A wrinkle in space, and an unpleasant discovery...

[Crystal Palais]

Ennia System -- Dominion of Crystal Palais protectorate.

The Ennia system is the only system that Crystal Palais has within its holdings that it doesn't use for a specific purpose, such as research or mining. In fact, the system's primary inhabitants - who number among three species and populate the system's various planets - have no clue that they're even a part of Crystal Palais' space. The Dominion has a number of installations set up in areas that are otherwise inaccessible or undetectable. Granted, the Dominion doesn't have much in terms of cloaking technology, but what they do have is sufficient to avoid the locals. The system's inhabitants are locked in constant struggles, varying from having anywhere from a half-dozen major factions to dozens, depending on the time period. At the present, there are ten.

There are, at any given point, several ships patrolling the space and observing the locals. One such ship therein, one fine day, was a cutlass-class ship dubbed the CPC Fulcrum. It was assigned to the edge of the system, observing the goings-on. Of course, the edge had very little activity. The residents of the system lacked FTL systems, and half the reason they were still at war with each other was their slow methods of travel. This makes for quiet patrols, of course - it's usually a route used by ships that are due to be rotated out of the system in the near future.

Of course, they also get all the calls about the occasionally strange goings-on of the surrounding space, which had pockets that acted oddly. Much of the Dominion's space had areas where FTL didn't work or space seemed to be improperly curved, but this area was more prolific than the others. Which, of course, means that they fall under Murphy's law.

-----

On the bridge, the captain of the ship sat at her console, as she usually did. The bridge of the ship had several distinct consoles, each manned by someone sitting at a seat, and each with its own holographic display, surrounding a larger holographic display of the local space. The room itself was darkened, the light from the holograms providing more than enough for each to see to do their jobs, and yet not so dark as to interfere with being able to move about the room.

The central hologram swirled abruptly, the local space dimming as the display shifted to one of the Avatars, who turned to regard the captain directly. The hologram still had his military outfit with the symbol of his name upon it - 'Alpha'. Chief among Avatars. The captain swiftly stood from her seat and saluted. Surely this must be an important message.

"Greetings," the Avatar stated. As is the nature of most Avatars, he waited for no reply, and offered no further words before getting straight to business. "Fifteen minutes ago, listening posts beyond Ennia picked up what appeared to be a spacial distortion of unknown origin and were unable to provide sufficient detail on what it was other than that the readings were somewhat similar to what we have on records from some transdimensional portal readings. The Fulcrum is to investigate this and report back on its findings. Any questions?"

"Negative, sir. Hearing and obedience," the captain responded. The Avatar nodded and the holographic display reset to its normal setting, the surrounding space as it was before, with a flashing yellow dot displaying where the errant setting was. She sat again and spoke, "Helm, you heard him - set course and inform the crew."

"Aye ma'am. Engaging quantum waveform, entering hyperspace."

The ship was engulfed by a cyan-colored gate that snapped shut, taking the ship with it.

----

The gate opened in empty space, the Fulcrum emerging and the gate snapping shut behind it again.

The hologram shifted, displaying a rift of some type, multiple spectrums showing different information about it. The captain opened her eyes slightly more than normal before stating, "Helm. Sensors. Tell me what I'm looking at."

"Helm, jump complete, all systems nominal."

"Sensors, minimal distortions in local area except for ... that rift, I suppose is what it is. Unknown where it leads, we've had similar records on file but nothing that matches it. It's vaguely like a wormhole, except it appears to have no stability issues right now. This may or may not be a good thing - means it may collapse without warning. I expect we could get back with tweaking the quantum induction, but it would take quite some time."

"Interesting." The captain lapsed to silence while the ship collected the data and forwarded it to Ennia Fleet Command. The silence lasted for several seconds while the captain looked things over, shaking her head. "Well, if there's nothing else we can do on this side, perhaps we should check the other. Tactical, drop a drone to relay data. Helm, take us through when he's done," she ordered.

"Aye, ma'am," came the replies in unison. A small object flew out of the ship's primary hangar before the 400 meter dagger-shaped ship shifted and headed for the rift. It took only a moment for it to pass through.

The captain kept her eyes on the sensors as the stars winked out, no new ones appearing as they breached the other side. And after passing through, the ship slowed noticably on the hologram, even if the inertial dampeners kept anyone onboard from feeling it. She shifted uneasily in her chair and asked, "Sensors?"

"...Space appears to have density. Not sure what the material is, it's scanning as if it's empty space. Not seeing any stars, no spectral data... suggest we wait and set sensors to saturation mode, see if they can pick up any trails." The man at the sensor console was silent for a few seconds before asking, "Ma'am, is it me or is it darker in here? Except for the red?"

"Agreed," she responded, glancing around the room. "Someone turn up the lights, adjust it so the red isn't so bright."

