| Home
Characters Logs Specs Rules Join
|
"Women
Can Be So Mysterious"
After the doctor had left, the bridge returned to quiet awe at the unidentified object on the screen. Marie was no less impressed than anyone else, but her thoughts also dwelt on a different subject. She swiveled her chair around to face the captain and asked out loud and with a tone of innocence, "Captain, did your excursion with Yeoman Tarrah yield anything of interest besides some successful stargazing?" "You don't think that was interesting enough?" Spencer gestured toward the screen as he crossed over to the navigation station. "I must say, you have to admire her skills at exploration and discovery." He was so focused on the anomaly on the screen that he completely missed Marie's accusing stare. "Maybe you do," Marie answered quietly but pointedly. "I don't. So is that what you did, explore and discover?" "Yeah," Spencer couldn't resist a dopey grin as his attention remained on the viewscreen, oblivious to the french girl's true accusations. "It was great. I finally got what I've been after for all these years." If looks could kill David Spencer would have been but a pile of smouldering ashes. "That's so good to know," Marie said, not caring if anyone on the bridge could overhear them. "From what I heard the feeling was quite mutual. For all these years." "Do you really think there are some feeling there?" David said, still referring to the cloud. "That's almost more than I had ever hoped for. I mean, I was hoping for some kind of exciting experience with an alien, but who knew..." "Yeah..." Bitterness hardening her features Marie turned back to her console, trying to ignore the stinging somewhere inside her chest. The incredible boldness with which he admitted everything completely blew her away. "Of course aliens are more fun. Especially with a skin color like that." "Talk about 'where no man has gone...'" Spencer's sudden confusion interrupted his muttering and finally brought his attention to Marie. "Skin color? What are you talking about? Are you getting some readings?" "Yes, I'm reading the end of a very short journey. It was good while itlasted, and now more fascinating things are beckoning." Spencer
just stared at Marie in stunned, confused silence. Sometimes womencould
be so mysterious.
"Communications?"
"Dr. Baxter to Ensign Brazier!" the doctor called out as the doors to the turbolift swished shut. He also grabbed a handle and quietly commanded the computer "Deck Five". <Ensign Brazier here. What can I do for you doctor?> the voice came over the comm. "I'm assuming you guys in Science have begun receiving data on the colourful gasseous anomaly flanking us?" <Aye, sir. We've begun some analysis on the thing following the algorithm which allows our sensors to pick up the thing.> "Good. I'll be there in a few moments to confer with you." * * * * * * * * * * * * The doctor walked in to the Science and Astrometrics laboratory, and nodded in approval at the quick paced and efficient movements of the crew. It was obvious they'd locked onto the anomaly, and were analyzing it with verve. "Ah, Doctor Finnley. Well met," the Chief Science officer said, peaking from behind a console. "We're just getting preliminary data now from refining the resolution of the sensors. Come see what you can make of this." The doctor stepped around the console and peered down at the read out. He let out a low whistle as he read over the data. "You've been able to resolve unique energy fields within that object... Computer! Correlate data being received by the sensors with known life-form energy patterns. Do any of the energy fields being observed have the complexity to represent life?" <WORKING: 87% MATCH: 35% OF ENERGY FIELDS BEING OBSERVED ARE LIFE FORM LIKE> The doctor punched a few buttons on the console. "It appears that 35% of what we have on sensors is living... The other 65% seems to be ... Force Fields! Amazing... That must mean that that anomaly..." "Is a ship built entirely of gasseous materials and forcefields!" Ensign Brazier finished off for him. "But how is that possible? I can't even begin to fathom it! This is a form of technology entirely alien to anything the federation has ever known..." the doctor trailed off as he noticed a pattern in the read outs. "Ensign," the doctor said, "how are ship-to-ship communications generally achieved?" "Um, by causing resonations in a subspace field. It results in a form of subspace radiation which travels at high warp velocity in subspace, so that communication is virtually instantaneous... Why do you ask?" "Well, look at these readings here. If I'm not mistaken, there's a pattern there, but it doesn't look like its subspace..." "Hmm..." Brazier took a look at the readout. He punched a few buttons. Then he looked up. "Trevors! Do you still have your experiment running?" "Aye Sir!" "Can you please point it towards the "anomaly"?" "Aye! I'll feed whatever it reads through to your station?" "Yes," Brazier watched as the display changed. He continued to watch the readout, as he punched a few more buttons. "Oh my god. You're right, doctor... there is a pattern there. They're trying to communicate with us." "How is it we didn't hear them before?" "Because I just had Trevors point his hyperspace antenna at them. They're communicating in hyperspace." "Hyperspace? What do you mean?" "Space has three layers. The one that we tend to use is subspace. All of our equipment is geared to subspace... our communications, our warp drives, everything. But Hyperspace is like the upper layer... our scientists have been trying to find a way to take advantage of it for a long time, but we've never been able to find a way in which it would be more useful to us than subspace. It takes less energy for us to create subspace fields and cause subspace resonance... Everything we've ever needed has worked in subspace, and beyond that there have been several catastrophic failures in dealing with hyperspace - something to do with highly energetic hyperspace particles..." "Is there anyway to hear what they're saying then, Brazier?" "Well, hopefully our computers will be able to translate the language soon..." "Good..."
