Posted by Ensign Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - Arrival To Vok III

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - Arrival To Vok III

Posted by Captain Rende Asam (Commanding Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - Arrival To Vok III
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
[snip]

The probes finally came back with more information. Out to a range of a light year or so both could confirm there was no obvious sign of any ships. If there were they could be cloaked or using some more advanced stealth system that the probes could not counter. But beyond the expected traffic in the region from the three colonies on record nothing seemed out of place. There was that earlier odd signal silence that Ch’Sirhc caught though such a band should be full of recent or fading echoes of comm traffic but there wasn’t any as noted.

GM CockRoach

Kovan felt he’s heard enough, or lack of enough, to come to the conclusion that something was wrong. “Sir,” He swiveled his chair around to face the XO, “I’ve found something of note. An oddity, if you would. Put on an ear piece and listen to band alpha zeta pi. You tell me if a productive colony with flourishing trade would be so quiet on a common subspace radio traffic line.” Kovan gave the XO a moment to tap into the frequency and hear for himself. “This line should be full of pings and echoes and all you can hear are murmurs from Vok’s flight control. Take that out and. . . nothing.”

Space may be a massive void of emptiness but silence? This close to a populated planet? That warranted investigation.

En ch’Sirhc, COMMO/ENGR

Roman used a receiver and tapped into the channel for himself. He wasn’t trained in Comms, but there was… A lot of nothing. Almost nothing at all. The noise must be there, perhaps just hidden somehow? He nodded to Kovan. “Investigate the signal and figure out what is hiding the noise that should be coming from the planet. Keep an eye… or an ear, anyway, out for any other oddities.”

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Listening further to the dead silence over the next 30 some minutes began to grate even probably the most patient of people and analysis. The sense of emptiness was maddening. Then as if dropping a drop of water upon a dying man from thirst, there was a soft, very perceptive sounds of ‘SS’ then ‘OD’ then a second later ‘RAT’ that were not letters pronounced by like the sounds they would make on their own, so SS sounded like a ssss and OD sounded like ‘odd’ and RAT sounded like ‘ra ta’. Then after one more repetition of this the sounds vanished back to the maddening dead silence. But as brief as this was they did find two connection points! One seemed to be the receiver for this strange comm burst, which was in their shuttle bay! Likely the stealth ship they had taken aboard. The sending point though seemed to be in a low orbit among the northern pole of the planet.

When someone would decide to direct the ship’s sensors in that way, they would find a few ancient comm satellites, something common place in the late 22nd and very early 23rd century but long since retired by 2230s. The eight or so piece of space junk were clearly that just junk of a forgotten earlier era of the colony’s life. It was then they would notice on one of the larger piece of junk something that stood out and shouldn’t be there. A secondary comm array had been bolted onto the lower half of this ancient relay, deeper scans would show it was partially drawing power from the relays still slightly useful fusion core. But more importantly they were able to quick get a make up of compensation that the construction methods on this secondary array were of Orion manufacture! There was a solid 96.78% certainty on this based on the readings.

GM CockRoach

=O=Sentinel this is Cpt Asam. Send Lt Randall Farquharson down with a psycho-tricorder immediately.=C=

Asam, CO

=O= Lieutenant Randy to the transporter room ASAP. Bring your tricorder, you’re headed to the planet surface. =C= Roman said into the comm in response to the captain’s request.

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

What seperated a good communication’s officer from a great one wasn’t the ability to speak but the ability to listen as well. Kovan waited, fingers silently drumming on the console dashboard. Four fingers drummed down, one after another, a second pause in between. On the minute mark a double drum. A grounding technique Kovan learned long ago when working aboard merchant trawlers. Junky little ships where weight mattered and the crew’s clothes took up nearly all of it. Silence was maddening, but he knew how to be patient.

And oh, was he rewarded. “Got you,” Kovan muttered. Swiveling around, triumphant grin on his face, Kovan called to the captain, “Take a look on the view screen,” With a tap of his fingers he brought the image of the hidden-in-plain-sight comms array to the main view screen. “Either the colonies hired Orion contractors for a little science experiment or some enterprising pirates set up shop right under their noses. That comms array is communicating with the fake asteroid in our cargo bay.”

En ch’Sirhc COMMO/ENGR

“Try to intercept the messages.” Roman said. “If you can’t, then try to find the origin of the messages.”

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO