The Ghost Fleet Part 3
Emergency
A Year Ago, SRD Clarel (Inside Segan Sovereign Space)
Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Angelique Arnauld
The SRD Clarel's crew exchanged their goodbyes with the SWS Selevenar's crew as the Clarel's alarms sounded off its preparation for departure. Commander Davidson and Captain Anderson exchanged a deep kiss, just as the airlocks to the ship began to close. Davidson laughed, releasing their kiss just before the airlocks closed and began to shout goodbye through the ship's hull. Anderson smiled, hearing his voice as he rushed with his crew over to the umbilicals window. They could only see from an angle the pointed front of the SRD Clarel, but they knew the entire ship would soon pass them as the Clarel would ease herself off the central starbase of the shipyards. Minutes after, with the arrival of Commander Davidson on the Clarel's bridge, the Clarel's engines began to light up with renewed rejuvinence. The Clarel began to ease forward, like a tiger which was ready to prowl the savanah's. The SRD Clarel engaged thrusters forward as the Clarel's crew and the Selevenar's crew both waved goodbye to one another. Many shared romances with the crews amongst one another, and they had developed an intimacy rarely shared between two crews. They were the beta testers of a new generation of ships that would bring hope, justice, and victory to the Segan people. The Segan Royal Destroyer Clarel, within 10 minutes had left the starbase and was well on its way back towards Ghost Fleet Yard 1.
Commander Davidson watched quietly as the Clarel entered hyper-transwarp. The impulse and hyper-transwarp engines hadn't yet been moved from decks and their was a high risk of something "wrong" that would happen. As the crew watched the viewscreen, the bridge crew looked at the ship's hull from all angles to be sure there were no discreptancies. Commander Davidson stood up and walked over to his Chief of Operations, listening to him hearing about power transfer confirmations with Engineering. Davidson nodded approvingly as his crew continued their work. Within, Engineering, however, the engines didn't sound quite right. The impulse and hyper-transwarp engines, each working at their own will, increased the sound levels being emitted within Engineering, and the Chief Engineer struggled to hear the sounds which was coming from the engines. However, the Chief Engineer, glancing over his console watched as the hyper-transwarp engines acted oddly. He ordered an auxiliary power boost to the engines, and so precipitated a risky disaster. On the bridge, aptitude control was becoming more sluggish for the navigations officer.
The SRD Clarel, speeding at Warp 32 continued to increase it speeds. Commander Davidson, having just heard the problems down in Engineering ordered Red Alert. The SRD Clarel, began to angle in a 25 degree slope as the ship's aptitude control was loosing coherence. The Clarel crew knew they were in a precarious situation, the Clarel was pushing itself at Warp 41, a near emergency hyper-transwarp speed. Within the bridge, several of the power modules exploaded as the ship's stress levels quickly jumped to 90% tolerance levels. Within Engineering, the chief engineer attempted to use a feedback loop to force a shutdown of the ship's hypertranswarp engines. Warp 43.5, the ship's "supposed" destructive speed. Commander Davidson was forced with a difficult choice. With the ship heading towards destructive speed, the destroyer would kill all hands. Davidson stood up and glanced over to the intercom, he tapped it, his face gloom with abandon.
"Attention all hands, " Davidson's voice boomed as the intercom passed through the entire ship, "This is a General Alert, all non-essential hands are to prepare for abandonment of this vessel. I repeat, all non-essential hands are to prepare for abandonment of this vessel. Davidson out."
With Davidson's orders sent through the skrew, the ship's non-essential hands ran towards the turbolifts, screaming escape pod access as Davidson turned his way towards the emergency turbolift access to Main Engineering. The problem was unraveling in Engineering, and he didn't want to be left out. Davidson nodded and as he stepped onto the bridge, his hair showing that he had been nervously reshaping them. Davidson walked straight for the Chief Engineer's console and glanced over the console. The auxiliary-power generators were feeding the hyper-transwarp matrix with overload power. He glanced over in abandonment at the new consoles, still somewhat unaware as to their purpose, and glanced over as the Chief engineer ran towards him, standing to attention. Davidson returned the salute, and grabbed his padd, the computer at that same moment chirped and warned that the Clarel had just reached 20% above tolerance level. Davidson glanced over to the Chief engineer and exchanged a 30 second silent glance.
"Any ideas?" The SRD Clarel's Commanding Officer asked, "Before this ship takes us all down?"
"I've tried what I can, the feedback loop's working to shut some of the auxiliary power generators down, but it's not shutting them down fast enough," The Chief replied, glancing around at his staff, "I think this is it."
"Mmmm," Davidson sighed and tapped the intercom," CONN, Engineering, launch all filled escape pods, inform the non-essential crewmembers to emit only limited distress signals to the Ghost Fleet Yards."
"Engineering, CONN, that's a roger, Captain," Davidson's XO replied, as alarms blared across the ship, signalling for the escape pods to launch.
"Sir, I may have an idea," Ensign Txex announced, looking over the console he had not parted for more than 5 minutes, "Use the warp engines to help the feedback loop."
"Would that work?" Davidson glanced over to the Chief Engineer, although he'd never follow the Ensign's advice, his ship was in trouble.
"She's already handling 20% over stress, and emergency hyper-transwarp speeds," The Chief scratched his chin in contemplation, "Let's do it."
"Right," Davidson replied, tapping the console, "CONN, Engineering, we've got a new trick up our hand, stand by for 75% overstress ratings, we're going to add warp engines to the feedback loop, set course two five zero bearing two nine nine."
On the bridge, the Navigations officer grabbed a hold of all the manual consoles which had replaced the automated holographic ones. Holding hard on the turnwheel, he banked the ship a 30 degree up as the warp engines were added to a dangerously explosive mix. Leaving behind a stream of escape pods which had begun to emit distress signals to Ghost Fleet Yard II, the feedback loop began to take effect. Within several minutes, the feedback loop had allowed all aptitude controllers time to reboot the systems. Within Ghost Fleet Yard II, the word had arrived that the Clarel had been in an emergency. Although the Selevenar ship was not ready for a rescue operation, the crew all amassed onto the SRD Nirvana, a Mary-Rosbourg class destroyer that had docked with the Fleet yard just days before. With Yamidovosok and Anderson side by the side, the ship was ordered to increase to hyper-transwarp speeds. On the SRD Clarel, the ship was brought to a full stop within its hyper-transwarp matrix. Commander Davidson kept his hands tight around the engineering console, glancing over at the matter/anti-matter reactor as it hummed quietly. What had just happened? He thought, as the Clarel's fierceness had barely been controlled.
"If they got the distress signal, Dr. Yamadivosok should be coming very shortly," Commander Davidson glanced over to the Chief, "Find out what happened and fast."
"Understood, Captain," The Chief replied, looking over to his engineering staff, "All right people, I want every scrap, every log, every monitor record we have. We've got to find out what happened!"
"I'll be up on the CONN, carry-on," Davidson shouted as he walked towards the standard turbolifts.
"Aye, Aye, sir!" The Chief answered, looking over to his staff as records began to be uploaded onto his console. They would find out what had happened, and would be sure to repair the problem before this vessel would be commissioned.
