Tagg was vigorously running various scans around the area, short and long range, as he it was his job to find out where they are and if there was a system near by that may have a planet habitable enough. It may not have been ordered, but as Chief, he needed to think ahead. With life support offline, who knows how long it would take to repair it and he needed to have options available for the Captain.

“Hazard Team Bravo is en route to Deck 16, with a damage control team and Lieutenant Beck,” said Graves.

“Any reason as to why the fire suppression system did not engage?” Maxwell asked.

“It appears whatever damaged the life support and started the fire, may had also damaged the fire suppression system in that room. Or the fire detection system. Either way, they're going to have to fight it in person,” reported Graves.

One downside of being a Ferengi, big ears. He could hear pretty much everything on the Bridge, including the conversation between the two command officers. Nevertheless, he did his best to remain focused on his scans until finally, a popup with information of a system appeared. “Captain. Commander.” Tagg spoke up loud enough to get their attention. After he had skimmed over the data, he turned in his seat to look at them. “Long range sensors have detected a star system. Three planets. Won't know more until we take a closer look. Unfortunately, it is the only system in range and if one is barely habitable," Tagg paused.

Graves took the cue, “Which will give us an opportunity to evacuate all decks except for critical areas. Bridge, Main Engineering, Sickbay and Deck 16.”

“Good thinking, Mister Tagg. Plot a course, and don't spare the horses,” Maxwell ordered.

“Ah. I recognize that expression. Maximum warp it is." Tagg then turned back around, entered the course, pushed the warp speed indicator to max and pressed the button. In matter of seconds, the ship picked up speed then launched itself into warp velocity, which the indicator then notified that it had reached maximum speed and notified the arrival time. “We will be there in ten minutes, sirs.”

Gomez checked her monitor on her arm once more before she looked over at Beck. She did a quick visual inspection of his EV suit before she gave him a couple pats on the shoulder. While the Hazard Team Bravo were in personalized EV suits, Beck and the damage control team were in standard Starfleet. Though the damage control team were the only ones carrying packs on their back with fire foam.

“Why are we in EV suits again?” Gomo, the Cardassian, asked. Though Gomez had to make a mental correction, Gomo is the only Hazard Team member with a fire foam pack on his back.

“Deck 16 may still have oxygen like the rest of the ship, but we're about to expose ourselves to a room that may likely be running out of oxygen. Not to mention, a lot of heat from a plasma fire,” Koyda explained, husband to Maya and the Team's First Officer.

“Listen. We need to scan the room first before we open any doors, is that understood?” Maya said loudly as she began to check every single person in the turbo lift. The lift was only large enough for so many, that the damage control team was on another lift that will arrive at a different section of the deck. But the comms were open to all of them.

“Understood, ma'am,” Gomez replied and she heard everyone else do the same. As the door to the lift opened, they began to file out one by one, first Maya, then Koyda, Beck, Gomo and finally herself. They made their way towards the life support room, standing several feet away from the door in the corridor. As Maya and Koyda began to run their scans with their tricorders, Gomez felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see that it had came from Beck.

“I've been running some theories on why the fire suppression system did not engage,” said Beck.

Gomez was eager to hear this. “Go on.”

“The Sovereign was in drydock back at the Avalon Fleet Yards after she had a shakedown cruise to make sure the upgrades were responding fine. But often times, no one performs a one hundred percent check on all systems during a shakedown cruise,” Beck had explained.

“So why would they forget to test the most important system on a star ship, in the most important compartment that contains the most important system of a star ship?” Gomez asked.

Beck threw up his hands. “Person error, perhaps. I don't know. The only way we're going to find out is when we get in there, and that's if nothing is too far damaged from the fire.”

“If the fire is still raging since we left the aperture, there's a good chance that the life support system is not salvageable," Gomez warned him.

Beck shook his head in his helmet. “If that is the case, then we're going to need people to start searching the cargo manifest, because we may have some parts, but certainly not all of it.”

Gomez nodded her head, “I'll make a petition to Starfleet about giving us a spare life support system in one of the cargo bays in case this ever happens again. But for right now, we're going to have to cannibalize some systems. Do you know which ones you think we may have to tear apart?”

