Star Traks: Banshee "Natural Disaster" By Brad Dusen "Ready for landing procedures." Ben said as he navigated the Banshee through the atmosphere of Earth. "Mr. DiSanto, extend landing struts." Jad paced the bridge, having never landed a ship before. "Mr. Rachow, no smart assed remarks about Vince extending things." "Awww..." Ben groaned. "Struts ready." Vince reported. "We're over the assigned landing pad." Ben said. "Set us down." Jad ordered. The sleek Sovereign-Class vessel set down, marking the first time that class had ever landed. Two Starfleet service shuttles and a small Miranda-Class ship dedicated for use in these docking facilities headed their way. "Captain's log, stardate 51155.2: The Banshee has landed on Earth for repairs of the damages inflicted during our encounter with the Borg. Though this is not an opportunity for giving the crew shore leave, I find the idea of getting rid of a few of them actually quite appealing, therefore I have sent in a request to Starfleet. Upon getting a response reading "Are you nuts, that would put Earth in greater danger than when the Borg tried to invade," I have managed to convince them that some of the crew might be good for heavy lifting in headquarters. Since for reasons I won't even ask, the idea of slave labor turns them on, I have arranged for Commander Burns, Lt. Cmdr. Rachow and Lt. Carn to go down to headquarters and help out. With what is a different matter." Charlotte, Ben and Carn materialized inside Starfleet headquarters nearly half a planet away from where the Banshee had landed outside Cairo, along the banks of the Nile. They were greeted by Admiral Jared Newman. "Hello, Newman!" Charlotte said. "Welcome everyone." Newman said. The three got off the transporter pad. "You're probably wondering why you're here." Ben shrugged. "No. Captain Vorezze wanted to get rid of us." "Besides that." Newman said. "We want you to help out with an upgrade to the weather modification net." "What's wrong with it?" Carn asked. "Nothing, we just want to make a few upgrades." Newman shrugged. He led them out to a small console in the middle of a small courtyard. He tapped a few buttons. A rumble of thunder started and rain began to pour down... directly over Ben's head. "Thank you, sir." He said weakly. "Oh come on, that was mean!" Charlotte said. "That might ruin his rug!" Charlotte ripped off Ben's fake goatee. "Hey! Give me that!" Ben swatted at Charlotte. "Ha, try to get it now!" She held it up as high as she could reach, which was just beyond Ben's grasp. Ben ripped the ring out of Charlotte's nose. "AAHHHHHHH!" Charlotte dropped the facial wig. Newman walked away. "You people..." The USS Discovery flew through Earth's atmosphere, preparing to land on the pad adjacent to the Banshee. It was a brand new Intrepid-Class starship. Captain Vorezze looked out his ready room window. "Hmm... there must be a storm coming." Jad looked at the storm clouds developing over the ancient Egyptian capital. He looked back into his ready room. Axik sat in a chair near Jad's desk. "How long will the repairs take?" He asked. "Two days, but sealing the breaches may be delayed if that storm hits." Axik looked down at a PADD. "Well I'll have to do something about that." He hit a button on his desk and a monitor slowly raised up. "Earth Weather Modi- fication Net Control." He told the computer. A portly looking Bolian appeared on the screen. "How can I help you?" "We need you to redirect the storm nearing Cairo, Egypt." Jad said. "Okay." The Bolian sighed. The transmission ended. "I take it those work motivation seminars aren't working." Jad said to Axik. "Bridge to Captain Vorezze." Vince said. "What is it, Commander?" "We're detecting a planet-wide energy surge going through the weather modification net." The clouds on the horizon blackened numerous shades of grey. Blue lighting flickered inside. "Prepare to take off. Advise Starfleet that we can finish the modifications in Space Station McKinly." Jad walked out onto the bridge. "The Discovery has already taken off." Vince reported as the sleek Intrepid-Class vessel flew upward. A bolt of lightning from the black storm clouds struck the Discovery, sending it crashing to the ground. "Uhh..." Jad stuttered, "Perhaps we should wait until the storm clears." Starfleet Headquarters was alive with alarms as a series of mean looking storms began to near San Fransisco. "The Discovery reports that it has sustained heavy damage." One officer said. "Cloud coverage over Tokyo, 90%, Beijing, 92%..." Another officer reported. "This is a planet-wide disaster!" Newman shouted at Ben, Charlotte and Carn. "Even worse than that Changeling scare a few years ago!" "What ever happened about that?" Ben asked. "We think we found all the Changelings." Newman said confidently. An officer nearby melted into a puddle and slithered out the door. "But we have bigger things to worry about at the moment. The weather modification net is in backwash mode." "What does that mean?" Charlotte asked. "It means that instead of preventing bad weather, it's causing it!" Newman shouted. