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Post by Skyler on Mar 6, 2009 17:09:01 GMT -6
Skyler had focused his scanners on a narrow beam at the exact spot where the three Vipers vanished. He knew that if possible they would attempt to return, if there was anything left. He thought he picked up a blip for a micron, but it vanished, no, not vanished, it wasn’t like the last time, just nothing, this one spiked, almost like it had been destroyed. He tried to pin point the readings, but nothing, it was all gone. They eased into a holding position just shy of the area of space the others vanished in. Maybe they had encountered the Beings of Light again. He remembered hearing Apollo and Starbuck talking about them at the Academy when he was younger, that they would come up out of nowhere and whole Squadrons would vanish without a trace, nothing. And even though you could see them with your eyes, the scanners did not read them. Could it be them….?
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Post by Logan on Mar 7, 2009 7:26:14 GMT -6
"Scanners focused. Cncentrated beams. Stay alert."
Skyler's measured tones resonated over the comm. "Affirmative," was the echoed reply from Logan, Hush and Brik.
"These readings don't make sense," Brik's deep voice sounded intrigued, rather than confused. She knew her friend loved a good mystery.
"Major, may I offer a suggestion?," Hush asked. He hadn't flown many missions with them, but Logan was impressed that Hush had picked up on Skyler's stickler attitude towards protocol. If it had been her, she would have just blurted out the suggestion and took the heat later when Skyler gave her the lecture on chain of command.
"Go ahead, " Skyler said.
"That blip, if we modulate the scanner frequency, it might boost the range. I don't know that it was anything. Could've just been noise reflected by the atmosphere of the planet."
This was why Logan was glad Hush had come along. His technical mind was an asset for a pilot.
"Do it, " Skyler said.
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Post by Skyler on Mar 7, 2009 22:23:42 GMT -6
Station keeping in space was a constant concert between the thruster and subtle currents in space. Gravitational pulls from planets, moons, stars and other objects could create what could be considered a light breeze on a planet, or even a strong windstorm. It all was depending on the object causing the gravitational disturbance in question. Whatever they were close to was causing a slight pull now. It was nothing that would disrupt normal space flight, but it was enough to cause a Viper trying to hold a stationary position to have to use maneuvering thrusters to maintain that exact position. Skyler was allowing his Viper to drift ever so slightly towards the area that the others had disappeared from. He was hoping to trigger what ever happened to them. The others were a safe distance away, so if it grabbed him, they could get a good reading and report to Sheba. He felt the navi-hilt start to vibrate ever so slightly. It increased just slightly, not enough to shake the Viper, but it caused a tingle in his hand as he held position. He glanced at his instrument cluster and his gyro was starting to warble around, then it just went crazy like a baraton. At that exact micron he felt a shudder in the Vipers space frame and applied reverse thrust and as quickly as he first felt the vibrations they were gone.
“That was fracking weird.” Skyler broadcast to the others. “Did anyone else notice that?” Skyler also noticed his scanner readings changed for the microns he was in the disturbance or whatever the frack it was. It had been brief, but he had picked up what appeared to be wreckage from a lone Viper and off in the distance something was approaching. He transmitted everything to the Callisto and started looking over the readings in more detail looking for answers….
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BRIK
Viper Pilot
Posts: 227
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Post by BRIK on Mar 8, 2009 5:27:55 GMT -6
The last several cycles (centars? yahrens?) had been perhaps the most difficult of a long career composed of all sorts of difficulty. And there seemed to be no change in sight.
Although, truth to be told, Captain Brik (by the Lords of Kobol, CAPTAIN, sheesh!) was well aware that he would always love being a Warrior, with the attendant opportunity to be involved and make a difference.
If only he'd been able to make a difference with Bree's fate...but his old friend Skyler would need him, as well as Logan, and that would be plenty.
