Blackout (Time Zone 2)

Posted on 04 Sep 2018 @ 3:43am by Petty Officer 2nd Class Mofrich Torg & Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Commander Gemma Alexander & Lieutenant Avery Stuart Ph.D. & Staff Warrant Officer William Griffin & Lieutenant JG Daniella Blake & Ensign Aurilia Moretti

4,714 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Fractured
Location: USS Black Hawk
Timeline: TZ2 || 0930 hours

===Griffin's Quarters, Deck 6===

Griffin got up, pushing himself up into a kneeling position and then standing from the deck where he had been thrown what seemed like only seconds ago. The room was dark, only the faint glow of emergency lighting pickingout the details. The air was cold, his mouth was dry and he had a mild headache. Aside from the cold and the dark, it was the stillness told him that something was terribly wrong, there distinct lack of the thrum that the various systems aboard a starship generated was noticeably missing. An experimental tap at the light controls on his desk resulted in nothing and garnered a growled "crap" from the chief. He never tried his com badge, with the same lackof success.

He fumbledhis was uncertainly to the door and tried the controls, as he expected nothing happened. It only took him a moment to pop the panel off and access the manual controls, and the door cracked open. He had a half second of sphincter clenching while he discovered if there was atmosphere and a ship or open space and death on the other side, but when the stale air didn't go rushing out and hits eardrums didn't explode, he continued.

The hallway was as dark as his quarters, and empty as far as he could tell. A short journey down towards the turbolift revealed nothing, but as he turned the corner he was confronted by a body lying on the deck, half propped up against the bulkhead. He didn't need a tricorder to tell that the crewman was quite dead. "What the hell is going on?" He asked the dead man.

"Sir?" asked a gruff voice not far behind Griffin. Petty Officer Torg, Intelligence Analyst, had just put on a fresh uniform and left his quarters, having spent the following night in the Intelligence Complex and was on his way back for more. Though he was Tellarite, his body and mind couldn't take that much more punishment than a human, especially when he kept slamming into road block after road block.

Without much thought Griffin spun, hands coming up into a defensive posture as his heart just about smashed it's way out through the top of his neck and his guts threatened to go the other way. It took him a full two seconds to recognize the Starfleet uniform. "God damn!" He grumbled, "you sneak up on people like that you're liable to get your neck broke, Mr." He stood, relaxing as his blood pressure dropped below critical, "report?"

"I don't know what's going on, sir," replied the Tellarite, wondering if he should be defensive. "The ship started to shake, and suddenly we lost power." He looked down at the corpse and instantly thought it looked unusual. In the poor lighting, the ship looked worse for wear, but low lighting tended to make anything look that way."

Dani felt her way down the corridor of deck six with the intent of getting back to sickbay, but her efforts were thwarted when the ship began to lurch about. The petite woman was just a little bruised up, but thankfully, it wasn't anything she couldn't motor through. She came to a halt when she thought she heard voices up ahead, something she was grateful for since her journey had been a deathly quiet one. "Hello? Is anyone there?" she called out, hopping they hadn't been boarded by someone again.

"Over here," Griffin responded, wishing that he had a phaser and a torch and deciding that once they got moving again, they'd head for the nearest weapons locker, assuming they could find an officer with high enough clearance to get into one. "Who's that?"

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniella Blake," she answered, approaching the two men. "I was on my way to sickbay when all of the commotion started. Do either of you know what happened?"

"Not really," Torg spoke up. "You're a medic, right?" he asked her. "Do you have a tricorder handy? We've got a dead crewman here, and something's off."

"I don't have a clue, ma'am." Griffin shook his head, standing up from where he had been kneeling next to the dead crewman. "All I know is main power is out, the computer seems to be non-functional, comms are down an' I've got a headache I could do without." He gestured down at the remains of the crewman

"A nurse," the young blonde woman stated as she unclipped the tricorder from the waistband of her pants just before she began to approach the body Torg indicated. She crouched down next to it and removed the probe, then started to run her scan. "When you say something is off, what do you mean?" She cast a glance toward Griffin and nodded her head. "As soon as we see what's off here, I'll take care of that headache for you. It'll only take a couple of minutes."

Torg grabbed a palm light from a nearby locker and shone it on the poorly lit corpse. His suspicions were quickly confirmed as the individual looked like he'd been dead for several years, leaving behind leather-like skin and thinning hair. "The environmental controls in this section must have been enough to keep him preserved this long," he remarked.

