"Blackout"
Written by RJ Hubbard and David Moody
Lieutenant Talnar Ray and Captain Lenti Utex

The USS Victory, having been forced through a portal in normal space en route to Starbase 416, had been deposited via some manner of tunnel, in a heretofore unknown area of subspace. Talnar Ray, connected, it seemed, with the very fabric of space itself, was in the process of devining some way of disabling the enemy that had set the events in motion bringing the ship to the brink of this particular predicament.

Captain Lenti Utex and his crew had been recently aided by another Federation vessel, the defiant classed USS LaGrange, commanded by Colonel Ty N’Desp of the K’Abithan General Pluralistic order. The Colonel’s vessel had released two small, modified peregrine class fighters from her bays, and had assisted greatly in ferreting out the enemy, one that had additionally captured the Victory’s Executive Officer, Commander Rhea Kennit.

His hand had been forced after the enemy had been located, and he had been forced into a Kobayashi Maru. He had had no choice but to deactivate the tractor beams lancing from each section of the USS Victory’s hull, holding the enemy vessel strongly in place.

As the tractor beams silently ceased their relentless hold on the hull of the strange, dark and oblong Vaiul ship, Talnar Ray’s eyes shot open. He had been lost within his mind, which had been in turn, wandering the space outside of the USS Victory.

Now he was brought back to the here and now from his exhaustive search of the portion of subspace the ship was currently inhabiting, and he tapped his commbadge. Verteron Particles sir we can disable the ship carrying the exo with verteron particles.



Utex was in his Ready Room, having retreated there after ordering the tractor beams to be released. He was of the opinion that the USS LaGrange, who was still sporting an active tractor beam spilling forth from that vessel to attach itself to the Vaiul ship, would not be able to hold the Vaiul ship for long.

The Captain was listening to the Lieutenant out of the periphery of his hearing, barely registering what the Lieutenant was saying. His mind held onto the basic idea, understanding that the Chief Engineer had devised a possible way to disable the enemy. He stared into his small viewscreen for a moment more, saying, “Good job, Lieutenant, Utex out.”

Utex sat and watched the blanked screen with frustration a few more moments, peering back at himself. Ray’s words seemed suddenly to flare to awareness in his mind. He stood, moving toward the bridge and tapping his commbadge, “Utex to Ray,” he called. After the Engineer responded, he spoke once more. “Lieutenant,” he told the Betazoid man, “I want you to go ahead and get the bussard collectors reconfigured to implement the plan you propose.”

Ray’s voice came back with a slight tone of dismay. “The bussard collectors won’t be able to quite take the level of power the verteron spike would require but the deflector dish should prove more able to take the strain I think due to the more configurable field harmonics of the dish which are starkly more accessible and malleable than the bussard collectors even though there are four I don’t think we want to strain them that much so I would prefer to use the deflector dish if that is all right with you, sir.”

Utex’s eyes widened, and as the door opened itself onto the bridge, he raised his right fingers to the same temple, rubbing lightly. “Let’s get it going,” he told the Betazoid.

“Understood sir,” Ray responded.

Revos abdicated the command chair to Captain Utex. The channel open between Utex and Ray closed, and Utex, lowering himself into his command chair, called the man once more.

A soft whirring emanated in the background of Ray’s voice: Captain?

“Thank you,” Lenti told the Betazoid.

The aft doors to the Bridge opened, and Ray stepped out, turning to his right and nearly walking into Lieutenant Commander Revos, “Excuse me,” he told the man, heading toward an aft multitaskable console. “You’re welcome,” he told the Captain, beginning to reconfigure a panel into an engineering station.

Utex craned his neck to peer under the security console. “Oh,” he said, “Mister Ray.” He smiled, and stood, heading toward the Chief Engineer, “I had no idea you were going to do this up here,” he said. Seeing the man’s sudden apparent discomfort, he told him, “That’s fine, of course. Gives me something to do.”

Lieutenant Ray stared intently at the panel before him. He nodded, then continued to speak, entering commands into the reconfigured station, “I can create a verteron pulse that will keep the inhabitants of that ship from interacting with the subspace that they seem to rely on for function and than using this same principle we can reverse our current position the pulse will leave power banks at a relative ninety-seven percent Captain but I am sure I can have a working model within fifteen to twenty minutes.”

Revos turned, his eyes narrowing. “You heard her too?”

Ray asked the man, “Torme? Yes.” Talnar, like Revos, had felt the pain when moments ago Counselor Torme had been momentarily free of the Vaiul mind that had overtaken hers. The Betazoid counselor had reached out, hoping for a mind to console her.

Revos and Talnar both tried as best they could to console the woman. Ray attempted to play both in his mind and the counselor’s, a soothing tune his mother had played for him as a child. Revos reassured the Counselor that the Victory crew would soon have her free of her captors. Torme had seemed to take comfort in their actions, but Talnar could not be sure, as his telepathy was not his best skill.

Making progress on his reconfigrable design, Lieutenant Ray sent her the image of a verteron pulse emanating from the ship in its blue gray glory. We will get you out The Mistress weeps at your pain we are with you always

Somewhere across the brief void, Counselor Torme raised her head, hearing Ray’s thoughts, and nodded fitfully.

Ray turned to the acting operations officer, “How fast can you pick up a new skill?"

Driel Galah, seated in the operations seat with no console before her, kept her back straight as she turned, her neck circumnavigating deeply over her right shoulder. “What is it you need, Lieutenant,” she asked calmly, the words lilting from her mouth like the sliding tones of a brass instrument of the deeper range.

"I need you to help me recalibrate some things and also someone will have to target and fire the weapon while we monitor power transfer from down in engineering. I am not sure how long we can disable their dampening fields but I am positive if we use a median of a run about for the transport we can get the exo out and find out what the hell is going on."

The S’rulien smiled wisely, her head cocking softly to one side, her eyes scanning the ceiling of the Bridge as she carefully processed the words, a deep breath rushing into her lungs.

“A conference, then,” Utex proposed. Watching Lieutenant Ray nod his acquiescence, Lenti told him, “All right.” He turned toward the rest of the bridge. “TogHa, Revos, Galah, conference lounge.” He watched, content for the moment, in the seamless functioning of his crew.

Lieutenant tapped a command to send the results and a presentation of his research to the conference room, then left for the room. Lieutenant JG Galah stood followed in his wake, Revos slipping into line behind her. Serenity Jackson stepped over to take Revos’ position, and Cadet Keda Tal made her way to TogHa’s place as the Klingon Science officer made his way toward the conference lounge.

Utex peered around at the remaining crew. “You’ve got the Bridge Lieutenant,” he told Jackson, who nodded in response. The Trill commanding officer nodded back at her, and headed into the conference lounge.