I Think We Found Something

Posted on Mon Sep 14th, 2020 @ 1:01am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Lieutenant Darru & Lieutenant Samantha Leyton & Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine & Ensign Elegy Nascimento & Ensign Luis Martinez

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
Location: Deck A - Main Bridge
Timeline: Day 60, Month 3, Year 10:00
2918 words - 5.8 OF Standard Post Measure

On the time since the intruders almost took over the ship, Luis had been on edge. It was his job to keep the ship safe, to staff the corridors with enough armory officers, to stand on the Bridge to make sure tactical was manned, and to keep people rotated so his people would not be caught sleeping when something important happened. It was just at that time when one of the custom alerts Luis had set chirped on his console. Coming to attention, the Acting Chief Armory Officer took a look at the notifications and spoke up, "Ummm, Ma'am, I think we have something big on sensors. I'm reading a gravitational anomaly that is caught in a feedback loop." He tapped a few commands that displayed his console's readings on the main viewer and made his information available to all other consoles.

Samantha looked up at the main viewer from the helm station before confirming the readings at her station in relative to the Atlantis. Her eyes went wide as she recognized the theoretical phenomenon. She had never seen one before or even heard of anyone encountering one but everything matched what she did know about them, which wasn't much. "Wait...you don't think that it could be a wormhole do you?"

"Full stop," Beth announced standing from the chair where she sat as was becoming a habit in a situation. She moved over to helm station automatically to look at the readings. "Do we have an actual visual?" She wondered glancing back to Martinez then to the Science station waiting for one of them to pipe up and telling her something good. A wormhole sounded amazing and to see one up close and to listen to it would be a dream come true.

Ensign Katsu Yoshi looked up from her science station. "Yes ma'am. Putting it on screen now." After tapping a few buttons the view screen changed from the data upload screen to a view of space being distorted as if going down a drain. "Preliminary scans shows that it indeed does appear to be a wormhole. I will need to run more thorough scans, however to be certain."

Along the sidewall of the bridge, Lieutenant JG Constantine sat at the communications station and listened intently to the sounds streaming to his earpiece that had been gathered by the ship's sensors. Compared to the relative silence of the past weeks, this area of deep space was practically exploding with energy, creating a chaotic mix of frequencies that could be seen on the spectrometer mounted on the wall. A few of the frequencies were audible; Mattias closed his eyes and listened to their song as Ensign Yoshi spoke.

"There must be something else there, not just a wormhole," Constantine translated the information he had gathered into something the rest of the bridge crew could use. "There's way too much activity on all energy bands. There's some sort of anomaly or anomalies distorting the signal, it's pure chaos."

Beth smiled a little as she watched Mattias engrossed for a moment in what communicators called the space song. It was unique to them and she found herself jealous that he was listening to it. She hoped he recorded it so that she could listen to later on. The officer in charge glanced at Helm to make sure that they were stopped so the anomalies did not pull the ship in or anything. "Ensign Yoshi?"

Studying the sensor readouts, Yoshi tuned the sensors, attempting to get a clearer reading and actually wishing that Lieutenant Sovar wasn't preoccupied at the moment. The Atlantis was her first assignment out of the Academy and now it seemed she felt every eye on the bridge was watching her. She let out a long sigh, not liking the readouts. She looked up from her station and turned back to the Captain. "Definitely a wormhole, Captain....but it's in a field of several other anomalies. They're invisible to the naked eye, but they're there and I'd suggest not coming into contact with one."

Beth sighed just a little as she glanced back at the screen then the scientist. She could not remember if this was even her field of expertise. "Ensign get whatever support you need up here." Beth prompted as she moved to communication to listen to it as they were invisible to the naked eye. "Can I?" She wondered a smile on her lips as she asked her former junior to borrow his station on the bridge.

"Of course," Lieutenant Constantine quickly stood from his seat at the console and left the position unoccupied so that the Officer in Charge could listen to the signals. Matt hadn't been able to bring himself to rearrange the storage positions for the communication department's equipment, so Commander Leroux's earpiece still sat in the same place where it had been when she was head of the department. As he removed his own earpiece, Constantine turned to the viewer, lamenting how little he could see versus what the ships's sensors were able to detect. A uneasy instinct somewhere in his guy told him that they were staring at a maelstrom, but the sound of the nearby turbolift car arriving at the bridge broke the new Chief Communications Officer's train of thought.

By the time the turbolift door rolled open to the command bridge, Ensign Elegy Nascimento wasn't ready. His indigo jumpsuit was only zipped up to his sternum and the frames of his glasses were hanging from his middle and ring fingers (rather than his face). He pursed his lips and he clenched his jaw. He had estimated the turbolift journey would have taken longer than that. In all these weeks aboard Atlantis, it still wasn't entirely familiar to him. It still didn't feel like home.

