| Author | Message | ||
     Maiko D`rall |
((Apologies if I step on any toes here - this takes part *during* the 11/25 sim from just after I got knocked off 'net to about 20 minutes before the end of the sim. Y'all don't expect a lil' ol' helm officer like me t' miss out on an obstacle course like THIS one, do ya? ;D)) The Coronado's helm officer, upon a casual glance, was nothing but attentive, her task of weaving a way around dozens, if not hundreds of gravitational eddies from countless artifacts and debris. Inwardly Maiko was sweating and cursing the system for all she was worth. Some 40 objects large enough to have their own gravitational field - and countless smaller fragments that needed to be deflected or avoided - pushed her situational awareness to the limit. All it would take would be one slip and the ship would slam into a fragment or drift off course and into a fragment they might have missed. As it was, she had to 'skid' the Coronado into its original position on the far edge of the system. The ease at which she had been able to report her course deviations earlier was now replaced by concentration, her eyes flicking back and forth from sensors to deflector status to course plots and back. It would have been easier to have a shuttle launch and take a position several thousand meters forward of the Coronado, tie in the telemetry, and pilot that way. Then again, it would be easier if there weren't the enemy to worry about either. A slight surge in the hull beneath her warned Maiko that her attention was wandering; she heeded the barest of attention to the radiation protocols as her relief officer at Mission Ops would handle the daunting task of preparing the ship for intense bombardment along with the other departments. "Changing course, new heading 299 mark 029..." Her fingers deftly worked at the console, cutting the impulse engines and throwing the port thrusters on full, giving the appearance of the frigate canting up on its port nacelle. Her eyes scanned the foward sensors as a new threat loomed larger than life. "Heading 073 mark 288..." Dropping all but one thruster, she nudged the the impulse engine vents over and brought them up to .1 impulse before engaging a 5 second burn on the forward dorsal thrusters and aft ventral thrusters, putting the ship into a jacknife dive to avoid the looming asteroid. "ETA to Lh'owon, Helm?" Commander Smith's voice held some concern, to which Maiko couldn't worry herself with. "Commander, I can't say for sure," she said with a touch of her accent in her voice. "Every time I have to change course to compensate, we either gain or loose a few minutes time." And then came the word: Pfhor signatures. Maiko didn't see the lead strike craft's attack on the Avenger, too concerned with bringing Coronado around, 284 mark 012. Her fingers now flew rapidly over her console, trying to keep Coronado's line of sight with the Avenger's attackers without colliding with anything. A sudden shift in the nearby gravitational fields caught the Coronado and dragged her off course slightly, throwing the shots fired by Lieutenant Commander Marcy at tactical off. 299 mark 18. Correct for rotation for asteroid. Navigational deflector beam on automatic. "How far until we clear this debris and reach the system?" This time, Captain Daren. "Not too much longer sir..." Her sentence trailed off as she pitched the ship up sharply, the inertial dampeners whining briefly in complaint. The shot aimed just before the climb still connected, rendering one more kill to the enemy. "D'Rall, adjust course - Zero-Three-One, Mark Four-Seven." Acknowleding curtly, Maiko aborted the climb, instead temporarily putting the Coronado in an orbital arc around a large fragment, though fruitless as the hastily-locked phaser still missed the strike craft. 285 mark 255. Fragments continued to close around them. A warning light flashed on her console warning her she was using the navigational deflector beam too much. Murmured encouragements from somewhere on the bridge as Maiko finally cleared the fragment only to find herself in tight maze of drifting rocks and a narrow, winding corridor to traverse. Using the attitude controls, she twisted the ship around and over, firing the impulse engines at the last second to halt the ship before it hit an asteroid aft-first. As the ship surged forward and up at an angle, she cut impulse and performed a reverse of her earlier hull orientation changes, executing another full impulse burn to brake and then climb out of the gravitational pull of a second asteroid. In the background, Maiko registered someone ordering a diversion of power to the impulse engines. The ship surged free, and facing yet another obstacle, Maiko cut the impulse and tilted the ship nearly 90 degrees on its z-axis, slotting the ship through a tight temporary gap between the last of the large asteroids in the belt. Maiko heaved a sigh of relief even as Commander Smith and Captain Daren poured over sensor data of their target planet, readings coming in clearer now. Maiko quietly re-throttled the impulse engines to eighty percent maximum power and began the final stage of the Coronado's course through the debris fields. "A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it." - Alistair Cooke |