Nebulous Decision
Posted on 26 Dec 2022 @ 3:57pm by Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*) & Major Declan Finn & Commander Calliope Zahn
Edited on on 26 Dec 2022 @ 3:58pm
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Unknown Class J Nebula
Timeline: MD08 1845HRS
2750 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure
The swirling gases of the nebula seemed close enough to touch through the viewport of the USS Pathfinder as she stood there, leaned against the edge of the portal into the void, staring into its depths as if she might devine the answers to their situation or the future that was waiting for them if she stared long enough. So much had happened so fast and they had moved so quickly to be clear of it only to stop suddenly and lurk here in this nebula waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.
This was not Corvus’ sort of game. She wasn’t the sit idly and wait type. But right now, the only tool she had at her disposal was a science ship that wasn’t likely to be able too much of anything. In fact, she knew couldn’t do much of anything because a similar class of ship had gone toe to toe with the Pyrryx and by all accounts, both those that were there and those reviewing the after action, there really wasn’t any valid reason Captain Parnell and the USS de Grasse should have survived the encounter. They had, but only just. The damage to their ship had been so extensive it had been scuttled outright. While Corvus wanted to consider herself a competent tactician, she had to admit that she was new to the job while Captain Parnell had been in the game much longer.
“On Belthaph XI, there are these women who can look into the depths of the nearby nebula, and read your future,” offered Major Finn, having padded softly over to stand with her by the viewport.
Corvus rolled her eyes over to Declan, “Really?”
He nodded sagely, “It’s quite amazing,” he replied. “And for just one strip of latinum, they’ll tell you all the details,” he smirked.
She snorted lightly with laughter, shaking her head. “And how many strips did you lose?”
“Oh I don’t buy into that bullshit,” he shook his head, smirking.
“Hope not,” she chuckled.
“Aye. Tarot’s where it’s at,” he deadpanned.
Corvus laughed outright and shook her head, turning over to him. “Alright, I needed that,” she admitted.
“Not that you don’t do a good ‘brooding Captain with the weight of the ship on her shoulders’,” Declan shrugged, “But I thought you might could do with a laugh. At least… I needed one,” he added.
“The waiting is always the worst,” Corvus sighed, turning back to look into the void.
“Marine HUD’s have a text display,” Declan offered somewhat randomly, making her look over with slight confusion as to where he was going. “I always downloaded some kind of text based game to keep my attention on the long waits. I mean,” he said, gesturing out to the nebula, “A watched pot never boils. So might as well stimulate the mind, right?”
Corvus fixed him with a slightly concerned look, “Are you… asking me to play scrabble, Major?”
“No,” he shook his head, “Just sugge-.”
Someone approached and cleared their throat as the two spoke softly beside the view port. When they turned it was Calliope.
“Sorry to interrupt…” Calliope knew no one was going to think anything about seeing the Captain and the Major close by. It had been that way since they had set out, with Declan assigned to her by the Admiral. But Calliope sensed a different tenor with Corvus. She’d been resenting being babysat, but it seemed to Calliope that Corvus was acclimating to his company as the days wore on. “Commander Quinn says he has something he wants you to see.”
“Ok,” DeHavilland answered, turning away from the glass. Seeing as Quinn wasn’t on the bridge she presumed they were taking a walk. “Mr. De La Fuente, you have the conn,” she ordered, gesturing for Calliope to lead the way as they headed towards the lift. Corvus didn’t have to look back to confirm that Major Finn was still with them. Anymore, she had gotten used to his being her shadow and, dare she admit it, had gotten over him being a constant presence.
Stepping into the lift, Calliope called out “Engineering Lab.” She would have liked to be able to say that she had the deckplan memorized. It was always something important to acclimate to when you served shipboard, but she hadn’t served regularly on any Novas or science vessels and the deck numbers were still not easy for her to tick off. When the deck number displayed, she made a mental note. It was a step down from the Main Engineering level in that connected pit. Her spatial memory was clear even if she couldn’t call out decks and sections. She made an effort not to turn around and look at Declan and Corvus. She didn’t want to make it weird as she wondered about her pheromones in the lift and the two of them shoulder to shoulder. Everyone insisted they could handle it, after all. Still, she didn’t tarry when the doors let them out and strode down the corridor to the lab entrance Lance had been working from.
“Any idea what Lance has found?” Corvus inquired after a bit, the awkward silence getting a bit too much so.
