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Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

[Lt. Cmdr. Cross | XO Ready Room | Deck 01 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @RyeTanker  @pertinent writers

Cross stood at the viewport rather than at the desk, which was still technically Stark's desk. Through the reinforced transparent aluminum, Starbase 234 and all its expected beehive-like activity continued without a care for the problems the Theurgy’s crew faced. It was surreal, being positioned here after being on the run from the Federation for so long. He didn’t know about Stark, but he certainly had more than once already wanted to raise shields just in case someone on the starbase or any of the surrounding ships coming and going wanted to take a pot shot at them in skewed retribution for past sins they presumed Theurgy had committed.

He pulled his eyes back to the manifest displayed on the PADD held in his prosthetic hand. The salvage team roster was manageable. Not the largest away team organized, and likely not as large as it should be considering the mission, but they still hadn’t received new personnel to replace those they’d lost, and he was very limited on who he could afford to send. As it was, he hated sending their chief engineer while they were sitting here so vulnerable, but Arnold made the most sense to lead the Cayuga salvage mission.

The Cayuga wouldn't be pretty. They had no notion of how damaged it was by the Scion/Romulan attack, and ships left to drift were never stable. And, worst-case scenario, pirates could have already arrived and begun the salvage, adding in another risk the away team would have to contend with. But the data cores were there, the salvageable components were there, and they’d been directly ordered by the president to retrieve everything they could from the ship before standard salvage cruisers arrived to tug the husk back to the boneyard. Official sanction had a way of giving the work clout and could, perhaps, win their way back into good graces in certain circles.

Cross turned the PADD over. The Starfleet supply channels had always been slow, and given their circumstances, he fully expected the repair efforts for Theurgy to be even slower. Already, preliminary communication with Starbase 234 had made that clear enough — not in what was said, but in what wasn't, in the particular bureaucratic silence that meant someone further up the chain had decided the Theurgy could wait. He’d always hated bureaucrats.

He tapped his combadge, “Cross to Arnold. Shuttlecraft Maslow and your away team are cleared to launch."

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #1 –
[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Co-Pilots Seat | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Outbound Lane Beta Near Starbase 234] @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88 @Krajin & anyone else

The motionless statue sat in the standard seat that equipped Starfleet shuttles and the mind inside didn't register the practical comfort the designers had incorporated into the standard small craft design.  The return to the Starfleet fold and the pardon by the President was supposed to have returned the ship and its crew to legitimacy.  Instead, it seemed to have had the opposite effect. His mind was in a state of cold fury as he checked the distance from the starbase to the standard safe distance when a ship could activate it's warp drive.   It was stupid formality, but it seemed like someone had grabbed an extra thick and long broom handle to shove up their own ass just this time.   Chief Arnold's mind replayed the scene with disgust as he stared out into space.

"Be that as it may Lieutenant Commander."  The traffic controller said in a tone of professional indifference that maybe amounted to a sneer. "The rules are clear under section 37c subsection 3 of Starship Operations, you must be aware of the safe distance before a ship can activate its warp drive in the vicinity of a starbase."

Frank was well aware of the regulation, especially since it was one of the more winked at rules in the book. His eye caught the sight of another ship jumping to warp right next to them.  "And that ship that just jumped to warp beside mine?"  The traffic controller's face flushed as his expression hardened. "A case of different priorities.  Your ship and crew will observe regulations while in vicinity of the starbase and will check in when you reach safe distance before departure.  No exceptions.  Traffic Control out."  The communication screen abruptly went blank.

If Frank's eyes could have drilled holes into the display screen, the shuttle occupants would probably be breathing vacuum at that moment.  The normally staid engineer closed his eyes for a moment before settling back into his chair and stared into space as the shuttle moved towards a useless empty point in space.

At least he could make the rest of the trip in quiet.  What a waste though.  Cold blue eyes moved to the screen underneath the outsized window and he checked on the transponders of the group of small craft.  The Maslow was in the lead of the staggered diamond formation of four Type 11 shuttles.  The Chief Engineer had requested more, and he'd even though of taking the Allegiance, but the Captain's yacht was undergoing significant repairs.  The Apache was right out.  At the centre of the formation was the Cargo shuttle Tesla.  That craft was an absolute must.

