S6: E1 - The Prime Recommendation

[ShranLahr ch'Verret]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 15 - Stellar Cartography]

Lahr woke to with the all too familiar feeling of his face against the deck.   Had he drank too much again and passed out?  He opened his eyes and blurrily looked about.  He wasn't in his quarters - the temperature wasn't cold enough; nor was he in the brig - it was too dark here, and by sec/tac protocol the brig guards had to keep the brig well lit at all times.  Where was he?!   He blinked trying to focus... there seemed to be a reddish glow along the walls.  Emergency lighting?  Roohz!

It was then that he recalled having gone up to Stellar Cartography to enlist Hyperion's aid in understanding the concepts behind space-time folding.

"Hyperion? Ensign? Sound off if you survived whatever the hell just happened."
With every muscle in his body protesting the moment, Lahr got his hands under him and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

He looked about using the dim reddish glow.  "Computer, increase illumination 50%." There was no change. Nor even an acknowledgement of his order.  "Yep, power is definitely out."  How long he couldn't be entirely certain but without power life-support wasn't operational, and air wasn't being refreshed. That could be a huge problem. "I need to help get power up and going again."

[Neva Cordon]

[ Somewhere on the Landser's planet ... ]

Jettis' landing was, shockingly, not very hard. Granted, he had no idea where he was, but at least he hadn't fallen through the tree canopy or into any dangerous fauna. His isolation suit was mostly intact, with only a few tears. However, the immediate searing pain from being planetside was another issue. There was an immediate flash in his mind, alarm bells sounding as a wave of nausea crashed over him. Though he couldn't pinpoint its location, he didn't have to wonder what it originated from.

A few seconds, or maybe minutes, maybe hours passed - he wasn't sure. But eventually the Af-Kelt subsided enough for him to straighten and make an attempt to walk straight. Now, he could properly take in his surroundings, though it didn't help him at all. It was a rather generic landscape - the reddish-brown grass and small mounts of rocks gave way to a forest a few hundred meters away from him in one direction, and appeared to be more open field in the other.

Jettis didn't like the idea of an open field, especially not if any more temporal shenanigans were going to be happening. So he turned to make for the trees, partly to stay hidden while he regained his bearings, and partially in the hopes the other three would do the same. His eyes swept the area around him one last time, before he made a break for the cover.

Once within the trees, he slowly pulled out his phaser, though he couldn't exactly use it unless it was an emergency. He had no idea what the Landsers could, and could not pick up, but the knowledge someone was probably looking for them set him on edge. Eyes searching, he looked until he found a reasonably sharp rock to etch a small J into one of the trees, before proceeding deeper into the forest. Despite his best efforts to memorize his path, the terrain looked woefully alike, to where he questioned if he'd accidentally circled back a few times. However every time he stopped to check for markings on a tree, he found none, so he could only assume that he was still going in a straight path.

He saw no evidence of anyone else coming through either. He wasn't sure if that was something he should be thankful for or not, considering it meant he was nowhere near the rest of his team. However, the further he traveled into the forest, the more he could parse out from the regular din of the planet. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks as a chill ran down his spine, abruptly turning to his four o'clock and dropping down. Lifting his phaser, his eyes flickered through the area.

He couldn't see anyone, due to the thick covering of underbrush, but thankfully that hadn't dulled his senses at all. Once he realized he didn't exactly feel any ill-intentions, he slowly straightened. The presence was familiar enough, and after a few beats, he lowered his phaser. 'Don't shoot. It's me.' Though he was confident the person hiding in the brush wasn't a threat, he wasn't entirely convinced there wasn't anyone else nearby. Keeping slightly crouched now, he warily turned back toward the direction he was headed, before looking back in Neva's general direction with a small wave. 'Have you found anyone else?'

[Lt.JG ACEO Neva Cordon|Somewhere on Landser Planet]

Neva sagged in utter relief, tears forming in her eyes. Standing, she put away her phaser and joined Dr. Jettis. 'Thank the Gods Doctor, it's you!' she replied in kind. 'To answer your question-no, I've seen no one else. That's good and bad I think.'

Neva gestured back the way she'd come. 'I materialized on a rocky precipice surrounded by mountains. I don't think there's anything that'll help us in that direction.' She looked down at her clothes then back up at him, chuckling softly. 'Unfortunately, my suit tore enough to be useless. I buried it by some rocks. So much for keeping hidden.' She gave an embarrassed smile, dropping her head and raising her shoulders.'What now?'

[Ardyn Jaeger]

[Bridge - USS Challenger]

When the viewscreen flickered back to life and Wu commented on the planet's size, Ian looked up with an even more pained expression.

"I was afraid of this, our drift has got us at the very edge of the planet's gravity well. We've got to get summat workin' ta stabilize our course."

Thinking furiously Ian added.

"Thrusters, they draw the least power of any propulsion on the ship, we've got ta focus our attention on gettin' thrusters online."

"Sir, I hate to complicate things, but we have an additional problem."

Randall said from the Science One station.

"Go ahead Lieutenant." Ian sighed.

"I started scanning the local area for traces of the fold space temporal pulse to work on some sort of defense. As I was scanning, I detected an strong increase in radio frequency activity emanating from the planet. It looks like when our shields dropped, the Landsers have detected us. I don't know what they can do about it, but I am certain they know we are here."

"Well, there goes any hope of avoidin' a court martial."

Ian replied sourly as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I would say it's a given we've gone a buggered the hell out of the Prime Directive at this point. Mister Wu, as soon as you're done with treatin' Lieutenant Booker, see if'n you can tap into the Landser's communication network. No possibility of puttin' off talkin' with their government now."

