Windows and Doors Part 2

Posted on Thu May 16th, 2024 @ 5:08pm by Captain Malcom Llwyedd & Lieutenant JG Randolf Forst & Lieutenant JG Hopkins Cobb & Ensign Helle Leed & Ensign Winston Hubblestone

1,442 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Long Hard Road Ahead
Location: Gamma Quadrant, Mouth of the Wormhole
Timeline: 24 August, 2396- 0030 Hours

[ON]

Helle struggled to comprehend the device on the viewscreen. Not only was it oddly shaped but nothing that her eyes could see gave her any clue how the ship, or machine, was designed to work. Part of that was her eyes kept drifting over the empty part of space where a giant wormhole was supposed to be. Her brain was not accepting that it just... wasn't.

"I'm not detecting any signs of life on board, Lieutenant Forst." Helle felt even smaller in this vast empty space than when the wormhole had been open. "How do you want to move forward?"

"Full scan of the device. Full spectrum. Everything that we can use." He started to tap at the controls to start a standard scan.

"Leed, try a tachyon scan across the ... hull, I guess. Cobb start with an ion scan. If memory serves that will take a while, but we can get it started. Hubblestone, it might be nothing but it looks like some dark scarring on the upper left quadrant take a look at that."

Randolf was really hoping that was enough to get started, but his last outing in charge of an away team (by no means disastrous) was lingering in the back of his mind.

Winston, having a task, decided to focus on the energy readings around the device as well as the markings the Lieutenant had mentioned on the device itself. His fingers danced across the Runabout's console, diving deeper and deeper into submenus. "It looks like the device is still giving off some sort of residual energy. I'm trying to figure out what it is but so far the computer doesn't recognize it. The scoring looks like an explosive. My guess is that they wanted to blow the thing up after it did whatever it did. Looks like they miscalculated the amount they would need."

Cobb started the requested scan and sat back as it spun up. At the speed it moved, Cobb felt like it accurately represented operating systems in the days of old. It was just missing the legendary modem sound. However, there was plenty to do as it went through its process; Cobb also spent a few minutes reading previous scans to see if any data would help move their assessment forward.

"Starting a tachyon sweep," said Helle. Her voice trembled a little. Her first real away mission and it was to find evidence of how an alien race managed to do something pretty hard. Was she grinning? She hoped not. Soon enough the first data came back. "I'm seeing strong gravity warping. Really strong. The singularity is still there, they just closed it."

Forst sat silently for a few moments looking over the data scrolling across his screen. Nothing was clicking yet, but that didn't bother him per se. The shuttle was quiet, and he wondered if that was bothering anyone. He waited another minute in silence before asking,

"Any thoughts yet?" He was hoping that he wasn't being too nonchalant for being in charge of an away mission.

"Well, if Helle is right, the good news is that the wormhole is still there. Closing a wormhole isn't something I've read a lot about anywhere. I think that we should get on the other side of the device and see if we can get some information. The onboard computer might be intact and we could see what kind of emitters they were using," Winston said. He looked around at Helle and Cobb to see what they would add.

"I also want to see what other secrets this device has," said Helle. "There's evidence it has a huge scanning array, which seems unnecessary so it could be something else."

Cobb steepled his hands and peered over them. "Call me crazy, but we might need to get physical hands on that thing. Is it possible to spacewalk on it? Either that or find a facility space big enough to evaluate it properly. I am not sure we have all the tools to get further than where we are now.

Forst looked over the data streaming across his screen. A spacewalk was not immediately possible, but could be accomplished if they had time to head back to the ship.

He started to move the shuttle to see if they could get to the other side of the thing.

“Scan for open areas, is there a control room we could beam into?”

Winston scanned the device yet again. "I don't see anything large enough for us to get into. I think it was constructed as an autonomous unit. When I compare it to the others, they all appear to be the same."

Forst’s brain picked up on something that he had heard earlier,

“Leed, did you say that it was closed, but the gravity well is still there? My Wormhole mechanics are rusty, but how is that possible? Can we launch a probe to where the Wormhole opening should be?”

"It's all theoretical because stable wormholes aren't all over waiting to be tested. One hypothesis for closing a stable wormhole involves the disruption of the entangled particles that maintain the stability of the wormhole's endpoints. That leaves wormhole is open on the other side. The edges of space and wormhole are too frayed to stay together." Helle's words tumbled out, her mind racing to explain huge concepts with basic words and short sentences, the latter of which was not her strength.

“It would be overly simplistic to say a mosquito net I presume.” Forst tapped up a few of the scans. He overlaid the partially completed ion scan with the scoring on the hull.

“Cobb, can you confirm that the ion scan is showing a graviton distortion around that larger area of scoring on the top left?”

Cobb glanced at the screen and arched an eyebrow. "Top left, eh." He thought to himself. "Yeah, I see that. Something is bending space almost as if we had a large celestial body there, but we obviously don't. Is that tachyon scan showing anything to support our first observations?"

Forst pulled up the Tachyon scan and overlaid the output. There was something there. It looked like the distortion around a time ship (or at least the theory he had read in the academy.)

"I want all eyes on this. Can you confirm that there is a time dilation around that spot? Which I think would indicate a temporal anomaly?"

Winston nodded as he tapped on his console. He adjusted the spatial sensor array and angled it more towards the area that Lieutenant Forst was specifying. The sensor readout went crazy. He tried to adjust using the programmable entry but he couldn't fine-tune it.

"I'm trying to confirm, sir, but the array is acting wonky. It's as if something is distorting the scans. I'm going to go manual with the sensors. I'll need the others to try to read and process the data because this... is not a standard protocol."

"My Quantum Anomalies professor said standard protocols are for admirals and classrooms," said Helle. She was bent over the console, as though proximity would help her absorb the data on the screen. Data jumped in seemingly random ways that made her eyes burn trying to follow. "Huh. Winston. Cobb. Look at this. I filtered out known spatial and temporal distortion from the Bajoran wormhole. What's left should be a background of wormhole fluctuations and whatever is distorting the scans but... there's too much temporal distortion. Does that make sense to you?"

It all clicked in Winston's head. "Sir, I think that, somehow, the alien coalition has phase shifted the wormhole so that it is slightly out of our time. Close enough that we can read it but impossible to reach. It's... actually quite brilliant," he said.

Forst started tapping out a series of commands to the shuttle. Now that they knew what they were working with there might be a way to save the wormhole.

"Alright, all hands, what do know about temporal shifts, and how do we reverse them?"

[OFF]

Lieutenant JG Randolf Forst
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Lieutenant JG Hopkins Cobb (NPC by Harlan)
Science Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Ensign Winston Hubblestone (NPC by Llwyedd)
Science Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Ensign Helle Leed (NPC by Leed)
Biologist
USS Firebird NCC-88298

 

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