Theres a moon in the sky somewhere I know ..

Posted on 30 Jul 2019 @ 12:50am by Captain Jonathan Reynolds & Commander Amelia Fox & Lieutenant Mitchell Graham & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant Commander True Keading & Lieutenant JG Lilura Karakalakss & Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov & Lieutenant JG Naiya Hope Dr

Mission: Mission 1 - In the pale moonlight ...
Location: Observation Lounge, Deck 1 Aft
Timeline: MD2 09:30
2764 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Jon had deliberately given the senior staff time to catch up on sleep before this debrief. And also time for any decom to be carried out. He suspected that despite that his science officer would have been hard at work with the data he had pulled from the building on the moon - trying to crack it. And work out where it had disappeared too once more.

He himself got some kip after meeting with his new security chief. He showered, changed and headed back to the observation lounge for this debrief. Fox it seemed had bet him to it.

"Number one," Jon nodded.

Amelia looked up from the PADD she was studying. "Morning Captain." She didn't mention why she was up early, in fact she hadn't slept well despite being tired from the away mission. When she had fallen asleep she had been troubled by a strange dream. A disembodied voice stating "Beware! Beware! Those who move in shadow are awakening!" This had awoken her and try as she might, she could not get back to sleep.

Rubbing her neck "Not much to report yet i'm afraid. We're still not sure where that moon came from. Or why, or how."

"I'm hoping our Science chiefs had more luck," Jon nodded. He clocked that his XO seemed very tired and sensed she was a little freaked out and not saying on that score. His head cocked to the door as said Science chief arrived, looking worse than Amelia. He was really hoping this wasn't going to be a trend.

Looking a little worse for wear, but definitely more presentable than last meeting, Aidan strolled into the observation lounge. He carried his coffee in one hand, and a sandwich in the other. The Trill was definitely exhausted, having spent far too long and too late on wracking his brain over the puzzle that they had discovered. "Morning," he murmured as he beelined for a seat.

Hope was next to arrive, collecting herself a Terran Tea from the replicator and finding a seat almost on autopilot as well.

She did remember to nod respectfully to the Senior Pair, CO and XO as she entered and bid everyone "good morning" as she sat down.

Lilura strode into the observation lounge, saw where the staff was gathering, and headed over to them. She had five Padds in her waist sashe about what happened with engineering, steps taken, and current status. She came over to them and said in a cheery voice, "Good Morning all." She was in a good mood. While the moon suddenly capturing them was a downside, that engineering had stepped up to get some power back, built verteron reflector shielding for any M/AM reaction chambers that more than doubled existing shielding, and now had full power back with nary a hick up, was golden in her books. She sat down as her tail snaked up holding her large coffee mug. She grabbed it with a hand and took a sip.

Walking into the room, Rose looked around at the officers whom had gathered and gave a sigh. she'd only met two of them, being the XO and CO, and she couldn't even remember their names let alone a list of officers she'd read on her way to this ship. Making her way to an empty chair, she set the Padd's she was carrying down gently on the table before heading over to the nearest replicator and ordering a Raktajino. She had thought about introducing herself, but she figured the CO would get to that in time, so instead Rose just picked up her coffee and returned to her seat.

Mitchell came in next, looking somewhat pensive. The seat next to Belikov was empty so he took that one. He said nothing.

True sat down, a PADD in her hand. She was still feeling a bit groggy because she hadn't fallen asleep at her usual time the night before. Sleep was more elusive since she'd left Gavin. She sighed and tried to smile at everyone else but didn't offer up any conversation.

"Good morning," Jon said. "I think we better clear up a few ground rules for official meetings. Coffee/Tea fine. Biscuits perhaps on occasion but I am not turning this into a breakfast buffet." He reached forward and pulled the sandwich in Datari's hand and moved it away from him. "Confiscated Lieutenant."

Jon stood up and put the offending sandwich into the replicator, hitting the recycle button. He moved back and took his seat again stating firmly, "I expect my officers to have eaten before a 9.30am meeting. If you must, you can order another one on your way out of here.

Now," he looked at the Trill straight into his eyes. "I am hoping you have news. Have you cracked anything of that database? I can only assume by how exhausted your sensing that you pulled an all-nighter. In which case I'm ordering sleep after this meeting. And if not I'm ordering you to go back to sickbay with Dr Hope so she can prescribe you something for insomnia."