[USS Challenger - Bridge]

Ardyn's second wince was enough for Alex to know that she was hiding her discomfort, as usual. "Can you sense if Maddy's okay?" He asked while changing out the vial in the hypospray, following up her dose of tri-ox with a mild analgesic. He was concerned, frustrated, irritated. Angry, that Starfleet sent them to investigate a phenomenon which they knew was dangerous, had enough foresight to give it a name, but hadn't taken the precaution to develop any defenses against. An overconfidence in their technological edge, the Admiralty's Achilles heel, time and time again. He was also just the slightest bit scared of being in the dark, both literally and figuratively. Alex wanted nothing more at that moment than to get his family to safety. But there was no safety to be found here, not while they were all stuck on a drifting, powerless, starship.

Throughout his career, he had nearly died several times while trying to save his crewmates, came very close on Discovery. Back then, he was willing to die for his friends, his crew, the only family he had left. Maybe have a minor municipal building or ship's lounge named after him, for posterity. But something had changed over the past years, that willingness to sacrifice himself for others gradually shifting to a much stronger sense of self-preservation. Now that Alex had Ardyn and Maddison to live for, he wasn't so eager to dive blindly into unknown danger for, in this case, absolute strangers. He didn't know this crew, or this Captain Galloway. They weren't even friends, barely acquaintances over the past 24 hours. He didn't owe them anything, much less his life or the lives of his actual family.

But still. The uniform still meant something, along with the delta they all wore. Alex handed Ardyn a small toolkit and palm beacon from the survival kit he'd found in the lockers, and then set to work carrying out Galloway's orders. The slightest edge of vexation tinged his tone when he tried to scan Booker with a medical tricorder only to discover it broken. "Useless." Alex muttered, next pulling out a regular tricorder and finding it defective as well. "It's not just the ship." He reported, toggling on a hand beacon with mild relief to find at least that worked. "Unless someone forgot to change the powerpacks in these tricorders, it doesn't look like anything more advanced than flashlights work. At this rate, we'll have to communicate with tin cans and string."

Alex pried the back off the Ops workstation, doing a 'sniff' test for any acrid smells which could indicate a fire or short circuit, as was usually the case when everything went kaput. To his surprise, asides from no power running through the circuits, it all appeared immaculate. Visually, there wasn't any damage at all, nothing to explain what had happened, and without a working tricorder, he had no diagnostic tool to use. "This doesn't make any sense." Alex postulated, glancing at Galloway. "Even if main and secondary power went offline, the batteries should've automatically kicked in. If this is a supply issue, then we might really well be 'humped'."

"Unplug it and plug it back in again. Brilliant." Alex was astounded by the simplicity of it, but as in 80% of all cases, the simplest fix was the easiest one which worked. More importantly, this meant it wasn't a supply issue, and they should have enough emergency power to get their essential systems back running, including the warp core. Quickly popping the tricorder's cover, he pulled out the isolinear chip and plugged it back in, relieved by the steady chirping sound as it began working again. "Mr. Tal, your reward. First working tricorder on the bridge." Alex tossed it over to the engineer, and then handed the medical one over to a blueshirt who had taken over care of the officers still laying unconscious. Resetting the Ops console took a bit longer than the helm, since he was working alone, but he did finally manage to get the workstation back operational.

With the rest of the ship only learning about the repair solution at Grelek's climbing speed, everything still read offline on his display. He did manage to activate the viewscreen though, and it flickered back into existence after a few seconds. After several moments of staring at the screen, Alex frowned. "Sir, is it just me, or does that planet seem alot closer now than before?"

[Bridge]

Ardy gratefully accepted the extra shot of painkiller from Alex. He really didn't have to, but he did anyway, probably because she was too stubborn to admit it on her own.  That shockwave must have triggered the empathic part of her mind or something, because it hurt a lot less to hear the background emotional noise of everyone now.   Maybe she wasn't as fine as she thought.

At least it dulled the headache to something a bit more manageable. "œShe's okay, I think. A bit scared and confused, but I've been trying to keep an eye on her.  I think whatever that was, it's on a psionic level

The deal with the isolinear chips was odd though. Whatever it was, it was affected on the same level as they were.

"œThanks," she said as she accepted the toolkits and peered at the varying chips and wires. They didn't seem fried like what would normally happen in a typical electrical surge that would in turn cook the respective station in a blaze of shattered computer and  fragmented electronic parts.

At the mention of  the chips from the engineer, she nodded and immediately went to resetting all of them. It worked, thank goodness, and the helm console flared to life.  It wasn't doing much beyond that, but

Looks like they'd have to deal with the tedious work of unplugging and replugging all of the isolinear chips. or at least enough to get the ship flying again, and fast, especially if the thrusters were as offline as the rest of the ship and they were on a direct course to be dragged down by the gravity of the planet.

"œWill do. "œ she said as she fired up the now-working Helm and prepared a potential trajectory for the ship once they got it working. "œWhich chips control the thrusters?"œ

[Alexander Wu]

[Bridge - USS Challenger]

When the viewscreen flickered back to life and Wu commented on the planet's size, Ian looked up with an even more pained expression.

"I was afraid of this, our drift has got us at the very edge of the planet's gravity well. We've got to get summat workin' ta stabilize our course."

Thinking furiously Ian added.

"Thrusters, they draw the least power of any propulsion on the ship, we've got ta focus our attention on gettin' thrusters online."

"Sir, I hate to complicate things, but we have an additional problem."

Randall said from the Science One station.

"Go ahead Lieutenant." Ian sighed.

"I started scanning the local area for traces of the fold space temporal pulse to work on some sort of defense. As I was scanning, I detected an strong increase in radio frequency activity emanating from the planet. It looks like when our shields dropped, the Landsers have detected us. I don't know what they can do about it, but I am certain they know we are here."

"Well, there goes any hope of avoidin' a court martial."

Ian replied sourly as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I would say it's a given we've gone a buggered the hell out of the Prime Directive at this point. Mister Wu, as soon as you're done with treatin' Lieutenant Booker, see if'n you can tap into the Landser's communication network. No possibility of puttin' off talkin' with their government now."

