MD #279: Comm Station Recon
MD #279: Comm Station Recon
Summary: A lone raptor completes a long series of jumps to quietly do recon of the Comm station near Arpay.
Date: Fri 12/Jan/2018 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: None/Current Events
Inez Fox Diaz Lleufer 
Arpay System
Interior of Raptor and a lot more to see through the windows and the ECM consoles.
Mon 30/Jul/2049 (IC Date)

Drawing the short straw as one of the volunteers that stepped forward to ride along on the current recon mission on the board, Diaz is clad in her flight suit and carrying her helmet tucked into the curve of one arm as she climbs aboard the raptor. Armed with a datapad, a notepad and pencil as backup, and trusting her helmet's camera and sound recorder to capture image and sound of what ever she's ultimately looking at. She eyes the mostly empty confines of the Raptor, "Normally these things are pretty crowded when we Viper jocks are crammed inside, this is sort of roomy," is noted in a tone of surprise while taking a seat and fastening the safety harness.

Fox shows up in his flight suit and helmet under his arm smoking his last cigarette before boarding. He had pulled four nic patches to use during this flight, knowing he would need them. He seems a bit nervous because he's refused to smoke any of his weed today just for this flight, but he steadies himself as he crushes out the cigarette before boarding the Raptor. He says, "This thing will hold two pilots, the ECO officer, and four more marines. Should be enough room for all of us. I've already messured it for a short upright piano, so I'm not worried as to the room. I hear Bouncer is one of the best pilots we have, so you shouldn't be worried about the flight." He steps to his chair at his station and puts his helmet to the side. Taking out the first of his nic patches, he strips the back off of it and sticks it to the back of his neck. Then he puts his helmet on and secures it with a mic check, "Testing, one. Testing two."

One of those Marines shows up, also dressed in a flight suit if you can believe it, but with ground combat fatigues pulled on over it. Gunnery Sergeant Lleufer Ynyr looks like he's ready in case they crash land and he's go to take over trying to keep pilots alive. One never knows. Carrying his helmet under one arm and a light ruck on his back, Lleu steps on up into the Raptor. "Sirs." He takes a seat in the back, a rifle with harness on over everything else. Ynyr webs in like he's done all this countless times before. "I'm along for the wisecracks and to keep all you officers from in line." He grins, then hushes to let them do their thing with preflight checks and all that stuff.

"I don't know who you were talking to, but they were lying," Inez grins as she enters the raptor, suit on, and flicks her bangs aside before she pulls on her helmet. "Anyways, Xandor is the one jumping us, so he's the one you have to worry about." She winks to Diaz before she settles into her seat and begins her preflight warm-up. "Hear you loud and clear," she tells him, and then gives a nod. "I'm green across the board. Ready for takeoff"

"Master at Arms, welcome aboard," Diaz remarks and lifts the hand holding the notepad to wave with it at the Marine as he comes into the Raptor and webs himself into the seat with the sort of expertise that young marines aspire to. "Hah. In line. I'm just a sardine right now," she calls out with a laugh as the crew on the flight deck are signaling that the Raptor is cleared to lift off as well, the sides of the Raptor easing closed with that hydraulic hiss that means the seal has been achieved. "Ready back here," the Viper pilot confirms, tucking the datapad into one of the deep pockets of her flight suit and stowing the pencil in another pocket.

Once the Raptor lifts off and is away from the Orion, the initial sequence of jumps commences with the seamless transition of well plotted jumps where the math has been worked out well in advance and the exact position of each jump is pre-programmed with back up and lists and charts and redundancies. Just in case. When in doubt, as is the motto of the air wing, be absolutely certain before the next jump is taken then jump precisely. All that said, this leg of the journey takes hours, as the trip toward the Arpay Rally Point itself let alone this sector of space is no quick stroll.
<FS3> Fox rolls Ecm: Good Success.

Fox turns to face Ynyr with wide eye's and touch of fear, "I didn't do it Sergeant, I swear. I was at home when it happened." He says muffled through his helmet, the helmet speakers carrying his voice out. He's still in his seat, ready to fly. He laughs slightly, letting his nerves settle more. He turns to his insterments, "Systems opperational. Launch approved. Let's rock and roll."

Lleufer secures his ruck and his rifle as he hopefully won't be needing that kit on this recon. If everything goes as planned. Then he puts on and seals his helmet and jacks in so he can hear the radio chatter and test things himself. Suit integrity, check. Radio check, good. Diaz got a grin out of him but mostly the Marine is letting the officers do their thing and get cleared to launch the Raptor. Fox gets a soft laugh out of Ynyr, "I bet, L-T." Lleu's Arpay eyes linger briefly on Inez, the model Eleven, before he glances back to Diaz in back with him. "You come here often, Ensign?" Smart ass. The flight and the jumps will take hours but Lleu is fine with tipping his head back and sleeping for most of it. Diaz can have the pleasure of jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow when they get to where he ought to pay some attention.

