Posted by Lieutenant Kenneth Fleet (Helm) in Main Sim - Bridge - Another Day Another Survey

Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Bridge - Another Day Another Survey
[snip]

Once someone from science peered into the scanner viewfinder they could report the following to the Captain. The system held at present three planets. The first innermost one was not much bigger than Mercury in size, an airless rock which scans showed in passing was rich in copper, zinc, and iron deposits. The second planet was one the size of Neptune, and like that planet was a gas giant. Again, like said giant the planet’s atmosphere was made up of hydrogen, helium, and methane, giving it a similarly strong blue color. Interestingly though this planet had a ring of ice particles and microasteriods which spun in an orbital pattern in a counter clockwise pattern. The third and final planet was in the ‘sweet spot’ for life, yet no signs of intelligent life seemed to have evolved on the planet. A big stand out on the mineral scan was rich dilthium deposits. Also evident around this planet was a small moon rich in assorted deposits.

But what was really the stand out of the system and had drawn them here was the pulsing eddies of gravitic anomalies which were rising in sudden strength on the opposite side of the system from the third planet! As the Bonaventure would drop from warp to enter said system and proceed on impulse, the was a sudden and unexpected change in the system. A swirling grey ‘fog’ like anomaly which defied the sensor’s understanding other then to show signs of massive gravity wells pulsed suddenly and then vanished! In its place was an amazing sight a FOURTH planet in the same orbit as the third had appeared!

This one too was Class-M but the atmosphere was a dark murky color and sensors were quick to point out rising levels of ash and nuclear fallout as well as even in flight nuclear missiles crashing down into cities or other places on the three large land mass planet! As this all was absorbed a final, and yet the strongest yet, gravitic anomaly pulsed out from the planet’s orbit, sending the Bonaventure shuddering on its course. Readings showed this pulse had created an anomaly formation almost 4 light years in span! This was disrupting the ability for the ship to form a warp bubble and send out long range comms. Effectively they were now stranded in the system!!

GM CockRoach

Meanwhile, a couple decks down, El was moving down the corridor toward engineering, a coffee mug in hand when the ship shuddered, sending her momentarily off balance, her free hand supporting herself on the wall of the corridor. Her eyes glanced ‘up’ as though that was where things came from. She perked up though her mind took another moment to catch up; the night before had left her with less sleep than normal. That wasn’t something that they taught in the military academy - the ship making those kinds of motions. “That can’t be right,” she muttered and sped her pace toward engineering.

• El, Eng

Roger had just arrived at the Bridge, the lift doors opened, when the ship shuddered. Roger stumbled into the open doorway of the lift, reaching out to brace himself. Surely he wasn’t feeling the effects still of last night and the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed.

Shaking his head vigorously, Roger made his way onto the Bridge, giving a nod to everyone who was there. “Morning,” He said, making his way over to the science station. He took a glance into the scanner viewfinder, and promptly exclaimed, “Wow!”, in a loud excited tone.

“Captain,” Roger said, turning to face her. “This is incredible. The sensors are picking up so much information here. It looks like we’ve got a class-M that appears to be involved in some kind of nuclear conflict. We got hit by some kind of gravitic anomaly that’s creating a formation covering almost four light years. The anomaly appears to be disrupting many of our ships systems.” He turned back to look in the viewfinder, trying to take in all the data that was coming in.

-Roger Ferguson, CSO

Ari stood up with a frown. “That’s not right. A nuclear struck world shouldn’t be affecting space this badly. And certainly not to this degree.” She watched the planet on the viewscreen and frowned. She wanted to reach down and stop the missiles from heading where they were, and from doing more damage. But she couldn’t. Well, perhaps she could, but she knew she shouldn’t. She bit her lip and shuddered as each impact was noted from their position high above the surface. A shudder and sigh slipped between her teeth. “Do we have any long distance scans of this area? Need to see if this area of space has always read this way, or it’s relatively new.”

She loved being the first to explore someplace. As she had told the XO, her heartbeat because of discoveries like this. But the downside was, there was little to no information to go on for comparison investigations. Long range showed unusual gravity readings. But the question was, had they always been here? And were they in any way responsible for the chaos that reigned down on those below?

“I want all the information we have from this area going back to the beginning of the scans. I know it’s not much, but let’s see if this… let’s call it a ‘gravity hole’.. has always been here since scientists started scanning.” She sat back in her chair to keep from moving closer to the screen as if somehow she could help. She glanced back up at the XO. “Rounds this morning may have to wait, McKnight. But let’s make sure everyone’s all right and the ship is still good to go, shall we?” She smiled and nodded to Michaelson, “If you would be so kind as to man the security station till someone arrives, I’d appreciate it.” He was a good man in a pinch, and with the XO on the bridge, three Command seats weren’t in need of filling.

Ari CO

“Already on it Captain.”

Reaching over, Jonathan tapped opened a ship wide comm.

[O]This is the bridge. All stations report readiness. [O]

Isaac walked out the turbo lift and onto the Bridge he had a mug in hand of some hot Andorian green tea with a lemon and lime juice. It was the best cure for an hangover in his books the Armory team thot they can go shot to shot with this crazy Irish man but they didn’t win. “Good morning everyone” he said as he got to his Station.

