Beautiful Danger
Captain's Starlog, 9th September 2132.
The Pioneer has been traveling at warp 1.8 for the past two and a half week. Crew morale is still high since we left port. About five days ago, Lieutenant Commander Harrison picked up a nebula on the ship's long range sensors. We are moving to the nebula's coordinates to investigate.
The door to the turbolift slide open and Captain Tan exited the turbolift and made his way to the centre of the bridge to where his command chair was. Before he could ask for a status report, Lieutenant Commader Harrison already anticipated the captain's request and reported, "The nebula is approximately fifty-thousand kilometres in front of us," Harrison continued his report, " the nebula consist of hydrogen and helium gasses as well as trace amount of sirillium in it." Tan took a moment to think before asking his science officer, "I'm sorry Sherlock, but what exactly is sirillium?" Harrison looked up from his console and answered the captain's inquiry, "Sirillium is a type of element that is found in certain nebulas, it is normally not volatile in nature but if it were exposed to a modulated positron beam, the gas would ignite in a rather violent nature." Tan nodded in understanding after hearing his science officer's explanation. "Can we get the nebula's image on the viewscreen? Harrison nodded and then proceeded to key in commands into his science console that brought the view of the nebula on to the viewscreen.
The viewscreen which just a moment ago was black was now filled with the beautiful image of a cerulean coloured nebula. Amazing, absolutely amazing, mused YiZhong as he sat down into his command chair. " Captain, more in depth scanning has revealed that the nebula is about 1.5 lightyears in diameter," informed Harrison while looking down into his sensor scope. "1.5 light years in diameter?" gasped Ensign Romanoff , "it would take around three months to traverse that distance at warp 1.8."
" It would take exactly 93 days and 22 hours to clear the nebula at warp 1.8," corrected Harrison to the young flight officer while still looking down at his sensor scope. Ensign Romanoff did not offer a rebuttal to the Lieutenant Commander's correction as she knew that Harrison was certain that his calculations were correct, plus it would be unprofessional to question a senior officer.
"Mr. Harrison, will the ship be any danger if it were to enter the nebula for a closer look?' queried Tan to his chief science officer. Harrison went over the reading that he took of the nebula that was now on his console's display screen and replied, "At the moment, scans indicate that the ship would not be in any danger if it were to enter the nebula for a closer look." Excellent, mused YiZhong, we can take a few picture when we are in the nebula and send in back to Earth, sure they would love it.
"Captain," Tan turned around his chair to face his chief armory officer who wanted to voice a suggestion, "I suggest that we polarize the hull plating just as an added precaution, there might be something in there that our sensors might not be able to pick up from this range." Tan nodded in agreement to his armory officer's suggestion. nodded back to the captain and proceeded to polarize the ship's hull plating.
"Miss Romanoff," said Tan as he repositioned his command chair to face the viewscreen, "take us into the nebula nice and slowly, half impulse power." Ensign Romanoff's fingers danced across her console to input the captain's commands to take the Pioneer into the cerulean coloured nebula. The Pioneer's impulse engines powered up and proceeded to move into the nebula at half impulse power.
Tan got out of his command chair and made his way to the science station where Lieutenant Commander Harrison was stationed and asked the Commander, "Will it be possible to collect a sample of the nebula's gas?" Harrison took a moment to think before replying his captain's query, "It is possible to use the transporters to beam the nebula gas on board into a canister," Harrison paused for a moment before continuing, "but the transporters has not been calibrated to be used in such a manner yet."
Tan nodded and made his way to the comm panel and proceeded to press the command to open a channel to engineering before saying, "Shariq, I need a favor," Tan waited for his chief engineer's reply, "Go ahead captain," replied Shariq. "Is it possible for you to recalibrate the transporter to be able to beam up a small sample of the nebula's gas?"
Shariq was scratched his head and thought for a moment before replying Tan over the comm, "Well I could probably try and fine tune the transporter's targeting scanner to try and beam up the nebula's gas, as the targeting sensor at this moment can only pick up solid objects."
"How long do you need to recalibrate the targeting sensors ?" asked Tan over the comm system. Shariq reached for his PADD and keyed in some instructions into it before replying, "Probably two hours , an hour if I get some help." Silence for a moment, finally the captain replied, "Get all the help you need Shariq, bridge out." And I thought that I could take the afternoon off and see the nebula first hand, mused Shariq. Just then the ship shuddered for a moment, and then as quickly as it happened , it stopped. I hope nothing bad happens, mused Shariq as he grabbed his engineering kit and made his way to the transporter room.
The shipped was rocked even more violently compared to the first time, Tan had to grab hold of the bridge's hand rail to prevent himself from falling over. "Report." barked Tan as he made his way back to his command chair. Ensign Romanoff was the first to reply the captain, "Spatial turbulence sir, nothing serious," Ensign Romanoff reported as her fingers danced across her console to keep the Pioneer stable and level.
