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The Battle for Coridan - Fallout Rescue, Part 1

Posted on Mon Jun 30th, 2025 @ 2:14pm by Sub-Commander T'shir & Colonel Josiah McEntyre & Commander Saul Whitford & Commander Gunnar Magnusson & Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Calhoun & Lieutenant Commander Alexander Coleman & Major Dranoel Leomas & Major Iria & Lieutenant Kayoko Himeji & Captain Johnathan Reece & Captain Samuel Hunt & Sergeant Sonny Holt & Staff Sergeant Jordon Basset

1,785 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: The Campaign for Coridan

[Unicorn Bridge]

Whitford sat in the Command Chair, slumped to one side to relieve pressure where he'd smashed into the console when the Romulan mine hit. He was tense, wired. The waiting was interminable. A vast cloud had been thrown up across most of Coridan, shielding the surface from the sun, and Unicorn's people from their ship.

Transports had plunged into the cloud layer, unheeding of the danger to themselves in the rush to rescue their comrades, and any civilians they could cram into their steel bellies. Other Coalitions starships were arriving in orbit, allowing Unicorn to coordinate the activities, but the broken communications with the surface was making things difficult.

'Any signals from the surface?' Whitford asked.

"I will need a moment, Commander," T'shir replied. "There is significant interference in the atmosphere from the radioactivity. I will attempt to isolate and boost signals from our end based on known frequencies to see if I can find something, Sir."

As he digested the news from the Sub-Commander, Whitford wearily, and painfully, flipped the switch to comm Sickbay. He knew Coleman and Iria were on the surface, so he hoped the officer on duty had things in hand. 'Sickbay, what's our status?'

"Nurse Chavez, reporting from Sickbay. We've converted all available space to receive patients, and volunteers have established a decontamination zone in the shuttlebay. We're light on medical officers because most of them are with Dr. Coleman, but we've got volunteers from science and engineering here and in the shuttlebay prepared to triage and assist, Sir."

'Acknowledged Chavez,' Whitford replied with relief. 'If you need any more, take them from Armoury, we'll need the rest of the Engineering crew to patch up the ship while we wait.' Turning at a polite sound from T'Shir, he looked up, a little pale from the pain he was feeling.

"Commander, I'm getting signals," T'shir announced. "They are difficult to understand, but they should assist in identifying the location of the survivors."

“Parts of the planet’s civilian ComNet are still active,” said Gunnar, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “And have low-level encryption. We should be able to tie into it and help triangulate our people.” His fingers raced across the control panel, making a flurry of adjustments on the fly.

'Get it done,' Whitford replied, 'make sure to triangulate civilian populations - we're coordinating the evacuation of as many people as we can.' He turned to T'Shir, 'once we have access, can you match up comm-signals to geo-sync data?'

“Yes Sir,” said the tall Icelander crisply. Matching the frequency range of Coridan’s ComNet has been a proverbial piece of cake; since the network was used planet-wide, access was designed to be simple. Adding the subspace transceiver frequencies for Coalition comm signals took slightly longer. “Sub-Commander, I am sending activation codes to your station. They need to be entered in cascading sequence.”

"I can move us closer?" Kayoko suggested from the helm. "But if we get too close, we won't come back up again."

'That's quite right, Lieutenant - ease us closer, but avoid going down the gravity well too far. We need to be able to leave enough rope for us to climb back out again.' The dull ache in his side was growing, but he decided to ignore it for now - it could be dealt with later once the immediate crisis was fixed.

"Ok!" Kayoko replied. "I'll take us to a slightly lower orbit."

"Understood, Commander," T'shir replied as she began to enter in the codes as Gunnar provided them.

Upon the entering of the code sequence into the Unicorn’s transceiver array, the status board lit up like a proverbial Christmas tree. Multiple Coalition comm signals, clustered together tightly. “Signal gain has been boosted to seventy-six percent of maximum,” said Gunnar. “Multiple locator beacons detected.”

'Begin coordination of shuttles to those locations,' Whitford said to T'Shir, 'as fast as we can now - and status on the fleet arriving in orbit? We'll need as many transports as possible to get Starfleet and civilians off the ground.' Looking at Gunnar he nodded, 'good work Commander, I reckon you've saved more than a few lives with that.'

“We’re all on the same team, Sir,” said Gunnar, turning back to his work station.

T'shir nodded and began coordinate available pilots and rescue crews to what shuttles they had remaining on board and dispatched them to the locations showing likely survivors.

Whitford glanced up sharply as the Bridge lights and consoles began flickering. 'What the ...?' he muttered, looking around. The Bridge went completely dark for a second, before emergency lights blinked on. 'Damnit, what's happening now?' He moved to the Armoury console, and saw that the new Andorian shield systems were doing something odd.

'Commander Calhoun, what the hell is happening to our shield system?' Whitford asked, relieved the comm had warbled to life on the emergency power.

“I’m sorry, Commander. It’s the damn Andorian power converters. Got a power drain somewhere. I’ll have it sorted out in a few minutes,” Calhoun replied.

Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer barked orders to his team. “Listen up, people! We need these shields back yesterday! Re-intialize the Andorian power converters. We can run a shunt off of secondary conduits to the shield grid if we have to. Keep in mind this has to be done with the shields up or we’re gonna get blasted out of the sky. Five minutes and I need all of you! Let’s move!”

“Calhoun to bridge! You should have 100% shields in about 30 seconds. Had to reroute and re-calibrate the power flow. This Andorian system is a pain in the ass! All yours, Commander! Calhoun out.”

'Calhoun you're a life-saver,' Whitford replied with pleasure.

The helm console began to beep loudly, a red light flashing on its panel. "Damn it..." Kayoko said. "We just lost our impulse engines and I can't break us away using thrusters." She pressed a button on the console and two small joysticks rose out of the console as she activated manual helm controls. "We're losing altitude. I'm going to have to fly us manually to stop us dropping like a brick."

'Damn - what do you need, Himeji!?' Whitford cried out.

"I need a restart of those engines, and have engineering put everything else we've got to the hill plating. Shields will be useless once we hit the stratosphere." Kayoko called back. "I can keep us in a constant form of glide until then." She turned the ship so that it's ventral was level with the surface.

'Calhoun,' Whitford got on the comm again, 'we got a problem with the engines - no power and de-orbiting. Care to, uh, fix that for us?' He forced joviality into his voice, though he knew full-well the Unicorn wouldn't survive an uncontrolled de-orbit through a planet's atmosphere.

“What the…..?” Calhoun said to himself. He heard the First Officer on the comms again. “Understood, Commander! I’ll call you right back!”

“Son of a bitch! Korsak! Freeman! Reinforce the hull plating! Take power from non essentials if you have to. I’ll check the impulse reactors.”

The engineer’s team went to work to pin down the problem. From his initial evaluation, one of the impulse manifolds was fused. He’d have to take the warp reactor offline to fix it.

“Calhoun to Bridge! One of the impulse manifolds is fused. We’re running on one impulse engine and I have to take the warp reactor offline for 15 minutes. Giving you full impulse to keep us above the atmosphere. Fifteen minutes, Commander!
No more than that and we’ll be as good as new.”

Feeling a spike of alarm in his stomach, Whitford nodded at the air, knowing the Chief couldn't see him. 'Alright, Chief, fifteen minutes, no more. Do what you can,' he concluded through clenched teeth as the situation just seemed to get worse and worse.

He turned to Himeji, 'You're gonna have to be okay with the one engine.'

Commander Calhoun barked through the comm to the bridge.

“Kayoko, hold her steady, things are gonna get rough up there for a bit!”

His team worked quickly to take the warp reactor offline. Once he got the go ahead, Calhoun accesses the impulse control system and the circuits for the manifolds. There were 24 circuits in total, 12 for each of the impulse engines. Calhoun located the 7 that were burned out, causing the manifolds to malfunction. “Someone grab me 7 ICS replacement circuits! On the double!”

A control specialist, whose name eluded Calhoun, moved at what seemed like warp speed supplied the Chief Engineer with the parts he needed. A minute per circuit. Calhoun had practiced over and over again. Seven circuits , seven minutes. Satisfied his task was complete, the rest of the team got the warp reactor back online.

“Calhoun to Bridge! No time to test it….full impulse and warp drive all yours, Commander! Let’s go!”

'Alright, Himeji hit it!' Whitford barked, pain flaring in his side again. 'Get us back into a stable orbit!'

[Unicorn Sickbay]

Dranoel woke up and the pounding in his head made him groan loudly. His right hand immediately went to his forehead as if doing so helped cure it. He opened his eyes and while the throbbing did spike with increased activity his brain had to process he delt with it.

"You're awake." A nurse with ebony hair carefully tied back approached Dranoel's bedside with a cup of water. "How are you feeling?"

"A massive headache," Dranoel replied, his hand still pressed against his head. He attempted to smile, though it turned slightly cringe. He relaxed his face and that gave some relief.

"I can get you something for that," she assured him, careful to keep her voice low. "Why don't you try a sip of water. You've been out quite a while, and then I'll get you some analgesic."

"Yes please and thank you." Dranoel nodded slowly, with a half smile. He lay back down just as slowly, he did believe some water would put him back to work.

Chavez returned with a hypospray that she pressed gently to the Major's neck. "You should feel some relief pretty quickly," she promised.

~tbc~





Commander Saul Whitford
Executive Officer/Chief Armory Officer
Unicorn NX-151

&

Sub Commander T’shir
Chief Communications Officer/Officer of the Watch
Unicorn NX-151

&

Commander Gunnar Magnusson
Chief Science Officer
Unicorn NX-151

&

Lieutenant Kayoko Himeji
Chief Helm Officer
Unicorn NX-151

&

Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Calhoun
Chief Engineer
Unicorn NX-151

&

Major Dranoel Leomas
Armory Officer
Unicorn NX-151

 

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