Star Ahoy

Posted on Wed Jan 31st, 2024 @ 10:30pm by Captain Calypso Skyie & Lieutenant Rebecca McMillen & Lieutenant JG Raven Windancer

Mission: Which Came First, The...

The starship Chimera exited the nebula trailing a bit of the mist that it was made of after dropping out of warp several thousand kilometers before it ended. Given the inconsistency of the readings that they'd been working with, it was a rather well-done accomplishment. The sun burning bright in front of them wasn't nearly as much an anomaly as the nebula, because it didn't burn as bright as most young stars. In point of fact, it appeared dimmer than many of the red dwarf stars that inhabited the galaxy, which might have accounted for the nebula being there instead of coalescing into a star system, although...

"Miss McMillen, can you please make a scan of the system and tell me what you see?" Calypso announced from the central chair, readjusting her position as she looked out the viewscreen.

Rebecca was able to stand on her console, accessing the system remotely through a pad mounted on the arm of her eva frame. A special encounter suit built to allow her a bit of a chance to exist in normal-scaled space. Being as diminutive as she was was quite dangerous, she had to make everything count if she was going to continue to contribute, continue to do her job. "Aye." she responded, tapping away at the remote buttons on the console, to begin the scan of the local system. "Scan running, you'll have your results in a few minutes, ma'am." business as usual, professional and crisp. That was Rebecca.

"Whistle! What a cool star!" Raven's eyes bulged in wonder.

"It really is a sight. Can't account for the decreased luminosity of the star though. Maybe the nebular mass is reflecting or refracting the light? Best guess I can figure without using all this sophisticated technology." the diminutive officer giggled before returning to the scan. "Scan complete Cap'n. Reading five planets, no life. Odd." she paused, "Four of them have suffered some form of, I guess, tectonic fracture. They're broken into floating plates and shards." a pause as she refined the scan. "No magnetic field on any of... wait, one of them has a magnetic field. The rest are just, I guess the best way to describe them is... hollowed out. No core material, no magnetic field, no atmosphere. Just... four dead worlds."

"That one there though..." she indicated on the scan, "Seems to be alright. Whatever happened to the other four planets in this system, it didn't happen to that one. Or hasn't yet." she mused. "Maybe a comet strike tore the other planets open? A vast amount of ice particles could dim the star if concentrated."

"Or," from the shadows of the lift emerged the figure known as Rebecca Stevenson, "There is something evil afoot. Perhaps something on the planet, or someone, has taken from the rest of the worlds to sustain themselves?" She emerged in full uniform before making her way over to the corner where the science station sat.

“Not sure if I’d call things evil at this point.” Calypso remarked, “Can you put the information on the intact planet on the screen?” She waited and leaned forward as the planetary information came up, “Small little thing, at seven hundred kilometers in diameter, pretty well baked on the surface, too, one hundred eighty degrees of surface temperature, in the oven for what? Millions of years? That’d dry just about anything out.” The Captain pondered a minute, “No atmosphere or indications that there’s life on the surface, right Rebecca?”

"No signs of life, and hey... nothing wrong with being the small one." Rebecca retorted, hands on hips but all in good fun. "But yeah what this looks like is your classic Atmosphere Boiled Off scenario." a pause, "And I don't believe something is fundamentally Evil. Wicked and such, that's all intent."

“Probes all sent out to look at those broken ones?” Cally asked, “But this star is interesting… No doubt we’ve not seen everything stars can do, but this could almost be a young star or maybe really really old? I’m but a simple pilot, you know. And the nebula was organic in nature if I remember right. Something really unique, that.”

Raven just sat and absorbed everything...jumping a little as Lt. McMillan appeared seemingly out of the blue.

Rebecca giggled again, "Simply pilot my foot. I seem to recall plenty of quote unquote simple pilots that made history. So don't you sell yourself short." another giggle, as Rebecca returned to the incoming scan data. "As for the organic composition, indeed. Surprisingly high in covalent carbon. If you want my professional opinion this entire nebula is akin to the primordial soup of the Archean Eon of pre-pre-prehistoric Earth." a pause, "That's about 2.2 billion years before the events that inspired the movie Jurassic Park." she giggled again. "But a nebular mass with this composition is something that the system hasn't encountered yet. Captain, I think we've discovered something new. Like, new new."

