The Njörðr Incident
- Stardate 239602.05 to 239603.25
While the USS Gorkon is in for routine repairs and maintainance at Starbase 123, Rear Admiral Quinn Reynolds and company have hitched a lift with the USS Njörðr to the annual New Horizons conference; a prestigious conference to showcase new technologies for all branches of Starfleet. During their voyage, the ship encountered a nebula, suffered intense damage, and nebula gases have begun to seep slowly into the ship.
Location
- USS Njörðr: A Dakota-class starship giving Rear Admiral Quinn Reynolds and company a lift to the New Horizons conference.
- Nebula: The nebula the USS Njörðr is currently inside, seeping slowly into the ship from the bottom up (flipped upside down).
Plot Elements
- Warp Core Breach: Undergoing much damage, the ship began containment procedures as the warp core climbed up to reach the breaching stage.
- Crab Nebula: An indigo and purple nebula slowly taking over the ship from the top deck up while the ship is upside down. The gases are poisonous and will start to constrict the airways of anyone caught in it.
- Rushton Infection: A fungal infection borne from unknown origin, released in the Sickbay during the crash. An infectious malady that is contracted by touch only, and of which there is no known cure.
Notable Characters
For the Njörðr crew roster, see here Njörðr Crew Roster
- Commander Kol ch'Vaorrohr: Andorian Captain.
- Lieutenant Commander Entai Belynn: Kerelian First Officer.
- Lieutenant JG T'Yuu: Vulcan Engineering Officer.
- Lieutenant JG T'Me: Vulcan Engineering Officer.
- Lieutenant Hamdan Said: Human Chief Medical Officer.
- Crewman First Class Kroho Kiyel: Bajoran Operations Crew.
- Karla Veenda: Civilian.
- Lero Aris: Thief Extraordinaire.
- Sh'shirik: Andorian Houdini.
- Chief Petty Officer Makkor: Klingon Security Officer.
Mission Summary
Click sub-headings below to expand or collapse.
Act One: The Njörðr Incident
En route to the New Horizons conference, the USS Njörðr has run aground within a nebula. Flipping over, heavily damaged, malfunctioning artificial gravity, and systems failing shipwide, suddenly hitchhiking doesn't seem like such a good idea.
- Captain's Mess, Deck 3
- Jefferies Tubes off Main Engineering, Deck 7
- Turbolift, Between Decks 5 and 6
- Medical Laboratory, Deck 4
The impact with the exploding nebula caused a shipwide malfunction, flipping the ship onto it's back like a wounded animal, artificial gravity controls haywire, and a large proportion of the ship's crew dead on impact. The Bridge and Bridge Officers were caught first in the blast, the nebula tearing apart the hull.
Those on deck three in the Captain's Mess - Rear Admiral Quinn Reynolds, Lieutenant Cory Stoyer, and Lieutenant Commander Ayiana Sevo - were thrown from their meeting, crashing into the ceiling, and in immediate danger as the indigo and blue nebula began to seep into the room through the crack in the viewport window. Using an emergency actuator from the hatch panel of the door, the team was able to get the door open and escaped into the corridor, sealing the door shut behind them. With a plan in mind to move towards the Bridge, Reynolds popped an emergency ceiling hatchway to find the Nebula rolled underneath their feet, like a rising sea level.
Decks beneath, travelling in a Turbolift through the ship, Lieutenant Sera zh'Aella and team - Lieutenant JGs Ferier Kian, Emilia Krugol and Ensign Corliss Fortune - nearly caught a one way ticket to the depths of space when the ship lurched. Flipped upside down, scrambled like eggs, the lift ground to a halt between decks five and six, stuck in place by the application of the emergency brakes. The four officers from the Gorkon managed to put together a power source for the doors before the rattling of the lift launched them into action, forcing the team to escape onto the nearest deck, before the lift failed and tumbled down through the ship.
