A world with a bluer sun pt.2
Saturday 27 March 2021 – 1800hrs ~ 2100hrs GMT
Commander Kenneth Mikhael – Executive Officer
Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride – Flight Controller
Lieutenant Elli-Navine – Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis – Chief Medical Officer
Podcast: To Boldly Roll The (Mis)Adventures of the USS Potemkin
Lieutenant Elli-Navine made a beeline for the engine room for the Earthship Atlantis to try and assess the situation. Striding like she owned the place she started assessing the ships systems, and what she discovered was, well it was not good that’s for sure. Most of the primary systems were offline, while others were hardly working. The biggest surprise was that the matter anti-matter reaction… AKA Warp core, had been modified into a missile.
Meanwhile, on at the transporter room the Commander Kenneth Mikhael was using his newly patented ‘mental detector’ to clear each of the surviving Atlantis Crew for transport, making sure none of them were the alien that had been causing such a problem. At least that’s the situation that the Atlantis XO have painted for our intrepid crew. Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis was checking and sorting the wounded for transport, making sure their medical staff back aboard the USS Potemkin were forewarned of any possible complications.
Back in the engine room, Lieutenant Elli-Navine is approached by a nervous looking ensign in sciences blue. The young women draws the suspicious chief out the way and confides in her that she is the alien that the crew is looking for. Moreover, the alien says that the gravity well is being generated by a malfunctioning, experimental gravity drive aboard her ship. But the bombs keep dropping, the wormhole, while also an accident links two universes together and the alien stood before Elli-Navine wearing a cute, yet scared human suit is from another universe!
But being the best officer, she could Lieutenant Elli-Navine takes all this within her stride and calls for her fellow officers to try and fix the problem. Ensign Lou Mendola, the alien says that she is trying to modify the warp core of the Atlantis into an interphasic explosive powerful enough to destroy her ship and close the wormhole. The problem being that the core will not survive the powerful gravity long enough to get close.
Putting heads together the crew come up with a solution, they would expand the shields of the Potemkin around the poor Atlantis and using remote piloting Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride would take the ship to within explosive range of the alien ship. There was no other choice, the ships torpedoes, while powerful wouldn’t do the job; plus, it would take too long to modify them. So, with everyone beamed away from the Atlantis Zeke daftly pilots the old ship towards the centre of the ever-expanding gravity well. Long seconds seemed to stretch into hours, but mere seconds later the ship is buffered like a ship on the ocean. The gravity well dissipates in an instant and the unstable wormhole stabilizes. Commander Kenneth Mikhael orders scans, the wormhole is stable but slowly shrinking, as though someone, or something was slowly dialling down the power so it would close carefully.
Lou expresses the desire to go home, yet her ship was destroyed. Someone suggests giving Lou a shuttlepod, they could surely spare a type-15 shuttlepod. The Captain considered it; it would be cruel to keep her here when there was a way to return her. Plus, a good faith gesture might one day lead to a proper first contact. It was decided, fair wells were short, and she fly off in the small craft.
Sensors penetrated through the wormhole for a moment as the shuttle crossed the event horizon, another ship was on the far end waiting.
Forests of the Night pt.1
Saturday 27 March 2021 – 1800hrs ~ 2100hrs GMT
Commander Kenneth Mikhael – Executive Officer
Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride – Flight Controller
Lieutenant Elli-Navine – Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis – Chief Medical Officer
Podcast: To Boldly Roll The (Mis)Adventures of the USS Potemkin
A week after their encounter with the Romulan war Era Atlantis the crew of the Potemkin had been speeding their way to unexplored space. Nothing beyond standard duty had happened during the week. Their sensors detect the 60-year-old shock front of a super nova. Even more interesting is a clear metallic object, 2.5km across and drifting through space at 29,979,245.8 meters a second…
For those who do not want to do the maths that’s a 10th the speed of light… bleeding quick!
This alone should be a reason to investigate, however the ship/object is also on a course that would put it into a very low orbit around a giant red star, an old star that has expanded millions of kilometres. What’s worse is that the object’s orbit is unlikely to be stable and will probably result in it falling to the surface.
Dropping back to normal space the USS Potemkin is forced to push their engines to maximum to catch up with the object, which they now confirm is a ship, albeit one without warp drive. Scans show that there are many life sign readings, but nothing as distinct enough to pin down any individuals. The ship has taken damage from one of the many unusual Ion storms that frequent the area leaving the surface of the hull ionized.
A debate arises to the amount of help they can render and not be in breach of General Order 1, the Prime Directive. The ship clearly does not have warp engines, meaning, from this evidence this species doesn’t check any of the boxes for first contact, however the ship is on a course that would destroy it and everything/one aboard.
The Captain make the choice, they will board the alien ship with hide protocol, meaning the crew will wear the cloaking suits that are used to observe pre-warp cultures. It is a sound plan and a shuttle is chosen as the means of transport given the unknown nature of the ship and the proximity to the star and the hull ionization making transport very difficult.
The Type 11 shuttlecraft finds a pair of massive doors, with a large void or room beyond these are clearly shuttle doors. But they are closed and unpowered, that’s fine coz Lieutenant Elli-Navine uses the shuttles main deflector to start a power transfer which powers the doors. An automated process aboard the alien ship opened the doors and Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride glides the big shuttle in through the airlock with grace, touching down so gently his passengers didn’t even feel it.
Navigating only by their HUD’s the away team found themselves in the centre of the ship, a massive forest bathed in a gentle blue light. They were detecting a power source at the centre, but their tricorders were still unable to pinpoint a crew, if there was one. They made their way through the woodland, all was goin well until Doctor Artopolis felt something grab at his leg, with the reactions that would make a pilot jealous the good doctor jumped back out of reach, just in time! On the ground a long vine like appendage darted back into the ground. Oh the scans, all the scans were conducted at this point, many many scans. It was discovered that the vine belonged to a plant, that seemed to connected in a massive root network with hundreds of other plants.
It would seem that this forest was guarded, but they moved on, keeping an eye on and out for anything else that might try and eat them. No one wanted to go down in history as being eaten by a plant after all!
Before long they find themselves near the centre, a waterfall covers the entrance of cave, in which, their scans show is the source of the power they are detecting. They waste no time in getting in there, after all if they can end their away mission quickly there is less chance of being eaten!
‘Someone sighs’ They manage to trip something, a sensor maybe but they are quickly set upon but some decidedly ‘60s looking guard robots, some flying, one walking all humanoid and all not appearing to appreciate the intrusion of the away team… “But wait” I hear you cry “The away team is cloaked. How can they be seen?” Well this is a good question, and one that the away team is bound to ask at some point… I guess!