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance. "What was that!?" Ben shouted nervously. "Just thunder." Newman said. "Look, Carn is trying to set up the emergency weather net to shield headquarters from the storm. Go out and help him." "Captain, this might be a problem." Liz said to Jad as she looked at the readings at her station. "The Nile has risen 4 meters from the rain." "What does that mean for us?" Jad asked. "It means that in five hours, the Banshee may become the galaxy's largest submarine." "So. We're designed to operate in space, in air and under water." Jad shrugged. "Yes, but the silt would clog the warp engines, causing a warp core overload. The ship would explode after a while." "Ahhh crap." Jad collapsed into his chair. The lightning had gotten significantly more vivid in San Fransisco as Ben, Carn and Charlotte made their way into a courtyard. "I'll be right back." Carn said as he walked up a fire escape leading into a storage area. Thunder and lightning crashed overhead. Charlotte watched the storm while Ben looked as if, for some strange reason, he wanted to get closer to her. "Ben, do you have a problem?" She asked. "Besides the obvious." "Look, Charlotte, I never told anyone about this, since it's not a common thing in today's society but..." Ben began. "What is it?" Charlotte asked. "I'm afraid of thunder and lightning." Ben admitted. "Oh, Ben..." Charlotte said almost comfortingly, "You are such a wuss!" "There, I got 'em!" Carn shouted as he emerged from the building and held up some of the transponder rods required to activate the backup net. "Lieutenant, I don't think you should be up there!" Charlotte called. "Especially holding those big metal rods!" "Why?" Carn shouted back. "Hey, I feel kinda tingly." Charlotte quickly noticed that Carn's hair was standing on end. "Carn, get out of there!" A bright blue flash rained down from the sky, followed by an incredibly loud crash of thunder, knocking Carn off the fire escape and leaving his uniform charred. "Carn!" Charlotte rushed over to the fallen android. Carn looked up, his hair looking vaguely like Albert Einstein's. "That was fun..." He passed out. "Hang on, I'll get you back inside." Charlotte looked up. "Ben!" No response. "Ben!" She quickly spotted Ben, who was hiding under a nearby park bench, shivering and pale faced. "Wimp!" The turbolift doors wooshed open as Emily walked onto the bridge. "Hello, Counselor." Jad said as he examined the lastest readings on the Nile's flood height. "Captain, I'm worried about these storms." Emily said as she sat down in her chair, which she normally didn't sit in. "Join the club." Jad said as he walked over to the master situations monitor, which showed where the water was up to on the Banshee. "Deck 23." Still at the bottom of the ship, but it was still rising. "If you ask me, I think that this is an act of God." The overly-religious counselor said. "With all due respect, Counselor, you think everything is an act of God. Last week, you thought your drink was an act of God." Jad sat next to her in his command chair. "Well the drink exploded!" "That's why it's called the Nova!" Jad calmed himself down. He didn't want to provoke any more nasty thoughts than the ones he was sensing now. "Oh crap!" Vince shouted. "Hang on, this might be bad!" There was a loud crash of thunder and the Banshee shook. The lights and computer displays flickered, then went dead, plunging the crew into total darkness. "What happened?" Jad asked. "We just lost main power! The starboard nacelle built up enough of a charge to attract a lightning bolt." Vince reported. "It triggered a new system that prevents a warp core breach by shutting down all power systems." "Uh oh!" Liz said in the total blackness. "My hamster just escaped." "Hey, uh, there's someone touching my butt!" Dan shouted. "Oh, sorry, I thought that was a locker for the palm beacons." Emily said. "I'll try to get to engineering." An officer said. "How do I open the trap door?" "I just opened it." Dan called. "Well where is it?" The officer started walking forward "I... AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" There was a loud splat about 8 decks down. "Perhaps I should close the trap door." Dan said. "Hang on." Jad shouted. He felt his way to the back of the bridge and found an access panal. He pulled the lever inside, throwing open all the bridge doors and letting in light from the ready room and observation lounge windows. "Thank you." Emily said. Jad sat down in his command chair, then he heard a squeak. He looked down and pulled up a quivering, fuzzy blob that was lodged in between his seat cushions. "Zeke!" Liz cried jovially as she picked up her pet hamster. "We just lost the computer link up with the Banshee." Newman said as he walked into Starfleet's control room. "And guess who we want to fly a shuttle to find out what happened!" Newman looked at Ben. "Aw man!" Ben said. Axik pointed to a diagram of the Banshee that she took from the ready room. "The new power system is designed so that, if the Banshee's warp engines were hit by an enemies weapons, the power surge wouldn't go up the plasma stream into the warp core and destroy it." She explained. "So the power system automatically shuts everything down, halting the plasma flow and securing the warp core from the feedback." The rest of the bridge crew sat around her in the observation lounge. "But we were struck by lightning." Emily was confused. Of course, Engineering wasn't her field, she was a counselor. "But lightning has the firepower