the doctor walked over to the intercom, "Doctor Finnley to Captain Spencer!
Sir, I've got some interesting news..."
"The
First Step"
~~~~USS Republic - Bridge~~~~ Dean had been sitting at his station, still trying to establish communications with the Alien ship, when the new information came pouring in from Astrometrics. Apparently the Aliens operated on a hyperspace frequency, it seemed everything was done differently over there. He quickly made some adjustments to his equipment, setting them to match the hyperspace frequency that the Aliens were operating on. "Any luck Mr. Hargraves?" the Captain inquired. "Almost sir, I should have communication established here in a few minutes," Dean replied "However sir, I can't guarantee that the translator will be able to decipher their language." "I understand," he replied. Dean made some more modifications. Sounds started to invade the bridge, Alien sounds, not hostile, but different. Dean continued to make modifications from his station. "Dammit," he cursed silently. "Captain, it's going to take a little while. I have to configure all the communications equipment to operate on the Aliens frequency, otherwise we'll receive broken communications, not their full message." The Captain nodded, "Understood Mr. Hargraves, do what you have to." Spencer fought not to hover over the ensign's shoulder. With out communications, the alien vessel could just as well have been lightyears away instead of right in front of them. Dean jammed his ear piece in, as he continued to manipulate his console,changing routines, and the entire way the communications array operated. After a few more minutes, he started to receive the aliens transmission on a steady stream. "Their language isn't hard to grasp sir," Dean announced. "It's mostly simple sound structures, nothing too complicated. The computer shouldnt have trouble translating." "Very good Mr. Hargraves," the Captain responded. It was getting harder and harder to keep the frustration out of his voice. Dean fed the computer all the transmission information. He looked down at the screen, read over the information, then passed it on. "The computer estimates three minutes to full translation." The seconds ticked by slowly. Dean wasn't too worried about it, after all it was just a communication, but damn if this was exciting. An entire ship built out of force fields and gaseous materials, this was what it was all about. Finding new and interesting races, different cultures, and technologies. This was why Dean had joined Starfleet, and he was already loving this first assignment. "Translation complete," the computer stated in a flat tone. Captain Spencer shot out of his chair and, fighting the urge to run up to him, turned to face the communications officer. Dean jammed his ear piece back in, and pressed the playback button. The message that came through was simple and clear. Dean flipped another button after hearing the entire message, and played it back for the entire bridge crew to hear. "Captain, putting the transmission on bridge speakers," Dean stated, as he pushed the playback button once again. "Greetings. We are the Arwa, what is your designation?" The voice was calm and comforting. No hostile tone could be detected. Captain Spencer paced slightly, but his gaze never left the screen. "Mr.Hargraves," he started, "tell them that we are the USS Republic of the United Federation Of Planets, we wish peaceful contact." Dean flipped another control, then repeated the Captains message back to the Arwa. "Captain, they're responding," Dean announced. "On speakers." "Greetings Republic. We are pleased that communication has been established. Though we must say that we are quite surprised at the nature of your ship. How is it that you have created something out of solid matter?" Captain Spencer afforded a small laugh. "Mr. Hargraves put me through." The Captain stood from his position, and cleared his throat. "This is Captain David Spencer, commanding officer of the USS Republic," the captain began. "We are as amazed as you are at our ship as we are of yours. Almost all of our machinery and tools are made out of solid matter, as I'm sure yours are made out of gaseous material. We are just as curious about your methods as you must be as ours. We would be happy to share any information you might be interested in," the Captain finished. Dean looked at the comm board, glanced back up, then jammed the ear piece back in. He was receiving another transmission but this time the aliens had increased the speed of their speech to a point where Dean couldn't keep up. He had the computer record it, and play it back as text for him to overview. "Captain, the Arwa have sent us information on how their vessels operate, and how they are constructed of gaseous material. They are requesting the same information from us." "Go ahead and send it Ensign," the Captain said, "I see no harm in sharing un-classified information." The captain stopped and took another look at the viewscreen. "On second thought, make sure