How Do You Land This Thing?

Posted on Tue Jan 21st, 2014 @ 6:39pm by Commander Jordan Gunning & Lieutenant Augustus Deakin & Captain Vahn Drayel & Lieutenant JG Allison Price

Mission: Fate of the Angels
Location: Main Bridge [USS Beyla]
Timeline: MD02 - 2030hrs.

[ON]

The Wallace-class had been pressed into service as a light escort vessel and woefully underused by Starfleet for anything other than fighter wing support. Designed like a small Defiant-class, it wasn't cut out for long haul missions and most of the fleet's Wallace-classes lay in dry docks and Starbases, largely forgotten by the Corps of Engineers.

Gunning reflected on their underuse as the bridge consoles whirred and chirped around him. For such a small ship, it was possible to feel incredibly lonely on a bridge watch. Most controls were automated and- since there was little danger of running into anything other than a freighter- the ship ran at Alert Status Green.

Imagine having this as a Command. Gunning thought to himself as he span slowly around in his chair. There were several Wallace classes which served as short range ships closer to the Galactic Core. Crewed by Non-Comms, these ships were the proving grounds for young officers with command ambitions. Others, further out in Galactic North, were the last refuge of those Command officers who hadn't quite cut the mustard.

The Computer chirruped into life from the CONN. "Estimated time of arrival at Bellatrix Two: Twenty-Three-Zero Hours: internal time."

Gunning muttered under his breath. Why the Computer didn't see fit to just tell him how long it would be until they arrived was beyond him. Luckily, the crippling boredom of his bridge watch meant that he was all but counting the seconds. It was Twenty-Two-Zero Hours.

The Commander tapped his commbadge and tried to stop the tedium of his shift influencing his timbre. "Sorry to interrupt, guys. We're about ten minutes out." He failed.

Gus was in the tiny cabin he commandeered for himself soon after they left the Starbase. Laying on his bunk, face down in a spreading patch of drool on his pillow. Snoring. Despite appearances, he was a light sleeper and the Commander's call snapped him instantly into consciousness. An old habit; useful, even lifesaving. He lifted his head from the pillow and wiped his cheek. I should probably shower, he thought to himself before catching his reflection in the mirror on the opposite bulkhead. I should definitely shower.

He found his commbadge on the shelf above his pillow and tapped it, "Deakin here. I'll be up in a couple of minutes."

The massive Marine stood at Tactical and sighed. He didn't handle long trips well. As he stood he let out an audible sigh, loud enough for the others on the bridge to hear. He didn't care. Let them know that Vahn Aegis Drayel, the biggest, baddest motherfucker in the Universe, was pissed and bored as hell. He jutted out a lip and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms defiantly, unnaturally bright blue eyes eyes locked on the back of Gunning's head.

Ensign Price was in the middle of inspecting the engine room. The ship was built with similar designs to the cramped Defiant-class, and she had made a number of changes to the Jackal's engine room. She was trying to implement those "improvements" to the Beyla, must to the annoyance of the assigned engineering team. She tapped her commbadge. "Aye, Commander. I'm on my way." She handed off her PADD to the duty officer and left for the bridge. Said duty officer let out a sigh of relief. The engine room was not far from the bridge on the tiny ship, and she was at her station after a short walk.

Deakin bounded onto the bridge; he didn't want to be late for the most exciting part of the mission since he successfully flew them out of spacedock. "It's alright, I made it." he said with a cheery inflection in his voice as he took his seat at Ops.

"I'm just putting it up on screen." Gunning said to no-one in particular as he nodded in the direction of the Ops Officer. "Looks like quite the dust bowl."

"Sir," Drayel grumbled, "I'm picking up something... It's definitely a ship. I'm having a hard time getting a lock, there are a lot of atmospherics getting in the way." He frowned, trying to clear it up.

"It's a long way from pleasant down there, sir," Deakin said, reading the results of his initial scan. "Breathable atmosphere, but not for too long. Atmospheric pressure roughly eighty-percent of standard, surface temperature varies wildly but the area around the ship is about forty-eight degrees celsius. I'm also tracking a few storm cells in the region - just to make it even more enticing."

"So if nothing else we've found the next big vacation planet." Gunning replied dryly. "Will we need E/V Suits?"

"We should be okay without them," Gus replied, turning to look at Gunning as he spoke. "Oxygen levels are a little below comfortable and argon levels are a little high, but within tolerance. Just don't go running up hills and if we do go inside that ship, be aware that there may be pockets where the argon levels are high enough to ... well ... asphyxiate."

"Oh, good." Gunning replied sarcastically. "Take us in, Gus."

