Alliance Central Access Network

"CONN, Science," Captain Desmond shouted through the intercom, "We've got a ping on a low-band frequency of three hundred gigahertz coming in, have the crew get ready to break communications silence."

"Science, CONN," Captain Desmond's executive officer replied, looking over the communications officer's, "Affirmative, is the ping worth anything?"

"CONN, Science, You could say that, XO," Captain Desmond replied, nodding to his Chief Operations Manager and Chief Science Officer, "The Chief OPS and Chief SCI are on their way up with me, we'll brief you the moment we're on the CONN."

"Affirmative, XO Out," The Executive Officer answered, turning his head back to the tasks at hand.

      Captain Desmond stood from one of the workstations' chair in the Science lab and awaited while the two other officers rose as well. The science lab was located on the same deck as Stellar Cartography. Deck 2 was primarily allocated to Stellar Cartography, the science lab was so small it seemed as thought it had been there just to serve the purpose of filling up an odd-shaped space that couldn't be used by anything else. The S.R.D. Bastion was a warship, after all, a heavy destroyer belonging to the Clarel Class. She had 15 decks, and didn't have any of the bells and whistles of most explorer type vessels. What she did have, was a completely new hull design which allowed for greater flexibility coupled with additional maneuvering capabilities, and enough space to pack a diverse suite of advanced weapons. She was a small vessel in comparison to the previous generation of Segan destroyers, but she easily matched their fighting capabilities. They just required a much more skilled hand to drive them.

     Captain Desmond and his two best senior officers for these types of missions walked down the hallway that led directly to the turbolift. They walked with a sense of purpose as they headed towards the CONN. Captain Desmond entered first, calling for the CONN to the turbolift, as his two senior officers joined him on either side. With its orders recognized, the turbolift doors whooshed closed as the turbolift motor activated to send them one deck up. Captain Desmond kept calm, though he was quite excited at the prospect that he may just find the fleet which he had been searching for so arduously. They had combed since they had arrived a month ago, day after day, hunting for a fleet which could be anywhere at any place. What the ping had given him, was a sense of hope that maybe this entire search wasn't for nothing. A silly ping had arrived to do that, he thought, as the turbolift grinded to a stop.

The turbolift doors opened as the Captain stepped out, "Captain on Deck," The Executive officer shouted as the crew stood from their seats and saluted Captain Desmond.

"At ease," Captain Desmond replied, stepping off from the turbolift and walking straight towards his Executive Officer, as the Chief Science Officer followed.

The Chief Operations Manager assumed his seat on the CONN, "Reading no enemy vessels anywhere in the area, Captain."

"Affirmative, nothing on either the passive combat sensors or the active combat sensors," The Chief Tactical Officer added, staring at the sensors. "The nearest enemy vessels were the two Mary-Rosbourg class destroyers back several light years back, and they didn't detect us."

"Understood," Captain Desmond glanced over to his Executive Officer, "The ping we're getting might be a sign that we activated a Clarel Class Heavy Destroyer computer module, and that the ping is its attempt to get networked with other active Clarel Class Heavy Destroyer computer modules."

"I see," The Executive Officer realized the importance of the ping as he reanalyzed his reading of the Clarel Class Heavy Destroyer technical readouts, "Yes, I understand it."

"Right," Captain Desmond looked at his XO, "So it's agreed, we'll go find what this ping is?"

"Agreed," The Executive Officer turned to the Chief Science Officer, "Trace the ping, and get us some coordinates to follow. Helm, stand by to engage at warp speeds."

"Sound General Quarters, #1, we better be ready for this possibly being a trap," Captain Desmond turned to his Chief of Ops, "Activate Damage Control Ops just in case."

The Executive Officer tapped the intercom link opened, "General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battlestations! General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battlestations!"

"Location identified, Commander," The Chief Science Officer glanced over his readout, "Confirmed, bearing 132 mark 04."

"At maximum warp, we'll be there in about thirty minutes, Captain," The navigations officer replied, plotting in the best course using warp.

"Confirmed, maximum warp," Captain Desmond replied, engage at your will."

      The warp engines of the S.R.D. Bastion engaged easily as the vessel was propelled forward at faster than light speeds. The ship now crossed easily stars after stars, as the crew of the S.R.D. Bastion prepared themselves either for an awaited discovery of the Ghost Fleet, or a trap. They were steering, and heading at light speeds towards coordinates one-three-two mark zero-four. The coordinates led directly to the second planet of the Froidian star system, a system which was reputable for its fairly weak star. Only three planets orbited this star system, and because of their relative distance from the star, the Froidian star system was always passed as a potential location for Segan colonization. The Froidian star system, however, was strategically located near the Segan star system, former capital star system of the Segan Monarchy before it was ravaged by the Styx. It would take thirty minutes for the vessel to reach its destination. Thirty minutes to determine whether what they were hoping to be a friendly ping, indeed was.

- - - - - -

    The S.R.D. Bastion slowed from its fast warp run, the warp engines whining as they were forced to be replaced by the more bulky impulse engines. The Bastion seemed to blend in with the stars, as its dark coat of pain barely lighted up the star system. Its guns on either side of its wings were fully armed and ready to shoot on sight. It's forward tip ready to fire off a potent volley of the Larisa phaser gun should there be a need for it. Only the white lights of the Clarel Class Destroyer's impulse engines could be readily discerned from the vessel that entered the Froidian star system slowly. It was in search of the ping which it had heard barely an hour before, hoping she would find her sister ships. The Bastion's crew too were equally hopeful they would discover the Ghost Fleet, for the more time the Monarchy was given, the more time it could mass up on needed troops to counter the Ghost Fleet.