Aidan opened his mouth to protest; he had worked half the night and most of the morning already, having opted to try and get some results, and forgetting entirely about having any meal until just five minutes before the meeting. "I think we found something sir," he finally said, though the irritation was audible in his voice.

Jon nodded. He could sense the man's irritation but he was setting a precedent for all of them. Unfortunately that meant the Trill got it slightly in the neck. And needed to ensure his basic needs were covered when pulling an all-nighter in the future. "Go on Lieutenant," he said.

The Trill stifled a yawn as he picked up his PADD. "Well...it makes no sense but what we think some of the text means is well...Hide, the dark ones are coming." He paused. "But who or what these dark ones are, I don't know."

"Myth, legend perhaps," Jon rationalized. "Ancient race? Most religions have the good and the bad. Light and the dark … anyone else any thoughts?"

"Are there any extremist groups going by that name?" Mitchell asked. "Maybe putting out some scary propaganda for themselves?" It seemed unlikely but it was a question worth asking.

"Not that we've been able to decipher yet," Aidan answered thoughtfully, "but we're not even close to breaking any kind of code on this language. This is all we've been able to put together."

"The Dark ones? A rather odd way to describe someone for such an advanced people. Using our own history as a reference, we could assume that they were aggressors of some kind. But if we make this assumption, where are they? If this warning was the easiest part of this database to decode, perhaps it was made that way deliberately" Rose asked.

Lilura was listening intently as she thought about myths and legends. Many times, those were based upon a retelling of a truth. She now spoke up, "That Moon is hidden within a subspace pocket with temporal energies, so in My Opinion it means its hiding from a dire threat, such as this warning suggests. With an advanced race warning of a coming threat, how would they convey that to others managing to stumble across it? Well, it's pretty universal to call threats with evil intents, even though we don't know which evil intent yet, as a Dark Threat. At least, that's what I get out of this, if that helps."

"Dark ones......" Amelia echoed as a chill ran through her. She thought back to the voice from her dream. Those who move in shadow......

"It's an interesting theory Lieutenant" Amelia said, directed at the Chief engineer as she rubbed her arms to dispel the cold she felt. "But it's a lot of speculation. We could do with some solid evidence. These subspace readings combined with the meson and lepton activity suggest some type of wormhole, but non like I've ever seen before. Almost like it was created artificially."

"Or they want us to think it went through some kind of wormhole or traveled through time. For all we know it's phase cloaked and they're laughing their heads off at us," Aidan muttered darkly, "how do we even know they are bad? Perhaps they are dark skinned?"

"Well let's hope no-one's cloaked and laughing at us," Jon said. "We need to try get more information on these dark ones. If they are still around. My own gut is erring on the side of Lieutenant Belikovs assessment. Dark is usually associated with negative and for someone unknown to place a warning … "

True disagreed with him but she kept her mouth from opening. It wasn't good to speculate and spread that speculation this early in the investigation. For all they knew this could a reference to a rain storm. It didn't necessarily have to be negative.

He turned to Haulval, "We need more intel. Another thing, when we meet some folk out here to put on the list to try find out more about Lieutenant. Also could you aid Lieutenant Datari in attempts to understand more of that database? With your skills of deciphering and encryption you should be a formidable team."

Aidan frowned at the prospect of working with the Vulcan but nodded slowly.

"If we haven't anything further to go on, resume course to where this monolith is and where we intend to set up the comms. relay."

Jon thought for a second. "Are all the pieces ready for deployment and final assembly?"He asked Lilura

Lilura referenced her PADDs and found the one with the information. "Just about, sir. They are in final diagnostics as of this time."

He turned to Mitchell, "There's time in the holodec to run some simulations for the worker bees and assembly if you need it Lieutenant." He didn't think he would need it personally but it was on offer should the man desire a run though.

"Doesn't hurt to practice," Mitchell said with a nod. "Might also help if Lilura can sit in and offer advice?" He cast a questioning glance at the Chief Engineer.

Lilura nodded and replied, "I would be glad to help. I have many hours racked up in those tight confines."

"If you spend a lot of time in the worker bee's Lieutenant I'm happy for you to modify one of them to accommodate your unique physiology," Jon told her. He hadn't actually thought of that. How many other things caused the alien issues while trying to do her work he wondered.

