Astridh visibly winced when the ship passed just beneath one of the larger chunks of debris. While it was fortunate that most of the debris was immobile, it was unfortunate that it was all fairly close together and that they were right in the middle of it all. She pulled up the sensor readouts on her console, ignoring the verbal messages from the computer. Their arrival had set quite a bit of the debris field in motion. She put all her attention to analysing the debris movement patterns, then sent several possible routes of minimal impact to the Navigations officer. Avoiding collision altogether would, she quickly saw, be impossible. [i]‘just our luck to come out in a gravitationally locked point filled with space junk...’[/i] Eydis murmured in their mind. ‘Yes. Lucky...’ Astridh answered silently.

Just then there was a massive impact against the shields. She looked at the sensor readouts and saw that the hit was not far from the bridge. “Impact against the shields, Captain. Shields are holding for now.” While the shields held, there were sparks flying all over the lesser bridge consoles, particularly the ones to the right, which if Eydis recalled correctly, had a main power conduit right behind them. Several crew members were thrown back, some singed, others merely in shock. A small fire broke out in one, which was promptly put out by another. “Shields at 63%, Captain!” 

The ship spun as the Navigations officer tried to dodge the debris, but just when it looked like they would go clear of a particularly large chunk, it was impacted by another, causing it to spiral in the ship’s bottom. “Ventral Hull breach! Sealing all bulkheads leading to breach!” Astridh shouted, even as she took in the situation. Only by holding on with her full strength did she manage to stay in her seat, so hard did the ship shake from the impact. “Ship can’t take much more of this, captain!” she shouted, trying to be heard over the screams of wounded crewmembers.

When it looked like they were clear, another chunk came flying out of nowhere, impacting the port side of the ship, just over another of the main power conduits. “Left side impact! Shields are down, but armor is holding! One more impact like that, and we’re dead!”

As suddenly as the last scrap impacted, they were out of the field. “And we’re out! Take us some distance away Sub-lieutenant Rogers, then halt the engines!” having shouted that, she rapidly pressed a series of commands on the console before her, requesting status report from all sections. Then she clicked the comm unit, opening a channel to the infirmary. “Medical team to the bridge! Now!” She did not wait for an answer, but simply closed the channel again. Right now there was nothing of the young woman left in Astridh. Now it was the Naval lieutenant and the Tok’ra used to commanding others, both of them seamlessly merged into one.

Once the ship halted, the reports from the various sections began filtering into her console. “Captain. Ventral hull breach confirmed. Five labs and one corridor and three storage compartments vented. As you can see, there was a power surge from behind the wall to the right. Ruptured main power conduit.” She looked over where some crewmen were checking over those hit by the surge. One felt for a pulse on a particularly wounded woman. He shook his head. “At least one casualty.”

She paused for a moment, reading over the other reports. “Significant damage to Port stern-to-bow main conduit. Damage to hull above it, but no breach. Other sectors report only minor damage.” Astridh looked over her console, noting that while all the primary reports were in, several of the lesser sections had yet to respond. She would wait for them to come in and see what might be relevant to the captain.