New Mission: Trouble in Paradise

[joelhuebner]

Cadet Huebner woke in a small room, looking around he thought, " These aren't my quarters on Starbase Conquerer." He said aloud, " Computer, what is my location?" The computer replied," You are on deck 8, section 29 alpha on the Starship U.S.S. Hanson." Huebner wondered how in the world he ended up here. The last thing he remembered was being in his quarters on the Starbase awaiting assignment.

Huebner tapped his combadge, " Cadet Huebner to the Bridge." The response was immediate, "Go ahead Cadet." Huebner replied, "I am a Security and Tactical Cadet and I was wondering if I could render any assistance aboard?" The terse reply was, "Report to the Bridge at once, Cadet. You will need to report to the Captain and Security Chief. We have a bit of a situation going on so the pleasantries will have to wait."

Huebner asked the computer for the directions to the bridge and sprinted out of the room. After catching his breath in the Turbolift he exited onto the bridge and walked to the Security station where two other casdets and the Security Chief were waiting."

Cadet Huebner reporting for duty Sir, what are your orders?

[Deleted]

Although it had only been a few minutes since he had ordered the transport of the injured to sickbay, the medical area was already filled with patients as Drew and Cadet Bennet arrived. Looking around the crowded room, Drew spotted Dr. Holsen treating a young womam, as he made his way over to her, the Doctor looked up at him.

"If you're here for your physicals,” Holsen said as she finished up, “you will have to wait we're a little busy."

“As fun as that sounds, am afraid not Doctor,” Drew replied.

The doctor let out a sigh and walked over to them, still holding her medical tricorder and watching her medical assistants at work.

"I assume that you are here to interview my patients?” she asked.

“You assume correctly Doctor,” Drew answered, “our information on what happened to New Haven is still patchy; these people may hold vital clues.”

Doctor Holsen nodded her consent, and indicated several patients who were in a fit enough state to be questioned. As Drew looked them over it was clear even to his untrained eye that their injuries were non-critical, certainly nothing that a dermal regenerator would not fix.

“Cadet, if you start over there, I’ll take these two gentlemen here,” Drew said, pointing to either sides of the room, “try to get as much information about the accident as possible, the nature of it, number of casualties, how many others escaped on transport ships, that sort of thing.”

As Clara left to question the patients Drew had assigned to her, Drew tapped his comm badge and called the bridge.

“S’reena, most of the injuries here are non-critical, I want you to resume course for New Haven at maximum warp.”

=/\=“And the away team?” =/\= S’reena asked.

“Inform Commander Bates of our departure and dispatch a shuttlecraft to stay with the transport, once they have completed repairs they can rendezvous with us at New Haven.”

=/\=”Understood,”=/\= S’reena replied, closing the channel.

Straightening his uniform jacket, Drew walked over to the two patients who he had selected to question, one of whom was the gentlemen that Dr. Holsen had complained about.

“Hello sirs,” Drew said as he approached, “I am Vice Admiral Paul Drew, command of this vessel, I was wondering if you could tell me anything about what happened?”

[simonclark]

Since he arrived on the Hanson, Simon Clark had been completely under the supervision of the rather stern Vulcan standing over him as he checked the EPS connection for the long range sensor calibration unit. On the other hand, when did a Vulcan not look stern?

Commander Elal had met him in the transporter room, watched him drag the box containing his belongings to the transporter room's storage area, and led him to the science laboratories. Apparently he'd missed a party...

"Are you almost complete with the upgrades, Cadet"[/color]

Simon jumped at the close proximity of the voice, and bumped his head on the underside of the panel, with a small groan. He wasn't performing upgrades... he'd never seen anything quite this advanced.

"Yes, Sir. The sensors are using the Conqueror as a focal point for the calibration. It should be done shortly."

"Should, Clark?" The Vulcan queried.

"I've never calibrated a sensor grid this large, how long does the calibration cycle take to complete?"

<Commander Elal>

"When we are finished, I will take you to astrometrics. That is where most of the important work is done in our department."[/color]

"How much training have you had as a science officer?"[/color]

"Very little. I've studied the theory at the Academy, and I know my way around a civilian shuttlecraft. This is my first assignment, Sir."

At that moment the computer beeped and announced that the calibration was complete. That was fast, thought Simon. He checked the display as the Commander moved towards it. On the screen was clearly a thermal image of the Starbase Conqueror. That was incredible, it must be several light years behind them by now...

Simon wasn't sure what was expected of him at this point.

