JP: Captain Karrod Niac, Commander Toryn Raga, Lt. Commander Marty Tucker, Lt. Commander Ian O’Connor, Ensign Jino Esot, and Lt. Commander V’Len Kel - Doubt thou the stars are fire Part 1 of 2.
Don K
((Ready Room, Deck 3, USS Ronin))
Kel: =/\= Log entry, Lieutenant Commander V'Len Kel, Acting CO, Stardate 240101.09. It's been two weeks since Fleet Captain Niac and Commander Raga departed the Ronin for an important meeting at Starfleet headquarters. No doubt further debrief on our recent experiences with the Consortium. In the meantime, I have been placed in temporary command of the Ronin. I've selected Lt. Commander Tucker to be my executive officer. He's been on the Ronin from the start and is well liked by the crew. =/\=
V'Len rose and walked over to the large windows of the Ready Room. He was still getting used to occupying the space, but he had managed to fit all the padds in one drawer out of site.
Kel: =/\= While in Command, the Ronin has been ordered to map several systems in the Alpha Isles. Happily they are well away from Lattice Alliance, Tholian and Sheliak space. So far all has been quiet. =/\=
oO I probably just jinxed it. Oo
Kel: =/\= End Log. =/\=
A small tone sounded letting him know that his words were no longer being dictated. The stars whisked by but abruptly turned to dots as the Ronin decelerated from warp speed. V'Len turned to head out the door and onto the bridge.
((Bridge, Deck 3, USS Ronin))
V'Len entered the bridge and glanced around. O'Connor was at the helm, moving the Ronin further into another system for survey. Marty Tucker was sitting in the XO seat while the new Assistant Ops Manager, Ensign Jino Esot, was setting up the sensors at the science station.
Marty looked up to see that Kel had joined them on the bridge; it was still sinking into Marty that he was currently the Ronin’s XO, even if it was temporary. He’d never spent this much time on the bridge for sure. He did have his bridge rotation, like all the senior officers. Just that Marty’s shift in the center seat was usually the Delta shift, and nothing happens on the Delta shift.
Kel: Report? Have we arrived at the Ross-580 system?
O'Connor: Just pulling us in. At least I think this is Ross-580. After Ross-547 through 579, they’ve started to blend together.
Truth is, Ian was bored out of his mind, which is generally not a good thing for a helm officer. Marty shifted in his seat. He wasn’t sure how Raga sat in the thing regularly. Smiling to himself, he jotted down some notes on his padd about looking into seat maintenance.
Despite O’Connors take on the situation V’Len was happy for the boredom. He had never commanded a vessel long term and his wish was to return the Ronin to Niac is the same condition he’d received it in.
Marty looked over at Ian, whom he’d grown closer to over shore leave, even if it was forced on them from a maniacal captain, who takes pleasure in such things. He looked bored to tears; Tuck was pretty sure most of the bridge felt the same way.
Tucker: ::look at his console next to the XO’s chair:: I’m with O’Connor, they’re blending, find it interesting that the Skipper and XO got to get off the ship for this mission, though it’s nice to do what we were really meant to do. We’re not fighting, we’re not rescuing, we’re just mapping and exploring, like we’re supposed to do.
Jino Esot was a transfer from Endicronimas, stationed on The Farm originally to help treat those suffering from maladies related to quantum mechanics - patients whose superposition remained in multiple states despite being measured, for example, which led to some interesting, if horrific, body deformities - and those that seemed to defy the laws of physics, at least as they were currently known.
Her Cardassian heritage had made her uniquely capable of stomaching these oddities, as they were 'small potatoes', as her human compatriots might put it, compared to what Cardassia had achieved during the Occupation and Dominion War. She had been born in 2354, by the Federation's calendar, and had been thoroughly entrenched in the propaganda spouted by the Cardassian Central Command and the Obsidian Order, though she had proven exceptionally resistant to their typical brainwashing techniques. She had also been one of the lucky few to find refuge away from Cardassia Prime near the end of the Dominion War.
She glanced over her shoulder to peer at the main viewscreen, allowing her console a moment to process the most recent sensor scans that had become available, but so far had nothing to report.
V'Len pulled his shirt tight and then seated himself in the command chair. It felt more natural than the ready room, given his experience on the Centris.
Kel: ::quietly to Marty:: I'm hoping this system is as quiet as the last one.
O'Connor: ::overhearing anyway, he turned around and smiled at Kel:: …and the one before that and the one before that and…
Tucker: Amen to that, Skipper.
Marty figured another snooze fest would be nice, even though they were bored out of their collective skulls. Poker nights up to two nights a week since the mission started, not that the interim XO would know those kinds of things. Plus, it would give engineering time to complete the hardware updates to the transporters, which caused a lot of waiting when it came to ship-to-surface beaming.
