The Avenger, came though a circular chasm of blue and white energy , as if some great force was spitting it from its maw the ship slid through the event horizon of the hyperspace portal, the entrance to the other dimension closing the instant the ship cleared its form, it collapsed in a fit of defiance to the force that had been holding it open. This sector of space was on the outer edges of the Perseus arm, while the more coward sectors of the arm had been mapped and cataloged for generations, the utter vastness of the arm prevented quick or even uniform sector maps for many of the powers that be in the universe. Much of the galaxy was still in a blanket of darkness of mystery to the alliance, and its many peoples, while this was daunting as it was for many of the cultures within the milky-way and even fear inducing at times they still forged ahead. The Avenger had been quickly commissioned, the unique circumstances at home pulled out all the usual stops for ship construction ,testing and commissioning. However the Space Fleet central command didn't want to send its newest Ares Class strike cruiser directly in to a major conflict just yet, that two latest ships, the Avenger and the New York were to be given milk run assignments in contrast to the classes leading ship the Ares witch had been called in to action directly. Despite the feeling of restless and a need to fight for people and country among the commanding officers and crews , the decision was logical in a way, smaller scale situations would be less disastrous should flaws or limitations in the ships capabilities be discovered.
And so the Avenger was here, its mission was to track a missing supply convoy carrying civilian equipment and refined materials to a few upstart colonies at the edge of known space and to various other powers the Alliance had dealings with. Its near seven hundred meter form wasn't the largest in the galaxy, nor did it have the ominous factor of the larger fleet ships of various powers. In its own right the Avenger and the class it represented was a match for what most powers could field in its role, it was a quantum leap in design philosophy and most of all technology. But every ship needed a well trained crew to function, the Avenger had a crew in its own class made up of veteran star-ship officers from ships across the fleet, the cream of the crop so to speak chosen to forge the ship's and new classes legacy in what ever capacity required. The system the Avenger was starting it search at, was a three planet binary star system with a class O star orbited by a smaller class K stellar object, the light from the twin stars radiated outward hitting the ships sleek plated hull from the approaching angle the ship looked as if it had an aura of gold and blue peaking around it.
The walls of the CIC within the ship was a departure from most Terran designs, the walls could super impose real time feeds from the scanning pallets around the ship, it could show the stellar and wondrous view all around the vessel. This was both an aesthetic choice and meant for ease of access.
The CIC was abuzz with morning activity, it was just a few hours in to the shift and all the officers and crew were well refreshed at their stations manipulating their holographic consoles as if it were second nature to them. The general conversion between the crew was kept brief, the dialogues between members and the AI concerning things weren't much longer than a few sentences.
The ship's commanding officer, Captain Richard Allen Quint, was a middle aged man with ebony hair streaked defiantly with charcoal. He had sapphire-blue eyes. His tall frame and heavily muscled features gave him a commanding presence regardless of intention. He was fair, at times tough like any leader but also laid back and quite understanding, thanks in part to his many past commands and assignments in the fleet. He was a veteran of various previous operations and served as commander of the Frigate TAS Deilni, and destroyer TAS Polaris . Indeed he was a man that didn't lack command experience several of the officers and crew he had served with on the Polaris transferred to the Avenger, others were from other ships but had equal experience in the field. His executive officer was a furred halfling by the name of Miriam Hill, she was the chief of operations on the Polaris prior to their transfer. In contrast to the captain she had a lithe frame, emerald green eyes pointed ears and a nimble prehensile tail she could use as an additional limb, she was as tall as a Terran and had white short fur. She sat to the left of the captains seating arrangement at a holographic console station, quietly she manipulated the console before her using her tail and slender fingers to quickly flick, wave and edit context menus readings and various other things.
Captain Quint placed a hand on his chin, his eyes were averting their gaze from console to console, after a few seconds of thought he broke the ice in the CIC. His voice carried around the circular console lined room.
”Avenger, can you give me a status report on the last readings of those cargo ships, put anything of note on the holo-screens since as the saying goes we're not in Kansas any more, I don't want us blindly flying in to systems.”
The Ships avatar responded with a simple nod, she responded her holographic form almost as life like as a biological or construct.
So far, I've only detected trace amounts of debris, nothing familiar at lest nothing from any Terran ships in this area. However I'm also picking up traces of recent FTL activity, its... Terran. I cant pin-point where they lead exactly.”
Commander Hill looked at the Captain and the avatar curiously she then gave a frown at the news responding candidly as always.
Cold trail, well can you tell us how long is been cold? This is going to make our job a-lot more difficult to say the least
Avenger looked to Hill and then to Quint sating in a soft tone.
”Its recent less then twelve hours. Somethings off however, readings less than twelve hours old can usually be tracked in part due to a wake left by the ship tunneling it self through hyperspace. And a ship as Large as the SCV-Orca over two kilometers in length should have left a massive wake easily traceable. The only explanations I can possibly come up with is that either somethings distorting that wake behind them, or they've rigged the ship to mask it some-how.”
Quint furrowed a brow , he didn't like the sound of either of those one bit. He thought to himself that this situation had more to it than met the eye, of course he knew this wouldn't be simple going in no matter how much of a “milk run” this was trumped up to be. He spoke after a second or two of thinking.
”So your saying either somethings chasing them and they're in trouble, or they're hiding. Question is why have they been incommunicado for seventy two hours, and what where they doing all the way out here, this is way beyond any research outposts we have.”
Avenger spoke out, her voice cool and collective as ever. ”As much as I would like to get this over with and get to fighting chaos, this as struck a cord of interest with me, I'm going to pull up the last known communications from the Orca , and her last known heading..”
Hill gazed to her console again, flicking through a few context menus, she pondered something for a moment then spoke aloud. ”We should also take a look at the crew logs, cargo manifests and where ever the ship docked for repairs or to take on supplies.”
Avenger nodded, she looked towards the central holographic table, it displayed a spherical map of the local sector and put their position in blue. ”I'll get right on that, in the mean time I'm going to move the ship a bit closer, we might be missing something in orbit of one of those gas giants.”
Quint sighed sharply , he sunk back in to his seat he was drumming his fingers of his right hand on the arm-rest of his chair. His mind was in deep thought as he attempted to unravel this increasingly interesting mystery. The rest of the crew had their minds on various things, Miriam herself was concerned about her family back home and she relished the idea of getting back to the core to combat the onslaught of enemy forces but orders were orders, however she wasn't alone in her feelings many of the men and women on the ship had families or love ones back home. Quint couldn't blame them for feeling the way they did, he himself hated to be out of action, but he always thought somethings happened for a reason. The Avenger began to glide forth its engines crackling to life white hot streams of distorted wavy particles faded behind in to the darkness as the gravatic drives of the ship accelerated the vessel at an astounding rate, it banked to the port side moving towards a super giant wrapped in a blanket of green eerie clouds, seemingly peaceful it hid violent storms common to gas giants. What ever the case was here time was clearly becoming a luxury they couldn't afford much of.