Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters and situations are the property of CBS studios. Star Trek Online is the creation of Cryptic and Perfect World. Tomb Raider and the situations therein are the property of Square Enix. All are here used by myself for entertainment purposes only, without permission or intent to profit. Stardates were calculated with the help of the TNG Stardate Calculator available on TrekGuide .com and may be slightly out of sync with those used in the game's lore.
The Storm
USS Nautilus: Shuttle One Crew, Senior Flight Controller Samantha Hayashi's Log, Stardate 81626.8:
We're approaching the planet inside the nebula by shuttlecraft. There are a few ion storms in the area, so I'm keeping alert for trouble, but so far it's been an uneventful journey, with the exception of Carlin's airsickness bothering her more than usual…and Dr. Mor bothering everyone as usual. We'll be at the planet soon, though. I know it's the one we're looking for. I don't know how to describe it, but I can feel it: this is Yamatai, the legendary home of the Sun Queen Himiko.
"We're approaching Yamatai," said Sam, tapping the range indicator on the shuttle's helm. "We should have a visual soon."
"For the record, I'd like to point out that we still don't know if this planet is Yamatai," said Antori Drel.
"Your skepticism is duly noted, sir," said Sam, smirking.
"You need to get the holo-recorder ready, hew-mon," Mor demanded. "The moment we first lay eyes on the planet is one I absolutely must capture on film."
"Just try not to film me being airsick," Carlin muttered. She was leaning back in her chair with both hands over her eyes. She looked a little pale.
"Want me to turn the inertial dampners up a little more?" asked Antori.
"If you would, sure. I don't know why the turbulence on this trip is affecting me more than on previous trips."
"Space weather does have that affect on some people, and we're in pretty close proximity to an ion storm." Sam punched a command into the helm. "I added a slight phase variance to the shields. That might help."
"Good, and now that she's taken care of, maybe you can get my holo-recorder—as we agreed on the Nautilus!"
Sam glared at the Ferengi, but sighed and raised her hands after a second. "Alright, fine. A promise is a promise. I'll get your holo-recorder, but someone needs to fly the shuttle."
"I will of course," said Mor.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Commander, but he's not authorized, is he?"
Drel shrugged. "Well, seeing as how I never learned to fly to save my life and Carlin is airsick, it's either him or the computer."
Sam bit her lip. The conditions in the nebula weren't bad, but with an ion storm so close she definitely wanted the flexibility of a living pilot at the helm, rather than the autopilot. "Alright, Mor can fly the shuttle then."
"Great!" Mor smiled and took the pilot's seat. He studied the controls while Sam unpacked his holo-recorder and ran it through its startup sequence.
When she was done, she held the holo-recorder steady and pointed it at Mor, narrowing the field of view so that only Mor in the pilot's seat and Commander Drel in the copilot's seat were visible. "Alright, Dr. Mor flies to planet Yamatai, take one…Action!"
Mor smiled confidently and tapped a series of buttons at the helm. For a moment, nothing happened, then the shuttle veered sharply to port, nearly causing Sam to lose her balance. Mor swiftly entered a course correction, but overcompensated, sending the shuttle off-course in the opposite direction. He tried again, and again, each time more frantic, and the shuttle reeled drunkenly along a rough trajectory toward the planet, which was now becoming visible through the cockpit windows. Sam bit down on her lip to keep herself from laughing at the Ferengi.
"Could we have less…shaking?" Carlin pleaded.
"Stabilize our flight path, Doctor," said Antori.
"I'm trying! These controls are useless!"
Sam stopped the recorder and moved to stand over Mor's shoulder. "The controls are functioning normally, you just don't know how to fly." She reached over to help, but the Ferengi slapped her hand away.
"I know how to fly perfectly well, but this ship is poorly designed!"
She sighed. "If you say so, Doctor." She took a step back. "Computer, deactivate the helm interface at the pilot's console and engage the autopilot."
"Autopilot engaged."
"Stabilize our flight path and settle us into a low orbit." The computer acknowledged the order with a tone and the shuttle immediately resumed normal flight.
"You've ruined the take," said Mor.
"The take is over," Sam countered.
"And how am I supposed to fly the ship if the autopilot's on?"
"Just pretend, alright? We're entering orbit now." She raised the holo-recoreder and activated it. "Dr. Mor flies to the planet Yamatai, take two…action!"
Mor pretended to tap the helm controls sullenly. The planet spread out before him, a pristine blue jewel floating in the nebula, but he didn't seem to notice.
Just then, an alert sounded at the copilot's station. Antori silenced it and looked up. "You'd better disengage the autopilot. The ion storm just changed direction and is headed this way."
Sam switched off the holo-recorder and set it down, she shouldered her way past Dr. Mor to the pilot's seat. "Computer, reactivate helm interface." The console lit up. "Disengage autopilot." The deck trembled as the first wave of ionized particles hit the shuttle. She turned to Drel. "You might want to boast power to the shields, sir."
The Commander nodded. "Carlin, if you're feeling up to it, we could really use your help."