Chief Arnold's mind went to the briefing that he'd held in the lower shuttle bay before the away mission had departed.

[Lower Shuttle Bay | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | A few hours earlier....]

The imposing bulk of Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold stood on top a set of crates as his eyes swept the assembled group of crew that had been assigned or volunteered to go on the mission to the Cayuga.  He wasn't privy to most of the details of how the ship had been found, but he understood it had taken Astrometrics quite a bit of processing power to figure it out.  Normally it would been considered a foot note and another ship would have been sent out when it was convenient to locate the wreck and proceed with a recovery operation.  Except, these were not normal times, nor normal circumstances.  In his simple straightforward Engineers mind, a presidential pardon meant everything was just fine and they were welcome back into the fold.  He hadn't really been ready for the distrust Theurgy had managed to accumulate in her absence.  No amount of heroics seemed to overcome the pall of suspicious that clouded the ship and her crew's interaction.  Requests for non-replicatable parts and replicator mass seemed to take far longer than normal, and it was affecting the rate of repairs, thus messing up his timelines for getting the ship back into operation.  He'd also made the mistake of asking Enyd about the seeming ineffectiveness of the pardon, and the legal ramifications of the declaration had made his head hurt afterwards.

Before leaving, he'd discussed the situation with the Captain and XO, and had made a request for just three things to put all their horsepower behind.  Main line EPS relays for the warp core, repairing the hole in Vector 3 from the destroyed Romulan boarding ship, and quantum torpedoes.  The last was properly Cross' area to deal with, but it didn't help to add the Chief Engineer's name to the recommendation.

When the Chief figured everyone had arrived and settled down enough, he cleared his through loudly and obviously. 

"Okay people settle down.  We don't have much time, and a lot to do."  He waited a moment for everyone to quiet down. "We've located the Cayuga." He waited a second for that bit of information to settle in. "Despite out attempts to pass that information higher, command is still deciding what to do about that tidbit. We're not going to wait while we have people potentially running out of air.  The objective is simple.  We're going to take four shuttles and the Tesla to the Cayuga and rescue any survivors. A pair of fighters will provide escort and perimeter patrol while the away team is in the ship.  When we arrive, we're going to remotely open the shuttle bay and proceed in from there with the primary objective being Main engineering to set up an temporary command post."

There was a moment's pause.  "The shuttles are being readied for personnel transport with additional medical equipment for any wounded survivors.  The Tesla will be our focal point for the collection of certain parts that we can't make ourselves and the Starbase seems reluctant to provide in a timely manner."  The Chief paused again as he mentally flipped to the next segment.  "The PADDs being handed out have a list of the items we're looking for, that will be the main responsibility for Engineering.  Several of those items are classified technologies.  You'll also work to restore minimal life support as needed so we can access areas quickly and efficiently.

Operations and Science.  Get the sensor system operating to supplement the small craft that we're using for the mission.  After that, start combing the computer systems for any additional information, personal and mission logs.  Tactical will assist in pulling the necessary information and keeping a sensor watch on our surroundings." 

He eyes settled on the medical staff. "All that is secondary though to assisting the medical team in helping any survivors we hope to find."  There was a pause as he briefly wrestled with the next order he had to give. "We'll take any survivors we find, but we'll have to leave behind any dead that we find." 

There was another pause as his eyes conveyed the seriousness of the order before shifting to the security contingent as well as several Tactical and Operations crew members. "Several of you have been selected because of your experience in handling explosives.  You'll proceed to the anti-matter storage area to set remote command charges.  After the recovery is complete.......We'll detonate the charges and scuttle the Cayuga."

Frank stopped to let that sink in. "We leave in two hours."

[Back to the present...]
The reminisces carried the group of small craft to the warp out point, the Chief Engineer pressed a button to establish communications with traffic control.

"Yes Chief?"  A different controller asked, very clearly perplexed at the nature of the call.

"Theurgy flight Beta, Flight of seven preparing to warp out Traffic Control." Chief Arnold intoned formally and the non-expression on his face spoke volumes.

"Preparing to warp out, what? Why would you? Wait..."  The controller looked down and began rubbing his temples for a moment before looking back up at the screen and it felt like his sigh of frustration was getting ready to burst from his head. "Understood beta flight.  Apologies for the delay. Good luck."

