Ulric listened to his Son's story then reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Outwordly he was calm, but inwardly his mind was on fire.

"Joani, it was a mental attack - a massive one to decieve all those minds. That is why they couldn't tell their consoles were going critical."

Ulric knew about all those weeks spent with Gabriel, teaching his youngest the benefits of mental discipline and strength over and above what was normally expected. He had helped Gabriel find the right tutors to resist mental intrusion because of the trauma that his Mother had secretly gone through. Ulric had taught his Son well.

"Warn Omar."

The instant Ulric mentioned it was a mental attack she concluded the same. Of course it was! How else could Gabriel see what the others couldn't? "You're right!", she answered excited.

*"Omar, this is Joani - warn the whole team, we may have to take mental control into consideration. Gabriels report leaves no question about the nature of the attack. Someone was capable of controlling the whole crew to think all systems reporting green instead of red. Take care... I'll keep you updated."

Addressing her husband she asked him, "Gabriel is right about Steve. We should do some damage control. Do you know a way how to circumwent the worst?"

"Well," in response to Joani,"I imagine they will want somebody to head up the investigation of this tragedy. Wether or not its me, I can probably get the committee to focus their attention on sabotage, or an extra-terrestrial attack. Andrew can help us focus on just how the ship was destroyed, from the information Gabriel remembers as well as what he knows about the system's faults. There has to be some trace of just what they did, whoever they are."

"I doubt this will become a witch-hunt. Our citizens are to well prepared to jump to too many conclusions. They know an investigation will take time."

Andrew sat on the bridge, the visuals from thedeath of the Enterprise playing in a constant loop in front of him in full 3-D. He looked at it from every angle, trying to reconcile the probable sources of the explosions and the order of progression. At the very least he hoped to determine if it was a system failure or a bomb and if he could pinpoint the first system to fail, well then he might be able to start figuring out just what went wrong.

[OOC - Engineering roll please, and science if applicable]

After the light from the exploding ship had made it's 3 hour journey to Lorean's sensors it was time to go home. "Jumping in 1 minute."

Again the familiar sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach and Lorean was back in the asteriod belt. Seconds later, "Everyone, I have an incoming message from group that stayed behind." Lorean paused a moment, Steve and Andrew, you are both running late. The President called for both of you to meet him and the other scientists that know the Enterprise's systems best. His message was left with your staff's over 20 minutes ago and he didn't sound patient. It seems everyone is gathering at the Lunar colony where Mission Control is located. The others are already there."

Omar passes a warning to the rest of the team to be wary of mental control or manipulation. He tells the teams to keep in constant radio contact.

He waits as the rest of the people arrive. It looks like the President wanted to be there as the search teams left.

Andrew watches the recording of the Enterprise's demise once more, committing it to his flawless memory before moving away from the computer station. “Ready when you are Steve, I’ll need time to go over this in my head but,” he pauses as if deciding what to say, “It doesn’t look good, my gut tells me that final explosion was the fusion systems for the main engines. Give me fifteen or twenty minutes and I should be able to give my final analysis.” Andrew finds a place out of the traffic flow and waits for Lorean to transport him down to the moon. As he does so he begins to review the catastrophe in his head once more, Sabotage? What the hell is going on here?

(Active Investigational Prodigy)

Lorean ports you down to the Lunar colony into the conference room where everyone is preparing to jump to the site of the explosion. Just as you are ported in the President walks into the room seeing you arrive. He frowns slightly then speaks, "Steve, Andrew, I believe they are waiting for you in Conference room A down the hall. Thank you both for coming. I already told the others, but I want a report on how this could have happened by 19:00 Standard."

He turns to look at Joani and Omar and the other Paragons, "People, I don't have to tell you to be careful out there, but I do want to tell you that it is important to find any possible evidence you can. It is paramount that you find the black box and return with it as quickly as possible so that the scientists can make a final determination as to what occurred. We are not concerned with salvaging any wreckage at this time, but if you do see any of the crew's remains, please bring them back with you for proper interment. I am sure the families would appreciative. Thank you all." The President shakes the hands of the Paragons who will be going on the mission and then heads back out the door and towards an office across the hall.

Andrew nods, "I'll do what I can with what info we have ...” He then heads down to the other conference room with Steve. As they arrive, he beams a stream of thought to Steve and the others. *Folks we clearly have a saboteur, impossible to tell yet when and how but the ship was rigged to create a chain reaction in secondary and tertiary systems. Those were the initial explosions we saw. The massive explosion that destroyed the ship was the main engines and the fusion reactor, an overload like that would only have been possible with the failure of half a dozen or more of those secondary systems. Whoever did this knew what they were doing and did so deliberately, there’s just no way this was an accident.*

Steve bows and says,

"Thank you, Mr. President."

