[AU] In The Silence

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 5:18am by Cailus Griffin & Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri-Smith & Lieutenant Machwen Adaestron & Lieutenant Commander James Smith & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Sasha Vieers (Deceased) & Mauricio Arnaldo
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 4:48pm

Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Bridge

A Mission Post by Captain Nycolas Temple & 1st Lieutenant Mauricio Arnaldo & Lieutenant Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD & Lieutenant James Smith & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Lieutenant JG Machwen Adaestron & Ensign Sasha Vieers
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Bridge
Timeline:
Mon Apr 23rd, 2018 @ 11:56am


The carpeted floor of the Pandora felt oddly soft against the face of Nycolas Temple as his head rested against it. His eyes were closed and he was only faintly aware of his surroundings; though he felt a tingling sensation through his leg and a nagging feeling that he should be getting up. He figured he'd be woken by his alarm soon enough, then he would have to get dressed, feed Katrine, and start his day. Yes, that was it; he was just catching a few more minutes of sleep before his day began. He couldn't figure out why he was on the floor, though, that was a thought for another time. For now, just a little more sleep would do...

A couple of meters to Nyx’s left, Cailus’ thoughts were of a different variety: specifically, a long series of private curse words at the blinding pain emanating from his left arm. The impact had driven Cailus unconscious along with the others, his head slamming hard into his console, but he had thereafter switched from unconsciousness to full alertness like the flick of a switch, the agony acting as a highly unpleasant stimulant.

Even so, looking around the pitch-black Bridge, Cailus realised as he grit his teeth through the pain that he could at least think clearly. He instinctively checked that his phaser was still holstered with his right hand, then tapped in utter futility as his dead console.

“Main power to the Bridge is completely offline, emergency backups have not engaged,” Cailus reported, his deep voice seeming strangely loud in the total, abnormal silence. He winced at a fresh wave of pain from his arm, but Cailus knew from experience that it was only a break or a fracture; anything worse and he wouldn’t be hurting at all.

Krysia awoke to the sensation of the pain that was radiating from Cailus’ direction, she too had been forced into head butting her console and had a small but painful gash and lump on the side of her temple to show for it. Her senses seemed remarkably light the heaviness of the sensation of a ship full of crew seemed so much lighter but she shook it off as caused by the bump on her head. Pushing herself up off the carpet she hauled herself back into her seat and tapped the console whilst blotting her head on her uniform sleeve.

The silence was deafening to the large-eared Astrophysicist resting her head on the dead science console. Shae's eyes fluttered open and she struggled to recall what she had been doing that resulted with her being 'asleep' on the Bridge, but for the moment she was drawing a blank. She lifted her head slowly, dazed and more than a little confused, then she saw one of the junior Science Officers beside her resting against the console in an unconscious state. Shae reached over to check the woman's pulse, relieved to find the woman alive, but why couldn't she hear a heartbeat? She could hear her own... Shae opened her mouth with the intent to remark on the curiosity of the situation, but then she gasped in pain as her ears popped. Quickly, she held her ears down with her hands, rubbing them as her inner ears readjusted to the cabin pressure. At least now she could hear, but every breath, every heartbeat was like a blaring alarm in her head, and yet a certain silence persisted; she couldn't hear the ship! Normally she could hear the comforting thrum of the ship, computers humming, and plasma rushing through the conduits in the walls, but now it was achingly silent!

"Wha-" Shae started as her head started to clear, but even her own soft-spoken voice was deafening. But she would adapt, she just needed a moment. "What happened?" she finally said despite the discomfort it caused to her now ringing ears.

== Deck 2, Corridor ==

Meanwhile Louis was awakening to a similar predicament he’d been enroute back to sickbay when he’d been slammed into the corridor wall by the force of the impact, sitting up slowly he sat against the wall and waited for his head to stop spinning.

Mauricio was sitting awake, eyes darting about the corridor with quiet panic. All of his training had gone out of the window as his body was telling him something was dreadfully wrong. He tried listening for something familiar, a klaxon or Comms traffic. But there was nothing. The thought raced through is mind that he might be the only one alive and then suddenly - someone moved nearby. In the darkness he tried to make out a shape, trying to remember who had been around him when the ship went all topsy turvy.

"Hola?" He called out in a half-whispered tone. "Who is there?"

Louis tried to focus on the voice, it was difficult to see in the dark instead of standing up he crawled slowly along the floor towards a figure he could just about see to check that he was okay, "Hello.. it's me Nurse Louis, are you alright?"

