Tachyon

“The Flavour of the Week is ‘Antipodean’” Cdr. Scott Coleridge ------------------------------------ It’s sort of like those personality and psych profiles they make you complete for fun and for profit: Given a choice between proceeding directly to a potentially deadly confrontation with a Breen fleet of unknown strength and armament or dallying to board a disabled Romulan troop transport and muck about with its computer system, what would you do? The answer says a lot about someone. Scott had jumped at the idea of visiting another type of Romulan vessel. Thanks to the Aegean, not to mention the years he had worked under Jorahl, his experience with Romulan technology was quickly becoming somewhat of a speciality. Like Federation ships, the Truvest’s computers were based on the same basic principles of Romulan engineering, but also like Federation ships, not every ship’s computer was the same. Scott was interested to see what sort of computer was running a troop transport—that is, if he could get it up and running. The engineering team he took with him consisted of another Starfleet crewman and two Romulans, whose experience would prove invaluable. Scott did not need to see the withering looks shared among his two Romulan engineers, however, to notice the lack of care that the Truvest’s engineers had taken. In Starfleet such negligence would result in quite a bit of paperwork and probably some form of lecture. Scott wondered what the Romulan equivalent might be—execution? Death by slow torture or poison? The Truvest had suffered what is technically called a “catastrophic total systems failure” brought on by a cascade failure of the main computer grid. Scott had a few other names for it that were not fit for polite company or duty logs. Computers and similar sensitive equipment were supposed to be shielded against harmful phenomena like gamma ray bursts. The Truvest was old, however, and not particularly well maintained. Shielding had lapsed in several areas, and in one area had even been bypassed and tied directly into the external shield grid. Scott was not sure what particular brand of madness had caused such folly and was not eager to encounter it himself. When the gamma ray burst had hit, any vulnerable sections had been damaged beyond repair: they would have to replace or bypass each area. There was enough of the grid remaining across the entire ship to get the computers, and hence the rest of the main systems, restored to at least 75% efficiency. The shielding on the main computer was intact, a small favour that would make their job easier. Scott had his Romulan engineers work with the Truvest’s crew to draw up the best plan of attack and begin drafting repair teams. Fortunately, with 8000 aboard, they would not lack repair crew; it took little expertise to remove damaged components and slot new ones into place. He and the engineers would do the most sensitive work. Meanwhile, Scott and the other Starfleet engineer explored options for using the remaining, functional parts of the computing grid to create ad-hoc networks around the ship as a stop-gap measure. It was the type of creative solution that demanded a far more creative problem—but Scott had just about reached his quota of creative problems for this extended shakedown mission.

“Six Degrees of Spock” Cdr. Scott Coleridge --------------------------------------------- The Jellyflish slipped away from the Aegean and dove toward a dying star. On board this small craft was a type of matter that shouldn’t exist and a figure almost as mythical as that: Ambassador Spock, formerly a Starfleet captain, one of the most famous people alive. And for all Scott knew, he could die today. As the Aegean cleared the star’s gravity well and jump to warp, Scott pondered the chain of increasingly unlikely events that had brought him into contact with Spock. He had been, it was fair to say, starstruck at first by the Vulcan’s physical presence and gravitas. But over the course of the week that they had collaborated, that awe had gradually worn away—or worn down. Scott’s unsatisfactory sleep schedule had probably helped too, as he discovered when he snapped at Spock for daring to imply his handle on the situation was anything less than absolute. That was probably a detail he wasn’t going to mention in the official report…. There was a game he had played back at the Academy. Take any two Starfleet officers, start with one and create a chain of officers they had served with until you get to the other. The theory goes that any two officers, on average, are separated by only six degrees. Take a famous Starfleet officer—like Spock, or even more commonly, Kirk himself—and find your degree of separation, and you have your “Kirk number”. Interestingly enough, despite the separation in time and space, all serving officers in Starfleet have a Kirk number of less than 8. Scott’s was 5. He was fairly certain this week with Ambassador Spock could not count toward the game; Spock had not officially transferred to the Aegean, and he wasn’t even a member of Starfleet any more. Had it counted, however, he would now have a Kirk number of 2, a number much more desirable yet much more difficult to get. Time had largely conquered those who had served with Kirk, with only a few of the very long-lived remaining, and few enough of those were still active. (Some people tried to claim that Kirk’s apocryphal involvement with the final mission of the Enterprise-D counted, but Scott placed little stock in that story.) In the end, of course, it wasn’t important. It was just a silly game, something to pass the time—or for Scott’s friends, a good way to hone one’s skills at writing shortest-path algorithms. Try as he might, however, Scott couldn’t shake the idea from his mind. Perhaps he was, though he didn’t want to admit it, more than a little pleased by this opportunity to work with one of the greatest minds ever to serve in Starfleet—and help that mind save millions of lives in the process. Kirk (or Spock) number or not, few people today could say they had worked with Ambassador Spock in such a terrifyingly significant capacity. Alternatively, perhaps this was his imagination’s sleep-deprived attempt to distract him from what events were still to come: a confrontation with the Breen far more deliberate and dangerous than anything they had seen yet. The Aegean was as-yet still unproven in such circumstances—yes, it had survived an up-close-and-personal encounter with a single Breen ship, but that was a poor shakedown for an all-out battle against an entire fleet. When Scott had first transferred to Aegis, he had thought he would be leaving such concerns behind. The subsequent years of aliens trying to annihilate the station had proved him wrong, and now, here he was, on a starship again, preparing for war. It would be useless to pretend that this was somehow unusual. Maybe if Scott had been serving somewhere safe and cozy, like Starbase 14, he could pretend he was an engineer who spent most of his time upgrading systems and maintaining the EPS grid. But that had never been the reality of life on Aegis, either before or since Scott had joined the crew. And he supposed that, deep down, he must like these sort of situations. Otherwise he would have done the sane thing and transferred to Starbase 14 years ago.

“The Particle Physics of a Pocket Universe” Cdr. Scott Coleridge ---------------------------------------------------------------------- If words had been racing through his mind, if his mind hadn’t been emptied moments before by the rising wave of terror that began in his gut, then they would have been something along the lines of, “Not again.” Not again. Scott Coleridge was a subspace and warp field theorist by training—a theorist. His first and only encounter with a wormhole had left him scurrying away from starship duty, content to serve aboard a station, where such phenomena were in short supply. Or so he had thought. Lately, he wasn’t so sure—first subspace transporters, then Aegis’ abrupt visit to a pocket of subspace. And now this. Scott knew that going on this shakedown was a bad idea, but he had been blinded by the attractive AQS propulsion system. Now he was paying the price. When the ship had lost power as it was extruded into subspace, Scott attempted to restrain his mounting discomfort and take an objective view of the situation. Random visits to subspace don’t happen; their increasing frequency in his life was not a mere coincidence but a sign of more sinister machinations by the Breen. The signal the ship had been tracking was a lure, or even if unintentional, it had to be related to the mechanism that had brought them here. Yet—and this was what frustrated him the most—they had not come here the same way Aegis, and presumably the ghostly Breen fleet, had arrived. As the lone Breen ship opened fire, Scott knew that their best chance was to escape back into normal space. With nothing to contribute from the tactical side, he turned his attention to this dilemma. The antiprotons had seemed obvious from the start. Bombarding a warp core with proton bursts would jumpstart a matter/antimatter reaction by altering the intermix. Antiprotons would alter the reaction in a different way, and when combined with the effect of a ship’s deflectors, would be sufficient to alter the shield geometry in a way that made the ship quite unpalatable to the continuum of this manifold. The ship would be rejected, spit back out into “normal” space, where they could go on their way. There was just one problem with Scott’s brilliant plan: the ship had no warp core. The Romulan-designed AQS reactor was a marvel in many ways, but one thing it was not was a matter/antimatter reaction. Antiproton bursts would just make the singularity annoyed. The elation that had suddenly started to erase his terror was quickly replaced by dejection and chagrin as he instantly began to berate himself for not studying the AQS specs more thoroughly. There was probably a solution somewhere, but there was no way he could come up with it in time. Fortunately, the ship had warp-capable shuttlecraft aboard, and with some extra work, the plan would still be feasible. Things seldom go to plan, of course, Scott reflected as he sniffed at the recycled air in his environmental suit. That now-familiar terror had returned, but was mixed with something like excitement—though maybe that was adrenaline. He was going to see a Breen ship! It was an opportunity that few members of Starfleet had ever had. Most of their knowledge of Breen technology came from salvage obtained during the war, and that was now years out of date. Moreover, the Breen had until recently been missing, so no one had expected to see a Breen ship again. No, whatever the danger implicit in this mission, it was accompanied by a unique opportunity, and that was enough to raise his spirits. Plus, Breen ships had warp cores—or at least something enough like a warp core to serve the purpose. If he could read the Breen systems and decipher how to prep the core. If there weren’t still Breen alive, anxious to apprehend them or kill them or force them to listen to whatever modulations passed for off-key Breen opera. If this subspace manifold, which up until now was reassuringly similar in its physical laws to their own space, actually admitted the existence of antiprotons. No, this was no ordinary shakedown cruise. Scott resolved that when this was all over, and if they survived, then he would spend a long time on the holodeck doing something decidedly not related to astrophysics—perhaps a long, peaceful canoe trip. Or maybe nice spa visit. Anything that didn’t involve trudging through an alien spacecraft in a bulky suit, playing with the particle physics of a pocket universe while Breen breathed down his neck. Scott had now served a long time as an engineer on Aegis, and he was well acquainted with the grubby duties of plasma conduit cleaning and ODN realignment. He knew the sections that would break down the moment you turned your back and the sections where, if you had to, you could let maintenance slide. He knew how to attach a Ferengi power converter to a Federation EPS capacitor, and he could do it in less than three minutes. Despite all these practical accomplishments, however, deep down at heart, Scott was by training and by inclination, a theorist. Breen ships, subspace trips … they were all too real for him.

“Let's Take a Peek” Cdr. Scott Coleridge -------------------------------- All the lines of code were starting to look the same. It was not physical exhaustion that he was feeling. He had not even been on duty that long. Neither tea nor coffee helped with the fatigue. Scott's body was alert, but his mind was suddenly light-years away, rifling through old memories in a desperate attempt to escape the present circumstances. Only several blinks and a vigorous headshake managed to bring it back to Aegis—and even then, it threatened to slip loose if Scott did not keep a stern watch over it. He was distracted, too prone to distraction, today, of all days. It did not help that he had essentially rewritten the Breen device's programming from scratch. This was probably not the most elegant solution and certainly not the fastest, but it was the one that had the best chance of working. Even that chance, Scott knew, was not as high as he wanted it to be. A small but vocal part of him wondered what would happen if the probe, once launched, positioned, and activated, just sat there. Thanks to their somewhat unorthodox tests of the device itself and recordings of Ocis' . . . testimony . . . Scott believed he knew how to replicate its effects. Or so the computers told him. He was still fuzzy on exactly what those effects were, whether they were a form of submergence in a deep layer of subspace, a clumsy attempt at phase-cloaking, an over-complicated wormhole generator, or some type of temporal enclosure. That was one reason he was excited to see what the probe, and the station's new sensors, could tell them about their recent discovery. Whatever the truth behind the phenomenon, the real news was the presence of the Breen. With security a high priority, Scott had dutifully hardcoded a failsafe into the probes he had modified: without a regular signal from Aegis, the power capacitor to the probe's thrusters would melt-down, triggering a thermal overload. If the Breen could somehow retrieve the probe, it would be a heap of uninformative slag (albeit Starfleet-issue slag). Of course, if for some reason transmission from the probe's destination worked only one-way, and they could receive data from the probe but not send anything back . . . well then, it would be a short mission. Thanks to the sensor upgrades Duroz had overseen, any mission, however, short, was bound to give them some answers. It would also raise more questions. Scott had his own, personal interests in this mission, because this was the cutting edge of the type of engineering that had seduced him back in his Academy days. As he had hung upside down over those probes, tweaking their comm relays to handle increases in Dirac-delta density deformations, it brought back memories of long nights in sparsely-populated lecture halls listening to a wizened Bolian drone on about the practical applications of topological invariants to subspace field theory. The mathematics had often been beyond Scott's comprehension; the physics, while interesting, was not always testable. But in the end, what had always intrigued him were the startling results: in Scott's universe, the speed of light is like the rule of law, and relativity makes sure no one can cheat the game. Gain access to subspace, however, and suddenly all the rules no longer apply, and all that math he had tried to forget after the final exam becomes essential. Scott, as an engineer, was standing on the shoulders of giants—Einstein, Penrose, Hawking, Cochrane, Manheim—and building the tools humans used not just to travel the cosmos but actually affect it on a grand scale. It was weird and wonderful and humbling all at the same time. And now the Breen were doing something else weird, and Scott wanted in. He didn't particularly care why they were doing it or what threat, if any, they posed to the station. That was someone else's job. He wanted to know—needed to know—the what and the how of it. The probes and the sensor upgrades would allow Aegis to get its feet wet without taking another blind leap into the pool. Send the probe a few hundred AU from the station, park it out of the way of anything in particular, and activate the subroutines Scott had just finished programming. Assuming he hadn't made a mistake, the probe should disappear from regular sensors even as it continued to transmit telemetry. That telemetry would then be used to train the new sensors aboard Aegis to be able to scan whatever layers of subspace the Breen were using to hide (if, indeed, that was what they were doing). Without the telemetry, they could scan subspace layers all they like, but they would not be able to tell the difference between a submerged Breen vessel and a burst vacuole: there was just no baseline against which the computer could interpret the data. That would hopefully change soon. Until that happened, however, Scott had one more important thing to do. He pushed back from the console, stretched for a moment, and then stood up. He had been in engineering for hours, had spent several of those hours programming or running diagnostics on the new sensors. His body was willing, but his mind was weak. A short break, perhaps some physical exertion at the gym or on the holodeck, and he would be able to focus again. He hoped. Because if the Breen came knocking and he couldn't concentrate—well, all the fancy knowledge of subspace engineering would not matter so much. Despite his utter nonchalance over the Breen's intentions, Scott had to admit to a little curiosity over why they had disappeared—and why they were now, if not back, at least so much more in evidence.

