Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

April 17th, 005 SDE:

Countryman watched the screens, as the debris field came into view. They'd conducted several recon flights over the area, but this was his first time seeing it himself. The view was certainly something, as swirling gases rushed against a field of asteroids, their surfaces marred with craters and scorched in some areas. On the surface of a larger one, he could see the crashed wreckage of an alien ship. Scattered over several square kilometers but the main body was intact. It wasn't the only wreck around, either. The density of the field was a little jarring, moving through here wouldn't be easy, but they'd already found a few promising rocks in the system.

"Eri, move us to the first target."

"Aye, sir!"

He watched her take the ship in, ahead slow. Using her own judgment, just as ordered, to get them to the target. She already knew which rocks they were interested in, and it was nice to let the crew use their judgment and experience at times.

They slipped past several smaller rocks and bypassed a stream of debris zipping past at hypervelocity. A reminder of how strange this place could be. The pilots seemed to enjoy the challenge of flying out in the storm though and he had to admit that fighters traveling at faster-than-light speeds were useful. It had allowed them to scout this debris field from a safe distance, and from the look of it no one was here. If anyone else was alive in this storm, they weren't in this little corner of it.

It wasn't long before rock number one came into view, as it rotated lazily in the storm. It was a large chondrite almost thirty kilometers across. He glanced at Misaki, "How's she look?"

"Scanning sir, give me a moment."

After a moment she continued, "Pretty standard chondrite asteroid, I'm reading a couple of large hollows. Not much in valuable minerals though. It might suit our needs."

"Noted, mark it down as a maybe, and proceed to the second target."

The second asteroid they were looking at was a good hour and a half away from the first. Once in range, Misaki surveyed it with the more powerful sensors on the Enterprise. Mineral content was a bit better, nothing jaw-dropping, but the asteroid didn't have any large hollows. So it would be harder to build a makeshift port here.

Targets three, four and five pretty much told the same story. Target six was an especially large asteroid but where the others had rather stony compositions this one was a carbonaceous rock which made it rather dark, but much lower density. "Mark this one as a no," said Countryman as he crossed six off the list mentally.

Greyman commented from his usual spot by the tac plot, "Looking for something denser?"

Countryman nodded, "I figure some density might help shield the workers from the...

An alarm suddenly blared, as he watched something happen out there. He could only call it a violent eruption that tore into the surrounding space. A drifting wreck was violently shattered and torn apart, as several smaller rocks were flung into the depths of the storm at incredible velocities. Yet as sudden as it was, the eruption was just as quickly gone.

The bridge was silent, only the alarms still ringing as the moment stretched on into eternity before someone spoke, "What the hell was that!?"

Countryman didn't know and no one here could answer what that was. Only Countryman had the feeling they'd just found a new danger to worry about. The radiation was slowly killing them and they just spotted something that might kill them in an instant.

When no one could provide answers on what they just saw they moved on. Thankfully they didn't see another one as they surveyed the remaining rocks. It wasn't long before they found one that Countryman instantly knew was the one.

He stepped down the stairs, as his eyes gazed over the massive asteroid. It was one of the largest they'd surveyed so far, a chunk of metallic rock five hundred kilometers across. Misaki was reading off the mineral content at her console, it was almost pure metal and denser rock types. From the look of things, it was perhaps a planetary fragment or something that over time had started to form a bit of a crust. Even as they looked, several smaller chondrite asteroids impacted with the surface, adding their mass to the overall structure.

Misaki highlighted a section and interposed imagery on the screen, "I'm reading a deeper chasm here, sixteen and a half kilometers long, and about seven wide. This chasm penetrates almost eleven kilometers into the crust."

"Barely a dent but it's a start. Position us over that chasm, and Kaori re-modulate the main beam array for rock cutting. It's time we bore ourselves a hole." he looked at Misaki, "Start organizing some mining shuttles."

"Aye sir."

Greyman quietly inquired, "Think we should worry about that... eruption?"

"Right now I'm more worried about the radiation and fixing the ship. Thankfully those seem to be rare, we've only seen it happen once and we've been here several days already."

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"Agreed, but I'd feel better if we had some way to predict whatever that was."

"So would I, but I'm sure Ruri will have something for us soon enough."

As the two were chatting, the crew got the operation well underway. Powerful focused bursts from the ship's main beam arrays fired into the rock below, drilling deep into the rock. Between shots, shuttles outfitted with resonant particle cannons would break up the rock further into manageable chunks. The lack of working tractor beams was an issue, but they were able to solve it by using dated grappler technology.

