"A Living Ship"
Posted on 20 Nov 2025 @ 11:29pm by Lieutenant Francis "Steven" Remington & Lieutenant Commander Adrian Sorvak
973 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
The Displaced
Location: Science Department :: Arawyn
// Science Department :: Life Science Section //
Lt Steve Remington was a zoologist by specialty, a Life Scientist by profession, and a xeno-zoologist by definition. Alien life was his passion, along with about one woman, though no one knew about that. She took up only a fraction of that passion as a whole, however. Soon after the initial encounter with the alien ship, Steve had been asked to visit the Medical Department regarding the individuals brought aboard Arawyn. Let the other geeks in the Department investigate the science of its arrival. He was focused on the life forms.
That visit to medical had been less than satisfying, as he’d been unable to yet actually engage with the aliens. However, Dr Amberlyn had been freely forthcoming with all her personal information and the scanner and medical diagnostic data that was being collected. Of course he was beyond eager for personal observation. Amberlyn had frowned and reminded him, “Steve, these are people, not specimens. You don’t just watch them like butterflies.”
He stood corrected and returned to his department and station, properly chastised. But he did have a plethora of information to analyze and Amberlyn had encouraged him to do just that. So it was that he was sitting at his desk when an interesting alert showed up on a pop-up screen. The ship itself was pulsing.
=/\= Tactical Lab =/\=
Lt. JG Hayden Hale frowned at the probe pass-by telemetry. He’d been tasked with determining whether the “shimmering veins” on the foreign ship could indicate hostile intent.
Tactical doctrine leaned toward caution — assume unknowns were dangerous until proven otherwise. But these pulses… didn’t fit any tactical profile he recognized.
The light wasn’t projected. It originated from the hull itself. And the pulse rate was irregular — not the steady cycling of a weapons array or shield modulation.
Something about it didn’t make sense.
He tapped his combadge.
“Tactical to Remington.”
“Remington here.”
“Hale. I’m reviewing the probe telemetry on the alien vessel, specifically the pulses on the hull. The pulse patterns don’t match any active system I know. Could you come take a look?”
It took a few minutes for Steve to get to Tactical Officer Hale’s station. He brought a PaDD and a lot of interest with him. He and Hale knew each other from sparring in the gym. “Hale. I think we are on to something,” he said while still approaching the station. “I’ve been studying medical reports on the survivors. Their skin also pulses. I think they are related … physically…somehow. What makes you suspicious? Hostile intentions? The survivors have been very cooperative according to Amberlyn, Commander Amberlyn,” he corrected himself.
"Everything makes me suspicious..." Hayden explained. "You can't know that just because somebody's cooperative they don't have designs on this ship."
He put out a hand for the PADD and started reading. "If you say the aliens are also pulsing, how *doesn't* that make you suspicious?"
“I assume it is live connection of some kind, I’m looking for life sign, man. Besides, I have you to worry about the tactical stuff,” replied Steve.
Hayden grinned. "So you think the pulses are related?"
He gestured Steve to sit by him. His screen showed the peaks and valleys of the alien ship's optical pulses, interpreted into a waveform.
“I do, because they have similar harmonics to the individuals in isolation aboard this ship. It’s not clearly a language between the ship and the aliens, or physical electrical impulses, but there’s some connection."
"Do you have data on the aliens' pulsing? I'd like to compare the two.”
Steve stepped forward and flicked the holo-screen to pull up the waveforms of the aliens. “Here. Let’s isolate this guy here,” he said, pointing to an image of one of the aliens sitting in an arm chair in the cargo bay’s modified environment. “It’s not a heart beat; that’s this blue curve here. Breath is the dark orange one. But look at this green wave. It’s something else that I can’t seem to line up to a relationship with the aliens’ physiology."
Hale studied the data. "It does seem very similar," he conceded, after a long pause. “Similar, but different," he continued. “For all we know, they're mimicking their organic signature on their ship, but it's actually something else. Or they're using these pulses on the ship to mask a system we can’t identify.”
“Possibly,” replied Steve.
Hale contemplated the data. "Maybe we can run some sort of deeper experiment. "
"Like what?"
"Like... " Hale turned to Steve. "Like maybe see if there's a real time connection between the pulses on the ship and those of the survivors. We need to monitor both sides.
“At the same time,” Steve jumped in. “I compared the aliens' neural history with the pulse history of the ship, but it was hard to tell how they really matched up.”
Hale nodded. "If we cause activity in the survivors, we'll see if it affects the ship. Or maybe there's a connection in the other direction. I'll need to recheck the data, to see what causes changes in the ship's pulses.”
Remington nodded. “I’m sure the ship is connected to the survivors' neural activity, but are they sending conscious instructions to the ship? I can’t tell. We’ll need to get Dr Amberlyn to let us observe, ideally interact with the aliens in real time, while Science scans the ship pulsations in that same real time. Compare the two and what happens, if anything, with the ship's systems in response.”
"Only one way to find out. Let's give it a try," concluded Hale.
"Let's take it to Cmdr Sorvak."
~~~
LT Steve Remington
Science Officer, Zoologist
(npc apb Kate)
&
LTjg Hayden Hale
Tactical Officer
(npc apb Treon)
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