"Dibs on naming it!"

"You're the sciencey person, give it some sort of appropriate name and we'll submit it to the Federation Council." She whirled back around and pointed at the tiny officer, "And no naming it Bob or something of the sort! Has to be a science name." Cally gave Rebecca 'The Look' and then turned back around, "Ensign Windancer, take us in. Swing us by one of the broken ones as we approach the one that's still intact, why don't you?"

"Aye, Captain...but I wanna help name it, Rebecca!" Raven pouted a little, then grinning as she got to task.

"Oh of course you can help. I'll need help holding up the PaDD while I type in the name of the Nebula." she teased. "I think the Becky Becky Nebula has a nice ring to it." she teased, but gave Raven a nod and a smile to let her know it was all in good fun. "I'll update you on the scan results as they come in but this is one of those Slow Answers times. The computer has to re-re-evaluate everything it comes across since, well, first times and all."

Raven stuck out her tongue, giggling as she nodded back, excited by all the new they were encountering.

Cally chuckled at the byplay, but kept her eyes focused on the screen in front of them. There was something there that was bothering her, but she couldn't figure out what precisely it was. It was something to do with the planets, or more precisely the dwarf planets. Oh sure, every single one of them was far more massive than Chimera herself, but they were too small one way or another.

"Alright, we've entered orbit of one of the broken planets...WHOA! What's going on?!" Raven yelped as the ship jerked un-characteristically.

"Easy, girl! Stay with me!" Raven's hands flew across the keys, trying to right the ship.

“Power, power, power.” Calypso barked as an order to Raven as she gripped the arms of her command chair, “Take us into a higher orbit, Raven, suitable for something three times the size of this.” She twisted to look at Rebecca, “Miss McMillen, get a scan of what’s inside that planetoid, tell me why it’s so bloody heavy that it wants to eat my ship by crashing us into it!”

"Aaaaayeeee Cccccaptain!!! Come on, Chimera! Climb for Mama!" Raven growled as she fought the unseen force trying to thrash her ship!

The ship responded after a hesitation, clawing for additional altitude above the broken planetoid, making Cally give a sigh of relief as she noted the orbit numbers settle down, "Thank you, Ms. Windancer." She again turned to Rebecca, "Little Bit, I need something., even if it's just an 'I don't know'."

Raven merely grunted as she whipped sweat from her brow.

[Cripes! What the flipping heck happened!?] Raven thought with a shiver.

"Keep climbing! Captain 80% of that planet's composition is the back half of the Periodic Table! Its mass is vastly disproportionate to its diameter!" Lieutenant "Little Bit" called out from her scans. "Uranium and Thorium core, the outer core is molten Lead. There's seven times as much Tungsten in the crust as in the Earth. Captain, that planet is beyond dangerous. It's a radioactive, ultra high gravity hellscape."

“Raven, take us up another ten thousand Klicks.” Calypso didn’t even consider questioning the diminutive science officer, “Then start considering if there’s any way to extract the Tungsten? It’s a nice valuable resource and a good trade metal. But,” She held up a hand, “If it’s too dangerous, let me know.”

"You don't have to tell me twice, Captain! insert a few choice curse words here [Sheesh applewesh!]" Raven growled softly.

"Isolating the raw Tungsten through all that radiation, not to mention decontamination, might hurt returns. Might have more luck with some of the broken chunks, if this planetoid is an indication." Rebecca advised.

Calypso frowned slightly, "All right, we'll come back and consider it. Leave a probe in REALLY high orbit here to get as much detail as possible, but let's move on towards that intact one." She did have a bit of a worried look, "We'll make a slow approach, Raven, first sign of gravitational pull, break off. What would you say our ETA to get there will be?"

"Not sure, Captain. Say...ten/fifteen minutes?" Raven was still a bit shaken. She'd been in LOTS of crazy places before...but this was a different level of scary all together!

"Sounds good. Tell you what? I'm gonna sit here and look like I'm really busy, just tell me when we get there?" Cally gave Raven a wink, not seen.