Temporal Speculation ((O'Halloran/Knight/Curtis))

[Caroline Curtis 0]

"I think I may have found some files on their tactical systems," Caroline mumbled absently. "Should I forward them to your console?" She looked up at Anna for confirmation. The young science chief had enlisted her help in beginning research on the capabilities of the Klingon ships who had appeared on the Reaent's sensors, which had resulted in their current slog through the ship's computer library with mixed success.

 

Under any other circumstance, Caroline might have enjoyed the chance to dive back into historical research; since entering the medical field it was something she had had less time for as a pastime. However, the current situation was less than ideal; any action they took was a potentially future-altering one, and the recommendations that would come out of this research had more importance, potentially, than anything Caroline had ever worked on.

 

Exactly what she had been hoping for as part of her first foray into non-station assignments.

 

"They're some new prototype form of the class, though, I think you said?" she added, bringing her attention back to the problem at hand and leaning back in her seat with a troubled expression. "So it's hard to say whether this data will be entirely accurate."

 

Anna nodded absently, and then looked up, meeting Caroline's gaze with a smile. "Yes, please. Send 'em over. The historical record is that there was only one prototype with a cloak but our current situation shows that to be inaccurate by three. I personally don't have much faith in the accuracy of the database." She looked back to her own work screen and offered, "The Captain requested that their scanning abilities be ascertained and I've found that -- it looks like one parsec (3.26 light years) with a near instantaneous result."

 

"Well, it's better to have a number to work with, even if it's inaccurate, than none at all, I suppose?" Caroline said, raising her eyebrows slightly at Anna's lack of confidence in the information library. "Coming your way right now." Tapping the station in front of her, she passed the data in front of her over to Anna's console.

 

"I just wonder...if the record doesn't show 4 ships, what else isn't it showing? I didn't mean to say that I don't think the technological portion-" Anna broke off as the doors to the lab slid open and revealed Wade Knight standing there. "Hello," she greeted him with a smile that was immediately hopeful.

 

Scraping the last few bits of cake icing off of his plate, Wade stepped into Reaent's main science bay. Moving up beside Annabelle quietly, he leaned against the edge of her work station. "How's it coming?"

 

Eye level with the cake plate, Anna raised hers to meet his. "They can spot us almost instantly if we get within 3 and a half light years of them and...the database does list their communication frequencies." Anna traded a glance with Caroline and then looked back to Wade. "What have you come up with?"

 

Caroline leaned forward against her console, angling around to look at the engineer expectantly. She didn't know him, other than having seen him at the staff conference, but Anna seemed hopeful that he might know something about the situation.

 

"Well, it shouldn't be too hard to outrun a couple of old Klingon garbage scows for a few hours until I get that cloaking device set up." Wade set the empty plate on the desk behind him and scratched the back of his head before continuing. "It's going to be a major pain in the posterior, getting that thing to work. But it's going to be nowhere near as difficult as getting us home."

 

"Tell me about it," Anna groused. "We have no scans of our trip through the distortion and so there's not really anything to hang our return trip on." She opened her mouth to add to her tale of woe and then stopped, looking between Wade and Caroline. "Have you two met?"

 

"I don't believe so, though I saw you making your voice heard at the meeting," Caroline said with a smile in his direction. "Caroline Curtis...ship's counselor." Not exactly a title she was used to yet... "Pleasure to meet you."

 

Wade extended a hand and managed a weak grin in spite of his apparent exhaustion. "Ship's counselor? I'm sure you've been having all sorts of interesting conversations lately."

 

Anna noted that Wade was clearly not one of the crew that Caroline had been having interesting conversations with. He'd been just as exhausted after the last temporal anomaly and he'd seemed emotionally drained also, but he hadn't deemed it necessary to unburden himself to the counselor. She wondered what his story was. They'd worked closely together a few times now and she was curious.

 

Caroline smiled faintly at the comment. "You could say that. This ship and this crew have both been through quite a bit," she said. "For right now, though, I'm doing my best to help with the research effort." She gestured vaguely at the console she was sitting at, and then laughed slightly. "Though I'm afraid I'm woefully unfamiliar with the temporal theory involved."

 

"Quite a bit indeed," Wade said, nodding, before a slight smile played across his lips. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing we have someone on this ship well-versed in temporal theory." Leaning against the wall, Wade sighed and the smile slowly faded from his features. "Not that it really helps us much."

 

Anna leaned back so she could see Wade's expression without breaking her neck. "That doesn't sound very positive..."

 

He shrugged, circling around Anna's back and pacing slowly around the room. "Well, I've got a pretty a good idea of how to get us back to our time. I mean, traveling forward in time is a helluva lot easier than traveling backwards. But then, saying it's easier isn't exactly saying that it's easy."

