Mission 9: Tears of Procopius

[Engineering]

The image of the humanoids that had appeared had vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. A security team stormed into the engine room. They were armed and appeared prepared for just about anything. An obvious look of confusion blanketed their faces as they found nothing out of the ordinary. They looked to the resident Trill for guidance. She motioned with her left hand, indicating that they should stand by. Leela scanned the area again but was unable to reproduce the effect.

She let out a deep sigh of relief and looked to the security team. "Stand down."

She tapped her communicator. =/\=Engineering to Bridge. False alarm, I think we're..." A sound began to emit from the area surrounding the warp core. "... Stand by Bridge.=/\=

The odd sound she heard was slowly increasing in volume and intensity. It was high pitched, shrill, almost ear piercing. "What the hell." She yelled above the buzz. She looked to her tricorder and followed the noise to the casings that housed the dilithium crystals. They seemed to be resonating. Something was interfering molecules and reacting with the dilithium.

Leela spoke above the noise and re-established her connection with the bridge. =/\="Bridge, something is interfering with the dilithium crystals. I'm attempting to locate the cause. Warp drive isn't an option until we figure this out. Right now I would settle for shutting this wretched noise down!"=/\=

The speed with which Buris recovered from listening to the Admiral was exemplary of a Starfleet officer.  This was what he'd been raised to do.  He understood a lightning rescue and could pull it off single-handed.  And something about Stark reminded him of his father Tabris.  Without thinking on it, he realized - they both had an instinctive, in-born sense of leadership.  Thankfully, Stark hadn't been gut-shot by Cardies at close range.  Thankfully, he just got the crew of a Nebula-class starship at his beck and call.  He nodded curtly before speaking. "Aye, sir."

He saw the call from the Monongahela and flipped it immediately to Bridge speakers.

Quote :

"This is the Monongehla to the Phoenix, we're on our way back. Be warned, we may need assistance to complete the ascent through the atmosphere!"

He smirked lightly and spoke in response.  Somehow, his voice managed to project the kind of confidence they needed in a crisis like this.  =/\="Monongahela, this is Phoenix ops.  Don't push yourselves too hard - get to thermopause height and transfer all power to SIF, shields, and inertial dampeners.  Repeat - at thermopause, transfer all Runabout power to SIF, shields, and inertial dampeners.  We're bringing you home by tractors!"=/\=

He started working his board again, his fingers flying as he opened another intraship comm - leaving the Runabout's channel open and set to receive audio only.  "Operations Team, this is the Bridge, Report to Shuttlebay One - liaise with the Shuttlebay team.  We're going to be launching the four Type-11s, I want every erg of power they have going to tractors that isn't bare-minimum life-support.  Even auxiliary!"  

Without a breath between he changed internal channels, without waiting for anything more than an 'acknowledged'. "Shuttlebay One.  Quick-prep the four Type-11 shuttles aboard for launch - an Operations team will be coming there to help you transfer their full power to tractors.  We have to pull the runabout out of atmosphere - carefully!"

Another moment and he hit another internal channel. "Flight team to Shuttlebay One.  Anyone who's qualified on a Type-11, we will be launching the four in an open starburst formation centered on the Phoenix's main deflector dish.  You will be going out on thrusters only and pulling the Runabout up from thermopause to the point where we can use ship's tractor safely.  You have 15 seconds from the moment Ops and Shuttlebay team clear them to get butts in seats, or we can remote them."

He looked over at the helmsman beside him. "Helm, please make sure we're ready for that. Align main deflector with Runabout Monongahela."

Science was next.  This was a crisis, and there wasn't a real question to his request, but a command based on necessity. "Sir, I need you to route all sensor data on the Runabout to the four shuttles, my board, and Helm.  I don't want to turn them to paste by bringing them up too fast, that's precisely why we're not using the transporter."

He thought for a moment, his eyes half-closing before stabbed his finger on a corner of his board. "Medical team, prep for trauma and injury in the Away Team - report to Shuttlebay One after we have launched the shuttles."

He saw a green light on his board and turned back to Stark, exhaling.  "Shuttles ready to launch on your mark, Captain."

His remark was as old-fashioned as it was by-the-book.  All the prep on Earth could go into them, but no small-craft left a ship without the Captain's assent.  And regardless of his rank, this man was in command of a Federation starship - it was right to call him Captain.  And from a man like Buris, that was a mark of respect. Admirals were a bunch of lazy desk jockeys who didn't understand what was going on out here.  A Captain was a person who understood what leadership was, who stood on this bridge through good and bad, and never once abandoned his crew.

