Everything happened at once.

First, the comms went down. Then, the lights. Soon enough, everything was in chaos–but Jetta couldn’t understand why. If this was a sort of blackout, that would mean that doors wouldn’t be malfunctioning, or any tools nearly blowing up in her crew’s faces. But they were.

She had been on the middle decks when everything happened, Ms. Jetta Dowe. Exploring the ship a little bit more as she had the time. But now she had quite a few questions. Questions we’re answered a bit too quickly for her liking as Captain Dowe walked her way into the sickbay, the sounds of a gasping and groaning man emitting from it’s walls. The bay was packed, with injured people all around. Emergency backup lighting was on, but even that was significantly limited.

From the Captain’s first glance, a lot of these looked like burns or shrapnel wounds. Anyone on the medical team attended to them as her eyes then landed to Amira, who was next to the loudest wailing man. Lying on the cot was someone Jetta had yet to meet–human, male, looked to be an Ensign, but it was hard to tell: half of his whole body was badly burnt, with the uniform almost singed off the complete left side of him.

“Captain!” Amira called, voice calm and level-headed. “Come help me with this!”

“On it. What do you need?” Jetta hustled forward, as Amira tried to hold the man down. He seemed to be in far too much pain to be able to do anything but wail.

“I need you to hold him down. I need to administer a sedative, but every time I try to use the hypospray–” The doctor once again tried, only to be met with a hand to the face. “–I can’t deliver anywhere but the neck right now, the injuries are proving too much of a risk.”

Jetta cringed as she held the poor man down, emitting an extra cry from him. But it was over sooner than it had happened, the sedative plunged into his system working almost instantly. When given the clear, Jetta let go of the Ensign and looked up at Amira.

“Status report?” She asked, eyes widening. Now was the time to be a little expressive.

“There was a sudden comm malfunction. Apparently this man was working near the mess hall near a replicator and got scared by the sudden static.” Amira was already hastily at work, applying the needed aide to the man’s singed side. “One thing led to another, and he essentially blew a multitude of systems in the ship. But even then, I don’t think we can give one fully.”

“Has anyone been able to get to engineering?” She asked, helping Amira when motioned too.

“No. I think that when this–” She motioned to the Ensign. “–happened, since comms are down and they were dealing with that, this caused a sort of unchecked chain reaction. Turbolifts are currently down.”

“Damn.” Jetta cursed under her breath, cogs already turning in her head. “Life support seems to still be operating.”

“For now.” Amira sighed. “But we need to establish some sort of connection. With the turbolifts down…”

“…we can’t be sure.” Jetta finished her sentence, brow still furrowed. “Computer?” There was a pause. Nothing. “Worth a shot.” The two continued to work, with Jetta consistently brainstorming various ideas to get down to engineering. But every time, both Amira and Jetta would shut each other down; the ideas we’re good, but with little to no communication or lighting…

“AHA!” Jetta suddenly yelled, gaining a jolt from Dr. Sullivan (and everyone else in the sickbay). “I got it! The Jeffries Tubes!”

“Captain, absolutely not.”  Amira warned as she finished a bandage on a  Lieutenant Junior Grade’s arm. “With the state of the ship, there’s no way we can predict the state of them.”

“Doctor, it’ll work! I’ll just see if I can make a flashlight out of something here, and-” Jetta tried to speak.

“You could be hurt, bad.” The doctor glared, cutting her off. “For the sake of everyone and our Captain, I can’t in good faith recommend-”

“Amira.” Jetta cut her off. The Doctor took a deep inhale, already knowing that tone far too well.

“I can’t stop you from that idea, can I.”

“No. You can’t.” Jetta pat her shoulder. “But it’s fine! It means your looking out for me–us. I understand the dangers, but you have to understand why I’d want to go.”

There was a long, hard pause from the doctor. She didn’t know Jetta long, but she knows the type; how reckless they can be, how arrogant they can be. To put that in the hands of a Captain? But, there was something about Jetta Dowe. The way her words are genuine–the determination she had. It was a dangerous task, but…it had to be done.

“. . . I do.” Amira finally sighed, walking over to her desk and pulling out a small bag. “This is my go bag. Take it–it should have a handheld flashlight.”

