Sudden Stop

Posted on Mon Jan 6th, 2025 @ 7:33am by Captain Piraa sh'Zamhlass & Commander Haxin Mariwat & Commander T'Zara & Lieutenant Commander Eden Corwin & Lieutenant Commander Javiylah MacArthur & Lieutenant Commander Ayanja Tusalo & Lieutenant Kiran Arai

2,413 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Project EDEN
Location: Main Bridge
Timeline: July 26, 2401

Three hours before the Valiant was scheduled to launch, a representative for Commodore La Forge personally handed Captain sh'Zamhlass her mission orders. Up until that point, all she knew was that the ship would warp to the Epsilon Indi sector to conduct a series of field tests for Project EDEN. The details were sealed, and designated for her eyes only. These orders were very specific, to share details of each test with her senior staff prior to each test, to keep EDEN offline until the official start of the first scenario, and to keep Commander Mariwat from learning any details of what these tests would contain.

The Bolian architect was quick to learn the existence of these orders. And, when confronted by sh'Zamhlass, he was also quick to agree with the Commodore's instruction. "After all," the Bolian assured the Captain, "EDEN is designed to react to any scenarios based upon immediate input. Knowing what to expect would taint the test."

Piraa noted how the Commander didn't make any reference to the lives it would eventually put at stake, or any other reference of the sort. But she knew well enough to not press the issue as her entire senior staff had already been put off by the Bolian. As much as she didn't want the architect around, she recognized that his presence was only a temporary evil, one that would be concluded soon enough.

The first scenario was then shared in a private meeting with the senior staff, in which the sensors were purposely disabled in order to keep no record of the meeting. There, surrounded by the department heads, Piraa explained that the first scenario would be conducted at the Federation Science Council's research outpost. The outpost, assigned to study subspace phenomena, sported an experiment gone awry, prompting an immediate evacuation of the planet. The Valiant and EDEN would be tasked not just with coordinating the evacuation, but also attempt to shut down the experiment and save the planet.

The other scenarios were remained concealed in the padd given to Captain sh'Zamhless. She did share with Commander T'Zara where that padd was located, and provisioned a way for her to access it in the event that Piraa herself became incapacitated.

For now, Captain sh'Zamhlass sat in her chair on the bridge, reviewing a status report while the ship warped towards its destination. According to the navigation charts, the Valiant was a mere ten lightyears away from Epsilon Indi and would arrive in just a few hours.

The Methian Executive Officer set in her chair beside of the Captain, pleased that things were going so smoothly other than the initial suspicions towards E.D.E.N.. Truthfully, the holographic construct bothered her from a scientific standpoint, but she was intrigued from a Command standpoint on how well it would work and how the fleet could benefit from it. It was only a short time until they began their field testing and with E.D.E.N. offline until then, it would also be a test of the new crew.

"Did you see this?" Piraa asked, looking over to her Executive Officer and waving the padd she held. "All of those changeling screenings they've been running over the last month? They just found five of them in Tellar's tritanium plants. Their whole system's going to be shut down for inspection to see how extensive the sabotage is."

T'Zara gave a shake of her blue skinned head, cocking it slightly as she glanced at the Captain. "I have not, but I am unsurprised. How many Changelings does that make total since they were discovered?" It was shocking that it was on one of the Federation's original Member Worlds to say the very least.

"I've lost track," confessed the Andorian captain. "But you'd think the changelings would have retreated back to the Dominion after all of this."

"There hasn't been word of the Dominion in some time, though. Perhaps the Changelings have changed their own agenda," T'Zara pointed out. "Attacking from within is far easier than from without and it makes it even easier when they can be anyone or anything."

Just as Piraa nodded, the turbolift doors opened, allowing Commander Mariwat to enter the bridge. "Captain sh'Zamhlass," he greeted with mock cordiality, "I need to talk to you about--"

The Bolian didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. The floor suddenly lurched to port, sending Mariwat off his feet and launching him in the Captain's direction. Piraa would not be able to catch him, or otherwise come into physical contact as she was thrown from her chair in the Methian's direction. One of the rear auxiliary stations exploded as lights went out all across the bridge, including the overhead and all of the floor and console accent lighting. Several consoles flickered, then went dark as load groans could be heard all throughout the ship. The master alarm sounded, though there was no way to know what caused it.

T'Zara had started to look over at the Bolian when things went sideways, including her. She was pitched out of her chair and slammed into the deck, groaning in pain. She heard a beep coming from her cryosuit and hoped the power cell wasn't malfunctioning, but had two hours before it needed to be changed. "Status!" she called out through the pain that seemed to radiate from her left arm.

"Arai to bridge, we've been knocked out of warp, we're not sure why, but we've got power failures all over the ship. Reports are still coming in, and we've got damage control teams starting to..." He paused, as there was a series of bangs. "Is everyone ok?" Another, longer, pause. "We've just had some plasma relays blow, no casualties so far. We've got damage control teams being dispatched across the ship." Kiran was trying to stay as calm as he could.

Piraa grabbed a nearby railing, struggling to pull herself to her feet off the cold dark floor. Her breathing was labored since the air had been knocked out of her lungs. "Lieutenant," she managed to choke out, "We have no power up here. No gauges, nothing."

"And no EDEN," spat out Mariwat, pushing himself off the chair he fell onto. "I knew I should have fought back against having the system remain offline until we got there."

Eden winced from her spot on the floor not too far from her console. Nothing felt like it was broken, and the young woman was grateful for that as she grabbed her chair and pulled herself into it. "Would having EDEN online really have stopped... whatever that was... from happening?"

