S12 - M8: A New Toy

[T'Lulu May Soong]

Lieutenant Buehler paced back and forth trying to think of this "riddle" presented to him.  The words were spoken in the familiar ship's computer voice through his commbadge.

The android Ensign rubbed her chin for a moment, then began tapping at the OR's console again. 

"Doctor, I believe this is trying to show me a pattern.  Perhaps it is showing us the way to reach our patient." T'Lulu deduced.

"Does it make any sense to you?" Buehler added.

"Sort of..." Before T'Lulu could finish her thought...

[Conference Room]

  "All hands, this is the XO.  We are going for a hard reset of the main computer.  Prepare for system shutdown. Engineering teams, I want a full restart on the warp cores.  Make it so." 

...they heard over the intercomm.

All forms of mechanical power and electricity audibly cycled down.  The startling hum was followed by silence almost as loud.  The console screens faded to black, and the two medical officers were surrounded in darkness.

Not a moment too soon, emergency lights flickered on down the hallways. 

"Thank goodness for these little bug lights, but it's still hardly enough light to try and find a missing person." Evan compained.

T'Lulu closed her eyes and pressed a spot behind her ear.  Opening her eyelids revealed two intense beams of warm light that flickered when she blinked.  Good thing the android didn't actually need to blink.

"Wow..." Buehler stared.

Giving each other a nod, they headed out.  They both new that, even though they didn't know exactly where to go, the worst thing to do would be to stay here.

~ Meanwhile ~

Medical Officer Phoz continued calling for help through his commbadge, sadly to no avail.  One of the other medics walked around the area to check for any means of escape.  He found an airvent that led to a tunnel.

"Hey man, do we have a screwdriver or anything like that in our medkit?" he called back to his crew member.

"We're not mechanics." the medic paused. "How about a scalpel?"

"That should do it."

With the scalpel, the medic tried to pry the airvent open.  Suddenly, the faint sources of light became extinguished, and the team stood there in complete utter darkness.  There were certainly no emergency lamps where they were.

"Oh..... oh no.....oh mY GOD--" Phoz began to panic again.

Another medic hastily set up a few emergency lights they had in their kit. 

"Okay... okay.... remember your training.....THIS WASN'T PART OF MY TRAINING!"

"Phoz, man, you're gonna wake the girl." the medic exclaimed.

Irven Phoz was rather nervous for a Trill, because it was indeed his "first life" as one.  He lives a life of perfectionism, and figured that medical would be the best field for him.  He never expected to end up in a situation like this, though.  He should have known that anything can happen aboard a Federation starship.

[Ardyn Jaeger]

[Conference Room]

Nevir was frowning, but went to the replicator to get another couple of bio-tubes.  He placed them both on the table as she had the computer run a diagnostic, showing green across the board.

Nevir aimed at one of the two containers and fired again, watching the container vaporize like the first.  Two tests, and two times the phaser vaporized its target... yet it didn't when Injzana was targeted.

"I'm starting to think the Prophets are looking out for her..." he said, shaking his head.  Alex was silent... perhaps stunned.

With the call from the helm, the three nodded, leaving the room, and the phaser lying on the table.  Within seconds Nevir arrived on the bridge, while the captain made a beeline for her ready room.  He honestly couldn't blame her.

The Bajoran took his seat in the center chair, mulling over what Kimball had said earlier before he entered the room.  With no current science officer on the bridge, Nevir brought up the sensors on his own.

"There's a gravimetric wake pulling us towards a nebula... the Sandtrap?  Interesting." They were still heading backwards, almost pulled by the gravity intercept. 

"Mr. Kimball, I think we're going to go with your plan.  Prepare for a system-wide reset, and make sure life-support is isolated... I don't want to suffocate waiting for the power to come back."

He then turned to the helm.  "Bring us about and face us in our direction.  Shut down all propulsion."

"Everything is registering as normal... this would be the best time to do it." he said, checking all systems.

  "All hands, this is the XO.  We are going for a hard reset of the main computer.  Prepare for system shutdown. Engineering teams, I want a full restart on the warp cores.  Make it so." 

As he watched the bridge move into action, his thoughts were to sickbay. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.  And it would be the first time they had the entire ship shut down for any period of time.

"Hopefully this works..." he said, staring ahead.

[Don Damien Addams]

[Somehere in a dark corridor]

It was getting to weird for the ex-Starfleet officer. The ship had felt it was going backwards. DD quickly placed his center of his weight down as he felt the shift. Then. Things had to lean to more weird.

"All hands, this is the XO.  We are going for a hard reset of the main computer.  Prepare for system shutdown. Engineering teams, I want a full restart on the warp cores.  Make it so.

Phoz, man, you're gonna wake the girl." the medic exclaimed.

