On Your Toes
Posted on 11 Dec 2022 @ 8:17pm by Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Captain Lachlan Callum & Commander Faye Magnolia & Commander Calliope Zahn
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Space Outside Derelict Station
Timeline: Immediately Following Science Stick
2872 words - 5.7 OF Standard Post Measure
Ensign Wiser had set course away from the station at maximum warp, following Corvus’ orders to get them the hell out, but that had been the only direction she’d given. Without a new vector, he punched the engine along the already prior course. Corvus just wanted to put as much distance as she could between them and the enemy she knew was about to drop in on the Theseus. In reality, Callum shouldn’t have stuck around for long but she knew he was going to; so he could set the hook on the Pyrryx and deflect them in a different direction and keep them away from the less tactically sound science vessel.
Corvus was busy at her own arm console and looked back eagerly when the doors opened to see both Commander Zahn and Lieutenant Commander De La Fuente hurrying to their stations. “Mr. De La Fuente, we need a place to hide. Find us somewhere close by where we can lurk undetected.”
“Aye, Captain,” Cesar replied quickly, trotting quickly to the science station.
Calliope didn’t ask for an update, because she didn’t have to. Ensign Sabba was manning an accessory station at the back of the bridge and transferred the fast facts to the XO’s console. Settling down, Calliope learned there had been a subspace anomaly on approach. Captain Callum had expressed that it was possibly an enemy contact, as he suspected that the Aquatic Station may have been left by the Pyrryx as bait. Because of the possibility of enemy approach, DeHavilland had deferred command of the mission and ordered a fast dash. There hadn’t been identification of the anomaly in the time it had taken for Calliope to get to the bridge, as the Theseus had remained behind and the disturbance field in subspace hadn’t resolved… yet.
Calliope frowned. Now they were at warp, but not headed for the station. It was possible Captain DeHavilland was waiting for confirmation that the incoming alert was indeed a Pyrryx vessel before following the Admiral’s orders, she considered.
“There is a Class J nebula nearby, Captain. It should shield us from scanners. There is also a Class T planet surrounded by an asteroid ring. Approach will be difficult but we will be hidden completely. Especially if we land the ship.”
Corvus shook her head. Landing a Nova-class ship was theoretically possible but she didn’t want to be testing their luck with theory right now and landing the ship (even if they pulled it off) was handicapping them in making a more stable target. No, she much preferred the idea of being readily mobile.
“Send the nebula’s coordinates to the helm, Mr. De La Fuente. Ensign Wiser, adjust course. Max warp,” Captain DeHavilland ordered quickly.
“Aye Captain, setting course—” Slightly relieved he wasn’t going to be put to the test of navigating an asteroid field and landing the ship, Wiser watched the coordinates feed into the recommended headings from science, and took them through the nav computer to draw a course. He waited only long enough for the first leg of the course to clear navigation, since any minor corrections could be adapted enroute. Uder the orders for immediate flight, time to get underway was of the essence. Even counting by seconds.
Initially Calliope observed the young pilot making his calculations. It was a slightly arcing route, due to a nav computer input about a gravitational well between their current course and the depth of the nebulae. It was a stellar nursery, so the possibility of protostars and eddies in the swirling embers of the old star remains were always a trick on approach.
Thinking just as Wiser was about the importance of seconds in avoiding detection and minimizing their trace, Calliope leaned forward as the first leg of the path was navigationally confirmed by the computer. “Full Speed Ahead, Ensign.”
There was a moment’s difference between Wiser engaging the helm and the response of the warp drive cutting a subspace differential through realspace ahead; in the span of that long breath the stars drew back in fine streamers.
“Current ETA to the class J nebula, twelve minutes, forty-five seconds.” Wiser reported. “Navigation telemetry is still clarifying itself from new sensor feedback.”
“Account as necessary.” Calliope said, knowing helm would need the freedom to work as long range sensor data was updated with closer scans and re-modeled.
Corvus leaned over towards Calli’s seat and said quietly, “If this is the Pyrryx, going on to the coordinates we were heading towards is likely a trap, and going straight home is likely one too. At least,” she shook her head, “That’s how I’d have laid the trap. We run, hide somewhere out of the way, confirm our information and either run back to OC leapfrogging through hidey holes like this or call for help.”
Calliope’s brows knit. She was never as tactically minded as Corvus, but she still wasn’t sure this was an intentionally laid trap. “The station hadn’t been at all interfered with by anyone’s observations on the away team. Medical’s initial findings were that the single occupant died of starvation. It seemed like a one way ticket kind of trip.” She leaned in further herself to confer with Corvus. “And Lance just decoded planet origin coordinates from a key file on the alien station’s core. He shut down the project for the alert, so we haven’t gotten the UT to translate the language, but by the looks of it, the station’s primary purpose was to get out a welcome message…. And possibly a distress signal. It included what looked like a warning about the Pyrryx.”
