Ghost Flare on the Port-Nacelle
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Data, stationed at Science One, reports a random energy transference to Engineering and identifies its approximate location, initiating cross-departmental alert.
Geordi answers from Engineering, pinpoints Data's reported sector (aft, outboard of the port nacelle), then checks the consoles and finds no anomalous readings, creating a discrepancy between sensor data and observation.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Cool wonder underscored by faint unease that the universe may again circumvent his certainty
Bent over the science console, Data watches numbers jump like meteors across his sensor grid, fingers moving in an android blur while his voice stays calm, querying Engineering with open scientific curiosity.
- • verify the anomaly for science and safety
- • pressurize Engineering into acknowledging the discrepancy
- • Every observation is valid until cross-examined by additional evidence
- • System consensus should recognize what his sensors unequivocally record
Purposeful, patient magnetism—silent invitation to witness its otherness
An incandescent pupil born of planetary twilight, the sphere wakes, accelerates like a sunrise racing midnight, slides between the nacelles, and presses itself to the skin of its new host before passing through duranium as if through mist.
- • close distance to the chosen starship
- • enter undetected and undamaged
- • The Enterprise itself is now a conduit or incubator for whatever it needs next
Measured professional skepticism, edged by quiet embarrassment that his diagnostics contradict a bridge officer
In his compact office, Geordi pivots between wall console and center workstation, optical implants reflecting empty charts while his polite but firm denial carries across the open comm.
- • provide reliable engineering confirmation or refutation
- • maintain Engineering’s credibility for absolute data integrity
- • If my instruments don’t see it, it cannot yet be trusted
- • Data may be experiencing sensor echoes from the planet’s magnetic wake
Focused anticipation—an almost giddy readiness to prove himself tempered by Starfleet discipline
Wesley’s fingers flicker across the helm in fast double-stroke inputs, his boyish eagerness curbed into disciplined efficiency as Enterprise carves out of planetary orbit and accelerates to maximum impulse.
- • execute Riker’s order flawlessly
- • demonstrate command readiness to bridge officers
- • Orders are to be obeyed instantly and exactly
- • Speed is safety here because people are dying at Aucdet IX
Command-level vigilance—ready to believe Data, quicker to squash any risk to mission integrity
Legs braced wide in the command chair, Riker barks crisp navigation orders then flicks a glance to Data at the science station, warily tasting the faint ozone of unseen trouble.
- • deliver the vaccine to Aucdet IX without delay
- • identify any threat before it multiplies
- • Seconds count when plague samples are aboard
- • Starfleet protocol: watch every shadow in deep space
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Exactly outboard of the port nacelle, Data’s sensors mark an impossible luminous signature—a non-physical breach point that Engineering insists does not exist yet the metric readings stubbornly maintain is true.
The dormant warp engines stand cold after Geordi’s power-down, their stalked silhouettes becoming a ceremonial archway through which the living sphere drifts, untouched by physical shields or magnetic coils.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The elliptical void recently home to the orb now unspools behind the departing Enterprise—a fading lavender halo where a single fleck of light coalesces, then launches like comet-second seeking its chosen galleon.
The bridge becomes nerve-center and conscience of the moment—forward screen wide with departing starfields, LCARS glow framing Wesley’s eager execution, console chatter underscoring an unsettling gap between sensor truth and engineering consensus.
Quiet fluorescent room where Geordi wields engineering absolutes, his console insisting reality is what its circuits say it is while Data’s comm voice remains polite yet paradoxically adamant.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Data's report of an unexplained energy transference prefigures and directly precedes the glowing ball closing on and penetrating the Enterprise; the sensor anomaly is the first detectable sign of the intruding light."
"Data's report of an unexplained energy transference prefigures and directly precedes the glowing ball closing on and penetrating the Enterprise; the sensor anomaly is the first detectable sign of the intruding light."
"Data's report of an unexplained energy transference prefigures and directly precedes the glowing ball closing on and penetrating the Enterprise; the sensor anomaly is the first detectable sign of the intruding light."
"Data's report of an unexplained energy transference prefigures and directly precedes the glowing ball closing on and penetrating the Enterprise; the sensor anomaly is the first detectable sign of the intruding light."
"The glowing ball's penetration of the hull is the immediate physical cause for the glow slipping into corridors and entering Troi's quarters."
"The glowing ball's penetration of the hull is the immediate physical cause for the glow slipping into corridors and entering Troi's quarters."
"Data's report of an unexplained energy transference prefigures and directly precedes the glowing ball closing on and penetrating the Enterprise; the sensor anomaly is the first detectable sign of the intruding light."
"Data's report of an unexplained energy transference prefigures and directly precedes the glowing ball closing on and penetrating the Enterprise; the sensor anomaly is the first detectable sign of the intruding light."
"Data's early sensor readout of a random energy transference foreshadows later medical surprise at the newborn's anomalous properties—both beats signal an otherworldly energy linked to the child."
"Data's early sensor readout of a random energy transference foreshadows later medical surprise at the newborn's anomalous properties—both beats signal an otherworldly energy linked to the child."
"Data's early sensor readout of a random energy transference foreshadows later medical surprise at the newborn's anomalous properties—both beats signal an otherworldly energy linked to the child."
"Data's early sensor readout of a random energy transference foreshadows later medical surprise at the newborn's anomalous properties—both beats signal an otherworldly energy linked to the child."
Key Dialogue
"DATA: I just observed what appeared to be a random energy transference."
"GEORDI: No -- I show nothing here, Data."
"RIKER: Let me know if it reoccurs."