HOME | DD

Description
Torrential rain and hurricane force winds battered the wavering hull of the U.S.S. Avery as she struggled to hold position above the violent oceans of Pacifica. The storm front into which they’d entered showed no signs of abating as they feverishly continued their rescue mission, battling the forces of nature and struggling to hold position barely fifty meters over the deep blue that threatened to pull them down to a watery abyss. Search lights shone brightly over the surface, illuminating both the thick rain laden air and the ocean surface, panning slowly in search of the missing escape pod. With no signal from the pod’s locator beacon, and unusually high Belamine content of the ocean scattering sensor scans, the crew of the Avery were forced to resort to slow, methodical surveys of the last known location.

“I’m showing thrusters three and four approaching red lines,” Ensign Gale Rio was keeping a close eye on the Avery’s engine status from the astrogation console, fighting to keep down her lunch with every sudden lurch that the inertial dampeners failed to compensate against. “We need to redistribute load if we’re going to hold position.”

Lieutenant Jon Iron, fighting with the helm to keep the ship steady whilst they visually scoured the ocean surface for signs of the capsule, simply nodded in response. With a few taps he began shifting load distribution from one set of thruster to another in an attempt to prevent them overheating. Despite his best efforts warning indicators merely began to shift from assembly to assembly as the newly burdened units also began to overheat.

Captain Cameron Dalkeiri shook his head and stepped back from the conn station, walking slowly round to the rear of the Avery’s bridge and gripping hand rails firmly as he went to keep balance.

“Calias, I thought this ship was designed with atmospheric flight in mind?” He scorned, moving to stand next to the chief engineer who was feverishly trying to reroute power and cooling systems on the master situations display.

“Flight, sir,” She admonished. “Not hovering still in the storm of the century above a 2G ocean world. It’s simple aerodynamics – no forward thrust, no lift. We’re reliant on the RCS assemblies to fight gravity and keep us stationary here – and in these weather conditions we won’t be able to maintain altitude for much longer.” An alarm sounded on the engineers console refocussing her attention. Biting his tongue Cameron stepped away leaving the disgruntled Bajoran to her business of keeping them airborn, and out of the drink.

“Ops, five more minutes then we head back to stable orbit until we can make another pass.” He said making is way back to the command platform at the center of the bridge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Background made by compositing various shots of rough oceans, sea spray, and stormy clouds, adding in some lightning and rain for effect. The ship is the amazing and popular Insignia Class starship by the talented Mark Kingnorth, rendered in 3D Studio MAX with a few tweaks. The whole thing was then assembled in Photoshop with various post effects.

Description
Torrential rain and hurricane force winds battered the wavering hull of the U.S.S. Avery as she struggled to hold position above the violent oceans of Pacifica. The storm front into which they’d entered showed no signs of abating as they feverishly continued their rescue mission, battling the forces of nature and struggling to hold position barely fifty meters over the deep blue that threatened to pull them down to a watery abyss. Search lights shone brightly over the surface, illuminating both the thick rain laden air and the ocean surface, panning slowly in search of the missing escape pod. With no signal from the pod’s locator beacon, and unusually high Belamine content of the ocean scattering sensor scans, the crew of the Avery were forced to resort to slow, methodical surveys of the last known location.

“I’m showing thrusters three and four approaching red lines,” Ensign Gale Rio was keeping a close eye on the Avery’s engine status from the astrogation console, fighting to keep down her lunch with every sudden lurch that the inertial dampeners failed to compensate against. “We need to redistribute load if we’re going to hold position.”

Lieutenant Jon Iron, fighting with the helm to keep the ship steady whilst they visually scoured the ocean surface for signs of the capsule, simply nodded in response. With a few taps he began shifting load distribution from one set of thruster to another in an attempt to prevent them overheating. Despite his best efforts warning indicators merely began to shift from assembly to assembly as the newly burdened units also began to overheat.

Captain Cameron Dalkeiri shook his head and stepped back from the conn station, walking slowly round to the rear of the Avery’s bridge and gripping hand rails firmly as he went to keep balance.

“Calias, I thought this ship was designed with atmospheric flight in mind?” He scorned, moving to stand next to the chief engineer who was feverishly trying to reroute power and cooling systems on the master situations display.

“Flight, sir,” She admonished. “Not hovering still in the storm of the century above a 2G ocean world. It’s simple aerodynamics – no forward thrust, no lift. We’re reliant on the RCS assemblies to fight gravity and keep us stationary here – and in these weather conditions we won’t be able to maintain altitude for much longer.” An alarm sounded on the engineers console refocussing her attention. Biting his tongue Cameron stepped away leaving the disgruntled Bajoran to her business of keeping them airborn, and out of the drink.

“Ops, five more minutes then we head back to stable orbit until we can make another pass.” He said making is way back to the command platform at the center of the bridge.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Background made by compositing various shots of rough oceans, sea spray, and stormy clouds, adding in some lightning and rain for effect. The ship is the amazing and popular Insignia Class starship by the talented Mark Kingnorth, rendered in 3D Studio MAX with a few tweaks. The whole thing was then assembled in Photoshop with various post effects.