Something Doesn't Add Up

Posted on Sun Aug 30th, 2020 @ 5:47am by Ensign Lucas Miles

Mission: Distress Call
Location: SS Olympia - Bridge
Timeline: Current

Arriving on what appeared to be the command centre of the Olympia, Lucas was immediately struck by how normal the Bridge appeared.

Lucas was not sure if it was his imagination running wild but he had expected to see a chaotic control centre with damaged consoles and exposed conduits but this Bridge was the complete opposite and a perfect picture of a normal freighter Bridge.

Lucas had spent a substantial part of his life growing up on a freighter, and had even worked in the freighter service before joining Starfleet, so he knew something seemed amiss.

His suspicions were further stroked by the fact that there was only one person on the Bridge. Granted, it was a small command centre, but there were a few unmanned controls in addition to the Captain's chair, which was currently manned by a human male who seemed nonchalant about the status of the freighter.

While he knew of freighters that were operated by single individuals, these were few and far between. The reality for most freighter operations was that the long haul made solo operations detrimental to one's mental health.

He studied the human male who introduced himself as Captain Reynolds. Everything about him seemed off, from the sly grin to his casualness. His subtle dig as well to the Starfleet officers who had come to his rescue, seemed off.

After Commander Silk's brief orders to the Away Team, Lucas fanned out to one of the few consoles on the Bridge to start his investigation of what may have happened on board the Olympia.

His first task was to call up the navigational computer and query it about the last whereabouts of the ship. However, he was surprised to find that there were no records. He checked the logs and was even more surprised to find that there were no navigational logs of the ship's movement for the past six months.

His first thoughts were that the navigational computer must have malfunctioned and so he ran a level four diagnostics on the computer. The quick diagnostics noted no issued with the computer and indicated that it was operating within normal parameters.

If that was true, Lucas thought. Then that would mean someone or something tampered with the navigational logs of the freighter. Without navigational logs, Lucas had no way of knowing where the ship had been or where it was going.

He began downloading the information he could to his padd figuring that it might be useful for further analysis when he got back to the ship. He moved on the status of the engines. He could tell that both impulse and warp engines were offline but there was no evidence of any structural or software damage.

The computer simply indicated an error message with a generic message that suggested that some mechanical pieces may be missing. Lucas knew the Chief Engineer had made his way to Engineering, so hopefully he would be able to shed more light on that.

This was becoming more curious by the second, Lucas thought. He turned to glance at Captain Reynolds who was engaged in a conversation with Commander Silk. Lucas suddenly began to feel uneasy.

This whole situation seemed very wrong...


Ensign Lucas Miles
Flight Control Officer
USS Independence

 

Comments (1)