Beck sighed audibly in the comms., “No idea. Not until we get in there.”

Gomez then looked towards the Maya and Koyda, who still had their tricorders out, when Gomez noticed a crewmember heading straight for the door with a magnetic release device. She was confused as to why they would be on their way to open the door, as she is certain that Maya made it clear. “Crewmen!” Gomez began to shout in her helmet, knowing full well that the comms were still active and practically in everyone's ears. She got the attention of everyone else, but the crewmember. “Crewmen, stop!” But they placed the device on the door and began to enter the code. No one was close enough to stop them, and no one understood what was going on or why the crewmember was unresponsive.

“I think their comms are off!” Beck shouted and suddenly, they heard Maya's voice.

“Everyone get down!” As soon as Gomez hit the floor, she watched as the crewmember opened the door after they released the magnetic seal and it was too late. The room compartment had practically no oxygen but still a fuel source, something that they had yet to determine what. But it did not matter. The rest of the deck still had oxygen and they just introduced that oxygen to the fire, which resulted in a dreadful backdraft. Gomez watched in horror as the crewmember was engulfed in greenish-orangish flames, who were then running around with their mouth open, clearly screaming, while their EV suit was on fire. What's worse about this, was that not everyone made it to the deck in time, as two other crewmembers were engulfed by the fire that managed to reach out to them and were also on fire but not as back as the who had opened the door.

“Bridge to Hazard Team. The hell is going on down there? Sensors are showing that the fire is spreading!”

“This is Maya, seal off our section with bulkhead doors! Now!” Gomez heard the commanding, and yet, fear in her voice before she heard the loud thuds of bulkhead doors that had slammed down. Not only did those doors cut the fire off, but it also removed any more oxygen that the fire could feed off it. This resulted most of the flames to retreat back into the room but there were small flames around the ceiling.

“On your feet!” Maya's voice filled their comms. “Gomo, focus on the small fires on the ceiling. Damage control team, once you're done putting out your crewmembers, get in there and start tackling that fire! We need to know why its still going!”

Gomez rose to her feet in time to watch the damage control team spray fire foam on the three crewmembers to put the fire out, and then she watched them begin to spray the foam into the room. “Maya to transporter room, I got three with possible plasma burns, they need immediate site to site transport to sickbay.”

“Consider it done, Bravo.” Came from the Transporter Chief, and Gomez watched the three that were on fire just disappear.

“Gomez! Beck! Most of the fire is already out, hurry up and figure out what's keeping it going!” Maya ordered.

“Yes, ma'am!” Both Gomez and Beck replied. Gomez followed right behind Beck into the compartment and saw that the damage control team still tackling some flames. “Gomez!” She heard Beck's voice and she shifted to look at him but could not find him. “I think I found it!”

Gomez walked around the life support system, that looked entirely charred and black from the flames. She found Beck on the other side of the unit and there was an ruptured plasma conduit from the floor. There, they could see the flames spewing out far enough into the ceiling. “Jesus.” She looked at the spot the flames blasted at on the ceiling. “I am surprised it has held for so long.”

“It won't hold much longer if we don't find the valve! You remember what's above us?" Beck asked.

“Just junior crew quarters?” Gomez smirked. So far they're lucky.

Beck looked at her and grinned. “Yeah, suppose that's not too bad. Hopefully no one is in them. But also, the fire suppression detector.”

“Aren't there suppose to be more of those in this room?” She asked.

Beck shrugged his shoulders. "I'll make a note to install a couple more."

“And somewhere not near the dam plasma conduit that's running through the floor." She rolled her eyes. "Anyways, I'll go look for that valve. You go assess the life support system,” Gomez told him as she left the compartment to find the nearest jefferies tube access so she can go locate the valve and shut the plasma flow.

“Sirs. Look," said Tagg.

Maxwell stood from his seat and began to step closer to the main viewer, where from the corner of his eye, he could see Graves had done the same. What they were so interested in, was the fact that they had begun to approach the third planet. They had arrived in the system just a moment ago, and found that the first two planets were too close to the sun to be remotely habitable but the third planet was in the so called ‘Goldilocks zone.' Although, the sensors had indicated that it was a very unique planet.

