From: Steven Peterson (petsted_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Jun 30 2007 - 09:58:55 PDT
NRPG: And this one is done correctly...oye... ==[/\]=="Alone"Continued from Joy’s "Life and Death"==[/\]==Location: GATEWAY STATION, GS-2 Scene: Flight Deck Stardate: 2.70630.1255 Lieutenant Nick Cannon walked with a swagger that just hadn’t been there for a good month or so. So many sleepless nights, random voices, chilling images and awkward moments had caused the pilot to wonder if he was ever going to be "normal" again. And this morning, he had just woken up, well-rested and ready to go. He had no explanation, other than it seemed so very quiet without the voices haunting him. Cannon had figured out how the prophets were interacting with him and been part of the conversation between the counselor and them, but he had only been at peace with himself during those moments. When he had been directly in their presence, he was at peace, but every other time had been like a living nightmare. So it was no wonder that he was whistling loudly as he sauntered onto the flight deck. "Lieutenant," "Nick," "Sir," and "Cupid" all were said in rapid succession as he walked into his domain and his team. "Boys and girls, I don’t know what our schedule is, but I want in a bird and to be out there, right about now." He cockily grinned and proceeded to the squadron leader who was ranking. "Who’s SODing right now anyway?" SOD was the acronym the flight teams used to describe the all too dull duty known as Station Orbital Defense. "Second Wing Blue Squad is out there right now Cupid." Ensign Jack "Ranger" Stanton was the squad leader for Second Wing Black Squadron and appeared to be stuck w/ his other pilots in the office for the day. "They’re flying Auroras." "Nice, old and steady. Permission to suit up and fly?" Cannon knew he wasn’t going to get a no, after all he was the CO. He should have checked in with Dr. Gorman, but he knew he was better, and that was enough. Stanton just nodded, "of course sir. Are you feeling alright?" He noted that Nick was already in his flight suit and grabbing his helmet before the words were even fully out of his mouth. "I’ve so missed this. Tell Goldrush I’ll be flying out past him. Not for SOD duty, just want to get the rust off. And yeah, I feel good, I feel alone for the first time in a while." ==[/\]== Location: SS BRAZZAVILLE (Starfleet Transport) Scene: Mess Hall The young human munched on his nearly tasteless chicken sandwich and watched the wormhole stream by through the large windows. The BRAZZAVILLE wasn’t the most luxurious of travel, but it was one of the newer Starfleet transports, and therefore had at least moderate levels of accommodations, like a quality replicator. "Little Jack" Casey was a rare sight in Starfleet these days, a Lieutenant Junior Grade with red piping on his uniform. He would have liked to think that the position had been earned, but was well aware that it was having a Rear Admiral father that probably had made him the candidate chosen for his new posting. There weren’t that many JG’s who were assigned to Federation embassies, let alone to embassies in a far off quadrant, but here he was. The suddenly blaring klaxons and red lights of an alert rudely interrupted Casey’s thoughts, and the vessel began to violently shake. "What the f***?" he cursed silently, not knowing exactly where he should go. As the vessel rocked again, he noticed how strange the wormhole outside of them looked, something definitely wasn’t right, and he decided he’d head for engineering. ==[/\]== Location: USS STARBLAZER Scene: Bridge Commodore Troy Svenson leaned back in the relatively Spartan captain’s chair that sat at the center of the small craft’s bridge. It felt odd to be sitting in the center seat again. It had, after all, been nearly a decade since the USS NOVA had been blown from space with him in command. He watched through the viewscreen as the STARBLAZER traveled at regular warp through the wormhole. It really was a sight, one he had been seeing all too often traveling between SB22 and GS-2 on either side of the wormhole. The wormhole was the most traffic filled area in the Milky Way, a lifeline of commerce, tourism, and political connectivity. Since SB22 had replaced DS9 nearly two decades prior, the pace had only quickened. Even with the New Order-Dominion wars, the battles with the Sossetan tribes, and the other dark events since, people and ships kept traversing it, unable to resist that area of space that was so close but so very far away all at the same time. Svenson gazed as the wormhole seemed to pulse a bit with a strange blue light. It wasn’t something that he had seen before, at least not inside the wormhole. He looked at Lieutenant Commander T’Gyl, as logical a Vulcan as one could find, and she raised an eyebrow at him. "Curious," was all she stated. The STARBLAZER’s temporary crew—it was still technically permanently assigned to GATEWAY—all shifted uneasily in their chairs. "Are we getting anything on scanners?" asked the Commodore from the center seat. "Nothing new is registering sir," stated the very green Ensign Garner. For as stout a security officer as he was, the ensign’s voice sounded uncertain. Troy wasn’t sure what to think. He had not heard about anything unusual with the wormhole, but they had done a quick run to the Dominion and made only a quick stop at GATEWAY for a resupply before heading to the wormhole and, hopefully, on to SB22 to share their information with SFI. The blond CO tapped his fingers on the armrest. "Wasn’t there a great light burst before that new orb came through the wormhole?" "Yes, but I did not read any