Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineer) in Main Sim - 2 Months Later - A Strange Signal!

Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - 2 Months Later - A Strange Signal!
[snip]

It was 2 months later, the Bonaventure after their brief R&R at the Vulcan Starbase 243, and then another brief resupply back at the Sol system, had been sent back out into the boondocks of known space for Earth explorers to catalog and survey a myriad of planets and such. The following 2 months had been pretty dull overall on the ship. The scans of their various planets, systems, and other things to catalog had been normal and without anything of interest to anyone concerned. So it was that with their last system in mind for their 2 month survey mission in sight the normal boring hum dum of the morning shift routine was broken by something which would turn out to be possibly quite exciting!

As the Bonaventure would drop from warp outside the system scans would begin by those from science and such. About 10 minutes into their approach to the system and scans, the NE at the comms station spoke up looking surprised and maybe a little confused. Turning in her chair the NE said, “..Sir? I uh....well I’m picking up a strange radio broadcast from the third planet in this system! It is audio only, and what makes it odd is it runs on old time radio signals and uh…” she paused biting her lip a bit before summoning her courage to finish her report. “..uh well it matches radio frequencies used by Earth in the late 20th-early 21st century. Shall I put it up on the speakers?” she inquired.

Ari, finally having a chance to spend nearly two months as a scientist again, was on the bridge with the engineering station’s reading showing up on the main view screen.

As the NE mentioned the broadcast, she flipped the screen blank. “Play it, Ensign!” The excitement, and confusion, evident in her voice.

Once the person in command gave the go ahead she nodded, a brief squeal of the speakers would make everyone flinch on the bridge, but then the static would clear and a male voice came up =/\= Is it on Kalpana? =/\= queried the male voice, a murmur of a female like voice replied it seemed but did not pick up what she said, clearing his throat though the man continued, =/\= Right of course it’s already recording! Ahem…this is Colonel Rick Husband, Commander of STS-107 shuttle Columbia. Somehow my crew and I plus the shuttle Columbia have crashed landed on this planet. We have confirmed it is not Earth, where we are we have no idea. If by some miracle someone from NASA or any other organization....or hell even friendly aliens for all we care can hear this and help we would appreciate it. We will be setting this recording to repeat every hour on the hour. =/\= came the voice complete with another squeal from the speakers as the radio recording cut out.

Like everyone else, Ari had winced at the feedback when the speakers were engaged with the playback. As she listened, it became evident that something was definitely amiss.

A few confused glances came around the room, anyone worth their salt on early human space exploration would know of the fated orbital shuttle disaster of STS-107 by the Columbia, which had broken up and all hands on board had died on reentry due to damage to the shuttle. What made all of this confusing was the fact the remains of said shuttle and the crew had been picked up by recovery teams back in 2003 after the incident. How the shuttle and/or crew could have gotten here to this planet was purely impossible! Plus there was the likely sobering reality that even if by some miracle somehow they had gotten here back in 2003 any and all survivors would be long dead by now and this radio broadcast was just talking to ghosts.....right?

Of course the only way to find out was to go into orbit of the third planet. Once someone had given the go ahead the Bonventure moved smoothly into orbit. The planet was a Class-M world, similar in size to Venus though. There were four continents roughly together as giant islands making up about 27% or so of the total surface, the rest of the planet was either large ice shelves near the north and south poles which made up another 13% of the planet’s land mass, and the remaining 70% were mainly giant ocean of water with a tiny handful of very small islands here and there. Scans easily picked up native plant and animal life on land sea and air, but an ionizing storm effect around the planet prevented more in depth scan results, it would also prevent safe beam down/beam up use of the transporter so if they did go planetside they would need go to by shuttlepod.

“Let’s get a closer look, shall we?” Ari watched as the planet came into view. Closer and closer till they figured out the location of the related message.

Thankfully due to the radio broadcast they could use that to locate what seemed its origin point. It was on the third continent along the southern hemisphere of the planet. Situated on a somewhat large plateau on a hillside. If someone deemed to put the location up on visual on the screen, they could see the 4-5 mile long by 5-6.5 mile wide plateau was rich in grassland and a small lake. About 100 yards to the left of this lake was a clearing, and there much to anyone’s surprise was the mostly intact metal remains of a 20th century NASA space shuttle! Markings on the side confirmed it was indeed the shuttle Columbia, and metallic makeup also confirmed it matched methods used for its construction in 1981 up through till it crashed in 2003. No sign of human life was picked up though, there was however, evidence that someone had done some stuff to it, rigging up an ingenious water powered generator to the lake which seemed then tied in to the shuttle’s power system, providing power it seemed in bursts to the radio systems for broadcast. So obviously someone had survived right? But surely they would be dead by now. Either way only one way to find out!

