ranger] Attn: @rae @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Pierce
[Show/Hide]

Nerves aside, Talia figured she was doing fairly well so far. Sure, her stomach churned, but she’d managed to avoid throwing up; her legs and knees twitched involuntarily when idle, a byproduct of the chemicals pumped through her body by a racing heart. Shadow countered it by staying in motion. Encased in her exosuit, the pilot prowled around her ship, manually and visually re-checking the ship’s weapon hard-points, when a voice called out to her.

“Oi, leave off or ye gunnae tug tha’ bastard right off!”

“Sounds familiar,” Talia laughed, knowing the voice and who it belonged to. Smirking as she looked over her shoulder at Ghost, Shadow yanked on the torpedo anyway; it didn’t move at all, just like the previous three times she’d checked. With a smirk of her own, and in her typical nonchalant way, Rawley rolled her eyes as her arms folded over the chest of her exosuit as Talia joined her by the nose of the ship.

“Ach, ye look mighty fine in tha’ suit,” the fellow wolf commented with a chuckle as Rawley tilted her shaven head. “Ye ready,” her face and eyes hardened then, into a look Talia hadn’t seen before.

She serious? Talia blinked. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she shot back defensively.

“Cut tha’ shite, Shadow,” Rawley laughed, “jus’ answer th’fuckin question.”

Talia took a breath, refusing to show how nervous she felt. Everything had led up to this; it all felt rushed – months of training condensed into a blur of simulations over the past three weeks. Could she fly the ship? Certainly – Shadow had no doubt of that. Could she fly – and keep up – with all the veteran pilots around her? That was the real question.

Despite the nerves, Talia smirked again, leaning in to answer quietly. “Tell you what ace, you worry about keeping that dusty old man on target. I’ll worry about staying out of your way and making sure that one,” her head jerked to the side towards Tessa’s ship, “doesn’t do anything too crazy. We get back, you can tell me how ready I am while I drink all your whiskey. Deal?”

Rawley blinked, then looked Talia over with a grin as she backed away. “Thought ye dinnae wanna drink with me again,” the veteran Wolf smirked, then winked. “Good hunting, princess.”

“Fuck off,” Talia chuckled as she shook her head, watching as Rawley sauntered across the deck to her own ship. “Good hunting, ace.”

[LT Arven Leux | Main Sickbay | Deck 11 | Vector 2 | The Ranger]
[Show/Hide]

Well, that could have been handled better, Arven thought to himself as he limped through the reception area, bound for the storage compartment all the way at the other end of the bay. The entire Ryn situation, as he had come to call it, had turned into a debacle almost from the start; his trousers were torn at the knees, his uniform stained with who-the-hell-knew-what from the merry little escapade through the bowels of the ship. The looks he was getting from the staff indicated shock and amusement as he trudged along, glancing at the padd in his hand. It still ticked with a constant stream of refreshing data. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to explain everything in his report, honestly.

One thing at a time, Arven sighed. Get cleaned up, get back to work. They were headed for trouble, and sickbay needed to be ready. He’d keep an eye on a certain redhead engineer as often as he could in the meantime.

“Okay, folks, talk to me. How are we set,” Arven called out as he walked, knowing this calm before the storm wouldn’t last much longer.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #7 – December 13, 2023, 06:38:05 AM

[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]

@rae @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Pierce

Frank could have been mistaken for a statue as he stood over the Master Situation Table near the pulsing heart of the ship. He subconsciously recognized the sound of the pulsing warp core as the magnetic confinement beams pulsed matter and aniti-matter together into the intermix chamber where the streams were attenuated by the dilithium crystal and annihilated to power the warp nacelles amongst other systems. His eyes were glued to the table as system reports and updates flooded in. He didn't really look at anything in particular as he absorbed the status board. It showed green across all systems. A flicking light caught his attention and after a quick check on the area, he dismissed it as something one of his subordinates would take care of. The only are that really marred the display was the areas covering the separated 'Helmet', which were a solid sapphire blue. He still grimaced at it and hoped that Lieutenant Kala wouldn't have any issues looking after that section on her own. It would have been nice to have Lieutenant Ryn look after the section that contained the main bridge and the rest of the senior staff. His lips pulled into a slight grin as his eyes crinkled slightly at that thought. If he'd actually tried that, the somewhat sporadic Trill would find herself Chief Engineer after she murdered Arnold for trying to take away her baby.

Another quick check of the power systems showed a steady flow to the deflector and drive systems. Still good to go. Taking a moment to stretch, he made his muscles do double duty as he looked left. An ensign and a petty officer were talking with another Lieutenant JG that he recognized as Systems Engineers over a PADD while pointing at a portion of the ship schematic. It was an area near the industrial replicator near the FAB. Well, whatever it was, they'd ask for his input if they needed it. Another crew member entered the bio-neural gel pack storage area with a carrying case. Maybe it was feeding time the Chief mused.

Looking the other way , his eyes settled on his red headed Trill deputy as she monitored the readouts to the Slipstream drive and its associated systems. There was an air of tension from that area as the Savi with her seemed annoyed by something or other. It also seemed strange to see a phaser strapped to the Trill's hip, but since they were potentially going into battle with the Romulans, everyone was armed. The Chief tugged at his belt and was conscious of the weight from the lethal alloy and circuitry strapped to his hip. Looking back, he saw a pair of security guards with rifles standing at the main entrance to Engineering. Looking the other way again, he spotted several more roaming pairs around the warp core. At least they hadn't activated the forcefield around core yet, not until the ship went to red alert. At that point, everyone knew, they'd really be in for it.

Nothing much going on, which was a good sign. That was until the navigation readout flickered, then went back to green. Frank stared at that section of the master display. Entering several commands, he began running a level 1 diagnostic on it. Another flicker came on at one of the nacelles. The rest easily took the load, so there wasn't an issue, but since it was part of the system creating the slipsstream, he began another diagnostic there as well. As much as the Engineering team had built in safeguards and limiters against stressing the various systems, Slipstream technology was still new and not to well understood. The examples brought back from Voyager's travels through the Delta Quadrant weren't completely compatible and it showed as the computer struggled to keep the power requirements steady while the relatively primitive warp technology struggled to keep the quantum slipstream stable.

His concerns became worries as an enlisted crew man at propulsion turned to Azrin. "Lieutenant, I'm reading fractures in the crystal matrix. It looks like we have radiation back wash into the crystal structure and its eating away at the molecular bonds."

Another voice chimed in. This time it was Chief Lucas. "Power flow is starting to become unstable. It's not spiking, but it's going off the straight line into both the positive and negative range." That was not exactly bad, but it bore watching.

Frank made his way over to the power monitoring station. "Lucas, adjust the scale to microcochranes and compress for the last 10 minutes." The enlisted man complied as Frank's eyes swept the change to seen if he could figure out the pattern. The waves spread out and became larger with the change in scale. He frowned as the information played over and over.

"Give me the Alpha, Beta, and Delta projections on power generation." Another series of beeps followed and lines flowed out from the data, but it was the cliff and waterfall at the end that got him as he turned around and headed to the Master Control Panel. "Bridge, this is Engineering. The benemite crystal is becoming unstable and it's starting to feed back into the power systems. We're going to need to shut down warp in the next 5 minutes. The radiation from the crystals are bleeding back into the EPS and are threatening the warp core."