Journeying on a tour of the ship through the Jefferies Tubes, Lieutenant Tasha MacFarlane, Lieutenant Commander Trellis Vondaryan, Lieutenant JGs Samira Neathler and Groznin Smith were thrown around inside the long, winding tube as the Nebula struck the first blow. Able to escape through to Main Engineering, the team heard the warning from the computer - the warp core was in the process of a breach, with containment loss at a countdown. Leaping into action, the team worked to get control of the core, reinitializing the magnetic constrictor sequence, flooding the core with plasma, until finally, the core glowed blue no more, reducing to a dull grey of inactivity.
Meanwhile, in the Medical Laboratories of Sickbay, Lieutenant Genkos Sim and Ensign Naktara Nightfur were in the midst of examining a rare fungal infection named Rushton Infection, with Lieutenant Commander Jocelyn Marshall dropping in to check on their progress. It had already infected one of the crew - Ensign T'Me - under the microscope. A sample of the infection was contained within a stasis field, hosted in a petri dish. As the ship struck tragedy, the field failed, sending the sample into the room. With help from T'Me's sister - T'Yuu - the team pried open the twisted doors to the Lab as Nightfur cobbled together a sterile stasis field from a biobed, projecting the field at the doorway. Escaping into the Main Sickbay, the team found they had carried traces of Rushtons with them, and no one way to know who had it.
Managing to avert the warp disaster, MacFarlane managed to send out a message warning the crew of potential dangers and to head for the lifeboats, while the team were about to head for the Deck 12 launchers to send out a distress beacon. Intercepting the message, Reynolds countermanded the order with new information gained from the damage control systems - lifeboats were a no go and all survivors were to make their way to Deck D - the southernmost deck on the ship.
Act Two: The Escape
With the new information provided by Reynolds disseminated through the ship's internal systems, the teams begin their escape up through the ship, heading for the Shuttlebay in Deck D - the southernmost deck.
- Jefferies Tube, Deck 3
- Armory, Deck 8
- Deck 6, Heading Up
- Outside Sickbay, Deck 4
Communications out across the ship, the only method of sending out a message came on the back of the display units around the ship. The warning, crisp and clear from Reynolds, informed all crew remaining alive that the goal was to make it up to the southernmost deck of the ship - the auxiliary shuttle bay - and from there, escape using the craft within there.
Analysing the gaseous anomaly seeping into the ship, Sevo found it to be composed of "nitrogen, xenon, and argon, with trace amounts of mercury and other compounds I can’t recognize."[1] This made the gas poisonous, for the most part, to humanoids. Avoiding an overloading EPS trunk, the team headed for the nearest Jefferies tube, chased by the ominous nebula gas.
Escaping out of Engineering following the successful negation of the warp drive ejection, Vondaryan and team tried to get out of the room onto the corridor for the Armoury. However, they were quickly beset by escaping convicts from the Brig. Kidnapping Neathler, they threw an overloading phaser into the midst of the team, which was thrown back into Engineering by Smith, saving his team from the resulting explosion, but losing Neathler in the process.
Underneath them, zh'Aella's team regrouped in a Deck 9 corridor. Using a medical kit and what supplies they had, they found the strange indigo cloud drifting towards them, meaning a mad dash through the nebula gas to escape. Manifesting several injuries, escape was difficult and labored, and found themselves blocked off from going any further by a structural integrity forcefield, protecting them from a significant hull breach.
Meanwhile - In the corridors of Deck 7, Valesha Sienelis and Okira Keretene managed to escape into the corridor, but became separated during a concussive blast, which took out bulkheads around the two, the deck above collapsing into the corridor. Sienelis progressed on through to Deck 10 and the Secondary Deuterium Storage, stumbling across her friend Christopher Johns unconscious in the safe room. Managing to wake him up, she began basic medical assistance on him and his friend, Kiyel Kroho, rescued from the Secondary Computer Core.
