Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - Those Who Remain Behind

Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Bridge - Those Who Remain Behind
[snip]

On the screen two of the remaining 7-8 blips that made no sense seemed to stabilize for a moment and seemed to be moving somewhere in the woods near the shuttle to a location closer. But their movements soon became ragged again. One moment they both were within 10 feet of the clearing to the shuttle, the next they were both by the cave, then another they were almost 10 miles south of the shuttle and plateau, before returning to their approach to the clearing, all for this randomness to repeat.

GM CockRoach

Reggie had a hard time following the blips as they bounced. That was a fair distance to bounce from - from the clearing to the caves. He pointed to it. Sure their sensors weren’t like the Vulcan’s, or so he thought, but this seemed strange. “Is there a pattern here? A repetition to these moves?” he asked, perplexed. Not much time had passed so the computer was still trying to get a handle on things. “Might be easier to launch the other shuttle pod and have someone up there looking out overhead with binoculars,” he commented. “This planet is playing with our sensors.”
NL Reginald Green, Eng

Jonathan sighed, that’s not what he wanted to hear. But after seeing the jumps on the screen, he couldn’t deny it. “Any chance that the interference would be cleaned up by dropping the Bonnie into a lower orbit?”

Not knowing what was down there would make it a greater risk, but the amount of energy and time it would take to get a shuttlepod out there for someone to visually confirm each of those markers, it might be worth it to at least try.

Cmdr. McKnight - XO

Green winced at that question. The Bonaventure was launched from space dock. She wasn’t really meant for atmosphere. But could she? Green had never considered that, though he did figure that it could handle a controlled drop. He cautiously answered. “How far down did you want to go, Commander? Something slow to the upper atmosphere. If we got too low we’d be the cause of more interference with our thrusts creating heat turbulence around the hull that was affect the sensors.” He glanced to the science station and shrugged out a ‘what do you think’? look.
Green.

OOC: Skimmed the specs. Is the Bonnie rated for atmospheric travel?

OOC: Well going by the STF spec? No technically not since its not listed, and by EDept standards if its not mentioned then its not doable, BUUUUUUTTTTTT.....the NX Enterprise went into Earth’s atmosphere in that time travel WW2 episode and it was shot to hell and back by that point from the earlier Xindi battle. The NX class is also a bit bigger all around then the Bonaventure class. It did no problem, so I’m gonna say ‘yes’ for the sake of the plot if you want to do that lol....
OOC: Thanks. I am re-watching the series after a LONG interval and had not gotten there yet and forgot it.

Green could figure that likely they could clear things up by going into the atmosphere, it would be a bumpy ride for sure but long as they were careful to avoid any atmospheric pockets they would probably be fine long as they kept the ship moving, holding station in such a high gravity would be almost impossible due to the strain, but moving the ship at least on low impulse would be fine........hopefully.....

GM CockRoach

“One moment commander,” he said, turning in the chair to the console and feeling cramped, stuffed between the chair and the console. They were not built for his frame. Scanning tolerance levels he spoke up, still scanning. “Commander, if we get under the layers of the upper atmosphere we should be able to have a stable ride but for some turbulence. We’d need to plot a circular course on impulse to keep our elevation stable. That might give the science people a better perch for viewing.” He glanced over there to see if that was so. He was starting to get out of his depth of atmospheric running and sensor adaptions.
- Green

“Go ahead and plot the course. Keep us above the landing zone. We’ll go in for an initial 5 minutes and gather as much information as possible. At the same time Ensign, monitor the space frame. I know the Bonnaventure was not specifically designed for this, so I want to make sure we aren’t going to be just causing more problems for ourselves.

“If after 5 minutes there are not any issues, we can maintain station over the landing zone as long as conditions allow for it. If not, we’ll head back out of atmosphere and come up with plan B. Sound good to everyone?”

Jonathan looked around at the other crew on the bridge. It was risky, but had the chance of giving them really good information. Hopefully it just wasn’t too risky.

Cmdr. McKnight - XO