But they got the kinks worked out, and everything should be up and running. And he was surprised that the ship accepted something new, including programming. If the Ronin’s computer didn't like it, it didn’t get installed. They were supposed to upgrade to the holo-consoles and similar systems like the OEB, but the Ronin’s computer refused to update.
The ol’ girl had a temper.
Esot: Long-range sensors are still functioning at a reduced capacity - I've been working with Commander Tucker's engineering teams to restore full functionality, but they've been having trouble isolating the source of the problem. In the meantime, I have been able to boost our short-range sensors to double their range, but if we continue pushing them at this level, we risk burning them out entirely. We should-
V'Len squinted at the viewscreen. There was something odd. It was as if a small lightning storm was forming just ahead of them, and growing.
Her console chirruped, interrupting her train of thought and drawing her attention away from the report. Cold, calculating blue eyes narrowed slightly as the computer began spitting out new information - the storm that Kel had seen was just on the edge of their sensor range now.
Kel: ::concerned:: What is that?
Ian squinted as well and tensed in his seat. He wasn’t bored anymore. Readings at his station spiked wildly, it was different from anything he’d seen before. He couldn’t tell if it was a natural phenomenon or something else.
O'Connor: That, Commander, is something not good. ::Ian looked over at Esot at the science station:: Ensign, what can you tell us about that?
Slim, gray fingers danced across the console, her lips pulling into a thin line.
Esot: Not much at the moment - though I can tell you whatever it is, isn't natural. Or at least, it doesn't look like any storm I've ever seen, not in deep space. The closest the computer can find is… a geomagnetic storm. That would explain the aurora effect on the outer edges. If it is a geomagnetic storm, it will likely disrupt our navigation system if we get too close.
Tucker: Well, that’s not good, it’s a geomagnetic storm, but it’s really not.
O’Connor: Several swear words come to mind
Kel: ::leaning towards the screen:: Let’s hold off on the colorful metaphors for the moment. Let’s approach with caution, half impulse.
His feeling is that they weren’t going to get very close before everything started going wonky. Marty had seen plenty of spatial storms, some simulated, some not. And they were rough, but they could get right up close without harming the sensor arrays. Not mention it might mess with the warp core and maybe not be able to form a stable warp bubble.
Tucker: :: concerned:: I’d like to get as close as we can without compromising things like the ability to form a warp bubble, just in case we need out in a hurry.
The Cardassian allowed herself a slight smirk and rolled her eyes upward thoughtfully.
Esot: While it may sound counterintuitive based on the warning I just gave, I would suggest we should fly closer. Or at least launch a probe, if we don't want to risk it. The storm had to originate somewhere, and I should be able to calculate its trajectory and origin with better readings.
Marty had to agree with the Ensign, get close enough or launch a probe, the problem would be receiving telemetry once it was inside the phenomenon. But he was no science geek, he was a grease monkey.
Tucker: How close can we get, Ensign?
Her lips parted, though her reply caught on her lips when O'Connor spoke up.
O'Connor: I don’t think getting in will be the issue. Getting ouT well…::He turned and shrugged his shoulders at Marty.
V’Len found himself torn. Experience from his previous hosts told him to dive in come what may. His own cautious nature told him to back off and launch probes, keeping the Ronin safe until more data was available. He never got to make the decision.
Out in the space before then the small storm grew several orders of magnitude and erupted in several shades of color. V’Len stood up.
Tumbling toward them from the center of the storm was an object. It was not clear what it was but light blue lines and red dots suggested a vessel.
Kel: Shields!
Marty’s hands flew over the console that was the armrest of the chair, bringing shields online. When he’d pulled Delta shift bridge rotation, he always sat in the XO seat; it didn’t feel right to sit in the center chair. So he was familiar with the controls.
Tucker: It’s fourteen kilometers and closing. It's…::turning to Esot::..is that what I think it is, Ensign?
[TBC]
===============================
Fleet Captain Karrod Niac
(Former) Commanding Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
V239509GT0
&
Lieutenant Commander Marty Tucker
Chief Of Engineering/Acting Executive Officer
USS Ronin NCC-34523
Capt. Karrod Niac Commanding
D240008MT1
&
Lieutenant Commander V'Len Kel
Acting-Captain
Chief Science Officer/Second Officer
USS Ronin NCC-34523
T239811VK2
He/Him (player/character)
&
Ensign Jino Esot (PNPC)
Science Officer
USS Ronin NCC-34523
A238810SA0
As written by Quentin Beck
&
Lieutenant Commander Ian O’Connor
HCO
USS Ronin NCC-34523
R240009IO4
&
Commander Toryn Raga
First Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
Writer ID: A239410TR0
https://wiki.starbase118.net/wiki/index.php?title=Toryn_Raga