Saving Lives

Posted on Nov 06, 2018 @ 2:11am by Commander Jacob Crichton & Lieutenant Jasmine Yu
Edited on on Nov 06, 2018 @ 2:11am

Mission: The Uncertainty Principle

“Saving Lives”
(contd from ‘Sharing Experience’)

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Location: USS PHOENIX
SD: [2.18] 1104.2103
Scene: Main Bridge

While the engineers and science personnel worked on fixing the ship and solving the mystery behind the temporal phenomena, Jasmine inhaled deeply as she walked to the tactical console. With internal sensors now restored, she was receiving many reports all at once, regarding the status of persons who were either injured, endangered or both. As chief of security, it was her job to ensure the safety of others on the ship such as getting endangered people to more secure areas of the ship as well as making sure the injured received medical treatment.

With her eyes now glued to a map of the whole ship, Yu was able to identify the locations that were deemed safe or dangerous because of the data extrapolated from the incoming reports by the computer. The areas that were determined to be dangerous flashed red, while those declared to be safe were green. So Jasmine knew she had to evacuate persons stuck in the red zones and escort them to the green zones. Those who were critically injured would be brought directly to sickbay, which was in the green zone and the ones with minor or no injuries were taken to one of the other safe locations, where some or all of them had triages set up. She noticed the Vulgar Tribble, gymnasium on deck 10 in the saucer section as well as cargo bays one and three were in the green zone. It was going to be a challenge moving people around in the saucer section with the turbo lift system down.

Jasmine spoke, “Yu to Silsby, Procter. Report.”

Virgo was the first to respond. [[Silsby here. Good to hear your voice, Lieutenant.]]

Yu inquired, “Everything okay at your end?”

Silsby replied in a calm voice, [[A few bruises but I’m okay.]]

“What’s the status at your end?”

The aSec explained, [[Here at Deck 16 in the Drive section with Ensign Shen, helping people from the science labs and oh, the place is a bloody mess, too dangerous for anyone to linger around.]]

“Lieutenant Procter?”

Mackenzie replied, her voice a little hoarse, [[I’m in sickbay, treated for a fractured arm. Dr. Suvek has cleared me for duty, so I’m ready to go, just awaiting your orders, Lieutenant.]]

“Good to hear,” Jasmine said, relieved to hear both her deputies were still alive and not badly injured. “Please standby for further orders. Yu out.” From the reports, she found the security staff were down with a number of persons out of commission, so the Asian needed to manage with the remaining officers and crewpersons who were still active. She might need to shuffle some of the teams around to compensate for the reduced complement.

Now she had important decisions to make, regarding the allocation of resources to deal with the various crisis. The question that flashed in her mind was whether she should prioritize or send teams to all areas in need of assistance at once but then the latter option meant the resources would be spread thin. She sighed, then took in a deep breath. This wasn’t her first time dealing with a battered ship but it was her first as head of security. During her time on the Camelot, in situations like these, all she did was follow her chief’s orders and here she was the chief.

After a moment of thinking, the dark haired woman finally made a decision. Jasmine would be coordinating with her deputies and other departments such as medical, marines. Regarding security, Jasmine determined that Mackenzie would coordinate the teams in the saucer section, while Silsby would do the same in the drive section, though both would need to work with the marines to handle the rescue operations. Yu was a little nervous on that front as Virgo had a more amicable relationship with the marines than Mackenzie. But they had a job to do and no time for egos.

She decided to prioritize rather than send teams everywhere at the same time. First priority would be given to what she deemed as critical or high risk areas, where endangered persons needed to be evacuated immediately. Jasmine had already spotted a few on the map from the reports. There were some decks with no power and life support failing such as decks seven and eight in the saucer section and deck 23 in the drive section and life signs were detected with some persons in rather precarious situations, needing urgent medical attention. Other crisis given the highest priority were for decks, where there was fire like in deck 19 in the drive section and the fire suppressant systems were off-line. She would coordinate with Kass to deploy the marines to a couple of these high risk areas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jasmine opened her eyes and found herself no longer on the main bridge, but in a corridor. She tried to turn her head, found she couldn’t. Her thoughts seemed jumbled somehow, as if she were being pulled in two directions. She knew she was supposed to be on the bridge, *had* been on the bridge only a moment before, and she had been… what? Something important, she knew that, but each time she thought she was closing in on it, the thought seemed to slip away again, pushed aside by a thought that kept running frantically through her mind like a runaway train.

