"What's happening...where am i? Why is it so cold?"
Theese were the thoughts wich crossed John's mind, as he saw the blurry figures running arround at what seemed like the bridge. The ringing in his ear was slowly going away as he started to hear the people running arround shouting inapprehensible sentences. As his vision slowly cleared up as well he saw that he was indeed still on the bridge, or rather what was left of it. He suddendly heard a panicked voice coming from a person who stopped above him. It was Franklin. Slowly looking up to him who by now was kneeling in front with a shocked look on his face.
"What wrong Drake?" John asked after mustering some strenght to speak then trying to move but Franklin stopped him.
"Don't move sir! Everything is gonna be allright". John then looked down to see a deformed piece of metal sticking out from his chest.
"What the hell?!" And this is when the pain suddendly returned. It was so sudden and intense he wasn't able to let out a single scream.
"WHERE IS THAT DAMN MEDIC?!"
Theese were the last words John heard before everything went black.
A few hours earlier...
John walks into the bridge and stops at the window before turning his head left. "Alright. OOD, set course for California Jump Gate. All engines ahead full."
"Aye aye. Helm set course 115 mark 250. All engines ahead full."
"115 mark 250, all engines ahead full aye!" As the orders are executed John walks to his chair and sits down lighting up a cigarette. Finally he is once again in comand going out to the field instead of sitting behind his desk doing paperwork. As much as he hated paperwork it had its good side. Namely that he got to spend more time with his son and wife. But he always felt the desk job was too early for him. He liked to be out there, and took every chance he could when the opportunity showed, sometimes against the wishes of his wife.
Meanwhile in CIC...
A short ping is detected at the short range sensor station but as fast as it came it disappeared. "What the.." Baker turned towards the sensor station.
"Got something ensign?"
"I don't know sir.. it's gone. It was just a ping it must've been a sensor malfunction"
"Are you sure? How did it look like?"
"Just a small ping...
" Allright Ensign keep your eyes open." Baker walked to the ensign.
"So you're the new guy i assume. I know everyone in CIC exept you."
"Yes sir. Fresh out of the academy. I'm sorry sir i'm a bit nervous."
"Ah i see. Well here's an advice. Don't be. You can only screw up like that. Focus and everything will be ok. I know first time in CIC is a bit wierd as its not exactly the same as the simulators and classrooms but you'll be alright. You wouldn't be here if you were bad at this. So let's see if the sensors are functioning correctly. Run a diagnostic."
The ensign starts pushing the buttons and the diagnostic program quickly goes down. The results show that the sensors are operating perfectly. "What do you know..sensors working perfectly."
A few minutes later the sensors once again pick up the noise. This time it's more clearly visible but once again disappears. "It's there again. The ping. Sir i believe we have a cloaked vessel near us."
"Are you sure ensign?"
"Yes I'm sure."
Baker quickly walks back to his console and gets his headset on then calls the bridge. "Bridge CIC. Cloaked vessel detected on short range. Current position unknown."
Back on the bridge...
"You've gotta be kidding me. Set general quarters!"
"Aye aye!."
"General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations. Transit up and forward starboard side, down and aft port side. Cloaked vessels in the area" Just as Drake finished with the announcement an explosion shakes the ship.
"God damn it. Return fire evasive maneuver delta 9." As the ship quickly accelerates to maximum and turns left away from the source of the attack. Another hostile ship decloaks right in front of them and starts shooting. The ship's guns quickly start returning fire but the small ships manage to avoid most of the shots.
"Shields at 50 percent, and we have comfirmation hostiles are nomads."
"OH great. What else can go wrong.." At this moment giant nomad ship decloaks on the starboard side of the Odyssey and immediatly starts bombarding it, while the smaller nomad craft make a turn for another run.
"Alright hard to port! Fire missiles and mortas when ready! And call for reinforcements!" The Odyssey slowly gains some distance while inflicting some damage on the nomad ship.
"Communications array damaged i can't raise anyone."
"Well then we hope we'll be able to take it out alone." Suddendly another ship decloaks and opens up on the Odyssey and the combined firepower of the two ships quickly deplete the shields and inflict heavy damage on the ship. While the gunnery crew manage to take out their fighter support.
"Shields are down Hull integrity at 45%."
"Charge the hyperdrive. Prepare for emergency jump." The ship quickly charges the jumpdrive, but just before the ship jumps away the nomads manage to hit the ship near the bridge causing a small secondary explosion inside the bridge throwing John off from his chair across the room and a deformed metal piece piercing him through his chest. Drake slowly got up from the floor, the explosion tore most of the bridge apart but some consoles were still working, but there was a fire on the bridge along with a lot of injured people.
Drake looked arround seeing all the damage the ringing in his ear still there barely hearing anything but slowly going away. "Med team to the bridge. Repeat med team to the bridge!"
