A Closer Look

Posted on Fri Oct 28th, 2011 @ 7:01am by Captain T'mpest Michaels & Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd & Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper & Captain Elsie Halliwell

859 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Unmasked Miners
Location: Aboard the Baden-Powell
Timeline: We need to keep this on the mission clock. "Arrival + X.X hours" or something

ON

The shuttle moved slowly closer to the Romulan facility on the moon.

"Are there any life signs?" T'mpest asked.

Jimmy was still working the sensors. "I can't tell just yet, the sensors are screaming Dilithium and awfully vague about anything else, give me another moment to align the sensors."

"Very well. Let me know as soon as you get a clear reading."

"Getting there, Commander..." Jimmy kept silent for another moment. "Yes. Definitely life signs, and definitely Romulan. I can't yet tell how many though, it's a blob of life, power and deuterium at the moment."

"Find as much information as you can. I want to know what they're doing here," T'mpest said.

"Commander, I'm receiving a message... It's on the same wavelength as the distress call of the Taylforth's stations. It's coming from that moon..." Jimmy cracked up the speakers. While the language was similar as on the station, there was definetly a Romulan accent to it. "... in peace. Please do not desecrate our holy sanctum in the sky. Visitors from another world. We wish to live in peace. Please do not..." Jimmy turned it down again. "This is almost too obvious to be serious." he muttered

"Their holy sanctum in the sky?" T'mpest scoffed. "The facility is not the same technology as the planet and if the inhabitants had that kind of technology, they would have rescued the people on the station."

An idea came to her. With an evil chuckle T'mpest sat at the communications station, inserted one of her data rods into the computer and began to create a piggyback program. When she was done she sent the signal and sat back. "Now we wait." A minute later, data began filtering back along the comm signal. "Now, let's see what they're really up to," she said as the data began to scroll across the monitor.

This time there was no translation. That data was in Romulan.

"Commander?" Jimmy looked at the data, wishing he had paid attention in Foreign Languages class.

"I'm still not seeing anything that looks like weaponry," Shepherd said calmly, not looking up from his station's screen.

"Good," T'mpest replied to Shepherd. She turned to Jimmy. "It's Romulan. Data on the planet, daily work manifests. It appears they have some inhabitants of the planet working in the facility. At least there's a mention of alien laborers. And something about the ecosystem, but I don't know to what it's referring."

"A... Slave Colony?" Jimmy returned to the sensor data. "I'm storing all the sensor data we get... We might want to go back soon, before someone happens to be looking this way."

"Yes, store all you can. I don't know that they're slaves, but it's likely. I can't see the Romulans paying them a salary for their work," she said.

"What was--?" Shepherd asked, more to himself than to anyone specific, keying his screen. "We're being actively scanned. I thought there was a weapons lock-on for a moment, but it doesn't read like a typical Romulan lock."

"I've got a big power reading lifting out of the facility," Watson called from the control pit. "It's a ship, and it's a whopper."

"That's it. That's where the scans are coming from. Their shields are up," Shepherd called. "It's not Romulan mil-spec, but Watson's right, it's huge. It looks like it might actually be most of the facility."

"What the hell is that thing?" Jimmy did a double take on his sensor monitor. "Unless this scan is wrong, it's at least 8 kilometers long... I think it's a transport ship of some sort, I can't see much through it's shields but what I can pick up seems to be cargobays filled with... Deuterium?"

"Shields up. Back us off, Vlad," T'mpest said. "Deuterium? Are they mining it around here somewhere?"

"They're establishing a position above the moon," related Shepherd. "There's a number of power surges happening on board. I can't be certain if it's weaponry or not--I've never seen a Romulan ship like this."

T'mpest opened a comm channel with the Ranger. "Michaels to Captain Halliwell."

Halliwell, resting both arms onto the rests of her captain's chair nodded to the duty Ops officer as the call came through. "Halliwell, here, Commander. What have you discovered?"

T'mpest sent the data they'd received so far. "The moon is inhabited and they know we're here."

Halliwell's eyes widened as she glanced over the plethora of information now scrolling down her central readout. She inhaled, paused for a moment and then stood up, walking a few steps forward as the officer replaced the vast space on the viewscreen to a visual of the shuttle itself. "Get back to the ship immediately. The element of surprise may well be lost but we need to re-group. Return to the Ranger!"

"Yes, ma'am. Michaels out."

T'mpest turned to Vladimir. "Avoid detection as much as possible. let's get back to the Ranger."

OFF

Captain Elsie Halliwell
Commanding Officer
USS Ranger

Commander T'mpest Michaels
Executive Officer
USS Ranger

Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Ranger

Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper
Chief Science Officer
USS Ranger

 

RSS Feed