Mauricio groaned as he tried to stand, "Ah, I feel I've bruised my... uh I think the medical term is posterior?"

Louis couldn't help but smile at that one. "You're quite correct!" Louis laughed the humour helping to lighten the moment

The First Lieutenant smiled a little as he took the Nurse's hand and they pulled each other up. "Is your Comm badge working?"

Tapping his badge Louis shook his head, "No looks like not much else is either at the moment."

== Bridge ==

Fick groaned and rolled over on his back. He had been laying on his face apparently. The last thing he remembered was desperately trying to get the ship to back away from the storm. He opened his eyes slowly to stare up at the ceiling of the Bridge. He lifted one hand and carefully touched his nose and the warm, wetness of the blood starting to run down his cheek. He sniffed a little decided it probably wasn't broken, but it still hurt. He didn't sit up, he also didn't say anything.

Smith hurt all over the last thing he remembered was the wave hitting them, and then nothing. Slowly opening his eyes a sense of disorientation swept over him. Smith had been flung backwards against some of the consoles and his head was hurting. Pulling himself up he hit his console trying to run a few scans but nothing happened, the whole ship seemed dead. Looking over to where Krysia was he was glad to see she was ok.

Turning to look from her station Krysia smiled as she saw James on his feet, he looked as rough as everyone was feeling but at least he seemed okay. Given a choice she'd be over with him tending to him but on the bridge in the current situation that would be unprofessional.

Stars above, the scent of blood was overpowering! Or it least it was for Shae in her still dazed state. Compelled by the knowledge that her crewmates were injured, she managed to pull herself to herself from her chair and on unsteady paws managed to find her way through the darkness, her eyes shining off the emergency lighting to work around her console and to the Command pit where she saw two figures. One was bleeding but moving so Fick was clearly conscious, but the other much larger figure she recognized as her Captain was laying still, so she prioritized the Captain and knelt beside him first.

"Captain?" Shae said, her own voice booming painfully in her ears as she gave Nyx a gentle nudge to his shoulder.

Fick sat up suddenly, one hand on his bloody nose. "Is everyone okay?" He wasn't far from his console and he moved carefully to it, across the floor, and pulled himself into his seat. His head was pounding and there was blood on his console where he had bashed his face into it. Everything was dead, including the viewscreen. The last thing he remembered was the storm coming at them and trying to get away. He didn't even remember the impact. At least not currently, but where were they now?

Krysia looked up from her console as she heard Fick's voice, her head was thumping & she remembered enough from her Starfleet first aid training to recognise that she probably had a concussion but right now she needed to focus on what had happened. "In one piece over here..." As she looked around she could just about see Shae in the darkness next to the Captain. "Is the Captain okay?"

'Why were all these people bothering me?' Nyx wondered to himself in his hazy state. Couldn't he just get a few minutes more of sleep before he had to go be Captain? Someone was trying to rock him awake, but he was fighting it still.

"Emilie?" he murmured aloud, reaching out blindly and touching Shae's hand. "Tell them to go away."

Shae looked up at Krysia, her eyes glowing faintly in the dim emergency lighting, but before she could answer the Operations Chief, Nyx finally stirred. Emilie? Did he think he was in bed?! "Captain, I need you to wake up," Shae said with a more insistent nudge.

Nyx's body was fighting the urge of the Chief Science Officer to wake him up, his head having crashed hard into the Captain's chair when the Pandora began to spin. It was telling him to keep sleeping, so he groaned at Shae's request and tried to turn away.

Somewhat disgruntled, and distinctly concerned about whatever disaster had befallen the ship, Cailus awkwardly stood up and moved to one of the bulkhead lockers, carefully feeling his way there in the dark while the others recovered. Ignoring his useless left arm (damn, the thing has to be broken to hurt this much), Cailus reached for a palm beacon inside the locker, finding it by touch and immediately activating it. He tracked the resulting beam of light around the empty Bridge, checking everyone individually before resting it on Nyx and Shae.

“Looks like he and Vecon are the worse off,” Cailus said curtly, immediately tapping his combadge only to receive the fizzle sound that indicated non-functionality. “Comms are out. Okay, all hands, listen up!” he called out in in a firm, loud voice to the dark, quiet Bridge. “If you can walk, find a locker and get palm beacons and medkits. If you can’t walk, stay exactly where you are and don’t move. Call out if you need a light. The first person to get some gear will check on Vecon.”

With that done, Cailus got on one knee next to Shae and Nyx, aiming the light at the captain’s torso. He was making a concerted effort not to look at his left arm, preferring ignorance in the short term. “Captain Temple, can you hear me?” Cailus said sternly.

