What the hell happened here?!

Posted on Sat Sep 19, 2015 @ 6:48pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Samantha Raylen & The Doctor & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant AJ Taggart & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant AJ Taggart

2,113 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: USS Victory, approaching Abora Colony

=/\= Bridge, USS Victory =/\=

The Captain was standing in front of her seat, eyes locked on the viewscreen watching as sensor data scrolled past to the right side of the screen, a small planet slowly growing in size as the ship approached. What should have been a beautiful blue and green world with brilliant white clouds was instead, mottled dark brown with flashes of green or muddy blue visible where breaks in the dirty, rolling cloud cover which blanketed the entire planet in a shroud of dust and storms.

Sensors indicated high levels of radiation permeating the atmosphere, of a type which baffled the Captain as it was indicative of a radioactive event on a scale that made no sense. There was nothing in the Colony records which indicated they had possessed nuclear-type materials on this scale..

The colony itself was heavily irradiated, structural damage was high and in some areas the buildings had been completely destroyed by whatever had caused the blasts.

There was still no response to their hails.. not surprisingly.

Life signs were intermittent at best, sensors were disrupted by the radiation in the planet's atmosphere.

Abora had been attacked from space..

Of the attackers..there was no sign, though the Victory remained at red-alert as the ship slowly, cautiously approached the stricken world.

AJ swiveled in his chair to face the viewscreen and tried to contain his sense of horror. This was not something that had happened by accident, someone or something wanted to send a message in the most horrific way possible. There had been rumors of attacks on colonies and unarmed transports traveling through this sector but they had never actually amounted to anything.

Penny looked at the planet and frowned, her blue eyes wide with grief. She brought the ship into a high orbit as if getting too close would put them at risk of succumbing to the same fate. "N-n-now entering synchronous orb-b-bit above the colony....such as it is," Penny said, glancing nervously at Evans next to her.

"Steady Lieutenant.." the Captain said softly.

Alec looked at the devastation before them. "Go to yellow alert." He said softly even as they entered a high orbit above Abora. It was better to be safe than sorry. he made a quiet vow that whomever had done this would answer for their actions.

Engineering

Miguel monitored what was going on from his station. With the ship at red alert all the controls had changed from their normal color to red indicating the combat status. All of his people were where they were supposed to be.

LTJG Halloway stepped up by his boss. "Everything running fine, sir?" he asked.

"With us? Seems like. But look down there." he said as he showed him the sensor readings from the planet below on another monitor. The condition of the colony was obvious. Miguel wondered if they could have gotten here sooner if there could have been anything they could have done to have prevented this tragedy.

Omnicore

Nina looked at the monitor she had patched into the sensor network."James, get all the info on the planet. Scan and log and subspace wakes in the area, as well."

James nodded. "On it, ma'am."

Bridge

"Sensors are being heavily distorted by the radiation in the atmosphere," Lt. Rivers reported. "We are detecting life signs but the computer is not able to determine whether it's survivors, or native animal life forms.."

"Who could have done this.." Yeoman Scott said quietly. "Could it have been the Borg?" she added, still in a low quiet voice. Not quite quiet enough however as she was overheard.

"It wasn't the Borg.." the Captain replied, in a tone of voice that indicated she had no doubt whatsoever as to the veracity of that statement though she did not elaborate.

Alec shot a glance over at Rhea as she made her statement he heard the certainty in her voice. Now he wondered if she would share her feeling with him.

His hopes were to be disappointed however, as the Captain had no intention of further comment on that score and instead was focusing on other matters which she considered to be far more relevant than old history. "We aren't going to be able to use the transporters. There's too much interference in the atmosphere from the bombardment. Looking at what the sensors are showing.. whatever happened here came from orbit. These blast craters are consistent with orbital strikes.. Mr. Taggart, are there any indications of other vessels having passed through this system just prior to and after the distress signal was sent?"

AJ shook his head. "I'm detecting the warp trails of at least 4 ships , but sensors are indicating that these are at least a day old-" Taking a moment, AJ increased power to sensors and noticed a 'barely there' radiation sign. For a moment, it was there and in a flash, it was gone.

Omnicenter

James perked at the readings on his display. Whoever was here was good, but not good enough. He turned and looked at Blackburn. "Ma'am, I've got something. I have the subspace wakes of the Bethesda, but there is another wake hidden within it. Leaving the system, they continued to cover their wake by using pulse acceleration, which..."

"Makes ships much more difficult to track," Nina interrupted, jumping up from her seat. She opened a comments links to the bridge. "Blackburn to Bridge. We've located a subspace wake leaving the system from an unknown vessel. Sending you the information now," she keyed in a few commands that transferred the information to the tactical and Command access consoles.

Bridge

The Captain didn't answer right away, she did however move across the bridge with quick, fluid steps to the nearest console where she could access the data being transferred up from the Omnicenter. She slid into the seat and entered a set of command codes to grant her access to the data and then immediately scowled at what she saw displayed on the screen. The subspace wake indicated that the unidentified vessel was of considerable size and mass, she didn't waste time running the numbers through the computer and instead simply ran the calculations in her head. "To leave a subspace wake of that size within the wake left by the Bethesda after she departed the system that ship would have a mass of approximately 22.05 million metric tons."

