[AU] Inside of Nothing

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 5:20am by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri-Smith & Lieutenant James Smith & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Sasha Vieers (Deceased)
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 4:48pm

Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Bridge

A Mission Post by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD & Lieutenant James Smith & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Ensign Sasha Vieers
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Bridge
Timeline:
Wed May 2nd, 2018 @ 1:09pm

ON:

Temple sat staring at the inside of the Ops console with a resigned frown. He had spent several hours with his head inside the station trying to restore power but every time he thought he'd made the right connection, nothing happened. And he was still getting tricked occasionally by the odd noises, which made him think it was working, only to find it was still offline. He just hoped he was hearing someone in another part of the ship who'd managed to get their console working. For now, all he could do was contemplate the problem ahead of him; those on the Bridge had plenty of time to think while they waited for the others to return. Without comms, there was no way of getting updates from the search parties, or to check if they were okay.

It was incredibly frustrating trying to be a Captain of a dead ship.

Krysia had been relaxing at her station for a little while before getting back on her feet, making her way carefully around the various bridge stations she’d spent the last few hours going over each of them with a fine tooth comb and yet nothing she’d done seemed to have worked at all. She paused as a chill ran down her spine and a sense of familiarity crept in, “Owen?” she looked around shaking her head she knew he wasn’t there but the sense had been very strong for a moment. She looked curiously in Nyx’s direction.

Nyx just sighed, looking at the dormant circuits with tired eyes.

“I could have sworn...” she sighed. “I thought I sensed Owen... Commander Nash.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s just my imagination.”

Taking a walk around the bridge Krysia was making her way around to James when it chill ran down her spine and a strange sensation as though either she had passed through something or something had passed through her. She shivered giving James a curious look, “What is going on around here? First, I feel as though Owen was here and now...” She shook her head. “Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought... it felt as though someone walked right through me!”

Smith had been trying to get another console working and wasn’t having any luck, like some of the others he was out of his element. He was wishing for his office on deck 4. Smith looked over at Krysia and said, “You okay? At the moment we are the only crew on the bridge, but for some reason I also feel the presence of others.” James shook his head. “Of course, I could be losing my mind.”

Krysia shook her head, “I’m not so sure...”

Fick was under yet another console, not far from the Captain. He was no Engineer, but he had spent a lot of time tinkering with smaller ships and building hovercraft. He felt at home under the console. It was serving two purposes for him at the moment. It was keeping him distracted from thinking about reality and it was keeping him from worrying about K'Laus. "Captain?" His voice was muffled, under the console. "Do you think we'll get out of this? What if... what if we're already dead?" He didn't mean to be a downer, but he had to ask. It had been gnawing on his mind for hours.

Nyx stood from the ground, moving over to comfort the CFO. “Hey I feel very much alive still. Don’t you?” He gave a short laugh. “Besides, if this were my afterlife there would be a lot less of you people and a lot more naked folks playing harps.”

Fick peered out from under his console. "Your afterlife has naked people?"

The door from the Observation Lounge slid open and a harrowed Shae and Vieers stepped out. Shae looked as though she had seen something unspeakable, so much so that it seemed to have stolen her voice.

"Captain," Shae managed to rasp out, then pointed to the skylight over the center of the Bridge, draw everyone's attention to the darkness normally associated with space, although now there was a conspicuous lack of stars and other stellar objects to be seen; there was nothing outside the Bridge, absolutely nothing... "Deck four is gone."

Fick slid slowly out from under his console.

Krysia looked at James then back at Shae, "What do you mean gone?"

Smith looked out bewildered, “Where did it go and if deck four is gone what about the rest the ship?”

Nyx walked over to Shae and Sasha and regarded them with an intense stare. "A hull breach? Were you able to see how far it went? Could you see the next deck?"

Sasha just quietly shook her head. "There was no other deck, no rest of the ship, Sir. The rest of the Pandora was... gone."

Temple sat down quietly in a nearby chair. He was aware that his heart was racing and there was an alarming feeling coming over his body. "Do you think we came apart because of the wave? Maybe the ship was separated?"

The young Trill could only shake her head again. "No, Sir. The ship wasn't damaged, there was no debris and our portion of the ship is still intact. It's like... I can't describe it, Sir. It's just... not there."

Fick sat up, but he didn't stand. He almost felt like his brain had stopped processing information, rather like the console he'd just been working on. It felt like everything inside and out had stopped. Then he felt a little sick.

Nyx looked around to the crew on the Bridge, trying to take in the information and make sense of it. But nothing in his head was able to grasp the situation as described, or how it happened. It was seemingly impossible. "I don't understand. If the impact of the wave had torn apart the ship, we wouldn't all be here. There wouldn't be power, gravity, life support. There has to be some explanation."

"We looked, Sir," Sasha replied. "But every jefferies tube, Turbolift shaft, corridor, they just end. Like there was never any more of the Pandora after deck three."

"Our tricorder could pick up that the shield is still in play and it's the only thing holding our atmosphere in," Shae added to the brief. "I can't tell you with any certainty where the shield is coming from, the only independent shielding we have on these decks are the security force fields within the corridors, but this is reading like the bubble formed from the main shield array and the emergency force fields don't have this kind of capability or power. I have no idea how we even have power, there's not enough pressure in the EPS grid to cause any movement of the plasma in any portion of the grid we examined. I can't explain it sir, this entire situation defies all logic and reason."