People were ahead. So he had done his best to shift his feet that direction as his hands was feeling against the wall. The truth was he was not liking this. Little fear was crawling up his lower spine and working its way up. The reason because he was indeed was the unknown and he was not sure it was other Starfleet folk.

There was a beam of lights. Two of them. Golden. He saw them about eye level. What the -?

[T'Ra Jones]

The Bajoran took his seat in the center chair, mulling over what Kimball had said earlier before he entered the room.  With no current science officer on the bridge, Nevir brought up the sensors on his own.

"There's a gravimetric wake pulling us towards a nebula... the Sandtrap?  Interesting." They were still heading backwards, almost pulled by the gravity intercept. 

"Mr. Kimball, I think we're going to go with your plan.  Prepare for a system-wide reset, and make sure life-support is isolated... I don't want to suffocate waiting for the power to come back."

He then turned to the helm.  "Bring us about and face us in our direction.  Shut down all propulsion."

"Everything is registering as normal... this would be the best time to do it." he said, checking all systems.

  "All hands, this is the XO.  We are going for a hard reset of the main computer.  Prepare for system shutdown. Engineering teams, I want a full restart on the warp cores.  Make it so." 

As he watched the bridge move into action, his thoughts were to sickbay. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.  And it would be the first time they had the entire ship shut down for any period of time. "Hopefully this works..." he said, staring ahead.

[Bridge]

T'Ra soon rejoined her XO on the bridge as systems began to power down. It started with the main lights and then all the consoles slowly going black, darkness enveloping the bridge. Officers talked in low voices amongst themselves, each naming a different figure of terror to describe what lay ahead.

She followed Tekin's gaze to look at the main viewer, but unlike the others, she could find no imagery that she could attribute to the nebulous anomaly in front of them, her mind spinning too quickly and stirred by other thoughts. And she was just so tired. Bed is too small for my tiredness. She hummed, the vibration in her chest putting her at ease as the thrum of warp core eased to a stop. Give me a ship on the sea. It was almost like gliding, the ship running on pure momentum. Tuck a sail up under my chin. T'Ra let out a deep breath. Don't steal my booty, please

[Tekin Nevir]

[Bridge]

The liberated borg was starting to feel just a bit overwhelmed.  There were just way too many blinking lights.   It was almost too much. 

But he took a breath.  Just to calm himself a bit.  "Aye, Sir.  Thank you.  I will start the process here in a second" EQ replied.

[Bridge]

Nevir made sure he took his seat when T'Ra entered, leaving her the Captain's chair, and gave a slow exhale.  "Excellent work, both of you.  Let's get this done with." he said, putting in his credentials.  With propulsion marked as offline, and engineering standing by at all warp cores, it was time.

"All hands.... begin shut down sequence." he said, watching as the telltale sound of power failure throughout the bulkheads and conduits.  In segments, lights and panels dulled and then went black all over the bridge, until the only source of power was from the viewscreen and the handful of red-emergency lights that really did nothing to illuminate anything on the bridge. 

Throughout the ship, the sounds of power turning off and the fading and blinking out of panels echoed as section by section, deck by deck, power was shut down completely.  As quick as he could, Steve the raptor used the emitters to send him to Ardyn's quarters, where it sat down and curled up before deactivating.

In the three engineering sections left the last illumination on the ship, as three warp reactors were still churning away.  The Chief Engineer stood in front of the main panel in front of the double-core, a comm link open to the other team on the dorsal core.

"Alright, 3...2...1...Mark"

Next were the lights and panels around the engineering rooms which dulled and blinked out, until the last light came from the warp cores, as the reaction chambers slowed and then faded to pitch black.  The sequence was complete, and the main computer was ready to be reset before they started up the ship again.

"We should give it a standard ten minutes for a full reset and then restore power.  I recommend you all pull out your wrist lights, or the lanterns if you want to wait it out where you are." he said, reaching for a panel on the bottom of his chair, and pulling out a cylinder.  He secured it magnetically to the top of the panel, and turned it on, giving the eerie glow of a camping lantern.

[Kirok]

[Bridge]

T'Ra soon rejoined her XO on the bridge as systems began to power down. It started with the main lights and then all the consoles slowly going black, darkness enveloping the bridge. Officers talked in low voices amongst themselves, each naming a different figure of terror to describe what lay ahead.

She followed Tekin's gaze to look at the main viewer, but unlike the others, she could find no imagery that she could attribute to the nebulous anomaly in front of them, her mind spinning too quickly and stirred by other thoughts. And she was just so tired. Bed is too small for my tiredness. She hummed, the vibration in her chest putting her at ease as the thrum of warp core eased to a stop. Give me a ship on the sea. It was almost like gliding, the ship running on pure momentum. Tuck a sail up under my chin. T'Ra let out a deep breath. Don't steal my booty, please

[Bridge]



EQ heard his name.  But it seemed that the one calling him was far far away.   He grabbed the bar at the edge of his station and closed his eyes.   The dizzing effect passed.

