The captain exits his Ready Room onto the Bridge. He pauses for a moment before heading to the turbolift.

"We'll be receiving two members of the alien ship in a few minutes in the Transporter Room. I'm sure I'll be giving them a tour of the Mongoose so try not to stare too much when you see them."

"Barring any changes, we'll be heading back to the Klingon facility. We'll enter its cloaking field again to transport our Klingon guests down to the facility, so make sure we can penetrate the facility's structure."

"Commander Ren informs me there is no reason to leave the Expanse in order to assist the alien ship to return to its own universe, so we will continue on with our mission."

"Keep alert for that cloaked Klingon ship."

"After that, we'll set a course of 345-mark-5."

"Carry on."

With that, he leaves the bridge.

>>>>> Transporter Room.

"Well, that could have turned out alot worse then what it did.  Any sign of that ship on your end?" Kate says glancing at Kalem briefly from her station as she continues to monitor comm traffic and check for any anomalies that might hint at a cloaked vessel still being in the area.

The Mongoose uses its impulse engines to return to the Klingon facility, making sure the Ancestor can and does follow. If necessary, coordinates and heading will be transmitted to the chakat ship. Since there's no need for haste, the ships don't have to do a fly-by transport; they can stop, beam the Klingons down to the facility, and the leave.

There probably isn't room inside the cloak for both ships, so the Ancestor's crew can see if they can detect the cloak and penetrate it to detect the Mongoose. It only takes a few minutes.

Then, once outside the cloak, the two ships set a course on the heading the captain gave them.

You're now entering unknown territory... further into the vast region known as the Shackleton Expanse.

After just one day, the Expanse seems to change. There are pulsing lights out in the dust. They seem more like a Northern Lights effect that occurs in high latitudes.

Sensors easily detect the lights but can't see to figure out what's causing them.

Several shifts later, Katherine and Kalem are back on duty, as well as Elle. Lt. Commander Blackthorne, however, is sitting in the captain's chair.

Katherine is manning the Communications station, though expectations of picking up any type of communication is slim to none.

Kalem is manning the Sensors station. For the moment, this is the more important station on the bridge as no one has any idea what you might find out here in the Expanse.

Elle is manning the Helm again. Her stint in Command had been rather dull and routine.


At almost the same time, Kalem picks up three distinct and separate sensor pings, for, at this range, that's all that can be determined--something is there. The first is a ship... or something functioning as a ship. It's size is small, on the runabout scale.

The second is a life sign of indeterminate nature, possibly organic.

Both ship and life sign are coming from somewhere off the port bow.

The third sensor ping is from a sun... or system. It's still very distant, but the gravimetric sensors clearly register something up ahead... somewhere.

"Mr. Lenaris, what do you think is causing the lights? interstellar or localized radiation? Anything on sensors?" She asks wondering if there was anything that might interfere with her own scans.  A small smile slowly crossed her face as she glanced at the image projected on the forward view.  "Whatever is causing it its very beautiful"

Elle was glad to be back at the helm. While her turn at command of the bridge proved no great test, she was glad that ensuring the safe arrival of the Ancestor's crew had gone smoothly, and that nothing had gone awry "on her watch"... such as it was.

The Expanse, however, made sure nothing stayed routine for long. Upon registering the three distinct entities on their sensors, Elle turned to Lt. Commander Blackthorne.

"Shall I bring the Mongoose in for a closer look? And will it be door number one, two or three?"

"We are here to seek out new life and new civilizations, Ensign," R.T. tells  Elle, "and that sounds like both! Change course; take us closer to that life sign first! It may be in distress."

"All I'm picking up is quantum particles coming into existence, seemingly colliding with subspace motims and then disappearing," Lenaris finally replies to Katherine after he taps a few keys on the control panel.

"At a guess, I'm thinking it has to do with dark energy and dark matter, perhaps the conversion of one to the other... or the interaction of the two."

