Jim was unsure how he had got here, but he found himself walking through the woods outside Serenity City. He had his rucksack on his back and his trusty stick in his right hand. He looked around, the sky was clear, the trees were covered in brilliant green leaves. He tried to breathe in the air, but it had no odor. He looked puzzled and attempted to sniff, but again there was no odor. Suddenly the trees flickered from his view and he felt dizzy.
As his felt his eyes open again he could see white and he suddenly felt very cold. He attempted to sit up, but was overcome by nausea and slumped his head back down on something soft.
"Stay there..." a familiar voice muttered.
The voice was male, but was distorted slightly, his vision started to clear and he could see a meter in front of his face was the face of Ensign Rich Watson.
"...Wait until you've opened your eyes before you get up," Watson said, this time quite clearly.
The last thing Stone could remember before the forest was feeling something hit his head whilst he was in the Pennine. He again attempted to sit up and this time was successful. He put one hand on the ground beside him, which he could feel was the runabout deck plating and pushed himself to his feet.
"What's happened?" he said, trying to shake off the nausea.
"We hit the surface I think is the best way to describe it," Watson replied. "It certainly couldn't be called a landing."
Stone's vision had returned fully and he looked around, having digested Watson's summary. He was standing inside the command module of the Pennine, he and Watson were the only two present, the door to the aft compartment was half open, and the external hatch was wide open and a cold wind was blowing in. "What's the ship like?" Stone said as he walked towards the partially open door to the aft.
"Erm..." Watson began hestitantly. "I don't think we'll be flying off."
"Why? What's the damage?" Stone asked as he pushed the door fully open and stepped through into the area where the transporter and storage compartments were situated.
"We've no nacelles, the propulsion circuits are fried, navigational sensors are missing," Watson said, following him into the storage area.
Stone pulled out two storage containers and unlatched one and flung the lid open. He pulled out a large silvery colored thermal coat and trousers. "No nacelles?" he asked, still quite calm, considering the situation.
"I plotted the trajectory to this flat area, but the sensors were virtually useless. We hit the brow of a ice mountain about 200 meters away from here, it ripped the underside to pieces and took the nacelles clean off," Watson said, and took the thermal clothing from Stone.
Stone took a second set of thermal clothing from the container and began putting it on, Watson was doing the same.
"Where's Marc, Jan and Jonas?" Stone asked, remembering that at last count there were five of them on the flight deck.
"Jonas is on the biobed in the back. I'm afraid we've lost him too," Watson said, sounding quite solemn. "Marc and Jan are outside inspecting the damage."
"Two down..." Stone said, he sounded shocked which was very unusual. He paused for a moment whilst pulling on the thermal coat. "Remind me what our purpose is..."
Rich knew he was being sarcastic.
"Rescue team needs rescuing," Watson replied.
"Hmmm," Stone uttered in an annoyed tone.
Having donned the thermal clothing he stepped back into the command module and out through the external hatch. The cold caught him suddenly almost forcing him to step back into the runabout by reaction.
"COLD!" he shouted out and then took several steps into the snow outside.
He looked down to see his footprints in the snow and then turned to look at the Pennine. Watson's report had covered the major damage, the simple fact there was no warp nacelles attached and the impulse cowling which attached the nacelles to the body of the runabout was torn open exposing parts of the impulse drive. The nose of the runabout was missing, which contained the sensor array. Stone walked around to the rear of the craft. He saw Hedley and Fisher dressed in the silver thermal clothing crouched on the top of the runabout looking at something. He could see scorch marks on the hull beside a large crack in the tritanium. On looking at the crack closer he could see clearly inside the aft compartment of the ship.
"That would be where the weapons hit then," he said to himself.
Hedley heard his commanding officer's mumbling and shouted down from the top, "the other blast landed up here sir."
Stone looked up to Hedley who was still poking at something on top of the craft. He took hold of the remaining section of the port impulse engine cowling and lifted himself onto the top of the craft. He could see a large scorch mark and a hole.
"The weapons hit directly between the main computer system and the fusion reactor," Hedley stated. "The reactors immediately overheated and fried itself and we've managed to get down here on the batteries, the computer may still work, then again it might not."
Stone shook his head, "is that your professional opinion or a guess?"
"A guess," Hedley said, he looked up and frowned. "I'll happily let an engineer give me a better opinion, but we don't have one."
"True," Stone replied. He seemed to contemplate their situation for a second and then decide on action. "Jan, check the emergency supplies, salvage what you can. Marc, you and Rich need to try to get that generator working so we can have some heat."
Jan and Marc nodded, Rich having heard the instructions had climbed up onto the top of the craft too. Jan slid down the impulse cowling to the snow below and Stone followed. They walked quickly back into the runabout, Jan entered the storage area and Stone walked straight through into the medical bay, the center section of the vessel. As he entered he saw a body lying on one of the bio-beds, underneath the standard beige blanket with the blue Starfleet crest. He approached the bed and lifted the blanket slightly to see the face of his former Warrant Officer Jonas Dural.
