1. A Cry for Help

Posted on Mon Jan 23rd, 2023 @ 8:29pm by Captain Dirk Taggart & Lieutenant Commander Henry Castle & Lieutenant Jennifer Matthews & Lieutenant Adora (Addie) Hart & Lieutenant JG Emony Kyl & Lieutenant JG Vespa Kale & Lieutenant JG Camille Lévesque PhD

Mission: Cost of Survival
Location: USS Pennsylvania Bridge

Captain Dirk Taggart walked across the bridge and surveyed the various officers manning their stations. Everything had remained quiet since departing Tabula Rasa a month earlier. Engineers from the USS Astraea and USS Wellington, under the supervision of the new First Officer Castle, repaired the damage to the USS Pennsylvania. For the first time since becoming Captain, Dirk had a fully functioning, starship at his command. The first order of business was to return to their primary mission of exploring and mapping the unknown areas of the Delta Quadrant.

As the Captain approached Science I, Camille looked up from her readouts, adjusted her glasses, and smiled at him. “Capitaine. We’re tracking some interesting anomalies at the periphery of our sensor range. Mostly we’re just cataloging them for analysis later. Look at this one, sir.” She pointed to her display. “I’ve studied dozens of nebula clouds but never seen one quite like this. There’s a publication in this one, j’en suis certaine!”

Addie stood at the back of the bridge. Though she wasn't required to be there, it was a place that, for the most part, she had come to enjoy being when she wasn't in sickbay or in her own offices. Though, with Henry now serving as the ship's Executive Officer, she had started lingering at the back of the bridge instead of sitting in one of the center chairs.

This was how she liked the bridge. Quiet. Peaceful. Normal. Not full of strobing lights, klaxons, explosions, and chaos.

Dirk looked over Camille’s shoulder, "That's odd," he said aloud. "Computer display the Nebula cloud on the viewscreen." He stared at the gaseous cloud slightly enlarged by the computer's enhancement. He stepped to the center of the bridge as he stared, "That looks just like a nebulous cloud we experienced previously though it was in a different location. Launch a probe to investigate its makeup. If we can collect some data that would be great, but we are not moving closer to it."

“We can’t go closer?” Camille asked, but thought better than to actually question the order. “Of course, Captain. Launching a Class Five Probe…now.” The small, warp-capable device left the ship’s forward torpedo tube and veered toward the cloud. “We’ll have plenty of data to keep my department busy.”

Nebula? The single word broke through her peaceful reverie and Addie found her attention now firmly fixed on the view screen in front of them, her body standing rigid, nails digging hard into the palms of her hands. Around her, the peace and calm of the bridge dissipated. She could feel sweat prickling around her brow, her eyes widening and glassing over as a deeply etched memory rose to the surface. The sound of phaser fire. The pained cry of Vespa set fire to her senses, the deep thud of a lifeless body hitting the deck. The heavy footfalls of the angry marine. Fear coursed through her body, making her skin prickle. Her chest tightened, unable to get a breath. Why couldn't she breathe? She gave a strangled sound, half gasp, half sob as everything on the bridge around her started to blur together.

The conversations had gone on around Castle as he sat in the XOs chair, half paying attention to the Bridge chatter, and half focused on the small display terminal next to him. Tapped into the Engineering systems, he was being fed the take from the near-constant diagnostic scan being performed. They had spent a month, first rebuilding, then recalibrating the damaged systems. The technical performance of the ship was a source of pride for him.

A sound sliced through his focus like a knife. A sound that sounded like... He was on his feet in a moment, turning to look at the woman. "Addie?" He came around the corner of the arched rail, approaching slowly. "Addie, what's wrong?"

Camille looked over to the Counselor, confused at the reaction. It was just a nebula. The galaxy was full of them. She made a mental note to pull up the report of the ship’s last encounter with one, the one the Captain mentioned. So strange.

The turbolift swished to allow the binary officer to arrive on the bridge, "Sorry I'm a little late, had some trouble with who broke my friend?" The casual gait of the Dalacari quickened as she walked towards Addie, but stopped at about an arm's length. A Dalacari could be a crowd, so she didn't want to actually crowd her, what with Castle already there.

"Easy. Easy." One form said while the other reached a handout. An anchor, of sorts.

The physical touch was what broke her from the mental moment. She glanced between the dual forms of Vespa and Henry, wide-eyed and clearly confused and disorientated. Vespa was still standing on all four legs, and the Captain was still upright and looking at her, confusion and concern etched on his face. A sentiment that seemed to echo across most every face looking her way, especially Henry who was standing right in front of her. Quickly she dashed a hand across her eyes and shook her head. "Sorry," she said with a shaky voice. "I... I... uh..."

Camille took the image of the nebula off the viewscreen. If that was affecting her, best to stop the stimulus.

"Counselor, feel free to have a seat and recompose yourself," Dirk said as he remembered his first mission aboard the Penn. He gave a slight shudder as he turned back towards Camille. "Send the probe and mark the location, we won't be heading near that thing any time soon. In the mean team if we have the data compiled for this sector we can move along and begin the next set of scans."