Aware of the light being shone in his direction, Nyx finally stirred. He had no idea why Cailus was now in his quarters but he was sure there would be a court martial hearing. Opening his eyes, squinting at first and then slowly until they were fully wide open, the Captain took in the scene. His eyes moved slowly across from Shae to Cailus, the blacked-out Bridge. And it came back to him - the probe exploding, the wave, and hitting his head.

"Oh," he groaned, as he rubbed the temples of his forehead. "I'm okay."

Getting up from her seat Krysia made her way cautiously to the nearest locker to get her palm beacon and a medkit, then as Cailus had ordered she made her way back across to Fick who had blood covering his lower face from his nose. Apart from that she couldn't see any other visible injuries. "Lieutenant do you hurt anywhere else?" She shone the light on his nose from a glance it didn't look broken but there was no guarantee it wasn't. She grabbed a small pile of bandage from a medkit for him to use as a pad to stem the blood flow it was the best she could do for now.

Fick winced in the bright light and took the pad of gauze and pressed it to his nose. "Yeah, I'm gonna live. Just bloodied my nose. Everything is dead." He stood carefully and headed for the locker for the palm light. "I seem to be fine... is everyone else okay?"

Krysia looked around. "Mostly, I think, but don't quote me on that," she smiled and moved away making her way around to James, she'd been wanting to make sure he was okay. "Are you alright?"

James looked at Krysia and smiled a bit. “I’ll be fine. Got a headache, but nothing I haven’t had before.” Looking around, James surveyed his surroundings and said, “Have we been able to make contact with anyone else?"

"I'm... not sure..." she steadied herself against James' console, she was pretty sure she probably had a concussion, she had hit her head pretty hard on the console during the impact.

Nyx brought himself into an upright position, and tried looking around. "What's our situation?"

Shae winced as all the chatter reverberated in her ears, and those big ears laid down and pressed as tightly against her head as they could to further muffle the sounds around her. "At the moment, we seem to be without power and communications," Shae reported, relieved that Nyx seemed to be okay. "With everyone only just coming to and checking for injuries, we haven't yet had the chance to check the other decks or assess the root of our technical issues."

Krysia was about to head away from James' station when her head spun and she almost fainted, luckily James hadn't been too far away and he'd managed to catch her before she hit the deck and did herself any more harm. After taking the time to sit and get her bearings she headed back to her seat, sat down & rested her head on her arms for a little while.

Nyx nodded along to the news, though quickly realised that caused a sort of whooshing feeling across his head and promptly stopped. He took a deep breath, "Well, at least Life Support is still functioning. And, by the looks of our faces, artificial gravity was still in effect." Unwilling to stand just yet, Nyx felt around on the floor for a few minutes, using the light from Griffin's beacon to search for his PaDD. He found it wedged in his chair cushion and retrieved it with a forceful pull.

The light from the PaDD illuminated his face, but the screen was shaking and distorted. "I'm not getting much from this," Nyx announced with a sigh. "But it appears all the power we have left has gone to life support and... shields? Shields are raised around the Bridge?" He looked to Shae with a raised eyebrow. "That's all I'm getting."

"There's something else not right here Captain," Krysia raised her head to look at Nyx, "I'm a little foggy but from what I can sense it doesn't feel like there are enough crew... Like I said I'm a little foggy, but I normally sense a LOT more minds and I'm not getting that."

"Rest, Lieutenant," Nyx said calmly, giving her a reassuring nod. "Take your time."

Fick came back to the group with a palm light. "So everything is dead." He seemed still a little dazed, like he hadn't been listening to any of the conversation around him. "Can... can I go wash my face?" he asked of no one in particular and stood there as if he was really waiting for permission.

"Use my office," Nyx replied as he tried to pull himself off the floor. "You'll have to use the manual override on the door though."

Fick turned the palm light toward the Captain's office and headed that direction. It didn't take him long to gain access via manual override. He used the small sink to wash the blood from his face and the mirror above it to check his nose. He might end up with two black eyes, but he was pretty sure his nose wasn't broken. Then he returned to the main bridge.

Leaning against his chair, the Captain looked around. "I will work on restoring power to the Bridge. Brennan, you'll have to use the jeffries tubes to get to the lower decks, take Ensign Vieers with you. See if you can deactivate the shields as you go. If it proves dangerous, return here immediately."

"I'll do what I can," Shae responded, then pulled herself back to her paws as she glanced over to Ensign Vieers.

