When Things Go Elliptical

Posted on Mon Oct 9, 2017 @ 12:32am by Commodore Michael Aravan & Lieutenant JG Zander Devereaux & Captain Madelina Weisz & Lieutenant Marisa Cheshire & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & Lieutenant Martha Cusack & Lieutenant Commander Kelani Tetanal & Lieutenant Commander Alex Rho & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes

Mission: Strange Matter
Location: Bridge
Timeline: MD 29 || 0900 Hours

Things were quiet on the bridge as the Gamma Shift handed over their duties to their Alpha Shift counterparts. So far, no news had been good news in regards to the virus that had killed the Romulans on the Science shift. The Commodore was still brooding over why the Typhon Pact had decided to claim the area near the Gavarian Corridor as their own after the Romulan ship had attacked and fled. The arrival of the Breen ship after that only made matters worse, but the fighters had chased it off after a exchange.

Michael sat in his Ready Room going over the events of the past day and took pride that he had a fine crew who would do everything in their power to take the ship out of danger or through it if need be. He glanced at the duty roster and saw that Commander Weisz had the bridge.

=^=Any reports, Commander Weisz?=^= he asked with a tap of his combadge.

=^=Nothing to report as of yet, Commodore.=^= Maddy replied as she sat in the center chair.

===Bridge===

Tom, who had just sat down at his console, was surprised when every alarm possible sounded from his station. He missed the days of old when the standard touch interfaces just had a master alarm. Now these new-fangled holographic interfaces had alarms for just about everything.

"Commander!" Tom called out, trying to silence the alarms and see what they all meant. "Sensors are picking up massive gravimetric distortions around a pocket of subspace." Just as he said it, the holographic displays and the lights began to flicker, as ship began to shudder. "Looks like we've got a graviton ellipse on our hands, ma'am!" he called out, working quickly to stabilize the power grid."

Oh, this just got better and better. The Commander jumped to her feet. "Corsa, get us the hell out of here and away from the ellipse," the redhead snapped. "Mallory, raise the shields and sound Red Alert. Cusack, prepare weapons just in case." She paused to take a breath before the orders continued. "Engineering... increase power, and Lieutenant Cheshire... you and the fighters return to the ship immediately."

===Space===

=^=Aye Aye sir.=^= Marisa's voice came in over the coms =^=All units, all units, this is the CAG. RTB at best speed. Combat landings authorised.=^=

In groups of four the fighters appeared near the Triumphant and proceeded to the hangars at high speed, landing simultaneously.

===Engineering===

=^=Engineering here,=^= Devereaux's voice came over the com.=^= Something is syphoning power from all over the damned place. What's going on?=^=

=^=Massive gravimetric distortions, Lieutenant Devereaux. Increase power, and see to it that it's maintained until further notice.=^= the Commander ordered.

===Bridge===

Martha powered up the phasers and torpedoes as requested. She always wondered how things like graviton ellipses could look so beautiful from the outside yet the effects they had were so dangerous. The neutronic storm Martha saw when she served on the Vindex was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen - although there wasn't much time to admire it as Captain Ainscow ordered them well away from it.

"Phasers and torpedoes on standby" Martha reported.

Douglas had no more taken his place at his console and reset the controls to his preferences when the alarms sounded. Frowning, he glanced at the Operations Officer. Before they made it that far, however, his eyes were caught by the viewscreen. He cursed softly in his native Marai before turning his attention to his board. Simultaneous with Commander Weisz's order, he was raising the shields. He followed with the Red Alert as ordered, then reported, "Shields up." If the power kept fluctuating, though, he could not predict how long they would stay that way. That was Engineering's problem, though. He did not envy Devereaux -- he heard the man respond over the communicator from Engineering. This could go very badly very quickly.

=^=Weisz to Aravan... we're close to a graviton ellipse. Now would be the time to send all civilians to the bunker.=^= Maddy said as the ship jolted violently. She gripped the arms of the center chair and gritted her teeth. This was going to get nasty. "Report!"

Michael bolted out of his seat and ran for the door, barely getting through it before it finished opening. He saw the ellipse on the screen and looked at the state of readiness. "Computer, intership com. Attention all civilians, report to the bunker. Repeat, report to the bunker," he called out as he went to the command platform. "Where did that come from?" he asked.

Tom was working frantically to keep the ship from falling apart, to avoid something he'd never encountered before. In the middle of it all, he spared some resources for the library computer, searching for anything about a graviton ellipse. In the middle of shunting power to the weakening impulse engines, something beeped in the results panel. He took a moment to review the readout before turning to the Commodore.

"Sir!" he called out. "We need to cut power to everything but the shields. We can also reverse the shield polarity. It should be enough to push us free."

"Cut power, Mister Barnes," Michael said before he looked over at Mallory's station. "Reverse polarity on those shields, Mister Mallory. Stand down, Mister Cusack. Mister Yeros, bring her about as soon as you're able and get us away from it."

"Commander," he said looking at Maddy. "Get Mister Rho to put every sensor frequency possible online for deep analysis of this area."

