A Strange Discovery

Posted on Wed Jan 6th, 2021 @ 4:52pm by Lieutenant Mila Lynn

735 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Chapter III: The Hunt is On
Location: Hangar Bay 2, I.R.W. Ourainavassa
Timeline: 238701.18

It had been two days since Mila and Ash had discovered the strange little fighter in Fenton's hangar, and it was now sitting in the Ourainavassa's secondary hangar, ready for them to try and restore it. A cursory first check had shown that the ship's drive core was completely non-functional - and it was of a strange design that Mila had never seen before.

As soon as they had gotten their project on board, first thing they had done was to give it a clean on the outside, as well as force the little ship's canopy open. This had finally revealed the full identification of the fighter's mothership - a vessel called I.S.S. Discovery, registry NCC-1031-G. She had looked the registry and name up in the Starfleet ship database - at least what was publicly available - and discovered that there once had been a U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031, but that ship had been destroyed over a century ago. Since then, there had been other ships with the same name, but, much like with the Defiant, the original registry number had been retired.

Still, Rogers had said that this craft came from another universe, and a scan of its hull had confirmed that it did not share the quantum signature that was continuous with all matter. With every discovery, the little ship turned out to be more and more of a mystery.

But Mila was determined to solve these questions, and for that, she was going to have to access the ship's logs. It had taken her almost a day of tinkering, with some help from engineering, but, finally, she had managed to build an adapter that would hopefully allow her to connect the small vessel to Ourainavassa's power grid, and thus to access the on-board computer. This, she hoped, would allow for a more detailed diagnostic of what needed to be done to repair the fighter, as well as provide access to its logs. Gingerly, the young scientist attached the adapter to the end of the power cable, and connected it into Discovery-3's systems.

For a few moments, nothing happened, and Mila was about to give up, when she heard a series of beeps coming from the controls in the little fighter's cockpit. The on-board system, finally, was booting up. Mila clenched her fist and smiled in triumph, and climbed into the pilot's seat. The cockpit had a simple layout - one central seat, surrounded by a single, glass-like panel, that held the controls, as well as a physical joystick and throttle lever, which was something rarely seen in modern-day vessels. Two passenger seats were located behind the pilot seat it, as well as a small cargo area. It was not very spacious, but the seat was surprisingly comfortable.

Now that it was supplied with power, the glass panel was displaying some input controls. Its style was similar to the Federation's LCARS system, and yet it appeared more advanced. Nevertheless, it appeared familiar, and Mila was confident she would easily be able to navigate the system. But when she touched the panel, something unexpected happened - immediately, the canopy closed, and a full, holographic HUD appeared.

A quick check of the display revealed a full status diagnostic. The vessel's power core was indeed offline, and its tactical systems were damaged. Surprisingly, however, everything else looked like it was perfectly operational. Of course, without a powered drive core, most of the computer's functions were locked out.

The relatively good condition of the fighter, however, was to be the only good news. When Mila found her way to the logs, she found that the entire memory of the vessel had been wiped - except for a single set of coordinates in the navigation logs. With a sigh, Mila memorised the coordinates, and shut down the system. As soon as the projected display disappeared, the canopy opened, and she deftly climbed out.

As soon as she got to her quarters, Mila accessed her console, and entered the coordinates from the ship's log to see where they were leading. Then she double-checked them. Her hand was shaking as she tapped the ship intercom.

"Mila Lynn to Ash Rogers. I found something in the logs on our project. Come to my quarters ASAP, you're going to want to see this."

RSS Feed