DAY 127(sat) cont ...
The Caco was now in orbit around the planet of Huroc once more, the initial expedition proving to be somewhat less than 100% successful.
The crew were tired, but happy to have all returned in one piece although it was mildly concerning that Adam, the ship's AI had gone off line. The last report had given his avatar's position in the city, but now the whole core had shut down and no one could figure out how to boot it back up again.
How this was going to affect the running of the Caco remained to be seen.
They had plenty of work to do though, all the scanners were offline and it took four hours to get them back again.
At 2000 hours, their work was interrupted when they were hailed by the Burung Mera ANTO ship, the Gallactico. The Gallactico had been commissioned by a media production company (ANTO) to find out what was being done by Star Fleet to restore Mioen.
Although she was not quite the sensation she had been when she was alive and on their home planet there was still enough interest to sent out a ship. The programme they were filming was called 'Mioen Hunters' and the executive producer, Avril Yelmo, requested to do some interviews with the crew of the Caco.
Kirk agreed as long as they helped with his mission. The Gallactico was much larger than the Caco, about half the size of Voyager and they offered to help with sensor scans, drones and any other request that seemed reasonable.
He talked to the crew and told them,
'Let's try and make Starfleet as good as we can.'
The interviews were scheduled for the next day.
In his cabin, pondering the situation before sleep, Kirk deduced that everyone on the crew were behind him except Dell and Murphy. Dell regarded Kirk as too much of a maverick while Murphy had probably an even lower opinion of him and tended to be too honest for his own good, though not as bad as Adam.
The others, Paterson and Celes idolised him.
DAY 128(sun)
Kirk woke up feeling really sick and feverish. He dragged himself to medbay and had Murphy look over him. Although not a doctor, Murphy had studied anatomy and medicine.
Kirk had some sort of virus from the planet and Murphy recommended he was quarantined until he was better or risk passing it on to the rest of the crew. He looked over the data himself, and between them they decided on a general course of pain killers and fever calming medicine. Kirk then took the precaution of putting on an environment suit so he could still wander about the ship.
At 0900 a shuttle arrived and picked up Paterson and Murphy. They did not return until 1400.
When asked how it went, Paterson replied,
'It wasn't what I expected. The Burung Mera that did the interview was kind of sarcastic and off putting. He asked awkward questions.'
To the same question Murphy replied,
'I just told the truth.'
It was Kirk and Dell up next and although he was still ill, Kirk took off his environment suit and toddled over to the Gallactico.
The interview was conducted on a set made to look like a comfortable living room. Kirk was put into make up, then introduced to Set Artlee, the Burung Mera that would interview him.
It lasted for several hours and the full transcript is available elsewhere but a selection of highlights are show below;
'Where are the remains of Mioen?'
'It was unfortunate, but necessary to leave her body behind on the Numiri home planet.'
'Have any attempts been made to recover her body?'
'No, not that I am aware of.'
After discussing Kevek and the fact that Mioen's spirit was being carried by him, Set went on to ask,
'What are you hoping to achieve here on Huroc?'
Kirk explained about the Katric Arc and how they hoped to transfer Mioen into it so that Kevek would not suffer spiritual destruction.
'Have you found one?'
'No.'
'What are your feelings towards the Vulcans?'
Kirk was as upbeat as he could be, but drone footage was shown of the firefight in the mountains.
'Ah yes' admitted Kirk, 'The AI we were using to communicate with the Vulcans, well, it didn't malfunction exactly, but a lot was lost in translation and this lead to misunderstandings.'
'Is this how Starfleet normally conducts diplomacy?'
'No. Due to the nature of the planet our normal translation methods were unavailable.'
'What do you plan to do next?'
'Scan the planet, find the Katric Arc. Try and find a way of communicating properly with the natives.'
'Then what?'
'That's stage two!'