"He appears to be mummified," Dani stated, watching the readings on the tricorder in her hand. "I'm looking for cause of death now."

"Mummified?" Griffin frowned down at the desiccated corpse wearing the ragged looking uniform, "we've not been unconscious that damn long. What could have a mummified a body like that?" He turned to an access panel and popped it off. Inside, most of the circuits were cold, but one or two of the secondary systems were still operational, minimal life support and gravity plating. That explained the cold, and maybe the headache. He wasn't that familiar with the Black Hawk's systems, but one circuit was much like another. "I'm gonna try and reroute some power to this display," he told the other two, "hold on."

Torg looked up just in time as the display flickered to life. It was, however, quite dim, like there just wasn't enough power to fully operate it.

"Ah hah!" Griffin stood to see the results of his success, the display had power, barely. Experimentally, he tapped a few buttons, attempting to bring up some kind of information, and was rewarded by a dull chirp of denial. He was a grease monkey, a fixer of small craft, not a computer specialist. He looked askance to the other two and shrugged one shoulder. "Hell if I know..."

"We should find a security checkpoint," Torg suggested, seeing Griffin's futile efforts. "If ship's power is out, the computer unresponsive, and there are several casualties, it's possible the ship is in danger. Regrouping with more of the crew should be a priority."

"I think there might be a weapon's locker on this deck. The only issue is being able to get into it," Dani pointed out.

"We definitely don't have clearance" Griffin grumbled, indicating himself and Torg. "You're the officer, ma'am, if you don't have it, we're not getting weapons." He frowned, he hated dealing with officers, not because they were officers but because protocol so often got in the way of communication. "If I may, ma'am, I agree with the petty officer here, I reckon we ought to move and find other people. I reckon main engineering or the bridge is are the places to go."

"It seems as though our chances of restoring power would be better in Engineering or Auxiliary Control," Dani said, rising to her feet again. She would have to take a closer look at the body later on when there was time for it. "I don't know anything about being an engineer, but I learn fast."

"I'm no engineer," gruffed Torg. "I'm more concerned about whatever killed this fellow, and if it will happen to us. Still, Engineering would be the safest place to go."

"I guess I'm it, then," Griffin replied gruffly, "let's go." He set off down the corridor, trying not to think about dead people, or what he was going to do when he got to engineering. Fixing a banged up fighter was a hell of a lot different than restoring power to a disabled starship, but the engineering principles were the same. He began to wonder who among the crew were alive and then shut the thought down before it could develop. "Focus, Griffin." He growled under his breath

Dani was quick to follow behind Griffin, willing to do whatever she needed to to help the rest of the crew... however many of them that were left. "Do you think we should try to restore communications first? Maybe we might be able to put a call out for other Engineering and Operations personnel to get this done. It couldn't hurt, could it?"

"With all due respect, Lieutenant," Torg began, recognizing that he and both Warrant Officer Griffin were both enlisted and she was the only commissioned officer in this small bunch, "I would expect the Captain and the Chief Engineer will already be attending to that. Our duty is to report our status and await instruction."

"And how do you propose we do that without communications?" the Lieutenant asked, turning her attention to the Tellarite. "How many others have we come across since we've been standing here trying to figure out what to do? No one. Don't you find that a little suspicious? We have a dead body here, and possibly more. We need to restore communications and try to get the computer back online to contact others on the ship, then we can report our status and await instruction. Unless you'd rather stand here and let whatever killed him kill you, too, then I suggest you do what you can to help the rest of us try to do what we can in order to make it out of this alive."

Slightly ahead, Griffin winced slightly at the reprimand Torg had gotten. It was, he through, a little harsh. Torg hadn't spoken out of turn but had only made a suggestion. Somewhere ahead, he thought he heard something. Voices, perhaps. "Lieutenant," he grumbled, holding up his hand in the universal signal to stop, "I think we're not alone."

The Tellarite thought it was a wise idea, however, the Lieutenant had made her opinion quite clear. The final decision was up to her.

"We need to get the computer and communications going," Dani said without hesitation. "Then, we can find out who is still alive and who isn't. Let's go." Without waiting for anyone else to agree or disagree, she began to make her way down the corridor once again.

Griffin cursed under his breath, his warning about the voices ahead had gone unheeded and the lieutenant seemed not to care that they might be in mortal danger. He hastened to follow her, resisting, only just, the urge to snarl something about foolhardy young officers.

Torg grunted as well, sensing the Warrant Officer's frustration. Such was life in the enlisted service. Still, with no better option, despite his urge to report to Intelligence anyway, he followed the lieutenant as to not be put on report for insubordination.


