Arrival: Alameda Part 2

Posted on Fri Nov 12, 2021 @ 6:58pm by Lieutenant Jaro Antos & Lieutenant Rei Yamashi & Lieutenant Penny Mc Taggard & Captain Larisna Koralova

Mission: Mission 1R - Vigilance Be Our Shield
Location: USS Alameda
Timeline: M1D3 - 1030 Hours

Despite the chaotic scene on board the Alameda, there was a familiar order to it. The crew scrambling through the corridors moved with purpose- whether that was transporting injured to Sickbay, repairing blown out EPS conduits, or cleaning up ruptured bulkheads. There was order in the chaos, which Antos attributed to the military discipline of the crew.

The turbolift parted on approach and Antos entered and once Penny followed he provided the destination to the turbolift and felt the car start its nearly imperceptible ascent to Astrometrics.

Penny stood near the back wall of the turbo lift. The ride was a lot more bumpier then normal. She put it down to the recent trouble the Alameda had suffered.

"It should be a short walk to Astrometrics once get to the new deck," Antos stated trying to make conversation with Penny.

“ Let’s hope so. This turbo lift car feels a little jumpy to me. I hope it gets us to our destination.” Penny replied .

Antos smiled at Penny. It was true that the ride was bumpier than usual, but to him it seemed harmless, but he reasoned that was the pilot in him. The stars knew he had been in much bumpier rides than this one.

“We should arrive-“ Antos was saying when the turbolift car came to a halt and opened onto a new deck. “…shortly” he added finishing his sentence even as he stepped onto the new deck. “From here the Astrometrics Lab is just around a bend and behind the first set of doors on the right.”

He started walking towards their destination.

They arrived at Astrometrics a short while later, the inscription on the doors in front of them showed Antos’ interpretation of the ship’s schematic was not wrong. Walking into the lab, Antos was immediately greeted by a moderately sized room, which contained a large, wraparound wall screen. Given this was Astrometrics, it was likely holographic, with the ability to project information three-dimensionally. Directly in front of the large screen was workstation shaped in an arc, which could allow an individual or up to three to work simultaneously.

To the left of the large screen on the side wall and arranged in a row towards the room’s egress were individual workstations. Antos counted three of them. Each with their own modestly sized screen, although much conservative in relation to the main console.

The room was vacant, which was not surprising given the status of the Alameda. The crew that would typically have been here had likely reported to other more pressing stations to address the emergency.

Antos turned to Penny with a smile, “Your choice Lieutenant…big screen” and he pointed to the large wall screen, which was on par, if not larger than the main viewer typically seen on the Bridge. “Or…” and he pointed to the side wall with the more modest individual workstations, “…small screen.” He paused before grinning mischievously, “Choose wisely.”

Penny considered the choice before her. The larger screen seemed to be the best choice. But Penny’s main task was to get the sensor logs of the Alameda. So that later on they could be compared with the sensor logs of the Hornet. Big did not always mean best.

“ I’ll go for the smaller screen if you please. I find a small screen better to work with. If that is ok.” She said taking a seat.

Antos smiled. "Perfectly alright Lieutenant," he replied as he walked to the main station. To be honest, he much preferred the bigger screen. Aside from it being bigger, it had other perks, like holographic display as well as more access to computer processing power, by virtue of it being a main console.

It was trivial to think the hands of the Prophets were in this, as he truly did not think they bothered themselves with such insignificant concerns...still he was grateful for the chance to actually get what he wanted. Perhaps the hands of the Prophets may yet reveal themselves in other ways... like Antos and Penny stumbling upon a monumental discovery.

He paused, chewing on that a bit before shaking his head in disapproval at his mind's wanderings. There was an important task ahead of him and the sooner he got started, the better. And so with that, Antos provided his access code to the computer and received substantive but measured access to the ship's system. He then began pulling together astrogation data for the time period prior to and immediately following the incident that had cuased significant damage to the Alameda.

