Posted by Lieutenant Miriam Cross (Chief Medical Officer) in Main Sim - Bridge - Setting Out

Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Main Sim - Bridge - Setting Out
[snip]

Max went ahead and started his simulation in order to confirm what would happen if they turned on the tractor beam in this nebula. He waited to see what the simulation returned.

Simulations showed that the tractor beam should work if they had a target to lock onto. Given the eddies, and other anomalies/gases present the maximum effective range though was probably at best 100-200 meters, the towing capacity was also affected from its usual weight allowances. In short the closer they could get to a target, and the more power channeled, the more effective if would be in general.

When Glen was told by Science that the pattern of debris resembled a draining whirlpool, he remember that the briefing had mentioned Captain Steven Hull of the SS Gas Bug had detected a possible matter/antimatter explosion within the nebula. Was this the result? Whatever, they needed to move away from this region.

Picking up upon Dr. Cross’ suggestion before she left the Bridge, “Lt. Porkorski,” Glen asked the Navigator, “Is it possible for us to go around this dangerous region, with its whirlpool, lightning and ion storms, and to approach the ship in distress from another different, and safer, direction?”

”..Yes sir. We can navigate around the eddies, without problem. Given the distress call seems to be just beyond that ‘whirlpool’ I can take us above and/or around it easily enough. But no idea what is on the other side in the opposite direction, sir.” he said.

Hunter clicked his cell phone open =/\= Sickbay to bridge.. Captain the patient is awake and is providing us with detailed information.Sir I’m going to put him on, so you can hear for yourself of any insight, clues provided and description about what happened...... =/\=

=/\= Thank you Doctor Hunter, standing by… =/\=

=/\= I’m not fully sure w…what happened to be honest. We were sent in to The H…Honey Pot to find the distress ca....call source. I was near our library access for our computer core. The ship shuddered a bit, I s…saw out a port hole nearby that a ion or plasma eddy was closing in. I…we made a turn to p....port to avoid the worst of it, but I…I thought I saw too a....a swirling of it too like....like a shower drain or whi....whirlpool. I happened to be inserting then that tape to do some data log updates. Suddenly the T..Tru....Trudograd felt like it was thrown by the hand of God. Sirens were wailing people.....people screaming and the lights spa…sparked all over. I…I’m not sure why but I hit the emergency blackbox log dump to the tape. I grabbed it just as another heavier ripping feeling went through the ship.......somehow I stumbled out into the corridor almost pitch black I was scrambling into the turbolift nearby with ....with Ensign Parrey we barely got the doors pulled shut manually as I saw a fireball rushing at us. Then a sucking feeling of the air rushing out I knew something had thrown the car out of the tunnel and into space all at once there was a massive shockwave and the door burst open. P…Parry was gone in an instant....but I held on for a second to the railing then door frame I saw the turbolifts emergency EVA suit in its box and was able to grab it and.....and somehow pull it on before I passed out I’m not sure how long I was out but when I came around again I was in the suit drifting near once of the rear nacelle housings I pulled myself in and found I guess I stuffed the tape into my hands I floated there then seeing the.....the wreckage…I saw what w…was left of the Trudograd fragments.....hulks of metal......wiring.....all gone. I’m not sure what destroyed the ship but I don’t think it was an attack.....hopefully the tape tells more from the logs on the bridge....Anything e…else you need?” =/\ = .

=/\= Not unless you can remember anything more. Thank you… Just keep us appraise the patient’s condition, Dr Hunter. Glen out! =/\=

“It sounds like it’s some sort of spatial anomaly causing some kind of unusual disruption in the space-time continuum,” Glen decided. “The Merri has been quite familiar with examples of those in the past… right then, let’s get that chip data analysed quick as you can, and lets find another route through the nebula to that ship in distress. If this is a spatial anomaly, rather than am attack by ships unknown, it is going to be localised, and strongest at the point where it has already destroyed and damaged these other ships, which means that we ought to be able to go around the outside of it avoiding any harmful effects.”

This situation was not ideal, but then ones like this seldom ever are. The Captain’s plan was sound, as far as McDuff could see. He stood by his post, keeping a very close eye on the reads outs and Data that was appearing on the screen.

