We're Gonna Die!

Posted on Tue Mar 2nd, 2021 @ 8:06pm by Captain Benjamin Ingram Dr & Lieutenant Commander Meilin Jiang & Senior Chief Petty Officer Sharona Deluna

Mission: S2:3: Snow Drift
Location: The USS Magnificent
Timeline: MD2: 13.00

There had been an explosion. Something with the experiment had gone wrong. Something had gone wrong with her career. Something was wrong with her crew. Something was wrong with her ship came disjointed thoughts to Lieutenant Jillian "Socket" Toomey as she was dashed from one side of her chair to the other in the center seat of the small Aquarius class escort.

Suddenly, the EMH appeared, a large black bald man with a lisp and started to sing before it punched the Helmsman out.

"What's next?!" she screamed. "Someone stabilize us before we..."

Suddenly she saw a giant space station appear through the viewscreen before the ship tumbled again. "Oh shit!"

"Warning. Wanring. Proximity alert. Proximity alert."

The computer sang the sad lament that was usually the final swan song of any black box recording. And today was no different.

"Engineering to bridge, what in the Sam pickin' hell of all spit ya'all done up there!" came an angry voice from the speaker. "I've got three Class F metal fires happening down here! Three of them! And they only packed a single extinguisher for a Class F into this little shoebox of a starship! Also we have a compartment flooding with reaction mass, so if any of you need to access the cargo bay on deck three I'd suggest swimming drunks and a shot of iodine."

"Power systems are completely unstable," reported an ex-Borg officer at the Operations console. "I would reroute auxiliary power to stabilizers if I could do so without blowing out half the EPS grid!"

JP shoved the unconscious Helmsman out of the chair and fell into it. She worked the controls for a minute, then cursed. "Does anyone know Flight?" She shouted as the ship continued to spin out of control.

"How hard could it be?!" the ex-B shouted back. "They assign provisional ensigns to the helm of flagships!"

"Do something!" JP begged before another twist of the ship banged her head off the console.

"Autopilot engaged," the computer said. The Magnificent stabilized itself after a moment and came to a stop in space with a foot to go from the station.

"See?" the ex-B said. "Wasn't nothing to it."

"Jeebus [EDITED] me in the [EDITED] Captain Crotch!" JP said as she peeled her head off the console and looked up at the station not a foot away. "Re...report."

"Well, for one thing the onboard universal translator seems to be censoring profanity on the bridge," said the ex-B lieutenant. "Let's see..." After running his hands over the console, he let out a random, "Shit!" Following that up with a chuckle and a huzzah, he said, "At least that's fixed!"

The turbolift door opened, and a walking cliche swaggered in carrying a still flaming metal rod. Even his Montanan ranchers hat, his pride and joy, was scorched.

"Someone mind telling me what the fucking problem is with folks respecting the laws of goddamned psychics!...Oh, hey the censor thing turned off. Thanks to them that did that," Reggie 'Mad' Hawthorn said as he waved the flaming metal spar. "See this here abomination against nature? This is going up the rear exhaust of the sonnovabitch who went and wrecked my perfectly good engine room!"

"Goddamnit, would you both shut the fuck up?!" JP ordered as she wiped a spot of blood off of her head. "The next person that gives me anything other than a report on what happened is going into the torpedo tube and fired into a black hole!"

"Well, I ain't no scientific wonderkin or what not," Reggie said as he rubbed his forehead. "But I reckon the fancy experiment in flying faster than the Maker intended a living being to fly might have something to do with why my engine room's on fire and one of the antimatter pod's in the fuel bunker's making a sloshing sound. Which, for point of clarity, it should not be doing without blowing us to bits."

He leaned over one of the consoles and looked at the readings.

"I thought the test station was one of them modular space office things you see cluttering up low orbit. Since when did it hit a growth spurt and turn into a Spacedock?" Reggie said what they were all thinking. "And since when were we near a star system? Thought the whole idea of this test flight was to make sure the space whiz bang didn't blow up suns as an exhaust biproduct?"

"I don't know if it blew up," sh'Zam muttered as she crawled out from under a console, her antennae pitched backwards in annoyance. "But I could have sworn it went rhombus for a moment when the whiz bang orgasmed."

"Premature subspace ejection," Reggie tutted with a shake of his head. "Thought the Maggie was too new for that."

"I just want you all to know that I hate my life," JP said. "Someone contact this station and find out where the hell we are."

"Noted," Reggie said as he drifted over to the comm's station, whose usual operator was currently on the deck under the console competing in a competitive Panic Attack with the ensign who was meant to be overseeing the life support.

"Er...well if I'm reading this right we're getting hailed by the Station and a fleet of starships. Who'd you want to put on first, I got a Captian 'Ing'em on the Station, and there's a Commodore Grissom pinging up from the parking swarm. Dealer's choice."

The exB let out a whoop of alarm in imitation of red alert. "I'm detecting dozens of target locks from orbital weapons platforms throughout the entire system. These aren't your standard Starfleet fare. Wherever the crap nebula this is, I don't think it's anywhere we want to be..."

"Commodore, Captain, just get someone on!" JP shouted as she stabbed at the Communications panel. "This is Lieutenant Jillian Toomey of the USS Magnificent! Don't fire!"

"You are not in a position to make demands Lieutenant!" The face of an older human male with grey hair appeared. The chevron pips on his collar marked him as a Commodore, though his attitude did a lot for that as well. "You appear out of no where, nearly rematerialising inside a Starbases reactor, and my tactical officers say your transponder code is not recognised by our database!"

"Is it just me...or are their uniforms a little off?" Reggie asked, looking down at his soot-stained duty uniform and then at the one on display on the other side of the view screen. Same colour scheme, black body with department colours, but there was an extra banding around the shoulders.

"Dump your reactor, power down and you'll be taken under tow to the station where you will not open your airlock until a Marine fire team is ready to perform a search alongside a medical quarantine squad. Failure to comply with this order is gonna be counterproductive to your longevity." Grissom growled. "If you're on the level we'll get this sorted out, but if you're some sort of trick of the Myriad so help me I'll kick your asses clear back to the Milky Way."

"Reggie, the reactor and power down this bitch," JT yelled. "Who are the Myriad?"

"No idea," Reggie said, as he busied himself with venting the reactor to space. The lights and consoles dimmed, some even turning off, as battery backups went into effect. "I'd focus a little more on that last bit. He said Milky Way. Last time I checked we were seventy light-years from Sol."

Looking up from the Ops console, the ex-Borg said, "Current astronomical readings place us in uncharted space, or my name isn't Song of Justice."

"I'm like 90% sure that is not your name," Reggie said, glancing up to look at the exB. "Maybe a hard 80% given you have the look of a liberal-minded Federation citizen under the technopunk exterior."

"Considering that you probably can't tell your cousin from a mountain goat because both are wife material, I'm going to disregard your assessment of how I look," Justice said. His Borg eyepiece flared as he spoke. "But please understand that I hold you in the highest respect."

"Commodore? Commodore?" JT tried to raise the station while her crew jabbered like Bithorian monkey spiders. Filthy creatures that they were. Too hyper by far and a brain the size of a small ball found in an abandoned corner by a pet that...nevermind. "COMMODORE!" she bellowed while jabbing the Communication panel.

"You wear the rank pips of a Lieutenant, you better start acting the part," the Commodore on the view screen said with a stern glower. "Because so far your crew doesn't sound or act like it could fend off a drunk Pakled incursion."

Justice cleared his throat. "In point of fact, the Ex-Borg Cooperative has successfully fended off drunken Pakled raids on a number of occasions." The Borg metacarpal implants flexed as he raised his finger in explanation. "The secret is to deploy decoys."

"Shut up, you Targs!" She shouted at her crew. "Whoever you are, Commodore, I put myself under your command."

"Just yourself or the entire ship?" Justice asked. "Just clarifying in the event you've defected."

"Does that make the captain now?" Reggie asked, as he dofted his charred hat. "'cause Cap'n Reginald Madison Hawthorn has a certain ring to it."

"You'll all be lucky if you don't end up on charges, Commodore Grissom clear." The view screen winked out, and the little starship wobbled slightly as a pair of tug's nuzzled up beside it and began to manhandle it into the gaping maw of the space dock.

"Also, and this is just an observation, he does not seem to be an agreeable soul. Downright unreasonable is the term I believe," Reggie said with an authoritative nod.

"I'm inclined to agree with you, Reggie," JT said with a sigh as she ended the comm and looked ahead. "Now I'm wishing the warp core had just blown."

"Does this mean we can break for lunch?" Justice asked. He pulled out an electronic atomizer and took a deep hit off it. "If not, then I'm happy to take my break here at my station." Vapor billowed out from his lips and nostrils to fill half the bridge.

"Hey! HEY! You cyborg sonnovabitch!" Reggie growled, seeming ready to crwl over the console to come at Justice. "No vaping on the bridge! If I gotta tell you one more time so help me I'll make you smoke for reasons other than recreational!"

Justice frowned in confusion at Reggie. "I'm not sure how to process that."

"Put that thing away or I'll set you on fire and then you'll be smoking for real," JT hissed as the ship was pulled in. "Everyone....act like Starfleet!"

"Famous last words," Justice said as he stowed his electronic atomizer.