Mystery Sweep

Posted on Sat Dec 5, 2020 @ 2:50am by Lieutenant JG Sanok

Mission: Episode 1: On Stranger Tides
Location: Unidentified Ship
Timeline: MD 03
561 words - 1.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Sanok and the eight members of the two fire teams posted to the Eagle, had beamed onto the bridge of the Hideki class vessel, which was a Cardassian design fifty years old. He had briefed them and discussed the ship layout. It had only three decks, so their sweep wouldn't take long.

The first thing they discovered, was the bridge was functioning, but no one was manning it. This was odd, but they didn't have enough information yet to explain why.

Taking command of the fleet fire team, Sanok assigned the marine team to start on deck one, while his team would begin on deck three. They would meet on two. If anything was discovered, the marine team was to call Sanok immediately. Nodding, he and his team stepped into the turbolift.

The most logical place to begin the sweep was engineering. Sanok entered first, with the rest of the team fanning out. The place was a disorganized mess, with parts and tools seemingly placed wherever they were last used. Sanok wasn't an engineer, but he could easily see the warp core wasn't the original one, but something added later.

One of the team called to Sanok. Lying on the floor, next to a desk, were two bodies, both appearing human. They were in civilian jump suits.

"They're both dead, sir."

Sanok was a security officer, not a doctor, but he recognized the affects of exposure to a vacuum. The Hideki didn't have any hull breaches and life support was functioning, so a logical hypothesis was that the two died somewhere else.

"Team Beta to Lieutenant Sanok."

"Go ahead, Beta."

"Sir, we haven't found anything remarkable with the ship itself, but we're seeing dead bodies. Seven so far. Two in a corridor, Two in sickbay, and three in the mess hall."

"Do the bodies appear to have been exposed to space?"

"Yes, sir."

"We've found two in engineering as well," said Sanok. "Proceed with extreme caution. We have a mystery here."

"Aye, sir. Beta out."

Sanok led his team back into the corridor. Searching crew rooms and offices, they found either nothing or several more bodies, all dead by exposure.

The final room on deck three was a cargo hold. Inside was a large piece of equipment rigged into the wall by conduits and cables. Doing a quick scan revealed that it was a fusion reactor.

Moving to deck two, the two teams met up again. Finishing the sweep showed more of the same. Life support on. Ship systems working. Dead bodies of various races, all with signs of exposure to space. They still didn't have irrefutable evidence to know for sure what had occurred, but Sanok could think of only two possibilities.

A living crew was somehow able to transport off the Hideki without being detected and to another ship the Eagle sensors had not seen. The more logical being, the ship was being controlled remotely. This was also unlikely, as the Eagle hadn't observed any other signatures. However, both could be explained by the interference from the singularity.

With little else to do, Sanok and the teams moved back to the bridge. Calling the Eagle, Sanok asked for them to be transported back.

They had quite a mystery on their hands, which reminded Sanok of something he had read in Human literature that described the situation.

Curiouser and curiouser.