Waiting Game

Posted on Mon Aug 24th, 2020 @ 2:03pm by Lieutenant Zomuul jav Ghul & President Gruzy of New Xindus & Lieutenant Sonden & Petty Officer 2nd Class Corvus Hannah & Commander Nathan Hawkins & High Commissioner Jasmine Haynes & Colonel Mok'leth Kevan House of Kilrah & Lieutenant Dylan Blake & Cadet Senior Grade Anthony Porter & Captain Ryan Walsh
Edited on on Sat Sep 5th, 2020 @ 1:24am

2,751 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Exodus
Location: Mess Hall, USS Spock
Timeline: 2430-01-10, 10:30

President Gruzy sat at one of the metal tables in the Mess Hall of the Starship Spock enjoying the quiet that surrounded them. A day had passed since they Spock was attacked and, in that time, they still hadn't learned much more than what they knew in the beginning. At least they had a new friend in the form of the Lady Luck, but not many of them trusted their benefactors all that much. So far as they knew the Lady Luck may've been behind it all.

The Xindi Reptilian sighed as he took a drink of his ration water. Life support was stable, but most of the systems were still down. Auxiliary power was still in place, but barely. They were under tow by the Lady Luck back to Earth, but it was limited to Warp 4 because of the strain that the Spock put upon their systems. It hadn't been a good day in the least.

The President heard the door open and smiled at the newcomer.

Hannah dragged his hand over his face, absently noting he needed a shave and a good long sleep. Soon he'd look like a typical Fleeter again. That was if a typical Fleeter was wasting away from too much work, too little sleep and too much responsibility. He walked somewhat unsteadily, having just woken up from a much too short nap. One forced on him by sheer exhaustion. Maybe that's why he saw the Federation president sitting at a table and ignored that the man was the President of the ENTIRE Federation. Instead, in his sleep fogged mind, he was just a guy who pitched in...was it just a few hours ago or a few weeks?...when the crisis first started.

Hannah headed directly to the side counter were they kept carafes of kaf. He contempleted the extra strong version with a raktijino chaser. "Sir," he said, not completely excusing his exhaustion for a lack of complete manner and protocol. He did slump into the seat across from the President, the smaller size of the galley forcing such familiarity. Yet, well, honestly the mess was still larger than the entire medical department on these defiant class ships.

Tony Porter was exhausted. He'd considered going back to his quarters to collapse in bed but didn't want his first experience in space to be all sleep and no play, so he found himself at the door to the Mess Hall. He hadn't quite convinced himself to go in, but then he spotted Corvus Hannah.

"Hey Hannah," Tony waived as he entered and headed to the table, totally unaware of who was sitting across from his friend.

"Tony," Hannah said as Tony joined them. "You should be hitting the rack, I'm going to need you on Delta shift monitoring the patients. Especially Abrams." Abrams, Hannah sighed, right now it felt more like they were on deathwatch than just monitoring him. If something didn't change with the ship's systems soon, there may be no saving him. As it was Hannah was giving him the absolute minimum dose and cutting down the overlap time. Just to spare the medication keeping him stabilized and in a coma lasting as long as it possibly could.

Still, having advised the cadet to get some shuteye, he still slid the carafe of highly energizing and caffeinated liquid toward the cadet. "Also, if I may introduce The Honorable Gruzy, President of the United Federation of Planets." He admitted he got a little thrill out of making that introduction as payback for Tony letting them be surprised who his father was.

Tony wasn't surprised by the half-hearted suggestion to get some sleep coupled with the offer of a drink. He began to reach for the carafe, though, when he was definitely taken off-guard by the introduction of the President of the Federation. He gulped slightly as his training had begun to set in. Even though he spent the last few years without having his father around, just the fact that he was at one point his dad was the Chief Medical Officer at Starfleet Medical on Earth was enough for most people to know who Tony was - simply because he was Sherwin's son. Tony had met plenty of high ranking officers and knew how to put on an air of respect, even as a youngster.

"Sir," Tony stood up straight and bowed his head slightly for a moment, "it is a pleasure to meet you."

The Xindi President lifted his cup in greeting, "Nice to meet you, Cadet. Sorry you're stuck here with the rest of us flotsam."

Tony's eyebrows raised in the same fashion as his father's. He had never thought of the President as 'flotsom'! "Sir, it is my honor," he said as he took a seat and joined in conversation.

Sonden walked into the mess, tired but chipper. Chipper as normal. Going straight for the replicator for loaded plate of eggs. With that and a cup of kaf, he came over to the table.