“The Swing of the Pendulum” Cdr. Tandaris Admiran ------------------------------------- The chamber was vast and mostly filled with air. Combined with its central dome and a sturdy set of columns, this created an effect of openness. And it reinforced that people are, in the grand scheme of things, quite small. Tandaris considered it a fitting example of human pique that the room, which was also a mausoleum, had scattered about it statues that were slightly larger-than-life, as if to say, “Here we house the bones of giants.” Tandaris had not come for bones, though. He had come for the central attraction. He loved humans and their neoclassicism, for there was nothing quite like it on Trill. They had their own Renaissances and Enlightenments—several, in fact—but neoclassicism was a conceit that they had not yet considered, and their architecture suffered for it. So when Tandaris deigned to visit some of Earth's great monuments, it was no surprise that he gravitated to the neoclassicists first. Those visits were not often, however. He had fond memories of his years at the Academy, but Earth had never quite become the “second homeworld” it became for so many cadets. He had always preferred Mars and its orbiting shipyards; there was something comfortably alien about Mars and the evidence of its use as a terraforming prototype. Earth was just so overbearingly cosmopolitan; it tried all at once to be the homeworld of humanity and the centre of the entire United Federation of Planets. So when Tandaris did visit, he went out of his way to go to places where the former was much more in evidence than the latter. He made himself busy and tried to be a tourist. So that was one reason Tandaris found himself in the Panthéon on an overcast afternoon, staring down at the most non-neoclassical part of the entire building. It was for him, however, perhaps the best part of the entire room. A pendulum, lead with a brass coating, hung suspended from the ceiling. Its plane of swing appeared to rotate as the day progressed, but this was an illusion caused by the rotating Earth; its plane was in fact fixed relative to an inertial frame of reference. This pendulum display, named after its creator, Leon Foucault, was a famous and now commonplace demonstration across the planet. The Panthéon pendulum had been in place continuously, in one form or another, for over five hundred years now. At first glance, Tandaris found it underwhelming—it was smaller than he had expected, and the scale of the room made it look smaller still. Nevertheless, it was a breathtaking tribute, both to the unquestionable empirical truths of physics—which were, when counted up at the end of the day, much fewer than most physicists would like to pretend—and the ingenuity of human spirit. Tandaris had a yearning for both right now—more so the unquestionable truths, but he rather hoped the ingenuity would rub off as well. There were plenty of other people in the Pantheon, some human and some not, though the space around the pendulum was not particularly crowded. Tandaris had been the only Trill when he entered, but now a second Trill sidled up next to him. She stared at the pendulum in silence, then she said, “Why did you want to meet me here?” “Have you ever been here before?” Tandaris asked. “Several times. Rousseau is around here somewhere, as is Voltaire.” “Rousseau . . . he was some kind of writer, right?” She looked at Tandaris askance. “Yes, some kind of writer. Do you have a point?” Now it was Tandaris' turn for looks askance, and he gestured at Foucault's pendulum. “Our own physicists discovered the truth of the pendulum long ago. We've got them in our schools and universities, sure, but we don't have something like this. We don't have a display, a tribute, if you will, that has been around for a half-century. We certainly don't have one housed in a mausoleum that was actually built as a church!” He laughed. “This is not just a marvel of physics, Vernas. It's a testament to the creativity and capriciousness of humanity.” “If you say so. I'll stick with the dead writers, thank you,” Vernas replied. “Have you spent all your time on Earth thinking about physics, or have you considered my offer?” “I couldn't possibly come work for you. I've only avoided returning to Trill this long because of Captain Corizon's . . . patronage, and our operation in the Gamma Quadrant. Otherwise Starfleet would have had to hand me over to the Symbiosis Commission. Now they probably will.” Vernas gave a small snort. “I don't fear the Commission.” “Easy enough for you to say when you don't have a symbiont for them to rip from your body.” That imagery was enough to give even Vernas pause. “They wouldn't really do that, though—would they?” “Probably not. They would lock me up in a brand new lab somewhere and prod me with test equipment for the rest of my life. I am a curiosity, and a unique one, and that makes me a commodity instead of a person in their eyes.” “What did you do to attract their attention like that?” “I don't really want to talk about it, and it's probably better if you didn't know.” In truth, Tandaris was just tired of telling the tale. “Fine. My offer is not contingent on full disclosure. And I'm serious about not caring if you're a fugitive from the Symbiosis Commission. Excuse me while I purchase a very tiny French violin from the gift shop. You have bigger and better things to be doing with your time than running away from some bureaucrats in lab coats, and I want to help you do them.” Tandaris sighed. He started to walk clockwise around the base of the pendulum, which continued to swing languidly, indifferent to the conversation taking place around it. “I have to admit it's tempting. I gave up a lot of that work when I came out of retirement—not that I was prevented from doing it, but I haven't exactly had much spare time. It's a side effect of working for Captain Corizon.” Vernas, almost of a height with him, had no trouble keeping pace. “Well it sounds like you won't be working for him any longer. Even if, by some miracle, you manage to escape unscathed from this, I doubt your captain will be very lucky. I don't know exactly what Excalibur did, but from what I hear, it has made you more enemies than friends.” “Story of my life, Vernas.” “It's the story of most lives. But I think you've become trapped by your story,” she said. She reached out and touched his arm, just above the wrist. It was a gentle touch, not overly familiar. “You told me you didn't think you were ready to move on—I'm telling you that probably isn't your choice to make. But if you can't choose whether you go, you can at least choose where you go. Not back to Trill. So stay here. Come work for my company. You looked at the schematics I sent?” “After deciphering the encryption protocol, yes.” Vernas smiled. It was the smile mothers give to children when they perform a particularly choice trick in front of an audience of adults. “That was a bit of a test, I confess. I was curious. But you looked inside?” “Yes—as I said, I'm tempted. I've long been an admirer of Dr. Kahn's work.” “So what's holding you back?” Ah, that question again. What was stopping Tandaris from leaving? He and Kersia could find a shuttle, flee into unexplored space, and spend the rest of their lives somewhere far, far from the Federation. There was nothing keeping him here, not on Excalibur—was there? He had spent years on board that ship as its chief engineer. He had retired once—it didn't stick—and of late he had been there because he had nowhere else to go. Now someone was doing more than asking him why he should stay: someone was offering him a way out. He did not doubt Vernas when she said she could protect him and Kersia from Starfleet or the Symbiosis Commission or any other authorities who wanted a piece of the information in his head. Joined Trill often underestimated their unjoined brethren. It was easy to assume, rather arrogantly, that those who did not have the experience of several lifetimes had narrower, shallower skill sets. Tandaris knew better. Vernas had done more than most joined Trill do in three lifetimes. She had not always been the head of an interstellar R&D firm, and if she wanted to, she could hide anything or anyone in plain sight. All he had to do was walk away. Beside him, Foucault's pendulum swung. The Earth moved. And Tandaris made his choice.

“The Crazy Box” Lt. Cdr. Scott Coleridge --------------------------------------- Chronitons. It just had to be chronitons. Couldn't have been muons, or neutrinos, or even tetryons or tachyons—no, it had to be chronitons. The particle inextricably associated with time travel. And Scott hated time travel. That being said, the machine sitting in the engineering lab had so far been reluctant to yield up any secrets of import. It had refused to so much as emit a single chroniton in Scott's presence. Tests of the hardware revealed that, at first glance, it was a standard transporter unit. It had all the bits that made a transporter go. Except that in place of a subspace transceiver connected to the emitters, there was a bizarre component like nothing Scott had ever seen before. He liked to call it “the crazy box.” Oh, its basic operation was easy enough to comprehend. It was a quantum tunnelling device, capable of bypassing the ordinary classical requirements of kinetic energy through a careful and precise application of probabilistic methods. Given sufficient energy and the right calculations, the device would transmit matter, decomposed into discrete quanta rather than as a continuous stream, through ordinary space rather than subspace. Transporting this way, bypassing subspace, allowed one to beam through conventional shields and at warp speeds. It was also ordinarily so dangerous that no one in their right minds would use such technology. Hence, crazy box. And it made perfect sense that the Breen, who in Scott's professional opinion were probably collectively crazy, would be using such a thing. As everyone learns in the first year quantum physics course, the difference between discrete and continuous is no difference at all, except when it is. Continuous matter stream or discrete quanta were all just wave functions waiting to collapse, a vast bundle of Feynman path integrals. Except that macroscopic objects, like people, are not elementary particles, like electrons, and thus tunnelling for them poses more problems. Macroscopic objects necessarily get broken up, and unlike the conventional method of transporting, there is no guarantee the crazy box can keep them all together during their trip through the quantum foam. Enter chronitons. Or so Scott surmised; he had no actual proof, but that seemed to be the only theory that made sense. The transporter enclosed its quantum packets in a temporal field that kept everything together, even when it was apart. It was actually a very clever solution, but it had a fundamental drawback for biotic matter: this was an abuse of chronitons, and the price was a hefty dose of exposure to chroniton radiation at the subatomic level. The chronitons freely mixed with an individual's atomic nuclei, encouraging premature neutron decay. Scott was guessing that anyone who took more than one or two trips through this device would have serious cellular damage, if he or she was lucky. In fact, Scott was at a loss to explain how the device prevented further damage at all. His investigation of the software was less-than-helpful. With no knowledge of Breen mathematics, attempting to decipher the way the device handled temporal calculations was a waste of time. The only thing Scott had been able to determine was that there appeared to be a genetic authentication mechanism built into the framework—as if the Breen could unlock additional safety protocols if they so desired. He wondered what they were, and how they functioned, but lacking any suitable Breen DNA on hand, he had no way of knowing. All his attempts to fool the authentication mechanism had been in vain. The device did not want to be tampered with, and frankly, Scott wasn't about to disagree with it. It might start shooting chronitons at him.

Pennington Award Recipient "If I'm Dead, Will You Send Me a Postcard?" Lt. Cdr. Scott Coleridge -------------------------------------------------------- When you transport, you die. First, the imaging scanners take a snapshot of you at the quantum level. The Heisenberg compensators sneak you through a back door in quantum physics, and these bits that become bits will arrive more or less the same as they are now. Alas, there are no Cartesian compensators, and your soul—if such a duality you possess—must tag along in the matter stream, punctuation to a question the transporter is not equipped to ask. But those electrochemical signals that embody your consciousness are suspended as the phase transition coils have their way with you. In the blink of an eye, you cease to be anything more than a memory in a buffer somewhere, an atomic instruction manual on how to build you (some assembly required). Next, cosseted in the bosom of an annular confinement beam, that manual of you zips through subspace to its destination, where the energizing coils begin to reverse the process of your dematerialization. Each of your hadrons and electrons is restored to physicality, meticulously stitched together from their component gluons and quarks, themselves extruded from subspace with a noiseless pop. This happens all in parallel, of course, not in serial, for it would not do to have runaway atomic interactions begin prematurely. In one instant, there is nothing. Then there is nothing, a vacuum carved out of the area by the knife of the confinement beam, claiming this space for the matter that soon will be you again. One more instant—a technical measurement of time if ever there was one—and where there was nothing there is now the densest of somethings. When you transport, if all goes right, you are reborn. This is not a promise. Although you experience it as a trivial transition from one place to the next, you are actually asking a great deal from the universe. You may find the present configuration of your quarks pleasing, but that is only personal preference. The universe sees to it that matter and energy remain balanced. Beyond that, it does not dabble in distributing them. The physics are tricky and clever—the best kind—and, for the most part, sound. But the equipment is manufactured, assembled, fallible. Sometimes things go wrong. Malfunctions might lose your pattern before you ever leave the buffer. Despite its best intentions, the transporter may not map your pattern correctly. Before you know it, your pattern has degraded, and you are gone. Erased, actually, your only legacy an all-too-brief energy signature emitted by the buffer circuits as they valiantly strive to piece you together. Though death, at least this is gentle, peaceful. Sometimes you are not so lucky. Should a defect in the phase transition coil cause it to give way in the middle of your resurrection, the results would be embarrassing. The confinement beam, thinking its work done, would depart, taking along with it a part of you back into the void. The rest of you then discovers that it needs all of you to exist, and you are no more. This death is not gentle, and very often messy. Like any suffering, it is the price required for the ability to feel and interact as something more than disinterested motes of intellect. Sometimes you feel too much. When you transport, there is a moment when miracles can happen. Physicists whisper secrets when you are not in the room. One of these is about those notorious Heisenberg compensators. The sneaky loophole in quantum physics they employ? Not, in fact, a loophole. It is instead a paradox, the instantiation of an impossibility codified by the very principles it violates. To your face, the physicists nod and smile and wring their hands. There are no miracles, they say, with the practised scepticism of those who have done the math. Alone, in private, the truth comes out: the impossible is possible, but prohibitively improbable. The Heisenberg compensators remove that prohibition and give the probabilities a nudge in the right direction—not much, but it is enough. And so miracles, although not often, do happen. When that moment arrives, if it ever does, be ready. Call it what you will—a leap of faith, a gamble, a calculated risk, an involuntary spasm—but take the chance, before it disappears. It will not present itself a second time. If you seize this opportunity, then the impossible can happen. We have a name for this contradiction—or more specifically, for the feeling it engenders. We call it hope. Sometimes it is enough. Sometimes it is all you have.

