Posted by Lieutenant Alex Cross (Chief Counselor) in MAIN SIM - Attack on the USS Ark Angel

Posted by Captain Alex Becket (Commanding Officer) in MAIN SIM - Attack on the USS Ark Angel

Posted by Lieutenant Alex Cross (Chief Counselor) in MAIN SIM - Attack on the USS Ark Angel
Posted by… suppressed (11) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Izak spotted the LTJG who would be heading up the shift and approached her. Izak had been onboard for a relatively short time, and he was still learning who all the key players were in the department. Actually… didn’t I hear somebody say that Lieutenant Hobbes served on the Ark Angel a while back? And this is a… retour?

“Yes Ma’am, I’m ENS Izak Waryn, pleasure to meet you. I’ve been working nights with Gamma until today, so I’m still getting familiar with the personnel on this shift.” He turned to Crewman Brasc, a seasoned Andorian engineer, and relayed the orders to have a team gear up for radiation exposure.

Izak might have tried socializing a little to break the ice, but decided against it. Hobbes had the tone and expression that Engineering Duty Officers have when coming on shift, so ENS Waryn’s new instincts kicked in. “General Yellow alert. No sign of any attackers, but we’re at Station 342 in response to a distress call, so the Bridge wants to be ready for anything.”

It’s weird that we got a distress call, but when we showed up, the station looked fine except for the odd interference that seemed to block comms. Izak thought. Well, and sensors I suppose. I hear that as soon as the shuttle with the XO, LT O’Nell, and a bunch of the other department heads crossed that interference, we lost them on comms and sensors. ENS Waryn turned his attention back to LTJG Hobbes to finish his report.

“We’ve been supporting Science and Helm with sensors as they analyze everything out there for a clue as to what’s going on. All systems are currently green, and the team is focused on keeping them that way. Let us know what you need, Ma’am, and we’ll get it done.” From his time at the Academy and his short time in the Fleet, Izak knew that all supervisors tended to do things a little differently. He was trying to be reserved until he got a feel for how the LT wanted to run things.

ENS Izak Waryn
Engineering Junior Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

Becket had been thinking to himself. =/\= “All Current Department Heads and or anyone next in line of the said department report to the Conference Room.” =/\= As he was heading to the Conference Room not sure what to really expect since of course this was his first mission as Captain of the ship and need a status report from all departments.

Captain Alex Becket
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

Katie had just started to say something to Ensign Waryn when the Captain’s call came through. She sighed and turned to Izak.

“I’m not sure if that includes me or not,” she said. “I better get there. The worst that can happen is that I will be asked to leave. In the meantime… keep up the good work. And get a few of them into radiation suits.”

Lieutenant Junior Grade Katherine (Katie) Hobbes
Engineering Officer USS Ark Angel

“Right, understood Lieutenant.” Izak said as Hobbes gave her parting guidance. “Good luck at the Department Head meeting, we’ll keep things from blowing up down here.” He winced visibly at his own words. “Sorry… probably not a good expression for an engineer to use regularly.”

Left on his own again, ENS Waryn returned to Crewman Brasc to discuss how many crewmembers should gear up in radiation suits and where they should be stationed to support maximum readiness and flexibility.

ENS Izak Waryn
Engineering Junior Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

Katie stepped into the turbolift and issued her command.

“Deck one. Conference room.”

The doors closed and moments later she entered the conference room and nodded at the officer sitting at the head of the table and who was, presumably, the Captain. She was not the first officer there and though there were seats available, she chose a seat against the wall behind the others. If she was not supposed to be there, she anticipated the request to leave would come shortly.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Katherine (Katie) Hobbes
Engineering Officer USS Ark Angel

Ensign Waryn had a quick talk with Chief Brasc, which confirmed that the man had the emergency response teams getting into their radiation suits and in position as LTJG Hobbes requested. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Izak took a moment to review the status board. All systems still nominal… I guess its still ‘hurry up and wait’ time. ENS Waryn didn’t like sitting on his hands and doing nothing, so he decided to be a little proactive.

He looked at the log and realized that no new requests for sensor support had come from the bridge lately. Izak wondered if that meant they were having success… or that they continued to struggle in identifying anything about the weird interference around the station. I suppose it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Ensign Waryn tapped his combadge to contact one of the bridge watch stations…

OOC: All the Department Heads are heading to the meeting with the CO. Its time for JO’s to run amok! (or RP among ourselves… same difference!)

