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Posted on 01 May 2022 @ 5:40pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Ensign Mimi & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Petty Officer 1st Class T'Lin & Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeysa Zeror & Cadet Senior Grade Jemima de la Coeur

2,342 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: Alcyone Sector, USS Galileo-A
Timeline: MD 10, 0850 hrs

Previously, on Cold Roids...

In the hazy, particle-filled sector of the Alcyone Sector, USS Galileo snapped back into warp and left a trail of cosmic dust in her nacelle's wake. The tiny Nova-class vanished from view with only a faint burst of light in the far distance to serve as a reminder of her brief presence. The vessel's two deployed shuttlecraft, launched moments ago, were now hardly visible against the spacial backdrop as they entered the asteroid field in search of Cold Station 31.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

On the bridge of USS Galileo, four hours had transpired since the away teams' deployment. The small science vessel maintained a casual cruise warp factor of 5.1 while it slowly circled the surrounding area in a non-standard pattern. Its navigational waypoints were randomized and led the ship on an innocuous flight path within the vicinity of Cold Station 31. Secrecy was the mission. Subterfuge was the priority.

Within the bridge's command well, Commander Morgan Tarin dutifuly sat in the captain's chair. One of her long legs was crossed over the other while her attention drifted between her arm rest's console, the main viewscreen, and the occasional update from the bridge crew. Beside her sat Lieutenant Aria Rice, the ship's chief of security-turned-acting-XO. Together they made an unorthodox pair, yet one which was competent and capable.

CWO2 Oliver Sylver, at the helm, kept his eyes on what was going on. His blue eyes focused once more on their coordinates before he did, as he had before, speak up. "Captain, approaching waypoint four," he said, for her information. The ship's computer was doing the hard work, Oliver was just making micro-adjustments as and when needed. So far? Not needed. He'd almost argue he could go and fetch himself a cup of tea, or have a nap at this stage. Of course, that was just his internal dialogue as he kept himself in his seat, wondering yet again who designed these seats at this angle. It was hardly good for your back.

"Good. Proceed on course." Tarin saw no discrepancies in the course plotting so she simply oversaw the conn with minimal intervention.

At the ops console Mimi was thinking the same as Sylver, on a normal day she'd be long into her off duty and sleep period but nothing had been 'normal' since Tarin had taken over. She wondered how long it'd be before there was a chance of relief.

Rice kept an eye on the readouts next to her chair before she looked ahead. She was not used to sitting in this chair, her fingers itching to go and do something. As beautiful as the viewscreen was, she was tense. "I hope the shuttles made it without a scratch," she finally said, her voice quiet, to Tarin. Although what she truly wanted was to make sure de la Coeur and T'Lin were making sure there were no strange readings, that Ensign Mimi wasn't reporting any strange energy spikes and whether or not Brown had all the data she needed. Oh, and whether it was bad form getting a hot drink for the bridge. None of these other matters were said though, nope. Aria Rice kept herself on what equated to bridge small-talk.

A cursory glance from Tarin towards Rice was the extent of her formal acknowledgement. Privately, she took notice of the department head's taut demeanor then leaned her head in close to speak under her breath. "Relax, lieutenant. You're making me nervous," she advised in a dry tone. There was little for either of them to do in the immediate moment beyond standard oversight of ship operations. It was easier for her to reconcile with than a security officer whose job was traditionally much more hands-on.

Aria looked at her Captain before she gave a weak nod to acknowledge what she was saying. However, she knew she wouldn't relax easily. And her fingers were itching to go and look at things herself. She did notice that Tarin hadn't said anything, so Aria surmised she had said the wrong thing. Another thing to learn then, she supposed. What she could and couldn't comment on.

On the main viewscreen, Galileo started a warp turn to port. The inertial dampers kicked in but there was a slight lurch within the vessel despite the compensation. Morgan gripped the arm rests of her chair out of habit in order to brace herself against the light G forces they were experiencing. The maneuver didn't last long. It took approximately 45 seconds for the Nova-class to come about in a 250-degree arc and backtrack towards the cold station's asteroid field. When the new heading was achieved, the stars on the viewscreen straightened and continued their repetitious streaking.

T'Lin began to do longer range scans again. After a few minutes of flight time. "Captain, I am getting a faint but noticeable increase in tachyon particles." She worked a moment more. "Concentrated in the direction of the asteroid field where we left the away teams."

Jemima focused her station on the same area to see if she could get a better idea of exactly where they were coming from. "I'm reading them, too. They're coming from the asteroid field where that cold thing is." She wasn't as bouncy as normal because she was afraid if she did, Commander Tarin would yell at her.

The acting captain furrowed her brow. "Source?" she replied to the science alcove. "Did we detect any tachyon signatures when we first arrived that I don't know about?"

T'Lin ran her hands over the panel. "General scans indicate that these are new captain. The surge would seem to indicate a possible cloaking/de-cloaking ship."

"There's no indication that other ships have been in the area," Jemima added. "None that went to the station, anyway. But how would any of 'em know to come out here?"

They wouldn't, Tarin thought to herself in silent reply. Unless it was a sign of the remnant signature she'd been tracking for the last several days. The only ones with direct knowledge of it were Blake, Sandoval and Warraquim - who were all on an away mission investigating the cold station. Still, despite the latent sensor contact, Galileo had never detected tachyon particles in local space since its departure from Regula I.

Morgan chewed on her bottom lip, somewhat perplexed. "Is there any natural phenomena within the asteroid field that could account for the presence of tachyon particles? Did our scans detect any compositional abnormalities? An eddy that we might have missed?"

Jemima hadn't seen any, but she did a quick look, just to be sure. She didn't want to make a mistake because she failed to double-check. "No, ma'am. No compositional abnormalities, no naturally-augmented tachyon particles, and nothing that would account for them except for a cloaked ship. That we know of, anyway."