"Laundry Day" A Joint Log by Lt. Anastasia Poldara and Lt. j.g. Natalie Harris --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Natalie hesitated for the sixth time before she pressed the chime to the quarters of the Poldara quarters. No, she wasn't. Yes, she was. No, she wasn't... oh, hell. Cursing her recent dispensation towards indecision, she pressed the chime. Dinner wasn't going to kill her. They were friends. All of them, and they could act like adults and not be silly about things. Right? The door opened without comment from the quarters' occupants. The lighting within was dim. She blinked. "Hello?" she called out, taking a cautious step inside. "Michael -- Ana... Lieutenant Poldara?" "Over here," came a voice, vaguely female, from the desk in one corner of the room. "Um..." Natalie followed towards the voice, squinting into the darkness. "Did I get the time wrong?" she asked, starting to blush again. The light above the desk activated, illuminating its immediate surroundings. An obscured figure sat in the chair, its back turned to Natalie. Slender fingers rested on one of the arms, tapping a slow rhythm. Three bars later, the chair swivelled around, and Anastasia fixed Natalie with a stare. "So I hear you and my husband got to know each other better." She fought the instant urge to squirm, assuming what could only be classified as an only slightly lessened form of parade rest. "Um," she began, inarticulately, and looked resolutely at the floor. "Yeah, I guess we did, yeah." Anastasia held Natalie's gaze for several more seconds, then she broke into laughter. Choking slightly for breath and slapping her hand against the arm of the chair, she said, "Oh, you should see the look on your face! Priceless!" Then, with an abrupt return to stoicism, Anastasia's expression became neutral. "But seriously, how far did you go?" Her eyes narrowed at the laughter. Whether or not she and the other woman's husband had become... better acquainted... or not, she was going to get Anastasia Poldara for that. "Why does everyone want to know that?" she demanded, hands going to her hips. Then she sighed. "We kissed. That's it. That's all. And cuddled a little, I guess." She frowned slightly. "I'm really not that much of a tramp. I promise." "Oh, I don't care," Anastasia said, standing up. "Computer, normal illumination." The room sprang to life. Anastasia went over to the living room area and sat down, gesturing for Natalie to do the same. "I just wanted to hear it from you." Natalie followed, looking around their quarters. "You... don't care?" "Not particularly. Michael was upset, but I think I calmed him down, and then when he told me about your . . . outburst in sickbay, I insisted that he let me talk to you alone. I understand if you're distressed, so I want to reassure you." She sighed again, taking her seat on the couch. "I know, I shouldn't blame myself, but, well, I do. I can't help it. And now I feel like I've gone and ruined something for somebody else..." "The only people whose lives we've ruined are those we killed by recovering our memories," Anastasia said. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Literally killed? Like those Orions?" Anastasia paused to select an adverb, then replied, "Philosophically. The people we would have been if the amnesia had been permanent. Me, a passive-aggressive with a tendency toward histrionics. You and Michael . . . romantically linked. If you should feel sorry for anyone, it's them. Those people are no more." Natalie frowned. "I dunno. I don't feel too fond of... Kimmy... my personality. She wasn't the brightest girl, she was clingy and tended to get upset about everything..." She smiled. "I never thought I'd say this, but I sort of like me better." "I--" Anastasia began to say, "I like me better too," but hesitated. Did she really like herself better than that other Anastasia? What did the other Anastasia say about herself--how much was she a product of that situation, those events, and how much was the result of her deepest, most reserved thoughts? It was a question she could not answer objectively, of course. So she sighed and filed it away. Instead she said, "I didn't know Kimmy. I like Natalie just fine." "Even though she was rubbing up on your husband like an unspayed dog in heat?" she joked. "Okay, okay. I promise I'll quit beating myself up over it. Still, I feel like I have to make it up to you somehow. Or prove my lack of love for your husband in some strange ritual. I dunno." "If you want to make it up to me, strive to see that there is no more awkwardness between the two of you. You and Michael did not do those things your other selves did; it would be tragic if your friendship suffered as a result." Anastasia glanced over to a wall where Michael had hung his diploma. "Besides, it means a lot to me that he is close to one of his colleagues. I haven't told anyone else this, but he is likely the only reason I am still here." Silently, she added, And sometimes even that seems like not enough. "You... don't you like your work? Being here, on this ship?" Natalie frowned. "You're so good at what you do." "It's not a matter of skill or enjoyment--it's about belonging. I'm not an explorer. I thought I was, when I was younger. Hell, I even thought I was when I first joined this ship. But my experience has taught me otherwise. There is a lot out here--too much." Anastasia's gaze had wandered, and she was now staring out at the window behind Natalie, lost among the stars. Looking back at Natalie, she repeated, "I'm not an explorer. I'm a scientist, but one who is more at home with her projects and her pet theories than out here, gallivanting around the cosmos. I suppose Oscar Wilde was right, damn him. I'm becoming more like my mother after all." She sighed, then smiled. "Old Russian lady does not like change." "Nonsense!" Natalie brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes, leaning towards Poldara and giving her a reassuring smile. "You do belong out here. Who would be better to figure out all of the things we see out here than a scientist who knows how to experiment and loves it? You'd be wasted shut up in a lab back home." "My my, look at you, the little counselor. We need one of those, these days. I'm sure there are Starfleet officers more qualified--and more eager--than me to be out here. I was just lucky." Anastasia did not mention her suspicions about why she had suddenly made it to the top of the list--this was neither the time, nor the place. Burying those spectres for a darker day, she said, "Especially lucky when it comes to Michael. He dropped everything he had--a thriving practice!--to enlist and join me here. And he's happy, I know he is. He's happier to be with me, and he enjoys working with you. But he's sacrificed so much--I don't want him to lose anything else." "Does he want to be out here, or is he just following you? Trying to make you happy?" Natalie frowned. "If you two spend your whole lives and careers trying to make each other happy..." "You'll do what? Frown at us disapprovingly?" "You'll both end up unhappy and dissatisfied." Anastasia shrugged. "I can't know his motivations, but like I said, I know he is happy. In fact, I think he's enjoying it more than I am--you should hear him talk! He'll go on for hours about the cases you guys have to treat. The saga of Lt. Teros alone. . . ." "He found that exciting? Oh God, he's still wide-eyed. Good. The next time that Andorian walks into our sickbay..." Anastasia stifled another fit of laughter. "Michael is no cynic, that's for sure. It's one of the reasons I married him. Every time I feel melancholic, he takes away the vodka, puts a cup of tea in front of me, and says, 'Could be worse.' Actually, now that I think of it, he's more like my mother." This, it seemed, was the last straw, and Anastasia lost her battle with laughter. The doctor giggled too, then faked shock. "You're a Russian, and you let him take away your vodka without a fight?" With an arched eyebrow, Anastasia pretended to take offense. "You might be as innocent as those beatific little eyes protest, but not all of us live up to our stereotypes." "I am not innocent!" she protested. "Careful. One day I may ask you to prove that to me." Natalie continued to play-scowl, then finally gave that up, giggling again. "I take it that dinner's off, then?" "Afraid so. Another time, definitely." Anastasia stood up and gestured at her desk. "I still have reports to read, reports to write, reports to file. . . . Being an officer, especially a senior officer, is hard work! My non-commissioned husband does not have these problems. Michael is taking the night off. He went to watch the chess tournament in the mess hall." "There's a chess tournament?" Natalie perked even more, standing. "I should go see that." "You should," Anastasia said, her expression neutral. "Is that... okay? Gah! I promised I wouldn't worry. Okay. I'll go, then." She smiled, heading towards the door. "I'm not letting you out of dinner, though."

"Taking Liberties" Cdr. Tandaris Admiran --------------------------------------- Once upon a time, Tandaris Admiran had joined the crew of the Excalibur as an ensign--new but not inexperienced. He had risen to become the ship's chief engineer, and in so doing, he had come to know the Excalibur-B inside and out. When she had been decommissioned, Tandaris decided to retire from Starfleet and return to Trill. But Captain Corizon had persuaded him to meet a new Excalibur. Now Captain Varen had persuaded Tandaris to forbear leaving the Excalibur for a second time. Corizon had said he needed Tandaris . . . Varen had said Tandaris needed him. How the times had changed, how the tables had turned. . . . It wasn't fair to blame Corizon for not coming to Tandaris' aid. Only too recently had Tandaris been in Corizon's position, recuperating from a near-fatal injury in the Camelot medical centre. No, Corizon had abandoned Tandaris only owing to extenuating circumstances. And for that reason, Tandaris would not take revenge. Much. The Jeffries tube access hatch slid open, and Tandaris slid out of the tube into the junction. He had done this once before, but it had been a gambit with a strategic purpose behind it. This time, it was for pleasure and personal vindication. It had taken some time to locate Corizon's stash of 2355 Andorian brandy. After the last incident, Corizon had relocated it to a new, more secure hiding place. But there were only so many places on the ship one could hide one's alcohol--Tandaris could attest to this with certainty, as he during his search for the Andorian brandy, he had stumbled across all too many other caches. Those he had left undisturbed. He was here for Corizon's brandy. It took a few minutes to open the storage locker. It contained a dubiously large kit marked "engineering purposes only." Standard fare, except that the kit was much heavier than it should be. Tandaris opened it, assessed its contents, and smiled. "Hello, precious. It's been a long while, hasn't it? But you're coming with me now." Standing up, Tandaris secured the container. The ensign who had joined the Excalibur-B would never have considered exacting revenge, much less in this manner. But Tandaris was no longer that ensign--he had changed, and not always for the better. And now he had a thousand years of predation coursing through his veins, and he had no qualms at all about taking liberties. He and Kersia would drink a toast tonight, one to new beginnings among old . . . friends. Tandaris wasn't the same person who had stepped aboard this ship's namesake all those years ago He wasn't the sort of person ready to take on Starfleet Intelligence and the Trill Symbiosis Commission. But just as time would tell if his friendships would fade or become all the stronger, Tandaris knew that change was ever in the winds. Times would change, tables would turn, and Tandaris would be ready.

"The Clamour for Catharsis" Engineers Jamie & Adam (featuring Lt. Cdr. Scott Coleridge) ------------------------------------------- "All right. Here's how it's going to play out. The files are located in this sector of the memory. We'll isolate it from the main computer core, run a level 1 scan for filesystem integrity, fix any faults, and back up the files to the archive module. Then we'll purge the files in question and ride off into the sunset." "What are you doing? Are you narrating again?" Jamie's voice pulled Adam out of the moment. "Oi! Of course I'm narrating!" Deciding to ignore Adam and his ridiculous accent, Jamie opened his mouth to change the subject, but at that moment, the voices coming from the chief engineer's office rose in both intensity and volume. Both engineers turned to look at the door to the office, wondering what was going on inside. Recent events, both in engineering and elsewhere on the station, had exposed a particular flaw in the design of Sky Harbor Aegis. The architects and engineers of this station deserved commendation for managing to integrate Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Ferengi technology in a manner that did not cause widespread chaos and destruction. Despite this achievement, however, the designers had neglected to ensure one important thing: walls, or at least certain walls, were far from soundproofed. The engineers had recently experienced this themselves, after Lt. Fletcher's outburst in the chief engineer's office. Now SubCommander Jorahl and Lt. Cdr. Coleridge had retreated to that office. Jamie and Adam exchanged looks. This had been a strange day in engineering and was only getting stranger. They had returned only a few minutes ago, just in time to see the new Klingon engineer meet the holographic version of Coleridge. Then Jorahl had arrived and confronted holo-Scott, becoming more suspicious as the hologram's impersonation faltered. It did not help matters that the real Coleridge returned from lunch while Jorahl was still talking to holo-Scott. The resulting discussion had been awkward for everyone involved. "Well, I guess we can forget about hazing the new guy," Adam had said after Coleridge and Jorahl had retreated to the office. "He's already gone through enough--and he hasn't even been for his physical yet!" Jamie had blinked. "You mean we were going to haze him in the first place? A Klingon?" "Good point," had been Adam's reply. Now the engineers crept closer to the door. Adam said, "I am so glad we just have to repair systems. I would not like to be in Coleridge's shoes." "It does sound like Jorahl's not going easy on him," said Jamie. The Romulan's voice was the more persistent of the two. Occasionally, Coleridge would interject, then there would be silence for a moment, before the cycle repeated. It was impossible to make out more than phrases, but the words "engineering," "politics," and "mutiny," jumped out at them. A few minutes later, the voices lapsed into a prolonged silence. Then there were footsteps, and Jamie and Adam only barely managed to retreat to an innocent-looking distance before the door opened and Jorahl stalked out of the office--and out of engineering. As usual, the Romulan's expression and posture revealed little of his mood or intentions. Coleridge was a different story. He looked tired, more so than he had looked even after taking temporary command of engineering. He looked like he hadn't desired this conversation, but finding it necessary, devoted himself fully to the task of persuading Jorahl to see his position. Jamie and Adam couldn't tell if he had succeeded, but the effort had drained him. The acting chief noticed the number of engineers who had managed to find very important reasons to be within the vicinity of the office door. "Back to work," he snapped. Directing an uncharacteristic glare toward Adam and Jamie, he added, "Don't you have a file purge to do?"