"REPORT!"
The OOD looked onto Drake then quickly started reading the incoming reports from the console. "Cruise engines down, impulse engines down, hull breaches on multiple decks from deck 7 through 9. Shields down, weapons offline, we are loosing power, we also have multiple injured."
"Alright dispatch damage controll teams and take care of that fire over there!"
"Aye aye!"
Drake looked arround again and noticed the multiple injured lying arround the bridge and along them he noticed the semi concious Sader. "Oh god.. tell the med team to hurry up!" He quickly walked to John and knelt down to check on the injured Admiral.
"What wrong Drake?"
"Don't move sir! Everything is gonna be alright". John looked down to see a deformed piece of metal sticking out from his chest.
"What the hell?!" As John fainted.
"WHERE IS THAT DAMN MEDIC?!" A few seconds later the med team arrived and quickly stabilized him then took the unconcious CO to sickbay along with the rest of the injured. Drake walked to one of the consoles that were still operational.
"This keeps getting better and better. Fletcher, Nolan, this place is a mess. More then half of the equipment is destroyed the other half is almost dead. Transfer all bridge functions to the auxiliary bridge. It will serve as our temporary bridge untill this one is repaired."
"Aye aye sir!"
As Drake walked through the corridors of the ship heading towards the auxiliary bridge he was stopped by James. "Frank, maybe you can tell me what happened. I tried to raise the bridge but nobody answered."
"Ah James. Long story short. After the attack we made an emergency jump back to alaska. And since Sader is out i'm in charge. The bridge is ruin so i decided to transfer command to the auxiliary bridge untill we make it back to port."
"Great. Let's go then."
The two of them finally made it to the auxiliary bridge where things were still a little bit hectic as the place wasn't exactly powered up yet due to the fluctuating power levels and damaged systems. "Alright what do we got?" Asked Drake as he walked into the room with McKenzie behind him.
"Well we are still trying to set up the place. Many systems were damaged in the attack, including the sensors, comunication systems, navicomputer shield generator, cloaking generator, hyperdrive, cruise and impulse engines are all down"
"And the good news?"
"This was the good news sir. The bad news is that we've lost life support."
"How much time do we have?"
"Not sure sir, Lieutenant Commander Foster is still working on it down in engineering."
Nolan barely finished sentence when Foster appeared on the comm screen.
"Sorry for the waiting guys but this place is a mess at the moment, so i'll be as short as possible." Drake turned towards the screen.
"Allright Kara we're listening. What do you have for us."
"Ok. So we have about 8 hours before the air becomes unbreathable on the ship. Even better the power distribution system also got damaged and knocked out main power, we are on emergency power. The communications array was destroyed during the fight so we are practically deaf and mute for now. The weapons are down. To make it extra fun, even IF and i say if i can somehow get them back online, without a shipyard we'll only have half the secondaries working. Not enough to do anything. Long and short range sensors recieved minor damage Cruz and his team are working on it. I can get the impulse engines back online in 12 hours provided we manage to repair the life support. This is all i can say for now. We are still trying to asess all the damage we recieved but its hard without sensors."
"Thanks for the report. Contact us if you need anything."
"Well i could use some extra hands. Can you send down anyone to help with the repairs?"
"I'll see what i can do but we are short here as well...hmm..James, Diaz go down to engineering and see what you can do to help."
"Ok Frank. Diaz on me. Kara we'll be there in a minute." James and Diaz walked out of the room and headed to engineering.
"Thank you sir Foster out." Kara disappeared from the screen.
Some minutes later down in engineering...
"Come on.. please hold." Said that Kara while she inserted a new set of fuses into the panel.
"Ok Tom, give it a kickstart!" Tom complied but as soon as they tried it the fuse was shot out of its place, hitting Kara on her head.
"SON OF A *****! Ok. Tom get another set of fuses."
"Aye aye!" Tom walked by James and Diaz who just entered engineering.
"Ok Kara we're here what can we do?"
Kara turned towards them. "Good. I need you two to get down to the maintanence shaft and check the electrolysers and CO filters. The diagnostic showed there was a power surge in the section wich most likely damaged them. Take some new filters and a set of fuses along with the required tools from the storage."
"Alright. We're on it...Diaz!" The two quickly turned arround and walked to the storage room where they met Tom. They grabbed the tools and spare parts and went to the maintanence shaft.
"Allright wer're here. Let's get the panel down and check out how bad the situation is." They removed the panel revealing the main controll circuit for the electrolysers wich was completly burned.
"This can't be good."
"Ya think?.." he sighed while turning his head to Diaz.
"Ok. leave the tools here. crawl out and get a new circuit from cargo bay 2. It should be in crate Echo Echo 1150."
