Ensign S’jenes - Here we go
James hassell
(( Stellar Cartography – Deck 9 ))
The dim chamber thrummed softly, a steady undercurrent of energy that never quite faded. Holographic grids rippled across the circular room as S’Jenes stood with his hands clasped behind his back, observing the shifting projections with the detached focus of a Vulcan—though there was still that faint, Betazoid hum of curiosity beneath it all.
The Rigar Nebula filled the main display in a slow, swirling rotation. Color bands…purples, indigos, reds…shivered each time the sensors hiccupped under interference. S’Jenes tapped a control PADD with his thumb, recalibrating the long-range filter for what felt like the seventh time.
S’Jenes: ::murmuring to himself as he typed the duty log:: Interference profile consistent with Class-4 particulate density. Baseline telemetry degraded by… 82 percent. Fascinating. At this level even tertiary harmonics collapse under… no, that is inaccurate. They invert. Interesting.
He paused, head tilting as another wave of static washed over the holoprojector. The nebula flickered. Became a smear of meaningless color. Reassembled.
S’Jenes: Attempting realignment of sensor phase-lens array. Indrid will undoubtedly find the raw data unsatisfactory, but one cannot stabilize chaos. ::Beat:: At least… not yet.
A soft chirp on his console cut through the haze of noise…an alert from the helm feed. Proximity alarm. On the bridge.
His brows lifted. He checked his side display: no sensor return. None. Not even the suggestion of mass displacement. Whatever had triggered the alarm was invisible to everything Stellar Cartography had running.
S’Jenes tapped the console again, pulling manual spectral scans…crude, weak, barely functional in this soup…but still… something. A faint curvature. A dip in ambient scatter. A shape where no shape should be.
S’Jenes: ::quietly:: That is… not nebular behavior.
The feed from the bridge jittered across one of the auxiliary displays—voices badly garbled, the words distorted by the same interference that plagued everything else. He could still feel the agitation though, faint emotional static humming against his hybrid senses despite the distance.
A planet. Someone had said planet.
S’Jenes blinked once, slowly.
S’Jenes: ::Typing::A Class-D proto-mass? Or a concealed gravitational anchor? Unknown. Yet the probability of a charting error of this magnitude is… exceptionally low.
He swept the data into a compressed packet and transmitted it to Yirah’s station on the bridge—what little there was to transmit. Mostly noise. But patterned noise. That was something.
The ship lurched subtly…reverse thrust, controlled and measured…confirming his suspicion that the bridge had halted forward motion.
S’Jenes: Bridge is maneuvering. Visibility remains insufficient. Additional analysis required.
He stepped toward the main holographic array, folding his hands again.
S’Jenes: ::logging softly:: Continuing passive mapping. Unknown object detected via sensor occlusion pattern rather than direct telemetry. Hypothesis: localized mass shadow consistent with small planetary body. Confidence… 34 percent.
He paused.
S’Jenes: Recommending continued data acquisition… and perhaps caution.
He glanced briefly upward—as though he could see through nine decks to see whatever shape is there.
S’Jenes: Whatever they have found… it’s fascinating.
He returned to the console, the nebula swirling around him like a living being, and resumed his methodical work…waiting, listening, analyzing, as the mystery above him deepened.
Science Officer
USS Constitution-B
C240209S12