Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Main Sim - Bridge
[Snip]

“Sir! I am detecting something…it’s not a warp signature like ours…”

The filament was faint—thin as a hair across the display—but persistent. It stretched ahead along the mapped path before bending toward a denser region of overlapping gravitational sheets.

Further analysis revealed trace ionization pockets caught in the same boundary layer. Not naturally occurring radiation. Structured. Residual.

“Science…can you fine tune these scans?”

Passive scans picked up intermittent power fluctuations far ahead—too weak for positive identification, too irregular to dismiss as background interference. The spikes repeated at uneven intervals, then faded.

The tracers reacted.

“Power fluctuations ahead…though I can’t identify it.”

A handful of radioactive markers entering the denser portion of the corridor began to oscillate in tight, repeating arcs, as if disturbed by eddies not present in the earlier mapping phase.

Behind the Merrimack, the corridor remained stable.

Ahead, the mapped channel narrowed into a region where gravitational layers folded closer together, forming a funnel of compressed spacetime. The faint filament of distortion continued into it—barely visible now.

No active transmissions.

No confirmed contacts.

Only residual signs that the Expanse had not been empty.

Rana who had been about to ask Stella if she could go and get the captain and himself some coffee. He had his heart yearning for anything that Milligan could make that resembled a Hortons with cream and sugar himself. But Rana quit all he was doing as the movement ahead was being reported. At first he sat there with a frown on his face trying to make sense of what they were seeing and more to the point to ascertain what sort of danger it may cause to the Merrimac. And he knew too that at this point in time everything that was done had to be done in a slow and careful fashion. Not just because the captain wasn’t on the bridge , but it was also what his instincts were telling him. His stomach was coiled up in a knot. He then remembered his own thought that the area was like surf . Wave pounding about. And the curl. The thought even though it was his own brought a chill to him. That would mean that something or someone had just shot the curl and was moving in front of them? The thought was absurd but still enough to lead Rana to get up from the captain’s chair and start giving orders. ” Helm slow forward speed by one quarter, science , keep any and all scans for the moment passive in nature only.

Rana then tried quickly to contact the captain. =/\= “Captain you might want to come to the bridge right away sir. We have some developments out here. Coffee may have to wait.” =/\=

=/\= Be right there =/\= replied the Captain.

Elyss was studying her console with eagle eyes, waiting for the slightest waiver or change in the numbers or fields she monitored. “Sir, I am showing minor changes in
gravitational density fluctuations, but they are still within the mapped tolerance of 0.003 millicochranes—However, the corridor ahead shows slight compression. Several tracer clusters are no longer drifting uniformly and probes Beta-Four and Gamma-Nine are exhibiting minor forward acceleration beyond predicted models.”

Although she wanted to do another active scan, Zavey let her fingers hover over the console. The order was to remain passive, so passive she would remain.

Captain Glen arrived back on the Bridge. “Report!” he asked Rana.

” Sir! Rana replied as the captain came onto the bridge. There has been a change. Something has happened. The corridor down which we were traveling is narrowing. and , well sir something seems to be traveling from the edge of one of the gravity waves and sliding into the corridor. I’ve ordered that we slow down and that Lieutenant Zavey use passive scanning only in case it’s some sort of life form which we might offend by throwing things at it. The question now as I see it sir is whether to use the active scans to see what that is ahead of us or to increase speed and try to follow whatever that was through the corridor.” Orrrr .”Rana said drawing out the word. We could try the same thing that we just saw done. We could set a course for the top of one of the gravity waves? “

“Looks to be some type of ship? Is it in visual range yet? Can we fully enlarge it on the viewscreen?” the Captain asked Rana.

“Lt Gagnon,” asked the Captain, “Open hailing frequencies! Can we hail them?”

“How long before the corridor closes completely behind us? Can we follow their example and ride on the top of that gravity wave, just like a surfer on a surfboard would ride the top of a tidal wave? …One of the literary greats, Alan Dean Foster, once wrote a short story about surfers who go surfing on a giant tidal wave across an alien planet,” Glen mused, but he had no idea how difficult that might be.

Rana concentrated hard to listen to the captain’s questions being shot at him as it were. He frowned as he listened occasionally nodding his head and finally began to reply to the captain’s questions to the best of his abilities one at a time.

