Curiosity
Posted on Tue Jan 19th, 2021 @ 11:41am by Lieutenant Mila Lynn & Lieutenant Rehana t'Shaan & Major Ashley Rogers
1,443 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Chapter III: The Hunt is On
Location: Lynn Quarters, I.R.W. Ourainavassa
Timeline: 238701.18
Ash was stretched out on her bed, she hadn't had a decent bed since she left Starfleet. She was definitely glad that they replaced the Claw with Ourainavassa and not some spartan garbage barge. She has led a rough life, she has earned this.
"Mila Lynn to Ash Rogers. I found something in the logs on our project. Come to my quarters ASAP, you're going to want to see this."
Ash sat up quickly at the sound of Mila's voice as she tapped her comm badge, "On my way." She furrowed her brow. Their "project" has definitely been interesting: A ship from another universe sitting in their hangar now. She wonders what Mila has discovered as she made her way to her quarters.
When she got there, she sounded the chime, "Hey it's me, what did you find?"
Mila opened the door, and turned her chair to face Ash as she entered. Look at this, she signed enthusiastically, before deciding it was going to be easier to speak out loud. "I managed to hook the fighter up to the power grid and access its systems. Diagnostics showed that everything except weapons and drive core are in good order. Then i went to the logs. They were empty, except for some coordinates."
She pointed at the screen in front of her. "And that is what those coordinates were."
Marked on the nav display was a star - that of the Hobus system, to be exact.
"That's a pretty ordinary star, not too far from Romulus though. So why were those coordinates the only things in the logs?"
Ash walked over to the screen and looked at the data. "Anything else about the ship itself? Where it came from and how it got here? Maybe not in the data logs but physical clues as you were cleaning it?"
She stood up and started pacing. "That ship is definitely not from around here. Where is its pilot? Were they heading to Hobus or were they at Hobus?" Ash wondered outloud.
"The Terran Empire," Ash started as she pulled up the symbol on Mila's display, "is nothing to mess with. They're ruthless, blood thirsty, and generally unpleasant. I wonder if whoever brought this ship to this universe will want it back...."
Mila stared at the emblem on the display for a moment. "The technology on that little fighter. It's... strange. Way ahead of ours. The entire control system is holographic, but it's tactile holograms. I know Starfleet are experimenting with those, and they've developed things like the EMH, but this is way beyond that. And then the drive core. From the diagnostic, its output should be massively beyond what a core of its size would normally be able to do."
She looked up at Ash. "What if whoever flew that thing knew something we don't because they're time travellers? I studied some of the science behind it, I know it's possible."
"So we have a derelict ship from a future alternate universe and the only clue as to why it's here is coordinates to Hobus?" Ash summarized. "Sounds like one hell of a mystery. Anything particularly interesting happening around Hobus? I'd almost think that this is worth a little road trip. Maybe if we take this ship there, something might reveal itself in these fancy futuristic holo computer...."
Mila nodded. "Good idea, only one problem. I still haven't been able to figure out how to fix or restart the drive core. The computer doesn't have any instructions that I can find. Which means that it's not going anywhere."
Ash ponders that dilemma for a moment, "Want to get the ship's engineer in on it? Now that she's not trying to hold the Raven's Claw together, I'm sure she's dying to be get her hands dirty on some engineering puzzle. If someone traveled across universes and time, Hobus must mean something. We need to find out what."
The young scientist nodded again, and pressed the intercom button. "Mila Lynn to engineering. Could the chief engineer meet us in Hangar Bay 2, if you have a moment? Thanks."
She turned to Ash. "Shall we?"
Ash smiled, "Lead the way. Let's fix this bucket of bolts and go on a little road trip."
It didn't take long for Mila and Ash to get to the hangar, where Discovery-3 was waiting for them. The little fighter was still attached to the power grid, with a long, thick power cable running to it from the distribution box near the entrance to the hangar.
"Chief isn't here yet," Mila observed, opening the strange ship's cockpit canopy. Deftly, she pulled a lever behind one of the passenger seats - the release for the power core emergency access - and a hatch in the rear of the vessel opened, revealing a spherical capsule no larger than Mila's head.
"Now this thing seems to have a power output comparable to that of the warp core of a Galaxy-class. But it's not a singularity core. I honestly have no idea how this could possibly work," Mila said, looking at the core and scratching her head. This would be a tough nut to crack, even with one of the best engineers in the quadrant helping them.
Ash poked her head into the hatch and just poked the sphere. "Its spherical," she declared. "I don't have a clue either."
Rehana walked in, humming happily. "So, I hear you two have a present for me? And it's not even my birthday!" She turned to Ash. "Is there some engineering school in the charted galaxy where poking a power core is considered a good idea?"
Ash backed away from the power core and Rehana slowly with her hands up in surrender, "That's why we called you. And I think it's broken... poking did nothing."
Mila chuckled. "The fact that the ship got no power from it didn't give it away before? It's obvious why you are neither a scientist, nor an engineer," she said, giving Ash a friendly punch on the shoulder.
She turned to Rehana, and immediately became more businesslike. "I ran a diagnostic with the onboard computer, once I had it connected to the power grid, but all it said was that the power core was offline. I don't know if it's just a matter of finding the reset switch, or whether it needs more work." With a shrug, she reached into the cockpit, taking out a PADD and handing it to the engineer. "This has the full diag report. Looking at the expected output, this should be a singularity drive, but it certainly doesn't look like one to me. Any ideas?"
Ash took the opportunity to back away from the technical discussion. Mila was right, she's neither a scientist nor an engineer, but she is still a security officer and Section 31 agent at heart. She walked around the ship, the twins did a great job cleaning it up. She sat in the pilot seat and wondered who flew this thing and why was it here. What's so special about Hobus...
Rehana whipped out a foot-long multitool with a flourish and an eager grin. "Well, what say we try to sweet talk this lovely little gadget into giving up some of its secrets? And if that fails, we can always get physical."
Mila nodded. "That does sound like a good start. I tried, but I'm a scientist, not an engineer. I'm more suited to the theoretical side of things. Just be careful that it doesn't blow up in your face, okay?"
Ash peeked her head through the hatch at Rehana and Mila, "Oh you get to stab at the thing and you gave me crap for poking it? You better not blow us up... "
Rehana rolled her eyes. "I'm not stabbing at the thing, I'm carefully prying off sections of outer plating! And when I blow stuff up, it's always intentional. And yes, I'm calling that incident on Coridan intentional."
Ash raised an eyebrow and looked at Mila and signed, It was not intentional. She had no eyebrows for a month. She thought no one noticed, but we all did.
Mila chuckled. You'll have to tell me the whole story later, she replied to Ash, before turning to Rehana. "So, chief," she said, in an exasperated tone. "Please tell me you have an idea."
Ash smirked, signing with Mila definitely has its advantages. She gave a thumbs up to her, before raising an expectant eyebrow at Rehana.
Mila smiled as well. "Time to get to work, shall we?"
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