Shakedown Cruise, Part 2 (Episode 2)

[Solomoriah]

The maneuver is in progress; you're on approach to the planet. But now:

Finn reviewed the information for the planet YZ Ceti II in the guidebook, hoping that it had an 82 minute rotational period, but that wasn't it... the planet was tidally locked, showing the same face to its star all the time. He knew he was missing something, though.

Soon the planet transformed from a bright dot into a proper disc. Amanda started having trouble getting a clear signal... the signal strength was falling off over the course of several minutes, and it was too soon for the 41 minute cutoff.

It was then that Finn realized what he hadn't seen before... the signal source wasn't on the planet, it was in orbit. For 41 minutes it was behind the planet, where its signal was blocked, and for the other 41 minutes they had line of sight to it. That was why the signal was varying in strength... it was moving through the narrow scanning field of the directional antenna.

As soon as he understood what was going on, he told Amanda so she could begin trying to track it. Meanwhile, he began searching the face of the planet with the multiscope... at first, he saw nothing, but then a stray glint of reflected light caught his attention, and he zoomed in on it.

The first thing he could recognize was the shape of a Scorpius-class ship, but it seemed strangely deformed. Then he realized, it wasn't just one spacecraft... it was two. Orbiting above the Scorpius-class ship was one of the conical Martian ships. He watched, as Castle, Steele, and Grimm followed along on their own screens, as a man in a shiny silver spacesuit exited the Earth ship and began moving toward the Martian vessel. He was human, as far as they could tell. Though they couldn't make it out through the multiscope, they could tell by his motions that he was climbing hand-over-hand up a tether toward the Martian ship. He quickly moved out of sight behind the Martian ship.

[Woe]

Amanda is first to break the silence. "Orders, captain?"

[crazycrypt]

Finn is busy taking notes of everything he has figured out and seen. He doesn't want to forget an important detail later when they are asked what happened.

[Hywaywolf]

Scott watches the human disappear behind the ship the Martian signal is coming from. He then takes a closer look at the scorpius ships. Not quite certain what he is now thinking is 100% correct, he airs it out in the open anyway.

"Captain, I can't be 100% certain, but I believe those two scorpius class ships may be the 'Scorpius', lost in 1961, and the 'Skylark' , lost in 1967. Do you know where the surviving scorpius class ships are supposed to be at this time. Are any on long patrol or all back in the solar system? At any rate, I propose caution before contacting these ships. They could be alien captured, or potentially worse, some long term secret operation by some earth agency that has cracked more of the martian technology than they want to let others know about - hence that martian ship."


((Chris, I jumped to a big assumption there, that I could tell the scorpius ships apart. If that is not possible, feel free to interpret my post as just saying that those two ships could be the missing scorpius ships instead of me believing they are. Also, do we know the predominant nationalities of the crewmen on those two missing ships? ))

[Solomoriah]

Ack. To be clear, there are just two ships... one Scorpius-class, one Martian. The mission guidebook would tell you the crews of each mission; it's at Amanda's right hand, on the bookshelf. It would be a fair guess that the crew was American, though. Skylark has only been missing two years... it's a fair guess that Steele and possibly Castle knew some of the crewmen personally. Scorpius has been gone longer, so it's less likely they knew those men, but still possible.

[Hywaywolf]

(my fault on the number of ships. read what I wanted to read.)

[-1warrior]

"Take us away slowly Lieutenant" Julius says to Steele. "I don't trust this one bit."

[Hywaywolf]

"Captain, we don't know what's going on. For all we know our fellow servicemen may be in danger. Do you plan to open communications?"

[-1warrior]

"Lieutenant, I think it's safe to say that those probably aren't our crewmen. I do not plan to open communications. Unless of course you can provide me with a good reason to do so?"

[Hywaywolf]

"You are the Captain. What are your intentions?"