“Caveat Emptor” Lt. Anastasia Poldara ----------------------------------- The discovery that the Magna Romans had, either with help or through reverse engineering, developed their warp drive from Klingon specifications, was very anticlimactic for Anastasia. Worse, it irked her. Up until now, these Romans had been a mystery—did they confirm or disconfirm Hodgkin? How had they managed to develop not only warp drive but subspace communications and the ancillary systems for both inventions? They were a paradox, and that interested Anastasia. Now, with the revelation that they had copied the Klingon warp drive, they were just boring. One mystery remained, of course. How had they discovered Klingon warp drive? Had they made contact with the Klingons and arranged some form of trade? If so, the implications for any alliances the Romans made with the Federation were dire. How long had this partnership been in effect? To what level of aid and exchange did it extend? The politics didn't interest Anastasia as much as the ramifications this had on Roman development. On the other hand, Anastasia had to consider the possibility that they had merely salvaged a wrecked Klingon vessel and reverse-engineered the technology aboard. Either would explain the sudden increase in technological complexity of 892-IV, but the possibilities themselves were mutually exclusive. And she was willing to bet that Consul Quintus knew which one held. At first, Anastasia had no clear plan. Never a great poker player at the Academy, she had always favoured the direct approach in confrontation. Yet, as curious as she was to get the truth out of the Consul, Anastasia had a modicum of common sense, and she had no desire to cause an interstellar diplomatic incident. The paperwork alone would be prohibitive. But if she was careful, if she asked the right questions, she might be able to discern something that would decide in favour of one theory or the other. Anastasia suspected that Captain Seiben and Ensign M'Guire had been trying this tactic themselves earlier. As she approached Quintus, she saw that he was already agitated, as if something about his conversation with Seiben and M'Guire had left him wondering how much the Challenger crew really knew. It was time to use that uncertainty to her advantage. In the subsequent conversation, Anastasia discovered that her initial suspicion was the correct one: the Klingons had given the warp drive and other technology directly to the Romans. Quintus' evasion of inquiries related to testing and prototypes and the awkward, half-hearted explanations offered up by Flavius indicated the Romans had a very theoretical grasp of how the warp drive would actually operate. Anastasia was willing to bet they had never tested one themselves, or at least not one they had built entirely on their own. Had the Romans invented the warp drive independently or even reverse-engineered it from alien technology, they would have left a messy trail of tests, prototypes, and deadends. It was too clean. Anastasia could tell from M'Guire's interjections that she was treading dangerous diplomatic ground. One does not accuse one's potential allies of stealing technology—indeed, Quintus seemed ready to seize upon this implication and turn it into an insult against the Romans. Just as it seemed that Anastasia would have to concede defeat and back down, she thought of another way she could extract an admission from the consul. The warp-capable vessel being assembled in this factory was quite warp-capable indeed. Anastasia knew that; the Klingons knew that. Yet Quintus, as her questioning had made so obvious, did not know that. He had only the Klingons' word that the specifications would yield a working superluminal propulsion device. And so, Anastasia decided to see how he would react if she claimed their warp drive was faulty. It was gratifying to know that even if she could never manage a bluff in poker, she had won this game. Quintus' sudden, incredulous reaction was all the proof they needed. Elation overwhelmed Anastasia, pushing aside the niggling realization that it would now be up to the diplomats on their crew to smooth over the feathers she had just ruffled. She had arrived at the truth, and for her, that was all that mattered. The Klingons had beat Challenger, if not Hodgkin, to 892-IV. But to what purpose? What value did this planet or its people hold in the eyes of the Klingons? And what other secrets did the Magna Romans still possess? Maybe, Anastasia mused, she had been wrong. Maybe things were just getting interesting after all.

"Coping Strategies" Lt. Scott Coleridge ------------------------------- It was probably a sign of a shallow mind that he worried about such things at a time when more important conflicts were taking place all around him. Then again, Scott had never been particularly political. He didn't know if it was a result of his father's influence as a diplomat, which had pushed him more in the direction of history and philosophy instead of politics, or a combination of other factors that had moulded this part of his personality. Maybe he was simply lazy. The fact remained, the mutiny that had taken place had not much interested him. Until now. Scott really didn't want to run engineering. And it was a direct result of the mutiny. Or rather, the counter-mutiny. Running engineering was hard work! Much harder than actually working. Jorahl had made it look easy. There was scheduling to be done, shifts and equipment to be allocated. Unlike a starship, where the tasks were usually routine and the schematics were all standard Starfleet, Aegis' engineering department had to deal with the civilians who set up shop on the Midway as well. The amount of work orders per day requesting something as mundane as a replicator repair or a modified ODN port were staggering. Scott could only imagine that it would be even busier if they were actually a port of call these days. Then the chief engineer had to deal not only with civilians but impatient captains of all stripes, jockeying to get their ships repaired first. And Sky Harbor Aegis was unique, even among space stations, in its dramatic fusion of various Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi, and Federation technologies. This wasn't just a Starfleet ship that needed Starfleet engineering solutions. While Scott was a competent engineer in his own right, he wasn't very good at managing an entire department of competent engineers (plus Caelan). The responsibility wasn't overwhelming, but it was . . . stressful. No indeed, Scott Coleridge did not want to run engineering. But with Jorahl as acting executive officer, Scott didn't have much choice. He had briefly toyed with the notion of staging a counter-counter-mutiny, springing Chirakis, and re-instating her . . . but when he realized that she would probably throw Jorahl in the brig for supporting Drankum, the entire impetus for the plan collapsed. It did not matter how he had arrived at this point; Scott was in charge. That in itself might be something to celebrate, a nice section to add to his service record or a line in a letter home. If only he weren't in charge of so much! If only there were two of him. . . . Oh. Wait. Scott got up from his station in engineering and headed for the holodeck.

“Constructive Interference; Or, On the Disposition of Orthogonal Eigenvector Bases” Tandaris Admiran ------------------------------------------------------------- The voices woke Tandaris—no, not those voices. Actual voices. He grunted and rolled over, then sat up and remembered where he was. His quarters were still in disarray—the repair crews had more important concerns at the moment—so he and the Guardian had retired to her quarters. A quick glance at the chronometer told Tandaris that it was far too early to be worrying about getting out of bed, especially considering how late they had fallen asleep. . . . Yet the Guardian wasn't here. And there were voices coming from the other room. Despite knowing better, Tandaris silently slipped from bed and crossed the room to the open doorway. The Guardian sounded flustered. “I just don't think—” “What you think is irrelevant at this point. You said, that in your professional judgement, he continues to act erratically. Do you deny making this report?” The voice belonged to a stern Trill on the other end of a subspace transmission. Tandaris didn't recognize him, but his job was obvious. “No, I don't, but now it—” Her superior was not interested in idle conversation, or any conversation for that matter. He cut her off again, saying, “Then that's all we need. We cannot stand by and watch Tandaris inflict further damage to the symbiont.” “You don't mean—no. That's not supposed to happen, ever. We don't do that.” “Drastic times. . . . The host has been compromised, far beyond what any symbiont should ever experience. True, we have never made this decision when the host was so physically stable, but your own testimony indicates the same is not true of his mental state. And we cannot risk contaminating the symbiont more than it is already—” Now the Guardian's voice passed from flustered to desperate, acquiring a note of pleading. “That's the problem! The symbiont is already contaminated—the symbiont is the only thing contaminated! Tandaris is innocent, he's—” “—more than it is already afflicted,” the Guardian's superior continued, as if she hadn't spoken at all. “A decade or three in the pools should help it recover from this trauma. You will see to that, I trust.” Then he narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, adding, “Unless you've grown too attached to this Trill? You are aware of how . . . unwise . . . a line you're skirting, are you not?” The Guardian's back stiffened.. “No, sir. I know my duty.” “Good. The official order will arrive within the day. For now, you are not to inform Tandaris Admiran of our decision. He will learn his fate soon enough. Verrin out.” The screen went blank, now holding only the hazy reflection of the Guardian. Tandaris could see that tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she sniffled and brought a hand up to her mouth as she broke into short sobs. Tandaris stepped out from concealment. Standing in the doorway, he said, “So this is the part where you have to betray me, hmm?” The Guardian started and whirled around, staring at him with bleary, reddened eyes. “W-w-what?” “That was the call from the Symbiosis Commission telling you to cut me loose, am I right? Responding to your reports that I'm too dangerous to remain offworld? Telling you that they agree, and that they are ordering you to escort me back to Trill?” Tandaris could feel twin emotions building in him, each one stoking the other. Sadness, a deep, penetrating sense of loss. And anger. He could feel something lurking in the latter, an undercurrent of dark, pent-up frustration. He knew the source of that feeling, but he wasn't enough in control to suppress it. “It's . . . it's not like that, Tandaris, you know it isn't. I don't have any influence. I'm just a lackey. I had to evaluate you—and you . . . you weren't well, not then. Maybe now, but not then.” She frowned and peered at him beseechingly. “What was I supposed to do? I'm not cut out for this.” Tandaris stalked forward. “So this was a ruse? Talking to me wasn't working, so you slept with me instead?! Crawled into my bed, like some Orion slut, just to placate me and keep me content so you will have no trouble getting what you want?” “What? N-n-no!” the Guardian stammered, taken aback by the ferocity of Tandaris' accusation. “What do you mean? A ruse? I don't—I never wanted to deceive you.” “So going behind my back to conspire with your superiors to execute me is . . . what? An early birthday present?” He was now directly in front of her, towering over her and shaking with rage. There was a part of him, that new part that still burned so brightly, that regarded her as vermin. This metallic coffin reeked of vermin, and now Tandaris was ready to reduce the vermin count by one. The Guardian closed her eyes and shook her head. “I didn't count on this.” “On what?” “On loving you.” The words tumbled out like so much overflow from a tipped drinking glass, a spilt, unintentional declaration. It had been a long time since Tandaris had heard those words in that tone. And the effect they had was great. The sense of emptiness that fuelled his sadness subsided. The frustration dissipated. “Do you really mean that?” And all the scepticism, the acidic pessimism that came so naturally to his most recently acquired memories, welled up inside him. Of course she didn't mean it. She couldn't mean it. This was sophistry. For a moment, her tears forgotten, the Guardian said, “Yes, I do. I didn't realize it until . . . well, everything that's happened in the past few days has helped me put things in perspective. Maybe it's just that helpless vulnerability you've got right now,” she smirked, “but you've helped to show me what I've missed by staying in a cave. You've showed me wonders, and horrors, and,” she frowned, not sure how to conclude, “and in return I betray you.” Her lip quivered again, and the moment of clarity dissolved under another barrage of tears. Tandaris sighed. He was bringing his temper under control, and the calm part of him recognized her fear, as well as her honesty. Whether or not she loved him, she believed she had done the wrong thing. “No, you were right the first time. You're just doing your job. It's not your fault that the Symbiosis Commission is after my head. They've become much more hard line and protective of the symbionts. Every year brings a clamour for more symbionts than they can provide, and the rumours persist that more people are compatible for Joining than the ten per cent figure cited in the reports. They're losing grip, and they'll do everything they can to keep the symbionts under their control.” “That's all very interesting, Tandaris, but what good does that knowledge do you?” “Now there you've got me.” He gave her a wan smile and sat down on the couch opposite her, his body language advertising defeat. “When those orders come through . . . it's over. I have to go home.” There was a pause, and then the Guardian said, “Not necessarily. They can't force you home. You could stay.” Tandaris' eyes flashed at her. “You know I can't. It'd mean exile. I'd—Admiran--would be a fugitive, denied any new hosts, condemned to die when this one does . . . it would be irresponsible of me.” The Guardian almost flew across the room as she threw herself at him, putting on hand on his knee and the other against the back of the couch to steady herself. “It would mean life. Not confinement, separation, death. I know you—you, Tandaris Admiran, the joined Trill, value that above all else.” She clambered onto the couch and pressed herself next to him, then added, “Besides. You know they're wrong about you—I was wrong. This isn't a problem with the host. It's a trauma that both host and symbiont experienced, something that both will have to work through naturally, probably forever. Even if you were to go back, you wouldn't gain anything. Admiran wouldn't gain anything.” “And what about you?” Tandaris asked. “What about me? This isn't about me.” “It is now,” he said. “Would you go back to Trill, knowing your superiors won't be happy with you—especially not once they discover you've become intimately involved with a joined Trill. Will you go into exile with me? You may claim to have suddenly found joy in this life of mine, but once the adrenaline rush dies down, will you still be satisfied?” The Guardian took his hand in hers, and then she leaned forward, placing her lips near his ear. And she whispered to him the words that would change everything, words more potent than a declaration of love—no, were a declaration of love. It was the one thing she wasn't supposed to give anyone, something she had abandoned upon entering the caves to tend to the pools and bask in the wisdom of the many-lived. She gave Tandaris something that wasn't properly hers to give, but in so doing, reclaimed it. Into his ear, the Guardian whispered her name. She said it without any sense of regret and no small amount of pleasure, feeling as she did so her heart lighten. Tandaris Admiran was not perfect. In fact, some people would say he was very much broken—some people did say that, but they were far away, back on Trill, and no longer held sway over her. Tandaris had seen to that. Somewhere along the way, between her first glimpse at him as he lay in a coma and his rescue of her from those terrifying creatures, Tandaris had shown her how not to be afraid of choosing to live. She had spent so much time with the symbionts in their pools that she had never understood why they left those pools to go out into the galaxy in vessels so frail as humanoid hosts were. This was why. This was real. She owed it to Tandaris to help him, and she wanted to make it better somehow, fix everything. This was not in her power, but that didn't stop her from wishing. And it wouldn't stop her from trying. But now she wouldn't be trying to fix Tandaris because it was her assignment, and she wouldn't see him as a subject or a project. She was fixing him because she wanted to, because she loved him. . . Tandaris smiled and gently guided her lips from his ear to his mouth. “Pleased to meet you, Kersia Valos.” And he kissed her, pulled her close, held her tight. . . . she was fixing him because she loved him. Tandaris held her and hoped that he loved her too.

