Findings & Frustrations
Posted on Thu Sep 24th, 2026 @ 11:38am by Captain Percival "Percy" Tapper
2,355 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Outward Trajectory
Location: Bridge, USS Iphigenia
Timeline: MD07
For eleven days, the USS Iphigenia had been putting its proverbial foot over the line and into the Luujak nebula for short periods of time. It had begun with a three-minute foray that knocked-out sensors and blew several power relays. Several days later, she had managed a thirteen-minute penetration of the volatile nebula--just long enough for their modified sensors to perform a spectral energy discharge and highlighting the signal's path. For all those thirteen minutes were worth, it still had cost them a half-dozen injuries and moderate damage to nearly every system.
Fourteen separate incursions into the Luujak had brought with it only specks of new information, and nothing that helped to solve the mystery of where exactly this signal was coming from, who was sending it, and why it was being amplified by this particular nebula. Forget for a moment that the content of the signal seemed indecipherable.
By day eleven, everybody had developed a private opinion of the nebula. The engineers disliked it because the gaseous body seemed to break things and never in the same way twice. The science department disliked it because with each promising result there seemed to be just another complication thrown in. The bridge crew disliked it because they weren't a science vessel and were being asked to find answers to impossible questions all while risking life and limb. The Zakdorn observers stopped offering their own opinions altogether.
Even the Vulcans were decidedly silent after spending a full week with them. The science vessel Ni'Paar, a Suurok-class Vulcan cruiser, had been dispatched shortly after the discovery of the signal by the Zakdorn. They too had suffered moderate damage from entering the Luujak. It had been quite a disappointment to discover the energy discharges within the nebula seemed to affect the bulkier cruiser more than the Iphigenia.
Captain Mae Griffiths had noticed that change three days earlier and decided it was probably the most significant of all. She was an experienced officer--mid-fifties, compact and solidly built, with short iron-grey hair that had once been dark. Her face was slightly weathered with age and the typical stresses that leave their marks on all Starfleet captains. Her eyes were a clear grey-blue, quick to amusement when circumstances allowed it, and her hands bore the small callouses of a woman who was far more hands-on than most captains.
She stood now in the science lab with her Executive Officer, Commander George Barwuah beside her, staring at the signal's form. Griffiths had brought Barwuah down from the bridge because she desperately needed another set of eyes on what the science officers were seeing.
Barwuah was in his late-forties, tall and broad-shoulders with dark skin, closely-cropped black hair that had long ago begun to sprout silver around the temples and ears. His short and neatly-trimmed beard was something to behold: curving but meticulously symmetrical lines marked where hair was permitted to grow. His face was thoughtful and open, with warm brown eyes that seemed almost grandfatherly.
The signal had been there for nearly one month and it seemed to repeat at regular intervals, each transmission nearly identical to the one before it. Almost.
Lieutenant T'Var of the Ni'Paar stood at the nearby console with both hands clasped behind her back, while Iphigenia's own science officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Edgar Smyl was seated in front of another console to her right.
Griffiths found the Vulcan woman to be distant and standoffish--almost dismissive. She was of average height, slender, with slightly exaggerated long face that ended in a pointed chin. Her shoulders were almost nonexistent and Mae wondered if a small gust of wind might break her into small pieces should she encounter one.
By contrast, her own officer, Smyl, was a portly fellow. He was short for a man with a round face and big cheeks. It was unfortunate that Starfleet uniforms could sometimes be so ill-fitting for large-bodied individuals. Poor Edgar was one of those souls.
"We've isolated the interval," Smyl said, pointing at the long horizontal wave on the screen. "The change occurs... here."
He tapped some commands through his console and a section of the wave was magnified several times and overlaid by previous signals. There was a slight difference but Griffiths remained unimpressed.
"That doesn't look like much," Griffiths mused.
"There's an increase in the gain," he explained, bringing up another image to the right of the wave. "It's different every time."
Barwuah remained silent, one arm slung loosely across his chest and the elbow of the other supporting a hand that was stroking his chin. He didn't want to voice what everyone else was thinking: that they were grasping at straws. The signal's slight variation was barely anything worth writing home about and he knew it.
