Mack confers with Andrews

Posted on Tue Oct 12th, 2021 @ 3:50am by Lieutenant Julius Mack

Mission: Consult the Anomaly
Location: Mack's quarters

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::mack returns to his quarters following the conference room conversation. He applies the improved scanner equipment, modified and installed in his quarters and connected into the ship's sensor array, networked with his bridge science station. The equipment is not Fleet regulation, but there is no rule that forbids use of experimental
technology, especially for a science officer.

Among his findings are that the destination appears to be a good deal farther away than varley's estimates indicated.
This did not especially shock Julius Mack, since the fleet cartography of the sector 4595 was made with
old equipment and not done with adequate triangulation. mack uses the com array from starbase 10, in an encrypted and anonymized channel which he also uses to
access data from his various observation devices, among which is the one that he installed in yoshimeyer's office.
Naturally some of these activities go into his personal log, and some are better left out.

mack also noted that captain sprague, although not an especially gifted standup-comic, is known to make jokes which later prove almost prophetic.

to that end, he undertakes some specific scans, looking for warp signatures roughly along the route that varley chose for the course to sector 4595 and makes
an interesting discovery.

=^=[Text Only]"Mack to commander Andrews. Sir, i request to meet with you privately for a few minutes. I am in my quarters at the moment."=^=

Andrews::=^=[text] "very well, I will come to your quarters in about five minutes."=^=

::andrews beeps Mack's door.

Mack:: "enter".

Andrews:: looks up and down the hallway to make sure no one sees him there. He watches to make sure the door closes behind him."So what's up mister mack?"

Mack:: "I have something interesting to show you on my modified scan set. Take a look at this sir."

Andrews sees evidence of a recent warp signature, not of federation origin, along their same course heading.

"Who knows about this?"

"nobody sir. you are the first superior that I notified. I figured you would have an idea what to do about it, since I gather
you ordered us to be under way. I'd say wherever we are going, we won't be alone."

Andrews nods and makes a face. "Okay, for the time being, tell no one about this. I will assume responsibility for deciding what to do about it."

"Yes sir, I sort of thought you might think in those terms. Do you want me to continue my "special scans"?

"Yeah. Keep me informed if there is anything else 'interesting' that you discover. At this point we can only theorize what it means."

"Oh... there is one other potentially relevant detail I also am fairly confident about. The sector 4595 destination appears to be about 10
times as far away as Mister Varley's data suggested. I'm still working on confirmation about that, so I'm not one hundred percent
about HOW MUCH further away but I'm pretty sure that in four days at warp five, we will be in deep space and no where near 4595.1
although we might be arguably within the sector. Not even close enough to the class B star, to get visual on it, even if it is a bright
one by visual standards. I do see that it is very UV heavy, spectrum wise. I would NOT presume that the system is without life."

Andrews::"noted, mister Mack. Carry on."

"Right sir. I will occasionally use my science station sensor displays on the bridge, mostly for appearances,
but will do the real work from here, as you ordered."

"Very good."

::Andrews leaves Mack's quarters and heads for the turbo lift.


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