Assessment (Time Zone 4)

Posted on 16 Sep 2018 @ 5:22pm by Ensign Quinn Mackie & Lieutenant JG Jazmin Parks & Lieutenant JG Catherine Cooper & Ensign Shay Mitchell & Ensign Aidan Crehan & Senior Chief Petty Officer Mila Rasputin

4,642 words; about a 23 minute read

Mission: Fractured
Location: USS Black Hawk, Various
Timeline: TZ4 || 1030 hours

After the inoculations had been distributed- and there were still a lot left in Sick bay- Abbey had to figure out what to do. Her brain was still fuzzy and she couldn't think straight. She wondered vaguely if this was what it was like to be a Captain. If so, she never wanted command of a ship.

She called for a couple of nurses to remove the bodies from the bridge- Vulcans, if any were available. There were two, as luck would have it. They collected the bodies quickly and efficiently. Abbey wanted to cry when they picked up the tiny bodies of the unborn children, but told herself there wasn't time; she could cry later.

Staring at the center chair, Abbey instead opted to stand. There was nothing that could make her take that chair. She was only here temporarily, after all. "Right," she said to those around her, who had assembled on the bridge at her orders after getting the power back up. "We're the most senior crew there is. A bit frightening, but there it is. We might all be junior officers, but I'm willing to bet that Junior officers on the Black Hawk are just as good as the senior officers. We can figure this out.

"First thing's first. Mackie, get the sensors up and see if you can't see what's out there," she said, gesturing the view screen and beyond. "You three," she continued to Parks, Cooper, and Mitchell. "Go see what weapons you can find in the armory. I'm not sure what help it'll be really, but we may as well know what we've got. Crehan, scan for those... those... those chrono... whatsits."

"Yes, ma'am," Shay said, looking toward Parks and Cooper. She felt it would be a better idea if at least one person from Security stayed on the bridge, but that wasn't her call to make. In fact, the young Ensign didn't feel it was Road's call to make, either, but as the senior most officer, what choice did she have but to abide by her orders? Casting a glance toward Abbey one more time, and giving a mental shake of her head, the Security Officer made her way off of the bridge to do as she was instructed.

Cooper had frowned back at Shay when the order came down not happy about leaving either, she rigged the security/tactical station to inform the bridge if anything popped up on sensors. She also put out a call for any available tac/security officer to cover the station. She had made sure to mention this to Abby before making her way to the TL.

Aidan couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right with time, with the time-space continuum. The El-Aurian had already taken to the Science station once again, but changed direction. He brought up the sensors and scanned for quantum fissures and temporal energy. He then moved on to the next possible culprit. The console then beeped and Aidan brought up a wireframe image of the ship and overlaid it with the results of the sensor sweep. And there they were, high levels of neutrinos and chronitons. All. Throughout. The ship. Aidan then moved that image to one side of the console and adjusted the sensors to scan the surrounding subspace for chroniton flux. When he detected a flux of point zero-zero-three, it all became too real. Then, at the statement, he turned to the surgeon and cocked his head to the side. "Chronitons?"

"Chronitons! That's the one!" said Abbey. "What? I'm not a scientist." Then, with a slight grin. "Shut up. Rasputin, see if you can't gather reports from the departments. It might be tricky as there's no senior staff, but bully them until they give you something. Any questions?"

Mila gave a nod and went to round up the handful of crew still left on the ship to figure out who was the highest ranking officer in each department to try to organize some reports.

"I have no questions," replied Aidan. "But I have already been scanning for temporal particles. As it was so aptly put once by Senior Chief Rasputin, El-Aurians are sensitive to changes that should not be. One of those changes is the timeline. The problem, the reason this didn't feel right, is time. Sensors have detected high levels of neutrinos and chronitons all throughout the ship and a point zero-zero-three chroniton flux in subspace. This ship is in a state of temporal flux, Lieutenant. And I might add that after cross referencing Starfleet records for similar instances I have come across a mission report from the USS Voyager which states that they experienced something similar. Their doctor created a created a chroniton-infused serum to inject into those crew members whose bodies were in a state of temporal flux. I do believe that it would be in all of our best interests if you and the medical staff to know what chronitons are, ma'am."

