Return to Season 1
Go to Part 2
Ensign Lin Cheu stifled a yawn as she examined the sensor readout in front of her. As expected, nothing stood out as unusual, and she dutifully logged the latest reading as routine. From her perch in astrometrics, she gazed longingly at the door, knowing freedom was only a few minutes away. It was 2255 hours--she was mere moments from the end of her shift and time couldnt pass quickly enough for her. The last hour was always the worst, and today wasn't any different. Glancing disinterestedly at her compatriots, she could see Stephen Gillespie and Usha Rajpali shifting restlessly at their posts. They tapped at thier consoles periodically, adding to the already large volume of data accumulated there. Stephen caught her eye, tapped at his chronometer and grinned. He too had joined her silent countdown. The lights flickered unexpectantly, followed by a slight tremor which seemed to come from all sides. Cheu frowned as her console bleeped urgently and began to spit out a new set of sensor data at an alarming rate.
"Oh no." she said softly as she absorbed the meaning of the new readings, knowing whoever currently manned Ops was recieving the same data. As if summoned, a voice crackled through the intercom.
<< Bridge to astrometrics. What the hell is going on? >>
***********
The deck vibrated again, followed by a low humming sound whose origin could not quite be placed but seemed to come from the center of the ship itself. Disoriented, Colin Becker opened one sleep heavy eye, unsure of what had startled him awake. As if to remind him, the deck vibrated more violently this time, causing his water glass to tip over his bedside table and crash to the floor. The ship was suddenly buffetted by a blast of some sort, followed by the shuddering sound of stressed metal and Colin could sense Prometheus losing speed. The room seemed to tilt unnaturally, and Colin slid gracelessly across his bedsheets, unceremoniously slamming a shoulder into the wall. He winced at the sounds of shattering glass and assorted objects thudding against the floor.
The trembling ceased as suddenly as it had begun and Colin felt Prometheus level out and return to neutral position. But as far as he could tell, they were no longer moving--the ship was at a dead stop. Scrambling shakily to his feet, he reached for his commbadge to contact the bridge and demand an explanation. Before he could speak, a voice he recognized as that of Lieutenant Anson Stills said hurriedly,
<< Captain. You're needed on the bridge. >>
Frowning at the anxious tone, Colin responded. "Acknowledged. On my way."
As he hurried through the corridors, he became aware that the ship was running on emergency power and his apprehension grew. He endured the turbolift ride impatiently, his mind racing with the possibilities of what might have happened. Bursting onto the bridge, he barked,
"Report!"
"Sir!" Lieutenant Stills greeted him, rapidly summarizing their situation. "We appear to have entered some type of spatial anomaly which caused us to collide with several gravitational eddys. Propulsion is offline and shields are down. We've managed to maintain structural integrity but most of the generators have blown, forcing us to reroute to auxiliary power. Data is now coming in from damage control."
Absorbing the young officers words with growing dismay, Colin briskly marched over to his command console and keyed it to display a quick overview of their current status. As Stills had pointed out, the damage was impressive, but he was relieved to see that Prometheus was in no immediate danger of destruction.
"Do we know what happened here?" he demanded.
"Astrometrics is working on that, Sir."
"Lieutenant, I want to see department heads in my ready room in 10 minutes. Notify me of any change in ship status, no matter how small, immediately. Is that understood?"
Without bothering to wait for a response, he gathered what data had already come in and began to scan it intently for some explanation as to what had occurred and why.
********
"The region we've entered is called nil space." Daniel Ryan explained as the simulation on the display screen pictured a mini-Prometheus buffetted by energy waves---not unlike a boat in a storm.
Colin's eyes never left the screen as he leaned forward in his chair at the head of the conference table.
"Elaborate." he commanded.
Daniel paused the image and continued, "It's an uncommon phenomenon, a lot of the knowledge whe have is theoretical. I've only seen intermittent documentation in Federation scientific journals. To put it simply, it is basically a pocket of space created by turbulent regions of magnetic and gravitational fields which overlap. We seem to have blunderd into it. Unfortunately, the gravitational eddys we hit were akin to slamming Prometheus into a very large wall."
"How did we manage to enter this nil space without noticing?" Colin asked, trying to understand what had just occurred.
"The energy outside a pocket of nil space tends to bend around it--this includes photons. It basically renders the area invisible to both sensors and the naked eye. You wouldnt know it was there until you were in it--which is precisely what happened to us."
"Alright, we're in it. Now we need to get out. Lieutenant Jorrell, what's the status of engineering?"