[Bridge]

Ardy gratefully accepted the extra shot of painkiller from Alex. He really didn't have to, but he did anyway, probably because she was too stubborn to admit it on her own.  That shockwave must have triggered the empathic part of her mind or something, because it hurt a lot less to hear the background emotional noise of everyone now.   Maybe she wasn't as fine as she thought.

At least it dulled the headache to something a bit more manageable. "œShe's okay, I think. A bit scared and confused, but I've been trying to keep an eye on her.  I think whatever that was, it's on a psionic level

The deal with the isolinear chips was odd though. Whatever it was, it was affected on the same level as they were.

"œThanks," she said as she accepted the toolkits and peered at the varying chips and wires. They didn't seem fried like what would normally happen in a typical electrical surge that would in turn cook the respective station in a blaze of shattered computer and  fragmented electronic parts.

At the mention of  the chips from the engineer, she nodded and immediately went to resetting all of them. It worked, thank goodness, and the helm console flared to life.  It wasn't doing much beyond that, but

Looks like they'd have to deal with the tedious work of unplugging and replugging all of the isolinear chips. or at least enough to get the ship flying again, and fast, especially if the thrusters were as offline as the rest of the ship and they were on a direct course to be dragged down by the gravity of the planet.

"œWill do. "œ she said as she fired up the now-working Helm and prepared a potential trajectory for the ship once they got it working. "œWhich chips control the thrusters?"œ

[USS Challenger - Bridge]

"And she's even more sensitive than you...poor girl must be terrified." Alex tried to push his concerns regarding their daughter out of his mind, working to access the sensor configurations which Booker had used before to siphon information from the Landsers' satellites, but had no success with the main computer still offline. He couldn't even use most of the ship's sensor suites, with hundreds of isolinear chips for each module to tediously replace by hand. The suborbital satellites did give him an idea though. "I can use a subspace amplifier. There's only a few dozen chips to reset and we can launch it by depressurizing a launch tube. Tie it directly into a comms transceiver, and that should give you the ability to talk to the surface. Tal, where's the closest torpedo bay?"

"Deck 9." The engineer promptly answered while pulling another panel off the bulkhead. At this point, the bridge looked more like it was being worked on in drydock rather than an actual functional starship. "I'll get the comms station back online up here to connect with the amplifier once it's active. Oh, and RCS Thruster Control is on Deck 9 too." He added to Jaeger's question.

Alex was already at the open turbolift doors, staring down into the dim tunnel which seemed to go on forever. Hopefully Grelek would've already made it to Deck 9, otherwise he wasn't sure how he'd force the door open from inside the shaft. Taking a deep breath, he clambered down the first few rungs until only his head was above deck level. "Ardyn, do you want me to get someone to start working on those thruster control systems once I make it down there, or are you coming along?" He didn't want to leave her behind, would already have to go against his instinct to check on the primary school along the way, but understood that a pilot was much more useful in a position to actually pilot, despite not having anything to pilot at the moment.

[Ian Galloway]

[USS Challenger - Landser System]

Slowly, very slowly, the Challenger began to stir as the crew frantically went through the tedious process of rebooting the ship's vast number of isolinear chips. Concentrating on only the most critical of systems, first, the thrusters came online allowing Espada to stabilize the ship's orbit. Then second, to restore life support.

Other systems began to come online, such as sensors, shields, the fusion generators, and the main computer, but each at only greatly reduced capabilities. The ship was no longer dead, but it was still only a shadow of it's normal self. It was however, enough to begin to work on the fundamental task of how to protect the ship from another temporal pulse.

As the crew struggled with restoring the ship's systems, Ian was listening to the Landser communications systems thanks to the work of Lieutenant Wu. What he heard was not good. As he feared, when the Challenger lost power and her shields dropped, she became visible to the scores of ground based telescopes that were observing the test of the fold space probe.

Ian could only wince as the local airwaves lit up with conversations of the 'unidentified object' just 80,000 kilometers from their world. Normally, the discovery of extra solar life would have been a closely guarded secret. Unfortunately, because the fold space test was such a public project, the sheer number of governmental, public, and private telescopes observing the test, discovery of the unknown vessel was detected by too many sources to contain.

One thing listening to the Landser communications revealed was that while the fold space project was a planetary level project, the Landsers had not advanced to the point where they had a single planetary government. There were some three dozen major nation-states that were conducting emergency meetings on how to deal with the alien incursion in their space.

Ian had remained on the bridge as the repairs began and with little to do personally, he began to open his Captain's Log, only to remember the ship's computer wasn't restored enough to respond to voice commands. He pulled out a tricorder with the goal of transferring the updates to the main computer once it was operational again.

"Captain's Log, supplemental. Challenger is still several disabled, but the entire crew is focused on restorin' full capabilities. Our internal communications are mostly restored from Deck One to Deck Fifteen, we hope to have full communications within two hours.

"We do not have external communications, so we've had no word from the away team since the pulse. I am extremely concerned about them as the shuttle Onizuka was found derelict near Challenger. Tractor beams are not operational yet, but the limited sensors we do have detected no life signs aboard. I can only count on the skills of those selected for the away team ta keep them safe.

"As all possible pretense of maintainin' the Prime Directive have been shattered, as soon as we have transmission capabilities, I plan ta contact the nation-states of Land ta begin First Contact procedures. As I am takin' this action without authorization from Starfleet Command, I state hereby ta take full responsibility should my actions be judged unjustified. End log."

[Abas Th'vyrrol]

[Sickbay]

On one of the walls of the sickbay, there was a simple panel. The panel looked very similar to the master status diagram down in main engineering, but instead of a massive, wall-covering display that broke down the current working status of every part on the ship, this unassuming little display simply broke down where on the ship calls to sickbay were occurring from. Each section was triaged in green, yellow, red, or black, depending on the current medical situation in each section, the utilization of medical resources, and the need for rapid-response medical crews. Even the status of the triple-redundant life support systems was tracked. Everything on there was currently green, indicating a nice, simple day. The medical ward was blissfully unaware of the danger the landing party was in, or of the incoming affront to reality that was about to take hold.

