Lost and Stranded

[Morosz]

L.N.S. Odyssey, Location unknown
20th April, 825 A.S.

John was slowly walking down the corridors the ship, heading towards the auxiliary bridge, producing a damped rythm with his heavy boots. His recovery from the injury he suffered a month ago, was not complete, he was well enough to continue working, however he was to avoid physically more demanding tasks. Looking at a datapad in his hand, he was reading the maintanence reports. The repair teams were making a really good progress. Using whatever parts they had, they also managed to repair the hull breach at the damaged watertank closing it up. The repairs on the impulse engines were at their final phase, the last few tweaks and calibrations were near their completion down in engineering. Reaching the door he walked into the bridge. It still wasn't ideal, but most of the damage was repaired. As he walked in eventually stopping at the window looking outside seemingly enjoying the view he turned arround and looked at the crew.

"Okay, someone give me a status report. Can we leave this godforsaken nebula or not?"

"Engineering reports all green."

"Alright, let's see if the engines work or not." James sitting at the communication console quickly contacted engineering.

"Engineering, Bridge. Commence engine startup sequence." A few moments later a low humming noise filled the corridors of the ship as the engine fired up. Kara's voice was suddendly heard through the communication console.

"Bridge, engineering. Impulse drive stable. Ready for departure.

"Great job Kara. OOD let's get out of this soup."

"Helm set course 320 mark 225, all ahead standard."

"320 mark 225, all ahead standard, aye!" The ship slowly started to accelerate and left the nebula.

"Diaz.Talk to us where to go now." Diaz immediatly started scanning the system.

"According to long range sensors, we're at the edge of a system in wich the center consists of a G type star. The system contains a small asteroid belt, a gas giant with at least two moons orbiting it, two rocky planets and the nebula we just left. Nothing extraordinary. I recommend course 350 mark 290 that will get us close to the gas giant and we could inspect it's moons and see if they contain some form of water." John walked his chair and sat down.

"Do we know wich system is this? Is it settled in any form?."

"Negative sir. It's likely this system was never explored."

"Great. Okay. Let's move out."

3 hours later...

The ship slowly approached the gas giant, and quickly entered orbit arround one of it's moons and started scanning it.
"Results are coming in...let's see. The atmosphere consists of 95% nitrogen, 3% methane and the rest is Argon, propane, ethane, hydrogen cyanide. Temperature -196 degrees celsius. We could send a probe down but i doubt we'd find water. Even if there is the atmosphere is very thick and the winds are extremely strong."

"Then let's get out of here and scann that other moon."

The second moon was promising at first but from a closer look it was just another dead useles rock. Fortunatly this gas giant had 2 more moons and on the last one they finally found what they were looking for..Ice. The moon had a really thin atmosphere mainly consisting of oxigen and the entire surface consisted of thick ice. The ship entered low orbit and Sader launched a recon team down to the surface using the small ammount of fighters in the hangar. Within their cargo hold the ships carried the team itself along with the required equipment to run tests on the ice samples to see if it's drinkable or not as well as plasma cutters to cut the ice into pieces small enough for transportation.

"Controll this charlie wing ready to launch. Over."

"Charlie wing this Odyssey controll. Everything is a go for launch. Good luck out there." The hangar bay opened and the 4 guardians flew out quickly gaining some distance from the Odyssey and began their descent towards the surface, and quickly landing at a promising spot. After a few minutes the recon team contacted Odyssey.

"Odyssey, this is Wolf do you copy?"

"This is Odyssey. Go ahead Wolf."

"We managed to run some tests on the ice nearby and the results are promising. We began cutting up the ice and loading it into the containers as we speak. But one turn won't be enough. We'll have to do runs between the surface and the ship to get the required ammount of ice. We'll need extra oxigen tanks down here so prepare them for us down in Hangar."

"Roger that wolf. We are preparing them as we speak."

"Thank you. Wolf out."
A few hours later the guardians were making rounds between the ship and he surface bringing ice to the ship and oxigen tanks to the surface.

12 hours later...

Sader was sitting in cabin enjoying some rest when he was suddendly woken up by someone knocking on the door.

"Come in!" He quickly stood up as the door opened and James walked in.

"Sir. Engineering reports that the water tanks are full and the recon team just returned."

"Good. Now comes the hard part. We have to find a way home. I need you to make plan to survey the system for jumpholes."

"Will do sir. Anything else?"

"Yes. Let's stop the water rationing. Even if we deplete the water tanks now we have a steady source of ice from the moon."

"Aye aye sir."

10 months later...

The morale of the crew was becoming worse and worse by every day. The ship searched through the entire system looking for gravitational anomalies that would lead to a jumphole, with no luck. The senior staff members were having a meeting in Sader's cabin, discussing what to do next.
"It's safe to say that we won't find a conventional way out of this place. The last anomaly we found yesterday was a jumphole but it's too unstable for anything to go through. According to sensors it destabilized about ten years ago."

"The morale of the crew is getting low as well. Not only did we loose a lot of good people during the attack but they had no contact with their families for months."

"Well. If there is no conventional way out of here. We should focus on something else. What's the status of the jump drive?"

"Not sure. We didn't had time to check on it to be honest. I tried to focus on repairing long range communications with no luck so far."

"You can't be serious. Even if it has no damage wich i doubt. The ship is in no shape to get a sucessful jump."

"If you have a better plan James, I'm open to any suggestion."

