Waiting Is All We Can Do

Posted on Sat Sep 11th, 2021 @ 3:23am by Lieutenant Samantha Leyton & Commander William Gerhard & Ensign Elegy Nascimento & Ensign Alexandra 'Lexi' O'Connery

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: Deck A - Bridge
Timeline: Day 168 12:00
1599 words - 3.2 OF Standard Post Measure

"Gerhard to Atlantis, We've reached the area where the captain and Szerda were last seen. It appears to be a massive storage room filled with cryogenic stasis pods. It looks like one pod is open and unoccupied, so I believe we have our suspicious figure that has been seen over here. There is no sign of the captain yet." The voice of the Armour chief finally echoed through the bridge.

"Understood," Leyton replied. If communications was a problem then likely so would using the transporter. She watched the larger ship on screen for a moment. She then watched as Ensign McArthur took over the helm station as she arrived back from the Caelestis. She turned to the tactical station. "Load the photonic torpedoes. Once we target them with the targeting computers, the other ship automatically detects it, correct?"

"Normally. Yes ma'am," the Armory Officer replied, wondering what the XO had in mind.

"Would targeting the ship without the computers alert the Caelestis?"

The Armory officer shook his head. "No ma'am, I don't believe so, but they would not be nearly as accurate."

"Then manually lock our phase cannons and photonic torpedoes onto the Caelestis' engineering section and stand by for my order."

"Aye, ma'am."

"Ensign McArthur, be ready to begin evasive maneuvers."

"Aye Captain, We are ready" Elf replied as she moved her fingers to the controls easily.

"Comm, open all frequencies."

“It is open Sir.” The man said sleepily. He had been pulled out of bed to cover the bridge whilst everyone else went to the shop. Just once he would like to go on an adventure.

"This is Lieutenant Leyton, Executive Officer of the NX Atlantis. You have assaulted our crew and kidnapped two officers. You better have a damn good explanation."

“No change as usual.” The comms operator replied after a few moments. Nothing had changed about the ship in the week that they had been there. Whatever had the Captain and Engineer was not watching the communication array or really just did not care.

The lack of response only further angered Leyton as she leaned forward onto the rear railing, staring at the ship on the monitor. She wanted to blow that ship to pieces but she had to wait until the Away Team reported their success in rescuing the captain.

"They have never seen anyone on the bridge I suspect no one is observing communication even that Artificial Intelligence... thing." The comms operator commented looking around at his colleagues. The silence was going to do no one any good, it would just strain nerves. And his nerves were already shot after listening to the distress call over and over.

"That damned AI, EDEN must be monitoring comms if it's integrated into the ship as I suspect it is. That thing has ignored us on several occasions over there," Leyton said as she stood up fully and walked around to in front of the command chair. "Let's give Lieutenant Gerhard a few more minutes." She knew however, those were going to be long and stressful minutes.

"We aren't the foundation." The Officer commented. The comm panel began to beep indicating an incoming transmission. The comms operator checked the readout on his panel and then looked over at Leyton, "Incoming transmission from Lieutenant Gerhard." He then activated the comm.

"Gerhard to Atlantis, we've found a small trail of blood that leads further into the chamber. It's not much, but we are going to see where it leads," William said through the comm. There was a hint of static, but the message came in clear.

"Understood, Lieutenant. Keep me informed," Leyton replied before turning back to the Comm Officer and swiftly made her way over to him. "No, we're out here alone, a lifetime away from anything remotely familiar, let alone Starfleet or the Federation so I'm going to do what is needed to try keep as many people alive to hopefully someday see Earth again. If that means destroying a ship that has posed a danger to this crew, then so be it. I will do it without hesitation Am I understood?"

The comms officer looked Leyton over and nodded. If she wanted to spend the trip home in the brig. He knew the Captain and knew her thoughts but it would be down to the executive officer.