DeHavilland wasn’t sure what to do with that information, but it for sure didn’t change her immediate desire to find a place to lay low until they could be sure that the Theseus wasn’t in trouble. She wanted to believe that it was all some kind of coincidence but she couldn’t be sure and without a confirmed leg to stand on she wasn’t about to risk it.
“There’s too much on the line to risk anything on a hunch,” Corvus answered. “The Pyrryx are too dangerous. Too unpredictable,” she said, shaking her head.
“I agree. There’s a lot on the line.” Calliope said, intending more at explaining the finding to Corvus than meaning it as a suggested point of escape. She would have preferred to take Lance and their ensigns right back to the safety of the station. But if Corvus wasn’t quite ready to call off the search… there was more to consider than relative safety. “On the other hand, we were sent for reconnaissance. Is this enough to take back to Sepandiyar?” Calliope wasn’t able to stress which call she felt should be made. She just felt Corvus should be able to consider everything at stake, both in abandoning the mission as well as continuing.
“We can’t do reconnaissance with our ass in the wind,” Corvus shook her head. “We need to figure out what the situation is with the Theseus. Then I’ll be willing to entertain maybe digging deeper into what we’ve found. It’s just too damned coincidental right now for me to believe there’s not something else at play here. Not yet.”
Calliope nodded solemnly. “Then we wait.”
“Anything from the Theseus?” Corvus turned back towards De La Fuente.
“No ma’am,” De La Fuente answered. “I’m keeping our sensor profile as low as I can, but I can turn sensors outward if you would like.”
“No,” Corvus shook her head, “Not until we’re safely hidden,” she ordered warily. She hated having to run and hide like this, but the Pathfinder just wasn’t equipped for this and, to be honest, neither was she. Corvus was not the run and hide sort, she took things head on. To that end she envied the hell out of Callum and his battle cruiser, ready to stand and fight to save their asses. A fight they were bound to lose, but it would be buying them the time to get into hiding and then call for help or run home before they got caught themselves.
Minutes ticked down and Calliope dutifully watched the navigational computer plotting out the rest of the course and monitored the adjustments Wiser was making. There was no significant time difference in the ETA to the nebula. The visual of the dust cloud was growing in the viewport now, the cloud filling most of the monitor. But once they were inside they’d be as blind as anyone searching for them. How would they know what Theseus had to share, or if the enemy was sniffing around?
Calliope turned around in her chair to look at Cesar. “De La Fuente, please prepare a sensor probe. We can leave it outside of the nebula and maintain a narrow band subspace link to keep our eyes and ears up.”
“Already prepped, Commander,” Cesar answered. “I was about to request permission to launch it, and attach it to one of the larger bits of debris at the edge of the nebula,” he said, smirking to the XO, glad that his bit of a gamble in preparing that had been right on the money to her thoughts. “I just need two more minutes to confirm telemetry and to make the adjustments for the nebula’s interference. With your permission.”
“Very resourceful.” Calliope seemed impressed at the low-tech camouflage concept. “Permission granted.”
There was no more inky black sky in the forward viewer any longer. The nebula was a soupy green with occasional bright threads of neon where more reflective matter had accumulated, slowly redistributing into long arms around denser matter pools. The soup had been on a low simmer for millenia and Pathfinder was about to nose dive into nature’s blend.
~~~~~~~~
USS Theseus side:
”I want phaser stripe emitters primed and ready to fire and I want torpedoes at the ready,” Captain Callum barked as the red alert claxon’s droned dully in the background. “Commander, kill that bloody racket,” he added, waving at his First Officer who hit the control on her terminal to shut off the claxon. “Mr. Brightwood. I want transporter locks on all vector mode staff, ready at my command,” he said, gesturing to his terminal.
“Aye, Captain. Right away,” Brightwood answered, making the quick adjustments to lock onto each of the officers that would man the battle bridges for the other two segments of the ship should the Captain give the order to go into multi-vector-mode. That included himself and Commander Magnolia commanding the tertiary and secondary hulls respectively.
“Mr. Teague. Contact resolution?” Callum asked, watching the forward glass and the empty space it was displaying with a simple orange bracket around where the object should be resolving.
“Still unclear. Estimating another minute and a half until it arrives at our position.”
“Captain!” Brightwood called out sharply, “I’m getting something off the station… a heat bloom at the southern axis of its rotation. Looks like a comm array of some kind. It’s… responding on the same wavelength as the subspace distortion.”
