Navigating Through Chaos

Posted on Dec 29, 2018 @ 8:28pm by Lieutenant Jasmine Yu
Edited on on Dec 29, 2018 @ 8:28pm

Mission: The Uncertainty Principle

“Navigating through Chaos”

(contd from ‘Second Sight’)

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Location: USS PHOENIX
SD: [2.18] 1229.0004
Scene: Bridge

When the ship had shuddered the third time, Jasmine lost her grip on the console and ended up tumbling back a few feet, coming into contact with the wall behind her. She was lying down, her back against the wall, listening to the elevations of her heart rate and breathing. Slowly, she made her way to a sitting position until she felt her body convulse in pain. Jasmine paused, glancing around and noticed she had sustained bruises on her body. Luckily, her head didn’t hit the wall. Inhaling deeply, the Asian pressed her palms on the ground and lifted herself up to a standing position. As she walked towards the tactical station, she heard Jake shouting at his comm.

“Engineering. Come in. Malin-Argo? Maynell? Ryan?” The ExO exhaled. “Dr. Eden? Anyone there?” No answer.

Plasma fire. Jasmine became worried as she remembered hearing Byte mention a plasma fire had erupted in Engineering before the last shudder. This was bad, she thought, accessing the information on her console. With this last shudder – the worst one of the three – Yu needed to know the status of the ship and the rescue efforts. She closed her eyes for a brief moment before reopening them. Her heart sank, when watching the reports pouring in from all over the ship. Well, at least the internal sensors were working.

Byte announced, {{Communications and sensors are still functional, Commander.}}

“Then why aren’t they answering?” Jake demanded.

Jasmine realized from the anguish in the ExO’s voice that the situation in Engineering was dire. Plasma fire. The words kept buzzing in her head like an annoying house fly. She froze, her limbs suddenly numb, beginning to fear the worse. What if…She shook her head. No, until there was further information, she should not assume the worse. She inhaled and then exhaled, addressing the others. “Should we send a team to Engineering to find out what happened?”

Crichton nodded. “Yes. They’re not answering.”

It all went wrong. Moments earlier, they were all doing fine in executing the plan to disentangle themselves from the alien vessel and then it all changed when the other ship pulled them back. So now here they were, back to square one – being entangled with an alien ship that was positioned at the same point in space but not time. At least, that was what the security chief gathered from the conversation. She sighed, when the incoming reports didn’t bring any good news.

Main Engineering wasn’t the only place where plasma fire erupted. Jasmine picked up reports indicating there was fire in decks 2, 4 in the saucer section and decks 32 in the drive section. She reallocated personnel to the aforementioned decks to extinguish the fire. So the next thing was to send a group to Engineering, when a couple more reports came through.

[[Silsby to Yu,]] came the voice of one of her deputies. [[I’m receiving distress calls from people who are trapped in turbo lifts that got stuck in transit during the last shake. I’ve already deployed some teams to help get the trapped out.]]

“Keep me posted, Lieutenant.”

More reports poured in, making the young woman sigh in dismay. Some of the designated green zones had turned red and so now once again she needed to redirect rescue efforts to areas most in need of evacuation. The good thing was that sickbay was marked green so the injured could still be sent there. Other reports indicated at some decks, the bulkheads collapsed. She froze – deck 21. Bulkhead collapse in part of the corridor, blocking the path between the turbo lift and the main deflector dish. She was then brought back to her foray into the near future and remembered not seeing any debris as her future self was walking down the hallway to deactivate the dish, which apparently was still active. Perhaps an engineer didn’t have the chance to get there yet and hoped the person wasn’t there, when the collapse occured.

While there were some differences from the vision, it didn’t show a way out of this nightmarish situation. Yu began to wonder about the purpose of the visions and had doubts as to whether they would be able to change the outcome of their predicament no matter how many jumps their consciences made to the future. She let out a sigh of frustration and tried as much as she could to keep the hope alive that they would make it out of this disaster in one piece.

[[Procter to Yu.]]

“Yu here,” Jasmine responded. “What’s your status?”

