Posted by Captain Alex Becket (Commanding Officer) in Main sim - Ark Angel Bridge - Next System Arrival

Posted by Lieutenant Nala Shai’Mori t’Liriena (Chief Science Officer) in Main sim - Ark Angel Bridge - Next System Arrival

Posted by Captain Alex Becket (Commanding Officer) in Main sim - Ark Angel Bridge - Next System Arrival
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻
[snip]

He looked at his first officer and then looked at his counselor. “Let’s punch it.” Becket said. With the fact that this is a favor from the governor he’s happy to do anything.

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

As soon as Izak got the brief on their follow on tasking, he instructed Ensign Boras and Gamma shift to run a diagnostics on all key systems and to recalibrate the sensors if needed.

The next morning he was up early to catch the tail end of Gamma shift and was a little frustrated with the report he received regarding the sensors. While they were technically were within tolerances, it was just barely. Lt Waryn was annoyed with the night shift team, but he knew he was mostly annoyed with himself at not being more clear. My wording was vague and open to interpretation… so that’s mostly on me. Izak still felt Boras should have taken the initiative simply because its what he would have done in Boras’s position, but he shelved that thought for the moment.

“We’ll be jumping to investigate some unidentified energy emissions, so the systems need to be at their best. The sensors are technically withn specs, but it would have only taken a few hours for your to optimize them. Make a note for turnover… I need Alpha shift to recalibrate the main sensors first thing, so they are available when we arrive at the new system.”

Ensign Boras nodded, and continued his preparations for shift turnover.

Izak grabbed a quick breakfast, check his messages, and returned to main engineering in time for the Captain to give the order to jump to warp speed. “Alright Alpha shift… we’re on the clock now. Let’s make these next few hours count.”

Lt J.G. Izak Waryn - Chief Engineer - U.S.S. Ark Angel

Ollie stepped onto the bridge and relieved the officer at the tactical station, tapping a few commands to bring the console to his preferred configuration. He glanced around at the rest of the officers gathered on the bridge already. A sense of excitement as they went to warp was a nice shift from the relaxing time they had just had down on the planet. He stretched his neck and turned his attention to the sensors, ready to take on whatever they might find in the neighboring system.

Lieutenant Commander Ezeami - COS

Soral elected to take a position on the bridge, ensuring his immediate availability when required.

Preparedness minimized delay, and delay, in matters of diplomacy and command, could introduce unnecessary complications.

He stood composed at his station, attentive and ready to respond the moment he was called upon.

Lt Soral T’Varan CDO USS Ark Angel

Once the command was given to leave the Sal system and jump to warp their trip to the next system over only took about two hours, as they dropped from warp the unclaimed system soon came into range and information came in. The system held four small planets, all arranged in an equally spaced singular orbit about 4 million kilometers from the single white dwarf star. None were class M, all were life less rocks without atmosphere, and beyond each having high deposits of simple copper, iron, and lead were nothing to really write home about of interesting.

Following the faint energy signature to the third planet in a higher orbit was an a cluster of ship wreckage, clearly the remains of a starship, perhaps two. Looking through the metallurgical signatures, the wreckage did not match any known species. Whether of one ship or two they were both made up of simple titanium alloys with limited reinforcements of low grade duranium, and composite steels. There was signs of both external energy burns, indicating the ship or ships had been attacked or had attacked each other, as well as internal explosions due to damage or ruptures. However the massive amount of radiation present was interfering with scans, but they were picking up maybe one to three life signs somewhere among the larger bits of clustered wreckage. They would need to beam over an away team or two to do local scans to better narrow down where and how many life signs there were, but due to the limited atmosphere in the four clusters it would be safest if the away team used eva suits in case the atmosphere failed.

GM CockRoach

Becket had sat there wondering what had happened within the area. There was some sort of ship cluster that he thinks that it might have life support on. He looked around and didn’t say much of anything. He then looked at his Number one as if he knew what to do. “Number one, let’s gather all senior officers to the conference room.” He said looking over at him and then to the rest of the crew.

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

(Main Engineering)

The timeline to recalibrate the sensors was tight. There wasn’t much room for error if they wanted to complete the task before the Ark Angel arrived in system.

As Alpha shift got to work, Izak had to wonder if he had made the right call. Am I doing this because I’m frustrated with Gamma shift? Am I just being stubborn? Or trying to prove a point? It was hard not to second guess his decisions… to wonder what the Engineers were thinking as they raced against the clock. He was already extremely busy… but those intrusive thoughts kept working their way in.

Lt Waryn frowned. He had high standards for his department because he had high standards for himself. If he was going to be Chief Engineer he was going to do it to the best of his ability. That meant the Engineers would need to give their best as well. He didn’t know if it was the right decision, but it was the only way he could operate.

Staying out of the way was hard for Izak. He was still relatively new himself, so he wanted to dive in and help out. The more time he worked on the systems the better he knew the ship. The better he knew the ship, the easier it was to identify problems.

Instead he watched as the shift leader and the Sensor Chief managed their personnel and assigned tasks. It was a little chaotic at first, but that died down as Crewmen dispersed to get to work. There was a tense moment as one of the teams found a faulty component, and the provisional Chief Engineer had to keep himself from jumping in.

The Shift Leader hesitated for a moment, but made a decision and got people moving quickly. As the minutes ticked down, Alpha shift completed the recalibration and presented the results to Izak.

He scrolled through the PADD and saw the readings were significantly higher than they were a few hours ago. Lt Waryn let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and cracked a smile. “Well done Alpha shift! Excellent results and you got it done in time. We’ll be arriving shortly, so take a few minutes and then settle into the routine. We need to be ready for anything while on mission.”