Lachlan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, “Helm! Move us away from the station. Keep the bow on the subspace anomaly. I do not want that station to go boom with us next to it!”
“Aye, sir,” the helm officer replied quickly. Immediately the ship began to move laterally through space putting more and more distance between them and the station while keeping the bow locked on the subspace disturbance so that whatever came out would be zeroed in for max effect of their full weapons portfolio.
“Thirty seconds until resolution,” Brightwood called out carefully, his cautious demeanor belying the tension throughout the bridge.
“The warp signature *does* match our Pyrryx sensor records.” Teague announced as the subspace distortion reached the short range sensors. “The mass is very small, however. It could be a fighter or a drone.”
The tension on the bridge was at a fever pitch as they watched the countdown on the screen until the resolution of the anomaly. Callum clutched one arm of his chair with a grip that would have crushed a man’s hand while his opposite sat on his thigh as if to indicate his relative cool and calm in the face of uncertainty.
With a dim flash of light, the signature resolved and in the moment that followed, when the glare of light dimmed and they could see what had entered the area, he found himself looking at… nothing. At least, it seemed like nothing.
“A bloody probe!” Brightwood exclaimed with relief.
“Pyrryx?” Captain Callum called out questioningly.
“No,” Brightwood answered, “It matches the configuration and metallurgical composites of the station - but it clearly used a Pyrryx style FTL channel…” he answered, checking his terminal for more information. “From what I can t-,” he started, but Magnolia cut over the top of him.
“The probe is transmitting,” Commander Magnolia declared, adjusting her own terminal to bring the feed up for all to hear.
“Stranger. Friend. We are the Korinn,” a voice began. It was a strangely ethereal voice that sounded as if it was traveling a great distance and modulated in a strange way. “We have been enslaved and our planet is being destroyed. Our people are dying. We need help. Please. Will you help us?”
The transmission ended, leaving a pregnant silence on the bridge that only the occasional chirp of one of the ships systems punctuated. Lachlan was just about to open his mouth to reply when the message began again, making several on the bridge flinch in surprise.
“Turn it off, Mr. Brightwood,” he ordered.He did as bidden without another word and the message stopped. “Can you trace its origin?” he asked the bridge at large.
“I can, Captain.” In fact he had been working on the subspace tunnel’s origin point since it had come up on sensors. He dialed in the coordinates and pulled up a star chart on the long range sensors. “The trajectory indicates a mostly oceanic M-class world about three and a half hours away at warp seven.” The view of the star chart had three paths outlined on it: the one they had originally taken from Obsidian Command, the short leg of a diverging path that the Pathfinder had led them in to examine the derelict aquatic station where the Theseus currently was, and now a third path, arcing much further away from that of the original mission plan.
Lachlan may not have been a sciency do-gooder the likes of which that would poke anything out of the ordinary just to see how it ticked, but was always ready to stand up and fight for an underdog, no matter the odds. These days, the odds were more on his side than not with the Theseus at his command. If anything, that made him that much bolder.
“Mr. Teague. Where is the Pathfinder?”
“The last sensor reading we had of the Pathfinder was outside of a nearby J-Class Nebula, along a path converging with our original heading, here,” Teague highlighted the stellar nursery on the projected map. “I no longer have them on sensors.”
“I’m sure they’re listening,” Commander Magnolia answered. “Corvus is too wily to be tucking tail outright and hidin’ under some rock. She’s in that nebula bidin’ time,” she smirked, gesturing to the screen.
The Captain considered that, then looked back to the display and then down to formulate his plan. Here he was in a position he didn’t do the best in - playing with the team. If he’d had his choice, he’d have steamed straight for that planet and deal with this directly. But, that wasn’t the Admiral’s orders. The orders were to escort the Pathfinder through this sector of space and that Captain DeHavilland had command of that mission until the tactical scales tipped to his favor. Now that the anomaly had proven to be nothing, she was back in command - she just didn’t know it yet.
“Mr. Brightwood. Is there anything about that probe remotely dangerous?” Callum asked.
“No,” Brightwood shook his head, “It’s… effectively a battery on a large transmitter shielded for the FTL jump,” he said, looking back. “Shall I put it in the cargo bay?”
Captain Callum nodded back, “Aye. Keep it under force field for good measure. Chart a course to the Pathfinder’s last known coordinates. We’ll inform Captain Dehavilland of what we’ve found and let her decide the next move,” he said, trying to sound confident in that decision and patently ignoring the smirk on his XO’s face who was well aware of what that statement was costing him.
“Aye, Captain,” Brightwood replied cheerfully. “Course set.”
