The Wormhole and The Hope Part 1

Posted on Sun Nov 15th, 2020 @ 10:22am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Ensign Michael Sloan & Lieutenant Aurelius Davis & Lieutenant Samantha Leyton & Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine & Ensign Elegy Nascimento

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
Location: Various
Timeline: Day 67 08:00
3194 words - 6.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Samantha sat in the pilot's seat of the shuttle pod, going over system checks as the shuttlebay crew loaded the modified torpedo into the shuttle's launcher. She wanted to keep her mind busy and not dwell on the fact that she was about to fly close to a wormhole while dodging spatial anomalies. She hadn't ever even imagined that she would be doing something like this one day when she joined Starfleet.

"The level three diagnostic cycle on the sensor arrays all came back green, sirs," reported Ensign Elegy Nascimento in a voice loud enough to be heard inside the shuttle and out in the shuttlebay. He was crouched over the launcher's maintenance hatch, clutching a PADD that displayed the diagnostic results. He said, "All of the torpedo's sensor systems are performing normally. No malfunctions detected."

"They better be. I did the work myself," Lieutenant Harper called out as he walked into the shuttle bay. He slid down the ladder to the next level and pocked his head into the shuttle. "Hey Lieutenant, don't worry as much about the shuttle as getting back here safely. I have already double checked the hall reinforcement and you should be good. Just try not treating it like a mustang."

"No promises," she grinned, turning her head to look back at Harper.

"Fair enough. I'll be on the bridge if you need anything from your fellow engineer," he replied with a slight smirk before heading our of the shuttle bay. He knew that there was nothing else he could do from here. All he could do was pray to the gods above that his engineering crew set things up properly for such adventure.

Beth stood leaning over the HELM console watching the Ensign fly the ship closer and closer to give the shuttle its best chance at providing them with a look what was inside and outside of the wormhole. "Make sure we do not get drawn in Ensign," Beth said taking a few steps back to make sure the gamma watching HELM operator did not get nervous with having the officer in charge leaning over them.

Aurelius smiled. "She's a good pilot, relax Commander. Plus I gave her my wings so she's got the luckiest object in the universe. Nothing can happen to us," he joked.

Beth just stared at Aurelius and shook her head. Luck was created by yourself and the Commander did not want to lose any more crew. The last 80 days had stretched her emotions more than anything else she had experienced before in both professional and personal capacity.

She definitely didn't look like she liked his attempt at trying to calm her down so Aurelius shut his mouth and hoped this mission was going to go well for her sake. She put far too much on her shoulders and he almost felt like scolding her about that when they got back. Imagining what she'd do to him for scolding also amused him, in a terrifying sort of way.

"Comms do you have a secure connection to the shuttle." Beth checked looking over at the duo that were at the comms console bent over fast at work on different parts.

The ship's chief of communications had been watching the signal strength like a hawk for any signs of unforeseen attenuation. With the shuttle's proximity to the sensor array, the connection was strong as was expected. Together, Lieutenant Constantine and Ensign O'Connery had pieced together an algorithm to use positional data from the shuttlepod to help narrow the arc in which the ship's sensors would be scanning for the signal generated by the sophisticated sensor suite that Lieutenant Leyton would be piloting towards the wormhole. With the final checks completed, nods were exchanged before Mattias turned towards the center of the bridge.

It had taken him several minutes before Chris finally made it to the bridge of the ship. He sighed hard as he had ran up here so he didn't miss too much after checking in with the shuttle crew. Honestly, he should have been on that shuttle, but he also knew that he was better off here on the ship as well. Still, it didn't hurt to keep tabs on things. So once he had made it to the bridge, he waved off a couple of pairs of eyes before walking around and shadowing Commander Sloan at the tactical station.

"Good to go, Commander. Signal strength is at a maximum, the sensors are reporting nominal - everything looks good," Constantine reported. "Godspeed, Lieutenant. Put another round on my tab when you get back."

