Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Main Sim - Ardan V - Landing spot
[snip]

“Only bloody things that are still working as they are not powered. Just pressure, vacuum sensored so they open by pressure sensors.” He mumbled then he stopped and turned to face the Captain again.

“And when did this all begin?” Glen asked.

Platus rubbed his beard and thought for a moment, “When and what? I guess I’d say we started noticing smaller equipment going missing about a month ago. I just thought was petty theft from some no good workers, ya know? Or was misplaced and would be found. They never were found. Then the occasional equipment began to go down, more like glitches or bugs. We eventually got them up running again. That was the subspace drill platforms, antigrav loaders and lifts and molecular separators. Now it’s everything! Anything that requires a signal to work…which is everything…is not working. It’s like some type of virus or sabotage program was sent through the whole system!
We lost Midas and Vayna two weeks ago…no sign of them. All their things are still in their quarters, no notes or other signs of why they might be gone. No ships or transports in or out in that time. I halted all incoming and outgoing once the problems escalated. As to races…we have all kinds…Bajorans, humans, Andorians…you name it if it’s Federation and we may have one or two. The majority of us that run the operation are Human though. Midas and Vayna are human.”

“Alright, we been here six months. Just finally finished getting everything set up and working. All the buildings were here when we got here, abandoned from the last mining attempt. I got the mining rights for a song, given the rumors about this place. Put out the call for miners and settlers. Amazing really that this many people answered and came here. I came with a core group of about a thousand. Men and women that worked with me before. Everything was fine, we got the old equipment up and running, pulled ore and sent out shipments. Then it started a few weeks ago. Tools, supplies started going missing. Then equipment started to have problems, stopped running or were sabotaged. People started to go missing. Now the power seems affected. The generators are all fine! No reason for them not run, but no power.” He shook his head. “I am beginning to think it is ghosts…except equipment, tools and people don’t go missing on their own! And the dreams…people are complaining about their dreams of all the stupid things. I think the rumors are getting to them.”

The doctor listened attentively to every word ,apparently so much had been going on but what bothered him most was the fact that people were disappearing .

’’ Captain maybe you should ask what other species have or are still here?’’ . For Hunter to believe in ghosts ,entities or whatever was contrary to reason, truth or logic in a few words it was totally absurd.

“We hadn’t been made aware that people were going missing,” Glen told Platus, “nor about any dreams. We’ll want details of those, and also whether any dead bodies have been recovered. We’ll also need a breakdown of when and where your equipment broke down and your people went missing. We’ll need a complete subsurface chart of all the drifts, galleries and tunnels, and my Doctor suggests a complete list of your employees and their species would be helpful too.”

“Only detailed maps we have so far are in the mines that are under the settlement. You can have those. We’ve had a devil of a time trying to map anything farther out. Only reason we got what we got is that we physically went down to map. It’s like there’s a dampening field in the rock.”

With all the commotion around him, Sharp simple stood where he could visibly see the Captain and the people trying to fix what ever was going on.

Stella looked at the captain pretending to be a totally different captain and then listened to the man running the mine. A smile slowly came to her face and she shook her head. She looked off toward the jungle and murmured more to herself than anyone else. ” Hoodoos”

“We’ll need somewhere we can work,” Glen told Platus. “Could we use this room?”

“Ah well if you’d like a place to set up there is a building there.” He said pointing to just the west to another smaller round building. “That’s the admin building, you might find it easier to set up an HQ there though your techs are more then welcome to work with mine here in this building.”

M’Mera chewed on her lip as she listened to the recitation, “Any ssignss of a sstrruggle orr asssault?” She muttered to the colony leader?” She didn’t like the sounds of disappearing people as well as tools or equipment. Definitely sounded like it sabotage or terrorism like behaviour. When she’d studied up on the planet it had explicitly stated there were no native inhabitants here. No one knew what happened to them if there had been any.