“It’s on its way now, Captain,” affirmed Camille.

Castle put a hand on Addie's elbow, steering her towards an unused station in the corner of the bridge. "You okay?" He asked, dropping his voice, so as not to interrupt the rest of the bridge. "What's up?"

Addie sank gratefully into the seat, her hands grasping the sides of the seat to keep herself steady. She took a few deep breaths, steeling herself, trying to regain her composure. "Just some... unpleasant thoughts..." she replied quietly, unable to quite meet his eyes as she spoke.

"I can take you to sickbay if you think it's needed." Vespa offered, concern for her friend on both of her features. One stayed next to her as she was seated, the other stood not too far away, as though ready to help her stand again. The Dalacari knew damn well how terrible those thoughts were. She'd never admit to Addie that she still had an itchy spot where she was shot, and not even on the form that TOOK the shot. The last thing Addie needed, though, was to hear that.

An alert chimed on Camille’s console, prompting her to look away from Addie and back to her screen. ”Capitaine, I have a new reading. A signal of some kind. I can’t tell what it is yet. It’s coming from bearing three-four-zero-mark-zero-zero-nine. Not the nebula, somewhere else entirely.”

Castle glanced over his shoulder, giving Addie's hands a squeeze. "I gotta go to work." He gave her a smile. "I'll be right there if you need me." With a reassuring look, the man stepped over to Lévesque. "Mature of the signal?" He tilted his head, getting a better view of her screen.

“Un moment,” Camille replied. “Here it is. I think it’s a distress signal. I can’t decipher it yet, but it appears to be on a cycle, with certain parts repeating to either side multiple times. In time, the UT should decode it though. The source appears to be a space station, one half-parsec away from System GCN-33134, three-point-seven light-years from our current position.”

Captain Taggart sat in the command chair as he listened to the Science Officer, "Try to decode that signal, helm lay in a course at warp 5. That should give us enough time to decode the message while en route."

Coming back in from her rounds and status updates, Emony stepped out of the turbolift. Something about her was still off since the encounter with the Koldaran. That pep in her step was out of tune, and that sparkle in her eyes was dimmed. Dealing with a warzone for two was harder than anticipated.

"All decks look good, sir. Tactical systems are also showing green, my report is awaiting you." Emony said to the Captain as she took over from the relief officer at Tactical. Taking a moment to appraise the situation, she realized that her report may have been more timely than she'd expected.

"Do we have that message deciphered yet?" Dirk asked, before turning to Security, "Welcome to the bridge Kyl, your timing is perfect as always. We received some kind of signal and are approaching carefully, we may go to Yellow if we don't get this message's contents deciphered before we get there. I just want to know what we are headed toward."

“I have it now,” Camille reported. “Playing audio now, translated to Standard.”

"This is SheNang-Tow, leader of the Chitlari people, calling for immediate assistance. Our space station, located at coordinates 341-917-222, is in a state of emergency. Our systems are failing and we are running on limited backup power. Many of our inhabitants are suffering from malnutrition and illnesses. We are in urgent need of food, water, medical supplies, and repair crews. Our current situation is dire and time is of the essence. We have four thousand five hundred people on board, including fifteen hundred injured or sick. I repeat, this is a distress call, and we are in need of immediate assistance. Please respond as soon as possible. Over."

Camille grimaced hearing the contents of the distress call. That was a lot of people, and a full third of them were incapacitated.

“Coordinates align with the station we detected,” she said. “We’ll know more about their situation as we get closer.”

Jenni, the ship's newest engineer, had stepped onto the bridge just as the translated distress call began to play over the speakers. She had been heading towards the bridge's Engineering station already, but she doubled her speed to her destination at the mention of emergency. She immediately made several mental notes regarding the technological state of the station. "With a station that size looking at a cascade failure, it's going to be a challenge to pinpoint the cause and affect repairs. And that's assuming there's only a single point of failure."

"I concur." The Executive Officer - former Chief Engineer - agreed with the assessment. "We may be looking at a worst case of a total, station-wide controlled shut-down, and reinitialization one system at a time, to track down the causes. That's a ... uh... problem, given the number of injured and sick." Castle grimaced as his mind began going through the sheer scale of such a scenario.

The distress call brought Addie back to the present moment. "Sir, we're still waiting for a replacement Chief Medical Officer," she said quietly as she stood up from the terminal she had been sitting at. "Sickbay is not equipped to deal with that level of medical intervention, at least, not without someone to oversee everything."

"I'll help." Vespa piped up. "I'm used to having a wider scope of perspective than any single instance officer. I'm no medic but I can organize..."

"... and prioritize better than anyone." the Dalacari straightened up, taking pride in her capacity (and heritage). "Turn one of the larger holodecks into an overflow medical triage, or turn one of..."

"... the cargo bays into a space for walking wounded."

"OK, Kale you can handle triage and let Hart treat what she can, you two will coordinate with the existing medical staff we have," the Captain said.

-The End