The Relief Shuttle

Posted on Sat Mar 28th, 2020 @ 2:35pm by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Lieutenant Takeshi Nakazato 'Zack'

1,033 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Demons in the Dark
Location: Various

A loaded shuttlecraft full of relief supplies was on its final approach to the USS Tokyo. The shuttle's pilot had been trying to raise the starship to little success.

"This is Lieutenant Takeshi Nakazato, hailing USS Tokyo. Please respond."

Takeshi was met with silence, as his previous hails had.

Why don't they answer? Takeshi thought as he began landing procedure. Perhaps the Tokyo's communications systems were offline. After all, the distress call the USS Myogi had received from the vessel was automated.

... But if it was automated, why did it specify to exercise caution?

That was the question that had been running through Takeshi's mind since they had received the distress call.

The shuttlecraft touched down in the Tokyo's darkened shuttlebay, the only illumination provided by the recently arrived craft. Takeshi used the shuttlecraft's computer to run scans and determine whether or not the life support was online in the shuttlebay.

"Life support appears to be online for this level." Takeshi muttered to himself. "Good."

Takeshi grabbed the PADD with the shuttle's manifest of all the supplies the Myogi was willing to spare and could cram onto a single shuttle, as well as a torch to find his way in the darkened ship. And just as a precaution, Takeshi also grabbed an emergency oxygen tank, and made sure his phaser was on his person. Just in case this all turned out to be a trap.

Takeshi made his way out of the shuttlebay and towards the nearest turbolift. The wait for the turbolift was longer than usual. At one point, Takeshi suspected that they might even be offline. But those suspicions were dispelled when the turbolift doors finally opened, revealing a waiting turbolift.

However, the turbolift arriving was not the end of Takeshi's troubles, as instead of taking him to the bridge, the turbolift took him to engineering.

"Great, so this is malfunctioning too." He muttered.

Instead of trying to fight with the turbolift to try and get to the bridge, Takeshi decided to step off and try to find someone here in engineering. If he found someone, he could at least confirm that the ship wasn't simply abandoned.

"Hello?" Takeshi called out. "Is anybody down here?"

There were a few of the officers in Engineering, the room was dimly lot, running off of emergency power. However most of the consoles were active and the glow of the warp core cast shadows off the bulkheads.

Several people turned to the source of the noise.

A short woman emerged from around the side of the warp core. Her long blonde hair trailing behind her and she looked far from happy. She immediately pulled out her phaser and had it at the ready. Holding it as if ready to shoot the newcomer.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked simply. "And what are you doing on my ship?!"

Takeshi pulled his own phaser, setting it to kill.

"Well, this isn't the welcome wagon I was expecting." He said, pointing his phaser towards his aggressor.

Despite his predicament, Takeshi remembered his Starfleet training and tried diplomacy first.

"I'm Lieutenant Takeshi Nakazato of the USS Myogi." He introduced. "We intercepted your distress signal. I bring with me a single shuttle of everything we could spare, I got lost on my way to the bridge to deliver my manifest to the commanding officer. I figured I'd check this place out and make sure the ship wasn't abandoned, but had I known they'd point phasers at me, I'd have taken my chances fighting the malfunctioning turbolift."

Taiga raised an eyebrow. "How do I know you are who you claim you are?" She asked simply. "For all I know you could ne some strange figmant of my imagination, or a Cardassian imposter" she told him as she looked towards his phaser.

Takeshi carefully analyzed his situation. Clearly, things were going nowhere at phaser point, and Takeshi knew the logical next step to take.

Please don't make me regret this. He thought.

Takeshi set his phaser back to stun, and then began to return it to his belt.

"A Cardassian wouldn't do this, would he?" He said as he holstered his phaser.

Takeshi then put the PADD with the manifest on the floor and took a couple steps back.

"And if you're still not convinced, go ahead and read that manifest." Takeshi advised. "Scan it for authenticity if you have to."

Taiga took the PADD from the Lieutenant and studied the contents.

-- USS MYOGI --
-- RESUPPLY MANIFEST --
-- DELIVER TO CAPTAIN TAIGA AISAKA, USS TOKYO --

At the end of the manifest was a note from the Myogi's commanding officer:

In addition to the items listed above, I also offer you my third officer, Lt. Takeshi Nakazato, and his services.

Good luck, and safe travels.

Admiral Tanaka Miyahara
Commanding Officer
USS Myogi

Taiga looked over the contents and then up at the man in front of her. "This seems to be genuine. Plus, a shuttle approaching into this area of space is less likely to be detected than a starship. I can understand why they would do that" she said simply. "Do you know our current situation?"

"The automated distress call we intercepted was... Weird." Takeshi admitted. "It told us to exercise caution. Other than that, and the widespread power failures I encountered, I have no idea of your situation."

"Something has infected the ship, I have people working on it right now" Taiga explained simply. "We'll need any help keeping the ship from faling apart in the process, something is playing havoc with the power systems" she told him.

"Well, if there's any way I can be of assistance, just know that I can pull my weight." Takeshi explained.

Taiga nodded. "Well first of all, consult with my chief engineer. She'll be able to fill you in regarding the technical side of things. Then we'll need every spare hand we can get to bring our systems back online" Taiga explained. She turned away from the Lieutenant to head back towards one of the consoles where she was controlling most of the ships command functions from.

Posting by

Captain Taiga Aisaka
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Takeshi Nakazato
Air Boss

RSS Feed