Lieutenant Walker stood there listening to everything that was going on. Not sure what to do or what to do with her equipment. She stood there confused a little bit not knowing what to do.

*I guess this will have to do,” thought Captain Glen. “Perfect. This will do us fine!” was what he said to Platus.

“You can stow our equipment in here,” Glen told the Landing Party. Not any of it is likely to work! he thought.

Upon looking into the indicated building to the west it was found to have the same layout of the larger. It was obvious these were utilitarian round buildings, cloned for colony infrastructure. It was basically round and open on the inside though there were some half movable walls used to partition working sections. It was filled with administrative furniture. Desks, chairs, non working computers. Maps of the colony and mines below were on bulletin style boards on the walls.

At least we do have some proper maps, Glen thought when he saw the bulletin boards, though they didn’t look recently prepared if they were left at the same time that the room was last used.

“And any other questions for Adviser Platus before he leaves us?” Glen asked the Landing Party. “He is a busy man and obviously has plenty to do here!”

Stella looked around. It was a crazy idea that was rolling around in her mind, but it might be a valid one. She found Lt. Walker and asked her politely. Lieutenant, are you aware of any in depth studies of all the metals on this planet? Most particularly it would be the large deposits of heavy metals. Things like, Iron, Cobalt , Titanium .Copper , Lead or Mercury? ” Stella paused for a bit. She had to take a breath in before diving in so to speak. ” Or if anyone had graphs or charts showing electromagnetic fields?”

“I sadly don’t. I don’t even know this mission. I was just thrown in. I’m just the newbie here. So I don’t know what to do honestly to say.” Ashley said to Lt. Stella.

Hunter looked at what was to be their H Q ‘’On thing’s for sure I wont fall asleep around here any time soon ‘’.

Sharp was becoming more distress on hearing what was going on and on hearing Hunter he became even more paranoid .Maybe they will soon get back safely on the ship and all this would be just a horrible nightmare , he wondered what use his phaser would be in this situation , not one to take any chances he got closer to M’Mera .

M’Mera’s gaze flickered to Sharp as the younger security officer sidled closer to her.”Prroblem, Crrewman?” She asked as her nose twitched and she picked up the smell of his distress. She looked around quickly and studied their surroundings, her ears flicking and rotating as she catalogued the sounds in their immediate environment as well. She could see nothing that would be putting the younger officer in distress.

Sharp nearly jumped out of his skin ‘’No ma’am..no problem just got closer to hear what Platus is saying ,you understand its important that I mus be aware of what is going on ‘’ he lied and did so with a steady voice hoping he’ll convince her.

Darn Catians nothing escapes them * he thought Guess being on the bridge or sickbay wasn’t that bad after all*

Lance stood listening carefully to what Platus was saying, “Do you have a full inventory of what was stolen?” he asked. He wondered if someone had been stealing to order. Taking small bits and then escalating it. Or possibly if what was being stolen was in fact small parts that would build something else. “I wonder Captain, if these stolen goods are not part of something bigger, maybe something big enough to mess with our comms?” he suggested to Captain Glen, it was exactly how Lance would rob things to build something bigger, steal the small bits, then the bigger bits until he had built something. He was smart enough not to mention that he didn’t need his CO not trusting him.

-Lt Malone CSO

Plates shrugged, “Small tools for the most part. Drills, wrenches, stuff like that. Though I did get a report about components missing from equipment. Even replacing the components didn’t get the equipment working again. It’s like someone wants to aggravate us and drive us off. Cause havoc and loss of production to not make mining worth it here. When we scanned the planet there was no sign of anyone else being here. Mind you we couldn’t get full scans of the underground except under the colony.”