you don't send any information above a class 4 developmental rating. Just because they're coming at technology from a different direction than we are doesn't necessarily mean they're more advanced than us. I'd hate to have to face a Prime Directive infraction this soon out of spacedock." Dean quickly compressed all the information into a single transmission file, and sent it out over the hyperspace channel. "Captain Spencer," the Arwa vessel responded back through the bridge speakers. "We notice you behave differently." "What do you mean by differently? Different from who?" Spencer let hisconfusion show. "Different than the stealthy ones. The ones that try to hide." it was hard to determine any emotion in the voice, "You make no trying to hide, and you talk to us." "Stealthy ones?" Spencer mouthed silently back at Ensign Hargraves. "Romulans?" Hargraves shrugged silently. "We are quite different from them, I assure you." Spencer resumed addressing the aliens. "We wish to be your friends. Did the stealthy ones try to attack you?" "They did, the first time they came, they tried to hide. Their machines seemed to try to make them be like us, so we tried to talk to them, but they seemed to ignore us. So we nudged them and accidentally broke them. They seemed to not like that and they fired weapons at us and hurt us. They don't seem to see us very good, but they keep watching." "Sir," Hargraves interrupted quietly, "If the Arwa are used to using hyperspace, then it would stand to reason that they have no problem seeing through the Romulan cloaking device. That would certainly irritate the Romulans." "Excellent point, Ensign. And it would explain why they thought that a gaseous cloud was a secret Federation weapon." Captain Spencer turned back to the viewscreen. "Arwa vessel, as I stated, we do wish to be your friends. We are not like the stealthy ones, they are not part of this space." "We don't understand, Captain." The Arwa captain responded, "The stealthy ones are never far from our system. Infact, there are three of them right over there." "Ensign," Spencer's adrenaline immediately began to pump as he crossed over to the communications console. "Get an exact distance and bearing from the Arwa." Dean worked at his station and relayed the message onto the Arwa. "Sir, they have responded. They don't know the affiliation of the ships, but they have sent me a course of their ships. I'm putting it on the main viewer." Dean plotted out the course of the three ships that were supposedly at the edge of the system. A red "X" indicated their current location, with a blue line showing their course and origin. The
Captain stood, concern crossing his face. He only said one word...
"Romulans."
"Romulans!"
"Red Alert! Shields up!" Spencer spun to face the blips on the viewscreen. "Marie, lock onto those signals using the established protocols. Helm, bring us about to face the new contacts." He spun back to communications, "Ensign, contact the Arwa and explain to them what's going on. We want to defend them." The Republic spun on its axis until it faced the seemingly empty area of space where the Romulans sat hiding. "Targets are moving." Ensign Larron reported. Spencer spun back to see the formation slowly splitting up and attempting to surround the Republic. "Arm photon Torpedoes, Mr. Fitzgerald. Target the center ship." Spencer could feel his palms beginning to sweat slightly. "Sir, the center vessel is beginning to decloak." Ensign Brazier reported with his French accent. "He's arming weapons." Marie Larron's French accent quickly followed. "Fire!" Spencer snapped. The Republic would have a hard time against even one of these aggressors at full capacity. But, he knew that when they were cloaked, the Romulans couldn't fire weapons and their shields would be down. The only chance they had was to narrow the playing field. And the time to do it was while the enemy still thought they were hidden. The Romulan warbird was wrenched out place as it's cloak completely failed and the plasma weapon it was preparing to discharge shot off wildly. "Contact the Romulans! Demand their surrender for violating Federation space!" the Captain spat to Hargraves. "The other two Romulans are decloaking." Larron reported. "And arming weapons." Suddenly the ship rocked from a plasma blast from the first vessel. "Sounds like they don't want to surrender. Well, I asked." Spencer turned back to Fitzgerald. "Continue firing on that lead vessel." The Captain finally returned to his chair and sat down so that the locking mechanism could wrap around his lap. Several more shots burst out of the Republic and smashed into the damaged warbird. Suddenly, the Romulan ship erupted with a powerful explosion. Unfortunately, the other two vessels had flanked the Federation ship and were beginning to pummel her with their own fire. The Republic was badly over matched and the advantage of surprise was now gone. "Damn,"
Spencer muttered as the concept of loosing another ship and crew began
to seem like a possibility.