Moments later, Abas found himself on the floor, screaming mentally in agony, his antennae flaring relentlessly before he realized that it wasn't just him. Hauling himself to his knees (unable to scramble to his feet) he felt the entire ship transform from the living, breathing being he called home to what was more tantamount to a tomb. The gentle hiss of the air recirculation systems, the vibration of the deck plates, the hubbub of scanners and experiments and diagnostic equipment. In moments, everything had died. Nobody had seen the status diagram go from green to yellow, to red, to dark black in the milliseconds it had to process before the display had failed.

To Abas, the total lack of power instantly clicked a few memory items into place. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he ran down the rapid-response checklist that every crewmember on any vessel that relied on bringing its life support with him had been trained on, from submarines to aircraft to spaceships - oxygen was life. And right now, no oxygen was flowing. With a total power failure of a ship (which hadn't happened in a very, very long time), no oxygen was generated, no carbon dioxide was scrubbed, and no heat was generated. This meant the air would slowly become toxic, and the ship would passively begin to lose the heat the crew needed to survive, being leached out into the void of space. And that's before the solar radiation cooked them all alive.

All in all, it was a very bad, no good time. Of course, that hadn't happened yet - they had a few hours before the first signs of hypoxia began to set in for most of the crew. He heard several people try hailing various parts of the ship, but quickly their situation became clear - the Challenger was dead in the water. They had to rely on good old-fashioned muscle to dig themselves out of this hole.

In the event of such a situation, some things could be done. Emergency lockers across the ship had ready supplies of chlorate candles, sometimes called an oxygen candle. In a few hours, those would need to be broken out. These candles (which burned at 600 degrees centigrade) were made of sodium chlorate and iron powder. When ignited properly (usually by a chemical reaction) these candles converted 2 NaClO3 into 2 NaCl + 3 O2 molecules. This would quite literally generate oxygen, at least in the short term. This, and whatever supplies of Triox that were still accessible, would keep the crew alive. For now.

Quickly, the medical team broke into their rapid reaction teams. A team was dispatched to manually find their way to Engineering, one to the Bridge, and one to the main crew lounge to turn it into a triage ward. The remaining crew would stay in the sickbay and set up another triage and treatment center there. Certain crewmembers were designated as runners, to keep every section in coordination. Abas had been assigned to the Bridge team. Dutifully, they set out with whatever bandages and medical gear they could scrounge up, crawling through access tubes and turboshafts, slowly making their way northward. Only six decks stood in their way...

[Turbolift Shaft]

As the medical team was making their way up, it appeared someone else had started making their way down. The small medical team of four blinked as the sight of one Lieutenant had begun making their way down.

"Hello there!" called one of the nurses, an Ensign of some sort. "Is anyone up there injured?"

As they'd fought their way toward the bridge, the four-person team had noted signs of life beginning to return to the ship. A panel here, the odd light fixture there. Slowly but surely, the ship had begun to come back to life. Maybe they weren't dead yet after all.

[Kyan Mackenzie]

[Lt. Commander Kyan Mackenzie | Eely'ot & G'erti's house]

~ A few hours after the Landsers brought Kyan inside.

Sitting in some random aliens' house, with his Mark III Starfleet Isolation suit in tatters around him, unable to move or speak"¦. on a mission where he was meant to watch the Landsers without being seen because Prime Directive"¦ Kyan finally understood what that old Earth singer's mother was talking about.

" Momma said that there'd be days like this."

He'd never heard it of course, except for the chorus. So even though the actual lyrics spoke of a good day, Kyan didn't know that. But that's what he thought about, sitting here with G'erti rambling on about whatever it was that she was on about. He'd had two mothers, one he could remember and one he couldn't. And Kyan was certain that neither of them had ever told him he'd be having a day like this.

While he pondered that and other things, since he wasn't going anywhere, G'ertie had taken to showing him all of her toys. First, it was a parade of dolls and their endless accessories. Then came the box that looked like an old television set"¦ which Kyan discovered was a TV when the little blue girl turned it on and it began playing a Landser children's program. Eely'ot had gone off to get something or do something, leaving his little sister alone with Kyan"¦ the round-eared space kid, sitting there like some alien mannequin in the middle of their playroom.

"œAnd this.. this bek dem firchanza doll. She's the yin'sa of the Landterim" G'erti offered excitedly, shoving a blue doll with a flowing gown and a jeweled tiara in his face. Oh yeah, that was the other thing. The universal translator was picking up whichever local language Eely'ot and G'erti spoke, but slowly. So far it was had managed to catch most conjunctions and pronouns.. and the word doll. He figured that was because the little Landser had shown him about thirty of them.

"œG'erti"¦." Eelyot's voice rang out. "œWe're home!."

Kyan was relieved. Odd, since Eely'ot had done"¦ whatever he'd done which is why the Onlie couldn't move and had thus been subjected to what seemed like an eternity of show and tell with G'erti, in which she did all the telling and showing. But maybe her brother had devised a way to fix whatever he'd done.

"œWhatever this is, it better be good! Coach is going to be mad that I left the practice." Kyan heard someone else, presumably Mikel, say from just outside the room.

"œFirst you have to swear"¦ you have to swear that you won't tell anyone." Eely'ot said.

"œWhat did you do!" Mikel replied suspiciously. "œyou better not have broken anything."

"œPromise!"

"œFine. I promise"¦ now show me."

A moment later the door opened and Eely'ot walked in with an older Landser who looked like and older version of him. The older boy was wearing something like a sports team uniform. "Ok... what is so important that I had to....."

When Mikel saw Kyan sitting on the floor his entire demeanor changed. "Who... what..."

"He's a space man." G'erti piped up. "Eely'ot found him in the Lumithorn tree. We thought he was dead but he wasn't and then we brought him in here and Eely'ot did the freeze thing."

