Sun Watchers

Posted on Sun Oct 29th, 2023 @ 7:31pm by Captain William Maddox & Lieutenant T'Lyn & Commander Ayanja Tusalo & Lieutenant Commander Aarix Teral

1,616 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: World Wide Web
Location: USS Daedalus, Schrimshaw Star

"Commander, Chief, you're just in time."

Maddox stood over by the helm console and was intent on the view screen which was displaying the retrieval of the shuttle. Well, 'most' of the shuttle. Both of its nacelles were missing, and the lozenge-shaped hull was rolling slowly in space. On one side the connections where a nacelle would be were blown clean off with telltale signs of explosive release bolts. On the other side...

Well, the chewed and mauled remains of power feeds and structural supports were revealed.

"Roll it a few more times, and then tractor it into the shuttle bay. Have a Security team on stand-by to check it over for any unwelcomed guests," Maddox instructed the operations tech, before returning his attention to the two returning officers.

"We'll have the shuttle on board, along with its less-than-joyful pilot, and then we can head further into the wreck field to pick up the DSRV. How are you two doing, need to be checked out by medical?" Maddox enquired.

"Thankfully all unscathed Captain, but it was a close one." Aya was glad Daedalus had beamed them.out when they did, she'd be thinking about that metallic maw heading right for her for awhile. Hard to believe they could do so much damage to their shuttle, shed hate to see what they could do to the crew.

"Fine," Aarix responded. His mind was still reeling from the spider creatures and just how... persistent they were.

"What's the status of the SAR team?" The slight worry in her voice was hopefully covered. Inside she was shaking and nervous but outaide she needed to project calm and collected.

"They have accomplished both primary mission objectives by securing the marooned Proximal, as well as recovering the remains of the wreck's captain which may contain clues as to the similarities in design," T'lyn spoke up from her science station. "They are currently under threat from more of the local fauna which you encountered on the asteroid. Injuries have been reported."

"But nothing life-threatening or sickbay-worthy," Maddox said, turning to look at Aya. "Just Suda trying to add to his fruit salad collection with a few more Mertious Bravery citations."

Aya let out a low breath a soft nod of appreciation towards the Captain. She couldn't ask directly about Javi, or at least didn't quite know how to do that yet. She had faith in Javi and the team but... still, considering everything out here, Aya was still worried.

"Shuttles aboard Sir."

"Good work," Maddox patted the ensign at the helm on the shoulder. "Lock onto the DSRV's homing beacon, full impulse power. Its time we picked the kids up from school."

"Tactical keep an eye out for any more of those creatures, they could vbe lurking and we don't want to be caught in their net." Aya added taking her seat, linking her side console into the tactical and passive sensor displays.

Considering these things could pose a threat to the ship, Aarix took over one of the stations at the back of the bridge to monitor systems with Ops. If there was a power drain, it would be a good sign of those creatures.

"Commander?" T'lyn said, turning from her seat by the science station. "I am detecting further photonic disruption coming from the star below."

"Threat assessment Lieutenant?" Aya asked as she stood, making her way to the railing behind the Science station. "Could it interfere with our rescue of the DSRV?"

"Unlikely," T'lyn reported. On her screen she threw the sensor data up onto the mainviewer. It showed a graphic of the brown dwarf, with swirling eddies and flow lines representing the seething mass of fusion plasma and crushing gravity. "As you can see, there are clusters of sub-macro solar flaring terminating from the star's corona."

The graphic zoomed in, showing a seemingly disorganized smear of dots, each one according to the scale chart representing a flare thousands of miles high. Impressive compared to a starship, but hardly a blimp compared to the roiling corona ejection events happening around them.

"Since we arrived in orbit, the clustering phenomenon has increased by a factor of twenty. Correlation suggests we are witnessing a reaction to our presence," the Vulcan said, deploying one of her famous 'hunches'.

"I'd agree, can we get any more precise reading on what kind of. Reaction the star is having? Aya asked bot entirely sure she wanted to know the answer. "Better question, do we think this reaction is any different than what would have happened when these other ships arrived?"

