Posted by Commander Heather Grace (Executive Officer/Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim - The Challenge Of Life - Arrival To UES-23

Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - The Challenge Of Life - Arrival To UES-23

Posted by Gamemaster CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - The Challenge Of Life - Arrival To UES-23
Posted by… suppressed (15) by the Post Ghost! 👻
[snip]

Three days later on the morning shift around 0830 hours the Sojourner dropped out of warp about 200km out from the solar edge of UES-23. As they began to make their way into the system to begin their survey and cataloging work, there was a brief tremor that passed over the ship, vibrating from stem to stern. A few power systems across the ship also flickered struggling to compensate from what seemed some kind of energy surge. But as quickly as it had happened the vibrations and surge passed and a minute or so later things settled back to normal.

Helena quickly ran a check on the nav computer and helm control to make sure whatever that was hadn’t damaged those systems.

Checks on their navigational course set into the system and the associated computer connections came back green with no current problems, at least associated with the ship or those related systems.

Meanwhile in Engineering ..

The first indication for Ltjg Green was the shudder that coursed through the decking. The second indication was the notification alarms that erupted from the main monitoring station. The third indication was the soft curse from Petty Officer Emerson Fawkes who was at that station. Even from where he was standing, Reggie could see red markers indicating systems awry on multiple decks.

“Multiple system alerts!” Emerson called out, his English tone clipped, tense.

“Cause?” Green asked, taking the few strides over to where the master station was.

Emerson’s gaze looked one way then the next on the screen, using the console to bring up first one then another of the alarm zones. His face expressed some frustration. “Power surge is the common diagnostic. From where I don’t know. Time indications noted it began microseconds at the bow and moved to the stern.” Even as they watched the red alarm zones shifted to yellow then blinked off.

“Follow up on this surge. We may be able to find a way to modify our subroutines to compensate faster to power surges,” Green said, giving Emerson a clap on the shoulder before moving to another station.

[o] Engineering to Bridge. Whatever we found it upset some systems. Did we run into anything out there? [c]

On another panel one of the non-com NE’s upon the D Deck portion of the engine room called down from above, “..Uh sirs? Not to alarm anyone but when that shudder passed over us here a second ago the small port hole I got nearby had some kind of weird color phase shift from the protection filters. Usually it only does that to dim sudden light or energy pulses or UV radiation or the like. But we’re you know out in deep space here yet so we shouldn’t have had that, is.....is that bad?” he asked.

Green’s head swiveled around, not having yet reached the intended console. “Solar flare?” he suggested.

Another non-com NE on the opposite side of the upper engine room on D Deck confirmed this, “..Yeah I thought it was just a delayed reflection from dropping from warp, or maybe I was seeing things, but uh if Charles says he saw that I did too, sir. Almost like maybe we passed through some kind of weak energy field?” the female non-com suggested.

Opposite side. Would be no flare. That would have caused one of the sides to alter, not opposite sides. Tugging at his beard he listened to Charles. They were bright, but what was it that would apply an energy field?

Charles on the opposite side looked at her, “..Energy field? That could maybe explain the shudder and vibrations we felt and energy surges, like an electrical field conducting through the ship! Did sensors pick anything up though?” he inquired out loud.

[o] Green to Bridge. Ports were polarized in conjunction with the surge we felt. We think we may have passed through an energy field. Systems stabilizing. No damage reported. [c]

“Check the sensors. Also check the hole. Check everything, just to be safe.” Marceau said. They were in deep space. He didn’t want anything happening.

“What are we checking the sensors for?” Heather asked having just stepped out of the lift. The crewman who had been manning the science station moved to the side as she swung into the seat.

“Anything that’d explain the power surges and shudders we just had, ma’am,” Aiden replied, in the process of double checking there had been no incoming transmissions that could have been a vector for malware causing the surges.

Heather nodded as she spun around in her seat and looked through the scope.

“I’m not seeing any obvious signs of a sort of energy field Captain.”

OOC: For the sake of moving the sim ahead I’m gonna assume you guys do the below!

Checks on all systems soon showed green across the board. There was no obvious signs of an energy field behind them, though one way to test easily enough would be to reverse course and see if it happened again.

Helena responded instantly, “All stop, Captain,” she called out as she throttled the engines down to nothing, “Holding position.”

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

Marceau nodded. “Keep holding for now.”

