Tachyon

“Catch Your Breath” Stardate 0512.31 Lieutenant Tandaris Admiran -------------------------------------------- Back at Camelot, with the ship in dock, Tandaris felt slightly better. Considering he had just recovered from a nearly fatal illness caused by an alien visitor who had arrived unexpectedly in the Morningstar’s cargo bay, he felt pretty good. The ship’s repairs were coming along at such a pace that they could get under way soon. They were at the stage where if he wanted to help, he still had a job, but the Camelot engineers could take care of most of the heavy work. Tandaris focussed on fixing portions of the computer system, especially after the diagnostics he had run with Cougar previously. Political tensions on the rise? Yes. With that in mind, Tandaris wondered where the Morningstar would be going next. Their visit to Surma seemed so far away now, so distant, compared to the news he had been receiving lately. Mysterious attacks on Dominion facilities . . . more whispers and worries about the Hundred. Diplomatic personnel arriving every day. If Camelot was on the frontier, Morningstar had already crossed the line. So Tandaris took this time to relax, gather what energy and strength he could, and prepare for whatever would arrive in the next year.

“Last Minute Log” December 31, 2155 Lieutenant Dave Grey ---------------------------------------------------- Grey wondered who would bother placing a large and conspicuous weapon on a planet that was, at first glance, seemingly uninhabited. Nequencia was not strategically important, he thought, although considering its proximity to Romulan space, he wondered if the weapon had something to do with that. The technology required, though . . . the amount of power to energise such a device . . . the scope was awesome. Then he saw it in operation. The barrel of the weapon, hovering ominously over that of the shuttlepod, as it glowed with energy. It was one of those devices which were utterly clear in their purpose. This was not some sort of advanced cooking appliance, or a massive musical instrument. It was a weapon, a universal that any spacefaring species could immediately tell. He wondered how it had detected that ship that it had destroyed. The ship must have been cloaked, hidden from the sensors of every Earth vessel in the vicinity, yet the weapon had found it. If they could study its technology, maybe they would improve their own sensor capabilities. . . . Still, Grey had to keep his priorities straight. They had an away team to rescue and needed to figure out how to deactivate this weapon before it posed a bigger threat to the colony or to ships in orbit.

“Nequencian Pitfalls” December 12, 2155 Lieutenant Dave Grey -------------------------------------------------- Two important things of note had just happened, both of which involved their away mission to the Nequencian colony. When Grey had first arrived, he thought that the problem might have been a contaminated water or food supply, or maybe a local disease that the original survey had failed to locate. When Grey had first arrived, he thought that the problem would be easy to solve. The disease did turn out to be in the water supply, although not for the reasons postulated by Grey. It appeared that a mutagen had altered a certain variety of ordinarily harmless bacteriophage, causing it to mutate into a pathogen that spread throughout the colony’s population. Unfortunately, the phage was now transmitted from person-to-person as well, which made it more difficult to cure. This diagnosis meant nothing coming from a physicist. Both Doctor McCellan, an actual medical doctor, and his new assistant, Ensign Xiang, agreed. They also agreed that the next step would be creating a cure with the help of Challenger’s medical facilities. Their egress from the colony site had been complicated by other matters. With Commander Cole and Lieutenant Giovanni investigating the mysterious shaft, Doctor McCellan and Grey had been left alone in the shuttlepod to puzzle over the pathogen. A mysterious woman, looking quite pale and clad only in white, appeared before them. Grey was not in the habit of experiencing hallucinations while in shuttlepods, and especially not shared hallucinations, so this troubled him. To top off the day, they lost contact with Cole and Giovanni right after seismic events started occurring. And then an enormous alien device had emerged from the rift. It looked ominous, menacing, and dangerous. Obviously some sort of technology, it could easily be a weapon. And sensors had gone off the charts with energy readings. Grey sat in the shuttlepod as it headed toward this device in order to find Cole and Giovanni. He felt the lump forming in his throat. “This . . . this is not good,” he said. It was just a generalised complaint about the state of things. Grey had never mounted a rescue mission before; he had no idea how successful he might be. For all he knew, Cole and Giovanni were lying somewhere at the bottom of that bottomless shaft, dead or horribly injured. What Grey did know, however, was that he would at least investigate until he found out if they were indeed dead. If they were still alive, they would need retrieval. Because somehow, Grey knew that the colony had suddenly become undesirable real estate, at least for the immediate present.

“A Trill’s Convalescence” Stardate 0512.12 Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran --------------------------------------------------------- The road to recovery was a long one, but it was not particularly difficult. After Doctor Felix’s stimulation of the immune systems of those infected, recovery was swift. Tandaris’ vital signs settled back into the normal range quite shortly. Unfortunately, his symbiont was a different story. Admiran’s connection to Tandaris had been damaged. Severely. Their isoboromine levels had fluctuated too wildly to keep it stable, and now it looked like the damage may be permanent. Even if Tandaris did wake up, would he even be the same person? The greyscale beach faded and disappeared. Tandaris’ eyes opened only to be confronted by the dull illumination of Morningstar’s sickbay. His mouth opened with a gasp of new air; it felt dry and tasted worse. Tandaris gagged and his hands instinctively went to his belly, as if trying to protect the symbiont within. A doctor with bushy eyebrows and a crisp goatee hovered over Tandaris. “Lieutenant Admiran? Can you hear me?” Tandaris nodded stiffly, attempting to sit up, but realising quickly that this was, in fact, a bad idea. The doctor smiled condescendingly and continued on in a learned tone, “How many fingers am I holding up?” “Three,” Tandaris discerned, “four in Cardassian notation.” The doctor nodded at the first response and gave a confused expression at the second but did not comment. He disappeared from Tandaris’ view for several moments before returning with a medical tricorder, which he ran over the length of Tandaris’ body. Tandaris saw fit to ask, “What happened, doctor?” Briefly the events of the day were recounted to Tandaris: the viral spores, the infection, his isoboromine imbalance, the cure, and the recovery. Tandaris absorbed it with relative grace while trying to reason if the doctor was delusional or not. In the end, he learned that his connection to his symbiont had been restored literally just in time, by the skills of both Camelot and Morningstar medical practitioners. Tandaris squinted at the doctor. “I’m kind of hungry.”