"Is that right, Sir" he asked.

<Commander Elal>

[annannabelle]

"Without help from Engineering there's little we can do to get the actual shields up and running to full capacity, so we'll presumably have to improvise." Said Clara.
Annabelle scanned the screens. The drill program, running without involving engineering, told her there were at least 15 to 20 minutes until the shields would be back up to strength.
“I'm just thinking out loud here but it the tractor beam could be reversed to push us away out of transport range might bye some more time. That’s if it’s working and could be changed to do what we need. Like I said just talking out loud here might not work at all" said k’ratak
She quickly scanned the console for the tractor beam read outs. Yes. The tractor beam was operational. A quick reordering of the beam operation systems and the beam could be put into use to repel the other craft.
Annabelle was unable to put this theory into practice as the drill was suddenly ended by the ship coming out of warp drive to answer a distress call. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face the captain, along with the other crew members, waiting for orders.

“Transporting the injured now sir,” Egan reported, “they have arrived in sickbay and we have tractor beams standing by to take the ship into tow.”

“Excellent,” Drew replied, rising from his chair and walking to the turbolift, “am going down to sickbay, our visitors may have some information, Cadet [Clara]Bennett, I’d like you to please join me.”

“Shall I continue with the drill commander?” Annabelle asked.
<tag Youngblood or k’ratak>
She was uncertain about continuing with it now the other cadet had been summoned away.
Just as the captain and Clara where waiting for the turbolift, the doors opened and an out of breath cadet whom Annabelle did not recognize from the party entered the bridge, coming over to her superiors.

“Cadet Huebner reporting for duty Sir, what are your orders?”

[methos]

Methos was watching one of the Security cadets at the Tactical station when the report came in that there was a damaged ship on sensors. He had the computer cancel the drill and watched as the Ops cadet transport the injured to Sickbay. Shortly thereafter, another Cadet came to the bridge and reported in.

"Cadet Huebner, thank you for reporting in. I am Colonel Methos, the ship's SMO and I will be your instructor. Even though I am a Marine, I do have training in the Tactical/Security field. I'll update you on our current status. Before we left the Starbase, we recieved a Distress Call from New Haven. He warped out of the system and I started a Drill for the cadets and my marines. Before we could finish the drill, we came upon a disabled ship. We stopped, transported their injured, and resumed course for New Haven. You and I will be helping Cadet Wolfe research any information about New Haven. Any Questions?" Methos asked.

<Huebner>

[ryo8462]

"Brac, Woti, with me," Noah said, and after a tool kit, rolled toward the door, tapping his commbadge on the way. "Bates to Cadet Bit-Cloud. Stop what you're doing and meet me in transporter room 2. That's on Deck 4. Bring your tool kit."

Bit stopped what he was doing which was opening up another panel to take a look at the cordes. He went over packed his stuff back into his case and left the PADD with the schematics of the Replicator laying around on the floor. He finished packing and ran off to the turbo lift. he pressed he button and got in.

"Deck 4" he said and the computer beeped and the lift was off. It didn't take long for the doors to open and he took off sprinting down the corrodor doging crewmen finally making it to the transporer room

"You sure took your time" noah said waiting with two other Engineers. Bit sighed then went up to the pad and waited.

A few minutes later, the Engineering team materialized in distressed ship's engine room. Noah looked around to attempt to identify who was in charge, but that was simplified by a harried-looking individual approaching them.

"You from the Hanson?" the man asked. Noah couldn't identify the man's species because of the poor light.

"Aye. Commander Noah Bates, Chief Engineer. What's your status?"

"Warp core's offline; Dilithium matrix is toast, and the injectors are frozen. Power systems are fluctuating as well. The Chief Engineer and Warp specialist are both dead. I'm Reat, Engineer 2nd Class."

"Woti, Roland, get started on the power systems. Cadet, you're with me on the warp core," Noah instructed, then got moving.

Bit followed behind noah watching and observing what was happening.

"Wait..." Reat said after a moment. "A Cadet?" he asked, eyeing Bit as they got to work.

"Hanson is a training vessel," Noah explained, then got to work himself.

"Sir what happend here?" he said looking around. noticing that engineering looking a bit out of whack

<TAG>

[Deleted]

"It was like the Apocalypse was upon us," Reat explained. "Seismic activity, a volcanic eruption. As we launched from the surface, barely ready to do so, with the volcanic ash it was hard enough, but then an electrical storm came up too. We barely made it out alive. A lot of the wounded were from the planetary disaster, then systems' malfunctions made it worse. This ship is a mess."