"It appears to be the subspace motims that are giving off the light as they change energy states due to the quantum collision."

"Aye, sir!" Elle says, with the corner of her mouth showing the beginnings of a crooked smile.

She shifts course and the ship closer to the first life sign at full impulse.

All while keeping her ears open for observations from either Mr. Lenaris or Ms. Seward, and her own eyes on the lookout for anything strange on her own sensors....

Well, anything stranger in any case, seeing as how they were already traversing the Expanse.

Kate frowns at the statement from Kalem and begins to scan the comm frequencies for any inconsistencies or interference to try to get a better grasp on what they might be dealing with by the exact emissions.  While also checking if the region is broadcasting any signals.

((OOC: Not quite sure what you are attempting to do, Katherine, but it sounds like you'd roll REASON + SCIENCE.))


Katherine doesn't detect any communication signals, but as the ship gets closer to the source of the life sign, she picks up a noise... at first, it seems like just background static from radio waves emitted by distant stars. She then realizes there's a repetitious pattern to it.

Just then, the ship reaches the location.

The scene is now detectable by sensors but also shows up on the viewscreen.

There appears to be some kind of iridescent creature moving through space without any obvious means of propulsion. It's somewhat long and sinewy, clearly has a head and what appears to be a tail and four legs. It's moving in a twisty pattern as it appears to be dodging attacks from the ship.

It's the ship that is the strangest sight, though. It looks like an ancient Earth longship like that used by the Vikings. It is complete with a bank of oars on each side, a gaudily red-and-white striped sail on a central mast, and a dragon figurehead.

Standing at the front of the ship, a single person is holding some sort of shoulder arm that he is firing at the creature.

((OOC: I could have sworn I put up this post! Apparently, I just wrote it in my head and then never actually posted it!))


"HELM! Put us between that... ship and the creature!" R.T. said.

"Maybe it's just a whaling operation, or maybe it's an Ahab Scenario! Either way, I want some more information!"

"What are the sensors reading? About the creature and the ship? There's no way that kind of ship should be out here in space!"

Even moment to moment, the Expanse never failed to surprise.

Quinn gunned it to Full Impulse immediately, hoping their shields would hold up against... well, whomever or whatever that was out there, be it manifestation of ancient cultural memory or otherwise.

"Aye, sir!" Elle said, long after she'd already set the ship on its way.

---

17:42, Today: Saoirse Eleanor 'Elle' Quinn rolled 33 using 2d20 ((19,14)).
Daring 10 + Conn 4 + Helm Ops Focus!

OOC: 1 or 2 Successes?

The sensor scans showed the presence of a force field. It was similar to those used to keep the air in a shuttle bay when the shuttle doors were opened for a shuttle to depart. It was also, however, a polyphasic shield. The sensors didn't quite break it down any better than that other than to tell you that it did 'more than one thing'.

It was clearly keeping the atmosphere around the ship so that the people could breathe.

The second thing revealed by the scan was that the people were humanoid to 9 decimal places. The computer identified them as Eska.

The third thing that came up on the scans was that the hull of the ship was impenetrable to the scans, but they identified the substance as neutronium.

The fourth piece of data was the weapons the humanoids were wielding. Although it was heavily shielded, it was clearly some sort of projective plasma weapon.

The Target Number was 14, so one roll of 14 with Elle's focus produces two successes.

The Difficulty was only 1... which was bringing the ship into position in a timely fashion and not hitting either the creature of the other ship (not all that easy since it was so small).

Although it was almost a given that the other ship had some sort of sensors, it didn't seem to be aware of the Mongoose until it actually moved into sight in front of it... or, at least, the visible crew didn't seem to notice.

The person holding the weapon is clearly startled at the appearance of the ship, and instinctively changes his target and fires at the Mongoose!

The ship's shields hold but it felt that! It was the equivalent of a ship's plasma cannon.

The sensors soon revealed that both the ship and the creature were somehow manipulating zero-point energy. The creature seemed to be 'absorbing' and then redirecting the energy to move. The ship, on the other hand, seemed to be made of neutronium.