Once an order to do so was given, this time the Sojourner got as far as their aft most end of the nacelles and hull to get within 20 meters of the crossing point when collision warning alarms suddenly blared and red warning lights lit up on the helm and science scanners. A quick checked confirmed their seemed something now solid just 20 meters behind them!! Visually nothing was showing up, but the deflection system scanners normally charged with deflecting tiny particles of dust, asteroid fragments and other stellar junk from hitting the ship were saying otherwise. But also every other sensor trained there was failing to pick anything up, so likely if there was say an energy field they had passed through it was too advanced to show anything obvious the sensors could detect.

On the flip side, as other checks would be conducted over by Comms a blip on lower band radio signals was picking something up! It was an audio only signal which seemed to be coming from the class-m world they had planned to survey when coming here. A check on the band signal at first didn’t bring up any matches, but then expanding the references from anything more modern came up with a match from old Earth radio traffic frequencies used in the 1980s through the early 2000s of space exploration in low orbit!

GM CockRoach

As the ship rapidly came to a stop again, warning alarms going off Heather spun back around to the scope. “I’m still not seeing anything Captain, sensors are not showing anything aft of us. But the deflectors are lighting up like a Christmas tree.”

Turning back around in her chair Heather sent a message down to the science lab to focus the sensor array directly aft of them for maximum resolution.

“Could it be something our sensors cannot detect?” Questioned the Captain with a frown.

Meanwhile in Engineering .. “Course reversed, Lt,” came the report from Seaman Gostovnik. “Impulse engines on minimal.”
“Checking out what we passed through,” NL Green said. He would have done it if for nothing more than curiosity and to figure out what it was that they had passed through that had given their systems a moment of distress.
“Full stop,” he reported a moment before the collision alarms blared.
“Elevated systems draw from the bridge. Science is pushing the scanners,” Emerson said in a tight voice over the alarms before they were silenced.
Green said, “Filter sensor logs. What is out there?”
El had quietly taken a station after the first of the system disruptions. Accessing the visual logs and energy readings she reported after some seconds. “Nothing, Lt. There is nothing there at all.” After a moment she asked, “Do you think they’ll send out a probe?”
‘Only if they’re smart,’ Reggie thought. “Continue to monitor systems. If we passed through one of these there could be more. Serinde, run an analysis of the system disruptions. See if there is anything we could do to prevent it? Low level hull polarization. Future EM Shielding on the conduits and so on.”
“Yes, Lt,” El said as she sought to fathom what to do. Perhaps she would begin with what the ship detected as it passed through. She knew the effects but anyone could give one’s head a knock, but what was telling was how it was knocked.
- El, Eng

Cmdr. Grace - XO / CSO

Renault noticed the blip at the Comms station. “Ensign, what is communications registering?”

~ Capt Renault

“It looks like low band radio,” Aiden reported, “something close to late 1900s Earth chatter. I’ll try and clear it up a bit.”

Ensign Aiden Conlon Linguist/Comms Officer

The signal was somewhat weak, probably due to a low powered transmitter or local weather conditions or the like on the planet. But with a bit of work a few bits of words could be gleamed from the broken up signal. Such words were as follows: Challenger, some kind of accident, crash, NASA receiving?, anyone out there?

GM CockRoach

NE Sasha Gagarin quietly entered the bridge and moved to the engineering section. NL Green had sent him up as a engineering presence saying, “You need some bridge time.” Partly Sasha felt it was more that the Lt wanted someone there to find out what was going on and report back down to him. As the gangly man slid into the seat he overheard what was said. His eyes went wide.

“Sir? I think you should look at this - it looks like old Earth traffic, not just the same type but actual 20th Century United States. If I’m right, the Challenger incident.”

Ensign Aiden Conlon Linguist/Comms Officer

“The Challenger? The shuttle disaster from January 1986? All crew perished seconds after liftoff.” His voice trailed off. Was he out of order in speaking out? Well, blurting out really. From youth he had been fascinated with the space program, given that he was related to the famous Russian cosmonaut of the same name that sparked his life long dive into Earth’s space program. The front viewscreen only showed a world but it was not Earth and the distance was impossible. Was it a trace signal that the Challenger had sent out? But they hadn’t. Not after the incident.

• NE Sasha Gagarin, Eng

Heather leaned forward in her chair, what was that signal doing all the way out here. Could it really have traveled that far during all this time? But she swore she heard them say crash, which didn’t line up with the official records.

