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As you approach the coordinates of the Alcubierre, a static-y image of an Oberth-class starship, adrift comes into view. Sensors are being disrupted by some form of subspace interference covering a large area around the ship. The intensity of the interference is such that any attempt to lock onto the vessel is disrupted. The lack of visual damage brings up questions as to the fate of those on board, but the transporter chief has informed you that due to the interference transporters are unable to function at all. It appears that any fact-finding will have to be done the old-fashioned way, by flying a team over in a shuttle to examine things in person.

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Threat: 16
Momentum: 0
Directives:

• Starfleet's Prime Directive is in place
• Recover the missing Oberth-class starship U.S.S. Alcubierre.
• Prevent Starfleet technology from falling into enemy hands.

Traits in Play

• Subspace Interference: Sensor scans and communications are severely disrupted by the Subspace Interference being generated from the Alcubierre.

This message was last edited by the GM at 21:22, Sat 27 Aug 2022.

Sebastian nodded as he glanced down at the results of the sensor scans, "Yep, definitely some sort of subspace interference that's mucking with everything." He turned over his should to the Captain, "If you think we have enough time, I could try another calibrated sensor sweep and see if I can determine what the hell is causing the disturbance and maybe come up with a way to overcome it, so we're not flying in completely blind."

Vylana looked at the viewscreen and frowned slightly. "Something must have gone terribly wrong over there. Their experiments were meant to reduce damage to subspace. Instead they've ripped it apart like tissue paper. Still, it's taken three days to get this close, I don't think a small delay would make much difference, Captain. And I would like to get as much information as possible before taking an away team over there. It looks quiet. For all we know they are all dead - or alive, and just stranded. I'd hate to go over loaded for targ when all they need is a push start. It might make them too nervous to tell us what in the four hells went wrong."

It was not much of a surprise that she was an advocate for the softly, softly approach. She had a reputation for preferring a think first, shoot later approach. Still, it paid to be prepared...

"Mister Hansen, is the subspace disturbance disrupting targeting or phasers? If it gets difficult, I don't want our only option to be standing outside and throwing torpedoes at them..."

An amusing image for what would be an extremely grave situation...

The Captain sat back in her chair and regarded the various data points that were coming in. They were in unclaimed space, surrounded by subspace interference, and unable to transport on to the ship.

She nodded to her XO. "Agreed. Yellow alert. Adjust your sensors as needed and try again, Mr. Wright. open a channel, please."

T'leera was an oddity amongst her people - she was known for being somewhat more aggressive in certain things than was typical for Vulcans. Perhaps it had to do with her having been at Wolf 359. Still, she wasn't inclined to rush in where angels feared to tread for she was no fool. There were times where caution was warranted and this situation certainly seemed to call for ir.

The circumstances to his last posting where he'd nearly died and required a full year of recovery and numerous surgeries.

Thankfully, the Captian had elected to stop further away before dropping out of warp, so the situation wasn't exactly parallel.

Still, there was always the possibility, and couldn't put it totally out of his mind.

The garbled sensors didn't help. He didn't so much read the readings as experience them through his link, and the weird fuzziness of his senses through the ship were unsettling.

The lieutenant's fingers flew over the controls before responding. "Confirmed. Targeting sensors are static. Weapon functions appears unaffected, but I can't say for sure how the distortions might affect any phaser fire. Torpedo lock would be inoperative."

Posting for Mr. Hansen since his player mentioned he may not be available until the end of the weekend. For exposition and questions such as this is the only time I'll leap in, and only if you mention you don't mind me doing this....

Mr Wright, please give me a 2d20 roll of Control+Science with a Diff. of 4. Remember, you can buy extra dice by adding to the Threat Level... :) Someone can roll 1d20 for the support of the Ships Sensors+Science. Only if Sebastian gets 1 success, can any successes from the ship be added...
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:32, Sat 27 Aug 2022.

Yog-Sothoth regarded the forward viewscreen, taking in the site of the stranded Oberth-class ship behind the wall of static. The Orion had received the signal hours ago, but how long had the ship been disabled? Did anyone still breathe within that shell? And if not, was there anything salvageable from the wreckage? He suppressed a small smile. Wrong thinking, Lieutenant. Those were the Before Times.

