Posted Nov. 14, 2020, 12:54 p.m. by Lieutenant Robert Mason (Chief Engineer) (Joe P)
Posted by Commander Dira Myqian (Executive Officer) in USS Calypso, 2394- When Things Go Awry
Posted by Lieutenant Robert Mason (Chief Engineer) in USS Calypso, 2394- When Things Go Awry
Posted by Commander Dira Myqian (Executive Officer) in USS Calypso, 2394- When Things Go Awry
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Lieutenant Commander Dira Myqian stepped onto the bridge, adjusting her medical blue uniform. She had been in a session but had been called to the bridge after an intercepted distress call and had just recently arrived in the Sigma Draconis System. “Anything so far?” she asked as she approached Captain Elise Siterra and Commander William Franks. There was a strange tingling in her spine she couldn’t quite explain. Almost like a residual pain. Except that it wasn’t her own.Siterra shook her head. “No response. Too much interference so far. Apparently they are mining magnesite though.”
Dira frowned slightly. “Is that the source of the interference? Because I know they are there. The closer we get the more I’m certain of it. There is definitely people alive down there.”
Lt. Cmdr Myqian, Calypso CNS
Commander Franks had been spending the last ten minutes staring into space, quite literally. He spent a lot of his time staring into the viewscreen as the stars streaked by; it was a soothing distraction from all of that… stuff… he was actually supposed to be doing. His attention shifted from the stars to the face of Dira Myqian, for much the same reason.
He actually had no real idea what the answer was to her question, but he knew he had to say something. Something had to be said because he was on the Bride, he was supposed to say things on the Bridge, and because Dira was talking now on the Bridge, this was the first chance they had to talk in two weeks.
“We’ll be able to have the sensors penetrate it as we get close,” he said with a confident sounding voice that did not audibly betray the fact that he really had no idea if that was true or not.
– Commander William Franks, Calypso XO
“Magnesite is a pretty dense material and tends to be problematic at the best of times,” Lieutenant Erick Soto chimed in, doing his best not to give the first officer a withering glance. “Transporters will likely be out.”
Bill was not paying any attention at all to Lieutenant Soto, and thus did not notice any of his antagonism at all. But then again, that did not surprise Mr. Soto in the slightest, or really anybody who had the XO figured out at all.
Dira felt the push and pull of the emotions around her. Oh yeah, another fun day, she thought dryly. She hadn’t expected William to take it well, but she certainly had been benefiting from the space away from him. things had begun to feel clearer again and that could only be good for both of them.
“Do we know how many people are supposed to be working there?” Captain Siterra said, her vivid green eyes intense and curious.
“Records show up to twenty normally, but they are on reduced operations for probably only half that,” their COS said.
As the ship drew swiftly in towards the asteroid, it became clear that the asteroid belt was too densely packed for the Calypsoto get very close. For Myqian though, it was plenty close enough as she was bombarded by sensory input and had to reach out to brace herself as she slid into the chair.
“Dira!” Elise exclaimed, stepping closer to their psychiatrist with concern. “What’s wrong?”
Bill did not move at all, but both his eyebrows raised themselves for a moment.
Dira lifted a hand to wave them off. “I’m okay,” she said breathlessly. “Just.. definitely multiple people alive. Some definitely in pain. I can’t…” She shook her head, frowning. “I can’t get more than that though.”
~Lt. Cmdr Myqian, CNS and Calypso crew
“Captain, I’m detecting an aspect change in the asteroid,” Ensign Nurell reported from the conn position. “It appears to be moving out of its previously recorded orbit. Lieutenant Soto, can you confirm?”
“On it,” Erick replied.
“How’d it do that?” Commander Franks asked ever-so-helpfully, his attention taken away from Dira briefly.
– Commander William Franks, Calypso XO
“It’s definitely shifted. It seems to new trajectory that would cause it to collide with the sixth planet, a gas giant,” Soto reported. Glancing at the XO briefly, he actually reported to Siterra. “Captain, while our scans are not as accurate as we’d like in this instance, it does seem that there was an explosion on the asteroid. That is what has shifted it out of its orbit.”
“They need help now,” Myqian tossed out there, though it was likely obvious.
Elise nodded slowly. “How long till it reaches the gas giant? Can we navigate the asteroid belt?”
~Lt. Cmdr Myqian, CNS and Calypso crew
Ensign Nurell kept talking from the conn: “Approximately… two hours? I’m reading a potentially relativistic velocity…” In other words, it was traveling far faster than any natural object besides light had any business traveling. She pushed the console forward and swiveled in her chair to face the Captain.
“The belt is too thick for us to navigate at the required velocity for intercept, Captain. We’d need to go at Full Impulse to catch up with it, and if we were to collide with an asteroid at that speed…”
“Well, why don’t we just meet it when it comes out on the other end?” Bill asked.
“It’s accelerating as it approaches the planet,” Nurell immediately answered. “We’ll have less than thirty minutes for a rescue if we wait that long.”
“Let’s decelerate it with the tractor beam when it gets there,” Bill offered.
“It’s too massive.”
“Can’t we do that gravitational constant… thing?”
“Sir?”
“You know… the thing…”
No, she didn’t know ‘the thing’, but if she did, she would know that would at best have only bought them a small amount of time before burning out the tractor assembly…
– Commander William Franks, Calypso XO
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