A Quiet Night
Posted on Wed Sep 13, 2023 @ 8:59am by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Commander Zachary Addams & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Commander Cullen Walker
5,221 words; about a 26 minute read
Mission:
A Lost Endeavour
Timeline: Too effing early
Time: 0304
Location: USS Victory - Bridge
For once, all was quiet. The only sounds were the ever present, familiar and if truth be told, comforting hum of the Victory’s powerful engines as the ship cruised through the eternal dark of space, and the occasional chirp or chime from the computer as automated computers followed operational protocols and kept a close monitored watch on the ship’s systems. Most of the ship’s crew were asleep, the only exceptions being those tasked with mid-watch. A few engineers working late on the eternal tasks required to keep a Starfleet ship in optimal condition, and a few night owls who would deeply regret their decision to stay awake late into the night come morning when they were due to report for duty.
As the OOD (Officer of the Deck), Lt. Morgan Sanders was frankly – bored. It was a definite improvement for his career to be assigned as the mid-watch OOD, true. After he put in his time as the mid-watch OOD, he knew he would be rotated to a better shift to stand the same watch and continue his progress in his Starfleet career. But damn, he was tired! Foolishly he’d negl ected to get a few hours of rack time before his watch, instead spending the time he should have been sleeping on a poker game where he’d been a little relieved to have to bow out when he did as he’d been getting cleaned out by one of those damn Marines! He was fairly certain that SSgt. Davidson was counting cards, no one had that much luck!
With his attention focused on his own internal musings, when the first vibrations began to subtly pulse through the ship he didn’t notice it at all. At the helm, the navigation officer was first to notice the vibration. With a frown, Ensign Green turned partly around to face the main area of the bridge as he asked, “Does anyone else feel that?”
Pulled from feeling sorry for his lost latinum, Lt. Sanders responded with a puzzled frown. “Feel what?”
[Holodeck]
Walker was in the holodeck working out. Something shut down the Holodeck System. It was Completely dark, no energy. "Walker to Bridge. What happened?" No response. "Walker to Bridge. I'm in the holodeck with no power." He found the wall and made his way to the arch. He tried to reboot it. No luck. He had to force his way out. By the time, he got out, another wave hit and almost took him off his feet. He made his way to the bridge.
[Captain’s Quarters]
In the Captain’s quarters, the ship’s commanding officer was asleep. Her body angled somewhat awkwardly across her bed so as to not disturb the cat sleeping most comfortably stretched out across the center of the bed itself. The occasional tail flick, or paw twitch giving quiet evidence of the cat’s deep and contented slumber.
The first indication of something unusual came in the form of a low, almost imperceptible vibration which began to run through the Victory’s hull. It would be a difficult thing to speculate on which of them woke first, the cat or the Captain. Both were brought from sleep by the unusual vibration, though for different reasons. The cat, because it was annoying. The Captain, because the vibration was abnormal, and there were very few causes which could cause such a situation. None of which were good.
Shaking sleep from her mind, the Captain half sat up (prompting a sleepy “mrrowwr” of complaint from her cat) and said “Bridge. This is the Captain. I’m feeling a low vibration in the ship’s structure. What’s the cause, external source or an internal systems issue?”
On the Bridge, the OOD closed his eyes for a moment, having hoped maybe he’d be able to figure out that exact question before the Captain was alerted to the issue and then replied, “Unknown as yet Captain. Diagnostics indicate all systems are operating within normal parameters. There’s no alerts or warnings on any of the status boards. We’re running internal and external scans now trying to isolate the source of the vibration and identify it.”
“Keep me posted.” the Captain answered. Then, signing off the comm channel she reached over to give her little cat a scratch under the animal's chin which resulted in a rising thrum of purring from the little beast. Kennit smiled a little, “You are one spoiled little brat, did you know that?”
The cat, being a cat, ignored her.
The vibration felt a little stronger, and the Captain sighed. “Looks like it’s time for me to get up.” she said. “Don’t worry, you can stay here and keep on sleeping..”