Dariusz would begin an about-turn manoeuvre, taking the Merrimack to a safe distance from the spatial anomaly’s effects, while looking for another different course through the dust clouds, electromagnetic ion storms and sub-space eddies; one that could take them to the mysterious ship that had radioed for help, but without resulting in a cataclysmic engine failure on the Merrimack.

Lance looked at the readout from the computer regarding the data card, to say he was less than impressed was an understatement. The card was almost completely corrupted making getting answers difficult to impossible. Several weeks with the right software could rebuild the logs, mostly but they didn’t have that.

The CMO came on the bridge again and she soon realized the ship was taking another route to enter the nebula ,hopefully a much safer one .

“Sorry Captain, you’re not going to like this but the chip is pretty fried, the first officer and personnel logs only have 2% currently accessible. The status reports from the last 10 minutes of the Trodugrad’s there’s about 25% of that accessible, however we do have the audio logs from the bridge, there is less than 10% fragmentation so it’s playable, but is going to be a bit flakey in places.” he paused “More time we could clear this up in the lab but right now this is the best we’ve got”

“I’ll take that… I’ll take anything, over nothing at all!” replied Glen.

Lance looked over at the CoS “Any ideas Lieutenant Khauv?”

“Well, I doubt blowing on it will help anymore,” Xavier grinned for half a second. “Might as well listen to what it can tell us. Without any of the ships sensor data we can only hear, hopefully, their last few moments.”

’’ And the poor guy had held to it for dear life ‘’ she replied ‘’ For now we have only the patient in sickbay to provide us with more information , does anyone have any suggestions of what we should ask?’‘

“You could ask him what they thought the Risan ship was doing there if it wasn’t mining, and how it got 3-4 light years away from Risa with only sub-light engines?”

Cross nodded and opened her cellphone making contact with Hunter passing on the Captain’s order ‘’Sir right now the patient is resting he was in too much pain and Hunter gave him a mild sedative ‘’.

Jaris is deep in thought during this ordeal. Thinking to himself of the best outcome with the Merry and how to rescue the ship. Jaris spoke up “Would we have enough power by using the eddies as a way to boost the energy output to the tractor beam?”

Playing back the bridge audio log, the speaker nearby spat static before it came clear, the first void in mid-speech that could be heard was the ship’s CO, =/\=....wondering though is how a Risan system vessel got out here. Anyone got any ideas?=/\= He asked.

=/\= Hard to say, Captain. However, one possibility is a micro-wormhole. While not often encountered, it could be possible given current events within the Honey Pot so far.=/\= Came the ship’s Vulcan CSO.

=/\= Maybe, Lieutenant, but that would mean tha–=/\= A crackle of static of corrupt audio broke up what the XO was about to say, =/\= …which according to our relayed report to the colony is not present.=/\= He said.

=/\= Maybe its only one way? Like a funnel opening is out by the colony there, and spat it out into the Honey Pot there was those discharges the Gas Bag picked up of a matter/antimatter reaction before the distress call got picked up.=/\= Someone new said. audio match on the voice suggested it was the ship’s helm officer NE.

=/\= Helm, take us around that plasma eddy to port, I don’t like the looks of it.=/\= Came the XO.

=/\= Aye sir, adjusting heading to starboard by 037 mark 92.=/\= The NE said.

=/\= Captain, based on the signal strength we should be approaching its origin point about 100 or so meters ahead. =/\= a woman’s voice said, ID’d as the ships comm officer.

Finally the CSO replied to the earlier helm NE’s suggestion, =/\= Highly unlikely, though not impossible. Given we do not know what type of missing ship this could be, nor did this colony report any missing sublight system craft. It could be we are looking for a minor blackmarket trading vessel within the system that is unregistered. Perhaps they had the materials to rig such an explosion to–=/\= The Vulcan CSO said before being interrupted by a warning beep usually used by science to tactical of a possible danger/anomaly, =/\=..Captain I am..=/\= But he was suddenly cut off by a sudden discharge of some kind in the background. Shouts and sounds of tumbles were heard as well as warning alarms.

=/\=..REPORT!=/\= Came the captain’s voice, sounding as if injured/in pain.

