Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Danora Allance (Chief Engineer/Artificial Intelligence Expert) in Main Sim - Away Mission - [Tag CE, CSO, COS, CMO]

Posted by Ensign Aidan Harmon (Security officer) in Main Sim - Away Mission - [Tag CE, CSO, COS, CMO]

Posted by Commander Dantius Massana (XO) in Main Sim - Away Mission - [Tag CE, CSO, COS, CMO]
Posted by… suppressed (10) by the Post Ghost! 👻

SNIP

Dr Grey did not observe any nearby life signs, consistent with the other readings.

-GM

Commander Massana had been holding back any input, letting the senior officers discuss their findings thus far. As his experience was as a Security and Tactical officer, he preferred to simply assess the situation until he was certain that his input would have value - or if his input was directly requested. His response to the CO had been the first thin he’d said, even though he had been asked to take a look at the console’s single, cryptic outgoing message.

“This is using Federation Standard language, even if we don’t know exactly what it means. However, perhaps we should take it at face value. Somebody is requesting assistance, and is saying that somebody called ‘the king’ is lost. Given that this was a fully functional research outpost, albeit it has been abandoned since before the first Cardassian Conflict, perhaps this king happened upon this place but was being pursued by whoever blocked the outgoing distress call.”

Dantius thought for a second, tugging at his beaded beard to take a pause.

“Then again, given the nature of the base’s abandonment, perhaps the system was already programmed to block outgoing messages, and the poor soul who happened upon here wasn’t aware of the fact. Try to determine whether the message jamming is newer or older than that SOS.”

• Commander Dantius, XO

“Working on it, Sir,” was Dani’s response to the XO. She was unaware of the observing stare of the CMO.

That brought up an interesting question. Was there someone here before the outpost was made. BJ hadn’t thought of that. “Do we have any records of habitation before the base was set up?”

Janzen

Dani had the computer linked to the ship in a short time and she started going thru the logs. “Trying to set timeline of events thru the recordings. Initial logs from first settlement. Then I’ll find the timeline between the last logs and the SOS. And I’ll see if there’s any other reference to the king or other royalty comments.” It occurred to her then as she cocked her head in thought and murmured, “Or chess references…” She wasn’t aware of who was close enough to hear her mumblings.

Dani
CE/AI Spec

The captains voice quickly replied to the XO =^=”Alright commander we will get a quick Evac vehicle set up before we leave orbit stand by”=^=

5 minuets later another comm call came in =^=”This is NE Lister on station in Runabout Lily in orbit ready for a quick pick up if things go sideways”=^= The XO now had a Runabout in orbit ready to save the team if the Memorial could not get back quickly enough

Tralla and NE Lister

“Well I’ll be,” Aidan muttered to himself as he pulled open the next panel and saw a pair of cut wires. “This is definitely one source of the problem.”

Studying the cut wires for a few seconds, Aidan started reaching for his knife before he stopped and looked back at Dani. He didn’t have many tools on him for this kind of repair work, and the quickest solution would be just to strip the wires and either hope they had enough slack, or find something to bridge the connection. But with an engineer on hand, maybe there was another option.

“Lieutenant,” Aidan called towards Dani. “Do you have anything to splice a pair of cut wires?”

Ens Harmon - Sec

Jack turned to the security officer “I have a laser scalpel in my kit if you lack any specialised tools” He offered, turning away from his study of the Engineering Chief.

(I’ll leave it up to the CE whether they brought tools for that or not.)

Connecting to the computer revealed odd nuggets of information. There were no explicit references to a King, at least not recently, but the last logs of the research team stationed there contained a few references to the mission commander eventually declaring himself King of Eridion. He and three other team members were reported KIA somehow.

-GM

Dr. Grey - CMO

“That makes even less sense,” Commander Massana said. “We don’t even know whether the jamming signal was activated before or after the SOS was created. I think we need to at least have a full personnel list and dossier on the research team. That’s probably something we’ll have to handle once the Memorial comes back from weapons calibrations.”

Looking at the scant data further, Dantius tried to piece together what had happened, but was still a little unsure.

