A Scientific Surprise
Posted on Thu Nov 2nd, 2023 @ 8:20pm by Commander Lorut Vila & Lieutenant S'Tera & Lieutenant JG Aurora House of Kor & Fleet Captain Maxwell Culver & Lieutenant Sardeek
1,677 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
First Contact
Location: USS Intrepid: Astrometrics
Timeline: MD3: 0930 hours
Max turned a corner and nearly walked right into Vila. “Sorry,” he managed after they had finished dancing around each other to avoid actually hitting each other. Once they’d gathered themselves, Max finally said, “Commander…I’m glad I’m not the only one who got the call this morning.”
"I was just coming off shift. I stayed because Chet ate something that didn't agree with him. Again," she said, a little tightly. She just wanted some sleep. She sighed. "Captain. Stand still." She righted herself.
Aurora wished she was carrying BOOKS of information instead PADDS as she raced for the Astrometrics Lab (if you dropped a book, it wouldn't break...could get wet yes, but you could save the information easier!).
Aurora rounded the corner, and slammed on the brakes as she almost ran into the Captain and commander Vila!
"YIPES! Captain, Commander Vila! I'm so sorry!" Aurora yelped as her PADDS went skittering all over the hall in her attempt to not crash into the pair.
S'tera was not far behind. "Honestly Aurora. You and your books!" she said shaking her head.
Aurora blushed profusely as she scrambled to pick up her PADDS.
Vila sighed again. "Really, Lieutenant. You need to be more careful," the Bajoran said, bending to pick up a PADD near her feet. "Lieutenant S'Tera, lead the way to Astrometrics. What's going on?"
"Yyes, Ccommander!" Aurora mumbled as she finished picking up and followed the others into the room.
"Not sure, Commander, but it sounds bad! I couldn't get much info, but I was told that I needed to got Astrometrics ASAP! Something big and bad is happening. It seems to involve Heliv!"
Max had also picked up a couple of Aurora’s PADDs. S’tera hadn’t given him anymore information than he had when he arrived. For all it mattered, he could have just gotten it direct from the officer in Astrometrics. “Lieutenant S’tera, next time a meeting is called in Astrometrics, I expect you’ll at least have some information for the command team. I know you’re new to Starfleet, but you need to start thinking like a department head. You aren’t a part of the team, you’re the leader.”
Aurora bit back a retort, reminding herself that he was the Captain and she was the leader...even though Aurora thought the Captain should have toned it down just a tiny bit.
Turning his back to the group, he opened the door to the rather expansive room, with holographic screens filling almost all the space. An ornithoid species stood in the center, presumably the officer in charge of the sub-department.
Vila smiled a little at S'Tera. She'd talk to the woman later. "Sir, with respect, sometimes...even the Chief Science Officer doesn't know. I've had a couple of times where someone under me was too excited OR worried about something that they just went into autopilot. It happens." The Bajoran was fiercely protective of the Science department, and she knew what it was like. "Lieutenant Sadreek?" She asked the ornithoid Astrometric officer. "What is going ON?"
Sadreek turned at the sound of a flock of humanoids invading his space. His eyes widened and he let out a small peep before his feathers ruffled. “Ladies, Captain,” he said warmly after he had gathered his wits. “The Helivans, uh, it appears, uh, they have a major problem with the home planet they’re escaping from. I imagine, um, that they were twice motivated to leave their home planet.”
“There’s a comet that entered their system four weeks ago and the trajectory shows its directly on course for a collision with Heliv,” Sadreek squawked worriedly.
'Okay, that's bad. That's very bad! We need options, Sardeek! I want you and every available science personnel working on solutions to stop this comet or at least divert it.
“I want options and how likely it would be that said options work.. How long do we have before collision?" S'tera said, her tail twitching in agitation.
Sardeek’s feathers ruffled. “Not to put too fine a point on it, um, Lieutenant S’tera, but why should we do anything? The Helivans have evacuated the planet, uh, uh, abandoned it without even knowing a comet would strike it. Shouldn’t we, uh, left it be?” the Ornithoid asked.
"Are ALL of them off the planet? We have three representatives. Unless we're certain that the planet is empty, we also have to honor the Prime Directive," Vila said. Even though she thought that that stupid rule was usually only good in special circumstances, she was the XO and she ALSO understood both the gravity of this kind of thing, and also the fear and uncertainty of having to leave your home. "Captain, we don't know who or what was left behind."
