Episode 1 - 30 Days of Flight

----August 8th, 2376. Mission Time: 29 Days.-----

Captain Joseph Branston stepped over a small pile of rubble to get into his Ready Room, brushing the thick stubble on his chin with a sigh. Dark circles framed his blue eyes, which looked wearily upon the furniture strewn about what was supposed to be his private space and office. There didn't seem to be a single thing in there that wasn't broken, including the bulkhead. The tall, thin window that normally would have been to the back of his desk was a much larger, jagged hole covered over by a forcefield. A dusty red residue was crusted around the edges like burned sugar.

He brushed the garbage off his desk and entered in commands to the one panel not smashed.

"Captain's log," He said with an exhausted huff, "One month tomorrow. That's how long we have been running.

We're burning through our deuterium fuel supplies far faster than we should due to damage our Warp Cores sustained in the first attack. My ship's storage took a direct hit, forcing us to stop every few days to try and replenish our supply.

Every time we do - within minutes they arrive and start shooting. These aliens, who we don't even know their names, seem to control this area we're in.

Wherever that is. The guys on the Europa seem to think we're in another Galaxy, as there is not a single marker from our own to navigate from. Our sensors were hit bad during the last attack, so the Europa's readings are pretty much all we have to go on.

So far what we do know for sure is that being at warp is the only way to stay safe. Problem is that only burns fuel even faster.

I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to update this log. If the Europa's guys are right, no-one will ever hear this and there will be no way home. Ever.

We're going to stop in a proto-nebula for fuel in a moment. Here's hoping this one goes by peacefully.

End Log."

Branston rubbed his burning eyes and carefully stepped back onto the Bridge, where his exhausted and nervous crew awaited.

"You know the drill," He grunted on his way to the Captain's chair, "Get in, open the Bussard Collectors wide and get as much fuel as we can before those jerks arrive. Warp out the moment they do."

He paused.

"I know we're all exhausted, on edge. But we have to stay sharp. They're too fast for us to have a slow moment. Take your stims now so they'll kick in for our arrival."

Branston acted upon his own instruction, pulling a small bottle of white pills from his trouser pocket and popping two in his mouth. Everyone was so wired on stims it would take them a week of detox for things to go back to normal.

That would not be a fun week.

"Okay," He forced the bitter pills down, "Let's do this...for the hundredth time."

[all]

D’Ang, nicknamed Ang, was traveling in her private vessel, it’s body shape was a new design that she had worked on with her parents starting five years ago.  It was registered with the Federation.  Then both her parents fell ill three years later and died.  D’Ang had inherited the vessel, registered as the Sarek to honor a famous old Vulcan.   Two years ago, on her maiden voyage, it had disappeared with D’Ang.  Sensors in the area detected the residue of a worm hole.  The ship never went into production as it was unproven.

The Sarek is about twice the size of a typical Star Fleet Shuttle but could still fit into most Star Fleet ships like a shuttle would.   The Sarek had two private cabins where the beds folded up into the walls and each cabin had a small, built-in bureau that doubled as a desk.  What would normally be more cabins and research labs were mainly cargo/storage areas, although two other rooms had beds folded up into the wall in case of future passengers.  There was one small lab in one room and another had a repair station with wall to wall mechanical/engineering tools and a large work bench.  There were two working bathrooms and one galley kitchen.

Ang’s ship was currently carrying lots of mechanical parts; materials that could be used in replicators; food; raw minerals for making ship fuel; and medical supplies.  Under the deck in the bridge area, was hidden two good sized vaults that were made of material that prevented being scanned and were securely locked.  Ang also had a device that converted various raw materials (minerals, etc.) into ship’s fuel.  It had warp capability, a modified Romulan cloaking device and could phase through solid objects.  But it’s only weapons were lasers.  Something Ang planned to rectify.

Ang was in her early 20’s.  She had a slim but shapely build, weighed 120 pounds and is five feet four inches tall.  Her skin is green, her hair red, and her eyes blue.  She wore a grey jumpsuit with black ankle boots.  A black belt covered with pouches and loops held tools.  On the left hip is a large holster with a large blaster pistol.  A gold bracelet with raised panels was on each wrist.  One panel on each bracelet was a communicator device.  Each panel was a different devices such as a retractable grapping hook and fine strong wire; a small phaser; a compass; suction cups for climbing glass buildings, etc. A matching grey baseball cap with a black rim covered most of her red hair.

