Things Past – Tip of the Iceberg: Part 5 - Visiting Alpha Mensae
by Arrival Kaia
Post Details
ON:
The runabout quietly glided along at warp, the dark windows flickering to life as automated functions brought systems back online. Inside, an alarmclock sounded, announcing the arrival of the runabout to the destination of the pre-programmed flight path.
Crewman Jennings lifted himself out of bed and deactivated the alarm. A while later he entered the cockpit with a cup of coffee and sat in the pilot's chair. The warp drives disengaged and presented him with a view of a hazy blue-green planet. The sight suddenly gripped him with a sense of unease, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The planet's magnetosphere was highly unstable, dozens of sensor ghosts played with his readings, and everywhere there was some sort of chronometric interference.
Jennings was suddenly very uneasy about having come on this trip alone. He didn'tconsider himself a superstitious man, but this place goaded one's imagination into its own places of fear. THere was something WRONG with this place. You could just FEEL it. It was not a pensive sensation; not like walking through a grave yard back on earth. The crewman hadn't even entered the atmosphere, yet it almost felt like the corners and shadows were reaching out, watching, whispering to join them at the back of his mind. It was obvious now why the Romulan Diplomat had "advised againt spending long periods of time here."
Something bad happened here.
He maneuvered the runabout into and orbital flight path and began a superficial scan of the surface. He held his cup of coffee up while the computer compiled the sensor data, but the crewman didn't drink. His eyes couldn't pull away from the blue haze of the planet's surface. That haze was not original to the world, but resultant from whatever cataclysm had claimed this place. He wasn't an astrogeologist, but he was pretty sure the Romulan Diplomat's story about an axis shift was bunk, or incomplete at best.
The runabout was not equiped with sensers to perform deeper scans of the planet, as it was one of the terms of his receiving permission from th eRomulans to visit this place at all. He might have been able to pull some strings, but he half expected a Romulan warbird to be stalking him this whole trip. He wasn't ready to risk his life or a diplomatic incident over this.
He had thought about that, though. How far down this rabbit hole was he willing to go? Was there information out here worth hiding? Worth dying for? He didn't even know that much. He had no evidence to support anything, but his searches for information had uncovered suspiciously correspondent holes in the record. Kaia's blank slate of a record, the Federation's alterd historic records, Natrina's waffling, the Romulan's cover stories, all of it was begining to spook the conspiracy theorist in him.
HIs attention was brought back to the present as the console beeped its completion of the scan. Sesnor ghosts clogged the readings, Ships that weren't in orbit, phaser fire on the surface, it was difficult to figure out if anything the sensors found on the surface were actually real.
With a bit of parsing, and a reheating of his cup of coffee, Jennings did sort through the sensor readings and noticed that two of the sensor ghosts were being oddly consistent. A sensor ghost on one of the planet's major continents consistently appeard as a stone construction, one minute a large stone temple, the next minute sensors read it as a debris field. the next some kind of incomplete construction.
The second cosistency he noticed was near one of the planet's magnetic poles. Sensors indicated a piece of advanced alloy of some sort, sometimes in the form of a crate, sometimes taking the form of a large ship. The sensor readings were never clear except, as with the stone, the consistant type of material.
The stone reading was closer, so he figured he try that one first and set a course. A flyby of the area didn't reveal any significant structures. The haze of the Class L atmostphere reduced long range visibility and settled in low points and valleys like a fog. Still, his view of the ground was clear enough to reveal its karst topography, with few decent landing zones. Using the phasers on the runabout, he cleared a small area of foliage and touched down.
Though Type L planets were technically breathable for short periods, the eerieness of this place had set him on edge. He climed into an environmental suit and started out on foot. He was alone with only his breath echoing in his ears. His tricorder picked up sensor ghosts everywhere, just like the sensors of the runabout. The only constant reading was the contour of the ground.
For hours he trapsed around, taking readings wherever his tricorder could get a fix. He returned, worn out and discouraged from having found no evidence of stone construction. He had spotted the odd bit of pulverized concrete, but that could potentially be natural. To check, he uploaded his tricorder readings to the runabouts computer and brought up a composite 3D image of the area he had scanned.
