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Archie Phoenix

"Sail Away"

Archie was only five minutes into a study of the New Atlantean space serpent trade, and he was already enthralled. As one of the ten most active centers of commerce in or near Federation space, New Atlantis received an extensive file in Arcadia’s archives. The serpents of the nearby Pacifica Cloud were as desired a commodity in the civilized galaxy as Romulan Ale, Delvin pastries, and Markab floor wax. Hunting the creatures was also just as dangerous as acquiring and transporting those goods. Lucrative, but dangerous trade tends to attract rather … rough-edged individuals, and when rough-edged individuals gather large sums of money, businesses of equally unsavory nature flock around them. The presence of a nebula capable of masking ships from long range scans only made the region more attractive to society’s less ethical merchants and servicemen. So it was that New Atlantis was flagged not only as a top ten commercial port, but also a top ten trouble-spot.

 

None of that was what interested Archie, however. It was the serpent trade itself, specifically the navigation of the Cloud of Pacifica, that caught Archie’s eye. Subspace ripples within the nebula prevented warp travel and the ignitions of most sublight engines frightened the serpents away. The only reliable means of hunting the beasts was aboard vessels utilizing particle sails, elaborate arrays of magnetic panels which reflected the particles within the nebula creating electromagnetic force sufficient for propulsion. The panels could be rotated and adjusted to alter the direction and velocity of travel, approximated as best as possible given the erratic nature of the particle flows within the nebula. It was not a particularly reliable system, nor one that could be pulled off effectively without extensive training and experience; if it were easy, the serpent trade would not be quite so dangerous.

 

Further investigations into the archives revealed that there was no shortage of precedent for such a primitive form of space travel. There were even examples of vessels that utilized solar winds. The most notable example was that of the Bajorans, a people (one of them, at least) that were drawing much of Archie’s attention in recent months. The Bajorans claimed, with much dispute from Federation scientists, that their first interstellar voyages were conducted aboard solar vessels. Archie could certainly see where the dispute arose. Even if the reflection of photon particles could achieve faster-than-light velocities, how could it possibly avert the associated issues of relativity without utilizing subspace? It would certainly be something he would ask Samantha Kent about if he’d had the chance. If a Bajoran scientist couldn’t provide insight on early Bajoran FTL-physics, who could?

 

The very idea that Archie had a topic of interest in common with Samantha was emboldening. The few times that Archie had seen the science officer off duty, the only thing preventing him from engaging her in conversation was the lack of a topic to open with. What sorts of things could she be interested in? He certainly couldn’t start with something of interest to him. What if he opened with a topic of no interest to her, and she found him instantly unappealing and brushed him off? He would feel as if his first and only chance had been shattered, and he would certainly never be able to work up the courage to speak to her again. Bajoran interstellar sailing ships, however -- science and engineering, together -- was not the sort of thing that would liven up a party, of course, but it could perhaps be a decent starting point.

 

Archie pulled himself out of his reverie and returned his attention to the Atlantean files. The Atlantean particle sail ships were much larger than any of the one man exploration vehicles associated with the Bajorans. Plenty of space was needed in their cargo holds for the giant space serpents. More mass meant more and larger sails were needed to provide sufficient thrust. More equipment to power and control, plus the more complex navigational considerations of the nebula, meant more crew. More bodies meant more personnel support. More support meant more mass. And so on. The ships were engineering marvels to say the least.

 

The most successful captains were the ones who could emerge from the cloud with the most serpents in their holds -- in other words, the captains with the biggest ships and most numerous crews, an expensive proposition answered by the port‘s bustling mercenary and engineering businesses. The files specifically mentioned one notorious ship that could carry six serpents in its hold; it was equipped with four sail arrays, the primary array nearly 500 meters in diameter, enough to dwarf most Starfleet vessels. The file provided no name for the ship or its captain, but it did detail the fate of both. On one unfortunate hunting expedition, the ship caught the attention of one of the larger space serpents roaming among its pack. While its fellows fled the scene, the larger specimen made straight for the ship. The captain activated the emergency engines, but refused to jettison the three dead serpents in his hold. He reasoned that the pursuing serpent would give up the chase once it was certain that its pack was safe from harm. He reasoned poorly. The serpent was determined enough to keep chase and fast enough to catch up to the cargo-laden ship; by the time the captain had gotten smart enough to release his encumbering cargo, his crew had already fled for the escape pods. The ship was smashed to pieces with its bold, but foolish captain still on board. Only two of the pods managed to escape the serpent’s ensuing rampage, its passengers bringing a lesson in prudence back to New Atlantis.

 

Something about this ‘cloud sailing’ business appealed heavily to Archie. Perhaps he was feeling disappointed in his Starfleet service time thus far. He was expecting new and exciting experiences exploring exotic interstellar locales and studying bizarre alien technologies. The Nevuluz mission had provided some of that, but it was all too brief. Most of his time on Arcadia thus far was spent in main engineering doing whatever he was told by his superiors (usually something involving the meticulous breakdown of technical data or minor repairs in the maintenance tubes). The last month of astrometry study was particularly tedious, with only the data Archie collected on the Inechie fleet to provide him with any interest. To be able to climb aboard a technologically primitive spaceship, one not lined wall to wall with computers that handled most of the operations, and to sail it into a nebula inhabited by living creatures would be a welcome break. It would be dangerous, yes … but oddly enough, knowing of the danger only served to whet Archie’s appetite.

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