Ang came out of warp, decloaked, when suddenly an enemy vessel opened fire on her.  Inside Ang sat at a u-shaped control console.  The shot flung her forward and she hit her head on the console.  

“Ooowww!”  Ang cried.  “Evasive action.”

~Acknowledged,~ answered the male voice of the ship.

Her shuttle began to do dives and random zig zags.

Frantic chirping is heard in the background.  

“Hang on Frick and Frack!” Ang called.  “I should return fire but he’s got me heavily out gunned the creep.”

The ship shook from another explosion.  Sparks and smoke was coming from several consoles.   Ang   blinked away the blood that was getting in her eyes from a forehead injury.  She was dizzy.  She must have a concussion.  

“Damm!”  Ang coughed.  “If I get out of this I’m going to equip myself with stronger weapons.”

She hit the button for her Romulan cloaking device and her ship vanished.  She changed direction and easily escaped from the attacker as it shot past her.

She used the sleeve of her left arm to wipe more of the blood off her face. Her head was spinning.  

“Sarek, Command Alpha 1, if I pass out.”  Ang ordered.  

~Acknowledged,~ spoke a male voice from the ship’s computer.  The ship then warped to a safer area.  It still had shields but they were weakening.

~Two Star Fleet vessel detected,~ stated the ship’s computer.

Two shadows hovered over Ang’s form chirping with concern.

“Two Star Fleet vessels here?” Ang gasped.  “Hmmm. It would be nice to hook up with people I knew I could fully trust after two years in this Galaxy.  Send our Federation Registration code and hail them, but maintain our cloak for now.”

~Complying.~  Answered the ship’s computer.

[Tag All]

== Main Bridge ==
== USS Galaxy ==
== The Gods Know Where ==

Tresha grimaced as she stopped looking over the diagnostic that was running on her console, and pulled two pills out of her bottle and popped them into her mouth. She looked over at one of the Ensigns manning another console and noticed that she mimicked putting them in her mouth, but didn't.

"Diana", hissed Tresha. "Either take your stims, or so help me you will go out the torpedo chute before the next volley is fired."

Diana shot her a look, but swallowed two of her pills and shuddered as they went down. Tresha couldn't blame her... they pills tasted like Klingon Vomit.... not that she knew what that tasted like.

"Sir", she said, trying to bring up the morale of the bridge officers. "I am glad to report that we are a 100% Stim Dependent Bridge Crew!"

{TAG BRANSTON}

===USS Galaxy Bridge===

If he was totally honest with himself, Branston would have allowed his response to be little more than an exhausted grunt. Stims were great at keeping you awake, but did nothing for how crappy you felt doing it.

Instead he did the right thing and forced a smile at Security Officer Zahn's comment.

"Just don't start scratching your wrists or I'm going to start thinking you're enjoying it too much." He felt like slapping himself for that dumb response, "Focus on getting those gasses for processing and start the clock."

Out of the corner of his eye Branston noted several of his Bridge Officers glance nervously at the countdown timer that appeared in big red numerals on the Master System Display. They were set to precisely ten minutes, fourty seconds - the time it took before the first alien warship showed up.

Punctuality was their byword.

"Open a channel to the Europa."

{all}

Tresha did have a response, but it wasn't the kind that you remarked to her Captain at a time like this... that comment would be reserved for the other Lieutenants on her offduty time... if there was anymore.

Tresha hit a few buttons and the comm was open. "Open channel to the Europa, sir." Tresha's hands also went over to the part of the console that activated weapons and sheilds. She, like all other surivors on both ships were too well aware, knew that the clock had already started its countdown.

=/\="Hello Captain Chell, for the millionth time," Branston spoke with the slight slur of a man who had not slept in days, "Any sign of them yet?" =/\=

Bren let a small smile rise on his face, pretending that the sound of Branston's voice over the speakers wasn't like a punch in the face. He took a moment to pause, as if he was considering what the proper answer was for a reply. He looked up at the bridge lighting, then down at his feet as if he was admiring the carpet, before returning his eye contact to his fellow captain.