Once the initial shock wore off, Mikel leaned down in Kyan's face and waved his hand. When he got no response he stood back up. Are you guys messing with me? Who is this really?"

"He's an alien! Look, his space suit is right there on the floor!" Eely'ot indicated the ruined Isolation suit.

Mikel picked it up and looked it over. He didn't seem convinced, but then he noticed the com badge on Kyan's uniform. "Oh Dertowis!" he exclaimed. "That's the same symbol as the one on the news!"

Eely'ot and G'erti looked at one another, and then back at their brother. "On the news?" Eely'ot asked warily.

Mikel tore his eyes off the delta and looked around for a moment before picking up the remote. He pushed buttons until the children's show that had been being ignored in the background changed to what looked like a newscast.

If he could have, Kyan would have sighed. As the speak spoke excitedly over the footage, the three of them watched as the Challenger floated in close orbit, her starboard hull pennant was clearly visible. As one, the three of them turned back around. All of their eyes landed on Kyan's com badge.

"What do we do now?" Eely'ot spoke up, looking from Kyan to his brother. But it wasn't Mikel that answered. It was G'erti.

"You gotta unfreeze him Mikel!"

[Ian Galloway]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 15 - Stellar Cartography]

Lahr woke to with the all too familiar feeling of his face against the deck.   Had he drank too much again and passed out?  He opened his eyes and blurrily looked about.  He wasn't in his quarters - the temperature wasn't cold enough; nor was he in the brig - it was too dark here, and by sec/tac protocol the brig guards had to keep the brig well lit at all times.  Where was he?!   He blinked trying to focus... there seemed to be a reddish glow along the walls.  Emergency lighting?  Roohz!

It was then that he recalled having gone up to Stellar Cartography to enlist Hyperion's aid in understanding the concepts behind space-time folding.

"Hyperion? Ensign? Sound off if you survived whatever the hell just happened."
With every muscle in his body protesting the moment, Lahr got his hands under him and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

He looked about using the dim reddish glow.  "Computer, increase illumination 50%." There was no change. Nor even an acknowledgement of his order.  "Yep, power is definitely out."  How long he couldn't be entirely certain but without power life-support wasn't operational, and air wasn't being refreshed. That could be a huge problem. "I need to help get power up and going again."

[Stellar Cartography - Deck 15 - USS Challenger]

As Lahr called out, he could see others groaning on the deck or attempting to regain their feet. Hyperion was motionless and completely powered down. Ensign Alexandria Winsdor was the only long term crew member assigned to Stellar Cartography at the moment that was attempting to move. Tora was still crumpled on the deck. In addition, there were twelve cadets right on the ragged edge of panic and on seeing Lahr, the rushed over to him.

"What happened-"

"What do we do-"

"Are we going to die-"

He was bombarded with questions for which he didn't have any answers.

[Zhukdrashar Mrekrerhas]

[Lt. Commander Kyan Mackenzie | In some Landser's backyard (outskirts of the capitol city... somewhere in the suburbs)]

~Early Afternoon (1-2 hours after beam out)

"Hey! Eely'ot what are you doing out here?"

The actually speech would have been incomprehensible to human ears, and Kyan wouldn't have been able to understand it even if he'd been awake. The universal translator caught a few of the words, but the Landsers were still at a stage in their development wherein scores of distinct languages and dialects were being spoken on their planet.

As it was, Kyan heard nothing. He was unconscious, having re-materialized  above a tree and smacked several thick branches before being caught on one of them. The Onlie's Isolation suit was a ruin. The HUD visor was completely offline and the rest was shredded. Kyan hung upside down from a large branch, about a meter and a half off the ground. The lower half of his suit held him there by one foot, having caught on one of the luminescent thorns.

"Eely'ot!"

The Landser boy stared in open-mouthed wonder at the extraterrestrial hanging from their family's prized Lumithorn tree. He could see inside the helmet just enough to know that whoever this was... they weren't Landseri.

Eely'ot didn't hear his younger sister's calls, nor did the enthralled boy hear her walk over.

"Wha.... What is it?" she asked, stopping beside her brother, who finally noticed her.

He tore his eyes away from the alien hanging in the tree and regarded his sister. Eely'ot didn't have an answer. He didn't know what it was, but he did know what it wasn't. And he also knew what it would mean if one of his parents or the neighbors found out about it. "G'erti... go get your doll wagon." he said finally. "I'm going to get it down from there."

G'erti was hesitant. "Do you think it's still alive?" she asked? "Maybe we should call someone."

Eely'ot wasn't about to do that. The police would take it away before it even woke up and he'd never see it again, much less get to see if it woke up. He had a plan though. "No." he replied. "They'll take it away. Hurry up and get the wagon."

G'erti didn't argue further. She knew it would be pointless. Besides, she knew that this was something extraordinary and she was curious too. Without another word she ran back into their family's house and emerged a few minutes later with a wagon. The bottom was padded and there was a wooden rail around it. She'd taken most of her dolls out to make room for the alien. She also got one of her blankets to cover him up once they got him down.

When she got back, her brother had gotten a ladder and was climbing up to the thorny branch from which the alien hung. "Put the wagon under it." he told her. "I'll lower it in. You grab it's arms and make sure it doesn't fall."

G'erti did what she was told, and soon she was guiding the alien into the wagon. When they'd finished, her brother bounded down the ladder. Kyan was now laying on his back in the wagon with his legs and arms dangling outside it. His head slumped against the railing on the back.

"Now what do we do?" she asked, cupping her hands to peer through the tinted visor on the alien's suit. She could make out a face that wasn't all that different from their own, aside from the color of the skin and the smaller, rounded ears.

Eely'ot pointed toward the house. "Take it inside... we'll put it in the toy room. Mother and father never go in there."

G'erti nodded but then a thought occurred to her. "What about Mikel?"

"We might tell him... if he promises not to tell anyone else." Eely'ot said. "Now come on.