“You can’t do that Sir.” Lexi called as the lift with Elegy Nascimento in tow. Both of them elated like they knew a secrete that they were just bursting to tell. It was going to be unbelievable but it was the truth.

"And why not, Ensign O'Connery?" Leyton asked as she turned to face Lexi with her arms crossed.

His sapphire eyes wide with urgency, Ensign Nascimento couldn't quite find the words. Truly, he wasn't sure he fully understood what they'd found on the ship, or if he fully believed it. Padding behind the bridge's science station, Elegy could only manage to blurt out, "You'll be destroying more than a confused A.I., Lieutenant." Snapping his eyes in Lexi's direction, he nodded at Leyton, as if to say, you can tell her.

Lexi rolled her eyes and just decided to burst out with what had occurred between her, Elegy and Sloan whilst they had been alone with the datacore and what they had discovered . “It’s from the future. All of our futures.” She quickly explained looking around the bridge for reactions.

"You're not making any sense, Ensign," Leyton stated, keeping her eyes leveled on the two. "Time travel is deemed impossible, even by Vulcans."

“Well we’ve just proven the Vulcans wrong.” Lexi said glancing quickly around to see that none of the Vulcans were on the bridge. She was smug that they had proven them wrong but right now was not the time or place to be smug.

"Always nice to be on the cutting edge" The helm officer quipped as she kept their ship in the proper position.

"I'm still waiting for this proof that the ship is from the future," Leyton stated, becoming more annoyed. If these two had brought her anything than undeniable proof, then there was going to be hell to pay. She realized her personality had changed from the time she had first come aboard back on Earth. Back then, she was more care free. Now she had the lives of the crew to consider, especially the captain which weighed on her, causing her to be much more serious and strict.

"Show her your scanner." Lexi prompted Elegy as she had left hers with the secured datacore in one of the closed-off science labs. It was not something that they wanted to flaunt around that they had access to the future events of everyone onboard.

After glancing back at Lexi, Elegy met Leyton's eyes and he took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy. "We brought back a data core from the Caelestis' computer," he said, matter of factly. Still wearing his environmental suit in their rush to the Bridge, Elegy palmed the hand-scanner from its sheath on his suit. Accessing a couple of the files he described, Elegy said, "The memory storage on the scanner could only retain some star charts, historical records, sensor log composites..." --Elegy circled the science station to approach the Captain's chair, and he proffered his hand-scanner to Leyton-- "My quantum dating scans of the Caelestis' computer core produced a negative number. From our perspective, it hasn't been built yet."

“Or dreamed about Sir,” Lexi added with a shrug as she moved to the communication console looking at the system she had rigged to allow them to communicate properly whilst in the void spaces.

"Did you run a diagnostic on the scanner?" Leyton asked as she looked at it and then at the information it displayed. Some of the information she recognized from Starfleet charts and others she didn't.

"All the scanners." Lexi knew it was hard to process and understand but the ship was from the year 4512. It was the only logical thing that made sense out of everything they had seen from the Emergency Disaster Engagement Network to the way the scanners in the sickbay worked. Everything was so much more advanced than they were. The comms operator looked at Lexi as much to say that it was the only thing that made sense so at least they were making sense.

"Then why kill Aurelius? Is this so called Federation of the future hostile?" Leyton asked. She couldn't imagine a peace fairing organization killing someone for no reason.

"We have some answers but not all of them Sir. But it was he likely in the wrong place, at the wrong time." Lexi commented as she took the headset and listened to the airways. It was interesting from her point of view but nothing that had been seen today would be processed in a day. It would take weeks to process and learn.

"Until we know otherwise, I'm treating that ship as hostile,"Leyton stated after a moment, handing the scanner back to Elegy. "As far as we know, only one person is alive on that ship and he or she has attacked our crew and probably killed prior to our discovering the vessel." Hell, who was to say that person that attacked them was even part of the so-called Federation and not a pirate or whatnot? All she could do was wait for more information from Gerhard with her finger on the trigger should things go south--which she hated.