"Well, lets get to work," Noah said, rolling over to the warp diagnostic console and raised the chair up so that he get reach it properly. "First thing to work on is the dilithium matrix."

"Glad you know where to start," Reat commented. "I couldn't decide which was the priority."

"The dilithium matrix is the priority given that it moderates the matter/antimatter reaction," Noah explained while he worked, as much to Reat as to Bit. "Injectors aren't worth much if you can't control them, unless you'd like a runaway warp core reaction, in which case the core would breach. You see, Cadet, dilithium, when you run a current through it, polarizes to allow matter and antimatter through it. The more current applied, the more polarization happens, the more the matter/antimatter is carried out, and therefore you get higher warp outputs. In this case, the subsystem that provides that current has been burned out. That's gonna be a devil to fix. It takes alot of juice to fry that circuit, but when it does happen, it's an awful mess."

"Commander?" an unfamiliar voice said from behind him. He turned to find a red-shirted ensign approached.

"And what are you doing here?" Noah asked.

"I delivered the shuttle that Admiral Drew left for you. Hanson is continuing on. Anything I can do to help?" he asked, looking around at the mess.

"Yes, not getting in our way would be a big help," Noah said, more harshly than intended due to stress. "Cadet, get to work on repairing that dilithium matrix."

<Tag Bit>

[kratak]

Looking at Youngblood and remembering when he was a cadet he smiled. It had been along time since they last saw each other, he was looking forward to catching up. " It its okay with you commander, I would like the cadet to stop the drill for a moment. I think it would be a good idea to do a complete scan of that ship. There senors are down and they might not know what else they came into contact with. Might be useful to find out in case there's something else out here along the way"

Watching the commander think about and nodd his head in agreement. " Cadet Annabelle please run a deep scan on that ship, the drill is on hold for the moment. Report your findings to Commander Youngblood. I dont think there's anything there but just to be safe it might not be a bad idea. Not to mention you can transmitt what ever damage they might not know about yet."<Tag Annabelle>

[Deleted]

S'reena had been halfway on her way back to her quarters to drop her now peacefully sleeping son off, when Drew ordered her to the bridge to take command. Briefly torn, she looked down at the child in her arms, then shrugged and turned around. He wanted her on the bridge, then he'd have to take it for granted that she took her child with her, as obviously he wanted her there immediately.

She ignored the stares from the instructors present on the bridge as she sat down in the command chair. "Bridge to Drew, we're back on course to New Haven," she acknowledged after hearing his report that the injured were non-critical. "ETA is five hours at maximum warp."

The Romulan nodded towards Wolfe. "Resume course, maximum warp," she ordered, then beckoned Westgate. "Doctor, while observing morale on the bridge, would you also mind watching my son for a while? He just feel asleep but he's not quite well yet. Apparently, I gave him something to eat that neither his digestive nor his immune system can handle." She cast the counselor a guilty glance, before settling it back on the main viewscreen.

"Science, where is that report on New Haven!" she called, "OPS, same question! I need scientific and operational data before we can decide what sort of people we need to send down to the planet to assist in their emergencies."

S'reena tapped her combadge. "Engineering, we'll be taxing the engines a little now." She knew Noah Bates was off the ship, but there was still another Bates about that she knew would take responsebility for engineering while the chief was away. Neither Bates, however, was happy when his precious engines were being overtaxed to coax just that little bit more speed out of them.

[clarabennet]

Clara looked at the patients Drew had told her to question and chose the younger looking woman first. She looked to be in slightly better shape and a slightly better mood than the other one. "Hi, I'm Cadet Clara Bennet. I was wondering if you could answer some questions for me." The woman nodded and sat up a little.

"Thanks. What happened on New Haven to make you leave when you did?"

"We were making preparations to leave anyway, but something happened that set everything off balance. I'm not quite sure what it was though."

The Cadet thought about this for a second. "What kind of effect did it have?"

"Everything went dark and storms suddenly seemed to appear. It was crazy and caused so much panic that we left as soon as we could."

"Okay, thanks for your help" Clara decided to move on to the next patient to try to get more details. "Hi, I'm Cadet Clara Bennet. Could you possibly answer some questions for me?"

"Yes of course" the patient replied.

Clara tried to decide how to phrase her first question. "Did you manage to see what caused the problems in New Haven?"

