Reminiscing

Posted on Thu Mar 24, 2022 @ 2:58pm by Lieutenant Jaro Antos
Edited on on Mon Mar 28, 2022 @ 1:31pm

Mission: Mission 2 - A World With A Bluer Sun
Location: Bridge

Jaro Antos occupied his time by keeping a close eye on the ship’s movements and navigational sensors. Although geospatially “parked”, the strong gravimetric pull from the relatively distant maelstrom that was the wormhole meant he needed to make subtle course adjustments every now and then to keep the Hornet from being sucked into the artificial wormhole.

The ship’s thrusters were sufficient for the course adjustments…most of the time, but every now and then the gravimetric force would spike, needing him to rely on the much more sophisticated and significant propelling force of the ship’s impulse engines. So far, he was yet to determine a pattern to these spikes, and neither could his navigational computers.

So, he ensured that he consistently kept the ship a safe distance away from wormhole but also within range of transport for the sake of the away team that was currently on one of the planets in the system.

One of the benefits of having a sophisticated sensor pod attached to the Hornet was the enhanced sensor capabilities in addition to the significant processing power that boosted the ship’s ability to pick up an impressive level of detail about any target, and this applied to Antos’ navigational sensors.

Ever since Lieutenant McTaggard had determined that the wormhole, with its angry churn of blues, whites and yellow, was artificially created, Antos had been struck with open wonder as to how such a feat was manageable not to even talk about who could have created it. Although not a scientist, he had found himself also studying the sensor data available to him about the wormhole.

It was part professional curiosity but also personal curiosity. Like most Bajorans, he had a certain amount of reverence for wormholes – not because they were extremely rare and complex phenomena, but because there was almost always an implied connection to the Prophets. If the Bajoran wormhole was the Celestial Temple of the Prophets, did that mean other wormholes were also Celestial Temples?

It was a question perhaps best left to Vedeks and the Kai to ponder, although he suspected even him, as a layperson, could decisively answer that question as being unlikely. Still, there were those among his people who believed that all wormholes were linked to the Prophets. If that was true, Antos could not help but wonder what that meant for artificially created wormholes.

But the wonders of this mission did not just start and begin with the wormhole. There was also a shuttlepod from an old Starfleet vessel – the USS Atlantis that had been discovered on the planet. Moments ago, Antos knew nothing of the Atlantis, but now he was versed on details of the ship and her missions that were available to someone with his clearance level. Although he was not human, he had grown up largely in the company of humans and had spent some of his formative years on Earth. So, he was intimately familiar with the culture and history as if they were his own, which in a way they were.

He knew how significant of a discovery finding anything from an NX-class starship was. He had always been fascinated by this era of Starfleet- the United Earth Starfleet as it were- so young and ignorant of the complex geopolitical landscape of the galaxy. Nevertheless, they had learned very quickly, adapted where they could but most importantly, persevered through terrible ordeals, not the least of which had been the Earth-Romulan War.

It was during this war that the Atlantis had been lost, although the circumstances surrounding this were never conclusive. That in and of itself was not unusual. War after all was a messy affair. Add to it the vastness of space and the thousands, if not tens of thousands of things that could go wrong in space, and it immediately becomes clear why it could quickly become complex trying to identify the last known position of lost starships.

To Antos, there was a certain level of excitement about what discovery awaited them on the planet as much as there was empathy and concern for what the Atlantis and her crew must have endured to have one of its shuttlepods end up on the surface of this planet, so far from what had then been the geographical boundaries of Starfleet.

Suddenly, the ship’s comm system came alive.

“Draesni to Hornet, we’ve had a development.”

Although his back was turned to her, Antos could hear some concern in the Captain’s voice as she replied “Is everyone alright?”

“We’re fine Captain, but…we found a survivor.”

“By the Prophets,” Antos muttered under his breath…

Comments (1)