 

Anna smiled at Caroline while Wade perambulated. She'd seen him think something out before and the last time it had involved a pencil and the Theory of Relativity. "Well, we were able to do the backwards part with little or no trouble as I recall, Wade." She shot him a grin over her left shoulder. "How about you clue us in on the way back?"

 

"I'm sure you've heard of time dilation, right? The faster you're going, the more slowly others will observe your time progressing?" Picking up the cake plate from the desk behind him again, he shook the crumbs off and tossed it to Caroline like a Frisbee. "Think fast."

 

Caroline blinked, snatching the projectile plate as it arced into her hands. Eyeing it curiously, she spun it in her fingers and then set it down on the console. "Yes, I've heard of time dilation..."

 

"And so have I, of course," Anna replied, giving Caroline a thumbs up for her quick reflexes.

 

"Right. Luckily, when we're traveling in a warp field, we're not subject to time dilation; otherwise we'd all be living in the two-hundred and fortieth century instead of the twenty-fourth. But that's not the case with impulse. The main idea is, we make enough power for the impulse engines to get us up to about two-thirds the speed of light, and even at that speed time dilation doesn't really play that large of a part. In order to travel forward in time eighty-four years we'd need to approach speeds of near the speed of light." Wade stopped his pacing for a moment and looked between his two companions. "Sorry, I can be a bit wordy at times."

 

Anna paused, her tea cup, contents now quite cool, suspended in mid air. "I'm not bored, believe me." She motioned him on and took a sip.

 

"So you're saying that if we can boost further power to the impulse engine...we can use time dilation to get us home instantaneously even without the wormhole?" Caroline looked as if she was trying to process this and wasn't certain of her interpretation.

 

"We can't count on the wormhole just conveniently showing up," Anna interjected.

 

Wade shook his head slowly, "We won't be able to 'boost' anywhere near enough power out of the warp core to make a steady acceleration towards the speed of light. As we get closer and closer to that speed, we're going to need exponentially more power to accelerate." He paused his pacing for a moment, scratching his chin. "The 'wormhole' or space-time distortion or whatever we encountered back there is just not a practical bet at this point. There's nothing to say that we'd even find it, or that it wouldn't just send us further back in time. And if it did send us forward in time there'd be nothing to say how far forward it would send us."

 

"Sadly, that's all too true," Anna agreed glumly, "But I still would like to have the chance to scan that area of space where we came through. We haven't been able to do that, due to keeping a low profile."

 

"Well, if I'm wrong, and we are dealing with causality here, the best thing we can do is take ourselves out of the picture," Wade explained with a nod. "And if I can somehow figure out how to get enough energy to that cloaking device and get it working, we may be able to go on a search for that wormhole or whatever in the hell it was. But I still don't think it's going to be very fruitful."

 

"We know the coordinates where we came through the distortion, and it's my hope that it was not a random occurrence," Anna replied. "The gravimetric distortion we experienced can be easily programmed and then scanned for."

 

"That's true. If the wormhole does exist in this time, there's a pretty good possibility that there might already be someone there looking at it," Wade's voice slowly drifted off. "What if there is already someone there looking at it, and they kept some record of it!"

 

"Tobias Jeran has been researching the database for any cosmological events that might pertain to the current situation and so far, nothing has come up," Anna replied.

 

His momentary excitement subsiding, Wade nodded and smiled. "Well, maybe it will turn up something. Even the slightest bit of information could help us a great deal."

 

"I live in hope, Mr. Knight." Anna smiled back but the expression quickly faded away. "If we aren't able to locate the distortion from this side of history, what else can we do to get back?"

 

"Well, like I said, we can use the impulse engines to get us up to a speed which will dilate time enough to get us back. But it's going to take time to piece it together. We won't be able to make energy enough to get there at a constant rate of acceleration, but I believe we may be able to use high powered bursts." Pausing, Wade took on a somewhat defeated posture. "And there's going to be some serious problems that go with it."

 

"Problems like...what?" Caroline asked, cocking her head sideways slightly.

 

"Yes, what sort of problems?" Anna inquired, wondering why Wade looked so glum.

 

"Problems like having to store large of amounts of highly volatile plasma somewhere aboard the ship, extreme inertial forces which the inertial dampeners may or may not be able to...dampen entirely. And of course the problem that if I'm not completely precise in my calculations we could end up a hundred eighty four years into the future rather than eighty four."

 

"Oh, that would be a problem," Anna muttered, not entirely sure whether she was more concerned by the volatile plasma catching fire or the prospect of traveling too far into the future.

 

Wade managed a comforting smile and a wink. "Oh, you needn't worry yourself at all. You've got a Knight on the job. If that's is the only way to do this, I'll find a way to do it right."