Frank quirked an eyebrow at this as the communications link cut and he turned to the pilot "Take us out."  He commanded and the starfield stretched as the Maslow went to warp.

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #2 –
[ Lt.JG Dominic 'Atlas' Winters | Wolf-10 | Outbound Lane Beta Near Starbase 234] Attn: @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88


Atlas had volunteered to fly escort and join the shuttles to hit the Cayuga with Wolf-10. He'd brought up the prospect of piracy being an issue with an abandoned starship out there in an unknown condition. His physical strength, size, and minor in engineering would be a benefit on the job when or if they boarded the Cayuga. Sure, he'd tried to sell himself on the job but the man got pulled along for it. Along with Shadow, whom he trusted despite the short time he had flown with the crazy lady.

Wolf-10 sat on the right flank of the shuttle convoy and stayed close, Atlas had requested that four launchers be fitted to Wolf-10. Two were loaded with Photon Torpedoes, and the other two were loaded with EMP. He listened to the comms between LTC Arnold and the Traffic Control Tower

"Gotta love a power tripping asshole in the tower. He can go sit and spin." Atlas put over the comm.

[Lower Shuttle Bay | Deck 21 | Vector 3 | A few hours earlier....]

Atlas had sat down on a crate in the shuttle bay with many others, Talia next to him as the two escort pilots for the job. Frank gave the briefing, and when the man mentioned the Valkyries flying in escort and patrolling the perimeter, Atlas raised his hand to wave at the others. His ears sat up, and his tail tip twitched lightly.

"If need be, we can land and assist as well. We have skills and talents outside of piloting. Depending on the condition of the ship eh?"

He left it at that and settled in for the rest until they were dismissed. He had his PADD out and had been working out his suggested loadout for the job. He passed the PADD to Shadow for her stamp of approval or suggestions. She might be crazy and an Ensign, but she outranked him in experience flying the MK 3. Plus, she might have interesting insights and he was keen to build a friendship up with her.

[Back to the present...]

Atlas' computer pinged indicating the shuttles were going to warp and so, primed his own fighter to do the same and jump in tandem with them. Flipping the Bird at the Starbase in the process.

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #3 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit, Wolf-04 | Outbound Lane Beta Near Starbase 234] Attn: @RyeTanker  @Brutus   @Ellen Fitz   @Nesota Kynnovan  @Stegro88   @Krajin  & anyone else
[Show/Hide]
Talia listened to the coms chatter with a shake of her head; behind the helm’s digital HUD overlay projection, dark chocolate eyes narrowed with a frown of annoyance. She checked the void on their assigned vector, visual and instrumentation – the heavens were wide open, literally. Nobody even gave a flying fuck about min-safe distance since Kirk stole the Enterprise and peeled-out all over the Excelsior’s face – which occurred practically on ESD’s doorstep.

Talia snorted at Atlas’ comment, then sucked her teeth as somebody right next to their shuttle convoy warped out, which fit the narrative spun by whoever ass-hat was in the Tower perfectly.

“Yeah,” Shadow drew the word out in a bored drawl, “sounds like somebody pissed in Control's cereal. Typical male ego trip.” A sigh followed, before an alert chime signaled clearance to warp-out from the Maslow. "Finally..."

“…And we’re off,” Shadow deadpanned as she throttled up and her Valkyrie leapt into the dark alongside them.

[Earlier, during Gramp’s mission brief…]

Talia stood next to the giant man-cat who – even seated – was still taller than her; the pilot’s arms were folded, a hip cocked to the opposite side. She appeared equal parts annoyed and impatient, waiting for the gaggle of crew to organize themselves. The wolves still had a list of tasks to do before launch – get flight ready, mission prep, armament, brief flight ops, drop the flight plan for Janus’ approval (although honestly, Talia doubted the old man could even be bothered with paperwork), suit up and preflight....

In short, they all had shit to do.

“Why are we here, hours before,” Talia huffed quietly between her teeth, wolf-like without conscious intent. Almost as if he’d heard her, Chief Arnold promptly began, which caused the pilot’s face to drop as the engineer’s eyes swept the group; Shadow feigned interest in her feet suddenly to hide a grimace of embarrassment.

