The Search pt 2
Posted on Thu Feb 13th, 2025 @ 1:48pm by Commodore S'thenosis Gorgox & Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Commander Dean House & Ensign Varin Maxim Stu & 2nd Lieutenant Connor McQueen & Lieutenant Commander Rynn Upland & Lieutenant Thomas Haldeman & Lieutenant Alison Haldeman & Lieutenant Sarah Wilson & Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronson Mitchell
Mission:
Ramant
Location: USS Sunfire
Timeline: Current
Meanwhile, down in the brig Dr Wilson was standing outside the forcefield with a perplexed look on her face. These beings were not in the Federation database and looked like nothing she had ever seen. She was unsure of how to treat them and how their bodies would tolerate. Furthermore, they were clearly an advanced species and had shown how dangerous they could be.
In the dimly lit brig aboard the USS Sunfire, McQueen stood before the alien captives, the quiet hum of the forcefield separated the three, they were both enigmatic figures shrouded in mystery. The creatures’ strange physiology and cryptic behavior had kept the crew on edge ever since the abduction of a third of Sunfire personnel.
McQueen's eyes narrowed as he assessed the aliens’ posture, calculating his next move. They were resilient, and the typical techniques wouldn’t work. But he was patient. This wasn’t his first interrogation, no… just one of many. His time in black ops came in handy in situations like these, not just trained in combat—but trained in tactics, in breaking difficult… “guests”
"Why did you take them?" McQueen asked, his voice calm but firm. His gaze never left the creatures’, and he could feel the weight of the situation pressing on him.
The aliens remained silent, their cold, otherworldly eyes glaring back at him. They hadn't spoken a word since they had been captured, but McQueen didn’t need them to. He had learned from years of interrogating that silence could be more telling than any confession.
McQueen continued, “We know you’ve taken a large portion of the crew. We know you’ve been studying them. But if you don’t tell me where they are, I’ll make sure your people never make it out of this sector alive.” The threat wasn’t idle; he had the full weight of Marine Command behind him, he didn’t think he needed to talk to the Commander to puzzle out her thoughts behind this.
The aliens’ twitched, the first sign of response. McQueen stepped forward, sensing the shift. “Listen, I’m not here to hurt you—unless you give me no choice. You’re going to tell me where my crew is, and you’re going to do it now.” Connor idly played with his K-bar, flipping it in his hand.
Dean had just been in the back of the room for the moment letting McQueen see what he could get out of the prisoner. Holding a hand up for McQueen to stop a moment.
"Listen, there's not going to be any purpose to keep quiet. You've been captured. If you're lucky you'll live out your sentence in peace. However, there are deals that can be made. Do you have a wife? Husband? Children? Do you want to see them again. I know you can understand me. Or I can have him leave the room and you and I can have a hard talk. I already bested the four of you while you were cloaked. What do you think I can do since you royally pissed all of us off."
The aliens quivered in the corner, cowering at this threat of violence that went against their entire ethos. "Such primitive souls to resort to such means to gain information!"
Dean dropped his voice into a softer tone. Moving over in front of the alien and crouched down to be on the same level as it was. "I'm not going to hurt you. All we want to know is why you took our people. Is there something you need and afraid to ask for? We are not tyrants, but we do not take kindly to being attacked and abducted."
"Our race is dying, we needed them" one of the aliens squeaked through the universal translator.
"And instead of just asking for help, you thought potentially creating more death was the best idea." Dean sighed a little bit. "From what."
She eyed him out of fear of retribution, and wondered how much she should divulge. Her life would be over one way or another. "Under-population. A millennia ago we stopped conception through natural emotional, animalistic ways. Instead we utilized clean, scientific invitro fertilization to create our young. Unfortunately the last viable youngling was created over 50 cycles ago. At least until we found a subject among your crew who was able to bear a child of our species naturally."
She then looked back and forth from the one thug to the other before spitting out the rest. "Every death in the search to create life is a worthy sacrifice to make if it means salvation for our people." She then laid back, injured and out of strength.
They had what they needed, a why. It was enough to relay to the bridge crew but not helpful enough. They still needed more. The question was, how to what lengths would they go to get the answers they needed?
On the bridge, Jenna and crew were following the faint blip on the tactical screen. From what they could tell, the ship was moving fast and had a decent head start to their destination. The signal itself was faint and kept blinking off as though something wre interfering with the transmission, but like a hound dog searching for a treat, they were going to follow.
She waited on bated breath to hear any detail whatsoever from Tom, Allison, Sarah, Connor, Ronson or Dean. Every little bit of news, good or bad was something they could use.
Ronson manned his post doggedly, refusing to yield for rest of any kind. The blip came and went, but seemed to be following a solid trajectory, which he began to plot on the main viewscreen.
"This is weird" he mused allowed as he ran through the scenarios. "If they follow along this course they don't intersect with any planets. It's like there's a space in this uncharted system where a planet should be, but it seems to be where they're heading"
Tom manned tactical and like everyone else his eyes were on the blip they were tracking and following. he gave a quick glance at Jenna, and she seemed to be handling the stress well. In fact, everyone on the blip was handling the situation well.
