The View From the Bridge

[Main Bridge]

[Deck 1]

[Day 1, 1300 Hours]

With a swish, the turbolift doors opened to relative darkness. The pulsing, languid repetition of Condition Gray appeared at the center of the Bridge's aft consoles. Five sets of eyes could be seen from the illuminated lift, staring out over a completely new and yet organizationally familiar command center. For Noah, who set his eyes on Operations, he found it less... of an anchored fixture. Instead of a solid bank that was a heavy angle hook, it was an elegant arc with a transparent holographic assist. He looked back at Mei and Sheldon, flashing a smile, and then he looked to Irynya.

"Captain on the Bridge," He said with an eyebrow raise, his gesture with an arm out as if to make way for her. And he waited for her to issue the commands.

The snort that escaped the Risian was, decidedly, un-Captain-like. She felt about as far from being a Captain, in rank or role, as she could get. Still, here she was. Tilting her head in a come on sort of motion for the four other officers with her she stepped onto the bridge, taking a few steps in and to the side while her eyes adjusted and the lights came up. In her head she knew that both Captain Kodak and Commander t'Nai had already set foot on the newly refurbished bridge. They weren't the first.

Still, it oddly felt as if they were the very first to set foot in the space.

From starboard to port, the first stations to blink away from Condition Gray were the aft consoles. In a wash of elegance scrollwork, each resumed their LCARS access panels- and with special dispensation. Rather than the dour gray and red LCARS skin of the era, it appeared as something retro... warm, inviting yellows, orange, purples and blues with white shell borders.

Noah smiled at Irynya, tempted in a moment to take her hand. "Surprise?" He said with a mischievous rise a brow and a cheeky, wide grin. "I-I heard through the grapevine that the Captain hated the refit skin. So I um, might've made a few tweaks to the main display codes." He glanced around, "With Index's help." He wet his lips, beaming, and then pretended to pop an invisible collar, "It's like, so retro."

The Risian's eyes had tracked the path of the light as each console shifted to the new warm tones that Noah had described. That Noah had made possible. Her eyes widened as he explained and then crinkled at their corners as appreciation and no small amount of affectionate pride lit her features. "Soooo retro," she agreed, trying the phrase on like a jacket that she wasn't quite sure would sit right on her own shoulders. She'd heard the term before, but it wasn't one she'd had much occasion to use herself.

She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed it a moment as she studied her friend, enjoying his enthusiasm as much as her own. With a slow turn, standing in place in the middle of the bridge, she took the whole space in one more time and then, stopped to face the viewscreen pressed a deep breath out through her lips, making her cheeks puff with the force.

"Ummm..." she began, "Stations please."

Her feet had long ago memorized the path from the lift to the helm. And her eyes drifted there immediately, scanning the new curves of the LCARS with its holographic elements and clean clear displays. She wasn't there for the helm, though. Sojo wasn't going far and her role--this time at least--wasn't to put her through her paces. If anything she, Noah, Sheldon, Mei, and Davis had drawn the short straws--sitting a bridge shift because it was standard procedure for all Federation ships within a parsec of Pathfinder to be on standby when the wormhole was about to open. That and they'd been the ones elected for the short bug-fixing follow-up cruise required before turning her back over to Kodak and t'Nai.

Clearing her throat as she paused between helm and the command chair she gave one last look at her console and turned away, looking instead toward the chair set aside for the Bridge's commanding officer.

"When you're ready," she said, eyeing the chair and then turning to perch on its edge. "Status report please."

Noah's trip to Operations Management was the shortest. He rounded his controls, fingers running along the cool, smooth metal. It gave him a shiver. It had that new ship smell all over again. And he breathed in. As he sat in the seat, the Ops console booted up in a similar cascade of light and LCARS. "Computer, logon, Ensign Noah Balsam. Set interface mode to Balsam-3." The console rearranged a few LCARS displays to his preferences and he began to run diagnostics. "Operations, online. Umbilicals are green, power systems online, sensors operational. Bringing the deflector online now, running diagnostic on structural integrity..." Noah stated.

"Um..." Noah tucked his chin and he frowned to himself. "Hmm. I'm getting a weird reading from the hull sensor in grid 316... near the port Impulse manifold. Helm can you confirm?" He couldn't tell if this was a feature, a bug, or one of Tork's... modifications.

"Weird how?" Iry asked at the same time that Bryad responded with, "I see it too. Doesn't look..." he paused, making a few minor adjustments on his own console to get a better look. "Doesn't look dangerous?" The last was posed as a question and a shift in his seat to look over to Noah before turning to Iry.