"If there's no response, maybe we could use the tractor beam to pull her clear?" he asked aloud.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:44, Sat 27 Aug 2022.

The XO tapped her combadge with curt efficiency. She was economical with the movement, and her words were crisp, efficient, and firm. She had a new Captain to impress, after all, and in her role she had to be able to prove she new how to give orders, as well as know what orders to give. A Captain set a task. It was up to the other officers to actually know how to carry that task out.

"Xan to Pohl. Mr Wright is going to try to reconfigure sensors to pierce the subspace distortion. Can you try to boost them from engineering? Whatever power you can spare. This might be a sledgehammer to crack a nut situation."

In Engineering, Nilani Pohr is standing at a console, carefully watching the ship's systems for any irregularities. Around her, there is a small hive of activity, engineers at consoles or moving from station to station.

"Pohr here," she begins as her XO finishes. "I can do that, no problem ma'am. That interference will make the transporters unable to lock anyway, so we will divert from there.

Nilani taps the console in front of her, and the distinctive hum of the warp drive shifts in pitch slightly as the power in the ship is rerouted.

OOC: Oh god, this does not look good for one of the youngest Chief Engineers in Starfleet history. 19:27, Today: Nilani Pohr rolled 20 using 1d20 ((20)).
This message was last edited by the player at 20:56, Wed 31 Aug 2022.

Sebastian shook his head as his hands flew across his console. "Damn! I can't figure out what in hell is causing this disturbance."

Wow...SC is going to have fun...

Okay, I don't believe any of Sebastian's values, focuses, or talents apply, so just Control + Science with a target of 12 or less. To give me even a chance of success, adding 1 threat to create an opportunity for an additional d20.

And I rolled...a 20, 18, and 7. So 1 success combined with a 20, and I've added a Threat...good times.

13:24, Today: Sebastian Wright rolled 45 using 3d20 with rolls of 20,18,7.  Control + Science: Target 12.

As Lieutenant Commander Wright's fingers fly across the controls, Lieutenant Pohr began making adjustments to the sensors and the warp signature to try to minimize any interference. Just as it appears that the sensors are penetrating the interference, a sudden increase in the frequency of the subspace interference triggers an overload in the plasma conduit controls and the alarms begin blaring regarding the potential breech. The surge of power from the plasma overload triggers several redundant safeties to activate and reduce power to all but life support and thrusters leaving the Orion in a precarious position drifting alongside the ship she had come to examine.

For several tense minutes the damage control crews work their magic and eliminate any potential danger from the event, but the Sensors are left in a diminished state with potentially hours remaining to reestablish full sensor function. In the meantime, it appears that any possible use of the transporters is out, needing to rely on a shuttle to get any away team over to the science vessel.

"Four days," Vylana said, rubbing her leg where one particularly violent jerk from side to side of the vessel had caused her to pick up a bruise. "That's all it took. Four days to leave us needing serious repairs. I expect some enterprising technician at Utopia Planitia was running a book on it." She tapped the data screen by her chair and tried to make some sense out of the readings. They were back to square one, but this time with broken sensors. So that was fun.

Sebastian frowned as he looked down at his controls and then shrugged, "Sorry about that XO, I guess I'm still getting used to the ship." He paused, seemingly lost in thought, before continuing, "We could still launch a probe and use it as a comms relay for the away team. And on that note, I'd like to volunteer to accompany the away team, since this was a science vessel and I might be able to better understand what happened being there."

The request likely wouldn't be a surprise to either the Captain or XO; Sebastian had developed quite a reputation on his previous ship as a very hands-on science officer.

Rob stifled a smile at Vylana's sarcasm, playfully tapping at his controls to check if any of the weapon systems were up, and how the shields were doing.  Not very well, considering they didn't have power to spare for the transporters, or the engines.

"Well, if we're going down, or is it up? there, we need to at least perform a quick visual scan of the Alcubierre.  See if we can detect any hull breaches"

Another Captain, one not Vulcan, might have been angered or upset by the sudden change in their situation but T'leera was not another Captain. She was, however, slightly puzzled at what had just happened and would need to see reports from all members involved before she had a complete picture.

"Begin prepping your away team, Commander," she said to her XO before turning to look at the Security Chief. "Make it so."

