Star Trek: Eventide 777

Perez stepped into the room, finding a station and sitting down. His demeanor was calm and collected, though it was clear he was excited about this mission. The stellar cartographer pulled out his PADD, checking over the assignment details again. This nebula was uncharted and newly formed, he'd remembered correctly. Oh, to be the one to do such an incredible task...he smiled to himself as he turned on his console.

Guess who was here! It’s Maggie Roode! Her sliver locks flowing behind her as she stepped in, oh this was so exciting! To explore something brand new! How fun.

The mix of anxiety and excitement followed Saren from the quarters straight to the ship. This was unfamiliar territory full of people he didn't know, so he threaded carefully, his steps becoming quiet. The Romulan ensign looked around at his surroundings, hands behind his back. His first mission... better don't screw it up, he reminded himself, yet the giddy feeling didn't go away. He li-- enjoyed being on the starbase, but this was something new.

Meanwhile Bright was as bouncy as always, not even paying any attention to the fact he could potentially be injured by someone he didn't know or he could even die! He hopped around and leaned against a wall, sighing heavily in relief. Boy, hopping around was tiring.

Hsarr entered, found a console, and sat down, looking at the cast of characters already there. Well, this was certainly going to be an interesting journey. Bright, Torvek, Morvar, Roode, and an unfamiliar Lieutenant.

Maggie waved towards the rest of the crew with a smile. As she took up a post in the back of the room, looking over preliminary data.

[D] Evoras had ~~hurried~~ walked onto the ship somewhat late. There had been some loose ends to tie up, so to say, before she had been able to leave the station behind. She had slipped into the room and without much of a greeting towards anybody, (tho she did acknowledge people that appeared to notice her), sat down at one of the stations. She was satisfied with her current job, but there was a familiarity to this setting, to the task and mixed with the excitement of exploring something new... there was no way in this universe, or any other, that she would let the opportunity to be here pass her by. Just the same aa there was absolutely no way she would admit that thought crossed her mind. The slight brightness to her eyes might just be enough to betray her to close inspectors though.

In awe at all the brilliant scientists in one place, Bright awkwardly hopped over to a free console and sat down closer to the other people before he crossed his legs, making sure that his broken leg was hoisted up in a way it wouldn't be hurt later. Man's excite.

4

'I wonder what they'll do with a geologist like me. We're in the middle of a freakin' nebula!-'

2

Seeing how silent the whole room was, Bright began to absentmindedly hum a 19th century tune he used to listen as a kid. He didn't know the name, but it was called The Moldau, by Bedřich Smetana.

The room was filling up, and oh, would you look at that. His eyes followed Lieutenant Torvek, to whom he gave a slight nod; then another of his superiors appeared, Lhai'lvek - he nodded again without saying a word, seeing as both women appeared quite busy. Now both of his chief officers were here, and Saren felt a boost of confidence - having older, more experienced people at your side was always a plus; and a pang of worry - both of them, he better not screw this up. He ran his eyes over the group, seeing those who were in his proximity. A Lieutenant, a fellow ensign, the CMO, all of them pretty much strangers to him; then of course there was Jack, who took his position at the console - sitting, good. Saren squinted at his colleague's words: "There could be some debris or particles floating about the clouds that could be of interest for you," he offered, loudly enough so that Jack could hear him. "You never know until you get close enough." He was a xenobiologist, and while the possibility of something alive being near the newborn nebula was, in his opinion, low, he still enjoyed being on the mission. Ecstatic even, but you couldn't tell by looking at the ensign's face. He lowered his gaze to his station, listening to the surrounding ambiance.

The man peared in quickly. "Hey, we've arrived at the planet. Could you all do some scans of it for me. Starfleet made it pretty clear this planet was one of the most important for us. Hopefully everyone down there is good but I suppose we will have to see. He moved over to stand behind one of the scientists chair.*

Maggie gave a quick salute as she did just that. Taking some scans from her console. “On it boss.”

He lifted his head when the doors swished open and the Commander stepped in, bringing information to the science crew. A planet, very interesting... Nimble fingers ran over the console, instructing it to scan for the mentioned life forms.

After closing a map of the area from before the formation of the nebula, that she had been studying, she started to run some basic scans. The process was familiar and didn't require much of her attention, so her mind wandered. Why would a nebula just appear seemingly at random, why here? Were the changes on the planet somehow caused by the nebula or had both of these changes been caused by something else entirely.

