To Boldly Roll The (Mis)Adventures of the USS Potemkin

Saturday 26 June 2021 – 1800hrs ~ 2100hrs GMT

Lieutenant Commander Ezekiel “Zeke” Pride Flight Controller
Lieutenant Elli-Navine Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Alexander Artopolis Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Scott McIntyre Chief Tactical/Security Officer

Podcast: To Boldly Roll The (Mis)Adventures of the USS Potemkin

(this report 1281 words)
TBR#013 = 77mins ~4,620 wds

Still undergoing repairs, the Potemkin is continuing to investigate the moon they orbit above, and the wider Jovian system around them. Captain Pax calls his ‘favourite’ away team to the briefing room. The have detected an object of interest using the visual sensors… telescope! One that is within a clearing which is, strangely obscured from their standard scans, it is an artificial structure and that alone is enough for Toron to send the away team down to get a closer look. This time though, he isn’t going to send them down without back up, he tells them to take the USS Angeles, their sole Delta Flyer.

As Pride brings the Flyer in to land, they get a good look at the structure. A pyramid made from four corners with a hollowed-out sphere in the centre. They land a few dozen meters from it and start their close-range scans. Being slow close their scans can cut through the interference, sensor obscuring natural materials within the structure and the surround bedrock. They discover a nuclear reaction taking place below the surface. Harmless to them above ground but it is a strong reaction, a lot of harmful radiation.

Maybe remembering their last encounter with nuclear fusion, they quickly decided that their will take environmental suits. Thus, taking no chances they disembark the runabout and make a beeline for the structure, scans suggest its age being in the thousands, but it is featureless, no markings or writing anywhere that they can see. At ground level in the spheric void, just off centre is a plinth standing about level. A square surface with large square buttons, each with engraved characters sat atop the plinth.

McIntyre and Elli worked their code breaking magic and were able to activate the sequence needed to activate… well they were not sure but the sound of rock grinding against rock and a high-pitched squeal drew their attention just in time to see Pride disappear in a flash of light and four stone rings descend and the floor become featureless once more.

Hurried attempts were made to contact the Commander but only static returned. Meme is called forth, as the only member of the away team that could handle… well pretty much everything she was place in the same spot as Pride had been and the sequence was inputted once more. She disappeared, her return indicated that there was a way to return from… wherever and she confirmed that Pride was indeed alive and well.

They would leave a few officers above; in case anything went wrong, and the away team descended. The device showed many of the same characteristics as a Starfleet transporter, only it seemed both more advanced in some respects and less so in others. Pride watched as a pulse of bright blueish light embittered from the extremely high roof above him down to a newly reappeared set of 4 rings.

Pride has been in the dark, only his flashlight the only source of illumination. As the rest of the away team arrived, they found themselves within a large room that mirrored the architecture of the structure above them. Four doors set into each of the four walls hinted at a larger structure then first imagined. Two, on the east and west walls lead to long corridors with smaller rooms. The south wall leads back and them down in a spiral towards the source of the radiation. The North door lead into a corridor that stretched for 2 miles to a room easily the size of the Potemkin’s flight deck.

East and West were identical. Both had a few dozen smaller rooms, big enough for two humanoids to share. They were personal quarters, long since abandoned but with enough personal items left to gather a picture of what life was like. There were no remains, and the search was mostly fruitless, they moved on quickly. Before going to see where the long tunnel led, they decided to check on the reactor below them. Their tricorders showed that even this close there wasn’t much radiation, little higher than normal background. That, however, changed the moment they opened the door, a flood of Alpha and Beta particles flowed though the doorway, as they decided they could see the nuclear glow becoming brighter, looking over the edge of the catwalk they saw that it was a pile of glowing matter, around the edges were tree trunk sized rods of carbon… charcoal treen trunks in fact, used a control rods of a naturally accruing nuclear fusion process. Only a handful of these had ever been observed! They took plenty of scans, and saw, also around the body of the reaction were thousands of skeletal remains.

Getting a closer look was impractical, but they were able to take scans. They were humanoid and the Doctor thought they were intelligent based on the size of their skulls. They were most likely the buried remains of the inhabitants of this small outpost.

Heeding the warning from their suits the away team left the chamber. Again, they find themselves more of a vanguard than an exploration team. Another, more specialised unit would be deployed to study this place in more depth. For now, the away team had one more door to explore. The walk was long, but far from difficult. The tunnel they followed was cool and level. Made by hand they could see the tool marks, but it was also a very fine finish.

The found themselves in a single room of truly vast scales, and clearly a hanger. Parked down either side were runabout sized vessels. A quick detour to the control room, located up on the wall above the door, where they find the ‘light’ switch Pride quickly make his way to the nearest of the ships. The moment he enters the code to open the hatch the ship awakes, turning lights and control on. It is comparable to a Fleet Runabout in size. The inside housing small bunkrooms, a general R&R area, transporters, a tiny engine room with a matter/anti-matter reactor, a small medical bay and a cockpit.

In the control room The Doctor finds the button that opens the hanger doors, only he was not expecting it to open the roof, centuries of soil pour into the hang as the doors slide open. Gaining permission from the Potemkin Pride and the away team take the shuttle for a test flight.

No FTL drive and no reaction drives. This ship used a version of the Alcubierre drive, it ‘shrank’ space before it and ‘expanded’ space behind it, like going downhill. Or like a Mag train. Either way the vessel’s speed was restricted by how much power could be pumped into the drive. With its current generator it could reach just over the speed of the Potemkin at Full impulse but would reach that speed in just a few seconds.

Finding a random bunch of space rocks Pride and McIntyre test the ships weapons. Pure unrestricted laser weapons, X-Ray based and a weapon the crew nicked named a Force cannon. They preformed very well, destroying the rock with just a shot from each weapon system. The down side was no shields, the ship didn’t have any shields so all shots to impact the hull, the upside was that this hull was semi-organic and would sense the impact and strength the hull at that point, it also absorbed the directed energy leaving only the physical impact. All in all this small ship was a powerful addition to the Potemkin. They were only allowed to keep one though, the rest were shipped up to the USS Manticore to return back to Earth for further study.