So he opened his eyes again.  Just long enough to answer the quetion he had been asked.  "Ma'am.  Yes, ma'am.  All department have reported in" he reported and then fell silent again.

[Christian Grix]

[Sickbay]

"Just frakkin wonderful" Black growled to himself as the power went off. He wiped his perspiring brow with a cloth and then back down at his patient a young security officer he had found walking around the corridor with blood pouring from a cut on her head and a concussion that left her not sure who she was.



"Well Ensign, It looks like I'm going to have to do this the old way". He again cleaned the blood from her face and looked at her eyes to see if she was watching him or still had the 1000 yard stare she had when he found her, "At least this will still work" he smiled as he picked up the dermal regenerator and flicked it on as he worked to close the wound.

"No scars I promise" he then put the tool down and moved to the side of the bed and took a seat. He took the Ensign's hand and squeezed it gently "Well Ensign Gomez, I'm not going anywhere until the lights come back on, so don't worry i'll make sure you are safe".

The air of confidence he gave out was for the benefit of Eva Gomez as in truth he had no idea what was going on.

[T'Ra Jones]

[Bridge]

"Alright, 3...2...1...Mark"

Next were the lights and panels around the engineering rooms which dulled and blinked out, until the last light came from the warp cores, as the reaction chambers slowed and then faded to pitch black.  The sequence was complete, and the main computer was ready to be reset before they started up the ship again.

"We should give it a standard ten minutes for a full reset and then restore power.  I recommend you all pull out your wrist lights, or the lanterns if you want to wait it out where you are." he said, reaching for a panel on the bottom of his chair, and pulling out a cylinder.  He secured it magnetically to the top of the panel, and turned it on, giving the eerie glow of a camping lantern.

[Bridge]

For the darkness they could have been anywhere. A silence settled over the bridge, feeling both eerie and peaceful at once, like snow falling on a graveyard. Somber faces partly illuminated by the light of the lanterns brought to mind the image of a vigil, and no doubt a number of them were whispering prayers silently to themselves, hoping this would do the trick.

T'Ra was not one of them. Instead, she found herself mouthing the words to a German lullaby, one that Evan had been singing to their daughter as he tried to sooth the young one to sleep.

[T'Lulu May Soong]

Lieutenant and Ensign walked down the dark, eerily quiet hallway.  T'Lulu's heeled boots tip tapped as her eyes illuminated their path. 

"Fell down a well.... set up camp.... turbine...?" Evan Buehler toyed with the riddle he'd received. 

"Could be a lot of places on this ship," the android added.  "I think the first place we should look is Engineering.  The pattern on the transporter console leads me to bet they are somewhere near the warp core."

"Ah yes, good thinking." Buehler nodded.

[Somehere in a dark corridor]

People were ahead. So he had done his best to shift his feet that direction as his hands was feeling against the wall. The truth was he was not liking this. Little fear was crawling up his lower spine and working its way up. The reason because he was indeed was the unknown and he was not sure it was other Starfleet folk.

There was a beam of lights. Two of them. Golden. He saw them about eye level. What the -?

T'Lulu's eye's darted in the direction of the voice. 

"Who's there?" Evan said firmly.  The man's voice down the hall sounded authoritative, yet Buehler had not recognized it.  As they got closer, T'Lulu's beams illuminated the civilian. 

"Aha," Evan exclaimed. "You're the new civilian we picked up.  What are you doing here?"

After hearing his answer, Buehler continued,

"We lost our patient, the young Vulcan you helped save. We've got nothing to go on but a riddle. You probably don't know much about the ship, but maybe you can help us."

Ensign May noticed her beams let off a bit of a glare that appeared to be a nuisance to human eyes, so she dimmed them a bit for the sake of conversation.  She then went on to repeat their riddle to the civilian.

~ Meanwhile ~

Two medical personnel, York and Charmaine, remained attentive to Inzjana while the third, Chuck, worked on the airvent. 

"Hey guys, I've got it," Chuck set the vent down and peered into the tunnel.  "What do you think, Phoz?"

"Well," Officer Phoz responded, "There's nowhere else to go but... that way."

"And what about the patient?" Charmaine added.  "Should we try to start waking her?"

Phoz rubbed the back of his neck thinking over the decision. 

[Kirok]

[Bridge]



The power went out and so did the lights.  For a moment, everything was pitch dark and completely quiet.  Like Death.

EQ felt a bit of daja vu.  He had experienced this before.  But his original ship had been under attack before.  His ship had been crippled. 

