Atala, part 4
Posted on Thu May 22nd, 2025 @ 7:30am by Ensign Davna & Lieutenant Kyan Mackenzie & Ensign Delia Sil
631 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission: What Lies Ahead, Between, and Behind
It always seemed to Kyan as though a starship dropping out of warp was skidding to a halt like an old car on his home world or Earth. The starfield distortion settling back into dots instead of streaks added to this feeling. All that was needed now was for the screeching sound of the brakes and a burnt rubber smell. He even envisioned the ship's bow canting "down" and then leveling out as their momentum slowed to a relative crawl. On some ships, older ones... you could almost feel the forward momentum stop before your own, if the inertial dampeners were old or in need of repair.
As the Atala was newer, he felt nothing. Although the starfield did always make the Onlie to want to brace himself for the stop. A moment after they'd entered normal space, an indicator light caught his eye and Kyan brought up the sensor report.
"So theres some wreckage on an asteroid up ahead." He offered as he read. "Duranium... Some deuterium..." He peered down at the picture of the ship now, which no longer resembled its former configuration, but there were some markings. "It's a Benzite ship so it is... and probably a transport so.. I cannae tell what one she was."
The small Maori edged forward in the captain's chair. His feet even almost touched the deck. "Davna, can you put it on the main viewer?"
As the view of the debris disk suddenly changed, a large chuck of rock dominated the view. Against which, a metallic smear seemed to glisten to one side. "Magnify," Naota remarked simply.
The close-up didn't inspire confidence. The craft was obviously down hard, with the hull in fragments and pieces that were scattered about the asteroid.
So Naota didn't sound hopeful even as he asked the obligatory question. "Life signs?"
Kyan shook his head. "Nope. They might have got off escape pods or somethin... but I cannae tell. The wreckage is too small tae see."
Popping out of the captain's chair, the Maori boy made his way toward Davna's station, peering at her console even as he uttered, "There's still a debris cloud. This couldn't have happened very long ago."
"About three to four weeks ago, to be exact," Davna stated plainly.
So had they known about this? Why hadn't it been in the ship's library? That was more than enough time for astrogation and stellar cartography to have been updated. Turning his attention to the helm, the boy asked, "Is there any record of a wreckage here?"
She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but Delia doubled checked to be sure. "No, sir. Nothing in our database. I'd check with Control to check if we're missing updates, but..." she swallowed an annoyed huff, "...comm silence."
Naota just blinked. Then, looking first at Kyan and then over to Davna, asked, "How would the colony miss an impact event inside the solar system?"
At this, Davna turned in her chair, ready to list and count out what she remembered. "We had communications cut about a month ago, on top of all the other phenomena we've experienced. It must have hit sensors as well."
Naota just blinked as he tried to process that theory. "I have several questions," the small boy chirped, before raising one finger and saying, "But first, can we beam the larger pieces into the shuttle bay? Maybe we can recover a computer core or memory bus from the wreckage."
"It could be possible." Returning to her screen, Davna's brow furrowed. "If there's a workable core in there to begin with. I'll contact our transporter specialist to double check it won't hurt anything - shouldn't, but I've been wrong before."
Moments later, Davna smiled at the surrounding bridge. "I believe we have ourselves a plan."
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