“Anticipation” Stardate 0512.12 Lieutenant Arthur Dent --------------------------------------- Dent munched on pie thoughtfully as he churned the ideas over in his head. He had about an hour before he went on duty. An hour to think about what had happened in the last few days. Lieutenant Commander Hawke was back, her persona intact. Ambassador Raumuk had been located. The system was in slightly less disarray than before, but they still had no clue what had happened to the Cardassian Prime Minister or why Breen ships were involved. In short, Dent was quite confused about the matters, so he anticipated an answer to those questions. He greatly anticipated this new renovation project jointly planned by himself and Lieutenant Zhu. It opened more possibilities, as well as docking space. After consultation with Lieutenant Commander Brown, the plan had taken greater shape and scope. Now all they had to do was seek approval and begin scheduling the task in detail. There was on one other thing he anticipated. The arrival of that Tristan Talgart. The man certainly intrigued Dent, but his own foster father said to trust Tristan. So now he was en route to Aegis in order to further explain about his connection to Dent’s family. He should arrive in the near future. Until then . . . . . . until then, he would have pie.

I live in Thunder Bay, on the northern edge of Lake Superior. So as Seiben said, we're probably close neighbours, along with the other guy. I think there are a few simmers from Minnesota who may also be close-ish to me depending upon where they live in Minnesota. :rolleyes:

“A Host of Possibilities” Stardate 0512.05 Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran ---------------------------------------------- It was pure chaos. What had been a headache, admittedly a very strong one, had turned into the worst experience of his life. Reality itself had lost its hold on him, and he drifted through the space-time continuum, untethered and free. This ultimate freedom had its price, however, because he could not attach himself to anything. Memories slipped by, inaccessible. Thoughts, half-formed, dissolved into the vast sea of confusion. Nerve impulses disappeared on their way to the brain, irretrievable amongst the background noise of crackling electric synapses. Something was wrong with him, horribly, drastically wrong. Tandaris, the host, could no longer feel Admiran, the symbiont. Ever since the joining, Admiran had been a constant companion. Now there was silence. For Trills, a joining does not mean coexistence. Tandaris and Admiran did not simply live together in Tandaris’ body. A joining was an amalgamation, a coalescence where the two sentient beings, host and symbiont, combined to form a new entity that was greater than the sum of its parts. Tandaris Admiran was a separate personality from Tandaris Brinn or Admiran, although he was very similar to both of those people. It had been years, though, since the two had been separate. Now, suddenly, the delicate balance of the isoboromine neurotransmitter that allowed the brains of host and symbiont to communicate had been destroyed. Thrown out of equilibrium, the sensitive connection had been severed. This was more than a shock to Tandaris, it was outright disaster. As Tandaris’ physical body went into shock, his mind sought refuge elsewhere. . . . Tandaris Brinn was on the Tslantos Beach on the eastern coast of Trill’s smallest continent. Overhead, the sky was clear with not a cloud in sight. It was a rich vibrant blue that even planets such as Earth could not match. The air smelled fresh. As far as tropical locales went, Tslantos was more than popular, it was robust. It was not crowded today. Tandaris could make out a couple walking along the beach a few hundred metres down, but otherwise there were virtually no other people around him. The only sounds were the crash of waves lapping up on the sandy shore. Further up the beach, the creamy sands turned into smooth, white pebbles, which then merged with the rock and trees of the tropical rainforest. Tandaris had last been here when he was seventeen. He had gone here with Mirel, the girl whom he had been dating for nearly a year. He deeply cared about Mirel, and thought his feelings were returned. Mirel was intelligent, witty, beautiful, and sensitive. She had shoulder-length brown hair and a small nose that wrinkled when she laughed. Tandaris had been completely infatuated with her when he had first met her. Mirel had been intrigued by Tandaris’ sudden social awkwardness. And she had recognised that he was a very ambitious individual, that he had plans even when he was young. He had brought Mirel to the beach for a reason. Tandaris had just finished what on Earth would be considered “secondary education,” although the education system on Trill was slightly more complex. Three universities had accepted his application, and he had yet to decide which one to attend. More relevantly, one particular piece of correspondence had arrived for him, and now he had to find a way of telling sweet Mirel. It was on that warm, cloudless day that he had walked along the beach with her. He held her hand in his and told her that the Symbiosis Commission had selected him as one of the thousands of candidates to be joined. And he had watched as she accepted the news with commendable stoicism. The implications of the news were clear to her. To be accepted, especially on one’s first application, was an insanely high honour. Tandaris would be crazy to refuse it. But it would mean years of hard study, assuming he did not drop out after the psychological tests, and combined with university, would leave him little free time. Mirel had plans of her own, plans that involved her career, and she accepted the fact that this meant she and Tandaris would not be together. For Trill, romance was for the young. After Tandaris was joined—and she knew he was going to be accepted, even if he did not believe it—then Mirel knew that their relationship would be forever changed. The beach was an ending. So why was Tandaris here now? Tandaris got fed up. He wanted out. He yelled at the complacent sea, “Out, you hear?! I want OUT! Go!” He tried to banish the vision of this idyllic landscape, but it refused to obey his command. He was not in control. His life had been torn from him, piece by piece, and was being fed back to him, bit by bit. Alone, abandoned by everything and everyone, the joined-unjoined Trill host lay down in the creamy sands of Tslantos beach and wept. It was not fair. “There, there.” A word, repeated. A comforting, melodious voice that soothed him with accompanying hushes. Soft fingers brushing the hair from his eyes as his head was placed into a lap. Tandaris opened his eyes and glanced upward. “Everything will be fine,” said his mother. She looked as she had when he was a little child, thirty years ago. Her vibrant red hair caught the sunlight and shimmered. Her brown eyes were reassuring. Tandaris stopped crying. “There, Tandaris. Just stay here for a moment with your mother. It’ll all be okay, you’ll see.” Tandaris didn’t know what to do. He felt like there was nowhere to go from here. His mother simply smiled and continued stroking his hair. “We all have bad days, honey.” Bad days? A bad day? This was not a bad day. This was a bad event. A catastrophe. A blotch on his blip of existence. “It’ll turn out all right.” Tandaris could not be convinced. As he sat up, his mother disappeared. In her place lay a single, solitary gecko on a small rock on the beach. It looked up at him—not at him, but at him nonetheless. Tandaris stared it appraisingly. Where could he go? What could he do now? Why was this happening to him, of all people? He was here, on this beach, alone and unwanted. Tandaris lay down next to the gecko and sighed. The beach was an end. Tandaris’ isoboromine levels fluctuated with alarming intensity. If he was not stabilised soon, both he and his symbiont would die.