"Mind if I join yo-" Sonden stopped suddenly as he took in the third person was not a regular crewperson. "Umm, yes, please." Recovering a bit,"I will just sit." After a couple bites, while his eyes still on his plate he started to prattle. "Lots of protein to keep going. So many many burnt out connection, and broken conduits. We are diagnosing them faster than we can replicate replacement parts. And that's saying a lot."

"Wait...you got the replicators working?" Hannah asked, trying to recall if he checked the medical replicators before he stumbled down to the Mess from sickbay. If they were working then perhaps Abrams would make it. "All of them? Especially medical?"

"We got Medical to about 20% power when I stepped away for food." Sonden said cheerful. "The network still can't handle full power on what we have rigged up. Engineering has as much too. We needed more spare parts that we carried. The mess was only assigned about 5% of its normal load. Simple protean like eggs here. Nothing fancy or we could loose the whole system again." The replicator had taken longer than normal to produce Sonden's plate.

Ryan came in the room and grabbed a cup of coffee, black and strong. He took a seat and nodded at the others, listening as was a habit of his.

The Federation President took a drink of his tea, one of the few things they could easily make, and wondered what could be going on back on Earth. By now they surely had been declared overdue. He looked at the Engineer, "How goes the work on the power and engine systems?" He hoped there was a positive answer rather than a negative one.

"Well sir, it is constant hunt. You think you have a relay replaced, but a burnt out circuit from a control unit three systems over still caused a fuse on the work you just did." Sonden said around his hungry eating. "The amount of minute system damage the attack caused is staggering. But a slow careful pace will weed out every last fault." And then adding as almost an after thought, "I am grateful for the mandated safety redundancy of Star Fleet. We wouldn't even be here without them. The cascading blow out would have fatal."

Hannah shook his head. "Don't count that out yet, you can't get me another forty-five percent minimum to Medical and we could have fatalities." He recognized his tone sounded sharp and demanding but couldn't help it. Abrams didn't have the time for them to dicker around. Hannah wanted another cup but knew that much stimulating caffeine would work against him at this point. He was already dead tired and that made him more caustic than he generally would be. "If you could..." he said, once again mentally calculating how much medication he had left and how far he could stretch it while keeping Abrams alive. At this point comfort was becoming a tertiary concern and was quickly dropping off the list.

"The attack seems, at least from my perspective, to have been rather perfectly orchestrated. Two escort vessels destroyed, this one crippled, it is a little convenient." His mind went back to the brief conversation between he and the Defense Secretary. He sighed, "We have to get back to Earth."

Sonden finished his plate, and then, his voice deep with concern, said. "We have been first focusing on life support which I think is almost ready to stand on its own. The only reason the replicators are up as much as their are so we can fabricated new CO2 scrubbers. I have been greasing up starships for a fair amount, and I have never had one go down. Sure they may have lost power, but a whole unit? Its basic machine. Once those are ready, Engineering should be able to give Medical so more juice. Though 45%?" Sonden whistles a short note. " If Medical needs that much we might have to put some major repairs on the back burner until Medical can get people stable. And even then I don't know if the current system load can handle complex fabrications."

Mok'leth walked into the mess hall and ordered a plate of gag, rokeg bloodpie, and a tankard of bloodwyne, and found a seat and began to eat. He was hungry and pissed about being towed back to Earth.

Walking past Lieutenant Blake curled his lip in displeasure at the Klingon food. That was the only thing about embracing cultures of alien races Dylan had failed to fully succeed in. He took perhaps too mach pleasure in his more familiar cuisine and shied away from the unusual choices of his peers. He hoped Commander Chire won't invite him to share a platter of seeds in the future as their friendship developed he was concerned he'd accidentally offend or insult her.

He glanced at Hannah and Porter whom looked equally as tired as one another. Snoden appeared to be the only one capable of coherent conversation as he jabbered on like a demented child's toy. Maybe it was the presence of their VIP which had triggered the hyper mode, personally Dylan rather stay clear of such dignitaries and the responsibility they bought. That was another role Commander's and Captain's bore.

Tony had acquired a glass and poured himself some of what was left in the carafe, quietly watching the exchange between the President of the Federation and Lieutenant Sonden.