A burst of static corrupted the log for a moment before it cleared again, =/\= …trical discharge!=/\= Someone said, the audio match could not be identified properly but the computer gave it a 64% chance of being the ship’s XO/Chief Engineer. =/\= Showing ruptures in EPS lines on =/\= another burst and static filled series of alarms cut him off, followed by more shouts, =/\=....trying to sustain pod integrity. Plasma lighting output is increasing, I’m also picking up a gravity well like.....like some kind of whirlpool. Its pulling us in, no response to engine control, nor from main eng…=/\= Another burst of audio cut off.

=/\= …bandon ship! Repeat all hands abandon ship!=/\= then came the Captain’s final orders.

The final audio log for the bridge cut out. But through this processing they lucked upon a bit more data! It seems the bridge’s external sensors normally used for short range communication and visuals had picked up a bit of imagery. Showing this showed a plasma/ion storm mixture to the port side of the Trudgrad, likely making a course correction to avoid it. Much like the Merrimack had done to their own brush to this only a few minutes ago. The difference though was the Merrimack had taken precautions to polorzaive the ship’s hull and Rodium armor plating. A chill would run down everyone’s mind recalling how mere moments ago one of those lighting bolts had struck the rear port nacelle and only lightly scarred the ship as a result of their preparations. Had they not done this the mixture of the energies hitting them would likely have back fed through their nacelle and pylon directly into their intermix chamber.........they had barely avoided the same fate as the Trudograd

When the audio log finished abruptly Glen was silent for a while as he considered its implications and connotations. After some time he spoke again. “Let’s not focus on what could have happened to us if Lt. Mullins hadn’t polarised the Hull plating. We still have a mission to complete…”

”…but there are still several possibilities we should consider here, since they all seem equally unlikely… There is the slightly stronger possibility that a unregistered Risan sub-light ship, no bigger than one of our shuttles, on an unlogged flight plan, was caught within a previously unknown spatial anomaly and transported 2-3 light years into this nebula. Then there is also Lance’s earlier suggestion that there is no ship at all, but simply deep faked messages and ghost signals, designed as some kind a honey pot trap to capture and destroy civilian mining vessels and Starfleet starships for some unknown but nefarious reasons. However, there is also another possibility, given that we know nothing about this whirlpool phenomenon, that the message and signals are coming from inside the whirlpool; because of some kind of natural reflection or refraction, and that the Risan ship in distress is somewhere else entirely…”

“For the present time, we will continue with the first scenario as it seems most likely. Hopefully we can reach this Risan ship and get close enough to it to use our tractor beam, without getting too close to the gravity whirlpool and its dangerous effects, by taking another route to navigate around the eddies. And hopefully we find nothing on the other side in the opposite direction.”

– Glen, CO

Cross stood silent yet paying attention to every word ,she had to admit there were instances were as a doctor she found some detailed facts and specifications difficult to understand though now had a more clear picture .

Give me a body to dissect any time the CMO thought to herself.

Cross CMO.

“It doesn’t make any sense that a sub-light Risian shuttlecraft would be transported via some kind of anomaly to a location where other Risian mining ships are not far away,” Xavier reasoned out loud. “It’s a big universe, it could just has easily been sent to the other side of the galaxy, why here? It would seem more likely it was transported here in the hold of a larger ship. If it was black market, they would use it for handing over or receiving goods but in that case, where is the bigger ship?”

Bending over a console, he looked over various readings. “Considering the technology level of the Trudograd and that we have already been struck by what destroyed it very quickly after arriving here, it would seem the shuttle wouldn’t stand a chance if we look at how long it has apparently been here, I don’t need to be Vulcan to work the logic of that out. Unless the shuttle does exist and has found a way, despite being severely outclassed, out-tech’d and outskilled by the Federation ships sent to rescue it, I would suggest Captain that whatever wormhole or gravity well is out there is indeed relaying a message from somewhere else. Even though would be weird as well, why a Risian sub-light shuttle message near a Risian mining op?”

“The Trudograd was apparently only around 100 meters away from the origin of the signal when it was destroyed. I think we need to find the rest of the Trudograd and see if we can salvage anything from the sensors, and see what happens when we get close to that origin point. We seemed to survive the ‘lightning strike’ pretty well already, but that report of a gravity well could be, trouble. If we find that point, we find the rest of the Trudograd and, probably, what remains of the shuttle if it exists.”

Khauv, CSO