Twenty Minutes Until Sinkhole Collapse
In the two minutes since Taurik’s call had come in from Engineering, Madden had had the bridge crew check all systems and confirm readiness. Xharis and Nalan were at Conn and Ops respectively, neither one of them had shown any signs that they couldn’t handle what was about to come, and Madden had no intention of replacing them. Lang stood at her console, monitoring their shields—which were still at ninety-six percent. Watson was at Science, whilst Cadet T’Rees was at Environmental, which had been modified to act as support to Watson. Inaz stayed at Mission Ops, though Stratton had been assigned to impulse control to help Lieutenant Ross. In his place was Lieutenant Deborah Chung, the Beta Shift Watch Officer, whilst her contemporary from Gamma Shift, Lieutenant sh’Thariss, was in auxiliary control with a full crew of her own—just in case anything happened to the bridge.
Everyone had reported in their ready status, and all of them were eager to get back to normal space—their normal space.
“Mr Xharis,” Madden began.
“Moving into optimum position Commander,” the Betazoid cadet finished for him. After a few moments he looked back. “Holding in position now sir.”
Madden nodded and looked at Ops. “Cadet Nalan, are the Bell and Mekong out of the way?”
The J’naii checked the sensors for and nodded. “Yes sir, both ships are five hundred meters behind us. They won’t interfere with the Yosemite.”
“Keep them on that course.” He then turned to the two science cadets. “Are you ready Watson?”
“The resonance pulse has been set to our quantum signature, but I’m ready to fine tune it if needed sir,” she replied, not looking away from her controls.
He glanced over at Chung, who gave him an ‘OK’ hand gesture. He spun back to face the viewscreen and tapped the intraship link. A boatswain’s whistle sounded and he took a deep breathe. “All hands, this is Commander Madden. We are about to execute our escape plan. Secure all non-essential systems and brace yourselves—” he hesitated for a second, thinking he should say something rousing or profound, but nothing came to mind, so he settled for, “Good luck to us all. Madden out.”
With that done he nodded to Chung. “Charge deflector.”
She tapped the control panel. “Deflector charging,” she replied. “Seventy seconds to full power.”
Madden gripped the armrests of his chair tightly, but when he noticed his knuckles turning white he relaxed his grip. Though he was nervous, he shouldn’t broadcast those feelings to his crew—although he was pretty sure that Xharis could feel what he (and no doubt what the rest of the crew) did, the young helmsman was holding together incredibly well.
Chung counted down how long until the deflector was at full power. “Deflector charged,” she announced, her voice wavering slightly.
“Activate deflector dish.”
On the viewscreen, a bright yellow beam of energy—so bright it was almost white—cut through the blue-grey energies that surrounded them. But as soon as the deflector was activated, the ship vibrated again, harder than any of the previous times.
“Gravitational shift sir,” reported T’Rees. “It is ninety percent stronger than previous fluctuations.”
Just then, alarms sounded from Science, Tactical and Operations. Madden looked away from the viewscreen. “Report!” he barked.
“Radiation levels increasing rapidly,” stated Lang. “I’m also reading some kind of magnetic feedback. It is impacting on our shields. They are down to ninety-five percent.”
“Our deflector pulse seems to be having a negative effect on the fissure,” added Nalan. “Its rate of collapse is increasing. Estimate closure of the sinkhole in eight minutes.”
“The shift has knocked the deflector out of alignment,” said Watson, the tension clear in her voice. “I’m going to have to adjust it manually in order to create an opening to our reality.”
“How long?” he asked the scientist.
“It will take a few minutes,” she replied, already working on her calculations and adjustments.
“Shields down to ninety-four percent and continuing to fall. I can’t sure up the energy drop.”
Madden looked up at Lang as the young woman worked furiously to restore their shields. He remained quiet for a few moments, hoping that she would find the problem and stop it. But as she worked, he saw the scowl she wore grow deeper as her attempts to keep the shields up met with no success.
“Damn!” she yelped. Looking up at Madden she told him, “The magnetic feedback is draining our shields. There’s nothing I can do. If we divert more power into them, it will just increase the rate they’re collapsing.”
