Where'd We End Up?

Posted on Sat Dec 8th, 2018 @ 3:28pm by

Mission: S1E1: Welcome Home, Now Go Away
Location: Engineering Module

The lights were dimmed, except for the pulsing red that seemed to come from nowhere, and yet bathed the room in its glow. The flash lit up vapor that was pouring from one of the side bulkheads. Those who had been in the room, which was the bottom deck of Main Engineering, were laying across the floor in a random fashion, clearly thrown there from the jolt that came unexpectedly. The six-deck tall power core was empty, thankfully. Whoever had made the jump preparations thought ahead enough to make sure the reactants were held safely in their storage pods rather than in the core. Which turned out to be a life-saver as the glass casing of the core had a massive crack that stretched up three decks.

"Turn that damn alarm off," came the voice of Axon Vendrest, followed by a cough as he moved, trying to sit up.

Slowly, a few more officers moved, brushing shattered glass and debris from their uniforms as they stood.

"Report," this voice coming from a different officer, this one wearing a green-collared shirt.

"There was an issue with the jump, sir," said a woman from a side console. "Not quite sure what the issue was but it seems that the Support and Engineering modules of the station have ended up...well..."

Axon stood, taking a step towards her, "Where have we ended up, Ensign?"

She looked back at the man, "Honestly, I'm not sure. The star chart for this region is unknown. But it seems both modules have been caught in the gravity well of a planet. Support module is dangerously low in the atmosphere and its orbit is deteriorating."

Turning towards the Marine, Axon reached down a hand and pulled the man to his feet.

The man, sporting a Lieutenant Colonel insignia on his collar, nodded in thanks before turning to the console. "Aye, lass. Do we have communications with the Support module?"

"Yes and no. No audio or visual communications, but we're able to send messages. We're awaiting a damage report and injury report."

"Let's start a damage and injury report of our own," Axon said, turning away from the screen to look out at the massive core. "And let's have Support launch a squadron of fighters to post a perimeter. Last thing we want to do is get caught with our pants down."

The woman nodded, sending off the message.

"About this planet," the Colonel stated. "Let's begin scans, see if anyone is down there."

"Already started." The woman smiled to herself but the obvious scowl from the Colonel caused it to quickly fade away.

"Just get to the point," he said.

Axon rolled his eyes at the man's aggressive nature.

But the Ensign followed orders. "Whatever life used to be on this planet is long gone," she said. "The surface is devoid of life and I'm not detecting any lifesigns anywhere. But there used to be a large civilization here. There's a space station in orbit, at least what's left of it, as well as a large satellite network. I'm also not seeing any water particles, either on the surface or in the atmosphere. It's almost like their planet was drained of all water."

"Why would anyone do that?" Axon asked, to himself.

The Colonel just shrugged in response.

"But I am detecting radiation over the entire planet. Seems there might have been a war, or at least an attack here. Also, I'm finding traces of nerve gas on the surface."

"A nerve gas would dissipate over time," said another officer, a man with a blue uniform, who had taken a few steps towards the group. "Unless the attack was in the last two weeks, we shouldn't be able to detect anything like that."

"Commander?"

Axon turned to the woman.

"This might sound odd, but the Support module is picking up a radio wave signal."

"I thought ye said all their technology was destroyed," the Colonel said.

The woman nodded, "From what the scans are telling me, it was. But Support is swearing they're reading a signal. We can't detect it because we're too far away, but they've sent over the source point. I'm running a scan on the area now."

"Radio is a very old technology," the blue-collared man stated. "From the looks of their destroyed artifacts, they were much more advanced than to use radio. Something doesn't add up."

"I've found the source." The woman pointed to the map on her screen. "Here, just along the coast of the southern continent. There appears to be a structure that is sending out the signal."

"Fire up the transporters, lass," the Colonel said. "We're gonna go take a look." The man walked away from the group, headed towards the turbolift.

Following close behind, Axon laid a hand on the man's shoulder. "I don't think that's such a good idea," he said. "We need to triangulate our position, get the Support module into a higher orbit, find out where the Command module is and try to figure out how we're going to get us there. There's a lot to do."

The Colonel turned, "So it sounds like you have a lot to do. No reason for two of us up here. I'm taking a small unit down to check the place out. We need to make sure that radio wave doesn't pose us any security issues, right?"

Axon sighed, releasing his hand from the man's shoulder, allowing him to leave.