=/\= "Nothing on our scanners, Captain. At least nothing that we can see well. The interference from the nebula is still playing games with our main sensor array. Though, my team has figure out how to clear up most of it from the background radiation, the occasional echo still gets through from time to time."=/\=

Bren knew that he was telling the Galaxy's captain more information than he probably wanted to know, but any conversation that wasn't discussing a casualty report was a nice change. Captain Branston didn't seem that impressed, or that interested. Normally Bren would chalk that up to exhaustion. However, Branston and Chell hadn't really gotten along from the first day that this crisis had begun.

=^="Yeah, great. Why not talk about what we really need to worry about? Is this echo them?"=^= Branston snorted.

Chell let out a small sigh at the Captain's flippant response. =/\= It's nothing that serious. Most of the time it's just a sensor echo that's bouncing our own scans back at us. If I thought there was something out there, I would go investigate=/\=

=^="Stop thinking like a grease monkey," Branston huffed impatiently, "We can't afford to split up right now. All it would take is for the aliens to show up and they could rip us both apart before anyone was the wiser."=^=

Chell bit his lower lip slightly, and decided not to reply back to Branston's last comment. In Branston's eyes, Chell was 'just an engineer that held the rank of Captain', not a command officer. Bren noticed every once in a while when the two had conversations. If there was a decision that needed to be made between the two ships, Branston seemed to confer more with his own first officer about the proper course of action, rather than with him. If was almost if mentioning things to Captain Chell was more of an after-thought, rather than rank protocol.

Which was mostly true. Branston had no real regard for a man he saw as an upstart grease monkey. Granted the Europa, which was set up to be a sort of mobile starbase with all the modifications Starfleet had made to that ship's insides, was best served by a man like him - such mindsets would not allow for survival in a situation like the one they were currently in. They needed someone who knew how to dodge punches and hit back hard.

Someone like himself. Why the hell were they both sent out with the same rank?

With a small sigh Branston decided it would be best to take a breath and maybe give this FNG a chance to live long enough to learn something.

=^="Look," Branston took a moment to check his cranky attitude, "Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. We've been running on fumes for days and desperately need a break. If we could fix the deuterium storage facilities on Galaxy we'd be able to stay at warp for longer - maybe find out how these jerks are able to track us wherever we go."=^=

{Chell/bridge crew of USS Galaxy}

== USS Galaxy ==
== Main Bridge ==

“Sir, I do have a suggestion.” Tresha wasn’t one to really speak up, but she knew that something had to be done. They couldn’t just run and run and run until they were picked off little by little. They had to start trying stuff.

[tag Branston]

Tresha squirmed a little bit. If she was wrong… people on the ship could die. “I was thinking back to Earth’s wartime history… specifically underwater warfare. Your old submarines would go silent at the bottom of the ocean to evade detection. What if we collected fuel for the next 5 minutes… and then shut everything down. Like Captain Chell says, there are pockets of gas or what-not out there. Fire off a probe away from our location to ping the area. Let them follow that.”

She paused for a moment, feeling the need to justify her plan. “We need to try something. We need to find out how they are tracking our ships.”

[tag]

Doctor M’Lynn Calvert sat in her office aboard the USS Galaxy.  She was feeling so frustrated and … angry.  She and the rest of the surviving crew of two ships lost in unknown space and had been attacked by an unknown enemy repeatively.

She wasn’t even supposed to be on this ship!  She was supposed to be on one month of shore leave right now.  The first lengthy shore leave she had gotten since joining Star Fleet.  She had been at Star Fleet Command awaiting a transport to Caitian.  She was in the waiting room with one of her trunks and backpack.  She was enjoying reading  a tablet containing an electronic book on Earth medical and cooking plants when two Star Fleet security officers had come up to her.  One was a lieutenant and one an ensign.  She started to get to her feet.

“At east ensign. Are you Ensign M’Lynn Calvert?”  The lieutenant asked.

M’Lynn looked up both men.  “Yes, sir.”

“Doctor Calvert from the USS Hope?”

“Yes, sir.”  M’lynn said, looking at both men worried.  “Is something wrong?”

“Is this all your luggage Doctor?”

