Curmudgeon in the Sky with... donuts?

Posted on Thu Jul 21st, 2011 @ 4:16pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia DeVries & Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Bridge, USS Arizona
Timeline: Following 'Visions of Demons of Air and Darkness'

Commodore Nathan Cowell strolled out from his Ready Room almost precisely six hours after departing for it, looking rather refreshed as if he had taken that nap he had alluded to before retiring from his Command Chair. He crossed the distance between the door and his chair while taking in the changes to the seating arrangements that had been made. Lieutenant Sylvari had taken over the CONN station, most likely as a rotational change since Akron most likely worked the overnight watch. Still seated beside the CONN station was Lieutenant Marion, who no doubt was filling in for his OPS chief, given that Lieutenant Idrani was currently on light duty thanks to her injuries. The biggest change was Lieutenant Commander Aix, who had traded sitting at the Mission OPS console for the chair located just forward and to Nathan's left, which was technically designated his station given his secondary role as Second Officer. Lieutenant Colonel DeVries, somewhat amazingly, was sitting at her own station on the bridge, rounding out the set. The rest of the compartment was filled with crewmen that Nathan couldn't rightly identify, nor did he care to... They would answer to their position designations just as swiftly as their names if the need arose.

"Mister Aix," the Commodore inquired as he sank into his chair, "Are we there yet?"

"Yes sir." The Chief Science Officer somewhat unimpressed by the Commodore's adolescent question gestured at the view screen without rising to attention.

Aral Aix had been on duty for over eight hours the last six of which he had spent superintending the bridge. The Commodore, despite his flippancy and curmudgeonly behavior had a unique talent for implicitly delegating responsibility. The Trill felt personally responsible for the success and safety of the vessel. With a few minor EPS relay malfunctions the Arizona had arrived at her first destination with barely a scratch from the nebula's intense plasma storms this was a source of pride and relief for the Science Officer.

As the vessel decelerated the view screen displayed a planetary system with a binary star and a string of planets. Noticing the Commodore's indifference to the planetary system displayed on the view screen Aral chimed in once again, "There are unusual sensor readings coming from the fourth planet sir. I cannot make head nor tail of them."

"Sounds like the place to start, Helm, fire up the engines and set your course for the fourth planet in this system. Maximum impulse will do fine," the old man ordered.

"Aye aye, sir." Alexis replied, bringing up the location of the fourth planet. As they were approaching the system nearly perpendicular to its slightly varying orbital axes, she did not have input as many variables into her course heading... namely the possible--though highly improbable--chance of colliding with another planet or orbiting body. Taking into account the planet's orbital velocity, she plotted a leading course... 264, mark 19 degrees.

As the Lieutenant did her job, Nathan turned to the Science Officer, "Well, Spots, this is your rodeo, what do you expect to find when we get there?"

"The sensor reports show unusual spatial disturbances, they've knocked the inertial dampers about a bit, an older ship would've been staggering about like a Cadet at his first formal." Aral paused, "Whatever is there is powerful and is having an effect throughout this system, possibly beyond but given the storms the sensor data is too patchy to tell."

Nathan drummed his fingers against the armrest of his chair, "Any dangers to the ship from these disturbances, or is it just going to be annoying?"

"Not as yet, but they grow in strength as we approach the anomaly." Aral replied double checking the data, "At their worst, they shouldn't pose any modern starship a real risk."

"Oh good... at least we're not stuck in some old bucket then," Nathan muttered to himself, "Are we there yet?"

Alexis wouldn't have been able to go any faster, not unless they wanted to deal with some serious time dilation effects. What the science officer had been saying was certainly coming true on her end as well... the closer they got, the harder it became to stay on a straight course... like trying to sail against the wind. She found herself making constant course corrections, tacking and jibing in a zig zag like she would in a sailboat... except that the minor corrections were not very discernible from a linear path.

The planet had been getting larger in the viewscreen, however, and it couldn't get much larger unless they wanted to enter a high orbit. She disengaged the impulse engines, and prepared to thrust-maneuver into orbit... expecting that to be their next move. "Yes sir, we've arrived..." She trailed off, gazing at the solar terminator, the fluidly progressing line stretching across the planet's surface where the sun's light gave way to darkness. Out from the planet's shadow, an object began to emerge. It looked like some sort of satellite... but wasn't like any she had ever seen. From here it didn't look large enough to be a moon.

"Umm... sir, we have a... doughnut off our starboard bow." Alexis tried to report in a deadpan tone, utterly failing as she tried to describe what exactly they were looking at.

"Doughnut? Really? Since when did they open up Krispy Kremes in the middle of god forsaken places like this? Scan for the hot fresh doughnut sign!" Nathan rambled.

Lt. Marion couldn't help but giggle a bit at the old man's musings. She pulled out the meaning behind the off the wall comment and made a scan of both the strange asteroid and the planet itself. It took a little while for the ship to fully probe the entire planet. The sensors did, however, come back rather quickly with their analysis of the strange asteroid.

"There is no cream in the floating space doughnut, simply asteroid material with some mineral deposits running through it. A perfectly harmless space anomaly, sir," Liz reported aloud.

"That's no fun..." Nathan groused.

"There are, however, several ruins that have showed up on the initial surface scan. The largest of them is in the northern hemisphere of the planet, on the main land mass. Scans show a Class M atmosphere, and the local climate is temperate. It should be safe to send a team down if you are so inclined," the Ops Officer reported.

"Indeed I am. Colonel, assemble an away team and investigate those ruins. Five bucks says Spots is wrong and this isn't Iconian at all," Nathan ordered, throwing in a bet just to make life a little more interesting for himself. The Chief Science Officer silently frowned at the Commodore's flippancy and misattribution.

Stace stood abruptly to her feet and nodded. "Right." Looking around the bridge and trying to hide her inner disappointment due to lack of Krispy Kremes, the marine reached for her commbadge. "Aix, Minamoto and Lischka, join me in the transporter room. We're heading down to the planet."

"Good luck down there, bring me some souvenirs," Nathan said in farewell.