"Damage"
A battle had erupted from one moment to the other, and as Marie was being shaken back and forth in her seat by the incoming fire she thought that perhaps joining Starfleet hadn't been such a good idea after all. Perhaps they were all going to die. Marie felt the overwhelming urge to get up despite the rocking motions of the bridge, go over to David and slap him across the face, or kiss him, or both. She was so angry at him, but he still meant a lot to her. They'd already shared so much of themselves with each other. Marie still didn't pretend to know what exactly this great mystery called 'love' was, but she was already getting much closer to finding out than she ever had with Pierre, her husband. That son of a b- Again the ship rocked, with more force than before, and over by the Science station a panel burst open, spewing sparks and smoke. "Merde," Marie muttered grimly. "I don't want to die just yet, David. Not before I've had my revenge on you and the green-skinned beauty..." She knew he couldn't hear her. She also knew that her thoughts of revenge were just that; thoughts and crazy ideas. In reality Marie felt absolutely helpless and alone, but she would never admit that to herself. Around her were the sounds and movements of people growing more desperate by the second; some damage reports, some orders, but above it all were the sounds of a ship taking more and more damage. Somewhere to her right someone began to pray. And
the battle went on...
"Explosions
and Exposures"
The observation lounge had gotten dark and quite again. Once the Republic had come about, the aliens weren't visible anymore. But the Orion girl had stayed there with her thoughts. The blare of the Red Alert claxon made her jump almost to the ceiling. But when the explosions started and the deck was knocked out from under her, the fear began to take over. She gulped back a scream as she fought for control. While she had trained for combat, this was her first real exposure to it. Shakily, she rolled over to her hands and knees before pulling herself up onto her wobbly legs. The ship rocked again and threw her towards the door that she was heading toward anyway. Slapping the control, she stared out into the organized chaos that was taking place in the corridor. Crew members were pouring out of their quarters and rushing off to their battle stations. Seeing everyone else reacting amplified the knots her stomach was twisting into. Somehow this seemed to make the situation and the danger much more real to her. She stood in the doorway dazed for several minutes. Trying to remember what she needed to do. What was her battle station? Suddenly it came to her and she rushed into the mass of moving people. Joining the fast pace, she raced to the Captain's quarters. In moments she was there, she swung into his desk and punched up his computer console. As his yeoman, she was responsible for securing his files and command codes prior to any possible enemy action. Quickly she punched in the required passwords and commands. Next, she downloaded the latest of the captain's logs into the emergency buoy. Even as she did it, she felt a little bit nauseous as she thought about the implications of why she was doing that. If the ship was destroyed and they all died, that buoy would be the last remainder of who and what they were. As if to punctuate that point, the ship rocked again with a massive explosion. Tarrah was thrown from the chair. Several of the captains books and papers also fell. Looking into his sleeping quarters, she also saw several of his paintings fall off the wall. Crawling into the debris, she reached the nearest painting. It was one of his newest. She picked it up and gazed at it. She loved Davids paintings. She glanced up towards the Bridge, hoping that he was okay up there and knowing that, as long as he was up there, he would keep her and the rest of the crew safe. She looked back at the painting. It was a nude study of a woman lounged on a bed. Tarrah admired the image. It was a great example of David's skill and talent. Not only did it catch the shapes and form of the figure, but also the personality of the model was also evident in every brush stroke. It was almost as if she knew the woman in the painting. Tarrah's face fell with recognition. She lowered the painting to see the background of the painting match David's rumpled bedroom. The ship rocked with another explosion, but this time Tarrah's eyes showed no fear, instead they burned with her Orion animal fury. Her fingernails dug into the wooden frame of the painting... |