“The First Glimmer of Hope is Doubt” December 1, 2155 Lieutenant Dave Grey ------------------------------------------------- Grey chewed thoughtfully on the meal prepared by the chef that day, but if an Andorian commando had suddenly barged into the mess hall and asked him at gunpoint what the food was, Grey would not have been able to answer. If a Vulcan philosopher had descended from the heavens and politely inquired as to the day, again, Grey would not have been able to answer. Nor would he have answered an Alpha Centaurian poet’s query concerning his current assignment, nor the Bolian’s missive about his favourite colour, not even the shy human child’s simple question of his name. Dave Grey was light-years away. His mind was stranded in that hospital room where his sister’s life could, at any moment, slip through his fingers and join the ranks of those beyond the reach of technology. There were some frontiers that remained final, even to this day, and Grey wondered if that would always be so. At this thought, he blinked for a moment and shivers ran down his spine. Such thoughts were definitely unethical. Or were they? Were they as unethical as the treatment proposed by Doctor McCellan? It was long shot, she had said as they conversed in his quarters, a very long shot. So far out as to be particularly negligible, but still far more promising than any other proposal. In Grey’s time of darkness and depression, it stood out as a promise of hope and recovery, even though Jas had urged him to remain calm and open-minded—open to the possibility that the treatment would fail. But then Harriet would die. Grey just could not accept that. His mind seemed to be stuck in a lamentation of guilt and pity. Why had he accepted this assignment to Challenger at all?! Now he was light-years away from the only person who had ever truly mattered, a person with whom he has shared a womb, then a room, and one with whom he’d always thought they would be connected by mutual doom. Alas, such a fate could not resume until he dispelled this gloom. Grey thought back to . . . well, to what he guessed was more than a year ago now. To when he had first heard about the Challenger project. His cousin had been contracted to work on the computer systems. Grey remembered a conversation they had had while he was still at Jupiter Station. Anomalies. Quantum physics. Astrophysics. Particle physics. All the shiny and good stuff that Grey had thought he would be able to chase in a Warp 5 starship. What he had neglected to confess to himself was that he could also outrun so many problems in a Warp 5 starship: relationships, academia, prestige, conferences . . . and family, to a certain extent. Grey had never really been a social person, but now he craved the warmth of a familiar touch. He felt so isolated, and he felt like he had abandoned his sister. There was a PADD below him. A blank one. It could easily contain a number of data in a moment. Medical information, an entertaining novel, star charts, news reports, art . . . but there was only one thing that interested Grey. He wondered if it was really the best option. No, he decided. Not yet. It was coming close, but not yet. The doubt had begun to percolate in an insidious fashion, pooling in the deepest recesses of his harangued mind, but he still maintained this sliver of hope that things could be resolved without drastic measures. Instead, he wrote something else. Something that, in some eyes, could be viewed as equally drastic. In Grey’s opinion, it was simple a Fibonacci progression of dangerous determination.

“I Hate Foreshadowing” Stardate 0512.01 Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran ------------------------------------------------ Fictional foreshadowing in novels is a wonderful thing. The really obvious stuff is fun; the very subtle clues that you only realise after the fact are even better. However, it appears that someone has made a very tragic mistake: some marketing fellow thought that “foreshadowing” would be a fun thing to have in this universe, and he got the engineering department to make it for him. We engineers have always had an inherent sense of what would be a good product. But no one listens to us. The moment I looked up at that alien pod in the cargo bay, I just knew that it was bad. Now, I am not a spiritualist. But after six lifetimes, I have come to accept that there are several things in life that science cannot explain. In my case, a “gut feeling” is literally a gut feeling; and this time my gut feeling was bad. The thing just looked so . . . ominous. It had appeared inexplicably in our cargo bay without so much as a “by your leave,” and now it presumed to open itself. The entire ship had been evacuated, save for we few. We happy few. We happy, idiotic few. The pod hissed as it opened. That’s never a good thing. The alien life form within was not recognisable, but it looked a bit sinister. I hoped that it would be the kind of alien life form that had no clue who it was or why it had been in a pod, as opposed to the kind of alien life form that had every intention of rendering the species that opened its pod obsolete. I hear bad things about the latter type. But you never know, it could be friendly. As the pod opened, I gripped my hyperspanner more tightly in my sweaty hand. The room seemed to close around me, squeezing me inward. I had never been claustrophobic, and the cargo bay was quite spacious, but now it could barely fill a single Planck’s length. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. With a vaporous smell, the hermetic seal cracked open. Indicator lights blinked dutifully. The outer shell split as the hatch began to lift away and atmospheric gases mingled. I briefly wondered if the occupant could survive in an O2 atmosphere. Whatever it was, we would find out in but a few moments.

