SD242402.25 - CO - Duty Log - "I Get Knocked Down"
Posted on Sun Feb 25th, 2024 @ 5:31pm by Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
584 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission:
Escape Velocity
Location: Starbase Versailles
Timeline: Current
=^= Main Operations =^=
"Tag out, Lieutenant."
A pair of bleary eyes looked up from the console screen, and met the sympathetic gaze of his day shift counterpart.
"...8 already?" he managed, gripping the edge of the console to steady himself as he rose to his feet.
"Yeah." the counterpart replied, her muscular hand gently pointing him towards the exit.
Around the room, the scene was being repeated over and over again. Swaying on their feet, a dozen disoriented officers and crew gradually shuffled their way towards the turbolifts.
As the turbolift doors opened, General Grey strode into Ops, weaving past his beleagured night shift as they blindly fumbled their way to salvation.
"General." said his yeoman, who was also watching the night shift workers from a nearby harness chair.
"More of the same?" the General asked, grimly.
"Mostly, sir." his yeoman replied. "It's gotten better since we split the shifts in half, alternating them every two hours. People just can't tolerate this sort of stress on their bodies, not with the nearest inertial dampeners under strain."
"Fortunately our CEO's keeping the dampeners around the center of the station at 100%. Ops is bad, the rings are worse. I'm told the promenade took another hit last night when the shields flickered." the General replied, consulting the summaries on his personal padd.
"Yes. Three fatalities, I'm sorry to say. The systems are being broken as fast as we can fix them. And we can't stop for repairs." the yeoman added; a statement of unpleasant fact.
"No we can't. We'd never get to warp again without shearing the station in half." the General confirmed, receiving the salute of his day shift bodyguards on their way in. The night shifters had guarded him in his sleep, and now they were off to a well-deserved rest.
In the centre of the room sat a round table. On top of the table was a glowing hologram. For the past few weeks, the hologram had been a big, dotted line. At one end was a black hole, and the other end was a rogue planet on the very edge of Federation space.
As time had passed, the station's journey had been tracked in real time. Hours had become days, days had become weeks, and then months. They were now limping along at a mere warp 1.3, and everyone was extremely sick of the way the dampeners would occasionally announce the dreaded "Warning: tolerance exceeded".
This was often followed by a brief drop in coverage, where everyone and everything would suddenly get yanked towards the back of the room. General Grey himself had over a dozen bruises from these events, and a couple of exciting new scars.
Unfortunately, keeping the dampeners surrounding the majority of the population (sheltering in the center oof the station) precluded things like rewiring the station to allow Ops to be moved.
The fact that two of the redundant command centres were crushed into mangled piles of metal also contributed. Of all the areas with reliable comms and power, this was one of the few not crammed with crew and civilians.
"Just two more days." announced the General, feeling he ought to do something about morale. "We're still going strong, and we'll tough it out no matter what happens. Because we're Starfleet, and we never back down from a challenge."
"Warning. Tolerance exceeded." the computer replied.
The General suddenly noticed he was the only one not strapped into a chair.
"Ah."
=^= End of Log =^=
Brigadier General Jonathan Grey
Commanding Officer
Starbase Versailles
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