GM CockRoach

The Captain sat back down in her seat and shook her head. “It can’t be… Can it?” She mentally and physically shook herself a moment the stupid up and glanced around the room at the various folks she clipped out orders to.

“Science, I want atmospheric readings and habitability. If we’re going down, I wanna know what I’ll be breathing.”

”..Aye ma’am..” Came the NEs reply.

Turning to the helm, she continued. “I want stability readings and a shuttle landing site chosen.”

”..On it ma’am!” Came that NEs reply

Leaning down to tap her comm, she hailed medical. [O]Medical, Bridge. I need someone to join an away team. Most likely we’ll be finding late 20th century remains. But in case there’s something else here, I wanna be prepared. Have them meet us in Shuttle Bay One in fifteen minutes.[C]

Another toggle flipped and she popped her voice thru to engineering. [O] Engineering, Bridge. I need a couple folks for an away team. Preferably someone familiar with 19th to 20th century mechanisms, but I’m not gonna be picky. Shuttle Bay One in fifteen minutes.[C]

NL Reginald Green flicked the comms switch and leaned over the console. He didn’t need to but habit was habit. [o] Bridge, this is Engineering. Green here. I’ll assign two. [c]
- NL Green

Pausing for a moment she paused and glanced around. “Ok, what am I missing?” She half murmured under her breath. “Oh, yes…” She tapped one more button [O]Security, Bridge. Need couple folks with weapons and comm to join us in Shuttle Bay One in fifteen min for Away Team mission. [C]

She then moved to sit in her seat and took a deep breath before calling the XO. [O] XO the the bridge, [C] was all she said before leaning back.

“Ok folks, let’s see about some quick info. I need to know the names of those on the Columbia when they went down. Also, Science, get with engineering and see if you can go over the archive footage of the explosion seen on Earth. See if you can discern if it truly was the Columbia in the footage.”

Her excitement was almost tangible. Finally, something that wasn’t shooting at them, or trying take them over. A real scientific mystery. She was definitely going down in the shuttle. She waited for the XO and went over in her mind various possibilities.

Capt Arialla Bovar Captain

OOC: So just a nit pick note :P You only got one hanger/launch bay lol ;)

The science NE was the first to report, “..Ma’am, all checks come back in the green, easily breathable atmosphere, nothing amiss other then the light ionization effect in it, some folks might feel a little tingle on their skin but nothing to worry over, other then that the same effect will limit scanner range from the normal mile or so down to a few hundred or so yards..” he said.

The helm NE was next to chime in, “..Local ground area is more then strong enough to support a shuttle pod in the area near the shuttle, we could either land almost literally right next to it or if you prefer a few yards off in several locations..” she said.

As other NE’s back in the rear of the bridge finished up their hasty analysis of the record footage of the Columbia disaster in 2003, one of them piped up, “..Ma’am? We went over what little archival footage from 2003 still is in our databanks, obviously due to World War 3 on Earth a lot of it was lost from that time period, but looking at what we do have as best as we can visually tell the investigators of that time period did confirm to their knowledge what remains they recovered was indeed the Columbia and its crew..” he said.

Another NE spoke up, “..Also looking at the footage closely for any signs of an anomaly there isn’t anything that shows up the best we can tell. Conversely double checking the wreckage down on the planet, we can confirm it matches construction methods and materials used during that time period. Age of the crash to local weather also confirms it has been there since 2003, so about 150 years or so. Same with the rigged water wheel tied into the ship’s batteries, it was built using local plant life in the area and scavenged parts from the shuttle itself..” another said.

Finally the third NE spoke, “..Ma’a, we were able to compile a crew log for the Columbia it’s as follows, Rick Husband, Commander, William C. McCool, Pilot, Michael P. Anderson, Mission specialist, Kalpana Chawla, Mission specialist, David M. Brown, Mission specialist, Laurel Clark, Mission specialist, Ilan Ramon, Payload specialist. All have been confirmed killed during the shuttle’s breakup in 2003 during reentry..” he said.

GM CockRoach

Jonathan had been doing his rounds when he heard the broadcast from the Captain, and made a beeline for the nearest lift, so it was only a few minutes later that he stepped onto the bridge.

“What do we have…” he trailed off as he looked at the viewscreen.

“It can’t be,” he said as he walked over to where the Captain was sitting. “How did one of the space shuttles end up all the way out here? Last I knew they were all accounted for as in some museum, or destroyed.”

Cmdr. McKnight - XO