Stardate 69011.2 - Science Supplemental

Posted on 13 Feb 2019 @ 11:50pm by Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri

527 words; about a 3 minute read

[ON:]

“Science officer’s personal log, stardate 69011.2, supplemental:

There is both good news and bad news. Bad news first. After all, bad news runs three times ‘round the globe before good news even has his shoes on. The bad news is that the volcanic ash, the clouds of acidic vapor the ashen dacite and rhyolite have made a dead zone at least 40 kilometers around the caldera. It’s been labeled an ‘exclusion zone’ and the ship’s topographic mapping system should have been updated by now. The AURAE sensor suite from the good folks at the DTI has four more hours to go before it finishes its analysis of the global atmospheric health. I don’t need no ‘crystal ball’ to tell me that the planet Ostara is going to be heading into a volcanic winter. How long that will be and how much damage it has done we will know in…04:22:13 seconds.

The good news is that Latari B star appears to have puked itself out. The CME, the coronal mass ejection event, that caused the solar radiation has been dropping off dramatically for the past hour. Looking at the star with the heliospheric imaging array, the surface appears to be stabilizing and there is every reason to believe that it will continue to simmer down. Surface temperatures are becoming more uniform and that’s always a good sign. Core magnetic arcs are normalizing too. I speculate that whatever was upsetting Latari B’s ‘tummy’ is now gone.

I overheard that we picked up a single sole survivor from the Franconia. He or she is in sickbay now. A single survivor. It is hard to accept that. However, if the Franconia was damaged in a significant way and could not maneuver into the orbital shadow of Ostara then yeah, I can only imagine the choice. Abandon ship and become a popcorn kernel in a lifeboat. Or stay on the ship and roll the dice that the CME passes by. It looks like that for the crew of the Franconia either choice they made they came up empty.

Captain Saalm and Commander Blake have dispatched an away team to the surface of Ostara. A rescue, a search and a discovery away mission. But this one is especially dangerous. A horrific Plinian type volcanic eruption has occurred on the surface of Ostara. Near, very near, to the last known location of the Federation colony. One of the most effusive and violent of all the eruption types, Plinian eruptions are the most devastating and destructive. These are my crewmates that are going down there and into harm’s way. I cannot help but be concerned for their safety. To that end, when the order came down to prep a sensor probe and modify it with an enhanced COMM package I was able to assist Ensign Mimi with the device. We enhanced the EM shielding at the expense of one fuel cell. Even with that, the probe could remain in low-orbit and do its job quite well for several months."


[OFF:]

Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri
Science Officer – Historian
USS Galileo-A
NCC-80010

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