Overqualified
Posted on 31 Mar 2023 @ 10:25pm by Ensign Marcello Wiser & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)
Edited on on 19 Apr 2023 @ 9:50pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Shuttlebay
Timeline: MD09 beginning ~0510 immediately following "Change of Plans", this post ending ~0535
3013 words - 6 OF Standard Post Measure
Lance took the lift to the shuttlebay while pondering to himself. The whole thing was absurd. A secret reconnaissance mission had come down to this now— he was assigned to collect his own wife. It was ridiculous, but indeed, the situation was real. Previously, he also had to rescue her when she had taken ill during the Battle for Obsidian Command, and to see to her during her recovery, and to listen to all of her confessions, her lying and remonstration for her lies— and now he had to fetch her during a quickly souring set of conditions on a backward alien planet of fish-seal people.
Really, he had no idea how Calliope managed in fifteen years of service without him to aid her constant follies. Perhaps others had stepped in, in his own absence. She did often go on about her beloved co-workers, whom she thought of as friends, when she would ring him up on the comms and insist on talking for hours on end. They had many adventures of which she constantly regaled him. Not the dangerous ones— those he found obvious when she scaled the tale back. To all of her gab, he had learned how to react — where to nod, or to repeat something back, or to hm, and appear interested.— it was a practice he had learned like any other study or skill, such that she seemed to be satisfied with the call, and her appreciation was the entire point of them. She seemed to require the constant contact. In what she must have considered a fair exchange, Calliope would then inquire into his work, as if he needed a turn to share, and he would oblige her with watered down summaries of what aspects he felt she might be able to appreciate. Again, not because it helped him to organize or to develop his own thinking, but because it satisfied her need for connection. Calling, she had always been calling. Often at the most inopportune times, as well, interrupting a deep track of theoretical development and setting back much of a day's or even a week's worth of careful mental articulation with each comms alert on his desk back in the office in the Sol system. Now he was the one called upon to make the call to her.
"The things one does for love." Quinn said with a huff as the turbolift let him out on the shuttlebay's deck.
He had never exactly led a shuttle mission before. He'd certainly traveled a great deal on them, between making travel connections with his wife to their various vacation spots, of which Calliope largely arranged, and to his own various conferences and conventions for his research endeavours, of which she rarely ever attended. He'd arranged meetings of hundreds of minds and organized classrooms and syllabi, and managed research and testing projects involving hundreds, sometimes thousands of contributors. This was simply one shuttle ride to make a call to his wife and tell her to come home earlier than planned. That was all. If anything he was entirely over qualified for the assignment. But then, what was this tightening knot in his stomach and this rising indigestion in his throat? Perhaps it was that god forsaken replicated horror of a tea. Yes. It had been entirely too acidic.
Lance located the shuttle that was already humming with the engines idling. Inside was the Ensign whom he had grown accustomed to seeing on the bridge during the Pathfinder's mission thus far. A Mister Wiser. It was memorable for its irony, as the man was young and, clearly, not living up to the potential of his own surname. In the Operations and copilot chair was a young ferengi with a single pip as well. Quinn didn't know his name, and didn't bother inquiring as to it. He didn't fail to notice the way the young man was inhaling and exhaling through his mouth, however, and his somewhat neanderthal-like expression, with his eyes deep set under his heavy brow. It all made him doubt there was very much going on between his big ears.
Wiser turned around as Quinn came into the cockpit. He looked confused. "Commander? Are the Marines still coming aboard?"
"They are not. The Marines have... made other arrangements."
"Oh." Marcello found that confusing as he was sitting in the bay the entire time and the other shuttle in the bay was still. maybe they had beamed over to the Theseus or something? He didn't like asking Commander Quinn questions, though, so he made no attempt to clarify what other arrangements had been made. "Ah, I see."
"Indeed." Quinn settled at a side station and locked the loading ramp. "We are to fly a different mission, to make contact with the Acamas and inform her of the Captain's orders to return to the Pathfinder. I will be directing you."
"Right, okay, great." Wiser liked that mission much better than flying Marines into a fight, even if he wasn't going to have a lot of bragging rights, now. Pilots had to have their stories, he knew. Maybe another time.
"If you've already prepped the shuttle then, Mr. Wiser? Let us be on our way."
"Yes, Sir. Jup, clear us with the bridge."
In his nasally voice, the operations officer took a moment to get clearance and the response from the bridge returned quickly, giving the all-clear. Wiser lifted the shuttle off the floor and shot out through the bay force field, dropping into the atmosphere. Wiser, remembering that there were Korinn fighter craft in the probe gathered images, took the initiative and raised the shields without waiting for the order to do so. They came to the cloud layers in short order, the Pathfinder already keeping a low orbit, and they were heading down on the outside of a very large stormfront. The winds were heavy and the rain was strong, but as they weren't in the center of it, it wasn't much difficulty for Wiser.