"Not directly, but judging by the effects there was an explosion. An industrial one, I'd say, given the scale."

She made a mental note to investigate industrial areas that could be causes. "Thanks that should help a lot. Did you notice if any other ships managed to get away?"

The patient looked a little sad, "I didn't notice at all. Our sensors were down and we just tried to get out of there."

Clara nodded acknowledgement and went back over to find Admiral Drew to report her findings.

[joelhuebner]

Huebner was still reeling from his mysterious arrival on the Hanson. His thoughts continually wandered to what had happened. He thought, "I wonder if that strange Q creature that Captain Picard kept meeting up with had anything to do with this mess? Well this is NOT the time to be dealing with this particular issue, I have a job to do and people counting on me to do my best no matter how I got here."

Huebner replied, " Aye, Sir!", and stepped over to an empty station and quickly configured it as a science station. Pulling up some information on New Haven he reports to Colonel Methos.

"Sir, it appears as though New Haven was founded about 50 years ago and is widely known for it's beautiful beaches and ocean fronts. In fact, it is now directly behind Risa as a vacation destination. However, I have also discovered that there are many areas that the tourists either don't know about or choose to ignore. One such area is a highly concentrated industrial area. This area is located on an isolated island about 100 kilometers off the coast of a popular beach."

Huebner hit a few more keys and stated, " Sir, at this time we are too far away from the planet for sensors to provide any useful information at this time. Would you like me to prepare a Security and medical team in preparation of our arrival?"

<Tag Methos>

[annannabelle]

"Cadet Annabelle please run a deep scan on that ship, the drill is on hold for the moment. Report your findings to Commander Youngblood. I don’t think there's anything there but just to be safe it might not be a bad idea. Not to mention you can transmit what ever damage they might not know about yet." Said K’ratak

Annabelle was thankful that the drill was over. There was nothing worse than doing drill when you could be doing something useful. She removed the drill screens and read outs and concentrated on scanning the ship. After a while, she realised that there was more structural damage to the other ships hull than had been indicated from the initial overview of damage. With the other ships scanners out of action, and vast casualties to deal with, she could see how the damage could have been missed. She turned to the two commanders. “Sir, the hull of the ship is in bad condition. It should hold but will need to be seen to soon. It was hit by a lot of debris, possibly from what ever caused the disaster.”

<tag a commanding officer>

[kratak]

Looking at the cadet he smiled, she was being very detailed which he liked.

" Good Cadet Annabelle, make sure you forward the info to repair crews as well as commander Hope. This does raise new questions for us to try and answer, what would have enought power to cause this kind of damage. Most importanly why, that could lead us to many possible answers. I want you to start forming idea's while we are enroute, also between you and the other cadets keep weapons on standby just in case."

" There is also another concern I have but will discuss that with you later. I want all tatical cadets to meet me in 1 hour in the briefing room to go over things. Makes sure you let there other cadets know please. Also dont be late if there's one thing I can't stand is lateness unless we are under attack there's no reason for it." <Tag Annabelle>

[Lorna Holsen]

Lorna had just finished patching up a man with with crush injuries. So far she hadn't lost anyone which wasn't bad, there were two she wasn't sure would make it but so far... She stood up and then staggered slightly as a wave of nervousness hit her like a physical force. She reinforced her mental shields and looked around for the source of the emotion. Lorna knew she wasn't very empathic but sometimes she had a flash of stronger abilities, and when she was tired somethings slipped past her shields. She hoped no one had noticed her 'funny turn'.

There was a middleaged man sitting on his own in a corner of sickbay, he was all hunched over and if she remembered her triage accurately nursing nothing worse than a sprained ankle and a cracked toe. He was staring at the Admiral as he talked to one of the other patients.

The security cadet had apparently finished her interview and was on her way to Admiral Drew's side. Lorna intercepted her.

"Cadet, can you hold this a second." She pushed a scanner into the girl's hands. Lorna's voice dropped in volume "Talk to the man in the corner. He's very nervous and doesn't want to be here." She pointed at the scanner and her voice rose to it's normal volume "Does that make sense?"

Tag: Clara

[Deleted]

"Calibration cycles take eight minutes forty two seconds." He paused in thought before adding, "If they are done correctly." He turned to check the power systems. It was just a double check of the intake systems that engineering had inspected. The Vulcan always double-checked others' work.

When the screen beeped, Elal redirected his attention back to the Cadet and the console in the science lab.

