Arrival At Hell
Posted on 2025, Mon Jul 7th, @ 9:39pm by Vice Admiral Jack Reacher Jr & Captain Kate Reacher & Lieutenant Aubrie Fox & Lieutenant Katie Harlow & Lieutenant Lillian Hansen & Lieutenant Commander B'Orak & Chief Warrant Officer Kate Bock & Sergeant Major JB Dersch & Master Sergeant Kate Score & Petty Officer 1st Class Olivia Ponton & Commodore Paul Sleeford & Fleet Captain Dean House & Commander MOO Richardson IX & Commander Cormac Situs & Commander Ardon Devasia & Lieutenant Commander Marcus Varen & Senior Chief Petty Officer Larry Lamontagne
2,452 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Episode 1A "Shadows of the Empire"
Location: Earth, Mirrior Universe
Timeline: 48 Hours Since Transfer to Mirrior universe
Townsend strode onto the bridge with purpose, his footsteps echoing confidently against the metallic floor. "Helm set the estimated time of arrival," he commanded firmly as he settled into the command chair, adjusting the display before him. Chris, the ship's helm officer, quickly complied, inputting the necessary data with practiced ease.
Ardon, seated at the Executive Officer's station, glanced over the control panels, ensuring everything was in order. At the same time, Danvers seemed to be unaccounted for at the moment, which raised an eyebrow of concern among the crew. Meanwhile, Situs was deeply engaged at the Science station, analyzing the latest sensor readings, his brow furrowed in concentration.
D'ghickaK diligently monitored the operations from the ops station, his fingers flying over the controls as he tracked various systems. Sleeford maintained a watchful presence in the Executive Officer's chair, ready to assist at a moment's notice. Harlow stood at the backup tactical station, his eyes scanning for any immediate threats or opportunities.
Sleeford sat in his chair, scanning the activity on the bridge. Everyone was working efficiently, if a little apprehensively. Glancing down to his right counting down the time to the outer limits of the Sol system. It felt strange, if not a little intimidating, slowly making their way to the heart of the 'Federation', not knowing what reception they would receive upon arrival. Seeing the Admiral take his seat, Sleeford gave a half nod, "All quiet, well as can be expected."
B'Orak turned from his station, meeting Townsend's gaze. "Six minutes until we reach the next waypoint, sir," he reported, his voice steady and clear.
With a nod of acknowledgment, Townsend straightened in his chair. =/\="All stations, report your status,"=/\= he ordered, the weight of leadership evident in his tone as he sought to ensure the crew was fully prepared for the challenges ahead.
Kara was working on integrating her House symbol into her uniforms when she had the chance. Along with looking over the technical specs of the ship. She was not happy, in the least. She was almost livid in fact. She slapped on her first uniform and headed to the nearest turbolift.
Stepping off onto the Bridge, Kara's voice was clear. "What in the world were these Engineers thinking?"
"Welcome to the bridge, Captain... you're late," Chris stated evenly.
"Sorry, Admiral. I kept having to stop and lean against the bulkhead because of heart palpitations." Kara was still referring to the ship specs. "I'll make up for being late and do a half shift extra."
Situs questioned internally if he needed to be there. This was by far the largest ship he had served on and even the main bridge itself was enormous with the science station placed away from the action. He could easily get away with having his assistants on the bridge while he was directing things from the main labs in the past. But this was a new post, hell, this was an entirely new universe. And there also was this gaudy new uniform to consider. The caps the department heads wore added to the theater play feeling he got from them. The gloves were rather nice though. All that was missing was a sword.
''Science station report: All systems nominal, Admiral"
His scans were erratic and the findings contradictory, his new team would have a hard time making sense of their findings for a while. He made a note to head to the labs to personally oversee the analysis at the earliest opportunity. He covered his mouth as he let out a quiet yawn.
"Understood Commander Situs" Townsend replied.
As the reports began to come in, Sleeford compiled them into the XO's report. From the first reading, the Halo looked ready.
Ardon was starting to feel very comfortable on the bridge. He had passed the bridge officers course, the executive officers command course, and the Captains command course. He had also studied various video records of historical importance of this universe including Terran policies and protocols. Individuals were far more ruthless and much darker than in his universe. Much quicker to push for an advantage. Discipline was very harsh for good reason. He had learned His personal history as well. He was intelligent cruel, sadistic, almost a psychopath. He had risen through the ranks as an enforcer through military conquest. He had been very successful.
