The Great Escape (Part 2)

Posted on Wed Aug 21st, 2024 @ 4:50am by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Captain Yusaka Kitamura & Commander Thomas Johnson & Commander Chisato Nishikigi & Major Chiyo Shimada & Lieutenant Jasad Yuvek & Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn & Lieutenant Talia Johnson & Lieutenant JG Nezuko
Edited on on Wed Aug 21st, 2024 @ 4:50am

1,568 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Starship Graveyard
Location: Various

Previously on Star Trek Tokyo...

"We're losing altitude," Lt. Yuvek reported as he read the report from his console.

"Being the boosters online, full power!" Taiga ordered as the Tokyo continued to shake and vibrate. "Full ahead, keep her nose up!"

"Aye ma'am," Lt. Yuvek said as he pushed the thrusters to full power. The g loads from the planet's linear gravitational forces were causing a drag on the Tokyo. The vessel needed more power if they were going to compensate for the significant turbulence it was experiencing.

"Thrusters are at full power, I'll need to compensate for the anticipated power consumption." He said aloud to Engineering.

The boosters roared into life. At first the inertial dampners weren't able to compensate for the sudden acceleration and the crew found themselves pinned to the back of their chairs like I an old automobile.

"Keep her steady..." Taiga said. Her hands gripping the edge of the arms on her chair.

And now the continuation...

"We're gaining altitude, Captain, but I don't think it's going to be enough!" Chisato reported.

Lt. Yuvek had always looked down upon Cardassian starship design. He saw them as lacking the overall technological efficiency of Starfleet warships. The early model Galor-class vessels were more of a blunt instrument compared to the elegant saber of a Ambassador or Defiant-class vessel. However, the one thing that Jasad did admire was the high-level of power management each Galor vessel was capable of.

The spiral-wave disruptor on a typical Galor-class vessel required a tremendous amount of power in order to dish out the necessary power to go toe-to-toe with a Starfleet vessel. The late model Galor-class featured 16 while the Dumar-class vessels featured 25 mounted disruptors. To generate that much power consistently and while in battle required a power generation and management system that could take a beating.

Fortunately, the had managed to preserve its power core after the crash. It was the key to keeping the Tokyo together while fighting to escape this planet's gravitational confinement.

Thomas turned, "How about losing some of the excess weight, once we get high enough we may not need all those extra engines on our haul."

Taiga pondered. "Lieutenant Leon. Divert all additional power to the aft shields! Take it from anywhere we're not using!" She ordered.

"Shunt all torpedoes to the aft launchers!" Taiga ordered over the shaking. "Set them to detonate just behind us at sixty meters." She added. "We'll use the shockwave from the explosions to push out out of the atmosphere!"

"Captain, with all due respect, a crackpot strategy like that will get us blown to pieces!" Chisato objected.

"I'd take that over spending the rest of time on this damn planet!" Taiga said as the ship continued to shake. "I'm not going back down!"

"Fire six at a time in sequenced bursts!" Taiga ordered. "All hands. Brace for impact! Fire!"

"I got a bad feeling about this..." Chisato muttered as she gripped the console for dear life.

Thomas grabbed hold of the railing, and went up to the Lt. "Focus on the torpedoes, I will work on getting the shields more power."

During his time at the Academy, Jasad spent a significant amount of time studying aerodynamics and how it affected the flight of different types of crafts. The one fact that always stood out in his mind was just how the difficulty in launching from a planet was not in lifting up into the air, it was fighting against the gravitational pull that each planet naturally created.

Most space-faring cultures avoided that by just building their vessels in orbit in a spacedock or some other shipbuilding structure. It conserved energy, resources, and decreased the possibility of flight failure.

Unfortunately for the Tokyocrew, they had found themselves reverting back to the antiquated method of planetary launches and having to fight gravity in order to achieve flight.

The vessel need to reach escape velocity on a planet that produced an incredible amount of gravitational pressure. The Armitage-class vessel would need to travel at approximately 10 km per second without liquifying every person onboard the vessel.

---

The explosions behind the Tokyo didn't take long to catch up with the Starship. The concussive force smacked into the shields, catapulting the Tokyo higher into the atmosphere.

