Shattered wings

Posted on Tue Oct 6th, 2015 @ 1:18am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Captain Elijah Michaels & Captain Brenda Sinclair

Mission: Commanding the Elements
Location: Capital Starport

T-52 hours
The Transporter beam deposited twelve Starfleet personnel (6 Marines, 2 Helm officers, 2 security, an Engineer and a Diplomat) onto the tarmac. Instantly a brutal wind grabbed at them and a driving ice cold rain lashed at heir exposed skin. Around them the open tarmac of the spaceport was littered with storm debris of leaf matter and some vehicle parts that had either been abandoned or fallen off some of the decrepit craft that stood scattered about the place.

On the near side of the tarmac was a low iron building, It might once have had glass windows but these had been boarded over. At the door to the structure a Bajoran was waving frantically at them to come inside.

Gunnery Sergeant Jacobs held an arm up to try and protect herself from the onslaught of weather. "You know!" Her voice battled with the winds and rain. "Starfleet can build a freaking Space Suit, but we can't make a Wind Breaker for Uniforms?"

Brenda suppressed a chuckle, as she tried to take in the surrounding area, creating a tactical appraisal. No matter the situation, she was always a Marine. "Space Suit sounds good right about now, though!"

The Bajoran held the door open for them as they entered, the wind dancing in before them and dancing among the crowd of huddled figures inside. This area was once a simple but functional departure lounge. Now it was filled with the dispossessed. People huddled in family or small community groups. Some with blankets over them, some just huddled together. All of them surrounded by the items they could not bear to leave behind. This included a large amount of livestock.

As the door closed and the wind stopped the smell of hundreds of frightened people living close to each other rushed back. It was obvious there was little enough sanitation in this place, certainly not enough to cope with this volume of people.

"You Starfleet?" the Bajoran asked.

"That's us." Sela replied trying not to let her appearance scar the poor man. Her helmet showed he was terrified.

"Da'nali, Flight Control," the Baojran gave by way of introduction. "we've got a rudimentary martialing area over here. This place used to be used to load livestock. We are using the boarding ramps for people."

He gestured to a bedraggled line of people milling up a cattle ramp and into a freighter hold. "Trouble is, I am not sure if that thing will fly," Da'nali admitted. "It was used for doing short hop mail runs, and never meant for extra-atmospheric journeys. We've plugged every hole we could find but," he shrugged and threw out his arms, "we are farmers, not Shipwrights. All of our pilots are already off world on other transports."

There was a loud crash of thunder and the lights flickered which caused a ripple of noise in the crowd.

"Looks like your power is a bit fragile too?" The Mustard clad engineer asked.

Da'nali nodded, "We have some basic weather shielding, but it was never meant to deal with hail the size of basketballs.

Sela quickly turned to the engineer. " Get in the freighter make sure it can actually fly. Last thing we need is it collapsing in on us. You two go with him." She said pointing at two of the marines who nodded and followed him.

"How many guards do you have? Last thing we need is a panic," She said quickly turning back to the bajoran.

"Guards?" the controller looked alarmed. "We have two security guards who are trained in traffic control but that's usually limited to complaints about luggage or ticket disputes." It was obvious the poor man was way over his depth.

Wakeman and Sinclair took control placing their men and the security officers from the ship and the spaceport in key locations. The news from the freighter was not good.

"The increase load on the IDS and Life support, now that they were moving people not packages, had not been compensated for. If they had tried a flight it would be unlikely to have lasted to orbit without a ruptured feed line," the engineer reported. "As it is, with a patch up job and stripping down of many no essential systems, I'd give the ship a better even, but it was far from a certain flight. We have plenty of parts lying around, but the repairs are going to be three hours minimum, and she is already fully loaded."

Sela was thinking as the data inside her helmet and on the info that was coming in here ears. " Get on it. I don't want it shutting down mid-flight." She said calmly into the comms channel.

One of the Starfleet helmsmen suggested, "We could move the ship further along the tarmac and put another one up for boarding, but while our engineers are doing the repairs to the mail ship they won't be able to check whatever one we pick next. I've checked their lists, and we have a choice of a light weight recon plane, a crop duster, a cattle freighter that was retired four years ago, and something that is just listed as Bel'yana's flyer."

"Do we have any info on the cattle freighter? Can it even move?"

"Oh it'll move," he replied. "It is designed as a mass transport of live cattle between continents, but it was never designed to leave the atmosphere."

"Further, where is Bel'yana's flyer. I'll go and see what it is." The hybrid said into the comms.

"Far side of the field, in a private hanger," Da'nali responded.

The flyer turned out to be a luxury flyer for some rich bigwig. It was plush and luxurious, but not made to hold many passengers. It could be stripped of most of the surplus gear and made to carry more, but it would be time consuming. At least it should be rated for trans orbital flight.

Around them people were trying to settle down to sleep, but the weather was pounding on the roof and lightning that peeped through the gaps between boarded windows showed faces that were drawn with fear and sorrow.

The Starfleet diplomat stepped up, "We have got some injured. The locals are wanting to have them shipped of to the Hospital near here, but the family doesn't want to be separated. What should we do, sir?"

"Can we ship all of them or can we only move the injured?" Sela said looking out from one of the windows. The weather was getting worse by the minute.

Da'nali shrugged, "We are the place for mass transport out. The Hospital was badly damaged by quakes a day ago. I doubt they have much capacity to shelter these people. But if we keep the sick and injured here we may have deaths or a spread of disease."

Sela paused as she consider it through in her head. " Try and get through to the hospital. If they have room we'll send them there if not try and keep them separated and we'll ship them off as soon as we can."