“Scientific Notation” Stardate 0511.26 Lieutenant Zack Chen and Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chen looked up from the PADDs, his face a tight mask of disbelief. Just to be sure, he closed both eyes, switched the PADDs around, and opened his eyes again. The numbers remained unchanged. With a slow sigh, he decided to face the facts. The figures he had used to calculate the regeneration of the dilithium crystals had been wrong. Way off, in fact. Not exactly wrong, per se. The figures themselves were correct, they were just in Cardassian scientific notation. Cardassian scientific notation was a form of measurement so bizarrely complex that even the Cardassians had long since given up using it. For some reason, the Morningstar’s overworked, under-maintenanced computer had decided to start supplying all of its calculations to Chen in the form of Cardassian scientific notation. Chen looked around engineering, which was relatively quiet as the Morningstar headed back to Camelot Station at high warp. He spotted Lieutenant Admiran working on something at a console at the other end of the room. Chen got up and approached the Trill, PADDs in hand. “Hey, Admiran,” said Chen, “do you have a moment?” Tandaris looked up from his work. “Wha? Oh, yes, sir, I do. I’m just realigning the phaser arrays. They need recalibration after all of the repairs. Why, do you need something?” He was, in fact, quite busy. With the repairs still taking place during the long voyage back to Camelot, the phaser arrays were the least of Tandaris’ worries. But he liked Chen, and the science chief looked like he had a perplexing problem on his mind. Chen held out a PADD, which Tandaris accepted. “These numbers . . . they’re all in Cardassian scientific notation.” “So?” Tandaris failed to see the problem. “Well, the computer gave them to me. I want them in Federation standard.” Tandaris grasped the issue now. He tapped at his console, bringing up the computer’s mathematical database, and ran a few simple calculations. “Wow,” he raised his eyebrows, surprised. “That’s ah . . . wow. It’s apparently been doing this since we landed—a malfunction in its configuration settings, no doubt. I can fix it in a few minutes.” “That’d be great,” said Chen. He didn’t bother mentioning that this small mistake could have cost them their lives had even one of the equations produced a number in Federation Standard. Tandaris made some more adjustments to the computer. As the repairs continued, it was becoming more and more responsive, but small errors such as these continued to crop up repeatedly. He decided that along with the power allocation subroutines, he would have to take a look at the computer’s self-maintenance programs and see if he could improve those. It was quickly becoming evident that Morningstar had been fitted with a computer that was not as advanced as some of its other systems, which left the prototype a bit unbalanced. And Tandaris was fast learning that the Gamma Quadrant was a place where you didn’t want to be unbalanced for long. “There you go, Lieutenant,” said Tandaris. “The computer should behave, for now.” Chen took his PADDs back and nodded. “Thanks. I was slightly concerned when the result of the mass-energy conversions came back at 1333 electron volts. When I typed that into the computer, it gave me quite a scare.” “I thought the numbers were consistent when dilithium crystals were not a factor, but now that you told me they were in Cardassian scientific notation, I can see where the problem originated,” said Tandaris. Chen and Admiran conversed for the next few minutes on the inadequacies of mass-energy equations when real-time models were not available. “Once I knew something was wrong and those figures we calculated were too high, the whole procedure ended. Good thing Mr. Defarge opened the magnetic aperture wide enough for the rest of the stuff to in. Or else, we might have had more than a slight overload.” Chen choked on a few particles himself before checking his PADD. “Argh.” Chen choked again. “That’s where this variance came from! Well, you’ll happy to know, it is 236.7 eV per electron in a 95% efficient warp core.” Chen looked satisfied since he didn’t have to rewrite the entire physics on antimatter combustion. Then Chen excused himself to go get something to eat before turning in for the night. Tandaris still planned to work for another few hours yet—he really wanted to get that phaser array calibrated while he had all the frequencies carefully arranged in his mind. “Hey . . .” Tandaris said to himself, a thought forming in the back of his mind. “But if . . . oh, no. . . .” All of those painstakingly generated frequencies had been calculated before Chen had brought the computer error to his attention. Which meant that, unfortunately for Tandaris, he would have to begin the recalibration all over again.

