The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14:
Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 2:
Barely Satisfied
Two million people barely satisfy…
14.2
Barely Satisfied
“You got us into this gray, slimy mess…”
Master Chief Bill Waller gestured and looked around in some confusion at the gray slime covering every surface of the bridge. “And you’re going to have to get us out of this…” Waller tried to clean his hands on his uniform, but both were equally slimy. “Ick… So consolidate your crap.”
Captain Rhonda Carter laughed in spite of the dark, grim, slimy surroundings. She sat down again in the slimy command chair and tried the controls. Nothing. “Internal communications are down, along with, apparently, everything else.”
Waller gestured to the only display on the bridge that seemed to be working. “Everything except the distress signal.”
Carter touched her communicator pin, which emitted a standard series of beeps that somehow managed to sound slimy.
“Conference mode, ship-wide.” The pin emitted another slimy beep. “All hands, put a priority on evacuating the nacelles.”
“Captain?” It was Chief Flight Engineer Roman Hess, his voice sounding mildly slimy coming through the communicator pins. “Sir, I have two people with me in the starboard nacelle. We’re blocked by some sort of stone wall."
“This is Zizira Gross, Captain, I have another two in the port nacelle. Our exit is also blocked.”
“Captain?” It was the voice of Ensign Hiroshi Sanchez. “I’m in the shuttlebay. There’s rock wall cutting partly into shuttles 1 and 2, but the transporters are still active. Shuttle 3 is free and clear.”
“Sanchez, beam everyone out of the nacelles, then start at the back of the boat and start beaming everyone you can find into the shuttlebay,” Carter ordered.
It was only a moment before Lieutenant Commander Zizira Gross called in.
“Captain, I am now in the shuttlebay.”
“Use two of the shuttles to evacuate all hands to the shuttlebay,” Carter ordered. “I want you to send me and Bill to the tactical launch, count to 10, then beam us to the shuttlebay if I don’t report in.”
Even the transporter lights and field seemed slimy at first. But when Carter and Waller were deposited in the tactical launch, they were treated to clean air, clean light and, far more surprisingly, clean uniforms and even clean bodies underneath their uniforms. Both veterans of Earth’s famous, premiere space service emitted heavy sighs of relief.
Carter immediately touched her communicator pin, which wasn’t slimy at all. “Zizira, we’re here. I’m going to use the transporter to fill the launch with as many people as it can support. We’ll start with people located closest to us. You work from your end and bring the rest of the crew into the shuttlebay.”
“Aye, Captain. Gross out.”
“I never thought breathing would feel so good,” Master Chief Bill Waller observed.
“You think this launch could handle, how many, 11 people total?” Carter asked.
“Pushing it. But assuming the shuttles will pass out of the rock wall as easily as it passed into us, I’d say each shuttle could hold a dozen tops,” Waller replied. “Which means if we take 11, that will be everyone.”
“Start beaming people in, Bill.” Carter ordered. She moved forward, activated the screens and controls of the forward station.
There were only three stations in the tactical launch, arranged in tandem. The tactical launch had three levels, the operational stations on the middle level, the primary shield generator for the ship, along with secondary pulse cannon and the forward torpedo launcher on the lowest level and a broad corridor on the top level that served as the primary docking port for the ship.
Waller took the rear station, which was rear-facing, and started beaming crew members in. Two were, apparently, unconscious.
Captain Carter got up and opened a hatch that led to the top level. “Bill, Seprek and me on this level, everyone else up there,” she ordered. “Ah, Kara, please check on Eva and Dion,” she said as Medical Technician Kara Garrity was beamed in.
“The bio filters are filtering out, on average, about 6 pounds of fungal matter from each individual,” Waller observed, continuing to work.
“Eva is alive and stable,” Garrity reported. “Flight Engineer Dion Draper is dead. Asphyxiation, apparently.”
“Move him to the lower level,” Carter ordered. She pointed to a hatch.
“I’ll do it,” said Warrant Officer Seprek Harrison, who had been the second person Waller had beamed in.
“When you’re done with that, take the helm,” Carter ordered.
“I just checked counts with Lieutenant Commander Gross,” Bill Waller reported quietly as the last of the crew made their way up through the forward hatch to the top level. “All hands accounted for. Nine casualties, including Eva. Six fatalities, all, apparently, asphyxiation…”
“Do your best with life support, Bill,” Carter replied. “Even with 10 sets of lungs in here instead of 11, we’re going to go through air fast.”
14.2
Loving the last few chapters. Sort of a little Event Horizon, and then a lot more Star Trek.