"Mr. Parsons?" Iry asked in turn, deferring to the Assistant Chief Engineer's insight.

The engineering console was port aft, and Sheldon found it before his eyes had fully adjusted to the bridge's low light. He settled into the seat and ran his palms across the console's cool surface — unfamiliar curves, new angles where there used to be hard edges — and then brought it online. The LCARS responded in a slow cascade from dark to lit, and Sheldon's breath caught. Not the dour post-refit palette he'd braced for. But not the old skin either — not the one they'd had before Cross's update last year. This was older than that. Warmer. Deeper golds, purples, the blue-white shell borders he'd only ever seen in engineering manuals from thirty years ago.

Oh. He'd had a brief, baffling conversation with the Captain recently in which Kodak had mentioned loving the new computer interface. Sheldon had smiled and nodded and then spent the next twenty minutes genuinely uncertain whether he'd understood the captain correctly as, to him, the refit skin looked about as warm as a diagnostic readout. This, though. This was what Kodak had meant.

"Computer," he said, "logon, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sheldon Parsons. Interface: Parsons-standard." A small reorganization of LCARS tiles. Better. "Engineering console, online."

He was three diagnostics deep when Noah flagged the hull sensor anomaly in grid 316. Sheldon had already seen it — the reading had surfaced in his port impulse manifold overlay roughly eight seconds earlier, and he'd been quietly pulling the modification log ever since. There it was, he nodded as he saw the line item in question. The modification was Tork's. Implemented sometime during the refit window it looked like. Which meant it was sanctioned by the Chief Engineer because Tork was the Chief Engineer. Sheldon was the last to know, it seemed, but that was fine: that was just how things worked now.

"That reading's from a manifold modification," Parsons said, directing his reply toward the center chair without quite turning from his console. "Chief Engineer Tork's work — it's logged. Not my design, so I won't pretend to know exactly what it's optimized for yet. I'll keep eyes on it, though. If it trends anywhere interesting I'll let you know, Sir." He nodded to Irynya, meeting her look of confirmation.

"Unless you're worried about the concentration of space dust being point-oh-seven percent higher than normal, everything looks great from my point of view. Science is good to go, Captain," Mei said as she looked up at Iry. She flashed her friend a quick smile, then turned her attention back to her panel on the very off chance that something was indeed wrong with the levels of space dust or anything else.

Appreciation flared in Iry's chest as she returned the smile. Mei's quiet humor settled a tiny piece of nervous energy in her chest. "Ok then," she breathed. "Mr. Bryad signal to Pathfinder that we're ready to go. Mr. Balsam release dock mechanisms."

Fingers moved along the partly familiar Ops station. "Control tower receiving our request..." Noah said back over his left shoulder to the Risian in command. "We have a green light... clearing all moorings. Releasing umbilicals..." He tilted his head, "Hope nobody was in them...." A beat pause. "I'm kidding, y-yes." His brow rose, "We are free to maneuver, Sir." His hand shifted to another set of controls. "Navigational deflector and sensors are coming online..."

It was hard, it seemed, to feel--maybe even to look--commanding when you were grinning. Or at least this was what was running through Irynya's head as she listened to the run down of confirmations.

"Confirmed, navigational deflectors and sensors reading green," Bryad called out, turning his head only slightly as if doing so was a necessity for his words to reach the command chair. "On your mark, sir."

From the center chair Irynya drew in a deep breath and looked from one crewmember to another, taking them in as if memorizing something she would want to be able to draw on later. If she lingered a bit on Noah's profile she didn't allow herself time to think about it, turning instead to the view screen in front of her. "Take us out Mr. Bryad. One quarter impulse to start."

Noah smiled in to a cheek, "Should I remind the Captain, its thrusters only while in station space?" He raised a brow. His nose and brows flexed back with doubt a sort of grimace of impishness, "But its probably fine... right?"

The peaks of Iry's cheeks darkened ever so slightly, but she was still grinning. "Thrusters until we're out of station space first, of course," she amended, grinning into one cheek and stealing an amused and appreciative glance at Noah. "And then one quarter impulse, if you would Mr. Bryad."

