The first night
Posted on Wed Aug 26th, 2015 @ 2:13am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum
Mission:
Commanding the Elements
Location: Various
Timeline: T-52 hours
OOC: This is the first update on where everyone is at. We are now moving to T-48 to hours for most people, and Dawn will be at T-44.
USS Victory
Bertrand began to issue orders as the CO and XO left, "Transporter room 5, stand by to beam the Command, Flight, Engineering and Medical teams to the capital. Room 3, stand by for Security and Engineering teams to be transported to Ca'ael. Other transporters rooms stand by to receive refugees. Extraction rota Delta, keep them moving. Ops and Security details to help with moving personnel to designated refuges."
"Mickey, I need you to keep ahead of the load of people and find us as much spare room as you can that we can put people. When we are full start to find any other ships that can take more people and use our transporters to help fill their bays too. Can we use the Replicators to produce the blankets and other supplies we will need?"
"You got it, Commander. I'll get right on it," Mickey said as he got and went to the backup stations to coordinate everything and get the supplies readied, for the people and making room on the ship. It would be a tough challenge but he would probably see if he can get as many as they can up here.
"Commander, again what's the population of the planet?" Aladdin said from the backup stations standing by Mickey.
"The colony being affected has a population of about twenty five thousand," Valeria fielded the question.
"Well, depending on if everything goes according to plan. Looking at the blueprints, we can put about over 1200, or 5000 people. That's about one-third of the planets populations Valeria. Can you confirm?" Mickey said as he transferred the data to the junior officer.
"Five thousand is about one fifth of the colony's total population of twenty five thousand," The rabbitess turned to look over at Mickey with those pale blue eyes, eyes that had no reflection to them at all. "Please confirm twelve hundred, or five thousand."
"As many as we can," Bertrand said. "It is a short hop back to the station so we can fill over our 1200 minimum, but our life support systems will start to fail if we take more than 5000. I believe the brief is only around 2000 that don't have other means of transport."
Mickey looked back at the specs to see, in the utmost emergency, how many this ship can carry, "Confirmed, Val. The ship can carry a maximum of 5,000 people. Commander Bertrand, even so, but there is plenty of room for more," Mickey looked at the senior officer of the ship speaking of the specs and his opinion.
"Space is not the problem, Mickey," Bertrand said moving to the Captain's chair but refraining from sitting. "It is about power drain and system loads. We can only processes so much oxygen ship wide. No good rescuing 10,000 people if we all die of asphyxiation before we arrive home. Let's just stick with the plan, it is not time for adventurous stuff. We can do the job and work within the specs and everyone gets a free ticket out of here."
"Lt McClain, contact the Co and confirm he arrived on the ground safely."
"Victory to Commander Michaels. Please confirm you're on the ground," Mickey called from the back station.
"Michaels here, yes I am Lieutenant." The Commander said on the Channel. "Will keep you updated, Michaels out."
"Lt Mordrin, contact the USS Tesla. An Oberth is not much use to us as a mass evacuation ship, but its advanced sensors may be able to give us some warning of the sun's activity. I want you to have them move to a close observation point of the star and update us by subspace of anything they find." Bertrand glanced at the science officer, "And if you can translate what they find into Flat-foot, I would appreciate it."
"I'm fluent in seven dialects of Flat Foot, sir." She commented with a smirk as she raised the Tesla on the Science Console. A Vulcan science officer on the Tesla fielded the comm on the Tesla's end. "This is Sinnok, USS Tesla. Your transmission is clear Victory."
"Valeria Mordin, USS Victory. Advising to relocate to coordinates two seven four mark six by eight four mark two. This will put you clear of the elliptical plane for clearer sensor readings. Patch all solar activity to craft engaged in the evacuation." she advised the Vulcan. Sinnok, on the comm screen, gave a nod. "I will advise the captain. Stand by for sensor feed. Sinnok out."
The rabbitess then turned to Bertrand, and gave him a nod.
"Good," Bertrand acknowledged. "Two days should be close to enough to get everyone off world, but I don't want any nasty surprises."
Capital City Operations
The first thing the away team noticed as they materialized was the noise. They were inside some sort of prefab building but it was quite gloomy, with only minimal lighting showing what must have been a grand structure. They could hear it rattling in the savage winds form outside. Though most of the windows were boarded up, it was not hard to imagine the tempest that was raging.
Counselor Tekar was waiting for them with a short Vulcan woman. He rushed over and shook Elijah by the hand.
"Captain, thank you so much for coming. I don't know what we would have done without your help. This is First Minister San. Please come this way. We'll take you to operations."