A crewmember did so, as the man from sensors spoke up again. "Captain, this is odd... internal sensors are saying the atmosphere's getting more dense. ... Correction, it's turning -liquid-. Starting on the outer parts of the ship and moving inward fast."

The captain shook her head again. "What the hell...?"

"Perhaps the laws of physics work differently here, I'm not sure ma'am, but... glub." He coughed, the air in the bridge quickly being affected by this. There was panic for a couple of moments, before the realization struck everyone nearly simultaneously that they could breathe the nitrogen-rich liquid without any apparent problems, even if it still was a liquid. It did seem to impede communications drastically, but at least nothing in the ship was shorting out. That in itself was a good sign.

The captain keyed up her console, sending messages to the others' consoles: 'This is odd. Sensors, continue scanning. Everyone else, remain calm, we'll check the area out for a short while before heading back through the rift.' She then keyed up a different function on the console, and a synthetic voice sounded over the ship's speakers, those unaffected by the current status of the air - unlike the crew's vocal cords. "Attention, this is your captain. We have entered an area of space that appears to be acting oddly - Avatar Alpha has ordered us to investigate this area, and once we have gotten sufficient readings we will be heading back to Ennia. I will keep you updated, but expect you'll notice quite quickly when we make it out again."

The ship remained where it was, near the rift, as its sensors scanned away.

[Aegeus]

“In shadowspace, only the blind shal find their way.�
- Ancient Nachturnusian Proverb

In the darkness of this void, two small red lines silently power through the tangibly dense space around them. The only trace of their having been there are several large blue bubbles emanating from the back of the ships, seemingly from nowhere. The bubbles float back and fade away from existence. The two red lines silently use their compression sensors to ping toward The Tear . As They performed their route, the man defense platform calls in. They speak in a hushed language with many finely accented syllables, and seemingly more vowels than many other languages. The pilots speak an affirmative comment and power toward their mark. As the two red lines approach the gleaming hole in space, something new popped onto the sensors. It was a ship. More importantly, the ship had not announced itself in the proper fashion. The pilots both made noises of disgust at the rude entry and unwelcome queries flying from the ship. This ship had come uninvited . It did not announce itself, and most affrontingly, It was banging away with it’s crude questioning device. Both pilots sat in stunned silence for a few moments, trying to comprehend how anyone could, so brashly, and so stupidly, barge into their space. In disgust, one of the pilots called into the base and told the comms officer to let him speak to the deck commander. The officer whined about the commander being busy, but the pilot gave him the emergency override code, and the officer retrieved the commander. The pilot told the commander the situation. The commander agreed with the pilot on the solution, and stopped communicating with the pilot. A few seconds later, the entire surrounding area was suddenly flooded with light. The defensive floodlights had engaged. There, looking dumbfounded was the rude dull gray intruder. The pilot heard the commander summon the local capturer, a Moray class vessel. The pilot grinned, his spines bristled, and his teeth gleamed in the shadowlight as the two ships closed in on their target.

[Kanuckistan]

OOC:
CP, is that Captain a fairly typical example of your officers?

I mean, damn; going through that portal, all alone, and without extensivly probing the other side was reckless and stupid.

[Crystal Palais]

'Okay, ma'am, we're saturating sensors, we're getting data from the surrounding stars,' the man at sensors sent to the bridge consoles. 'It appears that we're several light years away from any of them and ... whatever the problem is with local space, it's too dense for the light to pass through it at this distance. We're getting X-rays and traces of gamma radiation. Stellar map looks nothing like it does at home.'

The captain nodded to herself and typed a reply. 'I see. Get us a few more minutes' worth of readings, then helm will take us back. There appears to be little of interest, though we'll be well off if we have a ship designed for scientific surveys check it later.'

The holographic display flared with brightness a moment - an effect of the unusual behavior of space itself - before highlighting what seemed to be new sensor signatures. The man from sensors reported in: 'It appears we have incoming contacts, but we can't scan anything worthwhile in this space. Suggest we withdraw, no way to know what we're up against.'

The captain nodded, typing a quick reply. 'Agreed. Helm, get us out of here, at cruise speed. Tactical, raise shields.'

The ship began to turn, laborously slowly, its sensors ceasing their scans as all the non-critical power was shunted toward the engines. The shields had a separate generator, but barely functioned in the mire they were stuck in. The rift was still close, but with the space itself keeping the ship held up, it was like trying to turn around a submarine shaped like a Lego block.


OOC: She went through because she couldn't scan the other side or get any data, and CP at this point in time doesn't have any sensor packages small enough to get onto a probe - the drone's just an unmanned fighter-type craft being used to relay data. They went in because they were ordered to investigate, and nobody questions the orders of the Avatars - and without a good reason, usually people don't question their commanding officers in the navy. Especially when the Avatars have told them to do something.