Immediately a pattern caught his eye. The Ships sensors hadn't seen it from orbit through all the ghosts, but his security case studies from the academy had taught him well. This area wasn't naturally like this. The rough terrain was the result of a heavy orbital bombardment.
If that was true, no wonder the Romulans didn't want him snooping about with a survey team. He had landed in the middle of a scorched earth policy. His study of th escans brought his attention to something else, something that worried him even more. The chronometer of his tricorder was inconsitsant with that of the ship by almost a minute. A quick diagnostic revealed no technical faults, but he remembered the chronometric background radiation and hurried to take off.
He quickly flew to the location of the metallic ghost. His hands began to shake. He wasn't a scientist, but he had never heard ANY good stories involving chronometric radiation. As he got closer, the sensor ghost solidified into an actual contact. He breathed a sigh of relief at presence of something solid, and flew to the location, again suiting up and heading out onto the tundra to search.
In short order he had found his target. A chunk of hull half the size of a card table lay, half submerged in the frozen ground. The edges of the jagged piece were burned and melted, showing signs of damage upon falling into the planet's atmosphere from orbit. From the thickness, it was likely from a shuttle or similar sized craft. In Ferengi script, the letters "ASTE" were emblazond across what would have been the exterior side of the piece.
His tricorder in one hand, he reached for the piece of hull with the other, hoping to see if it was moblie enough to uproot. As he reached towards it, the cliking of his tricorder began to speed up. He looked down to see the seconds on the tricorder's chronometer begin to click past faster and faster. He immediately pulled his hand away and took several steps back.
Maybe he couldn't take the piece. He certainly knew he didn't want to stick around long enough to find out. But with the scans from his tricorder and the letters from the piece of hull, he had a new lead, and quickly returned to the runabout, leaving the stricken planet alpha mensae to its fate.
OFF:
NPC's played by
Kaia
Civilian
Owner of Xenogy Survey Services
Deep Space 5
"No plan, no technology, is so perfect as to truly be idiot proof."
by Arrival Kaia
Post Details
| Title | Tip of the Iceberg: Part 5 - Visiting Alpha Mensae | |
| Mission | Things Past | |
| Author(s) | Arrival Kaia | |
| Posted | Mon May 23, 2011 @ 7:46pm | |
| Location | Alpha Mensae, Neutral Zone | |
| Timeline | Backpost (Interlude) |
The runabout quietly glided along at warp, the dark windows flickering to life as automated functions brought systems back online. Inside, an alarmclock sounded, announcing the arrival of the runabout to the destination of the pre-programmed flight path.
Crewman Jennings lifted himself out of bed and deactivated the alarm. A while later he entered the cockpit with a cup of coffee and sat in the pilot's chair. The warp drives disengaged and presented him with a view of a hazy blue-green planet. The sight suddenly gripped him with a sense of unease, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The planet's magnetosphere was highly unstable, dozens of sensor ghosts played with his readings, and everywhere there was some sort of chronometric interference.
Jennings was suddenly very uneasy about having come on this trip alone. He didn'tconsider himself a superstitious man, but this place goaded one's imagination into its own places of fear. THere was something WRONG with this place. You could just FEEL it. It was not a pensive sensation; not like walking through a grave yard back on earth. The crewman hadn't even entered the atmosphere, yet it almost felt like the corners and shadows were reaching out, watching, whispering to join them at the back of his mind. It was obvious now why the Romulan Diplomat had "advised againt spending long periods of time here."
Something bad happened here.
He maneuvered the runabout into and orbital flight path and began a superficial scan of the surface. He held his cup of coffee up while the computer compiled the sensor data, but the crewman didn't drink. His eyes couldn't pull away from the blue haze of the planet's surface. That haze was not original to the world, but resultant from whatever cataclysm had claimed this place. He wasn't an astrogeologist, but he was pretty sure the Romulan Diplomat's story about an axis shift was bunk, or incomplete at best.
The runabout was not equiped with sensers to perform deeper scans of the planet, as it was one of the terms of his receiving permission from th eRomulans to visit this place at all. He might have been able to pull some strings, but he half expected a Romulan warbird to be stalking him this whole trip. He wasn't ready to risk his life or a diplomatic incident over this.
