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Captain, we have categories!
By DivineOmega | June 12, 2006
The captain stares forward towards the view screen and for a few moments there is complete silence on the bridge.
The captain of the Starship Omega is a tall, proud man. He stands confidently as if he will be able to see a cloaked Bazarrian ship a mile off. His crew in the background, are all busily working at their stations. The captain knows he can rely on them to carry out his orders, and the crew have complete confidence in their captain, this being the second year in Captain Strand’s command of the Omega.
The interstellar fleet rarely names a ship at the request of a captain; this is usually the admiral’s job. However, in this case the captain choose ‘Omega’, and by some bizarre turn of events that is precisely the name the starship was christened under. However, these events were not quite a bizarre as the phenomenon they were about to experience…
“Captain, our polarity-3 sensors have detected a disturbance 600 kilometres to port.” said a tall, thin woman, her face moving is predefined motions, as if she’d said this a million times. Still, she spoke with an air of interest and curiosity in every word.
“Right”, said the captain as he was jolted from his trail of thought back into reality. “What type of disturbance, Crystal?” he said, addressing the tall women. The crew had got used to the captain’s use of their first names by now, but none-the-less he was always ‘captain’ on the bridge.
Crystal presses a few areas of her console, with the proficiency that can only be gained from a year of experience, and 3 years of prior education. “It’s a, Captain..”, she seemed to stumble, “It’s a class one Category dropping out of warp.”
If it wasn’t for Captain Hall’s experience in space, he would not have known what this meant, and in all honestly neither would most of the captains in the federation. Very few space goers from the federation had ever encountered a category and lived to tell of it, so the categories were known by their reputation and the destruction their left in their wake.
The captain turned immediately to his navigation officer, Lt. Jones. “Steven, get us out now.” The captain seemed panicked, something so unusual that a sense of fear seemed to radiate from him, and slowly spread its’ way to the crew.
“Captain! We can’t move. Propulsion is down.” reports Jones. At this the captain immediately hits his comm. badge and in a stern voice asks “Engineering: What is going on down there? We have no…”. The captain is cut off instantly by a high pitched whine from his communicator, to which the captain winces in pain.
Suddenly the entire bridge is filled with this same monotone whine, which seems to be emanating from all walls. Both Steven Jones and Crystal Freeman, get to work instantly within on the consoles surrounding them, flicking backwards and forwards between the lot of them. Before the captain had time to order them to do so, the pair had managed to cease the noise.
“Crystal, Steven.. What was that?” said the captain, in an obviously perplexed and somewhat dazzled stated as he turned back towards the view screen.
Steven replied, “Well, captain, we’re not entirely sure. However, Crystal believes she’s located the source of the issue…”
Unfortunately, the captain never heard Steven finish, nor did he hear Crystal’s explanation of the strange sound. The captain had only one thing on his mind, for as the crew (as skeleton as it was on this supposedly simple mission) were panicking ship-wide over the shrieking, something was approaching.
As the captain looked toward the view screen, he could see it. Only a few kilometres from the front of the Starship Omega… the class one category has arrived.
On another side-note, categories have indeed arrived (to this website), as you can see from the amazing drop-down box on the right. Chose a category from this box and click view to display all posts from within the selected category. It’s simple enough - enjoy browsing in a new way!
Tags: Roleplay, Stories, Website Design |