reports of what color it might have been," stated the matter-of-fact Vulcan XO. His fingers tapped harder, he fought the urge to stand up and walk to the small viewscreen. "Helm, increase speed to maximum safe standard warp. Tactical, begin scanning on everything we’ve got, we’ll need to record and report whatever this is to Starfleet and BAJOR." Both station’s offered "ayes" and within seconds he felt the small vessels speed desperately increasing. ==[/\]== Location: SS BRAZZAVILLE Scene: Engineering Men and women ran panicked from station to station. "I need more power from those engines!" "Shift all power, life support doesn’t matter right now!" Lieutenant Casey worked one of the few open stations, monitoring the situation and trying to report to the CEO with as little excitement, nervousness, or horror, as he could. "Bridge, that’s everything we’ve got, how far are we?" yelled the Xindi chief engineer above the din of noise. [[Three minutes, give us anything else you can.]] ==[/\]== Location: Space Scene: Aurora-Class Fighter The vast starfields twinkled outside as he pushed the speed of the small craft up to maximum impulse. Nick headed for ANDARA, ready to play with it’s gravity and enjoy the pure pleasure of being a small bug in the vast expanse of space. [[Where are you headed Cupid?]] asked Jack Stanton from control and through the comm. Nick figured he was being watched on instruments, after all they probably wanted to make sure the rust hadn’t gotten him too badly. "Going to fly to ANDARA and back, see the sights, you know how it is." Cannon heard laughter from the other side, [[got it sir, have fun.]] "I’m planning on it. Cupid out." As the craft raced toward the small planet below, he made twists and turns, pushing at the x, y, and z-axis’. The station was falling away behind him, in its permanent position away from the planet and near the wormhole. To his left and down a bit was where the wormhole hung open, a giant commuter tunnel to BAJOR. He thought about the past month, the haunting moments and the feelings of pure joy and pleasure that had accompanied them. And it occurred to him that it was rather odd that suddenly it just stopped. But he didn’t know how non-corporeal, non-temporal aliens thought or reasoned, and figured that if they wanted him again he would surely know. Even as the thoughts rolled through his head he saw a blinding flash from his far left. Cannon turned the small craft to look back at what caused the sudden burst of light. His eyes strained, not believing what he was seeing. The wormhole was shrinking, closing up, even as ships poured in and out. "What are they doing, tell those ships to turn back, they can’t enter a closing wormhole! Flight control, this is Cupid, order all traffic to halt. SOD and all Starfleet craft in the vicinity, move to intercept any vessel trying to go for the wormhole." He knew that it would do little good, the wormhole seemed to be quickly closing, but why? The blond lieutenant watched in gruesome fascination as the spatial oddity closed, cutting one final ship in two and trapping all those who were inside as it likely collapsed upon itself. ==[/\]== Location: SS BRAZZAVILLE Scene: Engineering It had been eerily quiet for the last three minutes minus the whir of a few machines, some beeps and bleeps of buttons being pushed or the almost heart-breaking sound of the warp-drive trying to push the bulky transport vessel far beyond what it was ever designed to do. The silence was broken by a sudden creak and crack. [[All hands, this is the captain, we are exiting the wormhole terminus now, but it is closing, prepare for…]] Before the final words came out they were drowned out by the horrible sounds of the ship literally being torn apart by the monster anomaly. Jack Casey, the seventh to bear the name, grabbed hold of the railing next to him before being harshly thrown to the ground and fading to black. ==[/\]== Location: USS STARBLAZER Scene: Bridge "If these readings are correct, and they likely are, we have a problem," stated the Betazoid science chief. "Commodore, I believe the wormhole is closing on both ends." "What?" asked Troy Svenson as his hands dug into the command chair further. Melina Roi hit a few buttons before answering. "It’s an eighty-seven percent likelihood, but our knowledge of wormholes is limited." "But if were trapped inside of this thing when it closes…" Lt. Commander T’Gyl responded for him, "we do not know exactly what will happen." Roi couldn’t let that be the only thought, "but chances are we will be crushed by the collapsing anomoly." It was not something that anyone on the bridge wanted to hear. "Helm, how long until we reach the Bajoran terminus?" "Ten minutes sir." "We don’t have ten minutes Commodore." "Options?" he asked incredulously, knowing that there really weren’t many. ==[/\]== Location: Space Scene: Starfield The debris field floated where the maw of the wormhole had once extended. It was too small to be a whole ship, but was just the half of the vessel that had escaped. The large forward section was relatively intact, but the rest of the vessel was scattered about. A small fighter craft circled nearby, monitoring the situation until various shuttlecraft could be dispatched to rescue any and all who had survived the end of the wormhole. ==[/\]== Location: SS BRAZZAVILLE Scene: Engineering Fires and smoke filled the room, the only light coming from emergency running beacons and the din of the forcefield around the warp reactor. Coughs, wheezing, and groaning filled the room as those few who had survived unscathed made their way around, checking on their fellow engineers and assistants to