"It's Commander actually." Elijah said following on with his Team, aware that they had bigger issues than rank to contend with.
They were led into a large room with two circles of monitors. The outer wall held large displays showing weather patterns and Some of the feed from the USS Tolstoy as it moved into a better position to monitor the solar flares.
The inner ring was work consoles where dedicated staff were working to manage the vast calls for assistance, and try and keep data and people flowing. Long ago they had given up on the automated tracking and reverted to a T-card system, and runners for vital intel. as such the operations room was a hive of activity.
"Communications comes and goes," San explained cooly, "Science feeds form remote surface locations drop in and out. Getting a full picture of the situation is difficult."
Capital City Space Port
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.
Capital City Hospital
The glow of a transporter beam deposited Antos, his nurse and a four man security detail in the middle of a war zone. The transporter officer had said he would put them inside the main hospital but the corridor they were in was deserted and filled with rubble. At the far end the wall had been torn away and lay exposed to the outside.
A flash of lightning showed that outside the building was torrential rain and winds whipping bits of debris into flying missiles.
A door behind them opened and a Vulcan in dripping wet robes appeared.
"Are you the medical team from Starfleet?" he asked, seemly unphased by the devastation around them.
"Yes Sir! We are what we have for medical team." Antos commented with no emotion.
"This way if you would. We had to abandon the structure after the third major earthquake rendered it unsafe. We have established a temporary shelter on the leeward side. It is cold, but if you can stay inside it is dry."
The Vulcan lead them out through the side of the ruin to an area that looked more rubbish tip than hospital. Stone and timber had been piled and sheet iron or thick tarpaulin had been lashed together to try and form some rudimentary protection against the weather
Antos could not believe the conditions they were in. It was worse then the old MASH units of the Korean war era; Makeshift protection, little or no operating room, lack of support. He looked at the security people that were now his orderlies, "You all have basic first aid. The simple abrasions and cuts can be transported. Keep an eye out for infection and unknown contagion need to be isolated. Send them by shuttle or freighter. The more serious one go by transporter and the major cases that can't move stay here for now."
The group quickly moved to there positions and said, "Aye, sir!" as they did what they needed without complaint.
He looked to the nurse, "Help them as they need it until I have to start surgery. Then you will be helping me as well, if possible."
"Aye, sir!" She said as she looked at the mass land of patients. She grabbed a tricorder and weeded out the dead and had them moved to an empty room adjacent and away from the other wounded. This cleared some space up for better separation of the patients. She helped the orderlies from time to time.
He looked towards the engineer, "We need to try to set up a sterile environment for the minor surgical support unit and diagnostics, if possible, and possibly maybe a couple of shield generators and power unit to run them for help with protection from the elements and other debris. Then your job is to try and keep things running and help out if possible."
The Engineer just nodded, "The hospital will probably have a back up generator buried deep if I can get to it, but I'll see about getting you some more juice from these portable units here. I am figuring light is going to be top priority? They'll give you that, and maybe a small SIF for one room, but if you want a stable sterile field, I'm going to need a bigger machine."
"Do what you have to do to keep us going i have a feeling its going to get worse before they get better." Antos commented
Antos started looking over the bodies as he made his way to the center of the room. He quickly tossed notes to go and stay as the makeshift orderly's got the people moving.
They were moving the fast as they could, moving the wounded that was clean of infection and simple to under moderate issues away, and the dead to the make shift morgue. Antos was focusing on the more critical of the patients that were not able to be moved, and the others, as fast as he could to stable and move them on. The EMH will have to take care of the nastier of the patients with life threatening conditions, Antos thought as several were beamed away to the USS Cairns near by in orbit.
Antos did his best not to bother the nurse unless it was truly necessary.
"This was meatball surgery at its best!" Antos said to himself as he stole the nurse to hold a patient down for an amputation of a limb. He truly hared to do this He was glad there was still some numbing agent in the hypospray but he knew it would not last forever, and he knew he could not save the limb the damage was to extensive. As he used and old surgical saw to do the amputation since the laser scalpel failed. Blood gushed from the new wound that had to be made for the mans survival and blood got over the uniform as he tried to cauterized the wound quickly with small mini hand phaser. As the Patient Screamed from the pain he still felt even with the medicine in him.
"I am so sorry! " Antos said as he felt there pain on all levels. Even with the blocks, the further the day went, it got harder for him to keep his control due to the dwindling supplies and lack of moral support for him. Some of the flashbacks from the Dominion war were trying to sneak in again as he wrapped the wound. Remembering several of old ones dying, just for the Dominion pleasure, as they cut them up into pieces with out any pain killers and had to watch them, as well, die from blood loss and the torture. Antos shook his head trying to remove the Dominion images out of his head.