Carlin had already opened her eyes and turned to the science station. She reached for her pony-tail with one hand. "I don't think re-routing power to the shields will help us."
"Why not?" asked Drel.
"Because the ion storm just became level 8!"
"That's impossible," Sam said. "It was level 5 just a few minutes ago."
The ship shook and sparks flew from an overhead line, causing Mor to trip over himself in surprise. "Tell that to the storm," said Carlin. Her station beeped another alert. "It just increased to level 9!"
"That's powerful enough to damage even a Galaxy-class starship. We have to get out of here!" said Commander Drel.
Sam punched in a command and her console beeped negatively. "Warp drive's not responding."
"The storm's generating some kind of polaric energy field ahead of it," said Carlin. "It's preventing us from establishing a stable warp field."
"Then we'll have to get away at impulse."
Antori shook his head. "The storm's coming on to fast!"
Sam nosed the shuttle down. "I'm going to take us into the atmosphere. The ionospheric barrier should shield us from the worst of it!"
"The primary ionic front will be here in less than a minute! You'd have to descend at over 100 thousand KPH to make it in time!"
"The shuttle's hull can't sustain those speeds in atmosphere," said Drel.
"Then we'll just have to go as fast as we can." The shuttle began to shake and its hull glowed as it entered the upper atmosphere.
"Impact in thirty seconds!"
"We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" Mor squeeled.
"You're only gonna die if I shoot you for distracting me," said Sam.
"Lieutenant!"
"Sorry, Commander."
"We're coming in too fast!" said Antori. "Reduce our speed to fifty thousand KPH."
"The hull can still take the stress at eighty," Sam said. At least, I think it can.
"That's not the point. At this speed you won't be able to pull out in time."
"I can, trust me," she insisted. "I've only crashed a shuttle once, and that was on purpose."
"Impact in ten seconds!"
"Warning, hull temperature approaching critical!" said the computer.
"Don't you start!" Sam warned. She made the dive angle shallower and prayed it wouldn't be the last thing she did.
The ion storm hit a few seconds later. Sam struggled to keep the shuttle on its trajectory. The deck bucked wildly and sparks flew from overloading powerlines. A high-pitched whine started in the background. It took Sam a moment to realize it was Dr. Mor screaming.
"Shields down to 42%!" said Antori. The shuttle jerked and a console exploded as the shuttle took a direct hit from an ionic discharge. "Shields are offline!"
"Hang on! We're passing below the ionospheric barrier! Now entering the upper mesosphere!" The shaking suddenly abated, though air turbulence still made the deck tremble. Sam smiled. "We did it."
"Good, now full reverse thrust or we'll hit the planet."
"Aye, aye, sir!" She applied full reverse thrust. The shuttle slowed, dropping toward the cloud layer below as it came down to hypersonic velocities. The trembling stopped and the skin of the shuttle began to cool down. Even Dr. Mor began to calm and stopped screaming.
"It looks like there's a storm developing down there," said Antori, pointing to the cloud layer, which was rapidly darkening. "We should pull up, try to maintain this altitude until the ion storm passes."
Sam nodded and punched a command into the helm. The console beeped negatively and she checked it. Her eyes widened in alarm. "Sir, that ionic discharge ruptured the control lines to aft thrusters and impulse engines. I can't speed us up, only slow us down."
"And if we can only slow down…" Carlin began.
"We fall," Antori finished.
"I knew it! We're gonna die!" the Ferengi moaned.
"No one is going to die!" said Commander Drel. "Carlin, find us a place to set down."
"We're not far from the main archipelago the probe detected from orbit."
"I have it on navigational. I can glide there," said Sam.
"Can you land in this weather, with only reverse thrusters?"
"We're about to find out, sir," said Sam. She looked at the clouds below, rising up to catch the shuttle like a boiling black hand. Lightning flashed in their depths. "Everybody hang on!"
The shuttle passed into the storm-clouds and the turbulence immediately resumed. The cockpit windows went dark, with water droplets beading and streaking across its surface. Lightning flashed, but provided no useful illumination in the murky clouds, though several glancing hits caused sparks to fly around the cockpit. Sam tried to ignore them as she guided the shuttle in on instrumentation alone—until that suddenly went to static. "I just lost the sensor readout!" she said.
"It's the poleric energy field from the ion storm. It's jamming our sensors!" said Carlin.
"My last read on our altitude was 3,000 meters," said Antori. "We might be able to get below these clouds if we descend a little further."
Suddenly, a lighting bolt slammed into the shuttle's side. It reeled drunkenly and its port nacelle burst open and caught fire. Sam wrestled with the helm. "Looks like we're going under the clouds whether we want to or not! I just lost reverse thrusters and the ruptured nacelle is creating too much drag. We're going down!"
"If we hit the water at this speed we'll be break up," said Antori Drel. "If we hit the land, we'll be vaporized."
"I'm going to try to use the stabilizers to alter our trajectory, make it as shallow as possible," said Sam, fingers working franticly over the controls. "If we're lucky, we'll skip off the water's surface."