“Awh, thank you!” Jetta grabbed the bag, slinging it over her shoulder. “I’ll enter the nearest one at the end of the hallway.” She turned to walk right out the door, mind already set on the–

“Be careful, Captain.” Amira pleaded, grabbing her wrist. “I cannot emphasize on how dangerous this may be.”

“I will be.” Jetta patted her hand and started to walk out the door. “..but I can’t make promises okBYE!” She called, before dashing down the hall. Amira let out a long, frustrated sigh–that girl will be the death of her.

–

Plimmitt was having….a time. He was barking orders as the whole engineering crew hastily ran to follow along; this was very difficult with limited resources, communication, and tempers. It was only a little bit ago that something in the turbolift had slammed by the floor and into the lowest of decks, and not a single person could get the lift doors open.

So imagine his shock when his own Captain came crashing down from the ceiling out of one of the Jeffries Tube—and directly onto one of his Ensigns.

The engineering room was dimly lit, with barely any power. Whilst some remained, it was getting darker yet darker, and if they wanted to do anything, it had to happen soon.

”CAPTAIN!” Plimmitt screeched. Whilst some of it was genuine shock, a lot of it was annoyance.

”Ah! Sorry, sorry.” Jetta stood up, dusting the Ensign (who was fine) off. “Mr. Ruuvo-“

“What do you think you’re doing?!” He hissed, very clearly stressed out of his mind. “That was incredibly stupid! You could’ve hurt one of my Ensign’s very seriously, and-“

”Plimmitt.” Jetta snapped, cutting the lizard off and shutting him up. After a moment, he took a deep inhale.

”Apologies, Captain. There’s a lot going on right now.”

“I can tell.” Jetta looked around the room, before glancing back at her top engineer. “There’s been a sort of blackout. Comms are down, an accident happened with a replicator..”

“..and that’s why there’s mass short circuiting. Great.” Plimmitt rubbed his temples.

”Perhaps it’s a good idea to hard reboot the core.” Jetta narrowed her eyes in the warp core’s direction. “I was thinking that as I crawled hear. All that needs to happen is getting everyone away from any open stations.”

Plimmit thought for a second, before nodding. “It’s worth a shot. We’ve been stuck for options, anyways..” He instantly started walking, getting Jetta to follow. “Okay, everyone! Listen up!”

The Saurian stood atop one of the counters, hands on his hips. “Seeing that we’ve made no progress, we’re going to do a hard reset of the warp core. It’ll hopefully give us full light at the very least, and access to the bridge.”

”But that means EVERYONE needs to be paying attention here.” Jetta snapped her fingers at a few crew members.

”The Captain’s right. One slip up and we could hurt a good amount of people.” Plimmitt frowned. It wasn’t hard to reset the power flux within the ship; what was difficult was the fact that every single appliance would be turning back on all at once. If someone was too close to one that’s damaged…

“We’ve all gone over this in the academy. You all know what you have to do.” Jetta crossed her arms. “Mr. Ruuvon, what’s your orders?”

”Mh.” Plimmitt grabbed his chin, tapping it. “I may but Lieutenant Torres in charge and have us go back up there. If we go to all the decks and come back here, we could keep everyone from getting injured.”

“Genius!” Jetta smiled. “If everyone is warned…then we have no possibility of injuries! We have the time, too.”

”Finally, someone understands what I’m saying.” Plimmitt let out an exhausted sigh, as he looks to the rest of his crew. “Get to your stations. We should—“

Before the poor man could finish, the whole ship lurched to the side. Jetta had to catch herself and Plimmitt from falling off the railing.

”Status report!” She barked. Plimmitt ran down to one of the consoles.

”We’ve hit a particularly large asteroid, captain.” Plimmitt grumbled, trying to get a better grasp at the situation. “Decks fifteen, thirty, and twenty one are all damaged.”

”I’m assuming the emergency protocol has shut them off.” She covered her mouth, trying to think. But yet once again…

…the ship jolted and rocked. But this time it sounded more electrical, more mechanical. Like multiple things had imploded on themselves at once.

“Captain…” Plimmitt started.

”What is it?”

”We may not have the time anymore.” He gulped, moving to the side to show Jetta the console. As she walked up, anxiety dropped to her stomach.

”What’s going on?!” One of the crew shouted.

”Alright, everyone. More time to spare just became very limited.” Jetta took a deep inhale as she turned to the crew. “Life support isn’t going to last past one hour unless we get this ship up and running.”