An atmosphere scan would denote the planet as a class L planet, which may have come as a shock to anyone that was there. The bustling class M planet once hosting a population of millions was now a class L- Mearly marginally inhabitable world. The population appeared to have been sunk into small pockets with a scattered population of a few hundred thousand.

Maggie let out a small tsk as she read over that. “What happened here? It should be an M class, now it’s L? That doesn’t make any sense, was anything reported happening here?”

Saren read over the scan results, his brows furrowing. The information that he got, combined together with what Maggie just said, painted a troubling picture. "I have bad news about the inhabitants of this planet," he tapped the side of the console with his finger, "There's approximately a few hundred thousand of them left. They're not scattered evenly, though. It seems that they've formed groups. Perhaps in the spots that are more or less... livable."

Well that was... not exactly expected. Her eyes were quickly scanning the results for anything that would have decimated the population of a planet like that. When she didn't imitately find something, she initiated another scan just to make sure the rest of the population wasn't rapidly dieing and they had some time to discuss these developments before jumping into action.

The scans affirmed that the population of the planet had begun to generally plateau. In spite of the planet beginning to become less habitable the population seemed to be busy rebuilding from the ashes.

“What the heck happened here.” She said as she took a few scans of the planet. Trying to get a grasp of the environment of the planet over the past little while.

Scans seemed as though they couldn't fully piece together what had happened but, it appeared the planet got hit by a wave of energy and radiation.

Maggie picked up. “I don’t have a full picture here but…it looks like the planet got by a big wave of energy and radiation.” She said trying to triangulate from which direction the wave originated.

The radiation seemed to be most concentrated on the wreckage of a city in the far north of the planet. Infact that whole section of the planet seemed to have taken the worst of it. Though no other hints on the origin of the radiation could be pieced together by the scans.

“The best I can gather is it hit hardest and was most concentrated on the north side of the planet. Nothing better, my apologies.”

"The population seems to have stabilized somewhat. It would be beneficial to know if the inhabitants of the planet are technologically advanced enough to have built nuclear weaponry or something similar or whether they got hit by something from space." She said, while trying to figure out whether and if how the explosion on the planet was related to the creation of the nebula. Then just to be sure she ran a quick scan for radiation on of the space just outside the ship.

Immediately outside of the ship there were signs that high levels of radiation had passed through the area. Infact, it appeared that almost all of the space around them was clouded with radiation.

"There's radiation around the ship as well." She started yet another set of scans, attempting to figure out where the radiation was... well radiating from. Perhaps an explosion that had caused the nebula had hurled debris and a pice had hit the planet? Was there any information on the beginning stages of the nebula?

After tracing the radiation as a whole, it was found to have originated from the neighboring solar system or... what used to be a nearby solar system. More likely then not that star was the one where the nebula had come from.

Bright was listening attentively, because finally!! He could be useful in his own field!! But looking out the window and staring at the field of debris, his happy expression dropped like a sack of bricks as the realization dawned on him. What... What had happened here? Why was there so much radiation? He didn't know, but.. He was willing to help on whatever they needed to figure it out. "Holy wow..."

Well that would explain the nebula as well as the radiation. "From these scans, it seems like the neighboring star blew up." She said, while she was already searching for previous readings on the now no longer existing star. Had there been any signs something like this might happen? Normally a star didn't just blow up out of nowhere...

Maggie nodded as she listened to what the rest said. “That’s odd though. Considering there should’ve been much better warning of such an explosion. Something doesn’t seem right here…”

Saren was silent, listening to his colleagues and attempting to piece together something of a coherent story in his head. An inhabited M class planet was seemingly hit by a wave of radiation - northern side being the impact zone. The survivors were scattered, busy rebuilding their lives. He nodded at their words, agreeing with the notion about the spontaneous star explosion. "So we're pretty confident that the source of radiation is not on the planet, but in space, the nebula," he commented, "but the way the planet was hit is bothering me, for some odd reason. It seems very concentrated. Like a lightning bolt, not a wave you would expect from an exploding star." He knew himself to be an overthinker, that's why he was voicing his thoughts aloud - either to clear his suspicions, or to find support in them. "I am also concerned about the people. How would the radiation impact those who survived the catastrophe?"

