SET 012: Rojar IV Moon-charting

Posted on 01 Jul 2013 @ 7:20pm by Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Lieutenant Dawn Meridian & Crewman Neo & Trisant Myrddin

1,573 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: Rojar IV - Various Moons
Timeline: MD07 0830

ON:

The Livia, Neo thought, was much more complex than the Vincenzo. Still, all of his training had been on warp shuttles, so he had a good grasp on the craft's systems. But he'd never flown one on a mission before. Mach systems he got, DTVs on Vulcan hit the low end and his brain understood mechanical mathematics better than it did quantum theory, so he was relying on a whole lot of training and just a little luck. Fortunately for him, he had a great poker face, and his posture was easy as ever as he rolled into the shuttlebay and climbed into the pilot's seat. Mission objectives, mission objectives... Rojar IV moon-charting, his PADD told him while the overhead lights informed him of Livia's standby phase. Good to go. Good to know. He ran through a basic system check with light, careful touches of the shuttle's computer terminal and awaited the rest of the team.

Maenad came into the shuttlebay with her hands behind her back. She had a shoulderbag of supplies, including a lunch, and she made her way to the rear of the shuttle and walked up the ramp inside. When she saw her new best friend Neo seated at the pilot's seat, she grimaced to herself. She carelessly settled into the co-pilot's seat and set her bag on the floor. She wasn't wearing her skirt; she had changed into a pair of slacks, but she crossed her legs nonetheless. "Hi Neo," she said to him.

The Vulcan gave her a salute that looked formal, but knowing him, it likely wasn't. He pulled down a pair of goggles over his eyes and blinked a few times behind the glass. "Morning," he replied with a nod in her direction, his voice lax.

Maenad sat in her chair, turned in his direction, rolling her lifted ankle. She remembered the breakfast they had shared a little more than an hour ago. "How's your stomach?" she asked him dryly, recalling the amount of food he'd inhaled.

"I'm all right. How's your blood pressure?" Neo returned lightly.

Maenad glared at him and soberly replied, "I was being serious."

"Me too," Neo shrugged his right shoulder minutely.

There came the sound of footsteps, making their way up the shuttle's ramp. Soft, slow, and steady was the gait of PO1 Trisant Myrddin. The Bajoran overheard the playful banter between the other two, and he moved as unobtrusively as possible. He took a seat behind Lieutenant Panne and he laid his hands on the LCARS console.

Hearing someone come inside, Maenad turned to look over her side. Trysant Myrddin had sat down at behind them. "Good morning," she welcomed him.

Myrddin was staring at Maenad's shoulder bag when he turned to him. He chewed on his lower lip, pondering if he was supposed to have brought supplies or equipment. As soon as he heard his department chief's soft voice, Myrddin looked over at her and forced a small smile. "Good morning, Lieutenant."

Another morning, Dawn thought glumly. It was a good thing she was used to completely ignoring the familiar shroud of fatigue cloaking her mind. Or shocking herself awake with black coffee. Sometimes both, really. Her half-walk, half-skip didn't betray her thoughts at all. The half-litre of coffee she'd inhaled had done its job, for the most part, and she was thankful for that.

She popped into the shuttle, narrowed her eyes at Maenad for a moment, and settled down in one of the back seats, her legs crossed. "Hello," she said after a while.

"Hello," the Vulcan answered her with a short nod, speaking through the shuttle's comm so he could be heard by Trisant and Meridian. "Right. We're waiting on one other, someone named Cho. We'll be launching as soon as she arrives. Flight plan's pretty basic. We're to survey Rojar IV, and our projected timeline's approximately twelve hours. Get comfortable." He gave Maenad a look and disconnected the comm.

"Good morning," Kiri had been just behind Dawn before running into doctor Dale and caught into answering questions. Looking around at the three people inside the shuttle one of them made her smile at least. Neo had forced her into going to sickbay when she didn't need to and all around, been weird. Maenad, she didn't know where she stood with Maenad right now, it made her anxious. Edging to the back she closed the door, looking a little lost.

