Eye of the Storm

Posted on Sun Jun 21st, 2020 @ 5:25am by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Tue Jul 7th, 2020 @ 1:31pm

Mission: Into the Wild
Location: Astrometrics

A Mission Post by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD
Mission: Into The Wild
Location: Astrometrics
Timeline:
Sat Jul 22nd, 2017 @ 11:45am


ON:

With the ship flying free of the dark matter cloud, Nyx made his way down to Deck 7 to discuss this turn of events with the Pandora's science department.

Arriving on the floor, the captain practically jogged out of the Turbolift and headed straight for Lieutenant Brennan's office.

Once he arrived, the door opened without any prompting or ringing of the chime, and within was Shae, who looked quite unwell, and another Science Officer who knew his way around a tricorder, enough so that they did not need to call in one of the doctors away from an emergency when this was now.

"There you go, just breathe, it's passing," the Officer coaxed Shae in a soothing tone. Then he looked up to see Nyx. "Sorry sir, there are reports of hallucinations all over the ship, and it seems that whatever she saw is having a very strong physiological response on her. But she'll be fine," he assured Nyx.

"They're not hallucinations, they can't be; hallucinations don't appear on sensor readings," Shae insisted, then resumed her slow, steady breaths. It was one thing for the whole crew to mass hallucinate a Borg cube, but they had sensor logs and those did not lie!

The captain wanted to be firm but reassuring, and especially to keep the crew from descending into paranoia. Though he also had to shift his position slightly as he talked, moving his gaze away from the right hand corner of the room.

Nyx frowned, leaning down to place a comforting hand on the Chief Scientist's shoulder, "Let's maintain our scientific skepticism, Lieutenant. The readings only began once we starting cutting through the dark matter, it is only logical that they have been causing the problem. Once we are out of the storm, we will return to normal."

"No, I mean that from a scientifically skeptical perspective," Shae said, looking at him. "We caught something on sensors. At the time, everyone one saw Borg, but the sensor readings aren't... it's hard to explain." Shae rose from her chair and passed through the door leading straight into the Astrometrics lab. The holotank next to the main platform was active, she had been building an interactive model of the area to try to predict the currents of dark matter to help them safely navigate the Expanse. "In the area where the crew was seeing the Cube, our sensors registered something. The best I can even try to explain it is... like a bump in space. But space is, well, space, there's no substance to it, it's nothing, you can't have a bump in nothing; well, you can, but then that raises a lot of theoretical questions. Anyway, in the instant the sensors recorded this, a large portion of the crew saw something that paralyzed them; for many this was the Borg, but I saw... something else. This strange reading is gone, so is whatever we saw; that's not a hallucination, hallucinations don't behave this way. I don't know what it is, but it's not a hallucination."

Nyx had followed along into Astrometrics, his face in a stoic grimace still as he walked, not daring to look to the corner of his eye. Once in the next lab, he marvelled at the computer generated map on display as he listened to Lieutenant Brennan's explanation.

"So do you think this bump could be artificially created?" Nyx asked, "Something designed to keep ships inside the trap?"

"I have no clue, sir, we didn't collect nearly enough data to even begin to form a hypothesis," Shae stated with a sigh. "But, we did get a pretty good look at the dark matter field, and I've got my work cut out for me trying to figure this out. Thankfully, dark matter has no 'side effects' to it like gravitons do, you know aside from being lethal to touch and impossible to see; but we should suffer no ill effects from prolonged exposure, so I'm going to put that into the win column. But at our earliest opportunity, we need to modify the main deflector to emit metreon particles, otherwise we'll be limited to sub-warp speeds and we'll go through torpedoes like-" Suddenly Shae stopped. She sucked in a sharp breath and fiercely gripped the edge of the holo tank console.

Panic gripped the captain as he saw Brennan's face change and the mood shifted dramatically.

"Shae!" Nyx cried, quickly by her side with his hand firmly placed onto the Lieutenant's back in case she fell. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," She replied in a strained tone, then took a few measured breaths. Once she was calm, she looked at him. "I am sorry if I startled you, sir; while everyone else saw Borg, nothing paralyzes me more than the day my daughter was born... It was so vivid, it felt so real, like I was..." She released a shuddered breath as a tear slipped down her cheek, though she was quick to wipe the offending moisture away. "Apparently, the memory was strong enough that I actually started to experience the pains, a psychosomatic response, one I've been assured is getting weaker without the hallucination to keep it going. I've been working through it, but that last one just took me by surprise."

