New Orders to Where?

Posted on Tue Jul 28th, 2015 @ 8:28pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Commander Angelica Fairchild

Mission: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: A day after the party

Enalia stared at her desk terminal a bit longer, slightly aghast at what Command had sent her. They had new orders and she had mixed feelings about them. This needed some discussion with her XO, but for now at least, she marked them as received and understood and fired the message back to Admiral Thiesen, their new Intel Liaison for Command. "Computer, please inform Commander Fairchild that we have new orders and that I need to discuss them with her at her earliest convenience." She said, seemingly relaxed. Her mind was reeling though. They were putting something dangerous into her reach without knowing what she would do with that knowledge.

Angel's computer terminal beeped, and she glanced at the message. Earliest convenience? That was Fleet code for 'now', and she sighed a bit, taking a moment to tie her hair back and put on her uniform jacket for the short walk to Enalia's ready room. Once she arrived, she tapped the chime to announce her arrival.

Pressing the door controls on her desk, Enalia smiled when she saw that it was Angel already. "Please, have a seat. Care for a drink? We have new orders and I'd like to discuss them with you."

"Maybe something with ginger in it," Angel mused briefly, going over to the replicator and skimming through the options until she found a ginger soda with actual ginger in it. "What sort of orders?"

"Remember the Solstice? They dropped off the Temporal Investigations team." Enalia started, sipping at her own tea while Angel got settled. "Apparently while exploring the JFS47 stellar nursery, they came across a sort of distress signal from a large ship in orbit of binary neutron stars. They couldn't get close enough to investigate, but Command seems to think we can."

"Right... because we're totally equipped for that. Some admiral has a few screws loose." Sitting down, Angel took a few sips of her soda, contemplating just how the Hera might pull this mission off. "Seems impossible to me, Skipper."

"In theory, we can achieve the same orbit - we have enough mass, which the Solstice doesn't. The hard part will be breaking free before we're all crushed to death by the intense gravity. Not to mention the radiation that could incinerate us if we get too close." Enalia replied, spinning her monitor around to show Angel. "That's not the most interesting part though. The Solstice intercepted this signal just as they rediscovered the location of the Guardian of Forever. Navigation in that soupy stellar nursery is insane enough, but we now have the coordinates to not only get there, but the path to take so as to not confuse sensor readings. And coincidentally, the way to go to safely approach this distress signal."

"I don't like it. Has to be a trap." Angel traced the trajectory with her finger, shaking her head slightly. "Risky, even sticking to this path. Off by a meter and we're toast."

Enalia nodded, having come to the same conclusion. "I have a lot of faith in the Hera and her crew, but you're right. I want you to go over all this data with Commander Sinek and see what he thinks. If he gives it his approval, we go in. Otherwise, I might just take us to see the Guardian of Forever instead."

"All right, I'll go over it with him. Maybe he'll see something we're missing." Angel quickly sent a copy of the data to her own terminal before leaning back in her chair.

"Thank you," Enalia said simply, also leaning back in her chair, sipping from her teacup. "Which brings me to the second point. Command sent us the exact coordinates to the Guardian of Forever with these orders. They're dangling it in front of our noses like this. Your thoughts?"

"Seems a bit odd. We aren't supposed to use that thing, so why send us to it?" Angel shook her head slightly.

"That's what I'd like to know," Enalia replied, pausing a moment. "Hopefully, Lieutenant Santiago will know something about it. I'll get with him later though. For now though, I'm seriously considering pulling a Kerouac and visiting it to see if we can get back those four years we lost."

"Is this when I tell you 'no, Enalia you can't do that' and then you ignore me?" Sipping her soda, Angel smirked a bit.

"Depends," Enalia said with a hint of her quirky, demented, troll-captain smile showing through for a moment. "What kind of reaction can I get out of you if I do?"

"Well..." Angel hesitated. "Much as I might like those four years back, going back means we both lose rank... and we'll change things that have happened already..."

"This is true. Plus I wouldn't have a special teacup." Enalia said, sipping from hers again.

Angel grinned a little. "That too."

"So this brings us back to the mission at hand. The Solstice was able to get some readings of the ship in question." Tapping a few controls on her desk terminal, Enalia turned it back to face Angel. "It seems to be nearly 120 kilometers long and 40 times more massive than Earth Spacedock. It also seems to be ancient judging by the scoring on the hull."

"Okay, that's interesting. Any guesses as to what it might be?" Intrigued, Angel set her glass of ginger soda down on the desk, leaning slightly forward to see the terminal better.

"A ship? A station? Definitely artificial, whatever it is, judging from those arches and pillars we can make out as well as the heavy alloy composition that the Solstice's spectral analysis suggests." Enalia replied.

"So helpful." Angel regarded the image for a moment, trying to puzzle out what it could be.

"I expect we'll be able to take better scans at the very least," Enalia replied, sipping at her tea some more. "We also have thirty times the number of scientists aboard than the Solstice does. We're bound to figure something out."

Angel nodded slightly. "Well, I have to talk to Sinek about this then. Maybe he can get started on the analysis."

"Let me know when we have something then. I'll make sure everyone is back aboard from shore leave and get us on the way." Enalia said, spinning the desk terminal back around to face her and clicking it off.

"You got it." Happy to pretend she was only visiting Sinek for work, Angel cheerfully got up and slipped out of the ready room.

As soon as Angel had left, Enalia punched up the transport logs. It seemed everyone was now back aboard at the very least. That was good. Heading out of her office, she went straight to her Captain's chair and sat down in it, pulling up the status display on the arm. "Helm, lay in the course I'm sending you now and engage when ready. Also, please relay our departure to New Sydney control.

As final preparations were made, Enalia leaned back in her chair and relaxed. It wouldn't take long to get there, but she knew they couldn't relax once they had.