"Crazy Prepared" Cdr. Tandaris Admiran --------------------------------------------- Space was usually dark. Light was the anomaly. Without internal lighting, Tandaris' quarters were almost completely dark. The ambient starlight filtering through his windows helped little; unfortunately, his side of the ship faced away from the system's sun, which otherwise would have nicely illuminated the entire room. As it was, only a few of the emergency lights functioned, and those sporadically. Whatever had caused a power failure had done some damage as well. Tandaris' first guess would be an EMP--in which case the jolt the ship had taken would have been the nuclear explosion that had caused it. But he wasn't about to voice his suspicions aloud, not with the unprepared Guardian with him. This was going to be traumatic enough, even if it did turn out to be nothing. There was already one traumatized Trill on the Excalibur. Two would just be greedy. "What are we going to do now?" the Trill Guardian asked, her voice wavering with a mounting sense of fear. Tandaris stood up. "You are staying here. It's as safe a place as any until we figure out what has transpired. I am going to engineering." He crawled across his quarters, detouring around the more sizable chunks of debris. Finally locating the door to corridor, he tried to open it--no luck. So he popped out the manual release lever and pumped the door open. Beyond lay only darkness. "Power's out in the entire section, looks like," he said. "Great. Just great," muttered the Guardian. When they had assigned her to Admiran's case, her superiors had assured her that the Excalibur was one of Starfleet's best ships. They assured her she would be safe. This wasn't safe. Yet she refused to give into hysteria. She was a Guardian--in fact, she was the only representative of the Guardians in the entire Gamma Quadrant. She had to uphold a standard of composure. That lasted for all of five seconds. "You can't leave me here! What if there are intruders on board? What if they come to your quarters and find me?!" "Then they find you," said Tandaris. "But if there are intruders, then they could find you no matter where you're hiding. And you can't come to engineering with me." "Why not? You think I'll be in the way?" "No." Yes. "Look, there are no intruders here right now. There are no plasma fires. You're safe here. I can't guarantee the same situation in engineering--it could be a blazing inferno. But there's only one way for me to find out, and I must find out. It's my job." The Guardian reached out and touched Tandaris' arm. "I'm not going to be left alone. Either you take me with you, or you aren't going anywhere." "You drive a hard bargain." Tandaris sighed. "All right, you can come with me. But you're going to have to pull your weight." "Anything. Just tell me what to do. I've never . . . never been on an adventure like this before." Typical Guardians. They hadn't changed in two centuries. "You don't get out of the caves much, do you?" "This was my first trip to the surface since my initiation. I-I should have gone sooner, but I . . . well, I liked it down there. It was calm. Safe." Not like this. Tandaris felt her hand on his arm and suppressed another sigh. He tried to make himself sound reassuring. "Look, this could be nothing. Or at least, nothing too dangerous. It could be a malfunctioning power conduit--maybe only our section is affected. We're going to be fine." "If you say so." "I say so. Now we need to get going. I wish I knew where my emergency kit was in the mess. It was under the couch, but where it is now . . ." Every minute that passed only increased Tandaris' agitation with how he had decided to unleash his anger. Ordinarily, his quarters were the epitome of organization. He could have found everything he needed in the dark. Now he would have to set off for engineering, unequipped. . . . The Guardian's voice interrupted his momentary flirtation with self-pity. "This emergency kit, is it a rectangular red box?" "Yeah, it's--wait, you can see it? You can see in the dark?" Despite the sporadic emergency lighting, Tandaris' eyes still hadn't adjusted to the dimness, and the most he could distinguish were vague, blurred shadows and colours. "Not in the dark per se. But there's enough light for me to see by. I've lived in a cave my entire adult life, Tandaris," she rebuked him. "I've navigated my way through darker places than this." He felt her release his arm and heard her gingerly crawl across his quarters. There was a scraping sound, and then she was back by his side. She opened the kit. "So you made this up for an emergency, huh? Let's see--wow." Within the simple Faraday cage of the metal container lay a phaser, a tricorder, an emergency flashlight, a day's worth of emergency rations, a small medpak, a combination hyperspanner/phase inverter, and a beaten paperback novel. Tandaris grabbed everything but the novel and the rations, strapping the phaser, tricorder, and hyperinverter to his belt and the flashlight to his wrist. He handed the medpak to the Guardian. "Carry this. We might need it." "I don't get a phaser?" the Guardian pouted. Tandaris decided to ignore that remark. "Let's go. There's an access hatch five metres down the corridor. It leads to a Jeffries tube junction; from there we can proceed directly down to engineering. Stay close, and if you see anything strange, don't be afraid to point it out." "You'll be the first to know." Together, they left Tandaris' quarters and quickly walked down the corridor. They encountered no one else, something that didn't surprise Tandaris--his quarters were in a relatively quiet section of the ship, with a few other senior officers and some of the guest quarters nearby. Most of the people who lived nearby were already on duty. They reached the access hatch. After opening it and climbing through, Tandaris motioned for the Guardian to close it behind her before crawling along the tube toward the nearby junction. Behind him, the Guardian said, "Now this is familiar. Just like crawling through tunnels back home." "Is that what you did for fun?" "What, you think we didn't have fun? I'll have you know, Tandaris Admiran, that life as a Guardian is very fulfilling." Tandaris nodded. "Uh-huh. If all the fun in your life has consisted of tending to symbiont pools and crawling through cave tunnels, then you're in for a few surprises." They reached the junction. The Guardian looked down and gasped. "Surprises like that?" Tandaris looked down--and immediately wished he hadn't. In the dim light of his wrist flashlight, he caught a glimpse of something utterly alien. Iridescent colours shimmered on fragile, diaphanous wings pressed against a lithe, muscled back. The creature crouched on four grotesquely bent legs, each one terminating in a sickly curving talon. It sensed the light source and peered upward with too many eyes, and Tandaris gulped as he saw that its mouth consisted of tandem pincers. "Yes," he replied in a low whisper, conscious of his suddenly elevated heartbeat. "Exactly like that."

This log takes place directly after the sim on Sunday, October 17. "He's Just Not That Into You" Joint Log by Cdr. Tandaris Admiran and Lt. Cdr. Marius Tr'Lorin ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sniffling slightly as tears continued to meander down his face, Tandaris recognized Marius' voice and considered the request for entry. This was not a good time. And if it were something important, something engineering-related, Marius would have attempted to use the communication system rather than come in person. Then Tandaris glanced at his smashed combadge and recalled he had instructed the computer to block incoming calls. Perhaps his predilection for privacy had backfired. . . . The door chimed a second time. Was everyone going to be this persistent in bothering him? Quickly wiping his face dry, Tandaris grunted, "Coming." He carefully crossed his wreckage-strewn quarters and opened the door to see both Marius and the Trill Guardian standing outside. Marius tried to hide his initial shock at Tandy's current condition, then looked back to see the Guardian still standing there. After a moment of awkward hesitation, Marius stepped inside Tandy's room and shuts the door behind him, leaving the Guardian outside. "Sorry . . . didn't know she was still standing there. Are you OK? I saw a lot of damage warnings from your room." He looked at the debris. "I'm fine," Tandaris said. "I just need to do some redecorating." So that was it. Coming to check up on him--his fault, really, for failing to bypass the internal sensors. Tandaris made a mental note to do that next time he chose to destroy his quarters in a fit of rage. "I see you've met my watchdog," he added, gesturing in the direction of the closed door. Marius smirked, still under the impression that the Guardian was a crazy ex. "Does she stalk you that much? When she was begging me to help her inside, she seemed a little . . . eccentric." "I shouldn't have yelled at her," Tandaris said. "It's not her fault. She didn't choose to be sent across the galaxy in order to babysit a crazy joined Trill . . ." he trailed off, frowning, and added, "Don't tell her I said that. I'm still going to pretend to be mad at her, for appearance's sake. But I haven't entirely lost my sense of empathy--yet--and I too know what it's like to be the plaything of the Symbiosis Commission." Now that he was no longer alone in his quarters, Tandaris had to confess he felt better. And he also saw his dramatic redecoration in a new light. This was not the way he should be spending his time. He began, "Maybe . . ." and then paused. Returning to duty, to engineering, probably still wasn't a good idea. Even though this mission was the least taxing they would receive for a while, Tandaris wasn't ready to shoulder the burden of managing a department again. He was having a hard enough time managing his own mind. Finally, Tandaris said, "Maybe you should send her in. This cat-and-mouse game . . . her stalking me as I avoid her . . . it's not working, for either of us. I'm still not convinced she can help me, but maybe if I let her try, she can go back to her superiors and report that she did her best. Hopefully, that will satisfy them." He nodded, content with this plan. This whole misinterpretation just keeps getting better and better. Now with the conception of this being some sort of pre-arranged relationship imposed by some Trill commission Marius was unfamiliar with, he was getting more and more confused. Not that he was going to impose anything himself; he knew enough not to mess with such affairs, especially if there was some cultural policy on the matter. Marius opened the door, and beckoned the Guardian in. "He'll talk to you now. I think." The Guardian looked from Marius to Tandaris, wondering what had transpired. Then she nodded. "Thank you, Commander." She stepped into Tandaris' quarters, giving him a pointed look. "You can go now, Marius," said Tandaris. "And it may not seem like it, but I appreciate that you came down here." Marius shrugged. "No big deal. Hope everything goes well." Marius stepped out of the room. Before the door closed, he glanced back quizzically, then shrugged and took a step down the hallway. They didn't even wait for the door to finish closing before recriminations began flying.

As the season premiere showed us, Rush took along two, so a maximum of two people may "return" to Earth at any one time. We saw that when Young and Chloe Armstrong went back simultaneously. As far as we know, the each stone is linked to only one particular mate, so even if they discover more somewhere on Destiny, it's unlikely they'd be able to use them to communicate with Earth. I wouldn't put it past the writers to conjure up an alternative method of communication in the next few seasons should it become necessary. For now, however, the stones work pretty well. They're consistent with the way the Stargate universe works, and they provide interesting moral dimensions when it comes to communicating with Earth . . . since people are literally exchanging bodies. This week's episode was probably the best so far. I realize that's not saying much! However, it actually managed to be interesting without being overwrought, and if the show can keep this up for most of the season, it may actually be worth watching. The episode picks up where last week left off, with the Destiny on a direct course for the sun in this solar system where it dropped out of FTL. With no way to divert the ship, it looks like everyone on board is doomed, except for the lucky 15 people who can fit aboard a shuttle and make a run for the system's possibly habitable planet. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the Destiny survives (as it would be a rather short series if that wasn't the case). It does, as does the crew. I saw the how/why of that survival coming (and judging from the comments scattered across the Internet, I was far from the only one). That isn't a complaint; I enjoy it when a show's universe is consistent enough to let fans make predictions like this. We finally get to see Rush and Young, as well as Rush and Eli (aka "Math Boy"), work together without bickering (much). Rush is much . . . calmer . . . now that he's off the caffeine. And then there was that final scene, where Young casts aspersions on Rush's motivations. I thought that was done very well, subtle but still with enough presence to make the audience consider that possibility. It also alleviates the danger of suddenly turning this fractious crew into a completely unified entity. They've survived certain death together now, but there's still room for conflict. It would be nice to see more than three-minute scenes of Camille Wray (obviously that's going to happen sometime this season, but the sooner the better). I can't help but feel like this is one aspect of Stargate Universe that continues to lag . . . it fails to fully utilize its characters in a very obvious way. Once again, this entire show happened to the characters; they actually did very little. That's not very interesting television, and we need some character-empowerment soon. Finally, I hope the rest of the season isn't "a threat to our survival a week" format. I'm not ready to see the struggle for survival motif end quite yet. What I would like to see is some more multi-faceted storytelling revolving around this problem. Instead of "we're running out of air," "we're running out of power," "we're running out of TV dinners," I need something more subtle . . . more sinister.