of a high powered phaser or disruptor blast. For all the power system knows, we just sustained a direct hit from a Romulan Warbird." "So how do we get the power back online?" Emily looked around the darkened bridge. "It's too creepy in here." "Think of how the people in engineering must feel." Jad groaned. The thunder crashed outside and rain poured down the observation lounge window. "Captain..." Vince froze as he looked out the window. "Not now, Commander!" Jad said. "How do we get power back online?" "That's up to Dave and the rest of the engineering crew." Axik explained. "Captain..!" Vince said, his voice full of panic. "Damn!" Jad shouted, ignoring Vince. "For all we know, everyone in engineering is..." "Dead?" Liz cut him off. "No, hiding in a corner, praying for the lights to come back on!" Jad explained. "Captain!" Vince shouted. Emily saw what Vince saw. "Captain!!!" "Is there any way to get power back online from the bridge?" Jad asked. "CAPTAIN!!!" Vince and Emily screamed in unison. "What!?" Jad shouted, irritated. He turned and saw what Vince and Emily saw. "Oh shit!" A tornado was headed towards the Banshee. Newman sat at his desk in his office in Starfleet Head- quarters. "Newman to shuttlecraft Sarek, what is your status?" "Fine, we're flying in the heart of Orlando. We should be in Cairo in about half an hour if I go to full impulse after clearing the city." Ben reported. Newman could hear Charlotte saying something in the back- ground. "No, Commander, you can't fly the shuttle." Ben said. Charlotte muttered something that couldn't be understood on the communications channel. "Why? You have no flight experience." Ben explained. Charlotte started shouting. "Fine!" Ben said. "Take the helm." There was a brief moment of silence, then a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass. There was a woman screaming, but it wasn't Charlotte, then another crash of breaking glass. "Ben, what the f*** are you doing!?" Newman screamed. "Sorry, sir!" Ben said over the comm. "Thanks to Charlotte's lack of experience, we accidentally crashed through some woman's appartment." Newman slapped his hand to his face. "What?" Ben responded to something Charlotte said. "Oh, LOOK OUT!!!!" There were two loud crashes and what sounded like gushing water. "What now?" Newman asked. "We accidentally knocked the ears of the Micky Mouse watertower in MGM." Ben said. Charlotte said something. "No, I don't think we hit that touring sky-tram, we just grazed it!" Newman suddenly turned a shade of bright red. "Just report back when you get to Cairo!" "Yes sir." Ben said. "Shuttlecraft Sarek out... LOOK OUT!" The transmission ended. "Okay, what will happen if a tornado hits the Banshee?" Jad asked as he examined the models in the case. A Miranda, Norway and Akira-Class model with a Sovereign-Class in front. The previous three Banshees. He feared that a Sovereign-Class might become second in line. "Well let's see..." Axik thought. "Nothing would happen if we were hit now, even with the structural integrity field offline. But..." "Uh oh." Jad braced himself for the news. "That tornado will have to pass through a kilometer of desert and half a kilometer of floodwater. The debris it has in the vortex by the time it actually gets here will be wet sand." Axik said. Jad shook his head. "This is getting annoying. First we're in danger of becoming the galaxy's biggest submarine, next we're in danger of becoming the galaxy's biggest lightning rod, now we're in danger of becoming the galaxy's biggest weather vane!?" Axik nodded. "Yes sir." Jad suddenly felt rage at the storm building in him. His vision became cloudy. Actually, it was because his body heat caused his glasses to fog up. Carn was working in the weather control room in San Fransisco. Several work crews were dissecting the main computer of the weather modification net. "Found it!" A technician shouted. "You found the source of the power surge?" Carn ran up to the tech. "No, I found my contact lense." The tech popped it back into his eye. Carn resumed his work, when the same tech shouted out "Found it!" "Now did you find the source of the power surge?" Carn asked hopefully. "No, I found my other contact." The tech popped it into his eye. Carn walked away, grumbling something under his simulated breath. "Found it!" The same tech cried. "If it's another contact, I'm going to hurt you!" Carn shouted. "No." The tech shook his head. "The source of the power surge. Carn looked at the wall where he saw what the technician saw. A small, crude looking power flow device. "What is it?" Carn asked. "A power regulator from when the Borg assimilated this last week." The tech said. "We must have missed it." "How long will it take to remove it?" "About half an hour." Commander Riley jumped back as the wall panel beside him sprang to life, bathing engineering in a faint light, but light nonetheless. "Begin warp core restart!" Dave shouted. The plasma coolant tanks began to glow and a faint glow came as the dilithium crystal charged up to take in the matter/ antimatter flow. The bridge crew watched tensly as the tornado drew closer, now about a hundred meters away from the ends of the warp nacelles. "I wonder what that's picked up so far." Jad asked, somewhat enamored by the swirly vortex. A cow flew past the observation