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"The Ultimate Decision"
(Previous Post: (ANU) "Ambassadorial Duties" / (BAS) "Impossible Odds")
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Selene felt light, weightless and the pain coursing through her body seemed somehow lessened because of it. Her movements required little efforts as no force seemed to oppose them, this lead the Captain to ponder the ultimate question that all sentient life sooner or later found themselves asking... am I dead?
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Setting: USS BASTET, Bridge
Stardate: 34005.2245
The collision was soft but enough to make Selene realize that she was far from dead. Opening her eyes she could see the occasional flickering lights that illuminated the floating debris as well as the members of her senior staff who had been on the bridge at the time of the explosion. Every station she managed to look at was dark, if not destroyed; this hinted that the primary systems on board the BASTET were offline including, for obvious reasons, artificial gravity. Judging by the staleness of the air she breathed, it was safe to assume that life support was also not operational which meant that she needed to act, quickly.
"Commander Valentine!" The First Officer had been the one who collided with the Captain waking her from her weightlessness induced trans, and now it was Selene who needed to return the favour. "Commander Valentine! Wake up!"
The verbal command combined with vigorous shaking achieved the intended goal causing the woman to wake with a startle. "What happened?" The Commander inquired while looking around trying her best to ascertain what had taken place. It took a few extra seconds for Sarena to get her bearings due to the fact that the floor of the command deck was not where it should have been, namely to her side instead of beneath her. "Artificial gravity is offline," the First Officer said, the realization having come a split second after her understanding that they had not perished in the explosion she remembered as the last thing she and the others had experienced.
"Feels like life support may also be offline, not to mention the main computer" Iverson explained. "We need to make restoring life support our top priority. Once that is done we can focus on assessing the extent of the damages and attend to the injured."
"What about the Lokustaar vessel that was chasing us?" The question was normal given what they had just gone through even though they were in no shape to do anything about whatever situation they were now in.
"My guess is that they are either disabled or destroyed," the Captain replied looking at the inactive main display located at the front of the bridge. "Either way, they were not able to finish the job they started. So we may have gotten ourselves some time, therefore we need to restore our systems as quickly as possible so as to not give them, or anyone else, the chance to finish us."
"I will go down to Main Engineering," Valentine said. "I should be able to get there a little faster than usual thanks to artificial gravity not working."
"If possible, see if you can restore emergency internal communications," Iverson suggested. "It will make it easier for us to coordinate efforts throughout the ship and get a faster overview of how bad of a shape we are in."
Sarena nodded her head and quickly pushed and pulled herself to the nearest crawlspace access panel into which she easily disappeared into. With the First Officer clear on her task, the Captain shifted her attention to the other members of her staff currently on the bridge. It was Lieutenant Mitshiba, the Chief Science Officer who caught the scrutiny of the Captain next. The Asian woman had somehow found her way under the science station where she normally worked; this made it a lot harder for the officer to be seen by others.
Using whatever the Captain could get a hold off, Selene pushed her way through the stale air to see if Misaki was all right. The startled reaction of the woman upon being touched was actually a welcomed one as it demonstrated that the Lieutenant was alive.
"That must have been one powerful hit," Mitshiba said looking around and analysing what she was seeing. "Do we know what hit us first? As powerful as the Lokustaar energy weapon is, if it impacted out shields first, it might have had enough force to push us out of the danger zone of the shockwave created by the exploding quantum torpedoes. On the other hand, if the wave hit us first, it means that the Lokustaar vessel was already caught in the force of the explosion and that could have caused them to lose their targeting resolution. Either way, I guess it does not truly matter as we are alive." Misaki paused for a moment as she looked directly into the eyes of her Commanding Officer. "We are alive, right?"
The Captain smiled. "Yes, Lieutenant, we are alive although the BASTET appears to be in a rather bad state."
"Main power is clearly out as well as artificial gravity and," she stopped to take a deep breath to confirm what she suspected. "Yup, life support is also out, my guess is that is has been this way for not that long although we can already begin to tell that the air is thinning. I can go down to Main Engineering and see what I can do on that regards."
Clearly, the woman was not injured, or if she was the rush of adrenaline was making it so that she did not feel it. Either way, the Captain was glad to see her eagerness and readiness to help. "Commander Valentine is already on her way to Main Engineering to address our need to re-establish life support. She is also going to see if she can restore emergency internal communications."