"Somehow I don't think a shuttlecraft makes a good skipping stone," said Carlin.
"We're gonna die!"
Sam gritted her teeth. "Will someone please shut him up?"
Before anyone could answer, they emerged from the clouds into the storm beneath them. Rain was falling in sheets and lightning illuminated a tossing gray sea. Sam could barely make out a craggy shape, standing out from the sea ahead of them. "There's an island directly ahead of us! I'll try to put us down just off the coast."
"I can't swim!" Mor cried.
"Don't worry, I can swim well enough for both of us," said Antori.
"I estimate twenty seconds to impact!" said Sam. "Sir, when we hit, even if we manage to bounce and reduce our speed enough to keep from breaking up, we'll eventually nose over and the cockpit will take the brunt of the damage. I recommend evacuating everyone to the aft cabin!"
"What about you?" asked Carlin.
"Someone's gotta man the helm or we're all dead. I'm the only one who can fly this thing."
"But Sam—!"
"Ten seconds to impact!" she turned to Carlin. "I'll see you on the island, I promise."
Carlin was about to protest, but Commander Drel took her by the shoulders and led her and Dr. Mor to the aft cabin. Sam turned away from them and told herself this was no time to cry. The sea loomed large before the cockpit windows and the island was distinctly visible through the storm now. God, if I don't make it, let them be alright, she prayed, making the final adjustments. But I really want to make it!
The shuttle hit, clipping the top of a wave. Sam felt the impact in every bone of her body. The shuttle pitched upward, swung a little to one side, then came back down. Sam flew out of her chair and hit her head against a console before falling, sprawled on the floor between the pilot and copilot's chairs. She managed to raise herself to a half crouch in time to see another wave rising before the shuttle, filling the entire cockpit window. This is it! We're nosing over! She threw herself under the console.
If anything the impact was worse than before. This time it was accompanied by the boom of transparent aluminum alloy blowing apart as it hit a wall of water at over a kilometer a minute. Sam was thrown against the bottom of the console, bruising her head and left shoulder. Sea water flooded the cockpit instantly. She tried to breathe, only to choke on water. She struggled to swim, feeling her way around churning debris. The lights of the consoles flickered and died as main power failed, but the hole that used to be the cockpit window wasn't difficult to find, and beyond it frequent lightning strikes filtered blue-white light down from the surface of the sea. It was enough to tell which way was up, but not enough to see any of the other members of the away team. Sam prayed they were alright and swam for the surface.
She came up sputtering. She tried to look around but barely caught sight of the island before another wave pushed her under. She surfaced again, gasping for breath. She could see no sign of the others. She swam for the island alone, struggling through the waves. It seemed to take ages, but at last her feet met the bottom. She staggered out of the surf and collapsed on the beach, coughing up seawater. Her muscles trembled from exertion and she was freezing, thoroughly soaked. After a minute or two, she was able to push herself to her feet and stumble up the sandy slope a bit. There were debris sticking up out of the water and the sand all over the beach: hull plates and the skeletons of ship-beams. She didn't think any of them belonged to the shuttle.
Then she noticed a red-orange glow from atop a small knoll overlooking the beach. She heard voices. One of them was high and panicked. She recognized it as Dr. Mor. "I knew it! I'm bleeding out!"
"No, you're not! Just put some pressure on it," said Carlin's voice. "Antori, a little more light here."
Sam made out the shape of a man firing a phaser at a rock. The rock was already glowing red, and now it glowed brighter. "Nobody saw Sam?" he asked.
"I think she went down with shuttl—OWW! You don't have to press it so hard!"
"Do you want to keep your arm or not?" Carlin demanded.
Sam smiled. It was so good to hear them alive! She started toward them, waving her arms. "Hello! Carlin! Commander Drel! I'm here!" But they didn't seem to hear her over the crashing of the waves and the thunder. She paused, studying the half-lit terrain, looking for the best way through to the knoll.
She never found it, for a moment later, something hard hit her on the back of the head. She lost her balance and collapsed soundlessly as her world went black…
Author's Note: Tributes and stolen elements from the game begin in earnest here. Dr. Mor's ineptitude with the shuttle controls reflects his Tomb Raider counterpart (Dr. Whitmore) failing and complaining about at least two takes of learning how to cut open a fish. Sam's first moments on the island recreates the first moments of Lara Croft on Yamatai.
Polaric energy was introduced in the Voyager episode "Time and Again," where it was a powerful but unstable energy source that could affect subspace and time (causing temporal fissures in subspace after a huge polaric energy explosion wiped out all life on a planet). It could also interfere with sensors. That being the case I don't think it would have any trouble destabilizing the warp field of a shuttle. The ion storm's severity was made with reference to the Voyager episode "Once Upon a Time." There a level 5 storm was something Voyager could weather without apparent damage, but the ship fled before a level 8 ion storm. Using the "ionospheric boundary" to keep one safe from the ion storm's effects is something I made up. I don't know if it would actually work, any more than I know whether or not Sam's re-entry and landing would have worked, or else have been suicidal.