Fick's eyebrows furrowed more and more as they continued to explain. "That's... that's not right. I mean, it's obvious that that's not right, when you say it's gone... like... shields holding us together gone? Or... you said... never... like never any other decks?" It was fairly understandable that Fick's mind was sort of blown. He was certain he was probably not alone in that feeling.

"I didn't check structural integrity, but if there was an issue with the decks holding together it should have pinged when I was taking scans, so I don't think the shield is holding us together, but it is holding the atmosphere in," Shae clarified. "That being said, it doesn't look like damage, it's just... there's nothing, nothing, we opened the hatch and nothing was there, like nothing was built below deck three. And even outside the shield, it didn't register as empty space; space is a definable thing, something that registers on sensors, there was no space, just nothing." Shae didn't know how much more she could get away with saying 'nothing' but it was the only word that was adequate for what she and Vieers had witnessed.

“I need to sit down.” Nyx commented flatly as he took in the report.

“You are, Sir.” Sasha replied gently.

“Oh. Good.” Nyx said. He took a moment to stare into nothingness before suddenly springing to his feet again. It was as if he suddenly remembered he had a job to do. “Okay, so good news is that we’re not dead. We have some form of protection keeping us safe and for all we know the rest of the Pandora is out there looking for us. We need to attract their attention as loudly as possible. Thoughts?”

"How?" Shae replied in a defeated tone. She wanted to remain hopeful, to believe there was some way to contact the rest of the ship, but it was hard to remain positive after staring into nothingness where Deck four used to be. "'Nothing-space' is only a theoretical construct in the scientific community so I have no idea how it behaves, if signals can pass through it or if we can access subspace for communications. For that matter, what deck are the communications arrays on, do we even have the resources to reach out?"

Nyx leaned over and placed his hand gently on her arm, and looked to Shae with all the confidence and reassurance he could muster. “They’re out there. I know they are. They’re safe and they’re going to be looking for us.”

Krysia stood silently looking towards the others, gathering her thoughts she decided to speak up, "The whole time I've been walking around the bridge I've been sensing others that aren't here with us, the only thing is I don't know if it's just residual or not..." she paused for a moment, "... but if it isn't residual then maybe it could give us a way to let the rest of the crew know that we're here?"

“I agree”. James replied. “There has to be something that we can do as a group that will help the rest of the crew locate us, I’m sure LT Parrino has the entire Intel department working to locate us.”

Krysia moved to stand closer beside to James taking a moment of no one looking at them to hold his hand, right now she was glad he was here with her even though she wished none of them were stuck in whatever was going on.

“Brennan is right, without our array, we need another way to get a signal out.” Nyx began pacing around as he mused. “We could try to get our comm badges working but they won’t transmit very far, and it may not be strong enough. The only other portable devices would be... Oh!”

Turning suddenly, Nyx ran towards the port side of the Bridge, jumped over a console, and quickly released the manual override on the doorway. Just outside in the corridor were the Escape Pods and after hurriedly gaining access to the nearest one, he smiled as the pod came to life. The corridor was flooded with the bright internal light and it’s panels activating helpfully.

Nyx shouted back to the Bridge, excitement in his voice, “Escape pods are independently charged with enough power to provide basic life support for... well, months at least. And they come with a distress signal. If we can override the launch requirement, we can use the pods to transmit location data to the Pandora, even the USS Palatine!”

Shae followed Nyx and watched him as he accessed a pod. Already the gears were turning in her head as she thought through this idea, tapping idly at her lower lip as she worked out details. "I'm still doubtful it will work, but I say we start up one of the beacons," Shae said. "We use one pod to transmit the signal, and then, so we don't drain the battery of the signal pod too quickly, I can use the sensors in a second pod to study how the beacon's signal behaves in the space we're in, conserving power in the other pods until they're needed. Once I have a better idea of what we're dealing with, we can find a way to modify the beacon to make contact. Without access to the Pandora's sensor pallets or the Astrometric sensors, it will be slow going, but I think we can find a way to make this work."

“Shouldn’t we also be thinking about requirements for us?” Krysia looked around “We may have to rely on the pods to provide us with food, water and everything else we’ll need to survive until the Pandora finds us plus without access to lower decks we have no medical facilities available either although we could set up a temporary medical facility in the auxiliary conference room?”

Nyx nodded to Lieutenant Kaleri. “Indeed, if you’re feeling better, grab Smith and start taking people down there. And if you come across Griffin, let him know where you’re heading.”

"I'll manage, Sir." Krysia looked at James and smiled.

“Lieutenant Fick, Ensign Vieers, open up the rest of the pods on this deck and take out the food rations and medical supplies.” Nyx continued, popping his head back into the Bridge. “Deliver those to the conference room and start organising the rations.”

"You got it, Sir!" Fick seemed almost gleeful and jumped up from where he had been. "C'mon Vieers!" He was honestly just happy to be useful and have something to take his mind off of things.

"Yay rations." Sasha commented under her breath, as she followed behind Fick.

As the others disappeared on their duties, Nyx gave a quiet sigh. Doing tasks and working out problems was going to keep the crew focused and motivated, and Nyx needed to ensure they didn't fall apart - despite the circumstances. Truthfully, he didn't know how they were going to get out of this situation and he couldn't ignore Brennan and Vieers' discovery forever. There was nothing outside of the Pandora. Nothing. His ship, his crew, his family; all of them were gone. He was running on the pure belief that this escape pod idea would work, as it was all they had right now.

OFF