Without A Paddle!

Posted on Sat May 31st, 2025 @ 12:28pm by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Captain Yuri Nakamura & Commander Thomas Johnson & Commander Chisato Nishikigi & Major Chiyo Shimada & Lieutenant Commander Talia Johnson & Lieutenant Tatsuo Shimada & Captain Elizabeth F. "Liz" Beurling & Lieutenant JG Connor Carey

1,509 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Andromeda
Location: Bridge

[Bridge]

Mikko emerged from behind the helm console where she had been sheltering, her hands were sweaty from the grip on her phaser. She looked around the bridge, the strange Construct aliens had disappeared. She moved to the helm and tapped on it. "We're still at all stop." she reported.

She turned around on her feet to face Talia. "Counsellor. I do believe that you're the current ranking officer. As the last senior officer on board, what are your orders?"

Talia stood eyes wide at the fact that she was suddenly in charge. She took a moment to gather her thoughts before looking towards Mikko. “Alright then, I want a full damage report. I also want to know if there’s anyone else missing besides the Captain.”

"I think it would be advisable if Lieutenant Monroe and I to try and get down to Engineering, see if we can get the auxiliary power grid up and running." Lieutenant Inoue proposed.

Talia nodded at Inoue’s suggestion. “That’s a good idea, use whoever is available down there to help as well. We need comms up and running, at least that way we can get a full picture of what’s happening around the ship.”

Lieutenant Inoue nodded before shifting her attention over to Dana. "Best get moving Lieutenant; help me move this grate aside so we can access the Jeffries Tubes?"

Dana nodded as she moved to give Inoue a hand with the grate.

---

[Approximately 20 minutes later]

The lights of the bridge slowly began to glow. Consoles around the room began to return to life as the gentle hum of power bring restored filled the room for a moment. In a matter of meer seconds the bridge was suddenly back to an active and alive state.

"I have all engine control, impulse and warp drives are back online. As is main power and..." Mikko checked her screens again. "All... systems..." she turned back to face Talia. "It's like they were never here... well... apart from the crew that... you know... whoosh," she said as she made a whoosh or explosion gesture with a reverse grabbing motion with her fingers.

“Question is where did those people whoosh off to?” Talia sighed. “Okay let’s get a better picture of what state we’re in.” She tapped her comm badge. “Bridge to all decks, our visitors have gone for the time being. All Officers with Bridge station experience who are still able report to the bridge. Sickbay, I want a full injury report as soon as possible.” She closed the comms and looked towards Mikko. “What’s the damage report looking like?”

"I'm reading major damage to the flight deck exterior doors and..." Mikko paused for a moment. "We have starfighters in the air. Seems as if the pilots got out and were attempting to engage." She reported. "Minor damage from interior weapons fire on all decks, but nothing major. As for the people that went 'poof' from being shot. It would appear they were disintegrated." Mikko added a note of sadness in her voice.

“Disintegrated?” Talia paused, if that was true Taiga and her baby were lost. “We can’t be 100% sure of anything right now, I’m not willing to put my hands up and say they’re dead. Not until we truly know.” She paused. “We have to carry on, finish this mission and find Commander Johnson, if he’s truly alive. Get the pilots back onboard, and have damage control teams to work on the flight deck doors.”

"Aye sir." Mikko replied as she continued to work on the helm.

Talia moved across to the centre seat, sitting down to take a few moments to think things over. She was starting to wish she’d paid more attention to what being in Command was all about. All she knew right now was that she had a crew dependant on her decisions.

She didn't have long to ruminate, however, before her com badge began to crackle awkwardly. It seemed as if power had been restored to them as well, yet whatever those... things had done had inevitably damaged them.

=A=...Hello?=A= she was just barely able to make out. =A=Sickbay to... dge, do you copy, Bridge?=A=

Talia looked up as she heard the voice over comms. “Johnson here, we hear you. Your comm signal is breaking up, Where are you?”

=A=Take a wild g...=A= Talia could only assume that this was meant to be some mildly sarcastic response, but what with the dodgy signal she was getting, it made it difficult to tell. =A=We've lost a few people down here, but we managed to fend off whatever tho... were. Cap... Nakamura's been insistent that she speak with ....saka. Would you happen to know if she's available?=A=

"Could somebody try cleaning up that signal?" Liz asked. "I can barely understand what they're saying."

"Saka could be meaning she needs to speak with Aisaka. The Captain. We may have an issue hearing them, I doubt that they would hear us proper, suggest you go down to sickbay." Connor replied as he got up from the floor finally, a contusion on the side of his forehead. Embarassingly beimg thrown against the wall and unconscious after the primary attack. "Lt. That would leave us without an experienced person on the bridge."

Talia looked towards Connor. “Right now my place is here on the bridge, we’re enough people down already. You need that head wound checked out, go to Sickbay, get yourself looked at and update the Major on what’s happened.” She tapped her comm badge. “Standby Major. I’m sending Lieutenant Carey down to you.”

"Aye sir." Connor answered after a pause. However the doors to the turbolift would not open. "Computer, open doors to the lift."

"Unable to comply, all quarters and lifts have been locked out." The computer responded.

"Under whose orders."

"Commander Thomas Johnson initiated the lockdown." the reply came once again.

Looking to Lt Johnson, "Why would he do such a thing."

"There's only one reason why Thomas would do that" Talia sighed. "He's trying to protect us, the only problem is it could cause more problems than it cures. Can we get access any other way? the lift shaft is obviously out as we can't open the doors, what about jeffries tube access?"

"The only way to over-ride the lockout would be someone with Level Nine access or higher." Mikko stated. "We do have Captain Nakamura on board, the computer should recognise her authority. Although she's not technically in our chain of command."

"If the only way for us to regain Command is to have Captain Nakamura override the lockouts then that's what we'll have to do. Where is the Captain now?"

"Last reported in sickbay I believe," Mikko said.

"Beurling on all channels:" Liz tapped her combadge. "Anyone have a 20 on Captain Nakamura?"

"Standby..." Came Tatsuo's static ridden voice. "...My way to... Kbay now."

Talia sighed. “Is there anything we can do to clear up the comms breakup?”

"The coms seem scrambled at the moment, still affected by whatever the iconian ship has done to us. Although most of our systems are up. The Commander really done a number locking us out." Connor stated

Talia nodded. “He wouldn't do anything to hurt us, he would only do what he felt he had to do to protect us.” She paused. “Can we locate Captain Aisaka? It would give us something to go on.”

"Not without some serious reconfiguring of the ship's electrical systems," an Ops Officer reported grimly. "The long-range scanners are practically shot."

"We still got fighters that are out there, if we can possibly get a few other shuttles, that may be working, that could help with the search." Connor replied as he started going through the systems trying to get them back up."Uhm... Lt we may have another problem... it seems here, if we aren't able to unlock the system within an hour... the self destruct is set... with a 15 minute timer afterwards."

"You sure that brilliant husband of yours hasn't been brainwashed into trying to murder us at any cost?" Liz asked.

“Certainly not!” Talia shook her head. “There has to be something, a backdoor that Tom would have left us. He obviously didn’t use his command codes to lock us out of the system, we’d be able to retrieve those details although we’d have to have contact with Starfleet to get them.” She paused. “Right…get what fighters and shuttles we’ve got to spare out there. We also need to consider evacuating the ship, incase we don’t get the systems up and running in time.”

Mikko's fingers ran across the helm. "All Starfighters have returned to the ship sir." She turned in her chair to face Talia. "There is a way to unlock the commanders lockouts, but it's... risky."

To be continued...

 

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