In the past, they'd been the prime solution for towing and collecting objects in space. A grappler used reinforced cables and kinetic or magnetic hooks to ensnare an object. Then it could be reeled in or towed. Tractor beams provided a lot more control and versatility, but this was the best they could do in the storm.

Regardless it seemed they were getting the rhythm down, but the process would likely take a few days. He glanced at the storm, still a nice hollow deep within this asteroid seemed to be the best place to take shelter. The sheer mass of rock should hopefully buy them more time to solve the shield problem but more importantly, it would provide a buffer between them and the storm. That would allow them to conduct repairs and reclaim damaged sections from the storm. Being down a hangar certainly hampered their operations.

"If you can handle things here, I would like to check in with Ruri."

"Sure thing sir."

He found Ruri in her favorite lab, and settled behind a console watching a data stream, while Vera was in the other room. The Valorian scientist was settled by a small shield generator with a tool kit next to her, and her entire upper body was buried under the machine, which consequently left her panties rather visible since the skirt she was wearing had hiked up a bit.

Countryman only gave her a glance before taking an open chair near Ruri, "Any luck with the shields?"

"Not yet, Vera is trying another test, but her hopes aren't very high."

"Well keep at it, it's not like we have a better option."

"About that," she paused and reached into a drawer to pull something out, "I'm sure you remember Tessa, our resident cloning specialist."

"Right, she was helping Williams with her secret cloning project."

"Nothing wrong with that, she was merely investigating a different path of thinking. Well in the months since we tried Williams for mutiny, she continued her study of genetic manipulation referencing the Wovnar database as well," said Ruri as she handed the pad over.

Countryman looked it over, it was a project proposal, "Hmm interesting she wants to bioengineer an immunity to radiation?"

"Yes, she's proposing the use of cloned bio-tissues and modified nanites for an accelerated testing schedule. The idea is to alter our own cells to resist the radiation. The work she has shown me looks impressive."

"Clear her to start, I'll pass this on to the council for approval later. Ethical questions aside, we are talking survival and I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket if I don't have to."

The computer beeped and Ruri glanced at it while saying, "Agreed."

"So gene modification projects aside, did you get the..."

"Yes, I had the computer do some analysis for me. That eddy was a rather violent eruption of energy, but from where is the really intriguing part."

"You have an idea on that?"

Vera commented from under the shield generator, "Likely from a deeper layer in hyperspace, we might be able to predict where one will emerge, but we'd need sensors able to peer into other hyperspace layers."

Ruri nodded, "That's part of the problem, our standard ship sensors can't do it. Now we did salvage the interstellar tracking sensors from that Valorian ship, but they aren't good enough. The Valorian Yinta II was designed as a warship, not a science vessel."

"Yinta II? I hadn't heard that name."

Vera interjected, "Apparently that's the name of the class, that dreadnought belonged to. I came across the name while asking the former crew questions about the shields. Sadly, as impressive as they were, I don't think they'll help us much."

"Noted," turning to Ruri, "So we need a better sensor and the Yinta's tracking sensors aren't good enough." he sighed, "I guess it's time we started looking into developing better ones."

Ruri pulled another pad out, "I've put a proposal together for the council."

"Multispatial Detection Array project? Interesting title," said Countryman as he read the proposal. "I'll make sure the council approves this then. I presume you have a good idea of where to start?"

"I have a few specialists I want to recruit, but generally yes. The dreadnought tracking sensors give us a good idea of where to start. In theory, once we have a working prototype, we'll be able to do more than just track those strange eddies, we should be able to start studying the storm more thoroughly than our current sensors allow us."

Countryman nodded as he considered the potential of this project. They were going to be here for years, so they would need to understand the storm. Studying it would only be natural, if they were to escape they'd need a better understanding. If he hadn't been busy with other concerns he'd likely already be scanning the outer perimeter of the storm. That turbulent barrier was between them and freedom. A better understanding of it would give him a better idea of their chances to escape when the storm surfaced again ten years from now. Still that was plenty of time, and the more immediate issue was mere survival. Solving the radiation and finding a way to predict those eddies both factored into it. The fact that the second came with the bonus of giving them better tools for solving the storm escape was just icing on the cake.

"Yes, very intriguing," he replied, "hmm I think I might be able to make some time to help you with this one."

A grin lit up on her face and she jumped onto him, "Really! It will be like old times!"