Ten minutes later:
Exiting her quarters with her uniform jacket in hand, the Captain headed down the corridor toward the turbo lift which would take her to the bridge while shrugging into her jacket and closing the fastenings. The vibration was now a steady thrum felt through her boot as she walked, from an intersecting passageway she saw Cmdr. Logan step through the intersection and turn toward the turbo lift as well. “Early morning for you isn’t it Commander?” The Captain commented.
“Good morning Captain. These vibrations… I’m headed to my station to see if I can isolate the cause.” he replied as they walked toward the lift.
“It woke me as well,” she told him. “As of 10 minutes ago there was no indication of any abnormality with Victory’s systems but at the same time, sensors were not detecting an external source. Once I reach the Bridge if there’s any new information I’d expect that to be the first order of business.”
“Absolutely.” He replied
As he entered the bridge the ship lunged. The captain gave quick orders to steer the ship into the wave.
The lift arrived, and the Captain stepped in followed by Cmdr. Logan. As the doors closed, Kennit said, “Bridge.” A soft chime acknowledged the requested destination and the lift slid into motion.
Almost immediately, the vibration went from a low annoying sensation to a hard, jarring jolt forcing Logan and Kennit both to brace themselves to keep from being knocked to the deck. Alarm klaxon’s sounded as the lights in the turbo lift flickered and threatened to go out before stabilizing as the hard shuddering eased down somewhat to a low, but stronger vibration once more. “That isn’t good..” was the only comment the Captain made as the lift reached the bridge and the doors opened. Stepping out of the ‘lift, the Captain snapped out, “Report!”
“We’re being hit by a pulsating energy shock wave of unknown origin.” Lt. Sanders answered as he vacated the center seat, hoping his relief at the Captain’s arrival wasn’t too terribly obvious. “Sensors are showing an energy pattern which is unidentified. We are trying to trace the shockwave back to its point of origin, there’s a great deal of interference being caused by the wave. Working now to clear it up.”
“Put it on screen,” the Captain answered. “Let me see it.”
“Aye Captain.” Sanders answered as his fingers danced across the console. A moment later, the display on the viewscreen shifted. The starfield vanished, replaced by a data display from the ship’s operations console showing the readout of the energy waves which continued to roll toward them, slamming into the ship sending hard, shuddering vibrations through the vessel as each successive wave passed their position.
“What are the intervals between each wave crest?” the Captain asked as she studied the unusual data on the viewscreen.
“The waves have an interval of 9.731 seconds.” She was told. “According to the data we’ve collected so far, the initial waves which first struck our position had an interval period of 10.446 seconds.”
“So each pulse is getting closer together. Could it be a something being generated by a previously undetected black hole or some other stellar phenomena?” Kennit mused aloud. Then, in a louder voice she said “Run a long range scan, take a look and see what may be out there that we missed..”
The lift doors opened again and both Zach and Penny stepped out in uniform. "--ust saying, the one night you aren't on Bridge duty, the ship starts shaking," Zach said to Penny before she veered towards the helm.
"I'll try to volunteer more during the dangerous nights," Penny teased and sped up, rushing to her station and tapping the two ensigns out of their chairs. She swung the extra seat aside and sat down, bringing up her boards.
Zach walked up to the Captain's chair and stood beside it, arms draped behind his back. "Good morning, Captain," he said. "Nice night for an earthquake."
Casting a side-eye look at the Doctor, the Captain replied “Not used to early morning adventures Doctor?”
"I'm a light sleeper as it is," he said. "Add to that my bed shifting under me and..." he shrugged. "Sleep is overrated anyway."
Silence settled over the bridge, the only sounds that of the ship itself while the sensors swept the sector around them, as well as taking a closer look at the next sector beyond. The results were inconclusive. No gravitational anomalies which would indicate the presence of a black hole. There were no magnetars, no pulsars, no solar bodies of any type which could be identified as a potential source of the energy waves pulsing out across the sector from the as yet still unidentified source.
Alarms began to sound suddenly, and on the main viewscreen the sensor display showed a series of four massive energy waves hurtling toward the Victory! The energy level was off the scale, and the waves were closing in fast!
“Red alert! Shields up! Helm! Orient the ship into the wave, we’re going to need to try and ride it out rather than punch through it..” Kennit ordered sharply.