Penny began to run her hands over the console. Things seemed to be ok at first. The early sensor logs were easy to access. But then she began to have a problem. McTaggard turned to Antos.

“ I seem to have a wee problem accessing the later sensor logs. Their heavily corrupted.” Penny said.

Antos was almost startled by Penny's words. There had been a period of silence and he had immersed himself in the information that he truly forgot that he was not in the room by himself.

"Yes..." he replied looking back to Penny. "I picked up on that but astrogation is mostly external sensors and seems less affected. Also, I am not sure that it is so much corruption as the data is just missing...as in there are gaps. From what I can tell from the telemetry reading and sensor logs, it seems there was some kind of explosion on the nacelle that was followed by a series of cascading secondary explosions that took out multiple subsystems integral to the functioning of internal sensors.

"Unfortunately, I am unable to determine what caused the initial explosion as it knocked out sensors at that time." Antos paused. The sensor data might require further analysis from someone who was more qualified to see if there was a way to fill in the gaps, but at least they could start with the information they had.

"Perhaps it is worthwhile for us to do a timeline trace of the internal and external sensor logs, including the telemetry data of the ship starting from it's last known heading and course prior to the explosion and immediately afterwards.

"I think you should work on cleaning up the internal sensor logs for the time period of, say roughly four hours from now limiting the focus on specific areas like the nacelle that was damaged, Engineering and Bridge. I'll do the same with the external sensors and telemetry data, focusing on any vessels and/or anomalies that may have been recorded as well as the ship's position and heading and functioning of navigational and inter-related systems.

"Then we can combine our data to build a detailed sequence of events to better understand what may have happened, even with the gap in sensor readings."

Penny nodded and she flexed her fingers. Then she ran her hands over the console. The early internal sensor logs were easy to access. She began to download them to the Hornets computer first. Then she looked through the first out of curiosity. There was not much to see the Alameda’s crew we’re getting busy for their first stop. There seemed to be a lot of activity in security though. Something was bothering them but the ship had not gone to yellow alert.

“ Early internal sensors show normal activity. Whatever caused those gaps must of taken them by surprise. Hmmm security shows activity……but the ship was not put on yellow alert. Maybe it’s just drills.” She said allowed.

Antos raised both his eyebrows at that finding. Although unusual in the middle of an evacuation mission, he reasoned that it was not entirely impossible that there would be enhanced security deployment around the ship.

He reminded himself that was just a piece of a larger puzzle.

Satisfied with the new parameters he had set for the external sensor and telemetry data, he began merging his data with that of Penny's, which essentially paired in chronological order events happening both internally and externally within the specified parameters.

"There," he proclaimed that should do it. "Data is merged. Now, let's see if we can use the computer to tease out where we can start.

Although unnecessary, he looked up to the ceiling. "Computer, access the sensor information and telemetry stored in file named Alameda Investigation and begin an analysis of the data to identify any unusual events preceding and immediately after the first explosion was recorded."

The computer beeped before the female monotone voice stated, "Parameters for required analysis is too broad. Please specify narrower parameters."

Antos frowned. He supposed he should have seen that coming. After all, how exactly would you define "unusual events". There were many things that could be characterized as unusual on a starship that were perfectly normal, and not immediately indicative of anything untoward.

He looked to his more scientifically inclined partner. "Any suggestions Lieutenant?" he asked. "I am thinking we want to know about anomalous readings, power fluctuations, unidentified energy readings, crew members that are unaccounted for."

He paused, realizing that this list was starting to get long and started building a list of parameters. "Any other things you can think of?"

Penny rubbed her thumb and forefinger as she considered what Antos had said.

“Everything was running smoothly until the the nacelle was damaged. We need to focus on what caused the explosion. Was it sabotage or an error by the engineers? Let’s look at this simply. What do we know that could knock out a nacelle but not destroy the ship? If it was some kind of anomaly why wasn’t the Gorn or Klingon ships effected? They are shadowing the Alameda. No whatever caused all these shenanigans. Happened on board. I think we should look into crew activity up to the explosion. Something just does not add up here.” Penny replied

Antos nodded. "I think we can completely exclude what happened external to the ship, but that said I will add to the revised search parameter a cross-reference of any known incidents similar to the damage the Alameda incurred, and broaden analysis of crew activity, with specific focus on sensitive areas of the ship."

