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Side Sim - Asteroid Survey

Posted Sept. 18, 2021, 6:31 p.m. by Lieutenant Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) (Lucas Foxley)

Posted by Ensign Quinn Dagget (Helmsman) in Side Sim - Asteroid Survey

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim - Asteroid Survey

Posted by Ensign Quinn Dagget (Helmsman) in Side Sim - Asteroid Survey
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Quinn cracked her shoulders and suppressed a yawn as she flew the small runabout towards an asteroid field that the Sentinel was passing by on her flight. Science had picked up some strange readings from the ship, Captain Rogers wanted them to take some readings from closer to the field. So she was sent out in this dinky little vessel with the XO to see if they couldn’t get a better reading from the smaller and more maneuverable runabout. Quinn had never really enjoyed these kind of missions, especially after her two years of only piloting tiny little three-to-eight passenger shuttles up and down around the station she’d been assigned to.

This mission was a waste of time. The sensors had picked up some odd readings, sure, but Roman was fairly certain there wouldn’t be anything useful here. He wanted to hurry up, gather the readings, and return to the ship. As the helmsman and ship’s best pilot, the mission was just him and Dagget, the first time he’d really talked to her since her check-in, besides Bridge interactions. He was not one for small-talk. The runabout was awkwardly silent for the entire first part of the flight as he sat with his scanning equipment in front of him, watching the readings.

Starfleet wasn’t as glamorous as her Mom’s stories had made it out to be. Maybe mom just wanted to get rid of her. Heh. Quinn glanced down at her console, then glanced into the back, where Lt. Commander Roman Alden was sitting with a whole bunch of sensor equipment, watching his readings. “So… anything interesting?” she asked.

Ens. Quinn Dagget, Helm

“Not yet,” Roman replied, watching the readings. Nothing had changed so far. He was fairly certain they were in a large field of a bunch of pointless rocks. He did not particularly enjoy geology, his area was more… living. “We’ve got a lot more area to check. Let’s hurry.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Quinn nodded and continued the flight, albeit speeding up their velocity by 10%. While technically she was only supposed to go a certain max speed on these kinds of missions, he had told her to hurry. She could interpret that as an order if she wanted to. This was a boring mission. Roman was fine and all, but he wasn’t a conversationalist. Quinn had figured that out in the first few minutes of this trip.

Roman found small talk pointless, and he hated talking about himself, so in space, where there was no weather or news to talk about he preferred to just keep quiet. One for rules and regulations, if he knew she was above the max speed he’d have said something. But he was focused on the scanner, and he hadn’t seen yet.

A few minutes later, Roman’s sensors started picking up some of the odd readings that they’d noticed from the ship. Something was moving in that asteroid field and putting off strange magnetic pulses that almost sounded like communication, or echolocation.

Ens. Quinn Dagget, Helm

“I’m getting something,” said Roman, as the scanner started going bleep, bleep. The readings weren’t what he expected from the ship, and he leaned forward to the sensor’s screen. “There are magnetic pulses. I can’t tell where they’re coming from, it’s echoing.” Roman said, watching the sensor. “Something is moving out there.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Quinn lowered the runabout’s speed to 50% max regulated speed and watched out the window, squinting slightly as she looked to see if she could determine what was causing the pulses. There was some turbulence all of a sudden as they were hit by one of the pulses, making Quinn glad she’d slowed down as the runabout was sent spinning for a moment before she was able to stabilize.

Roman hung on to the inside of the shuttle as it was hit by a magnetic pulse, his equipment beeping to signify the wave as it came.

“Sorry about that, sir,” she muttered, focusing on her piloting and carefully weaving around the asteroids. She flicked a switch, turning on the external stabilizers. It would prevent them from flipping like that again, but the cost was an even slower speed. “We’re a little steadier now.”

Ens. Quinn Dagget, Helm

“Are you alright?” He asked. Once she had the pod stabilized he said, “Proceed with caution. We don’t want to get stuck out here…”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“Heh… yeah. I’m fine…” Quinn cracked her shoulders, focusing on their path out of the asteroid field. Surely they hadn’t been that far in?? Plus the stabilizers made them slower than she was comfortable with them being. But, regardless, they soldiered on. There was another… it felt almost like a shockwave from the way it made the shuttlepod shudder. A few moments later, they got a glance at what was causing the shuddering.

Roman gathered readings from the scanner, doing his best to ignore the shudders of the shuttlepod. They seemed largely the same as before, except stronger. When it came into view, he figured they must be emitted by the creature.

Emerging into a large clearing where there were fewer asteriods, Quinn could see a massive tubular creature weaving in and out from among the rocks, occasionally engulfing an asteroid and causing a puff of debris to fly out from it’s mouth. It had no eyes that she could see, and when it turned towards them she could see its jaw was just a circle with rows and rows of teeth. A grinder. And it had seen them.

“F***.”

Ens. Quinn Dagget, Helm

This was trouble. A routine data collection mission had just become a whole lot bigger of a problem. He could see no eyes, so it wasn’t seeing them. But the way the waves bounced… Echolocation. They likely wouldn’t be able to hide. “Get us out of here, Ensign!” It was unlikely they could outrun it in the little shuttle but that was better than sitting and waiting for it.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO


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