     The S.R.D. Bastion flew past an asteroid belt, its shields easily countering the small rocks that it upon it. The S.R.D. Bastion seemed to create a linear carving along the asteroid belt, but the moment it passed through, the asteroid belt returned to the shape it had always held and always would held if it weren't disturbed from its natural paths. The Bastion's impulse engines whined loudly, sounding like a chorus approaching the highest pitched note on the musical scales. The Bastion was approaching Froidian II, the estimated time to arrival was approximately one minute and twenty five seconds. Inside the crew were busy scanning for enemy targets, as they watched the almost pure white planet appear in front of their main viewscreen. Inside the CONN, the officers were finishing their sensor scans, the Captain too was increasingly excited.

"Assume an asynchronous orbit on the southern pole of the planet, Navigations," The Captain ordered, as the Science Officer showed him the data reports of this planet, "What have you find, SCI?"

"Well, Captain this is one freezing hell-hole. The average temperatures of this planet range between negative twenty degrees Celsius in the summers, and negative forty degrees Celsius in the winters. No wonder the place can't grow life, however, the planet is an M-class planet, with high mineral contents. In fact, it could be a gold-mine, if anyone could just find a way to thaw all of the ice and snow that's down there," The Chief Science Officer dictated, adding his own editorials here and there to enhance his report.

"Tactical, any sign of anything moving down there, any vessels, anything?" The Executive Officer asked, as he looked over the Chief Operations Manager's reading, "Well the ping definitely came from here."

"Not reading any vessels, friendly or otherwise, Commander," The Tactical Officer noted, "In fact, I don't think I'm reading any signs of advanced life down on the planet, aside from the usual bacteria and the such."

"All right, OPS, SCI," Captain Desmond shouted, "Get two more Science specialists, and one security officer. Let's have a look and see what's down there. We're taking a shuttle down, I don't trust the transporters with that atmospheric make-up."

      Minutes later, launching from the back of the Clarel Class Destroyer. A small support craft launched towards the planet. It looked as thought it was a futuristic, and fashionable plan. But in fact, it was designed for hard atmospheric landings. Its pointed nose, and its stabilizer that stuck out in the back were designed to follow the air flows during a landing. Its hull was specially designed, slightly heavier but much stronger than the bio-metallic hulls of the Clarel Class destroyer. It was prepared for the mission that laid ahead. The shuttle began to disappear into the white planet. As it entered the frigid atmosphere, its entry forced massive heat to be displaced. It had become a massive controlled fireball as it headed down towards its destination.

"Damn, we've under calculated that storm front, we're heading straight for its outer ring, and we don't have enough maneuvering power to get us away from it," The Chief Operations officer shouted, as he grabbed the consoles, "It's an F-7 storm. ETA ... 30 seconds!"

"Cut power to secondary dampeners, divert emergency power to the shield generators," The Captain ordered, as the Science officer checked the storm that was about to hit them.

"It's a thunderstorm, a damn powerful one, it might pack just enough strength to bring us down if we're not careful, Captain, "The Science Officer glanced over, "It's about to hit us."

"Direct hit!" The Chief Operations Officer shouted as the shuttlecraft shook hard to the right, "Those lightning bolts pack quite some power."

"ETA to landing is approximately 3 minutes and twenty five seconds, "The Captain shouted as he took the navigations control, "I'm reading a power overload in the navigational matrix."

"Confirmed, we've lost one of your engines, Captain," The Chief of Ops shouted, as the shuttle began to go into a spin, "Damn, I'm going to have to do some manual repairing. You take over."

"I'll try and hold on as best as I can, but we're going way to fast for our descent," Desmond diverted power quickly from the auxiliary power generators, trying to kick start the second engine," We're going to hit the deck hard, everyone grab a seat, and brace for impact!"

"Sending out the mayday, Captain," The Science Officer chimed in, as he grabbed his console hard, "Mayday, Mayday, S.R.D. Bastion, we're going down. Mayday, Mayday, S.R.D. Bastion, we're going down."

     The shuttlecraft, with one of its engines leaving a trail of smoke behind, continued its steep descent. The shuttlecraft, unable to stop was fast approaching the snowy ground. There was little place that was suitable for a landing to begin, and now the shuttlecraft was speeding down towards this planet of hard rock, ice and snow. The shuttlecraft finally made it's landing, crashing onto the planet. Its weight forced the ground to give way, exploding as the shuttlecraft crashed further down the planet. Its shields failed, as it crashed on much harder ground, Its hull was dented in many places but it held. The smoke and debris from the pieces of the shuttle that had been broken off such as its stabilizing tip laid in front of the shuttle. Inside, however, everyone was safe and sound.

"Uhhh," The Captain groaned, as he lifted himself off from the console, a little bit of blue blood running down the side of his face, "Everyone okay?"

"Yes, Captain," The Science Officer cleared his console away from some of the debris, "Sensors are still working... We're in some kind of a cave."

"Communications are okay, though the shuttle's pretty beat up," The Ops officer looked at the three other away team members, "Requesting an EVAC team to assist us."

"Captain..."The Science Officer looked at the Captain, "This cave is over 2 billion square meters! And you won't believe this."

The Captain turned to the Science Officer, "What?"

"It's housing all 4000 Clarel Class Heavy Destroyers."

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