XOXO

Posted on Thu Jul 16th, 2026 @ 11:37pm by Lieutenant Darla Kennings & Commander Colton Rogers

799 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Episode 2: Mine of Taurus
Location: USS Herophilos's Bridge

Penny was sitting at the Engineering station on the bridge when she heard the whine of a transporter. She turned and saw an unfamiliar face appear, attached to an unfamiliar body. "Hiya," she said, standing up and turning to face him. "I'm Commander Naroot. I assume you're from the Scharnhorst?"

"Yes." Colton replied. "I am Commander Rogers, first officer of the USS Scharnhorst." He identified himself. "I am here to come to your aid and to find out what happened on your ship."

"Cool," Penny said, brightly, coming around the bridge ramp to the front. She sat down at the helm and brought up a map on the viewscreen. "So we were responding to a distress call from the USS Becquerel. We'd tracked it to what used to be known as the Cicada Sector, specifically from the Taurean system. When we went to investigate, we found a ship heading away from the system towards us. We hailed, they attacked, and eventually dropped what your people said was a space mine. It let out a radiation field that is, thankfully, limited in radius, if not intensity. We had scanned for other mines but had to stop as we realized we'd need what little power we had left for shields."

She brought their scans back and a long, yellow line appeared on the screen, moving in an almost spiral pattern. "We think that's the path of their ship. We were hoping to follow it relatively close to source.

"Were you able to identify if the USS Becquerel's distress call was authentic?" Colton asked her. He wondered if this was a direct attack on Penny's ship or if they were attempting to prevent them from helping come to the aid of the one in distress.

"From what we could tell, yes," Penny said. "Of course, after the whole mine thing, we didn't have time to do any other verification. However, that ship was assigned to Taurus II according to our records, and nothing about their distress call seemed wonky, so we had no reason to doubt its authenticity at the time."

"Understood." Colton said with a nod. "I'd like to take a look at your transcripts, see if there is anything that might have been missed." He was going to get to the bottom of what had happened and why.

"Yeah, absolutely," Penny said, bringing up the logs on the viewscreen. "Automated distress call, ship's register checked out..." she tapped the board and brought up the records from the incident. "Captain Anderson ordered us to investigate and about ten minutes later...boom."

Colton started looking through the transcripts. He had an uneasy feeling about it all. It was almost too perfect. He didn't think that Penny was hiding anything necessarily but it seemed "too neat" for him. "Any sign or word from the distressed ship since you were attacked?"

Penny checked the sensors. "The automated signal kept going during the attack, but it's been silenced since then. It's possible they realized they were being exposed and broke the ship further."

"That is more than likely what happened." Colton nodded. "Especially when there is no longer a signal."

Penny sighed and shrugged. "I wish I knew what to tell you. This came out of nowhere. We didn't even realize there were hostiles in this area. All we know is they aren't Klingons. Captain Anderson has a close friend high up in the Imperial Fleet," Penny said. "If there were Klingons, even rogues, operating in the area, he'd know, and he'd have warned us."

"That's why I am here to find answers." Colton said with a smile. "I didn't honestly expect you to have them."

"I don't, that's for sure," Penny said, sounding frustrated. "But without knowing more about who they are, I don't think we can find much else out sitting here. We'd need to track them down, although I'm guessing they want us to stay away."

Colton took a deep breath. "One would certainly think so." He understood her logic but he wasn't going to leave any stone unturned. "It looks like we have more questions than answers."

"Yeah," Penny huffed, running her fingers through her hair. "Well, if you wanna help me and Commander Sorek fine-tune the sensors, we can try locating the other mines they planted, and avoid them."

"Of course." Colton replied with a smile. "I am here to assist where you need me." He went to work, helping where he could to get their sensors at a point that they would no longer be in danger.

Penny joined him at the rear stations and split her screen, one side pulling up the sensor data, the other side monitoring the efforts on board the ship. She wasn't taking her eyes off of anything.

 

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