A Different Kind of Contact

Posted on Tue Mar 3rd, 2020 @ 3:57pm by Captain Javier Morales & Commander Nathan Duhamel & Lieutenant Colonel John "Hammer" Burgoyne & Commander Pava Sh'Andoo & Lieutenant Commander Serrax T'soon'ah & Commander Jiao Anderson-Smithson & Lieutenant Toris Jaest & Fleet Captain Torilla Yamaguchi

Mission: Mission 50: This Grey Spirit
Location: Various Locations - USS Courageous
Timeline: 1300Hrs November 29th, 2391

Captain Torilla Yamaguchi had just come back from her lunch break as she had deliberately not pushed her crew over the last few days to finish their repairs, she wanted them done right rather then rushed and done stupidly. The crew of the USS Fairfax had also been a great help as their seventy man crew had stepped up to the plate. Commander T'Korah had deputized himself to Engineering and while he outranked Torilla's present Chief, he had decided not to contest the issue and instead, he said he would assist her, all of his people would assist Torilla's crew as needed.

"Status?"

"Same as it was the last time you asked and the time before that." Morales responded as he had not moved from where he had been working to repair some issue while lying on his back underneath the tactical console.

Sh'Ando held her silence, but the smile on her face said a great deal without her saying anything at all. Suddenly Jiao Anderson opened her mouth to break the almost cheery mood. "Captain I have a ship approaching... It has many design features with an Akurian battlecruiser.... only much smaller, the ship also is smaller then a battlecruiser."

Yamaguchi raised an eyebrow, feeling much refreshed as she leaned forward in her chair. "Put it on screen.." and with that, the ship design appeared. "Mmm... I see why you'd say it looks superficially like an Akurian ship." she paused. "Hail them... "

"Hailing them." Anderson responded.

Arina Maya, the Wex Jorkuri commander of the Akurian Large Cruiser Guardian of Kio, sat in her command chair, largely of boredom when her operations officer, a Ko Leokuri male by the name of Inev, reported. "Arina, We have an alien vessel not too far away."

Arina nodded. "Any hostile intent."

Inev shook his head. "No, not that I can tell, its a lot smaller than we are, I'm not sure they would want to pick a fight."

Arina looked up at him. "Well, other smaller vessels have attacked us before, anything special about this one."

Inev scanned the vessel as well as he could. had a confused look, double-checked his readings, then reported. "Well, the vessel doesn't appear to be from around here. Otherwise it seems to be fairly typical of most ships we have encountered so far, warp drive engines, directed energy weapons, antimatter power supplies."

Arina didn't particularly care about those details, instead asking, "Whats the but."

Inev looked at his reading's, saying. "Well, unless this thing is malfunctioning, my readings indicate that the markings on the hull, its an old human language."

Arina was now interested. "Lifesigns."

Inev sighed," Well there are a lot of species in this galaxy that read very closely to humans, so I cant be sure of the crew onboard really is human or if they are one of many doppelganger species that seem to infest this galaxy, but the language on the hull is unmistakable."

Arina looked at the display curiously. "Are they trying to contact us."

Inev shook his head. "Not on any recognized communications system so far, I'll try hailing them, ill even try a couple of unconventional methods to see if that works, but i have no idea if their comm systems can pick up our signals."

Meanwhile over on the Courageous. Torilla Yamaguchi was not surprised as she tapped her combadge, affixed to her chest. "Bridge to Engineering... Rachael, would you mind having a look out the front door please and telling me what you think of this... ship we've encountered."

Jiao Anderson did a quick scan of the Akurian ship as she shook her head. "We're wasting our time, they don't have a subspace com system, there is nothing for us to hail.." she paused. "Scanning other frequencies.

Lt Commander Rachael Falanner's voice came back instantly. "Stepping out the front door sir.... and.... nadda.. I got nothing... wait... I almost looks like the Akurian battle cruiser

Anderson raised an eyebrow. "Sir... they're sending several waves of tachyons our way..."

Jaest, seated next to Jiao Anderson on her right chipped in. "Wait... is it possible to make a tachyon based com system"

Yamaguchi simply shrugged. "Alright... Jiao... anything?"