Izak smiled a little more, made a few exchanges with various Crewman and then retired to his office. He sat down and smiled, feeling like he had a chance to breath for a while.

Which is when he felt the Ark Angel drop out of warp.

The stress returned like it had never been gone. Looks like we’re back to work… I wonder what this mission holds in store for us.

Lt J.G. Izak Waryn - Chief Engineer - U.S.S. Ark Angel

I got up from my chair, went over to the engineering station. They start to input codes that increased our impulse power. When I was done we entered, cruising speed

Commander Riley O’Nell (XO)

Nala had remained quiet at the science station through most of the approach, amber eyes fixed on the streams of incoming telemetry while the bridge moved around her in layers of sound she was still trying to adjust to.

The recalibrated sensors were helping.

That much was obvious immediately.

Her fingers moved quickly across the console as the debris field resolved in greater detail on her display. Hull fragments. Metallic residue. Radiation spikes. Structural dispersal patterns.

Not natural.

Her ears twitched toward another console chirp before flattening briefly in concentration.

When the computer isolated the life-sign readings, her tail stilled behind her chair.

Weak.

Intermittent.

But present.

Captain Becket’s order for the senior staff to gather in the conference room came just as she finished another scan pass.

Nala hesitated for only a fraction of a second before speaking up from the science station, voice quick with focus.

“Captain—the recalibrated sensors are improving resolution significantly.” Her eyes remained on the display as she talked. “I can confirm at least one lifesign within the debris field. Possibly more, but the radiation interference is making differentiation difficult.”

Her claws tapped lightly once against the edge of the console while another sweep processed.

“The wreckage appears heavily damaged,” she continued, thinking aloud faster than she meant to. “Energy scoring is visible on several larger sections, and internal detonations are consistent with major system failures after impact or combat damage.”

Her ears angled forward.

“The interference is also degrading long-range atmospheric analysis. I can’t determine structural integrity remotely with acceptable certainty.” A beat. “If there are survivors, localized scans will probably be necessary to narrow their positions further.”

Only after she finished did she realize how quickly she had spoken.

Her ears flattened briefly in embarrassment before she looked back down at the console, trying to regain a more measured posture while the bridge continued around her.

LT.JG Nala

He sat there hearing what Lt. Nala was saying and took it into consideration. Surely his mind was thinking of an idea. “Lieutenant,” he spoke to Nala. “Would it be possible if we moved the ship in, could you get a better scan?” He asked her as it was a sound idea.

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

Nala’s ears flicked forward at the question, her attention snapping immediately back to the sensor data already cascading across her console.

Possible?

Yes.

Safe?

…Maybe.

Her claws hovered over the controls as her mind raced ahead through variables, radiation density, sensor resolution curves, shield harmonics, debris drift velocity. The answer formed almost instantly, but she forced herself to slow down enough to make sure she wasn’t skipping steps.

“If we close the distance, yes, sir,” she answered quickly. “Sensor resolution should improve exponentially once we’re inside the outer radiation scatter.”

Her tail curled tighter behind her chair as she pulled up another model.

“The interference isn’t completely random,” she continued, eyes moving rapidly across the display. “Most of the distortion is coming from particulate radiation saturation around the wreckage itself. At our current range the sensors are losing coherence before the scans fully resolve.”

A few more commands.

A tighter scan cone appeared.

“If we move closer and narrow the sensor focus, we should be able to isolate the lifesigns more accurately.” She hesitated a fraction of a second. “Possibly enough to determine whether transport is viable.”

Her ears flattened briefly.

“But…” she added carefully, “the closer we get, the more exposure the ship takes from the radiation field and any unstable debris. I don’t think it’s unreasonable dangerous yet, but we’d want shields adjusted for particulate impacts before entering the densest area.”

Nala finally looked up from the console toward the captain.

“It’s a long shot,” she admitted honestly, voice quieter now. “But it’s a real one.”

LT.JG Nala

He had heard what she had said. However, the dangers is something he can’t do to risk the lives of his crew. “Understood Lieutenant.” He replied back to her. He later then tapped his pad on his chair.. =/\=”Bridge to Engineering.”=/\= He said tapping his pad on his chair. Becket is hoping to see if the shields can be worked on but isn’t sure about the time. The captain looked over back at the Lieutenant. “I trust that we can do it without exposure to the ship?” He asked her as if he is very concerned about the ships hull pressure and everyone on board.

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

After being hailed by the Captain, Lt Waryn took a moment to view the initial sensor readings of the system.

The fact that there was four planets in a single stable orbit caught his attention. The chances of that occuring naturally… especially with equadistant spacing… were exceedingly small. The Captain’s not asking about astrophysics, Izak. Focus on the matter at hand.

His initial read on the radiation and the debris field was simple enough. Tailoring the shields to increase protection to a specific radation range would recuce their effectivness against collisions, but they would still be sufficient to protect against the debris he could see in the area.

Lt Waryn gave the shift leader the order to make it happen. =/\=”Captain… my team is modifying the shields to provide the Ark Angel a bit more radiation protection. We’ll continue to adjust as the ship becomes more exposed and the radiation levels increase, and let you know when the shields have reached their limit.”

OOC: The GM suggested evac suits might be necessary (and presumably sufficient) for our away team, so im operating under the assumption that the interference is more of a barrier to sensors than it is an immediate threat to the ship.

As always, fate may have surprises in store for us.

Lt J.G. Izak Waryn - Chief Engineer - U.S.S. Ark Angel