About that ship ...

[Shalin 0]

Shan sat at the helm, holding the Comanche Creek steady at a respectful distance from the Vulcan cruiser. The strangeness of this space was having its effect on the ship's functions, and while he didn't have to act often it was periodically necessary to correct the ship's course to make sure they wouldn't eventually crash into something. This, however, kept Shan at the console with long stretches of having little to do.

 

The boredom eventually got to him, and his mind drifted back to the Lief Erickson. That the ship still existed was amazing enough, though he could understand why the Captain decided to explore the Vulcan ship instead of the older Earth vessel. There wasn't much to the Lief other than its unusual drive; Shan wasn't surprised that they were stuck. They had none of the instruments that the Comanche Creek had, and the space they were in surely wreaked havoc on what little navigational systems they possessed. Still, Shan wished he could know more about them. Even with their weak thruster drive systems, humans were determined to explore space. It would be wonderful to know how well they did. As he pondered that thought, an idea came to him. Tapping on his console, he sent a message out to the Away Team - specifically to one of the Vulcan crewmen.

 

*Sarven - Shan Shalin up on the bridge. Could you do me a favor and find out if the Vulcans explored a ship called the 'Lief Erickson'? Here's the ship profile.* With that he transmitted the Lief's configuration, hoping that Sarven could come up with something. Within a few minutes a data feed arrived, and the translator programs went to work. After a bit Shan had what he needed - something to read.

 

The data that had come from the Erickson was confusing at first - not the typical readings one would expect from a warp. Shan read on, trying to learn as much as he could. The experiment had gone wrong, that much was clear - and the data from the logs indicated that the crew ultimately didn't survive the first warp-out. The effort had ended in tragedy, leaving Shan to wonder why. Thankfully the Vulcans were thorough in their exploration, cracking the data locks and downloading the visual logs. The playback on both outer sensor readings, optics, and internal monitors were ultimately disturbing - but the picture they painted was clear.

 

The designers of the Lief Erickson had created a fatal flaw in the system: too much warp energy was released too quickly. Instead of generating a warp field, the ship's design resulted in a wormhole generator. Sadly, the crew didn't recognize the phenomenon for what it was. Believing it to be a normal part of warp travel they moved into the wormhole at the angle of maximum acceleration. With his experience on board the Comanche Creek, Shan knew a little about wormholes - enough to know that there was a right way to enter them and a wrong way ... and the Erickson crew had chosen badly. Cochrane's initial warp experiments left them unprepared for what happened next, as the Erickson was violently pulled into the wormhole - so fast that eight out of ten crewmembers died in the initial event from neck and body trauma. Limbs were snapped, necks were broken, and bodies were thrown wildly as the ship dove into the fluctuating conduit of space.

 

Those who had survived the initial event lingered on for at most a few days; too injured to move or to help themselves. By the time the Vulcans came on the scene they were all dead for a while. Shan gained a new respect for the Vulcans as he read; they were respectful of the human crew, taking time to move the dead to more dignified positions. Shan wouldn't have expected that of Vulcans - it wasn't logical. No one had asked them to, and there was no practical need for what they did. Yet even while they were trapped themselves, they spared the time to give dignity to others and to make a thorough investigation of their fate - preparing the information to be passed from one recipient to the next, until someday those who had sent the Erickson out would learn what happened to them.

 

Shan sighed .. if only luck was with them. If only they had entered the wormhole correctly, but that was expecting too much from a group of unenlightened explorers. It is often easy to criticize, but the truth remained that they did the best they could with what they had, making the best choices given what they knew. It was a tragedy, but still a testament to the human spirit of exploration. Now it was Shan's duty to make sure this record made it back to Starfleet, so that the crew of the Lief Erickson would no longer be lost, and would never be forgotten.