Rhianna frowned and shook her head. "When we hit those eddys, it was like one massive short circuit. We're still running on emergency power. I'm doing all I can just to keep life support up, frankly. Everything's offline--shields, engines, long range sensors, you name it. We're lucky we have structural integrity. To be blunt, we're dead in space and practically blind."
"How long will it take to regain impulse?"
"Captain," she began with reproach. "We're still assessing the extent of the damage. It's hard to say."
As she finished speaking, the vibrations began again, increasing in intensity. The ship was slammed with a violent jolt of energy seconds later, extinguishing the lights. Almost immediately, they flickered and came back to life as the secondary power systems strained to compensate.
After a moment's pause, Rhianna continued as if nothing had happened. "And each time we're battered by these energy waves, any progress we've made with repairs seems to come undone."Rhianna explained, her frustration evident by her body language.
"It's taking it's toll on the crew as well, Sir." Mirana Keset interjected. "With each impact, we've had several people come to Sickbay with injuries ranging from bruises and cuts to severe lacerations and fractures."
"Mr. Ryan, were you able to learn anything from the sensor data we managed to collect immediately before and after we entered this nil space? " Colin turned back to his chief science officer.
"We're still analyzing it, Sir. I can't tell you how big this region is or how far into it we've travelled. Fortunately, we're still able to pick up faint readings in the space immediately surrounding Prometheus. My team is trying to enhance the sensors as we speak."
"Good. Keep working on it. Have someone from engineering assist you." Colin turned back to Rhianna. "And as for you, focus on restoring main power. The engines are our top priority--I dont like taking repeat beatings from these gravitational fields any more than you do. Notify me the moment we have impulse so that we can get the hell out of here."
Colin stood up abruptly. "Mr. Sevril. Allocate any personnel you can spare to engineering or science. Commander O'Conner, I'll meet with you in two hours. Please prepare a report on our progress at that time. If there are no questions, you are dismissed. Let's get to work, people."
********
Ari Denyri finished attaching the last component to the circuit board, propping himself up on his elbows as he critiqued his handiwork. Apparently satisfied, he slid out from beneath the console under which he had been laboring flat on his back for the past hour. Turning to reach for his toolkit, he found himself face to face--or face to foot rather--with the chief engineer. His gaze travelled up from her regulation boots to her long legs to her stormy face. Using a bulkhead for assistance, he pulled himself to his feet, wiping his hands on the back of his liberally stained pants. Rhianna Jorrell looked equally disheveled, her dark hair hanging limply onto a tunic torn at the shoulder where the material had evidently cought on something and lost the battle. She swiped absently at a grease streaked cheek, unaware that the action only smeared it further.
"What's the matter, Rhi?" he asked. "You look pissed. More than usual, that is."
Rhianna ignored her aCEO's attempt at humor, deeming it inappropriate considering the situation they were in.
"Each time I try and allocate power to one system, it seems to drop in another. Something's draining our energy. We've got a leak and I can't figure out where." she complained.
To Rhianna, it was one big repeat nightmare, too similar to the episode months ago when the ship had shut down seemingly without explanation. At that time, she had vainly searched for the source of the power drain while the ship had gone into the mechanical equivalent of a coma. The Captain had been on the verge of abandoning ship before she had discovered the problem. It had taken weeks to rebuild and now it seemed to be happening all over again. Although their situation was nowhere near as hopeless at it had been then--yet--she was afraid she would fail the Captain this time. These thoughts only soured her mood further, causing most of her staff to avoid her. All except Ari, of course. Unlike the others, she had yet to intimidate him and he took her mood swings in stride. Although she would never admit it--not to him anyway---she was grateful he had been slated as her aCEO. He had a talent for defusing her temper and served as a buffer between herself and her staff.
Without warning, the ship was rocked by a collision with another gravitational wave, nearly lifting Rhianna off her feet. Several cries from across the room proved not everyone had avoided injury . Several engineers picked themselves up off the deck, muttering.
"Rhi, take a look at this."
While she had been lost in thought, Ari had been perusing ship schematics and power allocations on his display screen. His look of triumph evidently meant he had found something.
"I really wish you would stop calling me that." she snapped.
"No you don't. Deep down, you kind of like it." he grinned.
Tilting the display screen so that she could see, he pointed at a schematic of a power grid. "Right before that eddy hit us, the energy distribution in transporter control looked like this."
Allowing her a moment to absorbe the diagram, he pressed a tab and called up another image.
"After impact, it looked like this."
Rhianna's eyes widened as she studied the image. In just one of the ship''s subsystems, power had decreased by 40% after passing through the eddy.
"Ari," she said, forgetting she was supposed to be annoyed. "I think we found the source of our power drain."