Sojourner eased back... like slowly taking a breath, feeling bones creak from lack of movement. Time to flex new muscles. With a soft warbling, the darkened deflector eased from gray to a bright cerulean rim around red and gold. The nacelles too began their slow wake- the cyan of the warp coils and the new gleam of fiery orange in the bussard collectors. Like a dancer, the silvery cool white hull did a sort of pirouette as a secondary warble from the navigational deflector meant that structural integrity was being beefed up.

As Sojo eased back from the dock — the low thrum of the ship finding its own weight again, umbilicals gone, everyone heads-down watching their readouts tick through the pull-away checklist — Sheldon glanced across the bridge toward Ops.

"Hey Noah." He kept his eyes on his console, studying readouts in case of trouble, but projected his voice towards his friend. "Just an FYI: the Captain was pretty happy about the computer interface. Really happy, actually. I think I finally know what people mean when they say 'stupid grins,'" Sheldon smirked slightly. "I think he's planning to tell you himself but I was so confused when he mentioned it. Because while he was talking about how much he loved the new interface, I was thinking about how much the color gray makes me want to die inside." His eyes finally tracked across to Noah. "I'm guessing this is what he was talking about," came a soft chuckle. "Good work." It was a compliment to his friend, yes, but also acknowledgement to a junior engineer from the assistant chief.

Noah craned his head back at that with his own stupid grin. "Oh good, I'm-I'm glad... kind of did it for him. I mean... I heard a lot of complaints from Engineering and the core too. And Science. That it was dour and hard to tell some routines..." He looked back at his data which was also alive in the orange-down, violet up LCARS retro. "I thought about going hard retro... uh, like some of the new ships they're supposedly coming out with? And going the old green and blue." His nose wrinkled. "Didn't work."

"What I want to know," Iry chimed in with curiosity, "Is when in all the stars you found time to do it." She glanced across to Noah and then half twisted, craning to look at Sheldon. "And from you, Mr. Parsons," she added with affectionate cheek, "Where the inspiration for the red velour couch came from."

Noah chuckled at the latter. "Engineers are miracle workers. And uh. It's-it's a uh... conversation piece." The keys under his fingers squealed. He was sending a diagnostic report to the personnel in one of the labs. "It's really comfortable."

"I mean," Sheldon licked his lips to wet them, "everything else about our new quarters is depressing and dour. It's basically a cave. So fine," he shrugged, fingers tapping across his console as the engineer continued to monitor readouts, "might as well make it a comfy cave. You should bring a book and some snacks sometime. We might even let you sit on the chase section," he snarked.

Irynya gave her friends a wink and a grin and then twisted back around just in time to catch Bryad's report that they were clear of station space and moving to one quarter impulse.

"Thank you Mr. Bryad," she quipped back in confirmation.

"We're leaving the L3 LaGrange point... the gravitational neutrality between the system, the star and the wormhole is, uh, shifting. We're about a minute from the electromagnetic field of DQK3V-K12518's second planet. Class J." Noah began to coordinate with Bryad. "So far the IDF and SIF are going okay. First telemetry coming in from simulated mark one... the moon closest to the planet. Sending it to Science to analyze..." Noah said, glancing up at Mei.

It took a few seconds for the information to show up and be analyzed, but soon enough Mei glanced up from her console and flashed Iry another smile. "Looks like everything's normal from here. No EM spikes, so gravitational anomalies. There's a lot of water ice with indications of an ocean beneath the surface, and higher than usual amounts of methane but nothing beyond the pale. Just a pretty regular moon in a pretty regular patch of space."

"We're about to enter the planet's electromagnetic field..." By the count of twenty, there had been no alarms and no appreciable change in the feelings of the deckplates. "IDF and SIF stable... no change in radiation. Ping two is coming up, Ensign, Ma'am. The sensor dome is yours." As the first pass had been a success, Noah's tests needed a ramp up. "I'll throw something, um, a little harder at you. This time, lets simulate the effects of a class III ion storm around ping two." Noah tapped at several keys and the resolution of the sensors graph reduced. "Wha-what can you get now, Ma'am?" Noah asked Mei.

"Sudden ion storm on the non-existent horizon, then." Mei frowned down at her console, tapping the requisite controls and flicking through the readouts. "Nothing looks catastrophic at this point. The planet and its moon won't be affected unless you're looking for a light show. As for us, I'd advise caution if we have to proceed, but it'd be in our best interest to hold back until this thing passes. Nothing seems out of the ordinary for this class of storm. But just in case, let me recalibrate sensors to make sure everything's running smoothly."

Noah nodded, "Yeah, let me know how sensor acuity is affected by the ion storm. They're supposed to be able to cut through with the new multiband layering system." He half-shrugged, "At least uh. Theoretically."