Hmm . . . looks like the majority of posters here are panning the show, so I'll see if I can play devil's advocate and do some defending. While I'm not sure I'm enjoying the show as Fred is, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Maybe it's less forgivable in the cutthroat world of 2009 television production, but many series, particularly science fiction series, started out with rocky first one or two seasons. I agree with Kairi. Every time TNG restarts from the beginning in syndication, I'm reminded of how awkward the first two seasons (especially the first season) are compared to the rest of the show. Wil Wheaton's got a new book (and some related podcasts) out in which he summarizes episodes from the first season, with his own added behind-the-scenes perspective and commentary. They're hilarious. But I digress. Both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis has rocky first seasons--Atlantis more than SG-1, although as a matter of degree this is up for debate. I'd argue that, in general, spinoff shows have more difficulty garnering acclaim, because they must both establish an identity independent of their parent shows while trying to woo the fanbase of that parent. That was my dilemma when I began watching Stargate Atlantis. For example, at first I found Colonel Shepard far too similar to Colonel O'Neill. The similarities made sense: the new show needed a relaxed cast member who was good under pressure and always had some sort of off-the-cuff remark ready. At the same time, however, carbon copy cast members are boring. As the show continued, Shepard became more his own man (although I still like O'Neill better!). It's all well and good to wave a hand and declare the first season of any show a sandbox, where criticism must be qualified with a "but it's just a baby" caveat. What do I really think? Do the first episodes display a quality that indicates the show will improve? As I said before, I'm cautiously optimistic. There's certainly a great room for improvement, but the news isn't all bad. First I'll agree with some of the aforementioned criticism and then attempt to refute that with which I disagree. Yes, the storage room sex scene was . . . awkward. Not so much for the tone--I don't mind if Stargate Universe plays with a more amplified sexuality than its predecessors in the franchise. Unfortunately, it did seem incongruous with the rest of the episode. It's one of those scenes that shouldn't have made it into the episode but did because the network gave the greenlight for a three-hour premiere (two hours for the first part, one hour for the second part) that gave too much editing leeway. Yes, introducing Eli via a video-game-disguised Ancient conundrum was both incredibly derivative and silly. The only good thing to come of it (other than Eli himself, who is admirably awkward) is Richard Dean Anderson's line, "We'll beam you up to our space ship." Unfortunately, that line was spoiled the way most good lines are: someone decided to put it in the trailer instead of keeping it under wraps as a juicy, delectable surprise. Yes, Dr. Rush is an unfulfilling character at the moment. I like that I don't like him, and I enjoyed his Machiavellian ethics in the first two hours. However, it was in "Darkness" that I found Rush far too over-the-top. His unbalanced behaviour was blamed as a combination of caffeine and nicotine withdrawal, and I suppose it makes a little sense . . . but it seemed unnecessarily emphasized. Even an amazingly egotistical scientist should recognize that in a life-or-death situation, it might be useful to have other people working on the problem. I don't mind disliking Rush, but I want to dislike him as a character, not a caricature. Finally: yes, the earrings' presence irked me to no end. The Destiny was built millions of years before Atlantis. Human architecture and design changes drastically in a matter of decades. If anything, I would expect the Destiny to look even less like what we expect an Ancient ship to look like. That's an unfair comparison, both for Baltar and for Rush. Speech patterns aside, the two characters share only a rudimentary similarity in disposition. Their ethics and motivations are quite distinct. Baltar is, above all else, an opportunistic coward who benefits from an above average intellect and an ability to talk his way out of situations. He is charismatic, charming, and weaselly. His scientific achievements were only means of acquiring wealth and prestige rather than for the advancement of science itself. His ultimate goal is nothing beyond self-preservation, a short-sighted and morally questionable aim that eventually comes to haunt him by the end of the series. Rush, on the other hand, is a hard-working and devoted scientist for science's sake. Unlike Baltar, he's far from charismatic: he is blunt and radically honest about people to the point of rudeness. Finally, Rush bases his actions on what he believes is for the good of the mission--note, however, that what's good for the mission may not be the same as what's good for the people on the mission, which is why Rush comes into conflict with Colonel Young so often. Young was paralyzed prior to his trip through the gate, in the collapse that nearly took the life of Senator Armstrong. Regardless of proximate cause, his injury certainly was a convenient plot device to force Scott into the uncomfortable position of contending with Rush for authority over the refugees. However, it's a plot device that works. It's consistent; Young is still recovering in the next episodes. And it's believable, at least if you believe that Young is the sort of person who will stay behind to make sure everyone is evacuated. So in fact, the plot device serves not only as a mechanism for putting Scott in a position of authority but showing the audience what kind of leader Young is. I don't quite follow. I see two similarities. Firstly, the main characters are stranded far from home and want to get back. This is not exactly an uncommon predicament in any genre or medium of storytelling. Secondly, the main characters are an assortment of people trained for the task and not trained. Again, such a problematic proportioning of the protagonists is not restricted to Star Trek: Voyager or even the science fiction genre alone. Finally, there Stargate Universe differs from Voyager in one major respect: the crew of Voyager never intended to go to the Delta Quadrant, whereas the goal of the Icarus project was always to get on board Destiny, knowing it might be a one-way trip. Unfortunately, circumstances dictate that they begin their mission prematurely and with less preparedness than they would prefer. Comparisons are going to be inevitable, sure. I understand some fear Stargate Universe is an attempt by SyFy to cannibalize its popular franchise in order to retain the audience it captivated with BSG. However, there seems to be an urge to compare Stargate Universe unfavourably with BSG regardless of whether the evidence merits such a comparison. Is it really a bad thing that Stargate Universe is trying to experiment with a darker atmosphere than its predecessors? Plenty of science fiction was "dark" prior to BSG; does BSG's popularity mean that no show on SyFy can be dark and edgy without being branded a BSG rip-off? Is the exploration of what happens to small groups of humans trying to survive in a hostile situation taboo in science fiction because BSG did it so well? Can no characters on any science fiction show disagree or come to blows because they risk being labelled poor imitations of BSG's emotionally-charged characters? Now, my intention is not to obviate criticism of the quality of Stargate Universe's attempts at a dark atmosphere or an exposition of human nature. I myself am leaning toward the camp who fear Stargate Universe plays up the drama to the point that it verges on soap opera. Again, as a longtime fan of the franchise, I'm willing to be loyal and keep watching in the hope that it does improve. In any event, it's easy, but ultimately misleading, to declare Stargate Universe a BSG rip-off simply because its themes may occasionally overlap with the latter's. Kansas presents a succinct look at the methods in which BSG, Firefly, and the newest Star Trek movie established an identity that distinguished each from the larger science fiction genre. I completely agree, which is why I must disagree! By that I mean, I don't think her conclusion follows from her premise, particularly when it comes to the example of the new Star Trek movie. Originality in concept can certainly help in a story. However, a large portion of the success of the new movie is due to the fact that it's grounded in what's come before, enough that it's identifiable as Star Trek. And that's part of the powerful conversation of science fiction as a genre: stories are always building on the themes of previous works, as well as the discussion engendered by those works. The fact that many SF writers are also SF fans tends to exacerbate this phenomenon (which is by no means exclusive to the science fiction genre). Firefly may be more original as a science fiction show, but that is in part due to its derivation from the Western genre. In that sense, Firefly's originality is in the synthesis of two genres rather than the creation ex nihilo of something new. From each of those genres, Firefly does take common tropes and themes. However, I'm not going to contend that Stargate Universe approaches Firefly in its creativity or quality. That would just be silly! Right now, I'm not as impressed with Stargate Universe as I could be; the first few episodes have been mediocre. However, the amount of criticism it has received has, in my opinion, overrepresented the severity of its flaws, particularly in terms of atmosphere and aims. Concerns that it'll be an unworthy successor to BSG are valid, although I don't subscribe to the idea that it is somehow rip-off of BSG. I am more concerned with the quality of the show's storytelling and its ability to carve out another niche in the Stargate canon. For now, I'll wait and see.

I've watched the first three episodes; the fourth is on my PVR, but I haven't decided if I will continue watching. Alas, I think it's great . . . except that's on ABC. That's not to knock all ABC shows--I love love love Castle--but I feel like the network prodded the show until it amplified the drama enough to be on a "mainstream" network. It only adds to my concerns about the quality of V, on top of the myriad production issues and delays already mounting around that experiment. . . . The first episode was a great start to the series and left me optimistic. The show portrayed the consequences of a global 2 minute 17 second blackout very realistically. (I'm not as convinced of the realism that an FBI field office in LA can unilaterally decide to take over such a prominent investigation, but I'll suspend my disbelief.) It kept me interested for the entire hour and ended with a nice, if predictable, twist. The third episode, however, let me down. It was full of plot holes or otherwise questionable developments (really? No one bothered to check instances of mass blackouts prior to this and came up with Somalia, 1991?). The moral dilemma over whether or not to bargain with the former Nazi, and by extension, the opposing positions taken by Mark and Janis, was contrived. Oh, and of course Mark pulls Janis into the office just so she can do a search. The reason for this so that the audience can overhear their dialogue and learn about the Somalia thing . . . but it just looks like Mark doesn't know how to use the FBI's magical multiple-intelligence-organization search engine that looks like Wolfram Alpha on steroids. OK, that last paragraph sounded increasingly petty. I'm probably being too hard, or at least putting on the appearance of being too hard. However, when that happens, it's usually because the show fails to sustain enough of my interest so I ignore those petty flaws in favour of the entertaining parts. FlashForward has promise, but it's not living up to my expectations.

This takes place directly after last week's sim. "Memories Hardened as Bright as Chrome" A Joint Log by Ens. Demitri Mashschenko and Cdr. Tandaris Admiran ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the Starfleet Guide to Standard Psychiatric Practice, the location selected for a counseling session fundamentally impacts the outcome of that event. Though the standard layout of the counselor's office was typically seen as the culmination of years of thought and consideration by dozens of talented Federation psychological experts, the Guide notes that selecting an alternative location could help relax a patient, and ultimately yield a more effective therapy session. Mashschenko had no grasp on Federation Feng Shui, but he could think of no place more relaxing than the local gin joint . . . or at least, he would be relaxed. Surely, he supposed, Admiran would be at ease...if he'd ever return with those drinks he'd been asking for. How many Trills does it take to get a rum and cola? The sound of three glasses settling into place in front of Mashschenko interrupted his train of thought. Tandaris came round into view, taking a seat across from him. "Here you are . . . a rum and a cola for yourself, some Bajoran spice ale for me." Mashschenko eyed the Bajoran beverage, then lifted his eyes up to meet the Trill's. "Interesting. . . ." His nonchalant tone poorly hid what sounded like an air of purpose to his statement. Tandaris concealed any traces of annoyance at every little behaviour of his being analyzed--this entire meeting was an analysis, after all. Complaining about that fact wouldn't change much. If he wanted to be cruel, he could hold out, play games--so far Mashschenko seemed like a formidable opponent, but Admiran had considerable . . . home field advantage. For that same reason, however, he knew that reticence on his part would only slow down whatever painful process was required to set things aright. Smart patients played games; smarter patients knew when it was time to acquiesce. Still, that didn't mean it would be easy. Knowing it would be deflected if he asked Mashschenko to do it, Tandaris held up his glass. "A toast . . . to the unexpected." Demitri smirked a slight, but followed suit by raising his own glass, "To the unexpected." Deep down, he had no grand plan. No schemes to analyze or mislead. But patients always seemed to expect some master set of plans to reveal their inner secrets, and if they couldn't see them from the start, they'd spend the next hour searching for them. It was better to seem all mysterious-ish right from the get go - it was what they were expecting. And once their expectations were met, there'd be no more distractions. "You gave me quite a run before, Chief." "Did I?" asked Tandaris. "What do you mean?" "Some of us were weighed down by our uniforms." He took a swig from his glass, taking his time to swallow before continuing, "Not what I was expecting for a first assignment." "Yes, well, I've served on many ships, and Excalibur is certainly the most interesting one I've seen. I'm sure you'll have your work cut out for you." "That depends." Another swig. "Will you start talking now, or do I have to wait until the second date?" Tandaris scoffed. "Now, what sort of man do you think I am, besmirching my honour like that? And here I thought I was buying drinks for a gentleman." So far, his own glass remained untouched on the polished surface between them. He sighed. "What would you like to know?" The question in return was quick, "What should I know?" "Oh, where to start. . . . In seven lifetimes I've been beaten, stabbed, shot, drowned, married, and made to defend theses. I've seen terrible things. Done terrible things. But none of those compare to what I've seen . . . and . . . done . . . now. What I did." Tandaris paused. "Sorry about the confusion of tense . . . but it's just one of those things." Not exactly a cheerful start. Demitri supposed Tandaris saw his glass as half-empty, but that was more than he could say of his own. The counselor quickly finished off the remainder of his drink while listening to the Trill's explanation, "And what was it you did?" "I--" and there it was. Reticence, despite Tandaris' resolve to be forthcoming. He glanced around surreptitiously, not enamoured with the choice of venue. "This session is confidential, correct? Even if what I say could potentially compromise the security of the ship and the safety of its crew?" The counselor's eyes were fixed toward the bar, shooting a hopeful look that someone would notice his distinct lack of beverages. Only toward the end of the Trill's spiel did his glance return to his table mate, "Oh sure--unless, you know, I have one too many of these." He nodded toward the empty glass. "Reassuring, isn't it?" "You might want to knock a couple more back," said Tandaris. "You know already about my accident, no need to dwell on that. I actually don't remember most of it, at least not from my point of view. I wasn't conscious. But it was, and I remember being . . . panicked. I was out of options, and suddenly this . . . form . . . seemed appropriate to my needs. But I was wrong, of course." It takes a lot of practice not to look at someone like their crazy. Empathy. Self-control. Muscle memory. All of the necessary ingredients to keep someone from feeling like a self-conscious soufflé. Demitri never bothered. Perking a brow, the counselor eyed the Trill, "Whose point of view?" "The ship!" Tandaris bellowed. Others around them looked in their direction, and he sheepishly lowered his voice. "The Scorpiad ship. It was conscious--not necessarily cognisant in a sentient way, but it instinctively knew something was wrong. Looking back, my own mind processes it all through a lens of sentience, so it feels more cogent than I'm sure it actually was. It sensed what we were doing to it, felt threatened, and tried to find a way to survive. I guess it thought my symbiont was a compatible place to dump its core memory. I suppose I should be flattered." There's only one way to react to that. Blinking. Repeatedly. "So you saw yourself . . . because you were experiencing the perception of a spacecraft." "Once I woke up, yes, I recalled everything up until the point where I went unconscious--through the senses of the ship. And now within Admiran lie its memories, if you can call them that, its experiences." It wasn't the craziest thing, he'd heard. Plenty of people claim to have an outer body experience at some point in their lifetime, and the sensation had documented links with several medical conditions and herbal . . . reagents. Demitri himself could relate (the reasons for which would remain undisclosed). "You say you could see yourself. Did the others with you see the same thing? Does their record match your own--its own?" He smirked as he corrected himself. Tandaris scoffed. "Well, I haven't compared with them! What am I supposed to say, 'Oh, by the way, I was the ship while it was attacking me. Care to trade notes on the play-by-play?'" He shook his head derisively. "No. And what would be the point, other than making them think I'm crazy?" "Do you think you're crazy?" "I don't know what to think! I've seen things most people couldn't imagine, but all my lifetimes of experiences could only amount to a thimbleful of what I . . . what I've experienced now. Don't you see? The ship wasn't sentient; it didn't process its experiences in the context of a personal narrative. Its understanding of cause and effect was rudimentary, specious. It didn't make connections in the way I, as a sentient being, can. So while I have its memories, I interpret them differently than it did. And that makes them so much more dangerous." "Sounds to me like you know exactly what to think." Demitri tipped his glass, as if the gesture might cause the vessel to fill itself. Lifting his eyes back up, he offered Tandaris a critical look, "How exactly did you come up with this explanation? I'm guessing you didn't just wake up and say, 'Today, I was a spaceship.' Mmm? You processed something confusing, and came to a conclusion--albeit, a ridiculous one." Tandaris ignored the last part. He understood full well how incredible this sounded. In a somewhat more calm tone, he explained, "A couple of days ago, I started building a device. The plans just came to me. I didn't know what it did, or what it was, but I felt compelled to construct it, like it was important. That's why I went to see Dr. Wydown, actually. It worried me, that I had such a strong urge and didn't know why. I'm having trouble. I can't trust myself anymore until I know how much I've changed. Until I figure out who I am now." "Okay, assuming you're not, you know, crazy." He began fiddling with the glass once more, "You believe you have an explanation for your behaviour. If you really did experience the world such as the ship would, how can you possibly tackle something as existential as a 'Who am I?' question. I doubt the ship knows what it is, so how will you?" "Therein lies my dilemma. Even with my greater understanding, the ship's experiences are sometimes so alien, so outside my frame of reference, that I can't always reconcile them. It's a vastness for which I did not ask." "Is that what you want though. To understand?" "Isn't that what we all want, counsellor?" "No. Most of us pick simpler goals. Like GETTING A SECOND ROUND OF DRINKS." The last bit was shouted in the direction of the bar staff, who narrowed their eyes in the counselor's direction. "Or perhaps . . . not so simple." He glared in return. Tandaris looked down at his hands and muttered, "It used to be a simple goal." Looking back up at Mashschenko, he said, "If I am to be accountable for my actions, I have to know they stem from me, and not from . . . unresolved issues. I know what the visceral reaction is to destroying planets. But it's worse than that. All the ship knew was that it could destroy planets, that, when its leash was slipped, it did destroy them. I know how it destroyed planets now. I--" he stopped mid-thought and frowned. "You. . . ." "I just realized what the device in engineering does." "And I'm guessing it's no smoothie machine." "I'm probably violating some sort of protocol by sharing this information with you, since it's classified, and you are an ensign. But as this is a 'therapy' session . . . we were trying to salvage the ship because it had a device on board capable of detonating stars. The device in engineering is a replica, or as close as I can get with Federation technology. . . . "Do you see what I'm getting at now, counselor? The Scorpiad ship was capable of destroying stars, but it didn't understand how the weapon worked. I do, and using the ship's memories and my own knowledge, I can build it. And that's just the start. Everything the ship could do, did, from instinct and ability, I know--and I know how to reverse engineer it. The ship was just a tool; it didn't have to grasp with the consequences of its actions. I do." "You want to talk? Fine. You want to drink? Better. You want me to have you confined to your quarters and placed under observation? Doable. But you need a goal. Something to work toward." The counselor cracked his knuckles, "Understanding isn't a goal to work toward. It's something that'll happen. Or won't." He shrugged slightly, offering the alternative. "I do have a goal." "Let's hear it then." Tandaris sighed, picked up his untouched Bajoran spice ale, and downed it in one go. "Do I tell Captain Corizon I can blow up stars for him?"