“How long until they drop to seventy percent?” he asked. If the shields went below that level, they wouldn’t protect the crew from the quantum radiation, and their escape attempt wouldn’t mean a thing.
“At present rate, three-point-seven minutes.”
Madden glanced at Watson, who continued to work quickly. He knew that she was good at what she did, but that was in the classroom, not a life and death situation, where the lives of one hundred and twenty people were on her shoulders. Come on Watson, he mentally encouraged her. He stayed quiet however, not wanting to distract her or have her waste time with explanations or reports.
The Yosemite shuddered harder. Hold together old girl. Just a few minutes and we’ll be back home. Just a little bit longer.
Nalan turned from his console and looked back up Madden. “Sir, rate of collapse has increased again. We have less than four minutes.”
“Shields at ninety percent.”
“Sir,” Chung spoke up. “Deflector power relays are showing signs of overheating. I’d say—” she was cut off when the ship juddered to port. An alarm blared on the Engineering console as the stabilisers levelled the ship. Chung checked her readouts and gasped in horror. “Power conduit seventeen-gamma just breached, deflector output dropping.”
“Commander, we can’t punch through the subspace barrier without the maximum power output of the dish,” Watson added.
He slapped the intercom on his armrest. “Engineering, we need more power to the deflector!”
“The conduit we lost was routing phaser power to the dish. Without it, I cannot re-established a direct energy transfer link,” reported Taurik, who was somehow still managing to sound calm. In that moment, Madden envied his emotional discipline.
“Can’t you take power from anywhere else?”
“Warp power is already diverted to the deflector. We will need all we can in the shields, impulse engines, and structural integrity. I have the emergency batteries ready to generate the static warp bubble. The only available power we have is life-support.”
“Shut it down and divert all you can to the deflector dish!” he ordered. In order to keep the crew alive and comfortable, a substantial amount of energy was used in life-support. But even after it was shut down, a ship the size of the Yosemite would have enough breathable air for several hours. Besides, without the deflector dish, the ship would be crushed in a matter of minutes and life-support wouldn’t be necessary.
“Aye sir. Shutting down life-support and diverting energy.”
Ten seconds later, all the red indicators on Chung’s console turned either green or yellow. “Power levels have risen to just within optimum sir.”
A few moments after she made her report, he heard an excited squeal from Watson. “Quantum signature aligned and locked sir!”
“Sensors show an aperture forming,” T’Rees added.
“Shields at eighty-four percent.”
Madden felt a surge of hope, but quickly clamped down on it. Now was not the time to get sloppy. Just then, the Yosemite lurched again. No alarms sounded, so he breathed a soft sigh of relief. The Oberth-Class might have been small, under powered, minimally armed, and phased out of active service, but the designers had built the ship to handle gravitational wave-fronts and distortion fields in the pursuit of scientific enquiry. She was a tough old crone.
“Size of opening?” he asked after a few seconds. On the viewscreen, he could make out a tiny spot of black against the blue-grey.
“Twenty meters in diameter,” stated Nalan. The Yosemite was forty-one meters high and eighty-seven meters wide. “Sinkhole collapse in two minutes.”
“Shields at seventy-eight percent,” stated Lang, her voice becoming tight.
The shacking was getting worse, and was almost constant. Madden had tightened his grip on the armrest once again, this time he didn’t care if his knuckles were white. This was a tough situation on himself, his ship and his crew, and if he wasn’t nervous now then something would have been very wrong with him. I bet Jean-Luc Picard and Robert DeSoto still get nervous every once in a while!
“Size?”
“Fifty meters.”
“Shields at seventy-five percent.”
“Damn,” he uttered quietly to himself. Sitting back in his seat, he looked at the forward consoles. “Xharis we’ll have to punch our way through—”
“Maximum impulse, aye!” he called back.
Madden turned to Chung. “Activate static warp bubble.”
“Bubble activated,” she replied instantly.
“All hands, brace for impact,” Lang called into the intercom. As soon as the commlink closed, she added, “Shields at seventy-three percent.”
The Yosemite moved towards the black spot, their deflector dish continuing its resonance pulse, slowly expanding the opening—though still no where near large enough for the ship to pass through safely. Madden kept his eyes on the viewscreen, saying a silent prayer to any deity that was listening.
