by Zanh Liis O’Sullivan, Dabin Reece, TC Blane and Rada Dengar
101213.1300
Immediately After Black Ice
-=Main Bridge, USS Serendipity=-
101213.1300
Immediately After Black Ice
-=Main Bridge, USS Serendipity=-
“You heard me! We’re going in after them, unless you can find them and bring them back from here. So unless you want to try swimming in the quicksand, I’d suggest you all get back to work. Go!”
The crew jumped into high gear as they prepared the Serendipity to follow in the footsteps of the Alchemy and into the unknown.
Liis turned back towards the main screen and stood with her arms folded in front of her, her brow furrowed in determination that accented her nose ridges.
TC glanced around the bridge to make certain all were doing their jobs then stepped forward to stand next to his captain.
“Captain.” He spoke softly so that only she could her. “It might be prudent to drop a sensor beacon warning other ships away from the area and to launch a deep space transmitting probe to Starfleet.” He looked at her. “Just in case we don’t get back, no other ships will be lost.”
She gave a firm, wordless nod of her head and TC spun on his heels, ordering the Trill to action.
"Done." Reece replied a few moments later after he'd carried out the orders. He was uncharacteristically quiet now, and that fact did not help Zanh's mood in the least.
"All stop, Gira."
"Answering all stop."
The turbolift door opened and Rada Dengar and Lair Kellyn emerged, Liis immediately turning to them.
"Something came out of that rift, which means something is in there, alive. Whoever it is has probably been working all this time to get a message out. If they could live in there, so can we. Rada, I need you to do whatever you feel is necessary to protect the ship. You have two minutes." Zanh turned her back, once again looking to the viewscreen but unable to just sit right now.
The two engineers quickly approached the Engineering station and the terrified ensign manning it gratefully stepped away.
With the passing seconds, of which she had no intention of offering her engineers any more than the promised one hundred and twenty, Liis realised that the Alchemy could be getting farther and farther away.
Not even entirely consciously, she stalked behind Reece, Blane and O'Sullivan, listening to their every word as the three men discussed the situation. She could see they were already attempting to form a plan, but the success of this endeavour was another matter.
"I need something gentlemen," she prodded.
"There's just no way to navigate this, Captain." Blane said. "It’s like a radioactive maze. We have no idea where exactly the entrance is, where the road leads, or where the exit is."
Reece growled in frustration. "Even if we go to the Alchemy's exact coordinates, if this, region, whatever it is, is anything like a wormhole it could by shifting and changing. We could enter and come out on the other side of the Universe from wherever they are, even if they are in the Universe which..." Reece's voice trailed off.
"Is an'a'thin but a sure thing right now, Captain." Keiran finished. He had his apprehensions, but no hesitation. Wherever she ordered the ship, he would follow.
"Are you telling me we shouldn't go Reece?" Zanh asked.
"Oh heck no, I'm ready to grab the helm and take us in myself. It's just..." Reece sighed.
"He wishes he could tell you for sure we're going to end up where the Alchemy is." Blane said. Reece just whimpered to affirm TC's statement. Zanh moved back to the center of the bridge in front of her Command chair, and she turned expectantly to Rada and Lair.
It felt like their time must surely be up, and her patience had long since run out.
After quietly uttering the final words of a hurried conversation and nodding to one another to confirm their agreement, they approached.
“What have you got?” Liis asked.
“An idea,” Kellyn answered.
“Well, it’s more of a theory,” Rada added.
Liis’ countenance said that she needed much more than either an idea or a theory right now.
“Okay…what is it?”
“We haven’t had much time to study the data,” Rada admitted. “But other than the extremely high levels of tetryon radiation this area of space doesn’t seem to display any unusual properties.”
“Whatever happened to the Alchemy, we think it’s only caused when ship comes into contact with the tetryon field itself,” Kellyn added.
“Grace would have known to stay back from that,” Liis replied, shaking her head.
“It’s not that easy.” Reece span around on his chair and chirped in. “Not with tetryons. They’re very tricky to track with sensors. You can end up on top of them before you even realise it.”