“What it might be is unknown at this moment sir. It could be a ship, or it may be something biological. The best way to ascertain this would probably be to have Lieutenant Zavey to run long range probes as close in as possible. I felt that that would be a decision best left to you sir.”

“Lt. Zavey,” Glen asked, “Is it possible to gain any higher signal definition from our long range sensors? Please attempt it anyhow.”

Rana then motioned for Kahuna Pokorski to make whatever was out there larger on the viewscreen for the captain. I doubt we’ll see anything yet sir, but we can try. “Rana said as he shifted from one foot to the other.

“Moving with a wave like that could be relatively disastrous to disastrous sir. We could slow down and try to climb the face of this wave until we are in a position where we would be high enough on it to where we could fall in a sense out the end of this wave. We would be in a position behind our neighbors by a bit due to our need to stop and climb. The drawbacks to this are we need to have all the data and mapping in perfect shape. Showing every little twitch of where the gravity waves are moving. Otherwise, we might not come out. And yes, sir the corridor is closing in front of us. Astern is still open and clear. There is also the option of turning around and trying something safer.” added Rana Singh.

“Yes sorry, the corridor is closing in front of us!” Glen replied. “I can see that myself now. Behind is still clear.. for now. Those radioactive tracers are doing a good job to outline these narrow corridors through the Expanse… It was a good idea of yours. And very clearly, there are far less ways through than we had believed. I’m still strongly minded to slow down and climb up to the top of that wave, and to follow this unidentified object. I remember what Andromeda du Astra once told me when we’d got lost in the Vanoise National Park. She told me to follow the other walkers we could see up ahead. That they’d know the bast way out of the deep forest. If we turn around, we might not find another way in, and this object - whether biological or a ship - we need to contact it to learn what it is and what they know. Even worse, if we turned around, we might find the corridor on us closing from both ends! …but if we carry on we face the same problems and it’s a landscape that obviously changes very rapidly. Any maps we make would change before we’d crossed them…” The Captain mused further upon his words.

At the captain’s order Stella got every frequency that she could imagine up and running. Straightening in her chair she set her message to record as she spoke. Her soft nonaggressive voice went out across the darkness. ” Hello unknown vessel this is the federation vessel USS Merrimac on a voyage of peaceful discovery. Please identify yourself. I say again please identify yourselves. ” Stella record off and the pressed send. There the message was going off in all directions now. She had little hope that it would get very far with all the background static, but they could try. She had set the message to repeat every fifteen minutes. She turned toward the captain and said softly. ” Message sent and is repeating sir.”

“Thank you, Lt! Keep monitoring for their replying hails.” replied the Captain to his Comms officer.

“Lt. M’Mera, could you estimate the strain that climbing up to the top of the wave might place upon the Merrimack’s pure Titanium hull with Rodinium armor plating? I believe we have full shield strength, even if we were in for a bumpy or mushy surf!” Glen asked the CE.

M’Mera’s claws moved lightly across the Engineering console, tail swaying once as the distortion gradients scrolled past.

“Captain, if we align ourrr warp field with the rrrising grrra-dient, we can ride it rrrather than fight it.”

She brought up the structural overlay.

“Current SIF load is eighty-one perrrcent. Riding the wave will spike it to approximately one-hundred-five perrrcent forrr less than a minute. Strrrress will localize along the dorsal spine—frames forrrty-seven through ssssixty-one. There will be hull flexion.”

A faint tremor rippled through the deck.

“Inertial dampeners can manage the verrrtical shearr. I rrrecommmend no more than a twelve-degrrree field pitch over ninety secondsss. Any steeper, and the SIF will be overtaxed.”

Her ears angled slightly forward.

“The Merrimack can tolerrrate the maneuver within thossse limits. If SIF load exceedsss one-hundred-ten perrrcent, I will call forrr immediate realignment.”

A steady look toward the command chair.

“She will hold, Captain… if we rrride the wave carefully.”

Lt. M’Mera CE

“It’s a dangerous business, Rana, going out into this Expanse at all, but if we step up onto this gravity wave, and if we don’t keep our feet, there’s no knowing where we might be swept off. However, the Merrimack has faced danger many times before. Most likely, nothing as bad as we have feared will ever occur, not because we are lucky but because we were very unlucky in the past.”

