From: Commander Michael Howell, head of division 2 of the H.I.S.
To: Acting Lieutenant Lynda Gomez, head of Skoll investigation team
date: 207.187
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Skoll Investigation
Message:Sending a second squadron your way, that's all I can spare right now. Good hunting.
CMD Howell
Previous Message:
date: 207.179
Commander,
As we discussed before, we sent light divisions inspect all the stars around the Research Station Tarantula. Engineering managed to built an automatic message shuttle for all the carriers, and at least one of them was assigned to each cluster group. They were ordered to avoid engaging any unknown contact and come back to report, as they would certainly be outnumbered. Commodore A'Holia and I agree that we cannot afford to loose ships every time we send them to gather intelligence anymore. I would have preferred not to split them that much, or at least send larger ships, but then it would have taken 3 months just to correctly scan each stars in a one light year radius.
Two weeks later, 8 hours ago, Captain Iana Itano's message shuttle came back. She had detected some suspicious activity around her division in the Alatar system. She brought her ships at extreme detection range to get at least some useful data then sent her shuttle our way. She included a note explaining she intended to shake them off, or at least join with Captain Marco Shawn's division that was nearby.
I immediately sent all remaining light forces to support or rescue them, they should arrive on site in 36 hours. In a second time we assembled a heavy recon force from the Cruisers and Destroyers present here, plus an Hospital ship and a mobile repair gantry. This slower force will depart for Alatar if Cpt Itano is more that 8 hours late. I intend to be on board to try to get a firsthand look on the location.
As for the shuttle's data, it shows four ships signatures, plus some fighters screen. It is impossible to pinpoint their affiliation, not that we didn't recognized any ship but that they are from pretty much every manufacturer in the sector. My interpretation, shared by Commodore A'Holia, is that they are distording their emissions to fake another ships signature.
Given how elusive the Skolls have been, I think we should assume it's one of their force (and they are always trying to mimic other ships signatures). Though one corollary of this assumption is that they should always try to fake a smaller ship's signature, to avoid detection as much as possible and make enemy captains under-estimate their forces. The problem is that one of those four ships had the energy signature of an Onslaught, that would mean there is a large ship in that system.
A-LT Lynda Gomez--------------------------------------------------------------------
Video report transcriptAlatar system, 3rd planet, moon
207.184Ground inspection team, Engineer Nikolas Leyeiv,
//transcription begin:
[N. Leyeiv] - "... Is it on? Oh right, hum Lieutenant Gomez, Engineer Leyeiv. I'm supervising the inspection on the crash site. We arrived only a few hours ago but there are some developments you may want to now about sooner than later. Firstly, the object landed very recently. The atmosphere is pretty thick but there was no dust on the object, and it was still slightly hotter than the environment to boot. I think it has been here for less than a week. We know nothing yet about it's velocity at the impact or it's orbit before, but we certainly can't rule out the possibility that it is a debris from the battle with Cpt... What's her name?
[out of screen] - "Itano."
[N.L.] - "Right, Itano. Anyway, that is certainly a possibility. Or more, because the probability of an unknown object unrelated to that battle to land here at a few days of interval is... Well, we could say that technically it's no zero. The second and maybe more important point is that it's not a ship. It's... Hard to believe given the size of the object, but it's a weapon. The barrel of a weapon to be precise. I won't speculate on the size of the complete weapon, but it's simply huge. Even the TCP aren't that large.
As you are very well aware, it's the first time we can inspect Skoll technology up close. Assuming this is a piece of their ship that is. The atmosphere from this moon probably prevented them form getting it back, or destroying it from orbit. We already have learned a lot about their technology:
The nature of the projectile is unknown but we can assume it isn't supposed to touch the barrel itself. There are massive super-conducting electromagnets on the length of the barrel, but they don't seems to be used for accelerating the projectile, only aim it.
We also took some materiel samples of the hull and while the final analysis isn't complete I can already say that it's roughly as sturdy as civilian anti-meteor armor, but for a quarter of the weight and a much fainter radiations reflection. It really is a highly interesting alloy, very high-end.
And that puzzle me to be honest, because the most sensitive parts have a different coating. That second armor is much less impressive. It's still a bit lighter that our own alloys, but far from the same performances at the same weight. Same goes for the technological sample we retrieved. Some are very advanced, like their miniature electronic circuits, they should burn instantly from the heat of the current, or they would if built from our materials. Other systems are on the other hand very inefficient.
A few bodies remnants have been recovered. I say remnants because the impact must have been pretty violent. They have been sent to the fleet for autopsy.
Unlike what I said before we landed, we may be able to unearth the object, and maybe even get it in orbit. I didn't anticipated such lightweight materials. We will need another atmospheric ship for that though, because it's size makes it unwieldy to transport, I... I'm repeating myself, but it's something to behold! Luke, attach the landing footage to this will you, the LT will want to see it anyway.
[out of screen] *inaudible*
[N.L.] - "Right, okay, I'll send you a formal report tonight. Our night that is, in 8 hours when it's going to be too dark to work efficiently even with flood lights. Okay, you can cut the re..."
//end of transcription
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