“No, sir.  I have a couple more trunks already checked aboard my transport.”  M’Lynn stated.

“I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve been issued orders to report to the USS Galaxy immediately.  Jones will escort you to the USS Galaxy while I collect your other two trunks.”

M’Lynn was shown a datapad that provided a copy of her new orders.  

“Oh, no.  I’m on my first long shore leave in years and now this?  Just hold on while I check on this.  It has to be a mistake.”  M’Lynn began making calls after calls.  All to no avail.  

Within ten minutes M’Lynn was on board the USS Galaxy.  Being an Ensign she would normally have to share but since she was a doctor, she had her own private room.  It was only after the two ships had been accidently shot through a warp gate and the ships repeatively attacked that she suddenly found herself the Chief Medical Officer and the only doctor on board.  Except for the emergency medical hologram doctor of course.  Which was not operating right now due to ship damage and conserving energy.

Thank goodness she had a Nurse Practitioner and some nurses and medical technicans to help out.  Perhaps with some training the Nurse Practitioner could qualify as a medical doctor.

There were several crew members recovering in Sick Bay.  There were more walking wounded doing their best to help repair the ship.  Both medical and engineering were short on personnel.  

M’Lynn, who was usually called Doc, submitted a request to the captain to obtain a list of personnel on both ships with any medical training and to set up training courses for some of the nurses to provide to train emergency medical technicians.  At first it would be voluntary, then if necessary, the captain would make it an order.  Their survival depended on it.  Doc even suggested something similar be done for engineering.

Doc frowned.  Everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t even met the captain yet.  And with the various ship damages she had best hand deliver a datapadd to the captain with her idea.  She pulled out a spare datapad from her CMO desk and transferred her ideas to it.  

Then Doc headed for the bridge.  It was time to see the captain.

She told the Nurse Practioner.  "I'm going to the bridge to see the captain about our needs. Call me if you need me."

"Yes, sir," she replied.

Doc reached the lift and soon found herself on the bridge.  

(Tag Bridge)

Long story short, if Chell didn't need Branston help to stay alive during this nightmare, he'd be happy to never talk to this human again. But he did, so the two kept talking.

=^="Look," Branston took a moment to check his cranky attitude, "Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way. We've been running on fumes for days and desperately need a break. If we could fix the deuterium storage facilities on Galaxy we'd be able to stay at warp for longer - maybe find out how these jerks are able to track us wherever we go."=^=

Bren let out a frustrated sigh, as Captain Branston reminded him of yet another issue they were facing. Captain Chell wasn't making eye contact with his colleague, as it was clear that his engineering brain was at work.

The Galaxy had been suffering from micro-fractures in her deuterium storage tanks since the first attack. It basically meant that she was basically burning fuel...running rich as they would say. That also had a knock-on affect of overheating the warp plasma manifolds, causing the ship to run hot whenever she was at warp speed.

The only way for deuterium storage tanks could be serviced is when they were cold, the deuterium reactions inert and material isolated in a secondary storage tank. The only way to do that meant taking the warp drive offline and disabling several of the primary propulsion power management systems for several hours.

It wasn’t a matter of manpower. Chell could send several engineering teams over to the Galaxy, and have them work on repairing their sister ship at any moment. It was a matter of timing. Since they arrived here, whenever either ship wasn’t moving at warp, they found themselves under attack by the aliens cruisers that patrolled this space. Leaving the Galaxy stranded at sublight speed for several hours was just asking to paint a target on their hull.

In fact, Chell found himself surprised that they had been able to stay hidden in this nebula for as long as they had. He had gotten so used to playing hit and run, that Europa had bearly an opportunity to gain some astrometric data about the region of space that they were in. They were still lost as lost could be.

“How much deuterium does your ship have left?”, Chell asked, clearly trying to come up with a stop gap.

Branston shook his head, trying to remember the figures he'd only seen a moment before. Damn this exhaustion, "Um. Not much. Maybe enough to get us a light year or two at most."

“What progress have you made trying to take in the nebula material in the Bussard Collectors?” he asked, hoping for a better answer.

"Well that's where things brighten - but not by much." Branston shrugged, "The manifolds overheating has damaged the collectors a bit. They're running at about 45%..."

