RP: SNV Gam'trosha [Chapter 1.2] The Training Run

Shar tapped her finger on the table and had a swig of her juice, wishing there was a vodka in it. "I am more concerned about how the terrorists got on our ship." She said suddenly looking at everyone. "They basically smuggled themselsves on board in those cargo-boxes. Someone had to send those though? Also what was that stuff they used to incapacitate engineering crew. I never saw anything like that."

Lounge

"Drisa," Def'leor muttered as she watched the sensor play. "Unless there is a major data corruption that makes no sense. The object completely vanished from the sensor trace and then appeared going significantly faster. Objects that large just do not vanish. Unless someone could put up a massive field to mask it from sensors." she said, then listening to the discussion of the intruders. She really had nothing to add on that score, it was a failure of multiple safeguards due to the actions of traitors.

Lounge

Sa'kira rubbed her chin curiously at Zur'els question and glanced at Keri for a moment. "What does our resident engineer think? Could it be possible to strap an FTL drive-core onto a hunk of rock and literally send it to us?" she asked, doing so because the Kit's family dealt with stations and might know a thing or two.

While she waited for the answer, she turned her attention to the other two of her crew that had made statements in turn. When she looked at Shar, she looked down at her belt and pulled a small sphere-like object off it and tossed it into the air, then caught it and showed the soldier. "They are known as a Sticky Bang Grenade, primarily used for non-lethal combat and for incapacitating enemies. Although it is quite rare for terrorists to use them."

Then, she looked at Def'leor. "A sensor jamming field would've been presumably picked up by the outpost, as it stands, the outpost data-logs show nothing about any kind of a drop in their field. Thus, we have to consider other possibilities," the Shipmaster leaned against the holo-graphic tank and pondered.

Engineering

Quin stared up at the displays, and looked at one to her left which dealt with the ships power systems, her head cocked curiously to one side as she corrected an imbalance. "C`Baruce Tal'dar, did you get the message?" she asked, referring to the call for all crew to head to the Lougne. Even though the soldier was a late addition, he was still part of the crew.

Eight kilometers north of the Gam'trosha

Four She'tan'ora class vessels descended into the planets atmosphere, their undersides aglow due to re-entry. The ships bore a light blue matte-color mixed in with their gold colored hulls, the lead ship had a slightly darker blue, indicating that it was the squad leader.

Lounge

Def'leor had suspected as much before Sa'kira answered her questions, but she did not want to work on presumptions. Hard data was the best she could hope for to get some sort of hypothesis.

"That means somehow someone made it physical vanish and accelerate in a very short period of time. I don't suppose we have any anomalous energy readings in that region?" Do we have accurate position and velocity data? So that we can calculate how far it was gone from sensors so that we can try to figure out the rate of acceleration, etc." she inquired.

Lounge

Zu'rel's mouth dropped open Shar's statement about intruders on the ship. He hadn't seen any reports or anything that mentioned that. "Ma'am, i know I'm new here, but is there any way I can get the clearance to see the reports and data involved with the intruders. I fear it might be connected to the incidents that have happened today." He was hoping the Shipmistress would give him the clearance so that he would be able to complete a full investagation.

Portside Main Battery

Hard at work on his latest request of resetting the targeting sensors, Tal`Dar found himself analyzing the core of the issue, why they stopped working to begin with. The ship shouldn't have this sort of problem so early on, but then again, all things do have their bugs to work out.

He brought up the control panel to the sensor array and looked over the current parameters. Before doing the reset, he figured he had time to run a debugging protocol on them to see if he could route the underlying issue. He took the sensors offline, one at a time, then lit them back up to look over the debugging readout. After a few minutes, the problem was clear, a few parameters weren't set to the proper specifications required by the ship.

Adjusting the parameters took mere seconds before he was ready to reset the entire suite. Shutting down the array and rebooting was a generally easy task once everything was set correctly. He took up his communicator and called back to engineering.

"C`Baruce Tal'Dar Ara`Sil to Engineering. Sensor array reset, ready for calibrations." And with that, he closed the panel and slid out from the panel.

Anas'tasiya listened to what was being discussed. The healer still didn't have anything to add. She was concerned about the asteroid because it could cause a lot of devastation if it was some kind of weapon. When it was mentioned that terrorists had made it on board, she was shocked, it appeared there was no where safe from the actions of those who sought to pressure the government and people through violence and other acts of terror.

Crew Lounge

Keri frowned for a moment, the nodded in answer to Sa'kira's question.

"They could have attached a fold drive in addition to whatever sublight-drive mechanism's they added... so long as they could generate a fold bubble large enough to encompass the entire asteroid, there would be no real difference between sending an asteroid, station or ship through FTL by via a hyperspace fold drive." The young kit's silver ears flicked once, then he continued.

