13435/Space Lex 17: A Story Full of Holes

Space Lex 17: A Story Full of Holes
Date of Scene:	25 November 2022
Location:	SPAAAACE!
Synopsis:	The Titans take the T-Jet to recover the mysterious satellite that caused the incident on Space LeX flight 17, and discover that it's certainly not what Lex Luthor told the press it was.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Bart Allen, Kaida Connolly, Kate Bishop

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Donna Troy has posed:
    It may not have a Faster-Than-Light drive, but the prototype warp technology installed in the T-Jet by Nadia when she was working on the FTL Pym drive makes the T-Jet faster than just about anything on Earth that doesn't. Which makes it ideal for chasing down errant space probes hurled out from the plane of the ecliptic before they vanish completely into the interstellar void. Why exactly Donna has suggested this mission is something she has chosen to wait until the ship was underway before explaining to the other Titans.

    "Okay, so here's the thing," Donna says, turning her seat from the navigation console once the T-Jet has left the atmosphere and Kate, in the pilot's seat, has started the maneuver that will take the craft from orbit onto an intercept course. "In case any of you didn't read the mission report, a few days ago I took the T-Jet to help the coast guard with evacuating the crew of a trawler. Weather was too bad for a helicopter, so the coast guard called the tower for a hand, the T-Jet's VTOL capabilities made it perfect for the job. Just as I got the trawler crew to land, notification came in that Space LeX flight seventeen was in trouble. There wasn't time to return to the tower to pick anyone else up, so I went on my own."

    "Diana went to in her Jet, and the X-Men's SR-X and the Fantasticar made the trip too. There was an engine failure and massive radiation leak on the Space LeX ship. The source of the leak was the cargo. We stabilized the ship, rescued the crew, and sent the probe off towards deep space, where it wouldn't be a danger. And because I'm careful like that, I took a whole bunch of readings using the ship's sensors while we were doing it." She nods towards Kaida at the sensor console. "You'll find the logs available there. I don't understand it all, I'm not a Science Titan. However I understand enough to know that the story Lex Luthor gave to the press doesn't add up."

    "He explained that the probe was a part of an old cold war era project that had been mothballed. It was part of something called an M-Ring, a ring of satellites intended to capture microwave radiation from the sun and beam it down to base stations on the Earth. The president has said he doesn't know why the mission was taken out of storage and sent up. He has ordered an investigation. However that doesn't really fit in with the fact that it was emitting a whole lot of radioactivity. Nor that according to the T-Jet's sensors, something in the probe entered some kind of resonance with the fusion reactors on the Space Lex ship."

    "So, we're doing our /own/ investigation. Because someone, quite possibly the president of the United States, is lying about this."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen nods a bit and while he is not sure how useful he will be in space traction is a handy thing for superspeed. "I was there at the speech listening to him." He admits to the others. He will scratch his chin in thought, trying to remember if he has heard of any of this stuff, before the past week or so.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
Kicking her feet idly, Kaida was sitting on the armrest of one of the empty chairs, casually listening to Donna about everything. She hasn't really been her usual self as of late due to all the mess in her personal life and has requested some time away from the Titans, only returning recently. She was letting others do a little work on her project while she herself got back to doing what she does best. Help the homeless. She sorta went back to her roots, especially wanting to make sure those who could not find a Thanksgiving, got one.

"I saw the report." She nods to Donna, looking over at her, "I skimmed over it. I'm not a radiation expert but I am an expert at the effects of it. It was certainly dangerous and definitely doesn't fit with the microwave Bs he spewed." She shakes her head and then looks to the side casually, glancing in the direction of Earth and shivering some as she sits there.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate really desperately enjoys the fact she gets to fly the T-Jet. To the point she is a bit possessive about it despite her better judgement on the topic. It is just so damn cool. She has been tp space more than many astronauts and how fricking cool is that.

    Her attention is divided on the course she is having to maintain to pull them into an intercept with the probe.

    "I mean... I am unsurprised that Lex fricking Luthor is being disengenious about anything." is her flat reply as she taps one of the touch screens, locking in the flight path and then making a small adjustment. "How much radiation are we talking, in layman's terms how close can we get to take a looksee?"

Donna Troy has posed:
Donna nods her head at Kaida. "That's my thinking, too. There's no way what he described should have been producing the kind of radioactivity we saw there. I mean we have no /details/. It could well have a radiothermal power source, but that wouldn't produce those kinds of numbers."

    She swivels back around to face the console, checking the course markers laid in from the trajectory the probe had been sent on, ready to pass on a warning to Kate if there's any need for a course correction. "What do you make of him, Bart?" she asks. "I mean honestly I don't pay a whole lot of attention to American politics, I've got Themysciran politics to worry about. It seems like everyone either loves him or hates him. He has done a lot of philanthropic work, and the gods know if he suddenly vanished Metropolis would lose a lot of jobs overnight. On the other hand, the Daily Planet seems to hate him. "

    There's something almost unnerving about this journey. Rationally there shouldn't be -- the distances aren't huge, after all. However simply knowing that the T-Jet and its crew are moving out of the plane of the ecliptic, almost a right angle to the normal directions of travel when moving through the solar system, makes it feel a little different. There are no planets in this direction. Nothing but the darkness of interstellar space. Of course you could head out along the plane of planetary orbits without having any planet remotely count as being in front of you, but something in the knowledge of journeying away from the disc of planetary orbits makes it feel different.