"You're probably right," Abbey agreed with Crehan as the security officers left the bridge. "Okay, so for those of us who haven't managed to keep up with our science education, lemme see if I got this straight. I know the presence of chronitons indicates weird stuff going on with time, and the point zero zero... three, was it?- flux indicates that something is very wonky with the way time is happening on the ship. Which actually explains quite a lot. Have I got it so far?"

"Indeed you have Doctor Captain," answered Aidan. "The high levels of neutrinos and chronitons are indicative of temporal energy affecting the ship. And a chroniton flux is a fluctuation in subspace that can be present in some instances of time travel."

"And this chroniton infused serum," she continued. "It let people sort of... flux... with the ship? Safely? And is there information on the serum? I'd really rather not have to work out how to make it meself."

"In a sense. The chroniton-infused serum allowed the crew members to pass through the barriers separating the time periods," said Aidan. "If there are no barriers here, then I surmise that it would at least keep us all in the same time period. Or rather our primary selves in the primary time?" Aidan shook his head. "Let's see if we can just get it fixed."

"Yes, right, fix it," she said. "As soon as we figure out how. For now, let's focus on stopping this radiation or we're not going to get very far on anything."

While Security went to round up weapons, and the de factor commanding officer discussed science with Grandpa, Quinn focused his attention on the sensors. They had been restored while he was down in auxiliary control, now all he could do was refine their resolution and range, both factors which would be limited no matter what thanks to the nebula. His scans spotted faint traces of quantum filaments, including one that still seemed to carry a large enough charge. Was that what brought them here? "Docto... Captain, I'm picking up faint traces of duranium one hundred meters off the starboard bow. Looks like a Starfleet bouy, nearly seventy years old at that."

Abbey's brain was frazzled. There was too much to do. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then opened them. "All right," she said. "A bouy. On top of everything else. Okay, have we got power to the viewscreen? Can we see it?"

"Maybe," Quinn replied, fiddling with the controls. A second later, he was able to put an image up on the viewscreen. Unfortunately, the sensors were still riddled with radiation and other interference, so the image remained hazed with static. "Right there," he said, pointing at a faint dot.

"Doesn't really shed any light, does it?" said Abbey, looking at the foggy image. "Don't suppose you can enhance it at all?

"I can try," Quinn sighed, tapping away at the console. After a few seconds, he was able to zoom in and slightly enhance the image. "Standard issue Federation buoy. Black Hawk's signature. Ship shows it was launched by Lieutenants Geisler and Di Pasquale. These things are only rated for twenty years, and amazingly it still has power."

"Is there anything on it?" Abbey asked. "Like, logs or sommat. Or is it just a breadcrumb? So they knew where they'd been."

Quinn tapped a few controls to access the buoy's communication system, only to be greeted by haunting echoes of a missing member of the senior staff, one Lieutenant Di Pasquale. "We are currently stuck in space with almost all the power on the ship drained. We have approximately one hundred and twenty-nine personnel on the ship with no trace of the others. Sensors have revealed quantum filaments which have struck the ship in several places."

Another voice followed. "We've been exposed to lethal levels of theta radiation, and if we don't do something about our currently situation quickly, we'll all succumb to it and die. The ship cannot stay where it is now, so we're going to attempt to use the Mississippi and Euphrates to tow it out. We're unsure at this time if it will work, but it seems to be one of the only options we have presently. If any of our crew finds this, and you're out there, we will find you and bring you home."

"Seems like moving the ship is a bad idea," remarked Quinn, trying not to let the voices of the past keep him down. "If they could have moved it, then we wouldn't be here."

Abbey rubbed her temples. "Okay, so quantum filaments, Theta radiation, what else could go wrong? Wait, don't answer that," she said. "All right, I need options. Can we access ship logs? See what else they might have tried?"


---[Armory]---

Jazmin frowned as she checked the twentieth phaser rifle's power levels and found them to be ludicrously low. "Great, if we get into a sustained firefight, we'd each need ten or twenty of these."

She leaned against a nearby workbench, not wanting to look at either of her companions. She was frustrated beyond belief. They were stuck in a time that wasn't their own, the majority of the crew dead, the ship was killing them slowly, and they didn't have a weapon with more than one or two shots left in it."