The mission seemed straightforward though, that was a relief; Talia’s brow arched when Atlas spoke up, but made no further commentary – sure, they could do all kinds of crazy stupid stuff – that didn’t make it advisable. Still, a shoulder lifted and fell in a half-shrug; they were coming along as escorts and back-up force projection – if Gramps needed them for other tasks though, so be it.

Once the briefing concluded, Atlas tapped Talia’s shoulder (mostly paw and some PADD) which left behind more than a few loose strands of colorful hairs upon the grey fabric; which she ignored – at the time. Her eyes scanned the tablet quickly with a nod of approval.

“I’d get the same if we weren’t running low on torps,” Shadow sucked her teeth. “Clusters will do, with a single rack of photons; I’ll keep the tet cannon as well, that thing’s fun to shoot,” her lips pursed in thought for a moment. “Yeah, that should do, plus standard compliment,” she shrugged as they made their exit. The pair looked quite comical; the giant was forced to take extra slow steps while the dark haired woman marched at a brisk pace to keep up.

Her head barely reached his waist.

“Oh, hey,” Talia called up to Atlas just before they reached the turbolift back to the FAB. “Make sure you sync your wrist PADD to your ship before you go EVA; remote play options abound. I did it with a shuttle once – was fun. I can walk you through it while we’re bored and waiting for something to happen, if you like.”

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #4 –
[ Corpsman Ehfva Feynri | Shuttlecraft Maslow | En Route to the Cayuga ] Attn: @RyeTanker   @Brutus    @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan   @Stegro88    @Krajin  @pertinent writers

The bone was replicated. The knife found no grain, no direction, nothing that pushed back. She carved into it anyway.

The mourning spiral was Okashii Atama work — the kind she had learned before she'd learned to write, her grandmother's claw guiding the tool through the first curve of it while the fire outside the tent made the shadows move. Real bone remembered which way it had grown. The scrimshaw followed that memory, and the elders had called that the art's honesty: you listened for where the bone was willing to go. This bone was willing to go anywhere. It would hold whatever she cut into it without complaint, and that was the problem, and she was making marks regardless.

Her male Vulcine form sat wide across the shuttle seat clothed in the medical department uniform, her ear-length hair combed back from her face as she worked at the bone. Wrong. Not wrong in the way an injury was wrong — wrong the way borrowed clothes were wrong, technically functional, all the edges slightly off. Her third shift in Arven's lab had gone into this form, and it had landed cleaner than the feral, but the proprioception was still arguing with her. She kept reaching for things a half-centimeter from where her hand actually was.

And the other forms pressed.

Not loudly. Not urgently in any way she had language for. More like standing in a doorway while a room full of people waited behind you — each one patient, each one present, each one hers. The feral form worst of all: it had a kind of blunt insistence, pure body knowing what it was, and it had pushed at the edges of the Vulcine shift the entire time until she'd come back out the other side of it, and Arven's equipment had recorded seventeen deviations she couldn't feel from the inside.

The knife followed the outer ring of the spiral without her watching it. She knew this design by repetition; over forty years of scrimshaw had put it below the level of thought, which was the point. Her grandmother had taught her that the hands could hold grief the way the mind couldn't — steadier, quieter, without the mind's habit of turning the thing over and over looking for the angle that hurt less.

There was no angle that hurt less. The Cayuga was out there. She had not looked at the viewport as they cast off from Theurgy and she would not look outside again until they arrived.

The spiral reached its center. She ran her thumb across the cuts — clean, consistent depth throughout — and the bone said nothing back, and she started a second design in the space beside it: the Okashii Atama mark for witness. She hadn't planned it. Her hands had already begun.

Voices at the front of the shuttle. Someone's equipment cycling. The mechanical breath of life support.

She kept the knife moving and did not look at the viewport and did not think about what it would look like when the Cayuga came on screen, what was left of it, what the Savi and the Romulans and the indifferent physics of a drifting ship had made of the place where she had once known where everything was.
 

