STF

Side Sim - Asteroid Survey

Posted Oct. 2, 2021, 7:57 a.m. by Ensign Quinn Dagget (Helmsman) (Riley W)

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 Lieutenant Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim - Asteroid Survey
Posted by… suppressed (21) 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

“Looks like that’s what the readings were picking up,” Quinn muttered, turning the pod upwards and continuing to navigate towards the edge of the field. Out. Back to the Sentinel. She turned off the external stabilizers. “I’m going to go over the max recommended speed for survey missions. We’re on an escape mission now, so those rules don’t apply,” she called back to Roman. “I’d suggest you get up here and strap in, the rest of this trip might be a little… bumpy.”

Roman climbed into the second seat and strapped in, with no complaints to her breaking the mission rules. He was a rule stickler, sure, but he cared more about safety. And it wouldn’t be safe if they got caught by that thing.

Quinn weaved in and around the massive rocks, her piloting skill keeping the shuttle mostly steady despite some daring turns and swerves. The next time one of the pulses hit them, she was able to steer the shuttle against it in such a way to ride the pulse instead of being tossed by it, speeding them up for a brief moment. “Okay, okay…” she muttered, leaning forward and concentrating on their path through the asteroids. “Could you watch our tail, Alden? I’d like to know if that thing starts gaining…”

Ens. Quinn Dagget, Helm

“I’m watching. It looks like it’s keeping steady,” he replied. And the. He realized something that made him pause. “We’re leading it straight to the main ship. Look at the size of it…” If it could successfully damage the ship, by leading it to the ship, they’d be putting the crew in danger.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Quinn muttered several Tellarite expletive’s under her breath, then glanced at Alden with a sheepish look on her face. “Sorry, swear like a pirate when I’m stressed,” she muttered, turning back to piloting and pulling the shuttle into a turn, navigating away from the edge even though they’d just about reached the border of the field. As she wove through the asteroids, Quinn considered their situation, thinking fiercely about what she could do to lose their tail. “There’s always the possibility that it won’t be interested in leaving the asteroid field,” she suggested, weaving around a large asteroid.

Ens. Dagget, Helm

Roman found himself rather offended by her expletives however now was not the time for chastising the pilot on her language. “If we’re wrong we’ll have no cover from it. But it may be our only chance. Take us out of this field, away from the ship,” he said. “And don’t make a straight line, it looks like it’s faster when it can just charge.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Wor really had been a very BAD influence on her language. He’d been all too eager to teach the young and impressionable child how to swear like the best of Tellarites, and by the time she’d left the Wake, his habits were ingrained in her. It usually only came out when she was on her own and really, really stressed, but such a life-or-death situation hadn’t come in quite a while and she’d been lax on her attempts to curb down on the language.

Regardless, Quinn knew what she was doing. She swerved this way and that through the asteroid field, avoiding the moving rocks and hopefully gaining ground against the worm thing. There were a few close calls caused by unexpected rocks that hadn’t been visible until they swerved into their path, but Quinn’s quick reflexes kept them from colliding each time. Then in a moment that felt like it should be punctuated by a swell of music, they punched out of the asteroid field. But Quinn knew better than to relax. She made her swerves wider, zigging and zagging like an antelope escaping a lion.

Dagget, Helm

Roman watched its location, hands clenched around his scanner. “It’s getting closer. Isn’t there any more speed you can pull out of this thing?” He said, and then he relaxed slightly when he saw no more asteroids ahead of him. “We’re out.”

Behind them the creature slowly gained, emitting the waves to attempt to slow them down. It followed them out of the astroid field, making a dash for them, but once they got far enough away, it gave up its pursuit, returning to the field.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Once they were a reasonable distance away from the asteroids, Quinn turned down the speed to almost zero and leaned back, wiping her forehead and letting out a long sigh of relief. “Oh, great bird that was close…” she muttered, closing her eyes and putting her forehead in her hands. “Phew… I’m really glad we got out of that.”

She sat up again and pointed them towards the Sentinel, lazily arcing around the asteroid field and not going near it again. “Might want to check on your equipment, make sure I didn’t break anything with those turns…”

Quinn, Helm

Roman let out a silent sigh of relief as well as soon as he saw the creature’s pursuit stop. “If only I could safely study that thing,” he said, glancing back as it disappeared into the field. “Imagine! A creature that lives in space!” He went on excitedly. And then, Quinn mentioned his equipment and he checked everything. After a moment, he said, “Everything’s fine. Built to last, these are.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“It’s pretty exciting, that’s for sure. Except when it’s trying to eat us!” Quinn replied with a laugh, glad that she hadn’t caused damage to any of the instruments.

