Orbital Scouting

Posted on 12 Sep 2016 @ 11:47pm by Lieutenant Commander Sheela Swiftpaws
Edited on on 18 Nov 2016 @ 11:30pm

2,085 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Season 2 Episode 1: The New Frontier
Timeline: Mission day 26 to Mission Day 40

[ON]

Once the gear had been gathered and loaded aboard the Venture class scout and secured, Sheela took the helm and did pre-flight stuff letting Cahill get settled. Sheela glanced around the empty shuttle, all ready for flight. She was waiting on Cahill to show up. The Danube sat on the ready pad in the main shuttle bay awaiting. It had on it a roll bar for two Science Pods for advanced scanning and other Science stuff.

Dr Cahill was running behind, she wanted to make sure she had what they needed and to be prepared for what might happen. She came into the shuttle pad and was on board quickly. "Sorry, I took so long Commander. Needed to be sure I was ready for anything that may come up."

She stowed her gear and took a seat at the Co-pilots controls. "Ready when you are Commander."

Sheela smiled as she worked the controls of the shuttle and zipped out into space. "Squeee.. No worries. Not all of uz are always ready to grab and go." Giving Cahill a smile as she eased the Danube into orbit. Staying in the planetary shadow so no reflection from the sun would give them away, letting the planet rotate slowly under them. She rotated the Danube so the Science Pods on the Rollbar to the Danube could get a clear view of the planet below.

Soon the data was flowing from the high-resolution cameras for video. Radio and other electronic scanners were hard at work gathering data. Analysing and cataloguing geographical data. Cartographic Section was busy mapping the planet's surface into a topographical map for later study. Sheela listened in on the radio frequencies.

"There was some extra things I wanted to bring along with this mission. Like the disguise to make me look like the female members of this planet for example. And from a medical standpoint, there were some unknown issues I need to plan for Commander."

Dr Cahill was examining the information on the volcanic regions of the planet. "Some of the volcanos are giving off a poison gas as they erupt. Need to take precautions in those areas." Dr Chill marked the locations for future reference. As the passed near a small town, she makes some close examinations of the way buildings were constructed and also looked closer at the inhabitants.

"Hmmm, some structures show signs of seismic activity. Perhaps from the volcanic activity on the planet."

Sheel looked over at Cahill's View screen. She saw what she was seeing. Once occupants of the village were seen, Sheela began to transfer that info into a separate database. She fine tuned the focus on the building. Some were abandoned and others were in the process off moving out.

Sheela pointed out a slow moving lava edging towards the village. It was branching off from the main flow of lava that streamed towards a ravine that held a decent sized river. "Squeee... typical from seismic activity such as quakes. Must have happen when it blew. Or is this an old eruption that decided to keep erupting?" Sheela glanced at Cahill. "Wez can do a swoop to gather samples?"

"That sounds great, perhaps we can maybe gather some leaves off a few trees to allow the Science section to check them out too. I do wish we could land and do some close-up exploration of this planet. It would be great to help with our better understanding of the planet and possibly learn something of how the inhabitants survive as well."

"I always love doing the first exploration of the surface of a planet and finding out about them. That is one reason I brought along one of the disguises that I made. If one of them showed up I could act surprised and make them think I did not know they were there and they slipped up on me. Plus we could get a sample of their language for the scanners to analyse and then be able to translate it" Cahill finished.

"But that may have to wait."

Sheela tapped in commands on the tactical. machinery could be heard coming below the deck as the torpedo launchers cycled out the deadly ordinance for a science probe. She fired it once it was ready. It streaked off and then faded from view as it dropped into the planetary atmosphere. It began to gather data as it flew it programmed course down deeper towards the planet below. Sheela sat poised to take control of it manually if needed for a closer look.

The Probe sent back a steady stream of data and vids of the eruption and flow of the lava. It got excellent samples of the gases and toxins. Then it zipped along through the quiet night time village. Catching glimpses of the locals that were out this late at night. Catching a few samples of conversation in passing.

Sheela took control of the probe and landed it on a rooftop of a large building where it would be easily overlooked and in a good location to pick up any conversation within a few thousand feet.

It amazed Dr Cahill as to how the technology with probes had advanced. Now they were able to point control them and get anything that was desired. She moved to the Science Section of the ship and began processing the samples as they were transported in.

The lava was quite interesting from the early analysis and she tagged it as hot and sent it to the Tomcat. The probe picked out water from a pond and a small lake. Also got a sample from a river nearby. The finds found the water was drinkable.

As the probe went through the trees it collects 24 different samples that were separated and the samples sent to the Tomcat. She the started listening to the universal translator to she how it was doing in translating the language of the planet. So far it was picking up on a few words here and there. Sometimes it took a long time for it to get enough information on them to finally break it. All they could do is wait.

