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Published on: 8/2/2008
Last Visited: 8/6/2008
Morgan took a deep breath and sighed out."Roger.Coon out."Knight switched over to thrusters and manoeuvred the ship onto a trajectory with the rear of the Drakor.The shuttle bay doors began to open and he pushed the Coon through the permeable barrier into one of 2 of the Drakor's docking bays.
"I've only done that trip about 5 times now," Morgan sarcastically said to himself.He was all alone in the cockpit of his type-9 shuttlecraft.
The craft set down neatly on the yellow outlined pad.The room was not nearly as sterile looking as a shuttlebay on a Federation starship.It had a more homier feeling to it.Knight remained seated as he knew what was coming next.The shuttlecraft was then thrust into the air slightly and spun around so it faced the outer doors."How do they do that," he thought to himself.
Knight checked all of the Coon's systems for as it was completing it's shutdown sequences.He got up from his chair and started heading to the door when the console beeped.Morgan looked up to someone at the ceiling but knew he wasn't going to get any answer to prayers.He turned back around and headed to the console and pressed the accept key.
...
Morgan joined Starfleet because he wanted to follow in his family's footsteps but mainly into security and tactical as his brother did.When he was lost with all hands, it was even more important to Morgan to step up and rescue the universe from the seedy underbelly that scooped his brother up.Of course, he didn't think that his glorious career would involve him doing shuttle runs through a dust-laden atmosphere over and over again.
Morgan opened the rear door of the Coon to see pallets of medical supplies and equipment now stacked at the far side of the bay.A few Cardassian crew members were now loading the pallets into the back of the long shuttle.
"I wonder if the Captain picked me for this job because I'm a certified field medic?"Morgan said to himself without realizing that the crewmen could hear him.
...
Knight thanked the gil and went back to the console to start his pre-flight."Ahh… dinner, I wonder what was on the menu," he wondered.He opened up the box to see that it contained Sem'hal stew and yamok sauce.He put the box back down closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead."I thought I had that for lunch as well," Morgan pondered as he was checking the impulse initiators and the drive flow regulators.
"That's the last of the pallets Lieutenant," the gil remarked from behind him.
"Thanks," Knight called back to him.
After the Cardassian was off the shuttle, Morgan closed the doors and began conducting his final pre-flight checks for the Coon.This was the only way to get the medical supplies down to the planet in a stable manner.Apparently, the transporters could transport the materials, but some of the more exotic medicines lost cohesion inside their storage containers.Doctor Galan made the call that all medical supplies were to be transported by shuttle and not by the Drakor's annular confinement beam.The doctor accompanied Knight on the first of these trips but since then, Morgan was running these ones on his own.
"Hopefully this the last of the runs," Morgan said out loud now that he knew he was alone.He turned on his transponder, double-checked his atmospheric stabilizers, and then hailed the Drakor."Drakor, this is the Coon, I'm ready to depart for Indorhal."
The doors began to open showing him the starfield and the planet beyond."You are cleared to depart Coon," came that same master voice from deep within the bowels of the ship.
Morgan pushed off the deck about a foot with antigravs and then activated the rear RCS quad and moved him from the shelter of the Drakor past the bulkhead out into the wide open abyss.Knight cleared the ship for free navigation, switched over to the impulse drive, and then punched in a re-entry solution to the planet.
Morgan gingerly rubbed his hand across the top of the console."I know it's a bumpy ride girl… but we've been through it, we'll see you on the other side," Morgan coddled the shuttle.After about the third time going down, he started reassuring the shuttle that it could make it or more overly, Knight would be able to walk off of her after the end of the mission.The rides into Indorhal's atmosphere were quite bumpy.
Knight looked at tactical and saw a torrid of storms throughout the different layers of atmosphere.It was a soup of death for the unskilled pilot but Morgan had handled his way through worse.The computer plotted the best trajectory to the colony."Oh… you want me to go that way do you," Morgan joked with the computer."Alright, if you think that is the safest."He then plotted the auto-navigation for the computer's trajectory.
Before hitting the atmosphere, Knight went back to the pallets to ensure they were secured to the floor and walls and then went back to the cockpit.The shuttle was hovering over the planet's welcome window.Knight sat down and directed the ship in. "This is where it's gonna get bumpy," he stated as he put both his hands on the control panels in front of him.
The shuttle began to shake a little as he began passing through the upper atmosphere.The sky felt as though it didn't know which way it should blow wind."Indorhal was funny in the fact that it had large air currents as high in the atmosphere as it did," Morgan thought as he was compensating for the shear factors from the outside.
"Indorhal colony, this is the Coon.I am bringing one last load of medical supplies.ETA, 10 minutes," Morgan directed through the comm link with the surface.
"Excellent Coon, we'll be waiting… Glinn Janus out," the watchkeeper on the surface relayed back.
A violent jostle caught Morgan by surprise and a double warning klaxon fired off."Oh crap," Morgan said out as he saw red lights flickering on the engineering panel.He jumped to the other seat and looked at the console."That's not right… how on earth did that happen?"The indicator panel was showing the impulse engine completely dead from a plasma surge.Morgan looked back at tactical to see that the computer flew him through a highly ionized storm in the atmosphere and it locked one of the flow regulators which killed the engines.
Morgan began going back to the other seat when the nose of the craft pushed down.Morgan was about to press the thruster control when the craft began it's nose dive.His finger slid off the button he wanted as he began to be propelled to the back of the craft.His finger ended up tapping the wrong button."Dammit!"Knight exclaimed as he now slammed into the crates pinned at the back of the craft.
Unfortunately, Knight had hit the wrong thruster control button and instead of gaining control, all power was going into the bottom forward thruster.It took a few seconds but the craft began to swoop forward.The change in G's made the craft lose gravity and Knight, with an awful pain in his back, began floating in the air.The shuttle was beginning to point it's nose back towards space.It was doing summer-saults in the air.
Another warning sound went off.The thruster was running out of fuel after burning so hard.Knight pushed off the crates and floated towards the control panel.He floated for a few seconds somewhat nauseated from the back pain.His fingers just touching the back of his seat.Then Morgan looked at the panel and saw that the power to the thruster shut off.Morgan was losing speed in his floating but managed to get a grip on the back of the seat.Unfortunately gravity returned as well.
The shuttle began plummeting backside first towards the planet.Morgan was hanging onto his seat with his legs dangling towards the cargo beneath him.He could see the altimeter on the display in front, rapidly subtracting onto itself.He didn't have much time left.Knight began to pull himself up onto his seat.His injured back was not helping and he felt that it would kill him to do so."I got… to save… the cargo…" Morgan grunted out.He eventually climbed onto his chair as the proximity alert started to go off.The thrusters were all out of juice and he was all out of time.
Knight opened up the schematic on the impulse drive on his console.He was sweating beads and trying to find a way to compensate for the ineffective regulator.He studied it for what seemed like hours yet was only about 30 seconds.Then he saw it.He wasn't an engineer but he knew that he could shunt the flow through the impulse response filter.He
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