S.S. Westward

Posted on Friday December 4th, 2020 @ 8:52am by Lieutenant Fred Krueger
Edited on on Friday December 4th, 2020 @ 4:25pm

Mission: The Forgotten Outpost
Location: S.S. Westward and Engineering
Timeline: current

:: ON ::

Getting the report from his office and Captain Daniel Daniels a Civilian Captain Trensu read it carefully. With the Romulans arriving in a few hours, Trensu did not have much time to deal with the missing passengers of the S.S. Westward. He thought dealing with the Romulan ambassador would have to come first.

He walked looking over the pad putting a file for the Cheif of engineering he would have him start off with a full scan of the ship and an assessment of its condition.

Walking into the Cheif of Engineering office Trensu could see the man had been drug through something and ruff up some. "Fred, How long has it been two months since I last saw you at the academy" Trensu said with a smile. handing him a Padd "I can see nothing has changed still getting into stuff." he says jokingly.

Getting a serious look on his face Trensu got focused "All joking aside. I have a request for your department. The S.S. Westward is being towed in all passengers and crew are missing. So far Radiation levels are non-existent and while the ship has no power, it doesn't appear to have taken much damage." he said.

"what I need from you is good scans from you and assessment of the damage. I would be with you But I have to deal with some VIPs I will join you later when I can.


"How on earth did you know to go in through the output port?" the ensign asked.

"You don't know me very well," Krueger said, brushing a gob of sticky foam from his shoulder.

It fell to the deck with an audible 'plop'. Damn, he'd ruined his jacket. No way that crap would wash out completely. And he'd just replicated it the other day.

Luckily, his mustache had come away unscathed. A generous application of bio-antigrav gel ensured that any offending debris Krueger encountered during his day would be gently repelled from his upper lip. It was one of twenty seven hair care products that he lovingly applied every morning. Then there was the micro-beam laser sculpting, which he could trust to no one but himself to do properly, which kept each individual hair at precisely the right length. And of course, weekly-

"So, who are you?" the ensign queried.

"I'm your new chief," Krueger said, fishing a foam-caked data pad out of his pocket.

Upon reading it, the ensign immediately drew to a crisp salute, "Sir!"

"What happened to your last chief, anyway?" Krueger asked.

Finally he just gave up and removed the jacket altogether.

"I... don't think I'm at liberty to say," the ensign said.

"Oh come on boy-wonder, just tell me," Krueger said.

"Well sir... he sort of got in trouble for sleeping with some of his subordinates," the ensign said.

"Wait, that's frowned upon here too?" Krueger stammered. Then to the Orion girl, "You're not my subordinate, are you?"

"No sir. I'm in the astrometrics department," she said with a cute grin.

"Thank the plot gods!" Krueger said, looking toward the upper deck.

"The what?" the Orion girl said, confused.

"Don't worry about it, sweet cheeks. Just meet me back here at sixteen hundred hours. Come dressed nice. I shall require a guided tour of the station," Krueger said.

The Orion girl brought her hand to her lips and blushed, "Of course, Sir."

Meanwhile, the ensign just stared at him with a 'how-the-heck-is-he-actually-doing-this?' look on his face.

Once she'd left, and Krueger could no longer ogle her as she walked away, he turned to the ensign.

"Alright lad, I think I can see how this day's gonna go. I'd hoped to at least visit my quarters first, but... Round up the entire department. Let all the section heads know to have a full report ready for me when they arrive. And where the hell is my office?" Krueger said in a voice so full of authority that it surprised himself.

The ensign directed him to a hallway with a door at the end before hurrying off to carry out his orders. Dragging his duffel bag, Krueger headed on in. There wasn't really much to it. Just a desk with monitors, a chair behind it, and a comfy yet very suspicious looking couch in the back corner. Considering what his predecessor had been discharged for, Krueger elected to order all new office furniture.

Barely had he settled in and began making sense of the old chief's files when a security officer walked in. He glanced up at the man and instantly knew that he'd met him somewhere before. But where... The pleasure spas on Naboo, perhaps? Nah...

"Fred, how long has it been, two months since I last saw you at the academy?" Trensu said with a smile.

Ahhh... that's where he knew him from.

"Ahchoo? Here in DS3? Wow, more like two years, man," Krueger said, accepting a data pad from him

"I can see nothing has changed, still getting into stuff," he says jokingly.

"What can I say? Engineering's dirty work. We can't all sit behind a desk and shuffle paperwork," Krueger said.

Getting a serious look on his face Trensu suddenly got focused on the task at hand, "All joking aside, I have a request for your department. The S.S. Westward is being towed in. All passengers and crew are missing. So far, radiation levels are non-existent and while the ship has no power, it doesn't appear to have taken much damage."