Frank looked around Engineering and began barking orders. "Bring up the warp core forcefield now and polarize the EPS conduits. Standby to cycle down power output as soon as Azrin says we reach the safe threshold." He hated to do the next part, but he didn't have a choice as his finger hit the ship wide broadcast without hesitation and hail pipes sounded across the ship. "All hands, this is Engineering. We're going to begin emergency de warp." It wasn't really called that, but it was easier to understand. "Standby for turbulence." Chief Arnold cut the circuit and and began coordinating efforts to stabilize the power system, trying to buy as much time for Azrin to keep the slipstream system from catastrophically affecting the rest of the ship.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #8 – December 18, 2023, 01:07:44 PM

[ Lt. Jonathan Byrne | Temporary Central Intelligence Suite: Conference Lounge | Deck 11 | Vector 03, USS Theurgy ] ATTN: @rae @Pierce @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus

Bryne looked up as the Vulcan diplomat appeared. "I am Lieutenant Foval, from the diplomatic team."

Jonathan raised a single eyebrow in an almost mocking mimic of the common movement among Vulcanoids. Did the diplomat assume a member of the Intelligence team didn't already know who he was and where he was assigned? Still, for proprieties sake, he kept this thought to himself before glancing around. The other members of Intelligence were scattered to the various corners, this not exactly serving as the most private of workspaces for some of their more "nefarious" but necessary efforts. This left him to act as the official liaison for anyone in the crew who wanted some answers, be they bull-shitted or truthful, from a department member.

"Byrne, Lieutenant. What misgivings or questions seem to have brought you to my temporary door?"

[ Lt. Cmdr Cross | Battle Bridge | V. 2 | Deck 8 | The Ranger ]

Cross glared at the console next to his prosthetic hand. Not that it was Arnold's fault the benemite crystals were giving a fuck all demonstration of their tendency to destabilize, but there was some small satisfaction to be had to allow the dark glower on his feature, if only for a moment. The damned crystals couldn't have picked a better time either. The helm had just announced their approach to the RNZ when the crystals decided to act like young Betazoid cadets on shore leave at Risa by doing fuck all they were supposed to do. Now they were likely going to slide over the RNZ with all the epic awe-inspiring pizzazz of a fart in an EV suit.

"Comms," Cross remembered to wipe the scowl from his face even if he left the air of annoyance in his voice, "alert all stations that our approach to the RNZ is imminent and to remain at alert status until further notice." He swallowed the curse he so wanted to air out before adding, "And send any floaters we've got on board down to Engineering, see if they can help those damn crystals calm the fuck down."

"Sir?"

"Just send anyone who isn't presently occupied to Engineering for Arnold to shuttle around as he sees fit."

"Yessir." If the Ensign found his formerly gruff and unprofessional order amusing, she wisely kept it to herself before relaying the information shipwide and beginning the funneling process of help down to engineering.

Things were going swimmingly already and Cross had a feeling fuckery was just getting warmed up.

Reminder that the story prompts are open for the chapter so get some folks together and go forth!

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #9 – December 20, 2023, 02:36:34 AM

[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory | Deck 09| Vector 02| USS Theurgy ] Attn: @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz @rae @Pierce @Number6 @Dumedion @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya
[Show/Hide]

Leaning back in his chair, Sarresh sat with an arm thrown over his eyes, head tilted back. A frown marred his features as he felt a tremble run up his body. For a moment, he thought the feeling was something ethereal making itself manifest. A perception of the shifting in the time line. Had another person changed just then (and yet always had been the way that they were?). But then the tremble happened again, and a new voice sounded within the confines of his lab: the ships Engineer warning of an emergency warp exit. Sarresh shot up, swearing softly under his breath and punching up a few commands to lock down the room before - the whole ship gave a lurch and he was sprawled out over the console he'd been sitting at.

"Ouccch," he ground out, gasping for breath as he staggered back to his feet, holding his stomach, which had a rather brutal encounter with the edge of the display table. As if the low grade headache that had persisted all morning hadn't been bad enough. The lights in the room flickered and then stabilized, and the disgruntled time traveller managed to straighten up in time to hear the general order for all available hands to make way to engineering.

"What absolute pillock thinks this is going to help anything?" he asked the room, not really expecting an answer, and thus not terribly upset when one did not magically manifest. In his line of work that did happen, if infrequently. Though, given what was locked away in the back of his head..."Damn. I can't just ignore this." He paused, catching his reflection on the blank screen of one of the tertiary displays. "Yes, I know. Talking to yourself is a sign of insanity. Alas, there's no one else intelligent around to have a conversation with."

His reflection scowled back at him. Well, that was fine. He grabbed his tricorder (with its blue stripe, that he did not let anyone else touch because strictly speaking it wasn't supposed to exist yet) off his desk, slapped it into the holster on his hip, and stormed out of the Observatory, locking it down in his wake.

[Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]

Sarresh walked into chaos, and had to pull himself to one side to avoid being barrled over by an officer in yellow running back out the door he'd just come in through, shouting something about an overloaded coil. He looked over his shoulder, then back into Main Engineering. There was still time to go back. To return to his lab, and shut out the world, until they made their rendezvous. But if they didn't get this fixed, they wouldn't make it in time. And a part of Sarresh wondered if that was the whole point. If this wasn't just a coincidence.

"I fucking hate time travel," he muttered under his breath, deciding he now had to determine if whatever the hell had just happened that caused them to abruptly drop from warp was a genuine accident, or enemy action. Having reached that conclusion, there was no point in dawdling. Squaring his shoulders, he strode in, looking as if he were in complete control of the situation and extruding an air of confidence he didn't feel. He sighted the Chief, his beard unmistakable in the fray, and a frazzled redheaded Trill, and turned toward them.

"Lieutenants," he acknowledged them by rank, "I can see you've got a lot to deal with." This was an understatement but Sarresh did his best to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. As much as he was annoyed that this delay had happened, he needed to know its cause. "Can you show me where the initial issue occurred? I have some...concerns about its origins that we very much need to confirm. And maybe I can help fix things."

If this had been the result of an incursion, he might actually be able to do something. If this was all his own paranoia manifesting itself...well then he probably couldn't do shit.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #10 – December 24, 2023, 02:12:42 AM

[ Lt. Cmdr Jaru “Janus” Rel | Fighter Assault Bay | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Pierce @Number6 @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya

“I’m not that old,” he complained, though his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He had at least a decade on both of them. Prophets save him, he’d been learning to fly when they were learning to walk.

“Obviously my hearing is better than you think.” That comment did have a healthy bit of sass in it. Unfortunate for them, talking about him right as he was walking by. Like the other pilots, Janus was also wearing his exosuit, having finally gotten one assigned to him now that he was reinstated. “Take a deep breath kids, relax a little.” If everyone was going to call him old, he might as well play into it. “We might be sitting here for a while. Use all that adrenaline now and you won’t have enough when the alert goes out.” He was mainly talking to Shadow, who he’d been watching wear a path into the decking around her Valkyrie before he’d decided to walk over, but he directed the comment at everyone so she could save face. Nerves were expected on a first combat flight. Healthy even.

It would help if they knew what exactly they were getting themselves into, but Commander Cross had been completely closed lipped on any mission details whatsoever. Their half of the ship was taking a direct shot into Romulan space, and that was all anyone knew. The whole thing stunk of secret squirrel intelligence bullshit, the exact thing young boys learned to hate when growing up in the heyday of the Obsidian Order. He had nothing to build a strategy on, no force projections, and no idea if there was a likelihood of combat at all. They could be launching into anything.

They could spend the next day twiddling their thumbs in bulky exosuits.