“How does any of this help us?” Liis asked abruptly, how tired she was evident in her speech.
Rada and Kellyn began quickly finishing one another’s sentences in that way engineers were famous for.
“Tetryons are subspace particles,” Rada started. “If we modify the shields to create a large enough subspace field around the ship…”
“At a reverse of the tetryon’s polarity…”
“Then that field would form a barrier to effectively sweep the bulk of them away from an area before the ship reached it.”
“Keeping the area directly around the ship clear.”
“And allowing us to navigate the field relatively safely.”
“How long will this take?” Liis asked.
Rada and Kellyn exchanged a glance.
“That depends how carefully you want to do it,” Rada answered. “We could set the polarity in a minute and that would be reasonably effective, but to fully calibrate the shield generators for the task could take at least an hour.
The looks on everyone’s faces said what they thought of that particular option, especially Reece’s.
“If the Alchemy is bein’ subjected ta radiation at this level, Captain…” Keiran started, not even needing to finish his sentence.
Kellyn and Rada exchanged another glance and both could see they agreed.
“One minute,” Rada said, and before Liis even had time to say ‘Go’ the two engineers already had.
Liis turned quickly back around and began issuing her last minute orders, including instructing sickbay to prepare to treat any radiation exposure that may soon occur.
Finally she turned to Vol.
“Counsellor, when we’re in there we may end up operating basically blind. If that happens then we may have to rely on you to try to locate the Alchemy.”
“Understood, Captain.”
“There, that’s as good as we can get it.” Rada added, clearly wishing they had time to do a lot more.
Liis nodded that she understood, then drew in a deep but entirely uncalming breath.
“Helm, set a course to the Alchemy’s last known coordinates. Ease us in. Very slowly.”
“Taking us in,” Gira replied, as the ship began to move at a crawl; almost seeming to be a physical representation of its reluctance to step a toe in this sea of radiation where so many others had drowned before.
“Entering the field now, Captain.”
“The subspace field’s holding,” Rada called out from the Engineering station as the ship rocked violently to the side.
“It’s not working,” Gira answered. “The helm’s slipping.”
“It is working, partially,” Kellyn answered. “The field’s approximately 98% effective in blocking the radiation.”
“Gira, can you compensate?” Liis asked.
“I don’t think so,” Gira replied, as her hands continued working rapidly to pull the ship under her control, even as it began to shake like a rusty gate in a storm.
“Sensor range is down to a few hundred metres,” Reece reported, doing all he could to try to increase that. “The Alchemy could be right next to us and we wouldn’t see them.”
“Counsellor?” Liis asked, before turning to find Vol appeared to be in physical agony.
“Pain…Captain…” he managed to cringe out as the ship jerked again like it’d just been hit.
“The controls are slipping again,” Gira advised desperately. “I’m trying to compensate but it’s no good.”
“There’s nothing we can do to strengthen the subspace field,” Rada answered before Liis even had the chance to ask.
Liis’ lips passed a Bajoran word that almost none of them had known before, but whose meaning most could easily guess.
“Get us out of here!”
“I’m not even sure which way is out,” Gira objected.
“Red alert!” TC called and the klaxons began to wail.
“Wait, something’s happening!” Reece called. “There’s an opening in the radiation. It’s just big enough for us to fit inside.”
“It could be a trap,” TC warned, knowing that when something seemed too perfect it was because it was.
“We don’t have much choice,” Liis answered. “Gira, take us in!”
Struggling valiantly with the controls, Gira managed to knock the ship further to the side than the corresponding shove from the radiation knocked them the other way as they cruised into this tiny pocket of air in the sea.
Suddenly the shaking stopped.
“Radiation levels are dropping,” Rada announced.
“Sensors are becoming a little clearer,” Reece reported. “It looks like we’re in some sort of corridor in which the radiation has been cleared.”
-=/\=-Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander Dabin Reece
Chief of Sciences
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander Dabin Reece
Chief of Sciences
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012