Where'd You Go? Part One

Posted on Mon Oct 1st, 2018 @ 11:43pm by Johnathen Anderson Jr & Captain Rueben Gregnol & Executive Officer Valiyi Uhin

Mission: Mission 8 - Shattered
Location: Shuttle Alexandria / ISS Punisher (AU)
Timeline: MD01 20:00
1419 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

For the past six hours, a large Klingon shuttle sped through space at high warp speeds. The occupants, two human men and one female hologram, were all feeling a bit tense.

"Anything yet?" Micheal asked again, for the third or fourth time, in the last hour.

"Nothing has changed on my long range sensors, Micheal," Rebecca replied, a frustrated tone in her simulated voice. "We need to get closer, at least another three hundred million kilometers, and then I should be able to get a better picture."

About twenty long minutes later, Rebecca's features changed. “I'm starting to get something.”

“What do you see?” Johnathen, the other man present, asked, trepidation hanging in the back of his voice.

Rebecca cocked her head to her left, as if confused by what the shuttle’s enhanced long range sensors were telling her. “I'm not detecting the Mary Rose at the last coordinates that we had for her. Nor am I detecting any wreckage. However, I am detecting an unusual ion storm where she should be.”

“How is an ion storm unusual?” Micheal asked as he started to look over the readings. “Did it pass over where the ship should be?” He was a little worried about that. Ion storms were quite hazardous to starships.

“No,” the hologram replied, shaking her head. “It's stationary.”

“What?” Johnathen cut in. “How is that possible? Ion storms don’t sit still. They are constantly moving through space, their courses erratic and unpredictable. That's what makes them so dangerous!”

“I don't know, Johnathen,” Rebecca answered the pilot. All I know is…” she stopped mid-sentence as new sensor readings came in. “Wait. These readings are strange. While most of the readings do indicate an ion storm, the radiation levels are wrong.” She went silent again as she concentrated on identifying the readings she was receiving.

Both men stayed silent as they waited for Rebecca to continue. While they waited, Johnathen brought the shuttle out of warp and moved to a holding position, nearly four thousand kilometers from the outer edge of the supposed ion storm.

“I'm detecting odd neutrino emissions.” Rebecca finally said. “It almost seems to be a dimensional rift of some sort.”

Micheal was starting to get an apprehensive feeling as he read over the sensor readings. They seemed very familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “Do the sensors show whether the Mary Rose entered that rift?”

“Scanning,” Rebecca replied, a far off look crossing her face. Then, a few beats later, she looked at Micheal. “Yes, it entered the rift nearly twelve hours ago.”

“There's no telling if they're in trouble or not from here,” Johnathen stated, feeling concern for the safety of his wife and friends.

Micheal nodded, thinking furiously. He was trying desperately to figure out why the readings looked familiar. Unfortunately, he kept coming up blank. He decided to keep his concerns to himself for now. “Rebecca, would the cloak function during a transit through the rift?”

“I'm not sure, Micheal,” the hologram responded. “Only one way to find out.”

Looking over at Johnathen, who nodded his agreement to Micheal’s unspoken idea, Micheal manipulated his controls. “Engaging cloak. Take us in, John, one quarter impulse.”

The young pilot nodded, working his own controls. “Heading in. Hang on. It might get a bit bumpy.”

Slowly, the shuttle began to advance towards the anomaly. Less than thirty seconds later, they entered the outer bank of the cloud. The shuttle began to shudder, due to the subspace eddies coming from the rift. As they got closer, the vibrations grew stronger. 

Suddenly, the shuttle reached the event horizon of the rift. A large, greenish-yellow, void opened up, pulling the shuttle inside before the men could react.

*I.S.S. Punisher*

The officer who had been tasked with keeping an eye on the anomaly that had been used to bring the rust bucket from the other universe, that the Admiral wanted, was sitting, bored, at her station. Suddenly, she blinked when she saw that the anomaly was active again. "Sir... It is active again." She explained, looking at the readings. "It is a ship barely bigger than we are."

