There's nothing like being under the drill to make your day...
“Ghuy'cha!”
Enough was enough! Ka'Tcholor couldn't wait any longer. He'd sent a 3 Klingon party to poke around on Earth's moon's shipyard and came up with nothing. There was always the possibility that T'Nilz was caught, and on Klingon, that would usually mean she was dead, but Captain Ka'Tcholor thought his rescue team would have uncovered some reference to the captured or killed Klingon reconnaissance agent. There would have been probes, a search squadron to find her support ship. The T6 Raider was still undiscovered and no sign of a planetary defence buzzing into action.
Shuttles were constantly shunting back and forth to the planet Earth's surface. There was even a steady stream of craft moving between Earth, its moon, and the fourth planet.
Ka'Tcholor thought the red color was pretty, and he'd learned from his ship's computer that Earthlings referred to Mars as the god of war. He could relate. That, however, didn't help his problem of finding T'Nilz. Even if he couldn't rescue her, he needed to know what happened before he reported back to General Racht, the War Intelligence Testament Service commander.
The captain of the T6 Raider named Fa'augh'ut II, demanded of his ra'wl’, “Analyze all traffic leaving Earth's moon for the last four days. Use the computer. Concentrate on vessels outbound from the Sol system. T'Nilz would have found a way to report if she was still on the moon, somehow on Mars, or down on Earth.”
Ro'Ansck, Ka'Tcholor's second in command, growled his discontent. “I do not think she can be alive.”
“She's alive. She's in hiding. But, maybe not on that moon anymore.”
Ro'Ansck replied, “A true warrior would not cower in hiding for four days.”
The captain was losing patience and everyone, even Ro'Ansck could hear it in his voice. Then he roared, in case there was any doubt.
“WE ARE NOT WARRIORS! We are their best weapons, and T'Nilz is the sharpest of us. FIND HER!”
□To the beginning of Deeper into the Final Frontier
Enough was enough! Ka'Tcholor couldn't wait any longer. He'd sent a 3 Klingon party to poke around on Earth's moon's shipyard and came up with nothing. There was always the possibility that T'Nilz was caught, and on Klingon, that would usually mean she was dead, but Captain Ka'Tcholor thought his rescue team would have uncovered some reference to the captured or killed Klingon reconnaissance agent. There would have been probes, a search squadron to find her support ship. The T6 Raider was still undiscovered and no sign of a planetary defence buzzing into action.
Shuttles were constantly shunting back and forth to the planet Earth's surface. There was even a steady stream of craft moving between Earth, its moon, and the fourth planet.
Ka'Tcholor thought the red color was pretty, and he'd learned from his ship's computer that Earthlings referred to Mars as the god of war. He could relate. That, however, didn't help his problem of finding T'Nilz. Even if he couldn't rescue her, he needed to know what happened before he reported back to General Racht, the War Intelligence Testament Service commander.
The captain of the T6 Raider named Fa'augh'ut II, demanded of his ra'wl’, “Analyze all traffic leaving Earth's moon for the last four days. Use the computer. Concentrate on vessels outbound from the Sol system. T'Nilz would have found a way to report if she was still on the moon, somehow on Mars, or down on Earth.”
Ro'Ansck, Ka'Tcholor's second in command, growled his discontent. “I do not think she can be alive.”
“She's alive. She's in hiding. But, maybe not on that moon anymore.”
Ro'Ansck replied, “A true warrior would not cower in hiding for four days.”
The captain was losing patience and everyone, even Ro'Ansck could hear it in his voice. Then he roared, in case there was any doubt.
“WE ARE NOT WARRIORS! We are their best weapons, and T'Nilz is the sharpest of us. FIND HER!”
□To the beginning of Deeper into the Final Frontier
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Glad to see this thread brought back to life. Hoping we can get some other writers to play.
Joining in this thread is a great way for writers who are stuck with their own stories to shake that writer's block.
Thanks!! rbs
Joining in this thread is a great way for writers who are stuck with their own stories to shake that writer's block.
Thanks!! rbs
The portside “engine room”, as Chief Engineer Zoe Nichols liked to refer to the warp drive nacelle on the port side of the ship, hummed with a soothing, low frequency background sound that, according to her instruments, perfectly matched the starboard engine room. She rolled the thought around in her mind, of bringing a cot into the working space and taking naps in the acoustical cradle. For Zoe, the feel of that gentle vibration through her boots could calm a Tellarite ambassador. Other engineers she'd talked to claimed there was no vibration a person could feel through their feet. The design of the nacelles isolated any vibrations to the “mag-gravs”. The massive warp core and engines were actually floating in their mounts.
