Investigation On The Bridge

Posted on Fri Sep 24th, 2021 @ 10:31am by Ka'see 'Cassie' Anderson (*) & Executive Officer Jake Ford & Micheal Robertson & Chief Helmsman Eden Bowers
Edited on on Fri Sep 24th, 2021 @ 10:32am

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: SS Holoworld
Timeline: MD 02: 1300
1657 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Cassie was relieved to get off of Rosie for a little even if it was to explore what potentially could be a death trap. She looked around at the white clinical corridor and smiled slightly it was just like being back on her old ship for the cloud had made them resort to transporter loop for 150 years to keep them alive.

“The ship is far too clean for having been in a crash.” She observed as she looked at the map of where they were now that she was onboard having been requested to join the group. “Rosie is clean do not get me long but this ship is like my lab clinically clean.”

"It's supposed to be a hospitality vessel. Presumably they have advanced intertial dampeners to make sure the passengers don't have a bumpy ride," Jake suggested.

Cassie nodded. He could be correct but it still did not quite sit right with the logical part of her brain. “Why was it me requested anyway Jake?” Cassie wondered of the group leader.

"The engineers are all checking out the structure and systems. I figure you'd be a good choice to help us understand what actually happened here; why the ship got into difficulties," he answered.

“I should take that as a compliment shouldn’t I?” Cassie mused she had been pretty useful in situations like this. She turned to look at the other people in the group. “What are your observations so far?” She asked them all treating them as if they were junior science officers for a moment.

Micheal, pulling point security, responded first. "Power is still working, obviously. The holograms and the lifesupport all support that. There is no stench of death anywhere that we have been, thus far, so, the passengers that were supposed to be in these rooms have simply vanis...." He stopped midsentence.

Looking back to the rest of the group, he had a shocked look on his face. "What is they were beamed out...somewhere? Maybe it was more than an engine malfunction. You don't think...the it was a computer malfunction instead?"

"A malfunction . . ." Eden said thinking. "you know that's weird, I was telling Michael about those malfunctions that happened on Rosie when Jake first came on board." Realizing that had nothing to do with what was doing on right now she paused again. "A malfunction beaming everyone out at once? Impossible. The computer would have to lock on to every single life form and beam them into space, that's several malfunctions, not one and I'm sure there are redundancies to prevent that sort of thing."

“Very impossible. We would have found signs of it in either bodies in space or signs of the ship they were beamed to. Beaming someone on a mass scale leaves a trace..” Cassie commented on not even looking up from her tricorder as she indicated further down the corridor. “Bridge is down that way.” She commented to get them moving again. She did not like staying still in a situation like the one they were in.

A few moments later, the group found the bridge. It was huge, nearly twice the size of Rosie's, and was laid out, oddly enough, much like the bridges of Earth's ocean liners of old, spanning the entire width of the ship, with the helm in the direct center of the room. There were duty station spread out along the aft bulkhead and a few on either side of the helm station. Positioned behind the helm, was the raised dias containing the Captain's chair.

"Wow," Micheal uttered upon entering the deserted bridge. "The designers weren't worried about haing wasted space on this tub, huh?" After he asked the question, he started to investigate the rest of the large bridge.

"Civilian design. They like to make their senior officers seem a bit more...grandiose..." Jake retorted. "Not that we'd let our senior officers get away with that, of course."

“Well how else are they going to be able to sell the ship tours?” Cassie asked turning to look around at the bridge. It was so bright and stunning. “Cannot say that I’ve ever seen a ship like this before but if this is how civilians travel I can see why so many stay civilian now adays.”

Micheal chuckled softly. "I dunno. I think I'd go batty as a civie."

“Explains a lot.” Cassie just levelled a look and moved to the large view screen that was smashed and flickering with a view of the moon that they had landed on.

"Jake," Micheal called out a few moments later. "We've got an empty weapons locker over here. Locks like someone busted the lock to get into it!"

Jake frowned. He knew this was too good to be true. "All right, signal the other teams, have them on their guard."

Cassie wandered over and frowned herself as she looked at the location only the locker. “Strange location for a weapons locker.” She mused. “Would not be well known.”

Nodding, Micheal replied. "Yeah, something like this would be known only to the bridge crew and the senior staff." He pulled out his tricorder and scanned the locker. "According to this, these scratches are only a few days old." He looked at the rest of the group. "What the hell happened here?"

"That's what we're going to find out," Jake replied. "Cassie, can you figure out where the distress call was sent from and who sent it? Might be a start to figure out what happened to the crew."

"Yes Sir." The former geneticist moved around the large bridge as the rest of the group mulled around the broken into armoury locker. She scanned each console going through the list of what they could be. "Conn, Engineering, Operations, Security... Communication." The hybrid moved and sat in the chair looking over the console. It was not damaged but it was locked to repeatedly send out the same message over and over. "Whatever this woman did to the console, she is smart enough to not damage it." She called out trying to work out how it was being done when the console would have been locked out to anyone other than crew.

There was something very earie about this place and it had nothing to do with anything the crew of Rosie was saying, it was just a feeling Eden got. She fancied herself touched sometimes though she knew it was probably all in her head. "I don't like this ship." She announced, not that she suspected anyone would listen to her.

Micheal heard her and started to move back towards the helm. There was nothing more to learn from the weapons closet right now, anyhow. "How so? Other than it feels like a ghost ship?"

“I cannot say I feel like that. Does not feel like Temperance or that refugee ship that the Fenris Rangers used.” Cassie said sort in the chair at the comms console looking at the console as if she was a Starfleet officer. She was 99% sure that the woman that had sent the distress call was Starfleet.

Jake put his arm around Eden's shoulder, doing his best to comfort her while maintaining an air of professionalism. "I agree, but something's definitely off. Strange that a ship like this would be so far out without passengers. And if there were some, where are they now?" He had half a mind to go looking for luggage, which would have been the first indicator of passenger activity. But this wasn't the time for that. "Secure all systems. Any idea where we might find this person that set the distress beacon?"

"Manifest. There would have to be one legally." Cassie announced starting to look around, going to the security console and stopped. It was an unlocked console. "Ha... I think I have found how the woman was able to send the communication signal." She pointed to the console in front of her and threw up the manifest onto the screen. It went through hundreds of names.

"What have we got?" Jake asked, leaning in over her shoulder.

Whilst everyone discussed the manifest Cassie worked away at the security console seemingly able to access systems. "In an emergency, it looks like the security console was still active whilst all the other consoles were locked out. She rerouted all the systems to this one. Very smart."

"She?" Jake asked. "You know who it was?"

“Well we know it is female from the voice but I think I’ve narrowed it down to six Starfleet officers that were onboard from the manifest.” Cassie admitted throwing the six names up on the main screen. It was a short list and only a small amount of them sounded like they could sound like the mysterious woman but all avenues needed to be explored.

Micheal looked at the names. "It's too bad we don't have access to Starfleet records, so we could match the vouce with one of those names."

"Doesn't it seem a little strange that she didn't identify herself on the distress call? I mean it's the first thing I would have done, especially if I was in Starfleet still." Eden replied, ignoring the list for the names would be meaningless to her, having been out of Starfleet for over a century.

“I would not have identified myself. You do not want someone having your name.” Cassie said simply. Maybe it was the time she had spent by herself in the alternative universe that had hardened. “Especially as a lone female. You need some type of surprise.”

"Either way, it doesn't help us in knowing what to look for," Jake concluded. "Secure the bridge. Let's check in with the others and see if we can find out any more about our missing Starfleet officer."

As Micheal was closer to the door, he moved over and pressed the controls to close and lock them. "Done, bridge is ours."