Samantha grinned as the shuttle was ready to launch as the bay doors opened, leaving the shuttle attached to the ship by the dorsal docking latch. "Launching in three...two...one..." Samantha released the magnetic locks on the docking latch, causing the shuttle pod to drop out from the ship. Once cleared of the Atlantis, she piloted the ship to the specified coordinates as she kept an eye on her navigational sensors for any anomalies that decided to cross her path.

In one of the aft chairs in the shuttlepod compartment, to Samantha's left, Elegy Nascimento monitored the torpedo controls and the communications channel back to Atlantis. "Telemetry links to the sensor torpedo, and to Atlantis, remain strong, Lieutenant."

A dull thud sounded as the Atlantis' tow cable attached itself to the shuttle. "Thanks. Showing good connection to the tow cable, Atlantis," Leyton said. As she piloted the ship towards the established coordinates, a beep sounded, as the sensors picked up a closing spatial distortion. In reflex, Samantha pulled the shuttle up and onto it's port side, bypassing the distortion. "One distortion down," she called out as she righted the shuttle, proceeding on course. A moment later, she arrived at the designated coordinates, bringing the shuttle to a stop. "Alright," she turned to Nascimento. "Ready to fire the torpedo."

Breathing out a frustrated "TT" between his teeth, Elegy gently kicked the base of his console with the side of his boot. "It's drifting," he muttered, mostly to himself. After taking a quick breath, Elegy realized he'd spoken aloud and he perked his head up. Tiling his head in Samantha's direction, Elegy reported, "I can't... maintain a positive target lock on the wormhole, Lieutenant." With an index finger, he tapped on the problem on his console. The computer highlighted a spatial anomaly in that spot, both on his display and on Samantha's tactical screen. "The targeting scanners don't know what to make of this graviton shear. It might spin the torpedo right back at us," Elegy grimly said. Almost as soon as he said it, his voice was transmitted back to Atlantis' Main Bridge, via the open communications channel.

"Maybe we could like move," Aurelius gestured with his hands, picking up an object and moving it to one side or the other.

Beth frowned as she heard what Elegy said from where she was sat. She glanced at the Ensign at Helm paling as he took in what that meant for him if that was the route they went if he had to move the ship to help the occupants of Odysseus "Can we help compensate Odysseus?" She wondered glancing around wishing she had a better view of what was going on. She hated feeling blind with only voices telling her what was going on.

"Shit," Samantha breathed. She checked her navigational sensors quickly. She would have to try and find a new position with less distortions. "Odysseus to Atlantis, we're changing position to an area less populated with distortions." Samantha powered up the shuttle and began to fly, keeping an eye on the sensor display as she did so. The sensor readout seemed to beep constantly as the shuttle deftly dodged one anomaly after another when she finally spotted a possible clearing. Moving towards it, the shuttle lurched. "What the hell?" she cursed, almost immediately realizing the problem. They were at the extent of the Atlantis' tow cable range. "Odysseus to Atlantis, you're going to have to release the tow cable for us to reach a possible launching point."

"I agree, boss lady. Otherwise, all we will actually do is shear off the shuttles hall and cause more harm then help. Besides, I also was able to get the engineering crew to transfer more power to the maneuvering thrusters from the impulse engines. While they readjust their positioning, I am confident that we can move in a little more as well while preparing the cable again," Harper replied as he thought for a moment to see if his words made sense. But decided to not question himself at all, but to see what the commander thought.

Beth frowned. This was now how the plan was meant to go at all. It was a simple go in, deploy what was needed to see through the wormhole. The shuttle was meant to have an anchor in the form of the ship. Beth let out a deep breath feeling sick to her stomach. If this went wrong she would never forgive either person in the shuttlepod for giving her all this worry. "Release them." Beth said not at all happy that she was having to say it. "Bonne chance. Et que Dieu de bénisse." Beth whispered to herself.