=====Sick Bay=====

Meanwhile, in Sick Bay, Jayla was thanking every god she knew of for the sweet, sweet nectar that was coffee. Surely, if there was proof that they ever existed, coffee was it.

With a sigh, she sat back with the PaDD on which she was composing her report and read over what was there. She was about to make a quick edit when the ship shook. Luckily, she was seated, but unluckily, she dropped her coffee and the mug shattered on the floor. "Damn!" she hissed. 'Now I have to make more."

But, there were bigger problems, it seemed. What had happened to the lights? Some were flickering. And her PaDD wouldn't come back on. She attempted to power up the computer on her desk, but no go.

With a frown, she walked out into main Sick Bay to see if anyone else was having problems. But, there was nobody to be found.

"What the devil?" she muttered, heading for the door, which she had to pry open after hitting the manual release. It was out in the corridor that she noticed the dust. "What is going on?" she asked nobody in particular.

"Jayla! Boy, am I glad to see you here," Avery said, approaching from the corridor, her voice clearly reflected in her relief. "I was afraid I wouldn't get out of my office. Are you OK?"

Turning to the familiar voice, Jayla gave a sigh of relief. "Avery," she greeted the other woman. "Yeah, I'm okay. Except I broke my favorite mug and spilled my coffee. Other than that, though, I'm all right. How about you?"

"I'll live," Avery replied. "I was slammed really hard against my console when we jolted and my carpet is stained with mocha raktajino, but at least our memories are intact this time. Have you been able to raise anyone by comm?"

"I... I didn't even think to try," admitted Jayla sheepishly. "I guess I was too shocked or something. Or maybe I subconsciously decided they wouldn't work anyway. I dunno. You?"

Avery smiled at the doctor's reference to her potential psychological motives. Even in a crisis, the doctor could always lift her spirits. She tapped her badge. "Dr. Stuart to anyone aboard the Black Hawk, do you read me?"

At the tap of her badge, the customary chirp didn't sound. This was due to the internal communications grid being offline, along with the other primary systems.

Avery frowned. She supposed it was too good to be true to hope communications would be working. Inwardly sighing in resignation, she looked to Jayla. "I guess we'll need to see who we can find the old fashioned way. Mind if we stick together?" Avery wasn't so much afraid of being by herself as she desired to keep an eye on Jayla. The caregiver in her didn't want to lose sight of anyone as there was safety in numbers. "Also, do you have any medkits with you? I was thinking we should probably check for injuries in case others weren't quite so lucky like we were."

"Good point," agreed Jayla, doubling back into Sick Bay and grabbing a couple of medkits. Returning to the hall, she handed one to Avery. "As for sticking together, that's the best idea yet. I think..." she hesitated for a moment. "I think we should head to the bridge," she finished.

Accepting the medkit, and the suggestion, Avery nodded. "Agreed. Whatever happened, we're likely to find the most information there."

"Let's go," agreed Jayla, but she hadn't taken a single step when a voice called out to them.

Dani moved down the corridor and stopped when she heard voices up ahead. She seemed to recognize them, and relief began to flood through her. "Doctor Kij! Lieutenant Stuart! Is that you?" she called, still moving forward.

"Nurse Blake?" Jayla called in reply, changing directions and heading towards the voice. "Yeah, it's us. Are you okay? Do you need help?"

"Lucky," Griffin grumbled under his breath. He was glad the voices he had heard turned out to be friendly in nature. He resisted the urge to answer the doctor, officers spoke to other officers and it wasn't his place to jump in unless the need arose. Instead, he glanced sideways at Torg and gave him a shrug of one shoulder and a rueful grin.

Dani couldn't seem to contain her excitement when she finally spotted the Trill Doctor and found herself racing forward to embrace her and Avery. "It's so good to see you both," she said, purposely ignoring Griffin's grumbling. "We seem to be okay, but there's a body back there that looks mummified. We need to find out what killed him in case it poses a danger to us." The petite woman took a breath before continuing. "Did either of you come across anyone else?"

Avery accepted the embrace warmly, letting the relief wash over her. They weren't alone. Hearing Dani's words, however, she was reminded her emotions were going to fluctuate moment to moment. Her stomach sank. Someone was dead. "Not yet," Avery answered. "We were just talking about heading to the bridge and looking for injured along the way."

"If you don't mind me saying so, sirs," Griffin interjected from behind, "I reckon it'd be a good idea to find a weapons locker somewhere along the way. Something or someone killed at least one person, I for one would like to be armed."

