Hard to Starboard

[Kali Reyes]

Mission Title: Hard to Starboard

Synopsis: Upon navigating a black hole, a large civilian ship, the SS Tethys, is beaten severely from a rogue asteroid field and is nonoperational, with only hours left before it is sucked into the event horizon. Your ship is the closest to catch the distress call, but you are four hours away. They will disappear in two. All hands on deck - you are about to push your own ship to its absolute limit to try and save the 1,600 civilians trapped on board.

Starting Point: Ships throughout the quadrant receive a strange SOS in non-verbal (morse) code. After hailing other Federation ships, it is decided that your ship is the closest to reach the Tethys. Prepare all power to be diverted to the engines and push for rescue.

End Goal: A dice roll will decide how effective your ship managed to save the Tethys.

(12-11) All civilians and the ship itself are critically saved as you arrive in record time. Repairs are underway to bring Tethys back into survivable operation. Several SIMMs have also arrived to assist.

(10-9) All civilians and the ship are successfully saved. Tethys is operational, but unable to fly to the nearest starbase. It will have to be towed for repairs.

(8-7) All civilians and a 3/4 of the Tethys crew survive. The ship is too far towards the gravitational pull to be saved once everyone has successfully evacuated.

(6-5) Three quarters of the civilians survive. Few escape pods had left just as your ship arrives at the last possible moment but could not successfully navigate the asteroid field. Half of the Tethys crew survive. The ship is too far to be saved.

(4-3) Half of the civilians survive due to panic waiting for you to arrive. Most of the escape pods have been jettisoned for extraction, though some are destroyed in the asteroid field. Key personnel were found in the pods. The ship disappears into the event horizon mere minutes after your ship finally arrives.

(2-1) When your ship finally limps its way to arrival, there is no sign of the Tethys save for a few escape pods. 200 civilians are saved. The Tethys crew is ultimately lost. Approximately 1,400 civilians have perished, making it one of the worst civilian ship disasters in the last century.

Story points that must be passed?:

• Tethys' unusual distress call has hit every available ship it could reach. Operations must delegate with other ships to patch the broken message between them and then decide who is closest for assistance.
• Engineering must prepare to overclock engines for a speedy rescue. Flight Control has decided that it would take four hours to reach the Tethys. Science has calculated Tethy's coordinates with the black hole and announces they only have two hours to reach them. Operations offers solutions on subsystem allocation from non-essential systems to boost power to the engines.
• Tactical quickly administers an emergency alert for all officers to clock in for active duty. Security officers start guarding certain off-limit areas of the ship once life support is disabled there to conserve power.
• Once they reach the Carbonell system, the fancy navigational systems will be unreliable due to the asteroid field along with the black hole's gravitational fluctuations. Flight and Science must work together and navigate old-school to find the Tethys while dodging asteroids.
• Dice roll decides the ultimate outcome of the Tethys.

Departments:

• Flight: Knock out all extra navigation systems except for one for power conservation. They will have to try and chart the fastest course and pay special attention to asteroids once sensors go down.
• Engineering: Push the engines to its absolute limit for the maximum speed possible if you want to cut the travel time in half. Be forewarned, lots of cutting corners will have to happen, causing possible injury and/or repairs to be made.
• Operations: Allocate all non-essential systems for extra power to engineering (absolutely priority). Look out for any further coded messages from the Tethys to keep contact.
• Security and Tactical: Tactical is to run an emergency alert for all hands on deck and provide extraction scenarios for the Tethys. Security is to place several decks off-limits when life support is cut off to conserve energy.
• Medical: Keep an eye out for any ensuing injuries made by the crew and possible rescues. Most will forgo safety protocols as the ship is pushed to move faster.
• Science: The asteroid belt will start interfering with all available sensors. They will have to compile theoretical information on the size of the black hole, figure out a way to save as many sensors as possible for Flight, and provide active time calculations of how long before the Tethys treads the event horizon.

Additional Notes: I can provide the Tethys' CQD/SOS messages if needed as an NPC. Active player captains from other SIMMs can optionally guest star in a fleet-wide conference, and reach the consensus that (your ship) is the closest to reach the Tethys. If a critical roll, they may also guest star again as additional support to help save the Tethys.