"No sir. I don't have a better plan."

"Well then. It's decided. Kara, i want you to focus all of your efforts on the jump drive. I need a report in 5 hours, understood?"

"Will do sir."

"Okay then. Dismissed."

Everyone exept Drake and Sader walked out. Sader walked to his desk sat down and lighted a cigarette, Drake closely following behind.
"Something wrong Frank?"

"Yes. You do realize the crew noticed that you don't really show yourself and are worried. You shouldn't lock yourself into your office."

"I command my ship however i see fit. If they worry about me, tell them I'm okay, and I'll be fine when we're out of this godforsaken place. Dismissed."

"I know what you're doing."

"Oh do you?"

Drake sat down at on the chair in front of the table facing John.
"You're blaming yourself for the situation we're in. You think that your decisions are responsible for our situation. And you're questioning them contemplating what would have happened had you not ordered the emergency jump. In the end. It wasn't your fault. Nobody would have expected that the squids would ambush us in New York. And the truth is, it doesn't matter anymore. We're here. And the crew needs you."

"Tell that to the people we lost."

"Get yourself together John. You're acting exactly the same way as O'Neill did back in the day. The only difference is he had a reason to do this." With this sentence Drake stood up and walked out leaving Sader to his thoughts.

Engineering two hours later.

Drake walked in and approached Kara who was working on a console.
"You said you wanted to talk."

Kara turned towards Drake.
"Yes. It seems the jumpdrive is damaged a bit. We can repair some of the damage but the navicomputer is a tough one. We can't repair it completly so there's a high chance that even with coordinates we'd end up somwhere else. To make things worse our energy levels are still not ideal. And if we attempt a jump without sufficient ammount of energy the ship could end up in pieces or at best damaged."

"I don't like the sound of that. But we don't have much choice. Do what you must. We need to get the drive back online and get out of here. How long will it take to repair the damn thing?"

"From the looks of it. It would take at least 4 months."

"4 months?! Are you crazy, our food supply will be almost done by the time you finish. You're cutting it a little close don't ya think? Is there any way to speed it up?"

"Unfortunatly no."

"Oh well, it's not like we have any other choice. Then i'll go and inform the crew, after that i'll go and tell Sader."

"Speaking of wich. Any luck with him?"

"We'll see. I think he's slowly coming back to his senses."

"Good to hear."
Drake turned arround and walked out of engineering.

4 months later..

The jump drive was finally operational..well more or less, as it would fail any half decent safety inspection. The crew's morale also stabilized somewhat since, after months of stagnation and hoplessnes, they were finally making progress. Sader also thought a lot about what Drake told him. Tho he was a bit angry that he had been lectured by his own XO, he understood why he did it. During the last two weeks he finally returned to the crew. But they weren't as lucky as they thought. Kara was running some simulations to see the probability of a sucessful jump with the curent state of the ship. The simulation failed.

"God damn it you useless piece of old trash!"

This was the moment Sader walked in.
"Whoa..what's the matter? Why are you insulting my ship?"

A little bit shocked by Sader's sudden appearence she jumped up a bit.
"I'm sorry sir. It's just that the simulation failed for at least a hundred times. No matter what i do, there isn't enough energy to power the jump drives. I've tried everything i could."

"I see, how much is missing?"

"Arround fifteen percent. The problem is, our reactor could provide this ammount if we go into override mode and disable some safety protocolls but.."

"But then we'd risk the overload of the reactor..Have you run the simulation with this scenario? Damn...wrong question. What were the results for this scenario."

"Well, with that scenario the ship managed to complete a jump without catastrophic overload 60% of the time."

"Are you sure you can't squeeze out more energy using another method?"

"I'm sure. All other scenarios failed completly."

"Then do it."

"Aye sir. It will take arround thirty minutes to prepare for the jump."

"Allright. I'll be on the bridge. Inform us when ready."
Sader turned arround and left engineering.

Bridge arround 30 minutes later.

Sader was standing close to the window on the bridge looking outwards seemingly enjoying the view. In reality he was very concerned about the plan he just approved. There was place for even the slightest error. The smallest miscalculation and the ship is destroyed. Deep down he still hoped that they would find a jumphole, so that they could avoid using the jumpdrive. He was thrown back to reality by McKenzie's voice talking to engineering.

"Acknowledged. Great job Kara..."

Sader turned towards James who simply gave him a nod signaling that it's time. Quickly looking towards Drake who just walked in. John walked to the intercomm system and grabbed the microphone opening a shipwide transmission through the speakers.

"Attention all personel, this is the Captain speaking. The last fourteen months were difficult. We had no contact with anyone from the outside and we lost a lot of good people. But thanks to your presistent work we finally have a way out of here. We will attempt to use the jump drive to get back to Liberty. However i want you to know that there is a high chance that this attempt will cause a catastrophic overload in the reactor and if it happens, the ship gets destroyed, but i think that we suffered enough in this godforsaken place. And i also know this is the most courageous and resilient crew with whom i had the privilige to serve. I'm a hundred percent sure that with you aboard this ship, we will get back home. Good luck everyone. I'll see you on the other side."

With this last sentence Sader put down the microphone ending the shipwide transmission, and turned back towards the OOD.

"Mister Fletcher begin jump drive sequence."

"Aye aye sir!" The OOD gave out the order to charge the drive and after a couple of minutes it finally charged. With the coordinates layed in for New York.

"Jump drive charging complete."

"Jump!"