Wasted Gas

Posted on Mon Jan 18th, 2010 @ 10:45pm by

641 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: FORGING AHEAD
Location: Tiberius V
Timeline: Current

ON

Well, to say it had been an eventful day was putting things mildly, very mildly. Tiberius V was about four or five hours out from Typhon on a decent ship and today there just wasn't a decent ship to be had.

"Mirar city, this is shuttle Sierra" Will said hurredly into the coms, "we're coming in hot, so far everything onboard has decided to die, we're gonna need the nets coming in."

"Make final, we're clearing every spot of deck we can" the air control replied, "the Four Tenth is airborne for recovery if you have to ditch."

"I hope not" Will said just before the coms system followed half the thrusters, sensors and everything else.

[Flight Deck]

"Nets up! Nets up!" Deck chiefs were calling, spreading the word for everyone to get off the deck and help in getting everything battened down.

Every now and then a fighter or shuttle had a problem where a normal landing couldn't be made; be it arrestor, vertical or any one of a million others. In these circumstances, every runway had a series of nets on computer and manual control along with several tractor beams.

"Clear deck! All hands, clear out!" Chief's called as the signals came down the line that all the nets were in place. From here out it was sit back and watch.

[Shuttlecraft]

The shuttle's systems had pretty much died at this point, the only reason it was still airborne was a stubborn cloud of gravitons left stuck to the hull. Will had given up on the controls and was hastily rewiring the console in front of him to try and survive the landing.

"Ok, D three routes energy out, so then E eight" he said to himself, crossing a pair of wires and hoping for the best. Right after he'd done it, a loud roar came from the front of the shuttle as the thrusters came online to act as air breaks and slow his landing a bit.

The shuttle came down on the flight deck with a slam, skidded a good ten meters and then came to a complete stop. As soon as it had stopped Will came walking out the back hatch to examine how bad a wreck the craft was.

"So help me, that is the last time I fly in THAT shuttle" he said to himself, it was the same one that had gotten him to Typhon in the string of five it had taken to get there. In all honesty, the thing was probably older than most Vulcans and any currently serving ship; it belonged in a museum!

Chief Donavan walked up to the rather short engineer to emerge from the craft to get the details of why they had a starfleet wreck to deal with. "Commander, what the hell happened?" he asked, getting right to the point.

"That damn death-trap" Will said, "if we can get it off the runway, I'll get it patched up. EPS power distribution died on my way down. Shouldn't be too difficult to fix, though I bet my next landing will be just as bad."

"It'll be in hangar four delta" Donavan said, turning to guide a large vehicle over to pick up and move the shuttle.

"Thank you, " Will said, heading for the terminal and yet another meeting to help plan out the colony. As it stood, the colonists were for the most part still in the cities except for a few scientists who'd set up small research outposts.

[Meeting]

The meeting was called off, apparently someone had a schedule conflict and it was more important then construction and resource orders. It was quite something to come all the way out here, put up with a shuttle that should be mothballed and all for nothing in the end. What a waste of gas and fuel.

OFF

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