“Either somebody continued this odd monarchy, or one or all of these four individuals presumed dead came back to life just to report that one of them is lost. Admittedly still conjecture, but the records here weren’t even unsealed before we got sent here. Report anything in your perceptions or thought processes that seems even slightly out of the ordinary, everyone.”

• Commander Dantius, XO

Beckett had taken up position by the door, facing out, only exposing one eye and part of her head where the WTR she wore was. Her grip on her weapon was white-knuckled down, and there was a trickle of cold sweat running down the back of her neck. There was something out there, and she didn’t like it. But it wasn’t showing up on scans. This whole trip was a little unnerving to say the least. Fiddling with the wearable tricorder she set it to track motion as well as give her data on any other electromagnetic fields. If whatever it was out there wasn’t alive, maybe it was a machine? With a power source. Barring that, if it moves, she should be able to see it. At least that was the hope.

Lt Beckett, COS

((Sorry for the delay y’all. Been feeling burnt out and then actually under the weather the last two or three days. - Sam H.))

(Apologies I forgot to include this earlier)
A few moments later, further information would come in that the SOS had been initiated and was shortly thereafter jammed.

Beckett could see shadows of movement in the hut opposite. The tricorder, still not showing any life signs, did show movement and very small energy signatures in the building.

-GM

Dani frowned and glanced at Harmon. “Make sure you figure out WHAT system you are reattaching, first. If it’s internal security, I don’t wanna be shot because it’s been rigged to hit anything moving, and that’s why it was disconnected that way.” She laughed and reached into her toolbox. A second later she tossed a small bundle of wire connecting sleeves to the man. He only had to slip the wires into the sleeves and pinch the ends. They would seal and provide a live link even if the wires didn’t touch inside the sleeves.

Hearing the XO comment on a roster, she set about to trying to get an original roster from the computer. “And it seems, the KING in reference is possibly the Mission Commander who, apparently, had dubbed himself ‘The King of… Eye- ri-deon?’” She left the sentence in a questioning lilt, curious if she had pronounced the name right. “Something tells me he got a little full in the head.” Glancing to the XO, she smiled. “I’m hoping you don’t get a swelled head, Sir. Not sure this planet needs a ‘line of monarchs’.” She laughed and glanced down to see if her query for a roster was coming to fruition.

Dani
CE/AI Spec

That was an interesting way of looking at that. “Why be King; when you can be an Emperor. Unless, you’re the Holy Roman Emperor who controlled nothing.” BJ thought of something else. “You sure they meant is lost and not has lost.”

Janzen

“I have no interest in declaring some sort of hegemony at the present time, nor do I think I ever would want to,” Commander Massana said idly. “My home island suffered much turmoil in that area in the centuries prior to the full integration of United Earth in the early twenty-second century.”

He cautioned a glance at the work going on to reconnect the systems.

“As for the title of Emperor, one might point out that Napoleon Bonaparte was elected (albeit in a highly corrupt fashion) as Emperor of France. Still, it seems that part of the reason this research station was abandoned was because of a coup of some sort, which then led the revolution to leave the planet - and its king - behind.”

“By definition, they could attain neither office, an Emperor by definition requires multiple states or countries to receive such a lofty title, and to become the Holy Roman Emperor requires a Catholic pope” He paused “However if one would give themselves the title of pope it would be possible” He chuckled dryly.

Aidan chuckled as he caught the sleeves out of the air. Taking a look he let out a small whistle, they really did get all of the fun toys. Pulling out two, he slipped them over the ends of the two wires that looked to lead to the power generators, crimping the ends. Fully reconnecting one wire, he paused before connecting the other end.

“Just in case, be prepared to duck,” he called out to the group. “Here goes nothing.”

Connecting the second wire, he crimped the end, and prepared to duck himself, just in case.

Ens Harmon - Sec

Dr. Grey - CMO

Dantius had located the nearest places for cover from likely points of security devices, if any such existed. He waited to see if anything untoward would happen before he moved to one of them.

