“Report!” Captain Danielle Mercer barked, stumbling onto the bridge in her Academy track and field vest and sweats.
“Three small ships just appeared on sensors and opened fire, sir,” yelled Lieutenant th’Sholl, gripping onto the science station until his blue knuckles turned white.
“Who are they?”
“Unknown.”
Mercer clutched the bulkhead to help keep her upright as she made her way to communications. “Hailing frequencies?”
“I’ve been trying, they’re ignoring us, sir,” Petty Officer Venerov told her, wiping blood from his left eye.
“Shields down to thirty-two percent,” called Chief Erog from the small weapons console.
“Initiating evasive sequence delta-one,” Lieutenant Commander Tovaal announced from the helm.
Mercer launched herself for her chair, grabbed the side and pulled herself into it, locking the arms down in place to keep her secured. “Can we go to warp?”
“Not this deep inside the nebula, Captain,” Cadet Finn replied, fighting hard to keep his terror in check.
“Chief, are our weapons having any affect on them?”
“Moderate shield damage to two ships so far, not enough to slow them down.”
The Bonaventure rattled from two more phaser blasts, but the third hit made the survey ship scream. The lights dimmed, replaced by the red hue of the emergency backups.
“Hull breach! Deck three, sections eight through ten,” Venerov called out. “Emergency forcefields not responding, the deck is open to space!”
“Seal all bulkheads!” Mercer ordered, knowing that it would mean death for all those still on deck three”but it was either them or risk losing the entire ship.
“A-Aye sir.” The nightshift comm operator entered a few commands, sending orders to damage control. After a pause he looked back. “Bulkheads sealed.”
She didn’t have time to dwell on those of her crew she had sentenced to die, her focus needed to be on keeping as many of the others alive. “Maintain evasive sequences and keep firing. Mr Finn, put the nav sensor display on the screen.”
The swirling masses of blue and purple gasses and dust were replaced by a grid screen with the Bonaventure in the centre and the three hostiles coming at them from port aft. Various patterns were also highlighted, showing different compositions deep within the Attori Nebula, as well as navigational hazards such as gravity wells and asteroids. Something close to their starboard side caught her eye.
“What is that?”
“An ionised particle field, sir,” Finn told her
She spun towards th’Sholl. “How bad and how big?”
“Level four, Captain, measuring eight AUs in diameter.”
A level five field meant total sensor blindness. “Finn, alter heading for the field. Tovaal, full impulse.”
“Aye sir,” the flight control team replied in unison, the helmsman’s tone steady and strong whilst the Cadet’s wavered.
“Commander, as soon as we’re in deep enough alter our trajectory and speed, keep them off our tails.”
“Acknowledged.”
As the science vessel turned hard to starboard and accelerated towards the dense patch of EM distorting dust, the alien ships maintained their pursuit and intensified their fire.
“All shield power diverted aft, shunt phaser energy into the shields if you have to, Chief, just keep them up.”
“Shutting down weapons and diverting all power to aft screens,” the Tellarite complied without argument.
Mercer just needed to hope that they had enough to keep them going until they reached the field, where she hoped they could find some modicum of safety.
“Field entry in thirty seconds.”
“Shield strength down to twenty percent and dropping.”
Hold together, hold together, she willed her first command. Her jaw clenched so tight the muscles hurt.
“Fifteen seconds.”
“Eleven percent.”
“Ten seconds.”
A trio of weapon blasts slammed into the Bonaventure once more, shaking the surveyor to her very core, making the emergency lights dip and flicker.
“Shields have collapsed!”
The hostiles managed to get off two quick volleys before the Starfleet ship entered the field, but each blast found its target tearing into the secondary hull, scorching the nacelles, and blowing out the impulse drive. The surveyor was thrown into the region of severe sensor distortion, tumbling out of control, propelled by inertia, with stabilisers on the brink of failure and her engines destroyed.
Mercer’s lap restraints kept her in place, but others weren’t as lucky as they were thrown from their posts. Tovaal was the only other member of the bridge crew who managed to remain at their post, his superior Vulcan strength allowing him to barely cling on.
“Commander, fire thrusters! Try to level us out.”
“RCS thrusters are not responding.”
She slapped the intercom on her armrest. “Bridge to engineering.” The link remained silent. “Engineering? Engineering respond!”
Pushing aside the pit of despair opening up in her stomach, Mercer knew that they’d have to get themselves under control using just what they had to hand on the bridge.
“Tovaal, shut down and reinitialise.”
“I am attempting to do so, but cannot get the thrusters back online.”
From behind her she heard someone retch as the g-forces and chaotic rotations got the better of them.
“Overload them!”
“Captain?”
“Send a massive surge of power into the control circuits, it’ll either trigger a restart or fry them completely.”
“Aye sir.”
The Vulcan worked fervidly for several long seconds before calling out, “Initiating overload.”
Several electrical crackles from the helm immediately followed, before the entire board went dark. Damn! she cursed herself, prematurely. As soon as the thought emerged the station illuminated once again and Tovaal set to work.
“Thrusters are at thirty percent. Attempting to resume control.”
With his steady hand on the rudder the Bonaventure levelled herself out evenly. The screeching hull grew silent, the deck became still once more, and she was no longer pinned to the back of her chair. Cautiously, she took a deep breath and then turned back to look at her crew. Who were unsteadily getting to their feet and seeing to those who weren’t.
“Is everyone al””
An alarm from the helm drew her attention forward once again.
“Our velocity is increasing exceeding the output of our thrusters.”
Th’Sholl hobbled back to the science console and looked in his viewer. “We’re caught in a planetary gravity field, Captain.”
“Our trajectory is a decaying orbital pattern and speed continues to increase.”