"Though in my opinoin, it doesn't make sense for Neshaten terrorists to have added a hyperdrive in this case... given the known influence of the Irovat'sya hyperspace anomalies throughout this system, reaching a planetary target here via hyperspace is practically an impossibility given our current level of technology. According to the sensor data, the asteroid only appeared and disappeared outside the known anomaly influence zones didn't it, U'Cet?"

Crew Lounge

"Nope," remarked Sa'kira as she turned toward the holographic tank and changed it's image to show the systems sensor grid, where she then highlighted the anomalies zone of influence which extended roughly one point seven astrounits beyond the sensor zone. "The asteroid appeared within the zone on the other side of the grid, roughly point five astrounits."

Sa'kira was on the verge of opening her mouth, and telling them about the research being done into new FTL-cores, until she recalled that it was classified information and stopped herself. After a moment of silence and thinking on what Def'leor had requested, she tapped the holo-panel. Sensor readouts began to appear, showing various types of information including the asteroid heading before and after it had reached the sensor grid.

The first bit of information showed that the asteroid was traveling at only twenty two thousand kilometers a second and had been on a heading that would've taken it 'above' the star system and well out of the way of any planets. Then, another bit of information showed it's speed after it had appeared beyond the grid, with it traveling at nearly forty one thousand kilometers a second. It's heading had it going straight for Levia, at an angle that accounted for the planets movements, which meant it would've actually impacted the capital had it not been intercepted.

"This is the information we have currently, the asteroid accelerated after it reappeared." After a moment, and a glance at the clock to see what the time was, she looked down at the folder she had in her arms and then at the crew; they were still missing a few and this was starting to really annoy her.

New ship, new crew, gotta break them in.

The silence got the head healer who was currently making some fruit salad for the crew, she was humming quietly to herself and tossing the salad into the air and then catching it in a bowl before stirring it up while mixing several types of herbs and spices. "I would like to know what kind of damage the planet sustained though because of that impact," she muttered as she walked over and set the salad bowl on the table, followed by several plates for the crew. "Dig in," she smiled.

Engineering

"Calibrations in progress," responded Quin to Tal'dars message. "Better finish up down there and get to the lounge, I can monitor the connections here and alert you to anything else that happens."

Portside Main Battery

"No, sorry I was stuck under one of the panels, I didn't hear," he replied to the question about hearing the call, "I'm on my way now," he added. Slipping the tools into their place on his belt, he quickly finished up, locked everything down and made his way to the lounge.

As part of his training, he was quite familiar with the layout of the ship, and knew the quickest way to the lounge. He arrived minutes after leaving the portside main battery. He quietly took a seat, not to disturb anyone hoping he didn't miss much.

Lounge

Catching the last part of the previous exchange, Tal'Dar decided to add his voice to the discussion, even though he had been a part of the crew for all of a few hours.

"Do you think it's possible that the answers could be found in the areas of the astroid that we have yet to get a scan on?" he asked. As an engineer, he always found it helpful to have the whole picture before starting work on anything, it only seemed logical to do so in this situation as well.

Crew Lounge

Def'leor listened to her fellow crew members, "It might have been possible but the power requirements to fold the asteroid would have been prohibitive, and we did not detect any major power sources when we were in close proximity. Whatever the thrusters were, they appeared to have locally generated power. If you were going to build a power plant large enough to move the asteroid. Why bother, cheaper and easier to build a simple frame mount the drive and power plant, then fold it in close to the planet and plunge it into the atmo and detonate the power plant.

Whoever did this, wanted us to see the object coming. They were making some sort of a statement. Given the potential destructive force, and the implied target. They made it pretty clear, they do not want us here, as in removing us."

Crew Lounge

"Ok maybe not an FTL drive but what about something that caused the sensors and light to bend around it, or maybe some sort of ship with in it. did any of the scans show a possibility of a hollow with in it?"

Zu'rel sat there for a minute watching the screen. "Or, now understand I'm not trying to make a joke, an Alien faction of some sort used some sort of wibbly wobbly space anomaly to cause it to jump. Though that brings up some very scary concepts." The idea of an Alien race out there with some sort of hatred for them was something that scared the fur on the back of his neck straight up.

Qyu'amene snorted at all of this talk. "The problem with all of this is, it is simply speculation. While we sit here debating the enemy is out there already acting. We are soldiers. We need decisiveness not academic reasoning."

When Sa'kira noticed their last crew member walk in, she looked at the hologram and then nodded. She hit the pad, and changed the hologram to show the very ship they were serving on, with the ships name and registry number above it.

"Now that everyone's here," she pulled a box out of her coat and set it down on the table, and then looked over at Euy'ica Sec'retna and motioned with a head at the box that was on the table. "We'll get started with the promotions, as you all know, during our first mission - a lot of ships were lost. Good men, woman, and kit's were killed trying to defend Levia and it's citizenry."

