The Great Escape (Part 1)

Posted on Wed Aug 21st, 2024 @ 4:48am by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Commander Thomas Johnson & Commander Chisato Nishikigi & Major Chiyo Shimada & Lieutenant Jasad Yuvek & Lieutenant Sarah Graesyn & Lieutenant Talia Johnson & Lieutenant JG Nezuko

1,312 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Starship Graveyard
Location: Various

The outside camps around the Tokyo had disappeared. The large cylindrical 'boosters' had finally been attached to the side of the Tokyo's nacelle struts and the whole ship seemed silent.

However, inside it was far from silent. Captain Aisaka had set the time of departure at 08:00 hours and for the past several hours, and throughout the night the joint crews had been finishing final preparations for their escape attempt. The time had finally come, to get the Tokyo into the air and back into space.

The doors of the bridge from the ready room swished open and out walked Captain Aisaka. She looked around at each of the officer's on the bridge. The other ship commanders had also assembled and were standing behind the command area.

Without a word Taiga made her way towards the center chair and sat down. "Well. How about we get the hell off this planet?" She said simply.

Lieutenant Graesyn stood at the Engineering console on the bridge; monitoring a feed of data that was coming in from Engineering teams that were running final checks across the ship. “Just getting the results of final checks now, Captain. It looks like Engineering is green.”

"How's our power levels looking?" Taiga asked directing her attention to the Operations station.

It had taken weeks to get just right, but her EV suit with a dozen power booster packs and a good sized tank of her native air supply, was working. It was single use; she expected the whole thing would fall apart within a few hours of leaving her quarters, but there she was, encased in an airtight suit at her bridge station. She gave the Captain a thumbs-up.

"Do you have a flight path plotted and locked in Jased?" Taiga asked directing her question to the Cardassian helmsman.

Lieutenant Yuvek had spent the past hour checking and then re-checking the finalized flight path for the vessel. Plotting the course for a planet-side vessel was different than when the ship was in space. There were numerous various that had to be taken into account such as the planet's distance from the nearest star, the gravitational pull of the planet compared to that of its nearest moon. Even the pressure of sunlight on the Tokyo could add up over time and push the vessel off course.

However, now was not the time to go into the weeds about the flightpath. All that mattered was that a plan was in place and Jasad was prepared to follow it.

"Aye ma'am, Helm stands ready." He said.

Taiga looked at Thomas and gave him a brief smile. "Commander. Inform the crew that we're ready to take off." She said simply as she gripped the ends of the arms on her chair. The tension was really starting to build now, if this attempt failed then it would likely mean their demise. However there was no way she was going to stay here, she would rather take that risk than become stranded for the rest of her, and her child's life on some unknown, unnamed desolate planet.

"With pleasure." He replied as he pressed ship wide communications. "Attention all crew, and... esteemed guests. The time that we have all been waiting for... all be it some a lot longer than others.... have arrived. If all goes to plan, within the next week, we should all be back where we belong whether it be ferengi, cardassia, the federation, or the klingon home world. Brace for a rough ride, baton down the hatches so to speak, and say a prayer to whoever you believe... it never hurts." He turned to the Captain... "Lets get out of here shall we."

Taiga and Thomas were joined in the command pit by a presence which had been absent until recently: Major Chiyo Shimada had taken her place in the second officer's chair.

"Marines and security are finishing final preparations; battening down the last hatches." She reported, turning to the assembled ship commanders. "Are you all ready?"

"Fourteen years I've waited- others here even longer." Chiyo's fiancé Tatsuo responded. "Now, it's the moment of truth."

For both Chiyo and Tatsuo, the feeling was surreal; as it was the first- and likely only- time that they would share the bridge of a starship together. And if everything worked out, they would be on their way to spending the rest of their lives together. Or if they didn't survive the attempt, they would at least still be together for all eternity...

Talia was on the bridge sitting in her seat, she wasn’t going to hide away in her office for this one, she was going to be at her husband’s side no matter what happened.

---

[Outside]

The hot and dry silence of the desert was suddenly broken by the sound of the thrusters on the Tokyo firing. Sand and dust was thrown high into the air, swirling around and creating a huge fluffy cloud around the Federation Starship. To anyone on the ground it looked like a deadly sandstorm, blasting out in all directions.

Then, the Tokyo began to emerge from out the top of the cloud until it was finally clear. It's thrusters firing keeping it in the air. As the sand and dust dispersed, the impulse engine vents slowly turned from gray to bright red and a soft humming rippled through the air.

[Bridge]

"We have liftoff, Captain," Chisato reported from the intel station.

"Take us up!" Taiga ordered. "Full power to impulse engines, bring the boosters online but keep them ready for when we hit the mesosphere." She added.

"Onward and upward..." Lt. Yuvek said to himself as he inputted the flight coordinates and guided the vessel along its planned trajectory. It did not take long for the vessel to reach the mesosphere level of the planet, approximately 50 to 80 km above the surface.

The Tokyo shook and shuddered as it ascended up through the atmosphere of the planet. Taiga gripped the arms of her chair as the ship made its way higher and higher. "Activate the boosters! Take us to full thrust! Keep an eye on those inertial dampeners!"

"Bringing thrusters online," The Cardassian said. A quick glance at his console showed him that the turbulence the ship was experiencing was a result of the ship's speed. He slowly brought the thrusters online, but did not want to bring them to full power yet.

Talia gave Thomas a look that showed just how nervous she was at this point, it didn’t help that she was feeling everyone else’s nerves and fears as well.

Thomas stood up, and motioned for her to go to his seat. With a railing right beside the first officers chair, it gave him something to brace himself on.

Talia knew better than to refuse when Thomas offered his seat so she moved across into it hanging on tightly as she did so.

"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.

To be continued...

 

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