"Argh!" She cried. "Come on Jazmin, think!" She tried but too many questions rattled inside her brain and none of them were positive. There were too many unexplained things. The buoy/probe that the Hawk took onboard before coming here. The way that many of the surviving officers avoided talking about certain things. Something else was going on and she didn't like it. Like the way that her concern for the probe was deflected..."No! She turned to face the others. "Look, there's a lot going on here. I don't know what, but eventually I will find out. It's my, no, it's our job to protect the others. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure is putting everyone in jeopardy."

She held up a hand to stop any comments. "But," she took a breath, letting it out slowly, "our first job is to get as many functional weapons to the crew." She held up a severely depleted power cell. "All of them are low. But," she smiled, proud of herself for remembering her Academy courses. "I can fix this. In my armory courses we learned how to do an emergency power surge from one pack to the other. You loose about half of the energy you are transferring, but you end up with a power cell that will keep you in the fight."

She took two cells and after pulling some components out of their storage bins, cobbled together a strange device. She clipped in the two cells and activated the device and then discharged one battery. After a few second she turned the device off and installed the other cell into a phaser rifle. She then powered up the weapon and instead of ten percent, the power level now read eighteen percent.

"It might take a bit but I can have about," she looked at the inventory, "twenty phaser rifles with full charges, and thirty phaser pistols with full charges. If some of our people could bring the inventory from the other weapons lockers to me, I could have everyone onboard armed in some fashion."

She looked at the others expectantly. "What do you think?"

Shay arched a brow, finding it very difficult to keep up with Parks. To her, it seemed like their Acting Chief was on some form of speed, and now the young Ensign was wondering if following her lead was a good idea at this point. "You do realize that there are other people on board the ship, right? And that none of this falls on your shoulders solely? We're all in this together," she said. Despite what the voices in your head seem to think. "We can power up some of the power cells without having to resort to creating things that could pose a danger to others."

Jazmin sighed heavily, rubbing her temples. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. She saw the concern in Shay's eyes and appreciated it. "Thanks. I know I've been a bit....uhm….squirrely. I know I have a staff that's fully capable. It's just I need to feel useful. I'm not a scientist, or an engineer, or doctor, or anything else that can get this ship back to where she needs to be.

But, I do know how to protect my crewmates. You get hurt," she looked at Cooper, "or you, or anyone under my watch and that's on me. Anyone dies. That's on me. I didn't understand what the Chief was trying to tell me when we first met, but being chief means what happens to you, it's on me."

She gestured to several chairs and invited them to sit. Jazmin sat first and looked at them. "Tea would be great right now, but stopping to take a breath feels almost as good. The three of us can do this. While the others fix this, we'll have their backs....and each other's"

"It's on all of us. If you try to shoulder all the responsibility, you'll end up cracking. We're a team. The entire crew is a team," Shay said, moving toward Parks to place a hand on her shoulder. "And we'll all do our parts to get out of whatever this mess we're in. Now, let's get these weapons charged up and get back to the bridge."

Cooper nodded, "We're like a hydra..." she said, knowing Jaz responded to jokes sometimes like Cooper did, "More heads are better than one. We got this" She said supportively, "Let's get the right equipment staged and get to work, I for one would like to get someone back to the bridge sooner rather than later." She didn't seem panicked and her demeanor was steady though internally she was much more active as her mind whirled along different paths, she kept it more or less on track.

Jazmin smiled the first genuine smile she had since this started. Taking a breath, she got ot her feet and began to construct two more of the powere transfer units. Five minutes later she was showing the others how to work them and began the tedious process of charging power cells.

Shay did her part to help out with making sure they had enough weapons to go around, and when they were finally done, she wiped her brow, hoping they'd never have to deal with anything like this again. "Now that we've got this done, we need to get back to the bridge. I don't feel like there's going to be any kind of attack, but just in case, I'd feel better if we were there for it," she said, packing the fully charged phasers into a nearby pack. "Anyone have any objections?"

Cooper finished her work as well and shook her head to indicate lack of objection. "No we need to get someone to the bridge as soon as possible, I was thinking though one of us should go to aux control. If something happens there we could lose everything. That is unless something else has higher priority. Was anyone able to get a tac/sec headcount?" She glanced from Mitchell to Parks.

Jazmin thought for a moment. "Counting us, we have twenty-two. We'd have twenty-three, but Petty Officer Wells is down with radiation sickness."

