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Rachel E Garrett

Dark Nebula

"Dark Nebula"

 

Rachel's head was in a tailspin. In a matter of minutes she was taken from working on the diplomatic wing of Aegis and put in charge of engineering aboard an Akira class ship, Pandora's Box, on a mission to find and maybe have to rescue the Yorktown.

 

Now, transitions had never been her strong suit, but at least she had a day and a half – 32 hours, 14 minutes, 3.2 seconds to be exact – to adjust to everything before they reached Yorktown's last known coordinates, just outside a dark nebula.

 

But the signal from Yorktown was coming from inside the nebula, with signs of weapons fire, plasma, and hull fragments all around.

 

Not a good sign. A few taps of the bridge engineering console and she had adjusted the power for maximum efficiency to the shields, tactical systems, and the main sensor array.

 

Rachel had never been near a nebula, much less inside one, and she had no desire to get any closer. Heck, she'd never been outside the Sol system until her posting on Aegis.

 

But she had heard stories. Strange happenings, sinister creatures, evil phantasms, specters, shadowy figures, depression and insanity among the crew. Gloom. Death.

 

In Dr. Maarburg's classroom at the Academy someone had scrawled Here there be dragons! in heavy dripping blood-red letters across the professor's Coalsack dark nebula image on Halloween. Rachel's roomie, Tanya, said it was a joke, but Rachel wasn't so sure. It gave her nightmares.

 

"Helm, lay in a course for intercept. Go to yellow alert, all hands to stations."

 

Oh, gees, thought Rachel. That was Commander Brown, and we're goin' in. Maybe she shoulda sent Caelan. Maybe she shoulda stayed on the station. Main engineering was a good alternative, though, and she was down there in a shot.

 

Not long after she arrived, Ronin Shepherd was down there, too, and she thought maybe she had found a kindred spirit until he said, "We've found the Yorktown, and they need a microwave relay booster thing. Do you think you can get me one?"

 

A microwave relay booster thing. Rachel scrunched her face. "We have a booster. You want a transmitter or a booster, and what size and configuration? I can send a micro IDS signal wherever, too, if you need it."

 

Now it was Ronin's turn to stare. Finally he tapped his commbadge. "Commander Brown, do you mind telling Ms. Garrett here what exactly it is the Yorktown needs? I happen to have confused myself with it."

 

Definitely a match made in heaven.

 

"Yorktown. She's a sovereign, right?" Rachel's brain was finally working.

 

"Yes, I believe so," Ronin replied.

 

"She needs an IDF microwave relay boost," said Brown from the bridge. "Do you have the transmission manifold installed to transmit to a Sovereign?"

 

Brain freeze. "Come again, Sir? Transmission manifold?"

 

"Yes," replied Brown. "You need to have the right transmitter hooked to the microwave power manifold to transmit the correct amount of power via the microwave."

 

"Aye, Commander. But . . . you're transmitting through a dark nebula, Sir?" Dark nebula. Lotsa dust. Lotsa hydrogen. Microwaves all over the place. High magnetic fields. Really, really dense areas and really, really uh… not so dense. Chemical soup. Hot.

 

Brain overload.

 

"We need to get it to them and get them out of this nebula." Brown's final word and he was right.

 

How they did it, Rachel wasn't sure. On their way back to Aegis with Yorktown in tow, she had vague recollection of using a shuttle on a really bumpy, dangerous ride through a cantankerous nebula to deliver a new manifold. All she could think of was curling up in a nice cozy J-tube with an engineering manual. And she might even try having a beer.

Edited by Rachel E Garrett

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