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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.”

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #10 –
[ PO3 Lorad | Rear Compartment | Shuttlecraft: Unknown | Location: Unknown ] Attn: @Krajin @Eirual @Ellen Fitz @Nesota Kynnovan @RyeTanker
[Show/Hide]


Lorad kept up the appearance of studying the schematics of the Cayuga’s Iroquois-Class even as he lay on the bunk. He had rechecked his gear an hour before and was as ready as he could be. Truthfully, he was studding the PADD again to avoid having to interact with the crew too much. He’d told himself that he would be fine. That being back in his own time was a relief and that everything that had happened in that other time didn’t matter. Then he had seen him.

Lorad didn’t actually know the man’s name. Had never thought to ask when he had found the man buried under a structural beam with a plasma fire raging nearby nor afterwards when they had freed his lifeless body from the wreckage of the ship and carried it away for burial. He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t wanted to know. And then, while moving to the bay to board one of the shuttles for this mission he had bumped into the man. He’d apologised without looking, at first, but then he had and his stomach had fallen away. It was like seeing a ghost. It had sent Lorad into a depressed state for the journey here and he had mostly avoided speaking with anyone. So much so that he hadn’t even gotten the name of the shuttle he was on.

Thinking to distract himself, Lorad went over the packed gear he had brought for this mission. Pack with Toolkit, rations, several work lights and two PADDs. Belt with Phaser, his knife, Engineering Tricorder and hand light. He had considered bringing his sword but decided against it. This was a salvage mission, after all.

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #11 –
[ Corpsman Ehfva Feynri | Crew Compartment | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Near Last Known Coordinates of the USS Cayuga ] Attn: @RyeTanker  @Dumedion  @Krajin  @Nesota Kynnovan  @Eirual  @Stegro88  @Brutus  & anyone else

Up front, the compartment had been going through its theories out loud for the better part of an hour. Micro-asteroid depressurization, offered and closed. Solar wind, offered and closed. Then a passing mass with a well deep enough to walk a powerless hull off its coordinates, and that one stayed open long enough for somebody to put it on the comm. The Wolves came back over the top of it. Tachyon residue. Antiproton scatter. Something about the way the Savi's beams left graviton traces behind them.

Ehfva listened the way she listened to a ward at night.

The order came forward from the co-pilot's seat too low to make out clean: the probes, coming off their assigned pattern. Both ideas at once rather than one and then the other. Then the console tone shifted, and the deck tilted two degrees and stayed there, swinging onto a bearing that had nothing to do with where the Cayuga was supposed to be. They'd stopped hunting the ship. They were hunting whatever had killed her.

With the shuttle's fixed stores, plus whatever the Cattell and the Yellowstone were carrying, plus the Tesla's surgical kit if anyone could get to it, it was enough for a rescue. Nowhere near enough for a ship's complement. Nobody had said out loud what the ratio implied, because saying it would mean saying that the away team's manifest was built around a number somebody had already privately settled on. Which Ehfva knew from having been on the Cayuga was indeed a fixed number. The likelihood of anyone surviving the wreckage? Infinitesimal.

The knife reached the end of the mark and stopped short of finishing the stroke. She heard it before she understood it. The console pitch went up half a step and stayed. A string of coordinates, repeated with a different number attached. Somebody said particulate stream. The hull came around under her with enough weight in the turn that the light through the port swung across the bulkhead and across her hands and across the unfinished cut.

Ehfva stood, and went to the viewport. At first there was nothing. Then the star's light started catching on things too small to resolve, a thin, wide haze of it, all of it traveling in one direction. Nothing in open space travels in one direction unless something put it there. Frozen atmosphere. Insulation batting. Further out where the light was better, the larger pieces came up: a section of hull plating still carrying two thirds of a painted number. A door with the frame torn away around it, still sealed. Something long and pale turning end over end, flashing on every third rotation.

And other shapes. She'd worked shirtsleeve decompressions. She knew the silhouette a body made in the vacuum, the way the limbs set, how the smaller things run out ahead of the larger ones and spread. The Cayuga had been at general quarters when the Scions came through her. Some of her people had a hull between themselves and it. The ones who hadn't were out here now, running with the current.

She had known where everything was on that ship. Which lift was slow. Which biobed drifted two-tenths warm. Which corridor on Deck 9 you took at shift change if you actually wanted to arrive somewhere. Behind her the compartment had gone quiet. Ehfva put the bone in her thigh pocket with the design half-cut and wiped the dust off her palm onto her trouser leg.


[ Captain Hesskar | Command Deck | Salvage Tender Long Patience | Inbound, Cayuga Debris Field ]

The Long Patience was an MA12 hull, four nacelles, forty-one years off the yards at Ssellek and a decade out of Hegemony service, and Hesskar had bought her understanding that she would outlive him.