"I'm going to take the tachyons and run it through the com system, this probably won't work." she shrugged. "here we go.." as the screen suddenly filled with static and garbage as she began returning the com system to handle it.

Arina tried for the third time to say something over her mic, but still got nothing in return. She then looked over at Inev. "Are they receiving anything."

Inev shrugged, "I'm not really sure, that big sensor array on the front should be picking up on our signal. maybe they are still figuring it out."

Arina nodded, then tried again. "Human vessel, this is Arina Maya of the Cruiser Guardian of Kio, respond please."

Jiao shook her head. "Sir... I'm not getting a visual signal.." she paused as she decided to try something else. "Routing it through the audio system only...." she paused a second time. "Try it now."

"Unknown Starship, this is the Federation Starship, USS Courageous.... are you receiving?" Torilla Yamaguchi inquired.

The Akurian translator garbled the message at first, until Inev ran it through a couple more times, and after receiving the proper communication, Arina responded, "Federation vessel, we are receiving you now."

Yamaguchi sighed softly. "Alright..." she paused. "We didn't know you don't have a subspace communications array aboard your ship.." she explained. "I don't mean to be blunt.... but are you an Akurian vessel?"

Arina nodded," Yes, this is the Akurian large Cruiser Guardian of Kio, we figured you where a human vessel, because of the markings on your hull. Our translators had some trouble with your language, because you are using a much older human language than what we were expecting."

Yamaguchi stopped talking suddenly as she noticed the odd glances around the bridge at that statement. "Older?" Torilla asked Morales who shrugged in response. "Umm... Not to sound stupid or anything...but... What do you mean... by... old?"

Arina wasn't entirely surprised by the statement, but she explained anyway. "Our computers indicate your main language is English, which hasn't been a language in common use for over a thousand years."

Yamaguchi thought back to the last time she encountered Teval or Ryuukei so she decided to cast fate to the winds. "Well... Ryuukei didn't mention anything about other Akurian vessels in our Galaxy..." she paused. "How many of your ships are there?"

Arina was unsure which Ryuukei Torilla was talking about but she answered the question anyway," Well our battlegroup was sent to look for the battlecruiser Ryazar's shield and the colony vessel she was escorting. They where lost about a couple of months ago. Our battlegroup got scattered because of some instability in the wormhole scattering our ships across the galaxy. Our battlegroup consisted of 4 capital ships squadrons, 4 cruiser squadrons, one battle monitor squadron, and 5 destroyer squadrons."

Yamaguchi sighed as she shook her head. "Well... thats ironic... as according to Ryuukei.." she paused as she quickly took a moment to dredge up his full name. "Ryuukei Akavai.." Torilla paused. "Ryazar's Shield was operating on an assignment with us until four days ago when we were slingshoted out here from where we were." she paused. "I don't know what happened to the colony vessel... but I know at least some of them survived and they settled on one of our worlds..."

Arina nodded, then she remembered who Ryuukei Akavai was," Ah, him, the captain of the Noble, yeah I know of him." She then paused and then added," Well i guess we might as well continue this discussion in person," Your ship or mine?"

"Mine." Torilla responded. "I know you guys don't have transporter tech... and..." she paused. "Nevermind... It'll be yours.. My ship is too small to accommodate yours." she sighed. "Javier. Get me all the infomation we have on our Akurian friends, the battlecruiser and... well.. everything."

"I'm on it." he responded as he turned to his panel and went to work.

"Guardian of Kio. My shuttle will be along in ten minutes.... I need some information first. Then I'll be along."

"You?" Morales regarded Yamaguchi. "Y'know the Admiral would never forgive me if anything were to happen to you."

Yamaguchi nodded her head. "Serrax. Nathan, you two are coming along." she tapped her combadge. "Bridge to Engineering. Rachael, you feel like taking a road trip??"

"Must I?" came the response from the Chief Engineer. "Where do I meet you?"

"Main Hanger, We're taking the Perseus." she paused. "Yamaguchi to Burgoyne?."

"Burgoyne here?"

"Burgy, We're heading over to an Akurian cruiser and I need a bodyguard, your it... get your kit and meet me in the main hanger in five minutes."

