The VSS Hyut pt.1
Posted on Sun Apr 12, 2026 @ 1:57am by Lieutenant JG Juanita Sanchez "Puma" & Petty Officer 1st Class Goldie Brown & Lieutenant Commander Curtis Thibideaux & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro & Lieutenant JG Rachele Lamberti & Lieutenant Raiden Kosugi
1,536 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Jubilee
Location: 14 light hours from DS5
Timeline: Ten hours after USS Ararat
The deck thrummed under Curtis’s feat as he stood just before the command chair of the USS Ararat. He preferred to stand most of his time on watch. It gave him a better view, though the Ararat’s bridge was small and he felt like he was somewhat in the way, as the fill in crew worked themselves into the roles they were covering for this patrol.
He preferred to feel the ship through his feet.
Not his posterior.
So far the ship was handling well.
More importantly, they were out seeing and being seen.
At least via data. He’d kept the comm’s section busy, checking in with various vessels as their transponders dropped into DS5’s extended sensor range, making sure those vessels were transiting the system within prescribed flight paths.
The limited science section along with tactical was analyzing sensor traffic that had been picked up from within the battle areas. A large number of derelicts, mostly Cardassian at this point since all allied ships would have been immediately towed for repair or to assessed by BuShips as to whether they would be repaired or go to the breakers.
The Cardassian ships were another thing. Classified as spoils, the Federation and Allies weren’t just going to hand back material of war and that was a subject of hot debate within the Diplomatic Corp. All of the crews, living and dead, had been removed by DS5’s SAR after the battles of course, but the drifting dead ships remained.
And there were always scavengers. Strategic Ops and the station’s Air Wings had mapped out a schedule for extended combat patrols through the graveyard at random intervals on random routes, but still things went missing.
It was a matter of concern.
Curtis mused on this as he continued to monitor the Ararat’s streaming data through his HUD as he stretched and rubbed at his eyes. It had been a long day. His stomach rumbled its displeasure at him as well. The coffee he’d been subsiding on the past sixteen hours was merrily attempting to eat a hole in his stomach lining.
On the sensors, another blip popped onto the screens as a ship dropped out of warp.
Goldie walked onto the bridge with a tray of sandwiches and cheese rolls. She paused to look at the screen. "Interesting. There aren't supposed to be ships out here. Well, not usually, anyway." She set the tray down. "Want me or Juanita to hail them?" While Juanita was at helm and comms, Goldie was the operations officer. But Thibideaux was the captain.
It was sobering and fascinating at the same time to see the carnage left over from the attempted Cardassian assault on the station. Annora had a vague memory of the alternate assault where Starfleet attempted to retake the station, with abysmal results. And of course, during the Romulan War, most hostile ships opted for self-destruction instead of allowing themselves to fall into enemy hands. She perked up at mention of a mysterious ship in the area.
"Our shields remain at full strength. Standing by what weapons this ship has. "
"Full scan on that ship," Curtis said as he brushed away the streaming feeds and his contact went clear, acknowledging his preference to take analysis from his crew over a data dump from the computer. "Hailing frequencies, if you will Ms. Brown," his nose acknowledged the food but his hunger was forgotten (at least for the moment). "That ship's off any sort of official flight path. Helm...Puma, slow us to half impulse and let’s get a good look."
Rachele sat at one of the Bridge's auxiliary consoles, that she'd configured as an Intel console. She was analyzing Communications and sensor data to create a 'picture' of the sector. She looked up at the view screen to see the once proud Galor, Hideki, and Keldon class vessels floating lifeless, their hulls torn apart by Phaser fire, disruptor fire and torpedo blasts.
It was all due to the ego and anger of one man and the folly of those who followed him.
Over the comms a static hum could be heard and the viewer jumped ahead to show a Vulcan class ship slipping through the black of space, the name VSS Hyut lit on her hull.
