Somewhere beyond the outer rim
A ship floated through the dark expanse of space, flickers of red light appeared along the ships lateral hull. Its engines whined, fire bellowed out, but sputtered dead after several seconds.
Onboard, crew ran to extinguish fires and others checked on the health of those who had been, just moments ago, trapped in compartments that had been sealed off.
"Status report!" the captain shouted over the many alarms that blared across the bridge. His bridge crews were starved for sleep, having been up for several hours tending to the damages to the ship. Just hours before they were getting ready to phase the ship out so they could test out a new weapon system, now they were dealing with the failure of the phase drives emergency systems.
"Power grid is failing, phase drive is beginning to run rampant," his damage control officer shouted over the intership comm. The captain grumbled and glanced at the various displays that lay behind him, each one showed a different portion of the ship and each one had something going on.
He rested his head back against his chair and recounted the events that lead up to this.
Flash back
The door parted and a man entered the bridge; he wore a typical navy uniform but was devoid of any rank insignia. "Where do we stand?"
"Phase drive is online, engines are one hundred percent, reactor core is stable at eighty percent and weapons are offline. Long range sensor suite detects no ships in our test area," said his sensors and communications officers one after the other.
The man nodded and took a seat in the captain’s chair. "Very well, inform engineering that we'll begin our tests in just a few minutes," he said. His crew nodded, he looked at the displays that were before him and watched as his crew went to their test stations. Unlike most ships, the shadows had cameras everywhere since it was a stealth ship and the bridge crew often wanted to make sure no one was dealing anything underhanded.
"Phrase drive at ten percent," his weapons officer said. Even though he couldn't see it, he could just barely feel the pins and needles on his skin. Plus, the minor 'visual disruption' on the bridge also told him that they were phasing. It was a very minor disruption but it was the main reason why the phase drive was dangerous to use. While the entire ship was 'ghosted' and could go through solid objects, it still left a residual trace on the bridge.
"Experimental weapons suite is coming online now," weapons said. The captain nodded and watched the counter, after a few minutes, he smiled when the counter reached a hundred percent.
The suite was ready and so was the phase cloak. "One hundred percent sir, we are ready for test firing," his weapons officer said as she brought up a targeting screen.
In the distance was a rock no bigger than one of their Sparrows that had been dropped there for use in this test. As the officer targeted the asteroid, she began to count down the firing sequence. "Firing in five... four.. three... two... one.." she said and hit the firing key.
Nothing happened... then suddenly a massive explosion rocked the ship, causing it to spin out into space. The ship went belly up as fires licked across the hole; a massive hole roughly ten feet in diameter was present in the center of the ship.
[/b]End flash back[/b]
The captain let out a sigh and turned his attention back to the situation at hand. He knew now that the phase drive was done, the ten foot diameter hole was where the phase drive 'had' been but was now gone. There was nothing left of it, the drive itself was obliterated leaving just their ship, while the fail-safe’s that would shut the drive down had indeed failed - a secondary fail safe had engaged which is what saved the ship.
"Sir, communications just went offline.." the comm. officer grumbled as he tried to reestablish a connection, but failed each time. He cursed several times at each failure, finally after the fifteenth time; he stopped and switched his attention to the intership comms.
With another sigh he went to help his crew. "I doubt anyone will find us, this place is so remote that not even New Order or Coalition ships come here, perhaps a stray Confederation patrol but I highly doubt it... all we can do is hope that perhaps someone might find us.."
"Yea, but without communications I doubt it," the comm. officer said.
"Actually, the detonation of our phase drive left a noticeable wake... if anyone is within a hundred light-years of our position they'll pick it up.. no doubts there," the weapons officer said before she unbuckled herself and floated off her chair. "Though.. will they be friendly or hostile?"
"Either way, prime the self destruct sequence just in case, even though we lost out phase drive we still have technology on board that would be invaluable to the TNO.." with that the captain trotted off the bridge.
