Alas, Poor Yorick

Posted on Tue 2nd Oct, 2012 @ 5:23pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Paul Graves PsyD

767 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/2
Location: USS Bretagne: Main Bridge
Timeline: Boarding + 7 Hours

ON:

An hour had passed since power had been brought back online; life support was back at full capacity and Ashton and Paul had spent most of that time learning of the demise of the Bretagne.

Primary power had failed after twenty minutes, as Meadows had predicted, and we were now running on secondary power. Meadows had informed them that he was now back on the Coldstream, starting a manual power transfer directly to the Bretagne's warp core.

Ashton found himself sitting behind a dead Captain's desk in an abandoned Ready Room, reading through a fortnight's worth of personal logs. He had long ago taken his EVA suit off but still felt hot under the collar. He stood as he unzipped his away uniform jacket and let it flap open as he leaned against the porthole watching the latest log entry.

In her heyday, the woman on the screen in front of him had been fairly attractive - Captain Greenland had only taken command of the Bretagne six months earlier, the ship of a former Rear-Admiral. She had been new to command, having been an Executive Officer for nearly five years. Why they had left the upgrade of this particular Excelsior Class so long, he would never know. Perhaps the old Admiral liked it this way. He had done ten minutes of background research before beginning with the log entries.

The third to last log entry began to play... Captain Greenland showed a thin layer of sweat on her brow...

"Captain's Personal Log - Stardate four-three-four-two-mark-two.

The Ferengi incident took place nearly six hours ago - we are now en route to Starbase Seventy-Seven for our long-awaited refit, but all is not well. Some of the crew have started to show signs of a fever... those who showed the first signs of this raised temperature seem to have become increasingly scared and paranoid of... well, we're not really sure.

Doctor Tyler assures me that he is close to discovering what the strange blight is and, hopefully, a cure. For the time being I'm not worried, it doesn't seem to be life-threatening, and we should be at Seventy-Seven in just over twenty hours.

Of course, the question still remains, how this illness got onto the Bretagne in the first place... I'm sure all will be revealed. I was always taught that the most complex of mysteries tend to have simple answers!

End of Log."

Ashton frowned... 'A strange illness'? Could this have had some part to play in why the Bretagne is here?

He stood and made his way back out to the Main Bridge. He noticed that Graves was near the Flight Control console.

"Lieutenant," he said, moving across to the Tactical Console - an unconscious decision "take a look at this."

He brought up the most recent log and played it in its entirety.

Graves stood, arms folded and watched as the log played through. "Interesting," he said. "I wonder..."

He didn't get to finish the sentence as suddenly, a massive, thundering noise rocked the Bridge of the Bretagne, nearly knocking the two officers over.

"Are we moving?" Ashton exclaimed, hesitating slightly at the seemingly stupid remark. With a few taps of the console in front of them he realised what was happening.

"Bloody hell... this section of the expanse is flaring... we're being sucked in!" He scrambled around for a minute on the console, trying to get an image of what was happening.

He brought up an external image of the ship... the entire port side of the Excelsior Class seemed to be lurching into the red, fiery sea. He inhaled loudly as he realised what side the Coldstream was on.

He smashed his Comm. Badge with force. "Drake to Meadows... get the hell out of the Runabout... NOW!"

"Sir, what's happening... it's like..." Meadows paused. "Sir, the docking clamps are becoming demagnetised and... shit, it's losing structural integrity!"

"Meadows, get the hell out of that Runabout... NOW! Do you understand!" The urgency in Ashton's voice was more than evident.

"He's confused." Paul slapped at his own combadge. "Meadows, get into your suit; we'll retrieve you. Move!"

Silence fell over the Comm. Badge as the line cut...

"He's still--" Paul hovered his hands over the unfamiliar Flight Control console, searching for any sort of tractor beam that might be used to retrieve crippled fighter craft. Then he stiffened, turned chalk-white, and swayed for a moment against the console before gripping it and righting himself. "He's gone, sir,"

OFF:

 

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