Mei raised an eyebrow but grinned as she worked. A few more seconds passed. "Looks like that was all we needed. We're getting some good readings on the storm. There are sections of higher intensity, and parts where we could sail through without too much of an issue. Doesn't look like it will intensify much, if at all, over the foreseeable future. As long as we keep our eyes open, we're good to go."

Sheldon, meanwhile, had been sifting through diagnostic screens as he kept an eye on the various systems now in play: engines, the deflector, sensors, etc. all consumed power from the warp core. And while divvying up that power was Noah's job at Ops, someone had to make sure the core was core-ing and pumping power through the relays as needed. All in all, though, engineering systems seemed nominal enough. He was content to stay quiet as reporting from the helm continued lacing the din of soft tones and beeps from the various bridge consoles.

"Thank you, Mr. Bryad." A pause, then, "Transfer complete. All readings are still within normal parameters."

"Full stop."

The Risian's voice was almost gleeful at the command. It wasn't that there was anything particular about the command itself. She'd brought the ship to a full stop plenty of times before. Instead, it was the fact of being the originator of the decision. She couldn't help but feel a bit of a thrill.

"Ensign Ratthi, Ensign Balsam," could we get a quick update on the wormhole's progression?

They may have been missing the spectacle of the event, but she'd decided when she learned of their assignment that they could at least appreciate the phenomenon through the ship's sensors though this hadn't, exactly, been part of the plan.

"Oh uh. Y-yeah." Balsam looked at his controls and reoriented the sensors from short range narrow band detection to wide band neutrino scan. "Looks like, uh, they're starting to gather to tenders and stuff." Noah pointed out. The screen blinked and focused in on a black space that seemed to lens effect a few stars. The gleams of some ships were beginning to gather at the wormhole- those ready to move in fast and make contact with the convoy. And farther out, the return convoy was lining up. "Hey. You-you guys might like this..." Noah rubber necked back at Irynya and Sheldon. Then he refocused on his controls.

Noah zoomed in on a ship.

She was... beautiful. Retro in a way, yet so clean and new. Refreshed. "You know... I-I think they never got their fair chance. The Excelsiors stuck around for so long... then we jumped to Galaxy classes. Especially, uh, cuz of the Cardassian War..." On the screen was a the cool gray-white hull of a starship. Her lines were familiar but updated. Twin necks instead of one. More of a Galaxy-type bend of the nacelle pylons. The saucer was... gorgeous. Round. Noah tapped in the keys to zoom on a nacelle. It very clear read, "NCC-89717-A." Another blink of view. "U.S.S. Adelphi."

"Ambassador II-class..." Noah murmured. As his friends took a moment, Noah shifted his attention.

There was something majestic about the sight of the Adelphi-A as she filled the viewscreen. Sleek lines that spoke of an update, but also clung to the original silhouette that was so dearly familiar. It still amazed Irynya how quickly the new generation of her former ship had been commissioned and launched. Then again, the original Adelphi had not been a new vessel and had seen more than her fair share of abuse during her time in the Delta Quadrant.

With a pang she realized that the Adelphi-A's presence in the line of ships meant that Chaali was leaving the Delta Quadrant. She hoped that her return message, the one she'd only left for her gregarious Bolian friend two days ago, had reached her rather than following on her heels back to the Alpha Quadrant. Though she wasn't a particularly religious soul, there were some traditions that had made their way into common use. Silently Irynya's lips moved, shaping the familiar cadence of a traveler's blessing.

When she'd finished she twisted again to look back at Sheldon, hoping to catch her friend's eye as she said, "Think Chaali left any messages for us?"

It took the engineer a moment to register Irynya's question. He'd been looking at the graceful lines of the Adelphi as well. But unlike his friends, he wasn't filled with bespoke nostalgia for times gone by. Five ghostly faces had begun to uncurl from around the base of his spine, following it upward in a flow that brought them swimming into Sheldon's view of the ship. The profile of the Adelphi pulled him back through time like a boat anchor: back to the moment Oliveria had ordered him to seal the doors and end the lives of five other engineers. A sheen of sweat broke out across Sheldon's brow as his body began to re-live those events--as his body reacted as if he were physically there in it again. He could smell the singed circuits as a familiar ache stirred in his chest. His right hand longed for the feel of his comfy cardigan between his fingers.