Steve walks to the Conference room and gets updates from Lorean along the way.

(OOC: Activate Sooth, Luck roll please)

Steve sends back,

*Andrew, for right this minute you're going to have to keep quiet about that. We know but if they ask how we know, and they will, the answer is Lorean. Further it may be easier to look into this if whoever did it thinks we're a step or two behind.

(OOC: Activate Lie Detector)

*Don't worry I know enough than to say anything that at the moment we cannot possibly know. And I agree about keeping this in our pocket, we'll do better to keep as much as we can as close to the chest as possible.

Andrew takes a seat and surveys the room, noting anybody smart enough and/or knowledgable enough to warrent his full respect. "So, sorry we're late, care to bring us up to speed?"

Joani nodded in acknowledgement to the President and said, "Don't worry, Sir - Omar made sure we have the best of the best on this mission. We will find out what caused this terrible accident... if it was an accident."

She then turned around and gave Ulric a passionate kiss and whispered into his ear, "I'll be back as soon as possible, I love you."

Stepping backwards smiling at her husband her eyes locked with his, lingering the moment for as long as she could, before she pivoted on her heels to face Omar and the Paragons. With a blurring motion she changed into her SuperGirl uniform and nodded to Omar walking past him and taking the lead to the briefing room. Once everyone was assembled she took a look at their faces and said, "You heard the President - it is paramount to find the Black Box and any of the crew's remains - if possible. Omar will lead this mission and assign you to your search quadrant. Stay within com-range and report every 5 minutes - there may be a mind controller still out there. I'll take the quadrant furthest away and work my way towards the center. Godspeed... dismissed."

Stepping down from the briefing-console she made room for Omar to assign the quadrants and sent over the link *Be careful - maybe the saboteur is right there with you in the conference-room or at least watching. I wished Cody was here... We try to be as fast as possible to retrieve the box, I promise*

Inside Conference Room A a somewhat distraught Gemma, the inventor of the biotech portions of the ship looks up at Steve and Andrew with great relief. "I'm so glad both of you could make it. We've been wracking our brains in here for over an hour on how this could have happened and all we've been able to come up with is an outside attack or deliberate sabotage. The ship had far too many failsafes to simply have malfunctioned. At the very least the crew would have realized what was happening and escaped in the escape pods. Also, from the recording which Commander Riekspar provided, it is apparent that the systems were set to malfunction, though we don't particularly know how or why." As the two of you sit Gemma presses a button on her console and reruns the Gabriel's recording again from the moment he noticed the first red warning light.

*PM to Steve and Andrew*

Meanwhile in Conference Room C Morgan opens a warp to Proxima Centauri and he and he Paragons file through. On the other side each member of the team splits up and heads through individual warps again provided by Morgan to their assigned quadrant and begins to head back towards the meeting point where Morgan is waiting.

*PM to Joani and Omar and Walter*

At the same time back on the Moon Ulric is asked to join the President in the temporary office he has commandeered across the hall. "Ulric, I would say it is a pleasure to see you but under the circumstances not much is giving me any pleasure at the moment. This is the biggest crisis we have faced since your days in office, or perhaps before that. Mankind is facing the unknown right now and once rumors start to surface that this was not an accident there are going to be a lot of scared people. I'd like to have you with me on this and once we know more I'd appreciate it if you could lend your voice to mine in calming the people's fears. Can I count on you?"

To Steve: *Did I just see that?*

Andrew rewinds the video, *There, that man just dumped all the reserve oxygen from the tanks into the life support systems. At those concentrations the crew would have begun suffering from hyperoxia within a few minutes. More importantly the fire triangle would have been lopsided enough than even a single spark could have started a conflagration.*

Andrew does not allow his features to register, "Well why don't you start with which systems can be seen going FUBAR and then work out how the explosions progressed." He begins to review the specs on the tablet in front of him in order to look busy. *You think anybody in this room, hell anybody on this project, could have done this? I don't know of any tech that could explain it, we're talking either novas or aliens, we may have stepped on the Watchers toes, or those other guys, the Eliminators.*

Ulric stood at parade-rest in front of the leader of the Human Race. His was the air of calm self-assurance and he lent some of that to the much put-upon man before him.

