Last Ditch Effort

Posted on Wed Sep 7th, 2022 @ 5:51pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Delaney O'Callaghan & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Laurier Cami & Liha t'Ehhelih

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Space
Timeline: MD 06 09:00
2456 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Liha and Jeassaho had been back and forth to the cargo shuttle several times with the material they needed to get the ship back to action and no longer a freezing tomb. It had been a long time since the former Starfleet Engineer had been in a workerbee doing something like mining for Verterium of all things. “How many more times do you think we have to go back and forth?” Jeassaho asked meaning it just to go through the comms to Liha but she slipped on the button and it went through to everyone.

"Dunno." Kali replied, eyes on the display tracking the placement and trajectory of the various vessels in play and the other spatial bodies around as one gloved hand multitasked with some adjustments to recommended courses as she spoke, switching into standard instead of the occasional sniping comments the pair of Romulans had been trading occasionally throughout the process back-and-forth with one another in their native tongue. "Whatever Burnie says, on that one."

“Oh hello Kali.” Jeassaho said not being embarrassed that her question had been answered by someone other than Liha. “So Burnie how much more do you think we need patch the anti-matter injectors up?” The Betazoid turned it to the engineer seeing it was now an open question.

The engineer looked at the weight reading and then eyed the ore stack. Technically they should have enough now, but he wanted some margin in case the ore wasn't as pure as they thought or their (rather crude by necessity) method of extracting it was less efficient than assumed. "Another trip should do it."

“Perfect.” Jeassaho commented as she poured what she had out already hearing the satisfactory noise it made. She was definitely going to be happy to have more space available to her when she got out of the workbee and the EV suite that had to be worn in side just in case. She was not big by any means but even for her short statue it was getting tight in the old unit.

"Back to mining," Liha said over the open comm as she turned the workerbee for another trip to the ore deposits.

"Hi-ho, hi-ho," Burnie sing-songed. "Off to the moon you go."

There was a moment of dead air. Just long enough to imply more of that might risk other things being dead. Then Liha chuckled. "I'm not the one sized like a dwarf. Save that for if Kalahaeia makes a run."

At the helm of the shuttle, having been suffocated by the most awkwardly terse silence imaginable since launching, Delaney pulled a slight face to herself as the conversation on the open frequency dipped towards inflammatory. Up until that point, she would have argued that listening in was infinitely more preferable to trying to settle on the right way to wave the olive branch in Cami's direction but now she wasn't so sure. For once one of the few to bite her tongue, she slowly maneuvered the shuttle to match the latest flight path Kali had provided and heaved an audible sigh.

"I'm not dwarf sized; I'm perfectly cockpit sized." Kali snipped back at Liha in their shared language.

Maybe in the Federation," Liha shot back in properly enunciated Rihannsu. "In my Galae squadron you would have needed a booster seat."

Anyone suggesting it would have needed a lot more than that.” Kali shot back; and even to those who didn’t understand a word of what was being said, the two women’s tones of voice spoke volumes. “The last guy to remark on that sort of thing got carried out of a casino on a stretcher.”

“Let’s keeps standard so everyone can share in the snipping. We all have things to say.” Jeassaho commented amused. She could go down the snipping route or she could try and keep everything spirits up. She knew enough Romulan and the tone to be a back and forth.

"I'm good with switching to Standard," Liha replied. "Better than dealing with her stilted Rihannsu - it's like listening to one of those old timey vids about Senate debates in history class."

"Debate this--" With an aggressive eyeroll, Kali swapped in the middle of speaking out of Standard back to Rihannsu and appended a few choice insults in the language in question to the middle of the sentence before switching back to Standard to bookend it, all done as rapidly and smoothly as only someone who has spoken two languages since nearly birth can pull off, while her fingers played across the panel doing something else entirely in the sort of multitasking most current or former pilots excelled at. "--and new data incoming on what looks like an especially rich spot of ore."

The string of insults only drew a mocking laugh from Liha. "Ha! You even cuss like a proper old lady."

"Lhiu! [enough!]" Burnie cut in, using Rihannsu in hopes that the pure shock value of it coming from him might be the verbal equivalent of cold water on hissing cats. "Let's get to that spot of ore and finish up here."

Kali said nothing back and turned and looked at Burnie with a surprised expression that was half grin and half raised eyebrow; then back to the controls and, unseen by those in the workerbees, stuck her tongue out slightly at the controls and by surrogate at Liha's remarks.

From her pilot seat, Delaney closed her eyes a moment in silent thanks and reminded herself to fix Burnie an entire pot of coffee to himself after this was over. Staring resolutely between her instruments and the viewport straight ahead, her eyebrows knitted for a moment and she navigated her way into the conversation like a silverfish slipping between the cracks. "Kali, transmission is breaking up a little." It possibly wasn't but either way it would work as an excuse. "Can you resend those last coordinates? I'm trying to confirm visual topography and what I received is going to send us right through a rockface, pretty sure."

In her workerbee, Liha's brows straight up. So, Kali was trying to kill her. And she was fine with killing Jea too to do it. Her jaw tightened, part anger, part grim satisfaction at having been right about that she was deep cover Tal'Shiar...

Despite a complete lack of telepathy, Burnie could almost hear those thoughts and facepalmed. "I'm sure it's just an error. Re-check transmission. Cami, double check Delaney's dead reckoning."

"It will be an error. She likes me." Jeassaho commented without a hint of shame or malice just banter.

The lack of trust deepened Delaney's frown. "We're not dealing with ideal conditions, Kali and I have been compensating this entire time." There was a bristle to the redhead's tone that was entirely out of place but she had just been forced to listen to two grown women bicker like children. "But sure." Delaney gestured towards the looming geography in the distance, turning to the Bajoran she'd been trying not to bother. "Cami, is that a mountain or do I need to go back to grade school?"

