A First Look at Tigris IV

Posted on Thu Oct 15th, 2020 @ 10:40am by Commodore Samantha York & Commander Hans Munich & Major John Kayhill & Lieutenant Lei Shan & Lieutenant Aenar Torek & Lieutenant Bela Swain & Lieutenant JG Jhosa

1,118 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Eye of the Storm
Location: Various
Timeline: MD02

ON

It had been twelve hours since the Calypso sent a message to the colonists at Tigris IV. So far, there had been no response. Now, they were about to drop out of warp and get their first real look at the system. All senior staff had been called to the bridge.

Samantha sat in the center chair. "Helm, drop out of warp. Science and Ops, begin scanning. I want as much data as we can get before we reach the planet."

Jhosa sat at the Communications console; running ping checks and trying to work the Wavelengths to allow a signal to get through. The Ion Storms residuals had wrought havoc with the interference and the Deltan was admittedly getting near her limit.

"No answer from the colony as yet." She reported.

The scientific scans were slower to come in, and Aenar impatiently waited as he configured a second set of scans to analyse the space further out from the planet.

'Those ion storms are as strong as ever,' he confirmed at long last, 'quite uniform too ... not sure if that indicates they're artificial at this point.'

"Their uniformity is definitely odd. Any indication of their origin?" Sam asked the science officer.

Bela walked behind the Deltan and allowed her hand to lightly rest on her right shoulder, hoping to keep her reassured and calm.

'As far as I can tell from these scans they're local. Radiation spikes are consistent with the immediate orbit around the planet. Nothing to indicate they're unnatural or not - I'll need some deeper scans for that.' Aenar frowned, 'what I can tell you is that the ion storm is adversely interacting with their ionosphere - the D and E layers are weakened, allowing X-rays to pass through in the event of any solar flares.'

"Do the scans, and check the sun for any indication we'll see some flares," Sam said to the science officer. "I'd like to know what we're looking at before we try to beam down."

'Will do Captain. Probably best to launch a probe - it can monitor while we concentrate on other scans - if I may?'

"Please do. Anything you think will get us the information we need."

'Aye Captain, launching probe shortly.' Aenar fed the orders in to the console, and the Main Computer relayed them to the appropriate personnel.

She turned to Shan. "Any luck with the hails?"

Shan shook her head. "No. Nothing. It could be that there's so much interference that they're not even getting our hails- or that theirs aren't getting out to us even if they are. There's no evidence of receipt at all." She shrugged. She didn't say out loud that at least this way there was still a question. Which was better than knowing that the hail had been received but that there was no one down there to answer.

John stayed back near tactical where there was an empty seat, at this point he was just an observer. He'd much prefer to fly down on the shuttle rather be on the transporter pad, at least until some transporter enhancers were on the ground. Now wasn't the time to bring that up though.

Sam turned to the Marine. "Kayhill, I'd like you to go down to the planet. I'm not sure what we'll find there, but medical will need backup."

"Aye, Commodore", John replied. "I'll get a team together in the shuttle bay. I think it would be safer."

"Go ahead," Sam said.

The commodore turned to security. "Because of the nature of these storms, I'd like you to stay on board with me. We might need to take defensive action, and I want my best at tactical."

York decided it was best to err on the side of caution. "Yellow alert. Helm, take her in. Aenar, keep scanning. Let me know if you find anything."

She turned to Ops. "Shan, same with communications. See if there are any planetary communications. Everyone else, be prepared for whatever we find."

Nodding, Aenar set the sensors to scan at regular intervals, focussing on the ion storms, and the space in Tigris IV's immediate vicinity. He also sent instruction to the Main Computer to keep his department and himself appraised of the results in general, and any anomalies in particular. A corner of the workstation was reserved for the probe's returns as it traveled in the star's direction.

Shan shook her head. "I got nothing yet. Nothing is coming off the planet, anyway. I have no evidence of long-range communications. If we can get close enough to try short-range comms, we might be able to get something..." she suggested.

Sam pulled up the sensor data, more for her own curiosity than anything. Aenar was right, it definitely looked man-made. "Shan, send a message to Starfleet, let them know what we've found so far."

Shan glanced up. "This may be the last message we can get out to them- as we get closer the ion storms are more and more likely to interfere with our systems, too. Especially since they are looking to be artificially created..." she pointed out as she put all the information into a single, fully contained subspace message to send.

Sam nodded. "Understood. Starfleet needs to know what we've found so far." Just in case they were unable to send messages for a while.

Munich watched the Screen and sat back in his chair waiting to see what transpired around him.

The ion storm was growing stronger as they approached the planet. "Increase power to shields," York said. "Find the safest route to the planet."

Watching the sensor telemetry come in, Aenar quickly ran it through an analysis suite, and saw it spit out some interesting data. 'Seems like the ion storm is weakest in quadrant PNE16 - it's just within tolerances for a Galaxy-class vessel to pass through ...'

"Captain," the Counselor started. "If we are going to be sending an away team down, I would like to go down to the planet. If they have been cut off for a long time, they may be suffering mental distress from the isolation. I should check on their well-being."

Sam raised an eyebrow, considering the counselor's words. "Okay. You can join the team. I'm sure there will be some who need your services."

"I am, as well," she replied in a tone that was a mix between happiness and sympathy for those on the planet.


____
OFF

Commodore Samantha York
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Aenar Torek
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant Bela Swan
Chief Counselor

Lieutenant Lei Shan
Chief Operations Officer

Lieutenant JG Jhosa
Communications Officer

Commander Hans Munich
First Officer

Major John Kayhill
Marine CO

 

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