"Got it sir." Diaz turned arround and crawled towards the exit, while James turned to towards the panel on the other wall and removed it to check on the CO filters. Thankfully the filters seemed to be in good condition exept one wich needed replacement. James slowly removed the filter tube from its place and threw it aside then gently inserted a new one. After this he removed another panel revealing the electrolysers themselves. He checked them carefully and they show no sign of damage wich meant only the main controll circuit was toast and thats why life support wasn't working. James turned on his communicator.
"Kara do you copy? I've got some news for ya." James hears Kara's voice through the comm but he can't understand her exept some of the words wich some would refer to as inappropriate or harsh. It ceartainly wouldn't be said in a CNS report.
"Yes, i'm listening. How bad is it?"
"Well the CO filters are allright and should start working as soon as ventilation is resumed. I only had to replace one that was faulty. The electrolysers are also fine exept one thing."
"What is it?"
"Well the main controll circuit has been fried completly. Not only the fuse but the entire circuit board as well. I had to send Diaz to get another one. He should be back soon."
"As soon as you're done and it's working get back to engineering. We're out of Fuses here and you have the last one. Without it we won't have main power."
"Understood. McKenzie out!"
20 minutes later..
James just finished replacing the circuit board. "There we go. Let's hope it works." He turned the communicator on once again calling for Kara.
"Where are ya we need the fuse!"
"Sorry repair seems took more time than i expected. Life support is ready so give it a kickstart." The whole area suddendly starts humming as the energy kicks in and the life support comes back online.
"Nice sounds, allright we'll be there in a second. James out!" They slowly crawled out from the maintanence tunel and eventually they reached engineering where they met a really angry Kara talking to someone through the communicator.
"Well, it's not my problem that you didn't take all the required equipment Cruz. Now do us a favor and do your job instead of asking for another pair of hands while you have a team of three working with ya!"
"Kara. I've got the last fuse ready." He gave the fuse to Kara who then walked to the panel and quickly inserted it but she kept her hand on it holding it down.
"It won't hold.."
"It'll hold, now rip it!"
"Kara let somebody else do this.."
"You've gotta get your hand out of there."
"You've heard me."
"But.."
"I SAID RIP IT" The lieutenant complies, and the fuse holds but the electric shock throws Kara across half of the room. But it works. Main power returns as the generator kicks in.
"Kara damn it." She slowly got back up looking at James.
"What? I told ya it'll hold. Now thanks for the help but i think we can deal with the rest and..."
"Ma'am..seems Cruz is making progress with the sensors. They should be online in an hour."
"Great. I'll start working on the engines then."
"Thats good news. At least we'll know where exactly in alaska we are. Diaz go back to the bridge and deliver the good news. I'll go and check on Sader." With a short aye aye Diaz left engineering.
"What do you mean check on Sader? He isn't on the bridge?" James turned arround towards Kara.
"No he isn't. He's curently down in sickbay. He got injured really badly in an explosion on the main bridge. He was lucky. Others weren't so lucky." With the sentence finished James turned arround and walked out from engineering heading to sickbay.
Sickbay 2 hours earlier...
The doors opened as the med team ran in with Sader on a strecher. The medics running arround trying to prioritize the incoming patients, the smell of blood and death fills the entire room as some of the injured are beyond help and the medics simply have to grab the recently deceased and move them out of the way to make space for the next patient.
"This is too much. Mike set up a temporary sickbay in the mess hall. And send only the most severely injured here."
"At once doctor Taft" The medics carrying Sader place him on one of the beds and Doctor Taft immediatly rushes to the him not knowing yet who it is and only noticing when he gets closer.
"Sweet mother of hell." After quickly examining the status of his newest patient he quickly turns towards his collegues.
"2 units of 0 negative and get him into surgery asap!" Two medics rush to him and get another strecher and take him into the operation room with taft following them.
Present...
The doors open and James rushes in searching for Sader he walks by a medic who asks if he can help. After telling him that the Admiral is still in surgery along with Doctor Taft he walks to the doors to see one of the surgeons walk out followed by doctor Taft.
"Whats going on? Is he gonna be okay?"
"He's not out of the woods yet, but he's on the track. He lost a lot of blood and we had to remove a lot of shrapnels from his body. We did what we could. Now its up to him." The doc notices some blood on Jame's forehead.
"Hang on. You're wounded. Let me take care of it quickly."
"It's just a scratch..i'm sure there are people who need you more."
"Not really. All of the criticals have been taken care of. The rest of my team is curently in the mess hall wrapping up the minors. Do you remember hitting your head?" Taft asked as he examined the wound more closely and took care of it.
"Well you're lucky. In any case if you feel dizzy or disoriented you come back here got it?"
"Of course doc. I will.""By the way do you know when we'll be back on Juneau?"
"No i don't. Comms are down so calling help is out of the question, and we are still trying to get the engines and sensors back online. It'll be at least 12 hours before we can move." James walked out of sickbay and headed for the bridge.