He'd found the Federation ship because nobody else had bothered to run the drift. But now...seven contacts. Four small Federation transports, one heavy tender, two atmospheric-capable fighters running quiet enough that he only held them because they were pushing active envelopes out ahead of themselves. Now two of their probes had come off a search spiral onto a bearing that would carry them across the leading edge of the field before he could reach it himself.

Hesskar's membrane came down and back. He put the tender on station-keeping and let the numbers build. His bays were two-thirds empty. The broker at Cestus III had contracted for tonnage and made it clear he would not pay for damaged goods. Nineteen crew, fuel for the return leg, eleven days of margin on the ledger and no work booked past it.

Against that, Starfleet didn't send seven craft and a fleet tender this far to bury anybody. Seven craft meant something aboard priced higher than the metal, and if something aboard priced higher than the metal, then his empty bays were no longer the largest question in this system. He could file a claim and be refused with great courtesy. Or he could sit at the outer edge of their envelope, let them spend the fuel and the hours getting the ship open, and take a position afterward with better information than he had now.

"One-quarter. Passive only. Nothing radiates." He tapped the display twice, dropping a marker on the outermost of the two probes.


[ Captain Sennika Vhaal | Deck 9, Frame 41 | USS Cayuga ]

The plasma torch went out and the corridor dark went with it. Sennika held up a closed fist in the dark until her helmet optics caught up and drew the frame edges back in for her, green on black. Her four cutters held station along the bulkhead, boots locked, tethers slack. Nine meters behind them, the hatch they'd spent the better part of a day getting through. Forty ahead, unopened, the core.

The alert came in on a beam narrow enough that she'd have missed it if she hadn't been sitting on the schedule since they boarded. Cutwidow and Redprice were parked cold in the belt, drives banked, nobody aboard either hull, scanning on a passive loop and reporting every ninety minutes. Rigging them to run crewless had cost her most of a season's take. She had watched enough colleagues get caught sitting in their own ships to consider it money well spent.

Two reports in the one pulse. A Gorn hull inbound, tender configuration, dark and slow. Seven Federation contacts, small craft, active, with two probes on a bearing that had stopped looking like a search.

"That's their own ship." Doreth's voice came flat over the suit link. "They came back for it."

"In shuttles." Sennika turned in place, slowly, and took in forty meters of dead corridor and the sealed doors down both sides of it. "Four shuttles carry what four shuttles carry."

Behind the bulkhead she had her glove on was a Federation fleet core with a buyer in Rigel who'd already paid her half and would want the half back with interest attached. Calling the ships in meant lighting two drives in a system with two fighters loose in it. Two small hulls against seven and a tender was not a trade she was going to make on a Tuesday.

"Torches off. Lights off. Everybody into the frame gaps and nobody moves for anything, including me." She clipped her tether short and put her back against the plating. "The Gorn will price her before he touches her. Starfleet will bring their own light and their own noise. Neither of them is looking for us yet, so let's not hand anybody a reason."

Doreth said something about the air budget.

"Then breathe less," Sennika said, and settled in to wait.
Of course I had to make it harder! You're welcome!

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #12 –
[Kelistina Kavot Droga | Crew Compartment | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Near debris stream  of USS Cayuga]
Attn: @RyeTanker  @Ellen Fitz  @Dumedion , @Krajin , @Nesota Kynnovan    @Stegro88   @Brutus   & anyone else

Kel had taken a squatting stance behind the pilot’s seat. She had been standing, or rather leaning over the seat, to look through the viewport and had gotten a bit of an uncomfortable glance from said pilot. Being taller than almost everyone around her still felt odd and she often forgot about how her actions seemed more like looming over others. In this position she could see past the pilot’s shoulder out the viewport. At first, it was just small particles catching the nearby star’s light as they floated in space. Soon larger pieces of debris became evident.  Kelistina saw what appeared to be a body and closed her eyes to say a prayer for the dead of the Cayuga.

Kelistina was certain that they would find the remains of the vessel soon. She had been hoping, like many others, that they would be able to rescue stranded crew, however, her heart felt a sorrow at the conclusion her mind came to, that none were left alive to save. She slowly stood, hunched over in the smaller vessel and made her way back to where she had let the tool kit she’d been given. She did not care to see any other lost souls. It reminded too much of what she had suffered. The pain of her planet’s destruction and death of everyone she loved never went away, right now it pulsed within her heart painfully.

The Zaroodian had kept her own space suit and had packed it for this mission. Better to be prepared and not have need, than to not have suit to fit to keep alive. The crew area was not spacious, but then she really only needed enough space to set her EVA on the ground and step into it. Her new shipmates had helped her modify the systems that would keep her alive. That at least was something she was thankful for. While she did not know how much more time it would take to get to the missing ship, she would be ready to perform her assigned tasks.

Now, all she had to do was wait for that time.

