Wailing Within the Empire

Posted on Tuesday, 26 January 2021 - 1:19pm by Lieutenant Alex Kingsley & Petty Officer 1st Class Siana Ilian & Captain Barret Stillwater & Commander Soral & Lieutenant JG Adrianna Eberhardt & Lieutenant JG Maximus Mackenzie

Mission: Operation: Trail of Tears
Location: USS Standing Bear | Deck 01 | Bridge
Timeline: MD 7: 02:15 hours

ON:

It was Lieutenant Kingsley's 'night' to be the officer on watch with a bit of a skeletal crew on duty throughout the small patrol starship. Stations were manned on the Bridge: a helmsman was seated next to Petty Officer Ilian who was manning the operations station. Lieutenant Kingsley had the command pit to herself, seated in the Captain's chair with the vacant First Officer's seat immediately beside her. The junior grade Lieutenant Mackenzie stood at the horseshoe tactical console behind the Captain's chair. Two more stations were on the left side of the bridge and two on the right side. Science and Engineering were paired together on the one side, Mission Operations and Intelligence on the opposite.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Muniz was monitoring the science station, the bridge's engineering station was vacant. Petty Officer Baciami, the ship's Chief of Intelligence had drawn a short straw and was manning the intelligence station for the watch. Mission Ops was not crucial at the time and it too was vacant. The USS Standing Bear had arrived where the neutral zone once had been several hours ago before the change of shift. The Captain and First Officer were long since gone, retired to their quarters for the evening or grabbing something to eat before turning in for the 'night'

Crossing the former neutral zone was not a serious matter anymore. There was no Romulan Star Empire, no actual boundaries to be enforced. It was just 'dead space' for the most part. Some star systems that were once under Romulan control had been released from the empire's grasp when the Romulan star went supernova a Romulus was destroyed. Kingsley's orders were simple enough, just continue through the region and give it a bit of an inspection. The Federation was simply flexing its muscle a bit now that it had the ability to cross and traverse the region freely without risk of causing a war.

Now, piracy was on the rise as anyone aboard the Standing Bear knew. So, she was to be keeping long-range sensors sharp and keep an ear to the door as it may. Several small Romulan colonies were scattered about the region and privy to being muscled by Nausicaan raiders and ransacked by Orions. Anyone and everyone took small delight in harassing the Romulan people at their weakest point.

However, it was not a distress call from one of the small Romulan colonies that broke the early morning silence as the long-range sensors snagged if only momentarily, the faintest of signals. It was Senior Chief Muniz who's anxiety had him razer focused, who had caught the small bleep for the split second. "Hey," he called out. "I think I had something, a signal of some sort," he reported, speaking up.

Lieutenant Kingsley was on her feet in an instant, moving to join her fellow scientist. "Had?" she queried. A random signal could, she knew be anything and there were a number of explanations, most mundane. Most perfectly benign. On the other hand, they had been warned to remain vigilant.

He spotted it once again for another brief moment. "Petty Officer Baciami," can you come have a look at this. "You may have a better guess at what this is. I'm not sure if it's a ship or what the heck it is. Might just be something giving us a sensor ghost."

Adrianna stepped over and took a look a moment. After a while she concluded, "it's too short and repetitive to be a ship. Looks more like a bouy or repeater form like a distress signal. I'd need to analyse it further."

"Please do," Alex nodded, mindful that her last odd occurrence on the graveyard shift had quickly deteriorated. Turning her attention to Muniz she added, "do you have a location on the source? Anything else of interest in the surrounding space?"

Mackenzie studied the tactical read outs. He didn't like this.

OPEN TAG - For any general comments or anything about the area

Muniz nodded "One moment, Ma'am," he replied. "Helm, can you send me the navigational data and star charts over to the science station," asked the man. He waited for the helmsmen to comply. His console soon came to life with some additional information. He cleared his throat Ma'am, it is coming from the Eisn system." It was a noteworthy response as the Eisn system was the system where Romulus once was.

Mack spoke up. "Recommend we go to yellow alert and raise shields...as a precaution."

Muniz looked at Mack and nodded. "I agree, Sir. I do not know what this transmission is yet, but if Petty Officer Baciami is correct and it is some sort of buoy, then we need to be cautious. Nothing should be out there near where Romulus once stood. It's a wasteland of asteroid fields and a navigational hazard. If someone was foolish enough to go there, then they may have suffered damage and crashed on an asteroid or moon."

