Pt 3 - Forty Minutes

Posted on Tue Apr 7th, 2026 @ 4:14pm by Commander David Wallace

Mission: STELLAR NURSERY
Location: USS Cascade
Timeline: -- --

On:

"Bridge to Captain Wallace." Interrupted the silence.

David rolled over tapping his combadge, "Wallace."

"Sir we are about forty minutes out, we got a data dump from the monitoring stations that has Doctor Raymond concerned." The watch officer said

"Give me twenty, wake the senior staff." David said as he rolled out of his bed, he looked over his shoulder "You heard that?"

Sara was pulling one of David's t-shirts over her head, "I'll take a look while you shower, if Morgan is concerned we could be in trouble."

David returned less than ten minutes later towel around his neck, in a pair of uniform pants his hair was still damp from the shower, "What's the verdict?"

"There was twelve centimeters of upheaval on the southern edge of the caldera along with venting of gases, sulphur dioxides, methane and water vapour." Sara said pointing too the screen, "No Harmonic tremors though."

David pulled a clean shirt over his head then spoke "How does this impact the equipment placements all three of you needed?"

"That's the question, Ray will have a better idea on that, my bet is our timeline is compressed, I'm gonna grab a quick shower." She said springing up, the shirt looking almost like a dress.

David grabbed a coffee from the replicator, "Coffee?"

"Yes..." Sara said as the swish of the shower

David waited with the coffee as Sara re-entered the room, a towel wrapped around her torso, she took the coffee from David "Thanks" she paused taking a sip "Damn this is strong what is it?"

"That's a secret." David said with a smile, "I'm going to head up too the bridge, see what Doctor Raymond has for us, see you there in the situation room?"

Sara stood there in her underwear and uniform shirt "Yes."

David exited his quarters, "Doctor Raymond I'm heading up too the situation room you can fill us in there."

"Yes Captain, I'm still at the bridge science station going over the data now." The Doctor replied.

As David stood in the turbolift mentally David replayed some of the events in his head, those thoughts were interrupted as he exited to the bridge "Alex time to destination?"

"Twelve minutes sir." The helm replied

"Doc what have you got for me?" David said as he walked over too the scientist.

"the data showed seismic uplift in the ten to twelve centimeter range, with gas and vapour venting, no harmonic tremors yet, the upside is we have time on our side." The geologist said as he followed David into the situation room.

The lights came on as David entered, the display that ran parallel to the meeting table came on showing the data from the planet, Ray walked over like a professor as a map of the caldera appeared, "The uplift was here." pointing to the lower right hand edge that was out lined "the gas venting is normal for most volcanic events, no indicators of magma or lava projection."

"What's the scenario now?"

"Best case is we lost twenty four hours and we have to abandon some of the experiment installation, not the end of the world." Morgan said "Worst Case we get to see the eruption from orbit."

David paused "Bridge push to full impulse when we drop out of slipstream, send a signal to the evacuation ships they lost twenty four hours with that last event."

Sara walked in looking at the display, "We should have live data feed after we drop out of slipstream, Ray what was the gas concentration's?"

"Mostly Sulphur Dioxide." Ray said looking to Sara.

Connor Ajax appeared, "The geysers have all gone inactive in the caldera, I'm assuming we're coming up with a modified game plan now?"

"Yup... which experiments and other monitoring are critical?" David said as he switched modes mentally.

"Ash cloud monitoring, atmospheric, metrological, and seismic." Doctor Raymond said without hesitation.

"We can launch orbital probes for most of that, if we hustle we can get the seismic stuff done inside of four hours...." David paused "Ensign Bear get the shuttle ready for launch in twenty minutes and get the deck crew prepping the Red Star."

"Aye sir!"

Seeing the confusion in his guests David resumed "If the volcano erupts while the shuttle is in the atmosphere we'll have our Volga class runabout in a low orbit ready to pull the crew out."

"This is Chen, we have the data feed from the monitoring stations now."

David turned to the display as did the rest of the people present, "What am I looking at here?

Sara walked over too the oversized display, "Plant life has died out for a kilometer, there's mud projection in the vicinity of seismic lift..." she paused keying something in on the display "Ground temperatures are elevated as well."

Morgan looked at the display closer, “We have thirty maybe forty hours left before we get a clear idea of if this eruption will happen or not.”

"Doc I need some firm numbers on possible scenarios, how much time do you need to adjust the mission parameters?" David asked

"Two hours to do what I need to, but I think we can launch the atmospheric probes without delay, some of the tectonic experiments might have to be cancelled." Doctor Raymond said

"Two hours, let's launch the shuttle in fifteen." David said

"Aye sir!" Ensign Bear said.

End