In one swift motion, Elegy zipped his jumpsuit up past the teal piping on his uniform that marked him as a Science Officer. Showing up late, showing up unprepared; it wasn't how Elegy Nascimento showed up. But when Ensign Yoshi's comm had reached Elegy in his bunk, he wasn't about to ignore the Officer in Charge's request for more science hands stirring the space-mystery pot. Elegy had grown accustomed to his assignment to the night shift, and so he was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he padded behind the crescent of control panels where Ensign Katsu Yoshi was working. Taking up position behind her, Elegy logged himself into the bank of consoles set into the port-side bulkhead.

After leaning in close to take a look into the scope visualizer, Elegy straightened up and reviewed other scans on the sensor readouts and the library computer. The sensors had identified elevated neutrino counts, theta-band radiation far above background radiation levels, and ionized hydrogen. Before he offered his opinion, Elegy shared a side-eye glance with Katsu -- widening his eyes in disbelief at the christmas-light-monster of energy readings showing up on their scanner displays.

"We're looking at a minefield of expanding graviton waves, rabid pockets of subspace flux, multiple crests of graviton shear, and negative ionic concentration across the whole area, sirs," reported Elegy. He paused to take a breath and to put on his eyewear; he made eye-contact with each of the bridge officers. Then, Elegy said, "The Vulcan database confirms Yoshi's analysis: on the other side of that minefield is a wormhole."

As the scientist worked together and checked out what was going on Beth sat down at the console with a smile to the chief communication officer. Most people thought space was silent but it was anything but that. The frequencies outside were within the range heard by human ears thanks to the waves detected by the instrument's antennae being amplified. She turned as the analysis was confirmed. "Qui an absolute minefield." Beth agreed relaxing back into the familiar chair.

"We need to discover what is on the other side of that wormhole right?" A young security crewman piped up hopefully. A wormhole could lead anywhere and anywhere could be home.

Beth smiles at the young crewman. “Any out of the box thinking to think on how to see the other side?” She asked the group.

Locking eyes with Beth, Elegy said the first thing that came to mind, as if it was perfectly normal standard procedure. "Load a shuttle pod with a full sensor suite," Elegy suggested in a matter-of-fact monotone, "and toss it into the wormhole, while it's lassoed by Atlantis' grappler."

"Interesting concept. I believe you will need Lieutenants Leyton and Harper's assistance with it." Beth blinked back at his locked in watch on her and smiled. She had asked for out of the box thinking that was for sure and it seemed that she had gotten her wish. "Anyone else got anything before I send Ensign Nascimento to Engineering to plan?" She asked the bridge crew.

"If the wormhole isn't stable, I don't have to tell you what would happen to us or the shuttle," Luis replied. Nodding at the sensor display, the Armory Officer added, "Before today, those things were considered hypothetical. We should run some scans on it before we risk half our shuttlepod compliment and our best pilot. We have time while we fly there."

"Nobody needs to go," Leyton said as she stood. "I can remote pilot the shuttle pod from here. However, there will likely be a slight delay in control responsiveness."

After taking another look into the scope, Elegy Nascimento returned his attention to the bridge crew with a rictus cringe on his lips. He squinted into the middle distance, and he remarked, "Sirs, we probably will still lose the shuttlepod... If not to the wormhole, then to the compression effects of one of the accretion disks out there." Elegy raised his palms in a defeated gesture, nodding over at Luis and his concerns. "I'll fair cop to that."

Leyton sighed. Ensign Nascimento was right--even though she could safely remote pilot the shuttle, the time delay would add too much risk and she wouldn't be able to react quickly enough. 'However, that wormhole could very likely be our way home,' she thought as she looked at the viewscreen. Ever since the first manned flight into the orbit of Earth to the first time Zephram Cochrane successfully went to warp, space travel came with risks. Even now, to this day, space still proposed a risk--the Vrav alone were a testament to that fact. "Captain, Ensign Nascimento is right--the risk with the delay in remote piloting would be too big to the shuttle," she turned back to Commander Leroux. "I would be better able to handle any emergency in the pilot's seat. If that's the way home, I'm willing to take the risk."

"And if Lieutenant Leyton is going to be playing dodge-ball with the spatial anomalies," Elegy chimed in, waving an emphatic hand at Leyton, "the least I can do is operate the sensor arrays, sirs. I can just about keep them functional if we lose a few of the shuttlepod's sensor circuits." As soon as the words had come out of his mouth, his mouth cringed in regret. Then, Elegy took a breath, he set his jaw, and he looked to Commander Leroux with open, expectant eyes.

Lieutenant Constantine looked around the bridge, making no effort to hide the look of disbelief currently etched into his features. He shook his head as he gathered his thoughts.