“Hurry up and wait,” he muttered to himself, before starting the checks on his own ship.

[ Lt. Azrin Ryn | Main Engineering | USS Theurgy ]

“You did beautifully Thea!” Azrin declared dramatically, the latest comment in a shower of praise. The eponymous AI didn’t respond, correctly understanding that Azrin was talking directly to the quantum slipstream drive and didn’t expect any sort of response. Their slipstream jump had ended a few hours ago, the ship had continued on its way and they’d just split off from Vector 1, but Azrin was still running diagnostics and generating after action reports, milking every detail out of that hour as possible. She had paused for a moment to check the separation sequence, signing off on the computer’s automatic switches in system controls to account for the new configuration. But now she was back to the QSD, patting and cooning as though the most astounding piece of machinery on the ship were a beloved pet.

Catching a glimpse of Frank out of the corner of her eye, Azrin immediately ducked down and pulled a panel off the benamite reclamation system, taking a good look inside while conveniently also staying out of his sight. After this morning, she had a terrible feeling that he was going to kick her out of engineering now that her main work was done. Though how anyone expected her to sleep right now, Azrin couldn’t say. They had just made history. She wanted to stay down here to bask in it.

It was all Arven’s fault. Everything had been fine until he’d gotten involved. She was hardly the first person who had slipped in a Jefferies tube and broken something. It wasn’t a big deal, at least not until he’d made it one. For all she had successfully talked him out of a day long sedative, whatever he had given her for her injured shoulder had left her feeling… off. Like the whole world was moving in slow motion or something. But she’d run an experiment with a stopwatch, and she was still completing tasks at the same speed – or faster – than normal. So it all had to be in her head.

Halfway through the diagnostic, Crewman Ikiem called her over to the status console, the specialist’s voice rising slightly during his report. “And I was just looking at that system too…” Azrin muttered, head tilting slightly as she took in the data scrolling across the screen. Then she kicked herself. What was she doing? “Start scanning the graviton conduits, something has to be cracked if it’s leaking back through the system. Let’s find it before it ruins all of our crystals please.” As she spoke, the trill’s fingers were racing across the console, more jittery than graceful, as she began a hard shutdown of the quantum slipstream drive, which had previously been in cooldown mode. “And someone find Corgin, because she already knows what’s going on.”

“We’re going to drop out of warp.” Azrin’s announcement was louder than necessary, belatedly noticing that Frank had moved to an adjacent console and was already giving the same report to the Bridge. “But you already knew that.”

She could cut it off at the Quantum Matrix Initiator, immediately protect the warp cores and Thea’s native systems. But isolating the slipstream drive would trap all the mystery radiation there, starting to build up where right now it was passing through. They’d lose the benamite crystals, and likely the entire drive system. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t lose slipstream right after finally seeing it in action.

“I’m going to go find the damage,” Azrin declared after a moment. She knew the system best after all, – aside from the determinedly unhelpful Savi – so she was the best option to go down there in person. Two steps in, she was waylaid by a human in blue offering assistance. Please, not another doctor, she’d had enough doctors for the day. “He’s a commander,” Azrin jerked a thumb in Frank’s direction, because the oversight was completely irrelevant and incredibly important to her at the same time. “Follow me!” Then she was racing off.

OOC: Our momentum should be taking us into the Romulan Neutral Zone (RNZ) right now! The next person to post from the Bridge (Cross, Lauren, anyone else who's up there) can make it official. Anyone with some technical knowledge can head down to engineering (Joseph, Shall?) to help with the repairs.

I changed the timing for this chapter on the Cosmic Imperative Calendar to save the Slipstream drive, even though we're really putting it through the shit in this thread, poor Azrin. Please go and read through it again to refresh on the plan.

The first Story Prompt for Chapter 2 has started here: Spare Tire. They are still looking for more people to join the thread! All of the other Story Prompts for Chapter 2 are still available!

Everyone can also start branching off to supplemental threads. If you'd like, I can put together a mini Random Encounters chart for everyone on the Ranger. The threads should be titled Ch 2: S [D00 | 0000hrs]

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #11 – December 26, 2023, 10:23:59 PM

[ Lt. J.G Foval| Temporary Central Intelligence Suite: Conference Lounge | Deck 11 | Vector 03, USS Theurgy ] ATTN: @rae e @Pierce ce @Ellen Fitz   @Nero @Nolan   @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus

Foval could identify the other man’s rank from the insignia on his neck. He wondered if verbally stating his rank was some odd allowance to human egotism. Nevertheless, he decided to act on his first instincts.

He liked to have a mission, some idea as to what was happening.   The ship could be invaded by renegade holographic simulations of characters from earth literature, or computers posing as gods, gods posing as computers or an infection that reduced both inhibitions and clothing levels. As a Starfleet trained officer, it was his business to be ready for these eventualities, possibly even embrace some of them, and he could get through them with knowledge that he was performing the mission of exploration.

Now, however, he wasn’t a Starfleet officer, he was a technical renegade, fighting to restore Starfleet, and his missions needed to be more specific.
This other seemed to be playing from a position of knowledge.   It was Foval’s responsibility to work out from which end he was playing – a position of truth, or a bluff as used in an old earth game, Pokemon, if he wasn’t mistaken.

He didn’t want to play the dance, and yet, there was something that Foval welcomed.   He told himself that if he didn’t take part, and prolong this, he would be ordered straight back to his quarters… but if he could string things out and perhaps get more together.

“I was hoping I would be able to learn of my role in the upcoming operation.   I do not do downtime particularly well, and feel that it would be more productive for me to spend this time preparing for the mission, even if it is just, getting my head into the correct gear.”

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #12 – December 27, 2023, 11:38:12 PM

Lauren looked at the controls and space on the viewscreen as she saw them drawing ever closer to the RNZ. Their sheer momentum from the slipstream drive and warp propelled them at an excitedly quick speed. Part of her was excited for the prospect of entering but the other part of her was terrified of becoming a prisoner of the Tal Shiar. Something she knew Alana would likely be dealing with firsthand since she left on the Allegiant.

"Commander. We're approaching the Neutral Zone now. What are your orders as we enter? I don't suppose they'll lay down the welcome mat for us." She grinned as the sarcasm cut through the tense air before them.

Looking at Commander Cross, she could feel he was tense. Intuition or whatever it was told her he was holding back something with this mission. Most of which was above her pay grade for sure but she had an idea her flight skills would be needed. Especially since she'd had training with Jaya a few weeks back and learned a few new tricks. No doubt she'd be flying into the dragon's den on this one. Stealth and not drawing attention to the behemoth they flew in would be difficult at best.

"Looks like we can now cut the engines and ride the built-up momentum in as we reactivate the warp drive." She stated in waiting for their next mission to officially begin.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #13 – January 01, 2024, 12:10:43 AM

[Ens. Irnashall “Shall” ch’Xinya | Stellar Cartography Lab | Deck 15 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]

For the first time in what felt like forever, Shall was as happy as an Earth clam. Sitting in the utilitarian chair as comfortably as he could, his blue hands danced along the refurbished control panel and watched the stars surrounding him swirl around in orientation and focus. Colors shifted through multiple spectra which brought out and hid different details as they passed in and out of the range of the active sensor suite. It was chaos, but to his eyes it was beauty incarnate. Untold hours of work had gone into rebuilding and refurbishing this lab yet again (Borg invasions, fights with Klingon armadas, and the subsequent extended repairs do no favors to the Andorian’s hardware preferences), and he was overjoyed to see his beloved lab operating exactly as he desired once again.