Once Tan had sat down in his command chair, he turned over the command chair to face the science station and queried Harrison, "Mr. Harrison, what seems to be causing this spatial turbulence." Harrison turned around to look into his sensor scope and replied the captain's query while still looking into it, "Sensors are not picking up any phenomenas that could be causing this spatial turbulence," Harrison then turned around to face the captain and continued, " it could be the fact that we are traveling deeper into the nebula, that could be the cause of the increasing turbulence that is affecting the ship." Tan nodded in understanding, "Ensign Romanoff, full stop please." requested Tan to the young flight officer. "Registering full stop now captain," replied Romanoff to the captain's order. The Pioneer with that order, grounded to a stop.
Shariq was in the middle of recalibrating the transporter's targeting sensor when the ship was rocked yet again. How am I suppose to recalibrate the transporter's targeting sensor if the ship keeps shaking ?, mused Shariq. "Pass me the sonic driver Prakash," asked Shariq to his assistant and friend Prakash Sri who was assisting him with the recalibration. Prakash went through the engineering tool box and proceeded to take out the sonic driver and handed it to Shariq. "What if we link the targeting sensors to the main sensor array ? We can boost the sensitivity of the transporter's targeting sensor by doing that as well," asked Prakash to Shariq. Shariq replied, "because it would take far to long to do that and the transporter system's software was not designed to use the sensor array anyways." Shariq handed back the sonic driver to Prakash who put it back into the tool kit. Just then, the Pioneer was rocked again, this time more violently compared to the first few time. "What do you think is happening up there?" asked Prakash with a look of confusion. Shariq with look of confusion took a moment before answering, "I have no idea."
"Why is the turbulence even worst then the earlier ones?" asked Tan to his bridge crew. The first to reply was Harrison, "Captain, it would seem that my earlier hypothesis has been proven false," Harrison double checked his reading before continuing, "it would seem that the residue given off by our impulse engine is the cause for this violent turbulence." The ship was rocked again. "But we are at an all stop," exclaimed Ensign Romanoff who was trying her best to keep the ship stable. Harrison replied, "It would appear that the residue that was left over before we achieved an all stop was sufficient enough to destabilize the nebula even further."
"Is there any way to counteract this?" asked Tan as the ship was rocked again. Harrison took a moment before replying, "At this moment the only solution could be wading out the storm and wait for the impulse engine residue to dissipate enough and then get out of the nebula at the first chance we get using thrusters only."
"How long will that take?" queried Tan as the ship was rocked yet again by the spatial turbulence. "At this rate, about an hour and a half," answered Harrison. "Captain I'm not sure whether the structural integrity of the ship can hold out for that long," exclaimed Lieutenant Cho who was at the tactical station. This mission is not off to a good start, mused Tan.
"What about using the warp drive?" suggested Lieutenant Alice Marcus who was working at the communications station at the moment. "That would not be advisable," Harrison replied, "at the moment we do not know what will happen if we engage the ships's warp drive, it would not be advisable to take such a risk." The ship was rocked yet again by the turbulence. Just then an alarm went off, "Hull micro-fractured starting to form on D-deck," reported as he looked at his console's readout.
The ship was rocked yet again, but this time is was not as bad as the one before. Shariq entered engineering with Prakash and proceeded to jab the comm panel that was located next to the entrance of main engineering, "al-Reza to the bridge, what is going on up there?" Shariq waited for a reply, "Shariq, we have encountered some sort of spatial turbulence that seems to be caused by the residue wake that our impulse engines give out," before al-Reza could get more of an explanation, Captain Tan spoke, "Shariq, I need you to shore up the ships's structural integrity, shun whatever power you can scrap and divert it to the ships's structural integrity field, or we will be torn apart by the turbulence." Great, mused Shariq, first the transporters and now this, what next ? This is not the time to complain, Shariq thought to himself, the ship is in danger. "I'll get right on it captain." replied Shariq before calling out to a few of his engineers to begin shoring up the ship's structural integrity field.
"Micro-hull fracture beginning to form on C-deck captain," reported while looking down at his console. Although the turbulence has become very much less violent, the violent turbulence from earlier on has already done damage to the ship. "Captain," Harrison called out, "at the current rate of turbulence we can start to move out of the nebula." The ship was rocked again. Tan nodded in agreement with his science officer, "Miss Romanoff, take us out of the nebula, nice and slowly, thrusters only," ordered Tan to the young ensign. "Aye sir," replied the ensign as her fingers danced across her helm console to bring the Pioneer out of the nebula.
Captain Starlog, Supplemental.
After traveling for a total of 7 hours using thrusters only, the Pioneer has finally exited the nebula. Damage control teams has been working hard to fix the various damages that the Pioneer had sustained during it's time in the nebula. The actual explanation on how our impulse wake could have caused the level of spatial turbulence that we encountered within the nebula has yet to be determined. Lieutenant Commander Harrison is working on finding an explanation through the small sample of nebula gas that was brought onboard using the recalibrated transporter.
Tan jabbed a button on his panel, ending his log recording and proceeded to get up from his chair and and stare out of his room's viewport to the view of the nebula that still could be seen. The cerulean hue that the nebula gave off was as beautiful as ever. YiZhong mused, beautiful but dangerous.