"The calibration seems to be within normal parameters," Elal punched a few keys on the board. "Of course, it could be modified using a randomizing coefficient that would maximize the neural plasticity of the calibration." A few more buttons were pressed. "If it is done correctly, a damping function can be applied to filter out the feedback noise resonance."

After completing the fix on the system, he asked the Cadet to join him in Astrometrics.

"Commander Manto mentioned that she will be there shortly. As for what you should be doing, you should be doing everything you can to learn how Starfleet runs a ship."

As they left the science lab, he could tell by the look on the Cadet's face that his answer was no sufficient. "Right now were are en route to New Haven. I suspect, when we arrive, we will be asked to help investigate. Typically, cadets go on the away mission, if they are not deemed too hazardous." Elal seriously hoped, although illogical to do so, that he would be on an away team this mission.

Once reaching Astrometrics, they were met by Commander Manto, who was frantically getting the systems online.

"We are almost there and we cannot even see it yet!" It was embarrassing, but usually they had more time to do such things. This was quicker progression into activity than Konal had grown accustomed to. The middle-aged Cardassian found that she was unprepared to act so quickly. What she lacked, the science team and Cadets would have to make up for.

She pointed at the Cadet, "Good job on getting those system calibrations done so quickly. The error tolerance is stellar. Good work." Elal's fixes were accredited to the Cadet, and while the Cadet had done an excellent job on his own, Elal's modifications were the cause for extra recognition.

"For now though, we need to get this online."

Elal tried inserting a statement to gain recognition for his work on the calibration, but Konal stifled him.

"Not now- we don't have time for small talk." Konal said as she continued getting the systems operational with the Cadet.

[annannabelle]

“Yes sir. At once” Annabelle replied to K’rataks orders. Then she turned to the command chair. “Commander Hope. The transport ship hull is badly damaged from debris. Possibly from the disaster.” She then turned back to the console and repeated the information to the repair crews on board the other ship. Then, after requesting permission to leave the bridge, she went to find the other cadets to tell them about the meeting. She had asked to tell them in person rather than jamming up the com links when they could be needed for more vital communications. She moved across to Joel Huebner, working at a science station. “sorry to disturb you, but Commander K’ratak requests all tactical cadets to meet him in…” she paused and looked her watch “55 minutes to go over things in preparation.” She lowered her voice for the next bit “the commander was very insistent on punctuality”
<Huebner>
She then set off to find Clara Bennet in sickbay.

[joelhuebner]

Huebner was working at on of the bridge science stations and letting his mind wander yet again, when Cadet Bennet approached him stating that he needed to report to a meeting with the other Tactical cadets in a little less than an hour.
"Nice to meet you Bennet, thanks for letting me know, I'll be there. I hate being late for things my self so that won't be a problem. Where did you say we were meeting again?"
<Tag Bennet>

Looking back at his station Huebner quickly brought up the logs to try to determine how he arrived on the Hanson. He hoped that Methos wasn't scrutinizing his work too closely, since he was supposed to be scanning for any new information about New Haven.
<Tag Methos>

[annannabelle]

Annabelle was about to leave Huebner to what he was doing when he called after her
"Nice to meet you Bennet, thanks for letting me know, I'll be there. I hate being late for things my self so that won't be a problem. Where did you say we were meeting again?"
“In the briefing room” she said smiling to herself at her own dippiness. Then she made her way to the turbo lift. As she wandered down the corridor, she switched on her camouflage without thinking so she could have time to think about what K’ratak had said about the damage and what could have caused it. She was so lost in thought in fact that she forgot to turn the camouflage off when she walked up to Clara and began to speak
“Clara” Clara jumped and turned round looking wildly for where the voice came from.
Annabelle realized Clara couldn’t see her and instantly faded back into the foreground. “Commander K’ratak has called a meeting for tactical cadets in the briefing room in 45 minutes. He was adamant about punctuality.”
<Clara>

[Deleted]

After thirty minutes all of the patients in sickbay had been questioned, most were uncertain what had happened, but those who were able to provide information spoke of a great disaster which had caused an environmental failure on the planet. The damage sustained to the transport ship also suggested that something had happened to subspace around the planet as well. Leaving Cadet Bennet to attend to the meeting that Commander K’ratak had called for his cadets, Drew returned to the bridge.

S’reena was busy reading a report, Konal was still absent, and Methos was going over some security procedures with his cadet.

“The patients in sickbay weren’t able to tell us anything new,” Drew said as he approached S’reena, “apart from the fact that whatever happened caused massive damage to the planet’s atmosphere and possibly surrounding space.”

