The Long Journey

Posted on Sat Apr 18th, 2015 @ 7:51am by

1,302 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Mission 87 - Disaster
Location: Engineering USS Ark Royal, Briefing Room 1
Timeline: (BACKPOST) MD2 0842hrs, Following 'In Route to Hunster II'

Jack was at his station in engineering, liaising with Quan about the Warp Core settings when the tannoy rang out overhead.

“All personnel, all personnel, now hear this. We have arrived at Hunster II. All hands to defence stations. That is all.”

“Well that was short and sweet” said Jack to nobody in particular as he moved round to calibrate the Warp field to match any atmospheric difference. As if to match the announcement, warning bells sounded and the strobe lights shone yellow as the ship went to Yellow Alert. Jack shrugged amid the bedlam and lightshow and went back to work, in a world of his own again.

During their time off watch, Jack had drilled his team to the ragged edge, going over RSJ do-and-don’ts, SATCOM frequencies, and ways to administer basic first aid. They only had 2 days to learn everything and of course, that wasn’t anything like as long as was needed, but they managed the best they could and would improvise the rest, if they had to. The boys seemed happy with the way things were going; even having two JG’s in the team didn’t seem to affect matters. Only Walsh have expressed anything like terror, but he was prone to being scared of carrying hot tea so that wasn’t concerning.

The only worry was to order to carry explosives. Down on the surface, there would be an absence of heavy lifting gear, such as cranes or Cybo-suits. The makeshift answer was to give each squad “defensive explosives” or DE for short. Should any object prove impassable or pose a threat to life, a stick of this DE should clear the target area or any debris and be non effective to humans. How that was meant to work Jack didn’t know, but they were out of time and this was the only option that was submitted. Truman had volunteered to carry, train with and, potentially, use it. There was a fine line between bravery and stupidity, reasoned Jack, and that was damn sight pushing both.

Back to the real world again and it found Jack bashing buttons on the console, trying to match the field strength with the atmos-readouts. Just as he got it sorted out, the tannoy blared out again.

“Attention, attention, now hear this, engineering squads Charlie Baker, Alpha Delta, Sierra Foxtrot, Delta Echo report to Briefing room 1. This is not a drill. That is all”.

Jack sighed and laid down his PADD. He called over an AB and quickly gave him an overview of what needed to be done. He then headed out of engineering towards the turbolifts. Already there waiting for him were Travers, Watson, Truman and Dye. “Well gentlemen” said Jack as he sauntered towards the doors “let’s see what they want from us this time”.

“That’s the second briefing they’ve had for the engineers today” exclaimed Watson. “What’s so important that they need another one for?”

“But none of us was in that briefing Tom” said Dye “speaking of which, has anyone seen the guys from Sierra Tango, they were in there this morning but I ain’t seen them since?”

“Maybe they’ve been told that they’re going down so they’re prepping” sighed Truman. “Which means we ain’t going down, we just here to make up the numbers. Goddammit” he exclaimed violently and kicked the wall in anger. Watson sniggered and said “looks like someone fell out the wrong side of bed this morning”. “It’s too bad you can’t fall out of the ship anytime soon” snarled Truman.

The lift finally arrived, as did Walsh, who was always late, and everyone embarked. 30 seconds later the lift spat them out on Deck 4 and they started walking towards the conference, Truman now swinging his arms around energetically: “But Tom, you can’t seriously justify pulling 10 specialist squads off 400 just to man this heap of junk? I mean we’ve trained our backsides off for 2 days, I haven’t slept properly since........4 days ago and now we’re going to be told that we’re just here to make the place look nice??”

“Oh will you stop being a drama queen” laughed Watson. “I seriously doubt we’re being made to “make the place look nice” as you so eloquently put it”. The bickering continued between the pair all the way to the briefing room, where it was abruptly ended by Dye threatening to throw the pair of them down the nearest Jeffries tube.

The door slid opened as the team entered the room. The other 3 squads were all there, looking pensive and under stress. Jack nodded to LT Markov, team leader of Sierra Foxtrot, who grimaced back at him and resumed his thousand yard stare at the wall. Jack glanced at Watson, who also grimaced, and then he motioned towards the seats, which the boys took. The doors slid open again and in walked LT-CDR Sek, closely followed by LT Baxter and LT F’lox.

“Good morning gentlemen, pardon me for dispensing with the niceties but today’s a busy one” LT-CDR Sek began, arriving at the front of the room. “This is the second briefing for the engineers today as you know because we need everyone to know their responsibilities whilst we’re here. Now as you all know, we need experienced, trained squads to lead the evacuation and clean-up effort of the colony. We’ve been struggling with constant comm issues but the marines are down and starting the job. Your job’s are to RV with the colony, effect repairs and conduct ope.......”

But she was immediately cut off in a chorus of shouts and gasps from all the squads which only ended in Walshie bursting out “Ma’am, does that mean we’re first one’s down!?” “Of course it does” she replied with anger on her face. “You’re the best we got, and acting like monkeys offered a banana is slowly changing my opinion!”

The room was immediately silent. Sek continued "Now, because of your squad duties, you will be relieved of all watch duties there forth so you better inform your relief. First transport is at 10:00 hours involving all of you here. Good luck and Godspeed. Dismissed.”

The movement to the door seemed like it took an age. Jack stared at his squad for their reactions. Dye was poker-faced, Truman and Watson unsmiling, Travers grimacing and Walsh looking like he was going to throw up. Jack looked at the other squads and their members and their reactions were pretty similar. No-one could quite believe that this was it. Eventually LT Markov stood up, banged a massive fist on the table and shouted, “Well come on you apes, you shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke, now SUIT UP!”

Then the movement came and the 24 men in the room piled towards the door at once. Jack’s heart was racing. They all had one hour to find their gear, mount it and potentially use it. This, Jack knew would be a huge next couple of days for them all. But none of them knew how big it was going to be.

Team composition of Squad Delta Echo, Beta Watch, USS Ark Royal

Team Leader – Lieutenant JG Jack Wooldridge (Squad Commander)

2IC – Lieutenant JG Dye Heron (Medical)

Senior ERA - Ensign Paul Walsh (SATCOM)

DC - CPO Tom Watson (RSJ Operator)

DC - CPO Harry Truman (DE Operator, RSJ Operator)

ERA - Able Seaman David Travers (Medical)

nb. hello all, aplologies for my recent inactivity and this backpost i started writing it 3 weeks ago but never got it finished, i've had severe work commitments, i'll try and do some bits and pieces when i can, once again, i'm sorry

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