Lt. JG T’Fearne - Shuttlecraft Down
Teayl Thorn
((Stellar Cartography, Deck 10, USS Ronin))
Stellar Cartography rose through two decks, its curved platforms and consoles built to accommodate three-dimensional data. Suspended above a holo-pit, taking up two decks' worth of dimension was a glittering, fractured display. A debris field rendered in cold blue and amber light, each fragment tagged with annotations. Pieces of hull, engine components, a fragment of a transporter unit and… biological remnants were displayed in relation to one another and a spatial anomaly seemingly drifting to one side. Warning markers bloomed and collapsed along the edges of the field like bubbles forming and fading beneath the water's surface.
T’Fearne stood with her dark boots braced shoulder-width apart, chin lifted as she studied the hologram suspended above the holo-pit.
For most officers, it was a debris field. For the Vulcazoid security officer, it was a crime scene. Her Captain and First Officer had been in the Kurosawa when it exploded, and both were presumed dead, their bodies vaporised by the blast. The debris field and explosion played out above her, with the anomaly drifting close by.
A muscle in her jaw flexed as she recalled General Order 15.
oO No officer of flag rank may travel into a potentially hazardous area without a suitable armed escort. Oo
Both officers had been formidable in their own right, and together with the Niac symbiote, they had possibly 50 years of experience. What had gone so wrong that they were dead?
T’Fearne was still trying to analyse all the information flowing at her, and the other occupants of the room were unknowingly creating a distraction. A now familiar tightening at the base of her skull—a headache was forming. The atmosphere in stellar cartography felt like the emotional equivalent of standing too close to an exposed plasma conduit. Jenta had been using the bulkhead as target practice, and Dekas had been worrying her even more, his emotions flaring into sudden, intense anguish and loss before disappearing abruptly, as if he had just shut himself off. It was making it impossible for her to keep her own emotions in check!
She drew in the fifteenth steadying breath and sidled further away from the rest of them. Trying to dampen their effect and re-focus on her task. Somewhere within that shimmering hologram lay answers—about what had happened to Captain Niac, to Commander Raga, to the Kurosawa. From her perspective, it was almost starting to look like the vessel had suddenly and violently… unravelled.
One way or another, she intended to find out.
A heavy thunk echoed through the chamber as a blade bit into the bulkhead.
Dekas’ voice drifted into her awareness.
Dekas: I’m curious if the poor bulkhead did something to deserve your ire.
Solana: ::she blinked and looked over at the group:: Huh?
T’Fearne edged as far from Dekas and Jenta as she could. At least Esot was not radiating anger and despair. She seemed to be handling the situation with calm. It was a pity she was a Cardassian. T’Fearne’s earliest nightmares were of being chased through the jungles of Jalara as the Dominion forces occupied Betazed. The problem was that most of those nightmares were partial memories. She winced and tried to put her personal feelings aside. It helped that this Ensign Esot looked not much older than herself, she likely had been a child at the time of the invasion.
Esot: You're going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep up that pacing, Chief.
Behind her, Jenta snapped back toward Dekas, knives still in hand.
Solana: Well if we actually had something to do maybe I wouldn’t be pacing! ::she snapped then immediately looked apologetic:: Sorry, Counselor. I…need something to focus on. A target. Something to make pay for what happened.
Another thunk in the bulkhead.
Dekas: ::looking to the knife, and then back to her:: No apologies necessary, my friend. What’s the point of being a Chief Petty Officer if you can’t actually be petty about it sometimes? Besides… the knife spots give the Ronin character. But I’d suggest focusing on something else lest we give some poor Engineer something to, ah, bitch about later, no? I’m sure they’d just hate fixing up a wall. Although I do think a lot of Engineers truly enjoy the ability to complain. I’d know, I was one once. So I won’t fault you for giving them some environmental enrichment there. But there are other things to focus on right now, I believe?
Dekas turned to Esot.
Suddenly, Esot flashed a complex negative emotion. T’Fearne suppressed a sigh and edged away from the Cardassian, too.
Esot: The Lieutenant Commander is correct. We have the data packets that Captain Niac transmitted just before the Kurosawa's explosion, as well as a range of sensor readings of the storm itself, both before and after their untimely demise. While none of this is nearly as useful as flight logs, it at least allows us to try to better understand exactly what happened out there.