Done with the random motions through the electromagnetic and subspace spectrums, Shall reset the wraparound displays and centered their latest target on the screen in front of him: the Romulan Neutral Zone. Currently highlighted with the political-tactical overlay, the Zone was a dull green-grey compared with the Federation blue and Romulan green. The chan didn’t know all that much about what exactly they were going to do there, something about a ship that had to be stopped no matter what is all he knew, but it was important that they needed as much information as they could get. Naturally the RNZ was one of the most closely watched parts of space in the quadrant, but considering their current legal status they couldn’t exactly ask for the latest reports from the border stations, so it was up to Shall and his usage of the sensor suites to get what they can. Pulling up the forward sensors he started up a queue and got them to work. The active sensors weren’t of any use yet, they were too far away, so for now the passives would have to do. Subspace emissions were the big telltale, as well as minute distortions in cosmic background radiation, stellar luminosity variations, tachyon bursts, maybe even the lucky warp barrier flash, but Shall knew that would never happen.

With Thea doing the grunt work from here, Shall leaned back and crossed his arms, half watching the data flow in from the arrays nestled all along the front portions of the hull while musing about what his mates back home would be up to at this hour. If they were all together then it was almost assuredly another argument between Jay and Tavin with Syora trying to play peacemaker, not that it helped much, either they’d go to bed angry or sad respectively and then wake up the next morning as if nothing had happened (typically with a big breakfast), or the three of them would forget dinner for a night of heated passion. A thin smile and minor whipping of the antenna would be the only window into that line of thinking, but whatever was running through the Andorian’s head was cut short when the ship shuddered under the surprise deceleration out of warp. Reacting quickly he checked to make sure there weren’t any ill effects to the sensors or other data collection systems, thankfully there was nothing more than a minor distortion in the subspace feeds as the field collapsed, rendering those few milliseconds of data useless, something Thea would automatically take into account with the final collations.

“Engineers…” he muttered to himself, smiling from the old playful tease between the departments. There was no way it wasn’t anything but some glitch from all the work that they’ve been doing ship-wide for all this time, it would only be a matter of time before they’d find it and they’d be back on their way. At least they didn’t create an wormhole and send them along a collision course with an asteroid at FTL speeds. This time.

“Engineering to Stellar Cartography.” The call swiped the smile right off of Shall’s face in an instant. What in the blazes could they want? “Ens. ch’Xinya here, go ahead.”

“You’re needed in engineering sir, the Chief needs as many hands as he can get to lock down the current warp drive issues and your expertise came up as qualified and available.”

Shall sighed and restrained himself from uttering something the comm would pick up. He glanced at the current data collection queue and saw that there wouldn’t be anything for him to review for a while yet, there was no way he was getting out of this one. “Understood, I’ll head down right away. Stellar Cartography out.” Grabbing a tricorder and PADD first, the chan then shut down the displays and lowered the lights, leaving only the border lights on the walkway to lead him to the door. Time to play grease monkey again, what a day…

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #14 – January 30, 2024, 08:49:12 AM

[ Lt. Jonathan Byrne | Temporary Central Intelligence Suite: Conference Lounge | Deck 11 | Vector 03, USS Theurgy ] ATTN: @rae @Pierce @Number6 @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus

“Your role?” Bryne smirked. “No, I don’t suppose a Vulcan would handle downtime well, or a Drone for that matter, and you’ve been blessed with components of both.” He wished for a drink, one stiffer than was afforded for duty. “If you must research something, I’d suggest you find out everything you can about Romulan ship-to-ship communication tactics and etiquette. We’re more than likely to brush against some in the course of this mission,” Bryne grimaced, knowing that there was more unknown about the mission than known, and he didn’t like that one bit, “Maybe see if you can find out how to bluff a Romulan or intimidate one without risking war?”

The call came from the bridge for all available hands with some semblance of technical background to support engineering. Something about the warp core. Bryne sighed. This did not bode well. He had marginal knowledge and much preferred, as did the Vulcan diplomat, to staying busy than in sitting still.

“As for now, perhaps you’d care to join me on a field trip to engineering? See if we can help the Chief get this bucket running again.” The Intelligence officer pushed away from the table and walked to the door, quirking one eyebrow up in a fairly Vulcan-esque fashion as he waited for the other man to join him or leave.

[ Lt. Cmdr. Cross | Battle Bridge | V. 2 | Deck 8 | The Ranger ]

Crossing over the zone already fucked. What a delight.

“Maintain our heading to those coordinates. Stay alert, and don’t be trigger-happy. We’re likely to meet civvies and friendlies in the process according to the last intel report,” Cross inwardly sighed, at least the last report he was authorized to share with everyone, “Report when the drive is back up.”

Maybe it was a good thing this was crapping out now. Maybe that meant they were getting all the hiccups out sooner rather than later. Cross frowned. Like that would ever fucking happen.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #15 – February 04, 2024, 08:11:22 PM

[CPO Avander Lok | Main Engineering || Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @rae @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Pierce @RyeTanker
[Show/Hide]

Lok had only been awake for a few hours now. In that time he learned that he had been unconscious and in stasis for over half a year, that little parasite incident was a full blown possible Federation destroying invasion, seemingly half the people he had met on his first day were dead, and his family had no idea he was alive only that he was a traitor. Certainly it was not how he had pictured his career going or his life in general; and it brought back those feelings he had had since the War, and his father’s murder, the feeling that the world he knew, the one when he was a kid, the one when he was but a lowly crewman in Starfleet, a world of optimism, was fading away to be replaced by darkness.

These thoughts pervaded his mind as he silently padded through the ship, wearing a bathrobe provided by sickbay, following the guide markers through the endless corridors. He had never had a real chance to explore the ship on his first day, having preferred to get right to work and show his new superiors that he had what it took to be here. Now he had the chance but did not feel any sense of pleasure or excitement, just those thoughts that made his stomach knot up and his hearts pound. Finally the computer guide with a British accent, different to what he was used to for most of his career, announced that he had, “arrived at Deck 11, Crew Storage”, where he needed to pick up his things. The computer offered to transport them directly to his new quarters on Deck 13 but he opted instead to carry them; it wasn’t much, for him anyway, just a large storage chest, his footlocker, and his space-bag.

He then followed the guides once more to his new quarters, trying to remember what he had originally brought with him to distract from those encroaching feelings of darkness. The quarters were a bit of an upgrade compared to his old ones on the Perseus, while he still needed to share with another NCO this time he had his own room and bathroom, plus a bit more storage space, he even had a window, there was a shared common area however. He set his stuff down on the floor at the foot of the bed, which he noted was slightly too short, then gazed out the window for a moment. His quarters were on the starboard side of the ship and forward enough of the upper nacelle pylon that he had a wonderful vista of the the stars beyond, streaked and distorted with the ship at warp. Well at least I have this, he thought to himself before that thought was suddenly interrupted by an announcement that the ship was about to “emergency de-warp” followed by a slight shudder and jolt as the stars outside turned to their normal state. What the hells was that?

A few minutes later a call went out for any personnel to head to engineering and assist in repairs. Lok couldn’t think of anything better, short of drinking himself into a stupor, to distract himself from his anxieties of his new situation than to try and assist. He practically ripped off his bathrobe and hospital gown, leaving them in a pile on the floor as he opened his footlocker and grabbed the first pair of yellow coveralls he saw, a couple of old isolinear chips falling out of the pockets onto the floor. Within moments he had slipped into the mostly comfortable garment, forgoing an undershirt or underwear this time, and was soon out the door of his quarters, following his computer guide once more to Main Engineering.

