The Haunted Freighter Part III: I Smell Smoke
Posted on Sat Feb 28th, 2026 @ 3:46pm by Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Ensign Garabed "Garo" Hakobyan & Crewman Emiliano Echevarria & Major Clay McEntyre III & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Keel & 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez & Captain Remy Johansen & Lieutenant Commander Nash Winters & Lieutenant Commander Xalanth & Lieutenant Commander Daynah Ral & Lieutenant JG Sakkar & Lieutenant JG Fulvia & Ensign S'Niri
Edited on on Wed Mar 18th, 2026 @ 2:09am
2,257 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Nidean Freighter / Astrea's Bridge
Timeline: MD 09, 0945 Hours (After Part 2)
continued from The Haunted Freighter Part 2
*** Corridor of Nidean Freighter ***
"Thank you for volunteering, Mr. Sakkar. You're with me." Clay turned back for just a second. Clay would probably need a hand and the Vulcan gave him the opening.
"The rest of you, go with Commander Xalanth, we'll be back before ya know it."
"Sir," Martinez acknowledged, holding the tricorder that Sakkar had given them. They glanced at the directions, before they looked at Commander Xalanth.
As Lieutenant Sakkar quickly led the Major back toward the the Bridge, the rest of the Away Team were left to make their way back to the shuttles to evacuate. The unknown language continued on repeat over the Nridian communications system, a nagging earworm reminding the crew that they were running out of time.
"Keep moving." Xalanth said to the away team and marines he was leading back to the shuttles. His tongue zipped out of his mouth as a familiar metallic taste entered his brain. "Hold it. Radiation leak," he said as his and everyone else's suits warning lights began to light up like a Christmas tree.
Martinez frowned as they looked at the warning on their suit, taking a shallow breath out of instinct. The way it rose told them it was a steady radiation leak. The closer they got to the source the worse it would be. Standard packs had anti-radiation medication, but even that would only do so much before you were irradiated. "Alternative route, or patch and run?" they phrased it as a question, but it was closer to a comment than anything else. The Dragonian had superior senses...Martinez was just human, and wouldn't know how bad it was until the nausea or radiation tan hit. Neither were something that they thought was appealing right now.
S'Niri's snout wrinkled instantly. "Smoke. I smell smoke." She stated. "I vote for an alternative route."
Tricorders showed that there was no real way to avoid the radiation. The leak was radiating from the ship's core and moving quickly outward toward the hull. Moving toward the airlock where the Marine's shuttle was docked took them away from the source, but no one way was better.
It was clear that there were isolated fires nearby, though at the moment, nothing indicated that the fires were burning out of control.
*** USS Astrea Bridge ***
Meanwhile, on Astrea's Bridge, the Captain was doing a poor job of maintaining patience as they waited to hear back from the Marines.
Commander Winters arrived on the bridge in the middle of all the commotion.
He looked at his friend and Captain. “A little bird told me you needed me, Captain.” He moved in closer, pleased to see his commanding officer. “Good to see you, Remy. Glad to be home. Sara and the kids send their best. Tell me what you need.”
"I - we still need to catch up. Right now we've got officers on that Nidian Freighter," Remy gestured to the viewscreen. "Something is blocking comms and transporters, but we still have a spotty read on their lifesigns."
"Commander Ral is focused on the fact that we may have another ship out there lurking. Can you give Lieutenants Fulvia and Dorsainvil a hand on this ship? Marines went over to get our people out, but something isn't right." Remy gestured toward the back of the Bridge where J.B. and Fulvia were working.
“Be happy, to, Captain. And…yes we’ll have to make time to catch up,” Nash grinned at Remy and headed Dorsainvil and Fulvia were stationed.
“Lieutenants, the Captain asked me to come and give you guys a hand. What can I do?” Nash asked.
JB nodded a greeting to Winters. He'd met the brown-haired man briefly before but knew very little of the Chief Engineer and family man aside from being well-liked and respected by just about every officer on board.
"Commander," JB said, pointing to a schematic of the Nidian freighter, "we have Marines and security here in the aft compartment. Our sensors are being blocked from direct activity over there, and so we're relying on the Starfighter contingent to relay what they're picking up."
He sighed and looked at Fulvia, who seemed to have her resolute face on.
"There is some signal being transmitted from the very aft portion of the engineering bay. To where, we have no idea. Aside from that, we have two officers stranded on the bridge--Ensigns Hakobyan and Williams. Without transporters and without a working shuttlebay, I'm not certain we can get them out."
“Can we talk to them? Fulvia, open a channel for me.” Fulvia nodded and Nash heard the sound of the comm activating. “Garo…Tyler…it’s Nash. We’re working to get you out. Sit tight and hold your ground. This may take a little longer than I would like, but it just might work. You’ll be home in time for dinner. I’m buying. Nash out.”
The whine of a starfighter's engines piped over the comm moments before Lieutenant Allooloo's broke through.
[Commander, I can't guarantee they received your message.] She sighed. [Communications are still being jammed at the source.]
“Please keep trying to raise them. They need to know that they’re not alone. There has to be a way to reestablish two way communication.”
Nash thought for a beat and settled in beside Dorsainvil.
“So here’s what you do. Run a multi-spectral analysis on that signal. Determine the frequency, if it’s emitting any radiation. In the meantime, I’ll get the transporters operational.”
