Signal Loss
Posted on 29 Mar 2023 @ 11:43am by Ensign Marcello Wiser & Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*) & Lieutenant Louke Haille & Major Declan Finn
Mission:
M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Pathfinder, in orbit of Korix
Timeline: MD09 ~0310 HRs (Following "Sea & Sky: Deathly Quiet ")
1505 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure
”What do you mean, you’ve lost contact with them?” Captain DeHavilland exclaimed, shooting up from her chair to take a step towards the Ops station where Lieutenant Haille was speaking. “Get them back. Now!” she added, a strong note of fear in her voice.
It didn’t make sense to her at all. Things had been going fine, slowly, but fine. The Acamas had launched without issue and entered the atmosphere, and the water of the planet below without any incident. As expected, the strong mineral deposits on the planet were playing games with their scanners but they had been countering that. Or so she’d thought. She shook her head as she stood there waiting for Haille to explain just what the hell was going on. This couldn’t be happening. They were fine. The away team was just having some kind of a technical issue. She tried to steady her breathing so she didn’t look frantic in front of her crew.
“I’m trying to sort it myself, Ma’am. The buoy relay was working,” Louke indicated the readings from just moments before; they’d received all of the dive data and imaging right up to the discovery of the Korinn probe launch structure before contact had started to cut out. “Everything went flawlessly, but now there’s some sort of electrical effect in the atmosphere, a static dissipating the signal.”
“What about launching a buoy relay of our own?” DeHavilland asked. “Something to amplify the signal so we don’t lose them again?”
“We can try a probe drone relay…” Ensign Sabba thought out loud. “But the signal is already degraded along the buoy relay and isn’t going to improve with additional linkages. And it’s unlikely to overcome the electrical dispersion to reach us in orbit. Either we need to send something through the atmosphere to try to reestablish a signal and then back up to us to confirm if they’ve gotten it, or else, we would have to take ourselves below the building stormfront.”
At the Helm, Ensign Wiser tried not to get uptight at the idea of piloting the ship through the atmosphere to get some pictures of seashells. He grimaced in spite of himself.
Corvus tapped her foot as she thought that out. The Nova class was rated for atmospheric flight, but the ship wasn’t really and truly meant for that purpose. Its need to land was really for further, more detailed, scientific research. But it was a viable option. One she wasn’t so averse to considering they’d still have Theseus in orbit to watch their proverbial back. She just wasn’t that sure that they were quite there yet, in terms of their desperation.
“We could try to amplify the signal gain through the relays with a second probe tethered to the primary,” a new voice cut in, turning Corvus’ attention back to see Commander Quinn on the bridge, now standing at the Engineering station and consulting some data. She hadn’t heard the lift doors open and let him in. Being senior staff, the Marine sentries wouldn’t have made a fuss either.
“It might get something through, if there’s anything on the buoys to tune in to.” Saaba agreed.
“Seeing as quantum space-time communications relays have been restricted to pre-approved research purposes only,” Quinn said, “We haven’t many other options but to fiddle with the gain.” The quantum technology was near flawless in transmission, overcoming almost any interference, but it worked too well. So well in fact, it had the possibility of receiving messages prior to them being sent, which landed it squarely in the forbidden zone with fleet ethics committees and the Department of Temporal Investigations.
Major Finn had been edging towards the group ever since Quinn had started and as he got closer, DeHavilland stepped back, feeling a flood of relief to have him a bit closer and at the same time chiding herself for such a schoolgirl reaction. It had just been one kiss. One very passionate kiss. Something she’d been replaying in her head far more frequently than she rightly should have been. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to having and she was simultaneously excited and concerned that she was having them after so long. She needed time to decipher if it was because it had been so long, or because Declan just was the right match.
“Couldn’t we ping the runabout via sonar?” Major Finn interrupted. “Rig the buoys to emit a ping and at least try and determine how far out they are?”
“I… can set a probe to contact the buoys to set a sonar ping and then return if it receives a result?” Saaba said, still trying to get around the air static difficulty between the ship and the probe.
“Start simple and work our way into the more complex solutions,” Captain DeHavilland agreed, gesturing towards Saaba’s station and heading that way, touching Finn’s arm gently as she passed in silent thanks for his offering.
“Mr. Wiser,” DeHavilland added as she walked around, “Let the Theseus know what’s going on and see if they have any other suggestions,” she called out.
While it wasn’t what Callum was there for, it didn’t hurt to have a few more heads in the game. They were a bigger ship, better staffed and with a crew that actually belonged on the vessel. What DeHavilland was commanding was a motley crew of random officers from different disciplines tossed onto this ship. It was nowhere near the steady, gelled crew she knew the Theseus’ to be. Nor was it the crew she would have fielded were she truly looking to man this vessel.
“Aye, Ma’am.” Marcello was just thankful they were going with other ideas before dipping into the atmosphere. He’d been drilling like a fool, but he still was not crazy about it.
“I’ll program the probe drone.” Quinn said dryly. It was a very simple matter of entering the proper logic circuits for sending and receiving the message, and a return flight. Child’s play.
“I have faith in Ensign Wiser’s piloting abilities, but if we don’t have to take this ship into atmospheric flight, that would be ideal,” Corvus mused to Saaba and Declan as she took up residence beside the Ensign’s station.
“Because of the storm?” Declan asked with a shake of his head.
“Because we’re already at a tactical disadvantage. Put us into an atmospheric flight situation and we’re going to have even more trouble getting out of it,” she answered quickly.
“You’re assuming the Pyrryx have atmospheric flight capabilities,” Finn shrugged. “Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.”
“Maybe not,” Corvus agreed. “I’d just rather not add variables if I don’t have to,” she answered with some finality, now gesturing to the terminal with Saaba and offering a quick suggestion.
“Uh, Ma’am,” Wiser piped up. “Theseus suggests we try an atmospheric flight to make contact under the stormfront. Captain Callum is offering to provide cover.” Even as he read it out, the pilot was shaking his head to try to subliminally help her to reject the idea.
DeHavilland snorted under her breath, “Tell Captain Callum we’ll keep him posted,” she replied dismissively, hoping for something more productive than that.
“Captain,” Quinn addressed. “Assuming the probe does not receive a sonar reply ping from the Away Team and therefore trigger a return, how long would you prefer it to carry on otherwise collecting data before recalling itself to a sub-orbital altitude outside of the static field? Shall I have it perform an orbit?”
“Yes,” Corvus answered, happy to latch onto a good idea. One that didn’t put them in the hands of an Ensign navigating a ship he’d only flown once through a strange atmosphere with growing weather phenomena. “Even if the probe can’t raise the away team, get every detail on the planet we can. With the interference we’re getting up here, it may be the only chance we get.”
Like a maestro made to play Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Lance tapped a few more keys to complete the programming. “Parameters set. The probe is prepared to launch.”
Captain DeHavilland turned away from the terminal she had been assisting Saaba at and headed back for her own terminal, giving Commander Quinn an affirming nod. “Launch the probe. Display the readings on the forward glass,” she ordered as she gestured ahead as if he needed that guidance. Folding her arms across her chest, but not bothering to sit down, Captain DeHavilland faced the forward viewer and watched the small blip of light shoot out from underneath the dorsal section of the ship and then out towards the planet, hoping that it would bring back the away team.