Aurora's stomach clenched at the thought of anyone being left behind on a possibly toast planet. She'd heard about the destruction of her Mom's home world...and couldn't stand to have that happen to someone else.
“Commander Lorut is right, Lieutenant Sardeek,” Max answered with no room for arguing. “We can’t be sure who or what still lives on that planet. We can’t assume every Helivan left their homeworld."
Max considered his pregnant mother running from the destruction of El-Auria. “No, we’ll talk about this with the Helivans. S’tera is right,” Max paused and looked directly at the three women with him. All science-minded. “Get the science team working on a solution for diverting the comet.”
Aurora was raring to go! Not only wanting to try and get them safely off the planet, but possibly find a way to make the asteroid go a different direction all together!
"Not to mention if Heliv is destroyed, it will affect every other planet in the solar system. The results could be catastrophic. We can't presume everyone is off the planet. I have a feeling probably not, so get moving Lieutenant. We need options to save Heliv and her people. Again how long do we have?"
“Planets get destroyed in nature all the time, planetary orbits shift thousand of times every minute,” Sardeek grumbled under his breath as he altered the display. He was careful no one could hear his dissatisfaction with this futility.
The room shifted as the holographic display in the room showed the Heliv system. “According to our calculations, we have approximately one week to figure this out. Though we don’t have to work our heads too hard. There’s plenty of precedent for this situation. Best scenario is to just tractor beam the damn thing away from orbit.” Sardeek shrugged his shoulders, it didn’t take a genius to know the ship could move the comet.
Aurora smirked. She was starting to like this birdman and made a mental note to try and hang out with him off duty at a later date.
"That could work. We could also launch torpedoes at it," Vila said. "Though that also comes with some bad side effects," she shrugged. "Lieutenant S'tera. Your first big job as Chief Science Officer. Good luck," she said. She knew what she would do-as reluctant as she was to agree with the bird-man, tractor - beaming it off its current trajectory was the best course of action currently. "BUT...let's see if the planet is empty, what the atmosphere is like, etc. Any other needs we can meet."
"Okay…so…tractor beam seems the best option from what I'm hearing. So where do we send it? I agree, though, I want the planet scanned.”
“We can probably do it from the bridge. Okay! carry on Lieutenant Sardeek." S’tera headed up to the bridge. Better to coordinate things from there.
"We don't need to "send it" anywhere, just pull it out of its orbit a few feet," Vila said. "Same path, just a bit...off kilter,” she said. She watched as S’tera left, bewildered. "Lieutenant Aurora, please assist Lieutenant Sardeek in charting a path of least resistance, both to GET to it, while also keeping the Helivan ship safe and to move the asteroid off orbit. We will also need to know how much gravitational resistance we're dealing with," she advised.
"Aye, Commander," Aurora nodded as she ran a hand through her hair.
Max listened to the science team and watched as S’tera left abruptly while Vila, Aurora and Sardeek finalized the priorities of the plan before they acted outright. “Alright, in the absence of Lieutenant S’tera, I’m going to leave Commander Lorut in charge of repositioning the comet, gravitational stresses and any other unforeseen problems. Lieutenants Aurora abd Sardeek, if you two can begin the work on the comet and give me some more options.”
"Aye, Captain," Aurora nodded again...repressing the urge to point out certain things as it wasn't her place/the two of them were over her...so yeah.
Max touched the holographic display of the chunk of rock and ice. “I don’t like the idea of torpedoing the comet. Right now, we have one target object. A torpedo detonation could turn it into multiple destructive objects.”
Vila gave him a LOOK. "I DID say that," she said. "I would prefer a non-violent resolution, of course. They're not...Cardassians," she said. "I'll await your reports, Lieutenants," she said. "Sardeek, let me see the star charts for this quadrant," she asked. The bird-man brought up the maps on his console, and Vila stepped forward. "Thank you, Captain, we'll be in touch," she said.
“Very well, Commander. I look forward to more resolution so we can present a possible solution for the Helivans before we leave their solar system. Carry on.”
Vila nodded, and turned to go into the labs. If she was down here, she might as well see what everyone was up to.
Aurora took a DEEP breath. [Yikes...] was all she could think.
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