[snip]

As the Dr. Stacey sat in his chair, Sifeda quickly turned to him and said, “I am glad you are here. Lieutenant Anders is on his way, and after we view the incoming transmission on screen, I need to discuss with both of you the logistics of the away team since Anders…or myself will be leading them and you, Dr. Stacey, could be potentially fitting them for prosthetics. Hopefully the probes can provide sufficient data whether it is visual or descriptive so you can refine your concept. If not we must think of other ways to get on planet undetected and observe them.” She began to get a small headache after thinking about how hard it would be to accomplish the latter. It was her hope all the stars in whatever universe they were in would line up perfectly and they could get on planet with some realistic and functional prosthetics. She leaned her forehead in the left palm of her hand for a moment then she fixed her eyes back on the view screen as she said to the NE at the comms console, “We are still waiting for that on screen transmission, Ensign. Any day now.” Even though anxiety was creeping up on her, she kept her Romulan face on.

Itri, XO

Leaving Ensign Luna in charge of looking after Captain and Mrs. Freeman, Kyle made his way up to the bridge at a brisk pace, eager to see where the next stage of the mission to J17 was going ot take him and his team. The turbolift doors on the Bridge parted and Anders crossed to the Conference Room, “Reporting as ordered Commander,” he said as he entered the room.

-Lieutenant Kyle Anders: Chief of Security-

Just as Anders got to the bridge the NE finally worked out the interference, on screen the viewer showed into the system of J17. On it showed the third planet where several artificial satellites were showing small thrusters firing to bring them in a carefully planned orbit to each other. After another few seconds a radio feed was shown through the Volgograd picking up a local broadcast. =/\= Today we of the Forseth take our first steps beyond our planet’s orbit. As I speak six advanced orbital satellites are currently maneuvering to within close orbit of each other. From there they will jointly link up and together their central fusion power cores will be used to create an extended high speed burn out of the system. If our space agencies calculations are correct and this experiment pans out it will pave the way for larger construction efforts of space faring vessels to further explore and mine our own solar system and beyond =/\= Came a male voice. As they watched said six satellites finished their maneuvering and linked up by even finer maneuvers. After 10 seconds the not conjoined ‘vessel’ began a high speed sublight burn. It soon accelerated up to .238 a fraction of the speed of light! In essence just slightly higher speed then the Ark Angel could use for sublight impulse motive power at quarter speed. Within several more minutes the male voice came back as the conjoined satellites exited the system and died out due to power loss about 10,0000km away from the Volograd. =/\= We report success! I repeat success! What a joyous day for us Forseth! =/\= He said before the comm signal ended.

Then the screen faded and up came the image of Captain Samuels a human on the Volograd. =/\= That was ten minutes ago, since then we continued to observe. We also took deeper scans of the conjoined satellite, not much to speak of advanced steel and light weight metal working consistent with most species of the late 20th and early 21st centuries of Earth. Fusion core is probably a bit more advanced say on par with those after First Contact made on Earth. But it matches what we’ve been seeing in their generator production efforts. All in all nothing stands out as being of alien design and not capable of being done by the Forseth. =/\= He said.

Then a beep behind him cause him to pause, =/\= Report Lieutenant..=/\= He said to someone off screen.

=/\= Captain picking up a change in the system, putting it up on screen now…=/\= A female voice said.

The screen flickered then changed view again showing that now the Forseth planet was ringed by three fair sized construction platforms. All three held what seemed three tubular shaped vessels with slight wing arcs to port and starboard. Readings soon came in that all three showed signs of possible warp capabilities and were in the process of being powered up and run through probable pre-flight checks. =/\= Seems even taking our eyes off these folks for ten minutes shows how fast they can move! =/\= Samuel said. =/\= Lieutenant do scans show any sign of temporal or other anomalies during this sudden shift? =/\= He asked.

=/\= No sir, only the echoing effects of the radio broadcasts and other local stellar phenomena in the area like before. =/\= Came the NEs reply.

“My God!” Sifeda exclaimed in disbelief, “It only took them 10 minutes to reconfigure their crafts to incorporate warp capabilities!”

Not even the humans in the Sol System advanced that fast., she thought to herself.

=/\= Helm take us deeper into the cometary matter nearby begin sensor deflecting efforts just to make sure no one sees us on scans. Take us to yellow alert as well, raise shie---- =/\= Samuel said but was cut off.

Suddenly there was a zitch and squeal sound from the audio channel and the video feed stutters and then cut out.......

