Starbase 400 and the case of the lost cosmonaut. Part one

Posted on Thu Mar 10th, 2022 @ 9:05am by Lieutenant Fulvia & Lieutenant Xalanth & Lieutenant Commander Ariana Monroe-Wayne & Lieutenant Kah'lyn Chiara-Rivers

1,877 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 112 - A Trip to Remember
Location: Starbase 400
Timeline: MD1 0800 hrs

Starbase 400 dock seventeen.

The massive andorian ore processer seas of shnara hovered in the middle of the starbases docking area. Around her, her ore carriers buzzed like flies around a carcases as the black drones took turns docking and unloading their cargo. Most of the drones had been out for years having been following behind the lumbering vessel as she slowly made her way around the federation loading, processing and trading away the many ores it collected.

In the processor's room the processor's control sat at his desk his blue eyes watching as the ores were scanned sorted and dropped into the necessary refinery section. Syhr Th'shellit had always been miners tracing their roots back to the Andorian mining cities of the moon equator. He wondered what his ancestors would think of him now. All he had to ........

The red alert flashed from one of the screens as the andorian jumped out of his thoughts sliding over he looked at the screen. Processing section seven had detected an anomaly. Probably a broken machine he'd need to get engineering to fix.

As the screen lit up he paused for a moment as what was sitting on the convert belt his brain struggling to work out what it was. He didn't feel his arm reach for the emergency stop until with the loud ringing the machine came to halt. Tapping his coms he stammered out. " Satia call the station,tell them we need security and medical down here right now." He stammered out his eyes unable to move from the sight of a human leg sticking out of a chink of ore.

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Xalanth yellow eyes blinked as he looked at the screen with the mysterious limb upon it. " You did well for calling us, captain. How long till you can pump atmosphere in so we can go take a look."

" Can't we'll need to dock with the station and surrounded the whole ship. Only twenty-five per cent of her is built to handle the atmosphere. We have artificial gravity but that's it. It's easier to process the ore and the ships nearly two hundred years old." the shocked andorian captain said as he took another sip from the flask he was drinking form. " Never in all my years,........." he murmured as the control door opened up.

" Ah,." Xalanth began as he'd been expecting his ex. Instead in came his third. "Miaxi couldn't make it." The pregnant Magna Roman said with a warm smile on her face.

" Better suit up with an unidentified limb to collect." The lizard said as he lead the way to the airlock down to the processing centre. Tapping his commbadge he opened up a channel to the bridge. " Xalanth to the bridge I need the biggest dock with an atmosphere cleared and made ready for the seas of shnara and as many personnel with zero-g training down here as soon as you can get them. We have human remains and think we'll be finding more."

" You have one of your hunches?" Fulvia asked as they arrived at the airlock. Being so old it would need someone to operate the controls from the small control centre.

His suit had been teleported there already.

Kah’lyn was at her Ops station when Xalanth’s voice came over the comms. “Understood Lieutenant, bring her in to docking back 3 it should just about be ready after recent repairs. You’ll have the dock to yourselves.”

Ariana was also in station Ops doing her command shift. She tapped the comms. =/\= All hands with zero-g training please report to Lieutenant Xalanth in docking bay 3. =/\= She closed the channel and looked at Kah’lyn. “Well it’s not everyday we end up with a hunt for body parts!” She shook her head.

“Very odd indeed” Kah’lyn grinned. “It’s also very disgusting!”

Ariana grinned. “I want you to make sure you take your breaks regularly. I know what it’s like to be working a long shift when you’re carrying around all that weight.” She smiled as she pointed at Kah’lyn’s rounded stomach. “Don’t get overdoing it.” She turned her attention back to the matter at hand tapping the comms again. =/\= Xalanth please keep us appraised of what you find. =/\=

" Will do." Came Xalanths reply as he had finished dressing in the suit. Fulvia gave him loving kiss on the cheek before attaching his helmet. As his suit read all clear the lizard stepped out of the airlock.

A slight shudder ran through the ship as the station's tugs and the process own power began to move. It would take around an hour to move the behemoth into position.

" Xalanth to the bridge is my feed working?" The lizard asked as he stepped into the airlock.

“Coming through loud and clear Lieutenant” Kah’lyn answered.

With a push of a button from his mate the outer airlocked opened. The lizard shuddered even with his suits internal heater it was cold as his magnetic botts began making his way across the ship's open hull.

He was impressed by the ship. Around seven miles of automatic factories that could keep running for decades without needing a tune-up. Providing the raw materials to continue fueling the federations ever-growing population.