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #5 –
[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Co-Pilots Seat | Shuttlecraft Maslow | At warp] @Ellen Fitz @Krajin @Dumedion @Brutus @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88 @rae & anyone else

It had been an uneventful flight at least after the bureaucratic ego pit behind.  There hadn't been much to do on the flight, except pour over what little intel they had on the situation.  It didn't make pretty reading; mostly because of how thin all the relevant sections were. He could also tell that the crew had put the assessment together because it was admirably short with very little in the way of guesstimates, conjecture, and general fluff that indicated someone was trying to cover their ass.  The only really solid pieces of information they had were the technical specs, schematics, and the general command codes for the ship.  The command codes wouldn't let someone get too far into the critical deeper functions on the ship, but they would at least let the group move about.

The Chief's eyes looked down at the schematic and he reviewed the plan again for the umpteenth time.  It was a solid and fairly conservative plan.  A good thing when safety was being considered paramount and there wasn't an incredibly pressing need to do things expeditiously.  He stared at the plan brief and wondered if he should inject something a little more daring, anything with a little more pizzazz.  He shook the feeling away.  They'd lost enough already.  There wasn't any good reason to spend lives.

"We're coming up on the coordinates Chief"  The pilot hold him.  Frank simply nodded.  No biological could match the precision a computer would bring to travel over interstellar distances, and all the necessary calculations  had been already inputted.  Instead Frank watched the count down timer go down to zero and the barely audible thrum of the engines gained volume as the ships reversed and adjusted the subspace field to bring them back in line with real space.  The starfield shorted rapidly and then stopped to light pricks in space on a black background.  And a whole lot of nothing else.  Space was vast and he looked around anyway to see if they would be fortunate enough to see their lost ship appear right in front of them.  Nope. No such luck. 

Moving his eyes away from the void, the Chief Engineer hit a few buttons on the console in front of him. "All ships, check in." then turned his head around to one of the science crew sitting behind him.  "Any sign of the Cayuga or threats?"  The woman checked the sensors one more time.  "No sir."  The Chief turned back to the front. Not unexpected, but still it added complexity to the situation.  Dark blue eyes looked around into space at his options. 

He tapped another set of buttons on the console to access communications.  "Tesla, launch the probes.  Wolves, tie the probes in to your systems and begin your search.  We're going to remain in position for the moment.  Let us know if you find anything."

Out in space behind the Maslow, the imposing bulk of the larger Tesla stood motionless with the rest of Theurgy's small craft.  Beneath the shuttle, a pair of class 1 probes gently detached and fell away from their carrier hull.  When the pre-programmed safe distance had been reached, jets flared from rear of the exploratory sensor packed robots and they rapidly flew away from the larger shuttle at divergent courses and pulled ahead of Wolf-04 and Wolf-10 to accept their link up commands as their sensors began questing space for any clue as to what happened to the lost ship.

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #6 –
[Lieutenant Dr. Nathan Frost, Ph.D. | Science Station | Shuttlecraft Cattell]
Attn: @RyeTanker, @Ellen Fitz, @Dumedion, @Krajin

Lieutenant Nathan Frost was rudely awakened from a dreamless sleep by a jab in his side. A sharp gasp escaped the Canadian’s lips as his blue eyes fluttered open, and he shot into an upright position in the comfortable seat of the Science Station while trying to regain his bearings. The first thing Frost registered was the smiling form of Crewman Amy Jenson who was standing right in front of him and, as the startled Chief Science Officer rubbed his side with an accusing look on his face, he noticed how the smile on the red-haired botanical technician’s face became more apologetic. He could hear how the Crewman began to speak up, saying ”…I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m sorry!” on a tone of voice that further accentuated her apologetic smile, but while the woman apologized Frost noticed that the Cattell was no longer at warp.

As Frost got out of his seat and made his way in between the Pilot’s seat, which was manned by Ensign Yavya Vass of Theurgy’s Operations Department, and the empty Co-Pilot’s seat which had been previously manned by Crewman Amy Jenson, he could hear how the female Bolian officer spoke up to answer a hail. ”Maslow, this is the Cattell. Reporting in as ordered, we’re here in one piece.”. While the woman spoke, Frost could hear a certain confusion in the Bolian officer’s voice that he shared with her; as he looked out the viewscreen, there was no sign of the USS Cayuga. At least not visually. Feeling a pang of annoyance, which was rather obvious on his face, the Canadian looked at the controls in front of him and pressed a couple of buttons to bring up the sensor feed. ”Where’s the Cayuga? She should have been right here.”