"We'll begin at the dive site, at the Acamas's last known position." Quinn told the pilot, giving him the coordinates of the dive. Wiser took a wide arc to head for the spot that came up on the navigation.
It took only a few minutes before they came to the spot in the ocean. The waves were pretty choppy, but the computer highlighted the first buoy bobbing just below the surface, generally keeping at the first shallow depth setting where Marshal Stiener had deployed it.
"Operations—" Quinn said, at a loss for the Ferrengi's name.
"Ensign Jup, sir."
"Yes. Ensign." Quinn intentionally left off the name, disinterested in committing the mouthbreathing subordinate to memory. There were more important matters to attend than some sort of society building affair. "Do establish a new connection with the buoy. At this distance I can't imagine it should present even you much difficulty." Wiser was hovering so close to the water that occasionally a bulging wave would slap against the undercarriage.
Jup exchanged a look with Wiser. It was well known between them that Wiser really didn't like Commander Quinn. They'd spent a fair bit of inebriated conversation talking crap about the man. Wiser had shared his opinion that Quinn was a terrible match for Commander Zahn, who was exciting and beautiful and talented— the whole package, the real deal— and had about the most opposite approach to how she treated her fellows and subordinates than her husband did. But then, everyone in their circle knew Wiser had a hardly veiled thing for the nice orion lady and Jup had factored that into his friend's bad mouthing of her husband and discounted it. But up until now, he'd not had the displeasure of working under Quinn. Barely ten minutes in and he started to believe Wiser was right. Commander Quinn really was as bad as his reputation accounted for in the scuttlebutt of the lower decks. Unless you were a PhD in a field he respected, word was he didn't give you the time of day. But Jup wasn't about to ask him for the hour. Jup was far from confrontational. He was a terrible salesman for that reason, which was partly why he'd chosen Starfleet. He wanted to be successful at something, even if it couldn't be earning latinum. So he kept his head down at his station, and worked at making a link to the bouy.
It was a fairly simple task, and the link began to populate the readouts with buffered data that had been looping, waiting to make a connection with the Pathfinder again.
Quinn played back the last message Calliope had addressed out loud to the Pathfinder, the one that had been cut off when the signal broke.
The speaker came to life with Commander Zahn's voice. “Acamas to Pathfinder, be informed, our data stream is about to be cut off due to the pollutant interference density. We’ve located the probe launch site and received an invitation to another site at the following coordinates. We are proceeding there with hopes of making contact with the Korinn. Acamas will send a sonar ping to the buoys as an all’s well confirmation every fifteen minutes. Hopefully that will get through.”
Quinn found the coordinates with the sent data and put them into the navigation.
"There is a record of fifteen minute pings," Jup said, "but they stop after an hour. There should be more on record than that! Something must have happened to them."
"Or they ceased for some benign reason not as yet known to us." Quinn snapped. "I'll have no more leaping to unsupported conclusions. Mr. Wiser, take us to the coordinates given, your best atmospheric speed."
"Aye, Sir." Wiser considered breaking some rules and using a higher impulse than recommended for atmospheric flight. Commander Zahn might have been in trouble, after all. He touched up the speed as far as he dared, putting them at the new coordinates in just under five minutes. This area was more of a shallows, sitting miles off shore of the island. The rain was pelting and the waves were getting high. His instruments were reading heavy electric activity in the storm clouds. he had to use thrusters to counter the wind pressure and steady the ship in place. "That hurricane is really picking up..." He said. "There's more interference here, between the kelbonite deposits and the storm—"
"Quit telling us what we already know." Quinn snapped again, feverishly working at the Science console to the side of the cockpit area. "Simply hold the shuttle in position while I devise an actual solution! Mr. Wiser?"
"Yes Commander?"
"You have the shields up."
"Yes Sir."
"The field is interfering with my readings. Do shut them down temporarily."
"Yes, Sir. Shields down." Wiser obliged. He kept scanning the skies with the sensors, and his eyes, but the static and the kelbonite in the area were blinding the sensors and the pouring rain made for very low visibility conditions.
Meanwhile Lance had multiple deflector dish settings running through a test cycle, throwing various rays and beams and particles through the water to return information on clarity and resistance, while he was narrowing down the principle refractory materials taken from De La Fuente's sample scan, all to try to effect multiple complementary signals that, when overlaid, would account for the loss in the sister signals, resulting in a unified combinant signal once corrected for the noise differential. If no one on her team was competent enough to tune the multi banded signal, surely Calliope herself would make out the method he was using. Once he had hit upon something that seemed to be promising, he shouted forward to the mouthbreather— "Use my protocol, open a hail directed at the coordinates the Acamas gave in a thirty kilometer radius of the ocean below."
Jup tapped out the complex frequencies, but the pattern ranges and signaling types were detailed and it was taking him some time to enter.