"Emergency communications will be too limited. We need full communications in order to reach every section of every deck. If the main computer is down, that will not be possible, so with your permission Captain I will head to Deck 4 and access the main computer frame from there. If there is no physical damage to the core, I should be able to plug in some of the emergency power packs, which at the very least should get some of our systems online, such as communication and sensors. We might not be able to do much, but at least the crew will not be isolated from one another and we might be able to see what is happening out there."
"Go!" Iverson said feeling quite reassured that their situation would soon improve thanks to the efforts of Commander Valentine and Lieutenant Mitshiba. The next task for the Captain was to locate Ensign Dean and make sure that he too was all right. The more people she could get to help, the better their odds were to bring the BASTET back to some level of working condition before the Lokustaar returned.
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Setting: USS BASTET, Infirmary
Stardate: 34005.2300
"NICOLE! Where are you?" Sofia was in a panic as she forced her way through a sea of small devices that floated about making it impossible for her to see anything. In the mess that was the infirmary, the Chief Medical Officer had managed to find her patient Gemma but the Trill Counsellor had yet to be located. "NIC! This is no time for you to play games. Where are you?" The Doctor was in tears as her fears rapidly grew beyond her ability to reason away. "It is entirely my fault, why did I not listen to you."
"You never listen," the Counsellor softly said as she reached up to grab the foot that was passing within range. "That is just the person you are, that and you are rather loud when you are scared." Her voice was weak and indicated distinct signs of disorientation, but that was set aside in favour of the Doctor having found her at all.
"NICOLE!" Sofia screams in an explosion of unbridled joy. "YOU ARE ALL RIGHT!" It took some effort but the Doctor managed to grab hold of the woman she had been so desperate to find.
"You are loud when you are scared *and* happy," the Trill said correcting her last statement as they merged into an emotional embrace. "Are you all right? How is Gemma?" Nicole already sounded stronger as she become increasingly aware of the situation they were in.
"I lost my tricorder during whatever it was that happened to us, and we lost artificial gravity shortly after. I saw Gemma floating about back there but I wanted to find you, I needed to find you."
"Well, here I am," the Counsellor smiled as the two women held onto each other so that they could remain face-to-face despite there not being anything for them to anchor themselves to. A storm of emotions raged between them and for a moment both forgotten about the predicament they were confronted with. In the middle of this absolute chaos, they had found a small island of peace to call their own.
That moment of tranquility was short-lived though as the lights returned to full illumination quickly followed by the artificial gravity also being restored. Although the gravity gradually returned, due to their holding on to each other, the Chief Medical Officer and Counsellor ended up on the floor surrounded by everything else that had been floating around them.
The two women smiled at each other.
"We should check on Gemma," Nicole suggested.
"Agreed," Sofia said before they each rolled away from each other before getting up back to their feet.
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Setting: USS BASTET, Observation Lounge
Stardate: 34005.2330
As each officer walked into the meeting room, their gaze automatically fell onto the scene beyond the large windows. Everyone was unsure as to what to make of the lack of the ominous red clouds they had found themselves surrounded by upon their arrival into the home dimension of the Lokustaar. Something had changed, but what?
"I know that there are a great many questions to be addressed," the Captain said as she welcomed her senior staff. "We will do our best to answer them all. First, Lieutenant Mitshiba can answer, as best she can, the question that I am sure is on all of your minds."
"Please bear with me," the Asian woman offered as a start. "We have absolutely no idea where we are, but on the good side of things I can confirm that we are not in the Lokustaar dimension. Aside from the obvious visual clues," she said pointing to the starscape beyond the windows of the Observation Lounge, "the background cosmic radiation is also completely different. We are in another dimension, one that we have no previous data on."
"I thought that the Dimensional Jump Drive was locked onto the Lokustaar energy? Was it not why we were told that we would never be able to return home?" Ensign Dean asked, openly voicing his frustrations and confusion.
