The Search for Venture (Part 1 of 4)

Posted on 06 Aug 2013 @ 12:35pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Scarlet Blake & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant Aria Rice & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton & Lieutenant JG Delainey Carlisle & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley & Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh & Ensign Im'er Mor'an & Lieutenant JG Jacrux & Ensign Natalie Chevalier & Ensign Ariadne Fleming & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Amril & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis

2,408 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo - Main Bridge, Various
Timeline: MD 13 - 0740 hrs

[ON]

The turbolift finally came to a halt and the doors parted with a soft swish, presenting Lirha with the familiar view of Galileo's bridge in the early hours of the morning. A few personnel were busy shuffling about while the Gamma-Alpha shift change occurred, and she stepped forward to the side and allowed a departing trio of bridge officers to return back to their quarters after finishing their duties.

The captain made her way into to the sunken command center of the bridge and plopped herself down in the CO's chair as Scarlet vacated the position for her. Lirha rubbed a bit of sleep from her eyes and looked up at her brown-haired 2XO, anticipating another routine status report of the ship's nocturnal activities. "Good morning, commander." she said in a soft, cordial voice. "Anything of interest to report?"

Scarlet offered her Captain a small smile. It was still strange, being called that, and sitting in the chair for the Gamma. "Actually, yes," and it wasn't often she needed to say that either. "The USS Venture. It's missed our rendezvous time, it's not returned from the Setisar Nebula yet."

Lirha couldn't help but frown at the strange news. The Galaxy Class' engineering section had departed several days ago to briefly explore the nearby and expansive Setisar Nebula, but she had made strict rendezvous arrangements with Captain Sutherland and was now curious as to why the deadline had not been honored. "Was there any mention from anyone of a delay in our rendezvous?" she proceeded to ask, knowing that the counsellor would have probably already told her about such a delay in advance.

Scarlet shook her head with a slight frown, sharing Saalm's perplexed concern. "There has been no contact at all from them, Captain," she said softly, meeting her eyes.

Twiddling her thumbs while she contemplated the situation, Lirha quietly considered all of her options. The Setisar Nebula was a Class D reflection nebula which normally wouldn't hinder any type of sensor or communication operations; however the nebula was also sub-categorized as a Type 2 'disruptive' body which contained large amounts of EM radiation which made long-range scans or comm chatter extremely difficult. Wherever Venture's stardrive was located in the nebula, Galileo would have to go find her in order to investigate.

Tapping the intraship comm button on her console, Lirha decided to bring her crew to full readiness in the event of any unforeseen situation. "All officers, please report to your stations." her voice echoed loudly throughout the ship.

Jacob arrived early as he always did. His massive frame and "aura" always seeming to get the attention of people in the room. He nodded at various people as he walked out of the turbolift; eventually of course his eyes met Captain Saalm and he couldn't help but smile at her as he walked to and then sat down at his station. He had his "poker face" on but his mind seemed was elsewhere for the moment: "What wonderful torture it is aboard this ship," He thought as he peeked over at the Captain again, "I would consider myself the luckiest and unluckiest man in Starfleet for sure with all the lovely women aboard." He then cracked his knuckles loudly as he always did before any serious undertaking and began to intake data and get his mind back on the task at hand.

The doors of the turbolift slid open to reveal the slim figure of Mor'an, who was standing in the center of the lift, hands clasped behind her back. She had answered the Captain's call the moment she heard it, causing her to be one of the first to arrive on the Bridge. Glancing around, she caught sight of Jacob already at his station. On silent feet, she exited the turbolift and walked quickly to her station. She perched on the edge of her seat, readying herself for the task at hand.

As soon as they missed their rendezvous Kiri had set herself to work, despite her late night. So far she had built a picture that was almost completely useless. The path that the USS Venture had taken outside of the nebula was rather clear, no signs of any problem and nothing that gave any evidence of any other ships. On the edge of the nebula though she couldn't use the standard methods, if it was inside then finding them would be much harder. Heading from astrometrics to the bridge she thought about the last nebula they had been to, if something had happened then, would it be more of the same?

Exiting the turbo lift Kiri took note of who was around and promptly ignored them as she moved to the main science station. Her scans were already there waiting for her, now she changed tact and tried to plot the nebula itself, trying to find a ship's wake. It was likely going to take a very long time. As she started she spoke very softly, "Mister Pendleton, can you recheck these warp and ion trails for any foreign signatures?" Looking up for a split second she regarded him before going on, "Ensigns, I will try to boost the scanning strength, can you begin a search for biological materials?" If it was alive, it was likely from the Venture.

"Absolutely Lieutenant Cho." Jacob's fingers flew across the console adjusting, enriching and focusing the scans with every possible parameter he could think of, "Let me attempt to widen the scan width as well."

Ariadne hastily made her way to the bridge, confused and concerned. What can the trouble be, she pondered. She ran her fingers through her hair, in a desperate attempt to make it presentable. She had forgotten to sleep again, utterly immersed in the complexities of the ecosystem of an ocean on the planet below. Only the Captain's call had brought her back to the real world, leaving her only five minutes pull herself together and respond. The closer she came, the more concerned she was. As the turbolift doors opened, she thought to herself, surely, it can't be too serious. Can it?

Last of the scientists was Nat, tracking a little path of wet mud across the deck of the Bridge from the turbolift doors to the Science IV station, residue from her early morning work at the arboretum pond, She cracked a sharp yawn and made an effort to pull her hair into some semblance of shape. A specialist in ecology who spent so much time in the arboretum she was about to sprout leaves, she was still however trained as a general scientist, and reacquainting herself with the search parameters did not take over long.