Smyl turned in his chair and looked up at Captain Griffiths. "I think this is an extraordinary finding, ma'am."
Someone snorted from behind them.
T'Var turned and glanced toward the only other person in the science suite--Mister Khevil. He had been one of the three Zakdorn observers that had been aboard Iphigenia for most of the investigation. He was middle-aged and one of Zakdorn's top scientists. Khevil's hair was of medium-length but he wore it slicked-back in a messy sort of condition. A sour man when he had boarded, he had quickly been judged to be contrary and combative by both crews. By all accounts, he was an extremely pessimistic individual, seemingly not well regarded by his peers either.
Khevil was hunched over with an elbow on another console with his head resting in one hand with a very bored expression painting his face.
"Extraordinary? What's extraordinary is that we're still here. I see nothing new gleaned from the many expeditions and tests conducted to date."
Mae fixed him with the most diplomatic of smiles she could conjure. "I don't think it's quite time to put the fiddle in the roof yet, Mister Khevil."
The Zakdorn wrinkled his nose at the expression and leaned back. "I'm supposed to go back to my government and tell them what? That this mighty Federation that seeks our membership doesn't have the technology to decipher a simple subspace transmission?"
Commander Barwuah raised and eyebrow and turned to Khevil. "I'd like to point out the Zakdorn have had no such luck either."
"Precisely because we've determined it is of no consequence!"
"The Vulcan Science Directorate considers the signal to be of the utmost importance and worth continued study," came the measured tone of Lieutenant T'Var.
Khevil stepped away from the console and threw his arms in the air in exasperation. "Then study it in your own space!"
Captain Griffiths stepped between the Zakdorn, the Vulcan and her own officers, two hands raised to indicate peace.
"Let's try to keep in mind that we're all here in the spirit of scientific cooperation," Mae said softly.
Khevil turned away in disgust and swiftly exited the science lab.
"Very encouraging," George said, in his thick Ghanaian accent.
Mae threw her First Officer a lopsided smile before turning back to Smyl and the signal on the screen.
T'Var waited until the doors had closed behind Khevil before she turned back toward the displays. Her expression had changed very little during the exchange, though Mae had begun to recognize the particular tightening around her eyes that mean the Vulcan was becoming irritated. It was one of the things she found most interesting about Vulcans. They built an entire culture around the suppression of visible emotion and somehow managed to invent a dozen tinier expressions that gave the game away to anyone who paid close enough attention.
"The variation may have an environmental explanation," T'Var said.
Smyl turned his chair slightly toward her. "The gain?"
"The phase variation. The signal passes through a region of highly unstable subspace. We have already established that the nebula produces considerable interference across several bands. The local gravimetric gradients may be altering the carrier as it propogates through the nebula."
Mae looked back at the screen. "Meaning...?"
"Meaning that what we are likely seeing may be the result of the environment and not an alteration in the transmission itself."
Smyl nodded slowly, his disappointing growing by the second. "That would... account for the variation."
"It would account for some of it," T'Var said. She moved to the console and brought up a series of readings. "We have recorded subspace carrier distortion in the low and high frequency ranges. We have also detected localized tetryon emissions, intermittent polaron bursts and brief nadion fluctuations whenever the signal reaches maximum intensity. The gravimetric field is fluctuating at a similar interval, although we have been unable to establish a direct correlation."
She called up another set of readings, this particular one showing several overlapping waveforms.
"We have tried controlled gravitron pulses to determine whether the signal responds to changes in the local gravitational field. We have swept the subspace carrier through several frequency ranges. We have introduced modified verteron pulses, polarized subspace harmonics and a series of low-energy tachyon emissions. The Iphigenia has also attempted to reproduce the signal's apparent stellar resonance using the nebula's own electromagnetic field."
Mae glanced toward Smyl.
"And?"
Smyl's lips tightened.
"We broke several things."
T'Var cast a judging glance down at the heavyset short man. "That is an accurate summary."
