The Eye of the Storm

Posted on Fri Apr 7th, 2023 @ 1:31am by Captain Charlotte Rhodes & Lieutenant JG Teh'dri Caix & Lieutenant Commander Kenna Wolff & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Knight & Lieutenant Jackson Rutledge II & Lieutenant Alex Drake & Lieutenant Callie Knight & Lieutenant Savar & Lieutenant Steven Edgeware

2,207 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 1: Runner
Location: Bridge, USS Defiant
Timeline: MD 6: 0540 Hours
Tags: story

"Brace for impact!"

Seconds after Captain Rhodes called out the warning, the USS Defiant rocked violently from the impact of another shockwave. Outside the viewport, a cascade of energized gas poured up over the edge of the saucer section. The combination of the particles' illumination and the shields almost made it look as if flames were engulfing the vessel. The bridge lit up red with a variety of alerts and warnings.

The journey through the Ion Storm had been anything but smooth, but it had been nothing compared to what they were now experiencing. Alpha shift had retaken the bridge early as the storm's intensity increased, and now they were truly in the thick of it.

"Storm density ahead is continuing to spike, Captain. The 'eye wall' appears to be far more intense than anywhere we've previously encountered. There is no clear pathway ahead," Lt. Caix called out over the sound of the maelstrom. "We might be able to lessen the strain if we follow the storm's rotation, but that would leave us in the thick of it even longer."

Rhodes looked over at Ops, her fingers holding onto her chair with a vice grip. She'd long since secured the seatbelts. "Ops, do you think we can hold on long enough to make it through?'

"Structural integrity is already near its limits, Captain. And shields are at 50% and falling. If we stay in the eye wall for a few minutes, we'll lose the ship. The ship can't take much more, Captain," Rutledge reported.

"Pull anything you can from the reserves and any remaining secondary systems. Evacuate and power down any non-essential sections of the ship if need be. We've got to hold on a bit longer," Charlotte said, bracing for another shock.

"Aye captain." Rutledge started drawing power from all nonessential areas....the only things off limits were weapons, shields and life support, though life support would have to be cut back.

Alex was eternally grateful they'd put seatbelts in Starships. He'd heard stories from older ships of people falling all over the floor without them, and surely this would be one such time.

Rutledge kept his eyes on his panel, monitoring levels for all departments.

Callie stepped out of the turbolift looking like she’d been tossed through a blender herself, her neat hair was a little untidy and her uniform had bloody stains on it. She practically stumbled over to Charlotte with all the ship’s movement. “Before you ask it’s not my blood...” she offered a brief smile. “I stopped to help an injured crewman. He’s in Sickbay now, doing fine.”

"Glad you're alright, Callie. I'd buckle up though. It's going to get worse before it gets better." Charlotte turned to the rest of her crew. "I need ideas, folks. We can follow the eye wall for a bit, but a few minutes at most. We need some way to get through faster."

Kenna pushed back from her console and threw herself under it and began prying off panels. She didn't speak as she began rerouting power from her console to the shield modulators to give them more time. It was an old spacer trick her family had used when avoiding pirates.

Ryan kept his eyes on his console, but added his recommendation. "We’ve been dodging shockwaves for a while. What if we tried using the shockwaves as a means for surfing?"

Forever thankful for the seatbelts, Alex gripped firmly onto the sides of the console. There was a little known configuration of the deflector dish that might just save them. Taking a risk, he disengaged his seatbelts, moving quickly over to Ops.

"Configure the deflector dish for a Chroniton pulse. Frequency between 8.5 and 9.3 somewhere. I don't know, nor do we have time to find out, the exact number, but that range is always safe. Repeat the pulse every..." Alex did some mental calculations, wishing he had paid attention in particle physics. "2.83 seconds, I think?"

He had little confidence in this actually working, but the idea of riding the shockwaves intrigued him. "Add a 0.25342 randomized frequency modulation within that range, that should tune us to a similar frequency as the storm, allow us to ride the shockwaves, and, just possibly, if we get near the wall, push us through it."

"Get to it," the Captain said, nodding her approval toward her Operations and Intel Officers. "Number One, start taking us into the eye wall. Try and catch that wave you're looking for."

"Aye, captain." Rutledge watched as Ryan started making corrections in the ship's flight path. His job was to be ready to allocate power to whatever systems needed it the most.

"Aye Captain." Ryan’s fingers began dancing across the console. The Defiant began a series of pitch, yaws and rolls as he guided the ship into one of the more turbulent areas of the ion storm. "Hold on to something. It's about to get bumpy." Inertial dampeners strained between the ship's erratic maneuvers and the shifting shock wave patterns.

Entry into the eye wall had taken the consistent shaking of the ship up to a near continuous vibration. If it weren't or the ship's systems trying to compensate, it'd be damn near debilitating. Rhodes turned toward her Tactical Officer. "Commander Wolff, we've got some big guns on this boat. Maybe we can use them to our benefit. If we fired a torpedo ahead of us at timed intervals and shot it down with our phasers once we were far enough out of range, do you think you could use the shockwaves to create a path of low-density pockets that we could slip into? Essentially punch a clear path through the storm?"

"We could" Came the reply. "I would have to increase the payload.."

"Caix, you ever been paragliding in Vulcan's Forge when a sand storm kicked up?" Ryan had an idea but he was pretty sure nobody was going to like it.

The question hit like a blow to the stomach. "I...never had that honor, unfortunately," The Trill-Vulcan said, her voice noticeably cracking slightly. For an average bridge crew, it would have appeared the stress got to them. For Caix, it was nearly a breakdown. She'd only ever visited Vulcan 3 times in her life, before its destruction. The sense of lost time felt surprisingly acute. But she allowed herself only the moment. There was too much at risk. "But I have paraglided on the coasts of Trill. I imagine I can fill in the gaps. Please continue your metaphor."

