Homeward Bound

Posted on Tue Jan 26th, 2021 @ 7:56pm by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Commodore Jacob Kane & Lieutenant Leah Bailey & Ensign George Paxton

Mission: The Shadow of Arachne
1186 words - 2.4 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Deflector Control was basically as it had been left - complete with the half-deconstructed conduit panelling where the device had originally been planted. Leah went straight to the main deflector controls and got to work on replicating the conditions of the previous pulse.

"This will take a few minutes; we'll need to compensate for the different spacial conditions of the outer environment. Can you safely manipulate the device to do its part without blowing us up?" she asked.

P'rel nodded to the young man in the team, squinting as a bright green beam passed over her eyes; "Paxton" she said to indicate he should take up that task. With the remaining clone device hooked into an EPS tap, the radiation it produced should be accurately replicated. If Bailey could just recreate Danton's work as well, they might have a way out of here. Ignoring the whirring sounds of the drones, and foul smell of the Borg ship they stood on, she looked down at her tricorder; "I will monitor the deflector output interaction with the radiation from the device. I must warn you, this is unlikely to be a pleasant experience" she said with caution. P'rel looked up and the deflector control room had returned, but the dim light ensured that only the pale grey faces of the Jem'Hadar could be seen in the darkness; the deep shadow exaggerating their scaled and ruptured facial features.

Paxton nodded and walked over to the device. He hadn't spent much time with these devices before now so he took a few minutes to evaluate the various controls and connectors. Trial by fire seemed to be the standard the past few days, George thought before diving in and making changes to the device. Hoping that he had accurately determined the correct controls that would prevent their explosive termination.

Leah swallowed as the terrible groans of poor suffering servicemen reached her ears. Memories flooded her mind of those unfortunate souls in that disastrous radiation leak several years earlier. She felt sick to her stomach as the sounds only intensified. "Nothing to fear but fear itself...nothing to fear but fear itself..." she muttered under her breath, using the mantra to concentrate on her task. "Almost there. Will need a minute or two for the deflector to build up sufficient charge."

George tweaked the adapter on the device and then adjusted a setting through the small interface attached to the side. Grateful that he had something to concentrate on to keep his mind off of the ever-shrinking room. "I think this is all set," George said as he made one final alteration and crossed his fingers. He hadn't been irradiated when the adjustments were made and he felt like that was a good sign.

"Come on..." The dial wasn't moving fast enough for Leah's impatience. "Lt P'rel, is the connection set? We're getting a charge from the deflector now. You should start seeing something."

P'rel frowned at the tricorder readings, there just wasn't enough interaction between the deflector pulse and the radiation from the remaining device; she moved quickly to a free standing console near to where she stood and accessed the readouts. There deflector pulses just weren't strong enough to push the ship back into normal space; "hang on..." she reported, "Paxton move away!" the Vulcan shouted as she threw plasma down the EPS grid. Mimicking a reroute due to a rupture, twice the amount of plasma was now surging through the conduit, and the radiation emissions began to match. A rumble gently rose through the deck, and the interactions between the pulse and the radiation grew; a sudden hard pitch to port and the rumble grew into a sustained hard shaking of the ship. Athena was being pushed back into normal space, but not quite, almost as if she were stuck between two realms. A second violent surge to port. "We're trapped between two subspace layers! We don't have enough charge along the hull from the deflector to return to normal space!" the Vulcan called out to Bailey, "we have to increase - " she was knocked to her knees by another hard jolt " - we have to increase the surface area of the ship!".

Behind her somewhere, a conduit blew, billowing a bright green gas into the room; "Ensign!" P'rel shouted, directing the engineer to address the rupture before they lost too much flow to the radioactive device. She tapped her commbadge hard, trying to regain her footing as the ship rolled again violently to port; =/\= "Bridge! We have to separate the ship! Maintain a close proximity formation!" =/\=. The Vulcan could only hope that her communication got through, and the increased surface area from the three detached hulls would be sufficient to hold the charge needed to finish pushing them back into normal space. She looked for Bailey, and for Paxton, but could barely see a metre in front her; so thick now were the ruptured gases which filled the control room. The visions had abated at least, which indicated that they were somewhere closer to normal space than they had been.

"Standby, Lieutenant - we need another fifteen seconds to lock down the third core. If we separate too early there will be an entire section completely without power and we could lose it entirely!" Kane responded from the Bridge. "Polarise the hull plating; that should limit structural integrity damage."

There was an intense pause as the seconds counted down; the build-up of radiation colliding with the need to power the entire ship and separate the various sections.

"Radiation at dangerous levels..." Leah warned. "We're looking at irreversible damage if we don't boost deflector power now."

"Core locked. Emergency separation sequence. All hands - Brace for emergency decoupling!" Kane barked from the bidge.

The ship shuddered, bucked, and hurled most occupants sprawling to the port side as the ship twisted awkwardly in space and then came to a halt; three separate sections drifting barely a few hundred meters apart from one another.

"Report!" Kane called out.

"Main deflector offline. Lateral sensors not responsive." Leah reported back.

"Connect in with Starfleet sensor relays. Give me a location."

"We're...in open space. Out of the Badlands. On the border of the...Beta quadrant? We're dozens of light-years from our previous coordinates."

"Out of the reach of any Breen, then," Kane remarked back over the comm. "Upper port nacelle is completely offline. We'll signal for emergency assistance from local starbase." He paused. "Excellent work, people. I think we're due some short leave after that one."

As Kane's voice filled the room, the noise of Athena shaking herself apart abated. It was strange; almost serene. The room was deathly quiet once the Captain had finished speaking, and the gases which filled the room were beginning to settle creating a paradoxically deadly but beautiful dreamlike environment. Nonetheless, whatever was filling the room probably wasn't going to do their lungs any good; "Alright, everyone out" P'rel ordered, just about being to able identify the moving silhouettes of Paxton and Bailey as they too headed for the door to the safety of the corridor outside.