**Need to deactivate the main deflector, need to deactivate the main deflector, need to-**

**No, ** she thought, pushing past these thoughts. **This has happened before, this isn’t where I am, I am on the bridge. **

She became dimly aware she was moving, through no conscious choice of her own. She could feel her legs moving, but the sensation was distant somehow, as if she were experiencing it through a haze of static.

Jasmine tried to remember why this whole experience felt so familiar. She couldn’t quite pin down the thought, the best she could do was a vague idea that this would make more sense once it had past. She wondered why she wasn’t more afraid, finding herself somewhere she shouldn’t be, her body and thoughts seemingly not under her control – but again and again, her thoughts circled back to **Need to deactivate the main deflector, need to deactivate the main deflector**, and she found herself having to mentally fight her way back to square one.
[[Main Engineering to Lieutenant Yu.]] Jasmine recognized the voice of Malin-Argo, though it sounded distorted somehow, as if she were hearing it through unfamiliar ears.

“Lieutenant Yu here,” she heard herself say.

**I didn’t say that, ** Jasmine thought **What is this? It’s something… we’ve just realized what it was… or maybe we are about to realize it? **

That thought seemed close to the answer, somehow. Jasmine grabbed for it again, even as she felt her lips move (once again, as if through a haze of static), and heard her voice speak again.

“We’ve reached Deck 21. Closing in on the Main Deflector dish now.”

[[You have to hurry,]] Malin-Argo said. [[The rift is widening. Whatever the alien vessel is doing is reacting with the energy surge from the PHOENIX.]]

**Alien vessel? ** Jasmine thought. **But there’s nothing outside the ship. **

She wasn’t sure how she knew that, or where the knowledge had come from. It felt right though. Again, she mentally reached for that thought she had a moment ago, the one that seemed somehow close to understanding what this was.

“Understood,” Jasmine felt herself say. “Yu out.”

Underneath her, those phantom legs began pumping faster.

**Why am I deactivating the main deflector? ** Jasmine thought. **Shouldn’t Jake, or Malin-Argo, or one of the engineers be doing this? **

**Explosion on the bridge, ** came a thought in reply. The sensation was strange, as if she had remembered to ask a question she already knew the answer to, instead of the other way around. With it came another thought: **Jake is dead. **

**What is this?** her mind raged again, as she reached the doors to Main Deflector Control. **Why does this feel so… familiar? **

She stepped through the doors into Main Deflector Control, and even as she did so, the world seemed to dissolve around her. As it went, her mind was carried away with it, and in the fleeting moments of her awareness, the answer came to her.

This was the future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now she was back in the bridge, standing behind the tactical console, blinking in confusion as her eyes glazed over the ship’s map displayed before her. Another glimpse of the future. Only this time, it brought out more questions. She was walking along a corridor in Deck 21 to deactivate the main deflector dish, which brought up another set of questions. Was the deflector still active? And why in the future, Malin-Argo sent her to deactivate it, considering there were other more qualified people to do that? There was a look of horror in her eyes. The bridge. Explosion. That was probably why she was tasked the job. Jake, Byte and others in the bridge were dead? She exhaled.

“Lieutenant Yu?” Jake asked, sounding concerned. “Are you alright?”

Yu nodded. “Commander, is the main deflector dish still online?”

“I’m not sure.” Jake raised an eyebrow. “Why? Did you just hop again into the future?”

Byte added, {{I believe the more accurate way of describing it, if my theory is correct, is that Lieutenant Yu’s consciousness was pulled into the future as her physical form never left.}}

The ExO asked, “What did you see this time?”

“I was in Deck 21, on my way to deactivate the main deflector,” Jasmine began. “Then Commander Malin-Argo contacted me, telling me to hurry up and said something about the rift widening and that it was caused by an alien vessel and an energy surge from the Phoenix.”

“Alien vessel? Rift?” Lynette Ryan questioned from underneath a nearby console she was repairing. “But sensors show there is nothing out there.”

{{Ensign Ryan is correct,}} Byte confirmed. {{However, while our sensors may not have been able to detect the presence of an alien vessel or a rift, it doesn’t rule out the possibility they would be there at some point in the future.}}

Jasmine asked, “What if the alien vessel is already here and possess technology that prevents our sensors from detecting them?”

{{I wouldn’t rule out that possibility either.}}

Yu brought up, “There is something else, Commander, regarding the future I saw.”

“Go on.” Jake nodded.