OOC: Majority of the Senior staff is on the starbase. So some of the Junior Officers will be attending to it.

Does one of the Security Officers (or somebody else playing a NE on the bridge) want to RP and see if we can figure out anything about the interference blocking communications & sensors between us and the station? (and the Away Team!)

I left it blank because Security/Science/Helm/Ops can all use the sensors and I’m not sure who who is available and interested in RPing a bit.

ENS Izak Waryn
Engineering Junior Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

Wyatt sat at the comms station, shoulders slightly hunched, fingers flying over the keyboard as lines of code streamed across the monitors in front of him. The glow of the screens painted his face in pale blue light, numbers and symbols reflecting in his focused eyes. Around him, the low hum of the ship’s systems blended with distant chatter from other stations, but he barely heard any of it. When he worked, the rest of the world tended to fade into background noise.

He’d always had a knack for systems. Ever since he was a kid, computers had made more sense to him than people did. Firewalls, security layers, backdoors — they were puzzles, and puzzles could be solved. He’d even hacked into a few things growing up, nothing too serious… at least, nothing he’d gotten caught for. That same instinct, that same curiosity, was what made him so good at this now.

His hands slowed.

A string of code scrolled past that didn’t match the rest of the system architecture. Wyatt frowned, leaning closer to the screen. “That’s… not right,” he muttered under his breath.

He pulled up another window, then another, cross-referencing. The deeper he dug, the worse it looked. Hidden threads were woven through multiple subsystems — life support monitoring, internal sensors, even auxiliary navigation. It wasn’t just in one place. It was everywhere.

“Come on…” he whispered, jaw tightening.

This wasn’t random corruption. It was structured. Intentional. The code was layered and obfuscated, designed to look like routine system chatter unless you knew what to look for. And it was complicated — elegant, even, in a way that made his stomach turn. Whoever wrote this knew exactly what they were doing.

A virus. Or something close to one.

Wyatt’s pulse ticked up. If it activated — or if it already had — it could compromise half the ship before anyone realized what was happening.

He quickly isolated a segment, trying to trace its origin, but the trail looped back on itself, masked behind legitimate processes. Smart. Too smart.

He didn’t waste another second.

Wyatt slammed his palm lightly against his comm panel, opening the channel as his other hand kept moving on the keys.
“Blackford to Bridge,” he said, voice steady but tight with urgency. “I’ve got unidentified code embedded across multiple core systems. It’s not ours, and it’s spreading. Recommend immediate system lockdown and command authorization to begin containment protocols.”

His eyes never left the screen as another hidden process blinked into view.

“…And you might want to hurry.”

Ensign Wyatt Jacen Blackford

Security Junior Officer

U.S.S. Ark Angel

OOC: Mind you there is no virus it’s a magnetic field around the starbase that is causing interference with comms and scans for the away team. It’s being blocked of two races in the same quadrant we’re in.

Captain Alex Becket
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel
Oh sorry i’ll redo that

Ensign Wyatt Jacen Blackford

Security Junior Officer

U.S.S. Ark Angel

Wyatt sat at the comm station, fingers flying over the keys in a blur of practiced motion. Lines of data scrolled across the screens, reflections of shifting numbers dancing in his eyes.

Something wasn’t right.

His jaw tightened. Systems didn’t just drop like that — not all at once. Communications and sensors going dark at the same time? That wasn’t coincidence. That was design.

He leaned closer to the monitors, shoulders tense. His fingers began tapping faster, pulling up diagnostic logs, signal traces, interference reports. The quiet hum of equipment filled the room, broken only by the rapid clack of keys and the faint buzz of static still lingering on one of the audio channels.

“Come on… come on…” he muttered under his breath.

A spike flickered across one of the graphs. Wyatt froze, then backtracked, isolating the anomaly. His fingers resumed moving, more precise now, narrowing filters, adjusting frequencies.

There.

His pulse jumped.

A distortion pattern — faint, but consistent. Not system failure. Not damage.

External.

His fingers began tapping nervously against the edge of the console as he studied the readings. If he hadn’t gone into security, science would’ve been his second path. He hadn’t forgotten everything. Electromagnetic theory lectures, field interference models, signal disruption patterns — pieces of it clicked together in his mind now.

“This isn’t random…” he murmured.

He overlaid another data set. The interference pulsed in a rhythm — not natural drift. Controlled. Directed.

Bingo.