The Nurse appeared at his shoulder, a look of concern on her face, "You've been going for 4 hours straight doctor. You should take a break. You won't be able to keep this up for two straight days."
Antos took a few minutes to relax a bit. but he was still antsy. there was to much to do he thought. As he saw the endless patients.
He tried to keep the others going as he refocused on trying to save the lives he could, as He thought of something to say, as he cleared his throat, "I know this is not an easy assignment, and we all never asked for this, but you're the best of the best, to be here and on the Victory. I appreciate the professionalism and dedication to duty. You all have gone way beyond everyone's expectations."
Antos quick speech to them all seemed to work, as he took a moment for a quick breather, then he continued on the more troubling cases of an unknown contagion. As he scanned what he had left of his tricorder to retrieve all the information he could get of this disease and shipped the result's to the EMH for analysis.
Ca'ael
The first thing the small federation team became aware of as they arrived on the street of Ca'ael was the noise. The sea was All around them the wind roared and even above that they could hear the crash and roar of the angry sea.
They had been deposited in the leeward side of a large wooden building; all the buildings seemed to be made of wood, except for a large low stone structure in the center of the town. They could see lights in the window of the low building but not in any of the others.
Looking towards the sea, they could make out a high wall of sand bags and a row of people trying to secure it. the people were already knee deep in water and it was only a matter of time till the whole structure was knocked aside by the raging surf behind it.
For all her life Honey had been the center of attention. Everything that happened around her, was because of her. Simply by existing, she had gathered some of the best geneticists, xenobiologists and behavioral experts around her. Cutting edge science and all the comforts anyone could ever ask for. She had been taught by the greatest minds. But none of that in any way had prepared her for what she experienced now, for the first time in her life.
The gravity was different, the feeling of the ground beneath her feet was different, the very air was different. And the violence with which it moved! Almost blowing her away, it felt like. Was this what 'weather' was like? A 'storm', raging and violent, primal even. She closed her eyes for a moment, just to take it all in. It felt so strange, so humbling, especially for someone like her. The feeling that she could be swept up by this ''storm' at any moment, being absolutely powerless to do anything about it, it felt ... Liberating. Exhilarating.
"I grew up in a mine." Cordale said to Honey, seeing that look on her face. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind. "Couldn't tell you how long I spent there, but the very first time I looked out into space and saw how much of it there was, and how it went on forever... I had that look. Or, at least I'm PRETTY sure I had that look on my face." he offered Honey a smile. "That first sunrise you see, you just stop thinking about rotational physics or Rayleigh scattering and you just say 'Damn...'."
"When all this is over..." and Cordale motioned to the storm, as though that were the 'All This', "... you'll see a sunrise." and he gave her a nod. She'd make it. He'd see to that.
"I'll be looking forward to that!" Honey shouted over the storm. She gave a shiver, holding her arms close to her chest. Yeah she was dressed warm enough, but this wind was still something else entirely. Finally she fully understood what people meant by the term 'wind chill'.
Aside from Cor and Flanagan were four security officers. One of them turned to Cor and yelled above the wind, "Should we be helping with the wall or checking on the refugees in the town centre?"
"First off, names. I don't want to shout out to HEY YOU or Ensign. Introductions." and Cor exchanged names with the security folk who'd be with him today. "Okay, James and Jesse. You go check Town Center." he pointed the way. "Marley. You, Robert, Honey, and I are going to check that wall. Give a call when you have an assessment but this storm is only going to get worse. Expect your comm signal strength to head directly into the toilet in about ten hours."
"Aye, sir!" Jessie responded and the pair headed out towards the low stone structure bent almost double against the wind. The others followed Cor down a muddy path to the foreshore. The could see along the shore boat sheds and fishing docks, most still intact, but some torn or broken.
There were a collection of about 80 people, Vulcan and Bajoran of varying ages, struggling with sand bags. The younger had the job of filling them from the sand of the foreshore, while the older and stronger were trying to pack them. Regularly a wave would rise high enough to pour down on the workers, and fine trickles of water could be seen in places where the sand bags were not quite snug. Cor had seen this sort of thing before in mines; a hastily erected brace to fix a temporary problem had been placed with no real plan or fore thought, then other added to it, and then more. It always ended the same way.
To one side a couple were working on a small generator which was plugged in to lights and an ancient field generator. This unit was not designed to be used outside, nor to provide the sort of power that had been asked for from it. At some point the elements must have got in because the pair of workers were kicking it and complaining about how lifeless it was..