“I’m not sure,” Calliope said over her shoulder, “but I imagine this might be about the station core. He may have resumed analysis. Or it might pertain to the research on the Pyrryx wreckage. I know he brought along what he could in the time he had.” Which had been measurable in minutes. She wasn’t complaining, so much as listening to Lance’s laments on the limitations of the preparatory work he was able to conduct.
The engineering lab was silent, but the kind of silence that held a nervous energy but, rather, an excited anxious one. Corvus could see it on the faces of the engineers at their stations as they walked in, heading towards the figure of Lieutenant Commander Quinn. The tall, slender officer was standing by a holo terminal facing the data core that they’d acquired on the stiaton, itself contained within a forcefield that appeared to be keeping the core submerged in water or some other liquid.
When he didn’t turn around immediately, Calliope intuited that he was absorbed in some deep train of thought. He often was seized by those and would become distant and unresponsive. When they were younger she used to take advantage of those moments to spring up on him and surprise him. Now that they were older… well, the temptation hadn't left.
“Lance,” She said, trying not to startle him, “You said you had something new? We’re just waiting for now, so the Captain had a moment to spare.”
“Hmm?” Lance stirred, looking back to the familiar voice of his wife and then realizing she wasn’t alone. He had called for them of course, but such was the nature of things that he’d let his mind drift completely into the work and had forgotten all about it.
“Mr. Quinn, what do you have for me?” DeHavilland asked.
“Ah, it’s not what, Captain,” Quinn answered with a smirk, glancing past her at Major Finn. “It’s whom,” he smiled.
“I don’t follow,” Corvus said with a quick shake of her head, folding her arms over her chest.
Quinn turned back to his holo-console, activated a command and then a moment later a holographic figure appeared just to his right, dead ahead of Captain Hawthorne.
“This, is a Korinn,” he smiled, indicating the figure.
Corvus carefully unfolded her arms from her chest, “A Korinn. Not a Pyrryx,” she clarified.
“Correct,” Lance nodded. “Doctor Wagner was able to complete a post-mortem on the cadaver acquired on the station and I was able to line up her data to this data without any incongruencies,” Quinn went on, bringing up a second holo showing the cadaver compared to the version from the data core.
“Obviously, they are an aquatic species that lives exclusively in that environment. So far as Doctor Wagner can tell from her post-mortem, or I can tell from the data, they don’t seem capable of breathing air as we do,” Quinn continued, gesturing to the holo. “The specimen recovered was a female. Approximately six foot, seven inches, tip to tail with an estimated standing height of about six foot five. According to the data here, there is a sexual dimorphism which would suggest that a male Korinn would be some measure larger than this female specimen.”
DeHavilland was by no means a biologist or a Physician, but her tactical mindset was latched hard onto the concept of nearly seven foot tall, water-borne humanoids and how to even begin to think about defending against that. Carefully she had to pull herself back from the more aggressive line of questions and into the more relevant points.
“You were able to extract this information from the core. Have you been able to determine the station’s function, or why the Pyrryx would be guarding it?” Corvus asked.
“I don’t see anything in the data core, or from the scans of the station inside or out that would indicate a Pyrryx influence,” Lance shook his head, “But the purpose of the station is clear.”
“Is it?” Corvus asked.
“Yes. The station was built as a beacon. The data being broadcast out, or at least that would have been broadcast out if it was still functional, was effectively an invitation,” he explained quickly. “Mathematical formula, trajectory of the local stars and planets, information on their biological structure and language. This,” he said, gesturing at the data core suspended before them. “This is the Korinn’s version of the Voyager probes of Earth. Here were are, here’s who we are. Come and visit.”
“So… it’s coincidence that there is Pyrryx activity near their station?” Corvus asked.
Quinn shook his head, “I have no idea, Captain. All I can say is that there is nothing in the data on that core, the data from our scans or from the data yielded by the cadaver that would indicate any kind of Pyrryx influence.”
“... then why would they be nearby?” Corvus asked, looking to Calliope and by default considering, Major Finn.
“Trap?” Finn offered with a shrug. “Maybe they were doing what Commander Quinn says, but the Pyrryx is who they invited? They kept it online to bait the next ones in?”
“...Possible,” Quinn shrugged, “But is it probable?”
