Neto and Eldiria - Chapter 2
Description
Neto and Ariana finished their practice mission to Centauri station on board the small Scout ship Fortuna with somewhat mixed results. Captain Ariana is leading them on a mission into deep space to investigate the mysterious disappearance of numerous probes in a distant system. Colony Candidate System H47 is their destination and it will take them over a month to get there. Neto continues to make mistakes while Captain Ariana begins to get frustrated with his performance. He again seeks comfort in the arms of a holographic elf as he tries to relieve his stress.
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Ariana was sitting confidently in the Captain's chair at the rear of the bridge of the small Scout ship Fortuna while her young pilot Neto was seated in the forward chair. They were at the outer edge of the Solar System ready to embark on his first mission as a Scout Pilot. Ariana was very experienced and the most decorated but she was the most decorated officer in the Scouts. Ariana asked, "Pilot, have you entered the calculations to plot our course to Candidate System H47?"
"Yes ma'am, the course is laid in."
She looked at his calculations and smiled at its correctness, "Well done pilot. It looks good. Take us out."
Neto spoke in reasonably assured tone after their somewhat successful training mission, "Yes ma'am." He engaged the engines and the view screen went blank for a few seconds and then normal space appeared. "Captain, our coordinates are as expected. We have made it to the first jump position on our course."
Ariana checked the position and smiled at him, "Well done Pilot. Let's start the scans and see what's in the space around us. You take the forward sectors and I'll take the aft. Take your time and let me know if there's anything that stands out."
Ariana monitored Neto's screen while she was also performing her own set of scans. After about an hour she noticed that he'd finished with the last sector of his assigned group. She asked him, "What did you find Pilot?"
"There's very little to find here. I found a small class M asteroid in sector 7 and a few sites where space dust is measurable."
Ariana looked closely at the scan data from sector 7, "Pilot please take another look at the artifact that you suspect to be a Class M asteroid."
Neto turned his attention back to the console at his station. He furrowed his brow as he tried to analyze the data until it finally hit him. "That's not an asteroid at all is it. Even though it is metallic its shape isn't consistent with an asteroid. How do we determine what it is?"
"Well said Pilot. At this distance we can't make any determination. Take us in to within 100 thousand kilometers. Then our scans will be able to help us figure it out. Set a course at half power."
Neto took the Fortuna forward to the mystery object. Ariana told him, "Run the scans and material analysis and tell me what you see."
Neto ran the data and focused intently on his screens. Finally he looked up, "The data shows a high concentration of aluminum and other highly refined compounds. It is definitely artificial and not a Class M asteroid."
Ariana tried to sound encouraging, "Good work Pilot. Now we need to figure out the object's origin. Run it through the computer and see if the composition matches anything in our database."
Neto ran the data and studied the query results for a few minutes. Finally he spoke in an exasperated tone, "I'm sorry ma'am. I can't tell. There are several matches in the database."
"That's not too surprising. Can you bring up the matches on the main screen?"
Neto transferred the query results to the main screen. Ariana looked at them and furrowed her brow a bit, "I think you've made a mistake in setting up the query. Let's start over and I'll show you how I usually run this query."
Neto cleared the results. Ariana told him, "Just start with the concentration of aluminum. Use a 0.5% variance and see what the results show."
Neto ran the analysis and displayed the results on the main view screen.
Ariana smiled at the data, "Well done Pilot. That's not too bad. There are only three of them. Let's look at them one at a time." After she looked at the three possibilities she added, "I think we can easily eliminate one of those. Can you tell me which one?"
Neto studied the data for a minute then suddenly he figured it out, "It's definitely not a Staten Island Class Cruiser."
"That's correct. Why do you say that?"
"The debris appears to have been in some sort of explosion or something similar. There isn't nearly enough debris there for a cruiser to have been the source."
"That's good analysis. Let's look at the other two. Is there any difference in the hull material in those two?"
Neto studied again and more quickly figured this one out, "Class 2 Probes have a significantly higher concentration of titanium than Sprite Class warheads. So according to the analysis this must be debris from a Class 2 Probe."
"Excellent work Pilot. Note the location and add that to our report and I'll send it off before we jump again."
There was a similar scanning issue after the next jump. After they jointly resolved it Ariana said, "Let's secure the bridge and go try some scanning simulations in the Holocenter."