Since there was already a pilot at the helm, Raiden leaned up against the wall, observing. Even though he was a pilot, he could also be brought into play to be part of a security team due to his martial arts training. The abruptness of the appearance of the Vulcan ship caught Raiden's attention. Wandering over to where an empty console was, Raiden called up the scan of the newest ship.
"I've not seen this sort of ship before" Was Raiden's first comment. His brow furrowed slightly. "The ship is exhibiting signs of damage to one of the warp engines, and the transponder is registering the name of the VSS Hyut" being even more interested. He slid into the seat. "From what else I am digging up, it’s a science ship. Configuration is similar to a Suurok ship A Solio class. I'd like a crack to fly this." looking up from the console to where Curtis sat. "There seems to be a fluctuation of the life sign scans." He looked over to where Goldie was handing out sandwiches. "Goldie, would you come verify the readings?" she was after all an operations officer.
"Captain," Alex said to Lieutenant Commander Thibideaux. The commanding officer of any vessel held the title of 'Captain', even if their rank was lower. "If there's damage to that ship's warp engines, the crew could be suffering from radiation poisoning. If we beam them out, we'll need to activate a forcefield around the ward room to protect the rest of the crew from also becoming irradiated. I'd also ask that you run a scan to make sure the radiation coming off of that ship, if any, isn't of a high enough dose to harm us, and regardless is dissipating and diffusing before it gets to us."
Curtis mulled for a couple of beats, then said. "Helm, lay in a parallel course abeam of her port side. Comms, keep trying to raise someone." Curtis took stock for a moment and said, "I'm not going to start beaming over sick persons and bits of atmosphere before we have a handle on what's what. "Lieutenant Tessaro. Take Ensign Olsen, Lieutenant Kosugi and Senior Chief Rylan. Get out the encounter suits, beam over and asses the crew and ship. If it is space-worthy, we'll escort you back to DS5. JG Lamberti, can join you in the assessment. That's about all we can spare."
"So far no response to the hails," Goldie replied. "Sending on all frequencies. All I'm getting is a hum and some static." But she'd keep trying until someone answered or the away team reported everyone dead.
Juanita was keeping an ear on the conversation around her as she adjusted the course again. She hadn't been in the system long enough to know what was and wasn't expected, but this did look unusual--and interesting. "I'll take her close enough to see the rivets in her hull."
While they talked, Alex got encounter suits for the Away Team and started putting his on.
Rachele accepted an encounter suit from Alex. She hadn't used one since that away mission on the USS Martinique. They'd responded to a distress call form an asteroid mining station. They'd suffered a plasma leak, followed by a catastrophic decompression. It was a massacre, those that hadn't died from plasma burns, had succumbed to asphyxia. Bodies had floated around like broken marionettes.
Putting on the suit she made extra certain to check the seams.
"Aye sir." Securing her station, Annora headed towards the gear locker. Accepting a suit from Alex, she wasted little time in putting it on. She tucked away an extra power-cell for the phaser, just in case. While there were no obvious threats, it didn't hurt to be prepared. Hopefully the crew of the crippled starship were able to get into EV suits or to a safe haven in time. She remembered doing emergency drills as a child while living on a freighter.
Agnetha tried not to beam at getting to go on an away team; after all, there were people in danger. But still, it was an exciting prospect. Instead, she managed to turn her grin into a reasonable grimace as she took the EV suit from Rylan. Now all those hours on the academy training to use the engineering tools in one of these suits would come in handy.
END
A joint post by:
Lieutenant Commander Curtis Thibideaux
Strategic Operations Officer
Deep Space 5
Acting Captain
USS Ararat
Lieutenant JG Juanita Sanchez "Puma"
Fighter Pilot
Deep Spacae 5
Petty Officer 1st Class Goldie Brown
Operations
Deep Space 5
Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief Security Officer
Deep Space Five
Lieutenant JG Rachele Lamberti
Assistant Chief Intelligence Officer
Deep Space 5
Lieutenant Raiden Kosugi
Pilot/sometimes security
Deep Space 5
Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan EMT-P
Independent Duty Corpsman
Deep Space 5
Agnetha
RSS Feed