Underspace: Hours 15 and 16: The chat and making of a plan. 

The captain sat in his chair in the conference room drinking a hot lemon tea waiting for the councillor to turn up with Dr. Mendes. A few seconds only passed and the door to the conference room opened. In walked Lt Allen followed by the Dr and her crew. 

The captain turned on his chair and stood to say 

“Please take a seat.” And with that, the doctor and her fellow crew took seats near the captain on his left-hand side and Lt Allen joined the captain on his right-hand side like he had done with the Klingons and Romulans. 

“Thank you for coming to meet with me. For those that don’t officially know me, I’m the captain. My name is Telkir and this is the ship’s counsellor that you should already know, Lt Allen. I’ve asked you here to get your account of how you got to the gamma quadrant and stranded on the planet we found you on” With that he stopped allowing the visitors to breathe and relax more. While taking a sip of his drink Lt Allen asked. 

“Would anyone like a drink before we start?” One of the doctor’s crew replied “Yes can I get a glass of water set at minus 5 Celsius please” Another shook his head to indicate he was fine and Dr Mendes replied, “I take a passion fruit juice also at minus 5 Celsius.” And with this the Lt got up from his seat, headed over to the replicator situated on the same wall as the doors which was behind that of the visitors, and placed his order but adding a hot tea with a hint of lemon. 

Moments later he returned to the table with the drinks for the visitors and then collected his tea and took a seat back at the table.  

“So Dr like the captain said we are not here to investigate you or to arrest you we are just here to ask you, do you know how you got to the Gamma Quadrant and what happened for you to be stranded on the planet” said Lt Allen. 

A few seconds went past and the doctor spoke “First please call me Carol and second how we got here we couldn’t say we were on our way to the starbase like I said to you captain. We were on a re-supply run for the colonel we were helping that were still having trouble growing their crops since they relocated to another planet allowing for the Romulan resettlement of their planet. After the tragedy, they had gone through. As we normally do we put the ship on autopilot and we all grab a few hours of sleep as we don’t get much when the back planet side. About halfway to the starbase, we were all woken by the ship being pulled into what we thought was a Borg conduit and we all knew we had no chance to fight back. 

After a few moments, the ship stopped shaking and we found ourselves back in normal space. We tried to send out a communication to anyone nearby but got nothing and once we got partial power back to the computers we were able to determine that we were in the gammon quadrant but we were not sure as the computer was that damaged it was not able to give us a true reading till we fixed it. What we didn’t know was that the whole time since we entered and left that brown-like Borg conduit the core had started to have a meltdown and we only just realised in time to eject it and get away as fast as possible.” She stopped for a second, took a sip of her drink and then resumed her talk.

“As we found out luck was not on our side even though we managed to put some distance between us and the warp reactor it was not enough and we were hit by the shock wave causing us to spin out of control and crash land on this planet.” Taking a deep breath and remembering what the captain had said in sickbay she continues to say “from what you said earlier and from what stardate it was when we left it’s been 6 years for us down here on the planet, I knew we had been there a long time but didn’t think it was that long.” All three members sat there in shock and disbelief that they had been stranded for so long. 

“Thank you for your time and I’m sorry that you were down there for this time. if it was not for the thing that brought us here ourselves. I don’t think any of you would have lasted that included the Klingons or the Romulans.” Mentioned Lt Allen.

With that, the Dr and her two crew members got up and made their way back to their quarters followed by Lt Allen.

“Sorry about my comment back there, I did not want you to feel worse than you already are with missing so long in your life. If you like you can always come to me if you want anyone to talk to about your time down on the planet, that offer goes out to all of you. Also if you like you could access what database we have one of the Civilian records we hold and find any friends or members of your family so when we get home you can contact them again.”

With that, the Dr said “Thank you kindly” giving the young Lt a smile after talking. The Lt smiled back and then looked back at the other two to receive a smile and nod from both of them as they must have still been in shock with the stardate news.

Moments later they arrived at their quarters and that’s where the Lt left them with a guard standing outside the front of their room just like it was at all three of the different guests they had recently received.

Elsewhere on board, the captain had returned to his ready room to record his log about the chat with the Klingons, Romulans and fellow humans. When he got a call from chief engineer Ramsey asking if he was free to pop down to engineering and speak to him and the young Lt jr grade Tior about a possible way home. Lucky enough the captain had not started his recording and made his way down to engineering. As he left the bridge he spoke to his first officer and said “if you need me I’m down in engineering.” And with that entered the turbolift. A few moments had passed since Lt Commander Ramsey had contacted the captain, but out of nowhere, the captain entered Engineering. 

“Captain I was not expecting this quickly” said Lt Commander Ramsey 

“Do you want me to walk out and come back? Will that be long enough?” replied the captain with a bit of humour. Both engineers smiled and found that kinda funny for the captain. 

“No you’re fine captain, our plans are just theoretical and the holodeck simulations are promising but we of course need to try it out for real.” Said Lt Jr Tior.

“Stop beating around the block and tell me what you are talking about before I get up and leave,” replied Telkir, looking curious but a bit annoyed at the same time.

“Sorry captain, we came up with a possible way of getting home or at least Lt Jr Tior has.” Said the chief. 

“Thanks, chief, yeah I’ve been studying all of the sensor data from the point we got pulled into underspace to the point we arrived in the gamma quadrant. I believe with a few modifications to the deflector we can generate a pulse to open up the underspace and enter but from there, it’s then down to you what our heading is. I worked out that we were in the corridors of the underspace for only a matter of 22 minutes. So when that time elapses we can activate the deflector again to get out hopefully back a lot closer to home.” Said the young Lt Jr Tior. 

“Well get to it then and get us home and if you pull this off Lt Jr Tior there will be a promotion in your near future.” Said the captain, just as he got up from leaning on the console and made his way out of engineering. 

Both engineers looked at each other in surprise and shock. The chief patted the engineer on his back and said well let’s get to it. With that, the chief called everyone on duty to gather around the main console so that the young Lt who he was putting in charge of this assignment could dish out all the tasks to his fellow engineers.