• Glen, CO

Zavey gladly began running scans to see if defining the object ahead more definitely was possible. (GM?) Numbers began printing across her screen as to the distance and density of the object, but it still hadn’t been identified absolutely. Could it be a ship of the Shiarians? That was the only thing that made her stomach tighten out of all the possibilities.

Lieutenant Elyss Zavey
Chief Science Officer USS Merrimack

Rana stood apparently calm and waiting for any results of Lieutenant Zavey’s to arrive. He was not however as calm as he might appear. He’d always had a problem of just being still when his mind thought that there were other things that he could be doing. Mostly he was going over and over in his mind the shapes of the gravity waves and the strength. And then there was the question of why whatever they were trying to get a look at had chosen this particular spot to move through. Then of course the big question. What sort of thing might call this place home? Or be so comfortable here?

Rana Singh Number One

The numbers did not settle.

Lieutenant Zavey’s initial scan returned conflicting density values—first reading the object ahead as diffuse particulate matter, then recalculating it as something far more cohesive. Distance locked at 0.42 AU along the mapped corridor, embedded within the rising gravitational gradient the Merrimack was preparing to climb.

She narrowed the sensor bandwidth.

Mass estimate fluctuated between 2.8 and 4.1 million metric tons—too large for natural debris clumping at that velocity, too compact for a simple ionization pocket. The object was elongated along the corridor’s axis, partially obscured by layered subspace interference.

She shifted to multi-spectrum analysis.
• EM emissions: Minimal. No active transmissions detected.
• Thermal signature: Residual heat pockets—faint, irregular, cooling.
• Ionization profile: Structured plasma scoring embedded in the surrounding boundary layer.
• Subspace distortion: A localized compression field consistent with prior warp passage… but denser near the core of the object.

A tighter scan penetrated the interference for less than half a second before scattering.

In that fragment of clarity, the sensor return sharpened.

Angular geometry.

Not random.

Zavey’s console flagged repeating hull-density intervals—metallic composite ratios inconsistent with asteroid material. There were void spaces within the mass, arranged in a pattern too symmetrical for nature.

Then the distortion surged again, smearing the image into static.

Distance updated: closing.

A new data string appeared at the bottom of her screen—trace isotopic residues within the surrounding plasma. Tritium decay products. Elevated antiproton scarring along the subspace wake.

The readings matched a propulsion event. Not current. Not stable. But deliberate.

Another brief window of clarity—

A silhouette impression only: forward tapering mass, lateral protrusions, then gone.

No active power spike.

No weapons signature.

No transponder.

Just the shape, half-caught in a tightening gravitational fold.

The mapped corridor carried directly toward it.

GM Nosferatu
Your Darkest Nightmare

Glen was aware that their time riding the channel defined by drifting flotsam and decaying isotopic markers was running out. Even Helm’s constant micro-corrections, easing the ship along the least turbulent gradients was not sufficient as the corridor closed down. He had to make the decision quickly - turn back and attempt a different entry point and another corridor or ride the wave with all the associated hazards. The decision he would make, as always, touched every one of 375 lives in his hands.

Glen told them, “Let’s go in! Helm! Follow the object down the mapped corridor and gently climb the wave as discussed. Liaise with Engineering and Science. Don’t allow the stress on the hull to exceed 110% but not too slow that we lose sight of that thing, because I believe that somehow it is responsible for this corridor being present here at all.”

• Glen, CO

Rana stood as still as a statue and tried so hard not to say anything that it would have been nearly impossible to tell he was breathing. He knew the decision he wanted to see made but he also knew he could be rash even when he was trying to be cautious. He had been watching the data coming in and he had seen that there were more things going on than just describing the thing ahead of them as a simple wave. It looked to be working in the same fashion, but they would have to duck and dodge and change speeds all along through it. But at this point after seeing many of the crew at work and had gained a respect and trust in them. Then as the captain began to give orders Rana smiled. It was the order he had been wanting to see the captain make. But as a first officer it was his job to offer his captain an alternate decision to something that many might not seem sound. Those people were never in the command seat at the time, however.

After the captain had finished giving out his orders, Rana who had been there as still as stone let a smile creep slowly across his face and out of the corner of his mouth and so that others would have a hard time hearing he said simply. ” You smashed it sir! Simply smashed it! “

Rana Singh Number one.