"Hmmm...," Krueger mussed, scanning the data pad he'd been handed.

"What I need from you is good scans from you and an assessment of the damage. I would be with you but I have to deal with some VIPs. I will join you later when I can," Trensu said.

"Well, I can already see some irregularities. I'll head down and have a look," Krueger said.

A minute later, Trensu left and in came the ensign from earlier.

"Sir, all personnel are assembled," he reported.

"Yeah... about that...," Krueger mumbled.

About twenty minutes later, onboard the S.S. Westward...

"Why does it stink so bad in here?!?" Krueger screamed as he walked the empty corridors of the Westward.

His voice seemed to echoe throughout the entire ship. The sound of dripping water could be heard, deeper within the bowls of the ship. That, along with the steady low hiss of a ruptured pipe told him that maintenance was not at the top of some captain's to-do list.

Krueger pulled an instrument from a cargo pocket and flipped a switch. Lights flashed and a small screen populated with data.

"Hmmm... nothing too far out of the ordinary. Just a heap of ionized particles," he said, waiving his instrument from left to right and back.

A couple twists and turns and a little climbing and he found himself in the ship's reactor room. As he went about his work, he couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. But every time he turned around, no one was there. Main power would take a while get get up and running again, but emergency power would at least give him access to sensor logs.

"Boring... boring... boring... Hello, what do we have here," he said, running through the logs.

He pulled a seat over to the work station and began to read. Apparently when they were still a week out from the station, they'd encountered an anomalous energy signature. Upon closer investigation, it was being emmitted by a small gelatinous object in space. And rather than alerting Star Fleet, or really anything else smart, they'd freaking beamed it aboard without following any containment measure whatsoever. Jesus Christ!

Krueger tapped his communicator.

"Krueger to Trensu. Ahchoo old buddy, do you read me?" he said.

Nothing. The comm badge was dead for some reason. He was about to reach for his tool kit when his eyes fell across a recent captain's log amongst the goobly gop of computer files he'd unearthed.

"Captain's log...

They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have bared the gates but cannot hold them for long."

Attached was a scan. Krueger keyed it up. In glorious greyscale, he saw the outline a humanoid creature. According to the data, it was all but invisible to the naked eye, and composed almost entirely of energy, with a small organic core. It seemed to reproduce by consuming organic mater and draining local energy sources and-

"Oh shit," Krueger said.

Sensing the horror music beginning to play, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a utility knife. With a 'click' the blade was ready. He turned and hurled it through the air while diving for the exit. As it passed through the otherwise invisible creature, blue bults of energy arked around it before it continued on and embedded into the bulkhead behind it.

Up ahead, he saw sparks ark around a drop of water as it fell from the deck above.

"Of crap!" Krueger chanded course like his life depended on it.

This must have been the location of that damaged pipe he'd been hearing since he stepped onboard. The whole corridor was filled with thick hissing steam that immediately soaked his entire uniform. He stopped amongst this miasma and dug his hand into a pocket again. It wasn't like he'd come armed or anything, but but he wasn't completely helpless. Not if he could just reconfigure his tricorder in time.

Spending a few weeks courting a Klingon woman while he served on the Righteous Indignation had taught him that anything had the potential to become a weapon. All he had to do was... there! By switching the input array around, he'd turned it into a single shot phaser. Not a moment too soon, either. Electric blue shimmered all around the alien lifeforms as, accompanied by a third they entered the steam cloud.

"Listen up you jelly filled sons of bitches, come any closer and I'll let it rip!" Krueger warned.

And predictably, they didn't stop so he fired. ...And they gobbled the energy beam up like it was their favorit brand or something. So, before the tricorder completely overheated, he turned the beam on the pipe running alongside them. It burst, blowing them up against the opposite wall. Krueger dodged, ducked, dipped, dove and dodged his way past the disoriented creatures and made a mad dash for the airlock.

He slammed into the opposite hatch so hard that it mad his vision blur, and keyed in the sequence to cycle it.

As soon as he was on the other side, Krueger screamed, "Computer! Decompress that airlock! Use emergency tractor beams to push that ship away! Now!"

As soon as he was satisfied that the ship was far enough away, Krueger spun around. One hadn't followed him through, had it? Shit! Was it watching him right now?

He tapped his badge a few times but it was still dead. So he ran until he found another crew member and yanked his badge from the hapless man's chest.

"Krueger to Trensu, I found the missing crew. But we got one fracking big problem," he called through the badge.

:: OFF ::

Lieutenant Ahkhsu Trensu
Chief of Security
Deep Space Three

AND

Lieutenant Fred J. Krueger
Chief of all pleasures, and Engineering
Deep Space Three