Now it was Kali's turn to cut off a 'developing situation', fingers pressing against the panel with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. "New scan visuals transmitting now. No one needs to fly into the side of a mountain; the ore vein is right on the surface of the rockface." Now, suddenly, Kali's voice got smoother and deadly serious; the nearly digital on/off bickering versus cool professionalism was an interesting thing to witness and she pinged the channels primarily for Jea and Liha but left it open for everyone else's knowledge and coordination. "If you don't like the approach angle though don't risk it; there should still be--" Her tongue poked every-so-slightly out of the side corner of her mouth for a moment, this time not in insult but an unconscious thought gesture as she rapidly ran her eyes back over old data. "--enough to get at least a bit still at the old site, we haven't quite stripped it entirely dry yet." The stuff on the rockface was higher quality and quantity and would probably yield more material in the end later; but Burnie made it sound like this last run was mostly a precaution anyways, and in the end she was not the one in the cockpit this time, and she'd spent too much time as such in the past not to want to give the final call on safety and feasibility to those who were.

"It's definitely a mountain range," Cami responded. Going to drop those Romulans off there in a minute if this keeps up, she added silently. "And yes, there's ore deposits close to the surface."

Jeassaho frowned as she heard the back and forth. "We have very little juice left in the Alexandria stirring the ship so lets make this quick." Jeassaho advised.

"Go for whichever site you think you can finish fastest on, then." Kali said; the hair-on-back-of-neck-rising tension that had been flying between Kali and Liha clearly not an issue in her views of Jeassaho as she left the decision in the Betazoid's hands.

“Liha, you are closer pick one and I will follow.” Jeassaho said in a no nonsense tone. She had no time for the tension in the air and neither did the ship. Alexander only had enough juice to steer the ship for a few more hours at the most.

"I've handled harder approach angles," Liha said angling toward to cliff face - now that she knew to expect it. "I'll get that deposit and then we should have nice fat margin on supply."

Without speaking, Delaney adjusted coordinates from the slight variation she'd manually input to reangle the lighting to Kali's, resolved to remove herself from conversation. Lining the headlamps up with the intended target deposit, the pilot programmed the pass and turned her attention back to monitoring the fluctuating conditions.

“Let’s hope so.” Jeassaho said following in the worker bee despite Liha saying she was going to get enough of a deposit for a margin. Jeassaho was feeling uneasy at the the noises the Alexander was making in the distance and she wanted to be out there just in case.

It wasn't the easiest approach, but Liha set the workerbee down above a rich vein and went to work using the laser cutting tools to score along the edges of the vein, then cut at deeper, angling the incision until it would take only a sharp yank from the servo arms to pull the slab of ore from the surface. "Got it," she reported over the open comm. "This should more than top us up. Heading back -"

Just as lifted off there was a crack and pop, not from the rock face but from the Alexander. It was followed by a sudden flare from the ship's engine!

"Cut the Alexander loose! She's going critical!"

Jeassaho watched the fraction of power holding the ship to the pilot ship that was the Alexander dissipated and SS Mary Rose slowed down and started to drift just a little as the Alexander carried on. Jeassaho frowned as her fears came to fruition and the Alexander burst into a million pieces with only a small rock of the workerbee thankfully.

Kali's eyes were only marginally paying attention to the shuttle's fate - enough to avoid it, hopefully; because without it now they'd collide with the moon or the other spatial objects near by in short order if left in the current situation. The lion's share of her focus was suddenly in fingers flying across and between panels and controls, rerouting from the tiny shreds of power that had held the ship and the shuttle together - and from anything else she could - towards firing a series of bursts from the maneuvering thrusters that honestly burned way more power than they had left to spare, eyes fixed forward on the displays in front of her in a eerie hard intensity that mirrored an aerial predator in their gaze before finally relaxing slightly. "...Alright. We are in orbit of the moon." Her eyes flicked back to double-check the display as she spoke. "That won't hold forever though and we kinda burned half our remaining power achieving it, so..." Kali let her voice trail off, the implication of 'we need to finish the refining and repairs before we either run out of air or crash into the surface' fairly clear.

The pin-drop silence as the implications of the Romulan's words settled was almost worse than the constant prattle had been. Delaney, who had moved fast to reposition the shuttle to act as a buffer for the workerbees if necessary, drew in a long breath through her nose and exhaled slowly. They'd already left the Mary Rose in reasonably dire straits; from what she recalled of the calculations that had been flagged during the mission briefing, a reduction of half power left them with only hours of guaranteed life support.

The pilot glanced across at the Bajoran she'd been avoiding, studying Cami's profile for a moment before returning her attention to moving them back to their initial flight path. "Let's get what we need then," she spoke quietly into the silence, "And get it home."

"I've got enough here," Liha reported, sending the workerbee on a beeline for the docking bay. "Everyone get back before the orbit decays."

"You heard her," Burnie called over the comm. "Get the ore unloaded and then hook the workerbees into their docks. I'll reverse the connection so we can draw down their batteries to compensate for some of the power loss."

Jeassaho did not need to be told twice as she unloaded the last of what she had and headed back to the ship making sure her ev suit helmet was firmly in place for for landing. "I will wait for the shuttle to be back and offer more light for you guys." Jeassaho offered truly seeing for the first time how dark the ship looked.

"Home," Cami muttered, returning the glance Delaney had given her. She felt bad, after the conversation with Leiddem, that she'd upset a few people. Laney among them. Maybe the Prophets wanted her to make some amends along the way. "We need to get you back to Leiddem, after all," she said, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She meant it; she wanted him to be happy, and having them both back safe and sound would go a long way towards delivering that.