Arrival at New Harrington

Posted on Fri Jun 17th, 2022 @ 3:12am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Lieutenant Commander Sandra "Phantom" Risa & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant Ashlesha 4827/A & Lieutenant Anna S. Thesia M.D. & Lieutenant JG Avarak & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Ensign Kitiuas Thenis & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

Mission: New Harrington
Location: Bridge
Timeline: Current

The USS Sunfire warped towards New Harrington, it's crew diligently trying to prepare for whatever chaos the planet was in. In the grand scheme of things one starship vs a planet wasn't much, but with her resources deployed in the right placed, the Sunfire could prove pivotal.

"New Harrington on long range sensors, ETA half an hour" came the report from the rear of the bridge.

"On Screen, helm slow to 1/2 impulse once we enter the system" The Captain advised, shifting in her chair as the image of New Harrington grew larger on the viewscreen.

"And nothing hostile in sight, at least for the moment," coming from Dean's console side.

"Very good Commander, I'd like us at Yellow Alert once we enter the system. Shields up but don't charge weapons - yet" Rhenora advised, working through a few strategies in her mind. There was so much unknown about the current situation on the planet it was hard to formulate a safe but rapid assistance plan.

Dean's fingers moved along the console. Switching the Alert level first, then raising the shields. Putting weapons on standby, but not armed.

"Ops, have all departments send through their readiness status and display on my personal monitor" The Captain requested.

"Aye, Ma'am," Ashlesha Violet replied, then belated and realized the Captain might not like being called 'Ma'am'. Well, too late now. She set up a call to all department heads and murmured the request to fire off their readiness statuses to the Captain's monitor. After a moment she realized it might be prudent to provide her own and did so.

Aurora stepped onto the bridge offering a warm smile as she made her way to her seat, she wanted to see New Harrington. Taking her seat she looked towards Rhenora. “I take it there’s no sign of anything unusual yet?”

"Nothing yet, however, we're still only able to use long-range sensors. I would appreciate if you mention anything 'odd' if you sense it as we get closer" Rhenora smiled at the counsellor.

Savar kept his eyes on his monitor as Rhenora spoke to Ops and received information from various departments. "Captain." He announced, "I ask that you draw your attention to the northern hemisphere. A weather system of unusual size and strength has formed."

"Hmmmm, looks like a cyclone is brewing, a nasty one at that. Do we have any intel on where it may be heading from this far out?" She looked over at the science department.

“It is difficult to tell, Captain.” Responded the science officer. As he spoke, he ran another analysis to confirm his previous findings. “My analysis suggests that it is building to a category five storm, likely to be moving in a north-easterly direction.”

"Magnify the planet on the main viewscreen and overlay the projected size and direction of the storm. We need to see what's in it's path" Rhenora's gut twisted a little, would they arrive in time to do anything?

Risa's gut just twisted in knots. "Jeezz that doesn't look good. Captain I can take two fighters and fly over that storm and get you a closer look. A storm like that is very dangerous and is also the perfect hiding place if you don't want to be discovered. I have flown, as they say, "Hurricane Hunters," the old earth terms as it was used," she said looking at the main viewer.

" Once we enter the system, take your fighters out and have a good hard look at that storm, but be careful, my gut tells me these weathers systems aren't nature just having a bad day" Rhenora replied, giving Risa the nod.

Aurora sat fiddling with her hands, getting up from her seat she took a walk around the bridge. There were a lot of scared people on New Harrington, not that she could blame them, with what was happening down on the surface. She paused in front of the viewscreen looking back at Rhenora. “There are a lot of frightened, and scared people down there Captain.”

Ensign Thenis was in her office the old Earth radio program "The Shadow" playing in the background as she reviewed the geological data on New Harrington. She was doing a Geochronology/Thermochronology comparison of the data from the first discovery of the planet, to the settlement, to the implementation of the weather control stations and satellite system. Something caught her eye on one of the systems in the northern hemisphere. The data showed that there had been ancient geological fault lines, but for some reason, the engineering crew had placed a weather control station on top of one, could this have been an oversite? She hit her comm =^=Bridge this Ensign Thenis, I need data on a Weather Station located in the Northern Hemisphere, weather Station 187. It would appear that the engineers either ignored or did not realize the station is on top of an ancient geological fault line. I am also going to need the location of all active known weather stations.=^= She knew she should have cleared this with Lieutenant Avarak, but she felt she was on to something.

"Wouldn't a probe give us more extensive data, as well not put anyone in danger? Just in case?" House glanced up.