The turbolift ride was relatively short, spitting Lok out right into the main control center dominated by the master control table in the middle. A pair of security guards by the door gawked at him for a moment, but the large man was used to such stares and simply walked past into the chaotic situation. The hum of activity in the room seemed to breathe new life into Lok, his ears twitching with excitement and his tale playfully waving from side to side. It didn’t take long for him to identify the guy in charge, a gray bearded lieutenant commander, and quickly walk over to present himself to him.

“Commander, Chief Petty Officer Lok, reporting for duty, sir”, he said with a casual tone, his was deep and gruff with a hint of a Betazoid accent thrown in.

“Where do you want me, sir?”

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #16 – February 10, 2024, 09:21:26 PM

[ Lt. J.G Foval| Temporary Central Intelligence Suite: Conference Lounge | Deck 11 | Vector 03, USS Theurgy ] ATTN: @rae @Pierce   @Ellen Fitz    @Nolan   @Dumedion Dumedion @Havenborn   @RyeTanker @tongieboi @chXinya    @Brutus

The arrogance of the man was grating on Foval.   He didn’t have an ego to bruise, but even so, there were vestiges of something that this man was succeeding in irritating with his condescending tone.   Foval especially felt as if he were being appraised like an asset.

He found himself eager to suggest that he download all of the data on the Romulans, add them to a desk top terminal, turn it sideways, and plug it into a very impractical orifice on the Lieutenant’s person. It wouldn’t be a practical use of his time, but it would be somewhat cathartic for Foval.

Instead, to Foval’s surprise he found himself following Byrne towards the door. .

“I am already very familiar with the Romulan negotiation patterns.” He said, feeling that he was a bit too quick to impress   “They value secrets amongst all things, even amongst each other.   You must understand that the ancient Vulcans were a brutal and savage race, especially amongst themselves.   To keep those you loved safe from the brutal regimes, you had to keep your weaknesses secret, and those weaknesses were around family and those you loved. There is a theory to suggest that those that became Romulans kept their plan to escape Vulcan secret so that they weren’t captured or converted. This has continued in their society.    Romulans only act when the situation is absolutely optimal, to expose the weaknesses to be exploited, now or in the future, is unthinkable to them, unless it is absolutely necessary.   In terms of encounters, you need to be able to convince them that continuing on their present action is not in their best interests.   You do this by bluffing them, such as Kirk’s use of his Corbomite bluff, evening the playing field, such as when Picard brought two Klingon ships to a likely ambush at Nelvana III or when pride is wounded, such as when the Dominon assassinated Senator Vreenak.”

They arrived at the turbolift and reflected for a moment.   “Of course, it could be that there is direct influence of our greater Enemy, in which case, all wagers are cancelled.”

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #17 – February 13, 2024, 01:44:54 PM

[Ens. Joseph Adams | Transporter Room 3 | Deck 12 | Vector 02 USS Theurgy | Attn: @rae @Pierce @Ellen Fitz @Nero @Nolan @Dumedion @Havenborn @RyeTanker @Number6 @chXinya @Brutus @joshs1000

Joe drummed his fingers against the top of the transporter console. The constant waiting had only gotten worse, and it had only been a handful more minutes! Groaning to himself, he glanced around, eyes finally falling down at his combadge. by some happy coincidence When it chirped, he nearly jumped out of his skin. A shot of adrenaline at the sudden noise. Alerting him of an incoming communication, one that finally seemed to release him from this purgatory in the transporter room.

"Engineering to Transporter Room 4."

Quickly, he tapped the badge, clearing his throat lightly, bracing himself to talk to someone other than an empty room for a change.

"Adams, here. Go right ahead..."

"We could use an extra pair of hands here. Transporter Room 4 is idle, right?"

As if on cue, his combadge picked up a second communication directed to the whole ship. The communication, instead of interrupting the line he had open, came through some unseen speaker in the transporter room.

"All hands, this is Engineering. We're going to begin emergency de warp."

Joe paused for a moment, sweeping his gaze around the room at nothing in particular before nodding.

"Aye, its idle, I'll be right down."

An Emergency De-Warp? Had something happened? No, there'd be some kind of red alert if they were under attack. His mind whirring, he came to the conclusion that perhaps something had gone wrong with the ship itself, some malfunction or breakdown. Affirming this thought with the fact that he'd been told to lend a hand, he felt quite comfortable concluding that this was an issue with Theurgy's engines.

"Adams, Out."

He finished, tapping his badge a second time and breaking into a light jog toward the exit. Unfortunately, Joe had completely forgone the advice of Chief Arnold to brace for turbulence, and as he barrelled out of the transporter room, he semi-collided with the far wall at a slight shudder of the vessel as it decelerated. Letting out a slight 'Ooh!' as he righted himself properly and kept as much momentum as he could.

God, it would've been embarrassing if anyone saw that. Even more so if he'd actually fallen over. Somehow, he started to wonder if he'd miss the idleness of Transporter Room 4 in due time.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #18 – February 28, 2024, 12:44:56 PM

[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]

@rae @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Pierce

It didn't look good as Engineering and the steady flow of crew showed up to try to stem the cascading issues flooding back into the warp core. He didn't really know who the Andorian was, but he somewhat remembered who the human was from the mission briefing and he nodded at him. He wasn't entirely sure what his particular skills were, but since he'd been the main Intel source for their mission, maybe he knew something else. "Mr. Morali, the issue started with quantum slip stream drive. There's an unusual subspace radiation being generated by it that's starting to feed into the warp core." A meaty finger pointed at a device that was somewhat jury rigged device. He pressed the call comm button a he finished pointing. "Azrin, I need you back out here to explain what's going on with QSD."

He next pointed at the Andorian. "Get over to power generation and see if you can find a way to stabilize the power flow. I hope you can program quickly since we'll probably need something to adjust the frequency and flow of the EPS systems and the tuners of the junction couplings." Frank's eyes moved to the master readout. "Lucas! Adjust the antimatter flow rate down by one percent and narrow the flow aperture by two microns. Shift the core's nadion frequency band by positive fifiteen micro hertz." The Chief took a moment to check the situation on the power systems that were still fluctuating and providing an inconsistent power flow. Remembering the Andorian wore a teal collar, he hoped the science know how was transferable and it took a moment the ship didn't have to remember his name. "Ensign sinya, forget managing the power frequency, see if you can isolate the radiation. Coordinate with Morali and Ryn. Standing up, Chief Arnold addressed everyone. " Okay, listen up everyone, if we can't get the power flow stabilized and stop the radiation contamination, we're going to vent the EPS into space via the nacelles."