A large grin of a very friendly sort spread across Lilura's large muzzle. She replied, "Why, thank you, very much, Sir. A tail notch in the chair would be best mod ever. I'll get right on it." On previous ships, as the crews were tail less except for her, nobody ever thought about tail notches, and pretty much it would be her quarters, or her room as ACEO on the Valdemar, that furniture got the proper tail spaces for her.

"By the way, and sorry I should probably have done this at the beginning of the meeting," Jon admitted. "This is our new security chief in case you have not met her yet. Lieutenant Belikov. Please all ensure you make her feel welcome. And … If anyone's coming up to their phaser reaccreditation like I believe I am," he said after a thought, "Make sure you schedule some time with her."

Rose nodded, "i'd be happy to help anyone with their reaccreditation"

Again the Trill science chief nodded, knowing his skill with any kind of firearm was less than up to par. He simple preferred melee weapons, rather than ranged.

"Dr Hope, another thought has just occurred to me. The autopsy. What were the findings?"

"The So'Na was not only a suicide to save herself from being captured but her corpse was set up to be toxic. Once she was dead, she became a weapon in a secondary way and we were lucky that the XO spotted the acid that was dissolving the corpse which then gave us time to discover the bomb that was primed to go off once the acid reached it." Naiya reported. "If we're looking for dark ones I'd say these qualify."

"That's fascinating, I mean I'm glad of course that no one was hurt. But that's a very rare act, not the sacrifice itself, but to desecrate the body after death. Terrorists or extremists are usually focused on one particular goal. We don't know what their objective is but seems to be to cause us as much damage as possible but why? Usually a cause is something to celebrate and they are sharing it at the top of their lungs after an event such as this. They seem to know that we wouldn't understand and would therefore study the body to gain clues. That's a little frightening in my opinion." True said as her eyes stared off into space while she rattled off everything on her brain.

"Agreed," Jon said. "Very frightening." Everyone in the room seemed a little off. Clearly no one was a late night/morning person. Jon filed that away. Perhaps they worked more efficiently if he held his staff meeting in the afternoon.

"It was more than just acid sir," Amelia interjected. "It was an organic based explosive. It could have very easily claimed everyone in sickbay, possibly on the entire deck."

"Then we need a sure fire way of detecting and neutralising it," the part Betazoid said grimly. "Doctor can you work with Engineering and science to come up with something there. Just in case we do come across any more dead SoNa."

"Aye Sir, on that." Hope replied, nodding in agreement as well as obeying the instruction.

"Of course sir," the Trill science chief agreed.

"I am here to help in whatever capacity I can," Lilura replied. She was already thinking about modifying a medical tricorder with a sciences analyzing tricorder section to create a biological threat tricorder. Of course, some of the small sensors would need to be modified for picking up the trace elements of the acid and pick out body hormonal and cellular damage that would be caused by an implanted device. She would definitely need Medical and Sciences input on this.

"Excellent, well if there's nothing else. Dismissed," Jon said. "Except you number one. I need a quick word."

Lilura got up to leave, her style coffee mug once again transferred to her tail as her mind was busy thinking about if it was better to start with a medical tricorder to modify or a sciences. She left the room lost in thought as she directly headed for a small tech repair shop where personal tech devices were maintained, including tricorders.

Hope picked up her PaDD, recycled her empty coffee cup in the replicator on the way out and set off to waylay Lirura and Datari as they were leaving, in order to start discussions on the plans they would need to make regarding the detection and neutralizing ideas.

Amelia hung back as the rest of the senior staff made their way out. When they were alone She came over to Reynolds. "Yes Captain?"

"Whats up with you number one? You seem like you have a case of the willies," Jon asked.

Amelia shifted uncomfortably. “It’s nothing really Sir. Had a bad dream last night and I could swear I head a voice saying those that move in shadow are awakening.” It could have something to do with these Dark ones.”

"Lets hope not," Jon said grimly.

OFF:

●○ Lieutenant JG Lilura Siana Karakalakss
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Andromeda

●● Lieutenant Amelia Fox
Executive Officer
USS Andromeda


●●● Commander Jonathan Reynolds
Commanding Officer
USS Andromeda


●● Lieutenant Aidan Datari
Chief Science Officer
USS Andromeda

●● Lieutenant True Keading
Chief Counselor
USS Andromeda


●○ Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Andromeda


●● Lieutenant Mitchell Graham
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Andromeda

○● Lieutenant JG J Haulval
Intelligence Officer
USS Andromeda

○● Lieutenant JG Naiya Hope
Second Officer / Chief Medical Officer
USS Andromeda