Ens. Quinn

“But if we couldn’t study it! It mustn’t need any oxygen, any air at all! And it seems to eat metal substances. How does it reproduce? Are there more of them? It would be a fascinating study,” he said. But, there would be no way to study the thing safely, nor was there the time. It would be like studying an underwater creature that ate diving suits. “How much longer back to the ship?”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Quinn grinned slightly. It was nice to hear someone else being excited about something. “Glad you finally got somethin worth yakkin about,” She teased. “That thing sure was interesting for a scientist, eh?”

Quinn earned herself one of Roman’s irate looks, but then, he couldn’t stop himself. “Its jaw must be powerful, to smash through ship hulls and asteroids looking for metal. Scientifically a marvel!”

She glanced at the instruments and thought for a moment. “Looks like ‘bout fifteen minutes till we get back. I’ll hail ‘em and let ‘em know we’re comin back.”

=^=Shuttle 1 to Sentinel. We found the source of those disturbances and had a bit of a scare. We’re coming back to dock. 15 minutes out.=^=

Ens. Dagget, Helm

=c= Acknowledged, Shuttle 1, we’re waiting for you. =c= The response from the ship was quick, likely they’d been waiting for a report.

“We did get some data on the waves it seems to use to locate things.” That made him happy, gave him something to look into, to study. He’d make note of what part of space they saw the thing in.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“I hope you aren’t thinking of sending another shuttle pilot in there,” Quinn commented, watching the time tick down till they got back to the Sentinel. “Better send some kind of warning to Starfleet, make sure everyone knows not to go in there.” A little quieter, she added, “I might be a good enough flyer to dodge asteroids and a space worm at top speeds, but half the pilots they turn out of the academy wouldn’t survive what we went through today.” No simulation training was even close to the real-world training she got from the age of 8 onwards. They got those space-steering reflexes trained at the same age as most kids were learning to ride a bike. Most people were used to navigating in two dimensions. She could do it in three, and it was instinct.

Quinn Dagget, Helm (may or may not have a superiority complex)

“I haven’t completely lost my mind,” Roman replied. He could wish all he wanted, but he’d never risk someone else trying to do something that stupid. “Cockiness like that is exactly what will get us killed next time,” he chastised, not liking her attitude regarding her piloting experience. That’s what he considered it, experience more than talent.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“With all due respect, Lt. Cmdr, it’s my skills that got us through…” she gestured back towards the asteroid field, “…that. I’m speaking from experience, sir. I could fly circles around half my classmates, even at graduation. The other half are just as good as me, some even better. But there are some kids graduating from Starfleet Academy with pilot licenses that they really shouldn’t own,” Quinn replied, resolute in her opinions.

Dagget, Helm

Roman’s icy calm anger was something rarely seen, but it appeared Dagget had earned it. His lips pressed thin, rigid with irritation, he replied, “The Academy doesn’t give pilot licenses to the inept, Ensign, and with that attitude, that is precisely all you’ll be, an Ensign and a pilot.” The lecture was harsh, and it was meant to be, Roman had little patience for such things. “I can’t deny your skill, your potential is there, however you’ll never get anywhere putting down your fellow officers.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Dagget made sure the ship’s autopilot was functioning, then turned towards the man with anger on her face. “I’m a good pilot. One of the best out there. I’ve earned this ‘attitude’, sir.” She almost spat the ‘honorific’ out of her mouth. All of them were getting on her nerves. Rand always assuming the worst of her friendly attempts to help, Kovan making night shift ten times worse with his stupid attitude, and now Roman, reprimanding her for overconfidence seconds after she’d just saved his feckin life. Boy, she’d really shot herself in the foot, yelling at the XO. Too late though. Might as well get some brig duty on top of the official reprimand.

“If being an officer of higher rank means I have to have a fecking stick up my arse like all of you, I don’t want it. I’m not exaggerating or putting people down when I’m talking about those other pilots. They don’t understand three-dimensional navigation. Sure they can fly a shuttle service in and out of atmo. They can steer a ship on a straight line, they can do that absolutely fine, but they’re not going to out-maneuver a space worm in a feckin asteroid field. My cockiness is what just saved our lives, sir. And if you doubt that, try taking Helmsman Jeeter out into that field and testing his reflexes.”

“Starfleet is supposed to be about exploration and discovery, not sucking up to senior officers,” her voice was shaking. No. It wasn’t supposed to do that. “I-I’m a good pilot. One of the best out there. I’m not going to become an entirely different person just to make other people happy, because who would I be if I lied to everyone… Lied to myself. I’m a cocky space pilot, and I… That’s who I have to be. Cause if I’m anyone else, what’s the point of anything?”

Ens. Dagget, Helm


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