Visions of Demons of Air and Darkness

Posted on Tue Jul 19th, 2011 @ 5:30pm by Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix & Captain Nathan Cowell MD

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Astrometrics Lab, Deck 5, USS Arizona
Timeline: Following

Aral Aix was frenetic with activity, working between several consoles in Astrometics, he had attempted to manually construct a tidal model to compare with computer results. His work was equal parts safety and scientific inquiry. The correction, if any, between the models would reveal whether Aral had a sound scientific understanding of the nebula's movements or whether there were greater factors at play. The Iconians were the stuff of legend, they perished almost a quarter of a million years ago. Although several rich archaeological sites had been found, including what was thought to be Iconia, the race were shrouded in mystery. Demons of Air and Darkness; they had been one of the earliest known species to develop truly advanced technology and had quickly become the envy of the galaxy.

The computer bleeped for the Science Officer's attention. The program was complete. "Computer, transfer Astrometrics control functions to the Bridge."

=Bridge, Deck 1, USS Arizona=

The Chief Science Officer exited the turbolift and carefully walked his way around the room to the Science console. Although he had spent several stretches of time on the bridge, this was the first time he was to sit at his console. It was simultaneously new and familiar. Manually checking the data that flooded through from Astrometrics Aix began relaying it to the CONN.

The entry of the Trill scientist has prompted Nathan to rise from his command chair and approach the station Aix was taking up residence at. Looking over his shoulder, the old man found him working busily with plasma storm tidal movement charts, which led to the Commodore making a comment.

"I take it by your sudden arrival that your program is up and running," Nathan observed.

"Yes sir." Aral replied as he continued his calculations without looking up, "We have a course that shouldn't rip her guts out, as long as we go in one eighth normal impulse and use the computer to auto correct course headings." He hit a button, "Link to the helm has been established." Plasma currents were unusual, unpredictable and generally unstudied. The only comparable phenomenon Aral knew of was the Badlands, and Starfleet had never fully committed to charting them, their expansiveness and lack of any real mineral or cultural wealth had made the expense prolonged study best written off as 'impossible'.

Ensign Akron sat at the helm. "Ready on your orders sir." The main viewer was beautiful, it swam with purple, blue and gold plasma energy against the blackness of space.

"Take us in, Mister Akron. If it gets too much for you, call your boss up here and have her drive," Nathan called out to the helmsman currently occupying the front seat.

The Arizona lurched ahead. "We will feel a bit of turbulence until the inertial dampers adjust to the electromagnetic and gravimetric pressures." Aral explained, feeling almost defensive about the choice of course. He looked down at his console; the data was streaming to the helm too fast for him to follow, he hoped the Ensign at CONN was able to handle the pressure.

A blue flash lit up the view screen and a large crack was audible throughout the bridge. Aral, and most of the bridge crew flinched.

"Bit of turbulence my ass..." Nathan growled as he made his way back to the command chair, "Status of the shields, Lieutenant Marion."

Elizabeth brought up the tactical readouts to ensure that their shields were still active, and that they would hold out against the fierce storms that swirled around them. She made several adjustments to the power distribution grid to compensate for the load being demanded by the sensor arrays and shields in order to keep them at full power, but she managed to make it work.

"Shields holding at ninety-three percent. I'm going to try and modulate them to absorb some of this energy that's being thrown around, but I'm not sure if it will work or not. The energy spikes I'm seeing in the sensor scans might make it rather impossible to get anything but residual energy from the storm," the Lieutenant responded.

"Just keep us alive, don't worry about making it all fancy," Nathan chided her a little.

Aral checked the sensor readings and double checked them, crunching the numbers before blurting out, "We're a lightening conductor."

"No shit..." the Commodore countered as he swiveled around to face the Trill, "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Captain Obvious, do you have any solutions?"

Aral frowned, more off footed than insulted at the Commodore's outburst. Something clicked inside his mind, it was obvious. "I'm the Science Officer; it's my job to have a solution." He paused, "Our course of clear space is the distance created between two storms." He simplified the physics. "Our shields work on the basis of attracting and absorbing energy. What we need to do is to drop the shields and reverse the polarity of the neutron flow along the structural integrity field." He paused, "We need to become the rod, conduct the energy." The Commodore looked skeptical. Aix continued. "We are a perfectly sealed unit. The hull will conduct the electrical energy from one layer to the other.

"And the catch is...?" the old man asked, expectant that there was one.

"The warp cores will need to be taken offline." Aral replied without hesitation, the thought that a matter/anti-matter annihilation chamber might get hit by a pulse of electromagnetic energy did not bear thinking out.

"So you're saying this is risky, this lightning rod idea?" the Commodore inquired.

"Theoretically, it's the safest way we can do this." Aral replied. "If we go in shields full we could probably ride it out. But, if the shields fail and we're clipped by a current, waiting an hour for warp speed will be the least of our worries."

The old man grumbled to himself for a few minutes before relenting, "Fine... make it happen. If this idea blows up in our faces, I'm blaming you..."

"If this blows up in our faces Commodore, neither of us will be around to notice." Aral began the exercise of coordinating with the Operations and Engineering from his station. In reality it was a simple exercise Lieutenant Marion could accomplish from the Operations console. The sound of the warp cores powering down was almost audible.

The Arizona began to slip through the storms, almost propelled by their electrical energy. Aral watched Ensign Akron at the helm, the man seemed to be almost enjoying his shift.

"How long will this take now that we're moving by lightning rod power?" the impatience in Nathan's tone was palpable.

"Present course gives us about six hours until we encounter the first star system, it has a binary star... very rare inside a nebula. It then goes on to three other interesting stellar phenomena over the next week..." The Science Officer was just settling in to his topic when the Commodore cut him off.

"Six hours, good... wake me when we get there," Nathan said, getting up from his chair, making for his Ready Room.