New Discoveries Trump Old Regulations

Posted on Sat Nov 21st, 2015 @ 10:24am by Captain Tim Williams & Lieutenant Commander Ciaran McIntyre & Lieutenant Commander Jean Reynard & Lieutenant Ryan North

Episode: Lost Property
Location: Lembatta Nebula
Timeline: MD02 1320hrs

Tim was genuinely curious about what the ship's sensors had discovered just within the Lembatta Nebula. The nebula itself was composed of something that prevented the ship from scanning too far past its outer border - Tim wasn't sure of the scientific details; Ryan or Jean would probably know enough about it if he really wanted to ask - and whatever this object was must have been deeper within the cloud formation and slowly drifting its way out. Its materials were too consistent to be an asteroid or other natural formation, but there were zero power readings... which had already led Tim to the conclusion that it was ship of some kind that had lost power. But the Highlander had been in range of the nebula for weeks now, and they hadn't detected anything approaching the nebula. Starfleet didn't have any surveys of it planned, and the Klingons were unlikely to take an interest in it. It was definitely the most puzzling thing they had come across since their patrol had started.

As the ship dropped out of warp, Tim couldn't help but shoot to his feet as soon as the viewscreen focussed on the object they had come here to investigate. It was definitely the last thing he expected to see, all the way out here. The ship was only capable of warp five - on the old speed scale as well, which put it more in the region on warp four by modern day standards. They were far enough away from Earth that even the Highlander would take two weeks to get back there at their maximum speed. This ship... it would have taken them about ten months, that was assuming they were able to maintain warp five constantly. All of that aside, Tim had never heard of a ship coming out this far before the Constitution class era.

Ryan had seen the Columbia in a museum once and he had been impressed by the true simplicity of the design. They didn't have all the advanced technology that a ship like the Highlander had but they had stuck out on their own, forging ahead into the unknown. Space was a lot more violent back then and the NX class ships often strayed into dangerous areas. Seeing one this far out, well that made him think that something truly extraordinary had happened to the ship.

"Jesus." Mac said, awestruck. "Is that what I think it is?"

"That's an NX-class ship," Tim confirmed, still awestruck. He moved around the helm console to stand right in front of the viewscreen, as though that would allow him to see more detail of what they were being shown. The ship was instantly recognisable to him; he and every other Starfleet engineer had spent months studying the technology of early warp flight, and this ship was the first Starfleet vessel type to carry the name Enterprise, over 200 years ago. The hull was covered in pockmarks and holes - without power, its polarised hull plating would have been unable to protect it from micro-meteorite strikes, and it looked like it had been pounded with them for the entire 200 years since its construction. "Magnify on the forward hull," he ordered.

Jean obliged, switching the screen to focus on where the registry should have been and adjusting to brightness, as the ship was dark. He slowly flicked through a few other points of interest as well.

Tim shook his head in slight disappointment - though part of him was happy that the answer didn't come that easily. "I can't make out the registry or name," he said. The pockmarks in the hull were so numerous that it had practically obliterated the paint from the hull.

"It looks like there's an 'A' in the middle there somewhere." The security chief offered unhelpfully from his console where he was bringing the ship out of yellow alert - since this NX-class wasn't likely to be firing on them, it seemed a tad unnecessary. "I could try running it through my classifications database. It's a long shot but if it had any custom retrofits then the library computer might have them on record?"

"It's the original design, not the refit with the secondary hull," Jean pointed out. "That should narrow things down."

"You can try, but those ships were modified on the fly quite a lot - especially during the Romulan War," Tim said, recalling the information he had dedicated to memory back in his Academy days quite quickly - quicker than he would information about most other ship classes that old at least. "They were constantly upgraded and refitted to keep up with new emerging technologies, and a lot of the time their engineers would share their data between ships to allow everyone else to upgrade in the same way."

Ryan directed the majority of his sensors at the ship hanging in space. "It looks like she's the source of the spikes in x-ray radiation, probably from a damaged system. My guess is the main deflector array."

Tim could barely hold back the glee from his face as he made the decision - both for the fact that the decision was flying straight in the face of the regulations, and because he would get to work on something that had been a dream for decades. "Hawke; get in touch with Engineering and have them kit up a couple of engineers in EV suits and meet me in transporter room one with a portable generator. Mac; Ryan; you're with me too."

"Got it." Mac replied, transmitting a message for a standard security team to meet them in the transporter room.

"I'll find you a safe beam-in point," Jean said. For some reason, he was completely unsurprised that the captain was the sort to lead away teams to derelict ghost ships. "I'm sure there's somewhere you can enter without immediately growing extra toes or stepping in caustic coolant."

"You have no sense of adventure," Ryan stated, stepping away from his station as Ensign Reyes replaced him. "Besides, sensors don't show anything over there that might cause you grow an extra appendage. Although an extra arm might be handy on occasion, I suppose."

"If you really want an extra arm or two, I could see about cracking open the reactor casing for you when we get over there," Tim said, smirking as he made his way over to the exit at the rear of the bridge to go and get changed into an EV suit himself before heading to the transporter room.

"I'm sure genetic modification is a better idea then cracking open a reactor casing," Ryan reported, heading for the turbolift as well.