It seemed like a good idea to say a few prayers even if he really didn't believe in such things typically. Aurelius figured it wouldn't hurt.

Samantha allowed a small grin as the tow cable released its grip. "Tow cable is released," she reported to Elegy as she piloted the shuttle to the designated spot. So far the sensors were showing clear space, void of any anomalies. "How are we looking?" she asked Elegy, turning her head back towards him. There was no telling how much longer their clear space would last.

Elegy was practically vibrating with frustration. He shook his head from side to side, but his eyes remained pointed at the shuttle's tactical display. "I'm picking up ripples from gravity waves without sources," Elegy reported. He typed into the keys of the console, adjusting the alignment and the range of the scanners. "By all logic, they shouldn't possibly cross our path, but there's a nasty intersection of graviton shear. It flickers in and out on the targeting scanners. The pulse width is... it's dropping to less than twenty nanoseconds, and the frequency is under zero point five pulses per second."

And then Elegy was perfectly still. He stared down the display; he didn't even blink. A startled laugh escaped his throat, and he said, "I've got a target lock."

"Launching probe!" Samantha replied, slapping her hand down on the torpedo launch button. Now they just had to keep the modified torpedo on course.

There was no hiding Elegy Nascimento's palpable curiosity, as he hunched forward against his console. He rubbed his palm against one side of his beard, while his mind boggled at the possibilities before him. A heartbeat later, Elegy's face pivoted to focus on the science displays to his right. The way he devoured the probe's sensor readings, he might as well have been sampling every flavour at an ice cream parlour. With the same hunger, with the same wide-eyed wonder, Elegy spoke loud enough to be heard by the overhead comm node in the shuttlepod.

Elegy said, "The torpedo probe is passing through 47 millicochranes of subspace instability, originating from the aperture of the wormhole." --He cast a quick glance back to the tactical display-- "The instability is having no effect on the torpedo's propulsion. There's..."

Mesmerized by the sensor readings, Elegy trailed off when the probe saw things that Atlantis' long-range sensors hadn't been capable of seeing. "Huh... The probe is measuring mass from the wormhole," Elegy reported with great delight. "On the outside, at least, the emergence point of the wormhole possesses mass. The computer," --he double tapped on a red button-- "The computer wants to identify the mass as dark matter, but it's something else too. Something new."

A gentle alarm sounded from the tactical scanners. Elegy eyed Samantha, and then his gaze snapped back to that screen. He reported, "It's-- it's picking up a pattern of resonance waves and highly variable spatial gradients emanating from the aperture. They're expanding right toward the torpedo."

"Is that expected?" she asked quickly as she eyed the modified torpedo through the view port of the shuttle, her hands hovering over the controls. Her heart was beating fast as she took a quick glance at the shuttlepod's sensors. It was still clear for the moment but the sooner they finished, the better she would feel.

A little too loudly and a little too high-pitched, Elegy guffawed at Samantha's question: Is it expected? Just as quickly, he took a breath to contain himself. "Nothing is expected. No one in Starfleet has even seen one of these before. We're rock star pioneers!" Elegy proclaimed. He reached out to one of the shuttlepod's science monitors and he pressed the yellow button that toggled through visual outputs.

Unblinking, Elegy fell speechless for a second, when the probe's video recording of the wormhole appeared on the screen. It wasn't just measurements and waveforms and sensor composites... It was right there. Elegy Nascimento was looking into the mouth of a wormhole. Staring at the wondrous beauty, Elegy could only vocalize a reedy, "Whoa..." He only managed to tear his eyes away from the visage of the wormhole to double-check that the probe's sensor telemetry was still being transmitted back to Atlantis.