The Captain smiled despite herself.
T'Var continued. "The most recent test produced the variation you see on the screen. We cannot determine whether the signal caused the change, whether the nebula caused it, or whether our own transmission interacted with both."
"So we're back where we started," Mae said with a sigh.
"Approximately."
Smyl looked down at this console. "We are only slightly ahead of where we began, ma'am."
Mae raised an eyebrow that could very well have been a question and fixed her science officer with a stern look.
"We know the variation is repeatable," he added quickly.
"Which means...?"
"Which means we can repeat the experiment."
Barwuah gave a quiet sigh. "Edgar, I admire your optimism."
Smyl looked up at him. "It's more of a professional obligation, sir."
Mae chuckled softly while T'Var's expression remained intact and composed.
Captain Griffiths glanced once more at the signal. The thin line moved steadily across the display, patient and very mysterious. It had been appearing more or less the same for a month, traveling through the darkness across a vast distance from Sector X-7786. She didn't wish to move Iphigenia into the Luujak for another attempt--not yet. Fourteen times they had tried and each time had resulted in more than a full day of repairs and injuries. Mae was beginning to wonder if maybe they had reached the limits of what Iphigenia and Ni'Paar could safely contribute.
"Keep going," she said, with an encouraging look.
It was a captain's answer to a very scientific question. There was little else she could offer them.
"Let me know if you find anything."
She turned toward the doors, George following after giving Edgar an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
They walked toward the turbolift without speaking for a few moments.
"We're running out of things to try," she said, almost regretful.
"That's one particular way of looking at things."
"What would be your way?"
George paused in the middle of the corridor, forcing the Captain to halt as well.
Turning to her, he said, "I'm just a glass half-full kind of man." He grinned and perfect white teeth gleamed in the corridor's ambient lighting, threatening to blind anyone within ten feet.
"What's that supposed to mean, George?"
He kept grinning. "It means tomorrow is the another day."
"That's your scientific assessment?" she asked with a smirk.
"No," he said with a shrug.
They continued their walk toward the turbolift.
"It's my grandmother's assessment."
Mae laughed.
"Well, if she's around, I think T'Var and Edgar wouldn't mind the extra set of hands." There was a silent moment before she continued. "She sounds wise."
"Oh, she was. She believed that the most difficult problems should be placed on a shelf for the night. Then, after a healthy dinner and a good night's rest, the problem will have weakened enough to be solved in the morning."
Mae felt her smile broadening. "She may have been onto something."
"Captain, she was the wisest woman in our community."
"You know, I think I'm going to take her advice in spirit."
"Food and rest?" Barwuah inquired.
"A bath," Mae answered, her Monmouthshire accent filling-out the vowels.
George fixed her with a look. "Oh, well then you'll need wine. I recommend a good chablis."
She laughed again.
"Chablis?"
"Cold and dry. A very civilized wine. You sit in the bathtub, drink half the bottle, and when you reach the second half you've forgotten why you were so stressed to begin with."
"Two glasses would be my limit," she said, shaking her head.
They had just reached the turbolift when Iphigenia was rocked hard.
The first sensation was a deep vibration through the soles of their Starfleet-issue boots, so low that it felt more like pressure than any sound. The corridor lights flickered and a terrible groan could be heard through the entire section.
George reached for Mae just as the deck dropped beneath them. He caught the side of the turbolift entrance as the corridor lurched sideways, while Mae reached for the wall. The emergency lights came on as the ship shuddered once again, this time the sound was louder, rolling through the ship from stern to bow.
Before either Griffiths or Barwuah could make sense of what was happening, the floor of the deck had collapsed into the next and they were now laying unconscious on top of the jagged remains of bulkheads and deck plating.
Captain Mae Griffiths
Commanding Officer
USS Iphigenia
Commander George Barwuah
Executive Officer
USS Iphigenia
Lieutenant T'Var
Science Officer
Ni'Paar
Lieutenant JG Edgar Smyl
Chief Science Officer
USS Iphigenia
Khevil
Scientist/Observer
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