"Aye, Captain," Penny said. She pulled them back along the z-axis, angling up towards the crest of the energy waves, treating the shield grid like a surfboard and aiming it for the backdoor of the curl. "Might want to hold on to something!" she said.
Zach quickly moved to the side and grabbed a railing.
Jabbing a finger at the ship wide comm, the Captain called out “ALL HANDS! BRACE FOR IMPACT!”
On the view screen a massive wave of energy rippling with angry dark colors surged toward them. The impact was a violet, hard slam against the starship's deflector shields and the entire ship rocked as if shaken by some giant hand. Penny leaned them into the wave, cresting it and coming down hard on the back side, the ship feeling like it was tilting as the inertial dampeners struggled to keep up.
Six successive waves came at them. Penny watched as the first one arrived and tilted the ship, rolling it side to side to weave between the minor valley left between them. She passed two before the pattern shifted and the ship hit at the wrong angle, bucking again and crashing into the fourth wave. Two more hard knocks and they were over the last rim and riding the wake.
Multiple alarms and alert klaxons wailed across the bridge due to power systems overloading and damage warnings casting amber and red lights across the bridge. Finally the ship began to stabilize and settle once more. Eyes still locked on the sensor data on the view screen, the Captain called out “Damage report!”
Penny's left hand was flying over the Ops console. "Warp core offline. Damage to decks twelve through fourteen from power surges after that last hit. Power outages decks ten through fifteen. Injuries reported and Sickbay responding.
Zach turned and ran back to the turbolift. "Sickbay," he said as the doors closed.
“I want to know what that was, launch a sensor probe and send it back along the shockwave’s trajectory..”. Kennit ordered as damage reports continued to come in.
"Aye, Captain," Penny said, ordering the probe. "Shields at thirty-eight percent, but on backup power, weapons offline, subspace communications offline. We're going to be sitting for a while." She pressed the launch button and sent the probe out for them. "Probe launched."
With an almost muttered curse, Kennit said “Bridge to Engineering! ETA on restoration of weapons and propulsion.. how the hell did we loose so many critical systems from a shockwave hit?” Clearly, she wasn’t at all feeling generous or understanding at the moment.
"Well as far as I can see right now everything on this ship is offline except emergency power." he told her as he was visually confirming some of the systems.
Listening to the Chief Engineer’s report from Main Engineering, the Captain’s expression was one of irritation. “I do not want excuses I want power to shields and weapons restore and I want all propulsion systems back online and operational and I want it done yesterday! Bridge out!l”
"Well if I can figure out why they went out in the first place." he said as he pulled a panel open and looked at the internals. What he saw shouldn't have been possible. And yet there it was as plain as day. Nothing seemed to be damaged, and yet it was offline.
Zach jumped out of the turbolift and ran full speed towards Sickbay, arriving as one of the trauma teams was helping a few limping crewman from the other direction. Behind them, a nurse was directing an anti-grav gurney with a bleeding science officer.
"Report," Zach said, looking over the man on the gurney.
"Mostly sprains and bruises, but one Delta-shift took the full brunt of an exploding console during the power surge," Nurse Beckett said.
"All right, get him on bed one," Zach said, following them into sickbay and heading to change for surgery.
Several long minutes passed before the first data steams from the long range sensor probe began to trickle in. Still a long way from the epicenter of the shockwaves, the data was primarily energy signals and what the computer tentatively identified as a beacon signal of unknown type and origin. Unknown to the Victory’s computer at least, but not necessarily to the Captain. She frowned, her expression disbelieving and somewhat alarmed. “What the fuck..” she breathed out in a tight, stressed voice. “That can’t be right.. it isn’t right.. it’s.. what the fuck is that..” she muttered more to herself than anyone else.
Observing his console, Logan recognized the signal frequency as well, and like the Captain found it.. confusing. Turning towards the captain he gave her a quick glance, suggesting he had something to share but didn’t want to make it public just yet.
In a louder voice, as she turned to look toward Lt. Naroot she said quickly “Penny, run a diagnostic on the probe..is it operating properly?”
Penny pinged the probe and double-checked its readings. "Aye, Captain."
