Descent
Posted on Wed Oct 7th, 2026 @ 1:58pm by Lieutenant Bartholomew Hale
2,051 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
The Invisible Hand
Location: USS Thunderbird, Flight Operations
Timeline: Mission Day 5, 0945
"Penny for your thoughts."
"Huh?"
"Penny for your thoughts, Chief," Hale repeated. The Lieutenant watched his deckboss standing pensively, distracted, the Napean non-com with his hand to his chin and his gaze glassy and elsewhere. He noticed the older man wasn't catching on. Hale put it as bluntly as he could. "What's bothering you, mister?"
Bilz watched as a work crew refueled a shuttle. However, the man behind those vacant eyes was merely observing a blur. "The Cardassians, the Selay, next minute we'll have the damned Borg over here talking peace. It doesn't sit right with me."
Hale nodded thoughtfully. "Three years ago, I would've said the same thing."
Snapping back to reality, Bilz pursed his lips, a severe look on his face. "You're not one of them are you?"
"One of what?"
"One of these heart-on-sleeve do-gooders," Bilz muttered with a shake of his head. "We've gone soft, Lieutenant. Soft."
"There's nothing soft about a strategic alliance," Hale replied. He sat on the edge of the flight ops table, careful not to get into an argument on ideals with the grizzled Chief. He'd done it before. He wouldn't recommend it. Instead, he offered the Chief a smile. "Besides, we just follow who pays the bills. If the Maquis have their way, we'll be back at war with the Cardassians next month."
Bilz opened his mouth to reply. Then the deck lurched beneath them.
Immediately, the control deck went to red alert, klaxons piercing the air and propelling both men to action.
"What are those treacherous Cardies--"
"Did you catch anything on sensors?" Hale barked, checking his flight display.
"Nothing," Bilz sighed. The airspace around the Thunderbird was totally clear, both their readouts concurred. "Give me a moment and I'll check."
The Chief punched commands into his console frantically as Hale got out of earshot to take a call from the bridge. Looking at his sensor readouts, he expected to see the Ocett bearing down on them, weapons banks pummelling their hull. Instead, the Cardassian ship sat benignly.
"Looks like we don't have time for problem-solving, Chief," Hale said, tapping his combadge to close the channel with the bridge. "The Captain has just ordered us to secure the shuttlebay."
"Got it," Bilz replied sharply. He double-checked his flight roster. "The list shows all birds are accounted for."
"Good. Let's do a physical count to be sure," Hale replied. "I want you to personally sign off on it. I want our shuttles locked down, nothing moves without permission from you, me or the bridge until we work out what's going on. And get Dunne up here to keep an eye on the AO."
"Aye." Bilz nodded. He took one last look at his sensors before rushing from the control deck and down the ladder to rally the team and begin the count.
Relieved by Dunne, Hale joined the scrum a deck below. Within minutes, the lead Petty Officers moved off to the flight sections, made their count, and submitted it to Bilz.
"We've got them all," Bilz told Hale.
"Superb." Hale slapped his chest. "Hale to bridge."
There was a pause.
"Hale to bridge." The Lieutenant shared a quizzical look with the Chief. "Do you have anything?"
"Bilz to bridge." He waited. Nothing.
"I'd better get up there," Hale said. "Take charge here. Remember, nothing in or out."
"Yessir," Bilz replied.
Hale marched out of the shuttlebay and into the corridor. As he stepped, he could feel the deck vibrating beneath his boots. He called for a turbolift, and waited, before a small screen informed him the system was offline. He sighed. "Ah bugger."
With a grimace, he turned to find another lift, but was confronted with a horrific sight. The entrance to the Jefferies tube. He winced. "No. No. Not with your knees."
The ship rocked again, the shock reverberating. He relented.
"Well, Hale, it's in for a penny, in for a pound."
And up he went. Clammy hands and shaky legs carried him up the rungs that lined the vertical shaft. The few decks went by quickly, but as he ascended the Thunderbird, the smell of smoke became stronger. It was acrid, burning his lungs, until eventually he arrived at Deck 4. The path was blocked by a collapsed bulkhead.
So much for emergency access.
He climbed back down to Deck 5 and shouldered his way through a crush of damage control teams and crew fleeing for safety.
"What the hell is going on?" he called out, but no one stopped to answer. Extinguishers and damage control equipment were being hurried toward the damage. That wasn't good.
Hale pressed on, eventually finding an access tunnel that led him upward to the bridge. Emerging from a panel in the floor, Hale was plunged into the chaos of the bridge. Like every other part of the ship, crew rushed everywhere trying to hold everything together. So much so, no one noticed a sweaty, hairy man climb out of the floor.
Hale noted Norsgaard wasn't on the bridge. The senior staff was sparse in the nerve centre of the Thunderbird. That was even more concerning. He rushed to his station in time to see the Ocett keeping its distance, making a sweeping pass across the Thunderbird's bow. No doubt they were wanting to get a look at whatever had happened, like a neighbour peering through their blinds.
"I can't get shields!" an officer at tactical called.
Hale checked the CONN display as one of his flight controllers tried to right the ship. The warp field had collapsed, the vessel now limping along on thrusters.
"Hale, hey, Hale." The cacophony was interrupted by a Petty Officer grabbing the helmsman by the shoulder. "The Captain and 2XO have been looking for you. You're needed down on Deck 4."
Hale stepped closer to the young non-com. "W-what the hell is going on?"
"A ship collided with us," the Petty Officer replied. Behind him, Hale caught the first glimpse of the damage. From a viewport somewhere on the ship, someone had managed to get an image through to the bridge of a craft, no larger than a shuttle, buried in the side of the Thunderbird.