The moment lasted just long enough to get his heart racing.  His breath quickened.  And then the room started zig zagging with light from arm lights.

EQ quickly followed suite.  His light came on.  His heart rate and breathing started to slow to normal.

[Don Damien Addams]

[Corridor somewhere to a where]

"Aha," Evan exclaimed. "You're the new civilian we picked up.  What are you doing here?"

"We lost our patient, the young Vulcan you helped save. We've got nothing to go on but a riddle. You probably don't know much about the ship, but maybe you can help us."

[Ardyn Jaeger]

[Bridge]

For the darkness they could have been anywhere. A silence settled over the bridge, feeling both eerie and peaceful at once, like snow falling on a graveyard. Somber faces partly illuminated by the light of the lanterns brought to mind the image of a vigil, and no doubt a number of them were whispering prayers silently to themselves, hoping this would do the trick.

T'Ra was not one of them. Instead, she found herself mouthing the words to a German lullaby, one that Evan had been singing to their daughter as he tried to sooth the young one to sleep.

[Tekin Nevir]

[Bridge]

For the darkness they could have been anywhere. A silence settled over the bridge, feeling both eerie and peaceful at once, like snow falling on a graveyard. Somber faces partly illuminated by the light of the lanterns brought to mind the image of a vigil, and no doubt a number of them were whispering prayers silently to themselves, hoping this would do the trick.

T'Ra was not one of them. Instead, she found herself mouthing the words to a German lullaby, one that Evan had been singing to their daughter as he tried to sooth the young one to sleep.

[Bridge]

The wait in the dark was... unnerving.  And even though he knew the procedure, the air still felt stale to him... as if everything was off, including life support.  This wasn't the case, of course; as long as the reserves were powered, life support was top priority.  As he waited for the time to tick away, he calmed himself by looking out of the deactivated viewscreen; the front wall was made of transparent aluminum, and automatically went clear when the power was out.  It was one thing Nevir was thankful for on this vessel, the back-up and redundancies that made a long range tactical vessel feasible. 

In the main computer's control room, the diagnostic was completed, and the message was sent to Main Engineering.  The ops panel chimed with the alert that they were in the process of restoring power.  It was a sad truth that shutting down the reactor was much easier and faster, even though more dangerous, then restarting the reactor completely.  But, that's exactly what main engineering did as the sleek dark ship drifted towards the graviton stream.  With a countdown, the matter and antimatter were released as the magnetic interlocks engaged, and the dilithium crystal once again contained and directed the flow. 

Starting with main engineering, systems began to restore reactivate, first defensive, then operational, then helm and sensors. After a couple of minutes, power restored to the non-essential systems, and both the lights and the main viewer were functioning again.  Nevir had to squint for a moment with the sudden illumination.  With everything restored, he began a diagnositic check on the systems he had displayed, to make sure there were no more malfunctions.  It would appear that it worked.  Well.. except for helm at least, as their pilot seemed... frazzled?

"Warp won't be available for another hour, the reactor needs to heat up.  We should be able to engage full impulse while we wait, and if I'm not mistaken, that panel needs to be reconfigured after the reset.  Deflector systems are now online." he said to Ardyn, turning to the Captain. 

"So.. I think we have an anomaly to check?  I'm interested." he said, giving a grin.

[T'Ra Jones]

[Bridge]

"Warp won't be available for another hour, the reactor needs to heat up.  We should be able to engage full impulse while we wait, and if I'm not mistaken, that panel needs to be reconfigured after the reset.  Deflector systems are now online." he said to Ardyn, turning to the Captain. 

"So.. I think we have an anomaly to check?  I'm interested." he said, giving a grin.

[T'Lulu May Soong]

Human and android connected for a fraction of a second as Evan and T'Lulu exchanged a glance as Don Damien rambled on about everything that had transpired up to this point. 

Officer Buehler's eyes widened. "Now wait just a second. Inzjana is a wonderful lady and a valuable member of this--"

Damien got awfully close as he continued on his theory.

"Look buddy, I don't know what you heard or where you heard it, but she's been with us for almost seven years and she has yet to--"

Mid sentence, the three heard a sound of the ship rebooting as the lights progressively lit up the hallway.

"Well, that's finally over.  Anyway, Ensign and I are only medical officers.  I don't suppose you know anything about a ship's warp core?" Evan hoped to successfully change the subject.

T'Lulu nodded. "We believe the evidence presented to us represents our patient being trapped somewhere near the ship's warp core.  There are many deep enclosed spaces that a riddle could refer to as a 'well'."

Suddenly, T'Lulu looked down at the ground.  Her artificial mind wandered to a place of concern for her crew member.  "I do hope she is not in too much pain," she exclaimed.  "We must find her as quickly as possible."

~ No changes as of yet on our medical team and Inzjana ~