First Officer's Log

[Cptn Elias Moore 0]

"Challenger is en route to the Deneva system, where a fledgling colony not yet capable of defending itself is the target of a stray asteroid. Our ETA is only slightly less than the asteroid's, meaning this is going to be a tight operation.

 

"The latest records of the colony give it a population of about 400. The records may, of course, be out of date. And even granting standard life support allocations in an evacuation mission like this, Challenger isn't going to hold more that 100 of them. Furthermore, the records only show a handful of cargo freighters already attached to the colony. Unless we can get really creative, evacuating every colonist isn't going to be a possibility. We're converting space now to hold as many of them as we can.

 

"The consensus at this point seems to be destruction of the asteroid, though I've yet to receive final word from the scientists. I'm not so sure, myself; even if we can dig up the energy and resources to blast seven kinds of hell out of this thing, we'll only end up turning one big rock into thousands of small rocks, many of them large enough and on the proper heading to breach the planet's atmosphere and wreak destruction. Our on-board weapons could probably take it from there... but I doubt we'd be quick enough to account for every piece of debris.

 

"Then there's the possibility of deflecting the asteroid. Tricky. We'd have to get better measurements of its size and velocity to determine if we have the capability to knock it safely off its collision course. I'm sure headquarters has petitioned our oh-so-friendly neighbours to swoop in and loan us their wonderful tractor beam technology (which, as of yet, Starfleet has not been able to perfect), but who's to say if they'll be willing to lend a hand or if they can even make it to the Deneva system on time.

 

"At this point, we're on our own and left to our limited resources. If we want to save all of those colonists, we're going to have to do some serious thinking."