"You can count on me, Mr. President. What I think you need to consider is what do we do if this is an act of War, or an act of sabotage. If it's sabotatge, you are going to need a special investigative body to make sure we root out this poison at the roots."

"If it's War ... what is your stance going to be? Do we hunker down in our home system and try to make sense of this senseless act, or do we go after who ever is resonsible. There is both Moral Outrage and the long term necessity of not being trapped within one solar system to consider."

"What do you plan to do once you know? I will do the best I can to support any decision you choose to make."

The president listens and nods to the first part of what Ulric says, then harumphs, "If it is war, we will take that war to the aggressor! Nor will I allow the human race to be caged here in the solar system." He nods again, "So, do you have any suggestions?"

Steve sends back,

*I see it. The question is whether this hasn't been noticed because these are technical people looking for a technical problem or whether you have to be a nova to notice.*

*Lorean, Please check the records, and ask Joani too, and see whether Gariel has a mind shield?*

Steve says,

"Gemma, what is this crewman here doing?" (Steve points to the crewman a minute before he does his thing).

Once you had asked for that section to be rewound she was already sitting forward concentrating on what was happening in the video. "I can't believe I didn't notice that the first time through, but I was so busy looking at the lights, I didn't pay attention to the commands being issued!" All of the other scientists were looking puzzled until Gemma replayed the sequence again then the room erupted in wild speculation. It looks like it will go on for quite some time unless one of you steps in and restores order. You sense outrage and fear among the people gathered here.

Several voices chime in at once, over the comm. They each relate the same thing: A strange green 'asteroid' was several light-hours out..possibly as much as six.

Omar's hearbeat quickens as Joani and some of his teammates describe the 'asteroid' they saw was several light hours out. We aren't alone...This day had to come eventually. They were always there. his mind raced as memoris from decades ago came to the fore. Omar had almost forgotten about the watchers and the other alien faction that was hostile to Earth. Omar decided to respond to Joani and those who see its image: "I don't see any asteroid. What direction is it in?"

After a few moments, Omar begins to coordinate with the rest of the group: "Does anyone else see the 'green asteroid'? If you do, and you can open up a warp there, let me know...Where is Morgan?"

Omar waited until the team was assembled before heading out to where the ship had been seen. He sends to the rest of the group: * Joani and some of the others have seen another ship in the vicinity. It is about six light-hours out from us. It is NOT one of ours. We are assembling to investigate.

Steve claps his hands together sharply, and says,

"Order!" (Command Roll please, any Luck put in there too)

"Let's just review what we know. Not only did the crew not notice the warning lights, they apparently caused them. So the crew destroyed the ship, and the one guy uneffected was a nova. Any bets on whether he has a mind shield?"

"Well, we have a working theory. Let's get busy and prove it."

"Shoot!!! The Paragons are walking right into this and they don't know!"

Steve runs out Conference room A and runs to room C.

*Lorean, warn Omar and Joani the crew destroyed the ship. It was mind controll. If the paragons have unshielded novas they could have a problem.*

A small warp opens in the area were the Paragons are starting to gather up around Morgan. Over the link Joani, Omar, Walter and Morgan hear *Steve urgently suggests that if you have any personnel there who do not have psychic defenses that you evacuate them now. They have come to a positive conclusion that the crew sabotaged their own ship due to psychic control. It is yet to be determined who was responsible, but it seems that Gabriel survived because he had mind shields. Please respond.*

(OOC in response to Omar)

"It would take to long for me to get there, Omar - it is several light hours away... very difficult to estimate.", she paused a moment and continued over the link to Omar
*"Maybe we should focus on the remains and once we're back we team up with the rest of us and make a jump with Lorean. IF it is alien in nature we would be at full strength at least. I don't want to spring a trap at this moment."*

Joani aborts her investigation and resumes with the search, trying to memorize her relative position in accord with the Moon, the Sun and Earth.

A few minutes later...



"Hold it!", Joani broadcastet over the comlink. "We have reason to assume, that the asteroid is hostile in nature. Whatever has caused the Enterprise to blow up from my sons report we know that mind control was involved. Morgan - please open one Warp back to the moonbase - all Paragons without psychic defenses are to head back and report to the President - at least we've found the Black Box.", she waited a second before she issued her next command.