Xharis kept their course straight and true, and in a matter of seconds they ploughed into the too-small opening. The ship slammed forward, throwing Madden and others from their seats. They shook violently. Metal groaned, more klaxons sounded, consoles—vacated when their operators had been thrown to the deck—sparked and blinked off and on as they lost power, the smell of burning metal and plastics filled the bridge (with life-support offline the scrubbers weren’t clearing the smoke or smell from the air).
But then the shaking stopped. The hull grew quiet, no longer under incredible stresses and strain. The klaxons and alarms remained however, as did the thick, foul-smelling air.
As Madden tried to get to his feet, a jolt of pain shot through his body, making him cry out with agony. He clenched his jaw shut and tried to breathe through the pain. Great, something’s broken, he told himself. As he tried once again to get to his feet, Cadet T’Rees helped him carefully. Once standing, the Vulcan ran a tricorder over Madden’s torso, and paused at his left shoulder for a more detailed scan.
“You have dislocated your shoulder Commander. I shall inform sickbay.”
He quickly looked around to see that they were either back at their consoles or dealing with a small fire from the MSD panel at the back of the bridge. They all looked to be in better shape than he was, a few cuts or bruises, but nothing more. “Negative Mr T’Rees. I can live with this for now, let sickbay worry about others first.”
With that he stepped down to forward consoles. Nalan had a shiner of a black eye, but remained at Ops. Xharis had a bloody cut on his right cheek, which he’d wiped at with his sleeve, leaving a deep red stain on the arm of his grey jacket.
“Where are we?”
“Right where we are suppose to be Commander,” Xharis replied. “I’m picking up links from Sector 20 nav-beacons, as well as the signal from out own marker buoy.”
“Damage?”
“Main deflector is completely burned out. We have fires and power outages across the ship, DC teams are on top of them. The damage we originally took to our port nacelle has gotten worse, all of the coils are fused; warp drive is offline. Life-support is still down. There are no hull breaches this time sir.”
“That’s one piece of good news at least. How about subspace communications?”
“The damage from out first crossing is nearly repaired. We should have the comm array back online in less than thirty minutes.”
“It’s top priority Cadet. We’ll be needing a tow to Starbase 170 for full repairs.” He headed up to the upper level, where Chung and Inaz had put out the fire and were checking on the display, and where T’Rees now stood beside Watson at Science. He left Chung and Inaz to their systems checks, and moved to the two science cadets. “Where is the fissure now?”
“It’s just sealed itself Commander. No signs of any shockwaves of subspace disturbances,” Watson told him, sounding relieved.
“What about the original anomaly we picked up?”
“Gone sir—or at least what sensors we have left aren’t picking anything up,” she quickly amended.
Before he could reply, Lang spoke up from Tactical, “Sir.” Her tone was hollow, her expression carefully composed.
He looked back at Watson. “Keep monitoring it,” he ordered then moved to his Tactical Officer. “What is it?” he asked quietly.
“Casualty reports have come in from sickbay. Twenty-seven injured, four serious. Two,” her voice tightened, “dead.”
Madden set his right hand on her console to support himself. The bridge fell quiet, and they all turned to look at Lang and Madden. He could see the worry in their eyes. Looking Lang straight in the eyes, he asked, “Who?”
“Cadets Oliver Wilson and Sandra Collins. Their DC team was stationed in the same section as power conduit seventeen-gamma. They never made it out before the containment bulkheads sealed.”
Closing his eyes, he felt tears well in his eyes, anger in his chest and grief in his heart. They had been his crew. Both of them were senior cadets. Wilson was specialising in structural engineering and starship design, whilst Collins was a pilot, a damn good one going by what he’d seen of her. He fought back his emotional response to punch the closest bulkhead. There would be time to grieve later; they still had a lot to do before then.
“Chung, Inaz, Nalan, T’Rees. Get below and help with repairs. Watson, cover Ops.” As the Chung and the cadets, headed for the turbolift, he moved over to the Engineering console, to get a better look at just how bad the damage was. The numbness he now felt, masked even the pain from his dislocated shoulder. There will be time to grieve later.
