The Impossible Choice

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 5:17am by Cailus Griffin & Captain Nycolas Temple & Commander Owen Nash & Commander Mindo & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri-Smith & Lieutenant Commander James Smith & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Emilie Temple
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 4:47pm

Mission: Divided We Fall

A Mission Post by Captain Nycolas Temple & Emilie Temple & Commander Owen Nash & Lieutenant Cailus Griffin & Lieutenant Mindo & Lieutenant Krysia Kaleri & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan PhD & Lieutenant Katniss Wakefield & Lieutenant James Smith & Lieutenant JG Vecon Fick & Lieutenant JG Tyson Brookes
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location:
Timeline:
Fri Apr 13th, 2018 @ 2:17pm

Sitting on the edges of the Indigo Sky, the Pandora drifted softly against the lapping gravitational waves coming from the storm nearby. The alluring spacial phenomena continued to give off occasional shimmers of light as soft pillows of neon clouds swirled around in their hypnotic dance. It was true that the Indigo Sky could consume even the most resilient of travellers, so deep and mysterious it called out to passing ships like a Siren on the rocks. What was it origins? How did it continue to glimmer in such a way? There were no answers, not yet anyway - not until the Pandora dared to shine a light into the mystery within.

The Captain was sitting his big chair, the swirls of the storm playing constantly on the Pandora's view screen ahead of them. He was entranced by the event while they waited for the Pandora's new probe to be finished.

At Tactical, Cailus was simply quiet, having nothing to do except sit there and be ready. There shouldn’t be any call for his services today. Instead, the mission was being led by the technically brilliant among the crew: Shae, Nash, Mindo and Kaleri, among others. Trusting them, Cailus patiently waited, keeping a weather eye on the sensors. At the very least it was a fascinating experience to see the limited sensor readings of the storm’s interior, even if he lacked the knowledge and scientific aptitude to fully comprehend what the sensors were seeing. When Mindo and Kaleri got the probe launched, the flood of data would likely have the ship’s many scientists salivating at the discoveries they could make.

"This is utterly fascinating," Shae remarked as she monitored the readings and watched the storm continue to develop. "I can find no cause whatsoever for the undulations of the stellar gases, at least not with our current readouts." She had a few theories about that, especially as they related to the Expanse as a whole, and she was eager to get some more readings to test those theories.

"It's kinda hypnotizing and totally relaxing... even though it's a storm," Fick said casually. He'd been trying to stay awake. For some reason the swirling colors made him really sleepy. He shook his head, like he was trying to clear the cobwebs.

"Maybe we should be recording this and showing it during crew meditation?" Nyx wondered, as he turned to see Lieutenants Mindo and Krysia enter the Bridge.

"The probe is ready," said Mindo. "We've actually added an external thruster to allow the probe to go a further distance."

Krysia smiled as she looked at Mindo, "We've also extended the sensor field and range as far as we can without degrading the quality of signal the ship would get back, Captain."

"Excellent." Nyx replied, clapping his hands together. "Let's get this launched." However, his intentions were interrupted by the arrival of Commander Nash and Lieutenant Smith. "What do you have for us?"

Owen had uploaded the information that he and Smith had managed to locate from their assignment into a PADD before looking over at Nyx. "Well, it's interesting to note that the Merrimack spent several days here gathering a lot of data... but there seems to be a break in their logs... of up to several days," he explained as the upload continued. "But there doesn't seem to be a reason given for the break in the logs..."

Smith nodded. “The break in their logs is unusual and seem to start shortly after launching the probes.” James shook his head, “All data that the probe should of collected is missing from their data banks, their ship logs show the probes being launched and entering the storm and then nothing after that.”

Walking out onto the bridge a few minutes later Krysia smiled warmly at both James & Owen as she took her seat, looking at the readouts she was surprised by just how much they'd changed. "Commander.." she looked towards Owen, "you need to see these readouts."

Owen moved over to the Ops station where he joined Krys already working at her station. "What do you have, Lieutenant?" he asked before looking at the information before them.

Krysia looked up at Owen as he leant over her shoulder, "These readouts have completely changed from the set I had before I left the bridge, this storm or whatever it is, is changing rapidly I can't tell whether it's a change for better or worse."

Katniss was in her Laboratory, her own work was a little slow at the moment, after everything that had been going on, so instead, she was looking at the sensor readings coming from the bridge. 'Hmm, strange." she said out loud, this was something she wanted to take a closer look at, but the science lab would be the best place.