Nyx rubbed her back slightly, attempting a soothing hum. "How traumatic that must be, I can't imagine how that must feel." Of course no man properly could, but he was present for Katrine's birth and could attest to the ferocity of child birth as an audience member. It wasn't something he was keen to witness, let alone feel for himself. "Mr. Nash has managed to get our sensors operating again, we should be out of the dark matter in a matter of moments. Let's hope you don't have any more attacks before then."

Shae was grateful for his comforting touch and soothing tone; perhaps if she'd had a little of that when Aoife was born, she wouldn't have been so terrified! "Thank you, sir," Shae said softly. The pain was passing and she released the death grip she had on her console. "Oh, it's terribly embarrassing to lose it like that in front of one's Commanding Officer; thank you for not making a big deal of it," she said once she had recomposed herself a bit. "As for the dark matter, my latest readings do seem to confirm that we are nearly in the clear, but I don't think this is an isolated thing, we will have to proceed with extreme caution as we continue to venture forth. So I cannot stress the deflector upgrades enough, it needs to be done as soon as humanly possible, because the moment we run out of torpedoes it will be a gamble of life and death."

Nyx shook his head, a small smile on his lips, "It's fine, really, nothing to be embarrassed about, Lieutenant. I'm just glad you're okay. You know, it's probably the only time you would've actually preferred to have seen a Borg cube." He gave a chuckle as he lied, "Like the rest of us."

Standing up straight again, he looked to the holomap, "Once we are free from the storm I will have Engineering and Ops work on the necessary upgrades. And I can signal the Palatine to hopefully bring us a re-supply of torpedoes. Suffice to say we will be treading more carefully from now on."

"I have been mapping everything, so I can send then what I believe to be the safest route, but to be on the safe side we should warn them to upgrade their deflector array as well before entering; there are tides and currents in action here, so until I map out more and get a better idea of how these currents effect the area, I can't promise that any safe route we find now will remain safe later," Shae cautioned. She definitely had her work cut out for her!

"Well I will hope that we can have them avoid the trap," Nyx replied, "Once outside we can gain a better estimate of it's size and position and hopefully guide the Palatine around it if possible. I don't want them experiencing what we've been through."

"About our experiences, I am sorry for that; my hypothesis about the gravitons was... Well, I have detected gravitons, but in trace amounts, nowhere near what I thought we would find. This was a serious error in judgment, sir, I don't know what I was thinking. The idea of so much dark matter never crossed my mind as a possibility, and I still don't know what is causing it to move," Shae said, extremely and sincerely apologetic. Her only consolation was that no one in the science community had ever seen anything like this before. But they made it through without dying, so that was a plus, and now that they knew, they could take precautions and move forward, and with any luck they could unravel this mystery.

"No, I'm not having that, Shae" Temple replied bluntly, "You have nothing to apologise for. We had to take this route due to the Tzenkethi, and I made the call on which direction to head into the Expanse. Obviously some malevolent people have gone to great lengths to use the dark matter to create this ambush, and many other ships have fallen into it. We have survived and because of your quick analysis we will be better prepared in the future."

He took a deep breath after that long continuous speech, giving Brennan a firm look. "So, belay that feeling, Lieutenant, I'm not having it."

Shae blinked in surprise. "Yes sir," she said with great uncertainty, almost sound like a question; most CO's she had encountered were eager to pounce on a failing like this, just further proving to Shae that Nyx was most definitely not like other CO's. "Uh, then if you will excuse me, I suppose I have more work to do," she added, trying to crack a smile. She did not know what to make of Nyx; she really liked him, but she still didn't know what to make of him.

Nyx frowned again, wondering if he'd been too harsh on Shae, but he truly felt she had no reason to apologise and wanted to squash that notion before it could take hold.

"Thank you for your time, Lieutenant," He said awkwardly as a farewell. "And please look after yourself."

His timing was impeccable, as at that moment another of these false contractions hit Shae. These pains were getting weaker, but this one was still strong enough to make her wince; Shae managed to remain composed and even offered a smile. "Will do, sir," she replied in a strained tone, then returned her attention to the map she was generating of the dark matter field.

Nyx made his way back to the turbolift so that he could check in with Medical. As the doors opened, he was confronted by a entirely darkened lift, as the lights inside eerily were off. He felt a cold chill across his neck as he stared into the darkness.

He only wished those eyes weren't staring back at him. Those same dead eyes that had been following him since they entered the dark matter, the horrid glare that he couldn't escape.

Shaking his head, he tapped on the panel and quickly shut the doors again, alerting Engineering to the malfunctioning lift. He hoped the stairs would be safer.

OFF