"Because of that, we're now suffering from a shortage of good and experienced soldiers. Command has decided to promote anyone who was part of the initial space action over the planet, thus when I call your name, please come up and accept your new rank band."

She opened the box, and took out four arm-bands and set them out. "The following soldiers have been promoted to the rank of A'Fuereb," she didn't look at the list, having memorized it already.

"Mar'Tendo Gai'Tano Tite'Yanus."

"Lu'man Yar'ica Shar'ica"

"Vail'ant Def'leor"

"Se'verem Ene'si Keri'cruen"

Def'leor came up took her proffered band from Sa'kira, saluted. "Thank you ma'am, I shall endeavor to prove worthy of this promotion, and to continue to serve the Gam'trosha with distinction."

Tite'Yanus walked up and sat at attention before the shipmistress, placing his rear in the ground with his body straight up, his front paws in a perfect line perpendicular to the director of the shipmistress. He flicked the end of his tail around and in front of his forehead in the standard fashion of a salute before accepting the armband.

"I thank you ma'am, and will continue to strive to bring honor to this ship."

He then retreated back into line.

Keri visibly goggled when Sa'kira informed the crew that the asteroid had reappeared within the hyper-jump exclusion zone. He'd been so busy trying to come to terms with that fact, and trying to figure how someone might have accomplished such a feat, that he almost didn't notice Sa'kira's announcement regarding the promotions.

With this event so quickly following the first, the young kit was left with an almost shell-shocked expression. Numbly, he stepped forward to accept his new rank sash.

"Thank you for this honor, U'Cetrinal. It has been a privilege to serve." Keri said softly.

Once his turn was done, the young kit turned around and resumed his prior place in the line.

Shar put the cigarette away. A promotion. That was nice, a good start. She needed a couple more though. Her idea was becoming high ranking NCO, those gets less responsibility then officers and get to shout at other people, rather then be shouted upon. If she would even live that long.

She amply walked to where other were, standing next to Keri and giving him a stealthy wink. The boy really deserved this and if he would not get it, Shar would go tell ship-mistress what she thought about that.

"Thank you," Shar said ready to receive her new rank-band. "Ma'am," she added to not break protocol.

Sa'kira nodded at those who had received their promotions, and looked at the one other armband that was in the box. "A'Fuereb Keri'cruen, can you please hand this to Quin'trema Xeui'na?" she pulled out an armband that signified the rank of O'Eytene.

"Since she can't be here, perhaps you can present this to her for me," the shipmaster smiled briefly, after the armband was taken, she closed the box and set it aside. "There are a few announcements I'd like to make, as you all know already, we lost a lot of soldiers a few days ago. Because of this, we are currently suffering from a shortage of experienced Lexicon's, most of which were killed in the battle. Because of this, the likelyhood that our ship will receive an experienced Lexicon are pretty much non-existant," she slowly looked over the crew, while doing so the holographic representation of their ship faded outward and was replaced by a hologram of the capital.

After a moment, she nodded and turned toward Def'leor. "Under normal circumstances, a ship without a Lexicon would typically elect the next officer onboard to take this position. However, we presently don't have any other officers onboard except for myself. This in turn had lead me to turn toward those of you in the enlisted ranks, and to pick one of you who I feel can serve well in that position."

"A'Fuereb Vail'ant Def'leor, as a soldier who serves on the bridge, you are first in line to be offered the position as an Acting Lexicon. While normally, you'd have to of a required rank, this requirement is being waived due to circumstances, the rank will be acting only until you achieve the rank of R'Mueta. Do you accept this position?" she asked, staring the soldier straight in the eye.

During the conversation, Euy'ica opened the box that she'd been requested to open and pulled out several bottles that had a red liquid in them. She looked at the liquid with a nod and then gathered up several bottles in her arm and began to place one bottle in front of each of the Enlisted soldiers, and whispered to them 'not' to drink it yet.

Bridge

On the ships bridge, a console came to life, flickering as a sensor display appeared and a sensor wave was sent out from the ships sensor array. After a moments, the wave returned a ping and listed four ships that were moving toward the Gam'trosha. These ships were quickly identified due to the FoF system, and a message was sent to Def'leor and Gev'inov .

Crew Lounge

Tal'Dar watched closely as all received their due rewards for time served under the shipmistress. He felt a little warm inside, not so much for the promotions, but rather the feel of togetherness they had, it was almost a feeling of family. And while he hadn't served more than a few hours on the ship, he really felt at home among it's crew. A desire to excel and give them the best service an engineer could filled him and decided that once the run was over, he would request permanent deployment on the Gam'trosha.