Part of USS Mariner: M3: Let Loose the Beast of War and Bravo Fleet: Labyrinth

17.5) Maelstrom of madness

USS Mariner - Ready Room
September 2401
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The ready room was still a mess after everything that had happened to the Mariner. Sazra had no chance to sit down in her office and clean it a bit. She had a meeting in this room to coordinate the operations to repair the ship, attend to the wounded, and figure out what had happened. Sazra picked up a replica of Damascus's plaque and looked at it briefly, remembering her adventures in the Delta Quadrant with the Crystal Entity. Taking a deep breath as she had a moment to herself.

"Captain's log supplemental. 

It has been a pretty hectic week. No….hectic is an underestimated value of what is. It is pure madness. Over a week ago, we left Starbase 86 to cross the borders into the neutral zone between the Romulan Republic and the Klingon Empire. Our destination was the new colony of Mogotis, a refugee colony as remnants of the old Romulan Empire. They request aid in the form of supplies and potentially do something against the Klingon raiders. 

We arrived, dropped the supplies, and were about to investigate a nearby asteroid field. But then, within a matter of minutes, we saw Mogotis being destroyed by the terrifying natural force of what we now believe was the formation of a new underspace wormhole. The force and gravity pull held us, and the pieces of the former colony flying around us didn't make it easier. Lieutenant K'Nala is commended for her skilled piloting, and I think we all owe our lives to her. 

Moments later, we found ourselves in the hostile space of underspace. At that time, we had no idea it was that place. As sensors were down, the upper decks had been damaged severely, and we even lost a part of that hull. Our right warp cell was almost cut off from the main structure of the ship. The current count of the crew is also no … great. Medical has given me a recent update on the numbers, and we lost 22 people, 5 are still in critical condition, 28 are in severe condition, and the rest are operational or doing their bit.

I was forced to be creative with the people I had. Operations are helping out at Engineering, Science is helping out in the capacity they can miss with Medical, and Engineering is a full house right now. Progress is made; the warp engine is almost secured to the main structure, yet Commander Valerio has reasonably pointed out that it is patch-up work and advised against using warp anytime soon. 

Additionally, we have a Klingon ship at the port; I have ordered Lieutenant Miki to prepare an away team and get to the ship to provide potential aid. While the Klingons are stubborn, their ship is in no condition to do anything. We might be looking at dragging their ship out of this place. 

This place, yeah…. It's a wild card, for sure. With Lieutenant Scott out after saving Commander Ruslanovna, she got injured severely in the transit back to our ship. Meaning, I was to rely on Lieutenant Bruno to get me some answers. They concluded that we are currently in the underspace, but the how and why are still unclear. Because underspace is a thing of Delta Quadrant, how it was able to form here leaves a lot of question marks. We were not pulled to another location because we were in some hub transit location. The hub functions as a knot, rooting branches in different directions for the underspace. Thus, the gravity pull is lower; this is very theoretical based, so nothing is set in stone.

For now, this is my update on the situation. 

End log"

The computer bleeps as Sazra shrugs, knowing what kind of situation they are in and yet not out of danger. She looked outside, seeing the hostile area. “Science can be scary….but why am I so damn fascinated about it” It was in her scientific background that she wanted to explore this rather than limp back. But it was not allowed this time.