Chief Petty Officer Ch’atrim D’ghockaK, his piercing eyes scanning the chaotic ops console, brought his Klingon resolve to the fray. “Admiral Townsend, operations reports all systems operational amid this inferno,” he stated, his voice steady despite the strain. “Power grid at 99%, sensors at maximum range, communications secure. Awaiting your orders, sir.” As Captain Danvers’ fury over-engineering erupted, Ch’atrim responded with grim efficiency. “Captain, I’ve run a diagnostic on the warp core. Power rerouting through auxiliary conduits has stabilized output by 8%. Data sent to Chief Petty Officer Lamontagne in Engineering.” *oO This hellish realm tests my honor, but the ship will not break down. He nodded to Ensign B’Orak. “Ensign, align your navigation data with our sensors—track any Terran predators.”
"Understood" Replied B'Orak.
D’ghockaK gives B’Orak a small nod as he returns to his work on the bridge operation station, also in his abilities to keep up with everyone else on the bridge.
Larry Lamontagne was the senior Engineer on the Bridge. He was also the only Engineer on the Bridge. His record-breaking promotion streak was unheard of. Not only was his promotion to Senior Chief Petty Officer record-breaking, but he had been yanked off one ship and given the title of Leading Chief Petty Officer in Engineering on this ship. Then had to get his people together to get everything onboard certified to get underway. They were still unrapping some of the Science equipment, they had found in dark corners somewhere.
Now, a couple of days underway, and then this nightmare. He had added Multiplexers and ramped the power to shields and Phasors up to just about one volt away from melting the saucer section. Throwing the book out the window, he had his crew running at high speed, rigging all of the emergency power cables that were supposed to be used in an emergency. The Emergency power cable system was supposed to reroute power to critical equipment during combat to keep fighting when battle damage had destroyed the means to power shields or the phasor bank. Nobody had envisioned using the system to double your power during non-emergency time frames. Not only was this against the basic definition of damage control, but it was probably going to cause damage the first time they used it.
"Sir," Larry replied to the senior Officer, "By using all of the damage control repair equipment, we could safely transfer. We have boosted power available to the Shield generators and Control systems by 73 percent. Currently, the system is normal, but when you bypass normal and use emergency power to boost power to weapons and shields, you get your bonus power. The only bad part is, if the computer or operators try to pulse the shields to that high of power, it will work for about FIVE minutes before melting half the Shield emitters on the saucer section, not to mention frying the shield harmonic resonators. That is not the worst of it, once we fry the control grid, each shield emitter will have to be controlled manually. That will be a nightmare, and tie up all of the repair personnel."
Larry paused for a breath, then continued. "Now to weapons, all of the phasor arrays on the forward dorsal section will pack a mean punch. We could only do so much, but we effectively pack more firepower than a dreadnought now. Power has been a little more than doubled, but this can not be maintained forever; you will have to have weapons personnel and the computer fire-reduced levels every other shot. This reduced level is still higher than normal power levels. You have no guarantee how long this jury-rigged system will hold. And power to life support, sciences, holo....errr torture suites will be lowered to minimal during these shots. The Emergency generators will be at 400% during shots, so try not to push that big red button too often."
Larry rubbed his hands over his fatigued face, feeling his ten o'clock shadow. "Most of my people and those from operations that I shanghaied are running on vapors of energy drinks and will need to crash soon. "Larry said. Taking a big breath, he continued. " The good news is that anyone who gets close enough to scan us is going to see all the jury-rigged power distribution cables and look at all this raw power just waiting to be unleashed. They are going to say you're a genius or a certifiable madman. No sane captain would authorize something like this. This should cover up the fact that we are not from around here." Larry sat back and waited for the explosion of insults and questions demanding what crazy ideas led to this.
"Copy that."