It was that particular longing that drew Sheldon's attention back to the present. In working with Qo, he'd come to realize that rubbing the cardigan's textured surface between his fingers produced a sensory effect that disrupted his anxiety. It was why he subconsciously donned the garment whenever he wasn't working over the last few weeks. And though Sheldon wasn't wearing it now, the fact that he noticed the longing for it in real time meant he was also noticing his anxiety spiking. Which helped him notice he'd stopped breathing, which was only compounding his body's response. That awareness allowed him to slowly start drawing in air again, passing it out in a regulated exhale that helped calm his nervous system.

And in the calm, Sheldon could finally clock what Irynya had asked him. "I wouldn't put it past her to have somehow had notes smuggled aboard. Everyone look under your consoles," a half-smirk upturned the right corner of his mouth but did not reach his eyes.

Iry grinned back over her shoulder at her friend. “Guess we’ll have to make it a point to look when we’re back at the dock,” she said before catching a better look at Sheldon. It wasn’t that he looked particularly different. More a stiffness to his posture and something in the way he was breathing. Not hyperventilating or anything like that… but… different. She looked a moment longer and then, catching his eye, raised her eyebrows and offered a look that she hoped conveyed friendly concern.

The flash of light that seemed to be called into being where none save starflight had been before drew her gaze back to the view screen. A near circular swirl of blues, purples, and whites seemed to unfurl, swirling and brilliant like some cosmic pool made entirely of pulsating and flowing light.

The Risian pilot-cum-captain’s heart leapt as if her whole body had to be involved in the joy of the spectacle. Even from a distance through the sensors it was a sight to behold. Her brain scrambled for words to describe, but she found, instead, that there were only reactions. Awe. Joy. A warm appreciation for the wonders of the universe.

As they watched something solid seemed to materialize near the middle of the aperture, starting out a s blunt point, and growing as a Benzite freighter took shape – the first of what was surely a line of vessels on the Alpha Quadrant side of the wormhole waiting to cross. The line of vessels on their side began to disappear as well.

The fourth ship in the line of ten or so vessels on the Delta Quadrant side of the wormhole slowly disappeared into the swirling light and the fifth seemed about to do the same when it was, without any clear reason, no longer in line.

In fact, none of the vessels in the line had held their positions exactly, though they hadn’t been thrown far. It was clear that something had happened – something invisible to the naked eye watching on a view screen.

“Ms. Ratthi, Mr. Balsam,” Irynya spoke both of their names to draw their attention as she sat forward in the command seat, “any idea…”

Before she could even voice the rest of her question the ships in the line had shifted again and then the shimmering flowing beauty of the wormhole’s aperture seemed to shudder. Lights that had been moving and a comfortably mesmerizing pace along the edges picked up speed, twisting uncomfortably in a way that even the naked eye could see wasn’t right.

And then, without warning and faster than it had appeared, the aperture blinked once and then winked out.

Noah's panel went wild. Mei's followed suit. Noah's fingers went to check his readings. But he was just moonlight at Ops. And this was a bonafide advanced user problem. He stabbed the comm. "Oh uh... wuh-whoa! Whoa! All decks, uh, brace-brace for impact!" At least the Bridge heard it. But he'd fumbled the wrong button. The last thing he could think to do was stab at the shields and bring them online.

Sheldon—who’d found a soothing calm in the swirling maw of energy’s motion—was soothed no longer. Noah’s warning had been enough spike his anxiety hard, way beyond the redline he and Qo had been discussing as of late. But for the first time perhaps ever, something new happened in the spike’s wake. It was like he’d subconsciously found a dial and quickly spun its knob down.

Not back to baseline in comparison, but his anxiety was dialed back just enough at least to create a split second of buffer space between trigger and reaction. And in that split second, he was able to brace. Sheldon was able to plant his feet and his hands and his brain for what came next.

Good thing, too, because it was then that all hell decidedly broke loose on a bridge filled with junior officers who weren’t supposed to handle a crisis of this magnitude on their own. Yet alone they were and would be, at least in the immediacy.

Irynya trying to keep her seat was the last thing Sheldon saw before the bridge went utterly dark…

TO BE CONTINUED…

=/\= A Mission Post By =/\=

Lieutenant Irynya

Chief Flight Controller

Lieutenant JG Sheldon Parsons

Assistant Chief Engineer

Ensign Mei Ratthi

Anthropologist / Archaeologist

Ensign Noah Balsam

Systems Specialist (Moonlighting as an Ops Officer)

Ensign Davis Bryad

Flight Controller