"Copy that. I'm on my way. Burgoyne out.""

Nathan Duhamel nodded as his relief replaced him at Tactical before he turned and with the Rigellian woman who was the ship's Chief of Security, the two left the bridge together as Morales regarded Yamaguchi. "Alright... I'll mind the store while you get to have fun... but if you get hurt, I'll put you on report and I'll make that Admiral discipline you."

Torilla smiled coyly at him. "I'll try to keep that... in mind." as she received a PADD from Morales. "This is everything you need."

"Alright, the Courageous is yours..." and with that. Yamaguchi departed the bridge in short order, several minutes later, the hanger door opened and out emerged one type Eleven shuttle with Torilla at the helm.

Burgoyne was manning the co-pilots chair on her right while the other two were manning other stations, off to the far left and far right of the shuttle respectively. "We're being scanned."

"Return their scans..." Torilla responded. "Get us landing clearance.."

Burgoyne nodded as he tapped the display before him, using the same communications setup that Courageous had established earlier.

The Hangar control officer noticed the approaching federation shuttle then transmitted the clearance once the hangar bay doors opened.

Torilla tapped the display before her, with the grace of a seasoned pilot. "I have the beacon." she said quietly before she landed the shuttle like she had been doing this for years.

Arina meanwhile contacted the few other Akurian ships that where within comms range, which consisted of a medium cruiser and three destroyers. She then went down to the hangar bay where the federation shuttle landed. Reaching the shuttle bay, the small Jorkuri walked over to the federation people and introduced herself," Hi, I'm Arina, commander of this ship."

Torilla Yamaguchi looked down at the commander of the Akurian Cruiser. "I'm Captain Torilla Yamaguchi, Commander of the Courageous.." before she offered the small being the PADD in her hand. "Its all in English... some of it is in your native tongue, Ryuukei was kind enough to give us something of your language..... hopefully you guys should be able to read it, it has all of the information on Ryazar's Shield... and the fact she's been here for sixty years as we recon time."

Arina gave Torilla a very puzzled look before looking at the padd. Pulling it up, she found Ryuukei's report about the event that brought Ryazar's Shield to the galaxy. After rereading the information three times over she finally said," So time travel huh, until now, I have never heard of time travel being anything more than a myth."

"Oh its very possible.." Torilla responded. "But in any case, last I saw of Ryazar's Shield. The ship was in one piece, assisting us with a search and rescue operation that went very bad.." she explained. "We got catapulted out here by an unstable wormhole. We still don't know why here."

Arina nodded, replying," Yeah I know how you feel, an unstable wormhole is what deposited us all over the galaxy. Anyway, do you have a method of contacting the Ryazar's Shield, or your federation."

Torilla nodded. "We have the ability to contact the Federation..." she paused. "I can send the message to Starbase 185, the closest base to us.. and talk to them about it.." she paused. "Your communication system is alien to us, we use a subspace com system, you use a tachyon based system... We've not really encountered it..."

Arina shrugged. "Well, we have not had much dealings with subspace communications. In fact we where entirely unaware of the technology until we got here."

Yamaguchi nodded, a smile gracing her lips. "Thats fine. We can assist you with that. Then we'll give you the coordinates for the Akurian colony..." she paused. "I assume the rest of your fleet was scattered all over the place?" she inquired.

Arina nodded. "Yeah, about a third of our fleet has managed to form up about 200 light years from here, but the remaining 2/3rds is still scattered."

"Alright.. " Yamaguchi responded. "We'll get a subspace com system set up on your ship for you... but it'll resolve your coms problems.."

Arina thought on the matter for a moment before answering. "O.K. well, I should contact our division commodore then."

Rachael Falanner nodded, clearly eager to get started. "If you could show me to your engine room, I will have my guys get to work..."

Torilla tapped her combadge. "Yamaguchi to Courageous. Send over whatever Rachael Falannar needs, including a complete subspace communications systems."

Morales response was instant. "Confirmed, they are on their way sir."

"Sounds good." Yamaguchi responded.

John Burgoyne meanwhile found this mission to be almost a cakewalk but he wasn't taking any chances however, he would remain alert.