Taking a chance, Logan approached the captain mid-way, who’d moved closer to his station. “Captain”, he said in a low voice, the look on his face a bit bewildered but also knowing. “This isn’t natural. I recognize the frequency. It appears to be an emergency beacon… but…” he paused.
“Spit it out Commander”, she commented.
Logan leaned in and spoke quietly to avoid further attention. “It isn’t from this dimensional plane.”
Kennit was about to answer when she was distracted by a chime from the turbo lift, she turned to see who was arriving.
The turbolift opened and Walker came out. He was wearing a Gjermundbu on his head. He wore byrnie and gambesons. In his hands were Skeggøx and rönd. It looked like ancient Viking Garb, but it was obvious to anyone with Engineering and Metallurgy Experience it was made with non terrestrial metals with very modern Technology. "What happened?"
To her credit, the captain's jaw did not drop in surprise at the sight of her First Officer dressed in such unusual attire. She did however, blink twice and give a slight shake of her head in surprise before rapidly recovering and answering, "We just got hit by a series of shockwaves, energy type unknown. At the moment our propulsion and weapons are offline, engineering is working to restore propulsion and weapons. We have a sensor probe that is moving out to try and get us a closer look at the source and point of origin. The first data streams from the probe are.. unusual. Lt. Naroot is running a diagnostic on the probe now."
Answering, Walker spoke, "I believe internal Communications has taken a hit too."
"Intermittent," Penny said. "Out on some decks, functioning on others." She read through the data being transmitted. "The probe isn't showing any indications of faults or tampering. What we're seeing is what we're seeing."
A quick glance at the ship's status board told her they still had no propulsion systems operational. Irritation boiled deep inside, they had one of the most advanced ships ever built by Starfleet and yet every damn time she turned around the blasted propulsion systems went offline! She looked again at the signal being detected by their probe. It looked like an old, no longer in use automated beacon signal but, at the same time it wasn't correct, otherwise the Victory's computer would have been able to identify it. Logan's soft-spoken comment that the signal was something from an alternate dimension echoed in the back of her thoughts as she crossed the bridge to take a position at a science station.
Bringing up the sensor system controls, the captain initiated a quantum signature scan. The results were inconclusive. There were multiple variations noted in the scan, all of which could just as easily be generated by the ancient red supergiant stars which dotted this distant sector near the void between the galactic arms, or possibly from the black hole which was detected at the edges of their sensor range. The black hole itself was quiet, resting by itself with no companion star currently in range for it to feed from.
They were still too far away to determine what, if anything was present at the origination point of the shockwaves which had hit them. "Engineering. Really would be nice to get the engines back online.." she said over the comm.
As if the ship itself had heard her the lights on the bridge came on to full illumination. The hum of the ship became louder as the ship came back to life.
"Ask and you shall receive," Torres said through com. "But I'll be honest, I didn't do anything. None of the systems were actually damaged."
On the bridge the Captain looked as if she wanted to challenge that assertion, but...there were more pressing concerns at hand. With a shake of her head, she answered “It took you long enough to do nothing. Keep a close eye on all systems and make sure everything is operational and stays that way. Bridge out.”
Without pause she then said, “Miss Naroot. Set course to the estimated source of that shockwave. Bring up our slipstream drive and let’s get there shall we?”
"Aye, Captain," Penny said. She brought her boards together and focused on their new destination, watching readouts as she activated the drive. The ship hummed and she felt a slight ripple through the deck as they launched forward into the slipstream. *Hooray, another trip to the void,* she thought.
Running at slipstream velocity, the trip to the suspected region where the shockwaves originated from would still take 5 hours. They were traveling to a region of the galaxy where no Starfleet ship had traveled or even considered traveling. Into a massive void region which lay between the outer arms of the galaxy. It was disconcerting to the say the least when they crossed into the void and instead of the starfield they were used to the viewscreen changed to a blank, empty nothing broken only by a very faint ribbon of light which was the distant Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way.
Finally, as the Victory approached the coordinates identified by the long-range sensor probe, out of an abundance of caution the captain gave the order to drop out of slipstream and make their final approach using warp drive. Twenty minutes later, an alarm sounded. Sensors were detecting a ship ahead of them. "Take us out of warp, make our final approach at impulse. Yellow alert!" the captain said. "Bring up shields, no weapons."