"Commander." He spoke, "I suspect a course change coming up shortly. This present course is a feint to see if they are being followed. I would say based on the fact that they have made no changes, They are confident in their escape."
Quickly pondering the idea and interpreting his gut feeling she could only think of one way to respond, "I've had the same feeling, however without more to go on, what choice do we have but to stay the course." If they were wrong about the signal they could end up light-years off course. But if they were right, the badge would be the ticketto finding 'something'.
She then turned slightly to see Ronson, "Can stellar cartography tell us anything about that area or the areas nearby, even a moon, a starbase, a gravitational blip, anything useful?"
"I'll get them on it" Ronson replied, sending all the information they had down to the specialized department. That was if they had enough staff. A few minutes later a series of images and notes appeared on his screen, he transferred them to the main viewer. "This is what they came up with, 3 systems, and this oddity" He noted the system with the missing planet. "Going by the other relative orbits in this system, there should be another planet."
"Hmm, A highly advanced species, capable of cloaking their ship in such a way we could not detect them and, themselves while on board. Could they be advanced enough to cloak their entire home world?" Jenna asked aloud before addressing Allison. "How long until they reach that location?" She knew if they reached their home world the act of retrieving their people would be much more difficult.
Allison looked towards Jenna, “Approximately 42 minutes, let’s just hope we have a plan by the time we get there.” She had to admit she was a little preoccupied as to why she and Thomas hadn’t been taken, maybe they’d just gotten lucky, after all she was in their quarters at the time.
"Commander Upland, any chance we can squeeze a bit more out of the engines? We need to close the gap if we can." She was striving to find something they could do other than being idle and simply passing the time. Keep moving forward. she told herself.
Rynn, who had transferred her engineering flag to the bridge, was already working at one of the engineering stations. She tapped a few buttons before getting a few readouts. "We can Commander. If we re-route power from the holodecks we should be able to have enough to boost us" she reported.
Ronson nodded from his station but left the decision up to the Commander. To him it was a no brainer, but he was just a lowly Yeoman.
"Do it, and don't spare the horses. If you can pull from anywhere else, please indulge yourself." Jenna offered before she stood and rocked on her heels. She could feel the power surge into the engines and the ship increase in speed with the new burst of energy. "Lt. Haldeman, any change to the tactical analysis? Or better yet, do we yet have a way to stop them if they choose to board us again?" She had been thinking another boarding party wasn't out of the question for a race that could move unseen and had left people behind.
“Not much change Commander, once the power from the holodecks is rerouted it’ll change things some but we need something to give us a break. As for another boarding party I’d need more information on how they got aboard the last time.”
"Fair. Make certain you co-ordinate with Mr. House and Mr. McQueen once they have answers from our intruders." It was a test of her patience to simply stand by and be idle when there were so many unanswered questions. The least she could do was help direct traffic in person to also direct the traffic of her mind.
Seeing as things had taken a turn for the positive and he wasn't required to man a station for the next few minutes, Ronson disappeared and quickly made snacks and warm drinks for everyone. Reappearing with a large tray he offered them around the Bridge crew.
"Coffee, tea?" He asked each in turn, "sandwich?"
"Orange Juice?" Jenna asked, thirsting for her favorite citrus beverage. She always was a fan of breakfast and breakfast drinks.
At that point Dr Wilson appeared on the bridge with the medical data they had requested. "Captain Kaylen has a subcutaneous implant, but I'm pretty sure the aliens that abducted her would know about it, it's pretty standard issue technology" she shrugged as she handed the PADD to Jenna.
Jenna skimmed the implant information, giving the occasional glance at the Doctor for the disclosure. It did not list the specifics behind the implant or whether it had any sort of tracking signal. When she was done she asked, "How does this help us Doc?"
"The Captain has a subcutaneous implant that we may be able to track. Other than that I have a full list of those who were taken. They were all either not on reproduction inhibitors or were parents. That's the only common denomination I could find." Sarah explained with a shrug. "Perhaps the aliens have a reproduction problem."
"That may explain the taking of the child, Sidak. His appearance seems to match those we have in the Brig. What can you tell me about his origins?" Jenna asked Doctor Wilson, but the question was open to any who had information.
"Not much unfortunately. Their physiology is not listed anywhere in the Federation Medical Database and they are unlike any humanoid I have ever seen. " Sarah admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. "I can't tell if their ability to cloak is a natural or technological advancement."
“As far as I know, Aurora doesn't know anything about Sidak’s people, but if they did take our people for breeding purposes...” Alison paused. “What if they’ve already started a new breeding program aboard their ship?”
Jenna looked out the front to the invisible target and where they were heading, "Then we should count ourselves as lucky not to have been taken along with them. Whatever they are having to endure cannot be a pleasant experience." She tightened her hand into a fist in an effort to restrain her frustrations.
TBC
