Forced into Exile (Part 2)

ORIGINAL WRITING This page was originally published elsewhere as part of a joint sim or fleet effort. It has been duplicated here for posterity.

Characters:	Commander Jillian O’Connell
Location:	USS O’Carroll
Time:	Mission Day 1, 1820 hours
Author:	Greenfelt22
Template:Post

It seemed like days had passed while waiting for the Rhode Island-class Sarek and the Defiant-class Kumari to arrive at Starbase Unity when in fact it had only been a few hours. It had also taken forever for the limited amount of telepaths aboard Unity and the O’Carroll to confirm that neither crew contained any Consortium agents. Jillian found herself fortunate that both crews were small. Two other ships, the Sovereign-class Brandenburg and the Ronin-class Akihito were still a couple days away, which gave the O’Carroll the perfect amount of time to check on the Olympic-class Hopkins.

She’d hated, though perfectly understood, Commodore Cameron’s reasons for keeping Zachary on Unity. Jill smiled though, thinking that Zach wouldn’t have taken too kindly to standing around and was likely sporting a toolkit and assisting with repairs to the shield generator. If loyalist forces in this area were to have any chance, then it would be at Starbase Unity. And it would have to be defended.

For now, the priority was to regroup and assess.

“Commander…” came the voice of Lieutenant Wul, the Betazoid Tactical Chief.

“What is it?” Jill asked, sensing the need to face the man behind her.

“Sensors have picked up a large expanse of antimatter, dilithium... and deuterium…” He looked up in surprise.

“A warp core breach.” She closed her eyes. Jill, like the remainder of the senior staff, had reviewed the sensor footage from the incident. The Hopkins had lost a nacelle in their dash to Starbase Unity. But there had been no evidence or indicator of a core breach.

Jill rose and crossed the bridge to see the readings herself. She didn’t have to run any additional scans to confirm the findings. It was a warp core breach, fair and simple. “Survivors,” she muttered. “Surely there’s survivors.”

But even she knew better. A warp core breach was notorious at obstructing sensors. It would all have to be at close range. The next four minutes felt like four hours. She couldn’t think of anything of the twenty eight hundred souls aboard that ship, plus the sick they were ferrying. Hatred began to sink into her soul for this Consortium. One agent had pointed a phaser at her womb, threatening to kill both her and the child she was carrying. He’d been her friend for years. And in one moment that didn’t matter.

To think that a small band of miscreants were willing to do that on a medical ship was a thought more horrid than she could bear.

“Approaching the last known coordinates,” called out the helmsman.

Jill remained at the tactical station. “Bring us out of warp. Scan for debris and escape pods.”

The viewscreen relayed that the orders had been obeyed. Sparkles in the starlight foretold evidence of debris. She could make out pieces of warp field coils, as well as elements of the grille from a nacelle.

“Commander,” Lieutenant Wul said cautiously. “Can you take a look at this?”

She looked back down to see the readings Wul indicated. A large part of her didn’t even want to look. Duty, however, compelled her to. She looked at the readings through a lens of hate and sorrow for several seconds before seeing what Wul thought he saw.

“Helm,” she called out, eyes still affixed to the sensors. “Set course to one-nine-five mark zero-zero-nine. Engage at Warp Four for… one minute.”

“Aye,” replied the Vulcan. Jillian slowly walked back to the center chair as the ship turned and launched back to warp. Her eyes maintained a solid lock on the screen, hoping that she was not wrong. Just like before, this journey seemed to take forever. And why shouldn’t it?

Finally, the starstreaks yielded to slow moving pinpricks at impulse speed. “Magnify,” Jill muttered, taking slow steps toward the viewscreen.

Someone obeyed the command, zooming in at something manmade on screen. It was a round shape, almost distorted and darkened by the red glow of an impulse engine that now faced the O’Carroll.

“Detecting more than twenty seven hundred lifesigns,” Wul reported. “Main power is out, but the ship is functioning on auxiliaries and batteries. Life support functions are stable.”

Jill smiled. “Hail them,” she instructed Wul. “Tell them the USS O’Carroll is ready to assist with repairs.” After a horrible day, it was nice to have some good news.

Read the Next Part

Accreditation

This post was originally written by Greenfelt22 for Bravo Fleet and posted on the Bravo Fleet forums. Use of Bravo Fleet's Forced into Exile (Part 2) is permitted under the Creative Commons 4.0 License and has been modified to suit the story and purposes of the USS Black Hawk Star Trek Role-Playing Simulation.