by Rada Dengar
80605.00
Hours After Eyes
-=Office of the Chief Engineer; USS Serendipity=-
80605.00
Hours After Eyes
-=Office of the Chief Engineer; USS Serendipity=-
Rada’s heart had been pounding so hard that his chest now ached. His beet red eyes were killing him as he struggled to make them focus on anything before him. Tears kept attempting to creep into them, but on the inside he yelled at them until they went away. They weren’t tears because of Wren, that would mean accepting a reality that he couldn’t allow to come; they were here because he refused to allow them any of the rest he couldn’t forgive in himself.
Had he slept then each second unconscious would have weighed heavier than an eternity of any other lost time. Ordinary time is meaningless; an abstract quantity stretching unendingly in to the distance. Now though time very much had an end to it. It wasn’t a line he could see and cross. It was wall made shrouded from the eye by darkness as it blocked out the Sun and all beyond it. Though it entirely blocked sound and light, its massive structure meant it could be sensed by all being subjected to its incredible gravity. And they all were caught by it, some people just didn’t realise because for them it was still so far away.
At first he’d mistaken it for a wall of flames, but the closer he came the more is struck him that it was getting so cold that he was losing feeling in his limbs. He couldn’t pass it and though he now flew towards it uncontrollably at near infinite speed he would not strike it and break his bones. At the instant he arrived he would stop frozen, forever trapping him in his madness
He couldn’t allow it, damn it. There had to be a way to make it disappear. It was an answer somewhere on the path he travelled that countless others had missed on their way. Even as it was with every neuron blazing he was still terrified that he might just for an instant allow his eyes to close and he’d pass it by.
It wasn’t like he could have slept anyway. His work filled his every thought and made it impossible to disengage, but he was still haunted by the echoes of the thoughts he’d had before he knew it. They were memories of events that hadn’t happened, of things he’d not been bold enough to do or to say even when he’d promised himself he would, but those memories were nothing.
Much worse and more vibrant were the events he could never allow to happen. Tam could never be told that his mother was never coming back. Rada could never hold him in his arms and try to tell him everything would be okay; because they’d both know it wasn’t. Neither of them could stand by and watch as her lifeless body was shot into the emptiness of space or lowered forever into the dirt of some planet left meaningless by her absence.
Knowing what he could go without if he failed he’d cared nothing about what he went without now. He didn’t eat, not that his fluttering stomach would have accepted any food right now. He couldn’t drink, couldn’t hold it down, and though his mouth was now left barely able to open because of its dryness and his head pounded from the dehydration it just didn’t matter.
He’d abandoned the computer for his calculations. He could never risk believing what it told him when it said a strategy had failed. In stead he worked with pen and paper, two things he knew to be incapable of lies.
He never allowed himself the luxury of looking up for this was where the answer would be. Yet as he stared at the paper on the desk before him and scribbled down the results of his last equation, he knew absolutely nothing had been achieved.
It was all just circular definitions, theoretical values defined solely on the basis of other theoretical values. A told him B and B told him C and C was all he needed to get the value of A. Countless times this was repeated across the page without solution. A flash of inspiration told him A must be naught by definition and the calculations told him that under those circumstances it must also be closer to infinity. He’d been wrong so many times he could no longer even trust his judgement.
Voices in the background seemed to laugh at him, voices so unclear about anything except their intent. Now suddenly words were being spoken, so much clearer that they were overpowering anything else. He recognised the tone and then it hit him, it was so strong and familiar, he realised that voice was in the real world.
He forced his head back, against every instinct, and found Old Lieutenant Barlow now stood in his office. The man was a blur, but even with that given, Rada couldn’t miss the concern in his eyes.
He seemed afraid to approach, afraid to disrupt this world of papers Rada had created all around him. Yet slowly he moved forward, leaning down to look him in the eye, as he spoke at a quiet volume which now felt jarring; “Commander, you don’t look so good.”
Rada could have laughed at the sadness with which he spoke. He may have been sweating and he may have been pale, but how he looked was a trivial matter. It was so ridiculous that it should matter now that he realised he was forming a smile.
He tried to speak, to jest, as he watched Barlow’s expectant eyes. Yet words wouldn’t form, his mouth opened without sound; speech lost in the desert. He saw it in the corner of the desk, that glass of water someone must have left for him.