After launch, Inez settles back in her seat. There are no wisecracks from up front any more, and her only comments are the exchanges with Fox as he prepares for each jump and gives the countdown to jump. She keeps glancing out of the canopy when they're stopped, her eyes joining her constant scanning. "Just keep jumping," she mutters, finger tapping at the yoke each time she has to wait for the next coordinates to be set, and the jump to occur.

"Well, I keep showing up after each successful jump, so I'd have to say yes," Diaz replies with a smile aimed at the M-a-A, "course, if one of these jumps is off we could attempt to occupy the same space as some bit of debris and that would be that," she adds. Along the way the ensign will use the notepad as a sketch pad, make a list that looks like a shopping list but ultimately turns out to be a list of necessary compounds to improvise the ingredients in Henna. She also naps, though does so stretched out on the seats facing Lleu and does, indeed, snore. Not quite like a motorcycle, but there's a theme.

The more jumps they complete, successfully, the further away the Raptor gets, jump after jump, from everything and everyone that they know. Time and Space aren't separate measurements, after all, at least not out here. As the last couple of jumps are lined up for execution the Ensign wakes the marine with a hand resting on his shoulder to get his attention. She has her helmet on, though the visor is up, and the datapad is out along with the notepad and pencil again. "Two more jumps and we're on station," she says as the second to last jump is executed.

Fox can't believe his eye's. "I'm getting a reading of a super massive wormhole." He looks to the readings. His hands flash over the controls, "Another jump set. Ready to engage, in five, four, three, two, one." He initiates the jump and that flipping stomich comes and goes. Flash comes and goes. A quick adjustment and he starts his scans over. "This thing is huge." He does his calculations, "This thing is in the galaxy near Arpay." He makes sure the recorder is running. "I believe I can get us closer, but Bouncer will have to take us in closer if we're going. The well pull of this hole is dangerous." He waits for the go ahead before doing any more jumps. Scans on full to the surrounding area, but his focus is on the wormhole.

Diaz's hand rouses him. The Gunny gives her a nod and puts his visor up. He stayed seated and webbed in. "Thanks." Lleufer perks up when he hears Fox, and shifts his weight and his boots, waking up more. While he has his helmet unsealed, Ynyr takes a sip from his water tube and starts paying attention to what's going on up front.

"If they're sending their communications through constantly, they would need a wormhole of some kind, maybe," Inez comments to Fox's finding, her voice not entirely focused on him. Her fingers flex on the yoke as they jump, and she waits for space to open again. When they're at the stop, she looks at the DRADIS, and out the windscreen, and back. She exhales. "Alright, Xandor. Take us on the last jump. As soon as we come out, set the first homeward jump, even before you begin recording." She pauses. "If anyone has any pins, keep a tight hold on them." She tilts her head once, flexing her neck, and then she has a good hold of the yoke, waiting for the countdown.

"Gunny, you know how to work the external camera controls?" Diaz asks as she moves to take up a seat at one of the consoles that are rigged for this purpose, the Raptor being outfitted specifically for this recon with an extra set of cameras to gather as much data as possible. The Viper pilot mans the controls at one of the stations as the last jump is executed and the Raptor emerges, nice, quiet, and mercifully undetected at the very edge of Arpay space. Off in the distance, beyond the capabilities of the naked eye - be it human, arpay, or Line - there is a massive wormhole at work. The size that the wormhole would need to be, to cast readings this far out, and still not actually be visible to the naked eye frankly boggles the mind.

Lleufer unstraps and changes position, "Ehm, I think so? Been a while. I can pretend it's a gun. Point and shoot." He gives Diaz a wink and sets his butt down infront of that consule and sees if he can't remember how to do it. It'll take him a minute but Ynyr can knock some rust off and get the hang of it. Lleu gets real quiet as his fingers work to bring the camera into focus and alignment, listening for instructions. "Ready."

<FS3> Fox rolls Ecm: Great Success.

Fox having completed the last jump, he does what Inez suggested and sets the coordenance for home. He then returns to his scanning. He just can't believe the size of this wormhole. His eye's widen and says, "Bouncer, long range scanner read two Skath carriers groups with a convoy of three hundred landing and supply ships between us and the wormhole. Holy Frak there is a ton of them."

