Ensign Jovenan – I always do my homework just before the class
Jovenan
((Astrometrics, Deck 9, USS Artemis))
Jovenan had been puzzled when Lt. Dakora had called and asked her to join him in the Astrometrics. She had barely started prepping for the incoming mission, but when a superior officer asks you to do something, a request is an order. And she didn’t want to cross him.
The Astrometrics door slide open behind her as she was initializing some of the lab processes, having already opened the file on Meranuge IV, their destination. She turned to see the entrant, easily recognizing Lt. Dakora, in his new, unusual but striking, entirely black uniform.
Dakora: Jovenan! Thanks for meeting me down here. ::He splayed his hands in front of him.:: I know you're probably busy preparing for the mission, but I needed to bounce something off of that big, beautiful brain of yours.
She had met the intelligence chief only a few times. There had been the brief conversation in the med lab just after she had joined the ship. Soon after, he and Commander MacKenzie had left for an their own, unapproved mission, and the Excalibur had to go rescue them, although they pretty much saved themselves. According to the reports, the Lieutenant had been beaten and cut with knives by Klingons and then hurled around in a container. That’s when he had escaped and proceeded to fight the Klingons, and not only win them in a hand-to-hand combat, but he had also captured their ship and arrested their captain. Together with Commander MacKenzie, of course.
She didn’t know if she should be amazed or afraid of him.
Their second, also brief meeting had been in the awards ceremony post-mission. Lt. Dakora and Cmdr. MacKenzie received some of the highest peace-time decorations in Starfleet. MacKenzie was also given her own command right afterwards. On Rubicun III, the two would have been executed for desertion and myriad other crimes they committed during their trip. Here they were rewarded. She had given up understanding the off-worlder ethics and logics.
She also decided not to try making sense of the ‘big, beautiful brain’ part.
Jovenan: O- of course, sir! Is there something I can help you with?
The Lieutenant stopped to look at her for a moment, making her wonder if there was something wrong how she looked. But then he clasped his hands and went on to describe the problem she might be in assistance.
Dakora: Right, so I've been digging into the brief provided by the Captain and one thing just isn't making sense to me. ::He stepped up to the display showing Meranuge IV and pointed:: How did the Da'al not detect the meteor before it impacted?
Jovenan: ::looking at the display:: Hmm, right. Meteors hitting homeworlds of warp-capable civilizations is extremely rare, more so in populated with casualties. Maybe… ::pause, quick turn to Dakora upon realization:: A- are you suspecting someone would be behind the disaster, sir?
There were so many ways to do that. Slinging the meteor towards the city with a tractor beam. Changing its course with a beam or explosives, or even with the sun’s light. Or maybe it hadn’t been a meteor in the first place, but torpedoes or some other weapons!
The Lieutenant was an intelligence chief. People in that professions don’t come to the astrometrics to talk about the physical characteristics of a simple meteors. He must be suspecting a foul game.
Dakora’s face darkened. He’s totally suspecting something!
Dakora: I'm not trying to assign blame here, but we need to understand the full-breadth of the situation down there. Maybe there was some aspect of this meteor... some ::He made hand-wavy gesture.:: sciencey reason that it slipped by them before they could intervene?
Jovenan’s heart was beating. Somebody might have caused all those deaths, all that suffering. And she was investigating it with an intelligence officer who can beat armed Klingons! She tried to calm down. It could be just some coincidence. There’s no way someone could be so evil as to kill ten thousand innocent people. Well, maybe somebody could, but there could also be another explanation.
She thought for a moment, not what that explanation could be, but how they could land to it.
Jovenan: Well, uh, we know where and when the meteor hit, and we can estimate its mass from the size of the impact. We could create a theoretical model and then compare it to the reality, some pointers of the meteor’s route. But for that, we need data on the current state of the planet and its surroundings. I guess we need wait until we arrive to the system and make the scans with the available sensors.
The Lieutenant raised his finger. There was more?
Dakora: Actually, I've already pulled some strings with the Captain and I've got us priority time on the main sensor array. ::He pointed to the astrometrics apparatus:: Just need you to work your magic.
Jovenan: Oh. O-kay, then. Uh, give me a few minutes, then.
Dakora: Response?
She turned to the display. A massively important science project with zero preparation and planning. Easy.
What’re all factors she would need? Scanning takes time, so initiating it was her priority task. She set up a scanning request to look for anything that would have interacted with the meteor, even some highly unusual particles that might have been interfering with it or the Da’al systems. She also had the scanners to look for the impact area for better data on the mass and composition of the meteor, and the same for the rings, since they had little data on them. To her surprise, somebody on the bridge accepted all her requests, reserving much of the sensor grid to them. It normally took much more time to have science experiments approved. They should include an intelligence officer to the science teams more often.
Jovenan: I’ve initiated the scan. I’ll set up the model now.
Working silently, she had the computer analyse the data as they got it and extrapolate it to different variations of the model with typical, albeit large confidence intervals. They were suspecting surprises, after all. After several minutes working with the model, which luckily didn’t differ much from their typical impact analyses, she turned to face the mid-distance.
Jovenan: Computer, Experiment Jovenan Mu-1 to the main holoviewer.
The computer chirped, and soon, above them, a large, bright ball of green continents and blue oceans appeared, with its wide, multicolour rings spanning a dozen metres, almost hitting the walls. It was vast, it was beautiful, but they weren’t there for the sights. Multiple, cone-like, bending bands of different colours, all diverged from a single point on the planet’s surface. That was the impact spot, the only certain place of the meteor’s path.
She wasn’t sure how much the Lieutenant had expertise in sciences or if he understood the three-dimensional confidence bands, so she explained some of what they were seeing.
Jovenan: ::pointing:: Those bands are the different possibilities for the meteor’s path. They are narrower where we know the meteor was – currently only near the impact zone – but get wider further out because of the uncertainty. The scans are still ongoing, so the bands should get narrower and some of them disappear.
Dakora: Response
As they spoke, the computer shifted the prediction slightly, and the bands changed the shape just a bit.
Jovenan: ::staring the holograph:: We won’t be getting perfect results. Seeing to the past is difficult – the meteor isn’t there anymore, the particles have been running around since then… Also, we are still rather far from the planet.
And the model could be flawed. She set it up in mere minutes. Real research doesn’t work like that. She didn’t mention that possibility.
Dakora: Response
As they waited for decent preliminary results to take shape, Jovenan couldn’t stand there silently much longer, but turned to the intelligence officer.
Jovenan: The Resolution… Where you on it when they visited the planet last time?
Dakora: Response
Jovenan: I see. How… how about the… last day of the Resolution?
Dakora: Response
TAG/TBC
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Ensign Jovenan
Science officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11