Waking in the Aeroponics Bay, Megan Bendyn, Haylie Johnson, and T'Pann, the three survived an attempt by the Njörðr to drown them in the burst piping and infrastructure of the Hydroponics lab, and managed to get out into the Deck 6 corridor. Receiving the same message from the Admiral, they began their climb for survival.
Heading into the Science Labs, Marshall and team discovered a barking sound coming from within the laboratory. Taking a few bumps to the head, Tis believed the barking to be the result of hallucinations. Cresting into the lab, they found it on fire, upside down (surprisingly), and their newest Scientist assigned to the Gorkon - Ensign Joan Basilone, unconscious on the floor. Rendering immediate medical aid from Tis and Sim, Basilone recovered quickly, providing a swift update on her condition to the Commander. Together, they began to forge a plan to get the decontamination chambers working.
Moving through Deck 8, Neathler, captured by escapees from the Brig, began a slow climb up towards the deck specified in the Admiral's message. Threatened with her life to open the hatchway leading to the next deck above, Neathler used her full force to open the hatch, exposing the torrent of fire on the other side to a fresh supply of fuel in the Jefferies tube junction they stood in. Moving out of the way, but not in enough time to save herself from dermal burn injuries on her arm, Neathler caught the Andorian Sh'shirik in the blast, with the other escapee Lero Aris coming away unscathed. Below, she heard the telltale signs of someone coming up through the tubes.
Inside the Jefferies Tube on Deck 3, Sevo began to experience the signs of a panic attack combined with claustrophobia from previous missions trapped inside the tubes system. Receiving some well-meaning advice from Reynolds and a hand holding from Stoyer, the three progressed through to the opening of Deck 5 and the troubles that lay beyond. They came face to face with a severe breach in the integrity of the ship; a large, yawning chasm descending down several decks with a swaying tide of the blue and indigo nebula gasses.
Further up, zh'Aella and team tried to find a way around the hull breach and blockage in the corridor, listening as something began to scuttle along the edges of the bulkheads surrounding them. An access hatch groaned as force behind it tried to get it open, exploding in the final seconds of the hatch's life in a stream of crabs. Kian managed to break into a weapons locker and resupply the team, including Fortune, who in a mild panic at being attacked, sprayed the first of the crabs with a stun beam from her phaser. However, the move only served to anger the crabs, who began moving in a wave toward them.
On Deck 6, outside of the Stellar Cartography lab, Marshall and team found themselves in the midst of wading through a slew of nebula gasses. Taking readings, Basilone relayed their composition to the team - "It's a noble gas compound. Primarily xenon, though it's also combined with hydrocarbons. And ::Joan made an adjustment to her tricorder:: there's an electromagnetic pattern contained within."[2]
One deck below, Sevo proposed a method for getting over the chasm in the corridor - essentially composing of a forcefield that would allow the team to walk across.
Act Three: Attack of the Crabs
Faced with an onslaught of crabs and more trials and tribulations to navigate through, the teams find themselves in compromising situations, and faced with their own mortalities as the trip through the ship takes a turn for the worse.
- Corridor, Deck 5
- Jefferies Tube, Deck 8
- Jefferies Tube, Deck 9
- Corridor, Deck 9
- Corridor, Deck 6
Beneath where Neathler had unleashed a fire-soaked hell onto the Andorian escapee, the dynamic duo of Gnaxac and Orson "Bear" Marshall had begun their climb up to her position. Beneath them, on the deck just below, Vondaryan and team had anticipated the kidnappers to be directly above. Moving into position, Smith readied his weapon, and shot blindly into the Jefferies tube, managing to catch Bear with a ricochet shot to the back. Above, Lero Aris, reeling from the fatal injury to his friend, began to drag Neathler through the tubes to their eventual escape. Catching Bear on his unconscious descent, MacFarlane hoisted him onto her shoulder and instructed the team to make their way up to the next junction, past where Neathler had been dragged away.
Unable, and unwilling, to create a stable forcefield to walk over the hewn hole in the floor of the Deck 5 corridor, Reynolds and company diverted into the nearest Cargo Bay, in search of a transporter, with the possibility of converting it into quantum mode heavy on the wind.