He had thought about that, though. How far down this rabbit hole was he willing to go? Was there information out here worth hiding? Worth dying for? He didn't even know that much. He had no evidence to support anything, but his searches for information had uncovered suspiciously correspondent holes in the record. Kaia's blank slate of a record, the Federation's alterd historic records, Natrina's waffling, the Romulan's cover stories, all of it was begining to spook the conspiracy theorist in him.
HIs attention was brought back to the present as the console beeped its completion of the scan. Sesnor ghosts clogged the readings, Ships that weren't in orbit, phaser fire on the surface, it was difficult to figure out if anything the sensors found on the surface were actually real.
With a bit of parsing, and a reheating of his cup of coffee, Jennings did sort through the sensor readings and noticed that two of the sensor ghosts were being oddly consistent. A sensor ghost on one of the planet's major continents consistently appeard as a stone construction, one minute a large stone temple, the next minute sensors read it as a debris field. the next some kind of incomplete construction.
The second cosistency he noticed was near one of the planet's magnetic poles. Sensors indicated a piece of advanced alloy of some sort, sometimes in the form of a crate, sometimes taking the form of a large ship. The sensor readings were never clear except, as with the stone, the consistant type of material.
The stone reading was closer, so he figured he try that one first and set a course. A flyby of the area didn't reveal any significant structures. The haze of the Class L atmostphere reduced long range visibility and settled in low points and valleys like a fog. Still, his view of the ground was clear enough to reveal its karst topography, with few decent landing zones. Using the phasers on the runabout, he cleared a small area of foliage and touched down.
Though Type L planets were technically breathable for short periods, the eerieness of this place had set him on edge. He climed into an environmental suit and started out on foot. He was alone with only his breath echoing in his ears. His tricorder picked up sensor ghosts everywhere, just like the sensors of the runabout. The only constant reading was the contour of the ground.
For hours he trapsed around, taking readings wherever his tricorder could get a fix. He returned, worn out and discouraged from having found no evidence of stone construction. He had spotted the odd bit of pulverized concrete, but that could potentially be natural. To check, he uploaded his tricorder readings to the runabouts computer and brought up a composite 3D image of the area he had scanned.
Immediately a pattern caught his eye. The Ships sensors hadn't seen it from orbit through all the ghosts, but his security case studies from the academy had taught him well. This area wasn't naturally like this. The rough terrain was the result of a heavy orbital bombardment.
If that was true, no wonder the Romulans didn't want him snooping about with a survey team. He had landed in the middle of a scorched earth policy. His study of th escans brought his attention to something else, something that worried him even more. The chronometer of his tricorder was inconsitsant with that of the ship by almost a minute. A quick diagnostic revealed no technical faults, but he remembered the chronometric background radiation and hurried to take off.
He quickly flew to the location of the metallic ghost. His hands began to shake. He wasn't a scientist, but he had never heard ANY good stories involving chronometric radiation. As he got closer, the sensor ghost solidified into an actual contact. He breathed a sigh of relief at presence of something solid, and flew to the location, again suiting up and heading out onto the tundra to search.
In short order he had found his target. A chunk of hull half the size of a card table lay, half submerged in the frozen ground. The edges of the jagged piece were burned and melted, showing signs of damage upon falling into the planet's atmosphere from orbit. From the thickness, it was likely from a shuttle or similar sized craft. In Ferengi script, the letters "ASTE" were emblazond across what would have been the exterior side of the piece.
His tricorder in one hand, he reached for the piece of hull with the other, hoping to see if it was moblie enough to uproot. As he reached towards it, the cliking of his tricorder began to speed up. He looked down to see the seconds on the tricorder's chronometer begin to click past faster and faster. He immediately pulled his hand away and took several steps back.
Maybe he couldn't take the piece. He certainly knew he didn't want to stick around long enough to find out. But with the scans from his tricorder and the letters from the piece of hull, he had a new lead, and quickly returned to the runabout, leaving the stricken planet alpha mensae to its fate.
OFF:
NPC's played by
Kaia
Civilian
Owner of Xenogy Survey Services
Deep Space 5
"No plan, no technology, is so perfect as to truly be idiot proof."