“Since we are all agreeing,” Kingsley noted, “then we shall. Yellow alert, raise shields. Helm, alter course to take us closer the Eisn system. Muniz, keep monitoring the signal but also stay vigilant. I’d hate to turn over the ship to alpha shift with some new scratches on the paintwork.”

She turned towards their intel officer, “keep working on the signal, if you need anything, just let me know.”

Adrianna simply nodded, not wanted to lose her train of thought.

"Aye, ma'am," replied Muñiz. "It may be worth to note this could just as easily be a trap. Orion's have been known to set up fake distress signals and beacons to lure ships near. Next thing you know, we are being boarded."

Mac turned on the yellow alert. "Yellow alert, all personnel to stations." He looked at Alex. "Stations starting to report in. I wouldn't be surprised if cappy and grumpy arrive too." He winked at her.

“Nothing like a super early wake up call to cheer people up,” Alex grinned. “In the meantime, Mac, I’d appreciate another pair of eyes on those sensors while Muniz monitors the signal. Just in case the Orions or anyone else is up to something.”

"Sounds good to me." He studied the sensors. "Commander Soral just upgraded them. Dying to try it out."

Adrianna grinned at Mac a moment, the pair of them had been eager having put them together. Her eyes suddenly went back to her screen. Her voice was rather quiet and confused, "this is not a Romulan frequency. Not even a dated one."

"Are you sure?" Mac asked.

Adrianna nodded, "it's far from Romulan. I don't know what it is, but I know what it's not."

"Could it be masked in some way?" asked Muniz. "Romulans aren't known for asking for help. If they were going to, they may try to make it something that it is not" he offered. "I'm not a Romulan specialist or anything, but I know they like to create fake controls aboard their ship, things that don't do what they are 'marked' to in order to throw potential boarders off."

"Even in cover up work, there are still crumbs," Adrianna offered, "I honestly don't think it's Romulan. If it is, then we have potentially have a problem."

Muniz shrugged. "I won't know anything until we get closer to it. Our sensors may be top-notch, but at this distance, we are essentially tone-deaf."

“Let’s keep working on it, expand our analysis to consider other species,” Kingsley suggested, “anyone could have left a beacon or whatever it is.”

Mac cleared his throat. "All departments reporting in ready."

Alex nodded in acknowledgment. “Thank you. Now I suppose we have a waiting game.”

The yellow alert had woken the Captain from his rest. Talarn had of course tried to keep Barret in bed. It wasn't a red alert, but still, Captain Stillwater felt compelled to report to the Bridge. Though instead of rushing to get into uniform and head to the Bridge, he scrambled to the comm panel in his quarters.

"Stillwater to Bridge," he began and shook the grogginess from his tone. "Something of interest out there, Lieutenant?"

It had been too much to wish for, the scientist hoped, that the captain had been in an especially deep sleep and so did not get awoken at an ungodly hour. Clearing her throat she thumbed the comm unit on the armrest of the chair and responded. "We've detected an unknown signal, Captain. We are working to establish it's purpose but we have narrowed down its location. Its the Eisn system, sir. We are altering course to be able to obtain better sensor data, but considered it wise to go to yellow alert as a precaution. We have it under control, Captain."

Just as she finished speaking the communications officer turned. "Ma'am I have Commander Soral on coms asking what's going on. I can link the channels to the Captain's...get them both online."

Alex glanced across at Mac, "we need something that is yellow alert ish but doesn't wake up anyone above the rank of lieutenant commander." To the communications officer she nodded, "do it, please, ensign."

There was a moment while the communications officer updated Soral on what Alex had said to the CO and then the coms hissed followed by Soral's voice. "Do we know possible origins of the signal? Is it Romulan or Reman?"

For all we know it could be smurfs, Alex thought inwardly. "The signal is nothing we can identify at this point. Petty Officer Baciami is working on it but it will take time."

Soral stayed quiet deferring to the commander and then he thought better of it. "Captain I suggest we let the bridge crew handle this. Lieutenant Kingsley as capable as we are perhaps more so because of her scientific background. We would just be in her team's way."

"With respect, Captain, I agree," Kingsley added as she crossed her fingers on both hands.

Stillwater grumbled. "Proceed, I will catch a few more hours of sleep. Lieutenant Kingsley, have the conference room prepared just before shift change. We will have a briefing then. Continue to the coordinates of the transmission in the meantime."

Soral was glad of it. He had a doctor to see. "Soral out." He closed the communications on his end.

Stillwater terminated the communication on his end as well. He would return to Talarn and try to rest for a while longer, though his mind was racing with memories of Romulans and what was once a great empire.

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