Edmond Stetham, Ph. D, was the only one who could make sense of the data on the screen. He knew what it meant, but he simply couldn't believe it. This was the third time he had rebooted EXOTAP with a command to ignore the anomaly. Three times, and the error hadn't recurred. His mind continued to race through the other possible explanations, even though he had already eliminated them.

He exhaled and ordered the system to reboot. Like many military applications, EXtra Orbital Tracking And Projection was generally referred to by an acronym. Stetham had designed the system over five years ago. He had just been awarded his first Anithus award "for his brilliant experimental demonstration of the transition to turbulence and chaos in dynamic systems."

Edit to add Version 2:

Edmond Stetham stared at the screen in disbelief. He knew what it meant, but he simply couldn't believe it. This was the third time he had rebooted EXOTAP with a command to ignore the anomaly. Three times, and the error hadn't recurred. His mind continued to race through the other possible explanations, even though he had already eliminated them. But the verdict from the data in front of him was irrefutable: this object was not from within the solar system.

And it had just changed course.

Huh? Maybe I’m being really stupid but he rebooted and it
DIDN’T recur. Three times. Don’t you mean it DID recur? Otherwise, what’s he bothered about?

Now a problem has surfaced. I’m fine with that. But then you throw in a lot of techno babble that is not story and doesn’t even explain anything storywise.

Edmond Stetham, Ph. D, was the only one who could make sense of the data on the screen. He knew what it meant, but he simply couldn't believe it. This was the third time he had rebooted EXOTAP with a command to ignore the anomaly. Three times. It was still there.

"Huh? Maybe I’m being really stupid but he rebooted and it
DIDN’T recur. Three times. Don’t you mean it DID recur? Otherwise, what’s he bothered about?

Now a problem has surfaced. I’m fine with that. But then you throw in a lot of techno babble that is not story and doesn’t even explain anything storywise."

So, let me make sure I get this straight. Did the confusion about whether the error did or didn't recur, was THAT the technobabble that you didn't like? Or are you saying that my description of the error was the technobabble?

Because in this story, the error only occurs when the system works as planned. Its about a first contact with an alien civilization, so I spend some time discussing the techno of how they figure it out. If that isn't story, I'm a little worried now. I know I have a story in there, but I don't want it to be drowned out by technobabble, which is what you seem to say.

This is my FIRST sci fi story, so I am completely new to genre (I'm new to writing, too. But that's another topic...) I like the science aspects, it is intriguing to me when a story pulls it off well. I am no Tom Clancy, so I may fail horribly at this if I try to include technical details.

But the main thrust is what happens to this character, and how discovering this affects him, so I am hoping there is enough connection to keep it going.

I throw this out here to show how you might be able to cover the same thing without the techno-babble. You can bring in the PhD later and his award. For now, cover him and his discovery and his reaction to it.

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/005766.html

Part of what I want to show here is that this man is quite intelligent, and I wanted to dissect through a problem he grapples with to show that. What he has discovered here is evidence of aliens from what someone else might dismiss as an error in a computer system.

To avoid the sense of withholding, what about something like notimetothink offered:

Edmond Stetham stared at the screen in disbelief. He knew what it meant, but he simply couldn't believe it. This was the third time he had rebooted EXOTAP with a command to ignore the anomaly. Three times, and the error hadn't recurred. His mind continued to race through the other possible explanations, even though he had already eliminated them. But the verdict from the data in front of him was irrefutable: this object was not from within the solar system.

The last line is a great hook.

Oh, and a nit: I personally dislike lines like, "his mind went through the possibilities, even though he had already rejected them." To me, that seems like unnecessary telling. Kind of like an 'as you know' line. I'm not describing it well, but I guess another way to say it is that the action feels like it's put in for the reader's benefit, not a natural action of the character. Anyway, you could just say something like, "he had already eliminiated all other possible explanations."

However, there's some fun world-building bits in there with the Anithus award, etc.

The trick is to build those bits into the storytelling in a way that feels more natural.

For instance, some stories would have another character come in and mention it (wouldn't work with this, would seem really silly for a colleague to come in and do a, "Wow, Edmond, I knew you had one the Anithus award for brilliant experiemental demonstration of the transition to turbulence and chaos in dynamic systems, but I didn't realize the trophy would be so big!")

Others use external devices like letters or newspaper articles to convey this kind of information (this is done a lot in the later Harry Potter novels, it's one way the author found around the problem of what to do to convey information to the POV character so that you can stay in tight third person limited POV.)

Still others realize that some of this information is backstory. It was necessary for you to figure out how to write what you wanted to write, but unnecessary for the actual storytelling (for the plot), and could be left out of the finished product.

It sounds like you're wavering on what you want to do with this story...like what you really want to do is show his thought process and how he solves this problem when others are missing it/oblivious. I'd hazard a guess that this will cause you to need to include elements of mystery storytelling - where the focus is often on HOW the sleuth figures out whodunnit, rather than the murder/event itself. There are a ton of mystery short fiction pubs, you might grab a couple short stories and see how they accomplish this, I imagine there will be great tips you can glean from them.

Edmond Stetham stared at the screen in disbelief. He knew what it meant, but he simply couldn't believe it. This was the third time he had rebooted EXOTAP with a command to ignore the anomaly. Three times, and the error hadn't recurred so wait, this implies there had been an error once. What you mean is there was no error at all, right? That there's nothing wrong with his computer?. His mind continued to race through the other possible explanations, even though he had already eliminated them. But the verdict from the data in front of him was irrefutable awkward--maybe "The data in front before him was irrefutable": this object was not from within the solar system. is that such a big deal? I mean, we get comets and stuff from other solar systems all the time. Sure, it would be weird to just discover it now (usually you see these things coming). What comes later, of course, is the more interesting piece.