"I would require historical sensor data to make any sort of conclusions to facilitate answers," T'lyn stated. "As for more precise readings, the plasma flux between the photosphere and corona is masking a great deal of hard data from us. Over time, these disturbances might open a window into the phenomenon."

"Chief, the DSRV is rising up out of the debris cloud towards us. Scan it for rock spider hitchhikers and open the docking bay," Maddox said, looking over at his chief engineer. "I really only want to see one of those things in a science lab after it has been confirmed to be very dead."

"Aye, sir." Why he was playing "capture the spider" was beyond him, but Aarix scanned the DSRV for signs of a power drain before safely tractoring it into the docking bay.

"Commander, the sunspot activity is appearing to culminate," T'lyn said. The view screen depiction of the DSRV approaching the ship shifted, focusing on the sun. The milky yellow radiance looked unappealing at a distance, and up close and even filtered it felt greasy. But there it was, the roiling surface of a very angry gas giant that failed out of star school.

And then something broke the surface.

A whale.
A squid.

It evoked images of a deep sea creature, which only surfaced to wipe out an oil rig or coastal settlement that had ranged out too far. Bands of livid plasma coiled and bound about it, acting both as a mesmerising form of propulsion and as powerful armour against the solar mass they had risen from.

"Multiple entities detected. The scale of the lead animal is...1400 meters. Plasma strength emanating from the lead specimen is 14 terra joules. I would suggest not approaching them, as the natural plasma excitement they are generating is highly energised. A phaser blast would more than likely blow out the centralised emitter circuit," T'lyn said and then looked to Aarix. "I of course defer to your judgement, as I am merely speculating given material tollerances."

"Hm?" Aarix looked up from his barely-passing-as-an-engineering-task of moving the DSRV into the bay to see... something coming out of the gas giant. He looked at the readings at his workstation before confirming, "you're right, and we should probably give them a little distance in case the plasma interferes with our more passive systems."

"Helm you heard the Chief, keep us in range of the DSRV whilst its in its recovery phase, but keep an eye on those...sun whales?" Maddox asked, looking to his science officer.

"A term that is taxonomically inaccurate, but within the standard human definition of an analogy Captian," T'lyn responded.

"I'll take it. Chief keep an eye on our passive systems in case we get knocked about. Commander Tusalo, if you'd be so kind man the weapons station. Our bay doors are open and I'd not want to get a spider or three sneaking on board," Maddox returned to his command chair. Pressing a button on the chair arm, a dull chime rang out across the ship's main comms channel. "All hands, prepare for manoeuvring and warp jump. Prepare for turbulence."

"Aye sir," Aya replied with a nod, leaving the command platform she headed for the port side of the bridge. Quickly typing in a series of commands the console reconfigured itself to Aya's personal specifications for tactical. "Captain might I suggest we standby or activate metaphysic shield protocols? It might help mitigate damage from any kind of plasma discharge."

"Agreed, but we'll need to hold off on raising the shields until the DSRV docks," Maddox thought aloud. "Energise the projectors and dial in the settings for metaphasic shielding. Prepare to raise them the moment the docking cradle register a solid lock on the DSRV."

He leaned forward in his chair.

"Helm, the moment those shields go up turn us to heading 178 by 0. Engage full impulse and jump us to warp the moment we're clear of the stars gravity well, take us one light month clear of the system," Maddox ordered, looking at the chief engineer. "Rather not have us run off into the night and smack into another gravity rip tide like last time. We can regroup, and I can talk with this Proximal fellow. Might be he has a map of the local area we can use."

"Let's hope." Ayanja muttered from tactical as she watched the displays. Her fingers hovered over the shields, ready to activate as soon as the DSRV cleared the bay doors. Judging by the amount of power they could put out and the debris around them firing phasers wouldn't do anything. They were better off making a run for it. "DSRV, 700 meters and closing."

"Brace for impact," Maddox said under his breath.

"Open clamshell doors, please?" The voice of the ships helmsman came over the comm. "We got incoming. REALLY huge, bad news incoming. It keys on power and you're lit up like one of those trees Earth people have in November."

Maddox blinked as, shortly after Fox's communication, the screen showed...

"Did Suda just throw someone overboard?" he asked.

 

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