Night Shift Nebula

Posted on Sun Feb 25th, 2024 @ 12:00am by Captain Tyler Driskill & Lieutenant Tyler Rehman & Ensign Hunter Stevens

1,217 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Mission 1 - Project Concord
Location: Deck 1 | Bridge | USS Concord

Captain Driskill was in his ready room going over more data from their accident or whatever led them to have such damage. It was second shift and he decided he would check on the bridge crew and go over some of the sensor data they had been collecting from this nebula. Exiting the ready room with a mug of coffee and a PaDD he looked around to see who was on duty before he spoke “how’s it looking folks?”

Lieutenant Tyler Rehman was standing at the science one station, his blue/grey eyes fixated on the monitor that was before him. Streams of data came through - which was then broken down into numbers, stellar phenomenon, various wave frequencies. and even small space particulate was coming through. The sensors were a marvelous thing, however sometimes it could be a lot to process at once, but definitely not impossible.

At this point, Tyler was fixated by the numbers that were coming through. Those numbers were important for charting and would give any coordinates necessary. The numbers were also used to compare with other nebulas, even if they weren't in the region.

Once the captain spoke, Tyler had turned to face the taller man who had just exited his ready room, a mug of something steaming was in the captain's hand. "I have run another set of scans of the nebula and the region, still nothing in our database that can help us," Tyler said, as he looked at the captain. "I am sending the readings down to the labs to study further."

“What kind of range do we have on our sensors inside the nebula?” Captain Driskill asked the officer at the science station. Driskill took a sip of his coffee and awaited the answer.

Tyler gave a quick nod to the question and then turned back to his console. His fingers began to tap at his board, the monitor to his left changed views to a very small portion of the nebula, while the monitor to his right continued to stream data. A few more commands into the computer and data began to stream next to the computer-generated view of the outer edge of the nebula.

Pulling himself up to his full height, Tyler pointed at the left monitor. "We can scan this part here," he said. "However, our sensors start to scramble when we get past this zone," he pointed to a new area of the monitor. He pulled his hand away from the monitor and crossed his arms over his chest. "It has some properties of a class two nebula, but it doesn't fully fit into that category." He shrugged then continued, "we would have short range sensors for a duration, if I had to guess maybe around fifty to sixty thousand kilometers, after that it could be a guessing game. Stellar cartography is doing its best to map out the surrounding sectors. I'm hoping we can find a better solution soon."

“Better than nothing” Captain Driskill gave a nod. “Keep a close eye on those sensors. I’d like to avoid any surprises if at all possible.”

"Aye sir," Tyler responded. He then turned back to his workstation to continue his scans.

Getting comfortable in the center chair the Captain spoke to the officer at the helm “Mister Stevens figure out the best route out of the nebula if we need to make a quick exit.”

"Ay, Captain." Stevens responded, keeping his eyes focused on his console. After pulling up the sensor readings Tyler had laid out, he realized navigating this nebula could be equated to diving into the rapid moving Mississippi River during a torrential downpour. "This nebula is a mess, Captain. On top of that, the deeper into it we go, the harder it will be to keep up with where we are. The only plausible way I can think to keep track of our course would be to drop buoys every 100,000 kilometers so that we can find our way back out. That's if you're planning on going pretty far in...which..." Hunter paused and smirked as he already knew the answer to that question.

Captain Driskill gave a nod “have those buoys ready” there was a slight pause “Ensign Steven’s take us another hundred thousand kilometers in, nice and slow.”

"Ay Sir" Hunter responded sternly. "Moving ahead at one quarter impulse." As the momentum of the ship accelerated slightly, small tremors could be felt through the ship as it slid through the dense fog.

Captain Driskill gripped the arm of his chair as the ship shuddered slightly. “Steady as she goes” he said softly and watched the brightly colored fog on the view screen.

Hunter let out a sigh as he eased the controls forward more. "Yes sir" he responded with a slightly timid tone. The deeper in the ship went, the rougher the tremors seemed to get.

As they reached the first position to drop a buoy the Captain asked “how are those navigational buoys coming?”

"Dropping the first one now Captain." Ensign Stevens turned to a separate console and tapped into operations controls. "I've set the drops to go automatic from this point."

The first buoy is ejected from the bottom of the ship. A slight pulse could be seen emanating for about 5 seconds from the view screen before completely dissipating into the thick mist.

About half an hour and several bouys later the Artemis had come to a stop. “Well might as collect as much information as we can about this nebula, continuous scans” Driskill ordered looking over at the science station.

A half an hour went by like a snap of the fingers. The navigational buoys were helping a bit, especially when Tyler wanted to get a lock on the surrounding nebula. The scans were running continuously as ordered, however as the Concord slipped deeper into the nebula, it became harder for the short range sensors to continue to their thing. It required adjustments constantly, and Tyler was there making those adjustments.

"Continuing continuous scans, captain," Tyler said.

“Very good, mister Rehman.” The Captain took a breath and decided they were probably far enough into the nebula “all stop, let’s hold our position here.”

Tyler was of two minds of this order, his scientific side was curious and wanted more, however the logical side of him knew an all stop was the right choice. Their sensors were limited as it was, it would be better to see if more data could be collected and a safer course plotted through.

“Full stop, Ensign Steven’s”. The Captain requested “collect all the sensor data you can. Hopefully the repairs don’t take to long and we can get back to our mission.” Tyler stood up “Lieutenant Xiviu” Driskill looked at one of the officers at the front of the bridge “give me as much power to shields and sensors as you can.” The Captain was going to one of the engineering consoles to start working on repairs again. There was still plenty to get done and hopefully parking the Concord inside the safety of the nebula would buy them all the time they needed to get their drive back online and the ship as close to one hundred percent as possible.

 

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