Antos tapped away at his console entering the new search parameters and manually instructed the computer to execute its analysis. As expected, the computer flagged to him that the refined parameter would require time to complete.

"Looks like the new search parameters will require approximately fifteen minutes to complete," Antos stated to Penny.

"In the mean time, what do we know about the Klingon and Gorn ships you mentioned?" Antos asked intrigued. "Were you able to dig up any information about either ship?"

Penny nodded and looked at her padd.

“ At the moment not much on the Gorn vessel. But their always secretive about how the ships works. It will just take a little time. As for the Klingons. Standard large D series battle cruiser which is odd for them. As they usually use the smaller Birds of Prey. There may be another cloaked vessel out there. I would be surprised if there wasn’t.” She replied

About then was when both Penny and Jaro's comm badges chirped, "This is Yamashi to McTaggart and Antos. How are things on your end progressing? I've discovered something significant on this side."

Antos paused the question he was about to ask Penny and tapped his combadge opening the communications line from his end, "Jaro here, we are only just starting our analysis Lieutenant. We've collected some sensor information and we have the computer running a scan to help identify anomalous events. However, we do have some clues. There was an explosion in the starboard nacelle of indeterminate origin that caused cascading secondary explosions and disabled several subsystems, including the internal sensors.

"Lieutenant McTaggart also found evidence that at least one Gorn and Klingon ship were tailing the Alameda prior to the explosion. Furthermore, the Alameda's security department appeared to have taken an enhanced security posture prior to the explosion, but we are not sure if this is related to the events leading to the explosions or of this was instituted as part of the evacuation proceedings itself."

Penny’s terminal bleeped. She gave it a quick glance and ran a hand over the console.

"Bring everything you both have collected." Rei commented over the comms. "I'll meet you both back in the Transporter room in three hundred ti..." she paused, "Five minutes. Yamashi out."

McTaggard gave a sigh and began collecting her things. She ran a hand over the console which bleeped again.

“ That’s me done how about you?” She asked.

Antos would have preferred to remain in Astrometrics to complete the sensor analysis that the computer was running, but his orders were clear. As Penny had opened a data transfer port to the Hornet's computer earlier, Antos was able to transfer all the information he had gathered, including transferring the ongoing analysis of the sensor information.

If there was an advantage to returning to the Hornet over staying on the Almeda, it was that the former's computer processing power was significantly higher than that of the latter. Besides, Antos theorized there were probably more experienced data scientists who would be in a better position to more critically and rigorously dissect the sensor logs and telemetry data.

"All done on my end," Antos replied. He downloaded what immediate information he needed to his padd and logged off the main station. "I just transferred all of the information we collected to the Hornet."

He started heading towards the exit, "Let's head to the Transporter room to meet Lieutenant Yamashi."

Penny picked up her items and placed them in her backpack. After shouldering it she followed him.

“ Yes. I think we have enough data to sift through.” She said

It wasn't a long walk until they met up with Yamashi in the Transporter room. Despite her normally difficult-to-read nature, she seemed pleased with the results of this venture. "Lieutenants. Excellent detective work. I think we have everything we need to set up the chain of events, and put everything in its place."

Penny nodded giving her rucksack a gentle tap.

“ Yes. But we’ll need a wee while to sift through all this data.” Penny replied

Antos similarly nodded as he thought about the work ahead and to the other vital component of the investigation- the interviews being conducted by their comrades with the respective Klingon and Gorn Captains as well as the officers from the Alameda.

He looked forward to cross-referencing that investigation with the engineering, sensor and telemetry data they had now collected from the Alameda. The mystery of what happened to the Alameda was by no means resolved, but they were poised to get some much needed answers.