Posted by Gamemaster CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - The Challenge Of Life - Arrival To UES-23
[snip]

Three days later on the morning shift around 0830 hours the Sojourner dropped out of warp about 200km out from the solar edge of UES-23. As they began to make their way into the system to begin their survey and cataloging work, there was a brief tremor that passed over the ship, vibrating from stem to stern. A few power systems across the ship also flickered struggling to compensate from what seemed some kind of energy surge. But as quickly as it had happened the vibrations and surge passed and a minute or so later things settled back to normal.

Helena quickly ran a check on the nav computer and helm control to make sure whatever that was hadn’t damaged those systems.

Checks on their navigational course set into the system and the associated computer connections came back green with no current problems, at least associated with the ship or those related systems.

Meanwhile in Engineering ..

The first indication for Ltjg Green was the shudder that coursed through the decking. The second indication was the notification alarms that erupted from the main monitoring station. The third indication was the soft curse from Petty Officer Emerson Fawkes who was at that station. Even from where he was standing, Reggie could see red markers indicating systems awry on multiple decks.

“Multiple system alerts!” Emerson called out, his English tone clipped, tense.

“Cause?” Green asked, taking the few strides over to where the master station was.

Emerson’s gaze looked one way then the next on the screen, using the console to bring up first one then another of the alarm zones. His face expressed some frustration. “Power surge is the common diagnostic. From where I don’t know. Time indications noted it began microseconds at the bow and moved to the stern.” Even as they watched the red alarm zones shifted to yellow then blinked off.

“Follow up on this surge. We may be able to find a way to modify our subroutines to compensate faster to power surges,” Green said, giving Emerson a clap on the shoulder before moving to another station.

[o] Engineering to Bridge. Whatever we found it upset some systems. Did we run into anything out there? [c]

On another panel one of the non-com NE’s upon the D Deck portion of the engine room called down from above, “..Uh sirs? Not to alarm anyone but when that shudder passed over us here a second ago the small port hole I got nearby had some kind of weird color phase shift from the protection filters. Usually it only does that to dim sudden light or energy pulses or UV radiation or the like. But we’re you know out in deep space here yet so we shouldn’t have had that, is.....is that bad?” he asked.

Green’s head swiveled around, not having yet reached the intended console. “Solar flare?” he suggested.

Another non-com NE on the opposite side of the upper engine room on D Deck confirmed this, “..Yeah I thought it was just a delayed reflection from dropping from warp, or maybe I was seeing things, but uh if Charles says he saw that I did too, sir. Almost like maybe we passed through some kind of weak energy field?” the female non-com suggested.

Opposite side. Would be no flare. That would have caused one of the sides to alter, not opposite sides. Tugging at his beard he listened to Charles. They were bright, but what was it that would apply an energy field?

Charles on the opposite side looked at her, “..Energy field? That could maybe explain the shudder and vibrations we felt and energy surges, like an electrical field conducting through the ship! Did sensors pick anything up though?” he inquired out loud.

[o] Green to Bridge. Ports were polarized in conjunction with the surge we felt. We think we may have passed through an energy field. Systems stabilizing. No damage reported. [c]

“Check the sensors. Also check the hole. Check everything, just to be safe.” Marceau said. They were in deep space. He didn’t want anything happening.

“What are we checking the sensors for?” Heather asked having just stepped out of the lift. The crewman who had been manning the science station moved to the side as she swung into the seat.

“Anything that’d explain the power surges and shudders we just had, ma’am,” Aiden replied, in the process of double checking there had been no incoming transmissions that could have been a vector for malware causing the surges.

OOC: For the sake of moving the sim ahead I’m gonna assume you guys do the below!

Checks on all systems soon showed green across the board. There was no obvious signs of an energy field behind them, though one way to test easily enough would be to reverse course and see if it happened again.

Once an order to do so was given, this time the Sojourner got as far as their aft most end of the nacelles and hull to get within 20 meters of the crossing point when collision warning alarms suddenly blared and red warning lights lit up on the helm and science scanners. A quick checked confirmed their seemed something not solid just 20 meters behind them!! Visually nothing was showing up, but the deflection system scanners normally charged with deflecting tiny particles of dust, asteroid fragments and other stellar junk from hitting the ship were saying otherwise. But also every other sensor trained there was failing to pick anything up, so likely if there was say an energy field they had passed through it was too advanced to show anything obvious the sensors could detect.

On the flip side, as other checks would be conducted over by Comms a blip on lower band radio signals was picking something up! It was an audio only signal which seemed to be coming from the class-m world they had planned to survey when coming here. A check on the band signal at first didn’t bring up any matches, but then expanding the references from anything more modern came up with a match from old Earth radio traffic frequencies used in the 1980s through the early 2000s of space exploration in low orbit!

GM CockRoach

Meanwhile in Engineering .. “Course reversed, Lt,” came the report from Seaman Gostovnik. “Impulse engines on minimal.”
“Checking out what we passed through,” NL Green said. He would have done it if for nothing more than curiosity and to figure out what it was that they had passed through that had given their systems a moment of distress.
“Full stop,” he reported a moment before the collision alarms blared.
“Elevated systems draw from the bridge. Science is pushing the scanners,” Emerson said in a tight voice over the alarms before they were silenced.
Green said, “Filter sensor logs. What is out there?”
El had quietly taken a station after the first of the system disruptions. Accessing the visual logs and energy readings she reported after some seconds. “Nothing, Lt. There is nothing there at all.” After a moment she asked, “Do you think they’ll send out a probe?”
‘Only if they’re smart,’ Reggie thought. “Continue to monitor systems. If we passed through one of these there could be more. Serinde, run an analysis of the system disruptions. See if there is anything we could do to prevent it? Low level hull polarization. Future EM Shielding on the conduits and so on.”
“Yes, Lt,” El said as she sought to fathom what to do. Perhaps she would begin with what the ship detected as it passed through. She knew the effects but anyone could give one’s head a knock, but what was telling was how it was knocked.
- El, Eng