Lt. Isaac Black (AC)

As the information was still being absorbed by the bridge crew of a FOURTH planet literally having appeared out of nowhere as mentioned before. And now being stranded in the middle of nowhere in this system. Information requested by the Captain came up. Sadly there wasn’t much to report. The system really hadn’t been surveyed by anyone up to this point, so no information was on hand to compare to their current situation. Looking back on what they themselves had performed the ‘gravity hole’ as the Captain was calling it hadn’t been there originally till about 3 days ago and certainly wasn’t as bad as it was now.

As this was all being reported, more scans came in, they were picking up low level artificial satellites now in the new fourth planet’s orbit. They were currently exchanging missile and of all things low key but destructive laser and plasma based beam attacks. Clearly this culture had some level of former space based ability before they had gotten into the throes of blowing themselves to kingdom come.

Into this maelstrom was also the fact they were picking up low key radio transmissions from the planet. Interestingly the transmissions were in two languages. One clearly the universal translator or linguist on duty couldn’t identify though was likely the local dialect, the other.......was English! The repeated accented English dialect came out in some form as cries for help or aide all likely to their local governments, though some were cries to a higher deity or power it seemed.

CockRoach

After the ship came to a sudden halt Rachel began by checking on her staff and the single patient inside the small sickbay. She then sent up a message to the bridge informing them that Sickbay was ready and reported no injuries then began preparing for potential injuries.

Dr. Grey CMO

“Sickbay is reporting back Captain that they are ready, and they have no reported injuries yet,” Jonathan said as he watched the reports pop up on the little screen at his chair.

“That was quite the kick we got from the anomaly. Should we be preparing for a rough ride here?”

Cmdr. McKnight - XO

“Other than that kick I’m not picking up too much gravitational interference. I think that was mostly just from our initial entrance into the area,” Fleet piped up from the helm. Although it was New Years, Kenny wasn’t much for parties, and had decided to abandon the celebrations and keep to his happy place - on the bridge.

“Of course, I could be wrong,” he added, more softly.

Fleet, Helm

Ari growled. She wanted to desperately stop the chaos below, but knew better. “All right. So we are stuck here till we figure this out. Helm, see how fast we are capable of moving. Start with directional impulse. Get us facing the planet. Be careful to maintain distance. If it has a stronger pull than anticipated, we could get stuck in orbit. Or worse, be brought to the ground. Science, see if you can tap into those artificial satellites. If they are speaking English, maybe we can see what is going on and if they are aware of what happened to them.”

Science’s efforts if they tried to tap into the satellites was surprisingly easy. Oddly some of the access points shared common comm accesses that were on par with the Bonaventure herself! The question once they had access was how would they query for information?

Naomi was the science officer assigned to the bridge that day. When things poured in, she wasted no time to relay the information and analyze it. When the orders for the satellites to be tapped into came, she found the task rather easy.

Naturally she found herself a bit shocked at the bizarre similarities.

“What the bloody…” She stopped herself mid sentence to relay the information she gained.

–ENS Naomi D. Locke, Sci

Frowning, she didn’t like the next command. “Engineering, I want you to work out if it’s possible to use transporters to get to the surface and back if we want or needed.”

Over by engineering, they could tell proceeding with transporters was perhaps possible but risky, if they were to make a landing party it probably would be wiser to use a shuttlepod, though it’d be a bumpy ride down it was likely safer then having their atoms due to unexpected anomalies scrambled.

She shook her head. Glancing at Johnathan, she frowned. “If they are speaking English, we need to see if they belong in this region of space. If they don’t, then we have a larger problem on our hands. And if they do belong here, we need to see if our approach triggered them becoming ‘visible’ or ‘arriving’ in this space. I hate to say this, but this is a Captain’s nightmare. I think I should also admit, to at least you, that this is a bit more fascinating to me than it probably should be.” She bit her lip and tried not to laugh, her voice remaining low and just between the two of them. Deep down she knew the safety of the ship came first. And she also knew she had to keep that nearer to the surface for all their sakes. She was keenly aware, as this problem grew more and more interesting, she was going to get more and more wrapped up in it.

Ari CO

Isaac started his tactical scans to see if there are any man-made objects in the area. He was also checking the gravitational data to see if them being Stock was some type of weapon.

Lt. Isaac Black (AC)

Isaac’s scans from a tactical view point showed it was to his knowledge unlikely this gravitic field was a weapon. The patterns just didn’t seem to fit, what he could confirm though was the power to drive such a device....assuming it was artificial mind things would need to be massive. The only obvious point of power source was the planet’s core itself. If it was natural then further information would need to be gleaned by science.

Coming now into orbit high above the nuclear blasted world, low orbit ballistic missiles streaked in a final passing below them harmlessly. Though the impact sites on the cities and tactical points of interest left devastation in their wake. More calls on the comms were picked up now from civilian and military arms either requesting aide, or in the military arm making reports of damage and calling in further military maneuvers.

GM CockRoach

Fleet tested the impulse engines by flying them in an ellipse, keeping parallel to the orbit of the double planets but off the plane of rotation. Once his testing was completed, he very slowly pulled the Bonnie closer to the anomalous planet, keeping a very close eye on gravitational and other assorted forces, ready to pull her back at the first sign of trouble. Before the first sign of trouble.

Fleet, Helm