The Chief looked around and spotted a familiar Engineering Andorian this time in a loud voice to make sure he was heard. "Ensign zh’Ron, start handing out portable forcefield generators, plating polarizer, and fire suppression equipment" Pressing several more buttons, a holographic diagram of the ship popped up over the master status station and the Chief quickly laid out the path he wanted the contaminated plasma to flow should the situation come to the worst. "At least it looks like the radiation isn't making it past our containment protocols, so we're going to set the forcefield generators for level 4. They won't last too long, but they're not supposed to for this anyway. In a voice like he was directing traffic at a conference, big fingers pointing to crew members showing up, he indicated which parts of the ship he wanted them to go to while trying his best to keep them near where they were supposed to be under battle stations. When he got to the big cat, he was vaguely familiar that he'd never seen him in Engineering and hadn't been in any of the personnel files, so it was going to be a guess that he was with the fighter group. "Chief, take two with you and head for junction 16-258-Beta. Near the port side dorsal nacelle. Go!" As he directed more people to their positions, the Chief hoped Azrin, Morali and the Savi could come up with a plan to fix the issue soon and all his planning was going to be for naught.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #19 – March 01, 2024, 12:44:13 AM

[ LT Daniel Havenborn | Deck 16, Fighter Assault Bay | USS Theurgy Vector 2 | Cockpit | AC-307 Mark-II Valkyrie “Hellcat” ] Attn: @Ellen Fitz, @rae, @Pierce, @Number6, @Nero, @Nolan, @Dumedion, @RyeTanker, @tongieboi, @chXinya, @Brutus

Daniel was sitting in the cockpit of his fighter, he and Knight were still in the hangar at ready position with Javert. He and Javert had been selected by Fate to do the CAP. He knew that Knight wasn’t all that thrilled about it but Daniel was. Besides his wives and paramours, flying was his second love and he relished every second of it. He had been genetically enhanced to be a combat pilot after all so it was literally in his genes. He could hear Javert over their linked intercom complaining about this duty and as long as he kept it a minimum about it he’d let the man vent.

As the ship shuddered and dropped out of Quantum Slipstream and used their momentum to slide across the RNZ Daniel received the order to launch and form up alongside Vector 2. He signaled Javert that it was time for him to get ready and the man signaled back his readiness. The venting had stopped thankfully, he didn’t really want to have to reprimand him for it now that they were launching. “Wolf-Seven launching.” He stated as he felt his fighter launch forward, thankfully the inertial dampers took most of the g-forces so it was a smooth ride out into the vacuum of space. He heard Javert over the comm announce his launch and soon Daniel was joined by the man as he took a place next to him. The two of them keeping pace with Vector 2 ready to respond to anything.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #20 – March 04, 2024, 03:14:11 PM

[ PO2 Kythalie Benmual | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Brutus @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Pierce @Number6 @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya

The issues in engineering had also not gone unnoticed by Security personnel. Being dispatched by a superior, Kythalie Benmual walked into Engineering and glanced around at what the hell was going on. She spotted Sarresh as he was getting briefed by Frank Arnold. Figuring that Arnold would be calling the shots here, she walked over to the duo as two other security pfficers were in her wake. The group of three halted to the sides of both gentlemen and Kythalie took it upon her to salute before stating her business.

"PO2 Benmual reporting for duty sir. We were dispatched here to see if we could do anything to help you out. Just point us at a problem and what to do about it and we'll make it happen sir. Officer Derriks here has some engineering background, so he'll probably be of some use." she stated to Arnold and a guy from her squad gave a nod, identifying himself as this Derriks to Arnold. Kythalie glanced over to Sarresh to give him a slight nod with perhaps a slight hint of a smile before listening back to Arnold as he'd undoubtedly have a job for her and her squad.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #21 – March 21, 2024, 11:02:59 PM

[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory | Deck 09| Vector 02| USS Theurgy ] Attn: @rae @chXinya @RyeTanker @Nolan @joshs1000 @tongieboi
[Show/Hide]

"Wait he's a what? Are you sure? Shit," Sarresh looked from the trill to the human and sure enough, he could see the third pip he'd missed before, his eyebrows shooting up. "When did that happen?" But the redhead was already off and others were falling in around Lt. Commander Arnold and Sarresh and he half missed whatever it was 'red' had shouted over her shoulder as she darted off to do whatever it was she was doing. He shut his eyes and mentally counted back from 10, then opened them once more.

By that point he was being addressed by the chief, who at-least knew of him, so point in that man's favor. Then again, Sarresh had briefed the senior staff on many of the parameters of the mission that had led to multiple efforts being coordinated at once across many of the local (and not so local) sectors. Gather wool later, Morali, he scolded himself, a frown growing deeper on his face as he listened to Arnold. Slipstream was not his area of expertise but there was a small chance that something would shake loose once he was looking at the drive, so he gave a terse nod and crossed his arms tight over his chest, chin dipping down as he tried to dredge up everything he knew about subspace radiation and slipstream drives (other than the fact that the Federation should have already had one) and hadn't - clear interference that they had managed to take advantage of).

A look of surprise flashed across his face as someone he actually knew joined in on the group. That was compounded twice over in fact, but for the initial briefing, it was the Andorian he'd worked with on the Savi ship, and had then spent some time in closer quarters than he'd like, under the 'tender care' of a pair of Aegis agents. He gave a sharp nod to Shall and turned his head to see if he could spot the redheaded Lieutenant - Ryn, Arnold had called her - in theory coming back from the QSD room. By that point more hands had joined in and Anrold was issuing orders at a rapid pace. Including, to his compounded surprise, PO Benmual. His eyebrows rode up his forehead and he blinked in visible surprise. Was that a smile? Yes I think it was, he thought and dipped his head in her direction, his own lips curling up at the corners.

"I have a feeling Lieutenant ...Ryn was it?" he had heard her name perfectly well, but it didn't hurt to be sure, so he looked to Lt. Commander Arnold for confirmation, "And I will need a steady set of hands for whatever is going on in there. And possibly someone to pull us out if it goes south." Subspace radiation was no laughing matter, and he hoped that his tricorder could pick up something useful about it, and if nothing else, determine if it was deliberately generated or not. "I can attest to the Petty Officers capability on that front. If you have no other use for her, I'd like to borrow Ms. Benmual."

Sarresh wasn't going to go into details about just what and when PO2 Benmual had done to demonstrate a steady nature but the fact was he'd grown to trust her at this point and there were precious few people aboard that applied to. If things were going to go pear shaped, having someone with security skills could be great, even if it was to just physically haul him out of the room if something bad happened.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #22 – April 26, 2024, 05:12:40 PM

[CPO Avander Lok | Main Engineering || Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @rae @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Pierce @RyeTanker
[Show/Hide]

Lok nodded and responded simply, “Aye, sir.”

He glanced around the chaotic room until his eyes fell on a pair of idlers, crewmen who normally had a job when warp engines were actually working. "You, you”, he called to them with a clawed finger pointed in their direction, “grab your tools and fall in behind me.” The two, a female Bolian and a male human, looked at each other then did as they were told, each grabbing a repair kit.. Lok in turn, also grabbed a repair kit and a case of good old fashioned wrenches, you never knew when those might come in handy.

The three hopped back into the turbolift and Lok ordered it to go to, “Deck 16, full aft”, the turbolift beeped in response and started zipping its way up to the prescribed deck. “So what’s your names -just your first names?”, Lok asked the two crewmen who he could tell were staring at him.

“I’m Crewm- uh Mark”, said the human.

“Dalani”, replied the Bolian in a kindly tone.

“Pleasure to meet you, you can call me Lok or Chief.”

The turbolift reached the deck then started moving sideways as it made its way as far astern as it could, this would but them right in the area to access the junction. Lok, as mentioned before, was not very familiar with the ship, but a Starfleet ship was a Starfleet ship and as such there were certain design commonalities no matter the shape, size or if the thing could split itself into several pieces. Why anybody would ever want that is beyond me, Lok thought to himself, always baffled by the “multi-vector assault mode” thing that was started by the Prometheus class. At any rate, Lok figured that Arnold wanted him to inspect or monitor the main plasma conduits that run into the nacelle. He hadn’t exactly been given any explanation as to what exactly he was looking for but a warp system was a warp system, he would figure it out.