=/\= Wakefield to Brennan, I'm heading to the Science lab to take a look at the sensor readings coming from the bridge, something doesn't right with me and I want a closer look if that's okay. =/\=

"Right, I'll mirror what I've got directly to Astrometrics," Shae replied. "I'll patch in probe functionality once it's ready."

Krysia turned to look at the viewscreen as the pattern in front of the ship started to change, the mix of colours was mesmerising to say the least. "Captain I'm not sure whether this storm is intensifying or whether it's ramping up for a final show but either way I think we'd best get the probe on its way. Our modifications should make it easier for us to get the whole range of sensor readings from our current position to save having to get too close."

After Krysia made her recommendation, Owen returned to the Command seats where Nyx stood. "Its sounds like things are pretty much handled here," he said with a growing confidence. "I'll head down to the Engineering Lab to see if I can extrapolate anything more from the Merrimack logs...maybe a more thorough sift through the data will provide some answers," he offered. With the Bridge crew on point, it made sense to him to find more answers.

"Good luck," Nyx replied to his Executive Officer.

== Sickbay ==

Doctor Brookes was in the medical bay on deck six. He was sitting in his office, bored, looking into the vastness of the space of the vista, and then back at his report logs and filings, it would be a productive day.

Emilie Temple entered, a look of queasiness on her face. She lowered herself down onto a nearby chair, and looked around for the good Doctor. Katrine walked along solemnly behind her mother, her face showing the concern of a child worried for her ill parent.

Tyson heard the unmistakable hiss of the medical bay doors open and close. He almost bolted up from his office desk chair to meet whoever arrived.

Quickly ushering his way towards the Captain’s Wife, Tyson noticed her features looking a bit tired and uneasy. Pulling up a seat for Katrine next to her mother.

“Mrs. Temple, Katrine. What can I do for you both today?” Tyson asked.

“Doctor, I’m feeling a terrible bout of morning sickness.” Emilie complained.

"Mrs. Temple, you're not expecting are you?" He would know anyways within a few moments he would flip open the medical tricorder Mark IV.

"What has been in your diet the past 24 hours?"

"Oh." Emilie smiled awkwardly. "I'm sorry, maybe you haven't had a chance to review my file yet. But yes, I'm almost three months pregnant."

"And pregnant you are." He smiled reassured, while swearing to his self on the inside a total spaz! Tyson was embarrassed that he had not got around to having finished all the crews bios. Not to mention start crew physical trials and cover ongoing medical cases in oversight. It was all chill though...

He had begun scanning with the medical tricorder holding the silver sensor attachment at the top of Emilie's forehead. His eyes were focused on the screen readouts, the lights of red, and green charting a graph of both Emilie and the baby. Tyson could see from readouts that the baby was doing well, and there were no present concerns for this appointment. He would have to set up a vitamin injection and amino acids for her birthing months.

== Bridge ==

"Let's proceed." Nyx announced to the crew. "Lieutenant Brennan, will you do the honours?"

"Yes sir," Shae said proudly, so excited to find out what was really going on. "Launching probe," she then said as sent the order on her console to launch the modified probe. There was a small flash of light on the view screen and then they could see the probe moving through space towards the growing storm in the Indigo Sky. It hadn't even reached it's target destination yet and they were already receiving viable data. "There's that build up of neutrinos again..." she remarked with growing concern.

"Any pattern to the neutrino fields?" Nyx asked, folding his arms, "Are they concentrating in any particular location?"

"Thus far, it's been a fairly steady increase, but it just jumped a fair bit. No location of any significant concentration, just scattered about the storm. At the moment I'd say it's nothing to be too concerned about, but I will monitor this closely."

Krysia was watching the read outs that were coming across her screen, “Wow!” she looked up and grinned realising it wasn’t actually a scientific term to use, “we’ve got data coming in that’s going to take forever to plough through, I have to agree with Lieutenant Brennan though Sir the neutrino build up is considerable...”

"Thank you Lieutenant," The Captain nodded, "Good to see the probe is working effectively."

Mindo grinned and held out his fist to Krysia for a fist bump. They had done good work in a very short amount of time.

Krysia grinned as she fist bumped Mindo, it was always a point of celebration when something went as planned with no hiccups.

“Good work, Lieutenants.” Nyx smiled in return. “Mr Mindo, do you mind assisting with Commander Nash’s task?”

