Beckett Mariner won't admit it, but there's a certain appeal to being in the Captain's chair of a Federation starship without having to steal it first.
Working the night shift has its rewards.
"Confirm warp drive disengaged, now on impulse power, sir," reports Barnes at the helm.
"Copy that," Mariner acknowledges. Much smoother return to normal space than we've had a few times in the past. "Tendi, T'Lyn, it's a star system. Do science unto it."
"G-type star," T'Lyn announces from her station at Bridge aft, "six planets. The innermost four are terrestrial. Two have no atmosphere and best fit into class D, the others are class V bordering on Y, with high concentrations of sulphuric acid and surface temperatures in excess of 500 kelvin."
Stats are flashing up on the main viewer. At this distance, there isn't much else to see beyond an uncomfortably bright star. "And the outer planets are ice giants?"
"Correct. Hydrogen, helium and methane predominate."
"Any anomalies we need to poke our deflector noses into?"
Tendi offers, "The stellar corona shows an unusually high proportion of multiply-ionized atoms for a G-type system. I'm thinking the star must have recently experienced severe magnetic storms."
"Recently? So we're late for the magnetic weather?"
T'Lyn's consciousness weaves into Mariner's through their mating bond. The anomalous spectra of such atoms have deceived seven known species into positing nonexistent chemical elements. Including humans.
If this weren't meant as a dig, she would have said it aloud. But not Vulcans?
Mariner doesn't need to turn and look. She can feel T'Lyn's eyebrow go up. Indeed.
"Ooh, Mariner!" Tendi is provoking a concerto of happy chirps from her science console. "A class-2 comet is on course to impact the sixth planet. And at a much higher speed than I'd expect given the planet's gravitational pull."
"Confirmed," T'Lyn joins in. "Speculation: a gravitational slingshot by the fifth planet on a recent orbit."
"Time to impact?"
"Four hours, seventeen minutes... mark," Tendi replies.
"Maybe our timing isn't so bad after all," Mariner says. "Mr. Barnes, lay in a course for the sixth planet, full impulse."
"Aye, sir," she acknowledges.
"Take us to the science, Mr. Barnes."
* * *
A jagged world of ice the size of the San Francisco Bay Area is falling towards a planet nineteen times the mass of the Earth.
It has already crossed the orbits of the planet's twenty-seven moons, most of them conglomerations of rock with both water and methane ices not much larger than the comet nucleus itself. Fragments broken off the nucleus bring presentiments of the main event, streaking through the frigid atmosphere, leaving trails of hydrogen-helium-methane plasma across the equatorial zone while aurorae spread and weave at the poles.
It's a meteor shower, and there's nobody in this star system but the Cerritos to see it.
And then the overture is done and the show begins.
T'Lyn is the first to speak. "Estimated blast energy, four point nine million megatons of TNT. Peak temperature reads thirty thousand kelvin. Based on initial readings, I project the impact cloud will be comparable in size to the planet Earth."
Are you seeing this, babe?
I believe my report indicated as much, t'hy'la.
Yeah, but, I mean, just look—
I am not without appreciation. And the sensation of your experience of the event is likewise... agreeable.
"Mr. Barnes," Mariner inquires, "when were we scheduled to depart this system?"
"Um... Eleven hours twenty minutes from now, sir."
"All right. Work up estimates on how much longer we can stay if we run at higher warp for our trip to the Kar-Hadasht colony. I want those ready so Ransom can make the call when he comes on shift. Science officers... indulge yourselves."
"Ooh, do you think there will be carbon disulfide production?"
"Plausible but not guaranteed, science bestie."
"And I bet the comet fragments will form a new ring in the planet's ring system!"
Not looking away from the main viewscreen, Mariner thinks, Have at it, t'hy'la.
Acknowledged, my love.