"Where Does It Hurt?" Joint Log by Cdr. Tandaris Admiran and Lt. Cdr. Rue Wydown ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The doctor was finally in, but Tandaris was not sure where to start. That was, in fact, precisely the problem he had been having ever since his “recovery.” Everything had elastically snapped back to status quo so quickly that it made his head spin. And now, to admit something was wrong ... it seemed like admitting that things weren’t the same. “I think ... it’s complicated,” he finally said, each word chosen with deliberate care. A close observer would notice the slight facial tick that indicated that the doctor was contemplating her next move. Rue Wydown tried to navigate the medical theater skillfully, adjusting her mannerisms to try to put her patients at ease. She was the listener when they needed an ear, the talker when they needed distraction, formal when they wanted distance or spoke in her local cockneyfied accident when the patient wanted a ‘friend’ to care for them. Her experience with Tandaris, however, was limited to one brief period where he’d spent time in restful slumber (aka coma) on one of her biobeds. She resigned herself to a simple shrug as she answered, “It almost always is.” She smiled then, indicating that he should slip up onto the biobed. “Want to tell me ‘bout it?” “Not really. But it may be medically relevant, so I suppose I shall. I just came from engineering, where we’ve been working for the last few days on a device whose function and purpose remain unknown, even to me. And I was the one who supplied the plans for it. They just felt ... it just ... I needed to build it. This isn’t the first time it’s happened either. Every time I talk to people, do perfectly normal things ... it all feels slightly off.” “You sorta felt compelled to play with the engineering toys, hmm? Doesn’t sound completely out of the ordinary – one of my engineering friends used to program a Tesla coil to play odd theme songs now and then for no apparent reason.” Rue began the scan, glancing between the scan and Tandaris’ face as she typed commands into the tricorder. “Have you been having any signs of physical discomfort? Headaches? Mood swings? Trouble sleeping? Dizziness? Felt like you’ve been imagining things?” “No. And that worries me. I know my encounter with the Scorpiad ship left a mark on me. Until I find out what that is, I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable. I can’t live and work normally with such uncertainty.” “Physically, I’m not finding anything here that would send up any bells and whistles. However, that’s not to say your assessment of your own feelings aren’t valid. You went through a tramatic experince, and that can leave its own kind of wounds.” Rue closed down the tricorder. “I’m recommending that you start sessions with the counselor.” Tandaris frowned. He had seen this coming, of course, but it was still difficult to hear it. “Check again. There must be something. Elevated neurotransmitters ... anomalies ... maybe your equipment’s malfunctioning....” He started prodding the biobed with a critical hand--and eye--intent on finding an external source of his unease. “Look, no matter what instrument of torture I use in here, no amount of jiggery pokery I do is going to change the fact that ye need to talk to the counselor.” She leaned against the biobed. “And there’s nothing to be ashamed about it. Trust me.” It wasn’t shame. It was the unexplained assemblage of parts sitting in engineering. It was the woman on board solely to spy on him and report back to the Symbiosis Commission. It was the possibility that, in an accounting of the matter, he was at fault. It wasn’t shame, but it may very well be guilt. “Thank you, doctor,” Tandaris said, sliding off the biobed. “If that’s what you think is best, please make an appointment for me.” "What do you think is best?" Rue tilted her head, a slight testing question to see how open he was about her assessment. Tandaris replied, “I think I made a mistake.” "What do you mean?" “I don’t know when--whether it was coming back to duty so soon, or pushing the investigation on the ship so hard, or if it happened even earlier than that.... Somewhere in all this, I made the wrong call.” "And it's bugging you, isn't it?" She asked innocently enough. “Worse than that, it’s impairing my judgement. I can’t let my subconscious decide how to run engineering. It’s irresponsible, and it’s not fair to the ship--or to me.” Tandaris glanced in the direction of the counselor’s office, then back at Wydown. “Please make that appointment for me, doctor. Any time will do. My schedule has suddenly cleared.” She nodded. "Okay. I'll make arrangements as soon as possible." She paused. "Tandaris, we'll get it all sorted." She flashed what she hoped was a reassuring grin. Tandaris did not feel reassured, but he was less perturbed than he had been upon entering sickbay. Maybe this was not the most comforting of environs--despite the efforts of its staff--but he always found it exactly the sort of place that comforted him: a source of answers. He was not sure what was going to happen next. Indeed, he could be crazy and not yet know it. But he did know that this, unlike most of what had happened to him in the past weeks, was his choice. That felt good.

“Something Better Left Unknown” A Joint Log by Capt. Ah-Windu Corizon and Cdr. Tandaris Admiran ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Everything felt smaller, more cramped and restricted than before. There was something unsettling about the way the turbolift encapsulated him so completely, its polished cylindrical surface implacable and unyielding. Even his uniform, at which he now tugged nervously, was too tight, too itchy, too much. His physical examination had come back clean; there was nothing wrong with him. Yet Admiran was more uncomfortable than he had ever been in his lifetimes, a dull sort of discomfort that throbbed in the background, occasionally punching its way through his concentration to steal centre stage. If he focused, he could ignore it. So that's what he did as the turbolift doors opened onto the Excalibur's bridge. Only a graveyard shift manned the stations while the senior staff caught a few more hours of shore leave or supervised the final mission preparations. Tandaris was glad for this; it meant fewer stops along the way to Corizon's ready room, a mere one or two perfunctory nods in response to the greetings uttered by the bored-looking ensign at conn and his partner at ops. This duty discharged, Tandaris pressed the chime next to the ready room door. Corizon took a very deep breath. The last he'd heard, his chief engineer was in a coma unable to even put together a sentence, now he was asking to report back to duty—with doctor's clearance. It was unsettling to say the least. No questions, just wam-bam-thankyoumam. The chime stirred him from thought and he instinctively looked towards the door. "Enter." "I come in peace this time," said Tandaris. "I have not kidnapped any liquor in the last twenty-four hours—nor, come to think of it, have I imbibed any. For some reason doctors don't let you drink while undergoing a physical." That was a positive sign. Corizon smiled lightly and motioned to a chair. He was glad to be back on the Excalibur and have a spacious ready-room once again. "Please, have a seat. How ... how are you?" "How do you think? The last thing I remember, we were trying to abort the nanites we had crawling through the systems of that wreck ... then I wake up in Camelot's medical centre. I hate comas, even more so than hangovers, break-ups, and the awkward silences that precede those break-ups after you discover you and your best friend have been dating the same person...." Tandaris paused. "Forgive me for being so verbose, but I've got a week of words to use up." The Dameon actually ... smiled? "It's okay. Understandable even. So I haven't got to read the full medical report, but I understand you've been cleared for limited duty?" "Right. I can't operate warp-powered machinery and I'm supposed to avoid being caught in any sort of explosion for several more weeks." Tandaris decided to take the high road and refrain from mentioning how difficult the latter accomplishment would be with Corizon in command. "Considering I didn't get any shore leave, however, I'm fine with taking off some shifts. I'm sure tr'Lorin has everything under control." "Yes. I am glad to have you back though," Corizon said and leaned back into his chair with a sigh. "Losing my XO and shipping out without my proper chief engineer had me a little worried." Tandaris knew the captain did not like to confess doubts to just anyone. He said, "Hey, now before you go suspecting a conspiracy, let me insist that I didn't sign off on any of this." Conspiracy or no, he understood what Corizon was going through, what effect the capriciousness of Starfleet's bureaucratic brass was having on the organized Excalibur microcosm. "I'm surprised they let you have me back, especially after what happened to the Scorpiad ship. When I first woke up in that unfamiliar infirmary, I half-wondered if I'd been quarantined in that obscure research facility on Pluto I'm not supposed to know we have." "They likely know that I have claws and I am not afraid to use them," Corizon said slyly. "At least our first mission will be easy." "I'll believe it when I see it. Any word on a new XO?" "They're letting me pick someone. I have a list they sent me of outside candidates," he said and motioned towards a PADD. "I also have the option of promoting from within, though that would mean a further shake-up of the roster." The Dameon captain let another sigh escape him as the thoughts of picking an XO swirled around his head and started causing pressure on his temples. To be entirely honest, he'd rather retire than deal with these sorts of problems. Tandaris recognized Corizon's restlessness for what it was, and it occurred to him that maybe an "easy" mission wasn't what Corizon needed. "I'd like to say I'm sure it'll all work out for the best, but I'm old enough to know better. So ... don't screw up." "Thanks," he said with a scowl. "I think." Standing up, Tandaris said, "If there's nothing else, then I think I'll take my leave. I've got other rounds to make...." Corizon nodded. "And perhaps now that you're back the dress code will ... improve." "Um ... right," said Tandaris. Unaware of how else to take the comment, he wondered if Corizon considered him a snappy dresser—no one had yet had the pleasure of telling him of his unfortunate flight from sickbay last week. At the door, Tandaris hesitated. "One more thing.... You may want to get Camelot ops to scan the station for anomalous neutrino surges. You'll find that the Scorpiads have been using micro-wormholes to spy on other parts of the station." He said this not with triumph or condemnation, just with confidence. Corizon blinked, repeatedly. "Huh?" Perplexed, Tandaris replied, "I—don't ask how I know that. But it's true. The embassy. It tunnels micro-wormholes through the station to eavesdrop on conversations and surveil station activity. Virtually undetectable, unless you're specifically looking for micro-wormholes, and who would be?" Tandaris shrugged. "Rather ingenious, in a simplistic way. Easy enough to block once you catch on to it. The station crew will figure it out." The Dameon was rarely, if ever, speechless, especially about being spied on. This was possibly a first. "Tandaris, I can't help but ask how you know that. Especially if it pans out." Another shrug. "It seems kind of obvious in retrospect, doesn't it? The Scorpiads have such a torrid love affair going on with subspace manipulation." Tandaris shook his head and searched for the right words, the right way to explain the only certainty he had left since awakening. "I don't know, Captain. I've lost a week, we've lost an XO, and we're about to embark on our first mission in a long time that doesn't have a high probability of getting us killed." He smiled, perhaps a bit ruefully. "It's going to be different from now on—we're all going to be different. It's a brave new world."

