| Author | Message | ||
     RAdm. Todd Marshall |
“My God, Admiral, are you seeing this?” came the awestruck report from Vanguard’s science officer as she put the view from the passive deep subspace array into the large primary holotank at the front of the bridge. “I do have eyes, Lieutenant,” was Rear Admiral Marshall’s amused yet calm reply as he gazed into one of the oddest sights he’d witnessed in a very long time. USS Vanguard was in Boratis space, mapping the general area with the LORASON sensor pod that had come with the ship through the Hayashi hypergate attached to her multi-mission modular clamp. When word had reached her moments ago that the Pfhor had mounted an attack on the Apori at Pitstop 3, and that the system had all but vanished from realspace, the Admiral had immediately ordered the ship to nest in subspace and to bring up the subspace array normally used to peer through the subspace medium to track warp vessels and communications. Normally, in the Milky Way, the passive array would pick up and display almost immediately the chaotic mess of ‘wakes’ that vessels travelling with warp propulsion left behind in subspace, and the sharp lines of subspace communications streaking from one relay station to the next. In M64, however, the display was normally much more sparse. With Task Group 5.4 and the Camelynians being the only warp-based starships in the region, there were only the wakes from that handful of starships. Pfhor fold-signatures showed up, albeit difficult to track. The Accursed drive systems seemed to ‘pinch’ space between two points, creating an artificial gateway from one place in space to another. Such a pinch showed up in subspace as well as realspace, but in the grand scheme of things, it was so small that one had to look carefully to realize they were looking at a fold. Admiral Marshall was still trying to figure out whether the folds were traceable or not, studying the sensor readings from the few folds they had studied when he had a spare moment or two. However, there was something new showing up on the array now that the ship had nested and focused its eyes on the Pitstop system. Something Marshall would have doubted was even possible. The Pitstop system was sitting in the holotank, in subspace. A star system and its respective planets, according to the standard, would normally show up in the passive array as vague individual mass-shadows. But Pitstop and its respective planets were showing up crystal clear, as if they were being scanned from realspace. “Focus in on the third planet,” The Admiral ordered. The view in the holotank swooped in on Pitstop III, magnifying the respective area. Marshall didn’t have to order the sensor officer to highlight the Pfhor vessels in battle in orbit. There were a couple of gasps and a few low murmers as the view panned to show quite possibly the largest starship any of the crew had ever seen. It was clearly Pfhor, but its lines weren’t as smooth as the destroyers Starfleet was used to dealing with. It looked meaner, nastier…and it was just hanging back to watch the Apori and the smaller Pfhor go at it. Marshall turned to his comm. officer, ordering the ship surfaced from subspace as he did so, “Get hold of Reor, we have a problem.” |