"I don't think so Commander. We might have hit an ion storm or a plasma clo..." He paused, reevaluating what he was about to say. "I think it was an ion storm, Captain. It explains the issues with power. The ionised particles of the storm would explain why we've got power in some systems, not others. It also explains why we've had some plasma relays blow in engineering, and other areas of the ship.".

"An ion storm?" Piraa asked aloud, then found herself in a rare circumstance. Very few bridges contained a window to outside the ship, and the Valiant was not one of them. "If there's no power, there's no sensors, which will make it hard to determine where we are in the storm. Let's get these conference room doors open so we can see outside."

"Aye, Captain. Teams have been dispatched to restore power to the primary systems, I don't have a time frame, they're moving as fast as they can though." The engineer responded.

"Captain." Aya said as she pulled one of her team off the deck and back to their station. " An ion storm doesn't make sense, the ship didn't detect any kind of storm before we were pulled from warp. We might miss a low level one but to pull us out of warp, and cause damage like that, we're looking at at least a force - eight storm. No way our sensors would have missed that."

"I didn't say it was, Commander. I said I think it is. We're still blind without sensors, I'm just trying to put the dots together based on what little information is filtering through the systems." Arai replied.

T'Zara made it back to her chair and checked the status of her suit for a moment before she looked at the main viewer. She got up and headed out Captain and the others as they headed to the observation lounge.

Javi and one of her assistant chiefs had managed to open the hatch partway with a bypassed circuit but had to physically push the doors the rest of the way open. Once that was done, she waited while the rest of the senior staff entered to double-check the door circuits.

Once the doors were open, the bridge was bathed in a bright light coming from the conference room's windows, shimmering with multiple blue hues. The existence of an ion storm was unmistakable. "If it looks like a storm and smells like a storm," Piraa muttered with a loud whisper.

"How the hell..." Aya muttered, stepping through the hatch. "There's no way the Computer could have missed this."

"Yes," Mariwat said, rubbing his arm and standing beside Piraa as they gazed at the rear of the bridge. He gulped, realizing the terrible predicament that his actions had just put the ship and crew in. Surely they wouldn't notice, and they'd realize how much of an asset his long-labored love would be. "And this is exactly one of the use cases EDEN was designed for. It's a shame that she's offline."

Eden cast a glance toward Mariwat. He seemed to be pushing EDEN quite hard, and perhaps the program might have been useful in their current situation, but there was no way of knowing now. She moved over to her console, not that she could do much with it. "Speculation about that won't help us now, though."

From Engineering, Arai looked around the area. He suddenly felt a strong sense of anxiety, but not from anyone in the room. "I'm going to assign one of the damage control teams to the primary sensor pallets. If there was nothing on our sensors, there's clearly something at fault with them. They wouldn't miss a storm that is big enough to rip us out of warp."

Aya also sensed the anxiety, the guilt, the sense of fear. While some of that was expected being in this situation, but this was different and it was too much. Turning her focus on those around her Aya couldn't help but settle on Mariwat. Everything about him was making her skin crawl, something was off.

Haxin did his best to avert his gaze from the Betazoid science officer as he could almost swear her eyes and mind were burrowing into him. "Yes, it's a strange thing indeed. Still, systems won't perform as they should for as long as we're trapped in this ion storm. And, Captain, I can't help but suggest that we should prioritize bringing EDEN online. We should know how she would be effected in moments like this."

Piraa's mind was torn. On one hand, she was still thinking like an engineer. But she knew she had to think like a Captain, and that line of thought implored her to remember that those on the bridge were not the only ones on board the ship. The entire crew was in distress, and their safety was the utmost priority. "I hate to say it," she admitted, "but Commander Mariwat's right. We should bring EDEN online."

The Captain turned to the Bolian as he immediately beamed with pride before turning away to avoid the Captain's stern gaze. "But only because evaluating EDEN under conditions like these are a part of the mission, and we know for a fact that we are already understaffed. Commander T'Zara, you and I will assist Commander Mariwat in this process. Commander MacArthur, get to Engineering and work with Lieutenant Arai on repairs. EDEN can assist when it's online. Miss Corwin, undoubtedly there will be crew trapped because of this storm. Track down those crew members and get them free."

As Piraa had been issuing orders, she turned to look at each member of the bridge crew. This left her with one member of the senior staff unassigned. She turned to the Betazoid science chief, saying, "And Commander Tusalo, we need a path out of this storm. But most importantly, we need a way to counter the storm's effects on our systems if we're going to have any hope of getting Valiant's systems working again."

Once the Captain had finished giving out the orders, Kiran replied, "Aye, Captain. I'll see what I can do to tidy the place up before Commander MacArther arrives. Engineering out."

Turning away from her consideration of the visible hatch circuitry, Javi nodded her understanding and departed for Engineering.

"Aye Captain, once we have power again we'll need to find out why the sensors didn't detect the ion storm in the first place." That concerned Aya more than the storm itself. Starfleet vessels had been stumbling their way through Ion Storms since Archer's days, Valiant was a tough lady she'd handle the storm better than most. But that they had no warning at all... that wasn't right. She was no Sagan class but they should have had HOURS of notice before hitting the storm. "if we can't see it, there's no other course out but straight through."

"Yes, Captain," T'Zara said, hoping for the first time that EDEN could help them out, but it would take the skeleton crew that they had to pull it out. Fortunately, she was also useful if Science needed help.

"Understood, Captain," Eden said as she left the bridge to begin rescue efforts of those trapped around different areas of the ship. She didn't know how she felt about not being present for EDEN being brought online, but maybe that was for the best.

Piraa looked at the group of assembled officers once more, including the lower-ranking bridge officers who were visibly shaken, but ready to prove themselves. "All right, everyone. Mariwat and T'Zara, you're with me. Commander Tusalo, the bridge is yours. Let's get to work."

 

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