Exiting the lift, Lok followed the marked panel numbers until he found the one that covered the access to the Jefferies Tube he needed. Contrary to his size he was actually quite nimble and easily shimmied his way into the confined space, the two crewmen following at a slightly slower pace. The junction wasn’t too far, a bit large due to the transit of several major plasma conduits, coolant lines, a sewage transfer pipe, and a large bundle of opti-cables through the space. Once inside, Lok looked about to see if anything immediately stood out to him as being wrong. Not immediately spying anything he tapped his combadge to report in.

[Chief Lok to Commander Arnold, I am at the junction, I’m not seeing anything immediately wrong here but we only just got started.]

He turned back to his companions while pulling out his tricorder, “Let’s get to work.”

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #23 – June 24, 2024, 01:32:34 AM

[ Lt. Azrin Ryn | Engineering | Deck 25-26 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @RyeTanker @Dumedion @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya @Pierce @joshs1000
[Show/Hide]

“Azrin can’t come back right now,” she replied in a singsong voice, already halfway to her destination. If she had been thinking straight, or thinking of anything at all beyond the immediate issue with the drive systems, she never would have spoken to Frank like that. Excitable as she normally was, even that couldn’t compare to how thoroughly Starfleet drilled respect for the chain of command. The world seemed to slow down again as she slid down the ladder that connected the two levels of engineering, which was… interesting. She’d have to run a diagnostic on the gravity plating later, but she’d worry about that then.

“Have to…” Azrin shook her head to clear the space dust. What was with her brain today? She’d injured her shoulder, and she’d refused Arven’s multiple, overkill attempts at sedation. She wasn’t even sleepy anymore. Short as it was, her catnap in sickbay this morning had done wonders, and coffee had dealt with the rest. She had no reason to feel strange. No time for it. At least her fingers still knew their job, logging into another diagnostic console as nimbly as ever, then moving to yank a panel off this section of the slipstream matrix. “Have to see it. Corgin’s fault.” She had explained to Frank over a week ago about the Savi scientist’s reluctance to provide any information on the slipstream drive. The Savi might have given the Theurgy a working slipstream drive, but they refused to explain any deeper knowledge on its workings, fearful that Starfleet would recreate it. Azrin had complained that this restriction would hinder the Theurgy’s engineers in fixing any malfunctions. Corgin had threatened to take the entire system back. And now here they were. Vindication. Somehow, the ‘I told you so’ didn’t feel all that great. “Stupid. Savi. Rulebook.”

“Gravitons!” She explained as she tapped in new diagnostic, starting with a shout meant either for Frank on the other end of the combadge or whoever had followed her down here. Or both. Both sounded good. Her brain jumped back into action like someone had given it a good shove. “Energy and benamite makes graviton particles, we strip them off the crystals, charge them into some kind of quantum state – which Corgin should describe in more detail – then route them through the navigational deflector. Then bam! Slipstream. It’s more complicated than that, but I’m busy. Normally if there were gravitons somewhere there shouldn’t be, internal sensors would be sounding off. But since we don’t know exactly how the gravitons are being altered, maybe our scans aren’t picking them up. Again, Corgin, if you're listening, let me do more intense scans inside this beauty. The conduits speed the gravitons up to shoot them out the deflector, which generates radiation, because gravitons are gravitons, even if they’re special quantum ones. If there’s a crack in one of the graviton conduits, then its feeding charged speedy gravitons back into the system, which would make mini gravitational waves.” Azrin paused, mouth falling open for a second as her brain caught up with her words.

“Then that feeds back into the benamite, excites more gravitons off the crystals, makes a bigger wave that goes down into the EPS system…” Ah, that was really bad wasn’t it? “Boom.”

The drive was in cooldown, which meant that the only gravitons moving through the conduits now would be the leftover stragglers, nowhere near the power pushing through when it was actually active. But clearly that would still be enough. Even though they were all about to die, she was truly impressed yet again by the sheer power of this thing. “If it wasn’t getting a second wind off the crystal…” She mumbled quietly, mulling it over.

“Oh, we have to pull the benamite out.” She said it calmly enough, as though the crystal wasn’t surrounded by a happy cocoon of radiation right now. “Seal the crack, pull the benamite, and whatever little waves left in between shouldn’t be enough to cause any more damage. They can roll right out to sea.” Yeah, that would work. Provided they could do it quickly before the damage to the warp cores became too severe.

“Someone watch this scan,” she pointed to the monitor, “and stick a tricorder in there,” the hand turned to point at the open panel, “and see if you or Thea can find the cracked conduit first. Then take a laser torch to it! We’ll yank it and install a new one later.”

Then Azrin was moving, belatedly following Frank’s order as she scrambled back to upper engineering. She paused on the ladder, almost slipping off as a surge of energy flowed through her, a full body tremble so strong she swore even the symbiont jittered. That was insane. Symbionts didn’t move inside hosts. People just talked like that for dramatic effect. “Head rush,” she breathed, leaning her forehead against the cool metal rung for a moment. “Fallen off enough ladders for today thanks.” Azrin could just see the look on his face if she injured herself in the exact same way twice in one day.

She finished her climb like the little interlude had never happened, popping back to where the others were waiting. There was definitely more leadership quality here, standing in a command post and giving orders. Azrin could never handle that. She needed the physical act of fixing something.

“The radiation levels should decrease dramatically once the benamite is out,” she explained breathlessly, grabbing a portable forcefield and some other anti-rad equipment from zh’Ron, who was helpfully walking by with a pile. “It’s a tricky, precision thing, especially with a forcefield, tongs, gloves in the way, and we have to do it quickly so we don’t flood this room with radiation too. Here’s how we…” Halfway through pulling a radiation glove on, a piece of equipment so thick and bulky that engineers routinely joked that an actual lead glove would be preferable, Azrin stopped, staring at her hand as though it was a foreign object.

Her fingers were shaking.

Arguably, there was nothing weird about that. She ingested enough caffeine every day to give anyone else a serious case of the jitters. Some people shook even without a stimulant. But Azrin was an engineer. She did precision work through wars, explosions, and intense sleep deprivation. Even barely conscious, her fingers knew how to rewire a system without hesitation, rock steady. They had never, ever failed her. Yet here she was, flushed, heart racing, and trembling. Just like what had started on the ladder, and apparently hadn’t stopped.

“I don’t feel right,” she said quietly. And how the fuck was she supposed to pull the benamite crystal out now?

OOC: Arven fucked her up.

To recap, two things need to be done:

Crawl through the innards of the slipstream drive and seal a crack on a graviton conduit
Pull the benamite crystal out of the drive *hint hint @Nolan, because Sarresh specifically mentioned Kythalie's steady hands

@RyeTanker will go next, and Frank will give his orders, which will presumably involve venting some nasty radiation out of the nacelles, but its up to him.

We've dropped out of warp just after crossing into the Romulan Neutral Zone. Everyone looking at the calendar knows that the Romulans themselves haven't come to play yet, but your characters will not! Stay on the lookout, bridge people and fighters.

If you fix the ship in this round, we can go fight Romulans, just so you're aware. Totally unsubtle hint here.

Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]

Reply #24 – July 03, 2024, 04:59:05 AM

[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 03 | USS Theurgy]
@Dumedion @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Number6 @Nero @Nolan @Havenborn @tongieboi @chXinya @Pierce @joshs1000

The power numbers continued to fluctuate wildly as the rogue subspace particles changed the laws of physics within the warp core and caused the fine calculations to be thrown out of wack. This was causing problems with keeping the warp field stable, and the ship's velocity began to change at random intervals, some times slowing down, other times speeding up. It wasn't too noticeable unless you saw the numbers, but a change of 0.001 in the warp speed was heading in the direction of a variance of 0.005. Thankfully, there was reserve capacity in the inertial dampeners, so the crew hadn't been turned into berry jam...yet.

