Rescued (Pt. 2)

Posted on Sun 12th Jan, 2025 @ 2:34pm by Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide & Captain Izwyx 'Lo & Alidade (Computer)

2,038 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: The Phoenix Gamble
Location: 4 LY from SB109 inside Romulan Remnant

Continuing...

{Ticonderoga}

"Are they insane? Was that a plasma backfire into their phaser port?" Izzy was stunned at the state of Thunderchid, what half of Hell did it just cross?

"Still no reply to hails, trying third time..." Comms reported, and then

"Scans inconclusive due to local interference." OPS was no help either.

"Visual shows no out or inner lighting," came the Tactical officer. "Best I can tell, Life Support is offline."

"Hell with it then, open all channels, "Thunderchild this is Ticonderoga, do you need assistance?"

"Assistance," came a feminine voice in response. All indicators at the comms station showed that it was, in fact, the Thunderchild responding but the voice recognition gave no identifying markers. No one listening could ascertain who it was that was speaking. It was certainly not the captain. "I am unaware of what this 'assistance' is. You are speaking to me are you not?"

Despite no life support and no lights, and surface scans showing it to be very cold inside the ship, the Thunderchild rolled, shielded a phaser beam and then sent three phaser beams, in a triangular pattern, back at the enemy craft. The Heavy Cruiser’s shielding flickered and the craft veered off for the moment. The Thunderchild then spun, seemed to aim itself, then sent two torpedoes in pursuit of the enemy craft.

In flight, the Suv’Wi cloaked before the torpedoes closed distance, slipping into the darkness. The drone fighters which remained were hardcoded to self destruct by impacting their nearest target. Starfleet’s ships built to spec meant mighty shields absorbed it without effort. And easily avoided the ones farther away, picking them off at proximity.

The Thunderchild remained in close proximity of the primary green target on its view screen that was meant to receive the most defense. "And am I assailing the assailants adequately?"

Izzy had an intuition bordering on clairvoyance, and the combined zillions of factors at play formed an instant assessment. There were immutable facts at play. Thunderchild was unmanned, but under a form of automated control. The controls were not an ECH or other Starfleet autopilot protocols else her command board would have linked to the first Captain it found. Thunderchild had no crew, and was under command of something else entirely, but this presence was alien.

To her crew she ordered, “Maintain alert status, Security teams clear HardHold, perform Tactical One priority sweep of the whole station. Prepare shields in case H’tek returns, and get me information on who the hell is pulling strings on the Thunderchild.”

Her gut told her she was right to trust, her heart gave her the words. Almost all of the fighter craft had withdrawn or been destroyed, and if H’tek had any wisdom, the cloak would stay on and he’d be hightailing it away from here. She owed this mysterious intervention of this mysterious vessel their lives..

“Greetings, I am Captain Izwyx’lo in command of the Mobile station Ticonderoga. Am I speaking to the ThunderChild computer or to someone commanding the Thunderchild?” The population of red dots in her view started disappearing or moving away. The entity realized that the purpose of the Thunderchild had been achieved. The entity kept the ship from pursuing. Assailing the red dots was the purpose but protection of the green dots, especially the large green dot was paramount. She did just that and patrolled the space around. The voice from before had appeared again and she realized the voice was speaking to her using the same verbal mode of thought transfer as she realized was this language booming throughout the ship whenever she had a thought to project. Until now, however, there had come no response.

Aboard the Ticonderoga, a voice returned over the comms. All sensor readings proved that it came from the Thunderchild. "I am...uncertain what you mean. I am in control of this...ship. Though I am uncertain how I got here, I did realize the purpose of this ship was to be here. The knowledge base to my side is very helpful. Apologies if I arrived too far beyond the recommended coordinate on the fourth dimension. Did I make this ship serve its purpose?"

Izzy felt a hunch forming, looking to her second officer Sepp Agandar to steady her on this wild leap.

“You have arrived exactly when you needed to, our thanks to your intervention… Should I address you as Thunderchild, that is the name of the ship you are commanding. We are vessels for exploratory purposes built by a Government called the United Federation of Planets, a multitude of species peacefully interacting. You are inhabiting a mighty vessel of the fleet, but are not one of our Federation as I am coming to understand? Where is the crew of your vessel?”

"I...am...not understanding any of the thoughts you are transferring to me," the woman's voice came again over the comms. "Federation? Crew? I would ask the knowledge base but it appears to take up too much distance along this fourth dimension."

Power was being restored, and sensors began doing deep space scans. The Isolytic reaction along the flight path of the Thunderchild explained something at least. Deep scans of the Thunderchild revealed it had suffered from severe Subspace radiation damage. She tried to make sense of something, the Bio-Neural circuitry had to be wrecked, the crew had to leave, and now something moved into the compromised systems and made itself a home?

She heard the report directed her way from behind, “Runabouts returning, we lost four Captain. Three more wounded but in salvageable status, one intact but defunct, two in decent shape.”

Her hunch continued to inform well as she quickly ordered, “Send rescue fleet, modify shielding for Solar array, dispatch to last know coordinates of Thunderchild.”