“Perhaps we should raise shields before we enter the system?” S’reena suggested, “Radiation from the disaster could damage the ship.”

Drew nodded his head in agreement and ordered the ship to go to yellow alert as they entered the system.

“My god,” Drew said, standing from his chair.

The viewscreen showed a field of debris surrounding the planet, hundreds of transport ships that had tried to escape the planet and failed. The once luscious blue water and green landscape of the planet surface was now a murky brown, no sign of civilisation could be seen.

“Lifesigns?” S’reena asked, also standing from her chair.

“No lifesigns on the ships,” Methos reported, “I am detecting around 150,000 bio signatures on the planet, but there is heavy interference.”

“Out of a population of five million,” S’reena gasped, sitting back in her chair and holding her hand to her mouth in shock.

“Send a message to Starfleet,” Drew ordered, walking the length of the bridge, “we are going to require a larger clean up taskforce than originally expected.”

“Bridge to Manto, Commander, I need the sensors at full power, we have arrived at New Haven.”

[simonclark]

"Calibration cycles take eight minutes forty two seconds." He paused in thought before adding, "If they are done correctly."

Simon winced slightly at this remark. Had he done the calibration right? Or was it an appalling mess? The Vulcan left all to the imagination, and Simon, nervous as he was, imagined the latter. His face went red, and he said nothing while he carefully examined a small section of tritanium deck plating at his feet. Fortunately for him, his first 'big' sensor grid calibration had gone well.

"The calibration seems to be within normal parameters," Elal told him.

Simon watched closely as the Commander made and explained a few interesting tweaks to the calibration, a noise filter here, and a randomizing coefficient there, and ran the cycle again, so that the image of the Conqueror came into sharp focus, enough to make out the impulse engines of a shuttlecraft as it exited the drydock. Simon asked a few questions about neural plasticity, and Elal explained that the name was representational of the adaptability of the system in the event of damage, and was analagous to the same function in a nueral cortex, and suggested some reading he might do on the topic. Simon made some notes on his personal PADD before they set off for the Astrometrics lab.

"Am I to be working primarily with yourself or Commander Manto in Astrometrics?" Simon asked.

The Vulcan slowed briefly at the question, and then gave an answer, of sorts. "Commander Manto mentioned that she will be there shortly. As for what you should be doing, you should be doing everything you can to learn how Starfleet runs a ship."

This vauge answer seemed to be all he was going to get, and said nothing. He was aware that that was why he was on board, and was rather hoping for specifics. Perhaps the Commander didn't know?

The Astrometrics laboratory was a near rectanglar room with a door on one of the short ends with lines of displays and consoles along both of the side walls. The room widened towards the far end at which a raised area of tritanium plating, with the back wall lined with a network metalic struts, holoemitters, and a console sat facing away from the door before it. Commander Manto was rushing from one side of the room to the other, and was not looking particularly happy.

"We are almost there and we cannot even see it yet!" she exclaimed to the world in general, before turning to Simon, "Good job on getting those system calibrations done so quickly. The error tolerance is stellar. Good work."

Simon felt his face redden. Most of the work had been done by Commander Elal who, when he turned to look at him, seemed to be glaring in his direction. That can't be right, he thought, Vulcans don't glare... He remembered the classes at the Academy that taught the customs of cultures beyond earth, and how Vulcans subdued their emotional state with logic and mental training. Against this teaching, Simon was sure he was being glared at. Putting it down to imagination, he brought his focus back to the Cardassian Commander, as she went through the startup sequence for the main Astrometrics display.

Commander Elal protested his lack of recognition, and was stifled.

"Not now- we don't have time for small talk." Manto told him.

A pang of guilt hit Simon in the stomach as he tried to focus on the data connection routes and order of procedures that Commander Manto was feeding him. He felt awkward, that Elal was watching him, scrutinizing him as he worked, and that he should probably say something, but he couldn't quite bring himself to it with Commander Elal behind him as he was.

More than once he was distracted by his thinking, and could not follow the instructions he was given. He dropped his PADD, he got the control sequences backwards, and he'd routed the wrong dataflow from the sensors to the secondary holo display unit on the raised plating.

"What has gotten into you Cadet?" Manto asked him, irritably, after Simon had joined the isolinear control rack on the microparticle analysis console to the data-flow from the long range body detectors, and had every display console in the room trying to apply particle scans to planets like they were scraps of dust. "You're in Star Fleet Academy! Have you not had basic training in how to connect equipment like this?"