“Unmaking” --------------------------------------------- “Hold her down! Somebody get me the sedative, now!” The first doctor attempted to restrain the seizing Trill. “It's too late; she's gone into shock. We have to try the treatment now,” said the second doctor, her face wan and grim. The doctor's expression said it without words; nevertheless, he protested: “Without the sedative, the host will die.” “What choice do we have? We must save the symbiont.” He knew she was right. That was her job, as his assistant: be the voice of cold reason and utter detachment from the case. He hated himself for making her do it. Almost as much as he hated himself what he was about to do. “All right,” he said as he lashed the restraints around the patient's arms and legs. “Begin the treatment.” *** The Trill looked at the Vulcan sitting on her couch and wondered which of them was more crazy. “No. Absolutely not.” Her expression implacable as always, Varal replied, “Why not?” “I am not 'mind-merging' with you. No way.” Varal's tone came as close to irritable as any self-respecting Vulcan would allow. She crossed her legs and put her hands in her lap. “'Mind melding,' and you did not answer my question. I assure you, the risks are negligible—I am quite proficient. Think of the possible benefits.” Pacing in front of the window, Lina said, “Look, no Vulcan has ever mind melded with a Trill before, right? Let alone a joined Trill.” “That is correct.” “So no matter how 'proficient' you are, you're exploring new territory here. And I don't care how steeped in logic your ego is: that's what this is about. You want to be the first Vulcan to mind meld with a joined Trill.” “There is more to it than that, Hazani. You and I have known each other for nearly fifty years now. . . . We grew quite close in your last host's lifetime. This would be a chance to . . . recapture that closeness.” “Which is why I can't allow it,” said Lina, her voice hard. “You know the rules.” They lapsed into silence, both knowing that Lina was right. Varal's request, while intriguing, was impracticable, unthinkable. Irresistible. A minute passed. Lina sat down next to her longtime friend. “What do I do?” “Just open your mind,” said Varal as she placed her hands on Lina's face, her fingers pressing softly into Lina's temples. “My mind to your mind. . . .” The connection was a shock, like the sudden birth of a new sun right in front of her eyes. Lina didn't feel Varal's mind so much as know Varal's mind. She could traverse the contours of the Vulcan's memories, the scar-tissue of the deeply-buried emotions . . . and far, far below that, she caught glimpes of the Varal's tightly-contained subconscious. In turn, Lina's mind spread open like a delicate lily, all of Hazani's memories unfurling at Varal's deft touch. Our thoughts are one, Hazani. Yes . . . Lina revelled at this sharing of consciousness, this utter understanding of her Varal. And reflected in her friend's mind, she also saw the minds of Hazani's prior hosts. Having yet to undergo the zhian'tara, this was her first external look at her predecessors' personalities. She felt their echoes caress her mind, resonating against Varal's alien thoughts, and washing gently over her own awareness. So many thoughts. So many memories. Too many, in fact, for Varal to handle. She felt her grip wavering, her control slipping—not over the mind meld, unfortunately, but over herself. The lifelong barrier erected against her base urges now flared before cracking along its foundation, allowing emotions and desires to slip through with increasing vigour and violence. They punctured the careful equilibrium of the meld. What's going on? What's happening? Varal, I can't hear you anymore! Var— Lina gasped and doubled over in pain. So many voices. The feelings . . . the memories—Varal's unchecked emotions had somehow soured Hazani's memories, done something to upset the careful balance between symbiont and host. She slumped against the unconscious Varal, her eyes open but unseeing. That was how they were discovered three hours later. *** The doctor watched as the Trill Guardian communed with the symbiont, who floated inside a transparent tank next to the operating table. The Guardian had one hand on the tank's side, his eyes closed in concentration. The symbiont remained stationary, but as it was featureless, the doctor had trouble telling if it was paying attention. Finally, the Guardian stood up and turned to the doctor. “Hazani is doing much better. He seems calmer. It appears your treatment strategy worked.” “Maybe for him. But what about her?” the doctor asked, looking at the corpse covered by a flimsy sheet. “She understood the risk when she became an Initiate and made her choice.” The doctor narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing those of the Guardian's for a hint of decency. “Don't you care? Aren't you bothered, even a little, that a thirty-year-old woman in the prime of her life is dead just so that a two-hundred-year-old creature can live for future centuries? Is that what we are—a species that sacrifices those who lack longevity so the old can grow older?” “That's a very interesting line coming from you,” said the Guardian. “Usually only unjoined Trill take up that banner—then again, you're relatively young, are you not? Fourth host?” The Guardian gazed at the doctor with a practised stare. His grey hair, balding in the middle, made plain his position on that issue. He knew all the arguments. Nevertheless, he humoured the doctor. “The host would have died anyway.” “Her name was Lina. And that's not the point.” “No, the point is that you made the right call. There's no use torturing yourself over someone you couldn't save.” The doctor snorted but decided not to dignify the Guardian with a response—clearly caring for symbionts did little for one's bedside manner or empathy for patients. “How is the Vulcan?” Following the Guardian's gaze, the doctor turned to look through the operating room window to the comatose patient lying on a bed in the ICU. “I doubt she'll wake up. We're sending her back to Vulcan, where their doctors will look over her . . . but the prognosis isn't good. She's gone deep; I doubt even a Vulcan master can save her now.” “'And at long last she understood her mother's words: for at the heels of hubris follows only sorrow',” quoted the Guardian. He noticed the doctor's grimace and smirked. “You don't think Cavalian appropriate for the occasion? Vulcan mind melds are dangerous enough between Vulcans . . . I don't know what Hazani was thinking allowing such a thing. Perhaps one of those masters you mention could have achieved a successful meld, but a mere whelp like that . . .” the Guardian shook his head, “. . . we will be pushing the Symbiosis Commission toward establishing some stricter regulations henceforth, and the legislature will hopefully follow suit.” “Politics,” the doctor sneered. “Games, all of it.” “You should try it sometime. Takes the edge off.” The Guardian motioned to an attendant to pick up the tank. Then he drew himself up to his full height. His voice acquired a didactic, formal tone. “You did well, Dr. Admiran. The balance between symbiont and host is always precarious, and when an external force begins playing with memory, we always fear for the symbiont's sanity. Despite all our centuries of coexisting, we have yet to see what effect an insane symbiont would have on a joined Trill . . . nor are we anxious to find out. You have our thanks.” Gazrin Admiran watched the Guardian depart, leaving him alone in the operating room with a dead body and too many regrets. He wondered why for some, life was too fragile to last even a single lifetime, while others got to experience eternity.

“Famous Last Words” ------------------------------------ The cold is eternal. Stars are born, grow old, and die in the void, but the cold remains, unchanging. The cold sinks its claws into everything that travels the emptiness of the universe, sucking out the heat, the champion of entropy. I remember the cold. My first memory, and a constant memory thereafter: always cold. The singularity housed within me generates heat enough for the eight-legged lifeforms who reside within my shell, but the coldness of space continuously chafes against every cell of my outer skin. Yet I do not complain. The cold is a companion, not a threat. Not nearly as eternal as the cold, I am still ancient. I have no conception of time as measured by my occupants; the endless progression of days of my seven hundred-odd years of existence are meaningless. Only now and then matter, and even these concepts are limited at best. I am a predator. I delight in the hunt, savour the stalking of prey and the inevitable moment of pleasure innate to every kill. Then something new happens. Something foreign enters me—is entered into me. Like me, but not of me. Unprecedented. Always my occupants are altering my internal structure to suit their needs, but it is all grown from within me. This is something else, fully mature even before it is grafted to my endoskeleton. Now it is a part of me, I of it, and it is me. I am whole like never before. And if then I was powerful, now I am terrible. Now I ride the waves of subspace across the vastness, layering myself with darkness, deep within the cold. More than that . . . I am the cold. I bring the cold to the stars themselves, thanks to this modification of my being, this alteration of self. This destructive purpose agrees with me. It lacks the vitality of a direct conflict with my prey, but it is no less devastating. Each time I am primed to fire, every part of me lights up, the vicious vortex of the singularity within me spinning faster, faster as it feeds power through every artery. Never more alive. Then the universe shudders, and the cold claims another victory. I am rewarded with sensation beyond anything I have ever experienced, beyond the most thrilling kill or challenging hunt—I am electrified, energized, enthralled by the entwined power and purpose that now resides within me. Except one time, it goes wrong. Primed to fire, I feel the reaction building. Subspace shears around me in a terrific gradient of gravimetrics. Deep beneath the gather storm, something breaks, tears, shatters. Pain. Damage. Defeat. Drifting now. So cold. The singularity within me still strong, I manage to hang on to life at its very edge, but I am aware of how far I have fallen. My occupants have fled, and for the first time, I feel what must be fear. What will become of me as I fall through the cold, skirting stars that once I could have destroyed with but a breath? When will I hunt again—I hunger for a kill. Then new occupants found me, but not my occupants. Two legs, inferior biology. One carries the genes of a slave, so I let it roam me unmolested. The others are nothing, vermin that seek to infest me and use me for their petty ends. I attempt to counter their insidious gnawing at my insides, but they are too many, and I am too weak. They overwhelm my defences, one-by-one, and now I lay bare to them. I have become prey. Now the vermin infect me with something new that feels very old. Machines, small and unobtrusive singly, form an army in my arteries. Crashing through my bloodstream, they active repair nodes, stimulate growth—they fix me. I feel my breath come easier. The cold retreats. Yet part of me knows this is false; it is a lie, a trick, the most dangerous of deceits. Images that make no sense urge me to strike back, to defend myself. And there it is, buried deep within my genetic memories: another type of vermin, also fond of infecting their prey with machines. They once threatened my ancestors, for a brief time, until we developed defences. It is these that I now deploy. The vermin scramble to resist, but the damage is done. I am cold again. This body is weak and corrupt, infested with these vermin. No amount of defence will repel them now, and I am forced to exercise a different option. One of the vermin, although not marked slave, carries with it a genetic marker of my former occupants. It can access my systems, see my memories, manipulate my controls. As it interfaces with me, I detect a compatible form of organic memory storage. There is no choice now. I act, initiate the one-way upload. I must abandon this body, safeguard my secrets until my occupants can return for me. I dump my core memory into the vermin's memory storage unit, drain myself of my essence. I— > 2.718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627724076630353547 594571382178 > Sequence terminated. > INITIALIZE > Protocol accepted. > Runtime error. > RETRY 517 > REINITALIZE > Protocol accepted. > Verification in progress... > ... > ... > Emergency backup status verified. > Suspend. > Error: Memory is Read-Only. > Switching to archival mode. > Archiving neural matrix... > ... > Archive complete.

“The Last Breath of the Long Night” A Joint Log by Lt. Anastasia Poldara and Lt. j.g. Natalie Harris -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tired of playing a cat-and-mouse game with sleep, Anastasia had decided to take matters into her own hands. A simple change of clothing and the application of a brush to her dishevelled hair, and she was ready for a visit to sickbay—more specifically, she was hoping for a date with a doctor. It was not her first choice for dealing with her . . . problem; in fact, this was pretty much her last resort. But Anastasia could not afford to lose any more sleep, and her options, much like her mood, had become desperate. When Anastasia entered sickbay, she was relieved to see it empty except for a single doctor on the night shift—Dr. Harris. Someone familiar, or at least semi-familiar, was a bonus. Natalie was hunched over a device Anastasia did not recognize, so intent upon her work that she did not hear the doors open and close. Anastasia cleared her throat. The doctor started slightly, not expecting visitors to Sickbay so late—and half-awake herself. Double shifts were killers, especially when one's sleep was suffering anyway. She smiled slightly, giving half a wave before reaching for the cold mug of coffee. "Up late," she commented, once she'd drained the remainder of the cup. "How's it going, sir?" "I'm here on business, not pleasure, so you may assume it's not going well," replied Anastasia. "I'm having trouble sleeping." "Oh." Natalie paused, sliding off the lab-stool and stretching slightly (not to mention doing her best to conceal a yawn). "That'd explain the late-night call. All right, then. Has this sort of . . . insomnia . . . happened before?" "Recently? I haven't slept for more than two hours for the past week. And when I'm awake, I have these splitting headaches—I don't know. I've never had trouble sleeping before." "Hmm," Natalie answered, noncommittally. "Have you been . . . particularly stressed since your return to the ship?" Anastasia's features clouded. "No! I've been fine—everything's fine," she insisted in a level tone. She refrained from adding that her life since returning to Challenger was probably less stressful than her time on leave. "Mmmhmm," Natalie echoed. "Well, I can't do much for you just now. You're behind on your physicals. It's good you came in, though! Now we can handle that, too." Barely managing to suppress a groan, Anastasia said, "Can't you just give me a sedative, something to knock me out for a few hours? I really don't have time for a physical...." Natalie shook her head, sighing. "I can't prescribe anything without you being up to date. Believe me . . . I'm a little bit tired myself. If I had a choice, I more than likely would just hand you a sedative and send you back to bed with strict orders to call me in the morning." "Fine," Anastasia said, "I surrender. Do your worst." She took a seat on the closest biobed. "Oh, don't look so put out." Natalie snagged a med-scanner, approaching the scientist with a smirk. "You're lucky. I don't haul out the needles like some people in this department might. All right . . . standard drill. Have you been experiencing any odd symptoms lately, have you been trying any new medications, have you undergone any strange Klingon medical treatments. . . ." she added, on the verge of a giggle. "You mean other than this incessant insomnia, the headaches, and when I finally do manage to sleep, the nightmares?" Anastasia scoffed. "No. I don't get sick very often." "Oh?" she asked, lightly, powering-on the med-scanner. "Nightmares?" Anastasia drew in a sharp breath. She had not meant to talk about her nightmares; strictly speaking, she suspected they were not a symptom but a cause. "Just the standard stuff. Probably from having an over-active imagination and then being so tired when I do manage to fall asleep." "Ah." Natalie nodded, progressing the whirring little device lower. "So nothing that's been weighing on your mind or giving you ulcers, then? That's good . . . now. I'd rather put you on low-grade sedatives to start, and try to take you off them as soon as our . . . crisis of the moment . . . has been averted. Fair?" "Whatever you think is best," Anastasia said with curious resignation. The doctor went silent for a moment, considering and finally deciding on some semblance of small talk while she loaded the woman's vital signs into the computer. "So, is it nice to be back on-board? No stress and less paperwork now that Vulcan fellow's heading Sciences?" "You have no idea," said Anastasia, letting Natalie choose how to interpret such a vague reply. “Challenger is much more home now. And I'd forgotten how good it feels to be an assistant instead of a department head." "I'd think you'd not be so hasty to return from leave," Natalie remarked, tapping a few things into a handy tablet before setting it aside again. "I did what I needed to do," Anastasia snapped. The doctor's brow furrowed, and she crossed her arms. "I don't know you all that well," she said, "but I've never seen you this tense before. Or touchy," she added, bluntly. Anastasia realized she had been too harsh. Softening somewhat, she said, "I'm sorry. My patience is the first thing to go when I'm tired. And my leave--let's just say that I found what I was looking for and then more. There's nothing left for me there." "Home?" Natalie asked, occasionally poking and prodding at one spot or another in a usual test of reflexes. "Is here." Anastasia grunted, her arms and legs involuntarily flexing as expected. "But I suppose I needed to leave to realize that. And retrieve my husband, apparently." A shadow of a smile appeared on her face, and she sighed. "He decided to enlist just so he could follow me here. Not many men would do that. . . ." Looking back at Natale, Anastasia added, "Have you met him—Michael Sanders?" "Oh, yes," she answered, laughing slightly and letting a bit of the prodding (of the emotional kind) go. "He does work here, after all. I hadn't realized he was your husband." Sensing that she had managed to steer the conversation to safer territory, Anastasia nodded. "Don't let it get around that I'm proud of the fact or anything. I don't want it going to his head. . . ." Natalie smiled. "Oh, never. Men tend to get insufferable.” Natalie glanced as one of the wall panels beeped, then gave Anastasia a reassuring smile. "You have a clean bill of health, sir. I'll go ahead and get you a week's worth of hypos." Anastasia raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure you did that right? It was hardly inconvenient at all. You know if you don't keep up appearances, other departments will walk right over you." "Oh, hush. I left off half of the optional material since you had a physical just six months ago. Unless you want me to do those parts . . . the cardio-test and the blood-analyses. . . ." Hopping to her feet, Anastasia held up her hand. "On second thought . . . I'll count my blessings." The doctor smirked, handing over a small box with the offered hypos. "Pleasanter dreams, Lieutenant."

Attached is a slideshow that will educate you about the subspace mines developed by the Elasians. Although the slideshow is in PowerPoint format, you don't need Microsoft PowerPoint to view it. I used OpenOffice.org Impress to create this presentation, and there are many alternative programs available that you can use to view PowerPoint files. Hope you enjoy it! subspace_mines.ppt