Lt jg Waman Catona - There goes the probe ...
Jania Nis
((Main bridge, USS Amber))
Well, he was quite embarrassed. His decade on New Bajor had left him unfamiliar with bridge equipment, and his performance had, perhaps, upset his superior officer. To be frank, it was hard to tell if she was upset or not. For all he knew, she was always upset. But it certainly hadn’t impressed her.
Forsyth: What about you, Lieutenant Catona?
Catona: I’ll be curious to see if it responds to probing. If it is alive, it’s hard to guess what it might do. We should be prepared for some sort of reaction.
Katsim: We also need to figure out a way to carefully change its trajectory without destroying it, but so it will not collide with the outpost.
It was a frightening point, although if this was a living creature, it should do its best to avoid collision with the planet’s surface … unless that somehow benefitted it.
Catona: Only way to find out is to get that data!
Lieutenant Forsyth seemed to appreciate that answer, even if Commander Katsim did not. Forsyth swung around and faced the viewscreen once more.
Forsyth: Then, let’s hit it!
Katsim: Response
He gritted his teeth. oO One button. Hit one button. If she sees you hitting five, button-mashing in the hopes you’ll figure it out, you’re done for. Oo This was the most pivotal moment of the mission for him. He pressed a button.
Catona: Probe away.
The probe darted away from the Amber lower pod, heading towards the comet like a blinking star. It did not take long for the data to start coming in from the probe, and Alex watched the science team get to work analysing it.
Forsyth: Well, what are we getting?
Catona: Probe’s paused. There’s some sort of acidic layer between the ice and the mercury. No reaction from whatever’s inside.
Katsim: Response
Forsyth: Could we try a tractor beam, just enough to shift it slightly or even stop it completely?
Waman watched the object grow ever closer to the nearby planet. He was struggling to be interested in the engineering problem, more invested in what this thing was. He glanced at Commander Katsim to ferret out her opinion, but to him, she appeared as stoic as ever.
Katsim: Response
Suddenly the probe sent back an update. But its code was full of errors and gaps. For a moment, he feared he’d done it somehow, with his early gesticulations of nervousness. But the probe had drilled into the acid, which in turn fried the machine’s receptors.
Catona: Some damage to the probe from the acid layer. It’s having trouble recalibrating.
Forsyth/Katsim: Response
One more burst of data came through before the probe shut down completely. The display on the screen constructed a model of the object: the outer layer was an ice shell, followed by a thin layer of acidic electrolytes, followed by the mercury, and inside that, the gooey center -- a complex series of zinc-based molecules. Unfortunately, the acid had damaged the probe long before it could perform a reasonable analysis of the interior structure
Catona: This almost sounds like an egg.
Forsyth/Katsim: Response
Catona: What if it needs to crash to hatch?
He once again fumbled with the keys on his console, but this time it was fumbling with intention. He was doing something he had done many times while working on the research station on New Bajor: He was creating a model.
The model displayed on-screen for them. In the model, entry into the planet's atmosphere removed the ice layer easily enough, but the mercury stayed until impact ... when it briefly mixed with the acid and the zinc inside to create a rather explosive chemical reaction, birthing life at the same time it caused unimaginable destruction to the site of impact.
Forsyth/Katsim: Response
Catona: Please don’t get me wrong. We must find a way to divert it, for the sake of the lives down below. But orbital insertion may be part of its life cycle.
It was a fascinating idea, even if it was invented by a Federation holodeck programmer on a whim. He almost wished it was real … except for the inevitable consequences to the world below.
Forsyth/Katsim: Response
Tags/TBC
Lieutenant Junior Grade Waman Catona
Science Officer
USS Octavia E. Butler NCC-82850
O240108JN2