“The Fading Days” November 21, 2155 Lieutenants Dave Grey and Jas McCellan --------------------------------------------------- J.S. Bach Neurology Hospital, Earth. 00:50 Hours, UTC. Doctor Tratos sat at his desk in the small, cramped space that they called an office. To his left sat a half-eaten cheeseburger, its wrapper smeared with relish, the large bite marks leaving a jagged line around half the burger. To his right was a white pen balanced atop a thin silver PADD, on which a model of a synapse was outlined in stark detail. The blue-white lighting of the hospital was supposed to be soothing, but Tratos found it annoying right now. It only emphasised how sterile the environment was. How humanity had chosen to avoid illness rather than combat it, how the proverbial primate had run rather than stood and fight, and how that decision’s consequences still affected people everyday. Prevention was indeed better than treatment . . . but it still had a price. Patient 0097-XL-8233-GH, also known as Harriet Grey, had a unique neurological condition that affected a sliver of humanity’s population. Contracted after sustaining cranial trauma, it was deteriorating her brain tissue and nervous system, bit by bit, with an agonising patience. Putting in a coma had helped slow the deterioration, but not by much, because she still exhibited a lot of brain activity in this unconscious state, and the synapses continued to misfire with quickening precision. Tratos was not sure if it would even be possible to wake her from this state now. He felt stumped. A scientist and doctor from a long, long line of scientists and doctors, with plans to continue that long, long line of scientists and doctors, Tratos did not like being beaten by a simple neurological condition. He relished a challenge—but not one that cost the life of a brilliant geologist. His heart also went out to the family, who were very distraught, and to that intriguing physician . . . what was her name . . . Jas McCellan, who seemed equally upset with Harriet’s situation. Even though he was away from Earth, Dave Grey remained Harriet’s guardian. The Grey family on Earth insisted on this, for reasons Tratos only remotely fathomed, but that he gathered had to do with the fact that Harriet and Dave had been very close as siblings—they had shared a womb, after all. Now the family had dumped difficult decisions on the only member of the family who was light-years away. Still, there existed a ray of hope. It was a miniscule, nearly non-existent trail that Tratos would not even consider following, if it were not the only option left open to them. It touched on treatments that might even be unethical. But how unethical was it to save someone’s life? The doctor sighed and reached for the cheeseburger. With morose determination, he took a bite of the medley meal and then reached for the PADD to his right. ***** Challenger, NX-05 Dave Grey’s head hurt. It pulsated with an ache that extended down into his lower back and threatened to paralyse his legs. His entire body felt taut and rigid, like he was a puppet being pulled up by the puppeteer in some sort of sick game. The feeling was jarring. Grey sat cross-legged on the floor of his quarters, the lights turned off, the stars outside his window. His eyes were closed in silent meditation, and his mind clear of all thoughts. After years of meditating, he could easily slip into the trance-like state of mental clarity within a few moments. This mental clarity shattered when the comm panel next to his door beeped. “Dave, it’s me. Do you have a moment?” Grey recognised Jas’ voice. Grey sighed and opened his eyes. He was a bit miffed about being disturbed, but he could not just ignore her. He reached for a short and struggled awkwardly with it while stumbling to the door. With all the elegance of a sperm whale that had materialised into existence several thousand feet above the ground, he knocked the door button with his elbow and it swished open. Jas stood there, her doe-like eyes widening with surprise as she saw Grey’s tall form half-stuck inside a shirt. From within the fabric, a muffled voice exclaimed, “Hey, there, uh . . . come in. I’ll be with you in a moment.” And then the giant disappeared, moving away from the door as its arms flailed about wildly. Smiling awkwardly, Jas walked into his quarters, taking Grey’s decorating sense in with interest and tolerance. She had occasionally wondered about what Grey would put in his home. Jas put down the few PADDs in her arms onto Grey’s bed, and then gently tugged at the shirt’s collar, pulling it over his head. Grey’s brown hair, followed by his blue eyes and pronounced nose, appeared in succession. He finally managed to get his arms into the sleeves and then said, “Thanks.” “Don’t mention it,” replied Jas, who pivoted quickly to hide the red creeping up her cheeks. She walked back over to the bed and retrieved the PADDs. “What do you need?” Jas held up a PADD. On it was a labelled model of a synapse in stark detail. “I think I might be on to something. It’s small, insanely so, but just maybe. . . .” She handed the PADD to Grey and patiently explained the more esoteric medical terms to him. This time it was Grey’s eyes which widened.

Happy birthday, eh :D

“Thoughts about . . . Space” Stardate 0511.21 Lieutenant Arthur Dent -------------------------------------- Dent stood with his back to the wall and surveyed the entire area. The shuttlebay already seemed huge, but he wanted to make it huger. He paused from taking in the enormity of the complex, and the task, and walked over to where Simon and Bob were dutifully taking measurements on their tricorders. Hands on his hips, Dent asked, “Well, what do you think? Can we do it?” Simon nodded. “Certainly, Lieutenant. See these bulkheads?” He pointed at two partitions. “Well, they were constructed back when the station was first built. Structural engineering has made a few advances so that we could probably remove a few of these walls without compromising the bay’s integrity—once we retrofit it, of course.” “Of course,” Dent repeated matter-of-factly. “How large will the shuttlebay be, then, if we can retrofit it?” The two engineers looked at each other with eerie precision and then down at their tricorders. “Factoring in the space freed up by removal of excess bulkheads . . . expanding into some unused space by making the EPS layout more efficient . . . we can probably make it about 50% larger, sir.” “Sounds good.” Dent though that would really help with the traffic. “How long would it take, and how long would the shuttlebay be unavailable?” Simon and Bob shrugged. The former replied, “That really depends on how you want to go about it, sir. It could be done in a number of ways, I don’t think I’m qualified to choose which one is the best.” Although clever, the engineers seemed reluctant to make decisions. Dent sympathised with this and nodded. “Okay, send a report to Lieutenant Zhu. I’ll talk with him and Lieutenant Commander Brown and see if we can make this work. Thanks for the help. Dismissed.” The two engineers exchanged eerie glances again, this time looks of relief, and scurried out of the shuttlebay with their tricorders. Dent turned around to take in the large room once again. Oddly enough, he had not spent much time here, even though he dealt with matters pertaining to the shuttlebay almost every day. It was bigger than he had thought it would be, but still not big enough. Another quarter turn and Dent paced to the exit, the heavy doors sliding closed behind him as he walked down the corridor to the turbolift.