Calliope went back to the welcome screen with the rotating images and scrolled the animation to the end, with the black on white pixel icon. “Considering their message included a warning sign with the outline of Pyrryx warrior armor? This message was sent out after the Korrin had already encountered them. And I’m not sure what numbskull would set a trap including a warning about coming for you. Maybe that’s some kind of 4-D chess tactic though, meant to catch brazen do-gooders.” She motioned broadly around to indicate everything Starfleet. “Not that we shouldn’t proceed with caution, or that the Pyrryx aren’t out reacting to us looking into it. I just don’t think it’s an outright trap.”
“Anyone else feel like there’s a page missing here?” Corvus asked, frowning as she considered it all over again. Was she the only one?
“If there is, I don’t see what it could be that connects the two,” Major Finn shrugged, finding himself unusually interested in agreeing with Corvus. Even as he said it, he was self-reflecting that maybe he’d spent so much time around the Captain that he was letting not wanting to have a confrontational relationship color his reactions.
Calliope bit her tongue and looked over to Lance. In that moment she imagined Lance could better understand the narrowness of some of the calls that had to be made while all the pieces were in motion, most of them unknowable. She and Lance could intuit from what they had so far that this was some kind of distress signal, and that the Pyrryx were the subject of fear. If they didn’t look into it now, there was even less likelihood that anyone would be in time to help at all once they’d gotten word back about it and the fleet had its turn in deliberations. Corvus could be mad at Calliope for having jumped at the narrow chance to rescue a victim on Obsidian and didn’t have to learn about a tragic genocide of thousands because of the risk Calliope had taken in the moment. Calliope’s gut told her this was another such moment. But Corvus was also the captain and Calliope knew her place. “I guess we keep the UT working on the rest of the file and language structure until we confirm if it’s genuine and they’ve really asked for assistance.”
Lance gestured at the readouts, “I believe this to be conclusive,” he said, holding back the retort he really wanted to give.
“I wouldn’t risk my life on that,” Finn chimed in, gesturing at the same reading that Lance was. Once again, the moment the words left his mouth he knew he was lying. He just hadn’t been able to stop himself. Wincing at his own… well, whatever that was… he clamped his jaw shut, flexing the muscles in his jaw just to make it even harder to open up again.
“We stand absolutely zero chance against a Pyrryx vessel,” DeHavilland clarified, gesturing to Finn. “I agree. I won’t risk the lives of the crew on this. Not just yet. Believe me, Commander. I want to believe you. It’s just not conclusive enough for me.”
When DeHavilland looked away, Calliope caught Finn’s eyeline in a what-the-hell expression. They both knew it wasn’t his own life he was being precious about.
The chirp of a commbadge interrupted any further response, “De La Fuente to the Captain,” Commander De La Fuente’s voice intoned.
Corvus tapped her badge. “Go ahead, Commander.”
“Captain, sensor buoy is picking up a warp signature just beyond the edge of the nebula. Readings suggest it may be the Theseus.”
Corvus stood up a little taller, “Can you be sure?”
“Not without increasing the gain on the pod. I can do that, but if it isn’t the Theseus, they’ll know we’re in here,” he explained.
She winced at the thought of sticking their head out from behind their only protection without positive confirmation. Yet again, Corvus was being presented with an option in which there were no clear answers. Immediately she felt a sick feeling in her stomach that this was going to be her life from now on. That she’d spent so long standing in Calliope’s spot, giving details and knowing the answer, but in truth not knowing it, just relying on Captain Dansby to make the call. She could feel the weight of it all, on top of the weight of the realization she’d just had.
“Alright, Commander, plot the fastest exit traj-,” she started, interrupted by the Commander.
”Captain! The vessel is approaching the sensor pod! Standby!” De La Fuente cut her off.
Lance quickly brushed an engineer away from a nearby terminal and repurposed it for command access, waving DeHavilland over so she could see the information real time. The sensor pod was only picking up a large variance in space, nothing definitive yet. But, quite suddenly, the resolution shifted and twitched.
”The pod is being accessed, Captain!”
A moment later, the resolution steadied and in another the feed was replaced by the face of Captain Callum, looking off to the left and muttering something to someone you couldn’t see. “Aye, we’re live?” he turned back to face forward. “Captain DeHavilland. If you’re getting this, alls well. No Pyrryx. We do have information that you need to see. Standing by for your orders,” he said, nodding to turn off the feed.
Corvus let out a long slow breath. “Mr. De La Fuente, are you still there?”
”Aye, Captain,” he replied.
“Take us out of the nebula.”
