Into the unknown...
Posted on Sat Apr 18, 2020 @ 6:17pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Commander Cullen Walker & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Camille Lévesque PhD & Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Lieutenant JG Sydney Friedman Jr & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers
2,228 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
The Binary Suns
Tags: R
Before breaking orbit from the unnamed duplicate ‘Earth’, the Captain had ordered a second set of extreme long range sensor scans be taken using the warp probe which had originally been sent out along the course heading indicated by the ancient star map carved into the stone walls of the temple by its unknown builders. The star system that was their destination was far beyond the limits of where any Federation ship had traveled. She was cautious about its existence, but every bit of data that they could collect indicated this system was there. Not just that it was indeed where the ancient map placed it, but inhabited and by all looks of it quite active with starships of unknown type. They were clearly faster than light capable, but instead of warp drive, they seemed to use some other type of propulsion system which the computer was still analyzing.
Scans of this planet showed it was rare enough In its own right, orbiting a binary star system. The world was arid and dry, a desert world of sand and rock with water reserves located deep underground. It was a 19 day trip at warp to reach their destination, giving ample time for further study.
With the latest sensor data now available, eight days into their journey, it was time for a briefing. Sending a message to her officers, the Captain decided it was time to talk about what was out there ahead of them.
Sitting in Sickbay, Halvor was waiting on his shot from the Hypospray. He messaged the Captain on his padd and told her where he was at. He already had patches where his skin was turning grey and his density increased. Nicole walked up to him, hypospray in hand and injected him swiftly. She stepped back and folded her arms. "Fourteen hours late is not acceptable," she said. "Next time I give you a deadline, you will meet it, or I'll hunt you down, are we clear?"
Looking at her, "Sorry. I got caught up with my work."
"Good," Nicole said, sternly. She heard a throat clear behind her and turned as Maggie stepped up and whispered in her ear. "Thank you, Maggie," Nicole said, then looked at Halvor. "You're aware of the briefing?"
His work in question, "I'm 14 hours late preparing for that meeting. Preparing blind tactical plans for something I don't have all the data on." He was basically playing What If while half blind and didn't like it. Stress exacerbated this transformation.
"Welcome to our world. At least you're aware. Change your uniform and I'll see you there," Nicole said. She tapped his discharge orders into a padd and gave them to Maggie to file before walking out of Sickbay.
Miguel was in Engineering when the notice to meet came through. At last he'd find out more about what was going on. He entered the briefing room and went to his normal seat.
Having been some form of Security most of his career, Walker liked to do foot patrols and know the people in different departments. He checked his padd and saw the time and made his way to the briefing room. He nodded to Torres.
Entering the briefing room, a large mug of double shot mocha latte in hand, the Captain was please that at least two of her officers knew to be on time. “Gentlemen.” she greeted them pleasantly enough. “Nice to see you both pay attention to the time.”
"Well no one has blown anything up on ship for awhile... so no reason for me not to pay attention." Torres replied.
"I wish I had your luck," Nicole said to Torres, walking into the briefing room and sitting down, crossing her legs.
Taking her own seat, as she leaned back into her chair, the Captain's gaze swiveled to her Chief Engineer. Her voice somewhat contemplative, she said “Mr. Torres, just out of curiosity... if I was to need all Federation markings and identification removed from our hull would that be feasible without access to a dock facility?”
"Not that hard actually. I just have to modify the work bees, and the travel pods." He told the Captain.
She smiled slightly, looking pleased. “Good to know...” was her only answer.
Miguel didn't say anything, but the raised eyebrow made it known he had his suspicions as to what was going on.
Thinking about the next logical step of hiding one's approach and escape, Walker asked, "What about adjusting warp and impulse signatures from standard Starfleet signatures? Temporary adjustments of transponder frequencies for communication? I know it isn't SOP for a ship like this, but it has been done before."
"That's a fairly simple procedure it shouldn't take to long to make any needed adjustments." Miguel answered. He remembered similar changes on the old Victory would have taken hours, of laying out new circuits, and bypassing others. But considering what organization had designed and initially built this new ship, that wasn't so much of an issue.
"No need." Kennit answered.
Summers hurried into the briefing room and sat down. "Captain, gentlemen, Doctor," She nodded her head and pulled out her note pad.
The doors opened a moment later and Sydney rushed in, padd in hand, sitting next to Commander Walker. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was in session."
Penny followed close behind and sat down on one side of Nicole, facing the Captain and tilting her head as if assessing her.
T'Mira entered the room with a cup of hot tea. She took a seat and noted that Xander was here too. She raised an eyebrow. Their talk last night meant that she'd only gotten an hour sleep but she was still capable of functioning. She said nothing to him, just brief nod. She caught Walker's eye. "Commander." She said with a nod.
Camille was deep in research when she received the summons. She'd barely heard her PADD chime at her, her eyes still locked on the monitor as she tried to identify specific genes from genetic material found in the T. rex blood sample. Five minutes later, another team member came back into the lab after a short break and saw the flashing alert on the PADD. He shook her shoulder to snap her from her reverie, at which point she saw the message, cussed in Québécois, and promptly rushed from the lab.
