//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Surface Trip // Story: Strange New Worlds // by Blue Fire //------------------------------// "Mr. Paris, could you fly a bit softer?" "I am trying my best, Captain, but there are massive graviton anomalies up here." "How far to the estimated origin of the transmission?" "12.000 kilometers, but I am unable to extrapolate the exact origin. I can only isolate it to a 200 square kilometer area." the former Borg drone replied from the copilot chair. "Entering the thermosphere, switching to atmospheric thrusters. Hold onto something." the pilot announced. Seconds later the shuttlecraft reared up, jolting the three humans inside. "700 kilometers. And I'm picking up hundreds of lifesigns on cloud level. I suggest an evasive course to avoid bird strike." Seven did not know how lucky this suggestion was. Else there would have been an accident, involving the Delta Flyer hitting a few Pegasi. "Seven, could you check the sensors? I have some strange readings over here." After typing on her console, she reported to the Captain: "The Sensor grid is working within normal parameters. Why did you ask?" "The concentration of Tetryon particle traces is over sixty times higher than usual. And all the Gravitatic anomalies..." "Maybe we witness a planetar war. Like the third world war." "I hope we're not, but you may have a point. Transfer energy to the shield systems. If we are targeted by anything, immediately activate them." "Yes Captain.... a Gravity Fluctuation is approaching from 345.85, Mark 1!" "Evasive maneuvers!" "Too late. We stopped moving ma'am. A sort of tractor beam has locked onto us and we are being forced to the surface." "Shields! Reverse course! Divert emergency power to the engines!" "No effect!" Paris screamed over the howling of the aggregates. "Quit it. There is no sense in destroying the Flyer. Let's see where our host will take us." With a constant speed of Mach 0.5 the white ship was drained towards the castle on a mountainside. "Captain, if we would launch a photon torpedo it would be dragged down the tractor beam..." "No Seven, we won't launch torpedoes unless they attack us. Maybe that's just their way to say 'hello'. But charge the weapons. Just in case..." "Captain, look!" Tom shouted. A tower appeared in the trajectory of the shuttlecraft, becoming larger and larger. Meanwhile Princess Luna was disturbed by a humming noise. She opened her eyes to see who dared to interrupt her raising the moon. As she noticed a light grey object approaching her position very fast she didn't hesitate and jumped down her balcony, saving her life. “Mr. Paris, was that a horse?” “I don’t know, we’re too fast!” The Flyer nearly became Toms tomb as it strove the marble tower, starting to hurtle immediately. The designer did his best to stabilize his work, because neither dying nor building the third Delta Flyer was something he was excited about. As he noticed that he couldn’t do anything to prevent their crash landing, he launched an emergency beacon. At least the Voyager would know where to find their corpses. He would never see B'Elanna again! Before he was able to spare another thought about the Klingon Chief Engineer, his love, something stopped the breakaway of the second Delta Flyer and slowed it down a bit. With only 150 meters per second it hit the ground, knocking the crew out instantly, digging its nose into the dirt and cutting a swath through the rows of apple trees. __________________________________________________________________________ Princess Celestia looked at the silver object in front of her. It was nearly triangular shaped, with a large black mirror at the front. As she spotted it the first time she thought it was a shooting star, but after hitting Canterlot and slinging through the air towards Sweet Apple Acres the solar goddess knew that this particular something was not a shooting star. She tried to stop it, but it was too fast. She took a closer look at the thing. Its perfect black and white outside was broken for some blue and red panels. A red line was painted onto the hull and cryptic symbols were located under the mirror. It was large, but not as large as the barn it nearly crashed into. Could this really be a starship, piloted by an unknown species? And, when having the ability to travel the stars, why did it crash onto Applejack's farmland? Slowly a large crowd of onlookers approached the impact site. Luckily they assumed the communication they heard was a bad joke from Twilight and left after nothing else happened. After Twilight assured, that she really had no idea what would happen the co-ruler of Equestria spent some time trying to understand how her student's apparatus worked. After half an hour she came to the conclusion that the call must have been authentic. But still, was such a small ship able to travel the stars? Celestia glanced over to the Elements of Harmony. Their faces showed surprise and fear, as it was not an everyday event that something caused a loud sound and a fiery trace in the sky. Applejack was a bit perplexed why everything had to happen on her farm. __________________________________________________________________________ "Commander, we are picking up a distress call from an emergency beacon on the surface. The transponder code matches the signature of the Delta Flyer." The Vulcan tactical officer reported. "Hail them." "No response." "Launch a type 4 probe to find out what happened. And prepare a rescue team to go down with another shuttle." "Probe launched, we are receiving the telemetry. It was caught in a Gravitatic Anomaly and disabled." "Could we get sufficient data?" "Yes, I was able to locate the Flyer. It went down on a plain nearly in the middle of the approximate area of the transmission. And I found residua of Tetryon particles." "They shot down the Captain. So I guess sending another shuttle would be suicidal." "Most likely, Commander." the second officer replied. "Prepare the Voyager to enter the atmosphere. We will need every bit of firepower we have." "Commander don't you think this might be a little bit rushed? And besides, we still have hull breaches at decks 6-10." Chakotay remembered his order to break free from the tractor beam, which locked on the Voyager. They were successful, but the damage to the hull was large. Without an intact hull they could not enter the atmosphere. "You have a point Tuvok. Chakotay to Engineering." "Torres here" "How are the repairs going?" "We started only five minutes ago." "We need to enter the atmosphere. The captain has been shot down and we need to rescue her. How long B'Elanna?" "Two days. Minimum. Things look bad there. The whole hull is deformed. Fixing this will take its time." "Can't you simply contain the hull breaches?" "No, at least if you want to make an atmospheric flight. The front section is bent by five degrees and our engines are in a bad shape as you ordered to run them at 145% power .And I don't want to start about the damage to the EPS-conduits. To make it short, we would most likely just fall down." "Can't you hurry up a bit?" "I'm doing my best, but don't expect miracles." Could this day get any worse? Chakotay thought.