He kept following the green lights that appeared to lead the way his boots sending out silence crunches as he climbed over some of the piles of rock, dust and ore.

He was walking for nearly ten minutes before he arrived at the conveyer belt. The leg stood outjutting from the broken rock like a strange alien fungus. "Hmm” the lizard said as he knelt down next to it dropping a small marker as his suit shot out a square to indicate a crime scene.

" Looks rather intact so it can't have been exposed to the void for very long." he said shining his touch on the limb. Moving it down he saw the explanation. "Looks like remnants of an EVA suit past the knee. Doesn't look like federation issue. " He said as his touch eliminated a mess of grey material.

“Have to see if the ship’s Captain has any ideas.” Ariana sighed, her first ever station bridge shift, having been postponed due to her maternity leave, and here she was dealing with a mystery.

" I have him trying to find out which drone this ore came from. All of his people are accounted for." the lizard replied as he ran his scanner over the rock. Trust this thing to leave the scanning range at sixty centimetres.

" More remains underneath the rock. The body looks like it's been smashed apart by the rock breaker. " the lizard said as he carefully removed the rock. Another mess of limbs and beaten metals and plastic. Running his scanner over it the lizard frowned. " Hard to detect anything with all this interference, but I think this is a human female or what's left of her."

“Understood” Ariana shook her head. “Not a good way to go. Okay we’ll need everything bagged, tagged and transferred back to the infirmary, see if the medical staff can make any headway with the remains. Take a sample from the remaining limb and we’ll run it through the Federation records, just to see if any matches leap out at us.”

" On it. I'll get a sample from the material. maybe the labs can find out where it's from. " Xalanth said as he opened up his sample kit. As he worked he found something in the mass of material. " Looks like a patch of some sought maybe military? " he said as he tagged the circle item. He didn't dare try to remove it in this state.

Kah’lyn was making a recording for evidence sake. “I’ll tag the recording time so we can check back on that.”

Ariana nodded. “Xalanth I’ll meet you in Sickbay when you get back, I’d like to see what we have.”

" Wilco." The lizard said as he kept on his work. In half an hour he found two more sites with a mix of human remains and machinery. His hearts felt for whoever this was. Once so full of life and hope and now a mixture of paste, plastic and metal stuck to rocks dotting a processing factory floor.

Some of the crew had arrived to help out spreading out in from he center. It didn't take long before more sights were found though these onces seemed to only be of machinery with no humanoid remains."

" Xalanth this is Fulvia. The ships captain found the ore drone that dropped this load off left two weeks ago. I'll have a runabout head out and tow it back."
His mates voice came over the coms.

" Good have the runabout crew pull it's flight recorder as well let's find out where this came from." The lizard added.

Ariana was listening closely to everything being reported. “Let us know when you’re done Xalanth, Security will keep the bay sealed off so you don’t end up with a contaminated scene.”

" Thank you." The lizard said into his coms as he walked forward his scanner held out in front of him. His boot gave a silent crunch across the rubble before his scanner started bleeping like mad. " Unkown material detected. Definitely metallic." He said as he carefully began digging.

Ariana’s voice came over the comms. “Just go careful Xalanth, we don’t want anything happening to you.”

" You don't need to tell me. My families going to be joining us here soon." The lizard replied a grin forming under his helmet. A beeping from his scanner made him look down. Carefully scraping and blowing off the dust a strange twisted black wire appeared on his visor.

" Now that's odd. The scanners showing this is organic." The lizard said as he followed the wire.

“Organic?” Ariana said curiously. “How can a wire be organic?”

The red lizard carefully brushed more dirt away until he found a slit in the black coating. " Definitely looks like some sort of tissue. Some sort of organic tech....." He began before he looked down. His foot had connected with another piece of metal, but something red was picking through the dust. With a gentle brush, an image emerged of a very faded painted red star with a hammer and sickle.

" Now that's odd." The lizard said looking to the image of the long-dead earth empire he knew had been called the soviet union and then to the wire. " They never had that level of technology even just before the collapse."

“So what is that symbol doing here?” Ariana frowned.

The lizard thought through reasons in his head. " Could be it's a coincidence and it's all random space junk that's been smashed together. I'll need engendering to check it out."

A loud thump indicated the ship had docked. Members of security had arrived and started to comb the site. As the lizard looked around the crime scene a buzzing made him look to his communicator. Looking down his eyes burned at the message that was on it.

" Keep me posted on any finds I need to go and inform the captain of this." He said heading for the airlock.

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