Posted Dec. 3, 2020, 6:04 a.m. by Captain Zachariah Cobb (Commanding Officer) (Sharon Miller)
Posted by Lieutenant Fey Kastil (Chief Medical Officer - Outgoing) in SPT-ST Prolog: The Galactic Doughnut
A boring uneventful day on the bridge is interrupted by the COMMS officer, “Captain, a secure transmission has arrived from Admiral Roebuck in your Ready Room.” These messages were not always a good sign, but it was something to do.
At the call, Zachariah’s head snapped to attention, the relaxing slumber he’d been enjoying only seconds prior immediately banished, to his regret.
“Roebuck?” he echoed, groggily. “What the bloody hell does he want now, eh?”
With a burdensome sigh, Cobb got to his feet and, after handing the conn to Raauhl, he staggered into his ready room, taking several moment to procure coffee before finally acknowledging the transmission…
The message opened with the Admiral’s face looking as drained and exhausted as usual, hidden behind the facade of professionalism. “Captain, I hate to bother you with work during the holiday season, but we have an interesting issue that needs your attention. The USS Holland was mid celebration when sections of their ship were suddenly replaced with random chunks of atmosphere, animals, and technology. According to scans, these sections were always nine cubic meters in size and tend to be near the reclamation system. We’re still not 100% sure of the source, but that’s where you and your ship come in. We need you to find this thing and contain it so it doesn’t end up in the hands of another hapless ship that gets turned into swiss cheese.”
Cobb’s response was a wordless, repetitive blink, his brain scrambling to make sense of Roebuck’s seemingly disparate assortment of words. Atmosphere. Animals. Technology. Nine cubic meters…what? Had his superior been on the eggnog all morning?
A file attachment blinks onto the screen, showing the last recorded log from the Captain’s escape pod as it’s being launched. “Captain’s Log, Stardate 2396120.1, we were celebrating as per recommendation by our Counselor to help the younger ensigns feel more at home when a sensor warning went off revealing an unusual gravimetric distortion pattern within a cubic section. After a mere three seconds, that section was suddenly replaced with strange trees that came from a planet with an ammonia-based atmosphere. Our science team managed to collect a sample and load it into our computer when a section of the warp core was suddenly replaced with a massive section of alien flesh and about ninety gallons of water. Within six hours, more than fifteen sections of the ship had been replaced with seemingly random sections of random environments or creatures. We lost a few security officers to the arrival of giant spiders, in all honesty, I’d rather deal with the Borg at this point. At least they make sense. Once environmental controls were replaced with ferrite, I ordered the crew to abandon ship, the pods were aimed toward a nearby M-Class, this log will have the coordinates logged in. Please send help with caution.”
- Storyteller Nyxx
Madness! A complete psychological breakdown triggered by a massive overdose of brandy butter or sherry trifle! There was no other explanation that made sense! But as Zachariah’s own brain emerged from his mulled wine-induced fog, the glaring reality struck him. This was no ordinary Starfleet mission. This was the ARU. Curious, how those three letters made sense of everything.
“Greetings of the season to you and yours, Admiral,” the captain replied with a pass of his hand through slumber-knotted hair. “I shall prepare to brief the crew and set course for the last known co-ordinates. But first I must ask, has the Holland been destroyed and this anomaly now cast into open space? Or does it yet maintain its outer shell despite the chaos within?”
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