Warped 1

Donovan was expecting a sharp wakeup call, but he was operating under the assumption that electricity would not be involved. Ill prepared mentally for the sharp pain and popping sounds inherent in such consciousness inducing measures, he spasmed himself out of his bed onto the floor.

Collateral damage took the form of a bewildered and groggy German Shepherd who found itself suddenly kicked off of the bed.

"We are on course to pass through a dust field in 5 minutes. It is unusually dense and appears to be expanding, the scanners cannot make out if there is an asteroid within it. Immediate evasive action is needed."

"And you couldn't wake me up normally?"

"I made several attempts. I suspect this mission is taking a greater toll on you than we initially expected. The oddity of the cloud may shed a light on enemy capabilities."

The disgruntled Mercedes glared daggers at the now fully clothed pilot from her previous spot on the bed. The sheets may have been in a state of disarray, but her body heat and indent in the mattress remained.

Sliding into the pilot's seat, the right side of his screen flared with all sorts of analysis and warning messages. The total cloud mass looked to be around that of heavy cruiser, and it's volume was expanding at an ever increasing rate.

"Position the Noah around ten to fifty kilometers from it while maintaining a parallel velocity. There is no record of any celestial event that would describe what is currently happening, remain vigilant should danger arise. Your eyes will receive the information on screen faster than if I were to say it to you."

"Just give me a vector." Now a veteran of controlling the overly responsive rate of turn the Noah boasted, he got on his way to a parallel running course with a minimum of wasted time. "Do you have an idea of where the center of this field is yet?"

"Yes, but that comes later. I will put a side-by-side of thermal and electro magnetic scans of the cloud on screen. You may be more capable of inferring the truth of the matter than myself."

Two windows came up, both showing what would usually be nothing more than a dull blob. Asteroids and dust clouds aren't exactly known to generate radio waves and heat, block them for sure, but never generate.

That 'knowledge' was being turned on its head in front of them. The readings that were being given off were more akin to that of a civilian ship experiencing a total system meltdown than a lifeless hunk of minerals.

"The cloud appears to be made primarily of iron, nickel, and copper, and if the scanners are operating correctly then it has all been atomized."

"Is there something else in there? Like some potassium touching some other reactive substance?"

"No. There should be nothing in that cloud that would react chemically at the temperature it is at."

Don resorted to brainstorming and keeping an eye on the suspiciously energetic ball of matter. In most cases he would converse with ARC and try to come to a conclusion with it, but whatever was happening here was so far outside of what his field of study was it may as well have been witchcraft.

Overwatch was starting to get boring until something strange happened.

"Curious. It would appear that whatever object is undergoing this spontaneous reaction has split into two." If ARC's previous behavior was anything to go off of, then Don believed that it was starting to get an idea of what exactly was happening. "With any luck, the smaller half should escape the outer bound of the cloud within the next 15 minutes. Do you have a hypothesis as to what is occurring?"

"No, but I think I might know the cause."

"Continue."

"Split radiation. That's the only oddity about the situation that I can even think to believe is a 'cause'. It would justify the naming scheme as well, what with it literally splitting the object into atoms."

"I had come to the same conclusion but for different reasons. Instead of your connection with the name of the radiation to the incident that is occurring, I noted that there is a very minor drop in the intensity of split radiation in the direction of the cloud corresponding with a burst in one of the other forms of energy."

"Why can't I see it on my screen?"

"Much like the change in energy consumption for the shield, this drop in intensity is similarly insignificant to your eyes. More importantly, it has better clarified to me exactly how split radiation operates as a measuring device."

"You didn't know before? How has that changed now?"

"Previously, I was operating under the assumption that Split Radiation was something more like the intensity of other waves like the light spectrum. Instead it appears to be more of a measure of concentration in a given direction."

"How is that different?"

"I wonder how to explain... Let me try this to see if it makes sense for you. Have you ever been on a boat on a calm lake or at the top of a mountain and looked down at the ground?"

"Is a airplane good enough?"

"It will suffice. Do you perhaps remember how objects further away from the aircraft appeared to be more pale and blue compared to those far closer?"

"Yes, the Rayleigh Scattering effect right?"

"Indeed. It would seem that Split radiation is not a measure of some wavelength, but instead a measure of the volume and concentration of some substance in a certain direction. The more of the 'air', if you will, in one direction, the higher the value of Split radiation will be. Given the choice of name, I suspect that the substance being measured is something called Split."

"If that's the case then why did the sun give off readings?"

"The sun gives off large readings for practically everything. It would be more interesting if there was something it DIDN'T give off. But enough of that, the smaller half is about to emerge."