T'Lin took longer than she would have liked but she pulled every bit of record they had of the asteroid field going, staying and leaving. "Negative on any tachyon or anything that would appear to cause such an emission."

The analysis from the two science officers offered little in the way of immediate answers. Tarin's thoughts drifted from her present command of the Nova-class to the multitude of strategic operations reports she'd received throughout the course of her prior assignment. She mentally cross-referenced any data she remembered receiving despite its classification level. "Starfleet Intelligence does believe the Klingon Empire has assets in this region of space..." she admitted out loud in a train of thought, "...and it would be rash to assume the Romulans are incapable of sending their ships this deep into uncharted space."

Glancing over to Rice, Tarin presented her with a subtle open hand gesture. "Your thoughts, lieutenant?"

"Could be, based on what was gathered," Rice said, her mind going to the research that, in all fairness, Sandoval had done more than her. "But this far away, we're not able to determine if this is a natural, undiscovered, scientific phenomena, or a cloaked ship, Captain. We need to be closer to determine."

It was difficult to make a decisive determination in the absence of more information. Tarin was beginning to realize that commanding a starship required a level of extrapolation and forethought she'd never quite been familiar with. Even during her seven years as first officer aboard USS Lexington, it had been the captain who'd made the final executive decisions for the entirety of the crew. Now, that responsibility fell to her.

She slowed her thoughts down and focused on Galileo's primary mission - the investigation of the cold station and the protection of the personnel accomplishing the task. The diversion she'd arranged by moving the Nova-class away from the asteroid field had seemingly failed. Or had it? By returning to the asteroid field after only several hours, any subterfuge they'd achieved would most likely be rendered null. Yet ignoring the most recent sensor data would be negligent if there was indeed a cloaked vessel in the vicinity.

The bridge became quiet during a momentary silence, punctuated only by the random soft computer chirps emanating from various consoles. Tarin finally spoke up. "Helm, adjust our course back to the asteroid field at once. Increase speed to warp nine and engage." Her head turned across the bridge to locate the Trill yeoman. "Petty Officer Zeror, make a note in the log; 'Stardate 69348.0. Detected tachyon emissions in the vicinity of Cold Station 31. Altering course to investigate at maximum warp. ETA two-point-nine hours. End'."

"Aye Sir." Jeysa replied quickly transcribing the message down on her PADD, a hint of nervousness and worry came over her, whatever had been following them was now probably right behind the away teams.

"I will alert engineering." Mimi said, she quickly dispatched a message to the engineering department alerting them to Tarin's request for emergency warp speed. They would have to push the warp core to its highest level to generate the power needed to push the warp engines to that speed, even then she'd have to juggle some power around.

"I'll need all you can get me, Ensign Mimi," Sylver said, frowning as he brought up what he needed. He was frowning with concentration, shifting in his seat as he leant forward. "Let me know when you're ready."

Mimi ran through what would be needed quietly muttering as she shifted power from less important systems sending it to the inertial dampers and structural integrity, the extra power would help keep the ship from flying apart if pushed too hard. "Go ahead helm."

"Going to Warp 9 in three...two...one..." Sylver did the count, in case the Captain wanted to change her mind. When no contradiction came, he shifted his fingers and the ship responded to his touch. He could only hope his girl would keep herself together for this, but he knew everyone would keep an eye out for any problems.

In space, Galileo's acceleration was noticeably visible. Warp velocities were not linear which meant the Nova-class was now traveling at a speed orders of magnitude faster than its previous velocity. The small survey and scout vessel was never been designed to sustain high warp factors but the capability existed within her design parameters. As long as she had a diligent crew to support her.

Commander Tarin observed the streaking stars on the main viewscreen quicken with intensity. A subtle reverberation could be felt in the deck plating which soon turned into a mild tremble. She looked down at her console to monitor the warp velocity. 8.5...8.7...8.8...8.9....9.....9.01. The ride felt shaky, but so far there were no critical alerts.

"We're at max warp, Captain," Sylver announced, making sure the speed remained. He kept his eyes on it though, ready to reduce warp in case Mimi told him him.

Mimi glanced around slightly when she felt the ship rumbling a little, shifting a little more power around she bought the back up structural integrity and inertial damper generators online at a low setting to supplement the main generators, it would mean a little more maintenance work for the teams after they'd stopped but it should keep the ship together for now. Gradually the rumble began to lessen. "We are stable Captain but I would not push us any harder."

The command console display situated between Rice and Tarin verified the deputy operations manager's assessment. Warp core output was operating at a hundred-and-five percent of capacity but both nacelles' warp coils and plasma transfer conduits were within safe operating parameters. The vibrations within the ship had become subdued - for now. Travel time back to the cold station's location was less than three hours which would hopefully alleviate any long-term stress on the starship.

"Maintain course and speed," replied Morgan to Ops and the conn. "We don't have to keep this up forever...just long enough to get back the asteroid field."

"Yes, Captain," Sylver said, acknowledging what she had said. He kept a steady hand ready, focusing on what he was doing, but staying alert as well, ready for Mimi to say they needed to stop at any time. Stressing a ship always made his heart pick up speed, but he also had faith in the ship. It was a human custom, to consider ships almost alive. And he knew his girl, the Galileo was stronger than she looked. She would hold together for this.

[OFF]

--

CMDR Morgan Tarin
Acting Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

Lt. Aria Rice
Chief Security Officer
USS Galileo-A

CWO2 Oliver Sylver
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

Cadet Senior Grade Jemima de la Coeur
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[NPC by Marisa Sandoval]

Ensign Mimi
Deputy Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

PO3 Jeysa Zeror
Captain's Yeoman
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

PO1 T'Lin
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

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