“Can you pinpoint where the signal is coming from?”

Cmdr. Grace - XO / CSO

Scans showed it came from the class m planet further into the system that they had been sent to survey. Exact location of origin on the planet was too hard to tell due to distance, they would need to get into orbit to pin it down further.

GM CockRoach

“Yes, ma’am. Origin is the planet we came here for,” Aiden reported.
“‘Elena,” Marceau said, his accent silencing the H in her name, “Take the ship into orbit of the planet. Let’s get a better read on that signal,” he said, looking at his helmsman (or, in her case, helmswoman).

~ Capt Renault

Sasha slowly sat in the seat but was on the edge of it as he watched the viewscreen. “Is it an old signal?” he wondered aloud. It had to be. How could it be anything but that? As the planet came into view his eyes widened. He had not seen such a view. The last world they had visited he had not been down to it but had seen it through a porthole. This .. viewer made it so much more larger than life. Greens. Blues. Browns. Whites. It looked amazing. But the signal? It was impossible.
- Sasha Gagarin, NE Eng

“Aye, Sir,” Laursen said. She pulled the location data from the sensors as they moved toward the planet and then into orbit. “We should be able to get a better fix, Captain, and then I can move us into a geosynchronous orbit.”

Lt. Laursen, Helm/Navigation Officer

Ensign Aiden Conlon Linguist/Comms Officer

With the order given the next few minutes passed quietly, the Sojourner soon entering orbit along the northern continent near an environmental divide that faded from a lush mountain forested area to a lower, wet marshy river area with a scattering of hills, cliffs, smaller rivers off the bigger man river, canyons and valleys. The area fading line of area spanned over almost 100-200 some miles in an angular uneven octagonal like pattern. Atmosphere scanners showed it was breathable, quite Earth like with tempetures ranging from 50s F to high 70s F. At a guess it was probably something around a mid-Spring time in this area of the planet. Life scanners for animals and plants showed a lush abundance in evidence. Primary larger animals in the area in question seemed from a large winged bird animal with a wing span of almost 20ft, and 30-40ft long. Evidence showed they probably flew in small packs of 3-9 likely family units of some sort and ate a mix of meat and plant sources. Land based animals of note were large rodent or vermin creatures. They were the size of a small dog and ate primarily small insects and plants.

Radio scans picked up the signal a bit better now, it was located in a wide low valley made up of small-medium bushes, a serious of small streams flowing down from higher forested hills. Zoning in on the location they found a clearing about 5 miles long by 2 or so wide mostly cleared on a raised flat hill side. Sure enough there was the landed remains of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It had some faded paint and dings/rust in places, and it looks like it did a belly landing without its landing gear but otherwise seemed intact.

Some kind of primitive collection of junk, spare parts, and metal were rigged up nearby with what seemed some power cables to the shuttles interior in the cargo area. What seemed to be a jury rigged radio dish and other devices were setup for transmitting the radio broadcast they were picking up. Scans for human life were muddled with the other life in the area. Their might be some in a few miles or so of the shuttle about 5-7 or so, it was hard to tell. Best choice was probably to send down a landing party in a shuttle pod to get more up close scans for dating the crash and site and try to find the life signs.

GM CockRoach

Sasha leaned so far forward in his seat that he nearly inadvertently fell off. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing and he physically rubbed his eyes as though what he was seeing would simply disappear and reveal reality instead - that a space shuttle meant for barely earth orbit and earth orbital missions was out here. Light years out. The world watched the disaster live. He had watched the old recordings. How could this be? “Nevozmozhnyy. (Impossible),” he said in his native Russian. Then, “I have seen the photos. Studied the program when I was a boy. That is it. But .. how?”
- Sasha, NE Eng

“I think that’s the question we are all asking ourselves Ensign,” Heather said as she just stared at the screen. After a moment she turned back into her chair and looked back through the scope.

“It’s hard to get a good reading from here Captain, but everything looks right to match the Challenger. And I’m having no luck on any life signs from this distance. There is too much other native life down there to get a solid reading.”

Cmdr. Grace - XO / CSO

“All communications and the tech they’re using to send them match up,” Aiden agreed. “We should go down there and get a better look.”

Ensign Aiden Conlon
Linguist/Comms Officer