***
In the two minutes since Taurik’s call had come in from Engineering, Madden had had the bridge crew check all systems and confirm readiness. Xharis and Nalan were at Conn and Ops respectively, neither one of them had shown any signs that they couldn’t handle what was about to come, and Madden had no intention of replacing them. Lang stood at her console, monitoring their shields—which were still at ninety-six percent. Watson was at Science, whilst Cadet T’Rees was at Environmental, which had been modified to act as support to Watson. Inaz stayed at Mission Ops, though Stratton had been assigned to impulse control to help Lieutenant Ross. In his place was Lieutenant Deborah Chung, the Beta Shift Watch Officer, whilst her contemporary from Gamma Shift, Lieutenant sh’Thariss, was in auxiliary control with a full crew of her own—just in case anything happened to the bridge.
Everyone had reported in their ready status, and all of them were eager to get back to normal space—their normal space.
“Mr Xharis,” Madden began.
“Moving into optimum position Commander,” the Betazoid cadet finished for him. After a few moments he looked back. “Holding in position now sir.”
Madden nodded and looked at Ops. “Cadet Nalan, are the Bell and Mekong out of the way?”
The J’naii checked the sensors for and nodded. “Yes sir, both ships are five hundred meters behind us. They won’t interfere with the Yosemite.”
“Keep them on that course.” He then turned to the two science cadets. “Are you ready Watson?”
“The resonance pulse has been set to our quantum signature, but I’m ready to fine tune it if needed sir,” she replied, not looking away from her controls.
He glanced over at Chung, who gave him an ‘OK’ hand gesture. He spun back to face the viewscreen and tapped the intraship link. A boatswain’s whistle sounded and he took a deep breathe. “All hands, this is Commander Madden. We are about to execute our escape plan. Secure all non-essential systems and brace yourselves—” he hesitated for a second, thinking he should say something rousing or profound, but nothing came to mind, so he settled for, “Good luck to us all. Madden out.”
With that done he nodded to Chung. “Charge deflector.”
She tapped the control panel. “Deflector charging,” she replied. “Seventy seconds to full power.”
Madden gripped the armrests of his chair tightly, but when he noticed his knuckles turning white he relaxed his grip. Though he was nervous, he shouldn’t broadcast those feelings to his crew—although he was pretty sure that Xharis could feel what he (and no doubt what the rest of the crew) did, the young helmsman was holding together incredibly well.
Chung counted down how long until the deflector was at full power. “Deflector charged,” she announced, her voice wavering slightly.
“Activate deflector dish.”
On the viewscreen, a bright yellow beam of energy—so bright it was almost white—cut through the blue-grey energies that surrounded them. But as soon as the deflector was activated, the ship vibrated again, harder than any of the previous times.
“Gravitational shift sir,” reported T’Rees. “It is ninety percent stronger than previous fluctuations.”
Just then, alarms sounded from Science, Tactical and Operations. Madden looked away from the viewscreen. “Report!” he barked.
“Radiation levels increasing rapidly,” stated Lang. “I’m also reading some kind of magnetic feedback. It is impacting on our shields. They are down to ninety-five percent.”
“Our deflector pulse seems to be having a negative effect on the fissure,” added Nalan. “Its rate of collapse is increasing. Estimate closure of the sinkhole in eight minutes.”
“The shift has knocked the deflector out of alignment,” said Watson, the tension clear in her voice. “I’m going to have to adjust it manually in order to create an opening to our reality.”
“How long?” he asked the scientist.
“It will take a few minutes,” she replied, already working on her calculations and adjustments.
“Shields down to ninety-four percent and continuing to fall. I can’t sure up the energy drop.”
Madden looked up at Lang as the young woman worked furiously to restore their shields. He remained quiet for a few moments, hoping that she would find the problem and stop it. But as she worked, he saw the scowl she wore grow deeper as her attempts to keep the shields up met with no success.
“Damn!” she yelped. Looking up at Madden she told him, “The magnetic feedback is draining our shields. There’s nothing I can do. If we divert more power into them, it will just increase the rate they’re collapsing.”
