((Soval, Bridge))
They were halfway through their 3rd day being trapped in the green hazy gravitic field being produced by the 7 micro singularities. They had been drained off all but their emergency back-up power during the first day, and by the end of the 2nd day even those power reserves had been all but depleted. The senior staff had made the decision to collect all of the roughly 330 crew aboard in 3 separate areas of the ship, the bridge, the area around the 8 Ahead Lounge at the fore of the saucer, and a small team of engineers would stay in an auxiliary bay with Jeffries tube access to main engineering. The engineers had collected EV suits for each of them, just in case they had come up with a plan.
Though all their main systems had been compromised and shut down, they had been able to confirm that their distress call must have made it through to someone. Through their final remaining optical sensor systems(the crew’s Mark 1 eye balls looking out the viewscreen and other windows), that 2 vessels had arrived in the vicinity. An allied Romulan warbird, and a Starfleet Sabre class escort could be seen through the dark green fluorescent field that was holding them captive. So morale was low, but hope remained.
“Both of the other refuge areas are reporting the chief engineer’s plan is working for now Captain.” Reynolds said as he confirmed the fact with the Ensign who was manning their improvised comm system.
Through a series of trial and error, they had discovered that the energy field outside wasn’t able to drain power from the standard 2 megawatt portable fusion generators that were ubiquitous on most Starfleet vessels and usually used for away missions and humanitarian response. One of the comms techs had also come up with a way to tie a standard issue comm badge into one of the outputs on the genies, which allowed the 3 different locations to remain in contact with each other.
“Thank you Commander.” the CO stood from the centre seat and looked around at his people, “We have power, we have rations, and we have help on the scene. Let’s keep working the problem, and stay ready, as I’m sure our comrades out there are preparing a rescue attempt as we speak.” Captain Priax said to the 10 other volunteers who remained on the bridge with him and Reynolds. The XO was similarly running things in the forward lounge area, and the Chief Engineer herself was on standby with about a dozen volunteers from her staff down in the Aux bay.
They hadn’t yet figured out exactly what the singularities were, or even their nature in any prosaic sense. Whether they were natural phenomena, a defensive technological Venus Fly Trap, a strange new lifeform, or something else entirely was still up in the air, but itnwas clear that the micro anomalies were reactive to external stimuli of all the various types that they had attempted thus far.
Reynolds had been standing his hands griping the railing directly behind the Captains chair with his head down for several seconds. His eyes were fixed in a version of the ‘Thousand yard stare’ until his suddenly looked up, titled his head to each side while he pursued a certain train of thought before nodding and exclaiming forcefully, “Morse Code!”
“Sir?” A yellow shirted tellarite JG asked.
“Morse code, its an ancient form of communication that was used several centuries ago on Earth. It was based on an alphabet that was expressed short and long sound tones over primitive communication sets…but it was also adapted to be used on naval vessels during oceanic operations via signal lamps. If we can see the ships out there then…” Reynolds said.
“They can presumably see us in here. The viewscreen…qe can use the viewscreen, and single our allies by turning the lights in here on and off using morse code. Genius Reynolds! When we get out of this remind me to put you in for a fucking medal.” Priax nodded at his second officer, and then started barking orders to his staff to send a message using the archaic means.
