The Hail from the Herophilos
Posted on Tue Jun 9th, 2026 @ 1:55am by Lieutenant Darla Kennings & Captain Adrian Kellan & Commander Colton Rogers & Lieutenant Commander Robert Brant & Lieutenant Rayven Mist PhD & Lieutenant Alice Durant & Lieutenant Tuhjer Mil & Lieutenant JG Zaire Byrne-Solwick & Lieutenant JG Kaayu Shir & Lieutenant JG Aurora Winters
2,606 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2: Mine of Taurus
Location: USS Scharnhorst Bridge
Timeline: Morning
Location: USS Scharnhorst, Bridge
Darla hadn't waited long after Robert left to get herself cleaned up, made up and into a uniform. She stepped onto the bridge and smiled seeing Robert looking over his charts. He was in his element and happy as a clam at high tide, and it made her happy to see him that way. She walked around the back of the bridge and took a seat at an empty station, bringing up the environmental systems and going through some of the files she needed.
Why she'd been assigned to the bridge, the engineering NCO didn't know, but she settled herself into the secondary Engineering console in the far corner of the bridge. Her eyes kept flickering up and about as her nerves showed. She would soon be surrounded by the most senior officers on the ship and someone of her rank wasn't usually privy to those workings. So as Petty Officer Third Class Bianca Lee keyed the console to life in front of her, a diagram of the ship's power grid blinked on, and she sighed lightly. At least this was a good place to watch everyone from.
Adrian was a little tired, but it was the start of his watch. He was on the next turbolift up to the bridge. Surprisingly, he was all alone on the lift. Typically, this would be a cause for a mini celebration. Everyone always seemed to be taking the lift at the same time he did. So this little victory was rewarding to him. However, he was still down about Eddie slipping out of their grasp. He was convinced they were going to find him. The doors slowly opened up to the bridge, with Adrian still thinking about Eddie. As the doors opened, he snapped himself back to reality.
He stepped onto the bridge and walked over to the engineering station. "Petty Officer Lee, right?" Adrian asked, hoping he remembered her name correctly. He waited for her response. She seemed to be a capable Starfleet enlisted man.
"Yes, sir." Brown eyes flashed up after the words and opened wide as she recognized the Captain, "Captain, sir, I mean, yes, Captain, I'm Petty Officer Lee, sir, Bianca, sir, engineering, sir."
Colton stood from the captain's chair and moved over to his own seat. He was reflecting on his career in Starfleet, thinking that being an executive officer was not quite what he thought it would be cracked up to be. Still, it was a move in the right direction.
Zaire was on his way to the bridge, thinking his time was being wasted. He had an engineering department to run. They already had Petty Officer Lee there; what was the point? He shook his head, thinking that some day maybe he would understand.
Rayven was glad to be back on a ship. This assignment was what she needed and a chance to explore new regions of space.
Kaayu picked up a distress call and she tapped the comm.
"This is the USS Herophilos. To any ships in the area, we are losing power. We have wounded on board. We require immediate assistance. Repeat: USS Herophilos. To any ships in the area, we are losing power. We have wounded on board. We require immediate assistance. Repeat..."
"This is the USS Scharnhorst. We are here to serve you. What do you need?" Kaayu said, waiting for the response.
Darla immediately looked over. "Wait, did that message say the Herophilos?"
Kaayu looked at Darla, "Aye, it was," she said, tapping her tactical controls.
Darla turned to the helm, looking somewhat panicked. "Robby?"
"On it," Robert said, scanning the local space and tracing the source of the distress call. "They're about twenty minutes away at maximum warp," he said, looking to Darla, then the Captain.
Darla stood up and walked towards the Captain's chair, leaning on the bridge rail. "Sir, the Herophilos is a hospital ship. If they are in distress, hundreds could be in danger."
"Commander Brant, bring the Scharnhorst to maximum warp," Adrian started to say as he got up from his chair, put his hand gently on Darla for a second, and walked over to Robert. He was trying to reassure her. "Engage."
The Captain had gotten as far as the first syllable of 'engage' when the ship leaped forward, the inertial dampeners taking a slight moment to catch up, making everyone shift a bit. "Sorry," Robert said. "Maximum warp, Captain. ETA: eighteen minutes, forty-three seconds."
"Ensign Shir, keep trying to hail the Herophilos," Adrian ordered as he then turned around and look to Darla.