“I’ll Take It” Stardate 0511.05 Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran ----------------------------------------- With one fusion reactor online, Tandaris was loath to leave the Morningstar and explore this strange alien city. There was so much to do. But he could not resist the temptation of an alien vista, and he rationalised that he could try and search for replacement parts that they could not easily replicate. Say . . . dilithium crystals. The outside of the city was a cosmopolitan cross of hundreds of different cultures. As Tandaris walked down a crowded street, being jostled by aliens whose species were completely unfamiliar to him, he noticed three things: the loud noise, the loud colours, and the loud smell. Each were a symphony of discordant harmonies that were attempting to found common ground, but only failed disastrously after realising that they did not, in fact, have much in common. The rain was not helping. Even though it was coming down in thick sheets, the crowds appeared to ignore it, for the most part, and Tandaris saw one particular group of aliens who absorbed water through their skin rather than drinking it. There were a few awnings attached to the sides of buildings, but other than that there was not much in the way of roofing to protect market-goers from the torrential downpour. After much jostling, cursing in languages more-or-less foreign to Tandaris, and much wriggling through the throngs in the marketplace, Tandaris found a section devoted apparently to the mechanically inclined. He steered away from the stalls lining the buildings with their shady ion-flux capacitors and phase coils and instead went for a reputable-looking shop near the end of one street. It was not as crowded inside, and more importantly, it was warmer and drier. Tandaris was grateful to be out of the rain and felt like he could wring out his uniform. The Trill engineer looked about the dingy interior of the shop. His eyes alighted upon a display in the middle of the building, where a power capacitor that looked like it might fit Morningstar’s fusion reactors was being trumpeted as “The Most Efficient Thing Since Polaric Flux Modulators.” Tandaris wandered through the shop for an hour or two, just browsing, and was amazed by the incredibly calm atmosphere. No one deigned to talk to him, and although it was not crowded, there were never less than three or four other people in the store with him at the same time. He gravitated a lot to the hardware displays, as they really needed spare parts. Dilithium, it seemed would not be as simple as finding store—he never thought it would be. At the very back of the building, Tandaris noticed a musty old display that looked like no one had touched it in a while. He took a look at the bits of equipment on the racks. They seemed to be a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends. In fact, just as Tandaris picked one up, he was accosted by a proprietor of the establishment. “Oh, no, sir,” the man, presumably Al-Ucardian, said with a thick, sleazy voice. “You do not look like a male/female/indeterminate gender who would settle for these kushghetlz. No, I can tell by your posture, only the best for you, eh?” The shopkeeper asked knowingly. Tandaris was not paying attention, however. He was turning the device over and over in his hand. It was small, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and it seemed to be biological in origin. The entire device was a mottled green and black with several protrusions—eight in all. Tandaris had no clue what it was or what it did, but he was quite intrigued. “I’ll take it,” he said. The shopkeeper looked a bit distressed, no doubt because he wanted to sell Tandaris something new and shiny and so expensive that it would not break until the day after he left Al-Ucard. “Oh, no, no, sir!” he attempted to wrest the piece from Tandaris’ hands. “This is a very bad piece of equipment, very broken! I only keep it because I hope to sell it to a street peddler for a little, yes? Perhaps I could interest you in something better. Have you seen our multi-purpose hyperspanners?” “No, I haven’t, and I don’t want to,” Tandaris said with a hint of final conviction in his voice. “I’ll take this, and only this.” With more muttering beneath his breath, the shopkeeper finally acquiesced to the request and Tandaris left the shop with only the device and no other equipment. He spent another two hours in the crowded marketplace before returning to the ship. He decided that he would definitely have several hours of work to do before he could go to sleep satisfied that he had done his job. The Morningstar was a tough little ship, but she needed to be fixed, or else the crew might find themselves setting up their own shops in that marketplace.

“My Family Matters” Family Ties, Part II Lieutenant Arthur Dent ------------------------------------------- (This log takes place immediately following my previous one.) “Nathan!” Tristan Talgart’s voice came over subspace, and although it was commanding, it was more relieved than angry. “Finally, I’ve found you!” Arthur did not know quite how to respond to that. After a few moments of pensive silence, he finally mustered the verbal conviction to say, “I’m sorry . . . but you appear to have the wrong person. There’s no ‘Nathan’ here.” Tristan shook his head. “No, no, look at you! You look just like your father—while, except for your mother’s ears. But forgive me, I understand this is quite unusual for you. I am Tristan Talgart . . . your uncle.” The implications of those words hung heavily on Arthur’s mind. After all, it was not every day that someone sent him a subspace transmission claming to be his long lost uncle. If Arthur were a suspicious sort of person, he might end the call right then and there. Shame that he wasn’t. “Didn’t Louis tell you?” Tristan’s expression shifted into bewilderment. “I-I contacted him before I told you; I thought that if he could introduce us. . . .” The man looked slightly distraught. Arthur brought up any other incoming messages and did indeed see a message from Louis Pastrel, his adoptive father. Upon opening it, he gave a small gasp as he perused the first few lines. Arthur . . . I know this is probably a surprise to you, but it appears that your background is not as mysterious as it would seem. . . . After reading the note, Arthur looked back up at the patient picture of Tristan on the small screen. The man seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Opening his mouth slowly, Arthur murmured, “An uncle. . . .” “On your father’s side. I’m sorry it took me so long to track you down, but it was very difficult. I didn’t even know of a survivor until about five years ago.” He was speaking, of course, of the disaster on Eridine IV that had wiped out the fledgling Federation colony—the disaster of which Arthur was now the only survivor. Even after twenty years, the reasons for the colony’s destruction were obscure and hidden by history and lack of evidence. Unanswered, Tristan continued unheeding of the gargled, strangled noises coming from Arthur’s poor larynx. “I’ve spent the last five years going through records, documents—anything I could lay my hands on to find out what happened. Finding you was a stroke of pure luck.” Finally recognising the ghastly befuddled look on Dent’s face, he stopped and raised a hand. “I know this is a lot for you.” “It certainly is,” replied Dent. “I don’t know what to say.” “Say that I can come meet you. In person.” Ay, there’s the rub. Lacking much conviction though, Dent thought that the idea appealed to him. He did not know why he was here—no one really does, unless they are incredibly lucky. But he decided that this call might possibly change that. If not, it was a sight better than sitting on the station and feeling as if he were the only stationary object in an expanding universe.

I went as Arthur Dent because it was a simple costume. Dressing gown and towel . . . :lol:

Oh wow. I didn't expect this at all. Michael Piller was one of the best writers of the franchise, and his guidance is one of the reasons Trek flourished. Wow. :P

“Opus of Guilt: Theme and Variation” October 30, 2155 Lieutenant Dave Grey ----------------------------------- When things went wrong, they tended to go wrong all at once. The particle, for one thing, was gone—transported away from the Challenger and its illicit cloaking device. Grey was not sure whether this was a good or bad development. On one hand, the particle was gone and out of their hair—and out of sight, out of mind, right? On the other hand, the terribly heavy, rather throbbing hand, the particle was gone and in the hands of an enemy with the will to use it for purposes unknown. And Grey could not but help feel guilty. Their operation on board the Achilles had been well-planned but poorly executed. The transporters were disabled, but they had suffered a confrontation with Quantus that ended with a death sentence for the Achilles crew. In the ensuing chaos, such a threat had proven harder to accomplish than to make, as threats often are, but Grey had still felt a momentary twinge of guilt. And Quantus. Grey once again felt torn between his duty to help and his duty not to get involved. He didn’t know why Quantus wanted to destroy Midgar, although he gathered the reason was not one generally favoured by those who rather liked Midgar. Thus, Grey agreed with Moore’s decision to get involved. And of course, it was not as if they had been given any choice in the matter. Nagen had obviously been working with them from the start—he was one of them—and chasing him meant chasing these people. So they chased; they pursued. It was a matter of honour, of duty, and of closure. Around them the cosmos revolved with a sort of timeless patience, as if it had seen this all before and would probably see it again. (If a particle did not destroy it in the interval.)