" ... Want me to go take a look at that generator, Cor?" Honey knew it was more an engineering job than a science one, but a generator was very basic technology and as a scientist she had a more than broad enough knowledgebase to be useful. Besides, her taking a look at the generator would leave Cor more open for the civil engineering task at hand, the wall of sandbags that was hastily being thrown up.
Cor gave Honey a nod, "Probably just needs a new distributor board... or a sponge!" he commented, "See what you can do." before introducing himself to the first of the workers that his presence caught the attention of.
"Cordale, we're with the Victory. We're here to help." he called over the wind and the rain before turning to Marley and Robert. "Grab some bags, plug up holes. Build up where you can. We've got a good influx of sandbags, so just concentrate on reinforcing the wall." Cordale instructed the two with him, before he picked up a pair of sandbags himself and go to work in the trenches, as it were.
The com pin chimed, =A=Ensigns Merr... er... James here, si... Cor. The structure here seems secure for the moment. We have maybe two dozen people here; nursing mothers, some old people, and someone who is very sick. We've told them that evacuation will begin in the morning. They're frightened, but they are settling down for the night. Dd you want us to remain or come out to you?"
"We'll designate the sick, the old, and the wounded for first pass evac. One of you gets to stay and make sure people are calm and safe. The other gets to come down and play in the sand." was the reply. "I'll leave the decision of who to you two." Though, if he didn't hear a definite, or see a definite, in a few moments he'd decide.
After about five minutes Ensign James Merriweather arrived, his uniform half covered in mud from a spill he took on the slope to the beach. He didn't wait to be told what to do, but jumped in to help plug the sea wall.
Meanwhile, Honey looked at the generator while the pair of would-be engineers looked on. This was a well worn and oft-repaired piece of hardware. The colonists, in typically rural way, had made what rushed repairs they needed just to get the machine working. It was unlikely the original designers would recognize more than half of the parts.
"Thisss generator isss on itsss lassst legsss, but I'm sssure you knew that already. If we take the intake pipe off and clean it, it ssshould be ok again, at leassst for a little while." Honey mused, furrowing her brows. "Doesss anyone have a number 2 philipsss? And sssome clothsss, pleassse."
"Missy," called one bajoran, "This piece has been on its last legs since my Grandfather's time."
The other knelt and pulled on the restraining screw which began to come loose in his fingers. He explained, "Threadings gone, so we can't get a good seal on the intake. Can't do much about cloth that isn't being used for sandbags, but we got plenty of water."
She sat down in the mud next to the generator, not caring about her uniform at all, and started unscrewing the intake pipe.
When the housing came off it was obvious that water was the problem. There was so much sea water around that as the generator ran and heated up it was boiling of the water and caking the valves in salt. She could see they were going to have to clean the generator every few hours to keep it running.
It was only a matter of a few minutes of work to take the pipe off and she could start cleaning it. Another few minutes of rigorous polishing to get all the muck and debris out, before she could screw it back on. All the while she flicked her forked tongue out every few moments, the tip of her tail twitching a bit as she worked.
And with a flick of a button the old machine sputtered back to life again. However, there was still the matter of power draw. Currently it was linked to an SIF to reinforce the wall, as well as a field generator to provide some cover for the workers, and lights so they could work through the night.
"All thessse thingsss you're trying to power, that'sss way too high a power draw for a machine of that sssize and age." Honey furrowed her brows, looking up at the men. A moment's hesitation before she tapped her comm badge.
"Flanagan to Victory."
=A=Go ..ead, Fl....an =A=
"We have a problem here with local power. Could you sssend down a type 93 generator with a model 5 plug and appropriate cabling? If we don't have any of thossse generatorsss, a ssset of type 3a batteries with model 5 plug and appropriate cablesss ssshould do the trick for a few hoursss at leassst." Honey requested. "At my location if possssssible."
=A=....hat we can d..ut, we are ...ting the sam...quest form every........ every beam ou... slowing our beam in.=A=
The batteries arrived about fifteen tense minutes later. They would boost the power for about 24 hours.
When the battery arrived, Honey tapped her comm badge again. "Flanagan to Victory. The battery arrived sssafely. Thank you!"
"If the sun does come out tomorrow, we have a solar panel that might help." The locals offered, helping her rig up the booster.
"Awesssome." Honey asked. "You can hook up the battery yourssself, it'sss all ssstandard cabling, compatible with your own sssetup. I should get back to the Lieutenant." she added with a smile.