Ensign Mia Dunne   [Show/Hide]

  Kelistina (Kel) Kavot Droga   [Show/Hide]

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #13 –
[ Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Co-Pilots Seat | Shuttlecraft Maslow | At warp] @Ellen Fitz @Krajin @Dumedion @Brutus @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88 @rae @Eirual & anyone else

Chief Arnold listed the back and forth of the salvage crew and the pilots.  He took it all in as a free flow exchange of ideas.  He called up a standard search and rescue analysis package from database and remotely tied in the telemetry from the probes and all the shuttles.  A few ideas were interesting and he punched in the parameters for the systems to account for.  At least they weren't really looking for anything inside a planetary system, the number of gravity and material variables from that one alone would cause migraines.  He also had his own ideas, and he plugged in more parameters attached to radioactivity decay from an Iroquois class starship's impulse manifolds, plus a ranged standard decay from a tritanium hull in the current astro environment. More ideas came up and he modified the tachyon flux and delta radiation oscillation range. Narrowing the focus for the computer to a Starfleet vessel would also help since the ship's had a unique hull material signature traces that should stand out unless a ship was completely atomized, and maybe not even then.  In essence, the computer would devote all its processing power to simply finding a Starfleet vessel within the proverbial galactic soup ahead of them.

As the chatter continued, Frank let the computer package run.  Blue eyes watched the output as the computer spit out various points of interest.  His fingers occasionally punched several keys as he refined the data.  New information was fed into the data feed, filtered at light speed, then considered by the human mind. As he waited, the Chief reached for his coffee cup and took a sip.  It wasn't his blend of choice, but someone had handed it to him and he'd thanked the provider and let his mind simply keep going on trying to find the pattern that would give them some clue as to where the Cayuga had disappeared off to.

After the next sip, his eyes narrowed as his mind grasped something his intuition had picked out and he set the mug down as he began refining the data, adjusting the wavelength bands and applying various radiation imaging filters.  There definitely was a pattern present.  It was hard to see, but there was a hard core of radiation along the path that was being interrupted by sudden blobs.  It looked inconsistent to the computer, but to the trained mind, it looked like sudden bursts of thrust as the engines were overrated past operational norms.   He needed more information though and he scanned the tachyon, then nadion ranges and particled lines appeared.  The dispered lines were slightly wavy from stellar winds, but signatures were unmistakable to the computer. High confidence starship grade phaser fire and in the correct frequency for a Starfleet vessel.

Frank's eyes lit up at the information and he unhurriedly tapped the comm key.  "Attention Theurgy Beta.  We have a high confidence vector in the direction of high energy emissions consistent with the Cayuga.  I'm sending over the direction heading now.  Wolves, scout ahead, and if you find the ship, take a look, use the probes for deep scan.  Shuttles, form a ring around the Tesla. Maslow will lead.  The Chief Engineer looked at the pilot to confirm the course was plotted.  It didn't take long. "Course laid in sir."  Frank grabbed his coffee cup to wait out the next leg of the trip. "Take us out." he commanded.  The starfield began to move as the subtle thrum of the impulse engines going to cruising power increased, and Frank hoped that all the work would bear fruit for their lost comrades.


OOC: Ooof, that be some treknobabbling

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #14 –
[ Lt.JG Dominic 'Atlas' Winters | Wolf-10 | Near last known coordinates of Cayuga] Attn: @Brutus @Ellen Fitz @Dumedion @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88 @Eirual @rae & Everyone else

"Accuracy over speed I think. Least some pirates come out to play privateer on a bunch of Starfleet Shuttles. There'd be some out here; I'd bet there are other sorts too. A Federation starship adrift and abandoned is a goldmine of materials and information. Good idea to hunt what hunted her! Let's go with that!"

Atlas took up one position and kept pace with Shadow as they arranged the sensor sweeps. The flight was short, at least until the others chimed in, including Arnold from the Maslow. His armoured tail twitched as he shifted course to follow out that way Arnold had directed them.

"Let's see where the rabbit hole goes." Then came the debris field ahead of the two fighters and their probes. "There she is; anything can be hiding out here amidst the debris. Undetonated munitions, enemy surprises, bodies, capacitors, and other hazards. Let's go slower and get a scan of the area, get a predictive drift chart going for pathing in and out just in case we need to bug out." His tone drifted to a more sombre one as he throttled the speed down as the debris field began to thicken. The field reminded him of flying through the old battlefields of the Dominion War, ship wreckages of every side all mixed together. Silent monuments to the fallen.

Atlas took his time flying through the debris field and twitched an ear as the hull of the Cayuga came into visual range. Atlas checked his sensors and watched as something pinged on the outer edges of their range. "Got a lurker at the outer edge. Running quiet, it seems; they forget their fat ass creates gravitational distortions. I'd bet a salvager of some sort. Let's not run a full scan, let them think we don't know they are here." He closes into the ruined Cayuga, shifting this way and that to get closer. Avoiding the bodies of its crew left adrift in space.