At 1700 Kirk and Dell returned to the Caco and found that Webble had succumbed to the Huroc Fever. She had less to do on the ship so it was decided to keep her in the med bay until she recovered.
Kirk requested that the Gallactico scanned the planet and received the following report, here presented in summary;
x2 warp-jammers - Emitters at the poles bounce anti-warp <untranslatable> rays off the atmosphere or <untranslatable> <untranslatable>.
- uses the planets electro magnet field to be propagated around the planet. They are buried under the planets surface
x50 comms-jammers - scattered around the planet, each has a five hundred mile radius. Also buried.
Each can be pin pointed to 100 metres.
Kirk needed more information though and asked them to continue scanning over night and they agreed. He then took his medication and went to his cabin.
Dell spent all night returning the thruster to their original configuration.
DAY 129(mon)
Kirk arrived on deck at 0900. He felt a lot better, but Webble had taken a turn for the worse.
More information from the Gallactico had arrived.
The 'warp jammers' were huge, about the size of a village and buried three miles deep, under the rock and ice at the planet's poles. They were shielded.
The 'comms jammers' were buried and shielded, at about 200 metres, were room sized and all had temples constructed above them. Life signs were detected at the temples.
The jammers were identified as 'Preserver Tech' and as such was more advanced than even Starfleet. They couldn't get any communications down to the planet, the ANTO probes they used were autonomous and had limited AI functions.
Kirk thanked them and thought he might have a go at the warp jammers first. He instructed Paterson to take them over the north pole and then had the phaser cannons set to a light yield and started boring a hole into the planet.
The ice melted off straight away and the rock was vaporised at a rate they calculated to be roughly at 5 metres per second. Thus, after five minutes the phaser cannon had cut about half way.
The hole was 6 inches in diameter.
Kirk ordered the second cannon be used for the rest of the bore and was about to start again when they were hailed by the Gallactico,
'What are you doing?', demanded the captain.
Tempting as it might have been to say, 'What? I'm just drilling a hole in a planet?', Kirk actually replied, 'Attempting to take out the warp jammers.'
'My science officer has reservations. Don't do it!'
'Why not?'
Another Burung Mera appeared on the screen,
'Have you considered the consequences at all? Turning your phasers on a planet is not something to do on a whim!'
Kirk broke the connection and turned to Murphy for advice,
'Well captain, we've not looked at all at the planet's characteristics. We don't know how it's surface is made up so their is the potential to trigger an earthquake. If the warp jammers are linked to the planets electro magnetic field then there is a chance we could affect that. The poles could swap, or we could diminish it in some way that would leave the planet vulnerable to the solar wind.'
'Right. Fine.'
Kirk gave up ob the idea and two hours later the Burung Mera science officer gave them his data which confirmed
Murphy's suspicions.
Kirk and Dell spent the rest of the day on an item they christened as the 'Jammer-jammer', made from primarily replicated parts, they hoped it would nullify the anti-communications field on the planet. It was about the size of a suitcase and weighed 15 kilos.
They carried out the work in the med bay so that Kirk's illness was not an issue to the rest of the ship.
DAY 130(tue)
By 0900 hours in the morning they had finished the 'Jammer-jammer'. Murphy told Kirk that he was clear of the fever, but that Webble still had some way to go.
Kirk and Dell then slept to 1300.
Kirk asked the Gallactico to build them a probe big enough to carry the 'JJ01' and they said they would have something for them by the next day.
Kirk and Dell spend the rest of the day working on the operational issues that the MATSE system had with Zero-G combat and smoke filled rooms.
At 1600 they were contacted by Voyager asking for a report. They were then told that they needed to wrap things up within the next couple of days as Voyager wanted to leave the area.
Kirk muttered to the rest of the crew that Voyager could just come and help them, but when Paterson said, 'With what though? Transporters don't work on the planet either. I don't think there is much they could do that the Caco and the Gallactico can't', he realised it was best that he carried out the mission to the end without any help from his superior officers.
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