"Getting A Sneak Peek At The Upcoming Main Event"
(Previous Post: "Musical Soothing")
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Stardate: 60325.0935
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Deck 13, Stellar Cartography
The night could have been more relaxing for the Shillian scientist but the head of the Science Department had spent the last hour of her forced exile from the bridge waiting for the clock to show 0930 which would mark the four hour mark, the minimum requirement set by Lieutenant Commander Serenna. Although the Shillian had only indulged in three hours of actual rest, the Chief Science OfFicer had been more than ready to jump out of bed and tackle the task that laid before her.
Like a child on the morning of Christmas, the Shillian woman had leaped out of bed and out of her quarters moment second the clock had changed to display the sequence of numbers that she had been waiting for in complete and absolute silence for almost 60 full minutes.
It had taken the Chief Science Officer less than 300 seconds to make it from her quarters on Deck 2 to the entrance of Stellar Cartography on Deck 13, the journey inside of the turbolift having taken the greater majority of this ever so precious time. The Shillian scientist had been running so fast that she had on two occasion collided with the sliding doors that had been in her path because of their failure to respond as fast as the scientist had needed them to.
Now inside the room that stretched up five decks high, the Shillian scientist wasted no time to call upon all available information on the region of space deep within Cardassian space known as the SURIAL System and their ultimate destination: the third planet from the star. Despite decades of deep space probing as well as covert Intel gathering inside Cardassian space the amount of data available on SURIAL III had been sadly minimal, but this did not discourage the Chief Science Officer who had learned to use the resources placed at her disposal as a member of the USS ANUBIS, a state of the art Intel ship which held more than one surprises.
"Lets start with a wide-band passive scan of the area to see if we can find a satellite or maybe even a ship that is transmitting something useful, then I can cross reference that with the data that has been gathered thus far by the long-range sensors, add in any detected radiation emissions, sub-space distortions and superimpose all of that with any variation in the infra-red signatures of the objects that are in that section of space. Compensate for the usual background radiation, and lets not forget about that Class-4 Pulsar that is less than seventy-five light-years away, I can already imagine that the Cardassians and the Romulans have already figured out how to use the varying electromagnetic field generated by that star to their advantage to help camouflage whatever it is that they are doing out there." There had been no indication that the Shillian woman had not had a full night of rest judging by the speed and precision of her work which in no time created an image of the system that had been of a remarkable accuracy given their distance from it.
"Is that a holographic simulation of SURIAL III?" First Lieutenant Pravat asked, walking to stand directly behind the chair where the Chief Science Officer had been sitting. The Shillian had been so busy with her work that she had no noticed the entrance of the Marine into the room, a reoccurring pattern that had begun to stop surprising the scientist.
"Actually," the scientist replied, "the image that you are currently looking at is a real-time reconstruction of the information that is currently available to us. I have overlapped the infra-red signatures and radiation emissions of all the objects present in the system with the data from the long-range sensors and the visible light reflection caused by the sun to create a basic plan that was refined through the use of the sub-space transmissions that I have detected using passive sensor scans. Once all of that was put together is was easy to clean-up the final picture to create a more accurate image of the system and its planets. Of course this image is not one hundred percent accurate, but I would guess it to be at least in the high nineties." The Shillian woman said, not at all sounding as if she had done something above and beyond the requirements of her position onboard the USS ANUBIS.
"Impressive," Pravat said with a grin, knowing that any and all advance Intel gathered on the planet and its surroundings would give the ship a very useful tactical advantage that would help make the rescue mission that much easier. "Any signs of Cardassian or Romulan ships in the system?" The Marine asked, placing his hand on the shoulder of the Shillian without realising what he had done. It was only when the Chief Science Officer stopped what she had been doing to look back at Pravat that the Enaran came to realise where his hand had landed.
"We are still too far to be able to detect any cloaked ship," the Chief Science Officer replied, not at all appearing distraught by the friendly gesture made by the Enaran. "What I can report on though is that there does appear to not be any Cardassian ships present in the system, I mean none that I can see from this perspective as I am unable to get any sort of accurate reading from behind any of the planets or moons, but as time passes and I continue to monitor the system, the odds of detecting any ship hiding behind any of the moons or planets will increase exponentially. This means that, given of course that all of this was done without any mistakes or miscalculations, that we should not encounter any surprises on our way to SURIAL III." The Shillian said, knowing that as accurate as the image displayed in Stellar Cartography had been it still could not account for the possible presence of one or more cloaked Romulan ships. All that the scientist and marine could do was to hope in silence that if such ships where there, that they would be able to detect them before they made their presence known with the full force of their weapons.
"Would you mind if I stayed and continued to watch?" Prav asked, his voice carrying a strange mixture of professional concern for his troops as well as a personal request to be by the side of the Shillian woman.
"Of course not," the Chief Science Officer replied, quickly looking away from the man and back to her instruments so that the Enaran could not see the reddening of her cheeks. Although the Shillian knew that an armed conflict with those in charge of SURIAL III was inevitable, the presence of the Marine First Lieutenant by her side had actually been a source of comfort and not one of disappointment, the scientist having come to accept that the use of force in this case had been the only possible path in order to achieve their objective.
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Jessica Solarik { maya_992003@yahoo.com }
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand, 2005 post #332
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