A ship floated through the dark expanse of space, flickers of red light appeared along the ships lateral hull. Its engines whined, fire bellowed out, but sputtered dead after several seconds.
Onboard, crew ran to extinguish fires and others checked on the health of those who had been, just moments ago, trapped in compartments that had been sealed off.
"Status report!" the captain shouted over the many alarms that blared across the bridge. His bridge crews were starved for sleep, having been up for several hours tending to the damages to the ship. Just hours before they were getting ready to phase the ship out so they could test out a new weapon system, now they were dealing with the failure of the phase drives emergency systems.
"Power grid is failing, phase drive is beginning to run rampant," his damage control officer shouted over the intership comm. The captain grumbled and glanced at the various displays that lay behind him, each one showed a different portion of the ship and each one had something going on.
He rested his head back against his chair and recounted the events that lead up to this.
Flash back
The door parted and a man entered the bridge; he wore a typical navy uniform but was devoid of any rank insignia. "Where do we stand?"
"Phase drive is online, engines are one hundred percent, reactor core is stable at eighty percent and weapons are offline. Long range sensor suite detects no ships in our test area," said his sensors and communications officers one after the other.
The man nodded and took a seat in the captain’s chair. "Very well, inform engineering that we'll begin our tests in just a few minutes," he said. His crew nodded, he looked at the displays that were before him and watched as his crew went to their test stations. Unlike most ships, the shadows had cameras everywhere since it was a stealth ship and the bridge crew often wanted to make sure no one was dealing anything underhanded.
"Phrase drive at ten percent," his weapons officer said. Even though he couldn't see it, he could just barely feel the pins and needles on his skin. Plus, the minor 'visual disruption' on the bridge also told him that they were phasing. It was a very minor disruption but it was the main reason why the phase drive was dangerous to use. While the entire ship was 'ghosted' and could go through solid objects, it still left a residual trace on the bridge.
"Experimental weapons suite is coming online now," weapons said. The captain nodded and watched the counter, after a few minutes, he smiled when the counter reached a hundred percent.
The suite was ready and so was the phase cloak. "One hundred percent sir, we are ready for test firing," his weapons officer said as she brought up a targeting screen.
In the distance was a rock no bigger than one of their Sparrows that had been dropped there for use in this test. As the officer targeted the asteroid, she began to count down the firing sequence. "Firing in five... four.. three... two... one.." she said and hit the firing key.
Nothing happened... then suddenly a massive explosion rocked the ship, causing it to spin out into space. The ship went belly up as fires licked across the hole; a massive hole roughly ten feet in diameter was present in the center of the ship.
[/b]End flash back[/b]
The captain let out a sigh and turned his attention back to the situation at hand. He knew now that the phase drive was done, the ten foot diameter hole was where the phase drive 'had' been but was now gone. There was nothing left of it, the drive itself was obliterated leaving just their ship, while the fail-safe’s that would shut the drive down had indeed failed - a secondary fail safe had engaged which is what saved the ship.
"Sir, communications just went offline.." the comm. officer grumbled as he tried to reestablish a connection, but failed each time. He cursed several times at each failure, finally after the fifteenth time; he stopped and switched his attention to the intership comms.
With another sigh he went to help his crew. "I doubt anyone will find us, this place is so remote that not even New Order or Coalition ships come here, perhaps a stray Confederation patrol but I highly doubt it... all we can do is hope that perhaps someone might find us.."
"Yea, but without communications I doubt it," the comm. officer said.
"Actually, the detonation of our phase drive left a noticeable wake... if anyone is within a hundred light-years of our position they'll pick it up.. no doubts there," the weapons officer said before she unbuckled herself and floated off her chair. "Though.. will they be friendly or hostile?"
"Either way, prime the self destruct sequence just in case, even though we lost out phase drive we still have technology on board that would be invaluable to the TNO.." with that the captain trotted off the bridge.