"Hell's bells," Hale muttered under his breath. He studied the image, memories flooding back to something he'd seen long ago.
|USS Lantree, Bridge
|2357, Beta Watch
On the viewscreen, a Federation medical supply ship hung motionless in space. Around her, a flotsam of gold and grey metal drifted through the inky darkness. In the twisted and scorched metal of her hull, the name of the vessel, Dunlop, could just be made out. As the vessel became larger on the screen, a shrill emergency distress code rang through the bridge speakers as the Lantree closed in at a gentle speed.
"Steady as she goes, CONN. Get us within transporter range of the Dunlop," Captain Choudhry ordered the young woman piloting the ship with hushed tones. His dark eyes examined the damage, his attention turning to his operations officer. "Report, Ensign Hale."
"The transport vessel is disabled. Their main reactor has been damaged. Main power is down. Shields and engines are inoperable. Structural integrity is below 60 percent," Hale replied, studying his readouts.
"Lifesigns, Petty Officer Williams?" Choudhry asked his tactical officer. While the Captain waited, he killed the distress call with a tap on the operations officer's panel.
"Faint. I'm getting a lot of interference," Williams replied.
"What about the ship hanging out of the Dunlop?" the Captain enquired, his hands on his hips.
"The starship database shows the vessel to be a Talarian scout ship," Hale replied.
"Yes, I've seen one before, Ensign," Choudhry's bassy voice assured his operations officer. "What is its status?"
Hale winced at his mistake. "Similar to the Dunlop. It has a cracked reactor casing. Neither vessel has long."
"Crew complement of the transport?" the Captain asked.
"Around fifteen," Hale responded.
"Let's get to recovery stations," Captain Choudhry ordered. "We'll get over there, rescue who we can and get out of here. I don't like the idea of hanging around here exposed. Hale, you'll lead the boarding party."
"Me, sir?" Hale stuttered.
"Yes, you. There are twenty-six people on this ship who can go. It's your turn." Choudhry looked to Williams. "Mr Williams, you can provide security."
"Aye, sir."
Hale stood, feeling a wobble in his step. The crew complement was actually twenty-seven. Obviously, the Captain refused to count himself.
Choudhry gave the two gold-shirted men their orders. "Get the medical team and a technician. Transporter tags go on anyone alive. The dead stay, we don't have space for them. You've got fifteen minutes, not a second more."
|SS Dunlop
|Subsequently
The Lantree crew dashed through thick acrid smoke, showers of sparks and twisted wreckage, guided only by their palm beacons and tricorders. So far, six members of the Dunlop's crew, living or dead, had been accounted for. The living had been beamed back, the dead weren't so lucky.
"The Talarian shuttle is just up here," the technician over Hale's shoulder said with a laboured breath, his lungs burning from the smoke. "It appears the breach is near the cargo hold."
They came across another crewmember on a gantry. Burned, bloodied, but alive. They were tagged, beamed away, and the team moved on.
As they neared the crash site, the Dunlop creaked and shrieked as her metal skeleton twisted and strained. Hale knew they had only minutes left.
The buckled bulkheads, thinning air and scorching of the corridors told the team they weren't far. The technician doused a plasma fire quickly enough for the team to dash through, greeted by the prow of the Talarian scout melded with the Federation transport.
Tricorder stowed in its holster, Hale wrenched for his phaser, the bulbous tip of the weapon extended out before him as he and Williams scoured the ruptured alien cockpit for signs of the intruders. Amongst the devastation was a body of a Dunlop crewman, mangled and disfigured, confirmed dead without a medic even opening a tricorder.
"Ensign Hale!" the technician called. Further along the corridor, just outside the cargo hold, he stood over two bodies: a transport crewman clutching his phaser, and a Talarian with a disruptor rifle. Both were scorched, killed by the other's weapon, surrounded by medical supplies. When the away team leader arrived, the tech gestured into the hold. "Completely empty."
Hale lowered his phaser. "Something tells me the Talarians have escaped. Let's get to engineering and get out of here."
"I don't know if that's wise, Ensign," Williams said, studying his tricorder. "I can't see a direct route."
"We've got three minutes. We can make it," a medic pleaded.
"We'd waste too much time trying to find a way through," Williams countered. "We need to leave."
"The radiation in here is only increasing too," the tech added. "It would be worse closer to their reactor, and I can't guarantee the Lantree could get a transporter lock."
The medic was only getting more frustrated. "We've only accounted for nine of the crew!"
There was time. There was also insurmountable danger.
All eyes fell to Hale.
|USS Thunderbird
|2369
Journeying down to Deck 4, he could smell the ozone, the smoke, the burnt flesh. It reminded him of the Dunlop. Thankfully, this hadn't ended with him watching an implosion from afar after a premature beam-out.
Hale was thrust out of the Jefferies tube and onto the deck. Smoke hung in the air, and the varying degrees of urgency among the officers only added to the chaos. Some were rushing around with firefighting equipment, others were still being attended to by medical teams, and others milled about waiting for orders. Planting a boot on the deck, he pushed aside the burnt, jagged rubble that was strewn about the place as if it'd been broadcast by a farmer from biblical times.
Hale was sweaty and dirty. Clambering up and down the ship wasn't on the menu after a heavy breakfast. Making his way up the corridor, the helmsman caught the eye of a squared-away security officer. "Everything alright, sir?"
"Yes, yes, just heading down to see this shuttle."
"Do you need an escort?"
"No-no," Hale forced a smile, gesturing up the corridor, "I think I'll be fine following the trail of destruction."
Lieutenant Bartholomew Hale
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Thunderbird
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