Piping up, "I have a record of all surface weather control installations as well as the orbital monitoring stations which monitor and control the ground stations." She plugged the data in and sent it to Thenis's station. "We are still too far away to get a reading on any of them. We need to be at least within 1au for a bio scan of the interior of the orbital platforms."

"Entering the New Harrington system" came the call from one of the rear stations.

"One half impulse, Risa, ready your fighters, I'll let the Govenor know you're coming. Dean, launch a series of probes into the upper atmosphere and get a handle on exactly what the weather is doing. All departments, prepare for arrival." Rhenora advised, tapping a few buttons on her monitor.

"Ops, hail the planet."

"Aye, Ma'am," Ashlesha replied as she hailed the planet.

Kitiuas received the data she requested from the bridge. She began to furiously input the data against her known parameters, and there it was, over a quarter of the ground control systems had been placed either by ancient fault lines or 'extinct' volcanoes or earth vents. The question was why? She immediately got up from her desk and headed for the bridge, this information needed to be told in person so she could better explain the significance of it. As she made her way to the turbolift she knew she would most likely get a reprimand for bypassing her supervisor, Lieutenant Avarak. Oh well she thought as she entered the turbolift. =^=Bridge=^= she barked.

"Sunfire, thank you for coming" The Govenor started, concern mixed with relief evident.

"We're here to help in whatever way we can, I have a squadron of fighters ready to scout the remote areas, our science teams are analysing the weather systems, and our medical staff are ready to assist" Captain Kaylen started, hoping to elicit a sense of how bad the situation actually was.

"The system is making landfall Captain. Producing torrential rain which will lead to flooding in low lying areas." Savar reported as he looked at the information streaming across his monitor.

Ensign Kitius Thenis arrived on the bridge just as the Sunfire was making contact with the Governor of New Harrington. Trying her best to meld into the background and not interfere with the Captain and Governor conversation she made her way to the port side wall to the Science console number 2. Once there she began pulling up her data and waited patiently to present her report.

The Captain looked towards Thenis "do you have new information Ensign?" She asked, her mind already formulating a plan to deal with all the crisis - at least she hoped so.

Ensign Thenis turned and replied “Yes Captain, during my investigations I discovered that over a quarter of the ground control systems have been located either near ancient fault lines, extinct volcanoes or vents. This goes against standard Federation policies on setting up a weather control system and therefore begs the question of who authorized such actions.” She paused then brought up the schematics and overlaid it on a projection of the New Harrington planet. “As you can see this is the pattern of ground control weather stations, the green are placed properly and the red are those that were placed incorrectly. If you also note the areas being effected by the most severe anomalies, are also where the weather stations are placed by either ancient fault lines, extinct volcanoes or vents.”
With that she stood by and awaited the response of those on the bridge; the faint scent of cinnamon, roses and vanilla wafting off her.

" Interesting, very interesting indeed" Rhenora rubber her chin thoughtfully as she added this new nugget of information into the already complex puzzle. "Do you have any hypothesis on the orbital based weather stations as well?" She asked. The orbital stations were the ones where the repair personnel had vanished from.

Ensign Thenis turned back to the science station and began making some inputs and inquires, shortly she had an answer. She turned back to the Captain “It would appear that for every two ground stations one orbital station weather station seems to be malfunctioning. As for the main orbital station I cannot get any readings, as if it is shielded.” The faint scent of cinnamon, roses and vanilla getting a little stronger as she nervously replied to a superior officer.

Ashlesha could not help but notice ensign's Thenis' arrival and strove to concentrate on ship's systems to keep her distracted from the, ah, distraction. She noted too the power of the storm and frowned. Was there a way to blow it out? Was there a brute force approach or would short term gains turn into long term headaches? Rather than ask stupid questions she opted for suggestions instead.

"Commander Savar," she pitched her voice for his ears so it would not interrupt the captain, "Perhaps it would be prudent to put all transporter rooms on alert to start beaming people most at risk out of the oncoming flood? Monitor life signs in the area and pick up stragglers fleeing from the storm?"

Savar turned his head slightly to take in Ashlesha's question. When she had finished, he spoke and there was a note of approval in his voice. "A most prudent decision Lieutenant. See to it and Lieutenant? Well done."

Well damn, it was impossible not to smile at that. Ashlesha gave the Commander a nod and turned back to her console and called the transporter rooms.

"Attention.." she murmured as she made a call, keeping her voice low to avoid distracting the captain...and speaking of distractions, there was that delicious scent again! She grimaced and pressed on, "...we will be transporting refugees from the edge of the storm in rapidly depositing them to a safer location. I will assign each room a grid which will be your responsibility."

