Passing gas
"Mr. Dante, sensors are showing..."
The klaxon sounded, drowning out the rest of his statement.
"Mr. Dante, engineering is calling. Mr. Crenshaw reports the engine core temperature has increased 12%."
"Stop engines," ordered Morgan. "Back us out. Captain to the bridge. Lieutenant, what are sensors showing?"
"It's some kind of gas cloud," replied the science officer. "I'm analyzing it now."
Arjay arrived at the bridge and took the center seat from Morgan. "What happened?" he asked.
"We flew into some kind of gas cloud. Sensors didn't detect it until we were almost in it, and our momentum carried us in before we could react. Ensign, what is our position?"
"We've cleared it now."
"Hold our position here," ordered Arjay. "Why didn't our sensors detect his earlier?"
Linda was focused intently on her viewer and didn't answer. Arjay and Morgan turned expectantly towards her. Sensing their nonverbal prompt, she spoke carefully, trying to find the words to describe what she was seeing. "This is neat. The composition doesn't match any known substance. These particles have the property that - " She hesitated, struggling to think of a suitable way to explain it. "They reflect energy towards a focal point, more like a focal plane, that surrounds the cloud boundary. Thus from a distance it is not detectable, but at close range it appears disproportionately magnified."
"Like a fish eye lens?" asked Morgan. "It distorts light so that objects that are closer to the lens appear larger."
Arjay considered this information.
"Captain, Mr. Crenshaw is calling."
Arjay tapped a button on his chair's control panel that opened a connection to the engineer. "Chief, what is the status of the engines?"
"Whatever that cloud is made of, some of it got sucked into the engine core. The core didn't react too well to that. We should shut down the core for a few hours so I can flush it."
"Stand by Chief." Arjay looked at Morgan.
"That cloud is a hazard to navigation. We should drop a buoy to warn other ships that might come through."
"How big is this cloud?" Arjay asked.
His science officer responded. "We can only measure it at close range."
"We could send a few probes around this thing to measure it. That will give us the few hours Mr. Crenshaw needs to tend to the engines," suggested Morgan. "Once we have those measurements, I recommend we place eight buoys around the cloud to form a bounding volume. That should warn off ships from any angle of approach."
Arjay nodded. "Back us off to a safe distance then launch those probes. Let's go, people, let's do it."
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