Focused on the task at hand, Brik steadily watched the readings coming from the other craft, particularly Skyler's. The back of his mind was glad to being wearing a warrior's jacket and especially a blaster!. After all, no one had said that we has not to carry a weapon on this mission. It was possibly an oversight but Sheba was far too sharp and experienced for him to truly believe that, so he thanked her silently from his heart for the little things. He was also glad that he hadn't let that charlatan of a merchant sell him that pink tutu. He didn't care if it was his size, he was not going to "just try it on" and definitely was not interested in a purchase! Being in civilian clothing on a mission was difficult enough but a pink tutu? Really!
The front of his mind, however, remained firmly in the here and now, for the safety of his fellow warriors depended on it and they were his only real family at this point in his life. He would not let them down.
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Post by Skyler on Mar 8, 2009 10:34:33 GMT -6
“I tell you Carter, it is the entrance to a worm hole of some kind. That’s the only reason Skyler’s scanners were able to pick up the other ships. He peeked thru to the other side.”
“Vala, it cannot be a worm hole. Did you pick up an event horizon? Frack no, cause it is not a worm hole. All worm holes have an event horizon.”
“How do you know, all your stupid worm hole information is speculation at best. When was the last time you saw a worm hole?”
“The same time you did, never, but the research has been done by people smarter than us. If any of them had survived the destruction of the Colonies, I would find one and ask. His scanners must of have picked up a bounce or something from somewhere else.”
“Like that makes sense. Two ships, one destroyed and the other not. It is the missing Warriors. One’s ship cracked up after leaving the Worm Hole, the other must be looking for the way back.”
“Well, if it is a Worm Hole, explain the reading from Dolet’s and Janey and Bulk-up’s craft?”
“I can’t yet, but I…..”
“But nothing….”
Elsewhere on the bridge, Sheba too was studying the data. She was sure the wreckage was a viper, but it had yet to be proven. The second blip, well, it was not the right mass for a viper, but it was a ship. She needed better readings, but she wasn’t going to risk another Warrior by having one edge into the disturbance again. Skyler was lucky that it didn’t suck him on, or destroy his ship. Maybe that mysterious blip held the answers she needed…….
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Post by Logan on Mar 11, 2009 8:27:52 GMT -6
“Did anyone else notice that?”
Logan noted the confusion in Skyler's tone. The readings didn't make sense. Granted it was brief, but whatever was beyond the last known coordinates of the missing Vipers, it was something none of them had come across before.
"Affirmative, " Logan answered. "There was a deifinite vibration...I could swear by the Lords that it was a vibration of...space itself. I've never seen an anomaly like it."
Hush sighed loudly. "Major, those readings...that was a Viper and another ship, nothing we have catalogued. Where are the other Vipers?"
"Unknown, Lt. Maintain positions."
Logan had the beginnings of an idea. A foolhardy one, but that had never stopped her before. "Skyler, permission to advance further into the disturbance for..."
"Permission denied." Logan knew he wouldn't allow it. If anyone was going to take a chance, she knew Skyler would be the one to do it. Even though protocol dictated as the Squadron Leader for him to delegate recon, Skyler never let someone else take the risks he was unwilling to take himself.
Brik spoke up. "Is it my imagination or are the subsonic waves off our port starting to increase?"
Logan checked her boards and realized he was right. This kept making even less sense. There was nothing here, but the ship readings Skyler had just received were real enough and now the magnetic pulse meter was going crazy. "What the frack is going on out here?" she muttered to no one in particular.
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Post by Skyler on Mar 12, 2009 14:44:27 GMT -6
Skyler's warbook program scanned through all the known ships in its registry and had not kicked out a match for the other vessel yet. He broadened it to known civilian class ships, knowing that a civilian ship out this far was unlikely. As the hull outlines scrolled through his screen.
Brik spoke up. "Is it my imagination or are the subsonic waves off our port starting to increase?"
Skyler divereted his attention away from the Warbook to look into the new threat when the Warbook signaled it had a 85% match on the craft, listed under historical probe craft of the Colonial Research Division. It wasn't an exact match, but close. Looking at the dates of the service life of these ships, they were phased from service before the destruction of the Colonies. Things were getting weird fast....