“Blood Beginnings” Family Ties, Part I Lieutenant Arthur Dent --------------------------------------- Dent sat down in his quarters, a cup of tea on the desk next to him. Music played in the background, a light Tchaikovsky ballet suite, and the lights were dimmed as he wound down after another day of duty. He had quite a stack of reports to work on, although it was mostly things to read, not to write, for which he was thankful. His stomach still rumbled after eating at The Very Nice Looking Restaurant, but he did not have anything else to eat. He just reclined in his Starfleet-issue chair and closed his eyes. The lights, even dimmed, seemed so bright. After a few minutes of just lying like this, Dent sighed to himself and reached for the top PADD. Transporter room two was repaired and fully functional again. That was good, Dent supposed. He also noted that two of the docking ports that needed their inner seals repaired had received timely service. Dent nodded and placed the PADD back down at his desk. So far, so good. He thought about the statue and its sudden departure from the station. Sensors had confirmed it used a highly advanced method of propulsion: it could generate its own wormholes! Simply amazing. Dent knew enough about theoretical physics to wrap his mind about wormholes, enough that he took the opportunity to look up the spatial equations that surrounded them. That was high-level stuff—even after so many centuries, humans still found wormholes a wonderfully mysterious phenomenon. Captain Ayers had requested to speak to a Major T’Loren Day in private. His mood had not seemed particularly joyful—joy seemed to be something lacking these days. Dent absently wondered if it had something to do with Lieutenant Commander Hawke, who appeared to be at the centre of a powerful controversy right now. The details were not clear to him, but from what he could gather, she had not exactly been behaving like herself since attempting to beam over the statue. Maybe she had not liked that soup at the Very Nice Looking Restaurant either. . . . Before Dent could give the matter any more thought, however, his console beeped impatiently. Dent turned around to face it and saw that he had an incoming subspace transmission—something indeed strange, for it was not as if he were popular or well-known. He shrugged and checked from where it had originated. Earth. Someone named Tristan Talgart. Bewildered, Dent frowned. He didn’t recall meeting any Tristan Talgarts at the Academy. Perhaps someone he had met elsewhere, who was just now on Earth? Well, there would only be one way to find out. Dent pressed the “Accept” button and the transmission flashed onto the console’s screen. A middle-aged man with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes appeared, his expression jovial. “Nathan!” Tristan Talgart’s voice came over subspace, and although it was commanding, it was more relieved than angry. “Finally, I’ve found you!”

Congratulations, Muon. So bribery really does get you everywhere, eh? :P

Also keep in mind that simple reflection on the week's sim is helpful, especially for anyone who was absent.

"Good Intentions" October 21, 2155 Lieutenant Dave Grey ------------------------------------------ Grey sat in the science lab at the console, continuing to look at the model on the screen. It should work—it should all work. He glanced back at the MACO, Fynra, who was tinkering with the hand scanner they were trying to modify. They had been at this for about an hour now, and so far their best efforts had borne no fruit. It was clear that a "dampening field" would probably not work. After some discussion, however, they struck upon a new idea—environmental suits. It was nearly perfect, in fact; environmental suits were designed to block radiation in the first place, and the simplest solution was often the best. With a few modifications, they would protect the wearer from people such as Rufus—or so Grey hoped. He still was not sure how Rufus did what he could do, let alone how to block it, so the defence was guesswork at best. They went over the theory for another few minutes before hurrying down to the launch bay and grabbing some suits. "Let's modify them to polarise the outer layer of the suit," suggested Grey. Fynra gave him a look that either meant, "You're a bloody genius," or "This'll all end in tears," or perhaps a bit of both. The MACO shrugged expansively and replied, "Wouldn't that be sort of dangerous to anyone who comes in contact with them?" "It'll be a very small electrical charge," Grey said innocently. Fynra looked doubtful but proceeded to help Grey modify the suits anyway. The work proceeded relatively smoothly and soon the suits were ready. There was just one problem: testing them. Grey looked up at the chronometer and thought about that cloaking device stowed Murphy knows where on the ship, filled with this "omega molecule." He wondered if they could afford to lose any more time. That "omega molecule" worried him. It was one thing to be fearful of a device because of its destructive capability; it was another thing entirely to fear a device because you know how it works. Scientists had theorised about such a particle for decades, but nothing had really come of it due to the fact that they did not have the right technology to even begin duplicating these particles. The particle had the potential to completely disrupt subspace. Grey wasn't sure exactly what this would do, but he was pretty sure it would have nasty consequences for all parties involved. Whoever was behind this scheme was clearly insane, in Grey's opinion, because whatever ends they wanted to achieve did not justify placing the universe itself at risk. If there was one thing Grey hated, it was when egotistical people completely disregarded the natural laws of the universe for their own personal gain. It was sort of pushing it. And, as physics dictated, when you pushed something, it pushed back. Now they had one of these molecules sitting in their cloaking device—a cloaking device that, up until an hour ago, Grey had not known existed. He turned that over in his mind. Obviously Moore was not happy that the secret had been revealed, because there was a reason it was secret—the less people who knew about it, the less of a chance that an enemy—or even a friend—would discover it. And knowledge was power. Yet Grey hated classified information. That sort of red tape irked him even more than having to fill out so many forms. With a soft sigh, he glanced down at the environmental suit in his lap and pursed his lips. He hoped this worked. Otherwise his resumé was starting to look very bleak indeed.