“How long until they drop to seventy percent?” he asked. If the shields went below that level, they wouldn’t protect the crew from the quantum radiation, and their escape attempt wouldn’t mean a thing.
“At present rate, three-point-seven minutes.”
Madden glanced at Watson, who continued to work quickly. He knew that she was good at what she did, but that was in the classroom, not a life and death situation, where the lives of one hundred and twenty people were on her shoulders. Come on Watson, he mentally encouraged her. He stayed quiet however, not wanting to distract her or have her waste time with explanations or reports.
The Yosemite shuddered harder. Hold together old girl. Just a few minutes and we’ll be back home. Just a little bit longer.
Nalan turned from his console and looked back up Madden. “Sir, rate of collapse has increased again. We have less than four minutes.”
“Shields at ninety percent.”
“Sir,” Chung spoke up. “Deflector power relays are showing signs of overheating. I’d say—” she was cut off when the ship juddered to port. An alarm blared on the Engineering console as the stabilisers levelled the ship. Chung checked her readouts and gasped in horror. “Power conduit seventeen-gamma just breached, deflector output dropping.”
“Commander, we can’t punch through the subspace barrier without the maximum power output of the dish,” Watson added.
He slapped the intercom on his armrest. “Engineering, we need more power to the deflector!”
“The conduit we lost was routing phaser power to the dish. Without it, I cannot re-established a direct energy transfer link,” reported Taurik, who was somehow still managing to sound calm. In that moment, Madden envied his emotional discipline.
“Can’t you take power from anywhere else?”
“Warp power is already diverted to the deflector. We will need all we can in the shields, impulse engines, and structural integrity. I have the emergency batteries ready to generate the static warp bubble. The only available power we have is life-support.”
“Shut it down and divert all you can to the deflector dish!” he ordered. In order to keep the crew alive and comfortable, a substantial amount of energy was used in life-support. But even after it was shut down, a ship the size of the Yosemite would have enough breathable air for several hours. Besides, without the deflector dish, the ship would be crushed in a matter of minutes and life-support wouldn’t be necessary.
“Aye sir. Shutting down life-support and diverting energy.”
Ten seconds later, all the red indicators on Chung’s console turned either green or yellow. “Power levels have risen to just within optimum sir.”
A few moments after she made her report, he heard an excited squeal from Watson. “Quantum signature aligned and locked sir!”
“Sensors show an aperture forming,” T’Rees added.
“Shields at eighty-four percent.”
Madden felt a surge of hope, but quickly clamped down on it. Now was not the time to get sloppy. Just then, the Yosemite lurched again. No alarms sounded, so he breathed a soft sigh of relief. The Oberth-Class might have been small, under powered, minimally armed, and phased out of active service, but the designers had built the ship to handle gravitational wave-fronts and distortion fields in the pursuit of scientific enquiry. She was a tough old crone.
“Size of opening?” he asked after a few seconds. On the viewscreen, he could make out a tiny spot of black against the blue-grey.
“Twenty meters in diameter,” stated Nalan. The Yosemite was forty-one meters high and eighty-seven meters wide. “Sinkhole collapse in two minutes.”
“Shields at seventy-eight percent,” stated Lang, her voice becoming tight.
The shacking was getting worse, and was almost constant. Madden had tightened his grip on the armrest once again, this time he didn’t care if his knuckles were white. This was a tough situation on himself, his ship and his crew, and if he wasn’t nervous now then something would have been very wrong with him. I bet Jean-Luc Picard and Robert DeSoto still get nervous every once in a while!
“Size?”
“Fifty meters.”
“Shields at seventy-five percent.”
“Damn,” he uttered quietly to himself. Sitting back in his seat, he looked at the forward consoles. “Xharis we’ll have to punch our way through—”
“Maximum impulse, aye!” he called back.
Madden turned to Chung. “Activate static warp bubble.”
“Bubble activated,” she replied instantly.
“All hands, brace for impact,” Lang called into the intercom. As soon as the commlink closed, she added, “Shields at seventy-three percent.”
The Yosemite moved towards the black spot, their deflector dish continuing its resonance pulse, slowly expanding the opening—though still no where near large enough for the ship to pass through safely. Madden kept his eyes on the viewscreen, saying a silent prayer to any deity that was listening.
