Lieutenant JG Ghee'looth Xiron-I Want to Break Free
Colgin
(( Corridor outside the Bridge, Derelict Vulcan Ship ))
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.
Grallator: :: looking at his tricorder:: Confirming: yes, a large chunk of the ship has decided to pursue a solo career in atmospheric re‑entry. Trajectory looks terminal, dramatic, and very much not in the brochure. As for our own course—well, the good news is we’re still in orbit. The bad news is that you won’t like the outcome. I’ll keep scanning, but I recommend we prepare for further… interpretive dance from the hull.
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.
V’Nille: Different or not, the reality is that helm control doesn’t seem to be responding anymore. Xiron, Grallator, any luck?
Xiron: The derelict, rather our section of the derelict is deorbiting. We will be entering the upper mesosphere in minutes.
Grallator: My tricorder confirms we’re on a one‑way sightseeing tour of the mesosphere, with complimentary turbulence and no return ticket. Helm’s as responsive as a Vulcan at a comedy show, and the EPS relays are sulking like they’ve just been asked to work overtime. I can try a manual bypass, but unless this ship suddenly remembers how to cooperate, we may need to start practicing our atmospheric re‑entry faces.
Ada: It used me? Tricked me to release it?
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: You work on that. I am going to try to get in touch with the ship.
Grallator: I’ll see what I can coax out of the thrusters, though right now they’re about as responsive as a Vulcan at a surprise party. If the deflector’s still wired in, I might be able to reroute enough juice to give us a polite shove upward—assuming the ship doesn’t decide to reinterpret that as modern dance. And for the record, if this thing did trick Commander Ada into setting it free, I’d like to officially state that I signed up to fix warp manifolds, not midwife ancient starships with trust issues.
V’Nille: =/\= V’Nille to Chin’toka. Can you hear me? =/\=
Callahan: =/\= Chin’toka. This is Callahan. Go ahead, Commander. =/\=
V’Nille: =/\= Wonderful. It looks like our communications were restored. Where’s the Captain? =/\=
Callahan: =/\= She’s gone planetside, Commander, to lead the rescue operations. =/\=
V’Nille: =/\= I see…. Are you tracking the object that the derelict ship just ejected? It looks like it’s going to hit where that weird signal we were tracking is coming from. My team will continue to try to get this ship to not hit the planet, so… let the Captain know. Good luck! =/\=
Callahan: =/\= Confirmed, Commander. We’re on it. =/\=
V’Nille: Not to be the one to state the obvious here, but this ship is going to hit the planet with us on it if we don’t do something about it. Tell me we have good news.
Grallator: Good news, Commander? Well, the EPS grid is still technically a grid, the ODN relays haven’t burst into interpretive dance yet, and my tricorder insists we’re only mostly doomed. I can try to reroute auxiliary power through the secondary plasma manifolds, but that’s a bit like asking a candle to impersonate a warp core.
Xiron’s injury was all but forgotten as she pushed herself to work the problem. She absorbed Grallator’s report. He had found enough power to maybe save the ship.
Xiron: Good job, Ensign. Commander, a quarter of the dorsal thrusters are still operational but the power margin is pretty narrow. We are locked out of the navigation systems. Without them it will be a blind burn that may hurt us as much as help.
Ada: Response
V’Nille: That’s not good news, but sure, anything helps. There has to be a way to override this lockout.
Grallator: Override the lockout? Aye, I can try a Level‑Three bypass on the isolinear circuits. Of course, given their age, they’ll either cooperate or explode in a way that makes future archeologists very cross. Still, if I can trick the command subroutines into thinking we’re a maintenance crew instead of trespassers, we might just get helm control back.
For a second time in her career, she was now faced with an alien computer that needed to be hacked to save lives. Xiron almost laughed at how much use she was getting out of that minor in xeno-information technology.
As soon as that thought brought a smile to her face it was forced out by her hyper focus. It hit her, the computer system on the ship like the ship itself was ancient but not fully unknown. Taking her PADD she opened her programming application.
Vulcan technology was surprisingly robust. The standard Starfleet PADD when not linked to the ship’s quantum computer held more computing power than the NX-class. This ship’s computer was almost in the same class as the PADD’s application. The application quickly mapped out the ship’s computer. Grallator’s level three bypass left an opening. Her smile returned. There was a bypass to the system’s software.
Xiron: Ensign, select the tab on the console mark nen-patorayek rompotauya and then execute. It will place the computer into a maintenance cycle.
Ada: Response
V’Nille: Go for it. Worst case scenario, we need this ship to avoid any population centers because I have the feeling our host was not gracious enough to include that possibility in its calculations.
Ghee’looth’s heart sank for a moment knowing her duty may mean not saving the ship or her team but to sacrifice herself to save those on the surface. She quietly swore a very colorful Andorian metaphor.
Grallator: Understood, Commander. I’ll attempt a manual EPS shunt to the RCS thrusters. If the relays hold, we can nudge the ship’s vector away from anything resembling a population center. If they don’t hold, well… we’ll be providing the planet with a very large, very ancient lawn ornament.
Her fingers flew over the foreign console as she moved from one system indicator to another only moving her focus away to compare the console to the translation notes on her PADD.
Xiron: I am reading power to the thrusters. They are not in standby condition; inertial dampeners are online but badly out of calibration. This will be a rough ride, Commander.
Ada/ V’Nille: Response
Grallator: Commander, I am reasonably—well, let’s say optimistically—certain we can nudge ourselves… I mean, the ship… back into a stable orbit. ::he squinted at the console, which immediately began blinking at him in a tone he did not appreciate; one firm smack and it thought better of it:: There. Controls are responding again. We’ve got just enough fuel reserves to make the burn, but it’s a one‑shot deal. If it works, we’re heroes. If it doesn’t, we’ll be atmospheric confetti. No pressure.
Xiron: Once we do the burn we will have no control over where the ship impacts on the surface. We could do a shorter burn and impact in their
Ada/ V’Nille: Response
As Ghee’looth was trying to reboot the auxiliary power control systems in a vain attempt to find more power when her console’s screen went blank.
Grallator: Well, the console isn’t working. In fact, it’s doing the opposite of working, which is plotting. And I don’t like the way it’s blinking at me.
Xiron: Mine too, Commander. We lost it. We lost everything.
Ada/ Grallator/ V’Nille: Response
The silence and inaction were almost farcical to the frenetic pace she had been working at. Though her hands were still she was working through the problem in her head. Their options were getting more limited by the second.
Xiron: It has to be an interface issue. It was working. Grallator, check your PADD what was the last scan of the console? Maybe we can use your PADD as a replacement for the controls. Bypass the controls systems like earlier except now we are plugging the PADD in.
Ada/ Grallator/ V’Nille: Response
(TAG/TBC)
Lieutenant JG Ghee’looth Xiron
Acting Chief Engineer
USS Chin’toka
D240010GX2