"I Think, Therefore I Am Broken" Stardate 0510.19 Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran ---------------------------------------- Well . . . at least we did not die. That’s good, right? Unfortunately, we came very close to dying. Close enough that I could feel death reach up to me with his cold fingers and whisper in my ear, “I’ll be with you in a moment.” That sort of caused my heartbeat to jump and my self-preservation instinct to get a little stronger. Just when everything had gotten so complicated that my head was ready to burst, we get attacked by an unknown enemy with whom we have no quarrel. Perhaps the configuration of our warp field happened to send out a resonance frequency through subspace that exactly matched a deadly insult in their native language. Maybe not. Regardless, they appeared to attack us without provocation, which is something I disapprove of, but that’s beside the point. We got attacked, and we nearly lost. So much for being the “most advanced ship in the fleet.” That alien vessel, firstly, was the weirdest thing I have ever seen in seven lifetimes. Its configuration is different from anything I have seen before, except maybe Breen ships . . . but the similarity is fleeting at best. The sensor readings were off the scales—whatever that vessel used as a power source, it produces way more energy than a warp reactor or an artificial quantum singularity. And their weapons were incredible! From what I could see, they are subspace-based, but not like the ones that were developed prior to the Second Khitomer Accord. These ones are highly localised—only about a Planck length, maybe a bit more. They still deal grievous damage, but it not on as large a scale as so obvious weapons do. First they attacked us with what might be called directed-energy weapons, but that’s like calling your starship a “boat”—it’s a butchery of the item. These weapons ripped at our shields and caused great damage to the ship itself. I have a feeling, however, that had our shield geometry not been so fragile, we may have fared better against them. It just goes to show that this overburdened vessel could have used a few more weeks on the drawing boards before someone loaded those extra weapons on it. . . . When we tried to escape—a sensible move, in my opinion—they sent another subspace weapon after us, this one some sort of localised distortion field that completely collapsed our warp field, sending feedback shock into our nacelles, damaging the warp coils. Our warp drive is completely useless for at least a day, longer if we have to restore structural integrity to other areas of the ship. That weapon is quite innovative, because we now happen to be completely at their mercy should they choose to show up any time soon. Why don’t they? Were we just at the edge of their territory? Was this some sort of warning message that we better leave, or else we would be pursued? They did not even bother to try communicating with us first! Now we engineers have to repair the ship (again). The EPS grid worries me, as every time we fight a battle, more of its flaws are exposed. It gets to hot too quickly and cools down too slowly. If the Morningstar is going to be an effective battleship, we need more plasma vents and more plasma. Or maybe, just maybe, we could stop firing all the weapons at the same time. I feel sort of sorry for the doctors, especially after Lieutenant Xavier’s nasty fall. We engineers just have to repair the ship. It’s a little easier—she may complain, but she lets us fix her, and we don’t have to get blood or bone or any of that messy organic guck on us. Doctors are much fewer in number, and they have to deal with every injured soul that passes through their doors. If that’s not bravery, I don’t know what is. Well, I suppose I should get to work. I have a feeling that my schedule will be quite busy for the next few days . . . that puzzle will have to wait after all.

“Drift Away” Stardate 0510.16 Lieutenant Arthur Dent ----------------------------------------- He sat atop the statue as it drifted away from Aegis. Its speed was negligible; its direction was unimportant. He could feel the power build up below him as the energy emissions from the aft end grew larger, increasing to a final burst of an engine or other device. Dent watched the starfield slide gently and the planets recede ever so slowly as the statue coasted through the system. In reality, Dent was firmly grounded at his console on the control tower, his eyes focussed on the monitor that showed a closeup of the statue as it moved. But he could imagine what it would be like, moving through space, a graceful mystery. It was one of the reasons he was out here, even if he were ironically stuck at a desk at a stationery orbital establishment. The energy emissions from the statue indicated it was building up toward a large release—most likely of the powerful engine that had allowed it to appear next to the station without any prior warning. Dent watched closely, intrigued by this biological feat of engineering. It was too bad they did not have a chance to study it longer; Dent could only hope that the data the away team brought back would be worth study. He wanted to learn more about this enigmatic icon. As it drifted away, Dent sighed and wondered where it was going—if it was indeed leaving at all. Was it sentient? Did it have a mission in mind, peaceful or otherwise? If it was a construct, who built it? Why? These questions and more drifted away from his mind much like the statue drifted away from the station. And all he could do was hope for more answers.

“Let’s Go to War” Stardate 0510.16 Lieutenant (jg) Tandaris Admiran ----------------------------------------- Politics. Tandaris didn’t like to think about it much, but on the frontier of Starfleet, in a precarious quadrant, politics tended to catch up with him anyway. He could recall, over a month ago, reflecting upon the possibility of war with the Romulans. That entire possibility seemed academic now, as the Romulan occupation of T-Rogora was totally wiped out by the Hundred. Regardless of Federation-Romulan relations, Tandaris hoped that they would put their differences aside in the face of this other threat. It appeared that life in the Gamma Quadrant was not going to be as mundane as Tandaris had hoped. Things seldom were. In the midst of all this action, Tandaris hoped he would maintain a semblance of sanity (although, perhaps that would be a liability in the long run). Moreover, it appeared that the Morningstar would be right in the thick of it. He was still concerned about that. After all, the last battle simulation had been far from impressive—death by ingenious exploitation of starship vulnerabilities was not Tandaris’ preferred way of ending his existence on this mortal coil. As soon as he got back to engineering, he knew that his interest in the ship’s stability would be slightly increased by his interest in staying alive. Starfleet, regardless of its flaws, had that going for its engineering. They had to be ready; they had to be prepared to confront this new threat head on. If there was anything Admiran had learned in six lifetimes, it was that you rarely got a second chance, so you had to make the first one count. You had to give it your all. The drums beat heavily and the ship's heart throbbed. They were heading swiftly in the direction of going to war.