My entry for the
#TalesofTragedy Writing Contest!
Nick stared down at the flashing red console. The ship was under attack. He grasped a nearby safety rail as it started to shake. Many of his colleagues were quick at work; managing the sensor array to keep it from going offline, rerouting coolant so the reactors maintained power, or working on shield modulations to protect them from their unknown enemy. Nick just stood there.
What is a geneticist supposed to do during a battle? He was at his station, but aside from someone suddenly developing a genetic disorder, he didn’t have much of a function. For situations like this, Nick had received medical training to act as an emergency medic, but so had most of the other science department. Sick Bay had all the help they needed. While familiar with the ship’s science systems, his other colleagues were far more experienced in the aforementioned specialties than he.
A ship of this class didn’t usually staff a geneticist. The position had only been made available recently. Up till this point, he’d busied himself by taking on tasks that generally were relegated to a secondary science vessel. After the sector had already been explored and mapped by a more heavily armored and defendable ship, a science team or teams would be dispatched to research anything that was flagged as being of interest to Starfleet or the Federation.
Nick had found some interesting DNA sequences in a Type 3 nebula that had fascinated him greatly. Primordial and similar to DNA found on Earth, they were a mystery that he’d been working on for several months. He also had to sequence the genes and make high resolution scans of plants found on a recent planetary survey. They were to be transferred back to Science Ops for further study. Thus he’d had plenty of interesting work to occupy his time during the mission.
Nick stood there, looking around, trying to find something to do, but his colleagues were already on it. The ship shook. The emergency sirens rang. And seconds later the intercom came on, “Abandon ship.” Nearby screens blinked momentarily, then repeated the order with markings and directional information on how and where to evacuate the ship. The escape pods for this section were just down the corridor; Nick passed them every day on his way in.
Nick and the rest of the crew in his department started heading for the door. As he approached the door he could see Matt and Ginny Beckman talking on the intercom. Their children were up in the crew quarters and were obviously frightened. They were reassuring their children, instructing them to head to the escape pods and telling them they’d be along right behind them. Their children were listening, but Nick could still see the worry in their parent’s faces.
As Nick approached the doorway, he had to make a decision. To the left was the escape pods and to the right was the turbolift. He knew what he had to do; Nick took a right. He grabbed the arm of his Department Head who was standing in the corridor and making sure everyone was well and on their way and pulled him along with him.
“Nick, what are you doing? We have to go!” said Benjamin. Benjamin was a good man. They had worked together on a few different assignments over the years and considered each other friends.
“I’m not leaving without him.” Nick replied as he stepped into the turbolift.
“What? Are you crazy? You can’t even get to the Bridge right now. It’ll be locked to bridge officers only.”
“I know. I need your authorization code” said Nick as he pointed to the turbolift controls.
Benjamin looked up at Nick. His stern expression said it all. If Ben knew anything about his friend it was that when Nick was determined about something there was no changing his mind. Benjamin typed in a quick command into the controls and looked back at Nick.
“Good luck.” and with that, Benjamin headed back down the corridor to check on the rest of the department.
Nick stepped into the turbolift, the doors slid shut and he was rapidly on his way. The ship was still shaking and in the turbolift it was no different. He held on tight to the railing as it thrashed about. He could see from the display that some of the tubes had collapsed, some had been blocked by non-functional lifts, and others were escorting evacuees to the shuttle bay. The trip would not be direct and it would not be quick. Every distant explosion felt like it was at his feet and every moment seemed like an eternity.
Finally, the turbolift came to a stop and expelled its cargo onto the bridge with a sudden stop. The scene on the bridge was anything but reassuring. The Engineering stations had overloaded and were burnt beyond repair. Ducts and wiring had fallen through the cracked ceiling. Unknown gasses were hissing and billowing into the air. Judging by the readouts on the displays that were working, it was obvious the ship was badly damaged.
Most of the bridge crew was missing, most likely already evacuated. On the floor lay Chief Engineer Kopp, she must’ve died when the consoles overloaded. Nick didn’t know her well, but she was a great oboist and performed regularly with the ship band at events. He’d had many good memories with her music filling the air. Nick looked around and found what he was looking for sitting at the Conn.
Jameson was urgently tapping at the console. He had hardly noticed the turbolift, but quickly looked back when he heard Nick approaching. A look of shock and concern crossed his features, but moments later he was looking back at the display again.
“Nick, what are you doing here?”
“I wasn’t going to leave without you.”
“The captain’s the last to leave.”
“What can I do?”
“Head down that corridor and take the first pod you can find. I can’t worry about you too.” He said as firing a salvo of torpedoes back at the enemy.
Nick grabbed Jameson by the shoulder and he looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m not leaving without you.”
Nick sat down and at Ops and started tapping at the controls. “Most of the escape pods have cleared the ship. The shuttle craft are tractoring as many as they can out of the system.” The ship took a direct hit to the saucer section, directly by the Bridge. Nick and Jameson held tightly onto the consoles, but it still tossed them to the ground.
Jameson got back up and quickly returned fire. Nick checked the damage.
“Well, that’s that then. We’re blocked off from the rest of the ship and the transporters are offline.”
They looked up at each other.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