He began reading the planetary scans and trying to make sense of what the hell had happened for this to happen, his red eyebrows furrowing in nothing but concern. "...Wait. Wait, this isn't right. Saren is right, there's no way there should be this much radiation all concentrated in one place. This looks almost like.... A weapon."

A history of previous scans of the neighboring star appeared. It was quite a large one and it was in the later stages of its life. However on the last exhibition into this area almost a year ago, scientists noted that it likely had a millennium until reach a state where it could form a nebula. Though the most recent scan had been a year ago there were also however passing observations of the star. It appears asthough the energy from the star had begun to decrease at an increasingly rapid rate which may have hinted towards the Nebula forming sooner than expected.

"The star was predicted to explode, even if it did so earlier than expected. But I agree, the nature of the destruction on the planet is unusual." Perhaps there'd been two explosions after all? Even if the star had somehow hurled a surprisingly big pice of something right at the planet (unlikely), the fact that it seemed to have impacted right in a city didn't leave her alone. "Someone ask engineering whether it is possible they blew themselves up. I will run some more detailed scans on the area of impact."

"The scans are all... I don't know how to explain, but this isn't right. I agree with the Commander, this must be artificial! The planet didn't explode on its own because it was exploded!!" He briefly rose up from his seat, but hissed out in pain and collapsed back down on it not long after. "Or... Or i might be all wrong. But this doesn't look right...."

[COMM] "This is Ensign Avignon to the USS Viola. We over here on the Sebastion were wondering what you all had found. From what we've been able to put together the people on the planet seem to have taken a sudden leap forward in technology."

"Sudden leap in?... oh my..." well this was concerning. [COMM] "Ensign Morvar to USS Sebastion. The planet was hit by a wave of radiation, most likely coming from the star explosion that formed the nebula. The population has been reduced dramatically, but it seems that the survivors are rebuilding what they lost. We're most concerned that the radiation wave struck the northern hemisphere, specifically the city, which is highly unnatural for such explosions. It is also important to note that the star has died prematurely." Well this was grim. Probably all of them expected this to be a documentation mission, not a slow unraveling of something... sinister looking. They had to get to the bottom if this mystery.

[COMM] "What do you scientists want us to do then? We can keep running scans on our end or maybe we should go investigate the star that formed this here nebula. I'm not any scientist or anything but that would be my suggestion."

Maggie thought for a moment. Turning to the Lieutenant Commander. “I think perhaps the star would be good to investigate. It might give us a few clues?”

Bright shrunk into his seat, getting extremely nervous because of the situation unfolding right in front of him. First he thought they'd just.. explore a nebula and map it out, but now they were going to figure out the destruction of a whole solar system. Field trip day, everybody.

She still attempting to run some more precis scans on the city that seemed to have been hit. "We can take a look at the remains of that star. It might be nessesary to get a closer look on the most damaged area to determine whether something hit the planet or the inhabitants built something that exploded."

The commander moved to stand behind Evoras. "You can get a few extra scans if you deem it necessary but we should try and move on soon. I've got a pretty long list of points we need to check up on after that star." He gestured towards a small list he was holding in his hand.

She gave the Commander a nod and finished up the scanns she was currently running. Leaving here without an answer to what had happened didn't sit well with her, but considering this assignment was merely one to map out the area she eventually reached the point where she could no longer logically justify further scans, so she stopped. "As far as I am concerned we can move on."

He nodded, there was an electrical storm that he figured they could go and visit after the sun, which was more up his alley anyways. "Perfect, I'll go tell our friendly helmsman here about our next move. Hopefully the sun will tell us a bit about what happened."

18:37

He stepped back in and stood next to Evoras once again. "Sorry to have you leave behind your scans, stuff like this can be well... intense. I'm thinking the star will tell us a bit about what happened here."

"No need to apologize Commander, you have a task to fulfill." Her face was as unreadable as ever as she pulled up the old readings on the sun again and began looking through them for any hints and general information.

A scream could be heard from the bridge followed by the loud words. "Science people... you guys..." He paused to gulp. "You guys might want to come and see this."

Bright tensed up so hard and so fast, he basically jolted himself out of his seat and fell down to the ground with a BANG. "AAHH— -thud- ....ow." He laid on the floor for a moment before scrambling to get back up and onto his seat.

