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“Why are you laughing you Russian sadist!” the captain stormed though the upper deck of engineering, feet thudding on the metal gantry, below Catherine swiveled in her chair looking up at him and laughing, “I was planning to have at least a month off while this rig was being refitted” he sharply kicked one of the metal banisters on the stairs.

            “Its not my problem that you don’t share my pessimism” by now the captain was glowering down at her in her chair at the main engineer’s console, “it seemed obvious that something would come up before we got onto our holidays, besides it could be worse”

            “Ok, ok give me the details” he leaned against the console for support, some of his anger subsided.

            “Well we have been assigned a final, ha ha, target on our return trip” she stopped her wild rotation, ramming her legs against the metal substructure of her chair, her hands played quickly of the surface of the console, “About 4 hours ago a groups of hawks picked an anomaly on one of their standard runs, they autonomously went further in to investigate, the anomaly is still there, command wants us to go and help investigate, should be a piece of cake”

            “Ha! I’ll change my mind when I see it with my own eyes, I bet this will takes weeks to iron out” he bunched fists and was about to punch a piece of metal supporting if it were not for the disapproving look of his first engineer.

            “The prelim. data seems rather interesting, it is an unusual phenomena, not something we have seen before, who knows we could come out of this with our names on a piece of geography”

            “So what! What do we know? What’s on long range? What distance are we talking about?”

            “Well the course change I just implemented is amazingly small, we were practically on line to meet it anyway, and we are the closest ship, and really one the best around for this kind of mission”

            “Figures really doesn’t it, I tell you these things appear whenever I think I have a chance to get off this ship, at least I know it is not our sensors making it up, I was beginning to think this old girl” striking his palm against a metal surface “was making the damn things up!”

            Catherine’s voice more clipped and harsh caused by the captains mistreatment of her ship “Well the current distance is just over 12 light years away, which at our current speed is about three hours, I don’t really want to go faster than this unless something unusual happens, though if the sensor readings of the hawks change unusually I can ramp up the speed a little and get us there in about 30 mins, but I really don’t want to that, it causes a headache with the equipment, and would make the refit longer at port.”

            “Make the refit longer! What could I do for you to grant me such a favour! I think I may change my opinions on this aberration of space, maybe it should be pursued with much more enthusiasm” he laughed out loud, her face scowled.

            “Not all of us share your disregard for this ship, or are ultimately driven by how much time off we can get” she said icily

            “Quite right, I suppose, take us there at our current velocity, I will need the three hours just to try and claw the science team out of their beds, I really wish I had a sharp stick”

            “You might not need that, I think we can offer them a good carrot, look at the long range sensor reports” holographic displays flashed up from the consoles, lines and curves denoted scales and vectors.

            “Odd just gravitational interpreted data, no direct visual or spatial”

            “That does not really matter, we can get live feeds off the hawks, but the fact we are not picking anything up means…”

            “Of course, this thing has not been here for 12 years, so only grav readings, faster than light yes?”

            “Exactly, but this stretch of space usually carries quite a bit of traffic, lies practically on the Trenoret-Platal transfer route, so whatever this is it must be quite recent.”

            “Can we track down its arrival time?”

            “Yep, easy really just instruct one of the hawks to move away until it gets no visual of the object, where it has exceeded the light speed signal of the anomaly”

            “I presume you have already sent that command?”

            “Why else would you have hired me for this job? The data is just coming in now, the hawk was instructed to move away slowly, this allowed it to record like a reverse history of the object, with its recording ending at the point of its creation”

            “And what do we get?”

            “Beyond me to interpret but look at this” above the console a blossoming flower of energies expanded outwards, labels and numeric flashing over it revealing information as to its composition and to its spatial structure, petals and planes of coloured surfaces expanded away from the center, the false colours designing a far more spectacular flower than any biological organism could create.

            “Wow. And this is real?”

            “I don’t know, but I think that will motivate the science team” all around her console images played in the air, some in different colours, some at different magnifications, surrounded as if trapped in some surreal florist’s shop. “This thing is practically in the middle of the federation, command is demanding regular reports”

            “What else is being routed apart from us? Any military stuff?”

            “Of course, but at the moment I don’t think anyone knows what this thing is, I will be far more concerned when we get there” a muffled thudding could be heard at the top of stairs, an argument was breaking out.

            “Ah! I think the science team has arrived at last, it is good to hear them in such good spirits, and so concordant in their opinions!”