Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Main Engineering - Flashy Scans
[snip]

El heard the XO’s question off Galen’s comms. Then the bridge replied back about radiation. What did they teach these guys? With half a mind she replied back, but thinking of what the XO was asking. [o] Negative. That hull there is thin but it is a good barrier to the radiation. Even with a hull breach it would not affect us with our distance and our shielding. The atmosphere of the world .. could be a problem. [c]

Then she switched to the XO’s question. Things were coming together in her mind and, truth told, explaining it was helping her think it through herself. [o] The lights are a kind of transmitter, sir, projecting energy, using the light to express mathematical formulae. It’s kind of like our computers using working through code to spit out a solution to a problem. What we are seeing in the light is the outworking of the math and seeing the program operate. The math is based on complex warp theory channeled as a communications wave that is outwardly manifesting as the lights and burrowing through subspace. Think of this this way, sir. We could maybe do the same thing utilizing say the nacelles with a complex working of a warp field but doing that standing still. [c] Whoa, she thought. Could they do it? She glanced at the Cochranes and chewed her lip instead of a nail. Did the computers have that kind of capacity to do it? It would be like getting a toaster to make an omelet. Doable but probably very messy. And boom if they messed up. Could it be a kind of wave to nullify that one? Simple wave theory but what a wave! [o] That ship was built to do what it is doing. Us .. not so much, but that’s the picture [c] Now did that come out as though she were eng-splaining ‘engineering for dummies’ to the XO?
El, Eng

Further to the XO’s question El tried again, watching the data flow along the screen on the ship. It wasn’t ‘that’ big. Sure 50 m by 40 m and diamond shaped did make up a lot of internal territory but it made for a big power plant. Idly she wondered whether there was another one at the far end and this burrowing was like pushing a string through and to talk from one end to the other like a string attached to two tin cans.

[o] Sir, the two flashing lights are using in part computer code that I recognize from the planet’s computer there. So there is some commonality but I don’t think that ship is necessarily made from the planet below. The code is mathematical and formulaic with a foundation of faster than light mathematical principles. That is the language they are communicating and are combining that with power to dig into subspace. That ship is unmanned and one big power plant. Hull is thin, only an inch thick but of a very tough metal that we can’t identify. I’d hoped we could beam over but it’s all generator - too much radiation in there for anyone or even a probe to get in and live. My guess, and this is a huge guess, is that these Serpents sent this big engine through on impulse through the spatial soup that we got caught in and waited for that to clear to send a signal back home to say that space is clear to travel again. [c]

El, Eng

As El and Black conversed the blinking/pulsing alien structure seemed to grow higher in energy output on their screens. Ahead of the Bonaventure a tiny aperture burrowing into subspace began to form up about 400 meters distant. The opening was currently 20 inches circular and expanding by a quarter and inch per minute. Going off her earlier readings and if it indeed was meant to send a type of comm signal at this energy rate, the structure would need a fully opened aperture of about 25 inches or so around. If they were going to do something to interfere with this thing, they had but at most 5 minutes to do it.

GM CockRoach

In the midst of the conversation with the bridge, Galen said, “Uh, El, you got to see this .. somethings opening. Got a subspace hole .. under two feet wide. Slowly getting bigger. Um, .. ” The computer bleeped. “Computer projects whatever is going to happen will at a little over two feet. Got maybe 20 minutes before then.”

El leaned over and quickly scanned it. With the math in her head and seeing that she let out a tart Chinese expletive. Then, realizing that she was still on the comms said, [o] Hold please . [c] and smacked the comms quiet.

“We have 5 minutes to get a counter wave set up to stall that thing. I don’t know what will happen. Two feet isn’t much but for all we know it’s a birth canal about to pop out a big bouncing baby Serpent ship. Galen, get on the comms and tell the bridge just that, well, not the birth canal part, and I’m trying to work out how to do this. Get the ship on alert. I need more engineers for this once it’s going. If I get it going. And I need your chair.” She spun it around and practically pulled Galen out of it.

She sat down and started working at the computer. “Sheesh El, how are you doing that so fast?”
“Typing classes. Don’t distract.”
“But ..”
One finger came up .. “Call.”

“Rick! Rosa! I need you both to get on the Jump Coils and disengage them from the Cochranes and the nacelles. But . BUT!! Leave the rest intact. We are going to need to spark up the Cochranes and form a warp bubble – BUT .. not go anywhere. Rosa take the port nacelle and Rick take the starboard nacelle. Go now. And fast. Galen, recall Damien. I need him to monitor the Cochranes. I need to get a program going to turn the warp bubble into the driver of the frequency of what I’m needing to pump through what .. the nacelles.

A minute later another voice came on the line. [o] Engineering, Galen here. El wanted me to pass on this. That portal in subspace is opening. It’s small. Needs about .. 20 minutes now before it gets to, what El says, optimal width for whatever it is going to do. It’s at 20 inches now. El says if it gets to 25 .. bad things might happen. She thinks there is a way to work the ship to nullify the signal and is working on that but that it is less than 5 minutes before that window is lost. [c] There was a sound of El calling ‘Galen!’, then .. [o] Look I have to go. El asks if you can signal an alert. She needs more engineers. [c]

[o] Engineering to Damien. El needs you back here asap [c]

“Good, now. Galen. Get on the Cochranes. I need you to power us up on the Cochranes. I need all the power you can give us. Think the Flintstones. Gotta do a lot of pedaling but go nowhere.”
“Sorry, Flint what?”
El turned, her long pony tail swinging. “What? You don’t know culture? Fred. Wilma. Part of our history.”
“Cul .. history .. right engines powering to optimal max. Levels green.” Galen felt that was a safe conversation.

Meanwhile .. [o] El, Rosa here. I’m at location. Rick is too. Confirm go? [c]
El said, [o] It is a go [c] And hope that they didn’t have to go anywhere fast …
El & Others ..