"The initial scans of the Dimensional and Temporal Drives showed that both were submitted to an exceptionally large energy influx that we suspect came from the combined effects of the Lokustaar energy weapon and shockwave created by the detonation of the quantum torpedoes," Valentine explained. "When the extra energy was diverted to the aft shields, all this energy interacted in a strange and unexpected manner causing a massive feedback that swept through Main Engineering. The best we can figure is that this strange combination of energy triggered the drives and brought us here, wherever this is."
"That means we are no longer locked into the Lokustaar dimension, so let us fix the drive and get back home," the Flight Control Officer said, his one and only goal being to return to his daughters.
"Unfortunately, it is not going to be that simple, Ensign," the First Officer added. "Far from it. The energy that was channeled back into the Dimensional Jump Drive as well as the Temporal Drive was powerful enough to damage them both beyond our ability to repair them."
"If sensors are working, could we not search for a civilization capable of helping us?" Nicole suggested.
"Even if it takes a few months, at least we would still be working on us getting home," Sofia added, jumping onto the optimism train.
"Sensors are working," Misaki confirmed before biting her lip and looking back at Sarena.
"The warp core was also damaged beyond repair in that energy overload," Commander Valentine explained, pressing her lips together in order to maintain her composure. "The best we have as far as propulsion is impulse power."
"All right," the Doctor accepted, clearly not willing to give up just yet. "So the trip will take years instead of months. We can still find someone out there to help us get home, no?" Sarena just glanced over at Selene, both senior most officers remaining silent.
"That is not the end of our problems, is it?" The Counsellor asked recognizing the expression on both the faces of their First Officer and Commanding Officer.
"Without the warp core providing the BASTET with primary power, we are left only with emergency generators, and several of them were also made inoperative due to the energy overload," Sarena offered. "We do not have the means to repair or replace them at this time, and by the looks of things we never will."
"Life support is drawing more power than we can generate at this time," the Captain added. "This means that, even at reduced levels, our emergency reserves are being steadily depleted with no ways for us to replenish them."
"I guess that taking artificial gravity offline once again is not going to make that much of a difference, will it?" Sofia said, trying to smile as she did so but finding herself on the verge of tears.
"This can't be," Ashton argued, slamming his closed fists on the table. "You cannot tell me that we survived that Lokustaar attack and even found our way out of their nightmare dimension only be find ourselves stuck here with nowhere to go other than wait for our deaths?"
"I understand your frustration Ensign, and things are not without hope," Iverson offered. "Sensors have identified an M-Class planet in a nearby system. We could reach it in just over two weeks at impulse power."
"So what are we waiting for? If I have to I will put on an EVA suit and push us in that direction," the Flight Control Officer said.
"We have enough resources to make it there, but once we arrive in orbit we will be incapable of leaving," Commander Valentine explained. "This would be a one-way trip."
"Aki, what have the long-range sensors picked up on that world?" The physician asked of the scientist.
"The planet is covered with lush vegetation with several large oceans and lakes," Misaki answered in a way that hinted there was more.
"But?" Nicole asked, joining in the unexpected interrogation of their own Chief Science Officer.
"There are no signs of any advance civilization on that planet," Iverson said having been given the report before the senior staff meeting. "In fact, there seems to be no civilization whatsoever on that planet."
"The atmospheric readings point to it being a primordial world in the middle to late stages of early biological development," Mitshiba explained. "The planet appears to be perfect for animal life, but I could not find any signs of even the most rudimentary settlements. I am sure that this planet would allow us to survive, maybe even provide us with some basic comforts, but it would certainly not offer any sort of help in solving our engineering problems."
"So our only choices are to possibly die in space or spend the rest of our miserable lives on that planet? I say we try our chances out there," Ashton forcefully voiced pointing at the nearest window. "At least that way we will not have given up on going home."
"As long as there is life, there is hope," Nicole somberly countered.
"Thank you Counsellor," Selene said. "This meeting is for us to get things in place for a decision to be taken by the crew as to what we do next. I understand that many amongst the crew may not wish to make their opinion known to the others, so I am offering for us to hold a secret ballot. This decision is too big for only a few to decide for the others. Everyone will be asked to make a decision quickly in order to make sure we have as much energy reserves as possible to reach whatever goal is decided upon. I will make a ship-wide announcement following this meeting and hope to have the results within the hour. Dismiss."
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Jessica Solarik
Commanding Officer
USS BASTET
&
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)