Kaayu nodded as she did as she was told, tapping her tactical controls.
"What else can you tell me about the Herophilos?" Adrian asked looked to Darla. Her reaction suggested to him that she has some personal connection to the ship or at least somebody on its crew. Without reviewing her file he wouldn't know who that was, but in the moment this place is needed on the bridge not reviewing personnel file.
Darla licked her lips nervously before focusing on the captain. "The Herophilos is a refitted Olympic-class ship. It's heavily armed and shielded, as it operates near the Klingon border. There's a bit over four hundred crew members on board, plus civilians, not counting any patients. It's commanded by Captain Nicole Anderson..." she took a breath. "One of my Godmothers."
Adrian faced was now deeply concerned. His first thought, did Eddie strike again? For the moment it was not clear. "We'll get some answers, Doctor. The Scharnhorst is at your full disposal; family is important," Adrian proclaimed to her. Even though he kept his distance, he was still fair to his crew.
Darla nodded. "Thank you, Sir." She tapped her combadge. "Kennings to all medical personnel: prepare for casualties within fifteen minutes. Alpha units, prep for transport to scene." She closed the channel and gripped the bridge rail, her knuckles whitening from the strength of her grip.
"Condition yellow, keep hailing the Herophilos." Adrian ordered, as the USS Scharnhorst raced to close the distance between the two ships. He still feared that Eddie was behind this somehow. He then continued on to say. "Scan area around the Herophilos, I need to know what is happening in that area. Continuous scans till we get some answers."
"Captain," Zaire spoke up from the engineering station. "Permission to head to engineering to observe our status and be prepared should we need to take emergency measures." His people were quite capable but he was a hands on engineer. He wanted to be there in case something unforeseen happened.
"Granted Lieutenant, keep the QSD fired up we might need to get out of here in a hurry, I just have a sneaky suspicion that this could be potentially a trap." Adrian said realizing that he is feeding into his own paranoia just a little bit but it was justified because of the fact that they weren't able to now reach Darla's godmother's ship.
"Yes Sir." Zaire replied and he headed quickly off the bridge, wanting to get to his department quickly.
At her station, Alice had opened up a small subscreen in front of her after checking to make sure that no one else would be watching. Information on the Heirophilos scrolled down and she took it in. Olympic-class, commanded by Captain Nicole Anderson. She tapped on the name and a perfectly standard service biography came and she paged through it. It crossed all the 't's and dotted the 'i's, but it seemed just so... Basic. No details like she was used to. That was very curious. Her finger hovered over the key to request further information, then it fell to return to the previous page of information and she kept browsing.
Colton was at a station, scanning for any signs of trouble and checking with other ships for any word of issues or signs of trouble in the area. "I am not picking up anything out of the ordinary, Captain." Rogers said quietly. He didn't think it was likely that Eddie would be in the area. He was probably hiding somewhere. "Just to be certain, I did check to see if there were any sightings of Eddie, considering we just had a run in with him, I wanted to cover every possibility."
"Let's hope we've seen the last of Brisco," Rayven commented from science, her fingers crossed.
"I hope you're both all right. Although, something tells me haven't seen the last of Mr. Brisco," Adrian pointed out as he walked over to his command chair again.
"We're both fine captain," Rayven assured him.
"Helm isn't reading much of anything, but I'm having trouble detecting the ship's exact position," Robert said. "There's some kind of interference wherever they are. If that distress signal goes out, we'll have to use our best guess, but it's probably why they aren't responding to us and are just using an automated signal."
Tuhjer was on the bridge, sat at a generic station at the back. His services in diplomacy were not yet in need but he was there, nonetheless, should he be needed. Throughout his training and experience, he had found a need for diplomacy was never far away.
Nearly fifteen minutes later, the ship suddenly lurched as the warp field collapsed. Everyone was thrown fore and port as the ship swung around on its y-axis. "Warp engines offline!" Robert said, pulling himself back into his chair. "Can't get a stable field."
Rayven turned to her sensors and swept forward. It took a few minutes for the scans to be completed, "Helm we've flown into a radiation field. Bring shields up to eleven. it will take a few minutes to get full power back. I estimate about ten minutes."