And just as Buris had started to calm down and think things were taken care of, another wave of crazy hit the Bridge - this time from Engineering.

Quote :

She tapped her communicator. =/\=Engineering to Bridge. False alarm, I think we're..." A sound began to emit from the area surrounding the warp core. "... Stand by Bridge.=/\=

The odd sound she heard was slowly increasing in volume and intensity. It was high pitched, shrill, almost ear piercing. "What the hell." She yelled above the buzz. She looked to her tricorder and followed the noise to the casings that housed the dilithium crystals. They seemed to be resonating. Something was interfering molecules and reacting with the dilithium.

Leela spoke above the noise and re-established her connection with the bridge. =/\="Bridge, something is interfering with the dilithium crystals. I'm attempting to locate the cause. Warp drive isn't an option until we figure this out. Right now I would settle for shutting this wretched noise down!"=/\=

He heard the buzz and tone, and Kaz's voice. He closed his eyes and thought, breathing. =/\="Engineering. Ops here. Sounds to me like your dilithium chamber's hit a resonance frequency. Your crystals are shattering like crystal glass, but because the recrystallization is causing at least one of the broken crystals to refuse before the last one stops resonating, you're getting a chain reaction - that's why the buzzing and the modulation in that shriek. Turn off the antimatter flow to the dilithium chamber and disable recrystallization. When the last crystal breaks, the resonance should stop."=/\=

He thought for a moment beyond that. =/\="You also might have some kind of rogue energy spark in there that's causing the resonance wave. If you disable the crystallization, you'll be able to get a better grip on it."=/\=

He'd had experience with that, too. In more than one place, even.

Kejal Buris wrote:

He heard the buzz and tone, and Kaz's voice. He closed his eyes and thought, breathing. =/\="Engineering. Ops here. Sounds to me like your dilithium chamber's hit a resonance frequency. Your crystals are shattering like crystal glass, but because the recrystallization is causing at least one of the broken crystals to refuse before the last one stops resonating, you're getting a chain reaction - that's why the buzzing and the modulation in that shriek. Turn off the antimatter flow to the dilithium chamber and disable recrystallization. When the last crystal breaks, the resonance should stop."=/\=

He thought for a moment beyond that. =/\="You also might have some kind of rogue energy spark in there that's causing the resonance wave. If you disable the crystallization, you'll be able to get a better grip on it."=/\=

He'd had experience with that, too. In more than one place, even.

[Engineering]

Leela rolled eyes as the operations officer assessed the situation of the engine room. She tried to hide the sarcasm in her voice. =/\=Agreed Ensign. We'll take care of it.=/\= She did concur with the officers assessment. Leela had always had this underlying issue with bridge officer meddling in the affairs of the engine room. In her eyes, he was a child, all of them were children to her.

She stepped over to her console and shut off the antimatter flow. The sound stopped. But they would still have to re-instate the flow to start the engines back up.

[Later...]

Commanding officer's log, supplemental.

Our errant landing party has returned to the ship, with much help from the Operations division and some fine piloting.  Further security scans throughout the ship have turned up empty-handed.  Apparently, the image of the Bakurhan curator was something akin to a hologram.  

Although the noises in the M/ARA have been determined to be psionic resonance from the planet's surface reflected in the dilithium crystals, we still are going through the safety checks and all the preliminary processes of re-starting the core.  Beats the alternative.

USS April and USS Appalachia have been dispatched to rendezvous with us, and should be here in short order to assist in repairs.  Their main purpose, though, is to help download the information contained in the planet's memory crystal for deposit and cataloging by Memory Alpha.  With some help...and a little luck...the history of these long-gone people will be preserved.  As best we can, that is.

Stark stood from the desk, clasping his hands behind his back as he considered the cold, bluish planet out the viewport.  It had been a close call down there, but he didn't regret sending the landing party.  Now that the spatial anomalies had uncovered this bit of the Horatius Sector, their job of exploring and cataloging would continue.  If not them...someone else.

He turned and considered the now-empty desk.  His few personal affects would soon be gone from this ready room.  Although Archangel T'Koris' reasons for being in the captain's chair still made him feel like she didn't deserve it, he couldn't deny that her crew was, for the most part, loyal to her.  Except when they're trying to mutiny, he frowned, shaking his head.  If he had his way, Jiseth would be buried so far under Tantalus that they'd need to beam in the sunshine.

"Computer, end log and file."