“I thought it odd Malin-Argo sent me to deactivate the main deflector dish, instead of one of the engineers or anyone else more qualified than me,” she said, sighing. “Commander, I believe there was an explosion in the bridge, sometime between now and that future and apparently, I wasn’t there at the time, likely called away for something else.”

“For reasons we don’t exactly know yet,” Jake spoke after a moment’s silence, “the bridge possibly explodes and then sometime after that, Malin-Argo would ask Lieutenant Yu to deactivate the main deflector dish.” He turned to Byte. “Lieutenant, can you check on the status of the main deflector?”

Byte replied, checking the readings on his console, {{Commander, I can confirm the main deflector is still running and emitting energy at extremely high levels.}}

“Can you deactivate from here?”

The Android replied, {{I am afraid that is not possible. The main deflector dish can only be deactivated manually onsite.}}

Jake let out a sigh of frustration. “So we’ll have to send someone to Deck 21 to turn it off.”

{{Correct, sir.}}

“Bridge to Engineering,” Crichton tapped on the comm panel.

[[Engineering here,]] came Malin-Argo’s voice.

Jake ordered, “Commander, I need you to send an engineer to Deck 21 to deactivate the main deflector dish now.”

[[Commander,]] Malin-Argo asked, [[may I ask why?]]

Jake explained, sighing, “Commander, we have reason to believe a rift will start to form or grow because of an energy surge from the main deflector dish and it is imperative that it gets deactivated immediately.”

[[This task will require only one of my engineers, so I will send Ensign Elgin,]] the Grazerite informed rather curtly.

Jasmine chimed in, “Commander, with the possibility of an alien vessel in our vicinity, there is a chance that with our defenses down, some of them could have boarded without being detected.”

“What do you propose, Lieutenant?” Jake asked.

Yu suggested, “I recommend Ensign Elgin be assigned a security or marine escort. And right now, Major Thytos and the marines are closer to deck 21 than any of the security teams.”

“Alright….” Jake was interrupted, when Ryan called out.

“Look!”

Yu turned around and her eyes widened. Facing the officers was an outline of a blurred figure, standing a few feet from the viewscreen. Then a blurred appendage extended out of its body. Jasmine, as a precautionary measure, lowered her arm, her hand hovering over the hilt of her phaser in case the apparition posed a threat.

Jake addressed the apparition, “Greetings…” Then the apparition vanished, leaving everyone puzzled.

Lynette, a look of confusion in her eyes, inquired, “What just happened?”

“Not sure, Ensign,” Jake said in a quiet voice. “But it could be one of our guests from that alien vessel.”

[[Engineering to Bridge.]]

“Go ahead, Commander.”

Malin-Argo reported, a trace of uncertainty in his voice, [[Commander, some strange lifeforms appeared by the warp core and then disappeared.]]

“Were they blurred?”

[[Yes,]] the Grazerite replied. [[We were unable to make out their forms.]]

Jasmine sighed. “So it seems some of the aliens did board the ship.”

[[The alien vessel would not necessarily be outside but inside as in part of the ship,]] this time it was Eve Dalziel’s voice that was heard. [[And we may need to shut down the warp core before we can figure out a way to disentangle us from them.]]

“How did you come to that conclusion, Lieutenant?” Jake asked. “Did you also perhaps hop to the future like Lieutenant Yu did?”

Kass Thytos remarked, [[Well, Eve. It looks like ya’ll and I weren’t the only ones who’ve lost our damn minds and glimpsed tha future. What’d ya see, Jasmine? Somethin exploded like me and Eve did.]]

“No explosions,” Yu answered.

Jake said, “So if Lieutenant Dalziel is right, somehow after the experiment began, an alien vessel became entangled with the ship, which explains the extensive damage inside the ship but not to its superstructure.”

Jasmine asked, “How are we unable to detect their presence?”

[[I recall from my glimpse of the future that they kept phasing,]] Eve informed.

Byte said, {{We are unable to detect the alien vessel because it likely exists out of phase with us.}}

With knowledge of an alien vessel present and a rift forming, Jasmine decided she’d for the most part, stick with her current plan to rescue endangered persons but with a few tweaks. Through coordination with Kass, both the marines and security personnel would now be on high alert for the aliens even though they couldn’t see them yet, while they conducted the rescue operations.

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NRPG: So is the alien vessel friend or foe?



A JP by Shawn and myself.



~*~
Ranjani S.
Writing for

Lieutenant Jasmine Yu
Chief of Security and Tactical
USS PHOENIX