The Bridge Crew

Posted on Wednesday March 27th, 2019 @ 11:34 hours by Mayterial Droz & Alexandria Farron & Langar Tarn
Edited on on Saturday April 27th, 2019 @ 21:10 hours

Mission: Pixie Dust
Location: Bridge, Deck One, S.S. Fawkes
Timeline: MD02 - 04:00 Hours
2067 words - 4.1 OF Standard Post Measure

[Bridge]

Still stumbling Mayterial made her way out of her quarters and onto the bridge. She was thankful in this moment that her quarters were only a few steps away from the centre chair. She rubbed the back of her head as she steadies herself against the doorpost entering the bridge. She took in a deep breath and then made the unsupported travel towards the centre chair, where she pulled herself up and slumped down. The Deck hand at the navigation console looked positively terrified. She sighed, it was hard to suppress her weariness due to the lack of sleep, the residual alcohol and shock. she heard the bridge doors open behind her and without turning around she said, "Thank fuck you're here. Give me a status report. What the hell happened?"

Alexandria stepped onto the bridge only moments after the captain, just in time to hear her heated request. As she passed she thought she smelled... alcohol?

"How should I know? You woke me up." Alexandria said as she passed the captain, glancing her way and trying not to think about the scent of booze coming from her general direction. The woman looked completely out of it. "Hey, you're bleeding." She said, reaching for a pocket to hand the captain one of the pink adhesive bandages she usually kept on her. But then she realized she wasn't wearing anything that had pockets. She lingered awkwardly for another moment then turned to the frightened looking deck hand manning her console. She shooed him out of the navigator's chair and took her seat.

Volok entered the bridge shortly after getting called to the bridge, but found he wasn't the first to arrive. His assessment of his own response time was what it needed improvement, but no time to dwell on that now. "What is the situation?" Volok asked looking at both May and Alexandria. He noticed May had looked worse for wear. "Captain, you are injured." He said, probably stating the obvious. He stepped up the the nearest console to assess the data.

---
"Captain, this is Colt, Ares’s friend. I’m taking Ares to Medical. Something’s wrong with her. She may have a concussion."

Mayterial heard the communication come through, she looked over at the signaller's console but it was still empty. She wondered what was keeping Canaan. She used her arm console to open a channel to the Medical bay, =A= "This is the Captain to Medical. You have an injury incoming from the Mess Hall. It's Ares Onasis." =A= She closed the channel and rubbed her temples. Her vision was still a bit blurry, she should probably get that checked out once everything in here was in order.

---

"Engineering to Bridge, critical failure of starboard engine in effect. Damage control teams en route. We are losing attitude control. Estimating complete loss within thirty minutes. If we don't manage to fix the engine and recover our list, we won't be able to break free of the gravitational pull of the planet. We need to consider evacuating the ship." Vysara tried to contact the Bridge again.

Alexandria sighed. Had the engineer been drinking too? She shifted in her seat, feeling the need to turn to face the captain. "Yeah... nothing she just said is actually happening." Alexandria deadpanned. "Except for the damage control teams headed toward the starboard engine. Someone should probably call them off before they create damage to try and control."

"I agree with Alexandria, our forward motion has ceased. We are not moving, not in any direction." Volok said, interpreting the data from his console.

"But there's nothing wrong with the ship. We just got pushed out of warp. They're running a diagnostic in Engineering. So far it's not turning up anything." Mayterial looked over at Alexandria but before she could say anything the doors behind her opened again, she turned to look at the man entering.

Langar scrambled up the ladder from Deck 2 and went forward to the Bridge, pushing through the door he saw the Captain was there along with other crew. He came up to her chair, clearly half dressed, with a large bruise already forming on his left temple, dried blood on the side of his face and breathing heavily "Captain! We have to change course! We have to get away from here! We are being followed! The Cardassians are coming after us!"

Alexandria shook her head. Where had the captain found these people? Was this real? It had to be a dream. It had to be. "Permission to go back to bed, Captain?" The navigator asked, not really seeing a reason for her to be there, let alone all the panic.

"Really, Miss Farron?" Mayterial turned to look at her navigator again in disbelief, "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, check the logs. Tell me what happened to us a moment ago that dropped us out of warp." She got up from the chair and stepped to Langar, "Mister Langar, with me please." She placed a hand on his arm and guided him to the tactical console in the back of the bridge and started up a short-range tactical scan, showing no Cardassian signatures in the vicinity, "Tell me where the Cardassians are, because I'm not seeing them."

Langar shook the Captain's hand off his arm and said "Well of course you can't see them yet, they are still out of sensor range!" with all the certainty of the True Believer. He bent over and began powering up the weapon systems. "That means the Prophets have given us more time to get away from them! We need to change course now!"

Mayterial felt the panic seep off of Langar and like an itch crawl under her skin. She shuddered. Quickly she spun on her heels and looked at Volok, "Cut him off. Revoke his access. I don't want him being able to order a Prune Juice without needing security clearance from either you or me, do I make myself clear?" She turned to Alexandria again, "Miss Farron, get me those logs." As if a switch had flipped she was short, clear and decisive. "Mister Langar, you will report to the medical bay immediately."

