Holographic Search

Posted on Thu Apr 9th, 2009 @ 6:06pm by Captain Vorn Krace & Lieutenant Commander Abigail Valera

Mission: Dark Discoveries
Location: Stellar Cartography
Timeline: MD4 0945hrs

Bonnie (NPC) tapped at a few controls on the console infront of her. The Iapetus' stellar cartography lab was top-of-the-line, and even though it was her permanent workstation most of the time, there was yet still a whole host of features included in it which she had not yet used.

The lab itself was impressive enough - a spherical holodeck, in essence, with a central walkway extending to a circular platform which housed the semi-circular control console. Currently, the walls were at their default setting; displaying the galaxy in the immediate vicinity of Iapetus, the glow of the purple nebula at Bonnie's back as she configured some data handling subroutines on one of the consoles. She had the computer playing a light string quartet in the background while she worked.

Abigail entered Stellar Cartography and went straight to Bonnie, "Hey. How are things here? Anything I need to know to relay to Captain Krace?"

Bonnie looked up as her department head walked into the lab. "Nothing yet, ma'am." she replied. "I've still had to configure the subroutines, considering that this is our maiden voyage. They're almost done now, so we should be able to do the search you asked for in a few minutes." she explained.

It was at that moment that the computer beeped to inform her the configurations were complete. Stepping back, she held her hands behind her back as she gave the computer her order; "Computer, display local area for a disance of.... how far did you want to go out again, Lieutenant?"

Abigail thought for a minute and then said, "About two lightyears. Then slightly farther when we get something." The young woman thought that Bonnie was doing a good job and was glad to have her as part of the team. Abigail sat down and watched the screen, but didn't touch anything. She was a Science person and Bonnie seemed right at home here in Stellar Cartography. She wasn't going to touch something she wasn't suppose to.

"Two lightyears." Bonnie finished her command, and as she did, the holographic walls around them suddenly expanded, until the two officers were standing in the centre of a starfield, with the nebula within touching distance of the platform uponwhich they stood. This was Bonnie's favourite thing about the ship's Stellar Cartography.

She then stepped over and began typing in new commands into the curved console. The computer then highlighted the inhabitable systems in the local area in red - there was only one system within the specified distance - which happened to be inhabitable - and no asteroid fields.

"Only one system registering, Ma'am. I'd recommend extending the search field - the distance between the Sol star and it's nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri is 4.22 lightyears, so I doubt we'd get many with even that distance." Bonnie said.

"Do so. I'd rather have some choices rather then one. Good work Bonnie." Abigail smiled at the other woman and was proud to have her as part of the team.

"Computer; expand search out for ten lightyears." Bonnie ordered. Same parameters as previous search."

The holographic display surrounding them seemed to collapse in on itself and expand at the same time, as the stars currently being displayed shrank and moved closer towards the centre of the spherical holosuite to accomodate the extra stars now being displayed. This time there were a number of highlighted systems. Moving towards the console again, Bonnie typed in a few commands - the Federation member system changed from red to blue.

"We've got a few more systems showing up now, about 12 stellar bodies, only 8 of which are habitable. Of those, 5 are Federation memberworlds. We've also got one drifting asteroid field, 9 lightyears out from our position." Bonnie tapped the console, and the field she was referring to lit up in yellow. "I'm going to try expanding the search further."

"Computer; expand search. Locate and highlight the nearest ten habitable non-Federation membership star systems, and highlight. Include all highlighting parameters from previous search."

As the computer bleeped once again, the room's contents once more altered, this time showing a much larger area of space - a space of just over 5 parsecs, roughly; just over 15 lightyears.

"Here are the 10 closest inhabitable star systems. As you can see, they're fairly spread out, but about four of them are all within a direct line of travel from this location; if someone was travelling from here to one of these planets, they wouldn't have to stop to navigate past the gravitational field of another sun or planet before continuing their journey at warp speeds."

Abigail was beaming, "Good work! Download this information onto a pad for me. You did a really good job Bonnie... for this I want you to take the rest of the day off. You have worked hard. I shall mention to the Captain the effort that you did and tell him the information I am showing him is coming from you." The smiled widened, "Your a good Cartographer. Well done."

"Thanks, Ma'am." Bonnie replied, beaming. As she downloaded the data onto a PADD for the Lieutenant, she knew that there would be no point in telling her that she had no intention of taking the rest of the day off - she liked being in 'Cartography, it felt more a home to her at times than her quarters, and she didn't want to leave it until her shift was over.

"Here you go." She said, handing the PADD over.

OFF:

Lieutenant Abigail Valera
Chief Science Officer
USS Iapetus

Ensign Bonnie Myers
Stellar Cartogropher
USS Iapetus
Played by Captain Vorn Krace