"My good man," Quinn jeered, "are your hands made out of lead?"
"No, Sir," Jup replied.
"Then try and enter them correctly," he said sharply.
Jup cringed. He wanted to shout that being shouted out wasn't making him any faster or more accurate, but continued to the best of his ability. Besides, Commander Quinn hadn't exactly raised his voice. It just felt as if everything the man said was harsh and it made Jup even more self conscious about his performance, which was making for the worst kind of feedback loop.
When the multithreaded channel was constructed, Jup reported, "Hailing frequencies open, Sir!"
Quinn leaned in on the comms key. " Acamas this is Commander Quinn, seeking confirmation of your position. Come in Acamas." He let off the key and waited. There was nothing in return. "Commander Zahn, come in. You are to report immediately." This he repeated again, and again, until it began to feel desperate.
The comms remained silent. As did the other officers in the cabin.
"Don't just sit there like an imbecile! Expand the sensors," Quinn suddenly directed. "Using the same protocol as the comms!"
"Yes sir!" Jup scrambled on his board, thinking a little on his feet this time and taking the effort to copy his original entries and transpose them to the sensor array. As soon as it was ready he switched on the sanners.
Imaging began to return. While outside the storm whipped up driving winds and rain, Quinn carefully examined the readings he was able to gather. There was the seabed, and the rise of the reef. And something like the bubble structures— the abandoned half dome ones that the Acamas had reported in the other region. There were arches and bubbled roofs and pillars and other architecture. The sensors even picked out Korinn life signs and animal life to a certain extent, though it lacked specificity in the bio readings. But there was no shuttle, and there were no Federation races' life signs. And there was no Calliope.
"Mr. Wiser, move us to—"
There was a sudden slamming motion into the shuttle and it began to spin out skipping at an angle through the peaks of the waves. Lights and alarms were going off all over. Something was spouting steam and Quinn was forced back with his arm covering his face before falling on the floor in pain.
"Something has hit us!" Wiser called out, as he worked the thrusters to counter the spin they'd been thrown in and get some altitude to prevent lunging into the ocean. The hurricane winds cast their lot in against the off kilter shuttle.
"Shields up, Damn it!" Quinn managed to say, coughing and climbing back to his feet. Evaluating himself, he found his right arm badly scalded. He moved to the source of the plasma vent, and went to a junction to redirect the flow. When he had pulled the lever, he slammed the panel shut again and saw the Ferrengi Ensign half slumped in his seat. With his left arm he grabbed the boy by the collar to get him to sit forward—
—It was one of the ghastliest things he had ever seen. Would ever see. Quinn realized his arm had but caught a small haze of the plasma. The Ensign had taken the brunt of the high pressure stream entirely to the side of the face and neck and chest, melting his uniform, his skin, his muscle— He was unrecognizable on half of his body and in complete shock. Quinn was frozen there until the Shuttle jolted again. The sounds, all of the sounds, which to Quinn's perspective had temporarily squelched out into one long high pitched note, came back through his nervous system and screamed through his brain. Ensign Wiser had been shouting.
"They're firing on us! There are six fighters! Sir! Orders?" The ship was twisting every which way as Ensign wiser dodged the missiles. Spikes of energy weapons cut through the rain in hot bolts of crackling blue light.
Quinn didn't know what to do. Did you fire back? Perhaps, with the right crew, the right.... commander... Calliope hadn't been there in the water. He'd failed to contact his wife. The shuttle rocked again as a missile contacted the shields. Wiser called out another account of the damage.
"—Switching to auxiliary—" was all Quinn heard of the whole account.
It was useless. He'd failed. A simple mission and he'd failed. "Go back, Ensign. Return us to the Pathfinder!"
"Sir! The Acamas! We haven't found her!"
"We aren't doing her any good being shot out of the sky and requiring our own rescue!" Lance turned, his hair whipping around and his face screwed up in pain. "We must deliver the co-pilot to the infirmary! Without delay, Mr. Wiser!"
"Aye, aye, sir," Wiser kicked the engines harder and spun into the upper atmosphere doing his best to outpace the fighters. They gave chase for some minutes through the storm, and Ensign Wiser was fighting nature, working against the flashing and sputtering of his instrument readings affected by the storm, and trying to keep a bead on those fighters on his tail. They almost matched him, forcing Wiser to continue juking until he finally punched through the cloud cover and was greeted by stars, and the enemy fighters, unable to achieve the altitude the shuttle was capable of, fell away behind the clouds.
Marcello could see the shuttle bay door ahead. "Pathfinder, this is Ensign Wiser. We were attacked. Our mission was aborted. Prepare the bay for landing— medic needed, repeat we need a medic immediately. Ensign Jup has sustained extremely severe plasma burns. He's in shock! Commander Quinn also has second and third degree plasma burns!"
Quinn pounded his left fist into the science control board and howled with pain and no small degree of shame in his failure.