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Post by Logan on Mar 13, 2009 7:41:19 GMT -6
A small shifting of the stars, blurry, and the meters were off the scale. Logan blinked, thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Then a ship was there, right in front of them. She saw Skyler instinctively get out of the ship's path and her Warrior training kicked in. Without conscious thought she eased her throttle to port and watched the ship that had appeared out of nowhere pass her on her stern. It wasn't going fast, but the avoided collision still made her palms sweat.
"Defensive postions," Skyler called out over the comm.
Hush was right on her wing and she saw Brik maintaining position alongside Skyler. She was scanning the ship through the Warbook, but already knew from visual contact that it wasn't a Cylon ship. It definitely looked like a Colonial design, albeit one from decades past.
Skyler was already trying to establish contact as the Warriors were all making sure their weapons were fired up and ready just in case. The chances of running into a ship out here in the middle of nowhere, a system with no immediate livable planets and no space-going civilizations that they knew of were remote, but not impossible. But the disappearance of their pilots and the strange entrance of this older model ship were testing the boundaries of possibility at the micron.
"Unidentified ship. This is Major Skyler of the Battlestar Callisto. Identify yourself." Skyler was all business and Logan felt that familar tingling at the base of her neck again.
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Post by Skyler on Mar 13, 2009 10:01:17 GMT -6
Skyler typed in a War book reference number and sent it via a data stream to the rest of the Vipers. They would then know what he knew. The War book might not of have known 100% what it was, but looking at it in person, Skyler knew. It was the probe craft. Long since out of production, even at the loss of the colonies. The reason it was harder to ID was the modifications that had been done to it. The basic silhouette was there, but altered. Even more sensor pods had been added but for what reason.
Skyler tried contact again.
“Unidentified Probe Craft, this is Major Skyler, Strike Commander for the Battlestar Callisto, Identify yourself….”
Lt. Kalten was not expecting that. He had picked up the distortion and then a blip of what looked like a Colonial Viper, but it vanished and he had thought it was just an echo off of the destroyed Viper he was reading. Now here he was face to face with a flight of Vipers, commanded by a Major Skyler of a Battlestar… did he say Callisto? It had been a few yahrens since he had transferred to the research facility, but he did not remember a Callisto ever being a ship of the line, and he knew they hadn’t built another.
Skyler had picked up the Human life signs in the probe craft, so he knew it was manned. Maybe it was one of the missing pilots, Viper damaged and had to land on some weird planet and found this and had no choice but to fly it back…. But how the frack did an obsolete probe craft, 30 yahren ago, make it out this far.
“Skyler reported what?” Sheba questioned Rigel…
“A Type Two Colonial Probe Craft just appeared from the same section of space our Vipers vanished from.”
“A Type Two?, that’s… well, they were being phased from service before my Father had enlisted. I have only ever seen a couple and none were operational, they were in Museums.”
“He reported, Type Two, looks like extra sensor pods had been attached. Life form detected inside, human, no contact.”
“Instruct him to escort it to the Callisto and keep an open channel with his Viper.”
Yes Ma’am. Rigel spun and returned to her station…..
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BRIK
Viper Pilot
Posts: 227
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Post by BRIK on Mar 14, 2009 23:23:54 GMT -6
Ok, this was getting strange. Brik had seen one of those a long time ago on a vacation with his parents. He had marveled at the time at such craft, old but fairly sturdy and used for such varied purposes...but to see one IN FLIGHT and so very far from any know Colonial presence....
But he knew better than to say so on an open channel, he was sure that everyone else out here was just as amazed and just as puzzled. Even though he couldn't remotely see Logan or Skyler's faces, he was confident that he knew what expressions they wore.
So he made sure his weapons were hot and gave a little distance between himself and Skyler (as well as the new vessel), just in case he had to maneuver quickly.
"Funny, these missions NEVER turned out to be dull." he thought as he smiled to himself.
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