Eely'ot took hold of the wagon's handle and pulled it into the house with G'erti following. It was a struggle to get the wagon down the stairs to the basement but once they had, it was a relatively easy thing to get the alien out of the wagon. G'erti and Eely'ot laid Kyan on the play mat and G'erti sat down beside him. Eely'ot left and returned a few moments later with scissors.

While his sister watched silently, Eely'ot cut what was left of the suit off and finally pulled the hood off to reveal the alien. With the suit off, it was clear that the alien was alive, as the two of them could now see it's chest rising and falling with each breath. Tentatively, G'erti leaned over the sleeping Onlie. Then she slowly reached out and touched his ear which, aside from his skin color, was the most glaring difference between the two of them.

At the touch, Kyan's eyes opened suddenly and he sat up, frightening the two Landser children. Eely'ot scrambled back, and G'erti screamed. Kyan pushed her away and tried to scoot back himself, but was suddenly still as if frozen in place.

G'erti looked at her brother. "Did you....."

"It just happened!" Eely'ot stammered. "I didn't even... "

G'erti waved a hand in front of Kyan's face, who stared blanky ahead, entranced. When he didn't move, she looked over at her brother. "Now we have to tell Mikel."

[Lieutenant Zhukdra'shar Mrekrerhas | Landser Countryside ---> Pharmacy | Land | L7-425977 System]

Zhukdra'shar attempted to find his fellow Starfleet officers, doing his best to ignore the pain in his wrist. After walking through hills filled with alien grass, or its equivalent on Earth, at least, he came across a tree that showed signs of damage from above. Indeed, his tricorder confirmed a group of people was here about an hour ago. But unfortunately, he had missed it.

Not good.

Especially as when he examined the area closer, he came across fragments of the material his isolation suit was made of. Which confirmed his suspicions that someone of the ship had ended up here. What worried him was the fact that they were not here now. This mission was getting worse and worse, and really quickly, too. Zhukdra'shar groaned softly as he decided to investigate, fearing that the Landser government could have taken whoever member of his team had landed here.

As he kept walking, he came across farms, carefully avoiding stepping on the rows of crops, and a road, which he began to follow. It seemed that his suit was working appropiately, as he raised no suspicion from the people currently harvesting the fields. Indeed, luck did seem to be on his side, as a boxy, truck-like vehicle which sputtered clouds of soft yellow, and an open cargo bed appeared a few meters behind him.

Zhuk had an idea on how to get to the nearest town, where he was certain he would be able to find his companion. Lowering himself to avoid drawing attention, he grabbed a rock, though kept close to the ground as he allowed the vehicle to go past him, before lifting it and tossing it towards the back. The sound was enough to cause the driver to stop, and get out of the vehicle.

"Dwas jorlappenjin zebe?"

Came the voice of the chubbier Landser as he checked on the back. He had a visible moustache, made from purple hair, which was carefully taken care of. He too wore a suit that resembled a set of human overalls, except that the straps were criss-crossed. A cap was removed from his hea as he passed a hand through his balding top, before he returned to the front of the vehicle. Zhuk had been expecting this, as he sneakily made his way over towards the back, and carefully, climbed inside the cargo bed.

He took a seat and waited, as the truck took him to the expected place.

All the movement, however, made his current injury more unbearable the further they advanced. Finally, though, at a bend, the truck stopped as it waited for another car to go by, and Zhuk used the time to jump out. Slowly, he made his way through the quaint town, filled with peculiar, angular houses painted in pastel colors. A bit too colorful for his taste, he supposed, but not too bad.

While still unseen, he remained close to the shadows, keeping a low profile to avoid any suspicion. That was, until he came across a store which seemingly had many medical supplies. A pharmacy.

He carefully walked inside, the slide-doors opening as they sensed him, even if they could not see him. Zhuk knew that it would probably be a bad idea to take from these people, but if he wanted to better manage his wrist, he would need some bandages. And it did not took too long for him to find them. However, as he was just about to grab them, he overheard something. A noisy, grey box speaking in a tongue his translator did not quite understand.

What he did, however, was the Challenger floating in space.

No...

[ShranLahr ch'Verret]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 15 - Stellar Cartography]

[Stellar Cartography - Deck 15 - USS Challenger]

As Lahr called out, he could see others groaning on the deck or attempting to regain their feet. Hyperion was motionless and completely powered down. Ensign Alexandria Winsdor was the only long term crew member assigned to Stellar Cartography at the moment that was attempting to move. Tora was still crumpled on the deck. In addition, there were twelve cadets right on the ragged edge of panic and on seeing Lahr, the rushed over to him.

"What happened-"

"What do we do-"

"Are we going to die-"

He was bombarded with questions for which he didn't have any answers.

Lahr looked around at the crowd of cadets and his antennae twitched in annoyance.  He so didn't need this right now.   "No, we're not gonna die." At least he hoped not.  He checked the range of species around him making sure none were Betazoid.  He'd need to censor his less than optimistic thoughts if there were.

Seeing none, he proceeded to talk while he moved to check on Tora - to ensure she was at least breathing. "Listen up, cadets.   We don't have time for 20 questions.  The power is out so we need to work fast to figure out how to get it back up and running or it'll get uncomfortable around here."  That was an understatement!

"I need one of you to fetch the emergency kit and bring it to me.  It'll be located to the left of the door... 3rd bottom panel - has the standard First Aid symbol engraved at the top of the panel.  Press that firmly and the panel will pop open." Lahr directed as he leaned his cheek close to Tora's mouth to feel for any movement of air.   Yeah, she was breathing.  Sounded clear too - that was good.  Next he reached for Tora's wrist and felt for a pulse.  Yep.  Good and strong.  ABC's were clear.

He pointed to one of the female cadets.  "Keep watch on her and see if you can rouse her."  Lahr then gestured to another cadet "You... assist Ensign... " there was a pause as Lahr realized didn't know the name of the other Ensign.  She was new having come aboard sometime during the nine months he'd been searching for Ruth. "whatsherface..." He head nodded towards the Ensign who was still struggling to get to her feet.

