Posted by Lieutenant Issac Forgrave (Chief of Security) in Main Sim [Bridge]: Belly of the Beast

Posted by Captain Rende Asam (Captain) in Main Sim [Bridge]: Belly of the Beast

Posted by Lieutenant Markus Woods (Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim [Bridge]: Belly of the Beast
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

—[SNIP]—

The sounds of battle and fear didn’t really phase Rende, on the outside. She’d heard it, caused it, been victim to it, too many times to count. She focused instead on the closest sounds, that of the ragged breathing and the voices of the little girl and her father. The little girl’s plea and the father’s response pulled long held memories to the forefront of Rende’s mind. She closed her eyes, seeing something from so long ago, super imposed upon the words of the recording. She let out a long sigh and made Yorba play it again. “They were under attack, inside the ship. Mutiny or maybe boarded? There is a obvious lack of attack damage on the outside of the hull so it makes me think Mutiny.” She leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped and stared into the middle distance. “Yorba run a voice recognition on the male against Hab’rabi. If that’s negative, run it against individual voices from Legion. How old is this recording?”

The lieutenant gave an assent, turned back to his console. It took him a few minutes of navigating both the contemporary display and holo overlay, but finally he gave a satisfied sound. “It’s a ninety-three point one-eight percent match for Hab’rabi, so it’s either him or someone closely related.”

Rende nodded, it was as she suspected. And her perspective changed with the confirmation. What would she do, what had she done to protect her own child? What lengths had she gone to, to get him back. He wasn’t just trying to save his people, he was saving something so much more precious and valuable - his family. Rende leaned back in her chair, one leg bent at the knee, heel on the edge of the chair. Her elbow resting on the raised knee, and her thumb rubbing back and forth just under her lower lip. Rende was and always would be a marine, her oaths and loyalty were always fore front of her mind. Eldorin always came first, but the moment Tabris had come into this universe that had changed for her and El. Tabris had always come first no matter the risks no matter the consequences. Was this Ishara his daughter? Maybe his niece? Whatever the relationship was, she was dear to Hab’rabi. Rende understood that, to her core. She fought with the instinct to go grab the man and go rescue his child. They needed more information.

Yorba turned to Rende then, frustration writ large on his otherwise calm features. “Whoever embedded this recording stripped all the metadata out of it, probably to maintain the message’s overall integrity and low signal bandwidth. Whatever is going on over on Hab’rabi’s ship, Legion has locked down all transceivers—we can’t access or sync with their library to even take a stab in the dark. If I had to guess, however, it was a while ago. We haven’t been able to detect any structural damage that would account for that much background noise.”

=^= Tomlinson to Captain Asam. The guest is awake. =^=

NE Tomlinson, Security

=/\=Thank you Tomlinson. Tell Lt Forgrave and Lt Cmdr Sigmundsson to notify me when they are done. I’ll want to speak to our guest as well.=/\=

She turned to Woods, “So now, based on conjecture, do we send him back, alone and unaided, or try to save, even the memory of that child?”

Rende, CO

“I think, depending on his condition, we have a conversation. It’s his ship, his crew. He at least deserves an update. He’d know more about the lay of the land than we do. And might be able to help us make sense of this situation. But we don’t have time for games or bull out of him. It’s like having an overdose and being taken to a doctor. They don’t care what you did, and aren’t trying to get you in trouble. Just tell them what you’re on. Screwing around with that lowers chances for survival drastically. The faster they can work the better. He doesn’t really have a reason to trust us, save that we haven’t killed him, blown his ship out of the sky, or any other factors. Thing is I’m not sure how to get through to him. At least by anything else besides being honest. I’m all for some good subterfuge, but right now… ” Markus broke off, shaking his head. But then again, with someone that had spent a lot of time seeing through people, and had the mental abilities to further that, maybe he’d just given up on deception and lies a long time ago.

“It can’t hurt, at least,” he offered. Lieutenant Commander Korh might be up for a very vigorous debriefing though with Hab’rabi. The thought drew a wry smile across his face, just for the briefest of moments.