Douglas' hands slid over the holographic interface as his eyes tracked readings. Shield strength, polarity, frequency, etc. all flickered past him and were processed even as he carried out the commodore's order. As his hands ceased moving, the numbers indicating shield polarity changed. "Shield polarity reversed, sir." he reported immediately, eyes still flickering over his displays to keep abreast of any changes in any of those readings so that he could react immediately.

Tom's hands flew across the console, shutting down all power. In a few moments, the auxiliary generator went quiet, and the power tapped from the tricore ceased to spread to all systems, save for the shields, sensors and maneuvering thrusters. That, unfortunately, was the extent of his abilities. It would be up to Engineering to shut down at least one of the warp cores to reduce the vast amounts of power that were now unallocated.

In Engineering, Lieutenant Gefel and a team worked on shutting down a warp core when the order to cut power went out. Zander monitored the pool table and looked up when the power output dropped considerably. =^=Engineering reports power down.=^= he called over the comlink.

Martha immediately took all of the Triumphant's weapons offline and ensured they were made safe. With that confirmed she reported this to her Commanding Officer.

"All weapons offline and secured Commodore" Martha reported.

Maddy tapped her combadge. =^=Weisz to Lieutenant Rho... put every sensor frequency we have possible online to analyze this area.=^=

=^=Understood, Commander. I'm on it. Rho out.=^= The Intel Chief's fingers flew through the holographic interface, bringing on every sensor they had and focusing the arrays on the ellipse. =^=Rho to Weisz, all sensors are online and scanning the ellipse and surrounding area. We should have readings any second.=^=

=^=Acknowledged. Let me know what you find.=^= the Commander spoke.

=^=Rho to Weisz, sensors are picking up...oh, a dark matter asteroid.=^= This wasn't going to be good at all.

Maddy moved over to her own chair and sat in it quickly so the Commodore didn't need to stand any longer... especially with the jolting and jarring the ship was doing. =^=Thank you, Lieutenant. Standby.=^= she said before turning to Michael. There was no need for her to repeat anything as just about everyone on the bridge could hear what was said over the combadge. "We now have our answer, Sir. Helm... get us the hell out of here!"

Ensign Wahaya moved from the railing that the ship's shuddering had propelled her into and quickly resumed her seat at the Science Station, bringing up the sensor readouts as she did so.

"Sensor information coming in now," she reported, her hands flashing over the controls. "Correlating now..."

Even with main power online, Tom couldn't help but notice that the power levels continued to drop. "Commodore!" he called out. "I'm not showing that the reversed polarity is working. We're still continuing to lose power."

"That dark matter asteroid is big enough to punch a hole through us," the Commodore said as he looked at the sensor information. "Mr. Barnes, what's the estimated time of impact between us and the ellipse and us and the asteroid?"

The ellipse will be right on top of us in thirteen minutes." He looked up at the Commodore, frowning. "But we'll collide with the asteroid in eleven."

Michael looked at Maddy. "We have a choice, Commander," he said. "We can separate the saucer and send it out of the way and try to fight free of the ellipse while we take the battle bridge and destroy the asteroid, or we stay together and hope for the best."

Maddy turned her attention to Michael. Neither one of those sounded like the best option to her, but she immediately began to weigh the pros and console of each choice. It didn't take long before she came to a decision. "Separate the saucer. If nothing else, our civilians will be safe," she said, and while she didn't necessarily like the choice she just made, keeping the innocent safe was a priority.

Douglas frowned. Thirteen minutes. So much could happen in thirteen minutes. So many things could go either very right or very wrong. He looked at his readouts, noting the shield strength. Reversing the shields' polarity had not helped, but he had no orders to undo it; so instead, he simply ensured that those shields remained active to protect the ship from what they could. He silently prayed to the Mother Creator that it would be enough.

Michael double tapped the combadge on his chest to open a ship wide comm. =^=Attention all hands. Prepare for saucer separation. Report to your assigned stations.=^=
=^=Engineering, bring that warp core back

=^=One miracle coming right up, Commodore=^= A male voice responded.

Michael looked over at Maddy. "Do you want the saucer section or the battle bridge, Commander?" he asked her.

"I'll see to it that the civilians get to safety," Maddy replied as she rose to her feet. "We'll see each other when all of this is over, Commodore." With that, the Commander moved from the bridge to get to the other before the separation took place.

Ensign Wahaya frowned in thought. Even though the separation was necessary, she wanted to offer something constructive. She checked the sensors again and spoke slowly.

"Commodore, this may sound naive, but perhaps if we used a varying frequency used to push against the ellipse? It might give us more time...."

Michael shook his head. "We've never had the ability to study a graviton ellipse to even know what would work against it, Ensign," he said as he opened up a shipwide com. "The following personnel report to the battle bridge. Lieutenants Lischka, Cusack, Mirok, Hartley, Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes and Lieutenant Devereaux."

"I see,". Wahaya replied, crestfallen. Hiding a sigh, she turned back to her console, monitoring the sensor readings, hoping to find something that would be useful in this crisis.

[OOC Sandy: Nothing more for me to add.]