The Next Morning

Posted on Wed Feb 18th, 2009 @ 11:57am by Lieutenant Commander Abigail Valera & Captain Vorn Krace

Mission: Dark Discoveries
Location: Abigail's Quarters and Mess Hall
Timeline: MD4 0630hrs

Abigail groaned and stretched as she slowly woke up early the next morning. She blinked her eyes open and looked around for Vorn, but found him gone. She smiled and knew he must have had cold feet. She got up and went into the restroom to shower. She would look later for any messages that Vorn may have left. Abigail didn't hold it against Vorn for backing out it was his choice after all if he wanted to stay or go. He had chosen to stay. Abigail let the warm water hit her skin and she quickly washed herself. After about ten minutes she turned the water off, dried herself, and changed into a clean uniform. It would soon be time for her to start her shift and she wanted to be ready for it. Abigail left her quarters with her reports and headed for the Mess Hall.

She entered and took a seat in one of the empty tables that sat in a corner. Abigail then ordered some toast and scrambled eggs. While she was waiting for her breakfast she looked over her reports from the day before. They were puzzling. Why would they be attacked for no reason? There were only two that Abigail could think of, but one made the most sense. She tapped her COMM badge and said, =/=Captain Krace are you busy at the moment? I have something that I think might help with the mission.=/=

Vorn was on the bridge already, by the time the call came through. He winced, having hoped that he could put off explaining his absense until later. He spent a moment trying to find an excuse he could use to get out of going yet, but with their exit from warp not due for another hour and a half, he could think of nothing.

=/=On my way=/= he replied, as he stood and made his way to the turbolift. "Commander Garhart, you have the bridge," he said on the way out.

"Computer, locate Lieutenant Valera." he asked, and upon receiving her location, he said; "Deck 10," as the turbolift carried him downwards.

As he entered the mess hall, walking underneath the decorative sign over the doorway reading "The Ridge", he spotted Abigail, and after a short pause, moved towards her, hoping that they would be able to talk about work, and he'd have managed to escape explaining himself for a while longer.

Abigail looked up and saw Vorn there. She smiled and invited him to sit. "Captain I have two possible reasons as to why we felt like we were in battle. Either that Dark Nebula threw some kind of matter at us or..... another ship is in the area, but hiding really well."

Glad that she had begun straight away with the sensor data, Vorn sat down and had a look at the PADDs that she had. "The theory of another ship certainly seems the most plausible," he said. It was highly unlikely that a nebula would be throwing anything at them. "But then again, it doesn't make sense; most ships can't maintain a cloak when firing, and even if they could; why leave us alone after knocking out our propulsion? If they were trying to stop us from getting to the nebula, they would likely have made use of that 12 hour window at which we were forced to travel towards it at sublight."

The whole thing didn't make sense to him. Whichever option it was, the data that had already come back from the damaged areas made no sense - there was no explosive materials anywhere present, it was as if they had been hit by nothing - but 'nothing' generally doesn't do the amount of damage that they sustained.

"I have no idea why the ship would do that. Maybe their trying to keep us from finding something of value? Maybe they only meant to cripple us. Captain whatever the reason we need to get propulsion back. What happened if they attacked again? We would only have shields and weapons. We would lose shields too quickly."

"If it was a ship, they caught us by surprise, but we got impulse drive back up pretty quictly, and we've been at Warp for over a day now. Security are more prepared for any sort of surprise attack now, and so I doubt that the same ship would be as successful again - and they would know that."

Vorn sat and pondered for a little while. There was something they were missing, it just didn't feel right to assume that a ship attacked them - it made no sense. Dark matter nebulae didn't produce anything of worth, and the metreon particles were only useable in certain applications - but they only pass through a nebula, they aren't created by it.

=/=Bridge to Captain Krace. Sir, we'll be approaching the target zone in just over an hour.=/= came the call on the comm, a subtle reminder that he wanted to be on the bridge for the time they reverted to realspace.

Abigail sighed, "There goes my breakfast. Oh well. I at least had a few bites to tide me over for awhile." She lowered her voice, "Don't worry Vorn. I forgive for backing out. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night." She stood up and said in a normal voice, "I'll see you on the bridge Captain." She took her plate to get cleaned and left the Mess Hall with her PADDs. She would drop them off at her office before heading to the bridge. Abigail would wait for Vorn. She had let him know that she wasn't mad. Most of it was her fault anyway.

Vorn sat quiet for a moment - he hadn't been expecting that. After a moment though, he shook it off, and stood to leave for the Bridge with Abigail.