Conflux Expert Hopeful About Recent Data Collection

by Thane Carios

(Cornea Station)  When reports came in about new Conflux infestation activity in Connexion sector, Prof. Athena ShaiDen decided it was time to get some fresh data.

“I have not done any field work in many, many months,” said ShaiDen, the Xenobiology Chairperson at Sutonia College.  “I was done my classes for the day and had some free time, so I loaded up my customized scanning equipment and headed out.”

The Conflux had infested three of the four gates in Connexion:  The Stith, Light Crossroad and Ring View.  It turned out to be very good fortune that the fourth gate, Dark Crossroads, had not been infested.

“As I was headed into Connexion to start scanning, pilot Hammer-BS announced that he was going to start nuking the infestation from the Ring View side, so I started my scans on the Ring View infestation, then proceeding to Light Crossroads and then to The Stith.  As I was finishing up there, Hammer-BS said he was up to 10 nukes into the Ring View infestation.  I decided to try to closely scan the infestation with my narrow-beam scanner focused right on one of the plasma ports at point blank range — and to try to be scanning at the moment the infestation is destroyed.  It had never been done before.”

ShaiDen got her wish as the 17th nuke hit from the Ring-View side and the infestation dissipated.  “I was under 300 metres from the infestation plasma port and I wasn’t sure whether any blast damage would migrate through the gate,” said ShaiDen, “so I was mentally prepared for a pod-ride back to Cornea.  But there wasn’t so much as a ripple.”

After collecting the breakthrough data, ShaiDen immediately headed to Cornea Station — her home — to begin working with her colleagues and grad students on analyzing the data.