"Medical, Capt?" Langar asked "For this?" He pointed to the gash on his head "Aww, it's nothing, I just bumped my head, it doesn't even hurt now. But we really need to get out of here before the Cardassians turn up! They must be after this ship, it was one of there's right? The Prophet's don't want them to get us so we need to change course!" He continued to tap commands into the panel while he could, bringing up the shield generators.

The Vulcan first mate's hands slid across the controls effortlessly and the connection to the MaA console was switched off. He made sure to remove the man's security clearance, just a temporary measure to make sure the rest of them remained safe.

Mayterial was relieved that the commands from Langar's console were no longer doing anything to the ship's systems, "Please make sure the power distribution is corrected, Mister Volok." She looked back at Langar, "Medical, now."

Alexandria sighed, and did her best to stifle a yawn as she settled into her chair. So much for a decent night's sleep. The event log was pretty simple to decipher though, and to her, at least, provided a fairly straightforward explanation for what had happened. "Three-minutes and thirty-four seconds ago the ship's forward sensor array detected a class-three subspace distortion forming directly along our current course. The ship's autopilot system automatically disengaged the warp drive. Sensor-ghosting... a lingering after-image of the subspace distortion then tricked the autopilot into believing we had dropped out of warp into the midst of a class-five debris field, which would've overwhelmed our navigational deflector. The resulting emergency full-stop triggered power surges in the inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields. The computer then initiated an automatic restart of all affected systems. There is no trace of the subspace distortion. Either it was a momentary flash, or some kind of sensor glitch." She yawned again.

"Find us a safe spot to continue our course and go to maximum warp, we're losing time here and time is money." Mayterial ordered before stepping back a bit and taking in what had just happened. She couldn't believe that the people she had gathered on this vessel were so easily panicked. Something was going on but she really didn't have the energy to figure out what that was at the moment. Perhaps if everyone just slept off the scare it would be fine in the morning, "after all of that is sorted, get back to bed. Try and catch whatever rest remains for us this night."

Langar was going nowhere, he followed Mayterial back to the Captain's seat. "Look I understand, that as a Betazoid it's hard to accept The Prophets. But they really do care about all species, not just Bajorans, they even chose a Human as their Emissary! They have told me the Cardassians are coming after this ship! You have to believe that!"

"I am indifferent about the Prophets, mister Langar, and I rely on my sensor readings not on a fleeting thought of a brain being tossed around in its skull." Mayterial turned the chair towards him and looked at the man, "Now I believe I gave you an order to report in with the Physician, I'm not in the habit of repeating myself."

"Look I'll prove it to you!" Langar insisted, taking a risk but one he was sure would turn out to be true. if the The Prophet's willed it. "If I show you a sign the Cardassians want this ship back, will you believe me then?"

Without waiting for a reply he dropped to his knees and peered under Mayterial's chair, then reached under there and ran his fingers over the paint on the underside plate, feeling for what he suspected would be there. "Yes! There is indeed a sign!"

When he dropped to his knees Mayterial immediately pulled her legs aside and away from him hoping to avoid a very awkward situation, "What in the Four Deities are you doing!"

"Found it!" Langar called out "This ship was taken by the Resistance! The Cell left their mark!" It was a common practice that different Resistance cells would leave a mark somewhere on any captured Cardassian equipment, often a simple ancient Bajoran Glyph written or scratched in an out of the way place, such as under the command chair.

His own cell had used the Glyph for Destiny. He peered at this one, it was faint but clearly scratched into the paint and it looked like the Glyph for Freedom or Free from capture. He was not sure which group would have used it but it was indeed there. "It has a Bajoran Glyph on it and the Cardassians want it back!"

Mayterial got up from the chair and sighed, "This proves nothing, the ship was in the hands of the Orion syndicate for longer than it was in the hands of the Cardassians." She shook her head and reached down to have Langar get up from the ground, "Mister Langar, I gave you an order to report to the medical bay, don't make me ask again."

"Captain, I'm not ill." Langar replied patiently, getting up with Droz's assistance "I've been blessed with a vision by the Prophets. They are trying to save us!"

"Uhhmm... I hate to interrupt but, we're not going anywhere." Alexandria sighed. Whether or not she'd been listening to the exchange was anyone's guess. "Helm controls are unresponsive... some kind of maintenance lockdown initiated by engineering. There's nothing I can do about it from here."

"Mister Volok, please check in with Engineering, see what the hell is going on down there." Mayterial was getting real sick and tired of this whole thing, and there was this eerie feeling in the back of her head that maybe Langar might be right. What if the Spoonheads were on their trail? What if they were doing this remotely, just outside of sensor range, to be able to take the ship without any resistance?

[OFF]

Mayterial Droz
Captain

Volok
First Mate

Alexandria Farron
Navigator

Langar Tarn
Master-at-Arms

S.S. Fawkes