The tempting smell of coffee and voices greeted the weary Nathan Hawkins as he arrived in the cramped mess hall. He lingered at the doorway casually observing his tired crew, they'd been toiling hard to restore ships systems to ensure they make it back to Earth intact. Chomei had been correct in her assessment the small star ship was tougher than first given credit for. Still, they'd struggle to live down the shame of being tow home by a civilian vessel.

"Any news from our benefactors?" Gruzy inquired.

"Oooh, maybe they can help with our Medical fabrications?" Sonden perked up to his regular verbose levels, then stopped to consider something. "Unless they don't have medical grade replicators." He tapped two fingers up and down on his chin, doing calculations in his head. "If that's the case, they might still be fab more basics to free up ours for Medical. We would still have power limits but we wouldn't have to side line propulsion repairs." And then Sonden realized a lot of people in the mess were looking at him, VIPs and other weary crew. He added a sheepish, "Maybe?"

Gruzy smirked at the Engineer. Normally someone with the energy of Mister Sonden would've irked him, but there was something about this Denobulan he liked. "Good question?"

"This mess should never have happened. Who got us into this bloody mess anyhow? I want a good plate of gag when we arrive and a talk with the Klingon Ambassador as well. Unless Pres. Gruzy has any objections?" Mok'leth said grumbling as he ate the semi live gagh. This whole mission was a blunder but, then again there were good things spoken of.

"This is not their fault, Ambassador," the President defended. "They did their best."

Blake glanced nervously around the room - had he been the only one to spot Hawkins lingered at the doorway? It wasn't fair to blame any of this on him or Haynes, their attacked had been swift, brutal and precise. The transport of the President wasn't exactly public knowledge - whomever did this knew where he was and clearly had no regard of the cost of life attacking the Spock would entail. The idea of spy aboard the Enterprise, Spock or somewhere equally as close to home was chilling and made the hairs of the back of his neck stand on end.

Jasmine had been in the mess Hall observing the room from the wall. She was keeping her distance and acting in a manner customary to a security officer. Personally she would have preferred to have been in the meeting with the president. But she knew her place at the moment. She could not believe how quickly her interests had changed, when she met the president, and he included her input in some of those meetings. It made her feel like, maybe she had missed her true calling. She wondered if Ryan would agree, she knew John would never agree. He would probably tell her, its star struck envy, being so close to the president.

"I think we should all be getting back to work trying to restore systems," the Xindi recommended. "Especially since we don't know who, or what, was behind this."

"Well, sir I was ordered to take this break and eat." Sonden replied to the President. "I am sure none of us here are taking any more time than we need before getting back to work." Looking around, taking in those around him. "Probably less than we need even."

Hannah shook his head hearing the sheer cheek from the lieutenant toward the president of the entire Federation. Officers, he thought to himself. He just imagined how much trouble he'd be in for saying the same. And how upset his mother would be to discover he was that disrespectful to such a powerful authority figure.

"We're be in dock soon enough," Blake added. "I'm sure we'll be able to rest up there and eat a square meal or two."

"Until then, we should double up our security patrols within the Spock, to be on the safe side." Jasmine calmly said, as she took this moment to chime in.

"Agreed," Hawkins approved from the doorway. "We're not out of the woods left, we cannot afford complacency just because we're on tow. It would be prudent to remember Lady Luck is a civilian transporter with limited defensive and weapons capacity." He glanced around the room, "We're both vulnerable."

Tellarite Lieutenant jav Ghul stepped nearby with a PADD, "And they're asking for you to come aboard, Captain. They say they have business to discuss."

Suppressing a weary sigh Nathan straightened and accepted the data pad: "Thank you Lieutenant," he scrolled through the details briefly before glancing around the mess hall at his tired crew assessing them. "Ryan, round up Grayson we're going to cross over to the transporter."

“Yes Sir,” Ryan replied. “We will meet you there.”

"Yes we will." Jasmine said, thinking to herself that she needed to check in with the President. She had been out of contact with him for to long. She had completed her tasks, and was concerned for his safety. She knew he was in the mess hall, at the current moment.

"We'll be back shortly," Hawkins nodded toward Haynes wanted to say more.

Jasmine could see that the Captain of the Spock, wanted to say more. But her primary duty was to protect the president. She was not sure why she was given temporary first officer credentials for the Spock. "Captain Walsh, I will stop by and pay you a visit, shortly." Jasmine said in the open. She was not sure how secure the line was. So she did not want to blab, that the President was onboard. She knew that Ryan would get the message. And relay it.

"Understood," Ryan replied. He knew she would have pertinent information for him and was curious as to what it was.

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