"Not a bad idea," agreed Jayla. "I have no clue where the nearest one is, though. I really need to keep better track of these things."

~So much for senior officers~ Griffin thought to himself, wondering for a moment if he would have been better on his own. "Yes ma'am, that might be a good idea" was all he voiced, using that practiced neutral tone that all non-coms had in their arsenal - the one with the tiniest pinch of sarcasm.

Avery made a point to meet Griffin's eyes, and with a single look, she communicated her displeasure with his tone. He may have thought his sarcasm was virtually undetectable, but skilled as she was reading people's non-verbal communication, it hadn't escaped her notice. She wasn't going to be disrespected, not even in an emergency, and she wasn't going to allow her colleague to be either. "Don't worry, Doctor. I'm sure the Warrant would be happy to lead the way to the nearest weapons locker. Just as you would never judge him for not knowing where the emergency obstetrical medical kits are, I'm sure he would never look down his nose at either of us for needing some help. Isn't that right, Warrant Officer Griffin?"

The chastisement wrankled and Griffin schooled a flash of anger before it could develop into a facial expression, he didn't think it was unreasonable to expect one of the ship's senior officers to know emergency procedures, but he squashed the urge to argue back with an iron fist, he'd been an enlisted man long enough to know when he'd overstepped the mark and pushed an officer too far, gods forbid he hurt their feelings. "That's right, lieutenant." He offered, forcing his voice to be calm, cutting off the other comments that came to his tongue unbidden.

"It's appreciated," Avery replied sincerely. She knew she'd likely rankled the man and she would worry about clearing the air later, but right now, it was more important they work together as a team and not allow condescension creep into their communications. "I believe the weapons locker is down this way," Avery pointed. "Is that accurate, Warrant Officer?"

Griffin bit back the first couple of replies that came to the fore, sarcastic quips about being just an enlisted man and not officially having the clearance to know, but he didn't want to aggravate Avery any more than he already had. "If memory serves, I reckon you're right sir," he replied instead, "outside transporter room three."

"It's okay," put in Jayla as they all headed in the direction indicated. "You're both right. As a member of senior staff, I should know a little bit about everything, but I can't be expected to know absolutely everything. After all, if I tried to remember everything, I'd probably go mad. That's why I have all of you- to remember everything that I can't." She really did appreciate Avery standing up for her, though. She, too, had caught Griffin's tone, but calling people out wasn't a strong suit of hers. She could do it with her medical staff, but she certainly didn't like it.

"I hate to state the obvious, but we have bigger things to concern ourselves with aside from who knows where what is," Dani stated as she began to walk in the direction the weapons locker was in. "There are multiple weapons lockers on every deck, just for future reference. I'm not entirely sure what good they're going to do us in this situation. We haven't come across anyone who wants to harm us. We need to get things back online... find out what happened to us... and figure out how the hell we can get out of it."

"With respect, ma'am," Griffin answered the doctor, "I'd rather have the weapons and not need 'em than the other way round."

Petty Officer Torg mentally echoed Griffin's recommendation. So far, since the outage, there hadn't been a single communique, single runner, or any evidence that someone was working on power. It was possible that they were dealing with something catastrophic, and the Black Hawk's lineage sported several boarding attempts. It was his duty as an Intelligence Analyst to put together the pieces when it seemed impossible. What surprised him the most so far was that the young nurse had more knowledge of the ship, it seemed, than the rest of the group. Either she'd already lost someone in this mess, or she was in the process of snapping under the pressure. Either way, it was up to the senior officers to take charge now and provide direction.

Out of nowhere, the combadges chirped. "Attention, Attention, Attention... Fighter Bay to any available personnel: This is Lieutenant Alexander, please identify and report status."

Griffin grinned to himself, a wash of pride filling him. Trust the flight deck to come up with a solution, even if they weren't technically his people, they were still flight and that counted in his book. He squashed the urge to tap his comm badge and respond, it wasn't his place, he'd leave that to the officers.

Jayla blinked. "Uh, Doctor Kij," she said. "With Stuart, Blake, Griffin, and Torg. We're all okay, near Sick Bay. Do you require medical assistance?"

Fighter Bay? Is Terry alive? Dani wondered. She planned to keep quiet, but that was a question that had been plaguing her since this entire ordeal happened. "This is Lieutenant Blake. What is the status of Commander Terry Walsh?" she asked, hoping to hear some good news. Though they'd only come across one body so far, that didn't mean there weren't others in various locations on the ship.