Auxiliary bridge...
James walked and looked to Franklin who finally got a hopeful face. "You look like someone who spent too much time next to the reactor core. What's going on?"
Drake was smoking a cigarette inhaling it deeply, letting the smoke seep into his cells while he turned towards James who was slowly walking towards him stopping on his right side.
"Well. With the life support back online and repairs under way we should be moving in 10 hours." Diaz working on one of the consoles suddendly turned towards the two.
"Sir sensors are back online. They are not perfect yet but it should be enough for us to calculate our position relative to Juneau."
"Okay then. Go for it."
"Aye aye." The young Lieutenant turned back to the console and after a few moments the results came up on the console.
"This cannot be correct."
"What is it?"
"Something is interfering with the sensors sir. A strange radiation. Not dangerous to humans but it's strange because the alaska nebula doesn't have this type of radiation."
"What are you suggesting?"
"If the readings are correct the nebula's composition is diffirent from the Alaska nebula."
"Let me see. Put it on screen." Diaz quickly complied and sent the data to a larger screen in front of the two.
"Are you suggesting we are not in Alaska?"
"We can't know for sure untill the ship is in better shape."
"Well for now it doesn't really matter. The ship can't even move let alone defend itself from anything bigger than a fighter. Not without shields. And we can't cloak the ship either because the device was fried during the attack."
"Then let's get going. We've got multiple problems and a short time. James i need a list of the casualties as well as a list of the remaining rescources."
"Will do."
3 hours later...
Franklin was sitting in his cabin looking through the list of casualties. Out of the initial 800 only 540 are still alive, the rest are either MIA or dead. To make things worse out of the 540 survivors 50 people's injuries are too severe to be able to work. Slowly extending his hand above the ashtray. The ash sprinkled across the cement when he flicked the filter. He was about to finish reading when someone knocked on the door. "Come in!"
The door slid open and James walked in with a datapad in his hand. "I've got the rest of the reports you've asked." Drake turned his head up towards James who was standing before the table.
"Good. Just put them on the table. I'll read them later." Frank resumed reading the list scrolling through the names of the dead, while james stepped forward and gently dropped the datapad on the table and then waited. Drake noticing James is still in the room turned towards him.
"Anything else?"
"Actually, there is. Got some bad news. First of all after multiple checks and some examination it is now clear that we are not in Alaska. We are close to the edge of this cloud and this means we'll be able to leave it once engines are back online. What's more important is that i have a theory how things went south in the first place.
"Ok.."
"We were under attack when we jumped. Maybe the navicomputer was damaged during the attack and thats why we went off course."
"How soon can we move?"
"That's where the other problem starts...Kara's first assesment about the engines was way too optimistic."
"How bad is it, weeks?"
"Without outside help, it will take a month to repair it."
"Great. Can we last that long?"
"We've had enough food to last 12 months and that was calculated for a full crew. We lost about two months of food during the attack. One of the smaller storages got a hit. So we have 10 months of food that was calculated for a full crew. All in all at this point its not the food that is the problem."
"Then what is the problem?"
"The water. Our water supply is not ideal. One of the big water tanks was also damaged during the fight so we lost a lot. And as you know we don't just use it for drinking, as it is part of the life support.
"How much do we have?"
"With the current rate of consumation we have enough water for 2 months. That is if we ration it."
"Alright then. We have a month to repair as much systems as possible. After that we'll need to find a source of water." Suddendly both James's and Franklin's communicator activates at the same time.
"Captain Drake, Commander McKenzie, please report to sickbay immediatly!" Dropping the datapad onto the table Drake stood up and along with James they walked out heading towards sickbay.
Sickbay..
The doors slid open as Franklin and James walked in. Slowly approaching Taft as he was standing next to the bed of where Sader was lying. As they approached Taft turned arround to face them.
"He woke up a few minutes ago and asked for you." The two stopped next to the bed as Taft simply walked away checking on the rest of the patients.
"Don't look at me like that. Its not as bad as it looks. Altough i'm still stuck here for a few days. Taft vaguely described the situation, 12 hours untill we have impulse. They're not gonna like us back on Juneau."
"Yeah about that. That estimate was way too optimistic. Actually we are stuck here for a month. To make things worse we are not even in alaska.
"What do you mean?"
"We think the navicomputer was also damaged during the attack and we went off course, eventually ending up here in the middle of nowhere."
"This is just great."
"Wait as it gets better. Our water supply is extremely low. And can only last two months and even then only with serious rationing."
"Honestly, there's not much you can do exept rest and recover."
"Alright then. We have to start repairing the ship. Asign everyone who's not injured or dead to help with the repairs."
"We already did that. We took care of everything."
"Oh..then just keep me posted. Now get back to work."
A short Aye aye sir was heard from the two after wich they turned arround and walked out.
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.