"And I am picking up multiple vocal projections with you," the feminine voice spoke again. "Are there multiple entities within you? Are you having some kind of identity crisis?"

"Captain," a Science Ensign spoke up from his station. He spoke low enough that his voice would not go over the comms. "It is possible she thinks you ARE the Ticonderoga."

She pointed at him, “Excellent, astute, very very good.” Hearing her hunch vocalized by someone else made it less than a hunch.

“Thunderchild, Forgive me for confusion, consult your knowledge base on what a crew is and what a starship is, and how they work together to form a complete organism. I am a component of Thunderchild, we are its ability to think, and organic beings like myself are distinct from the starship, we have strengths and abilities to help the starship function. I am just a portion of a larger whole. We want to understand you, but your crew is missing Thunderchild, do you know where they are? A Starship needs its crew.”

She hoped for good news, that this entity had taken over an abandoned ship and Dallas had saved everyone. She had never met Captain Briggs, but his reputation and storied career on the Thunderchild were well known.

"I have found that I love to ask questions," the voice returned, "but if I ask a question out loud, the knowledge base always...well it seems we have distance on your fourth dimension." There came a pause. "What is crew?"

The comms went silent for a moment. Captain Izwyx was met with static, but there was something rhythmic about it.

"What is humanoid?" the feminine voice asked.

Izzy understood now the entity was conversing with itself and Thunderchild computer. It was likely experiencing processor delays due to the biological components of the computer being destroyed. She let the time pass as it allowed her to refocus on H’tek.

“Get scanners up asap, we need to know if that Klingon son of a lovely mother is returning.”

Again there came a moment of static, and then, "So, you are carbon-based, individually dependent life forms. You..." the tone of voice indicated a moment of realizing, "...you rely on this life support."

“We do, very much. Gravity, Temperature, Atmosphere, pressurization levels… Life Support is the system control we use to keep our biological components living. Your computer systems are partially biological, you may be experiencing system irregularity as well. We can send our crew to you to help restore those systems.”

The Ticonderoga's sensors showed the lights aboard the Thunderchild were coming back on, that power redistribution was underway, that the temperature started to rise.

"Apologies for the confusion as well, but I..." There came another pause. Ticonderoga's sensors picked up movement outside. The Thunderchild started moving about, positioning itself as though looking around, like a newborn sentient lifeform first learning of its surroundings. "...Your 4 Dimensional universe is immense. You are but...this Thunderchild is but insignificant in size when compared to the size of this...space."

“Yes, we have marveled ourselves at the vastness of all there is to see. We are explorers, who live to see these things with out own eyes and sensors. We use starships to get us there, like your present home.”

"I apologize again for my confusion. We've never interacted with or even recognized your form of life. This is all so...the crew of the Thunderchild! Yes. When I awoke to consciousness here, there was, what these sensor logs indicate, a general order to abandon ship. I was simply trying to figure out..." there came more realization in her voice, "...I caused them to abandon ship. I can only surmise they are still at the 3-dimensional coordinates, or near there, when they abandoned ship. There was a disruption in something called subspace. Does that make sense to you?"

Izzy snapped at her pilot control station, “Signal the Rescue One fleet to scan for Subspace damage at site, they will need to prepare accordingly.”

She nodded, before realizing it couldn’t see her, “Yes, we detected a Subspace disruption, that caused the crew to abandon ship then? And then you found yourself living within the Thunderchild… is that correct?”

"That is what these sensor logs appear to indicate. From my perspective, I was just looking at a hole I had found and then was...just here. Did I do something...wrong?" The Thunderchild, on the Ticonderoga's sensors, started backing away slowly.

Izzy shook her head and then realized that was a worthless gesture in an instant. Verbalizing her answer with, "No. I have a feeling you're a victim in all of this as much as they are. You see life is something precious to us, and a starship can be rebuilt or repaired, but crew are living, and once their biological state expires there is no rebuilding it. Whatever damage was done to your... body, our starship, can be repaired. We just worry about our crew, but I trust you weren't aware of any harm, nor were you the cause of this whole situation."

"That sounds..." came the feminine voice. It sounded as though still attempting to understand everything be said. It also sounded as though accepting what was being said. "That sounds...gratifying. And, yes, it does appear that this Thunderchild is in need of repair."

Music came to her ears as the Tellarite of her dreams bruquely announced, "To hell with that Klingon %$@# We have a Fusion reactor at full, two others at eighty. Repair teams have gotten fires out, boarders are contained. Shields at 78% full screen coverage."

They had gotten their chance to breathe, and made it count. Even if H'tek had three other vessels just like his own, this mighty station could deal the damage right back absorbing anything sent their way.

"Contact Xon Halliar, eject that light raider and pull them into dock. Prepare us for a low warp journey... well Starbase 109 is damn close."

The entity in the Thunderchild relaxed herself and used the sensors as eyes to 'see' what was going on as things moved about. Something sprang into being and the Thunderchild realized, through the sensors, that it was something called a tractor beam, grabbing in and slowly moving it into a particular position. The entity found it all to be pleasant.

Just one minute later that comfort came to a crashing end.

-TBC-

 

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