From the only seat on the bridge, came an annoyed grunt. “So, more lambs to the slaughter.” The voice was both gruff and heavily accented with a deep Texas drawl. The chair slowly turned toward the sensor officer, revealing Micheal Robertson. At least, most of the Mirror Universe’s Micheal Robertson. Upon first glance at the man, one would easily see that he was a heavily built, and equally heavily scarred, man. 

Starting at his feet, he was wearing black leather cowboy boots, complete with shining, razor-sharp spurs. Next, he was wearing dark blue denim jeans, which looked well worn. The jeans were completed with a black leather belt, complete with a large gold and platinum belt buckle. Upon the buckle was a representation of a cattle skull. Attached to the belt, and secured to both thighs, were two weapons holsters, each filled with a nasty-looking energy pistol.

His chest was bare, aside from the black leather vest that he wore open. There were several old battle scars covering his chest. The main scarring, however, was around his left shoulder, where his arm had been seemingly destroyed and replaced with a cybernetic version. 

The other vicious-looking scar was on his face. A long, jagged knife scar crossed his face, from his upper left forehead, down to the left side of his jaw. The scar bisected his left eye which, like his left arm, had been replaced with a cybernetic implant, complete with a ruby red lens that glowed with a seemingly inner fire.

Micheal lounged in his command chair, clearly secure in the fact that he was the master of his domain. “What do your sensors show, Halla?” He casually glanced over at the woman standing at the science station, located on the port side, aft, section of the bridge.

The woman turned to glance at him for a moment for using her first name, but let it drop. Gregnol would deal with him soon enough. "The portal is open again and something did come through." She pointed to the space that had been dull and boring, just moments prior, now brightly lit by the portal. "Neutrino emissions are off the charts." 

"What do you mean something?" Micheal growled menacingly, his cybernetic eye glowing brighter. "A moment ago, you said it was a ship barely bigger than we are. Did you lose it?" Micheal's mouth, already in an angry frown, deepened.

Halla turned and looked at him again and showed him the view screen. "It isn't there." She pointed out carefully leveling him a look, he needed her at the moment to work the stitches of systems that were keeping this old thing alive.

Aki gave the pair a weird look from his spot at helm. "Remind me next time we're gutting a ship that we need to update that god awful scanner. I bet that's not helping you at all."

At that moment, Rebecca, the ship's A.I., appeared next to Micheal. To say she was a vision of dangerous beauty would be an understatement. She was dressed, barely, in a white corset and matching undergarments and thigh-high stelleto heeled boots, all which left very little to the imagination. Her flawless porcelain-white skin was a sharp contrast to her bright, blazing, fire-red hair. It was long and flowing, coiled around her waist and left thigh as if it were a living thing.

"Micheal," she interrupted. "The enemy ship seems to possess a cloak of some kind. While that is making it difficult for me to detect it, I am picking up a unique artificial intelligence frequencey. Unique in such that it feels like, my frequency."

Turning back to address the avatar, the Texan asked, "Can you lock into their systems?"

Nodding and smiling seductively to her master, Rebecca replied. "I believe so, my lord. Stand by." She then looked back to the main viewer and seemed to freeze. A couple beats later, she vanished again.

::OFF::

Michael Robertson 
Chief Armory Officer/ Bounty Hunter 
SS Mary Rose/Shuttle Alexandria 

Johnathen Anderson Jr 
Helmsman 
SS Mary Rose 
PNPC Robertson 

Rebecca
Artificial Intelligence 
Shuttle Alexandria 
PNPC Robertson 

Captain Michael Robertson 
Commanding Officer/Bounty Hunter 
ISS Punisher
PNPC Robertson 

Rebecca
Artificial Intelligence 
ISS Punisher 
PNPC Robertson 

Ensign Halla Dezom
Science
ISS Punisher 
PNPC Gregnol

Lt. JG Akihito Takeshi
Helm
ISS Punisher
PNPC Uhin