lounge windows. Vince turned from the window. "We're gonna die!!!" He paused. "Look!!" In the darkness of the bridge, the control panels were glowing with the Starfleet OS buttons and readouts. Then there blue emergency lights below the bridge and ready room steps began to glow. Reserve power was online. "Vorezze to Commander Riley!" Jad slapped his com-badge. "Riley here!" Dave said. "I take it you got auxiliary power back online." "Yes sir." Dave said. "I'm restarting the warp core now. You should have access to weapons and propulsion momentarily." "Good work!" Jad paused. "I think that's the first time I've said that to anyone on this ship." The others nodded in agreement. "As soon as this blows over, we're throwing you a party in the lounge." "Captain, I'd be more worried about things blowing up." Axik said as she read her sensor display. She activated the viewscreen. The tornado had picked up the Discovery and was swinging it like a hammer, still nearing the Banshee. "Computer, let me ask a question:" Jad said. "What would happen if an Intrepid-Class starship crashed into a Sovereign-Class starship?" "Both ships would be destroyed." The computer responded. "Crap!" Jad slumped down in his chair. "Liz, Emily, Dan, go into the observation lounge. If the Discovery hits us, the lounge wouldn't take as bad a blow as the bridge." "Oh come on!" Dan shouted. "We're ten feet apart and that's supposed to make the difference between life and death?" "Yeah." Jad said. "Works for me." Dan ran into the observation lounge. "Captain..." Axik shook her head. "I'm detecting another warp engine signiture in the tornado's vortex. It's coming from a type-9 shuttlecraft. The Sarek." Jad felt something in his mind. "I think that might be Ben and Charlotte! See if you can open a channel." "They are sending out a distress call." Axik reported as she played the distress call on the speakers. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" It was Ben. "I'm gonna die! And Charlotte's gonna be the last thing I see!" "Poor guy." Jad said. "And I'm gonna die a virgin!" Ben wailed. Jad paused. "Hail the shuttle. And keep that message on file if we need to blackmail Ben." "Placed on file." Axik said. "Channel open to the shuttle." "Ben, this is Captain Vorezze on the Banshee. Can you hear me?" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH... I mean yes, Captain, I can hear you perfectly." Ben said. "Now don't be frightened..." Jad began. "Me? Frightened? HA!" Ben said. "Look, as soon as we get main power back online, we'll pull you out of there with our tractor beam. Banshee out." "That's it sir." Vince said from behind Jad and Axik. "We use the tractor beam to pull the Discovery out of the twister." Jad shrugged. "Best plan you've ever come up with." He slapped his com-badge. "Bridge to engineering, we need main power back NOW!" The light flickered back on, bathing the bridge in golden. The doors slammed shut, just as Dan was walking in to check on everyone. "Owww!" He shouted, falling back and letting the doors close. "Activate tractor beam!" Jad ordered. A blue beam pierced the darkness of the storm and pulled the Discovery from the tornado, allowing it to land softly, as much as as starhsip can do so. "Raise shields and put structural integrity to maximum." Jad said happily. "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH..." The voice echoed over the comm. "I guess we should tractor in Ben and Charlotte." Jad grumbled. "Why hurry?" Axik asked. "The tornado's not a threat anymore and besides..." She looked at the shuttle flying in circles around the tornado. "This is fun." "We've removed the power regulator." The tech held the jagged lemon shaped device in his hand. "We're ready to restart the weather modification net." "Do it." Carn ordered. All over the planet, lightning and rain stopped as the sun began to shine through the parting clouds. Jad was really amused by the shuttle being whirled in circles by the tornado. Then the vortex vanished. The shuttle fell to the ground. "Now, Commander!" He shouted at Vince. A tractor beam from the Banshee caught the shuttle two meters above the cold, muddy floodwater, then tractored it aboard. "Captain's log, stardate 51156.3: With the help of Lieutenant Carn, Earth's weather modification net has been returned to normal and the Banshee has docked at Earth Station McKinley where we have completed the remainder of our repairs. On another note, since Commander Riley was so prompt in restoring power on two occasions, I have thrown him a party in the Banshee's lounge before heading out for our next mission." Jad smiled as talked with Brian, Dan and Axik. About a hundred people were in the lounge, but Jad noticed that Ben was arguing with Peter about something. He got up and decided to check it out. "Is there a problem, gentlemen?" He asked. "Ben wants to start buy a drink for a girl to impress her, but I keep telling him that he can't actually buy it." Peter explained. "Oh come on, Peter." Jad said. "Be nice to him." He looked at Ben. "After all, if he plays his cards right, he might be able to have his first time tonight." He smiled as he walked away. "Hey! I was... joking, that's it, joking!" Ben shouted as he ran after Jad. "Honestly, I was joking!" Peter shook his head. "And they say other species are odd."