When MacKenzie began talking, the Asian heard static in the background. The other woman was speaking from deck 12 in the saucer section. [[Bulkheads collapsed in one of the research labs. No casualties reported. We were able to pull out three members of the science department from under the debris. Only one of them is critically injured and a medical team has already taken him to sickbay. The others sustained minor injuries and are escorted to triage.]]

[[Lieutenant…]] Jasmine could hear another voice in the background – a female.

“What’s going on?” Yu inquired.

[[Lieutenant.]] Procter returned a moment later. [[We found one more survivor and pulling…i…him out.]]

The other person informed, [[Lieutenant…he looks to be fine just a little shocked.]]

Then Jasmine heard a bark in the background followed by a soft whimper and realized who they had just saved. “Smooshy?”

There was a hint of annoyance in the deputy’s voice. Jasmine knew that MacKenzie wasn’t a big fan of the pug, considering the amount of trouble he gave to the security department every time he wandered off. [[We found the pug hidden amidst some debris. I have no idea how he got here in the first place.]]

Jasmine could guess. It was possible the Phoenix’s resident pug might have wandered out of sickbay again prior to the experiment. With all the chaos surrounding them following the disaster, it was likely that everyone was too occupied to notice Smooshy went missing, well maybe except Lieutenant Arion but even he didn’t inquire about the pug as far as she knew.

{{Commander,}} Byte suggested, which caught the Asian’s attention. {{I suggest we find a way to communicate with the alien vessel before we decide to make another attempt to disentangle ourselves from them.}}

Crichton agreed, a hint of tension visible in his voice. “Good idea.” There was still no response from either Engineering or the team Jasmine sent there to investigate. “Maybe then we can find out what is really going on? Why did they prevent us from leaving?”

Alien vessel. Jasmine wondered about them. What were they like? From what she understood, they existed in another time continuum. She wondered about their intentions. Were they hostile? Considering what just happened to the ship, Yu was inclined to believe in the worst – part of her job as chief of security. Then again, maybe the aliens needed to achieve something and might not be bothered as to the harm their actions inflicted on the Phoenix. Regardless of their motivations, Jasmine decided they were dangerous until it was proven otherwise.

Byte suggested, {{We could generate a subspace isolation field to fit around an object or person and in conjunction with a phase discriminator to phase-shift into the aliens’ time continuum.}}

The ExO nodded, stroking his chin. “That could work. I recall reading similar procedures had been done before in Starfleet history.”

“Commander, Lieutenant,” Jasmine chimed in. “How does it work? Will this method help us see or communicate with the aliens?”

Byte explained calmly, {{Lieutenant, yes, we would be creating a localized forcefield that contains its own pocket of time, which is where the aliens exist. Our time would exist outside of that forcefield.}}

“I see.” Jasmine nodded.

Jake added, “The phase discriminators ensures that whatever is phase shifted there will enable it to exist in that time continuum without integrating into it.”

[[Commander, I volunteer myself for this task. My positronic brain is outfitted with a phase discriminating amplifier, which can modulate the forcefield around myself. I will then phase shift to the aliens’ time continuum to gather information and then return to report back my findings.]]

Crichton sighed. “Actually, I was thinking of perhaps sending a probe through to their time without risking the lives of valuable personnel. We need information first and ascertain whether the aliens’ intentions towards us are hostile before anyone is sent there.”

Jasmine suggested, “Maybe I can accompany him to provide security backup though I don’t have a positronic brain and will need a device or something to phase shift me to the aliens’ time.”

[[I’d propose emergency transporter bands for you and other organic lifeforms as they contain phase discriminators but as much as I appreciate your assistance, Lieutenant, I can manage on my own.]]

Jake shook his head. “Lieutenant, I am not sending anyone there until we can understand what’s happening there. So for this trip, we will phase shift a probe to their time….”

[[Engineering to Bridge…]] The room went silent as Dalziel’s voice came through.

“Bridge here,” Jake replied. “What happened down there?”

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NRPG: Been a while since I last wrote. A little rusty but I’m glad to get something out before the new year.

~*~
Ranjani S.
Writing for

Lieutenant Jasmine Yu
Chief of Security and Tactical
USS PHOENIX