assess the cost in lives. Jack Casey just stared at the warp drive, his brain was consumed by three simple thoughts. One, such a standard warp drive, even the best transwarp drive, would not be enough to get any of them home any time soon. Two, had the rest of the embassy team made it through the wormhole before whatever had just happened went down? Three, he was suddenly very alone out in the depths of the Gamma Quadrant, with two powers the Federation had recently put down probably waiting for an opportunity like this. It wasn’t often that such a thing happened to him, but he could feel it starting to come, and even as he did his damnedest to stop it, he couldn’t. With one tear they started flowing, and the green lieutenant realized that his fate was tied to a station that he had never wanted to be aboard in the first place. ==[/\]== Location: USS STARBLAZER Scene: Bridge "We don’t have any options!" yelled the once calm helm officer. "We’re going to be crushed by the wormhole!""Shutup." Svenson had never been known for his people skills and wasn’t going to try right now. "Drop us out of warp and bring the slipstream drive online." Eyes bulged out of peoples heads and incredulous stares were aimed at the center seat. "Commodore, that is most illogical. We may not even get them to work, and if we do no one has ever slip-streamed through a wormhole before." T’Gyl seemed as though she didn’t know what to think. "We’re not going to make it on warp, the wormhole is clearly closing, this is the option. Now execute." The ayes followed and the small vessel quickly dropped from warp. "Bringing slipstream drive online now," stated the male at Ops. [[Redirecting all power, excess shields and minimal life support to the slipstream drive,]] stated the CEO over the com network. Troy stood up, he couldn’t hold himself in the seat any longer. "I want a one minute burst in the tunnel and then just bring us out wherever we are." He didn’t add his two other thoughts, assuming that the slipstream drive works and that they survive. [[System is as ready as we can have it on this short of notice Commodore,]] stated the engineer. The ops officer nodded, "ready as we can be sir." "I have laid in the best course I can," stated the helm now meekly. Svenson nodded, rubbing the slight stubble on his chin, "then execute." ==[/\]== Location: Space Scene: Aurora-Class Fighter As the shuttles began arriving, Nick pulled the stick on his fighter and headed for the station. His thoughts had shifted from the tragedy to its many ramifications. Rather than think about all of them, he focused on those that he could impact. First among them was the fact that his fighters and his teams were going to be busy. They were the station’s primary line of defense, and would probably be playing a much greater role in convoy protection. It was, after all, going to take a lot of food to feed the hungry masses. "Cupid to fighter control," he said as he tapped open the communications line. [[Ranger here, was can I do for you sir? Are you alright out there, sounds like things on the station are starting to heat up.]] "Already? We’ll help where we can, but we need to focus on what we can do. Call all squadron leaders who aren’t in flight together for a briefing in two hours." He chose his words carefully, "we’re going to be pulling a lot of flight time in the immediate future, I suspect. Cupid out." How did a quarter-million plus people from another end of the galaxy survive in the Gamma Quadrant without the lifeline to the Alpha Quadrant? He hoped that someone else knew the answer to that, because he sure didn’t. The Federation had a few small colonies on this side of the wormhole, but hadn’t planted many since the New-Order Dominion conflict had devastated them eleven years prior. Nick didn’t like what he was thinking, not at all. ==[/\]== Location: STARBASE 22 (formerly DS9) Scene: Ops The whir of conversation continued as they scanned and scanned for the wormhole or any sign of it. No one believed that it was really just gone. The chatter was interupted by a young CPO who was at the communications console. "Ma’am, I’ve got a faint message coming through." "Well put it on chief," stated the Lieutenant Commander who ran station operations for her CO. He nodded, "its audio only, pretty garbled but I’ll get you the best I can." [[fzzz…Troy Svenson of the…fzzz…BLAZER. Survived…fzzz… light years away…fzzzz…fzzz…wormhole closed…fzzz…fzzz…fzzz…other ships destroyed…fzzz…setting course for Federation space…fzzz…slipstream…fzzz…fzzz…home.]] "Clean that up." She thought for a moment before turning to the tactical officer. "Troy Svenson is in command of the STARBLAZER, which was due back from the wormhole." The older man nodded, "but didn’t come through. Apparently they used their slipstream drive to escape it.""Get that message cleaned up, we need more information. We’ve got thousands of people on the other side of that wormhole; we need to know what the hell is going on. They are all alone out there." ==[/\]== NRPG: Just recasting it from a few different angles and vantage points. Jerome: As we discussed, the STARBLAZER is on the other side of the galaxy. Sarah: I know we talked about one, but maybe there’s a surprise in store? --------------------- Steve Peterson petsted_at_hotmail.com…writing for… Lieutenant Nick Cannon Fighter Squadron Commander GATEWAY STATION, GS-2 --------------------- _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail to go? Get your Hotmail, news, sports and much more! Check out the New MSN Mobile! http://mobile.msn.com From HyperNews_at_youth.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 17 2008 - 03:10:16 PST