She pressed the comms button on her chair. "Captain to Engineering - how long do you estimate it will take to repair the sensors and restore full functionality?"

The hum of the warp drive shifts, and Nilani watches the readout, at first with excitement, then with trepidation turning to worry as the alarms begin and alerts begin to pull up on the console in front of her. Power floods out of the system as the plasma conduit control units. Her hands fly of the console, double checking safeties and checking for first damage reports.

"Celvins! Skaroc! We need crews on those plasma conduit controllers right now. We need power back yesterday." Hearing the captains question, she taps her combadge as she turns back to the main engineering console. "Pohr here, Captain T'Leera. I have crews repairing the blown plasma conduits as we speak, should have main power back shortly, but transporters and sensors are basically shot. It will likely be a couple of hours before they are up and running. I have to caution any away teams, from what I am seeing damage wise, the Alcubierre is likely not terribly stable right now."

"Aye Captain," Vylana stopped rubbing her bruise, and rose to her feet. "Hansen, Wright, D'Saylyr, with me. I want you to find out what happened over there. Kal, I'll need you to pilot the shuttle. With all that subspace interference, it could get a little choppy out there, I want someone I can rely on at the controls." She then tapped her combadge. "Xan to Bishop. Please join us in shuttlebay one, we're taking a team over to the stranded ship. I have a feeling if anybody did survive there, they'll be glad to see you." And she tapped her badge again! "Xan to Pohr. I know you've got your hands full, but if you could send someone to shuttlebay one to join the away team... I'd appreciate it."

It was a good number of people. Science and Ops could try to get to the bottom of what happened, while an Engineer was vital to get power back. Security was needed for fairly obvious reasons. Likewise Medical. Just one more thing. "Mister Hansen, bring along whoever is on the duty roster. A couple more people to explore the ship will speed things up considerably. Let's go!"

She gave a slight nod to the Captain. "If coms are inoperable, we will be cut off. Once we know the situation, I'll send someone back with the shuttle if it is safe. If you haven't heard from us after a couple of hours, it might be because we're in trouble."

"Understood, Number One. We shall keep the commlink open and remain at stations at yellow alert whilst you are away," T'leera replied.

She continued monitoring ship's systems as well as the status of the Alcubierre. That they were in a rather tenuous situation was a vast understatement and the current condition of her ship did not instill great confidence in her.

Sickbay was abuzz with activity, just the way Devon liked it.  The Orion had a small medical team, but that was also fine with her.  She was very aware of her limitations as far as being a people person, and the less time she had to spend wrangling nurses and orderlies the better.  And she hated delegating, though she'd had to do some of that here already, in order to get Sickbay up and running properly.  New ships were both good and bad in that respect -- there was more chance to set things up exactly as she wanted them, but also more chances of things going wrong because some engineer hadn't managed to shake out all the bugs.  Thankfully, there hadn't been too much of that here.  No, on the whole, everything had gone pretty well.  The staff was learning not to try chatting with her, all her spot checks of the equipment looked good, and she was confident they'd be able to handle an emergency.

Then the ship lurched and the lights went out.  And she absolutely hated the dark.

But this wasn't the Excalibur, she reminded herself, and twitchy as the ship might be, she was reasonably sure it wasn't about to fly apart.  Reasonably.
"Engineering!" Devon barked, except of course ship's communications weren't working, either. Her hand flew to her commbadge instead.  "Sickbay to Engineering, we've lost power!  What the hell are you people doing down there?"  The medical staff was murmuring anxiously among themselves, but otherwise were wisely staying away from their doctor.

But the comms chatter was overwhelming -- no doubt everyone was sitting in the dark at the moment, trying to figure out who they should be cursing for the blackout -- and the only immediate response she got wasn't a response at all, just the first officer asking her to head over to the vessel they were supposed to be rescuing.  And we're doing a bang-up job at that, aren't we? she fumed.  "Fine, shuttlebay one," she replied, tightly.  "I might as well, since you've broken the damn Sickbay!"

Working by the uncertain light of those few consoles still generating some power, she gathered up an emergency med-kit and her tricorder.  "Someone keep on Engineering.  Don't leave them alone until we've got full power back," she ordered, and stalked out of the room towards the shuttlebay.