Solana: What do you mean we don’t have any logs yet? Haven’t they found the Kurosawa’s black box?
The Cardassian’s response had a slight hiss to the reply.
Esot: The odds of the black box surviving a breach of that magnitude are quite minimal. I don't hold out much hope we'll find it, though I have also been combing the logs we currently have to see if the probe we dispatched might have found it before being whisked away.
T’Fearne: They haven’t sent confirmation from the flight deck yet. They must still be looking, Senior Chief.
She deliberately used the woman’s title, hoping it would anchor her to the tasks at hand.
Jenta ripped the knife from the wall and slapped her comm.
Solana: Stellar Cartography to Flight Deck. What the Hell is taking so long with that black box?!
Singh: =/\= Check that tone, Senior Chief, this is not the time to lose your head. You are not the only one on this ship hurting right now, and junior personnel are going to look to your example. ::Ishani took a breath and some of the bite out of her voice.:: Now...let us begin again.=/\=
The sickening swing of emotion between anger and denial cut off abruptly as though the emotions had been squashed. It gave her more room to breathe, but the cut off had been so abrupt and deliberate that she glanced over to see if Dekas was still in the room. And with the reduction in Solana’s tension, the emotionally volatile storm brewing like a second holo anomaly in the room eased. Everybody was calming down.
Solana: =/\= Sorry, Major. I just….need a target. You say you haven’t located it yet? We have the current area displayed with an overlay of the Kurosawa’s final moments. We should be able to use that to extrapolate the most likely position of the black box based on the sensor logs during the explosion. Just like Security forensics. =/\=
T’Fearne nodded to Jenta and gestured to Esot and herself as if to say “we are already working on it!”.
The forensic side wasn’t particularly her area of expertise; that would fall more under ops' purview, and Esot was clearly already working on it, but she could assist with her own threat analysis and extrapolations.
Something Jenta said gave her another idea. This was something she could do with the unusual combination of Pilotting and Security training, she could analyse the flight data and try to figure out where they had come from. There were things about this situation that weren’t adding up. She felt her own emotions steady and belatedly realised she, like everyone else in the room, needed a task, a way to help, to be of service to help keep the anger and grief at bay.
Singh: =/\= That is correct. Sensors, both internal and external, are being severely limited by some kind of interference. We have resorted to examining the debris by hand until we find the data recorder, and I intend to instruct the recovery runabouts to begin salvaging anything...everything...bigger than a bolt. If we can't trust our instruments, we'll have to do this the hard way. We'll find it...=/\=
There was a deep, shaky breath on the line.
Singh: =/\= We will find out what took them from us, Jenta. I promise you that. Till then...do your duty and save your feelings for the Counselors. We have too much work to do. Singh out. =/\=
Dekas: ::to Solana, though it extended also to everyone in the room:: I would suggest waiting until after this to seek out a counselor officially. Though I am here if you need someone colorful enough to look at and put you back in the room with us.
As the emotional pressure eased, T’Fearne stepped closer to the others.
T’Fearne: Noted and appreciated, Counsellor, I’ll do that. ::to Jenta, quieter:: If they came to warn us or save us from something, then they gave us their tomorrows, Chief. They need us at our best to figure out what their last acts meant…and to bring them justice. :: glancing meaningfully at the knifes:: If it comes to that, keep them sharp, don’t waste it on the bulkhead.
She gently touched the other woman's shoulder in solidarity and turned back to the console.
Solana: Response
Dekas: Esot, you were on the bridge when it happened, yes? Do you have any insight about what we’re looking for, perhaps? And T’Fearne, I imagine you know more about the security forensics. What are your suggestions there?
Esot: Unfortunately, the most I can offer is speculation - what you see here is what we have from the bridge. I have one simulation running, trying to track where the black box may have ended up, assuming it didn't remain on the ship after the explosion. Another is continually running through the storm's path, analyzing and re-analyzing every single atom as best we can. What I can tell you is, this thing defies physics. Even when it's just theoretical.