Further up, running down through the Deck 9 corridor, zh'Aella and team were in the midst of a chase given by the crab -crustacean entities, hell bent on providing the Officers with dermal puncture wounds. Taking the initiative, with the surprising lack of a will to live for Trill, Kian stood his ground, opening fire on the onslaught of crab as they descended on the group's position. The Trill backed up along the corridor, firing on as many as he could, before slumping down against the wall. zh'Aella realized the crabs had been shepherding the team into the nebula gas, coming down on top of them, and managed at the last second to pull everyone into the Transporter Room. Fortune threw her weight behind the door and successfully closed it, providing the team with some much needed breathing space.
Lower down in Science Laboratory 3, Freymott, Namura, and T'Yuu managed to find a working decontamination chamber among the wreckage. Setting it to a wide spectrum burst, they hypothesized that it would be enough to destroy any lingering Rushton's fungus on their personage, thereby negating the risk to themselves and the rest of the ship. With that in mind, they began their preparations.
Meanwhile, Sienelis and Johns completed their odyssey and crested through to the Secondary Shuttle Bay on Deck D, straight into the path of the carnage the failing inertial dampeners had caused. Shuttlecraft and runabout alike were turned upside down, cargo crates strewn around on the strutted ceiling, and the inexorably familiar stains coating the hangar doors. A rising panic attack in Sienelis prompted the two to take a short-lived rest on the ceiling of the bay as they put together a foolproof five-point plan to get a working shuttlecraft together out of the mess.
Moving into the Science Laboratories on Deck 6, Marshall and team found a decontamination chamber in seemingly working order. Taking a few moments to get together supplies for the run up to Deck D, Sim and Tis worked together to get the chamber up and running, whilst Basilone put together a nickel bomb to combat the effects of the nebula gas.
Under the pressure of escapee Lero Aris, Neathler moved through the Jefferies tubes to another cross-section where the hatchway wouldn't open immediately. Seizing the opportunity, she convinced the escapee to try and open it up, using her initiative and his distraction, she pressed a hypospray of sedative into the side of his neck, dropping him to the floor.[3]
Back in Science Laboratory 3, T'Yuu stepped into the decontamination chamber and didn't come back out again. The wide spectrum beam hit his Vulcan form, and as predicted, began to dissolve all contaminations of Rushton's from his skin. However, heavily infected by the fungus in the sub dermal layers of his skin, the effects of the beam melted the Vulcan with expediency, leaving behind a horrified Freymott and Namura.[4]
In the Deck 6 Cargo Bay, succeeding in their efforts to enter, Reynolds, Sevo and Stoyer found what no one wished to - a dying third-class crewman, draped across a crate. Responding quickly with the medical kit wasn't enough to save his battered body, however, and the young man succumbed to his wounds shortly after. His temporary telepathic link with Reynolds severed as he slid away.[5]
Needing to find an alternative way out of the Transporter Room on Deck 9, Kian aimed his phaser to the middle of the "ceiling" and melted a hole through it, creating a new escape route up onto the deck above. As the banging intensified on the door, of crabs launching themselves at it trying to break through, the team began climbing up.
Cresting onto the Jefferies tube junction of Deck 12, MacFarlane and team had a hard choice to make. Caught between the decision to go onwards to the torpedo launchers to send out a distress beacon, and to go for their kidnapped crewmate, MacFarlane and Vondaryan headed off in one direction, whilst Bear Marshall (recovered from his brief stun), Gnaxac, and Smith went another.
Act Four: The Final Countdown
As the team race to get up to the Secondary Shuttle Bay on Deck D, a fatal problem is yet again pushed their way. The clock was already beginning to tick down on the eleventh hour, with hopes of remaining alive on the capsized ship beginning to wane.