She paused. Damn. That was going to be a lot of frightened people coming on board all of a sudden, swept out of a violent storm and flood waters onto a pristine vessel, then abruptly deposited somewhere else. She looked around the bridge and spotted the counselor and waved at her, motioning her to join her. Darn it, what was her name?

Aurora noticed the wave, getting up from her seat she moved across to Ashlesha. “Lieutenant, What can I do for you?”

"Counselor," Ashlesha murmured as she was setting up the grid, "We are going to be beaming refugees aboard and then sending them right back down again to some place safe. What that place is we don't know yet, but I'm sure there's a relief station being set up somewhere."

She turned to Aurora briefly, "Problem is I imagine there's going to be a lot of terrified people staring around at our transporter room wondering what the hell just happened. How many counselors are onboard?"

“As it stands we have a pretty small complement, but I can pull in medical staff if needs be.” Aurora offered a smile.

"Oh good," Ashlesha replied with a smile, "It might also be prudent to have security personnel on hand as well but seeing strangers with weapons might make things worse."

Aurora nodded. “A very good idea” she smiled warmly.

Her focus was on the orbital platforms and their shields. She was attempting to establish a data link to the platforms computer system when a sudden waft of cinnamon caught her attention. It was enough for her to turn around in order to determine the origin. Having favored hot cocoa most of her life she would often mix it with cinnamon and vanilla amongst other things and now those smells were making her crave a warm glass. Regaining her senses she called out, "I'm having difficulty establishing a remote connection. It's as if the system has been modified to lock us out. It's either highly encrypted or something is broken." Bonnie spoke to the seniors on the bridge.

" Goes with the theory that the place is haunted" Rhenora admitted aloud, casting a cautious gaze at the swirling storm.

"Ops, advise the Governor we will be relocating those in the most direct threatened areas, and request a safer location for them" The Captain ordered

"And there we are," Ashlesha replied quietly to Aurora. More loudly she replied to the Captain, "Aye, Ma'am!"

As she put the call into the Governor's office she whispered to Aurora, "Does the captain like being called 'ma'am'? Or am I digging a hole for myself here?"

Aurora grinned as she responded quietly. “I think you’ll be fine.”

"Overlay that location on the map, approximately how many people are we talking about?" Rhenora asked as her crew swung into action.

As Ashlesha began murmuring to the Governor's disaster relief representative she called up the map of the immediately affected area. She said more loudly, "Let me ask," then to the Governor's person, "Pardon us but do you have an estimate of how many people are in the affected area? Do you have any idea how many might be unable to safely evacuate?"

While the crew around her on the bridge were performing various activities Kitiuas turned back to the science station she was occupying and began doing a deep search on who was responsible for building the weather control system for New Harrington. She was becoming more frustrated as she dug deeper and deeper into the ship’s computer library system because there was no information what so ever regarding the architects or engineers responsible for the system. As she became more frustrated the scent of cinnamon, roses, vanilla, and now lilac began to waft off her.

" Standard synchronous orbit archived, holding position over the Capitol" the Helm advised, and Rhenora nodded her thanks for the update. " Captain to all hands, we've arrived at New Harrington, these people desperately need our help. You know your assignments - let's do it"

Aurora looked towards Rhenora. “I’d like to pull in Remal for this, and anyone else he might need to help reassure those we’re transporting Captain?”

" Of course, use whatever resources not essential to the other parts of the mission." The Captain nodded.

Aurora nodded. “Thank you Captain” With that she took a few moments to call Remal and inform him of what she needed him to do.

"Captain, My team will consist of myself, Aurora, Lt. Ashlesha and Dr. Thesia and Lt. Holland from Security." Savar replies straight forwardly. Savar stopped, considered something and then addressed Rhenora again. "Captain I would also like to add Lt. Durnell and Lt.Thriss Kla'ren."

" You have a go Commander, see if you figure out what the heck is going on with the orbital platform, but remember, the last 3 teams have failed to return, so be careful" Rhenora nodded as the XO stood and headed off the bridge with the rest of the away team.

Aurora looked towards Savar, standing ready to head off ship with him.

"Well big chair again," Dean gave a bit of a smirk. "Also science should have data back now from the probes.

" Have Science start getting onto that data pronto, and keep a transporter lock on the away team" The Captain smiled as Dean settled into the XO's chair, lending his support as required. Rhenora let the feeling of pride wash over her as the crew focussed on their tasks like a well oiled machine, they truly were the best the fleet had to offer.