===[Fighter Bay]===

Alexander rubbed her eyes, that's what she'd like to know among many other things, "Doctor, my wrist is maybe broken and Winner had a head injury but we did some first aid so not vital at the moment." She attempted to answer the questions she was getting as swiftly as possible, she'd get into details later. "Lieutenant Blake, We have not yet detected anyone else in the fighter bay." She glanced at Winner and nodded to the sensor overlay questioningly. "Lieutenant Winner can attempt to verify if he or any other senior officer is in range but you're the first persons we've talked to. We've just detected lifesigns around in clumps so far."

"The resolution we're getting isn't great," Winner replied into the open comm, "as Lieutenant Alexander said, we can see groups of life signs but we can't determine their status or even how many there are. Most of the systems down here seem to be decayed as if they'd been sitting for years without maintenance - that includes the fighter's sensor array, sorry Lieutenant Blake."


===[Deck Six]===

They haven't detected anyone else in the fighter bay. That doesn't mean he's not okay, Dani thought to herself as she looked to the others. None of this seemed right to her, but she couldn't figure out why. Hopefully, with the help of everyone else, they'd be able to start finding things out.

"Lieutenant Winner this is Griffin," the big man spoke up, feeling like he'd given the officers enough of his silence and actually having something to add. "Sir, if you re-task the fighter's targeting sensors and slave them to the main sensors you should get a clearer picture, the targeting sensors on those birds are way more sensitive than the general sensors."


===[Fighter Bay]===

Winner glanced at Alexander and shook his head slightly, "uh... sorry chief, but I have no idea how to do that."

Alexander nodded understandingly at Winner, "I think I could about manage that Chief with some pointers though to be fair it might be a bit faster if you came down here...." There was a pause, "First though we've got some serious data you need to see to believe..." Then a throbbing in her right arm reminded her, "And I think at least my pain killers are wearing off. Perhaps we should make sure we've downloaded all we can, secure here and come to you."

She was worried their makeshift comms wouldn't hold and they really needed to get this data into the hands of someone who might know how to fix it, "We can send out one more message sending people to med bay before we go just in case our coms go down." She offered before waiting to hear what the other officers might say, her mental calculations putting the Doctor as senior officer. She didn't want to leave the flight bay with its at least semi working equipment and their com unit but med bay was more likely to have survivors going to it and she couldn't be sure of getting everyone with her coms call so asking everyone to come here to see the data seemed unwise.

A feminine groan was heard nearby and a pale hand reached over the edge of a crate of spare parts and pulled itself upwards. A tangled red haired mass appeared over the edge of it followed by a second hand and Aurilia pulled herself up more. "What...what hit us this time?" she groaned. A gash was on her forehead bleeding, but with her red hair matted to it, it nearly blended in.

Winner's head spun at the sound of the groan, his eyes searching for the source until he saw the red-headed woman emerge from behind the crate. He couldn't believe they'd missed her. Hopping down from the maintenance ramp next to the fighter he jogged over to her. "We don't know yet, here, take it easy, you've taken a nasty blow to the head." He held out his hand to help her.

"Tango?" Alexander said in surprise as she ID'd the woman in the half light, forgetting for a moment the open coms. She could have sworn no one else showed up on the sensor overlay but it had been makeshift. She saw Winner jog over and remembered the coms, "We've found Ensign Moretti or she found us. Winner is reporting a head injury, I don't know how bad. The Med kit is to your left.". She called the last to Winner. She wanted to go help but knew well the story of too many cooks in the kitchen but watched concerned the sensor overlay still hovering in her vision as she tried to ignore her slightly throbbing right wrist.

"Please don't shout so loud," Aurilia said. "I can hear both of you at six times normal volume."


===[Deck Six]===

"All right," said Jayla, feeling fuzzy and unsure of herself. "Let's all get to Main Engineering. I guess we'll be most useful there." She glanced around at those around her. "Um.... and we should stop at the weapon's locker on our way. Yeah?" she asked, trying to sound like she was asking for opinions, but somehow just sounding completely lost.


===[Elsewhere]===

In the darkened corridor, three columns of low red light provided some temporarily illumination. Energy had been transmitted from an external source into the big behemoth, and that energy was quickly converted back into three lifeforms, one Aketi and two other red-skinned individuals. Though most of their features were protected by their opaque space suits, the weapons and tool kits they carried would make it clear to anyone that they meant business. This ship was their ticket out of the zone, and to freedom. Only death would stop them...

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