"Yes. I mean... Sir... Yes, Sir." Simon managed, "Sorry, Sir." He looked round at Elal, who shot him another not-quite-a-glare which seemed to Simon to say, simply, 'Ha'.

After an hour and a half of reconnections, and several retries at the startup sequence, and one call to engineering for a replacement microspanner that Simon had stood on, they had the display online. The back wall, the primary Astrometrics display, showed the system of planets that New Haven was a part of, in orbit around it's star, computer enhanced and shown in full three dimensions.

In front of it, the circular secondary display was transmitting an image of New Haven itself, it's green continents and blue seas should have resembled those of Earth, and many similar M-class planets throughout the galaxy. However the image looked wrong. The planet was a murky brown, shrouded in clouds of dust.

"It looks wrong" Simon said, thoughtfully. He turned to the console, and rotated the image, ran it through the electromagnetic frequency spectrum, but still couldn't work out why the display was not showing New Haven.

"Commander," he called across the room, "I think there's something wrong with the display. It looks... wrong."

Commander Elal crossed the room. "That's hardly a specific statement Cadet. What, precisely, is wrong with the image?"

Simon stood back and let the Vulcan take the central console. After a few minutes, he called Manto across the room as well. They discussed in low voices for a moment.

"Sir?" Simon asked, "What is it?"

Commander Manto tapped his combadge "Manto to..."

"Bridge to Manto, Commander, I need the sensors at full power, we have arrived at New Haven.”

<Commander Manto>

[kratak]

He was waiting in the briefing room for his cadets to arrive, they weren't late yet. He had hope his warning would be enough on that matter. He looked up to see his cadets start to arrive, they looked a little nervous and wanted them to be at easy. He long since learned that people work better when they are at easy.

Looking around the room at each of them. "As you know I will be taking over for Commander Youngblood for the rest of the mission. He will stay with the transport until repairs are completed. I'm Commander K'ratak chief tactical officer of the Hepta, I was asked to join mission before we left. In truth the Admiral didn't have the time to transport be back, which is a good thing considering events. I want ideas people I don't care how far fetched something on what might have cause the damage on that ship."

" Next if there's away mission on the planet, I would not be shocked to see the Admiral lead it. Which brings me to our next problem his safety, which will be our first concern if this happens. I would hold you all responsible for that if the case comes to be. "

" So now with all the cards on the table who wants to go first. I don't care how far fetched the idea is about what happened. Something is better then nothing so who wants to go first" <Tag Anybody>

[Deleted]

Almost white-faced, S'reena walked over to the operations station, joining the new bajoran instructor there. "One hundred and fifty thousand survivors," she repeated, "what would cause such a disaster."

She keyed in the security codes necessary so that Egan could send his top-priority message. "Make sure your cadets know how," she ordered him, "I am going down to sickbay. Perhaps I can help Doctor Holsen organise her trauma teams. We will need to be prepared if we choose to beam down to investigate."

The Romulan woman glanced back at Drew, hoping he would give his permission. When he didn't respond, she walked back to him, watching the new security chief, in the form of their original guest, leave the bridge. At the back of the bridge, Doctor Westgate still sat in silence, holding a peacefully sleeping child in his arms. "Thank you," she whispered at him, before rejoining Drew. "Admiral, permission to join Doctor Holsen in sickbay?" she repeated.

S'reena felt useless, sitting on the bridge, while watching disaster expand before her very eyes. She was restless, aching to help. She couldn't just sit down and watch, while people were dying. "Please?" she added, almost begging.

[Deleted]

The transport ship, named the The New Dawn, Noah had since found out, was finally fully repaired. It had taken a tremendous amount of work. Fortunately the crew of the "Dawn", as they called her for short, were able to pitch in enough manpower to speed up the process. The hull had needed significant repair. Unsure of exactly what caused it, Noah was certain that the damage had been from energy discharges of some sort, but knew no more than that.

The warp injectors had been beyond hope. Brac and Woti had to jerry-rig new injectors, but only as temporary replacements. The Dawn was planning to head straight to the nearest port for replacements. Her Captain wasn't entirely thrilled about the prospect, as it ruined their trade route and would put them back financially for months to come, but the Bolian didn't exactly want to have his ship explode, as Noah pointed out would happen eventually, and didn't want to spend 50 years at impulse to reach his next port of call.

