Ep1 Act3: The Golden Hind

[SabrinaPandora]

[Nevian]

[Sjet]

"Ship might have been flown by some fancy tech, but at the end of the day it has to obey some of the same rules as the a Starfleet vessel. Back ups, manual controls: hell maybe this thing has a ballast tank." Captain Sjet muttered, looking around the domed command chamber before looking back at the others "That video we were shown tells us these people were fighters, and you don't survive to make ships that nudge moons out of orbit by committing rookie mistakes. You don't just give yourself one way to run a ship, even the Borg aren't that single minded."

"The assumption there is that they built any of their own tech. For all we know we're dealing with a culture that has the technical ability, but not the technical knowledge to create." Santra said solomely.

"You mean like a Pre-Warp culture getting its hands on a working replicator and knowing the red button makes pecan pie?" Sjet pondered, nodding a little "Possible, but that idea leaves us with a drought of options to play with. Look at this..."

The younger ship commander knelt down, gesturing to the stump like projection from which the many supporting branches of the chair had risen. Some of the melt aliens armour was there in hardened clumps, but the branches were slowly retracting back into the stump. On their supporting tips were broad pads, lined with a fuzz of metallic cillia that waved to and fro in the air without anything to interact with.

"We assume that branches allowed the pilot to command the ship, with the helmet acting as a direct interface between ship and captain as Sai'tan stated." Sjet said.

"But the command would have to relayed, and a direct link would cut down on signal to noise ratios. Not to mention malicious interference." Santra picked up, using his own tri corder to scan on of the branch pads "Simple enough bioelectric interface."

"Simple enough to use a tricorder to simulate nerve signals?" Sjet said with a raised eyebrows.

"I would need a tricorder with twice the broad casting power of this device." Santra said, turning the little scanner over and pulling a back panel of of it "Chief Sai'tan, I have a task for you that is not beyond your material prowses. Gut a pair of tricorders and splice their emitters into this scanner, I want it able to transmitting a high frequency signal whilst almost modulating that same signal. I want it robust enough to last five minutes before it burns out, which should be enough time for us to get into a highly eccentric orbit of this Gas Giant or plunge into its liquid metal core."

TAG-Sai'tan

As Santra began to spit instructions another thing began to happen: Ryler's combadge began to spit static. Every other word was gibberish hashed apart with howling electromagnetic interference, but the words that did make it through were in Federation Standard.

"ZZZT-Allen surviors....ZAZA-Helmsman Gary Cooper to any other Tim Allen survivors! Res-JZK." Sjet was strides away from ripping the combadge from Rylers chest when the signal cleared up "-to any other Tim Allen survivors! Respond on this frequency! Multiple wounded in some...sort of ship, thing! We're also plus one with a downed alien in gold armor! This is Helmsman Gary Cooper."

Sjet turned and pointed at Jones.

"Find me where that signal is coming from!" the young Captain snapped.

TAG-All

[Nevian]

[SabrinaPandora]

Over the engineering chief's shoulder, P'Trell tried to explain her experience, as it might actually be relevant in this case. After all, it did not look like he was doing anything aggressive with the tricorder, and it was highly doubtful that Talla would recognize it if he was. Operating tricorders was a vexing experience for her at best.

"I.., do not know how I was... r-repaired?" the little lieutenant stuttered. "There was... a v-voice, and it asked me if I wanted to die, and I said no, ah, no. I thought it was... but, um, it was not, um, the Infinite, and it said so. And it said... what was it..." the grey brows, so often pure and snowy white on most Andorians yet on her the color of dirty snow furrowed together. "I asked it to help me, and it said, 'Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.' I... do not know if that is helpful. But it was cool, and it hurt and then it hurt less and less, then I woke up and I was l-l-like this. I, um, do not know how helpful that is..." Holding up her grey colored hand the tiny tactician's gaze flickered to it, then she put it down quickly, trying not to look at her newest deformity.

All the while the Vulcan's fingers were flying over the tricorder's controls as he reprogrammed it to do something beyond Talla P'Trell's understanding, some function beyond her ken. But she assumed that he had heard her tale, such as it was, and that what little insight she had to offer had gone into figuring out the larger problem.

Or so she hoped. Watching the venerable Vulcan engineer work was making her antsy when she could be off finding and rescuing the rest of the crew if they were trapped in another part of this 'Golden Hind'. That was somewhere she could be useful. That was where her duty lay, to her eyes.

But orders were orders. Lieutenant Sai'tan was her first priority, then the safety of the crew here. And Lieutenant Jones would find the lost crew and soon Talla would have a direction to go, assuming her request was approved. All of which enabled her to focus on something other than her own personal issues, which were mounting but easily swept aside by her defining devotion to duty.

