The fun has just begun...

Posted on Thu Jul 28th, 2011 @ 3:43pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia DeVries & Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix & Lieutenant Xylia Lischka & Lieutenant JG Toshie Minamoto & Lieutenant Torrna Maliya MD & Major Jake Harper

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Conference Room, Bridge, USS Arizona
Timeline: Shortly after 'Ominous Awakening'

Roughly an hour previous, the crew had been face to face with what Commodore Nathan Cowell was now calling the Guardian of Floating Space Doughnuts. The last thing he or anyone else on the bridge could remember coherently was the ship entering the aperture of the huge Guardian. Everything afterward, a bright haze of white until they had found themselves waking at their stations. The internal clock on board had reported only about an hour's lag, which meant they'd only been knocked out a short while. In the state of confusion that followed, Nathan had ordered a full scan of the ship, the surrounding areas, and the crew prior to a Senior Staff meeting that was about to start. The Commodore sat at the head of the table, which gave him the advantage of being able to see everyone else as they entered. To his left, a few chairs down, Lieutenant Marion was seated in place of Lt. Idrani, who had not been cleared for full duty yet by the Doctor. Most likely her input would be purely from an operational standpoint, given that she had been on the bridge with him and hadn't done much since the mass blackout other than ensure the ship was still functional.

Maliya entered, face set to neutral, PaDD in hand. Just as everyone else, she was confused by what happened, and not liking it one bit. She nodded to everyone present and took her seat, setting the PaDD on the table.

The Chief Science Officer entered the conference room, having proceeded to the bridge upon arrival. Aral Aix, who had insisted the Arizona was steered on this course in the name of scientific inquiry, was arguably the author of his shipmates' current predicament. If this thought had crossed his mind it was not visible on his face. Indeed if he was feeling any pressure at all it was not outwardly visible. Concern was not written on his face, nor was worry or fear. He was excited, enthused by the prospect of the unknown.

Nathan watched his Science Officer walk in with a goofy smirk on his face that just... irked the shit out of him. Of all the people on board, Nathan had already surmised that Aix would be the most upbeat about everything. That fact did not inspire confidence, only ire.

"Wipe that damn smile of your face, Spots. This isn't an adventure, it's a shit-storm and we don't even know how bad yet," the old man growled.

The Major entered the briefing room, still somewhat disorientated from the previous events. Having worked the night shift last night he was visibly tired. Even worse, he was in the sonic shower when the phenomena had occured, and he was nursing a rather nasty bruised sternum under his uniform due to his sudden...fall. Suffice it to say, he was having a bad day.

Jake gave a curt nod to those in the room, setting his PADD down at the opposite end of the table to the Commodore as he made his way to the replicator so much needed coffee.

Xylia moved into the room right behind Jake with her PADD in hand, wanting nothing more than to raise her foot and give him a swift kick in the ass, but somehow, she managed to refrain herself from doing that by sheer force of will. This was her first time at one of these particular get togethers, and because of that, she wasn't entirely sure what to expect. She waited to see exactly where the Major was going to settle himself, then took the farthest available seat away from him.

Leaning back in her chair, she looked at all the faces currently present and accounted for, then turned her attention to their resident 'friendly', and she used the term loosely, Commanding Officer. Perhaps he called this little shindig to tell them what exactly happened, and if he couldn't, then maybe someone could shed some light on their current situation. Either way, she was actually quite interested, though she didn't show it.

Suitably chastised the Chief Science Officer attempted to hide his excitement at the prospect of exploration behind a paper-thin frown of professional concern. "So," he began, noticing Cowell glowering at him, "... what exactly did you get up to while we were down on that planet?"

Toshie walked into the conference room now too, visibly haggard now from all that had happened. It just meant more work for the Engineering department and as head, she was the type to take on as much of the work as possible herself and ease the pressure on her subordinates. She always had been like that since she was a child. She had one of her Engineering PADDs with her, as always, and hadn't even gotten a chance to roll her sleeves back down.

She nodded to the others after Aral got chastised and took a seat down near his end of the table, sitting rather heavily into it with a quiet sigh and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. Sure, they had eliminated normal headaches in the 24th century, but a stress one still stubbornly survived. "City planning."