"Buckle up." It was colloquial, really, but there were seatbelts in case anyone wanted to use them, located just above their heads. Neo finished communicating with launchbay control and in a few seconds, the shuttle had lifted from the floor of the bay and zoomed forward out of the force field. "We'll be arriving in about six minutes. Hang tight." He disconnected the intercom and looked over at Maenad as if to say ready? before they streaked across the inky blackness of space.

Maenad silently watched the readouts on her screens, even though there were no readouts to display. She was daydreaming about the discussion she had had with Neo over breakfast, and she couldn't believe that he and Liyar were from the same family. She looked over at him once, seeing vague similarities in their facial structures, but mentally they were entirely different people. She felt and saw nothing in Neo that she did for his brother and, frowning to herself, she found it quite shocking. In the meantime, Maenad crossed her legs and twirled her foot. She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair in boredom until they arrived.

It didn't take that long for them to arrive, considering the shuttle had warp capability. They soon emerged from the small warp bubble generated around the shuttle and slowed down in normal space. They were in front of an unremarkable rock, Neo thought. At least the scientists would find it interesting. Although, looking at Maenad, maybe not.

As the shuttle approached the planet, Maenad began the sensor sweeps. She expected to find nothing, and had little anticipation that this would be a day worth remembering. "Beginning scans," she said. The data would immediately appear on consoles behind her for the others to analyse for themselves.

Kiri watched from her seat but with Maenad scanning there wasn't a whole lot for her to do. Briefly shooting a glance at Dawn rather than looking out of the window she smiled, waiting for the results from the scans.

When no one else said anything, Maenad breathed out through her nose. Tough crowd, she thought. As she began analysing the data herself, which was nothing abnormal or particularly interesting, she started thinking that she needed, perhaps, to start being more disciplinary. Kiri was getting too lax with certain things. Maenad caught her paying more attention to the counsellor than to their mission. Yes, it was boring, but it was still their job and, whether they liked it or not, they had to do it. Liyar had recommended to her that she suggest Kiri for counselling sessions, and, right now, that didn't seem like a bad idea.

"Rojar IV is a class J gas giant. Four rings," Maenad proclaimed. "Atmospheric composition of ninety percent helium, the remaining ten percent is comprised of trace elements, mostly hydrogen. The core is liquefied metallic hydrogen." Maenad frowned as she read the sensor data, displaying a very minimal number of moons. "Only fifteen moons," she said with surprise. "Rare for a planet of this size. All are class K, G, or H. There is one class O moon, but it may actually be an I class." She tapped a few more controls. "The average temperature never exceeds minus one hundred and ninety degrees." Freezing, she thought.

"Yeah, fascinating," Neo said, forcing some small animation into his tone and raising his chin. The effort was wasted, as the slow blink gave away his utter lack of interest.

Kiri noted that one of the moons had gathered its own rings, then something rather remarkable about the rings. One of them was a mix of mostly gold and palladium, tarnished it didn't reflect the light at first. One or two glinted brightly as the light caught them, "The rings have an unusual composition, large amounts of elements with extremely low reactivity," Kiri didn't find the number of moons so strange, there were larger planets with no moons at all, each was different.

Most rings were composed of ice and rock; leftovers of planet and satellite formation in a system's earliest days. It wasn't unusual for them to be made of low-reactants, but Maenad decided not to correct her. "Is there any particular moon anyone wants to look at first?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Nope," Neo answered, in what he thought was perfectly valid helpfulness.

"I don't see anything that stands out about them," Kiri answered, checking her numbers.

"Take us to the frozen O-class moon, Neo," Maenad exhaled.


[OFF]

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Petty Officer 1st Class Trisant Myrddin
(played by Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Andreus Kohl)
Stellar Cartographer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Dawn Meridian
Counsellor
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer,
USS Galileo

Crewman Neo
Support Craft Pilot, FCON
USS Galileo

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