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #15 –
[Kelistina Kavot Droga | Crew Compartment | Shuttlecraft Maslow | Near debris stream  of USS Cayuga]
Attn: @RyeTanker , @Ellen Fitz , @Dumedion , @Krajin , @Nesota Kynnovan    @Stegro88   @Brutus 

Getting into her EVA as she glanced around the cramped area. Kelistina knew the others must feel the hurt as strongly as she did for their lost comrades. There was a sort of stillness that could be felt within the soul enhanced by the relative silence with the shuttle. Other than the commands from the Lt Cmdr, conversation had been silenced.  Kelistina was almost ready, all that was left was to don the helmet which would start the internal life support system.  That she would do at the last moment. Right now she pulled the work kit she’d been given, double checking each tool and going over the instructions she’d been given on their use.

The closer they got to their target the more unsettled she felt. It almost felt like she could feel the souls still within the shattered hull of the Cayuga. The only other time she’d felt that was when she’d been a child and the community had been threatened by several Taritt. Her body let off an involuntary shudder as she attempted to push that feeling of dread out of her thoughts. There was work to be done, and she would prove to her new dlotaz that she was worthy.

Taritt - Large Predator from Zarood (info found in Species file)
Dlotaz  - Family or Community
Ensign Mia Dunne   [Show/Hide]

  Kelistina (Kel) Kavot Droga   [Show/Hide]

Re: Day 01 [ 0700 hrs] The Salvage Job

Reply #16 –
[Ens. Talia “Shadow” Al-Ibrahim | Cockpit, Wolf-04 | Near Cayuga wreckage] Attn: @RyeTanker @Ellen Fitz @Eirual @Krajin @Nesota Kynnovan @Stegro88  (and anyone else)

The Cayuga looked like a tomb; lifeless, left to rot in the void.

Talia throttled back to match Atlas’ thrust on the approach. The Valkyrie’s deflector scattered debris before it as Shadow angled for a wide loop, down around the bow at forty-five degrees, then swung to port and leveled out amidships — flood lights lit. Her eyes tracked the damage as she went between darting glances at the sensor readouts.

 Whatever her wingman had pinged, the probes returned it as a weak mass blip, minimal band projection; something there that ‘mysteriously’ disappeared, almost as if someone realized they were no longer alone.

Fuck, Shadow cursed silently with a tsk.  “Bogey just went dark. I don’t like this Atlas,” she shook her head. “Couldn’t get a full EM profile on it — but even if it was just a salvage rig, that’s bad news.” There was a pause to collate their combined sensor net into a single return. Anahi bleeped a few seconds later. Talia’s eyes narrowed at the data, then beamed it directly to Gramps.

“Maslow, Wolf-04. Visual on the primary; zero emissions — nav point uploaded,” Shadow reported, then paused to watch as her lights slid across the wounded hull, noting the blackened craters and gorges over pristine white. “She took one hell of a beating,” slipped out in a somber whisper, which prompted an immediate correction in tone. Focus. “Ten pinged a bogey at the edge of our sensor envelope — unable to ID with all the background data. Sending you what we have for analysis.”

This feels like a trap — an ambush, waiting to happen, Shadow shook her head again, thumb hovered over the weapons safety release.

“Maslow, recommend we elevate to yellow alert immediately — shields and weapons,” Shadow added, then clicked off and waited for Arnold’s assessment. “Anahi, start scanning for biometrics — sync with pup two. Let one push range to .75 AU.”

The Valkyrie’s computer chirped in acknowledgement as Shadow released the breath she’d been holding.

“Feels like we just fell for the perfect bait, big guy,” Shadow muttered to Atlas, after a glance at her distant wingman. “Nothing for it but to stand-by for when the shit hits the fan.”

A chorus of alerts erupted suddenly; Talia’s reaction was immediate and instinctual — she throttled up and dove into a tight turn between the Cayuga’s nacelle pylons, using the wreck as cover while her eyes scanned the ships readouts for data.

“Break, break, hot EM spike — repeat — hot EM spike,” Shadow alerted the entire flight. “Maslow, Wolf-04; internal EM spike, location: deck nine, repeat, deck nine inside the primary. Looks like an percussive wave. Ten, can you confirm?”

She throttled back, thumb steady over the weapons release as dark eyes blinked at the return in mild confusion. A few taps played the sound out through her helms speakers.

It sounded like…an explosion?

That made zero sense. There were no thermals, zero radiologicals, just a few power surges in the micro-ohms — barely readable and hardly dangerous.

“The fuck is going on,” Shadow huffed to herself, then waited for someone to verify what she’d tracked.

OOC — if you havent seen Down Periscope, you wont get the joke. Highly recommend you watch it 😜
 
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