"Yes sir," said Mindo, and joined Nash in the turbolift. Owen nodded to Mindo as he joined him in the turbolift. "Deck Six," he ordered the car as the doors closed and it descended from the Bridge.

Fick's eyes were mostly on the viewscreen until the probe was launched. Once it was launched, he followed the progress with the scanners. It was exciting to be at the forefront of something new.

The probe made it’s way towards the center of the storm, still sending back data to the Pandora and valiantly fighting against the intense gravitational powers. The neon clouds continued to increase and swirl around, giving off sparks of flashing lights from the centre.

Before the probe could reach its destination, there came a violent strike of energy that flashed brightly across the view screen. It was like a vibrant lightning storm that blinded the crew momentarily. Suddenly the bolts of energy struck the probe and a small explosion occured; the probe was destroyed in a ball of fire.

From his seat, a disappointed Nyx furrowed his brow. “Do we know what caused this?”

Krysia’s eyes darted across the final readouts from the probe, “Without going over all the data I can’t be sure if the probe triggered anything but I wouldn’t have thought so...” she looked over the final readings, “The last data we have shows a considerable increase in power from the storm but what caused it...” she shook her head.

"I caught a sudden spike the in the neutrino levels before we lost the signal," Shae chimed in. "A big spike, so I highly recommend we put some more distance between the Pandora and the storm."

The crew turned their gaze back to the view screen. Before them, the entire storm seemed to pause for a moment, the once violent clouds slowed down ominously to a gentle movement. For a brief minute in time, the Indigo Sky was entirely at peace. And then, as if someone had taken the plug out of a full sink of water, they swirled inwards towards the site of the explosion, faster and faster they came together in an ever-increasing maelstrom of energy and gravity combining together.

There was a pull against the Pandora as the draining forces grew in strength...

== Sickbay ==

Meanwhile, Emilie was sitting patiently as the Doctor continued his check-up. Katrine was standing outside the window, watching the neon clouds and dancing along with them.

"Muuuuuum!" She cried out as the storm began to move. "Come see!"

"Honey, I can't right now." Emilie said patiently from her bio-bed, smiling at the nurses.

"But looooook!" Katrine whined.

"Just a little while, Katrine, okay?" Emilie replied, her tone getting curt.

Doctor Brookes returned, "Tell Mrs. Temple, Emilie. Have you had anything else, anything out of the ordinary health wise? Other than this nausea?" He added various cultures in the bio lab, having had them mixed, and returned on a bio cart. Nurse Doris handed the vials in dose nodules, that were entered up the hypo spray dermal injections.

Emilie frowned, then sighed a little, "There's been a little bit of stress lately." She replied tactically, not wishing to go into too much detail of her arguments with Nyx.

Just as he had finished reloading the hypo spray the alarm klaxons turned red on the medical bay. He turned to meet Mrs. Temple. Lieutenant Adaestron entered the bay as well, as they were alerted to brace for an impact. Tyson had ensured that Katrine and Mrs. Temple were secured.

"Min mor?" Katrine whimpered, and for once she wasn't enjoying this joy ride on the Pandora. She ran back over to her mother's side and Emilie grabbed her tightly.

"It's okay," Emilie replied to her, trying to keep a smile on her face. "They've probably just let Daddy drive the ship."

Aeryn was on her biobed in sickbay, her arm was still undergoing repair thanks to the severity of the break she had. The nurses and doctors were busy making sure all their patients were secure last thing she'd need would be to tumble and do any more damage to her arm so she braced herself as best as she could nodding in thanks as one of the nurses came over to help, now all could she could do was wait. Aeryn was glad she’d been restrained to the biobed she was on to avoid damaging her arm further as the impact had struck and the crew were thrown off their feet the sensation of being spun around more times than she’d care to think had left her head spinning. Getting herself straight she thanked the nurse that had come to check on her the room was earily dark and the ship felt strangely quieter than it usually did something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

== Bridge ==

“Lieutenant Fick, reverse impulse engines.” Nyx said gravely, watching the sight.

"Oh boy!" Fick exclaimed, his fingers moving as fast as he could make them over his console. "Oh boy oh boy oh boy!" His wide, eyes flicked back and forth between his console and the viewscreen. "Come on baby, just back it up..."

Krysia turned to look at James then back at her console, the thought of whether this had anything to do with the probe was running through her mind. Right now all she could do was sit, wait & worry about it once the ship was clear.

