[snip]

Max knew he was ready to get the polarization up and he had completed all the preitems to be able to touch the button to polarize the hull as soon as he got the nod. When he heard the captain say mark, he hit the button and watched the console to confirm the polarization had occured and to monitor how it was functioning. He then repsonded to the bridge =/\=Lt Mullins to bridge. The hull is polarized and I have disabled the shields from going up due to all the negative effects it might cause. Please keep engineering advised on the situation and I will keep an eye on the polarization and how its holding up. Mullins out.=/\= Max kept an eye on the console to see if anything changed as they traveled in the nebula.

Lt Mullins CE

With their course set the Merrimack moved slowly ahead and soon was entering into the nebula following currently a path matching that which marked the buoys laid by the Trudograd. So far nothing amiss can up, though shields did not function properly and scans were limited to within about 100-200 meters of the ship all about they so far had not found any sign of wreckage or the like as they passed the second pair of buoys. On their current course and speed they would reach the last buoy in the 8 marker line in about 15 or so minutes.

“So, if I understood NE Coals here correctly,” Glen told Samson at the Helm, “the Trudograd reached as far as their eighth buoy before contact was lost, which we should reach in a little less than 15 or so minutes. Let’s take us in to a minute before that final buoy and then make a full stop.”

• Glen, CO

”..Correct sir. Or they reached the last buoy point and proceeded beyond its normal scanning and receiving range briefly before meeting their current fate..” Coals said.

Bit by bit the Merrimack continued inward of the nebula along the way some electrical discharges sparked along the hull in their wake, but nothing that did any damage, a few shudders here and there but nothing the sturdy ship couldn’t face or had faced much worse in the past years. Eventually they came up within a light minute of the last buoy. Along the way they passed each one and their scans again showed nothing amiss, though as they reached the last buoy their refined sensors did pick up the several day old fading wake of the Trudrograd’s impulse signature. They were also now picking up the weak distress call of what seemed to be on a civilian system patrol band frequency. Garbled as it was they couldn’t make anything else out of it. The wake of the Trudograd showed they had made a course correction about 200 meters ahead of the last buoy to avoid a plasma eddy and helium gas cloud before their scans faded too much to make out more details. They still had a secure mostly clear connection back the way they had come to DS- K-5.

GM CockRoach