*********
Mirana ran her dermal regenerator over the laceration, the thin white beam neatly following the length of the now healing cut and released the Caitan's forearm. He examined it admiringly, flexing his paws several times.
"Thank you, Doctor." he said, obviously pleased with her handiwork, and hopped off the biobed. She watched him slip out of sickbay and head back to the science department from whence he came.
Making a brief notation in his chart, she moved onto her next patient, a yellow haired engineering technician who barely looked old enough to meet the Fleet's age requirements. He was reclined on the biobed, propped up on his elbows with his left leg in an immobilizing splint. He regarded her with dilated, slightly glazed eyes that indicated a painkiller had recently set in.
"Hi, Doc." he offered her a crooked grin. "Looks like I need some patching up."
"Seems that way Mr. Grayson. What happened?" Gently, she reached for his leg. Someone had cut away his pant leg and cleaned the wound. He winced as she touched it--evidently the pain killer hadn't completely taken effect yet. Her tricorder readings confirmed what she already suspected. Grayson had a comminuted fracture of his fibular shaft.
"I got thrown against a bulkhead during our last run in with an eddy. Some equipment slid across the floor and my leg was wedged between it and the wall. Bad luck, I guess."
Mirana murmured some appropriately soothing words as she programmed a bone knitter with the appropriate frequency and amplitude settings, and placed it against his skin. Sickbay had been recieving a steady stream of injured, following each collison with an eddy. They had been fortunate so far--most of her patients could be quickly tended to and released. But Mirana was aware that thier luck could only hold for so long and a serious accident could occur at any time. All she could do was make sure she and her team was ready when it did.
"Doctor, I'll finish up here." Nurse Breena Lamarr approached from behind and placed a hand on the edge of the bone knitter. "There's another one for you to look at."
Lamarr was referring to the recent onset of headache and nausea complaints among the crew. It sounded like a virus of some kind, yet none of her scans had yielded any evidence of a pathogen. She had decided to personally examine each crew member with these complaints, hoping to discover a clue as to its origin.
"Thank you, Breena." Mirana stepped away from the engineering technician, knowing she was leaving him in excellent hands. She headed for biobed 7, where the Klingon assistant chief of security stood stiffly, looking acutely uncomfortable.
"Lieutenant Ta'quith. How can I help you?" Mirana offered her most reassuring smile to her reluctant patient.
"I do not require assistance. I was ordered to report to Sickbay by Lieutenant Commander Turek and I do so now under protest." she growled.
"I see." Mirana said calmly as she ran a tricorder over the discomfitted Klingon. As expected, there were no bacterial or viral traces in her system.
"Thiat is not necessary, Doctor." Seyla objected.
"Mmmm." Mirana responded. "You've been complaining of headaches, Lieutenant? And nausea?"
"I am Klingon. A headache is nothing." she said derisively, implying the vast superiority of her race over Mirana's.
Not in the mood to have her weak species belittled, Mirana narrowed her eyes at the other woman as she pressed a hypospray against her neck.
"Although I'm sure you can handle the discomfort, this should help to relieve it. Come back if it doesn't work."
"That wont be necessary. May I go now?"
Mirana nodded and the Kingon slunk away without a thank you, careful to avoid touching any medical equipment or the other patients on her way to the door.
********
"Will there be anything else Commander?" Naeve Sevril asked tersely as she accepted the PADD he handed her.
The turbolift inched slowly upwards as the two officers retreated to seperate corners, increasing the distance between them as much as possible.
"No." Mark O'Conner answered in a clipped tone. "I'll need the information immediately after my meeting with the Captain."
"And you'll get it. Sir."
"I dont particularly appreciate your tone, Mr. Sevril."
"I apologize." She said in a way which showed she wasn't sorry at all. "I'll try to modify it in the future."
She smiled coldly, her eyes a wintry green.
"See that you do." he warned, his smile even icier than her own. "I dont want to put you on report, but I'll do it again if I have to. Don't make me go the Captain with your attitude problem."
The doors slid open, rescuing Naeve from having to reply.
"If you'll excuse me, Sir, I'll see you after your meeting--with the information you requested."
She slipped away without acknowledging his previous statement and the doors slid shut behind her. As the 'lift resumed its course, Mark quelled the impulse to go to the Captain about her--it was inappropriate at this time. But perhaps after this latest crisis had pased, they would have a long discussion about their chief of operations. Although she had apologized for her behavior while the Ambassadors had been aboard, the peace had only lasted a week before she had resumed her previous attitude with him. Obviously something further had to be done about her. And soon.
He stepped off the turbolift and headed in the direction of Colin Becker's ready room. He was admitted to the Captain's inner sanctum almost immediately and found the man as he so frequently did, staring out of the large observation window.
Colin turned away reluctantly and crossed the room to his seat. "I hope you've got good news."
Mark shrugged as he slid into the chair opposite him.
"I've got news, though I don't know how good it is."
Colin sat back, hands clasped across his stomach, his left ankle resting on the opposite leg.
"Proceed." he ordered.
"Engineering discovered a correlation between the gravitational eddys and the power drains we've been having. They've been working with science and together they found out the anomoly we're in is attracted to electromagnetic energy. We're basically a lightning rod surrounded by layers of magnetic and gravitational fields that recognize us as a potential energy source."
"That doesn't sound very good." Colin frowned.
"No, sir. Lieutenants Ryan and Jorrell are trying to decrease our EM output, or at least dampen our readings to attract fewer eddys. That's crucial to permit repairs to main systems to hold."
Colin nodded in approval. "Then we could get engines back online and get out of here."
"I asked Lieutenant Jorrell to keep us posted on her progress. Unfortunately, we've got a lot of interference with our short range senosors and long range are still offline so we don't know what else is out here with us."
"I'm sure if we were going to be attacked, it would have happened by now. A potential enemy would have had every opportunity to strike at us. And if there's someone else trapped in here, we're in no position to help them at the moment. Is there anything else?"
Mark hesitated for a moment. "Only one more thing, although it seems unrelated. Dr. Keset has noted several crew members complaining of nausea and headache ever since we entered this region of nil space."
"It's not a virus?" Colin was immediately alert.
"It's possible--especially if it's a microvirus. But she doesn't think so."
Colin frowned. The last thing they needed was the beginning of an epidemic of some sort. He needed every member of his crew healthy and working towards returning Prometheus to normal space. The lights flickered--Colin immediately planted his feet on the floor and braced for impact. They had been buffetted by the eddys so many times that his movements were automatic. Without fail, Prometheus shuddered briefly and Colin grimaced as his ship took another blow.
Once she appeared to settle once more, Colin fixed his first officer with a determined gaze.
"Get my ship out of here, Commander. Quickly." His grim tone held a note of dismissal.
"Yes, sir. " Mark promptly stood, nodded, and hurried purposefully from the ready room. Naeve Sevril had assured him she would be waiting here with her report, yet the hallway was decidedly empty. One minute turned into two, then five and she still had not arrived.
"Computer," he snapped. "Locate Lieutenant Commander Sevril."
< Lieutenat Commander Sevril is in her quarters. >
That did it, Mark thought grimly. She had disobeyed a direct order and now she thought to hide from him in her quarters. It was the last straw--he'd knock the chip off her shoulder with so many demerits, her head would spin. And he would do it right now.
Quickly, he made his way to her quarters and stabbed impatiently at her door chime. When she did not respond promptly enough, his mood darkened further. He pressed the chime again, more insistently this time.
"Answer, damn you." he grumbled.
AFter the third persistent ring of the chime, only silence greeted him from the other side of the door. His patience at an end, he tried a new tactic.
"Computer, open door at this location, Authorization O'Conner 3-2-Zeta."
The doors slid obligingly open and Mark hesitated only a moment before entering Naeve's quarters. After a brief search, he realized he was alone. Feeling somewhat foolish, he stepped into the corridor once more.
I'll have to get Jorrell to run a diagnostic on internal sensors, he thought in exasperation.
Now where the hell was Sevril?
*******
"Hey, I said hand me the isokinetic calipers. " Tom Sherritt repeated.
"What?" Lira Toket asked. The wave of queasiness had passed. Her nausea had been increasing in intensity for the past hour.
Tom cocked his head questioningly at her as he paused in his work. "Are you OK?"
"I..I'm not sure." she admitted.
Ari Denyri seemed to appear out of nowhere, looking sharply from one Ensign to the other.
"Everything alright?" Although his tone was light, he scrutinized the Bajoran closely.
"I feel a little sick." she admitted reluctantly.
"Headache?" Ari demanded.
"A little." she lied.
"You're going to Sickbay. Sherritt, why don't you escort her?" he commanded.
By the time she reached Sickbay, Toket's pounding headache had subsided to a dull throb. Sherritt went back to engineering as she obediently sat on the biobed to which she was directed. She attempted to ensure the copper haired doctor that she was fine, but Mirana would have none of it as she completed her tricorder scan.
She turned away to fill a hypospray and said, "Trust me, Ensign. You'll feel a lot better after a few minutes."
Looking back at Toket, she stifled a shout. The hypospray clattered to the floor unused and forgotten as the Bajoran woman vanished right before her eyes.
Email: express100@yahoo.com