The young Trill officer, who had been standing silently in the background, diligently stood forward, "Here, Ma'am. I have a beacon and medkit already."

"Very good," Shae replied and took the offered light so they could find their way, then she found an Engineering tricorder in the supply compartment and clipped the device to her belt, and feeling adequately prepared they departed the Bridge for the Observation Lounge where the Jefferies access there was closer to the verticle shaft that would take them to the lower levels.

Meanwhile, Nyx turned to his other crew. "Smith, I'll need you to look after the injured here on the Bridge. Griffin, take a team and explore the corridors, see if there are any more injured out there."

Smith nodded, “Yes Sir”. Looking around he moved from crew to crew checking on the injured on making sure there wasn’t anything serious.

“Aye Captain,” Cailus responded curtly, although he had to repress a grimace as an inadverent movement exacabated his broken left arm. The security chief aimed his palm beacon at another armed yellow shirt, an unfortunate Tellarite ensign who was on the Bridge by sheer accident having been delivering a report, but she was at least unharmed. “Yugrid, you’re with me. We’ll climb down the turbolift shaft.”

The ensign hesitated, plainly wondering how Cailus would climb down the ladder with only one functioning arm, but she nevertheless moved to the turbolift doors and opened them manually. Within seconds, both officers had descended out of sight.

Temple cracked his knuckles as he limbered over to the Ops station. "Sorry Lieutenant, Kaleri, I'm going to need to mess around with your console. Stay seated and you can help talk me through this."

"Yes Sir." Krysia nodded and instantly regretted it, nodding only served to make her headache more than already was. She still wasn't sure if it was her or whether there really were less crew aboard the ship than before but either way something definitely wasn't right. "Just tell me what you need to do and I'll do my best to help."

The Captain was busy releasing the hatchway underneath the console and sticking his head inside. “Ooh.” He murmured to himself looking at the series of wires and conduits.

Fick returned to his console, his face clean again. "Everything's still dead," he said to no one in particular. "What's going on with backup power? Isn't it supposed to kick in when we lose main?" He continued to tap at his console, but he turned in his seat to squint into the dark room at Nyx and Cailus.

“There is power to the console.” Nyx’s behind wiggled as he reached further inside the station.

Oddly, while he was still busy looking at the power relays, he could hear tapping and the sounds of the LCARS screen responding above him. Aware that he hadn’t managed to fix anything, Nyx curiously pulled himself out of the station and looked up at the screen, only to find it was still offline. The Captain frowned. “I could have sworn... I’m hearing things.” He sighed.

Krysia was feeling more than a little useless as she watched Nyx trying to figure out why the Ops console wasn’t working, she was still somewhat foggy thanks to her concussion but she could have sworn she’d heard the console come back online as well even though it hadn’t, “You're not hearing things Captain... I thought I heard power come back on but the console hasn’t changed.”

"Hmm." Nyx replied as he stuck his head back into the console.

Krysia looked up as James paused to check on her as he continued to keep a watch on the wounded, she winced as he placed a small pad over the cut on the bump on her forehead.

Kneeling down with medlar in hand, James said, “You ok, that’s quite the bump you have.” Smith looked her over once he had the cut taken care of.

“I’m fine” she smiled, “It’s just a little sore & having had a concussion once before this feels pretty much the same, although I’ve no doubt Doctor Brookes would tell me to leave the diagnosis to him!”

Chuckling a little Smith smiled, “Yeah the Doc wouldn’t like us to make to many diagnosis without him.” Looking around at the other wounded Smith touched her shoulder, “I’ll be back”

Krysia watched as James headed on his way right now she wished she was cuddled up with him but that would have to wait until they’d figured out what was going on.

== Deck 2 Corridor ==

Louis stood for a moment wondering what to do next, he wished he was back in sickbay instead of stuck in a darkened corridor with no idea what was going on. “So what’s our next move?” he looked at Mauricio.

"Sshh," Mauricio whispered, trying to raise his head up a little and listen. His training was kicking back in again and it was time to decide whether their situation was dangerous or just the usual dire. "I thought I heard voices."

Louis stopped and listened, he too thought he could now hear faint sounds.

"There should be an Ops station nearby," the Marine said firmly. "If I remember we were about twenty feet from the Turbo Lifts, so there should be a locker ahead of us. We could retrieve some beacons and start making a sweep for other crew?"

"Good idea." Louis nodded and followed Mauricio, as much as he was nervous his medical training was now taking over and he was more concerned about helping the crew. Reaching a locker they both grabbed torches and med kits. "Let's go..." he smiled nervously at he looked at Mauricio.