Bianca's eyes flew to Rayven and knew she had to stop her sideline of information gathering and do what the engineers were supposed to do. What WAS that? She cleared the subscreen and her eyes went to the shields and took the settings in, "Bringing shields up as we can, ma'am, we'll need more power though, I can get them up toa six or seven, if we take other systems offline, maybe an eight."
"I just spoke with Lieutenant Byrne-Solwick." Colton spoke up. "He estimates five minutes, ten at the most." He didn't share that Zaire wanted to know what the hell they were doing to his ship."
Adrian simply nodded at the response. "Shouldn't we have detected that before we got in the area?" Adrian asked as he looked over to Rayven. He was a little puzzled, that their sensors didn't detect it.
"We should have but sensors didn't show anything until we hit it," Rayven answered. "I'm not sure why either; sensors are operating normally."
"Doctor, how will this radiation affect us?" Adrian asked, as he referred to Darla's judgment. He could tell that she was walking over to the science station, to get a better look at it.
Darla let out a breath as she leaned over Rayven's shoulder, looking at her readings. "It will," she said finally, "assuming we can't keep our shields up. Lieutenant Mist is correct, we need them at maximum until we can clear the field. I'll have hyronalin treatments prepared for the crew just in case," she said.
"Good idea Doctor. We will find some answers, can we determine if the Herophilos is also caught up in this radiation field." Adrian asked, hoping not. But if they were, he did not want to make the same mistakes they did.
"They're at the center of it," Darla said, worriedly. She pulled herself together and stepped aside, tapping her combadge to contact Sickbay and have the shots prepared.
Robert was hunched over his boards, trying to maneuver the ship. "Captain, I've stopped our forward momentum."
"Helm why does the ship feel sluggish?" Adrian asked, as he looked over to Robert. And then at the main viewer. He wondered if the radiation field was affecting the engines.
"We're down to thruster power, and it's not quite evenly distributed," Robert said. "With a little luck, I can get us out of the field in eight minutes."
"That'll take us farther from the Herophilos, though," Darla said.
"We can't help them if we can't get to full power," Robert said. "Once we're back up and running and shields are at maximum, I can take us in with impulse engines and we have a better shot at rescuing them."
"Proceed with caution Commander Brandt." Adrian called out, as he looked back at Robert, He was concerned for the crew of the Herophilos.
Tuhjer was listening intently to the back and forth conversations on the bridge. He piped in. "Sorry to butt in, but although I'm the Diplomat, I also have a high rating on engineering. Perhaps I can be helpful in getting us full power to facilitate the rescue?"
"Number one what is engineering saying?" Adrian asked, as he looked over to Colton. He was so glad that Colton agreed to be his first officer, his temporary position was now made permanent.
"Engineering is currently working to get us back to full power." Colton spoke up. "We don't know what issues this caused but the Lieutenant stated he has it under control and is go in n to have us back up shortly " He looked to Tuhjer. "Why don't you call him and coordinate with him from the engineering station, Lieutenant Mil."
"I will get right on that." Mil responded .
He moved seats to the port aide of the engineering station. Tapping the controls.
"Engineering, this is the bridge engineering station. Lieutenant Mil here, do you require help from this station in regards to the power issues? From what I can see from here you are very much on the case but perhaps I can assist. Please advise."
"Keep your eyes on the console." Zaire replied adnhe continued making adjustments. "Let me know when you have power back to the bridge."
Having finished her orders to Sickbay, Darla walked back over to Rayven. "What do you think? Any ideas to negate the field and get them out of there?"
"I have a couple of ideas, I'm hoping engineering gets shields back to full power and helm can get us close enough to them. We need shields at full power before my idea will work," Rayven commented. "Sensors still are not showing anything."
"Well, we know how big the field is since we hit the edge. As we say in microbiology, if we can see the germ we can remove it," Darla said. "What's your idea once we're shielded?"
"Once engineering reports all systems are back online and helm can get us close enough and the captain okays it . I think we can bring the Scharnhorst close enough so we can extend the shields and engage a tractor beam and pull the ship free." Rayven said. "It all hinges on engineering and the captain. I'll have the frequency once it's okayed."
"Let's do it." Adrian said, as he looked over to Darla. "Doctor, hang in there. We are going to rescue the crew." He said, trying to show compassion in his voice. He could not imagine what she was going through right now. Even though he had his own demons, knowing that someone that you loved was injured or hurt and not be able to do something about it because of some silly radiation would really get on his nerves.
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