Larry was currently looking at ways to smooth out any power spikes due to their abuse of the EPS power distribution system. The system was robust and designed to take a lot of hits. It was like two heavyweight boxers close up and brawling. Just pummeling each other, till one quit. Hearing the status query, Larry hit his comm badge. /=\ Bridge, Engineering, we are at 100% here, everything is as good as we can get it. Warp Propulsion systems are normal, Power Distribution system is holding steady. As long as you don't push the newly installed BIG RED button on the Captain's chair, I can guarantee normal performance.
=/\="Understood, work with Chief Varen Bridge out"=/\=
Larry Lamontagne had the POOL, which was the holographic control system table in the center of Engineering, displaying all the modifications they had done. When the Chief Engineer walked up, he quickly ran through the safeties first, then the danger points, if they overextended their power system, Then showed the Power Generation Maintenance log.
"Boss, the Engineering ship/ upgrade log shows that the generator upgrades were installed earlier than scheduled. We got experimental gear. Not that it is worse than the older version, but that system was designed to be robust as hell. It is just that we will be reporting all testing, and now we will be documenting everything. I think we will be ok, we just won't have the lower power units that would take amazingly large abuse and still keep ticking."
The rest of the turnover items were the standard end-of-watch reports. Sometimes turnover was easy, other times... not so much!
“Appreciate the status, Chief. I reviewed your POOL display remotely. You’ve done solid work streamlining the EPS load—impressive, considering the system’s been running like a pack of Tellarite freighters on a dare.”
Regarding the generator upgrades: experimental doesn’t mean unreliable—just that Starfleet R&D wants to see how many miracles we can wring out of it before it explodes in our faces. Noted that we're losing the old-style power dampers. Honestly, I’ll miss them. You could short half the deck and they'd hum back to life with a kick and a curse.
We'll start a rolling log of runtime data and any anomalies—voltage flex, thermal creep, EM feedback, etc. Loop in diagnostics to flag any nonlinear surges or phase jitter. If this system wants to throw a tantrum, I want to see it coming.
As for the BIG RED BUTTON on the Captain’s chair already installed a 0.25-second buffer delay. Just enough time for someone to yell “Don’t!” before we jump to warp inside a gravity well.
Larry laughed, then said, "That theory was never proven; melting a large enough amount of the Phasor emitters to create a wormhole inside a gravity well is still a theory. I don't care how famous or good of an Engineer that Scottish guy was. His paper from 2355 was good. Just not proven by anyone yet."
Larry continued, "All other items in our basket are at normal and in the green. If you're ready, I will be holding a long overdue conversation with my pillow. Call me if someone upstairs pushes that shiny big red button. "
"Good turnover. Clean handoff. You’ve earned your rack."
With the reporting done, Larry headed to his rack, looking forward to sleep.
=/\="All stations, report your status,"=/\=
Fox promptly replied to Townsend’s message, ensuring clarity in her response.
“Everything is clear and ready for your instructions, sir.”
Commander MOO Richardson IX stood at the back of the bridge. Moo normally was on the bridge when the Admiral was. When Fox reported the Security status, Moo was walking the sensors through the ship, looking for anomalies. Noting that Fox was doing their job properly, Moo let them have the glory for once. Moon used the sensors to look for anomalies by giving the computer the specs, compiled from reports from the mirror universe.
His quick programming job had the internal sensors that monitored the health of all crewmembers on board, do a little extra. They responded if said crewmember was exhibiting obvious behavior that was counter to standard behavior in the emirior universe. That his security personnel were the highest-ranking offenders was most annoying.
Moo sent a copy of the violations to the Department heads, the XO, and the CO. That Tactical had her department running smoothly and had the least amount of violations was most annoying.
The two petty officers were so absorbed in their search for a way home that they hardly noticed their surroundings. Their expressions were a mix of frustration and despair, as the situation seemed increasingly hopeless. Despite the bleakness of their circumstances, they remained determined, embodying the spirit of Starfleet. They were trained to face challenges head-on, but at this moment, their resolve was being tested like never before.
Dersch and Score exchanged a brief, reassuring message, confirming that they were feeling good and ready to return to their training. With a sense of determination, they slipped back into the sparring arena, their bodies taut with energy and anticipation. The sounds of their movements—footsteps scuffling on the mat and the rhythmic thuds of strikes landing—filled the air as they resumed their practice, fully immersed in the intensity of the moment.
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