Behind him, Petty Officer First Class Timothy Tapp spoke up as well. ”What about stellar drift?” Upon hearing those words, Frost turned around and looked at the bald-headed, bearded Security Officer who mainly served as Theurgy’s armorer. The man was sitting at the Tactical Station of their type-11 shuttlecraft and was looking towards him with a friendly smile on his face that only further accentuated his voice. ”Maybe the sensors didn’t account for that. If one of Cayuga’s compartments suddenly depressurized, maybe because of a sudden impact with a micro-asteroid or any number of reasons, it could have sent the ship in a direction our sensors can’t account for.”

While Frost hadn’t thought of that before, he stared at the Security Officer while he came up with a valid response. After a couple of seconds, he shrugged and spoke up as well. ”I thought of that, but a sudden depressurization would have left debris behind.” As he spoke, Frost’s Canadian-accented voice had the reassuring tone of someone who had thought of every possibility, which left him somewhat unprepared when the Security Officer, who was just trying to help, spoke up once more. ”What about solar winds?” In response, Frost turned around to look at the sensor readings again. ”I can’t find any debris on our sensors, and solar winds would have left behind traces of residual radiation. There’s nothing there.”

Petty Officer First Class Tapp remained silent and, as Frost turned around, he noticed that the Security Officer was thinking of something else. It prompted the Chief Science Officer to present the enlisted man with a friendly nod to recognise his efforts. ”It’s not a bad train of thought though.” As he finished talking, a gasp from Crewman Amy Jenson drew his attention. The red-haired woman had just made it back to the Co-Pilot’s seat and, spurred on by the brainstorming, suddenly spoke up. ”Wait, what if a passing stellar object, something large enough to project its own gravity field, passed through the system?” The botanical assistant looked at Frost, and the Canadian met her enthusiastic gaze. ”Maybe it missed the Cayuga but pulled it along in its gravitational field?”

It was something Frost hadn’t thought of either and, as he thought of the possibility, he nodded in quiet respect for the Crewman’s suggestion. ”That’s… not a bad idea at all, miss Jenson.” He turned to face the female Bolian in he Pilot’s seat and spoke up once more. ”Miss Vass, relay that thought to the Maslow for consideration.”

While Frost turned around, he reached out with his left hand to pat Crewman Jenson on the shoulder before making his way back to the Science Station. As he made his way there, the Canadian could hear how Ensign Vass spoke up. ”Shuttlecraft Maslow, this is the Cattell. Just a thought from us, but do the probes show any large special objects that are passing through the system? We theorize that something with a gravity field might have snatched the Cayuga by sheer happenstance."

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #7 –
[Kelistina Kavot Droga | Crew Compartment | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Near last known coordinates of USS Cayuga]
Attn: @RyeTanker, @Ellen Fitz, @Dumedion, @Krajin, @Nesota Kynnovan  & @anyone else

Kelistina had joined the group that was being sent to gather what they could from one of their vessels. She figured that taking things apart would be a lot easier than trying to fix what she was unfamiliar with. With everything that had happened to her adopted ship family, she felt it was the least she could do.

The seat she had been assigned was less than comfortable and she found herself on her feet more often than not, even if she was relegated to ducking her head within the small craft.  She looked again at the tools that had been sent along with the group. Even if they looked slightly different from what she had previously owned, most of them looked close enough for her to understand their use. The scanner still caused issues for her, not that she could not use it, but that she was still learning their language and reading the little screen’s readouts sometimes made her more confused. 

She heard the change in the engines as he little ship dropped from what they called Warp Speed. Shuffling forward to look out the front of the ship she looked at the stars surrounding them, but did not see the vessel anywhere. She mused aloud, mostly to herself,  “is ship no where should be? Maybe not right place?” She paused a moment, “Maybe some others take first?” She didn’t expect any replies to her voiced thoughts.

OCC : RL had been horrid these past several months. Hopefully is back to being good. Or at least better.
Ensign Mia Dunne   [Show/Hide]

  Kelistina (Kel) Kavot Droga   [Show/Hide]

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #8 –
[ Lt.JG Dominic 'Atlas' Winters | Wolf-10 | Near last known coordinates of Cayuga] Attn: @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88

Atlas watched as distant stars streaked by while they travelled at Warp to the last known location of the Cayuga. It was boring and he had made conversation with his fellow wingmate along the way. Throwing bad dad jokes and puns around and the usual banter pilots go through. Coupled with Talia giving him the rundown of remote operations with his PADD and his fighter turned out to be a hoot. Until the dumbass tried it inside the fighter. Still it was amusing as heck while it lasted with the fighter now synced up to his PADD.