Gus hesitated and looked around at the others on the bridge, secretly wishing there was some other ‘Gus’ there to follow out the command. “Um … you mean land this thing, sir?” he asked, trying not to sound too hesitant but failing. He was a pretty confident man, but he’d never landed anything larger than a runabout on the surface of a planet before.

"Yep!" Gunning replied with a heaped tablespoon of false confidence.

The operations officer turned back to his console and activated the helm controls. “You got it, skipper,” he said. “But you may wish you brought along a proper pilot in about five minutes,” he added, for the second or third time this trip.

He quickly plotted a suitable atmospheric angle of attack that would take them close enough to the crashed ship. This would be the easy part. “Entering the atmosphere,” he reported as the Beyla broke into the upper levels of the planet’s atmosphere. There was minor bumps on the way, but the inertial dampers quickly compensated.

“Thermal Protection System holding,” his voice was calm, but he could really feel the adrenaline pumping as the forward display started to glow with the heat of entry.

Suddenly a red light flashed, telling him that the integrity of a portion of the shielding about seven degrees to starboard was going down. Not just going down but collapsing. “I’m getting a forward shield failure. Would somebody mind re-routing auxiliary power to compensate?

"I'm on it." Allie quickly turned to her console, running through the power distribution menu. It only took her a moment to reroute auxiliary power to the shields. "That should do it."

Four minutes later they were into the atmosphere and descending past ten kilometres at nominal speed. Gus did a quick scan and located the wreck about fifteen kilometres to the north-north-east. The ship was flying a lot like a rock so he didn’t have to worry about slowing her ground speed, just her descent.

“This might get bumpy,” he said, gritting his teeth slightly as he fired the landing thrusters, further slowing their descent.

Eight kilometres …

On his console, the computer had highlighted a suitable landing site. It was about four hundred metres west of the crashed ship, which was fortunate. Now all Gus had to do was safely land the thing. He manoeuvred toward the landing side, landing thrusters still firing to slow their descent.

Five kilometres …

The computer chimed in at that point. “Warning! Descent velocity is higher than recommended safety levels.”

Gus slapped the appropriate control on his console, “Shut up, you nag!” he cursed the thing, then fired the thrusters at full burn. The inertial dampers were a little slow to fully compensate and the ship shuddered with the extra force.

Two kilometres …

“Deploying landing struts!”

One kilometre …

The ventral hull of the Beyla opened in four places and four stubby landing struts rolled out, ready to meet the surface of Bellatrix II. Gus hoped they’d hold.

Five hundred metres …

The rate of descent had slowed significantly, but Gus was still worried about hitting the landing just right. They might still be going too fast when the struts made contact. “You might want to hold on to something,” he said, his voice a deceptive kind of calm.

Gunning looked around for a seatbelt. With none available he merely gripped the arms of his chair slightly tighter.

Drayel growled. "Whoever thought it was a good idea that ships should land was a moron," he snapped, sliding into his emergency seat and strapping himself in.

Price grabbed her console, hoping that that would be enough to brace herself. She'd be in trouble if it exploded, but she'll just deal with that if they came to it.

Gus’s eyes were glued to the altimeter as it wound down inexorably to that point where he would be able to say ‘That wasn’t so bad’ or ‘I’m really, really, really sorry guys!’.

Fifty metres …

Thirty-three metres …

Eighteen …

Five …

When Gus didn’t feel his legs shatter, didn’t hear the hull crack and groan, didn’t see his console light up with damage reports and didn’t even feel a slight bump through the deck, he had to double check his readouts. They confirmed it, however, the Beyla had landed.

He cut the thrusters and powered down the engines and breathed a quiet sigh of relief before turning his seat and facing the rest of the bridge. “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Bellatrix Two!” He grinned at the almost bewildered expressions on the faces of his shipmates. “The local time is twenty-thirty hours and the weather outside is a sunny forty-eight degrees Celsius. Don’t forget your hats when disembarking. It’s a warm one!”

Gunning prized himself gingerly from his chair and clapped Deakin on the shoulder. "Good work, Lieutenant. You had me going for a minute there."

Drayel slowly stood, and then reached down to grab the bag he had brought with him. He unzipped it and unshipped the rifle that was held within. He eyed Commander Gunning briefly and then slid the rifle over his shoulder.

Allie let go of the engineering console and let out a sign of relief. "Let's hope that's the roughest part of this mission." She grabbed her toolkit and got ready to disembark.

"Okay, guys." Gunning said as he approached the egress. "Remember where we parked."

[OFF]

Commander Jordan Gunning
Chief Strategic Operations Officer

Lieutenant Augustus Deakin
Chief Operations Officer

Marine Captain Vahn Drayel (NPC: Vendenje)
Fox Company Commander

Ensign Allison Price (NPC: Von)
Engineering Officer