T’Fearne: ::nodding:: I have some limited training. Investigative forensics is not my specialty, but with Ops assistance, we could use forensic programs to piece together as much data as possible and run an extrapolation program to fill in gaps. I would like to work this from the other end if you approve? I’ll gather our last sighting of the Kurosawa as she left for Stafleet Headquarters. For as long as she was in sensor range. I’d like to prioritise any flightpath data, or hull readings we can retrieve, anything that can tell us where they ended up and what caused them to appear here, at the edge of system Ross 580.
Solana: Response
Esot was silent again before looking at T'Fearne, brows lifting.
Esot: There was a particular spike in chronitons as the Kurosawa erupted from the storm. Perhaps looking so close to the explosion is the wrong direction - perhaps we should follow the path back towards the storm? The eddy could have dragged it back toward whatever it is that disrupted our probe.
Dekas: Well, okay.... Let’s start there, then.
The ensign displayed what may have been meant as a reassuring smile.
Esot: It's as good a place as any.
T’Fearne: Very well, you look backwards, and I’ll start from the other end and see if we can't meet in the middle with some helpful intel.
She turned back to her gathering and analysis.
Solana/Dekas: Response
Esot: Computer, is it possible to enhance what we're seeing here?
Computer: Enhancing.
Glancing up, T’Fearne focused of the image for a moment, but didn’t immediately register anything of note.
Solana/Dekas: Response
Esot: ::sighing:: The logs are just too limited to see inside the hole the Kurosawa left behind, but what we can see is that the ship was trailing debris. That lends credence to the idea that perhaps the black box is just a bit further away than we are looking now.
T’Fearne: It appears to have been either a rough ride or they were severely damaged before they came through. Maybe it was missing before they came through. The recordings of their last transmission might have some details.
Solana/Dekas: Response
Esot: If we can get the sensors back up and running again, absolutely. If we can't… dispatching a small craft to scan the storm would be the next best thing. Only assuming they don't mind flying into what might be a death trap.
T’Fearne: It sounds like you just volunteered for a closer look, Ensign.
Solana/Dekas: Response
The Cardassian indicated the damaged data core lying on the primary console.
Esot: We might be able to get something from that, as well, assuming we can break into it. The damage is extensive and prevents anyone from opening it manually.
T’Fearne: Would about two thousand kelvin do it? I believe the chief has a tool for that. :: Looking to Jenta:: Are those the originals or the modified ones, Chief? I’ve seen you handle maintenance and checks on torpedo ordnance with ease, as if it were in your sleep. Perhaps you could assist with the core?
Solana/Dekas/Esot: Response
T’Fearne: So far I have a work-in-progress theory with several glaring holes. The Kurosawa seemed to have already reached Starfleet Headquarters, discovered something catastrophic, and somehow came back to warn us. Linguistic analysis and extrapolation of their final transmission suggest a warning not to enter Ross 580. Possibly…even that the federation has fallen. The timeline just doesn’t add up—and that worries me most. We haven’t received any reports or sub-space warnings of a catastrophic event. Also, it’s only been two weeks since the Kurosawa left. It took me three weeks to travel from the Academy to DS33, where the Ronin picked me up. Even with the direct route and better speed than the several shuttle hops to different spaceports to get to the Alpha Isles, there hasn’t been enough time for anything to happen. So, how have they had time to arrive even? What has happened to send them to us? What does anything have to do with Ross 580?
She paused, ran out of breath and deflated that her theory had devolved into more holes than substance.
Solana/Dekas/Esot: Response
T’Fearne: I think Esot was right. We need to go have a closer look. :: Looking to Dekas:: Commander, permission to take a team to approach the anomaly. I know there are crews out there collecting debris, and we can set a secondary objective to follow the extrapolated black-box trajectories, but to get more answers, we need a closer look…With full precautions, transporter locks on us at all times. Esot has bravely already volunteered.
She passed her own dark-eyed grin at the Cardassian woman, more vulpine than reptile.
Solana/Dekas/Esot: Response
Just then, some fresh data from the Flight Deck poured into their observation feeds. The black Box had been found, but a rescue operation may now be required as one of the shuttles, the Shinano had disappeared.
T’Fearne raised a Vulcanoid brow at the Lt. Commander.
[Tags / TBC]
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Security Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
R240107T14