=/\= "Chief Kellerman and Petty Officer Tombs, report to the armory to oversee distripbution of sidearms."=/\=

"Sorry, 'bout that. As far as having someone is Aux Control, I'll have Ensigns Dashita and Tris'Li take over. That will give us dedicated Tactical and Security there. The three of us should head to the bridge in case we're needed."

Cooper nodded, "Let's get moving then." she said prepared to head out. 22 it wasn't much but it was better than 3.

"We've done what we can for the time being," Shay said, and with that, the young Ensign made her way out of the armory with weapons in hand. They wouldn't be able to arm the entire crew, but they'd be able to put up a hell of a fight if they needed to.


===[Bridge]===

Mila returned the bridge with just one PADD in her hands a short time later. "I am being afraid that with so many crew missing...or deceased," the Yeoman said. "Report is being very short. There are dead personnel all over ship. We are having only basics online and there is being no real reports."

Abbey nodded. "Well, to be honest, that's more than I expected," she said, holding out a hand for the PaDD. "I hoped for more, but... well, things being what they are..."

Mila handed the acting Captain the PADD. "Summary of reports is as follows: Plan is being worked on to charge phasers if we are being attacked. Life support and gravity is being online. Everything else is being work in progress with remaining personnel."

"That's great," replied Abbey honestly, glancing through the report on the PaDD. "I love it when people take initiative. Makes the job of being in charge that much easier."

Shay made her way back onto the bridge. "We have weapons, Lieutenant." she said, waiting for Parks and Cooper to join her.

Cooper stepped out and nodded to Roads, "Enough to hopefully make anyone think twice." She said hefting the extra items she carried.

Quinn, who had been searching through the logs, perked up at the sound of a master alarm coming from the Engineering station. Quickly he crossed the bridge, as he was the only operations officer with engineering knowledge present, and began to tap away at the console. "No!" he gasped, frantically increasing the speed of his tapping. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

Cooper's head jerked toward Quinn, "What is it?" Her tone was brisk, picking up on the obvious frantic demeanor. She put down the extra weapons she carried next to her on the deck.

"It's the antimatter," Quinn replied. "The containment field is failing. Nothing I'm doing is working." His fingers continued to tap frantically until the levels suddenly stopped growing. "It... it stopped," Quinn remarked, staring at the screen, absolutely dumbfounded.

"I suppose we should be thankful that it did," replied Aidan. "But why? And how?"

"I really don't know." The young ensign sighed, staring at the stabilized readouts. Quinn was about to sigh again when something caught his eye. "Can someone run another scan on the filaments?" he asked aloud, not sure who could do that. While he waited for a response, he pulled up the ship's logs, specifically what the antimatter pod's sensors had recorded.

Quinn placed the sensor logs on the overhead monitor and turned them into a graph. "Look at this," he said, indicating four different, but equal spikes in the graphic. The spikes each represented a change in the antimatter's containment. "They're equal, and at the same time index when there was life aboard the ship."

“Wha’dya think it means?” asked Abbey. “I mean, obviously there’s a correlation, but correlation doesn’t always mean causation.”

"If I had to guess?" Quinn asked, turning to face the Doctor, though he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "There's something unusual with the antimatter." Turning back to his console, Quinn ran a quick scan. "That's it," he muttered, pointing at the scan results which were overlaid with a schematic of the ship. "There are three filaments that appear to be anchored in the pod. My guess is that someone tried to mess with the antimatter in an earlier time frame, and it bled over to where we are now."

"What can we do about it?" Cooper asked as she considered what they'd just learned.

"This at least confirms that the ship can't move on its own," Quinn surmised. "Unless we can find a way to remove the filaments. That would stabilize the antimatter for good. But I don't think we can do it on our own."

"Communication is being key," Mila said. "So how are we to be communicating with everyone that we are needing to be? Probe? Buoy? Subspace message?"

Jazmin crossed her arms. She listened to the back and forth and wished for perhaps the hundredth time that she could contribute in some way. She sighed, thinking about what the Senior Chief just said.

"I'm not a scientist, but there are three filaments stuck in the antimatter. At least I think that I got that part right. If the crew is split into different time periods, couldn't we tap into the filaments or something like it to communicate with the crew in that timeframe? Or maybe the serum you were talking about before might let someone travel via one of the filaments? Maybe let the earliest time period know what not to do?"