Sheela sent commands to the resting Science Probe to increase its audio pick-up. She was listening in on the incoming vocal speech of the locals. The voices sounded happy and there were squeals of delight. Then singing and then more general conversations began again.

From the Probes location where Sheela sat it down, could see a few of the locals down on the street. Probe scanned them with soft X-rays and medical scans to get their physique, anatomy structure for Cahill to study. Even got a couple, Male and Female looking up at the stars. Sheela zoomed in on them with the Camera. Getting good pictures of them as the two natives continued to walk along hand in hand.

The pictures of the male and female species are perfect. She hits record so she can study it further back on the Tomcat. It is good but at the same time, she prefers to make contact. Will have to do for now.

A storm had moved in over the village where the Probe was at. It grew darker as those on the streets fled out of view. There was a flash of light, lighting up the whole area before the Feed from the Probe died. Information stopped coming from the probe. Sheela moved from helm to the transporter controls and began typing in commands. First, she set up a quarantine area for the Probe as she got a lock on it. She was getting ready to beamed it aboard into the Quarantine Area.

As the storm approached Dr Cahill raised the shields to full power as a precaution. Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning. It would have been blinding without the special filters on the view screen.

"What in the world was that," as she settled back into her work.

Sheela squeaked/giggled as she looked over the transporter data. "A storm got it. Lightning bolt...." She secured the transporter and moved back to the helm of the Danube. "Do you think we have enough data to return to the Tomcat?" Sheela spoke as she set up the return course to Tomcat. What appeared in the cargo hold of the Danube was the smoking remains of the small Probe.

-Village -

A little native boy in his room was awoken from his slumber at the crash and boom of the thunder of the lightning strike. He saw a glowing orb of twinkling lights surround something smoking on the building rooftop across the street. When the twinkling lights disappeared, there was nothing but a scorch mark on the roof where something very hot was moments ago there.

-Venture Class Scout -

Sheela frowned at seeing what they retrieved. But at least they weren't leaving behind any traces that they were there.

"Ready to head back?" Sheela looked at Cahill to see if she was ready. They got some good scanner readings, a bit more of the language to get a good basis for the translator to work on cyphering.

"Ready when you are Commander." As she was looking at the probe. "Not sure if Engineering can fix that one, though" as she pointed to the probe.

"Squeee.. wez a few more. Better it than uz." Sheela agreed with Cahill. She moved through the shuttle and settled at the helm. They moved to a new location in the night-side of the planet. She launched another probe as she brought the shuttle they were on to a geo-synch orbit.

Sheela took control of the probe by remote and flew it close to the ground, only realise that the ground was a very large body of water. Suddenly the probe began picking up subspace communication radio signal emanating from the depths of the ocean. As the probe began to circle the area to get a fix on the source of the signal. She ran it through her decryption programming. She also copied as she studied it.

"Lieutenant. Any readings of anything underneath the water?" Sheela skimmed the water, picking up a sample which the probe analysed and sent back to the shuttle to be related to the Tomcat. "Wez have a subspace carrier frequency emanating from the ocean."

" I see it, Commander, it is at 078 Mark o at about 1500 meters deep and a distance of .4 Kilometres. I have sensors scanning it now. Odd how it is there. The planet inhabitants are not developed enough for the reading resonating from it. Perhaps we may need to raise our shields as a precaution."

She continued to monitor the energy source and also sent the water sample to the Tomcat. Dr Cahill also sent the damaged probe to the Tomcat. She left an order that Security be posted and only key Bridge crew could authorise access to it. The reading was quite astounding as we moved closer.

Sheela smiled softly as she kept an eye on tactical. "Squeee.. on it." She pulled the probe away from the spot in the ocean and resumed the scanning of the planet. Sheela took note of the planetary coordinates to find the spot again. "Iz think wez have enough for now to warrant a visit to the planet more in depth." She brought the probe back to the Danube and beamed it aboard into the cargo area. "Wez will return to the Tomcat."

As things are going Dr Cahill notices some very interesting readings. Then Sheela's squee told her it was something huge. " Probe back on board and confirm it is beamed back to the Tomcat. Any time you desire Commander. I agree with you. I want to study the inhabitants to learn more about them."

Sheela manoeuvred the Danube and left the planet behind. Soon the Danube made a short hop in warp to throw off trackers before returning to USS Tomcat. She was extremely curious to get to analysing the information gathered on the underwater base in the ocean. She made a call ahead to the Tomcat. =/\= "Returning to the Tomcat. Between me and Commander Cahill. This planet needs further investigation. Possible contamination from off-planet interferences." =/\= Soon Sheela had landed aboard the Tomcat and began directing Security personnel to secure the probe and get it to the Science for further study.

[OFF]

Lt. Cmdr Sheela Swiftpaws
Chief Intel Officer
USS Tomcat

Lieutenant Alexanderia Cahill MD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Tomcat

 

RSS Feed