A Short Bumpy Road

Posted on Thu Oct 9th, 2025 @ 5:03pm by Fleet Admiral Mike K`Wor Bremer & Commander Robert Stark & Lieutenant K`Wor & Lieutenant Commander Ariana Monroe-Wayne & Lieutenant Commander Anna Bagwell & Lieutenant Arev & Lieutenant JG Gerard Sullivan & Commander Namia Grian

1,275 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 120 - Guardian at the Gate
Location: USS Perseus
Timeline: Current

ON:

The Perseus turned and accelerated to full impulse and within seconds the small craft entered the conduit. Immediately the Perseus started to be knocked around and shaken.

Mike looked around as a display behind him blew out.

“Shields down to sixty-one percent.” K’Wor reported.

“Structural integrity down to eighty-six percent and falling.” Stark added.

Two of Ten turned and walked to the blown-out panel, raised his hand, and extended a tendril to plug into an exposed ODN relay. “I’m attempting to stabilize the Structural Integrity Field.”

“Keep her steady” Bremer said as he watched the view screen.

"Aye, sir" Sullivan called back, focusing on the helm console. "I'm using the lateral thrusters as-and-when to compensate, that should keep us level."

Ariana was hanging onto her seat, the bumpy ride wasn’t entirely a surprise, she just hoped when they reached the other end that they didn’t get any nasty surprises.

Grian did her up most not to be knocked from her seat as the Perseus was shaken violently. Using her console she did whatever she could to help keep the ship together. *This is fun* she thought.

Arev spoke up from the Ops console, "Rerouting auxiliary power to thrusters and structural integrity." The ship rocked slightly, "Sensors indicate we are approaching an area of increased turbulence; I am rerouting emergency power to inertial dampeners."

"Oh wonderful, just what we all desperately wanted more of, turbulence." Grian commented as she brace for being shaken more violently than your average cocktail at Quarks Bar.

Anna kept her eyes on the others as she prepared herself for the bumpy ride. She didn’t want to get hurt and not be able to treat anyone who might be injured along the way.

"Lieutenant Arev!" Sullivan called, shouting to be heard over the noise of the ship rumbling in the turbulence, "I'm interfacing the helm with your Ops station to feed you real-time data on the gravometric turbulence to optimize the inertial dampeners, that should help keep this as smooth as possible." He continued - "Admiral Bremer, if I didn't know any better, I'd hazard a guess that we're coming up on the half way point soon, sir..."

Before Mike to reply, the small Aquarius class ship was rocked by a violent jolt. The panel Two of Ten was plugged into sparked and the Borg was thrown to the deck.

"We have a minor hull breach on Deck Two, forcefields in place!" K'Wor reported.

"Would a modified deflector pulse just ahead of the ship smooth this out, or at least give us a little more time to avoid the worst of these gravometric turbulence?" Bremer asked aloud to everyone as he picked himself up off the deck.

"Possibly..." Stark replied as he started to type in commands. "Hey kid, tell me if that helps." Stark added a moment later as he glanced over at Sullivan.

"Maybe..." Sullivan paused, turning back towards Stark, "maybe if we can adjust it to the right frequency, but on the opposite end of the scale and send out a proper anti-gravometric pulse, it could cancel out most of the turbulence. I'll send all my data over to you now, Commander. Its a great idea, let's hope it works!"

"Arev....can you pull power from any non-essential system? Communications, long range sensors, weapons, anything else left?" Stark asked.

Mike looked back, "Doctor, how's Two of Ten?"

“Two of ten took a hit.” Anna replied. “But is now stabilized. I got there quick enough to prevent any serious injuries.”

Two of Ten sat up, then slowly stood. "Thank you Doctor, I believe I'll be able to function adequately." He stumbled back to his position as the Perseus continued to shake.

“Just the same.” Anna moved closer to him. “I will be keeping an eye on you.”

A large jolt knocked Grian off of her seat. She hit the floor with a this, sliding into a bulkhead.

"Doc!" K'Wor called out as Grian hit the bulkhead beside him.

Anna was already on the move. “It was wise to bring me along.” As she started to take a look at Grian. “This is quite a ride.”

Dazed and in a bit of pain from the impact, she wearily looked at Anna.

"Hey. Definitely a ride. Rough landing though. " She commented.

“We never do anything the easy way.” Anna tried to keep things light. She continued treating the wounded and tried to brace herself as she felt herself being tossed into a panel. Anna lay waiting for things to settled down. She felt pain in her shoulder but it wasn’t broken.

“You’re not kidding!” Ariana offered a wry smile as she hung on for dear life not wanting to be added to the wounded.

Arev worked his console as he squeezed power out of any system he could. as he finished rerouting power from replicators, life support in unused spaces, he even tapped the warp core for extra power, which he was certain he'd hear about at the conclusion of this endeavor, "Power is rerouted. You will not have it for long." He pressed a few commands into his console as it chirped a warning, "I recommend you be quick, sir."

"Hit it Sullivan!" Mike said even before Arev finished saying 'sir'.

"On it, sir!" Sullivan replied urgently, "buckle up folks, here we go!" He tapped the engine command sequences as he spoke, and hit engage quicker than he ever had before. The power transfer to the inertial dampeners was noticeable, but a huge jolt still rocked the ship.

Anna held on, not wanting to take another bounce off anything. She was relieved no one had been badly injured.

Grian smiled towards Anna. "One thing is certain after all this, I am going to have on hell of a bruise on my ass " she said holding on tight.

Even Bremer smiled at Grian's joke...at least for a moment....

"Hold on!" K'Wor yelled as the Perseus shook violently again as the lights flickered....then suddenly....calm...

In space, the small Aquarius class escort exited the mouth of the conduit and drifted away from the event horizon.

Everyone inside the small ship slowly exhaled....

"We're...we're in the Delta Quadrant alright." Stark said as he looked back and forth at a sensor display and an engineering display.

"Confirmed." K'Wor added. "I'm not detecting any ships nearby, or debris."

Mike stood and looked around the Bridge at everyone. "Take a moment, get your bearings, take a breath, then let's get a damage report together."

Mike walked around to each person present in the small bridge of the tiny craft before returning to the center seat. "Any star systems nearby?"

"There are two. A Type G - YELLOW about three light years away and a Type K - ORANGE also about three light years away. They're in opposite directions." Two of Ten reported. "Both have Class M and Class N planets in orbit, but that's all my sensor show."

"I checked the Delta Quadrant maps from the Voyager archives. We're further out than they were, so there's no data from them on this area. I also cross referenced the Talaxian and Borg databases, neither have anything on this region." K'Wor added.

"Well then." Mike exhaled. "Mister Sullivan pick a direction and set a course to one, and we'll send a Class VIII configured to scan for life signs, subspace communications, and starship detection toward the other. We'll also drop a communications buoy here and try to send a subspace signal back to the fleet in the Alpha Quadrant. We'll start on damage control on the way."



TBC.....

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