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Main Sim - Bridge - Setting Out

Posted Sept. 19, 2020, 4:01 p.m. by Lieutenant Inola (Communications Officer) (Leonora V)

Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Main Sim - Bridge - Setting Out
[snip]

The path of their mystery alien ship went into the system, obviously doing another survey for some days, indeed they picked up two more of the alien probes like before scanning a moon and the class-m world. Neither of which gave the Merrimack a glance much less the time of day so primitive was their programming tasks. The mystery ship’s impulse trail was actually fairly fresh, less then four days old in fact. It looped around the system twice barely breaking quarter impulse on their charts before heading out the far end of the system.

As they cleared the solar body of the system they found on its far end beyond what passed for the system’s outer most edges their mystery ship! Lights were flickering a little on the ship and it was drifting in a slow lazy circle about 100,000 km beyond the system’s boundaries effectively in the depths of space. Lower power readings showed they had it seems tried to go to warp again within the past day but something had gone wrong and effectively set the ship adrift in the emptiness of space!

Scans showed their warp drive was offline, as was their impulse mode of engines likely the ship was running on some kind of battery support. Sure enough life scans showed about 28 souls aboard. Humanoid it seemed and unlike the Bolay they were air breathers. The air in question would be a little warmer then most among the crew would prefer barring any Vulcans but otherwise it was breathable and life sustaining for the time being.

Comms would pick up a weak sublight radio broadcast which probably wouldn’t reach anyone any time soon, much less in the next months or years ahead. Looking at its pulse frequency harmonic comms could likely assume it was a primitive distress call. The language also matched the earlier and older subspace radio message they had on record before. Obviously more input and programming would be needed to translate this new language by the UT but they at least had a workable frequency to do some hailing and comms if they wanted.

Tactical analysis of the ship came back nil on a threat. The ship had primitive deflector screens for avoiding asteroid impacts, but no sign of formal shielding beyond this. Not even older hull polarization was in evidence. Weapons seemed to be even more of a joke made up of four turret mounted dual laser projection systems. Likely again for asteroid mining, or avoidance then any real combat use. So in short even with their shields down the lasers would barely make a scorch mark on their Rodium armor.

Inola looked up suddenly, hearing a slight change in the background noise of the universe. She tried to narrow it down, and once she could hear it, she realized what it was. “Captain, they’re sending out a distress call!”

So, it has become a rescue mission, thought Glen, and little chance of us observing them before contact now, as we will need to act urgently.

“When we reply to them, they are going to freak out!” replied Glen. “It is obvious they have no idea about intelligent life beyond their own world. We are going to have to rescue them and there are at least 28 of them. I can’t have them free to walk all over the ship, so we need to prepare some kind of receiving space for them. And quick! I’m open to suggestions? it needs to make them feel comfortable and at home, and not anxious. One of the Cargo Bays repurposed, maybe? I wish we knew more about them. We can’t even replicate furniture because we don’t know their size.”

“Standby with the reply, Inola,” Glen told her. “I need to get the tone of this right. Open to suggestions on that too!”

“The cargo bays are the best fit. I would suggest perhaps primary hold 4 if there are any security precautions.” He was no tactical expert but it seemed like the best place “My environmental readings show temperatures slightly above Human standard, I can give you a more detailed anthropological estimate after first contact, I suggest that we clear the bay and prepare rudimentary seating arrangements and go from there.”

Another option once they got in contact could be that the damage whatever was done was not making the ship a total loss, it could be in fact they might be able to repair the ship’s drive system assuming the alien Captain was agreeable and proper communication could be established.

“I want to see the look on their faces when our repair team beams over to their ship,” Hal said. “Still, they do have warp. And this is probably a first contact scenario.”

Inola looked at the rest of the Bridge. “If they aren’t in immediate danger, we should just hail them. Ease them into it slowly, instead of freaking them out with people randomly appearing on their ship.” She looked at Hal with that last sentence.

“I really don’t want to spook them with the hail, but a hail in advance of them seeing us would probably be better than us just appearing in front of them,” said Glen. “And obviously, we should attempt to repair their ship first. Removing them would be a last resort, it is just that these readings show a very poorly constructed vessel. They were taking a risk even getting aboard her, never mind exploring other systems. All I want to do is to be prepared for every eventuality. So, if needs be, we will accommodate them in Primary Hold 4 with an environment to suit and maybe allow them to bring possessions so they feel at home. Let’s have someone get that ready.”

“Okay, let’s hail them with an offer to repair their ship”, Glen said. “But we must give them a choice so they feel like they are in control of the situation. Luckily, it doesn’t look like they have any ship’s weapons they can turn on us.”

“Inola, make to them, ‘This is Captain John T Glen of the United Federation of Planets starship Merrimack. We have received your distress call and are here to help. How may we be of assistance?‘ Okay?” said Glen.

-Glen, CO

Inola nodded and transmitted his message. “Waiting on a reply captain.”
-Inola, Comms


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