A Bridge Too Far - Part IV

Posted on Thu 27th Sep, 2012 @ 2:00pm by Colonel Horatio Drake

1,505 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/2
Location: USS Bretagne: Main Bridge
Timeline: Boarding + 6.5 Hours

ON:

Graves continued to tap away at the master systems display console, trying to see how much more he could establish. "I've tried re-routing the sensor logs through this console," he continued, "but, even for twenty-three sixty-six, this is an old-fashioned bridge module. The stations are much less multifunctional than they are now." He continued working for a few more moments when the console began to flicker. "Damn it!" he exclaimed in frustration. "This level of power isn't going to give me much more." He adjusted the comm system with the control panel on her wrist. "Graves to Meadows..."

"Meadows here, Lieutenant" came the kurt reply.

"How are you coming along with getting main power back up?" Graves asked.

"Ten more minutes and we'll be rolling... the only problem is that I've managed to get only the secondary relays active. You'll have main power for about twenty minutes and then secondary for another twenty, followed only by emergency. However, whilst the power transfer is operational I can manually transfer warp power from the Coldstream to the Bretagne. It would mean tractoring the Runabout once we've got the Bretagne under our control. What do you think, sir?"

While it seemed like a perfectly feasible plan of action, Paul glanced over towards Ashton, asking, without words, for his approval.

Drake simply nodded in Locke's general direction.

"Do it." Graves replied to Meadows. "...and, whatever's happening, check in every thirty minutes or so. Something doesn't feel right here..."

"Yes, sir." Meadows voice echoed through the comm channel and then went silent.

True to his word, within ten minutes he signalled them once more and, bingo... main power was restored. The first thing that hit Drake was the lights... they had been using torchlight for the last few hours and to suddenly illuminate the Bridge like this felt like they were heading straight for a super-nova.

After shielding his eyes with his gloved hand for a few seconds, the timeless and distinguishable sound of the red alert klaxons sounded as he concurrently saw the red, pulsating strip lighting - an extra informant of the state of alert.

Taking a look around the Bridge, for the first proper time, he could clearly make our seven bodies... but they were not simply slumped over their consoles, they were in a state of panic... as if they had been trying to escape. Looking around he noted their uniforms - for a minute he was confused but remembered that in 2366 the classic black-red-black uniforms had been only recently introduced, low necked and tight. Then he noticed something... something that was unmistakable... something that terrified him.

He quickly made his way from the back of the Bridge to the Command Centre... although it was difficult to distinguish this on Excelsior Class vessels. Lying on the deck, only a few feet away from the Captain, was an officer who was wearing the colours of command and the pips of a full Commander... nearly dead centre on his chest was the scorch mark of a phaser set to kill.

He quickly whipped out his tricorder and began scans. It was giving him all sorts of information about the body but he was only interested in one thing... and his worst suspicions were confirmed. He looked up at Graves with a severe expression. "It's confirmed... he was shot with a Starfleet phaser".

"Shit." Graves muttered under his breath. He shook her head inside his helmet. "This is just getting more and more bizarre." He moved over to one of the other bodies, a young female lieutenant, to confirm that she had suffered the same fate. She had. Graves leaned against the console. "This does open up a new question." he began, running through different scenarios in her head. "Until now we've assumed that the Bretagne was hit by some sort of temporal rift, which either directly or indirectly caused the death of the crew." He began to wander around the bridge as he thought out loud. "But, now it seems that the 'rift' and the crews deaths are not related. So," he paused to look down at another dead crew member, a command officer, who she assumed had been at the conn, "the question now becomes: Did the crew die in 2366 - before they entered the 'rift', or in 2387 - when they emerged from it?"

Ashton started tapping his tricorder once again, scrolling back to the information he had skipped over a few minutes previously. "Due to the decompression of the ship, an accurate reading is extremely difficult. From what I can gather it looks like these bodies have been as we see them now, for little over two weeks. I would say that they were killed before they went through the rift".

He took yet another look around the Bridge then looked at Graves. "Not all of them died from weapons fire though?".

Graves exhaled heavily, misting up his visor a little before the air-filtration system kicked in and cleared it. "As if the plot wasn't thick enough." he muttered to himself. He walked back to the master systems display. "Okay," he said, taking a look down at the console. "Main power has been back up for almost ten minutes now, which means artificial gravity has been restored and, in about five minutes, life-support will have operational long enough to stabilise the environmental systems." He looked up at Drake who was still examining the bodies. "In other words," he concluded, "we can get out of these suits for a little while."

In response, Drake simply nodded slowly and gently in his helmet - something subconscious was telling him not to take off his EVA suits. It wasn't any physical danger, it was the harsh impact of reality - when he took his suit off he would be forced to face these bodies without the phsychological defence of the helmet and suit.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments after that, both contemplating the scene into which they had arrived. "I'm hungry." Graves eventually said, matter-of-factly.

"How, in God's name, can you be hungry Lieutenant? You're surrounded by bloody half-decomposed bodies!" The remark, he knew, was to lighten the atmosphere slightly - despite the situation being completely out of their control - it seemed like, somehow, this reality was only just setting in.

"Why do you think the dead crew members weren't vaporised?" Graves asked pensive. "If it was me," he continued drawing on his academy training, "the only reason I would kill someone, but not dispose of the evidence..." he paused thinking the scenario through to it's logical conclusion, "... is if I wanted them to be found. To send a message."

"If you wanted them to be found... or if you didn't care if they were found..." Drake raised his eyebrows and re-joined Graves at the MSD which confirmed that environmental controls and... more importantly... life support, were back online. Despite only a minute earlier not wanting to take his suit off, he now suddenly had the urge to do so. He confirmed this on his Tricorder and quickly, in a typically Starfleet trained fashion, he decoupled the air supply unit and began unclipping his helmet - within thirty seconds it was off.

The view of the Bridge didn't change at all... in fact nothing changed as his momentarily re-adapted to not having the Head Up Display of the EVA helmet. No psychological reality hit him... the same view, the same bodies, still lay before him. An odd smell though... not decomposition... something else.

"But, I tend to agree." he paused for a moment, not really knowing what the next step was. He exhaled loudly as Graves finished removing his helmet, wishing that he could simply hit his comm badge and ask his Commanding Officer for next steps... that wasn't going to happen... they were on their own.

"Right, your priority is accessing internal sensors and discovering just how many bodies are on this ship and their location. I am going to attempt to access the Ship's logs and discover exactly what happened to lead to... this." he half-heartedly held up his gloved hands to encompass the Bridge.

"Yes, sir." Graves replied as he placed his helmet on one side of the console. He removed his gloves, which clearly gave him increased dexterity in terms of operating the console. "Okay..." he muttered to himself as she accessed the internal sensors via the master systems console. "Hmm," he mused, louder, as the report began to appear on the display in front of him. "Colonel," he called over to Drake, "Internal sensors suggest that only about ten per-cent of the of the crew are still on board. Also, it appears that most of the escape pods have been jettisoned." He paused as she thought about this new revelation and it's implications on the scenario. "This is getting more and more bizarre," he continued. "If five-hundred and forty people got off this ship before it got caught in the rift...

...why were none of them ever found?"

OFF:

 

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