“It's a planet made entirely out of gems!” Maxwell heard the excitement in Zina's voice. For one who was more in Planetary science than Bazial is, this was definitely up her alley. “It also has a set of rings, as big and thick as Saturns! And they're composed of ice asteroids, gems and crystal!”

“Focus sensors directly on the planet, we need to know if it has a breathable atmosphere,” Graves said, who stood right by Maxwell's side. “What do you think?”

Maxwell shook his head. “Either we were incredibly lucky to stumble on a planet as unique as this, or incredibly unlucky for the exact same reason. What exactly could possibly generate a breathable atmosphere on a planet made entirely out of crystals?” He asked rhetorically while he watched them begin to slowly navigate through the rings. Though it was not difficult, they were very spaced apart and had left quite an opening for them to pass right through.

“Sirs! Sensors picked up some debris in the rings. Definitely foreign," said Utsall.

Both Maxwell and Graves turned at their heels to look at tactical, and Maxwell watched as Graves stepped closer, while Maxwell remained where he was. “Can you identify the debris?”

“Better. Look,” she inputted a command and then gestured towards the view screen. Both of them, once again, turned on their heels to look at the viewer and they could see what was half of a Valdore-class warbird. The starboard wing was completely gone and so was the beak, with half of its neck. Then Utsall must have inputted another command, because the viewer magnified on the identification of the warbird.

“It's a Republic bird,” said Graves.

Maxwell sighed. “That's Jadek's ship.” Jadek was a Romulan Republic Commando, who had once served on board the Jarok. Although, Maxwell had only read about the man and had planned on to meet the man where he had made a request to the Republic for Jadek as Second Officer of Starbase 415 through the Officer Exchange Program. Unfortunately, the request could not be completely made because when he approached Jadek with the idea, Jadek had turned it down since he was reassigned to a different bird, which had begun their tour in the Independent Factions territory. They very much needed to make an attempt to assist more worlds outside of the Republic and hopefully, get some to join.

“The debris is incomplete, sir,” Utsalls voice cut through right through Maxwell's thoughts, thus made him turn on his heel to look at her.

“How so?” He asked.

“The debris is inconsistent, from what the sensors are telling me. Escape pods are missing, and so are their small crafts. If the ship and crew had completely met their end, the mass of the main structure would be more and the debris field would contain more metals and components,” she explained.

“So there could be survivors?” Graves asked.

The Klingon nodded her head, “Indeed, Commander.”

Maxwell turned back towards the viewer and stepped closer to the two stations, where he placed his hand on Tagg's shoulder. “Get us in orbit of that planet, now!” He watched as the young officer inputted the commands, before his eyes returned to the viewer and saw everything rush past the viewer at a fast speed, with their direction adjusted for medium orbit. This goal did not take long at all and the orders to scan the surface of the planet had been given.

“I'm detecting small crafts on the surface! And escape pods!” Reported Utsall.

“We got life signs on sensors," reported Bazial. “But they're under the surface of the planet?”

“It's possible that they found a large cavern,” said Zina before she made her report. “The atmosphere is barely breathable. If we were to send anyone down there, they would need an EV suit or oxygen masks. But sensors are detecting that the oxygen is coming from a network of caves.”

Maxwell looked up at the ceiling. “Maxwell to Maya, how's the fire going?”

“It has been dealt with, Captain. A plasma conduit in the life support compartment had ruptured. Gomez went into the jefferies tube and turned the valve. It is safe to open those bulkhead doors now.”

“Good. Because I need you to take your team, go to the transporter pad on Deck 15 and beam down to the planet surface. We will send the coordinates to the terminal."

“What is our mission?”

“Quickly investigate the cave network, reach the cavern where there are survivors of a Romulan Republic ship and let us know if the cavern is large enough and has enough oxygen for seven hundred people,” Maxwell could feel the eyes on him after he had said that.

“Sir?”

Maxwell began to look at each and every one on the bridge, before he looked back up at the ceiling.

“We're abandoning ship.”