"Find me a wall of *sand* heading in the right direction." He was running on the fly calculations in his head and figured they had a 50/50 chance to clear the wall and reach orbit in one piece...or he was going to slam the ship into a shockwave powerful enough to pulverize the ship. "Wolff, I'm going to need two photon torpedoes ready in the aft launcher. Command detonation fusing, trajectory is 30 degree offset port and starboard detonating at 1 kilometer. Oh, and if you can manage it. Shields at 175% power."

"I'm ordering full shutdown of Intelligence. We've got our ways to stay up without needing to draw power, take what you need." Alex said, finally making it to his seat again without getting seriously injured. He keyed in a command to the console to shutdown Intelligence.

"I have found your 'wall of sand', Commander. We have approximately 50 seconds to impact," Caix called out.

"Torpedo is ready!" Came the call from Kenna as she brought up the schematics and tripled checked. "On your mark Captain"

Rhodes grabbed the arms of her chair hard enough to turn her knuckles white. "Fire."

"Firing" The Security Officer replied and the Torpedo's were off and away.

A moment later, a phaser lanced through the void and ignited the shockwave. Energized plasma cascaded forward toward Defiant as like a tidal wave cresting higher and higher over the coastline. And then it hit. A massive shockwave rushed forward practically throwing the vessel through space. Anyone not belted into their seats would have been thrown flying. The second detonation was fierce enough that Rhodes saw the clouds outside the vessel turn the wrong way, as Defiant began to yaw. Alarms rang out again, bathing the bridge in red as if there was anything more to be warned about.

“Helm!” The Captain called out, but there was no command to follow. Simply an exclamation. The final torpedo shot forward this time, arching away from the vessel toward the inner wall of the storm the phaser blast struck true and pocket of clear space opened up ahead of them as the storms clouds where shredded further. The opening was right before them.

Ryan set a course for the opening and took the ship to flank speed. The impulse engines strained to propell the ship clear of the ion storm. He glanced at his sensor display and noticed interference dropping off. "We should be clear of the ion discharges and shockwaves in 30 seconds...provided we don’t overload the engines."

"She'll hold. Ops, throw everything we've got left into keeping those engines running," Rhodes called out over the klaxons. "Just a little bit farther, girl."

"Aye captain." Rutledge started rerouting emergency power to the engines, taking power from as many systems as the ship would allow. "Engines are at the red line, holding at 125% over safety levels!" Rutledge called out.

The tunnel walls closed in like teeth around the vessel. Defiant's engines roared and whined, fighting against the vortex rapidly forming around them. For a moment, it looked as if the storm would swallow them whole. Then, with a thunderous impact, the USS Defiant erupted out of the wall of Ion Storm, streaming ionically charged trails behind it forming a tail of lightning.

And then there was quiet.

The alarms quieted. The lights stopped flashing and settled into a calmer blue. The ship stopped shaking. They were clear. Ahead of the vessel was an eerie scene. The pinpoints of light representing was Eta Halix's inner worlds glowed against a backdrop of maelstrom. The only star visible was the Eta Halix sun, the rest fully shrouded in the roaring cloud, streaked by lightning.

Somehow the site ahead of them inspired nearly as much apprehension as the perilous journey they'd barely survived a moment before. But Captain Rhodes knew sitting still wouldn't be good for the crew. They needed to at least reach their destination. So they'd keep moving. "Number One, plot a course for Eta Halix II, one quarter impulse. Let's give them a bit of a rest."

Ryan blew out a sigh of relief. It had been a harrowing journey through the maelstrom. He, for one, was glad to be through it. He glanced at Charlotte and nodded. "Set course for Eta Halix II aye." He turned back to his console and input the proper commands. "Distance 4 AUs. Estimated time to Eta Halix II at one quarter impulse...approximately 2 hours 13 minutes."

The seat belt had cut into Steven but he was not complaining. Although their rough journey he had fed the others data from the science console. His first few days aboard and they had survived an Ion storm. Edgeware was quite looking forward to whatever adventures were to come.

Callie breathed a very heavy sigh of relief, her head was pounding thanks to the mental input from the crew. She smiled as she looked at Charlotte, grateful to be in the calm at long last.

Charlotte caught her Counselor's look and let out a relieved sigh. She didn't have to be an empath to feel the tension lowering, despite the initial shock of the scene ahead. But a quick nod told her that a little bump from the Captain wouldn't hurt. She punched the chair's intercom button. "All hands, this is the Captain. You're all free to undo those seatbelts now. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but let's all take a moment to breathe. Non-essential crew are relieved until 0800 hours. Rhodes out"

She flipped off the intercomm. looked around the bridge. "That goes for all of you too. Everyone switch off with your relief for the next 2 hours. We'll have plenty to do once we get to Eta Halix, but we've all just been through the ringer. Get some rest."

Alex reach over and pressed the button for the seatbelts. He shook his head at the suggestion of switching off. "No thanks, Captain. I should still be able to handle the next two hours, and then some."

Savar stood at the back of the bridge and out of the way of the bridge crew. They knew their jobs and he would let them do them. He was not about to upset a smooth and well functioning team. He nodded to Captain Rhodes but said nothing as nothing needed to be said. The ship and crew had survived and a mission stll lay ahead of them.

Ryan had spent 12 of the last 20 hours at the helm. He relinquished his seat as soon as the relief team arrived. He glanced at Charlotte. "With your permission Captain. I need a couple hours of shut eye."

The Captain nodded. "Emphatically granted, Number One. Go get some rest."

 

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