Moving away to give the cadet he'd pointed to some space to take over for him with Tora, Lahr thought back to the moments before his blackout.  "What hit us was nothing like any particle weapon or torpedo strike." He looked to the unmoving robot body of the AI.   Hyperion had it's own power supply - Lahr knew that because he'd helped build the AI's body.   So whatever hit them had acted like an EMP.   Lahr then looked to the few emergency lights that were operable.  So the battery backups were working.  That should have kept life-support going.  But it wasn't. So where was the break in the circuit?

Free now to focus on the problem at hand, Lahr opened up the nearest console to check the circuit.   He pulled a chip. Nope.  No damage there. When he placed it back in however it lit up.  The Andorian facepalmed at the simplicity of the problem.

He looked to the ten remaining cadets still clustered around him, like puppies looking for a treat. "Okay.  Here's what we gotta do.  On all essential consoles  we're gonna have to pull all the isolinear chips and reseat them.  That should 'reboot' the circuit and get the system working again."

Lahr would have liked reboot Hyperion first but priority was the ship's life support systems.  "Alright cadets.  Now I'm sure in your three plus years of training, some stuffy professor talked about where to located the isolinear chips and how to pull and insert them.  Well, today you get to do that hands on."

Lahr then proceeded to give a crash course on their task, he had each one pull a chip and reseat it.

"Perfect now I want you all to work in teams and spread out to other essential departments throughout the decks and point out to them what to do, if they haven't figured it out already.   I'm gonna head up to Deck Six where the Central Air Exchange is."

He grabbed the emergency kit from the cadet who had retrieved it.  He located the Medkit and retrieved the hypospray...and inserted a vial of tri-ox.  That hopefully would get him through until he could get the Life-Support going again.    He handed the kit back to the cadet.

"All those who need oxygen to breathe, should take a shot of the tri-ox before heading out into your teams.  Good luck."

[Jettis Jyur]

[Lt.JG ACEO Neva Cordon|Somewhere on Landser Planet]

Neva sagged in utter relief, tears forming in her eyes. Standing, she put away her phaser and joined Dr. Jettis. 'Thank the Gods Doctor, it's you!' she replied in kind. 'To answer your question-no, I've seen no one else. That's good and bad I think.'

Neva gestured back the way she'd come. 'I materialized on a rocky precipice surrounded by mountains. I don't think there's anything that'll help us in that direction.' She looked down at her clothes then back up at him, chuckling softly. 'Unfortunately, my suit tore enough to be useless. I buried it by some rocks. So much for keeping hidden.' She gave an embarrassed smile, dropping her head and raising her shoulders.'What now?'

[ Landser Planet - Forest ]

Jettis was relieved to see it was Cordon who stood. A look of surprise flickered across his features, taking in her suit-less form, but nodded at her explanation. That would make staying undercover a bit difficult, but at this point even getting spotted would probably be game over.

Glancing over in the direction she motioned to,  he made a mental note of the direction to hopefully avoid doubling back again. Especially if being pursued. 'We keep going and try to find the rest of the team. We need to figure out a way to get a message back to the Challenger without being discovered, we have no idea how the landsers will behave in the face of aliens.' He motioned for her to follow, before continuing in the direction he was headed, still occasionally pausing to mark a tree or two. 'Then I suppose we lie low until we get picked up. Our job is recon, so we can try to get some sort of native communications device, or try to watch them without being noticed. Best to avoid groups, though.'

[Ardyn Jaeger]

[USS Challenger - Bridge]

"And she's even more sensitive than you...poor girl must be terrified." Alex tried to push his concerns regarding their daughter out of his mind, working to access the sensor configurations which Booker had used before to siphon information from the Landsers' satellites, but had no success with the main computer still offline. He couldn't even use most of the ship's sensor suites, with hundreds of isolinear chips for each module to tediously replace by hand. The suborbital satellites did give him an idea though. "I can use a subspace amplifier. There's only a few dozen chips to reset and we can launch it by depressurizing a launch tube. Tie it directly into a comms transceiver, and that should give you the ability to talk to the surface. Tal, where's the closest torpedo bay?"

"Deck 9." The engineer promptly answered while pulling another panel off the bulkhead. At this point, the bridge looked more like it was being worked on in drydock rather than an actual functional starship. "I'll get the comms station back online up here to connect with the amplifier once it's active. Oh, and RCS Thruster Control is on Deck 9 too." He added to Jaeger's question.

Alex was already at the open turbolift doors, staring down into the dim tunnel which seemed to go on forever. Hopefully Grelek would've already made it to Deck 9, otherwise he wasn't sure how he'd force the door open from inside the shaft. Taking a deep breath, he clambered down the first few rungs until only his head was above deck level. "Ardyn, do you want me to get someone to start working on those thruster control systems once I make it down there, or are you coming along?" He didn't want to leave her behind, would already have to go against his instinct to check on the primary school along the way, but understood that a pilot was much more useful in a position to actually pilot, despite not having anything to pilot at the moment.

[Bridge]

Ardyn nodded. With the ship in autopilot and ready to move out, they had to get thrusters up ASAP.  "œI'll come with you. The ship should be ready to go back into an orbital pattern as soon as we get power, and the more people we have to get the chips plugged back in, the better. "œ she said, looking at the still-unconscious helmsman.  "œI shouldn't be gone for too long, I think, Sir." She said to Ian. they only had so much time before the ship's orbit would decay.

[Alexander Wu]

[Bridge]

Ardyn nodded. With the ship in autopilot and ready to move out, they had to get thrusters up ASAP.  "œI'll come with you. The ship should be ready to go back into an orbital pattern as soon as we get power, and the more people we have to get the chips plugged back in, the better. "œ she said, looking at the still-unconscious helmsman.  "œI shouldn't be gone for too long, I think, Sir." She said to Ian. they only had so much time before the ship's orbit would decay.

[Turbolift Shaft - Deck 1>Deck 9]

"I'd offer ladies first, but then I might fall on you." Alex flashed her an apologetic smile before starting down. It was a long way to Deck 9, and for the first few rungs, he used the traditional hand-foot-hand-foot method until he gained enough confidence that he wouldn't lose his grip. There was a little trick they used to do as SAR specialists, as much a parlour trick as it was useful, and something he hadn't done since he was in his much fitter 20s. With the gravity plating still working, gravity was therefore his friend so long as he was going down. Pulling his sleeves over his hands and gripping the vertical railings, Alex took a deep breath apprehensively, glanced up to see where Ardyn was, and despite the seriousness of their situation appreciated the view for a split second, then shifted both his feet out to the side so the railings tucked into the inner arch of his boot soles. "Here's something you might not have done before." He called to Ardyn before loosening his grip slightly, just enough so he began sliding down, faster, and faster-

[Turbolift Shaft]

As the medical team was making their way up, it appeared someone else had started making their way down. The small medical team of four blinked as the sight of one Lieutenant had begun making their way down.

"Hello there!" called one of the nurses, an Ensign of some sort. "Is anyone up there injured?"

As they'd fought their way toward the bridge, the four-person team had noted signs of life beginning to return to the ship. A panel here, the odd light fixture there. Slowly but surely, the ship had begun to come back to life. Maybe they weren't dead yet after all.

"Merde!" Alex immediately gripped hard with his hands and feet, squeezing the rungs with the insides of his arms and knees, a grimace forming as he felt heat growing rapidly from friction spreading through the fabric of his uniform into his skin. His arms and quads ached in protest, but he managed to slow just enough to catch the rungs, coming to a stop only a few feet above the medical team. He was sweating slightly and flushed, not just from the exertion, but also from chagrin at being caught doing something so recklessly at his age. "Sorry! We're coming from the bridge, there's still Lieutenant Booker and the helmsman who need help. I administered tri-ox and put them in the recovery position, but I didn't see any obvious external injuries to explain why they're still unconscious. Listen, are your tricorders or anything in sickbay working? One of the engineers figured out that all of the isolinear chips onboard were reset somehow by that pulse which hit us. It took out everything with a chip in it, from tricorders to the main computer. To get your devices working again, you have to manually pull the chip out and put it back in. We're going to be in for some long shifts if we don't fall out of orbit first."

[Neva Cordon]

[ Landser Planet - Forest ]

Jettis was relieved to see it was Cordon who stood. A look of surprise flickered across his features, taking in her suit-less form, but nodded at her explanation. That would make staying undercover a bit difficult, but at this point even getting spotted would probably be game over.

Glancing over in the direction she motioned to,  he made a mental note of the direction to hopefully avoid doubling back again. Especially if being pursued. 'We keep going and try to find the rest of the team. We need to figure out a way to get a message back to the Challenger without being discovered, we have no idea how the landsers will behave in the face of aliens.' He motioned for her to follow, before continuing in the direction he was headed, still occasionally pausing to mark a tree or two. 'Then I suppose we lie low until we get picked up. Our job is recon, so we can try to get some sort of native communications device, or try to watch them without being noticed. Best to avoid groups, though.'

[Lt.JG ACEO Neva Cordon|Forest on Landers Planet]

Neva nodded. 'Laying low...check. I'm fine with that. I admit though, I'm itching to get my hands on their time-fold instrumentation.' She gave a wan smile. 'Terminal Engineer, I know.'

The forest thinned out to a field of high grass. Neva pulled out her Tricorder a moment then put it away. She crouched down, fingers tracing just above the ground. She looked up at Jettis and pointed. 'Looks like some sort of transport with wheels or something came through here. It looks recent. I suggest following it. We may find something we can use to communicate with the Challenger?' She raised a questioning eyebrow as she stood and wiped her hands on the sides of her uniform.

[Ian Galloway]

[Bridge - USS Challenger]

It had been two hours since the temporal pulse had crippled Challenger. However, once it was figured out how to reactivate the disabled systems the entire ship's complement went to work on restoring the ship's functions and were making very good progress.

The warp drive was still offline as it was a low priority compared to other systems, but the fusion reactors and the impulse engines were working again, so the ship had plenty of power. Weapons were still down as they were not needed given the Landsers had no means to reach, let alone attack the Challenger. However, shields were functional, although Ian chose to leave them down as the ship had already been spotted and disappearing suddenly might send the wrong signal to the governments of Land.

The ship had full sensors and Lieutenant Randall had detected the Landser fold space probe had jumped four light years in just four seconds. An amazing technological accomplishment that Federation science still only considered theoretical.

However, now that the ship had full communications, Ian could no longer put off talking to the people of Land. He originally had hoped to speak just to the various government leaders, but with images of Challenger flooding the news feeds around the planet, the quiet approach no longer felt practical. Thus, once Lieutenant Booker at Ops gave him the signal, Ian took his place in the command chair and nodded to Booker to open the channel. Using in his absolute best Standard he began to speak

"People of Land. My name is Ian Galloway. I am the captain of the USS Challenger, the ship you have seen on your news. I must apologize for our abrupt appearance over your world. I and my ship are representatives of the United Federation of Planets. A large interstellar government of over 200 worlds.

"We came to your world when our sensors detected unusual temporal fluctuations that turned out to be a byproduct of your magnificent fold space technology. So far, the use of fold space has not caused any damage, but we discovered during your last test, that up close, these temporal pulses have a devastating effect on our technology.

"This is what caused us to be revealed to you before we had the chance to speak to your leaders. We again apologize for any upset we might have caused. With your permission, we would like to speak to whatever delegates you choose so that we may meet each other properly and hopefully begin a long and friendly relationship. Thank you for your time, we await your response. Captain Ian Galloway, out."