Cadet Bit had been quite resourceful at repairing the dilithium matrix, salvaging necessary components from the damaged-beyond-repair weapons array. There was still a litany of damaged systems and subsystems to deal with, but the Dawn's crew would get by till her next dock.

With Brac, Woti, Bit, Noah and Ensign Tran, the pilot, all piled into the shuttle, Tran asked, "Shall we depart, Commander?"

"Yes, Ensign," Noah said, having an unexplainable surprise at the fact that the red-shirted ensign was still alive. He couldn't for the life of him put his finger on it.


A few hours later, the comfortingly familiar sight of the Intrepid-class ship loomed into view. "Shuttlecraft Quasar to Hanson. Request permission to dock," Tran said.

[Deleted]

"You heard the man," Konal said encouragingly. "Show him what we've got."

The long range sensors were already calibrated, and with Elal's adjustments, had already been .

"I was supposed to be on the bridge quite awhile ago," she realized out loud. "We better get up there. Elal, stay here and make sure everything operates within normal parameters."

"I'm sure that nothing will go wrong while I am he.."... but the Commander and Cadet Clark were already headed to the bridge before the Vulcan science officer could finish his brag.

"I'm sure the Admiral will be very appreciative when I tell him about your long range sensor efficiencies," Commander Manto said pleasantly. "You can explain that to Commander K'ratak in the Cadet meeting."

Konal was genuinely proud of this Cadet. He had, in relatively no time at all, become accustomed to the ways of the USS Hanson. While Academy training in general is good training, it sometimes does not instill the nuances of a ship. It varied on each individual on how well or badly they had adapted.

When they reached the bridge, Cadet Clark continued on to the Cadet meeting. "I'll see you on the bridge when it is done." She waved, smiling. Poor soul. Tactical meetings were never fun. While she understood the importance, she was glad she got to remain on the bridge.

"Reporting" she announced when she entered the bridge. "Oh my.." was all that came out of her mouth when she saw the viewscreen. She assumed her station.

"Radiation levels still high, but are reversible. Suggest no party stays within two hundred thousand kilometers of New Haven for more than ten hours at a time. If they do, they'll need to wear spacesuits."

[redosegan]

It was during times like these that Egan regretted ever leaving medicine. With so many people suffering and dying close by and even more already dead, the Bajoran officer felt the pull towards sickbay and the desire to beam down to the surface and help almost stronger than he could bear. But that was no longer his place; it was on the bridge, relaying the priority message back to Starfleet to send more help, a lot more. With the codes provided by the first officer, the priority of the message could be placed even higher, hopefully ensuring a faster response time.

As a navigational officer Redos didn’t recognize took over the helm from Stewart, the Lieutenant beckoned both operations Cadets to join him. Though he was fairly certain they already knew how to sent messages and change the priority codes associated with those messages, it couldn’t hurt to reinforce those lessons, especially at a time like this. After Wolfe changed the priority and Stewart transmitted the message, Egan noticed both young men seemed preoccupied and decided that now would be a good time to try and encourage them.”

“It’s always hard during a disaster such as this, even for the most seasoned of officers. You never want to lose your compassion for people, but it’s also important to remain focused on your jobs, your part in all of this. As trivial as it may seem to work on power transfers and communications transmissions, each and every station and operation must be preformed smoothly to ensure the ship can offer the best assistance possible. That’s an important lesson to learn.”

Smiling kindly at his two students, Lieutenant Redos continued. “Now let’s make sure the Hanson is operating at peak efficiency. Cadet Stewart, I’d like you to go down to sickbay and check in with Commander Holsen. Find out how much power and resources she needs to be as prepared as possible to assist the colony.”

<Tag Stewart>

“Cadet Wolfe I’d like you to continue pulling up as much information as you can on New Haven, especially their power and industrial centers, as from what we’ve gathered so far that seems to be the source. We’ll need as much data as you can possibly find to be compiled for our preparations so be as thorough as you can.”

<Tag Wolfe>

As Stewart left the bridge to go to sickbay and Wolfe turned back to his console to continue gathering data, a hail came through which Redos automatically patched through. "Shuttlecraft Quasar to Hanson. Request permission to dock."

After permission was granted by Admiral Drew, Egan closed the channel and opened the shuttlebay doors in preparation for their return. The Lieutenant briefly considered bringing Wolfe over to help with the docking, but his fact gathering mission was far more vital at the moment. After the Quasar successfully landed in the shuttlebay, Redos closed the doors once more and reporting their completed return to the Admiral.