A gas retention field was being generated around the ship's deck that was keeping an air envelope intact.

The weapon that the man was holding appeared to be some sort of miniaturized plasma cannon. It was certainly capable of firing a powerful plasma blast.

The creature was a germanium-based creature, rather than carbon-based. More data about it would require some serious study.

However, it does appear to be wounded from the plasma blast that hit it.

"Open hailing frequencies," R.T. directed to Lieutenant Seward.

"Keep an eye out for the mothership that this longship may have come from. Is there any planet in the area we can detect that it could have come from?"

When Seward has the communications open, he continues.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Blackthorne of the Federation starship Mongoose. I apologize if I've interrupted your activities, but I may not fully understand the situation."

"Hailing Frequencies Open, Sir" Kate says as she tries to remain focused at her station, and keep an eye on any other traffic in the area.

After waiting for a few minutes, there is no response from the other ship.

By then, however, the Captain entered the bridge.

After a quick briefing by R. T., Anther gave the situation a moment's consideration before formulation a plan of action.

"Commander T'Shran. Take an away team over to that ship and attempt to establish communication with them. Normally, you'd select your own team, but this is an unusual situation, so I will request that you take Commander Vinzz, Lieutenant Seward, and Petty Officer Starbird. I believe he's still aboard the Ancestor, so you'll need to do a site-to-site transport for him."

"Also, Captain Eclipse, would you like to join the Away Team?"

One of the qualifications to be captain was being able to pull things out of thin air when the situation called for it. Some called it a 'gut feeling' or intuition. Pretty much everyone had it, but people seldom recognized it or 'listened' to it when they did.

It was really your brain adding 2 + 2 and getting 6... pulling obscure bits of data from your subconsciousness to see a bigger picture.

In reply to Anther th'Valla (msg # 285):

Miranda analyzed the situation her grasp of the unusual tactical gymnastics a Captain must possess isn't as finally tuned as Anther's was but she could see how this worked out.

" Sounds Good. Quinn, Blackthorn would either or both of you like to join us. A couple extra steady hands could help in case things are really Snafu over there. "
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:17, Thu 02 Apr 2020.

"Depends on whether Eclipse chooses to go," R. T. replied. "If she does, there's no need for both of us. After all, we don't want to appear like we're invading their ship."

"Besides, if things get sticky over there, you'll need to beam out in a hurry."

"Oh, and remember, the safe word is 'apple'," He says that last with a big grin.

Eclipse entered the bridge right behind the Captain and took a quick look around and saw that the bridge was similar in layout and design to most Stellar Federation vessels, especially the Star corp and Star Fleet ships. Shi smirked slightly when Anther called hir captain, as he just as easily could have used hir rank of commander rather then hir position as captain of hir own ship when he referred to hir.

As Blackthorn spoke up shi listened before shi spoke up.


"I'd be willing to go, but it's a gamble, do we take enough to make it look like we can handle anything they can throw at us but are holding our hands out in peace, or go with hopefully just enough to try to understand whats going on, and hope their willing to talk. Also in an emergency I can teleport us out and to safety, which would be another thing, to teleport someone or something I have to be in contact with them, even if it's through another person, but the more people the more energy it takes. It would also be preferable to have members with various fields of expertise."

"Mostly this is an exploratory mission since we know so little about these people," Anther responds to Eclipse.

"I am not aware of anyone in this universe having the ability to teleport, so I know even less about that. Is there anything that can keep you from teleporting?"

"That longship has a neutronium hull, which is beyond our ability to produce or penetrate with our sensors. That means it can hold a lot of secrets."

"I've already made the assumption that we will be able to transport over there, but even that is a guess. They may be able to erect a scattering field before out team materializes, in which case you would all be dead without ever knowing it was happening."

"Can that happen with your teleportation? If not, perhaps we should consider that method to get over there."