Arrival and Planning

Posted on Fri Feb 5th, 2021 @ 5:37am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Major Samuel King & Lieutenant Samantha Leyton & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Ensign Elegy Nascimento

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: Deck A - Situation Room
Timeline: Day 162 Time 04:35
2020 words - 4 OF Standard Post Measure

Beth stood in the situation room looking at the scans of the ship they had finally found and smiled at the silence that was around her for once whilst she waited for the arrival of some very sleepy senior officers as the ship had been discovered hours before their watches were due to start. At least for this meeting, she was able to offer coffee unlike previous early morning meetings where they had been on rations. It was her third cup in less than an hour and she was buzzing with what she had been lucky enough to be awake to see come out of the fog for lack of a better phrase and she was excited to share.

Stepping into the situation room, the aroma of crewed coffee struck her nose, seemingly to guide her immediately to the resequencer. "Good morning, captain," she said as she pressed the buttons to order her coffee. A moment later the machine delivered and she happily grabbed the cup.

Lately sleep hadn't been the best of times for Avira, so she was almost glad to get a call that drew her from her quarters, it stopped her from going in and out of shallow sleep. It was breaking her up though, and she was more than groggy as she stepped into the room, giving the Captain a half hearted salute when doing so, "Captain."

“Doctor.” Beth greeted back with a small.

Samuel had been up at the proverbial 'crack of dawn' as he always had been. Always an early riser he had even stopped setting alarm calls as he always woke up before them, much to his annoyance. He entered the room with a cup of tea, he was nothing if not British to the core, and sat down at the end of the table. "Morning. Love an early morning roll call." he said simply.

Another officer who didn’t appear yawning and bleary-eyed was Ensign Elegy Nascimento. Lack of sleep wasn’t the cause of his discomfort, because this time of morning was somewhere in the middle of the science officer’s duty shift. Having been summoned to the situation room from the depths of the laboratory, Elegy had stopped by his quarters to grab his speech-to-text glasses, to make certain his cochlear implants didn’t miss anything. In truth, he’d also stopped to make certain his beard was still neat as well. Having arrived in the situation room, Elegy offered warm nods to his gathered crewmates, saying, “Good morning, Captain, Sirs,” as he went. The warmth in Elegy’s greetings betrayed a little uncertainty towards the end, around the time Elegy noticed that everyone else who had been called to the situation room was a senior officer. Diffidently, Elegy hung back from the plotting table, leaving space for the rest of the senior officers. Rather, Elegy took up the post at one of the monitors set into the bulkhead.

The chief engineer made his way into the room not completely awake but he had been running on fumes and taking cat naps for the past couple weeks trying to keep up with all the workload he had been dealing with. There weren't many engineers or enough engineers, it seemed like. With all the bypassing and patches that he had seen done or done himself, he was surprised that the stinking ship was still capable of flying, at least in his mindset. But in the end, he knew the handy work for himself as he had grown up looking at such things. Starfleet had standards in which were at a higher degree, but being as they weren't able to enjoy that luxury, his team had started doing things a little... more laxed. His first priority was to 'keep the boat afloat' as it were.

None of them really had a clue as to why she had summoned there to the ship, most of them would not have looked out the windows let alone if they even had windows. She smiled at the inquisitive looks, she finally felt like she had something on them all, it made her feel a little more like a commanding officer. “Well thank you all for shambling in but we have some news.” She brought up the images of the ship outside. “We have arrived at the ship. It suddenly appeared on our Starboard side." Beth admitted knowing that others would find it as unique as them.

The image of the ship amazed Samantha as her eyes studied the image and readings. "That thing is huge!"

Avira her antennae stood up in alert, a ship like that would turn the one they were on into space dust by merely looking at it funny, what would a ship like this need help with? It didn't seem damaged or in distress, not that she was an expert in such things of course, "Whoever built that thing must be compensating for something."

"Well you know what they say... big ship, little--" he was cut off by an 'ahem' from Beth as he held his hands up and stopped what he was saying with a smile.

Elegy was thankful to have already swallowed a sip of iced coffee before Samuel’s joke, or else he would have ended up laughing out a spit-take all over the plotting table. More than that, Elegy took comfort in the lighter perspectives of the other officers. To Elegy’s eyes, the segmentation of the long primary hull and the pincer protrusions looked menacing. But it was entirely possible that was a lingering emotional reaction to how they’d been hunted by the Vrav across the sector. While the senior staff reviewed the starship on the tabletop display, Elegy toyed with a side monitor to toggle through what the hull looked like through each of Atlantis’ different sensor pallets. The overall design of the starship, from a distance, almost looked like a scarab to Elegy.