"Omar and I will lead a small recon mission to the vicinity of the asteroid. We'll take no risks - quick sweep, gather as much information as we can and retreat as fast as possible. I'll take point, Omar will cover our backs and protect Morgan.", she made clear that she wouldn't accept any objections. Picking a handful of Paragons of whom she knew that their psychic shielding was strong she prepared herself to fly through the Warp.
*Acknowledged, Lorean. Please forward that we've assembled a small recon taskforce with psychic shielding. We'll just try to gather as much information as we can within a small timewindow and retreat as fast as possible. I ordered the other Paragons back to the moon base, they have the Black Box with them. If we aren't back or you don't hear from us within the next 15 minutes from now assume the worst.*

This doesn't feel right, Omar thought to himself. If they can see the ship at 6 light years, they will see us when we go through. We need to be as strong as possible. Otherwise, they could wipe us out.... But, she's the head of the group, so it's her call. Omar had objections, and he was willing to offer them until Joani made it known she didn't want to hear any. If this goes badly, she will get an earful from me.

"Ready when you are." Omar said, as he waited for the warp to open.

Morgan opened a warp back to the Moon for all but two of the paragons, leaving just 5 of you total. "I sure wish I could open two warps at once, but here's the deal. I will open a warp about two thirds of the way towards that object. I will hold it open just long enough for everyone to pile through, with Joani being first through. As soon as we are through I'm dropping that warp and opening one back to the moon. Once that warp is open you've got 30 seconds to see what there is to see and get through the warp. Any strange behavior from any of you and I'm diving through and you guys had better hope someone else can open a warp to where you are." He waits until everyone nods understanding and agreement before opening the first warp. Once everyone is through he closes it and opens another back to the Conference Room C on the moon. Through the warp you can see the Paragons who just arrived there looking through with concern.

Once through you are able to see that the object is not natural. It is very odd shaped and not at all very aerodynamic but definitely not natural. You remain in position for the 30 seconds Morgan is allowing getting as good a look at it as you are able and taking shots of it with your recording equipment. Then Morgan urges you to all go through the warp back to the Moon where you can now see military as wells as the Paragon's crowded into the room.

30 seconds only..., Joani thought. She wished they could've had more time but Morgan made it clear there was no other way and the situation was dangerous enough already.

At the other side she immediately started to scan the asteroid with her enhanced senses, trying to pick up any unusual detail.
(EM-Vision, High-End Magnetic Scan, Hyper-Enhanced Hearing going through all modes/frequencies paired with Fast Tasks)

As soon as the time was up she headed back, waiting for the last second before she retreated at Hyperspeed. In the conference room she took a quick glance at the present Paragons and the Military authorities keeping her worries about their foundings hidden behind a mask of confidence and tranquility.

Once back in the conference room everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the Paragon's safe return. A marine Colonel stepped forward, "Mrs. Riekspar, please have your people download their findings into that terminal then come with me," he pointed to an unusual computer console sitting on the table.

Andrew, having already determined the order of system failure from their observations aboard Lorean, quickly begins to work at the computer. Within minutes he has a detailed simulation based on the video they have as well as his obserations. He inputs this into the mainframe and shows it to the other engineers.

"Whomever did this either had intimate working knowledge of the ship or was able to deduce the best order for system failure in a short period of time. Either way we're looking at sabotage from somebody with ties to the project, or immensely powerful extraterrestrial life."

Again the crowd of engineers, scientists, and mission specialists around the table look like they will erupt into more pointless babel, but Gemma stands up and looks around the table at them. "I completely concur with Mr. Murphy, those are the only two possible explanations. While extraterrestrial life sounds far less likely, it is a possibility we need to investigate. Until we have the black box however, I don't think we have anything further to go on." She looks at Steve and Andrew and gives a nod then adresses them and the room, "Mr. Murphy and Mr. Courier will accompany me to give the report to the President. The rest of you take a break but be ready to return here on a moments notice when the black box has been retrieved." Her face becomes stern, "I should not have to caution you not to speak about this to anyone outside this room or where anyone else can over hear. We do not need to create a panic among the public." With that she turns to the two novas and gestures toward the door then leads the way toward the President's temporary office. Two guards stand at the door which is something that hasn't been seen in over a decade. When they see the three of you approach they salute and stand aside. Gemma knocks then opens the door and strides in, the President and Ulric are in the room sitting around a small table with a number of documents spread before them.

Gemma gives a bit of a bow to the two men and says, "Mr. President, Mr. President, "We have reached as much of a conclusion as we can without the black box. There are only two possibilities, it was either sabotage from within or an attack by extraterrestrials using psychic abilities."