‘That doesn't mean there's no energy transfer,’ thought Zoe to herself.
She was busy synchronizing the plasma anodes to the portside dielectric geodesics generator. It was a tweak she'd been formulating since she completed her thesis on the Hyper-warp Distortion Limits in Artificial Space-time. Zoe wanted to be the one to break the Warp 10 barrier.
If she could match the multi-phasic asymmetrical waves to the geodesics generated by the warp drive, theoretically, at least, the geodesics wave peaks wouldn't collapse when they skewed past 90 degrees.
“Impossible, you're talking about moving backwards in time,” argued Lieutenant Commander Kachall, her Tellarite theory instructor, back at the academy. “Once your wave skews past the vertical, that part of the wave will appear in two points in time and space at once. That is an impossible paradox that can't be overcome. The best we will ever be able to do is approach warp 10 closer and closer. We can never exceed that limit. Do the math, Ms. Nichols, do the math.”
Well she did the math. She did it over and over, breaking it apart, rearranging the terms, rebalancing the equations, calculating the derivatives, the anti-derivatives, she tried logarithmic algebra and the logarithms of the logarithms. Up to 32 degree variable calculations. And, what she learned was that it couldn't be done without destroying time, until…
Zoe had the brilliant idea that, if she couldn't force the warp field to skew past 90 degrees without the time paradox, she could skew space-time to allow the field to avoid the paradox all together. Zoe just had to distort spacetime around the wave and she could skew her field waves to her heart's content; no paradox necessary.
“That doesn't look like the warp signature of any ship I've ever seen.”
Zoe looked up. Her eyes caught on the body first. Nothing but legs. Legs deeply tanned above high-heeled boots. She looked up higher, more legs. Then the hem of the most ridiculous parody of a Starfleet security officer's uniform she'd ever seen. Then she noticed, when she looked for the woman's rank insignia, the cleavage. She thought there was almost as much of that as there were legs on display. It was a full quarter of a minute before the chief engineer looked for a face. No face, a black hood that hid all but the eyes.
That was a little startling until she remembered a comment the chief-of-the-boat had made about a crew member who hid her face and hair for religious reasons. Apparently the hood used up all her allotment for material to make her uniform out of.
“Wha… who… who are…”
Commander, Zoe noted commander stripes.
“Commander.” Zoe glanced over her shoulder, then around to the other engineers. Heads dropped instantly back to whatever task was at hand.
The tall, over-built woman gave a sigh, “I did not mean to disturb your work, engineer. I have been trying to… um, esca…”
The door to the turbo-lift behind the Commander whistled opened and a meticulously handsome lieutenant commander in a red tunic stepped out. “There you are. Don't worry, Commander Baris, I made sure those other guys went off looking for you in the forward sensor array. It's just me now.”
The woman gave Zoe a hard stare that obviously wasn't meant for her. She took the woman's meaning. ‘Save me.’
“You are very perceptive, Commander. This is a personal project of mine, just a theory really. I'm so glad you asked. Let me explain it to you; if you're interested.” She started to lead the hooded woman to her office. Come, follow me. I'm sure the lieutenant commander can find his way to whatever security detail needs him.”
Inane Ersatz blinked, momentarily blanking on what was happening. Was he being dismissed?
“You're dismissed, lieutenant commander,” said Commander Nichols bluntly.
The two women retreated to a passage that led to Engineering Central, and Zoe's office.
Inane just stood there watching them retreat, his mind glitching for a moment.
Chief Nichols offered the masked woman a seat, then took her seat behind her engineering desk. She stood immediately at the view that presented itself to her when she lowered herself into her chair.
“Commander, may I be so bold as to ask about your choice of uniform styles? It is… a little distracting.”
T'Nilz took a deep breath and answered, “It is the new issued design. It is supposed to allow for more freedom of movement and efficiency in our duties. Your old… our, our old uniforms have been retired. But you needn't rush out to a replicator, the old style still complies until it is time to replace at the end of its normal wear cycle.”
Zoe didn't know what to make of that news. New uniforms? She wasn't going to be wearing such an absurd, revealing, travesty of a garment. The strange commander's eyes, all Zoe could see of her face, looked so earnest, Zoe thought she was actually serious about this unthinkable change. She herself had torn a sleeve in her other tunic and had already retired that one. She was, in fact, planning to replicate a new tunic at end-of-shift. That coxswain was going to get an ear full, if this was where the new uniform styles were headed.
‘That doesn't mean there's no energy transfer,’ thought Zoe to herself.
