A Plan, A Ship, A Scan

Posted on 25 Nov 2025 @ 4:14pm by Ensign Ryan Collingway & Ensign Mira Quinn

953 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: The Displaced
Location: Engineering
Timeline: Morning

OOC: Takes place prior to 'Call to home'.

=/\= Engineering =/\=

Mira had just left engineering when Sorvak contacted her. "Ensign, I'd like you to prepare a boarding plan for the ship."

Me?

She hoped she hadn't said that outloud.

"The Captain wants a boarding plan. She also wants to stay away from the displaced region until we understand it."

"Understood, Sir." Though she didn't really understand how you were supposed to understand something while staying away from it.

"Liaise with Engineering," the Chief Science continued. "I'll send you all the details. And Ensign - notify me immediately if you notice anything unusual. Sorvak out."

Mira sighed as her PADD beeped with the incoming orders. Who was she supposed to liaise with?

Still in the middle of overworking himself, Ryan glanced up as he saw the doors open. Someone from science, one that he had briefly worked on the planet before. What was her name again? "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm Mira Quinn, from the Science department. I'm supposed to be making a preliminary boarding plan with someone?"

"I can help you with that." He smiled politely. "Ensign Ryan Collingway. I think we met briefly on the last mission, but we were a bit distracted by trees exploding around us."

A few minutes later, both junior officers were looking at a holographic map of the ship, which is the best thing the scanners could cobble together.

"Okay - a boarding plan," Mira tapped at her PADD. She now had a blank page. "First, how are we supposed to get over there? Is the transporter an option?"

"Probably not best to instantly beam into a potentially living ship. It might try and treat as like a foreign invader," Ryan suggested, looking at the map. "Shuttle would probably work best. Slow and steady with a possible escape route."

"Shuttle," Mira repeated, adding that to her list.

She looked at the holographic diagram of the ship. "We can send mini-probes into the ship. The hull is fractured here," she pointed it out, "so we can send the probes straight into the ship for a better look. This will give us data on the atmosphere inside the ship and whether there's any structural issues we should watch out for."

"No shields or internal security systems we can detect," Ryan said. "Could be damaged, or it could be dormant. We won't know for sure until we get closer."

Mira watched as Ryan programmed and launched the probe cluster. The larger carrier probe glided away from the Arawyn. When it drew close to the alien vessel, the carrier split open like a mechanical flower, releasing a cloud of glittering mini-probes that fanned out in precise formation.

As the swarm drifted toward the jagged break in the alien ship’s hull, they crossed the shimmering protective field the Arawyn had projected around the fracture. The moment they slipped through the barrier, their displays flickered to life as telemetry began to stream back.

On the holographic display, tiny dots appeared one after another—each one marking the position of a mini-probe inside the alien ship. As their scans came online, soft washes of color began to spread outward from each dot, filling in the ship’s interior.

Most mapped regions lit up in cool blue, indicating areas that were likely safe for boarding. There were some small areas marked in the red of danger. The map was far from complete, but already the interior of the alien vessel was taking shape in color-coded detail.

"Well," Mira said, "atmosphere is acceptable. Though it wouldn't hurt to go with EV suits." She added that to her list.

Ryan made a noise. "Ionized atmosphere, but should be okay. Low-gravity though. We'll need the suits just for that."

Mira was only half-listening, her attention caught by something else in the data the probe was sending back. "That's the displaced region, right there." She hesitated. The region was now ringed in red on the display, marking it as life-threatening. "I'm pretty sure it's smaller than our last measurements."

She turned to a nearby console and brought up the telemetry from the recent probe passthrough. "Yes, you see? It looks like it's shrinking around this side of the perimeter."

"I see it," Ryan said. "Sensors can't penetrate it much. We're just getting a lot of static back."

Suddenly there was a flash, and there wasn't a signal anymore. "Ummm....I think that probe's been destroyed," Ryan said.

"That's weird," Mira pointed out. "That probe had not crossed past the perimeter. Can you send a few more probes to check out the edges of this region?"

"Sure thing," Ryan said. One of them exploded with similar results.

Mira checked the probe data again. "If the displaced region is indeed shrinking, there might be cascading effects in the surrounding areas. Maybe I need to model it..." she was starting to talk to herself.

Looking up from the telemetry data, she realized Ryan was looking at her.

"Um. We're assuming that this is some sort of 'scar' that remained after the rupture that brought this ship here. This region does not exhibit any properties of space, and it's not as if there's any shielding around it. Something is preventing it from affecting the area right around it, right?"

At Ryan's nod she continued. "But if it's shrinking, then the atmosphere around it might be pulled in to the just-vacated area. That could cause the explosions we've just seen. And look at that," she pointed at one of the data squiggles on her console. "The harmonic echo we've detected before is growing fainter. We should update Cmdr Sorvak."

"Yes Ma'am," Ryan said.

=/\=

Ensign Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer

Ens Mira Quinn
Science Officer

 

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