Lt Woods, CSO/aXO

Rende nodded, Woods was right, it was Rabi’s ship after all. She was silent staring out at the ship on the screen, you could almost hear the gears turning in her head. “Woods. What if…they are still under siege? His answers have been less than forthcoming, but what if he is still under siege, his people are hostages? How would you go about asking for help, when you can’t actually help? We’ve tossed possibilities back and forth, but what if his behavior is because he has no choice and not what he would want to do?”

A chirp rippled through the air, and a voice called through the comm system. =^=“Attention, all decks! This is Lieutenant Bowman in Engineering. Please stand by while we initiate a static warp field. As disorientation is common during field attenuation, more-sensitive species are advised to brace. The process should take no more than thirty seconds; crewman who experience prolonged symptoms are advised to report to the nearest medical team. Field will engage in ten seconds. Bowman, out.”=^=

There was a brief ripple in the air, followed by a prismatic splash of light beyond the viewscreen as the static warp field snapped into place. A faint sense of vertigo rippled through the bridge crew, but no one seemed adversely affected. Yorba gave his full attention to his workstation, giving the bridge systems a quick once-over with a Level One diagnostic. Once he’d double-checked his findings, he gave Rende an approving nod.
—Jas—

Rende shrugged her shoulders and arched her neck to each side. She took a deep breath, “Well that wasn’t that bad. Probably the most mild experiment of Eldorin’s I’ve ever lived through.”

Rende, CO

As things settled Markus groaned, holding his head for a moment then nodded. “I didn’t expect them to just do it, but to actually wait for the go-ahead,” he said quietly. The situation was sensitive and just doing it could have serious consequences. That was part of the purpose of the chain of command. But it was done. Markus turned hias attention back to Rende’s question. He didn’t answer immediately, his eyes going far away. He wanted to answer immediately in the affirmative. It felt right. But … one didn’t just leap onto a thing because it seemed right.

Rende grinned, she’d given the order to get it done, and Eldorin knew when she said get it done she meant last year. They didn’t get much of a warning, but they needed to get these things contained. “Engineering is stretched thin. Lt Bowman, I’m sure, is doing the best he can. We’ll check in with him when this is over. The Chief may have given orders before he went to work on repairs.”

Closing his eyes, Markus brought up all that he’d seen and remembered since they’d encountered Hab’rabi, combined with the latest information he had. Some things were almost universal. The way parents looked after their loved ones, blood or not. Family. Loyalty. One of the things that human kind had learned since First Contact is that there were so many other species out there that were so similar, as much as they were so different. But a tribal culture like Hab’rabi’s?

Turning it over and inside out, looking at all the angles. As near as he could tell, his behavior would jive so very well for a man with a gun to his head, or the head of his loved ones. So much so that he was silently kicking himself for not seeing that angle sooner. “I think you might have hit the nail on the head, Captain,” he mused quietly to her, his expression grave. If that were the case, it changed the calculus of the situation greatly. But it also meant they had different cards to play.

Lt Woods, CSO/aXO

“Lt Forgrave and Lt Cmdr Sigmundsson are with him now. Let’s see what they can glean and then we may have to have a hear to heart with the man.” She stared at the ship, “I know our scans are bad, the radiation leak is messing with our sensors, but if you were going to hide someone…where would you put them?”

Rende, CO

=/\=Forgrave to Captain Rende; I’m headed your way from sickbay now - that static warp field did something ta a number of folks, Hab’rabi included. I got something out of the man; but I think it’s past my pay grade.=/\=

It wasn’t long before the chief showed up in person; and as he stepped onto the bridge he nodded curtly at those present in brief greeting, before moving over to the Captain. “Apologies if I interrupted anythin’, and I know I didn’t do much in the way of explanations neither.” Issac took a deep breath; settling his thoughts before giving his report.