The Bolian captain made no effort to hide his frustration at the answers he was getting. His eyes fell to the carpet of his own bridge deck, as he was clearly in some thought. Branston was speaking still, but Chell hadn’t heard a word that he said. Galaxy needed repairs, and both crews needed rest.

“Sir, I do have a suggestion.” Tresha wasn’t one to really speak up, but she knew that something had to be done. They couldn’t just run and run and run until they were picked off little by little. They had to start trying stuff.

Branston bit back the flicker of annoyance that sprang up from nowhere and glanced back at Tresha, "Do tell."

Tresha squirmed a little bit. If she was wrong… people on the ship could die. “I was thinking back to Earth’s wartime history… specifically underwater warfare. Your old submarines would go silent at the bottom of the ocean to evade detection. What if we collected fuel for the next 5 minutes… and then shut everything down. Like Captain Chell says, there are pockets of gas or what-not out there. Fire off a probe away from our location to ping the area. Let them follow that.”

She paused for a moment, feeling the need to justify her plan. “We need to try something. We need to find out how they are tracking our ships.”


His eyes perked up when he heard one of Branston's bridge officers at tactical giving a suggestion about cold-stopping the Galaxy in intervals in order to gather more nebular material. Branston seemed to be looking back to give his subordinate a response, but her suggestion had started to make Captain Chell think a bit deeper about the situation.

Suddenly, Bren interrupted Captain Branston as an idea came to mind.

“You know? That's actually not a bad idea. However, maybe we can add onto it. Maybe the issue we’re having isn’t a matter of how fast we can travel, but how far we can go without stopping. For whatever reason, these bastards never seem to try and attack us when we’re traveling at warp,” Chell started, noticing Branson slight confusion at his collegues approach.

Chell ignored the expression of Branston’s face and continued.

“Rather than trying to move at our maximum speed, what if we kept our speed barely above the speed of light. Warp 1.1. That would extend the range that we could go, before we had to drop out of warp to refuel and extend some of the range that we could travel before we had to stop, right?” he asked, rhetorically. "Then at the very least, when your ship had to cold-stop, you'd be more likely to do it less often."

Branston didn't say anything. He was trying too hard to clear his fuzzy mind to consider Chell's proposal. Maybe he needed another stim...

The look on Captain Chell’s face read, ‘If you’ve got a better idea, I’d like to hear it.’, as he shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Look, I have no idea why we’re seemingly safe at warp. We all know that for ninety-nine percent of the species we’ve encountered, they would be able to track us and intercept us. However, for the moment, I’d count it as a blessing, because at least we have some time to start thinking about how to get out of this situation, “Chell commented, as he just continued to talk.

“Look, I know we keep talking about this, and I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m telling you. These aliens must have a border of space that they control. Maybe if we can figure out where that is, we can try and leave so we can try and find a safe haven. Your ship needs repairs that it needs to be in a spacedock for…wherever the closest one might be.” Chell suggested as he looked back to his colleague.

"Granted. They must have some kind of sensor grid or something in their space. But short of capturing the data, I don't know how we're going to be able to find out where their borders are. Don't active sensors give off an energy reading or something? Something we can track down if we knew where to look? If we figure out how they work maybe we can hide from them or something...I...make any sense to you?"

The turbolift doors opened behind Branston, distracting him as a Caitian Medical Officer stepped onto the Bridge - hopefully with a case full of stims or orders to sleep for a week.

Sleep sounded so so good right now...

{All}

Doctor M'Lynn Calvert saw that the captain was busy talking with the captain of the other Federation vessel so she stepped to one side to wait. But it was easy to see that the bridge crew, like the rest of the ship's crew, were extremely tired.

M'Lynn always carried her medical bag and in the time they had been lost had kept a good supply of stims. Close monitoring of who got stims and when had been one of her orders for the USS Galaxy and a strong suggestion for the other ship's medical staff.

Her ears twitched and her tail swished as she bowed her head slightly to the captain, smiled, and waited her turn. If he ordered stims, she'd take care of that before addressing her suggestion on training of additional medical and possibily engineering staff.

[Tag Galaxy captain]

Doctor (Doc) M'Lynn Calvert
USS Galaxy, CMO