Posted by Crewman Guy Fleegman (Security Officer) in Main Sim - Shuttle ready to launch - Destination Meteor impact
[REVISED VERSION]

Once the shuttle was launched their descent was quick and easy enough, descending into the ocean’s depth without issue with a splash. Undersea life was quick to be picked up near them which were mostly fleeing from their disruption. Fish, and small hammerhead like dolphin creatures swam away. Leaving the shuttle to begin its descent.

The next 20 minutes passed without problems, a few creeks and groans from the slow pressure changes, but the modified structural integrity field and deflector shields kept no major issues from occurring. Their descent leveled out around 35,000 some feet down and they had a little more to go when the scans resolved more accurately to pick up the massive crater not much further below. However, on visual scans within the massive crater impact they picked up a far more unusual and unexpected site. A large 200ft circular object was in the craters center. It was silver-green in tone with very artful weaving designs all over the hull surface they could see. Scans of the object reveled it wasn’t metal as the surface might at first imply but instead some kind of hard granite/marble like mixture!

‘’Wow!!’’ Cross exclaimed ‘’That thing look massive ,never seen anything like it ‘’.

Interestingly too the could pick up it was hollow and had some kind of energy generation going on that equaled almost the warp core output of the Merrimack. The signatures though did not match anything known right away in the database. Life sign scans were indeterminant, they were picking up movement of about 20-40 things inside the object but they did not seem to be artificial or organic to the sensors of the shuttle. They would have to get closer to see what more they could tell.

the movement of about 20-40 ‘things inside the object thought Guy, but he continued to remain silent.

Her scan was useless inside the shuttle ,it seemed they had to rely on the shuttle sensors ‘’Those objects are not artificial or organic yet they’re moving ‘’ the CMO turned to face the rest of the team ‘’Does anyone ever came across something similar or could offer more information?’’ .

M’Mera undid her seat buckle and moved forward to peer out the viewscreen. “Not a clue, any ssignss of sshieldss or weaponss?” She asked full of distrust.

‘’Nothing visual from here apart the disk resembling marble ‘’ Cross replied ‘’ We’re going deeper and nearer but what could those objects inside be ?’‘.

Max kept making changes based on how deep they were going. He was not expected to go this deep initially but he believed what he was doing was working. He continued to make adjustments on the fly. He was unsure what they were looking for but he hoped they would find it. He just continued flying the shuttlecraft and making the needed changes as needed.

Guy’s anxiety level was going through the roof as he watched the screen that showed a green thingy moving towards a red thingy. He thought they we’re the green thingy. This the shuttle mission should have been a breeze compared to the landing party, but here they were with unidentified aliens inside an object that clearly wasn’t a meteorite, while the CE was taking the craft down much deeper than he had planned for.

It seemed like everyone was keeping their thoughts to themselves .Cross stood up to get a better look at Lt Mullins face, non verbal cues spoke volumes .

Knowing the shuttle was descending even deeper … every pop or crack made the CMO’s heart skip a beat.

M’Mera sat down at an auxiliary station and keyed in sensors to look for any defensive or offensive capabilities. She had an itchy feeling about this strange object that was centered right between her shoulder blades. Her ears flicked worriedly.

Cross felt something tickling her face and brushed it off with her hand ,its then she realized Lt M’Mera had changed her position and was siting next to the CE at the auxiliary station ‘’Any ideas of how we should proceed ?’ the CMO asked ‘’We’re not going to achieve anything by just staring at it’‘.

Guy told himself to keep calm. Sure, the CE was taking the shuttlecraft down far deeper than he had ever planned, and sure, this was no meteorite, but some kind of ceramic space vessel full of unknown and unidentifiable creatures, possibly lethal to humans, but heck, it had been hundreds of days since the last redshirt had died on the Merrimack.

“I am rrunning sscanss forr defenssive or offenssive movement. It iss making me twitchy..” She said and her switching tail gave evidence to her feelings.

Guy suddenly remembered. These aliens looked a lot like those, still unidentified, subspace aliens that had attacked the Merrimack many years ago while it was docked at Starbase 114. It was the time that Dr. Cross had had charge of the Bridge and didn’t return fire back at them, and then was unfairly court marshalled, although completely exonerated of any wrongdoing. There had been only himself; Dr. Cross; the Communications officer, Bre Davis, who wanted to teach them Japanese and Russian; and a science Ensign, Rodney Shan; bored and alone on the Bridge, and it happened long before most of the present crew had joined. The Captain had just returned back from Nimbus III visiting his Romulan “friend,” and the space station’s own defences were conveniently ‘being repaired’ at the time of the attack. Dr. Cross was also still recovering from her terrible ordeal at the hands of the Harvesters at that time.

“Ma’am,” Guy said to M’Mera. “I think Dr. Cross and myself, may have seen these aliens before. This was years ago. They fired disrupter weapons at us and came out of no where. They had a spherical ship like this but with a triangular tail fin end on its aft quarter, with a similar number of life signs. The ship’s propulsion had an orange glow within the subspace fissure when they appeared. It was never determined what they were, or where they came from, but there is a Starfleet security file on them. All the senior crew were on Starbase 114 at a conference. The aliens blocked our Comms and failed to reply to hails. Then luckily they simply vanished, never to be seen again.”

Guy looked sheepishly at Cross, since this was where the bad blood between them had first begun, but he felt that he had to mention it now because it may save their lives, but knowing full well that Cross will hate him even more for doing so.

The CMO went ballistic! ‘’You’re contradicting yourself by saying you and I may have seen these aliens before and in the same sentence say it was never determined what they were ‘’ The CMO was trying to calm down , though she felt like slamming the security’s head ‘’ Oh and where you the one who was shouting on the bridge that we were all going to die!’’ She then turned to M’Mera, ‘’Guess we should check the library computer records about these security files if they exist’‘.

Cross sat back down, the mention of a tail fin reminded her of when they had come across a species very much like the dolphins on Earth. The Captain and Cmdr had gone to their ship in scuba diving gear and Glen had refused to let Cross be a part of the team…anyway a science officer had made them angry by saying how they resemble our dolphins.

Guy didn’t have a reply to Cross. It was true. He had insisted that Cross fire upon those aliens, and probably hadn’t been very professional, but he was trying really hard now to overcoming his phobia of dying, and he certainly didn’t want to be reported by Cross again. Cross had said at the time that her first duty was to do no harm, and she wasn’t going to fire upon them unless she really had to. And what did they do anyway, except reduce the shield strength to 75%.

• Guy, Sec

“Hmmm,” M’Mera said in response as she pondered the Security Officer’s report. It didn’t give her anymore data other than what they now had. Unknown aliens. She checked her scans for offensive or defensive actions of the alien vessel. “Arre we going closserr in?” She purred more than asked.

Lt. M’Mera COS