He nodded his head slightly and then replaced the blanket. He hadn't known Dural long enough to get to know him personally, but the idea of loosing two crewmen on one simple rescue mission was incomprehensible to Stone. He hadn't lost a single person since he had joined Starfleet.
"Boss," Jan called out from the compartment forward of the medbay. "We've got plenty survival rations, and the standard kit is all here."
"Ok, cheers Jan, move it all into the rear section, we're going to have to seal that hole in the hull somehow too," Stone instructed her. He pulled the curtain around the biobed with Dural's body to ensure it wasn't on view to his colleagues passing through into the aft section.
Stone walked through into the aft section and took a quick look around. The loose chairs had been thrown around, and there were lumps of tritanium alloy scattered around from the hole in the hull. He pulled open an access panel and lifted out the engineer's toolkit contained behind it. The runabout was designed to be self-sufficient and carried tools that the most basic trained Starfleet personnel could handle in a rudimentary fashion. It was several years since Jim had last attempted welding tritanium alloy, but he wasn't going to let that stop him trying, he had a hole in the side of his ship and it needed sealing. Jan entered the compartment with two storage containers in her arms and placed them on the floor. Stone knelt beside the hole in hull and put one of the lumps of alloy whilst was bigger than the actual hole against it.
"I think Marc would be best doing that boss," she said.
Stone looked around.
"You think I can't weld two bits of alloy together?!" he said, jokingly.
She smiled, nodded and quickly went for the other boxes. Stone laughed as she left. Moments later Rich entered the compartment and walked up to the locker where the tools had been kept, noticing they were missing he took a quick glance around and saw the open kit beside Stone.
"No no no," he said as he approached and picked up the kit closing the lid. "We do the welding, you come up with a plan to get us off this rock."
Stone laughed at his deputy's humor in the time of crisis. At least everyone seemed to manage to stay happy.
"Ok, bud," Stone replied getting to his feet and passing the piece of alloy to Watson. "I'll put together something to eat for us."
Watson grinned as he left the compartment to go back outside, leaving Stone with several boxes of foodstuffs to sort through.
Outside the runabout Hedley and Watson had erected a ladder from the rescue equipment to allow them easier access to the top of the craft. Hedley leaned down and took the toolkit from Watson, opened it and dropped the plasma welder back down to the Ensign.
"I'll sort this fried stuff out, you patch up the holes... sir," Hedley said, knowing his computer and systems experience was somewhat greater than his superior's.
"The boss is cooking," Watson said as he crouched down beside the hole.
"Anything nice?" Hedley called back.
Hedley poked at the burnt access panel with a plasma torch gently cutting a twisting piece of metal. There was a ping as the metal cut through and the access panel popped up, Hedley opened it giving him access to the fusion reactor and generator.
"I doubt it, we've got some survival packs, but it's certainly not what you'd call cuisine," Rich replied as he began welding the alloy over the hole.
A blue flicker came from the end of the welder as he moved it around the piece of alloy, slowly he worked his way around back to the starting point and the moved his hand away.
"Well at least it will be warm," Hedley replied.
"It will now this hole's patched up," Rich called back and climbed the ladder to the top of the craft. "How's the generator looking?"
"Well," Hedley began. "It's had it to be honest."
Rich looked at the mangled, burnt circuitry through the access Hedley had opened.
"Hmmm," he replied thoughtfully. "Is there anything else we can use?"
Hedley looked up at him. "Yeah, we'll use the spare one, we've got plenty," he said sarcastically.
Rich looked him in the face, as he did so Hedley's eyes seemed to light up.
"WE DO HAVE A SPARE," the two called out together.
Rich quickly dropped back down the ladder and entered the runabout. Moments later he emerged with yet another Starfleet issue storage container. He pulled the top off and lifted out one of the Search & Rescue portable generators, which were used for lighting at incident scenes and operating the various rescue equipment.
"It's enough to power the heating, lights, cooking and communications stuff," Hedley said as he helped Watson lift it on to the top of the runabout.
Within a matter of minutes wires were attached to the generator and the computer and Hedley had bypassed the fusion reactor completely. He flicked a switch on the side of the unit and it began to hum. As it did so the status indicators on the main computer service display under Hedley's leg began to flash.
"We have lights," Rich said, pointing out the computer.
Hedley quickly looked at the display. The three blue lights indicated something to him which Watson would not understand even if he read the manual.
"Computers should be working, whether individual systems are or not will depends on whether they are connected, or whether they even exist," Hedley said, referring to the navigation systems.
The two climbed down from the roof and entered the craft. Watson feeling experimental touched the panel beside the external hatch, it came to life with a flicker and the hatch began to close.
"Wow!" he burst out, impressed at their achievement. "We have power."
"And food!" Fisher said, poking her head through the aft compartment doorway.
The two stepped through the damaged door and into the aft section, where Lieutenant Stone had managed to create edible appearing food from the ration packs, which Watson felt was more of an achievement than restoring the ship's power.
"Congratulations, I have lights," Stone said.
"Well we are supposed to be specialists," Watson replied, sitting down at the table.
"Tuck in, then get some rest, we'll sort the communications tomorrow," Stone said and joined the other three at the table.
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