"Mmmm," Inez responds, there doesn't seem to be surprise from her, maybe, perhaps, a relief of sorts. Her gaze roves over the array before them, and then she shifts her bearings lightly. "Begin recordings, be ready to take us out, Xandor." She shifts her eyes from the DRADIS to the blackness before them, and back a few times. "There you are," she finally says, and leans back slightly. "Sgt. Ynyr, I need you get a few captures," and she gives him the coordinates that should show a somewhat cigar shaped station pointed towards the Wormhole. "Get what you can of the defenses around it."

<FS3> Fox rolls Ecm: Success.
<FS3> Fox rolls Alertness: Failure.

Their token Marine is watching his screen very closely, his sharp eyes intent for every pixel of information it can display. Ynyr uses the controls to zoom in his view as far as the optics can pick up and a second later the focus sharpens. Lleufer licks his lips an studies what Fox has already pointed out. Once Inez jumps them in closer, the Gunny pans his camera to check out the skath ships. A glance up at Inez's orders, "Yes, sir." He inputs the new coordinates, his gloved fingers fat and slow with the camera controls. Thankfully the computer can process the input because he's no navigator to know what the coordinates in space mean and the camera changes the directional focus of the optics. The station looms on the display and he is able to capture a flash, "Jump flash." A few seconds tick by, "Looks like another 50 or so Skath landers and supply ships jumped in. Looks like they are moving to join the convoy." Lleu concentrates on what Inez said about getting good optics on the station defenses.

<FS3> Inez rolls Piloting: Good Success.
<FS3> Lleufer rolls Alertness: Good Success.

"So we're looking at 2 skath carrier groups, 300 landing and supply ships, another 50 landers and supply ships?" Diaz asks from where she's jotting down numbers in neat, concise, notes and concentrating so intensely that her voice is almost devoid of inflection. The better with which to not jibber in outright fear. The mission clock is ticking and about thirty seconds after the last of the ships jump into system and move into formation there energy readings spike yet again. "What now?" the viper pilot wonders in a voice laced with trepidation.

Fox's fingers go over his controls, "People, that station just opened up a powerful signal and is broadcasting something through the wormhole." He turns to the two on cameras, "It's off the charts. My insterments can not register it completely." He looks back to his control pannel, "I'm recording the signal as best I can, but it's so powerful it might fry my sensors." He looks worried, doing his best to keep it under control.

"Don't risk too much on the recording, Xandor," Inez suggests as she watches her DRADIS readout and making sure it's recording. "If it starts to spike too high, stop the recording. A partial one is better than none if it fries." She shifts their heading again, slightly, and her eyes narrow at the DRADIS. "Did you catch that thermal bloom, Ynyr?" she asks suddenly, turning slightly in her chair, her body turning towards him but her eyes still on the screen in front of her. "It looks like only the one of the carrier groups is moving through the wormhole," she muses aloud, and she leans forward a little as if she feels tempted to set her chin in her hand to think.

Lleufer is not showing any signs of fear. He is calm, his baritone low and relaxed. Even if the view is 'Holy Shit' worthy. He's been given a job to do and stays focused on it. "Athena's lovely breasts, but that comms station is fair sized. Roughly twice the mass of the Orion, I'd say." Long distance phonecalls, babe. Good thing they aren't in the path of it's signal broadcast because it might obliterate the Raptor. Ynyr answers Inez, "I'm recording on everything it's equipt to pick up, sir." Carefully he flips through the display options to confirm, "Yes. The station is bleeding off a lot of heat."

Once the last of the support ships and landers make the transition through the surface of the massive wormhole the wormhole itself destabilizes in a orderly manner, if it can really be described as such. The sudden lack of energy readings pumping out into this sector of space makes everything seem 'quiet' by comparison. Quiet.. except for the first gleam of light reflecting off of the first Skath raider leading the picket to resume CAP. One, then another, then steadily more spool out of the remaining Skath carrier, the patrol circling ever wider as their CAP expands the patrol.

Diaz is leaning toward one of the screens, intently counting the ships that are displayed with each sweep of the sensors. Not just the Skath raiders on patrol but the remaining ships in station around the massive Skath station. "Um.. Bouncer I think we need to seriously bounce," comes the worried tone of the Viper pilot.

Fox had already set the jump back, but waits for the pilots word to engage it. "That stations signal is what set that wormhole into life. I do think we might get spotted if we stick around here to long." He double checks his coordenance to make sure they are to go home. He looks to Inez for the word.

As the wormhole fades, Inez notes the CAP resuming, and she tightens her grip on the yoke. "Cute, Diaz. Hit it, Xandor, don't bother with the count." She shifts their craft into a slow reverse until the jump takes them away from the approaching danger.

Fox hits the button. In his head it's three two one, but the button is already hit, and his stomach turns.

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