By comparison, the Victory was a mere 2,100,000 metric tons.

Whatever it had been, had been absolutely massive.

Entering a set of commands into the console, the Captain said "Mr. Taggart. I'm transferring this data to you. Run a comparison of this subspace wake against the warp trails you picked up and see what you find."

Engineering

Since he was monitoring what was going on, on the bridge Miguel had heard the order. Miguel being proactive called up what it was that she was looking at. "Chris run an analysis on this wake. I don't think we'll find anything that matches it in the database, but see what you can find out about it." he told the man that was standing next to him.

"No problem, sir," Chris replied. He pulled up the scan. It took him a minute to find the hidden wake. It had been carefully masked, but no masking is perfect. The after removing the Bethesda's signature and extrapolating for the masking, Chris was still at a loss, except it's size.

"Whatever it is, sir, it's big," Chris informed his boss. "It doesn't appear to match any known Borg parameters, but the size is close to that of a cube or at least a sphere."

"The residual energy doesn't even come close to any previously encountered race here in the Delta Quadrant noted in the library database.." Raylen added.

"Let's run some more scans let's see if we can figure out what they have powering the thing. Also let's see if we can track the wake and figure out where this thing came from." Miguel told Chris and Raylen.

Sam shook her head slightly, wondering how the Chief thought they were going to figure out how an unidentified ship was powered just from it's subspace wake...

"Check and see what particles are in the wake." Miguel ordered as an idea came to him. "Our impulse engines use expell what is essentially ionized gas. Let's see if theirs is the same or if it's something else." he said.

Bridge

Her gaze still focused on the sketchy data being displayed by the sensor scans, the Captain suddenly slapped her hand down on the console and stood. "It is clear that the only way we're going to be able to get the information we need is to take a shuttle and get down there and find it! Away team personnel should ensure to go to the quartermaster and obtain anti-radiation protective gear prior to mustering on the shuttle deck. Due to the dangerous conditions, before I order team members.. I'm opening it up for volunteers."

"Well," Penny said, slowly, "you'll need an experienced p-p-pilot."

Hearing Lt. Naroot's remark, the Captain gave a quick nod and said, "get a relief up here and then go get started on mission prep. Don't forget to stop by Sickbay and get an anti-radiation inoculation and make damn sure the gear you check out from the quartermaster is correctly fitted."

Penny nodded and looked at the back of the bridge for the crewman at the auxiliary station to come down and take the helm. She jumped up as he sat down and hurried up to the turbolift. "Sickbay," she said as the doors closed.

"You aren't planning by any chance to go on this away mission are you captain?" Alec already knew the answer but he wanted to hear Rhea say it.

"The colonists sent a distress message. It is my duty to find out what happened and offer assistance if possible.." Kennit responded.

"I see." Alec replied, "Clearly not pleased by her answer. "You know your place is on the bridge. Let me lead the away team."

She didn't answer, just shot him a look and shook her head.

"Bridge to Sickbay!" Kennit said next, without missing a beat. "I need for you to prepare a series of anti-radiation shots, as well as assign medical personnel to join an away mission which will be taking a shuttle to the planet surface. There could be survivors down there who are in need of medical care."

Engineering

Chris overheard the captain's offer. "Request to join the team, sir," he asked. "After all, that's largely why I was sent here."

"The unknown is why we're all here." Miguel said with a smile. He then pressed a button "Engineering to Captain Kennit."

"Kennit here," she answered quickly. "What is it?"

"Captain are you going to require any engineering teams to go down to the planet?" the chief engineer asked.

"Are you volunteering Chief?" came the Captain's reply.

"I'd be more than happy to take that honor... however I think I need to share in that fun by letting some of my junior officers to get some first hand experience. In fact engineer Halloway is very excited to be a part of this."

"Have him get ready, make certain he stops for an anti-radiation inoculation prior to arriving on the shuttle deck.." Kennit answered.

"Thank you Captain I'll let him know." Miguel said and then closed the channel. He looked at Halloway "You heard the Captain.." he said with a smile.

Sickbay

Nicole grabbed her black bag and put it on her desk, rifling around inside quickly, making sure she had everything she needed. She tapped the console on her desk and sat back. "Attention all Medical personnel: Alpha shift teams Gamma and Epsilon, are on backup for Sickbay prime and aux respectively. Beta shift team Alpha prepare for away mission, radiation protocols."

She closed the channel and was in the process of snapping her bag closed, when the comm system came to life again. "Bridge to Sickbay! I need for you to prepare a series of anti-radiation shots, as well as assign medical personnel to join an away mission which will be taking a shuttle to the planet surface. There could be survivors down there who are in need of medical care."

"Already on it, Captain," Nicole said, picking up her bag. "I have a team of four plus myself on the way. If you want more, we'll need a another ship."

"Just muster on the shuttledeck Doctor," the Captain told her, then closed the channel.

 

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