1 Alien Subspace Drive later...
18 Nov 2016Tristan Pacheco
So, interestingly enough, the Navy didn't end up pulling out all the stops like they did last time in Maia. There was a capital ship, but that was the most interesting presence in terms of firepower. Apparently the Federation is now quite confident in its position in Maia, especially after the news article earlier confirming this. Regardless of the wars being fought, we did accomplish our own, notably more secret goal. CMDR Pardue's new Fer De Lance made disguising ourselves as treasure hunters far easier than if I were to have used my own ship, blatantly labeled with Federal Insignia and experimental modifications. Once CMDR's Napier, Goodwin, Willson, and Edwards had set up a very unofficial cordon, we set to work attempting to remove the crashed alien spaceship's thrusters. I say, "set to work", although what I really mean is, "set to staring at the ship for several minutes trying to find how the damn thing moved through subspace in the first place". Unlike our ships, there were no thruster mounts, turbine intakes, hydrogen transfer lines, or anything else that would give away the presence of SS Drives (getting tired of typing subspace). In reality the thing just looked like a giant locust. We probably never would have determined the nature of the ships thrusters had we not contacted Federal command via hyperspace comms. The thrusters themselves, if they can be called that, were underneath vent-type apparatuses. We tried using laser cutters to open the hull, to no avail. The ship actually had shields still operational, although they were unlike any shields that I've ever seen. A normal shield's ion distributor has to be very large to actually produce the barrier that we know and love. Because it has to be so large, the magnetic emitter coils that surround them have to be even larger, and their physical connection to the actual hemispheric shaper makes the shields an oblate spheroid.
The shields on this ship, however, were form fitting, and only an inch or so above the surface, which means one of three things: either a. whoever built these ships is able to shrink (sci-fi shrink technology) the ion distributor enough that the mag coils don't make the shapers enormous, b. the ship uses even smaller particles than electrons to form the charge barrier, or c. the shields are so far beyond our current understanding of particle physics that trying to speculate on their operation is pointless. I'm guessing C. Anyways, our solution was open fire with Jon's class 4 pulse laser to take down the shields. That didn't work. So he opened up with the multi-cannons as well. That didn't work either. So everyone opened fire with all their guns while I stood about a hundred meters away hoping I wasn't hit by chunks of alien spaceship. Turned out that wasn't a worry, since everyone firing at once was barely enough to take the shields down.
We worked fast, cutting through the unidentifiable alloy to get at the thrusters beneath, which resembled internal organs more than thrusters. I didn't even begin to guess how they worked. We welded the grate back into place to at least partially cover our tracks and then left, just as seven (7!) system security anacondas entered glide mode far above. We sprinted as fast as the low gravity would allow back to the ship as the rest of the squadron provided limited covering fire. Fortunately, we got the engines running just in time to get away relatively unscathed. Unfortunately the First Horse of the Apocalypse, Jon's new ship (I'm sensing a theme), has no cargo bay, so I put the disgusting thruster/orifice combination on the bridge and hoped it didn't destroy equipment like all the other alien technology we as a species had dealt with recently. It didn't.
What it did do was smell terrible, so I ended up moving it to a lower deck before returning to the bridge. CMDR Pardue dropped me off to let me re-enter the Last Horse, and we sped off back towards civilization. We were rerouted on our way back from our original destination of Mars, to the far more secretive Secular 1 in PLX 695, a place I'd been to once before, when the Black Angels officially changed their mission from system defense to weapons testing and black operations. The planet was mostly thick jungle, but fortunately, the weather held out for the short duration of our visit. I didn't even land. The First Horse landed, and according to CMDR Pardue, some operatives (probably FSS Black) came aboard and took the 'thrusters' and left without saying a word. We were then sent a message by an anonymous controller to report back to Admiral Eickert aboard Mars High, which is where we are now. It's been a very long time since I've cashed in our pool of R&R, so, with permission, we have the next 10 days off. We're setting sail for Earth tomorrow morning. Tonight I'm making reservations at the most expensive spot I can find planetside. I think we deserve it...
Until next time,
RADM Tristan Pacheco