Xharis kept their course straight and true, and in a matter of seconds they ploughed into the too-small opening. The ship slammed forward, throwing Madden and others from their seats. They shook violently. Metal groaned, more klaxons sounded, consoles—vacated when their operators had been thrown to the deck—sparked and blinked off and on as they lost power, the smell of burning metal and plastics filled the bridge (with life-support offline the scrubbers weren’t clearing the smoke or smell from the air).
But then the shaking stopped. The hull grew quiet, no longer under incredible stresses and strain. The klaxons and alarms remained however, as did the thick, foul-smelling air.
As Madden tried to get to his feet, a jolt of pain shot through his body, making him cry out with agony. He clenched his jaw shut and tried to breathe through the pain. Great, something’s broken, he told himself. As he tried once again to get to his feet, Cadet T’Rees helped him carefully. Once standing, the Vulcan ran a tricorder over Madden’s torso, and paused at his left shoulder for a more detailed scan.
“You have dislocated your shoulder Commander. I shall inform sickbay.”
He quickly looked around to see that they were either back at their consoles or dealing with a small fire from the MSD panel at the back of the bridge. They all looked to be in better shape than he was, a few cuts or bruises, but nothing more. “Negative Mr T’Rees. I can live with this for now, let sickbay worry about others first.”
With that he stepped down to forward consoles. Nalan had a shiner of a black eye, but remained at Ops. Xharis had a bloody cut on his right cheek, which he’d wiped at with his sleeve, leaving a deep red stain on the arm of his grey jacket.
“Where are we?”
“Right where we are suppose to be Commander,” Xharis replied. “I’m picking up links from Sector 20 nav-beacons, as well as the signal from out own marker buoy.”
“Damage?”
“Main deflector is completely burned out. We have fires and power outages across the ship, DC teams are on top of them. The damage we originally took to our port nacelle has gotten worse, all of the coils are fused; warp drive is offline. Life-support is still down. There are no hull breaches this time sir.”
“That’s one piece of good news at least. How about subspace communications?”
“The damage from out first crossing is nearly repaired. We should have the comm array back online in less than thirty minutes.”
“It’s top priority Cadet. We’ll be needing a tow to Starbase 170 for full repairs.” He headed up to the upper level, where Chung and Inaz had put out the fire and were checking on the display, and where T’Rees now stood beside Watson at Science. He left Chung and Inaz to their systems checks, and moved to the two science cadets. “Where is the fissure now?”
“It’s just sealed itself Commander. No signs of any shockwaves of subspace disturbances,” Watson told him, sounding relieved.
“What about the original anomaly we picked up?”
“Gone sir—or at least what sensors we have left aren’t picking anything up,” she quickly amended.
Before he could reply, Lang spoke up from Tactical, “Sir.” Her tone was hollow, her expression carefully composed.
He looked back at Watson. “Keep monitoring it,” he ordered then moved to his Tactical Officer. “What is it?” he asked quietly.
“Casualty reports have come in from sickbay. Twenty-seven injured, four serious. Two,” her voice tightened, “dead.”
Madden set his right hand on her console to support himself. The bridge fell quiet, and they all turned to look at Lang and Madden. He could see the worry in their eyes. Looking Lang straight in the eyes, he asked, “Who?”
“Cadets Oliver Wilson and Sandra Collins. Their DC team was stationed in the same section as power conduit seventeen-gamma. They never made it out before the containment bulkheads sealed.”
Closing his eyes, he felt tears well in his eyes, anger in his chest and grief in his heart. They had been his crew. Both of them were senior cadets. Wilson was specialising in structural engineering and starship design, whilst Collins was a pilot, a damn good one going by what he’d seen of her. He fought back his emotional response to punch the closest bulkhead. There would be time to grieve later; they still had a lot to do before then.
“Chung, Inaz, Nalan, T’Rees. Get below and help with repairs. Watson, cover Ops.” As the Chung and the cadets, headed for the turbolift, he moved over to the Engineering console, to get a better look at just how bad the damage was. The numbness he now felt, masked even the pain from his dislocated shoulder. There will be time to grieve later.
***
