Kenneth Goodspeed

Born January 16, 2348 on Earth, during a stopover. His childhood and young adulthood was spent traveling with his family, merchants, from Earth to other Federation worlds and outposts. He learned the family business, and fully expected to follow in his father's line and become a captain himself. During the numerous trips along the trade routes, he became familiar with how space worked. He learned how to make repairs without having access to all the right tools and materials. After an encounter with dark matter and almost losing family, ship, and cargo, he spent as much time and resources learning about space anomalies. He swore he wouldn't be caught off guard again. And didn't. In addition, traveling to unique planets and outposts, he learned quickly how to assess what the planetary scans told him. Otherwise, it would be costly.

September 8th, 2374, Kenneth was traveling with family making a delivery to Regulon after stopping at Starbase 310 when a Cardassian warship attacked their transport. As they had minimal shielding and weapons, they were quickly disabled. The Cardassians claimed they were transporting contraband and claimed the area of space as theirs. During the battle, a console blew out injuring his mother, who was also their navigator. A Federation ship, the Narcissus, responded to the emergency call, but too late for his mother.

After this, he joined Starfleet to help insure the safety of other merchants in the quadrant. He graduated the Academy in 2379. For two tours, he was stationed on the USS Biko, a scout ship stationed near the Cardassian Neutral zone. After the Federation negotiated with the Cardassians and made concessions of space and resources, Kenneth became disenchanted with the politics. Upon hearing about the Pathfinder mission, he volunteered for the assignment.

Currently assigned to the USS Intrepid on the Operation_Lewis_and_Clark mission.

Stardate 58913.57

I was given the privilege of naming a system found just outside of the Melorak system. It is the Alcotolhex system. A large group of settlers, roughly 7800, have decided to make it their new home. This system is well balanced with resources. They should have a good chance at success if they do not waste time with luxuries.

Stardate 58914.68

We have been orbiting Alcotalhex II now for several weeks. The Schirra was sent to a nearby nebula that has traces of Deuterium, along with three mining vessels. The mining vessels did find Deuterium, but it had been contaminated with a unknown alloy. The poluting material is an alloy made up of Duranium, Tritium, Kelbonite, and a fourth element unknown to our scientists. The consensus is that the contamination of Deuterium was a result of a vessel exploding within the nebula. The properties of the new element are it's light, flexible, and able to refract energy put through it. The element, to be henceforth named Dipersium, seems to be manufactured. The mining vessels were able to purify approximately 30% of the fleet's Deuterium needs for the next several months.

The alloy is lost during the refining process, so it becomes a choice of Deuterium or the alloy. The alloy, after initial testing, appears to reflect energy. As such, I requested the Schirra transfer half the samples they brought back, approximately 2 kilos, to the Intrepid for further analysis by me.

Captain Alexander directed me to overlay the Melorak and Pathfinder stellar maps to look for discrepancies or omissions. I aske that Lieutenant T'Val assist with this project. We did not find any that seemed more that normal stellar drift. He then asked me to look for likely areas that might have Deuterium, but then revised his orders to eliminate areas blocked in a linear path from starbase 212 by the Melorak systems. I found this odd, but complied.

Mission Log

We have found a moon orbiting a gas giant approximately 15 light years from Alcotalhex system. The moon is small, but has a stable atmosphere. The system is difficult to navigate due to a heavy ionization field that I believe is being generated on the moon. Captain Alexander has assigned me the mission of shuttling down to the moon's surface and discovering what is going on. I have requested Lieutenant Commander Thelor to pilot the Hubble to the surface and provide support. In addition, I requested Dr. Langley in case of injuries to the Vulcans and Chief Petty Officer Johannson for additional support. The Captain ordered Ensign Kennedy to also accompany the away team in case of a first contact situation.

I ordered Thelor to planetary stun the individuals outside the structure. I made this decision due to two reasons. One, the humanoids seemed to be becoming very agitated and could due to their cult like following attack us or Johannson. Two, because they could have caused a mob panic, injuring or killing those around them.