"Ensign, are you adequate?" Evoras had raised her eyebrow and was studying the Ensign something critically, before she noticed that his leg was probably (?) hurt. "Ensign, why don't you run scans of our surroundings, there ought to be something of note or we wouldn't have stopped." With that she got up, which took her about one leg stretch longer than she would have liked, and made her way over to the bridge.

He groaned and nodded, pulling himself up onto the seat properly before running the background scans and seeing if there was everything too wrong about them. "Y-yes, commander. I can only detect background noise... Debris, and... Err... Wait, what is-" He adjusted his glasses and looked closer at the scans, soon having the blood of his face instantly drain. "...oh, what the actual..."

[D] Marcus had totally been on board the entire time. He had decided to make himself useful and help with scans. Since he was a doctor, perhaps he could offer medical insight on the bodies. "Hello," He said as he entered the science department, "anything I can do to help?"

Bright slowly swiveled back around on his chair and just... Stared at nowhere in special, a look of pure shock in his widened eyes. "I... I-I don't know, Doc, if you... uhm.. Oh, god," He hid his face with his hands, his shoulders slumping down.

Marcus raised an eyebrow at the Ensign's stammering. "Ensign are you quite all right?"

"I-I don't even know anymore, i... The scans tell... But no, th-that isn't right. I-it must be an error, right?? Right???" He turned to Marcus with the hopes of finding solace in whatever he saw on the scans. "There's... Oh, god no...." Bright clutched at his red hair, his hands soon beginning to tremble.

As soon as he heard screams Saren jumped to his feet, alert. You didn't have to be a telepath to understand the sheer terror that emanated from their helmsman. The loud thud with which Jack fell to the ground made him turn to him, eyeing the geologist with hawk-like intensity. Thinks were happening fast, people moving around, noise, confusion, fear- "What is it?" he asked, slowly, calmly, putting effort into staying calm and collected. "Are you..." No, Saren, he was not. A voice behind his back. He turned his head to see Marcus, and recognized him as a medical officer. Good, good. "His leg is in a cast, could you check it? He just fell," he asked, voice steady. Easier to look at someone else than Jack, who was panicking, he probably needed help, support, he should turn and...

Marcus frowned as he took out his tricorder and knelt by Jack. "Ensign, keep it together. You are a Starfleet officer and you need to start acting like one. Hold. It. Together." He spoke quietly and calmly.

She reentered the room and immediately returned to her console, where she started a scan for any live forms outside, it was highly unlikely that anyone had survived whatever happened to that ship, but she definitely wouldn't take any chances. While running her scans she took a side glance at the clearly shaken Ensign. "Lieutenant Commander, would you take care of the Ensign, it seems he performed an adequate scan and got shocked by the results. It seems a ship got destroyed, there's a buch of dead bodies outside. Anyone who can do so without panicking resume your work." If it was at all possible, Evoras seemed even more indifferent than she would normally be and continued working while she was speaking.

He turned to Marcus and looked at him with absolute and utter fear in his eyes, trying his best to keep himself together. "I.. I... Y-yes, sir. I'm sorry, it's just... It's... I didn't know they looked like that in the vacuum of space..."

The scans Evoras was running would show that most of the people died from causes linked to the supernova itself. Though a few bodies showed signs of bruising and trauma that could be linked to some sort of event before the supernova. Either way something horrible had happened here. When scanning the equipment and debris spewn about space much of it could be linked to electrical production systems and mining equipment.

Marcus took out his medkit and pulled out a portable osteo-regenerator. He began to treat Jack's leg while replying to Evoras, "yes ma'am, working on it right now. I suggest the ensign be excused to his temporary quarters after I finish with his leg." He would finish with Jack's leg and would laser scalpel the cast open. "There you are ensign...uh...what is your name?"

Bright sniffled and sighed heavily, wiping the brimming tears away from his eyes. "My... my name's Jack, Jack Bright. But everybody calls me Bright." He took off his glasses and cleaned them with his uniform.

"Ok Bright. I've fixed up your leg. I think the commander has your post secured for now, so why don't you head off for some rest ok? I can give you something for the pain if you'd like."

"Thank you, Doc. And I-I honestly need something like... A cup of water. Or something. But I'm going to be okay... I think." He sniffled and tried not to move his leg. "But hit me up with the pain medication, this is hurting like hell.."

