Damage Assessment

Posted on Mon Jan 15th, 2018 @ 8:41pm by

598 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: S0:1: What Is Past, Is Prologue
Location: Bridge
Timeline: MD 14 - 1215 hours

Alex pulled himself up off of the floor. He had ended up there after the impact had thrown him out of his seat, up against the secondary counsole that he was using to communicate with the SS Acheron. As he tried to push himself off the floor he had a seering pain in his left arm. Despite his best efforts he could barely move the damn thing but that problem would have to wait for now.

He managed to pull himself back into the chair and fortunately the console seemed to be working still. He could hear Mr. Briarwood yelling at the crew on the Acheron, no doubt trying to get everything organized.

"Mr. Briarwood, what is your status?" Alex asked.

"No major structural damage Lt. We weren't directly targetted but took a good bit of the aftershock of that first hit and it has taken some of our systems offline. Shields, such as they are, are down to 50%. We still have propulsion and are trying out best to stay behind the Traveller."

"Ok, do exactly that. The Captain is working on moving us to the aft of the vessel out of firing range. Stay on our heels as best you can." Alex hoped that the Acheron and their transport's would be able to match the Traveller's movements closely enough to be protected. The long term success of the colony relied upon them not losing any vessels, period.

"Lt, one of the transport's has lost navigation and is drifting. Is the Traveller able to lock on and tow her?" the desperation in Briarwood's voice was clear.

Alex looked around the bridge and made a calculated decision. Granted they couldn't afford to lose a transport vessel but right now there was no way the Captain was going to be able to focus on saving one transport, not when they were busy trying to figure out how to keep the Traveller itself together.

"Negative. But..." he did some quick calculations based on the position of the ships "it looks like if you have transport 1 lock on to transport 3 with a tractor beam they should be able to swing her around and bring her in line with your trajectory."

"You must know that a transports tractor beam isn't very strong. Are you sure that will work?" came the reply.

The truth was Alex wasn't at all convinced that this idea would work, but he didn't see any alternative. The SS Acheron itself wasn't in position to put a beam on it, and in order to get into position it would have to expose itself and all of the colonists to the line of fire. "I'm confident it'll work Mr. Briarwood." He decided to leave off the part that would have said "and we don't have much choice".

Alex waited what seemed like forever and was in fact barely moments before the reply came back. "I'll be damned, it's working! Ok, we have all three transports falling in line behind us and we're staying on your tail. I just hope and pray the Captain knows what he's doing putting us behind that thing."

Alex wanted to say "that makes two of us" but didn't figure that would inspire much confidence. "I assure you Sir that the Captain and everyone here are working as quickly as they can to assess the situation and figure out a solution. In the meantime keep this comm line open so I can give you any updates as they happen. Whatever comes next I'm sure timing and coordination will be critical."

Lt Alexander Shepard
Colony Liason
USS Traveller

 

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