Wyatt straightened in his chair, adrenaline pushing away the nervous knot in his stomach. One hand stayed on the console, continuing to work, while the other smacked the comm control.

“Blackford to Command,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I think I have an idea what’s blocking our communications and sensors.”

He brought up a visual projection of the distortion field, rotating it as he spoke.

“It appears to be some kind of interference field. If I had to guess, I’d say magnetic — or at least electromagnetic in nature. It’s scrambling signal transmission and sensor return readings at the same time.”

His eyes flicked back to the data, adjusting calculations.

“I’m working on tracing the source now. If we can pinpoint where it’s originating, we might be able to counter the frequency… maybe even cancel it out.”

He swallowed, fingers still moving, heart pounding just a little too hard.

“Stand by. I’m close.”
Ensign Wyatt Jacen Blackford

Security Junior Officer

U.S.S. Ark Angel

Becket looked over at Black Ford. “Ensign I’m gonna need you for this meeting since all the senior staff isn’t around.” Becket said with a nod.

Captain Alex Becket
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

Wyatt stood there in stunned silence for half a second too long, the weight of the room pressing down on him like gravity had suddenly doubled. Important people—very important people—sat around the table, uniforms crisp, expressions sharp, eyes that looked like they were used to making decisions that changed lives. And somehow… he was here. Him. Wyatt. The kid who used to take apart comm units just to see how they worked.

He hadn’t ever imagined— not in a million years— that he’d be called into a meeting like this. This was the kind of room you got briefed about, not invited into. His heart thudded hard in his chest, but he forced his posture straight, shoulders back, hands clasped behind him the way he’d been taught. Don’t fidget. Don’t ramble. Don’t screw this up.

When the officer addressed him directly, it felt like the air got thinner.

He gave a sharp nod, swallowing the knot in his throat. “Yes, of course, sir.” His voice came out steadier than he felt, thankfully. Inside though, his mind was racing. They trust me with this? There’s no backup comms tech? No senior officer stepping in?

But beneath the nerves, something else sparked—pride. They wouldn’t have called him here if he wasn’t capable. He knew these systems. He understood things other people missed. If something strange was happening with communications, with sensors, with that weird interference field… he might actually be the one who could figure it out.

Wyatt took a slow breath, grounding himself. This wasn’t about how big the room felt or how out of place he thought he was.

This was about doing his job.

And he wasn’t going to let them down.

Ensign Wyatt Jacen Blackford

Security Junior Officer

U.S.S. Ark Angel

OOC: Whoops! I guess my count was off… a lot of the JO’s are going to that meeting. No worries!

ENS Izak Waryn
Engineering Junior Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

OOC: It’s okay.

IC: Becket say down in his usual chair in the conference room. “What’s the current situation?” He asked his only junior officer staff that is there with him.

Captain Alex Becket
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel

The Counselor poked his head in the lounge, “Captain, did you want me in here?”

Counselor Alex Cross
OOC: Sorry, somehow I missed the meeting call!

Captain Becket smiled. “Please come in Counselor.” He said, smiling.

Captain Alex Becket
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Ark Angel
OOC: It’s fine.

Cross smiled as he entered, pleased to see that the Captain was utilizing the JO’s . This would give them good experience, he nodded to each before taking a spare chair.

Counselor Alex Cross

Wyatt stood at attention, shoulders squared, hands clasped tightly behind his back the way they drilled into them at the academy. His heart was pounding harder than he wanted to admit, but his voice stayed steady.

“Sir, after comparing the station’s readings to the surrounding sector of space, I found something unusual.”

He stepped closer to the console, pulling up the data again just to be certain. Lines of numbers and sensor graphs glowed across the screen, reflecting in his eyes.

“There’s some kind of field around us,” he continued. “It’s not natural—not anything that should be here. The energy levels spike right at the station’s perimeter and then drop off in a clean radius. Space doesn’t just… do that.”

He hesitated for only half a second, searching his memory. Lecture halls. Long nights. Equations he never thought he’d actually use.

“If I remember my academy classes right, it’s magnetic… or at least electromagnetic in nature. The fluctuations match interference patterns we studied. That would explain the sensor distortion and the communication blackout. The field’s scrambling outgoing and incoming signals.”

Wyatt swallowed, forcing himself to meet his superior’s gaze.

“Sir… whatever put that field there, it wasn’t an accident.”

Ensign Wyatt Jacen Blackford

Security Junior Officer

U.S.S. Ark Angel