She was busy synchronizing the plasma anodes to the portside dielectric geodesics generator. It was a tweak she'd been formulating since she completed her thesis on the Hyper-warp Distortion Limits in Artificial Space-time. Zoe wanted to be the one to break the Warp 10 barrier.
If she could match the multi-phasic asymmetrical waves to the geodesics generated by the warp drive, theoretically, at least, the geodesics wave peaks wouldn't collapse when they skewed past 90 degrees.
“Impossible, you're talking about moving backwards in time,” argued Lieutenant Commander Kachall, her Tellarite theory instructor, back at the academy. “Once your wave skews past the vertical, that part of the wave will appear in two points in time and space at once. That is an impossible paradox that can't be overcome. The best we will ever be able to do is approach warp 10 closer and closer. We can never exceed that limit. Do the math, Ms. Nichols, do the math.”
Well she did the math. She did it over and over, breaking it apart, rearranging the terms, rebalancing the equations, calculating the derivatives, the anti-derivatives, she tried logarithmic algebra and the logarithms of the logarithms. Up to 32 degree variable calculations. And, what she learned was that it couldn't be done without destroying time, until…
Zoe had the brilliant idea that, if she couldn't force the warp field to skew past 90 degrees without the time paradox, she could skew space-time to allow the field to avoid the paradox all together. Zoe just had to distort spacetime around the wave and she could skew her field waves to her heart's content; no paradox necessary.
“That doesn't look like the warp signature of any ship I've ever seen.”
Zoe looked up. Her eyes caught on the body first. Nothing but legs. Legs deeply tanned above high-heeled boots. She looked up higher, more legs. Then the hem of the most ridiculous parody of a Starfleet security officer's uniform she'd ever seen. Then she noticed, when she looked for the woman's rank insignia, the cleavage. She thought there was almost as much of that as there were legs on display. It was a full quarter of a minute before the chief engineer looked for a face. No face, a black hood that hid all but the eyes.
That was a little startling until she remembered a comment the chief-of-the-boat had made about a crew member who hid her face and hair for religious reasons. Apparently the hood used up all her allotment for material to make her uniform out of.
“Wha… who… who are…”
Commander, Zoe noted commander stripes.
“Commander.” Zoe glanced over her shoulder, then around to the other engineers. Heads dropped instantly back to whatever task was at hand.
The tall, over-built woman gave a sigh, “I did not mean to disturb your work, engineer. I have been trying to… um, esca…”
The door to the turbo-lift behind the Commander whistled opened and a meticulously handsome lieutenant commander in a red tunic stepped out. “There you are. Don't worry, Commander Baris, I made sure those other guys went off looking for you in the forward sensor array. It's just me now.”
The woman gave Zoe a hard stare that obviously wasn't meant for her. She took the woman's meaning. ‘Save me.’
“You are very perceptive, Commander. This is a personal project of mine, just a theory really. I'm so glad you asked. Let me explain it to you; if you're interested.” She started to lead the hooded woman to her office. Come, follow me. I'm sure the lieutenant commander can find his way to whatever security detail needs him.”
Inane Ersatz blinked, momentarily blanking on what was happening. Was he being dismissed?
“You're dismissed, lieutenant commander,” said Commander Nichols bluntly.
The two women retreated to a passage that led to Engineering Central, and Zoe's office.
Inane just stood there watching them retreat, his mind glitching for a moment.
Chief Nichols offered the masked woman a seat, then took her seat behind her engineering desk. She stood immediately at the view that presented itself to her when she lowered herself into her chair.
“Commander, may I be so bold as to ask about your choice of uniform styles? It is… a little distracting.”
T'Nilz took a deep breath and answered, “It is the new issued design. It is supposed to allow for more freedom of movement and efficiency in our duties. Your old… our, our old uniforms have been retired. But you needn't rush out to a replicator, the old style still complies until it is time to replace at the end of its normal wear cycle.”
Zoe didn't know what to make of that news. New uniforms? She wasn't going to be wearing such an absurd, revealing, travesty of a garment. The strange commander's eyes, all Zoe could see of her face, looked so earnest, Zoe thought she was actually serious about this unthinkable change. She herself had torn a sleeve in her other tunic and had already retired that one. She was, in fact, planning to replicate a new tunic at end-of-shift. That coxswain was going to get an ear full, if this was where the new uniform styles were headed.
Busted.... Very fun!
Actually, travelling even a little faster than light is moving backward in time because it breaks causality. But then, Star Trek is science fantasy, not so much science fiction.
Thanks!! rbs
Actually, travelling even a little faster than light is moving backward in time because it breaks causality. But then, Star Trek is science fantasy, not so much science fiction.
Thanks!! rbs
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