[USS Kirishima]

"Captain, I'm detecting what looks like weapons fire. It's coming through as explosions from photon torpedoes..." the tactical officer announced.

Captain Kitamura smiled. "I bet you anything that's Captain Aisaka. Helm, intercept course! Get us there at the fastest we can do!"

[USS Tokyo Bridge]

Consoles showered the crew in sparks, some exploded and burst into flames showering the crew in debris. Smoke rolled in the air playfully and the red lights cast long shadows. The whole room shook violently as the Armitage Class was blasted out of the atmosphere and finally back into the cool abyss of space.

A moment of silence fell upon the bridge. Taiga swept back a few loose hairs as she regained composure. "Report! Are we out?!" She shouted out over the noise of chattering flames and the sound of the fire suppression systems.

Chiyo coughed as she choked on the fire suppression chemicals. She had talked with the Redemption's crew on their failed escape attempt, and though they were now much higher than the Nova class starship had gotten, they were now in the exact same situation the Redemption had been in all those years before:

"All major systems are offline!" She replied. "If we don't restore power soon, we'll be repeating history!"

Thomas muttered himself, he hadn't braced himself for that shockwave and had been thrown into the console, the hard way. Feeling a warm liquid trickle down the side of his forehead, he guessed it was at least a 'couple of stitches' if this was several hundred years ago.

"Captain, as much as this is an obvious answer, even if we get power up within minutes, shields are gone..."

Tag All (We have cleared the planet, but we're losing orbit and everything is more or less offline).

Lt. Yuvek groaned in pain as he looked up and saw the ceiling of the bridge before him. He looked around and realized that he was laying on his back on the ground and not at his console. He reached for the side of the console and pulled himself back up and slid back into his chair and tried to get a status report from his console to figure out just where the hell they were and what was happening.

"Ma'am...*cough* I don't think we're free and cle--*cough-cough* clear yet!" Lt. Yuvek said from the Helm station.

"In order to clear the planet, we needed to clear the planet's sphere of influence. To do that we would need to reach escape velocity otherwise we'd just be traveling in the same direction of the planet and come straight back down." He explained.

"Comparatively, we'd have to get approximately 929,000 km away from Earth to escape its sphere of influence." He said. "The higher we get into the atmosphere, the less friction we encounter and thus should have gained more speed as we were breaking free from the planet and not pulled so hard by the gravitational force." He added.

"But the problem is that just because we cleared the atmosphere, doesn't mean we're free from the planet's sphere of influence. It's so strong that even after we've cleared the planet we would still need to travel another several hundred km so that we didn't end up being pulled back down into the gravitational well of the planet." He said in a frustrated tone.

"Whatever force surrounds this damn planet knocked out our primary systems. We're a floating tub unless we can restore control to propulsion and continue to push away from the planet." He said with increasing stress in his tone.

"We need power! Now!" Taiga said. Slowly the stars on the viewscreen began to tilt as the Tokyos aft began to fall back towards the planet. "Like, NOW!"

"How about using some of the shuttle craft..."

Suddenly the ship shook once and the stars stopped moving. Then they started to go down as if the ship was ascending. There was a distinct blue haze now surrounding the ship, something was pulling them up by the bow.

"What the..." Taiga said as the ships bow began to rise up. Then she saw it and she let out a long sigh of relief. Hovering above them was a huge Odyssey Class Starship. The Kirishima.

"Looks like Starfleet didn't give up on us." Taiga smiled. "Rest easy Mister Yuvek. We have a tow rope now."

There was a long moment of silence before the entire ship erupted in rapturous applause. Several laughed, some cried, a few Klingons pounded their chests and sang songs of their victory here today. After several months, years, decades, even a lifetime for a handful of those on board- they were finally coming home.

Posting By:

Captain Taiga Aisaka
Commanding Officer

Commander Thomas Johnson
Executive Officer

Commander Chisato Nishikigi
Chief Intelligence Officer

Major Chiyo Shimada
Marine Commander

Lieutenant Jasad Yuvek
Chief Flight Control Officer

Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn
Chief Engineering Officer

Lieutenant Talia Johnson
Chief Counsellor

Lieutenant JG Nezuko
Chief Operations Officer

Captain Yusaka Kitamura
Commanding Officer - USS Kirishima

 

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