"Impulse, aye!" Penny said as she coordinated with Tactical, sounding the yellow alert.
"Shields up, weapons cold," Tactical said.
"Let's get a look at what we're dealing with, put it on the viewscreen please." the captain asked.
Penny pushed a button and the viewscreen changed from blank to a lone object.
On the viewscreen, the dark emptiness of the void was replaced by the unmistakable profile of a Sovereign-Class starship. Graceful, sleek and beautiful the ship was fully lit with her running lights blazing in the darkness. She appeared to be holding position, the ship did not appear at all to be adrift.
Captain Kennit was on her feet, her expression one of disbelief and shocked surprise. "Oh my god..." her voice just a soft breath of sound. "That.. that can't be." On the starship's hull her name was clearly legible: U.S.S. ENDEAVOUR
Walker tilted his head, "Is that?" He trailed off.
A ship which had disappeared 15 years ago, believed to have been destroyed with all hands lost in a battle with a Romulan ship.
"Hail them." she ordered; her voice stronger.
"Standard hail," Penny said. She sat back and watched, but no response came. "No response, Captain."
"Scan the ship for life signs."
Penny scanned again and her brow furrowed. "Captain....picking up no lifesigns."
"Confirmed," the tactical officer said. "No lifesigns present, but weapons are hot, but not locked on."
Damn it…where’s her crew? And where the hell has she been…” the captain muttered as she stared at the image on the view screen. A ship intimately familiar to her. A ship that shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t be here, now. Should it?
Rhea stood there a moment longer, staring at the ship which had been home for many years, thoughtful. Suddenly she gasped, eyes widening. Turning quickly, she crossed the bridge to an open console and accessed the Victory’s communications system.
As she typed a complicated series of codes into the computer, she said. “They had a prototype holographic defense system installed using one of the first versions of an emergency holographic program. The program was designed to take over in the event the command structure was compromised and get the ship out of a dangerous situation, the intention was to try and save lives. The problem is that the actual hologram itself is.. flighty.”
"Flighty?" Penny said. "So it...took off?"
She didn’t answer, her attention fully on the data on the display. “There it is…Endeavour’s last prefix code. Let's see if we can get into their computer.”
Penny monitored the signal, curious as to the captain's method of accessing the ship's computers.
The display changed, “And we are in…”. A single beat, then she said “Oh shit...the emergency holographic defense system is online. I can’t access the system protocols from here, it’s damaged. Looks like they were in a fight, there’s damage to several systems and indications of a fire onboard...atmospherics are terrible, though I’m not seeing any indications of an active fire currently burning. What the hell happened?”
Kennit looked at Logan. “I can bring the weapons and shields down, but I can’t disarm the internal defenses and with the holographic system online and armed anyone who beams over is going to get shot. We need a way to get the system to stand down without further damage or risking data loss because that system is what’s going to tell us what happened. We need to keep David online without any damage to his memory, though from the look of his current system readout he’s already suffered damage which is why I can’t get him out of alert and safe the ship.”
"His programming was designed to allow the ship's captain to order him to stand down. However, if the Endeavour's command crew are dead or missing, I'm not sure how we can shut him down and avoid further damage to his memory database in the process." Logan answered.
Penny looked behind her. "A holographic command program...named David?"
"It was named after an actor from the 20th and 21st century... he played a character called simply 'The Doctor'." the captain answered while still studying the data being displayed on the computer.
Raising an eyebrow, "The Doctor? Television show about a magic screwdriver and a blue phone booth?" He had run across in studying religions and cults. Historical database brought up an odd cross reference.
Not looking away from the data displayed on the screen, the captain nodded once and said simply, "That's the one."
"Penny nodded. "Good name, then." She perked up. "Is it programmed to shoot a lifeform it registers as entering the ship?"