Beth smiled at the reactions and the eager faces of the people that were all wanting to go there without a second thought. She really wanted to arrange it so every crew member at one point or another got a chance to stretch their legs so to speak. "It is huge. Dwarfs us easily by ten times." Beth admitted. They did not have a complete picture of the ship but that was what exploration teams were for.

Cocking his head in Beth’s direction, Elegy Nascimento had to ask, “Do they know we’re here, Captain?”

"They have not responded to replies to their distress call." Beth did not like that but Comms thanks to the excellent team they had were thinking of other ways to communicate with them if anyone was on board.

"Any signs of life at all? Besides the distress call? We could do a fly-by in one of the shuttles and see if we can look through one of the windows?" Sam said as he leant back in his chair. He hoped this was not a trap. Luring them in with the honey and snapping them in a bear trap was one of the oldest tricks in the book.

"Nope but I do want you and McArthur to do that," Beth assured quickly. It was the only logical route left for them when all forms of attempting to communicate had been exhausted.

"Sounds good, ma'am. We'll get that sorted once we are finished here." Sam replied.

At the other end of the situation room, Elegy was half-listening, but still half-toying with the sensor settings on the wall-mounted computer interface. Given how few options they had --if the mystery starship wouldn't open hailing frequencies to their friendship greetings-- Elegy supposed he should speak aloud a half-baked notion that occurred to him. "What about... the distress call itself?" Elegy asked, pausing in the middle as he assembled his thought. He looked to his superior officers and then the Captain. Elegy wondered, "Has there been any change in the content or frequency of the distress call itself since we arrived?"

Beth shook her head, sighing as her hair fell in her face, making her move back a little to tie it back with one of her precious hair bands. “Comms are saying no. Same speed, same words, same frequency but the ship had stopped. It is making me think that it is automatic if I am honest with you all here.” Beth admitted coming to the same conclusion she suspected others would come to with that statement.

Avira looked around the room before settling back on Beth, "Do we know if there's a breathable atmosphere in there? If there was a distress call, there might be wounded, if there's wounded we have an obligation to check it out. I'm capable of accompanying any MACO team that you decide to send on over," Her gaze made its way over to King, she and the Major had been working to get some of the MACOs ready for field medicine, but none of them came close to her experience and expertise in the field.

Beth smiled at the Andorian and nodded. It was a logical question one that she wished she had the answers to but the ship was not giving them many at the moment. "We do not know as some as Leyton and the others do a fly-by we shall know more but be prepared to go over in EVA suits until we know." She had not mentioned that she would be going along just yet but as someone who could speak other languages and to save the other two comms operators, she was the one going at least at first.

"So they just appeared next to us?" Chris piped up half thinking out loud. Once he had noticed that he had said it out loud, he shrugged and continued. "Sorry, but that sounds almost automated. And what about our sensors, are we able to pernitrate their hall?"

"We were following the communication and like a ship out of the fog it appeared," Beth admitted taking a deep sip of her coffee. "We know nothing other than what is available to the whole team already," Beth assured. It was a team game in her mind, they all brought something to the table sometimes more than she did.

Looking around the situation room, Elegy cleared his throat and he felt obliged to acknowledge the absence of the Chief Science Officer. "I'll relay your orders to Lieutenant Soval, Captain," reported Elegy in his formal timbre. Even so, a smile broke through. As much as this was a rescue mission, Elegy excitedly remarked, "After the loss of so many of the science labs, readying for away missions will allow us to do what we came out here to do: diplomacy with another civilization. Learning about people entirely unlike our own."

"Thank you," Beth assured quickly. The Vulcan was in her thoughts a lot at the moment. She knew his situation and would never share any of it but everyone knew something was wrong even if they did not know what.

"Call me sceptical but I find odd that a ship of such good fortune would fall in our laps. Distress signal or not this feels like an answer to ALL our questions and that just does not happen." Sam countered. "I am all for meeting new people but preferably I'd like to do it on more open terms. If a ship of that size is in need of aid then I'd hate to see what it was that caused it."

Beth smiled sadly, she did not want to know what had caused it either until they got some other answers. She could not fault any of their worries over it but they had no choice in the situation. “It certainly will be interesting. We will all get the opportunity to go over there but priorities are helping if needed and fuel if possible.” She surmised thinking about everything that had been talked about. It was a lot more food for thought that she normally had before four AM.