"Where is here?" -SD 10302.16

[LoAmi 0]

=/\= Personal Log of Lt.(jg) Arphazad Lo'Ami =/\=

 

::Begin Recording::

:: Recorded on a datapad in his dimly lit quarters, while chewing on a bar-shaped food-like entity ::

 

Personal Log, Stardate 10302.16. It's been two days since we broke warp ... warp ... I had estimated warp 9.9 + 20 more 9's - If ever we do achieve these speeds regularly, we will need a new warp scale.  But, that does not look like it will be happening anytime soon.  For our efforts, we have been rewarded with this :: moves arms pointing around room, exposing it to the datapad ::  Our dilithium supply is shattered and unusable.  Not to mention that the only thing to eat are Starfleet MRE's. :: nervously plays with the wrapper from the finished bar ::  Engineering has estimated only a week of reserve power left from the emergency batteries, even with conservation measures in effect.  The engineers will presumably transfer power from our impulse engines' fusion reactions to general consumption.  When our hydrogen supply has run out, our time expires, and we remain forever lost... somewhere.  On the bright side, there will still be plenty of MRE's left for whomever finds the ship.

 

:: crumples the MRE wrapper and throws it in the direction of a trash can; misses; it falls on the floor ::

 

Two days ago, we had simply failed a mission.  We had not established relations with the Vogarts.  But, we had returned to friendly space, with the only casualty being our egoes.  The Vogarts had left us a trace of their technology - the cursed hypertachyon particles that clung to Arcadia as they naturally decayed.  Captain Moose and Cmdr. Alces took them as a challenge to return to Vogart space, and show them our falsified technological equality.  The entire science department got caught up in it, and I led them right through it.  The rush to a solution blurred the slow, methodical, dispasionate work that is science and turned it into some kind of madness.  We raced against time to catch the hypertachyons without stopping to catch our breaths and think about the implications of what we were doing to ourselves and to the rest of our crew.  

 

We did not even think through all the implications of that blasted equation we had so desperately sought out.  The irony: an unseen energy asymmetry on the order of one micro-electron volt may have brought down one of the most advanced ships in the Federation fleet.

 

On a personal note: After I was flung across the bridge, Dr. Dacotah mentioned something about a potential problem with my symbiont.  However, an occasional spurt of lower back pain is the least of this ship's worries.  It will not matter in a week anyway.  I go back on duty in a few minutes.  With all but the simplest of scientific equipment on energy conservation lockdown, and the sensors useless anyway, I don't see what I will do anyway.  And yet, we all continue working; hoping against all hope that we will find a way home.

 

 

=/\= End Recording =/\=