The bridge of the newly christened 'Vela' was dead. It's terminals fried, it's screens transmitting nothing but static. Lying amongst the pieces of broken ship interior are two women, dressed in military apparel. The blonde one stirs and slowly sits up. Rachel, as she is known as, places a shaking hand to her head and wipes away blood from across it. She sniffs hard and looks around for any other survivors. There's just one, Lt. Roxanne Decker, who had been conducting tests during the ships first flight.
Rachel gets to her unsteadily, her legs shaky. Well at least the gravity drive on the ship was still operational, that was a blessing. Whether the life support systems are still working is another thing. She picks her way through the wreckage and wires hanging from the ceiling towards the unconscious crew member. With a heave she manages to pull the sheet of metal that's covering Lt. Decker and turns her over. "Lt. Decker, Lt. Decker!" Rachel yells, trying to get a response out of the downed Lieutenant.
It takes a second for Decker to come round, her eyes flickering and her brow shifting into an annoyed frown. She swipes Rachel's hands away ideally and sits up sharply, rubbing the bridge of her nose with pinched finger and thumb. She's mostly unscathed apart from a few scraped knuckles and a small cut on her leg which has already stopped bleeding. "What the hell happened?" she asks, looking up at Rachel. Rachel leans back and sits on her heels, swiping the hair out of her face. "Hyperspace turbulence. Did you hear the engines shift pitch when we hit it and had that initial wobble before the systems crashed?" she explains.
"We should have dropped out of hyperspace when we hit it. We've blown the engines."
"Uh… yeah, my point exactly. How'd you-?"
"Do you hear any engines?"
"No."
"Then they're burnt out. Those are ion charged engines developed by an alien race that are WAY beyond our knowledge, they're practically indestructible Dr Miller. Now what are our options?"
"I don't know," Rachel glances around at the screens, "Looks like we've lost computer systems, which means no command systems which means… well to put it bluntly, no communications of any sort."
"So I can't find out if my people on this ship are safe or not?"
"That about sums it up yeah."
"Well that's no good then."
"I could try a system reboot. Ah… but no, that would mean getting to the Core Drive of this thing, I don't even know if we've vented any atmosphere."
"There's only one way to find out. Where's the Core Drive?"
"Six levels below us on the engineering deck, right in the middle of the ship. Before the engines stopped the chamber was flooded with a CO2 mix to prevent overheating of the core. I'm unsure if it's done any damage or even if it's safe to open the door to get in there without a suit."
"Work something out for me. You got a life signs detector? A tablet?"
"Somewhere."
"See if you can do a scan, work me out a safe route to get there and back." Lt. Decker heads for the door. "Hey where you going?" Rachel asks confused.
"To find me a suit."
"No, no I should go!"
"Quite frankly ma'am, if what Dr McKay said was true, you're indispensable to the Atlantis mission. And how hard can turning a computer off and on again be?"
"There's a locker with emergency suits just outside the bridge," Rachel waves her life signs detector in the air, "I'll be monitoring your life signs on this."
"You better…" mutters Decker leaving the bridge.