She blushed, embarrassed at her attempt at being all science-like. "Of course I'm probably way off-base." She wished she could crawl into a corner and hide.

Quinn paused for a moment, thinking about the notion of communicating with those who had already passed on. "Tap into the filaments..." he muttered, looking back to the console. "Maybe. Just maybe..." He started to tap a few buttons to take a closer look at the antimatter. "That might work. I don't know if the serum would work, but I have a feeling however we manipulate the antimatter, it will show up in other timelines. If we play with the containment field harmonics, we can turn the antimatter pod into a communications device. Good ol' morse code."

Shay hung back. What could she offer in the way of help? After all, she was nothing more than a Security officer, and this was beyond her level of expertise. It was better to leave these things up to those who knew what they were doing. Why risk screwing something up?

Cooper gave Jaz a supportive nod for giving Quinn a idea to run with. It was more than she knew but it sounded solid. "Well that sounds promising." Though Quinn was really the only one who would know for sure. Thinking of who is familiar with what reminded her of their duty. She glanced at Shay and Jaz, "While they are working on that perhaps we should finish passing out weapons then two of us should take the tactical and security stations? We should try to be a ready as we can for our part." Her tone was in the form of a request but she didn't know about them, this wasn't her area of expertise as much as it was Quinn's. And while she was paying attention, standing around had never been her favorite thing.

Jazmin nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Phaser rifles to security, pistols to everyone else. Kellerman and Tombs should have distributed some already, with us three on it, we should have everyone armed before anything, interesting, happens."

Without a word to anyone, Shay made her way around the bridge to arm everyone. That's what this came down to for her. Following orders. Nothing more. Nothing less. Parks and Cooper could handle everything else as they outranked her. And the fact that Senior Chief got no recognition for the idea of communicating with the others didn't really sit well with her. "You had a good idea about communication, Senior Chief," the Ensign said, handing her a phaser before she made her way to the Security station.

"I am thanking you," Mila told the young Security officer as she checked the phaser to make sure it was charged and that the safety was on. "Sadly, only people who are usually listening to me is my sestra, Aidan and Captain."

"It really was a great idea," agreed Abbey. "Everyone's done some really good thinking around here. So... I suppose since I have no idea how to do any of what you just said, I'll let Mackie see if he can't work out how to get the attention of the others. If they're still out there," she added a bit darkly.

"If I'm going to get someone's attention, then I'm going to need a message," Quinn pointed out. "Anyone have any ideas? All I can think of is hello."

"Let them know that the filaments are in the antimatter?" Shay suggested. "The message from the buoy stated that Lieutenants Di Pasquale and Geisler were going to attempt to move the ship. If they tried, I can't imagine that would go over well all things considered. If we can communicate with them, that means they can communicate with us. Who's to say we couldn't all work together to remedy the situation somehow?"

Mila had been searching her eidetic memory for something that was bugging her and Quinn and Shay's words finally pointed her in the right direction. "Starfleet Code Thirty indicates an emergency condition involving a planetary disaster or other unspecified emergency. Use of this code means that the sending station is not able to adequately respond to the emergency and requires immediate help at the scene," she recited without a hint of her accent. "Be sending that code with message of filaments," she suggested in her normal voice.

"We have to make sure someone's listening first," Quinn cautioned both women. "Remember how we panicked when the containment field went on the fritz? It's possible that this is going to be overlooked at first. Besides, how would one use Code Thirty with morse code?"

"We will not know if anyone is listening if we are not sending message," Mila said. "As for morse code, why would not S-S-Three-Zero work? Is simple enough."

Easy for you to say, thought Quinn as he prepared an alphanumeric keyboard for interaction with the containment grid. By correlating each key to a series of brief and prolonged harmonic shifts in the containment grid, he could only hope others would see the fluctuations as intents to communicate, not signs that things could fail. "I think we're about ready," he stated. Turning to the Acting Captain, he asked, "Permission to proceed?"

Abbey nodded once. "Do it," she said.

"Aye, aye," Quinn replied. He took a deep breath as his hand trembled over the controls. Oh, how much he hoped this would work. He typed S-S-3-0. Quinn took a moment to search his memories regarding morse code, trying to remember the call for a response. His fingers pressed S-S-3-0 again, followed by the letters K and N. "There," he declared. "Now we wait."

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