Lieutenant Ras El'Heem - Violet Ichor
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((Deck 16, Science Lab, USS Khitomer))
The backlog of PADDwork had begun to feel like a kind of static. The kind of thing that made him wish he was an ensign again. Just doing the fun stuff, not making any heavy decisions. PADDwork was bureaucracy, it kept his hands occupied without ever quite engaging the part of him that needed to mull over a problem. Ras let the PADD Richard had handed him slip from his grip into the growing stack in the center of the table. He would return to it. Just not now.
He shifted back to the primary console, leaning on it with his elbow and resting his chin on his prosthetic. His other hand moved in small, lazy motions as he parsed through what little the sensors had managed to gather. Not much. Fragments, really. Thin slices of information trying to describe something that resisted being observed.
The occlusion profile was the first thing that puzzled him. The way the nebula absorbed and diffused light suggested a density more consistent with Wolf–Rayet ejecta, the kind of heavy elemental shedding that came off a dying star. But there was no progenitor. Not within any reasonable radius. No stellar remnant, no radiation signature. Nothing. He adjusted the spectral filters and watched how they failed to return anything useful. He isolated different frequencies trying to account for something that he could start connecting the dots to.
Light entered the cloud, but it did not return like it should. It wasn’t scattered or diffuse, it was just different. Attenuated unevenly across wavelengths, as if certain frequencies were being preferentially retained or redirected deeper into the mass. The density alone should have produced more predictable light patterns. Instead, it behaved with a kind of selective opacity that suggested internal structure rather that they couldn’t get a read on. Too organized to be random.
The faint emission it gave off leaned heavily into the ultraviolet, though even that reading felt incomplete. The glow had a quality to it. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Ras exhaled quietly, eyes narrowing as he leaned a fraction closer to the display. It reminded him, unhelpfully, of aposematism. The kind found in certain toxic fungi or deep-forest insects. Color as a warning. And that was just the cloud itself. As he checked the feed from the bridge, he shook his head and tsked. It didn’t even begin to explain the graveyard of vessels further in, too far to tell what they were, but plain enough to see that they were dead.
Aposematic miasma, suspended in space. With bits of ship drifting about. He didn’t say that part out loud.
Matthews: Pirates eats man, nebula eats man-eating-pirates, woman inherit the galaxy.
Ras responded absently, barely listening to their comments.
El'Heem: It’s the circle of life.
The data wasn’t telling him anything yet. Maybe it was telling him what it wasn’t but he needed eyes on it. He moved from the station to the larger viewscreen on the wall and flipped to live feed, leaning back against a countertop. The brilliant glow made it so the camera looked foggy, like it couldn’t filter the edges cleanly. Ras crossed his arms and just stared at it. Yet another anomaly.
Melville-Kilpatrick: Oh! I'm getting some signs that there was Sheliak activity somewhere around here. Or at least something that looks a lot like it.
A chill ran down his spine, and he gave an almost imperceptible shiver at the mention of the Sheliak.
Matthews: Is it the powerless ship drifting away from the nebula? Or something different?
His eyes never left the monitor.
El'Heem: It is. But powerless doesn’t mean empty.
Melville-Kilpatrick: Well, it's weird, because it's like...I don't know, it's like they were there, and then they weren't. Usually you'd see...well, a decrease in markers rather than a drop this strong. Maybe they were attacked?
Matthews: Or transported away, or killed instantly by something natural in that dreadful space. :He blinked look up at the other two: Sorry, I’ll try to be less dark. Nebulas, you understand. :He turned his attention back to MK: Good catch though! And thank you for confirming it was a Sheliak ship. I don’t think anyone has logged that.
El'Heem: I don’t get it. ::gesturing to the screen:: it’s like it’s a cloaking field but the only thing that’s not cloaked is in the visual spectrum.
Matthews: I think we need better eyes on things.:Glancing to Ras: it’ll probably be a throw away. But could we launch a probe into the nebula to see if that helps us punch through innerferance?
It was probably their only recourse at this point. Ras turned his head to Richard.
El'Heem: Yeah. Matthews send a probe, but just to the edge. See if we can get a sample of what it’s made of. Could be corrosive, or radioactive in a way we’re not seeing. Somethings eating up all those ships and we don’t need to waste a probe just yet.
Matthews: :Rubbing his hands together: Oh this could be a fun mission. Manouvering probes is like playing a video game. You play video games MK?
Ras rolled his eyes and pushed himself up, walking closer to the viewscreen as if it would suddenly unravel it’s secrets if he paid more attention.
Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
Matthews: Ah . . . oh yeah, been calling you that in my head. It’s quicker than saying the whole name. That’s fine right? I mean imagine if I need you to duck sometime on the field. You could be taken out by the time I get to Kilpatrick. Really I’m just exercising time management here.
He couldn’t tell if it was an artifact of the viewscreen or the ever-so-slight wobble at the edges of the purple hue. Ras squinted.
Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
Matthews: So, video games and probes guys?
Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
El’ Heem: Matthews. Probe. Now. ::turning to the pair
of ensigns:: Whatever’s causing the data to come through garbled like that
might affect the probe too. Ideas?
Matthews: :Pointing at Ras: Good point! Er maybe set up a few probes to send information along a line of sorts? Transporting the data between shorter distances could cut back on inference and actually get the data to the ship’s computer.
Ras grumbled at the prospect of losing more than one probe if it were to go bad. He returned to the console.
Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
The tips of his fingers tapped in a rhythm against the side of the screen.
Matthews: I’m not a naturally nosey person but. I wanna know what the Alliance of annoyance was looking for out here.
El’Heem: ::Looking up at Richard:: Send one probe first. See if we still get that interference. Then we can-
Ras was cut off by the chirp of his commbadge.
C. Dewitt: =/\= Bridge to El’Heem. Tell me we got eyes on what’s inside that nebula, Ras. =/\=
He tapped his badge.
El’Heem: =/\= Negative, commander. Our scans aren’t giving us anything useful. We’re sending a probe to get a closer look. I’ll keep you posted. =/\=
Matthews / Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
He watched Richard on the console and nodded.
El’Heem: Do it.
Matthews / Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
The moment the probe cleared the bay, the viewscreen shifted and a fresh stream of telemetry populated his station. A different vector but no more revealing than what they already had. Ras stepped back toward the viewscreen, watching as the violet mass swelled slowly against the black, its edges soft but growing more defined on approach.
El’Heem: How long until it reaches the edge?
Matthews / Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
At this distance, it almost certainly read as a cloud. Of something nebulous. Like gas, or liquid. But as the probe closed the gap, the image on the viewscreen began to resolve into something else entirely. Thin, smoke like filaments tangling around themselves and then unwinding in a snap. The pattern repeated in continuous reorganization. The probe’s approach seemed to excite the boundary of the anomaly until the outermost wisps coiled into a knot. They drew tighter and deepened in color and then, with no buildup, a strand of dense fibers snapped outward with impossible speed from the cloud’s edge. One moment the probe was approaching, the next the viewscreen was filled entirely with violet and then static.
His breath caught in his throat. Ras dropped his arms and snapped his head to Matthews and MK.
El’Heem: What was that? What just happened? We lost the probe?
Matthews / Melville-Kilpatrick: Response
TAGS/TBC
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Lieutenant Ras El’Heem
Chief Science Officer
USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)
K240106RE3