“I weren’t able ta get much outta Hab’rabi; initially he apologized for the actions of the mote things, and denied any malicious intent with them. And asking about NE Sacco… well, instead of acknowledging the bizarre realities of the events, he plead ‘Cultural Differences’.” Issac spat the last phrase as if it were bitter poison. “But then that warp field fired off; and he acted like it was gonna kill ‘em all. Before he passed out; he mentioned being able ta speak freely for a moment; before he…” He paused, face scrunched up as he recalled the wording that was used. “Before they could see or hear again. He spoke about Wraiths and daemons; evil ancestors - something; he didn’t know what, or so he said. Then… well, he gave me a passphrase, and told me to seek out Legion. Not hard to assume he’s referring to the ship AI you’d talked to earlier, Ma’am.” Issac paused, looking to the side in a unconscious gesture of discomfort, before continuing. “He asked me ta protect his people; and the… Yur, whatever that is.” At that, he held out a sheet torn out of a small notepad; on it was the transcription he had written of the presumed passphrase. “I don’t know what this does Ma’am; but I think you’re the one who needs ta hang onto it.”

-Forgrave, CoS

Yorba had been hard at work at his station, dozens of holodisplays floating around his head with various points of information. The screen before him displayed the alien ship, and the lieutenant was diligently pouring over the entire vessel deck by deck. Several times he would be so transfixed that one might have thought him a statue, still and unwavering in studious intensity; other times one would have thought him quite mad, swiping furiously at the floating holos or tapping aggressively at the controls. Finally he pushed away from his station with a heavy sigh and turned to the other officers.

“I have a few ideas of where someone might put something they don’t necessarily want others to have access to,” he announced almost proudly, frowning for a brief moment as he dismissed his halo of holos. “While I’m no shipwright, most starships operate on the same general principle and design based on function. With the computer’s help and a little guesswork, I’ve been able to piece together the general layout of the alien ship.”

Turning, he pulled up the exterior view of Hab’rabi’s colony ship drifting lazily in the blackness of space. A few quick taps of the console brought up a wireframe overlay complete with several notations. “The rear quarter of the ship is the drive section, and though we can’t get an accurate reading of every deck, I’d guess this is also where main life support is handled. Our scans have at least been able to approximate their core’s location, and the engineering section seems rather extensive. There are a few holes in our sensor readings in this section, places where either the radiation is too dense or where composite plating muddles our sensors. These could be storage lockers for special substances, or a secure area in case of emergency.”

“Forward of that is the docking ring and cargo areas,” Yorba continued, gesturing to the circular protrusion cinching the behemoth’s body. “It’s largely bare of unnecessary comforts beyond environmental controls. Quite a bit of heavy machinery and storage containers; probably supplies to terraform their new world, if they ever get that far. Many of the larger containers are so densely shielded that we can’t detect what’s inside. There’s also a large area amidship that has refused to be scanned by any trick I could come up with; judging by the power consumption and ambient readings, it’s some kind of cryostorage.”

The front half of the vessel brightened as the lieutenant tapped away at his controls. “This sections is habitation for the crew and their families. Well clear of the radiation, we can see almost everything they’ve got inside. There’s a small impulse drive nestled at the core with a lot of auxiliary subsystems—water and waste reclamation, monitoring, supply storage, and the like—which I can only assume would come online if the rear section was somehow compromised. We found Hab’rabi a few decks above and forward in one of the many clusters of stasis chambers. There are a few heavily shielded areas in this section, such as the bridge, as well as several smaller, evenly-spaced closet-sized compartments. Weapon or tool storage would be my guess.”

Yorba’s face soured a bit, taking on a more serious expression. “Captain, I feel compelled to point out that we’ll have to decide what to do with Hab’rabi and his vessel soon. According to my calculations, the power that we were able to transfer to the colony ship will be exhausted in thirty-seven hours at current consumption. Repairing their leaking drive might buy us some time; they’ve also got solar sails for auxiliary recharge, but I’ve no idea what condition they’re in or how to deploy them. I’d… hate for them to come all this way—have endured this much—for them to suffocate and die in their sleep.”

He turned back to his console and reactivated the holodisplays, obscuring his face. One did not need to be a telepath to know Yorba’s mind: he was a Starfleet man through and through, with a high regard for the sanctity of life. “We’ll figure this out,” he whispered. “We have to.”
—Jas—