The Darkened Bridge

Posted on Tue Feb 22nd, 2011 @ 12:59am by Provisional Lieutenant Commander Narayn Ballard & Lieutenant JG Mykel Owen & Captain Benjamin Byrne & Ensign Lhamepha Kitonuh [Byrne] & Lieutenant JG Nessa Jenarian

Mission: Bug-Eyed Bogies
Location: Main Bridge- USS Endeavour

[ON]

The muzzle of Ballard's rifle remained pointed steadfastly at the rear of the bridge. There was nothing there. No sound, no light. Nothing. The occasional sweep of a hand-lamp passed across the rear of the bridge where the Captain's Chair was now overturned and ripped to shreds. Suddenly there was a rattling noise just behind the chair. Something was coming through the jefferies access port in the floor. Ballard slowly moved forward from his cover behind the Ops console. There was a shape moving in the darkness. It didn't look to be bigger than a person but he couldn't be sure.

Ballard raised his rifle. He couldn't make out the shapes in the dark. "Freeze!"

Owen stops, and sighs a breath of relief. "Its Owen Chief, Ive got a couple crewmen with me." He says slowly and clearly, before pushing the hatch open the rest of the way, and scanning the dimly lit Bridge. His heart skips a beat when he sees the Captains chair upturned, with no signs of the Co, but takes note of the lack of blood stains, and forces himself not to assume the worst. He climbs up onto the deck, and turns, helping the two crewmen up. Finally standing he turns to Chief Ballard. "Its great to see you Chief" He says honestly.

"Owen. Good to see you too." Ballard said, helping the ensign to resecure the hatch before looking around at the pair of young recruits that he had brought with him. "What happened to you? Did you see anyone else on your way here?"

Owen wiped the perspiration from his brow, looking over at the Chief. "I was down in the shuttle bay when it hit the fan. I took to the tubes, and started making my way up here. Had a couple close calls, but managed to avoid the bug things mostly. Ran into these two around deck 12. Have not seen anyone else Chief. Do we have any idea what these things are?" He asks, as he scans all the entryways to the bridge.

"I wish." The Chief replied tersely. "Aside from being insectoid or... something close to that we've no idea what they are. The Captain and Lieutenant Vanders went after the communications array but we lost power up here about five minutes ago. We don't even have any way of working out what happened."

Owen nodded, and checked the power cell on his phaser pistol, and the phaser rifle strapped to his back, before instructing the two crewmen to do the same. "Do we have a plan Chief? Because I've been thinking about our lack of power and systems." Owen continued, while looking over at the Command Turbolift tube. "If we can get someone to the Captains Yacht, we could power it up, which would give us limited internal sensors, Comms and transporters." Owen said to the Chief, while walking over to a position with moderate cover, that gave him a vantage point on the entry ways to the Bridge. "We might even be able to use its Warp Coil to jump the ship Chief" He finishes crouching behind a console, and directing the two enlisted crewmen to other flanking positions, with hand and arm signals.

The Chief pulled in a sharp intake of breath. The Ensign was a smart kid but he'd been away from the command area of the bridge for too long during this insurgency. He took his shoulder and led him toward the viewscreen. "It would be a good idea, Owen. Unfortunately though..." He opened his palm and gestured to the floating hulks which lay beyond the screen. "Captain's Yacht, Shuttlecraft, Escape Pods. These... things planned ahead. We're stuck here. Much as I hate to say it, I don't think we have any choice but to wait for the Captain."

As the various officers still on the bridge waited, the room began to glow with a blue light. It seemed intensely bright under the circumstances, with no other lighting other than that of rifles and flashlights, but after everybody's eyes adjusted, it could be very easily identified as that of a single, wide-angle transporter beam. Within the beam materialized four figures - the XO, who was staring into space, her face almost a blank slate, the Chief Medical Officer next to her, in a very similar situation, and two Ensigns - Kitonuh and Jenarian, who at least seemed to still have their sits about them, even if the latter had a slice in her uniform and the skin underneath. Looking around the bridge, directly to the sources of light, it took Lhamepha a couple of seconds to realize what the source was. "Don't shoot!" she cried, holding her hands up.

With a grunt, Nessa slumped slightly, managing to brace herself against a nearby console. The transporter was unsettling, considering the way they had done it, and it certainly hadn't helped her situation. "Yes, I'd appreciate it if you don't shoot us," she managed to say after regaining some semblance of balance and composure. "I've had enough injuries for today." Her eyes trailed over the gathered figures, recognizing the chief and the helmsman, though when she didn't notice the captain present, her head twisted about in an attempt to spot him before her brows creased in a frown. "Where is the captain? I thought he was with you, chief," she asked, focusing her attention on Ballard while trying her best to make it seem like she didn't need to lean against the console to remain standing.

"He and Lieutenant Vanders went for the communications centre." Ballard offered. "We lost the ability to track them."

Mykel lowered his rifle, as he opened his non-firing eye and stood, blinking to allow his eyes to readjust to the darkness. "Don't worry, I only plan on shooting oversized roaches. Are you guys alright?" He asked with a smirk, as he walked over to the Science station, and reached under it into the storage box. After pulling out the First-Aid Kit, he walked over to the CSO, and handed it to her. "Should help there Ensign." he said before moving back to cover, and taking a defensive posture, aimed at the door.

The bridge quietened down as the new arrivals got settled in, and after about five minutes, the emergency lighting around the bridge flickered, before finally coming on, giving the room a deep red glow. A few of the consoles powered back on, chirping as they ran self-diagnostics.

"Byrne to bridge, come in."

Ballard looked around the bridge at the others. To a man, they outranked him but they all stood silently looking at him. Bloody hell. "Ballard here, sir. Go ahead."

"We've managed to send out a distress beacon, and we've also gotten emergency power back on-line - we should have most of the internal communications network, limited internal sensors, and a few other minor systems. Can you locate Commander Edroski and the others who went towards sickbay and the science labs?" Came the voice over the com line.

Mykel stood, glancing at the other officers, before speaking. "Owen here Sir. They are here, transported in moments before you Commed. Ensign Jenarian has sustained minor injuries, the others do not appear to be harmed. Your Orders Sir?"

The voice on the line sounded relieved that the other team had managed to meet up with those on the bridge, but it was mixed in with other emotions, linked with the context of what he was saying; clear tones of both confusion and curiosity. "It looked like these creatures were using the emergency batteries as... some sort of battery for themselves, almost as if they were feeding off the raw energy. We've detected on our tricorders an unusual build-up of energy in Engineering, but it's one of the areas where internal sensors are still inoperative. I want you to try and figure out what is going on down there. Engineering is the key to getting the ship back under our control."

The Med-Tech on the far side beckoned Ballard towards her. "I've managed to call up the vital signs of those surviving on the ship and extrapolate them against the comm-badge traces that are being beamed back to this station, Chief."

Impressive, if ultimately useless. Ballard thought. He placed his hand on the back of her chair and leant in closer to her. "Why are you telling me this?"

"The Captain asked about Commander Edroski." She said with an all-too familiar hesitation. Their eyes met as she looked up at him. She began to slowly shake her head. "She's gone, Chief."

The sudden rush of expletives that raced through Ballard's head as he stood up to face the rest of the bridge crew surprised even himself. Words that were offensive in almost every known language. Keep it together. He thought as he struck his own comm-badge. "Captain- this is Ballard. We've managed to get a read on the vital signs of the crew aboard the Endeavour. Commander Edroski is K.I.A., Benjamin. I just thought you should know."

"Well then," the science officer decided to join the conversation despite having some trouble thinking clearly at this point. She cautiously made her way to one of the chairs on the bridge, not really paying attention to which one she was sitting in before continuing, "I think it would be safe to assume that they're using the energy from the ship to feed. If they do need to do it so often, perhaps we can use that to our advantage. As far as their biology goes, they seem to be very similar to us, perhaps a kind of gas to disable them would work, and then we could eject the core and seal them off in engineering, thus leaving them to starve to death without a viable power source. That is provided we don't come up with a way to eradicate them altogether, but without replicators, I doubt we can get any of that in the first place." She sighed, raising a hand to brush the beads of perspiration off her face. The medical kit held items for emergency situations, and as such she highly doubted it would contain anything to take care of the parasitic infection her immune system had to deal with at this point. "If gas masks and such are not available, I will deliver the gas personally. As it stands, it seems I'm infected, and I kind of doubt my immune system will manage to fight off the infection on its own. If we don't get replicators back on soon enough, I'm gone either way. Plus, if my suspicions are correct, the bugs will avoid harming me directly." She decided not to mention the fact that even if replicators were working, the kind of treatment she had in mind was fatal on its own in one out of five cases.

"Keep working on options," Benjamin replied, reluctant to agree to any plan that would put any of his officers in such urgent peril as Jenarian's plan called for. "Vanders and myself are on our way to the Bridge now, ETA twenty minutes. Ballard, regardless of rank or protocol, you're my acting First Officer until this situation is resolved. Understood?"

"Affirmative, Captain." Ballard said, using a word that he'd rarely ever used in all his years of service. "Good luck, Benjamin."

"Understood, Captain," Nessa replied in the best brisk tone she could muster. With those words, she stood up and headed toward the science console, managing to keep her balance through the short walk. Her fingers trailed along the controls, trying to ascertain how much access she had with emergency power only. A grin formed on her lips as she looked up to meet the chief's gaze. "I think I could reroute some power from life support, effectively closing off decks that currently don't have any of our people on them. That should give us limited replicator capabilities. I might also be able to activate the EMH remotely from here, that would at least give us some more options as to dealing with these creatures." Her eyes darted back to the console, her finger poised over the last button she needed to press to execute the commands she had just input in the console, waiting for the go ahead from Ballard.

Ballard sucked the air in through his teeth. "Okay, do it. Make sure that there's no-one on those decks though, Nessa."

"I double-checked, chief. Also made sure the route the captain would need to take to get back here would still have life support available," the science officer answered before pressing the button. The hum of power on the bridge changed slightly as more energy became available to the already running systems and lights flickered on at one of the replicator consoles in the corner. She tapped her comm-badge and spoke out loud, "Jenarian to Sickbay. Respond."

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the voice of the Mark IX came through the comm system, the science officer breathing a sigh of relief as she heard the gentle tones. "I'm transmitting some data to you, Nina. Any kind of information on the species you can provide would be of great use right now, specifically a way to disable members of said species on a larger scale," Nessa answered back as she took the medical tricorder out of the med kit and used it to scan the parasites within her injury, adding that to the data she had gathered earlier before using the science console to send the information to sickbay.

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