~Tag next

[Ciara Mei]

[Sjet]

“What? Is that the ass hat of a Bajoran’s personal assistant? Is the chain of command that chewed up that your now leading the charge?” came the bemoaning wise-assery that seemed to be Helmsman Gary’s natural reaction to stress “Oh we are so boned right now…”

“Can it Coop.” Sjet said, giving Zyler a beneficent smile as he smacked down the voice emanating from her com badge “Tell me who've you’ve got down there and what their situation is, like the nice lady asked of you.”

As the former captain of the USS Tim Allen spoke the deck beneath their feet shifted slightly, seeming to be tilting upwards at a slight angle towards the nose of the craft: either the Golden Hind was about to roll over and sink or they were beginning the long trek back towards orbit.

“Nice to see you made it through in one piece Sir. I have the entire Medical section down here with me, that both nurses and their field surgery kits. Chief Benny is down here too with his gang of grease monkeys from engineering: minor chemical burns from a coolant pipe that burst before transport. I’m guessing from the tone of your voice that we got split down the middle when that Pixie haired science geek blasted our molecules on the one way express?”

“Something like that…” Sjet said, eyeing his collection of Starbase survivors with the handful of Tim Allen survivors: he got a full head count and sighed a breath of relief “Keep the line open Cooper, we’re going to figure out where you are and get to you. Whats the status of your golden guest?”

“Unconscious…we think. Its not moving, though that could be because all of the joints on its armour arm melted. There’s also this…black glass spear thing pinning it down from the over head, right through this golden goose, and through the floor. Got it pinned to the deck, though it doesn’t look like its wreckage: medical support line maybe? Saw a hospital ship during The War that had medical aid station set up in the corridors just in case, but this….well this is all way off spec Captain.” Cooper’s buzzy electronic voice replied “Tricorders having no luck getting through the armour layer, but we’re happy to leave it alone if it’ll leave us alone ya know? If that spear’s killed it or keeping it alive, we have no way of knowing.”

“Okay just keep yourselves safe and we’ll do the rest here.” Captain Sjet soothed, before looking at Ryler “Reckon you can figure out a way to triangulate their location? I want to bring them here or get to them if I have to. I’m sure Lueteant P’Trell security and tactical training will help you in that task, if Captain Santra’s paranoia has run its course.”

“I heard that.” was the stoic response, to which Sjet gave Ryler a conspiratorial grin.

TAG-Ryler and P’Trell

While all of this was going on the Vulcan commend with the Golden Hind. Indeed the ships nose had inclined, and whilst there was no evidence of motive force being applied the ship was beginning to rise. By the time Captain Sjet had given new orders to Ensign Ryler, the Golden Hind had exited its calm bubble of peace within the gas giant of Tangerine, and was now being buffeted by the continent sized storms of its atmosphere: not that there was any sense of being tormented by the tempest for the surviving Starfleet crew. They might very well have been riding a airBus from the San Fransisco transporter station to Starfleet Headquarters. Santra kept a purloined tricorder trained on Chief Sai’tan, humming softly as he admired the results.

“A fascinating mechanism is it not?” he said a little breathlessly “Able to adapt from a avian neural pattern to one originating from a primate genus. The raw computational power that represents is, in a word, frightening is it not?” he snapped the scanner closed “You can let go of the connection now Chief Sai’tan. I doubt very much there is more to be gained without a more full and proper investigation of this communication medium.”

TAG-Sai’tan, and Jone if you want to get a word in about whats going on.

[SabrinaPandora]

Hearing her name in amongst the conversation upon which she was eavesdropping, the small security sprite perked up, swiveling one of her blue suction-cupped antenna toward the conversation while she eyed Lieutenant Sai'tan. The venerable Vulcan still did not look like he was going to lose his mind anytime soon, but orders were orders. As for finding the secondary landing party and the survivors that Lieutenant Jones had managed to whisk away, the little lieutenant's training said to look for a map or begin moving in a search pattern. Since she could not do one without disobeying orders- which was simply not in her mental makeup, as she had proven with her life on more than one occasion in the past- she attempted the other.

"Chief Engineer Sai'tan?" the nervous nugget asked in her squeaky voice. "Do you know how we might bring up a map of the interior of this ship, so we might rescue the lost landing party?"

Maybe giving the pointy-eared engineer something to do would help him, and if he had the answer all the better. Hopefully this was not the catalyst which drove him over the edge after contacting an ancient and seemingly immortal mind with his own. Talla was not in the mood to punch out an old man today, though Captain Santra Arron was still awake and the day was not over yet.

~tag Sai'tan

[Ciara Mei]

[SabrinaPandora]

As if noticing her for the first time, the Andorian turned to eye the brunette, though her antennas continued to stick to Sai'tan even as she directed her attention to the frustrated intelligence officer.

"Ensign Zayna Ryler, what can I do to help?" At least the diminutive security chief knew Zayna's name. "Chief Sai'tan is doing... something. And I am ready to lead an away team as soon as we have somewhere to go."

For someone who had been at death's door five minutes ago the polar pixie was awfully chipper.

~tag Sai'tan, Ryler