Marcus tapped on his hypospray and then gently injected Jack's neck. "This won't make you drowsy, but I'll ease the pain. You can walk on your leg just fine now but it just might be tender when the meds wear off."

"Something happened before the Explosion." She told the other people in the room, before relying the other information she had gotten from her scans. If they could figure out who these people were, perhaps it would be easier to tell what happened?

He took a step forward to go over the scans himself. "Maybe we should get a little bit closer? There might be some details we could acquire better if we go in a little bit, maybe some kinda signs or something."

Determined he returned to his workspace - he was needed there, the sooner they got this over it, the better for everyone. He also didn't visibly react to the news about the bodies - those didn't scare him anymore, there was no use of feeling fear or pity for them. The Romulan lifted his head. "I agree. We should see if there are any clues on the clothing or on the ship itself," he supplied, looking between the two commanders. "Maybe we can find an identification number or something like that..."

"Getting as close as we can without bumping into anything will definitely give us more accurate information," she agreed, still looking over the data. Who did this ship belong to and why was it here in the first place? Who would have an interest in mining here? And why didn't they notice the sun 'acting up'? "Identifying the ship would be the optimal outcome." With that she started to set up the next scans.

Bright lightly moved his leg around and took a few testing steps on the ground. Soon, he got up and made sure to lean into something so he didn't fall down again. "Indeed, Commander..."

A body slapped up against the window by accident as the ship slowly moved forward. On the uniform it said... something in anouther language. Someone would have to figure out what it said.

4

3

4

Not particularly well versed in languages herself she attempted to memorize the writing as well as she could, but couldn't do much else. "Do we have any linguists here?"

The commander nodded. "We have one on the Sebastion." He took a second to take a quick photo of the writing in the man's uniform. Then he sent it to Sauk, hopefully bringing the young cadet would pay off for the commander. "His name is Cadet Sauk, I hope they are holding up well over on the other ship."

[COMM] “Umm…this is Cadet Sauk Tral…I’ve looked over the writing and so far the best match I can find for known languages is Pakled. I’ll keep trying at the translation.”

"Should someone go and communicate with the Sebastion? Make sure they're fine, considering the circumstances," said Saren, eyes still trained on the area where the body bumped against the ship. There could be more of them as they got closer and closer to the center of the cosmic casualty...

[COMMS] “Me again…uh, I figured it out…I think…it says ‘Bright Sun Power, Powering all of Meridian’. If that makes any sense.”

The sudden move of the ship would instantly knock anyone not in their seat off their feet. The ship rattled violently as it entered a steep turn and then suddenly, a massive shock hit half the ship, disabling all the equipment on the right half.

5

"Well that would explain why the sun blew up earlier than expected." It didn't explain how they managed to accomplish any of this in the first place, nor did it explain the explosion on their planet. Evoras' mind was fighting a battle against itself not able to decide whether to be concerned or excited. Maybe they would be able to find similarities between the tech from Meridian and that of the Pakled or some other Species. Which was when the ship shook and she fell out of her chair right onto her bad knee, which had her inhale sharply.

Bright was about to ask something when he was thrown off balance by the rattle of the ship, and fell with everything on the ground right on his left shoulder. "AGH—!" He exclaimed out in pain, trying to hold onto something before everything got worse.

Marcus was still kneeling when the ship pitched. He sort of flopped onto his side, none the worse for wear. "I'm guessing the inertial dampeners aren't working..."

6

Bright Sun Power, Powering all of Meridian... how ambitious. An energy source, turned weapon. He turned towards the Vulcan with a thought in his mind... And then he couldn't hear it, head filled with the sound of USS Viola's damaged groan. He bearhugged his console and clenched his teeth, hanging on the peace of machinery for his dear life; there were people falling, lights flickering, grunts of pain, and just for a moment- -he was back at Llaiir Prime. His fist collided with the side of the console, bringing him back to reality. He didn't know if a second, or a minute, or an eternity passed. It didn't matter. The Romulan snarled, ticked off at his moment of weakness, and opened his eyes: "Interesting observation, Lieutenant Commander! Anyone else have something to add? It would be very reassuring to hear your voices!" He hoped for an answer, but then... crash.

Maggie yelled out as her entire body shook when the ship began to descend into the planet. Her entire frame jostled and shook, yet only one thing was in her mind. ’Mom…Dad…I’m sorry I couldn’t find you’ CRASH