"Commander, with all due respect, this plan is too risky. To be clear, I have no doubt about Lieutenant Leyton's piloting ability, she has displayed her prowess time and time again. Nor do I doubt the scientific mind of Ensign Nascimento or the engineering chops of Lieutenant Harper, but to risk one of our own for a dangerous mission like this," Constantine motioned towards the viewer, "seems like an unnecessarily poor use of the only resource we cannot replenish so easily. Our crew is valuable. We should think of another solution."

Having read Constantine's lips while he spoke, Elegy nodded at the man's words. The more he listened, the more Elegy's posture deflated. There was nothing Constantine said that Elegy could particular disagree with. Elegy's shoulders rounded and he crossed his arms over his stomach. He leaned against the science console he'd been studying, struggling to dream up how else they could study this apparent wormhole.

"What if," Mattias scratched his chin in thought. "What if the signals controlling the shuttlepod were wired - integrated as part of the tether? Would that eliminate enough latency to make this plan feasible?"

Crossing her arms in thought, Samantha thought over the shuttlepod's capabilities. "It's possible, but I don't see how we could run that much cable or if we have enough aboard to do it."

With his arms crossed over his chest and his head tilted back, Elegy squinted at the overhead with a fierce intensity. He studied the ceiling plates, as if they held the solutions to the puzzle pieces in his mind. "Do we have anything like a piezoelectric transducer in engineering or storage, sirs?" Elegy asked aloud. His gaze bounced from face to face around the bridge, as two mental puzzle pieces clicked together in his head. "If we attached the grappler's effector directly to the comms array," Elegy proposed, "couldn't we transmit the control signals as ultrasonic pulses directly through the grappler cable itself?"

Samantha looked at the ensign in surprise. "Theoretically I believe it should work." She then turned to Mattias. "What do you think, Mr. Constantine?"

"My only concern is that the propagation speed of an ultrasonic wave through a solid like the grappler cable means that you would have to deal with a variable delay in your command inputs. As the tether extends further and further, the signal will have to travel a longer distance, and nothing about a signal sent with a transducer would be faster than a EM signal," Mattias tilted his head in thought. "That being said, EM interference with the anomalies eliminate that from even being a choice, which is why we're in this conundrum in the first place. But," Constantine snapped his fingers as an idea struck him.

"What if we modified one of the torpedoes to carry a sensor payload instead of an explosive one? Their range is too short from here, but why not use the tether and shuttlepod to get the torpedo close enough to be fired towards the anomaly? With less distance, it's a much lower risk of losing the shuttlepod, plus it's well within the lieutenant's ability to keep the shuttle steady over a shorter tether range."

"We'd just have to make sure we have a clear shot at the wormhole," Samantha replied, worried about the anomalies around the wormhole but satisfied with the solution.

Beth watched the three Officers back and forth proud of the discussion and motivation for the discussion. It was a potential possibility that the wormhole could lead home but was it possible with all the spatial anomalies. It needed a plan and some specific time to think before she would agree to anything. "It has potential but we need to scan and rescan before anyone steps off the ship. We need a degree of some success." Beth would give them some rope to run with but there was a limit to resources they could use.

Having shuffled over to the library computer console, Ensign Elegy Nascimento was already scrolling through schematics of Atlantis' photonic torpedo casings and the grapplers. Only the voice of the Officer in Charge had been able to yank Elegy away from his nascent research and development ideas. At the limits being set by Beth, Elegy replied, "Understood, Commander," and he offered a single nod in response.

"Go and plan. We will keep our distances for now." Beth promised taking off the headset putting it back in the cupboard with a whispered thanks to the chief communicator before she moved to her position on the bridge in the centre chair.

Samantha faced Beth. "With you permission, Captain, I should head to the shuttle bay and get Shuttle Pod One ready for the mission."

"Only once the scans and plan have been agreed Lieutenant," Beth said wanting to cut off over excitement. They had the time and it was not to be wasted by having to redo and waste equipment and time.

Is this what being a department head was always like, Luis wondered as he watched Samantha get up. He cast a glance toward the departing officer, a trying to send good thoughts of safety her way. “Calibrating scanners,” he called out as he adjusted the Atlantis’ sensor package to filter out interference from the anomalies and the shuttle.

Staring at the viewscreen with wide eyes, Ensign Elegy Nascimento wasn't overly concerned if the Officer in Charge would choose the shuttlepod, the grapplers, or a photonic torpedo casing to investigate the wormhole. All that mattered was that it was there, and Atlantis was here to bathe in its glory through a nearly-impossible twist of fate. Leaning over the aft science console, Elegy buried his eyes into the scope, taking another look at the hurricane of spatial anomalies in Atlantis'. By hook or by crook, one or three of them would be Elegy's to study, and maybe even the grande dame wormhole herself. "A wormhole," Elegy muttered into the scope; "Wicked-cool."