One of the Starfleet Pilots looked at the others. "Shuttle Kensington is all full up, we have to lift off now." The Pilot then proceeded back up the ramp. "See you on the other side."

" Get it out of here and get the wounded loaded onto the next shuttle. " Sela barked as she stepped outside to check on the weather. Even with a glance she could tell it was getting worse.

T-44 dawn
Every flight will out of the atmosphere was troubled by the wild weather and once a ship left the atmosphere they were bathed in radiation until they could reach the relative safety of one of the Starfleet vessels who extended their own shields as protection.

Shuttles were unloaded and returned while some craft remained in orbit, unable or unwilling to risk the journey a second time.

At T-36 the USS Prospero reached capacity and had to leave the system departs the system. Six hours later, T-30 or 22:00 hours local time, USS Cairns also departed, leaving only the Victory and the USS Agamemnon.

T - 28 Ensign Moriloth was piloting the cattle hauler. She was the only one who seemed to have the knack for the ancient craft. She had loaded 200 civilians in, crammed to the rafters, and this was her third and probably final trip out. The retro fitted environmental controls were pulling a huge drain on the ship's systems and the engineer was not keen for her to fly at all, but she assured them she would manage.

She was about five minutes into her flight when the starport picked up the following transmission.

=^= Moriloth to Victory. I am encountering some technical difficulties. We have a plasma leak and I am loosing power to the RCS. =^=

=^= Victory to Moriloth. Can you stabilize the power drain?=^=

=^= Negative commander. I am pulling power from the IDF, but that is straining the Structural integrity fields. =^=

=^= I've lost sensors, =^= Moriloth reported, the whine of ship under strain in the background of her transmission. =^= I am to high to try landing again. I am going to push on to try and get above this weather. =^=

=^= I am loosing altitude! I am going to have to try and put her down.=^=

=^=Hold tight, Ensign. We are coming!=^=

=^= We've lost IDF and our SIF is failing. I don't think we can...=^=

The com line broke into static and went dead.

Down on the surface the hybrid security officer looked up as the bright trail that was now streaking across the sky. "Damm it. Can nothing just work for once," She hissed into her helmet before returning to her duty. The locals were getting scared.

There was an argument between the remaining Bajorans and Vulcans. The Vulcans expressed an opinion that, since shuttle space was at a premium, and time was short, consideration and priority should be given to the people of most value to the colony. They continued that this should be based on life expectancy, skill set, and those most likely to recover from the trauma of the current events.

The Bajoran's pointed out that this seemed to mean that the Vulcans believed that their race should get priority treatment and the Bajorans should be left behind.

The Vulcans said that such an appraisal was only logical. The Bajorans began to explain to the Vulcans exactly where and how far they could stick their logical racist argument.

There was a good chance that the only thing that stood between order and a riot was the Hybrid security officer and the small unit of Marines.

Sela could feel her blood boiling with anger as her twin sides began to feel adrenaline running in her veins. "Phasers to stun widespread." She said into her mic as she stood forward. "Pack it in both of you!" She yelled out loud as she forcefully pushed the two leaders of the Vulcans and the Bajorans apart. "You're both scaring people. Now stop this arguing, now, or I'll leave you both for the last shuttle."

The Bajoran subsided to quiet fuming but the Vulcan continued, "Surely Lieutenant, you can see the logic of my suggestion."

The look Sela gave the Vulcan as she turned him to face him could even send a shiver of fear through his logical brain. "Shut it. I don't care how you're trying to hide the fact you're scared out of your skin, but if you say another word I'll be chaining you to that fence until the last shuttle comes. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" She yelled with the volume and pitch of an old earth marine drill instructor.

The Vulcan looked confused, but thought better than to push his concerns.

T- 25 hours.
Da'nali approached the away team with urgent news, "The Agamemnon is moving off. Weather's so bad we can't get any local ships in the air any more. Not after... well... This leave us with maybe a half a dozen shuttles belonging to the Victory doing all the transporting. but we still have over a day, so we will have plenty of time, baring incident."

Sela sighed under her helmet. There was no way there wasn't going to go without incident. " That just great. Let's hope the shuttles can handle it."

T-24 hours (2AM)

An hour later Sela was startled by her com pin crackling alive with a message from the Victory.

=^= Attention all remaining away teams, we have an emergency situation. The solar event has radically shifted and the time table has shifted from twenty four too two hours, I repeat two hours. We are re-prioritizing pick ups. Again, the time table has become two hours and we a re-prioritizing pick ups. Please Acknowledge. =^=

" Confirmed victory." Sela said feeling her gut began to panic. This wasn't going to be good. Flicking a switch to activate her helmets loud speakers. " Attention everyone. The solar event has shifted. The timetable is now greatly reduced. Please remain calm and we will all get out of here. " She said knowing this wasn't going to be easy.

There was some murmuring from the crowd that remained. Selar couldn't help notice that they were no longer a homogeneous group, but now sat Vulcans on one side, Bajorans on another. The Marines and Airport security moved amongst them.

Da'nali couldn't keep the quaver out of his voice, "They... They won't just leave us will they? We are still getting off the planet, right?"

"We'll all be getting off this planet. Provided we remain calm and don't panic. " Sela replied feeling the sweat forming on the back of her neck. This wasn't her specialty. If D’Annann was here she'd be able to handle this no problem. She was never going to let her hear the end of this when she heard of this mission.

With those words uttered it was clear that this evacuation was not going to be as simple as first envisioned. The weather was only going to get that little bit worse and that would only make people more nervous.

Things were not as clean and cut as first imagined.....