• Commander Massana, XO

As the wire was reconnected, lights came on and the computers flickered to life. The sound of sirens began to rise from the hut Beckett was monitoring.

-GM

Becket cycled through various modes once more, then spotted the motion and there was an energy signature. Frowning she pulled up the spectrum analysis routines and began narrowing down by energy band. Once she had it narrowed down, if she could narrow it down, it would help provide a better ID on whatever it was. While she was no science officer, she did have much more education than her security and intelligence training. Growing up on a family freighter, having to constantly do repairs and even improvise meant she had decent basic to intermediate engineering skills. More than that she’d gotten a subsequent degree in the academy in high energy and particle physics. Ostensibly it was to understand her own weaponry better, but it covered so much more. All Away Team certified members had basic to advanced tricorder use training, and intelligence training could push those skills further for information gathering, especially the basic SIGINT section. A SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE specialist though … could work miracles. Not that she was one. Her training had went in a little different direction. But… overall, she felt quite comfortable with the matter.

Then the lights came up, and the sirens began screaming across the way. She let out a small sigh and shouldered her rifle, keeping a weather eye out. There were a few likely options. It would flee. It would hide. Or it might begin attacking. Maybe not the team as they were a distance away, but if it was of animal intelligence it might have just been startled half to death.

Unless it wasn’t animal or even biological. That thought was sobering and chilling. Especially after the destruction of Mars and it’s shipyards by synthetics … just a very short while ago.

“Can we kill that racket,” she called out, barely able to think over the noise.

Lt Beckett, CoS

Dantius also wanted to silence the alarms, but not because they were annoying; he didn’t mind the noise, since automatic red alert sirens had a similar blare, but the alarms were drawing attention to the away team’s presence.

BJ didn’t like the sound of the sirens too. But, that was how emergencies work. Since he didn’t have the power to turn off the sirens he did nothing. But he did continue to scan around for anything that may be moving around.

Janzen

Four automatons emerged from the hut opposite, carrying what appeared to be phaser rifles. They spread out and began searching the camp.

-GM

“Get whatever information you can as quickly as you can,” Commander Massana said to the away team. “Armed robotic guards engaging after alarms trigger indicates that we need to leave, and fast.”

Dantius thanked his paranoia that he had asked for a shuttle to stay in orbit while the CO took the Memorial out for some shooting practice.

=/\= Commander Massana to shuttlecraft, prepare to beam up the entire away team on my mark.=/\=

He looked at the crew and said, “Okay, we’re getting out as soon as we can, but we need to try to get what we came here to get. Transfer as much data as you’re able, give me a progress report every thirty seconds, and get ready to deal with the guards if it comes to it. If you can turn off the alarms, or the automatons, from here, do so.”

• Commander Massana, XO

Aidan dropped the remaining sleeves as he quickly moved back towards the door they came in. As he approached, his phaser rifle was back in his hands, and he had already checked to make sure it was good to go. With a brief nod to the Lieutenant, he took up a position on the opposite of the doorway from her, and tagged the automatons in his heads up display. Now to just wait. Either they got everything they needed and would get out, or things were about to get ugly.

Taking a deep breath, he kept an eye on the new found guards to see if one would suddenly turn their way.

Ens Harmon - Sec

Dani had already begun the upload to the AI when the alarms blasted to life. She cried out in shock then soon her head and doubled over the console. Searching through the files she tried to disarm the alarm system. That might have been why it has been wire cut. “Come on, you dumb computer. My AI could have…” She cut her murmuring short and tapped out a message to the
Memorial computer to see if it could bypass and shut off the security alarms now that they were connected. If she could, they’d turn them off and the klaxon would stop. With any luck, the robots outside would stand down as well. Hopefully before anyone was in danger… or harmed. “Come on … come on!!… Hurry up, please, my darling,” she kept murmuring the mantra over and over. Wishing with all her might that the computer would come through so they didn’t have to leave the planet… Not yet. Too many questions, still, in her mind.

Dani
CE/AI Spec

It had to be robots. It always has to be robots. BJ unholstered his phaser. He didn’t like using it, but he was competent. “Why do they always use robots for security?”

Janzen