"The probe's visual sensors can actually see the wormhole, like it has matter. No computer adjustments required. Can you see that?" Elegy asked. The excitement in his voice was akin to a child seeing reindeer tracks on Christmas morning. "There's a theta-band radiation stream running through the conduit," Elegy reported; "and it's getting gobbled up by the accretion disc at the wormhole's terminus. Three-hundred isorems of radiation build-up is lighting up the accretion disc like a fireworks display."

Smantha looked from her sensor display to Elegy and back. "Ummm, yeah, ok. As long as everything is good," she said with a slight shrug. The science was way above her head but she was glad that Elegy was happy with the incoming information. She looked out at the viewport as the spacial matter around the wormhole began to ignite and expand as if a large mouth was opening to swallow the probe. "Wow..." she muttered at the beautiful display.

"All of the energy flowing through the wormhole," Elegy said, assessing the sensor telemetry from the probe on the fly, "is being focused through helical... verteron membranes located at irregular intervals throughout the conduit."

Lexi listened carefully to the sounds from the shuttle and from the sounds around them. She turned to glance around the bridge in a familiar way especially when there were two of them shoved on the communication console for obvious reasons. The small blonde just caught out of the corner of her eye a light flicker and disappear. "What did you just touch Sir?" She said Constantine in an almost hushed whisper. She was sure she had not just imagined it as she had in the communication centre.

"Ensign?" Constantine had been enthralled by the conversation going on between scientist and pilot, so it jarred him to hear Ensign O'Connery's voice pull his perception to something much closer and smaller than cosmic phenomena and wormhole exploration. Looking towards her end of the console, Mattias raised an eyebrow and took a glance across the various displays. Upon discovering nothing out of the ordinary, he turned and gave a little shrug of his shoulders.

"I didn't touch anything. What did you observe?"

Lexi winced at the surprise that was written all over his face at her sudden voice next to him but she had no choice. There work might be done mostly in silence until they were required to do something. This was not going to be ignored, she was not imagining it at all. Processors were activating when they were not meant to be. "The central processor flickered as it did before Sir." She murmured pointing to where it was and waited for a long moment until it flickered for a second then disappeared again and then a few moments again did it again.

"What is going on Comms?" Beth asked looking over as she could hear the hushed words from the pair.

"Uncertain, ma'am. We're doing our best to compensate for the interference, but something unrelated to what we're doing is activating the central processor. It's intermittent. I'd run a diagnostic and track down the source, but our full array of sensor equipment is predisposed at the moment," Constantine explained. He was coming to the realization that perhaps his perception of what he had dubbed as the communications center ghost hadn't been his senses playing a trick on him after all. "I suppose it could be a side effect of the error correcting function of the ship's memory reacting to the wormhole, but I'd like to run more tests. This isn't the first time we've seen something similar." Though the previous instances had been logged, investigating the anomaly had been low priority due to the fact that resources and personnel were scarce - and - the equipment in the communications center was working normally.

Beth frowned and waited a few long moments before she stood up joining the pair as they scrambled around trying to work out what was going on. They had, had enough time to run tests. "Communication does not activate the central processors unless something majorly is communicating," Beth said slowly remembering the ticket she had seen a few weeks back for what even the engineers had suggested as a ghost.

"Correct. We've got our own application specific integrated circuit to handle our needs. It only offloads when doing some serious work, which shouldn't be happening right now," Constantine explained aloud for the benefit of the rest of the group. A few curious ears had begun to listen in to what was quickly becoming the distraction du jour. "Ma'am, we may need to stick a pin in this for the moment. I'll manually shut down the affected processes for now. We should keep everything focused on making sure Lieutenant Leyton and Ensign Nascimento return safely with the information."

"Shut..." Beth started to speak but an alert from the armoury console distracted her. It made her turn around and look at the man stood there pale as he tried to work out what he was actually seeing. It was not what the Vrav normally followed them in at all, it was slower and bigger but it was definitely them.

"Ma'am... they have found us." Was all the man said looking up at Officer in charge, there was more to it but he was unable to get that point across as he could not believe it himself.