The Marine hobbled somewhat as they walked down the corridor, as he became painfully aware that his lower back and coccyx were still sore and likely bruised. Still, he had been through worse on Cestus and Kovar Station, he could carry this injury too. The two hadn't gotten far when Mauricio's beacon fell upon a figure on the ground. "Look!" He cried as he hurried ahead to reach the downed officer.

Mauricio reached the man first, noticing the Teal tunic underneath his jacket. Mauricio carefully turned the Medical officer over, checking him for injuries and signs of consciousness. Without their usual equipment, he was forced to use the old fashion method of finding a pulse and placed two fingers firmly on the officer's neck. He was glad to feel a steady heartbeat pulsing still. "Alive." He reported with a sigh, and he flashed the beacon across the officer's face. "It's Lieutenant Adaestron!"

The light flashing over his face caused Machwen to stir, opening his eyes to see Mauricio and Louis. "Lieutenant, nurse," he said slowly, "what's happened?"

Louis was relieved to hear his colleague was alive, checking Adaestron over as best as he could he was glad to find no major injuries. He was starting to wonder where everyone else was the ship seemed strangely quiet. "We're not 100% sure of that at the moment but we're aiming to find out"

"Let's keep moving." Mauricio said nervously.

==Jefferies Tubes==

Descending the tubes to the lower decks was no easy task; even with the beacons it was dark, because while the Bridge had emergency lighting, the emergency lights in the tubes seemed to be offline.

"Careful," Shae cautioned as she and Vieers made their way down to the hatch on Deck 2. Finding her paws on the deck plating once again, Shae quickly stepped away so that Vieers could finish climbing down the ladder, and she took a moment to open her tricorder to check some readings. "This is so odd," Shae remarked. "I'm not reading any plasma flow in the conduits..." Yet how are the emergency lights on the Bridge even functioning, they have to be getting power from somewhere! Then she knelt down to open the hatch and aimed the tricorder down, her ears flicking with annoyance as they continued to crackle, irritated by the sound of silence consuming the crawlways. "Looks like we'll have to go down a bit further," she stated, then snapped the tricorder closed.

Ensign Vieers nodded silently as the CSO spoke, unwilling to interrupt her attempts to analyse the situation. But the creeping silence was playing on her mind, making the hair stand up on the back of her neck. It was unnatural to hear nothing on a starship; even in the quiet periods during officer's rest there was always the sounds of the engines, the hum of internal systems, the familiar voices in the distance. Now, there was nothing. She didn't want to contemplate what this could mean for those who remained, and her mind was deliberately trying to suppress the rising panicked thoughts.

"Lieutenant?" She spoke up nervously as the two prepared to descend further down the tubes. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe Starfleet Security protocol six-A, part two states that should contact with the Bridge become lost, the then-Commander Officer on duty must immediately lead a party of officers to secure the Bridge?"

"That's right," Shae affirmed as she opened the hatch, shining the light down to make doubly sure that the way was clear.

"So... where are they?" She replied quietly, her voice almost a whisper. "I don't know how long we were out for but there should be someone, anyone coming up these jeffries tubes to the Bridge, right? Where are they?"

With a sigh, Shae contemplated this question; Vieers had a point, and it was one that had been on Shae's mind as well. "Well there is the shield to consider," Shae pointed out as she began to descend the next set of rungs. "Either someone on the Bridge put up that shield, for reasons yet to be determined, in which case the team sent to investigate the Bridge may have trouble getting in," she explained as they slowly made their way further down. "Or someone on the lower decks took notice of something we didn't and put the shield up to protect us, or even to protect themselves, and they may not be able to get to us until this situation is resolved. Either way, we may be cut off from the rest of the ship for a while."

Sasha gave an anxious whine at Brennan's statement, not too fond of the idea of them crawling around the jeffries tubes for hours on their own. As the hatch leading onto Deck Four was opened by Lieutenant Brennan, it gave an unusually loud hissing noise. Because Sasha was in the better position to keep descending, she took the lead and decided to start climbing down first.

"Well, let's hope it's not too much longer." She commented as she placed her foot through the opening. Suddenly she felt a slight shock go through her leg as her foot was repelled off the thin air. She looked down as the blue glow of a force field over the hatchway shimmered into view.

But beyond that, there was nothing. No jeffries tube, no Deck Four, and no ship. What greeted them was the empty silence of space; devoid and daunting - more so because of what should have been there and now was not.

Sasha looked up to Shae with a panicked expression. "Where's the rest of the Pandora?"

OFF