GM CockRoach

Sifeda sat forward slightly in her seat concerned about Captain Samuels and the crew aboard the Volograd. She looked at the NE then said, “Try to reconnect with the Volograd. It seems the cometary matter is disrupting their signal. Also transmit a recording of the transmission of the previous transmission to Engineering and Science. I want to get their take on the rapid advancement of the Forseth even though I know the Volograd sent over their data. However they do not have the team we have and if they didn’t think we had anything to offer they would not have consulted with us.”

”..Aye ma’am, trying now..” the Comms NE said.

She activated her commbadge =^=Lieutenant Hobbs a transmission has been sent to you. After you have reviewed it, you may give the order to launch the probes at your discretion.=^=

There was a thoughtful and troubled look on her face. “I have never known a civilization advance so quickly. How are they doing it?” At that rate they could potentially and eventually become serious threats to anyone in the universe. She tapped her comm badge, =^=Lieutenant Belmont. Report to the bridge, please.=^=

Then she looked at Dr. Stacey and said, “Honestly I am not sure how much more useful data we can get from the probes, and if we can get anymore than what the Volograd has gotten. In any case we are going to go ahead and launch them to collect data directly into our database and then we can compare our data with the Volograd’s data. Be ready to use whatever information you can to equip the away team with prosthetics.”

Finally she addressed Anders, “Lieutenant, I feel we are going to have to go on planet to figure out how the Forseth are able to advance so quickly. You are going to lead the team and a representative from each department is going to accompany you to collect their respective data from the planet and the species.” She raised her palm as she continued speaking with Anders, “However, standby for a moment while we attempt to reestablish contact with the Volograd. It would be great if we can jointly explore the planet along with them since they have been here observing the Forseth.” She turned around to the NE and asked, “Are you able to reestablish connection with the Volograd?”

While she waited for the NE to respond, she checked her PaDD to see if Captain Freeman had uploaded his Intelligence report.

Itri, XO

OOC: Didnt i post that in the quarters thread? basically it covered that Freeman and his wife/aide were specialists in the rare occurrences of primitively species advancing quickly due to different things happening to them. The little intel was mostly what they had already gotten and made theories of different reactions to a First Contact scenario with the Federation. All their intel so far pointed that they should be a peaceful contact given their observations so far.

“Bloody hell,” Anders whispered, watching as the bright white light flew out of the back of the connected satellites. Not exactly warp speed sure, but still a hell of a speed to get up to. Anders was keen to get planet side again, it had been a while since he had been on an away mission and he was keen to get his hands dirty again, “May I make a recommendation Commander?”

-Lieutenant Kyle Anders: Chief of Security-

Sifeda nodded at Anders, “Yes, of course Lieutenant. I always welcome recommendations. I am eager to hear what you propose.”

Itri, XO

The NE at comms spoke up, “..Ma’am? We’re failing to reconnect with the Volgograd, I don’t think it was interference with the cometary matter, rather looking at their transmission it was cut off at the source. Pretty sure its not being blocked, more likely they either have transmission failures or…” she trailed off a bit implying likely the Volgograd had been destroyed and/or disabled/damaged. “..Do you think we should alert Commodore Andone? She did say she wasn’t to be disturbed unless something critical here happened, or till we arrived. I would say this qualifies?” the NE suggested.

Just as the NE said this, the probes were launched and soon in another ten minutes the recon probe images came in.....

Its first passive ping of scans picked up the cometary debris that the Volgograd had been earlier near. The Volgograd’s hull, now it seems torn into three parts, was picked up to be passively drifting about 200km to port from the probe. No signs on passive scans showed power, or life on the ruined Moscow class Surveyor ship. It was simply a dead trio of hulks in space. The age of the hull though seemed strange, it was as if stellar matter had been impacting the unprotected hull ripped up hull for hundreds if not thousands of years!

Further on passive scans within the J17 system showed an interesting find, on passive scans the system seemed much as they had been showing before both on scans and otherwise. It showed on scans an inhabited system with now 9 low warp capable ships with another 20 in system patrol crafts and mining stations and such. But visually the system looked ancient, like it was some long gone grave yard of destruction the tubular remains of the ships were slightly more advanced then the ones on scans maybe another 100 years in advance/development. But now they were torn apart as if by a great force from the outside had tossed them about like a toy with great hands in anger. The planets equally all showed like some massive hand of a God had chewed through them, the gas planets were likely tiny pin pricks of dust and the double solar bodies on either side of the system were the only semi-sense of normalcy both spinning lazily about on their orbits as if nothing had ever happened.

The only other readings being picked up were the distant radio and subspace radio ancient traffic in the region, echoing like some kind of pulse or the like. Then just as all this got recorded and sent back to the Ark Angel, the signal of the probe showed it seemed to be shaking and being tossed about like a chew toy, the last split second image they had coming in with heavy blur was what seemed like some kind of sharp object/creature. Then everything went dark and the signal ended.

GM CockRoach