Jammed
Posted on Tue Dec 30th, 2025 @ 1:10am by Ensign Garabed "Garo" Hakobyan & Ensign Tyler Williams
1,342 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Bridge, Nidean Freighter
Timeline: MD 09, 0940 Hours
continued from: The Freighter That Wouldn't Wait
Garo could feel the bridge shrinking once the silence had set in.
Not quiet--never that--but sealed. As though they were placed inside one of the old-fashioned aluminum cans and locked in. Only two consoles were active on the bridge--the helm, which was now displaying a series of glyphs which Garo knew translated into SECURITY LOCK-OUT--and the armrest of the Captain's Chair, which flashed similar Nidean glyphs.
The dead pilot sat where Garo had left him, helmet resting beside the chair gruesomely.
Garo opened his eyes after a short minute of consideration.
"Alright," he said, not even looking at Ensign Williams who stood impassively nearby. "We do this the old way."
The sealing of the doors had sent a cold shiver down Tyler's spine and made the hairs on his arms want to stand up if they weren't stifled by his long sleeves. A moment of claustrophobia had come and passed too, even though the Bridge was large enough and he'd never experienced it before.
"You mean the old way as in rip things apart and manually try to override whatever is going on to cut us off from the rest of the ship?" He queried, keeping one finger near the trigger of his rifle and an eye on the door to the Bridge.
Somewhere deep in the ship, phasers were screaming. Garo and Tyler wouldn't know it until much later, but a security system had been installed aboard Katreen's Hope with holo-emitters and a deadly program meant to deter visitors.
Sliding back down beside the helm, Garo's fingers found traction on a panel and pulled it open. He opened a second panel. And then a third. Nidean design was elegant until you offended it. After that, it became as stubborn as a child. Layers of interlocks. Logic loops folded in on themselves like sulking toddlers.
"Communications first," he muttered. "Number one rule of Away Team: stay in contact. So let's fix it and become heroes, Tyler. Or die." He threw Tyler a wry grin, adding, "Armenian stories go either way."
"You're going to have to tell me some of these Armenian stories sometime, Garo." Tyler half grinned back, "But I do like the idea of being the heroes in this situation.
He rerouted power through a tertiary sensor bus--it wasn't something one could do with a Starfleet vessel. They were considered useless and obsolete. Passive. Dumb. But honest. A system that seemed to be there just because.
The helm's display flickered. It was just static for a moment, then it collapsed before surging again.
"Ah," Garo said, pleased despite himself. "There you are. You are not jammer. You are gatekeeper."
The security program wasn't blocking signals. It was choking them--wrapping itself around every outbound transmission and waiting to see where it went. Anything that went outside of a set of specific coordinates got smothered.
"Fine," he whispered. "Then we don't speak."
He killed the audio channel entirely and leaned back, staring up at the ring of hovering pylons. Navigation data. Stellar cartography. External telemetry. All still alive. Still working.
Garo reached into his toolkit again and pulled free a coil of filament so thin it might've been imaginary. He threaded it into the helm's tactile feedback array and then into the forward sensor alignment grid, fingers moving faster and faster now. This was definitely not regulation. But it was dirty and efficient.
"Tyler," he said, not looking up, "if something explodes, it is not your fault. Okay?"
"If something explodes and then you die from it, then it does become my fault!" Tyler was trusting the guy that he knew what he was doing, even though higher had no idea what was actually going on.
He slung the rifle back over his shoulder and cautiously moved in closer to see what Garo was doing, "But in saying that, what exactly are you doing? In layman's terms for the non-technical one, I mean?"
Garo tucked his tongue into the corner of his mouth and began tapping a series of commands into the console. "Every vessel is equipped with navigational deflector," he explained, stopping to open another panel below the console. A hair-thin wire was quickly clipped and then plugged into a different port.
"Navigational deflector keeps ships from bumping into space junk," Garo continued, tapping in more commands on the console. "Because space junk causes damage, yes? And even when navigational deflector is disabled or switched-off, there is still tiny frequency that resonates to still do this job. Works on independent power supply."
He turned and grinned at Tyler as the console began piping radio static into the empty bridge. "We can talk through this tiny frequency--maybe not to Astrea--but the angels on our shoulders."
"So basic electronics would say it's kind of like a residual amount of frequency, but constant, that's coming through and allowing it to transmit." Tyler confirmed what he'd heard with a nod, a question mark hanging at the end.
Garo stopped what he was doing and turned to the tactical officer with a lopsided grin. "Tyler Williams, my friend," he said mischieviously. "You might have career in engineering! There is hope for you yet."
The lopsided grin was mirrored on Tyler's face as he made an offhand comment without even thinking, "If you're going to flirt like that, at least buy me dinner first, yeah?"
Then he realised what he'd said and covered it with a chesty cough before checking his rifle again, "Sorry, that just came out." The whole situation with Osirin still had him wound tightly. "Where are we at with the comms?"
Garo chuckled softly, more a forced exhale than a laugh, as he reached into the panel once again. This time, he went elbow-deep as though reaching for something further inside. "If our starfighters have ears on, they will hear us. Question is more about which frequency. Higher subspace bands will grab attention easier."
He removed his hand and tapped a few commands into the console and leaned back on his knees, a hopeful expression on his face.
"Lieutenant Vale," Garo said into the console, imagining the pilot circling outside in the darkness of space. "This is Garo Hakobyan and Tyler Williams on the bridge of Katreen's Hope. Are you receiving us?"
Static. Slight squeals and and high-pitched whine came through the station as Garo adjusted the frequency to a higher band.
"Starfighter group. This is Ensign Hakobyan on bridge of the Nidean freighter. Please respond."
The static stretched longer as the seconds ticked away. Finally, a tiny squeal on the frequency and a click caught Garo's attention.
[This is Lieutenant Taqqiq Allooloo,] came a voice that was bathed in static. [Ensign Hakobyan, you're coming through on a residual deflector harmonic.]
Garo closed his eyes and gave Tyler a small shoulder squeeze as the relief washed over him.
"Lieutenant," he said raising his voice, fearful the signal might disappear if he didn't shout. "Things have gone very wrong over here."
[I can put you through directly to Captain Johansen,] Allooloo replied, though the signal seemed to be causing her voice to fade in and out.
"Oh, thank the gods for that." There was a small amount of relief in Tyler's voice as he clapped Garo back on the shoulder. "Once we get in touch with the Captain, hopefully we can get out of here and see how the rest of the team are going. Maybe be back on the ship within a few hours?"
Garo grinned, content that their hard work had finally paid-off. "I, too, am hopeful for this, Tyler."
Ensign Garabed "Garo" Hakobyan
Transporter Specialist
USS Astrea
Ensign Tyler Williams
Tactical Officer
USS Astrea
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