Following The Echoes

Posted on Sat Jan 16th, 2021 @ 12:30pm by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Lieutenant Aurelius Davis & Lieutenant Samantha Leyton & Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine & Ensign Elegy Nascimento

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: Deck A - Bridge
Timeline: Day 160 Year 1 16:00
1127 words - 2.3 OF Standard Post Measure

It was a quiet day as they had all been in the last two months since they had parted ways with the Vrav. It was how the now Captain wanted her ship, they had, had no issues other than the planet they had stopped at for some supplies where a few crew members had gone a little wild being off the ship but it had all sorted themselves out in the end. The whole crew was less anxiety ridden which was doing morale and medical a world of good in her opinion from her last check-in.

Beth sat in the chair writing on the PADD she carried everywhere listening to the familiar conversation and bridge sounds. It was nice to be surrounded by the familiarity and feel safe that nothing was following them.

Aurelius suddenly let out a great big yawn, complete with a loud sound that probably made some people look his way, if not jump. It wasn't that he hadn't been getting enough sleep although some nights it was difficult to drift off. It was just that things were so quiet and he'd been staring at a screen for an hour doing a bit of educating himself about psychology and stuff he might use in his new job.

"--only saying coffee beans cultivated from Vega Colony are superior from a chemical perspective," said Elegy Nascimento, rambling on. The Ensign was standing behind the science console, keeping one eye on the short-range sensor display and holding his left hand on the haptic feedback for the long-range sensors. On this shift, he was wearing his glasses with the embedded speech-to-text software. As quiet as the bridge was from a Starfleet perspective, all the computer feedback tones could overwhelm his cochlear implants. Elegy went on: "The biodiversity of cacao seeds on Earth has never fully recovered from late-stage capitalism and the nuclear winter..."

At the helm console, Samantha had decided to place the ship on autopilot while she ran a diagnostic on the ship's control interface. It wasn't required at the time but it helped to give her something to so. She sighed in annoyance at Aurelius' sudden yawn. "Hey, I have a question. Why are men like diapers?"

Beth finally cracked and looked over at Nascimento so at least he would be able to translate via his glasses whilst the others could hear. She took a moment to tuck her hair behind her ear as she translated in her head what she was going to say. “Which point am I to question and answer first? Why men are like la couche or why Earth has never fully recovered from late-stage capitalism and the nuclear winter?” She questioned off the bridge before she even commented on Aurelius’ big yawn.

"What did I do?" Aurelius asked, confused.

"They're full of shit but disposable," Samantha replied, chuckling before turning to face Aurelius. "You startled me with your yawn.”

He raised his eyebrows. "Sorry, I couldn't help it. Didn't get much sleep last night."

Beth stayed silent and did not answer her question at all. She had no idea how to answer the humour so it would not be worth it but she turned at Lexi muttered something from the communication console. The woman had been quiet since New Year's Eve. “You okay over there Ensign?” Beth wondered.

The small blonde turned around and shook her head. “I am picking up sounds. Words.” She said paling as she clumsily tapped the console to allow everyone to hear the words.

“French?” Beth wondered. “Safe heaven. Need help” Beth started to translate before Lexi shook her head looking confused.

“French? I hear English?” Lexi said but it keeps shifting on me.

"So do I," Aurelius said sitting up straight now and leaning toward the sound. "why would we be hearing human languages out here?"

Samantha paused, listening to the message. She could hear English. How would anything out this far know the English and French languages out here? She turned and checked her navigational sensors and nothing was coming up. Who or whatever was transmitting the message was outside of sensor range of the Atlantis.

“I hear Japanese.” A small voice piped up from the operations console making Beth look at the man stood there and smiled. She nodded at the man for his agreement that other languages were being heard.

“I do not know.” Beth frowned looking at her 2XO and shrugged. She had no idea but she was sure as hell going to find out. “Anything on scanners?” Sounds waves travelled further it could be years old but Beth hoped with the words being repeated it was close.

Samantha checked her console again. "Nothing on the navigational sensors, ma'am."

“O'Connery can you give a general direction that the signal is coming from?” Beth wondered moving back to her seat.

“Um sure, Sir,” Lexi commented flustered to be asked that. Was she going to be used as sonar to listen to the signal?

Hunched over one of the science consoles set into the bulkhead, Elegy Nascimento looked deeply into the eyepiece of the protruding scope. The scope's viewer showed him how long-range sensor scans confirmed Samantha's observation: there were no apparent points of origin for the communications transmission. No starships, no subspace amplifiers, no planets, no space stations... at least not within Atlantis' line of sight.

Stepping back from the scope, Elegy shuffled closer to the communications station. In encouragement, Elegy said, "You've got this Lexi;" saying it softly enough that only Lexi would hear. He winked at her and he turned to the freestanding science station. As he typed new commands into the sensor arrays, Elegy reported, "If our someone asking for help is beyond our long-range sensors... I'm running an echogram through the subspace antenna." --He looked to Samantha, and he glanced over his left shoulder, to Lexi-- "Should help you follow the breadcrumbs of the communications signal itself."

Lexi appreciated the man coming over to her station to encourage her when she was faltering. If it had been anywhere other than the bridge she would have teased that it was what was expected off future baby daddy genetic match ups or something just as obnoxious or teasing but she dared not encase the other senior officers thought her immature or worse it got back to Mattias. She had been denying it for fear of upsetting him but maybe she needed to own up so McManus would stoop teasing. “Thank you.” She whispered with a nervous smile as she twisted her shoulders to start listening for the sounds. “I am ready to follow the echoes.” She assured looking around and saw Beth nodding at her giving her all she needed to do to start.