“Can we use thrusters to break free?”
“Negative, the gravity well is too strong for what thruster power we have remaining.”
“Options?” Mercer asked, looking around as most of the bridge crew took their posts, Crewman Zhang stayed at the back seeing to Verenov, who lay prone on the deck. Crewman Rheshi was covering communications. All of them remained quiet. With no engines to speak of, deep inside an ionised particle field in a dense nebula in uncharted space, on a badly damaged science ship, there weren’t many options available to them.
The Bonaventure was heading for the planet’s surface, that was a certainty, but she would do all she could to save however many of her crew were still alive.
“Ready all escape pods. Prepare to abandon ship.”
“Captain,” th’Sholl interrupted immediately, “the planet’s atmosphere is charged with some sort of energy field I’ve never seen before. I doubt the escape pods would survive.”
“What about the Bonaventure herself?”
The Andorian thaan looked at her. “Our hull is stronger, even with the damage we’ve sustained; she should make it onto the surface.”
Mercer turned to Chief Erog. “Can you get anything from the shields?”
The security chief shook her head. “The shield grid is fired, sir.”
She nodded at the non-com and turned to engineer N’Val. “Transfer everything, except thrusters power, to structural integrity. Commander Tovaal,” she addressed her helmsman spinning her chair back towards to the viewscreen, “keep our descent as level as you can.”
“Understood,” he replied, his tone even.
Taking a breath she tapped the intercom control. “All hands, this is the Captain. We are heading for a crash landing, secure yourselves.” She closed the channel.
“Sir,” Rheshi spoke up, “onboard communications is patchy, everyone might not have heard the alert.”
“Get it on every active panel, do your best.”
“Aye sir.”
The bridge rattled as they entered the upper atmosphere. The viewscreen, which showed the planet they were plummeting towards, flickered with static as the emergency lighting dimmed. With every passing second the shaking grew worse. Ahead of her Tovaal and Finn worked hard to keep them as steady as possible.
She glanced over at th’Sholl, who was bracing himself in his chair. “Anything more on the planet?”
“The atmosphere is a nitrogen/oxygen mix with other trace gases, so it’s breathable, but I can’t scan the surface, sir.”
It was M-Class at least, so they wouldn’t suffocate, but only time would tell if they’d be able to survive. She shook her head, her thought process getting ahead of her. They needed to reach the surface first, after that then they’d tackle the next hurdle, then the next, and however many more they would need to in order to get through.
“Structural integrity is approaching maximum tolerance,” announced N’Val.
The surveyor was shaking so hard that Mercer couldn’t see straight, made worse by the snow that now filled the viewscreen and the flicker of the lights as they threatened to fail completely.
“Thrusters are overheating.”
The Bonaventure suddenly lurched, catching them all by surprise.
“What was that?”
“The port pylon is starting to buckle, sir!”
Mercer looked at the Centaurian engineer, feeling her stomach tie itself in knots. Once one of the interconnectors between the primary and secondary hulls was lost the other wouldn’t be far behind, which would mean all those on the lower decks would die once it was sheared off and would spin uncontrollably in the atmosphere, burning up well before they reached the ground.
“Rheshi, alert the secondary hull to evac through the starboard pylon. N’Val, seal off the portside.”
“Aye sir,” they both replied.
The long, narrow secondary hull was a collection of sensor arrays and palettes, probe launchers, dedicated computer systems, and science labs, where most of the ships complement of researchers and assistants worked”with over half the crew falling under that category it was always a hub of activity, even more so since they’d entered the Attori Nebula.
In all her life, she had never felt so helpless.
As the pylon deteriorated the buffeting and rattling only got worse. When the SIF failed, the duranium plating was ripped off and the structural braces tore apart. The ship heaved as one of the two crucial umbilicals disintegrated. Mercer’s teeth rattled in her head as the ship dropped.
“Starboard pylon integrity is twenty percent above tolerance,” said N’Val. “Twenty-five percent.”
“How many more people are left down there?”
“I don’t know, internal sensors are offline,” th’Sholl called over the ear aching groans.
Just like on deck three, she had to choose from two terrible options: give whoever was left in the secondary hull a few more seconds to evacuate, though put the rest of the ship at risk is she left it too late; or, seal off the starboard pylon to keep the majority of the crew alive for a little longer.
“Thirty percent above tolerance. It won’t hold out much longer!”
Eyes wet, she closed them for a second, begging for forgiveness, then opened them and looked at the petty officer. “Seal the starboard pylon.”
“Aye sir,” he replied, hitting the control panel.
The rattles and groans of the ship filled the bridge. Mercer counted to herself. She reached seven when the surveyor slammed hard, as the other connection between the two sections broke apart and the secondary hull was sent spiralling. She could only hope that it was devoid of crew as it hurtled into oblivion.
“We’re entering the stratosphere,” yelled Cadet Finn.
“Sensor resolution is clearing up.”
“Any suitable places to land?”
“We’re in a mountainous area, rocky terrain and dense forests.”
“It’ll have to do. Commander, at your discretion.”
“Impact in forty seconds.”
The visual sensors cleared up as well and displayed the surface on the viewscreen. They were entering a valley with tall mountains on either side of them and a bed of red leafed trees in the middle, not that they would do much to cushion their landing.
The ground was rushing closer and closer towards them. Tovaal counted down the seconds until they crashed, which made her grip the armrests even tighter.
“Ten seconds.”
“All hands, brace for impact!”
“Five seconds. Four.”
This is it, she told herself, eyes locked on the viewscreen as they skimmed the tops of the trees.
“Two. One.”
Story Notes: I don't know if this will go anywhere, I just liked the set up so you never know. If there's a lot of interest in going further then I'll see about continuing it.