    "We don't have to get /that/ close, Kate," Donna says reassuringly. "But if we go any closer than a few miles, you'll have to suit up. The astronauts on the Space Lex flight were exposed to it for a few minutes in their space suits and were fine after some decontamination and a few anti-radiation pills. I've made sure we're well stocked up with those by the way -- just in case."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmmms a bit and says "Well not the worst world leader I have seen, but I don't really trust him." He does not go into more detail of why he does not trust the man, must protect the timeline and all that. He will walk over to one of the computers and looks over the star charts making sure they are not going to encounter something he may know about but aint been discovered yet. He hmmms a bit and says "To bad Firestar was not able to join us, her deal with microwaves may have been handy.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
As the ship starts to move into range of where the probe should be, Kaida leaps down off of her perch and runs up to the sensor array. She seems to dance along the controls, leaping from button to button before standing on a track ball and running it to where she wants to before leaping to another button. She stares at teh screen the whole time.

"Umm...weird." Kaida says to no one in particular and then she moves along the console again, leaping from button to button, running the trackball and then leaping again. She stares at the screen more before casually putting her hands behind her back and tapping her foot lightly. She taps her foot again and then twitches an ear.

"Umm, no concentrations of radiation detected." She says to no one in particular before looking over to Donna and tilting her head, "Are you sure this is the right direction?"

Kate Bishop has posed:
    "Well.. if we need emergency pills.. I suppose Bart can snag them and pass them out before we can even blink an eye." she keeps her attention split between listening to everyone else and the flying. She was talking about the radiation pills.

    "Also this baby's radiation shielding is way better than a commercial Lex flight so we should be better than tthey would be doing salvage.. but no need to risk it at all. I like myself cancer free.. or at least if I get cancer it is likely to be from one of the many alien invasions I guess. Bet Nadia could shrink and cure me if need be tho."

    "Man.. Firestar would be a cinch in a problem like this, you're right Bart." she thinks about it. "Was the radiation a smokescreen?"she adds thoughtfully after Kaida reports no radiation being detected, she eases in on a slower approach but approaches. Setting a course to bring them in closer than she initially planned.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives Bart a nod of acknowledgement -- she knows better than to push him for details. From his examination of the charts, there's nothing to worry about. The distance from Earth they are going is relatively small, and while there are a couple of mysteries as yet undiscovered in Earth orbit, the chances of the Titans randomly bumping into one of those is pretty minimal. Without exact orbital plots he can't be certain they won't run into an ancient alien generation ship found orbiting the Earth forty years before it's supposed to be discovered, but the chances are tiny.

    "Definitely on course, Kaida," Donna replies, studying the nav console. "The probe got hurled away telekinetically. I monitored the trajectory for a twenty minutes or so, this plot should be very accurate. Unless someone has already come out here to pick it up, or it was able to move on its own. Not seeing anything on radar yet, but that's going to be a bit short range..."

    Donna flashes Kate an encouraging smile. "Yeah, you'll be fine. If necessary I'll head outside and take a closer look, but we shouldn't have an issue. Firestar or Kian, either of them would be good. I should have thought about that before we left. However we... wait, I'm getting a ping from the radar. Kaida, you seeing that? Approximately two-one-four kilometers away, bearing one-seven-seven-point-six by ninety-four-point-four."

    Following Donna's directions, Kaida can zero the sensors in on the radar target. It's metallic, and about the right size, but there's no unusual radiation source there.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen is not sure what else he can do for now. So he moves back to his chair and sits so he is not pacing around the ship and bothering others. Bart has learned a bit more about how to be patient over the last couple years.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
Looking at the sensor array, Kaida shakes her head a little. She's not sure what to expect given Donna is sure and there's no radiation. She hears the other to speculate and then considers as she notes the thing comes on screen. She hits a few more buttons to cause more scans to go off and then she pauses.

"Or." She states and looks back to Donna, "Whatever was inside the thing moved on its own. I mean, we've seen plenty of radioactive metahumans." She shrugs and nods her head.

Kate Bishop has posed:
    There is a soft hmmming to herself now as she adjusts the course a bit, listening to the call outs for the team and not talking right now. She is devoting all of her attention on her displays and the view in front of her as the others investigate the sensor systems.

    "Okay well no radiation.. .right now... so I'm taking us in closer and in case it is radioactive man or something I am going to suit up once we get there." she frowns and sets an approach to the metallic object Donna flagged.

Donna Troy has posed:
    As Kate brings the T-Jet closer to the radar target, Kaida's scanners show clear signs of an artificial, metallic object. Closer still and the telescope starts picking out enough details for confirmation -- this is the same probe that had been ejected from the Space Lex ship.

    There's still no sign of significant radioactivity. Slightly above normal baseline levels for something that has been drifting in space a few days, but nothing problematic.