As Lieutenant Ryn and Morali tried to sort out the odd particle generation from different ends, Frank noticed his vision was beginning to go a bit blurry. Leaning on the master terminal, he ignored the feeling and began working on a possibly desperate plan to clear the core of the particles. He heard the call from several teams indicating they were in position, but hadn't seen any issues yet. Hitting his combadge, he had to remind himself that several of the people helping him now weren't engineering personnel and may now know what he had in mind. "Stand by, begin reinforcing the conduits with the polarizers and forcefields. I'm going to pass along instruction shortly for adjustments to the forcefield generators."

He shook his head for a moment to clear the beginnings of nausea and set about making the calculations for the plan to clear out the core. He considered using the transporters, but subspace particles were unpredictable, and they would be too much in flux for him to be sure they'd be stable for the entire cycle with nothing to keep them stable except a computer buffer and confinement beam. Never mind what would happen if they couldn't be reassembled properly, plus the amount of data storage would be preposterous.

The first step involved adjusting the properties of the warp field to act as a subspace microfibre cloth, but only do so within the confines of the ship. His fingers tapped over the keys to make the calculations and the Chief frowned as he realized he'd also have to shut down subspace communications so the array wouldn't try to tear the fabric of the under universe at the same time. Next came the modifications to the force field generators where they would not only have to act as a particle accelerator, but also keep the affected EPS systems from coming apart at seams. Frank was coming up with the program on the fly and he needed a little help. "Thea, check programming on magnetic coil principles to eject subspace radiation. Simulate for max continuous ejection while keeping EPS integrity at 150 then 200 max integrity tolerances." There was a slight pause as Chief Arnold had unlocked the full potential of the AI to the problem. "Yes Chief. Working. Power output, pulse rate set. We're going to need more power." Frank thought about this for a moment and his fingers flew over the master control table. "Listen up, you too Thea! On my mark, begin emergency deceleration and reduce the fuel feeds to hot standby levels in the main core. When that happens, reroute power from the impulse engines and auxiliary fusion generators to the subspace field as well as structural integrity. Vector 2 Engineering, as soon as the matter stream begins to abate, bring the aux core to active and keep the deceleration constant. "

Frank couldn't see everyone else, but he looked around the Engineering deck to see that everyone was with him. "As soon as the aux core is active, begin venting the main core out the nacelles and reroute all fusion power the the SIF on the nacelles." Frank knew what they were going to attempt would place a huge amount of wear on the nacelles, he had no idea how much, but it could be an order of magnitude more then normal operations. Someone got up and ran to the head and a wretching sound could be heard as the variations IDF calculations were becoming more difficult as the power instability got worse. "When we drop below warp 1, invert the warp field and fire an inverse tachyon pulse into the core. Frank fired off the specifications then inhaled to steel himself then looked at the master control panel and hit the ship wide intercom button. "All hand, this Engineering. Beginning deceleration 10...9...8..." At 0, the ship went eerily quiet for a moment, then began to thrum madly as secondary systems struggled to take up the load the main warp core had been forced to abandon, and as the metal of the ship was being tested, so was the mettle of the crew as people struggled to hold on to their lunches, and cleaning services went into over drive as some showed they had less constitution than others.

Outside the ship, a green cloud emerged from the nacelles, laced with bright flakes as bits of radiation coalesced, forming sparkling beacons in void. Unlike the gas that carried them out, these sparkles did not dissipate easily. Subspace was not entirely well understood, even by the brightest minds in the Federation, but under a certain mass, the universe insisted these aberrations in the cosmic under fabric could not be allowed to exist and the radiation annihilated itself, leaving behind significant pulses of energy that existed for just a moment, then disappeared from wherever they came from.

PO3 Cirus Bodega's head was cradled in his hands as he sat at his console on the main bridge near the tactical section. He'd been through some space turbulence, but that was something else. Inhaling, he could hear someone gagging. "Computers, set ventilation to maximum." someone ordered and the smell of vomit began to dissipate. He considered himself one of the lucky ones and shook his head to clear the nausea. Looking up at the screen, he could see the trail of subspace disturbances behind them and he turned his head slightly to address Commander Cross. "Sir, we're leaving a subspace wake that's going to have a high detection threshold. Someone is going to know we're here." The petty officer punched a sequence to run a detection model and looked around the stellar neighbourhood. The Chief's voice came over the intercom. "Engineering to bridge. We're surveying the damage, but we're going to need some time to re align the primary warp core, so somewhere to hide would be much appreciated. I'll have more information in about 20 minutes on what the state of the various systems are, all I know right now is that communications and warp drive are offline."

It didn't take the Petty Officer long to come up with some information that could be useful. "Sir, there's a class M system bearing 295 mark 286. It looks like a failed system. Lots of asteroid belts and some gas clouds, not much in the way of planetary bodies."

[Bridge of the Imperial Romulan Carrier Okhala Thrai]

Sub-Commander Choreeno kept his face carefully neutral. One did not let underlings know that they were livid. That was a sign of weakness or treachery in the perpetually paranoid Romulan Fleet; especially now that there were various factions tearing the Empire apart. Starting with the arch-traitor Donatra. Thankfully, he'd had plenty of practice, or he would not have reached his current rank and station. This mission really wasn't what his ship was designed for though. Wiping out a rebellious space station could have been handled by a single warbird, but the traditional beam navy was still in charge and the new carrier navy was subordinate to them. There were times he wished he'd been born of a higher station, then he'd be able to use influence to steer resources away from such wasteful vanity projects such as the old D'deridex-class. A big show was all they were as the Dominion War had demonstrated.

At leas the Valdore was a bit of an improvement, but it still lacked the prestige and flexibility his carrier had. The most he let anyone see of the sigh was a slight flaring of his nostrils as he continued his rumination when a beeping at the sensor station caught his attention. The Sub-Commander waited. If the Major in charge of the section didn't come back with information soon, perhaps a tongue lashing would be in order. There was no such luck as the beeping stopped and the rapid beeps of buttons being pressed could be heard.

"Sub-Commander" Major Ukeel began and the ship's captain turned his chair on its command dias to look at the sensor officer. "We've detected a string of sub space disturbances just on our side of the neutral zone. Given its trajectory, it was set to intercept us, but seems to have become more dense and intense." The sub-commander nodded, but his hunter instencts had now been roused. Something was coming for them, but who?

"Will this anomaly affect our ability to stay at warp?" Sub-Commander Choreeno asked.

"No sir. It appears to be dissipating."

"Are there any other ships that can investigate this anomaly?"

Major Ukeel shook his head. "We're the only ship nearby."

Typical. The Sub-Commander thought to himself as he turned towards the viewscreen. That space station can't escape and it seems the Federation has sent a quarry after us. This has just become more interesting. He allowed himself a brief smile. "Conn, plot an intercept course. How long till we rendezvous with the disturbance?"

"We should arrive in approximately 15.5 hours sir." The CONN officer replied.

"Very well, adjust course. We have hunting to do." Sub-Commander Choreeno ordered as a he flashed teeth at his target.

OOC: The unstable warp field is creating problems keeping a steady velocity, think random brake pumping in a car. Roll a CON check to see if/how sick you get.