“When, or if, we receive all this information and data that we’ve asked for, then we are going to have to analyse it the old fashioned way, by hand,” Glen told the Landing Party. “Does anyone have any experience of that kind of statistical work?” Glen wished he had brought down his Yeoman, Faith Hopkins, now. She had been brought up on a low tech planet where they hadn’t relied on machines to do everything. Somehow, they were going to look at the detail of exactly what had been stolen, and see if those parts could be constructed into something larger. They were going to try to look at the geology and geography of this planet, and see if the mineral deposits or fault structure, or the landscape itself, had any bearing on these things, but only using hand-drawn maps. They were going to have to look at where people and things had gone missing, using those same outdated paper maps, and then draw some conclusions from all of this. Glen thought that these tasks would be almost impossible. It was probably easier to believe in a supernatural reason for it all.

“Aye captain.” As Ashley heard the captain’s order, she went ahead and set the engineering equipment down in a spot and starts to set things up.

Lieutenant J.G. Ashley Walker
Engineering Physicist
U.S.S. Merrimack

OOC: What type of equipment are you setting up?

OOC: The engineering equipment.

Since Pilatus mentioned nothing about the need of a doctor ,Hunter turned to the CO ‘’Captain could I search in more detail the area of the territory outside and along the Jungle ,see if I stumble on anything ‘’ he asked ‘’ The persons that have disappeared are nowhere to be found here and neither are the stolen tools ,my hunch is that they may have been kidnapped for their knowledge ,as Lance said the tools where stolen because they are needed ‘’.

The doctor waited for Glen to give him the go ahead ‘’ It would help if Stella and a security accompany me ‘’.

GM Nosferatu
Your Darkest Nightmare

“No, Doctor,” Glen replied, “At least, not yet, anyhow!” Glen wondered if Troy Hunter had some kind of death wish or a destructive impulse. He’d been told that people on this planet were disappearing, one at a time, without any adequate explanation, and yet the doctor was suggesting that they should now split up, like the white girls in some old 2D Horror movie he’d once watched, and somehow they would all stand a better chance of survival in twos, or when alone in this way. Anyway, after speaking with Stella Gagnon earlier, Glen was also quite sure that she despised the man from the very bottom of her heart, and she would need a little more time to get to know him before ever being teamed up with him. And thirdly, going off on their own to get murdered was the job of the redshirts like Richard Sharp and Guy Fleegman, whose death would then serve as a warning to the rest of the landing party; their sacrifice letting more valuable crew members and the captain avoid the ever present danger. He expected that M’Mera had already developed some elaborate plan of that type already.

• Glen, CO

Hunter simply nodded and said no more after all he had to follow orders though the doctor still thought that it was worth checking , to Hunter it was more plausible and within the bounds of possibility that the power was being directed somewhere else .

Hunter is aware that the scanners aren’t working what he suggested was to check around, Platus even said he had an old map

‘’Mind you we couldn’t get full scans of the underground except under the colony,” Hunter mused.

He kept thinking about what Pilatus had said, not to mention the two individuals that had disappeared.......... was it not worth trying to locate them?.

Hunter Dr.

“I did see a map of the wall over there when we first came in here,” Glen said. “It looked well made, but probably a little out of date as it was pinned up among old notices. It will do us as a starting point. Scanning obviously works sometimes… we know the problem is intermittent, so keep trying. At least we have scans directly beneath the colony… I’m just not happy about people wandering off on their own, but if M’Mera can organise a team then volunteers are welcome to join it. There are too many of us for this little office anyhow.”

Before Platus left them, Glen asked, “A few final questions for you: We have a Doctor here. Do any of your miners require medical treatment? Secondly, if you have better maps or more detailed scans, we’d certainly appreciate seeing them please? And also when you scanned the planet and found that there was no sign of anyone else being here, did you scan for non-humanoid life? You must be aware of the Vulcan Sandworms, the Salt Vampire of M-113, and the Horta found on Janus V? There may be an unusual creature on this planet that has never been identified? That would certainly explain some of the supernatural stories, but it doesn’t really explain the stolen objects? Don’t worry though, we will find an answer to all of this.”

• Glen, CO (now on LOA)

Lieutenant J.G. Ashley Walker
Engineering Physicist
U.S.S. Merrimack