    "Tell me if I'm wrong Kaida," Donna says. "But I mean...half life and things. There's no way if it was a conventional radiothermal source that it would just switch off like that, right? So... it maybe it was doing something to actively generate radioactivity, and has stopped? What do you think?"

    "Bring us up a couple of miles away, Kate. Bart, you feel up to putting on a suit and joining me outside?"

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen nods and before they can ask again he is already in the suit, and giving her the thumbs up "If we find any eggs don't open them." He jokes a bit but checks through the suit making sure things are secure and he knows how it works.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
A look over at the screen and Kaida shakes her head. She points at the screen and looks back to Donna as she gestures to the various readings.

"This shows higher than normal readings but nothing like was described." She shakes her head, "Anything like that would still be here and giving off plenty of radiation. Either it was designed to produce it or it left. Honestly, if it was designed to produce it? It'd still be here even if turned off." She nods her head, "Unless it is very advanced."

Kate Bishop has posed:
    Kate nods softly, and adjusts the controls taking the T-jet smoothly into a slow orbit at about two miles out from the craft. It is pretty far in terrestrial sense. Not far at all in space sense, especially with the engines on the T-Jet.

    She does point the snoot of the jet at the object so she can keep eyes on it as they circle in the slow arc. "Okay.... I guess all off that are getting off. I'll keep us prepped for a very fast retreat if we have to... and monitor sensors as well?" she figures that is Donna's plan. "Oh and weapons." she flicks some switches to bring them online and start charging them just in case.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna grins at Bart's quick change act -- and Alien references. She grabs a face mask for herself, but otherwise seems to be confident in her new full-body armor to provide sufficient protection. Then the pair of them get into the airlock ready for a space walk. "MMU fueled up Bart?" she asks, checking the readout on the fuel tanks of his suit's maneuvering thrusters. "Yep, all good. Kaida, scan everything you can. And Kate... yeah. Weapons ready but try not to shoot me and Bart please." There's a wink, but it might be missed through her mask.

    As Bart and Donna exit the ship and start approaching, there's no signs of a reaction from the probe. Kaida's scans reveal that there's no active energy signature from it, just residuals left over from the radiation leak of a few days ago.

    Something else pertinent -- even from this range, the scans make it very clear this isn't the M-Ring probe claimed. It's too /new/.

    <<"What do you guys think?>> Donna's voice crackles out over the radio. <<We should probably recover it, but maybe... not tell anyone we have yet? And hide it out on the moon perhaps, in case it comes back to life? Worth the risk?>>

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmms and says "Do we have a place to hide it on the moon, or it just like parking it behind a hill and hope no one notices?" He will ask, he does a calculation and says "I will go around to look at the other side of it." He says and uses short bursts of his pack to head that way and again wishes he had a legion flight ring.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
Looking at the various sensors, Kaida shakes her head and casually rubs at her cheek lightly. Her tail twitches a little before she finally just shrugs and jumps over to a window to watch what is happening outside.

<<It's at least a decent idea to keep it quiet. We need to find out what it is really for. None of this makes sense.>>

Kate Bishop has posed:
    "Don't the Russians have a thing on the moon... also the Justice League... hell does SWORD." she just mmms to herself. So many people with lunar real estate interests. "Well technically it is officially abandoned space debris right. No one has any official claim on it. Still you are probably right, it might be best to not tell anyone about it until it is very carefully examined."

    Yeah she is looking the scans over. "It isn't very old though is it..." she puzzles. "Luthor is definitely a liar though."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Bart's flight around the probe reveals nothing unexpected -- some scorching on one side, presumably the result of the energetic event that had caused the problem in the first place. With the rest of the team agreeing to the general notion of recovery, Donna closes in and lashes her lasso to the probe, tying the other end to the T-Jet. It seems like a safe way to move the thing without having to take it on board the T-Jet, where if it comes back to life again, it might cause a second incident.

    It takes some careful driving from Kate and some pushing from Donna to deal with issues of relative velocity -- acceleration won't break the lasso, but it could break bits off the probe or T-Jet if it's not handled with care. Kate's enthusiasm for flying the T-Jet whenever she finds an excuse, and training in the simulator when she does not, pays off. The T-Jet is soon on course for a lunar rendezvous, and a hiding spot well away from any known lunar bases.

    The journey moon-wards gives Kaida plenty of time to scan the probe thoroughly, and one thing she can confirm is Kate's supposition that it's not very old. She's able to determine there's some kind of energy storage system that seems to now be depleted, so it's a good guess there will be no more unexpected outbursts of radioactivity, but she's not able to figure out what the device actually is -- this is not cold war era tech. Though there are components that are recognizable to her, they are certainly modern, and she can tell the technology is something cutting edge. It will probably take Nadia or Vic, with their more engineering oriented scientific knowledge to determine exactly what it is, but Kaida knows enough to be able to tell there's some form of directed energy mechanism in place here. That does fit with the general concept of an energy relay, except that there's nothing she can see that would operate as a microwave collector. Perhaps it's part of a highly focused secure communications array.

    Or perhaps it's some kind of weapon.