Connect One

Posted on Sat Aug 6th, 2016 @ 11:09am by Captain Elijah Michaels

Mission: Do Not Follow
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: Current.

Running into the Intel offices, Kevin called out "Karadis, have you got it?"

"Right here" she replied, handing Kevin the PADD as he ran past.

Literally slamming into his chair, causing it to roll back from the desk, he scrabbled with his feet to regain the ground he'd wheeled away. Grabbing the edge of his desk and hauling himself the rest of the way, Kevin placed the PADD down and began to read, quickly.

"I knew it!" he said.

"Knew what?" Karadis asked from the doorway.

"That we'd had something about the Gollum Expanse fairly recently" Kevin replied.

"Good or bad?" Karadis asked.

"Good that no-one died, bad for the probe we sent didn't quite make it" Kevin replied.

The puzzled look on Karadis face showed she was no closer to knowing what he was talking about she was a week ago not having heard about Connect One in the first place. Kevin didn't have time to explain there and then, he needed to speak with the Captain, and quickly!

Picking up the PADD, he took off again at a run, narrowly rounding Karadis as he sped out the door. Shortly afterwards, he arrived at the Captians Ready Room and pressed the chime on the wall.

The Captain had barely been awake since the 3am Alert to the Bridge, he had replicated some tea and was sat at his desk exam no the initial reports from Tarlee and the Night Shift.

"Enter!" He said in response to the Chime.

The Ready Room doors opened and Kevin entered. He made his way over to the Captains desk, and stopped about four feet away.

"Kilbane, back so soon what can I do for you?" Elijah asked.

"Sorry for the interruption Sir, but I didn't want to wait for this. I've come back from the Badlands and the pursuit of Mr Laramy as I was sent a message pertaining to the Victories next mission, which I believe is to the Gollum Expanse. As the Intel Officer for the ship, I'm hoping the information I have can help us. Intel has been interested in the expanse for quite some time now, and we've sent various probes to have a look around it's outer edge, and a little way in. Mainly to test it's composition, density, viscosity and so on you see. However, one probe, called Connect One, got caught in an eddy and was dragged much further into the expanse than we'd intended it to go. The amazing part though was that, even though the probe was damaged, it was still able to intermittently send a signal that we could detect and download. One of the last signals that we received was that a 'mass' of unknown origin was approaching the probes position, and this picture..." Kevin said, handing it to the CO.

"It's a bit blurry, but if you look at the top right hand of the picture, you can just see something that has what appears to be a regular squared shape with perhaps an antennae protruding from it. There also appears to be some kind of discharge coming from the antennae. After that, we lost all contact with the probe" Kevin finished.

Elijah pondered for a second or two. "Assuming these images are accurate enough then it seems Seattle came into contact with an unknown Vessel." He stroked his beard and then highlighted something. "You can make out the Dorsal Section in that upper right quadrant, plus two smaller shapes in the background."

Kevin looked more closely "Indeed Sir, you're correct, but I don't know if you wish to reveal this information to the rest of the crew or not. Intel are happy for you to do so, after all, they've agreed to let me show you this, though I'll need to take it back" he said, pointing to the picture and gently taking it out of the Captains hand.

He stepped back again from the desk saying "I know this gives you pause for thought Sir, so I won't take up any more of your valuable time. I won't say anything in the brief unless prompted to do so by yourself."

With that, he bent at the waist, turned and headed towards the exit.

Elijah sat back for a moment and thought to himself, was he really going to go into the unknown and lead his Crew to certain death?