She still wore a lab coat, science teal but stained red on the sleeves from a spill earlier in the day (non-infectious, but she chastised herself for not taking the coat off before leaving), when she ran into the briefing room, half out of breath. "Pardonnez-moi," she politely asked as she adjusted her eye-wear and took the first available seat, which happened to be next to T'Mira.
Noting the red stains on the science officer's lab coat, the Captain was about to comment on it when she was distracted.
Coming into the room, Halvor set a padd in front of the Captain. His hand still had a grey patch of skin on it, "I did the best I could on the hypothetical situation." They were tactical operations plans for a variety of situations. He hadn't been read it, but gave her about ten plans for each possible situation.
Not reaching for the PaDD, Kennit just looked curiously at Halvor and asked "What hypothetical situation? I don't recall discussing any such requirement with...anyone."
"That's why it's hypothetical," Nicole said with a smirk.
Shaking her head, the Captain said "Enough. Lets get to business. As you know, we found a star chart engraved in the walls of the ancient temple complex. It wasn't the first time this map has been discovered by Federation exploration ships. It is the first time in which the map was found intact. All previous discoveries were only partial maps due to the effects of time, weathering, geological forces such as tectonic shifts and in some cases, just vandalism at some point in the past. Following orders from Admiral Bennett, I ordered that a warp capable sensor probe be launched ahead of us to get a closer look at this part of space and...damned if the thing didn't return back data matching what was carved on those stone walls over 6 millennia ago."
"So, either an very new system, or very good walls," Nicole said.
Kennit touched a control on the conference table, and a display of the original star map taken in the temple appeared. "This section shows a binary star system, with 17 planets. Here.. the 7th world in the system has been set apart with this symbol engraved instead of a symbol circle."
She tapped the image, and the display changed to show an enhanced relief of the symbol, drawn out by the computer for clarity.
She clicked her tongue against her teeth, then said, "imagine the surprise when our initial sensor data being returned from our probe once it was in range found a star system with 17 planets, the 7th of which is inhabited and preliminary data indicates it's inhabited by a star-faring race though they don't appear to use a warp drive propulsion system."
Tapping the control, a long range visual image of the system appeared. Two stars, with the dark silhouette of a planet transiting one of the stars appeared. "This one is the 7th world, not that we can tell much at this distance other than it's there."
"I don't recall ever going to a star system with so many planets in one system, even a binary one." Torres stated as he looked at the image.
Summers looked at the Captain. "Captain, if and when we meet up with these people should we assume that they might be interested in our warp drive system?"
"I get the feeling we'll be more interested in how they don't have one," Nicole said.
Miguel nodded at the Doctor's statement. "Also how hard it's going to make investigating things with us not able to make first contact due to the fact that they're not warp capable." he added as he started to wonder how these people could be a star-faring race without warp.
"Wait, sorry," Sydney said. "The Captain said 'space-faring.' She didn't say they weren't warp capable, just that they don't use warp drive." She looked at the Captain. "So are they impulse-only within their own system, or do they have some other kind of technology for travel?"
“The ships which have been detected leaving orbit, as well as entering the system are unquestionably capable of faster-than-light travel. The computer has been unable to determine the nature of their propulsion systems. The only certainty is that they are not using a warp drive, at least as we recognize it.” the Captain answered.
T'Mira sat fascinated by things so far. Warp speed without a warp drive. This should prove to be quite interesting.
“The sensor probe should be close enough within another 72 hours to start collecting more specific data about the civilization on that planet. About the ships being detected. Once we have better information, we will be in a position to decide on the next course of action.” the Captain stated.
Walker was reading the data on the monitor and then looked at Torres, "Without touching their engines, do you have an an idea how they do it?"
"Right now... not a thing. We don't even have enough sensor data to even try and hazard a guess." Torres answered the XO.
T'Mira raised an eyebrow. "May I make a recommendation? We should send a security Intelligence team in first."
Summers raised her hand. " Captain, perhaps though they *may* have warp-drive capability, they choose not to use as part of their ' life style, ' or another way; say they might reserve warp drive usage for higher authorities, or religious significance, or only emergencies? "
“She. I said the ships are faster than light, I meant it.” Kennit said. “At this distance it is impossible to determine what propulsion technology those vessels use but it is unquestionably allowing them to travel between star systems.” Her gaze turned toward T’Mira. “And yes. Assuming that we ultimately visit this world, and it’s inhabitants, we will first utilize a complete intel gathering operation using remote probes and a very small away team in order to verify what we are walking into.”
"It is rather curious that so many civilizations converged on the same method of traveling faster than light," Camille observed. "Wholly different technologies have been encountered so incredibly rarely. Every time we do meet someone who uses quantum slipstream or transwarp or coaxial warp, it informs xenoanthropological theory. Captain, request permission to be on the first away team."
Summers looked over at Camille, then back at the Captain. " Mam, may I make a suggestion? Since we have no idea as what 'Society' these people have, that the Away Team be half Male & half Female? "
“It is far too early to even speculate on that..”she answered.
Summers nodded in an affirmative. She then looked over at Camille before turning back to the Captain. " Captain....*if* possible I'd also like to be on the first away team. "
“I’ll keep that in mind.” The Captain answered.
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