Earth Starfleet - Part 3

Posted on Thu Jun 16th, 2022 @ 9:59am by Ensign Alexandra 'Lexi' O'Connery & Lieutenant JG Ethal Reade & Ensign Luis Martinez

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Deck A - Bridge
Timeline: Day 300 11:00
983 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure

Once Leroux had departed the Bridge and Leyton was once again back in the center chair, Liang Van resumed his helm position. Bringing the ship in to close proximity with the Escape Pod he dabs the manoeuvring thrusters to position the Atlantis over the pod, assuming station keeping.

He turned to Leyton "In position Boss, but the pod is still yawing anticlockwise. Do you want us to use the grappler to get hold of it?"

Normally, Leyton would just match rotation to bring in the escape pod but it was a slower and more delicate manoeuvre that took practice to master. Instead, she nodded at the ensign's suggestion. "Tactical, activate the grappler and bring the pod in slowly."

"Aye, Lieutenant," came Warrant Officer Walker's reply as she worked the tactical console and began to reel in the escape pod.

As the shifts changed over and new people came onto the bridge replacing Walker and Leyton left to go see where she could help with the pod there was a silence that filled the bridge but like it had before with people tired.

"So someone tell me what is a quantum variance?" Lexi finally said from the Communication terminal as she heard Sloan comment on it in the shuttle bay on the screen now that the pod had moved from outside to inside the bay.

"If I recall from Academy science classes, quantum is the energy of radiation as a proportion of the radiation's frequency. If there's a variance, I guess it's outside the normal frequency ranges" Liang Van replied.

Lexi looked at the man confused trying to understand from her own science classes. It was not that long ago but it felt like eons to her. “I guess we need science to look at it.” She said glancing over to Lieutenant Reade.

"I'm already doing the scans," Ethal said as she was waiting for the results of the scans to come through. She had anticipated she would be asked about the quantum variance while they were talking about it. Her focus had become pinpointed on the scanner readout as it computed the information.

"Talking of variances, what's that?" Liang Van pointed at the viewscreen. Off in the distance, there was a tiny shimmering effect in the star-scape, almost as though the image in a small portion of the screen was going in and out of focus. "Realigning sensors"

Liang Van worked the controls to bring the main sensor to bear on the right vector. "Reading some kind of energy fluctuation, hundred and eighty thousand kilometers, bearing three hundred forty six degrees"

He got the sensors aligned but two seconds later the distortion on the screen winked out and the sensor readout now showed just normal space. "Well, that was weird..."

Lexi frowned and listened to the sounds that were out in space. “Even sounded odd.” She agreed turning to look at the officer taking the bridge. "What do you think Sir?"

"The pod has a different quantum variance to our universe and not the same as any encountered variance on our database." She announced to the bridge, not really knowing if this information was good news or bad. To her, this only complexified their situation.

"Is it anything to do with whatever that was on the screen?" Liang Van asked "Thats the same general vector as the escape pod was on when we first saw it"

"Given the information gathered, I would say so. There is a pocket of space where we found the pod that has the same variance. I speculate it won't cause us any danger being near it but I will run periodic scans and alert if anything changes" She had to choose her words carefully as there was no protocol for situations like this and that made her nervous.

"Should I polarize the hull?" chimed the Ensign at the tactical console. Science was his weakest class, which is probably why Luis had fit in so well in Armory. Firing solutions were simple math, he did not care for the theoreticals.

Lexi stayed quiet and just kept her headset on as she listened carefully to the noise over and over. It was pretty and familiar like she had heard it before but she could not pin it down to when more where at. She could not see the need for shields as nothing was happening and space was normal again but she was not the senior officer on the bridge.

Ethal looked up from her console and around the bridge when no one answered. She quickly realised they were waiting for her to answer. "I don't think at this current time it is necessary," She said with more confidence now she knew people were waiting on her call.

“There is nothing out there that I can hear Sir.” Lexi said with a wince as she looked over final my saying something. “So we are thinking other universe? Alternative universe?” The woman finally asked the bridge as no one was saying anything simply and using the term Quantum variance was not giving her anything other than not from this universe so there was only one option an alternative. She had no issue saying it.

"Yes, we are talking of an alternative universe.." Ethal's voice trailed off as she sat there. She was not ready for this.

"I didn't know that was possible," Luis replied from the tactical console. Looking around as if he has said something embarrassing, he backtracked, "I know the multiverse and the theories, but I didn't think interaction was possible."

“Well today is just our lucky day.” Lexi said darkly as she looked at the view screen deep in thought.

"Isn't it always," Luis attempted to joke as he looked at the sensor readouts on his screen. "And not a single senior officer in sight."

Today was just the day for the universe to throw stuff at them.