Lieutenant JG Ghee'looth Xiron-Hammer to Fall
Colgin
( Lift shaft, Derelict Vulcan Ship ))
Xiron: Sorry to break the moment but I just heard from Is’Kah. Doctor Edrei has been beaten by their captures and is in need of immediate medical attention.
Ada: What?
Grallator: That is not good at all. Seems the universe has decided we’re not allowed a single break—not even the cheap kind,
V’Nille: Response
Xiron:: Through gritted teeth:: They are hurting the team planet side.
Ada: ::To V'Nille:: Maybe double time it from here, once we get this ship taken care of we can help planetside. Captain permitting.
Grallator: ::Words weren’t exactly lining up in his head just now, but he managed the essentials:: I second that.
The phantom pain subsided for a moment as Ghee’looth tried to focus on the task at hand. It left her as fast as it had only been a memory. The thought of this happening for real to Is’Kah brought on a different, more scarring pain.
Xiron: It is passing. I think I will be alright. Whatever put this spell on this ship is really loving this psychic energy.
V’Nille: Response
(( Bridge ))
Arriving at the bridge suite the doors opened in front. For a moment Xiron felt like she was back on a normal starship but it took only a glimpse around her to remember the haunted ship of ghost she was trespassing.
Ada: Ready?
Xiron: As ready as I can be with all the other unknowns we have seen today.
V’Nille: Response
Ada: I'll go first, I have the most direct contact with the ship.
Xiron nodded her understanding and followed in behind Ensign Grallator. The ship’s control room was darkened and quiet. That was a relief after what had happened in the artifact room. She pulled her tricorder to get a feel for what was happening in the room beyond what her eyes could see but within the limits of what her mind could accept.
All the control consoles and stations were blacked out save one. Its soft glow made it the natural center of attention on the bridge. Running the tricorder over it the console did not have anything obviously malicious about it but the ship was starting to make Ghee’looth paranoid.
Grallator: With everything this ship’s thrown at us, I was honestly expecting a few more dead Vulcan spirits to pop up on the bridge. Maybe holding a staff meeting. Or rehearsing a dramatic sigh.
Xiron: There is still time for that Ensign. The console looks to be in standby. Maybe it came back on when we cleared that zero-point energy blockage? Or there is a reserve power.::In a voice barely hiding frustration.:: Or some spectral energy source unknown to our science.
V’Nille: Response
Ada: How about "standard orbit"?
Grallator: Shouldn’t we at least run a quick diagnostic before pushing buttons, Sub‑Commander? :: He gave a faint smile :: Call me cautious, but I like to know whether I’m about to activate life support… or the self‑destruct poetry recital function. :: looked at the console once again:: I know that it says “standard orbit” but nothing is Standard for this ship.
Ada: Alacrity and caution in equal measure, Ensign.
Always the cautious engineer, Xiron also wanted to run a quick diagnostic.
Xiron: I agree a level one diagnostic would not take much time.
The level one only really looked for bad connections, stable energy sources and parts with damage obvious enough to see on the screen of the tricorder. It would leave a lot of what ifs but this technology being from a long-lost era, without manuals or procedures it really was all they could do.
V’Nille: Response
Grallator: I know there are people down there who need our help. But we’ll be about as useful as a burnt‑out fuse if we blow ourselves up simply because we trusted a ship that hums like it’s plotting against us. And it will take just a couple of minutes more I guess.
Ada: It's suffering, Ensign. And so are our people on the planet below. If it wanted to hurt us, it could have easily by now, in any number of ways. Besides ::she waved the tricorder:: this confirmed the translation of the console.
Xiron: There is no way to know how it…the ship will react. Let's hope the benevolence of the ship continues.
V’Nille: Response
Grallator: All right Commander. Will do.
With the pressing of the button on the console a loud hum surrounded the away team. Three loud metallic thuds echoed through the bridge.
Ada: What? That almost sounded like explosive stembolts--
The ship lurched hard throwing Ghee’looth forward and to the deck. Her helmet bounced off the edge of a darkened console. For a moment there was darkness and then there was Is’Kah still being held captive, finally, there was light and pain.
Ghee’looth awkwardly picked herself off the deck as she gradually regained her senses. Training more than thought animated her as she attempted to check her suit. With vision still blurry and her antennae still saying Is’Kah was in the room she read her suit’s HUD. Blinking hard she finally comprehended what was on the display.
Xiron: My suit is good, but it says I have a concussion.
V’Nille/Grallator: Response
Ada: Suit integrity holding, but I have some broken fingers. What the hell happened?
Leaning on the console that had nearly cracked her head open, Xiron with her antennae and ears still ringing looked up to see the viewscreen. It was on and displayed a large portion of the ship streaking across the planet’s atmosphere like a shooting star.
The console itself was no longer dark but displaying the trajectory of the mass released from the derelict. She reached for her tricorder to calculate the object's fall but her head was still too fogged from the fall to focus on the numbers running across its screen.
Xiron: It looks::winching she started again.::It looks like a section of the engineering hull has detached and is falling out of orbit. I will try to plot its descent.
V’Nille/Grallator: Response
Ada: I don't know, I don't know! Some kind of... Wait, do you feel it? The ship is different now. And that ::she motioned toward the viewscreen:: feels like the ship did.
Now able to read numbers and do basic math again Ghee’looth worked through a splitting headache, not helped by the blaring klaxon, to run through the columns of telemetry being fed to her PADD.
Xiron: The derelict, rather our section of the derelict is deorbiting. We will be entering the upper mesosphere in minutes.
V’Nille/Grallator/Ada: Response
Xiron waved her PADD over the console to get a translation of its controls and display readouts. It was all taking too long. Just as the pain was getting to her a drip of blood liquid fell on the inside of her faceplate. Instantly she knew she was bleeding from her right antenna. More green and red alerts or warnings flashed on and off.
Xiron: We need to get the thrusters back online. Maybe the deflector, hell a cargo bay to vent to space anything to push the ship higher.
V’Nille/Grallator/Ada: Response
For a moment Xiron could not hear the klaxon or feel her throbbing head. Everything on the bridge seemed frozen, everything save one ghostly figure. The Vulcan Priestess was back; she looked to the four Starfleet officers with an extremely unstoic Vulcan smile.
Priestess: Now we burn.
The specter turned toward the viewscreen and walked away, fading away as she did until the officers were again left in their falling ship now one minute closer to the ground.
V’Nille/Grallator/Ada: Response
(TAG/TBC)
Lieutenant JG Ghee’looth Xiron
Acting Chief Engineer
USS Chin’toka
D240010GX2