"Captain," Jacob turned to her, "I believe I have found very weak ionic signatures that fit the patterns of a warp bubble. They are very faint however, but do lead into the nebula. Unfortunately I am not able to track them further than vector 117.214. I fear the Nebula's powerful electromagnetic fields, solar burst radiation and hyperbarionic particles will make our scans exponentially more difficult." He locked eyes with Mor'an and wanted to smile at her but did not as he still felt that further pursuit of her, other than friendship, was probably not going to occur and it saddened his heart.

Lirha listened to the report coming in from the science alcove and quickly turned her attention down to her armrest console where she inputted the vector information and began to devise an search plan. It was a start, at least. A place to begin the search for USS Venture, and any investigative lead was better than no lead at all.

Amynta Markos frowned as she looked around the Armory, taking it all in. When in doubt, be with the weapons. She couldn't disagree with that. It was how it was. She sat down, frowning slightly as she took a padd, to read up on the inventory.

Aria smiled gently as she saw Markos, giving the woman a nod. "Don't worry," she said as she moved to look over the inventory. "It's all going to go well. After all, this is the way we roll."

Quinn walked onto the Bridge of the Galileo. He stopped a moment to look over the Bridge Crew and made sure no one was out of place or looking lost at their tasks. The CoB walked towards the command chair and stood to the left of the Captain. "Good morning, Skipper. Did the Venture bring any good news out from the Nebula yet?" He looked at the main screen then back to the Captain. "They did come out....right?"

Lirha looked up at her favorite senior-most enlisted man on the ship and gave him a friendly yet curt smile, accompanied by a quiet sigh and a shake of her head. "No...Unfortunately we have had no communication from them or any information regarding their whereabouts, aside from their last known position. It appears we have a missing starship on our hands."

"That's just dandy." said the Chief with a snort. "If you'd like, Skipper, I could gather a few others up and take out a runabout.""

Pondering the request for a brief moment, Lirha decided it was probably not a bad idea to have a team ready to deploy on short notice. Hopefully one of her flight control officers was already in the main shuttlebay prepping a shuttle, and she didn't want to send a craft as large as Marina out with only a single pilot.

"Very well." she finally responded after a short moment. "Head down to the main shuttlebay and prepare for launch. Commander Blake, please accompany him." she instructed with a glance and a nod to both crew members. Despite Scarlet's valued presence on the bridge, her shift was now over and John would no doubt be arriving any second to replace her. For now, her experience and presence would be much more valuable commanding a runabout mission, at least in Lirha's opinion.

"Aye-aye, Skipper." Quinn replied as he turned towards Scarlet. "Commander, it's nice to be working with you again, ma'am."

Scarlet nodded to Quinn with a smile. "Likewise," she assured before giving another brisk nod to the Captain. "On our way," she pushed herself up and led the way to the turbolift. She looked to Quinn when the door shut, offering a small, half smile. "Let's hope we can track them down. I don't want to contemplate what could vanish a ship like Venture."

Quinn nodded as he followed. "Indeed, ma'am. It can't be good."

Scarlet led the way out of the lift with a quick, long stride, holding her breath down the length of the corridor, speeding up so they could meet with their pilot and get the show on the road.

Amril walked onto the bridge then, stepping off the turbolift and quietly taking his place at Ops. He gave Mor'an his usual smile and nod as she stepped aside to the secondary console. Already aware of their situation and status, he began to examine incoming telemetry from the various sensors, after checking the resource allocations of the ship and making sure all departments were up to date and fully functioning. They were, of course; the vorta was nothing if not efficient.

Victoria got into the turbolift and rubbed her eyes and told it to go up to the bridge. A call had gone out earlier and she had had to ditch her much needed tea and scramble to get to the bridge as fast as she possibly could. Of all days to oversleep, she chided herself, although she wasn't technically late; she just didn't wake up when she had planned to. She straightened out her uniform as the lift stopped moving and stepped off, surveying the other crew members who were here. Wow, she thought as she moved to stand with some of the others, waiting for someone to give her further orders. Maybe I am late after all.

Dea was already in the turbolift when the call came. It didn't take long for her to arrive on the bridge. Crossing to her station she quickly took a seat at the Flight Control console. She shifted her attention in Lirha's direction for a moment to signal her Commanding Officer that she was ready for duty.

Keval was reading through an operations manual on warp coils, which was not one of his specialties when the call came. He wondered of course what was going on, but that could wait. He dropped the PADD down on the table, put on a uniform shirt over his blue-skinned torso and headed to his station to check in as ordered.

Albeit a little late, John quickly emerged from the turbolift and headed down to take his place along with his captain. He was a little embarrassed that he was one of the last officers to find his way to the nerve centre of the Galileo, but after the amount of time he had spent in sole command of the Nova-class starship during the previous week, he felt it was only fair he be allowed one slip up every once in a while.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Im'er Mor'an
Operations Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley
Psychologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant jg Allyndra illm Warraquim
ACMO
USS Galileo

Lt Commander Scarlet Blake
Chief Counsellor/2XO
USS Galileo

Ensign S'Ranna T'Srrr'Kharh
Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Jacrux
Anthropologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Aria Rice
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Natalie Chevalier
Ecologist
USS Galileo

PO First Class Keval Grayson
Operations
USS >Galileo>
NPC'd by

Lieutenant Jacob Pendleton
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Ariadne Fleming
Oceanologist
USS Galileo

LCDR Scarlet Blake
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

MCPO Markum Quinn
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo

LT Dea Mialin
Chief Flight COntrol Officer
USS Galileo

LT Kiri Cho
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

LT Amril
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

LT Delainey Carlisle
Asst. Chief Counselor
USS Galileo

WO Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Scarlet Blake

SCPO Arthur Willis
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Markum Quinn

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