James continued to watch his systems trying to coordinate his actions with his personnel in the Intel offices. Everything in his gut and what reports he had showed the problem originated with the probe. Something within the cloud caused a reaction with the probe, running a few more quick scans, Smith was worried what would happen if they were hit by the cloud.

With all that energy, gravity, and neutrino particles gathering together, it was only a matter of time before there was an opposite reaction. No sooner had the Pandora began to reverse away from the scene, there was a sudden explosion from within the dense clouds. All the compressed spacial particles counteracted and caused a violent expulsion, sending a wide thundering wave towards the ship!

"Evasive manœuvres!" Nyx cried, gripping the arm rest of his chair tightly.

Fick actually squeaked and sped up his calculations, it wasn't his calculating speed, so much as it was the response time of the large starship. He could calculate out two days of movement in space and the Pandora would respond when she could.

But it was too late; the Indigo Sky had detonated in a rapid and consuming neon fire and the Pandora was directly in the path of the particle wave. In a matter of mere moments, the cloud would envelop the parts of the ship still left exposed.

"Shockwave incoming!" Shae warned as soon as it registered on sensors, but it was moving so fast and the Pandora not nearly fast enough. With breath held, Shae clutched the arm of her chair fiercely as she was filled with dread; chronitons, the wave was made up of chronitons, and at this concentration there was no telling what kind of damage they could do to the ship when the wave inevitably hit!

Krysia had been staring at her console still trying to make sense of what had happened the horrible feeling in the bottom of her gut was that somehow the probe had triggered this, her eyes shot to the view screen as events unfolded, as Shae warned about the shockwave she gripped the edge of her console. Warnings on her screen were screaming that they weren't going to make it out of the way, "Captain it's approaching too rapidly!, we're not going to make it out of the way in time!!"

== Engineering ==

Once the Turbolift arrived on Deck Six, Owen and Mindo made their way to an Engineering Lab quickly. Once they arrived there, Owen noticed the sudden amount of instability as he accessed the Merrimack logs. Suddenly an alarm started blaring at a console nearby. "Its always the same, you take yourself off the bridge and all hell breaks loose," he said before looking over at Mindo at the nearby console.

"Lieutenant, whats happening?" Owen asked as he found he had to hold on to his console for support. The nearest viewscreen showed the storm outside growing more ferocious by the second and moving towards the Pandora.

Mindo's fingers danced over the controls as he hastily checked the readings. "It seems the external thruster I installed on the probe has exacerbated the instability of the storm. The storm is growing!" Mindo's eyes widened. "You won't believe the readings I'm getting. The chronitons emitted by the storm are creating a tachyon surge. This storm is about to burst into a giant rip in the fabric of space and time."

== Bridge ==

The expression suddenly changed on Katniss face as she saw the latest readings regarding the shock wave, Katniss grabbed onto the nearest thing she could, this shock wave was about to hit "Brace for impact!" she yelled to alert the other scientists working close by.

"What area will be affected?" Nyx called out suddenly.

Krysia looked at the readings on her station then over at Nyx "The bridge, decks 2 and 3 Sir"

And there it was. The impossible choice. The one Starfleet Academy had tried to prepare each officer for with the no-win situation test. It was supposed to be a "what if" scenario; a hypothetical, but now the Pandora was facing that very moment as the particle wave sped towards them. The ship was trying to dive out of the way but the surge of energy was too fast and too strong. There was no telling what damage the wave would do to the ship or the crew if they were left to be swallowed up, but sacrificing their lives was unnecessary where there was still a chance to escape. Did they stay at their stations or abandon the Bridge?

The Captain sat in his chair as the wave approached, and the choice dawned on him heavily. He wasn't about to lose the ship, or his crew, not so soon into their journey; and not if it meant leaving families without their loved ones. The wave would hit either way, he decided, and there was no reason why he would leave his crew to be killed by this sudden phenomena.

Nyx stood and shouted, "Computer, emergency beam out of the Bridge- "

From outside, the neon wave swept over the Pandora, washing over the top few decks of the ship and sending her hurtling off course. The ship spun and turned, pushed away from the centre of the storm like a stranded boat in a violent ocean. After several minutes the Pandora was finally released from the gravitational forces of the wave and she whirled around unrestrained for a while longer before finally coming to an uneasy halt in the dead of space. Overhead, the particle wave dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, and the Indigo Sky was gone - the neon clouds had seemingly vanished.

The Pandora drifted lifelessly, floating like a piece of flotsam within the silence of space...

OFF