Alexis was one of the last of the senior staff to enter, as she'd been tied up at helm waiting for her replacement to arrive and take over. She was kind of dazed by what had just transpired, having seem most of it first-hand, and did her best to try and look as if she could deal with it. Entering the room, she took a seat at the table and waited to see what their next move would be.

Nathan took a silent head count and settled on his two ranking officers, a Lieutenant Colonel and a Commander each, being of the fashionably late type. In the grand scheme of things, it was a minor concern weighed against the current situation so he decided to put the meeting in motion without them. It wasn't as if he hadn't individually briefed people before...

"Alright boys and girls and girls who are boys and all that..." the old man said, sitting a bit straighter in his chair, "As you've all heard, I believe, in part... We have just become victims of the biggest paradoxical creature known to exist. Thanks to Spots over there, who's grinning like a goddamn idiot... We're now part of some ungodly paradox that will surely grate on my damn nerves and will no doubt be hell to make it through and get back to our own corner of history. First things first, we need to figure out when we are. I can see that we aren't in orbit around the planet we found, so it stands to reason that it didn't want us going right back through. No doubt that corridor you found into that system isn't even there anymore, Spots, so don't waste your time looking. That damn thing is a little too smart for all that..."

Aral Aix was too distracted to be offended by the old man. The Commodore had to be wrong. Aral was one of many twenty-fourth century physicists who did not believe paradoxes could exist and he would have quite happily given the Commodore the equations to prove it. However if the Commodore was right and paradoxes did exist then the Arizona had been drawn into a predestination paradox and was therefore always destined to encounter the space doughnut entity and would have always encountered the entity regardless of personal involvement therefore absolving the Chief Science Officer of any blame what-so-ever.

Nathan turned to his Chief Engineer, "Miss Minamoto, I want you to get down to Engineering after this briefing and do some damage control on our EPS system. Lt. Marion has already told me we had a few ruptures thanks to our floating doughnut's little snatch and toss. Thankfully our warp core wasn't online so we won't have to worry about that thing giving us fits..."

The Commodore turned to Lieutenant Sylvari, "Switch, I want you to get with Spots over there. First, slap the dumb-ass off of him. Then I want you to work with him in trying to get an accurate account of where we are versus where we were a few hours ago. See if you can determine just how close we are to the Archadian system. Once we know that, I need you to plot a course for Starbase 900... hopefully we aren't so far back or forward that they aren't still there. Either way, the gateway should still be there even if 900 isn't."

The Commodore's eyes next flitted to Lieutenant Lischka, "Miss Lischka, until we know for sure when we are, I want this ship on yellow alert. Get Security teams on standby just in case we get waylaid, boarded, or have to go board something..."

"Major Harper, coordinate your own preparations with Miss Lischka's, if the shit is going to hit the fan, we're going to need as many morons with muscles and guns as we can get... no offense," the old man added as an afterthought.

Nathan turned to his Chief Medical Officer, "I want you to go through the crew and see if anyone has been injured or whatnot because of our sudden blackout. Hopefully no one was climbing through the tubes when this happened, and if so, we need to get them out of there quick like. Coordinate with Ops to get a full headcount of everyone on the ship."

Though not personally outraged, Alexis was a little taken aback by Cowell's various insinuations toward her... personal issues. It was bad enough that everyone was going to see her trip up and fall eventually, but he seemed to take delight in ridicule. But that wasn't overly surprising. Alexis figured she likely deserved whatever she had coming... especially after crying in front of the man. Crying!

"Yes sir..." Alexis said, trying to sound confident with her tasks, even though most of them wouldn't have even been rational a couple hours ago. She didn't rise to the bait in terms of his order to assault a senior officer.

Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia S. DeVries entered the meeting in the fashionably late fashion that was rapidly become something of her trademark in meetings, and settled down in the chair left vacant for her off to Cowell's right, "So, did I miss anything important?"

"Just handing out jobs, nothing I couldn't handle," Nathan answered the question with very little in the way of concern for her tardiness.

"Well, I've been busy," Stace remarked, "I have Lukas working on doing a bit of research, but I think I might know what we're dealing with here."

"Well then, get your information together and meet me in my Ready Room later. Anyone else have anything?" Nathan said, looking around the room, "No? Good. You have your assignments, make shit happen."