- Cargo Bay, Deck 6
- Torpedo Launchers, Deck 12
- Jefferies Tubes, Deck 9
- Corridor, Deck 9
- Science Laboratories, Deck 6
Clambering up through the created hole in the roof, zh'Aella and team moved as quickly as possible into the gap, just as the crescendo of crab slammed one last time against the door, crabs littering across the ground below them. However, they found the nebula gas had followed them through. Thinking quickly, Kian created a low-stun shield from a phaser that would block the gas and crabs for the precious few minutes they needed to move.
With a working decontamination chamber, Sim ran through the process with Basilone, Tis, himself and the rescued puppy, and finally Marshall bringing up the rear. While Marshall rode the lightening, outside a crab dropped thorugh the hole in the ceiling. With quick reflexes, Basilone beat the crab into submission with a rebar, coiling in on itself. Decontamination completed, the team pressed to move on, only for a wall of crab to come descending from the ceiling hole on the wings of their dead friend, skittering into the team as they fled for the exit into the corridor.
Meanwhile, up on Deck D - the five-point plan of Sienelis and Johns was put into practice. Flipping over the mobile tractor arm, Johns managed to get it working while Sienelis piloted the upside down shuttlecraft. With arduous determination, they managed to get it right side up in the shuttlebay.[6] Working on borrowed time, the two set about trying to put together the sensor matrix and send out a burst communication to any ships within the area; a distress beacon to the Starfleet network.
Up in the Cargo Bay on Deck 6, with the faint signature of a transporter picked up by Sevo, Stoyer climbed up to the console using scattered crates and a makeshift harness, certain he could get it working in time to get them out of there.
Further up, Fortune began cutting away at the "ceiling", again trying to find a way up and out of the confined space they were in. Nebula has rolling against the makeshift shield, their time was limited. A clatter of metal signified she was triumphant and Krugol tried to keep the crab horde at bay until the team could make their escape.
Making their way through Deck 9 once more, hot on the trail of their kidnapped colleague, Smith and Gnaxac led the way up through the Jefferies tubes, until they found Neathler on the floor, arm tucked in to protect it. Getting her up with the help of the medkit, the team progressed through to the closet refuge - the Life Support Control Centre.
Escaping into the corridor, followed by a wave of crabs, Basilone quickly launched her nickel bomb into the nebula gas and horde of crabs descending. Exploding like popcorn kernels, their innards coated the walls, and converting the nebula has in the corridor to a yellow vapour. A reaction with the flourine, the nickel the catalyst.
Meanwhile, up on Deck D - with the sensors re-established, Sienelis sent out a distress call to any ship within the area capable of coming to their aid. Within seconds of standing in silence with Johns, the response came back. The USS Yarahla was on it's way.[7]
Up in the Deck 12 Torpedo Launcher Control Room, MacFarlane and Vondaryan raced to get a distress beacon out from the tubes, however, as they tried, they found one beacon in the midst of launch cracked in half and wedged into the tube.[8]
At the same time, in the Life Support Control Centre of Deck 11, the team came across a dying Vulcan on the floor of the room. Rendering quick aid, Bear Marshall watched as the strong humanoid grappled the hypospray out of Smith's hand and threw it in an arch toward the console. It hit perfectly, and the haunting melody of the computer began to ring out. "Computer: Input confirmed. Gravitational realignment will begin in thirty seconds. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight..."[9]
The message dispersed across the ship, with everyone reaching for something to grab onto in the ensuing chaos, and as the dust settled around them with a fresh slew of injuries, the USS Yarahla arrived.[10]
Epilogue: Rescued
Riding in like the cavalry, the USS Yarahla begins to pull off any and all lifesigns from the destroyed vessel into a pre-arranged trauma Cargo Bay. Sweet relief for all, bitter irony for some.
The severely wounded were moved immediately off to the Main Sickbay and surgical suites of the ship, while those who could wait for triage were set to cots that lined the bay floor. Water, food, and the peace of mind that they were now safe; the rescued crew began to sink down into the bunks for well-needed rest.
Notable SIMs
Mission Reports