"As I understand it, the system utilizes one primary hologram which functions as a control unit. It in turn, can create and activate multiple holographic sentinels which in turn are then controlled by the primary command hologram as defensive measures in the event the ship was boarded. It's the only instance of this system there is. I think the initial intent was as a defensive system on starbases and distant outposts, but someone at Starfleet thought it would be a useful tool on exploration ships and ships like the Endeavour which often get into hostile situations due to their operational parameters. The preliminary tests were less than successful. David appeared to have issues controlling the secondary holograms and the system was supposed to have been deactivated pending removal from Endeavour's systems which clearly didn't happen. This was one of Section 31's pet projects, without being able to access the classified information which they won't give us there's no way to easily tell what changes were made to the original programming."
Penny turned to face her. "What about inorganics?"
"Absolutely not; you are not going over there." the captain immediately said. "There's no way to even speculate how the system will respond to any unauthorized transfer aboard. For all we know David could decide to activate the self-destruct and take the entire ship and all records which might tell us what happened to the ship and its crew with it."
Penny frowned and bit her lip, trying to think of an alternative.
Walker looked at the captain, "Personal shield and a transport enhancer and I'll go." The shield would need a large power supply so he could survive a ship explosion.
"That would still lose the ship and its information," Penny said. She perked up again. "You said you can access the computer? How about security footage?"
"All starships have a backdoor. Accessible by command level personnel who are able to access the ship's prefix code information. The intent is to allow Starfleet personnel to regain control in the event the ship's computer systems are taken over by hostile forces." the captain answered. "Some have multiple levels of security, Victory is one. Endeavour as well, though I knew Endeavour's secondary protocol since I helped design it."
"Could we establish a link between their records and the holodeck?" she said. "We could take a virtual tour."
"We can try," Kennit murmured. "Though, it looks like their systems logs and mission files are encrypted to command personnel only."
"Can we get around the encryption with a decoder program?" tactical said.
“What about..” the Captain was silent a moment. Then, “If we initiate a shutdown and reboot of the Endeavour’s primary computer system, that should take David offline without erasing his memory data. The issue is, making it look like the computer is automatically running through the reinitialization on its own due to the damage we see here so that it doesn’t set off David’s defensive responses and make things worse.”
"The only concern is that David has been running for so long that he might have written something to counter that like the EMH on Voyager." Walker was thinking about time linearly. It was probable that years had gone by.
The lieutenant at tactical turned to face the captain. "Then it needs to be his idea. If you think he'll restart over damage, then let's up the damage. Send a virus through that will cause a few malfunctions and get his attention. He'll see a shutdown will clear it, and he'll reset the system for us."
The surgery complete and his report filed, Zach stepped back onto the bridge, walking towards the Captain's chair. "Multiple minor injuries, one series, no casualties," he summarized, then moved off towards an empty station to man.
The Captain nodded in acknowledgement of the doctor's report. Once he had taken his seat, she returned her attention to the issue at hand. "the only way to deactivate David and not risk damage to his memory database is from the Endeavor’s bridge." she said. "We are going to have to beam over there, access her computer and manually deactivate him."
Turning to the XO, the Captain said, ”we are going to need a security detail as well as engineering teams to assess the damage once David has been deactivated. Once we get aboard, l am going to transfer command of the Endeavour to me so that, hopefully, I can just order David to stand down from alert and allow us to begin damage assessment."
The tactical officer looked like he was going to object, but she held up one hand, forestalling the next obvious comment. "My command authorization will be listed in the ship's computer. You would not be recognized as a command-level officer due to how long the ship has been missing. Once we can establish control, I will transfer command authority to you and transfer personnel over so that we can get her underway and bring her home.”
Spinning the Skeggøx, "I assume that means I should dress in something more regulation friendly."
Kennit continued. "I need you to get two away teams ready to go within the hour. Get with Commander Torres and make sure the engineering team has the right gear to begin damage control protocols."
Grinning as he walked to the Turblift, "Walker to Torres."
----
To be continued…
OOC:
Note: To see the scan information of the energy wave, click on "Sim", "Missions", then select the current (and only active mission) listed. The page will load and an image showing what the sensor data screen on the ship would be showing.
I wanted to insert the image into the post directly however, now apparently the site coding for nova no longer allows using HTML code to insert a graphic image.
Which is stupid.
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