Chocolate Cake and a Tesseract Drive

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Chocolate Cake and a Tesseract Drive

 

Jami Farrington relaxed behind the operations console, sipping a hot cup of freshly-brewed coffee. Being at home - in their own universe, or reality, or whatever the most current word was for it among the crew - was comforting, interesting, and stimulating, all at the same time.

 

Comforting. They were home. She had her coffee. The ship was running smoothly for the first time in a while. And they had a mission that sounded like a mission of mercy - finding the Coxeter, making like a deep space tug, and hauling them home. Piece o’ cake.

 

Which... sounds like a pretty good idea. Goes with coffee. Wonder if they have any in sick bay....

 

Interesting. The Coxeter had a Hexacosichoron engine design, part of the Tesseract Drive project that, according to T’Prise, was very similar to a project she had worked on. Anyway, it was interesting, not only because of the concept but because no one could pronounce the name - except the science and engineering geeks.

 

Brain strain had caused the rest of the crew to develop their own monikers, like Hex design (loaded with all kinds of overtones), Coco design (no doubt the invention of a chocolate lover - probably the ensign on deck 8 who kept complaining about the quality of chocolate produced by her quarters’ replicator), and the Ron engine (for those who swoon over Lt. Ron in engineering or for the lazy among us who only remember the last part of the word).

 

Tesseract wasn’t that hard. Most had heard the name before. Still, there were some who, out of habit or wanting to coin the latest catch word, shortened it to Tess, Tesser, or Tact. She’d even heard Tessie, which at one point had morphed into Nessie - and that was a whole ‘nother country.

 

Work OPS and you hear more than you really want to.

 

Stimulating? OPS was always stimulating, but what had Jami going was the fate of the Coxeter and why it may have gone missing. T’Prise and the ill-fated Pergrination Project kept rolling around in her head. If the Coxeter had the same problem as the Pergrination Project...?

 

Jami stowed her cup and leaned forward to check the console. Their newest crewmember, Ensign Vakhtang Dalsazashvili, had just entered the holodeck. As usual, when business was slow and her mind was wandering, she wondered what he did for down-time. His personnel file said he is a pianist. But he also liked to tinker with things....

 

“Commander Farrignton?” Cmdr Precip was back as Chief of Security. Seemed like old times. “Curious how we are going to play this one. I mean our tug boat story of old would work wondrously here.”

 

“True, Mr. Precip,” she replied, her eyes on a slight power fluctuation that needed correcting.

 

“Actually, that is what we are doing. Search and Rescue.” Definitely a question. Apparently Mitar had the same apprehensions she did.

 

She took a sip and looked over her shoulder to give him an encouraging nod. Hopefully it would be search and rescue - not search and recover.

 

The ship purred along, its crew busy with... upgrades, new ship configuration, and whatever else they were doing. For once there was no emergency. Jami relaxed in her chair. ETA to Coexeter’s last known coordinates was... eight days and change. Life was good.

 

And she was still wondering about that chocolate cake in sick bay.