JB nodded and began inputting the necessary parameters as defined by Nash. He was the engineer and JB knew there was a reason why the entire crew held such a high opinion of the man.
"Yes, sir."
Nash put a reassuring hand on JB’s shoulder as he left for his engineering bridge station. “Let me know what you find.”
"Absolutely, sir. I'll keep you informed."
Nearby, Crewman Emiliano Echevarria was completely engrossed in the most recent sensor readings as relayed from Beta Flight. It was clear something was out there holding geostationary orbit. Hovering next to his station was Lieutenant Commander Ral, also sifting through the data, and just behind her was Ryan Keel, his wealth of knowledge at the ready.
"Diay, Commander," Emiliano said, his Costa Rican accent coating his words, "if it is a Romulan warbird, couldn't we just release low-density particles like a verteron mist and watch the turbulence patterns? If we pump-out enough of them, the particles will curl around whatever is displacing space."
Nash overheard the young crewman talking to Ral. “Verterons? Hang on, bubba, I think you might have something. Like a detection grid.” He turned to Daynah. “What do you think, Commander? If that’s the source of this signal or whatever it is….see where it’s coming from and then figure out how to knock it out later. I like the way you think, Crewman. You can come work for me down in Engineering.”
Daynah turned to the other two with a smile. "Right theory, wrong particle. A detection grid is the answer. But, verterons are extremely volatile, and they would not reveal anything hidden. They would simply bounce and then we would have to figure out if it were space dust or a ship that they bounced off of. Tachyons on the other hand, now that would be the trick." She began to punch commands into her console rather quickly. "What we can do is create a tachyon net around the planet using the deflector dish as the generator, and possible a shuttle in synchronous orbit as a relay. Anything that is passed within the net is detected." She pointed at the screen for the others to see the simulation she had just created.
Nash had to admit to his mistake and was impressed by Ral’s pickup of his error. “Just making sure you were paying attention. Just kidding. I stand corrected. Tachyons are definitely the key. If the Romulans are out there, a tachyon beam will tell us.”
Nash returned to his station and accessed the transporter system. He performed a quick diagnostic, the result of which showed a slight glitch in primary and redundant scanners. The pattern buffers operated nominally; he didn’t want to mess with the buffers considering he had to bring his shipmates home.
Watching quietly from his console seat, Keel tried his best to follow the conversation going on between the officers. Like all Starfleet Academy graduates, he had a basic knowledge of what they were talking about, but seeing experts in their field go at it to solve the problem was something else. It was like the difference between a village ice skating competition and the Winter Olympics.
[Ptarmigan to Astrea,] came the voice of Lieutenant Taqqiq Allooloo, a note of dubiousness in her voice.
From his command center station, Jean-Baptiste switched the main viewscreen to focus on Allooloo's formation. "Astrea here, Ptarmigan. Go ahead."
[Astrea, our scans are picking up some alarming power surges emanating from the engineering section of the freighter.]
Captain Johansen turned to the crew. "Let's focus on that freighter. Our people are out there, we need to figure out how why we're jammed."
"Dorsainvil, put me through," She ordered. "Ptarmigan, this is the Captain. What can you tell us about the power surges."
[Tough to say, Astrea,] the young woman's voice fringed. [But these surges are nearly three-hundred percent above normal ranges. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a forced warp core breach.]
“Readings confirmed, Captain. Radiation spikes all over the damn ship. They need to move as far from the irradiated areas. I can guide them to a safer location through their tricorders. I can boost the annular confinement beam and transport them out,” Nash said.
“They have to move fast. I’ll only get one or two attempts before everything goes to hell.”
Emiliano spun around in his chair. "No me jodás! Detecting blow-outs through the ship. Plasma fires as well!"
“They have to move fast. I’ll only get one or two attempts before everything goes to hell.”
Emiliano spun around in his chair. "No me jodás! Detecting blow-outs through the ship. Plasma fires as well!"
*** Nidean Bridge ***
Time had passed without mercy.
The bridge of Katreen's Hope no longer resembled anything a sane species would inhabit, let alone pilot through space. It looked autopsied.
Panels hung open, fiber lines spilled across the deck in fine, little tangles. The captain's chair had been stripped of all dignity with half its armature hollowed-out. Even the helm's crystalline interface was gutted, the once-elegant Nidean glyphs now replaced with exposed latticework and light beams.
Garo sat cross-legged in his own wreckage, his hands blackened and bleeding in places, sleeves rolled back past his elbows. From his fingers dangled a filament--no longer connected to anything. He stared down at the final diagnostic as it appeared on the screen before dying away just as quickly.
"That," he said with a loud sigh, "was the last idea I have."
Tyler looked around, unwilling to give up. They still hadn’t put all of their energy into trying to brut force their way out. He took a moment to size Garo up.
They didn't know it yet, but they were trapped on a ship that was about to explode.
Captain Remira Johansen
Commanding Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Nash Winters
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Daynah Ral
Chief Operations Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Xalanth
Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
Lt. Commander Ryan Keel
Chief of Diplomatic Intelligence
USS Astrea
Major Clay McEntyre III
Marine Commanding Officer
USS Astrea
1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez
Marine Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant J.G. Sakkar
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Astrea
Ensign S'Niri
Tactical Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of Thivi)
Crewman Emiliano Echevarria
Operations Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)
Ensign Garabed "Garo" Hakobyan
Transporter Specialist
USS Astrea
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)
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