Sanchez: Makin' Trouble

Scene: Bridge

Another shift on the bridge... great. If the people who were supposed to be sitting there during Alpha shift were actually on the ship, more might get done in Engineering, not to mention this crystalline storm thing might get figured out.

Thus thought Ario as he made his way to Deck One. Transferring from Security to Engineering was hard enough, now he was a part-time command officer. *Oh well, it could be worse,* he reminded himself as the turbolift opened to the bridge.

"Coffee, black," he ordered the replicator. As the mug materialized, he looked out into Poseidon's command center. The enthusiasm of each young officer was almost inspiring. Ario took his coffee and sipped himself back to reality.

The morning reports were all in; Ario scanned them for items needing immediate attention. Detailed problems would be dealt with by OB or Pritch when they returned. There were none of either. "What's the status of the away team?" he asked the Comm officer on duty.

Despite his dislike for Ethan Zaret, having anyone else at the comm station made Ario much less confident about how accurate the answer to his question would be.

"Still no contact, sir," came the response. Ario resisted the urge to go over and check for himself.

"Mr. Takaishi," Ario questioned the officer as he entered the bridge, "let's do another scan and see if we can penetrate that damn storm, I'm tired of waiting for this problem to solve itself." His extraordinary lack of patience was getting the better of him.

"Aye, sir," the Ensign replied, and began the scan.

"Lieutenant?" It was Ensign Leva Karr, the new science officer.

"Yes, Ensign?" Ario forced the politest response he could muster. Although he had no problems with the officer herself, and was more than accustomed to being addressed by title and speaking to subordinates, he loathed being up here. He made a visible effort to become more relaxed.

"I'm detecting a significant reduction in the magnitude of the storm. It appears that it is dissipating," Leva said.

*Now we're cooking with gas,* Ario thought. "How long before our scanners can penetrate it and locate the away team?"

"Approximately twenty minutes."

Ario looked on the viewscreen at the swirling grayish mass between himself and the away team. He checked the scan logs and calculated the problem in his head. Something wasn't right.

"Takeru, coordinate your scans with Ensign Leva. I want to know the minute you locate any of our people down there," Ario ordered.

"Aye, sir," they answered in unison.

Ario watched the storm for a long minute, wracking his brain. That this storm was unnatural had already been established by its suddenness, but there had to be more to it. Ario watched as lightning stretched for long miles in every direction, beginning white and changing visible color as it moved outward. Occasionally a branch of lightning would touch off a new center, and the process would repeat itself: hot white centers that changed to red, blue, indigo. Then Ario remembered the stuff of the clouds was of crystalline structure.

"Harris!" he almost shouted.

"Lieutenant?" the ops officer on duty was visibly shaken by Ario's tone.

"Bring the spectroscopic imagers online. Leva, next time lightning strikes, get an analysis of the medium those charges are moving through."

"I'm not sure we can do it from this distance, sir." She tapped on her display. Lightning struck. "No dice, sir. We're too far away."

"Helm, move us within 20,000 kilometers of the upper atmosphere. If I'm right about this storm, we might have ourselves a huge can of whupass at our disposal."