"Shuttlecraft Maslow, this is Wolf-10. All clear here. Roger on tying in probe sensors and beginning sweep." Atlas responded.

"Shadow, this is Atlas. Let's get ourselves busy. lets tie in and share our own sensor nets. If you have an idea on how to find a space-whale like the Cayuga out here, lay it out. I am thinking... if it has a leaking plasma system, we can track that?" He offered.

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #9 –
[Ens. Talia "Shadow" Al-Ibrahim | Wolf-04 | Near last known coordinates of Cayuga] Attn: @Krajin  @Eirual @Ellen Fitz @Nesota Kynnovan @RyeTanker

It was fun to cut up with a new wingman en-route; Talia quickly realized the more they talked, the more Atlas seemed like a genuine goof-ball — which turned out to be a running theme with the Wolves. For her part, she had tried to reciprocate, but as soon as her hand eased back on the throttle to drop the Valkyrie from warp, Shadow switched back to all-business-mode.

The stars settled to distant pinpricks of light as the pitch of her engines dropped to a lower octave. A visual scan of the heavens around her revealed Atlas, a ways off to port, with the convoy of shuttles between them...

…And nothing else but infinite darkness.

In the following moments, she'd already checked the Valkyrie's sensors twice, along with a mid-level navigation diagnostic — just to be sure everything jived with the original flight plan the mission team had been given from Theurgy’s astrometrics. The obvious was apparent as soon as they'd arrived: there was no sign of the Cayuga — no emergency beacon, no IFF transponder, no debris…

Nothing.

Coms chatter filled Shadow’s helm while she circled back in a wide arc around the convoy, opposite to Atlas’ relative path, to open up space while forming a defensive screen — a standard redeployment maneuver. Active proximity scans of the system yielded unremarkable returns; long range showed the same. Dark eyes, tinted almost black behind the faint blue  illumination of her helm, narrowed with worry.

Are we too late?

The probes launched. Shadow tracked the dull glow of their drives as they streaked away into the darkness. While the others talked and voiced possible theories, the pilots hands and fingers played across her control panels — accessing Theurgy’s astrometrics again.

Every known stellar object with sufficient mass to affect a disabled vessel of Cayuga’s tonnage was accounted for. While the data couldn’t rule out the possibility of a rogue element, or unmapped object — a comet perhaps — Shadow couldn’t help but consider that an unlikely scenario.

She wasn’t an astrophysics expert, however; the science nerds were — but that didn’t stop her from using her basic comprehension of fundamental physics to draw her own hypothesis.

Shadow’s eyes turned to the distant blue speck of the system’s far away star. To her mind, anything left powerless and adrift in-system long enough would inexorably fall into its gravity well, without fail. She’d already turned the nose of her fighter towards it when Atlas spoke up on a direct channel.

“Four copies,” she nodded, then a typed out a few quick commands on her OPS console. “Sensor network established, links active with both pups.”

She hoped he didnt mind the use of shorthand for the probes. Shadow chewed her lip in thought for a moment, considering Atlas' question.

“Doesn’t plasma cool and disperse relatively quickly? But yeah, we might get lucky and catch a trail,” she shrugged, then paused again. “We know Romulans favor plasma-based weaponry and cloaks — which have been known to leave trace tachyon emissions and anti-protons. The Savi — based off the Hobus mission data — used graviton beams. So…maybe if we look for what hunted the whale, that will lead us to her?”

Her hand keyed in the adjustments to the ship’s sensor sweeps; even with active sensor envelopes keyed in for max resolution — that still left a literal astronomical search area to cover.

“How about a clockwise spiral pattern split between us and the pups? It’d put some distance between us and the convoy, but only a few light-minutes at most. Or we can work it by quadrants and stay close; that’ll take longer, but our sweeps would overlap tighter, giving us more accuracy.”

Again, her eyes turned to the star at the system’s core.

“Your call, Atlas.”
 
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