Communication Troubles

[Cptn Swain 0]

“Good morning, Captain,”

 

Alexander Calypsos glanced up to meet the eyes of the station’s chief operations officer. “Commander.”

 

For a long moment the two exchanged glances. Since Calypsos had come to the station over two years ago, he’d come to implicitly trust and rely on the even keeled Sprint to keep things from falling apart when something went wrong, which in this quadrant it seemed to do more than in any other posting he could remember.

 

“Please, have a seat Corris.”

 

“Thank you, sir.” Nonplussed, as ever, Sprint took a seat opposite of Calypsos. Sprint, for his part, had come to respect the Captain as well. During his time aboard Camelot, he had served under three different commanding officers: first the ever logical and orderly Sorehl; the emotional, sometimes erratic Corizon; and now Calypsos. Calypsos seemed to be somewhere in between.

 

“I understand we’re having some communications difficulties today?”

 

“Yes,” Sprint said. “Appears to be a subspace anomaly between here and the wormhole. Not entirely unusual, but we’re looking into it.”

 

Calypsos nodded. “We seem to be having more trouble than usual lately with our communications.”

 

Having learned more than lesson or two from Sorehl in restraint, Sprint remained calm. “We have had a rash of ion storms lately, sir. Those do tend to cause trouble.”

 

“I suppose,” he said. “Still, I’d like for operations to do a full review of communications protocols and diagnostic of all the arrays.”

 

“Of course. I’ll start right away. Was there anything else, Captain?”

 

“No,” Calypsos said. “I’ll expect the report by the end of the week.”

 

Sprint nodded. Standing he headed for the door.

 

“One more thing,” Calypsos said as Sprint exited.

 

“Yes, sir?” Sprint said pausing at the door.

 

“I’d stay clear of the Admiral for a while,” the Captain said. “He’s more than a little grumpy towards you at the moment.”

 

“I’ll do my best, Captain.”

 

“Of course you will, not get out of my office.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

--

 

“This is exactly what I was talking about.”

 

“Sir?”

 

Misha Abronvonvich glowered over his monitor before turning it to face the red headed scientist sitting across from him, revealing a static filled screen. “Every time you turn around in this godforsaken quadrant,” he continued in his ever-thickening Russian accent, “we have some anomaly or ion storm or god knows what else causing communications trouble. This is supposed to be a classified briefing on Starbase Lyonesse construction. Does it look like that to you, Dr. Ellis?”

 

Frowning, Phillip Ellis shook his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

 

“I thought you’re wonder array down there was supposed to solve this problem.”

 

Running a hand through his hair, and shifting in his seat, Ellis shook his head. “Bedevere, Admiral, isn’t just any subspace array. It’s a highly advanced piece of machinery that like any advanced piece of technology requires the correct conditions to work.”

 

“Yes, yes, so you’ve told me,” Abronvonvich said tersely. “Which is ironic.”

 

“Admiral?”

 

“It’s ironic that the damned thing was supposed to provide more reliable communications with the Alpha Quadrant, yet it's somehow more temperamental than my ex-wife.”

 

Ellis frowned deeper. He rather resented the notion. The large communications array on the planet below had been the culmination of years of work by a small army of specialists. It was one of the, if not the, most advanced communications array ever built by Starfleet.

 

“Misha,” Ellis said forgetting himself for a moment, “I am sorry you missed your briefing, but if you called me up here just to complain I am going to be more than a little annoyed. Do you have any idea the precision required to beam a communication in real-time over 70,000 light years? It’s not like you’re calling next door.”

 

“I know that,” Abronvonvich said. “I am not an idiot.”

 

Giving him a look Ellis shook his head. “Then why did you call me up from the planet? I could be working on the array.”

 

“Listen Doct--Phillip,” Abronvonvich said, catching himself before he launched into a tirade he might regret later. “I understand that you’re doing your best, and that the array you’ve built is very advanced, but quite frankly, your best isn’t good enough anymore. I don’t mean that to be insulting.”

 

“Could have fooled me.”

 

Abronvonvich softened his expression. “That’s not what I meant.”

 

Remaining skeptical, Eliis waited for the explanation.

 

“What I mean is that I am concerned about our ability to maintain a secure line of communications with command. You don’t have to lecture me about how Bedevere works. To be honest I don’t really care. I know that playing ping-pong with quasars is neither easy or reliable...”

 

“That’s an understatement,”

 

“Anyway,” Abronvonvich continued. “All I care about is being able to stay in touch with Command when it counts. Yeah, it may just be some boring briefing that I would have rather have missed anyway this time, but next time it could be a warning about possible Dominion activity, or who knows what. The point is we need to be able to communicate.”

 

“Misha -- Admiral,” Ellis said, regaining his composure. “I understand your concerns, believe me I do. I’ve spent the last four years working to solve that problem and...”

 

“Yes,” Abronvonvich said, “and so far you’ve done an incredible job, but...”

 

“But what? It’s not like I can suddenly change the laws of time and space, just because you want me to.”

 

“I am not asking you for that.”

 

“Then what are you asking for?”

 

Abronvonvich shifted in his seat, taking a moment before responding. “I would like you and you’re cadre of brilliant minds down on the planet to begin working on ways to make the system more reliable.”

 

Ellis sighed heavily. “I just told you I can’t change the laws of time and space.”

 

“No,” Abronvonvich said with a grin, “But you can try.”