He took hold of it and the water tremored with his hand and though it was made stale by falling dust, in a second he’d gulped it all down. He choked for just a moment as he did, something he found amusing as there was clearly no time for it now, before finally he slammed the glass back down and was able to speak.
“Good looks are still not part of an Engineering qualification,” Rada lightly insisted, his words clearly forced but not so much that he himself should notice.
“We’re almost finished implementing the new shield configuration,” Barlow said as he sat down.
“Good, consider me informed.” Rada replied, and turned back to his work hoping he’d not lost his place.
“Commander…”
Barlow said, confirming he was still here though Rada found it confusing as to why. It was even more amusing than choking that he called him Commander again, he didn’t know how many times he’d said to call him Rada.
Rada’s neck snapped back and he waited watching Barlow, ignoring the sadness on his face as the man had no right to feel anything like that, before Barlow finally continued.
“Commander, what are you doing?”
“Nothing important,” Rada replied casually, internally counting the seconds until he could return to his calculations.
Barlow sighed, he wasn’t going anywhere, and his eyes seemed to burrow into Rada as he insisted; “I won’t go until you tell me, sir”
Rada could have ordered him to leave, he didn’t have the time for this, but if Barlow was worried enough then he could take this to the Captain and she was much more capable of disrupting his work.
“This can’t leave this room,” Rada said quickly, as he sat back then leant suddenly over the desk. He spoke at a whisper, glancing around the room as if this were a dirty little secret “I’m working on perfecting our shield configuration”
Barlow nodded, pausing for a wasted moment that seemed to cut straight through Rada, before finally resuming.
“Okay, and how are you doing that?”
Rada looked around, and fiddled with his pen, then asked with what was almost excitation “What do you know about Varion particles?”
He couldn’t believe it as Barlow looked down during a moment of silent contemplation, before he decided how to describe them in the slowest voice known to man.
“They’re a theoretical merging of certain types of subatomic particles and tachyons beyond a point where they form a unique particle which loses all properties of the originals. They reach a point of resonance when they’re formed which makes them unstoppable by any known force unless they destabilised back into their components. None have ever been discovered, those formed artificially were imperfect so destabilised the moment they were formed.”
“Exactly,” Rada said quickly, feeling he was the only one committed to making it an expedient conversation, “and Desmarais’ work was based around the theoretical stable Varion particles. He tried to reverse the process of how they’re formed at the light barrier and applied it to shielding so that when they’re hit the weapons’ effect is dissipated; stopping the damage. In practice, we have to use countless approximations because we don’t know how such particles would work let alone be formed so our shields can’t be perfect. So we just have to figure them out and we’ll be set.”
Barlow brought his hand up to rub his chin, slowly stroking it as he thought about this decision. “Those improvements would provide little advantage.” He concluded “Yes, they’d be theoretically effective for dissipating any weapon but the shields would still be drained by excessive use. Against conventional weapons they wouldn’t work any better.”
Rada could see he didn’t understand, he hadn’t expected him to but he’d still hoped he’d go away.
“No, but they’re the only thing which could be effective against Varion particles,” Rada quickly suggested.
He was sure it should have been enough, but for whatever reason Barlow still looked concerned and he still wasn’t leaving. Rada could only hope that he just needed to explain.
“Think about it, you’ve seen the Zenith’s Baryon multifactor regression; you know their Beta three coefficient is through the roof and now the Sera’s has started to climb up there too.”
“That could mean many things, Commander.” Barlow reminded him with gentle confidence. “Many technologies would have that effect and slight increases are often seen as negligible.”
“Yes,” Rada admitted, shaking his head slightly as he searched his mind for words when even now there were only equations “and that’s what first made me think that it was simply caused by an ordinary type of alien technology, but if you look at the other coefficients then you’ll see that they’re all standard. That never happens, the must have been a sudden surge of tachyons at the exact same time as a Baryon surge. Varion particles breaking up could have caused that, that must be how their technology works.”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Barlow said, with what was more worry than apology “but it’s sketchy evidence at best. Many things could have caused the measured effect.”
Rada cringed at hearing his disbelief, he was already wasting his time and he was now being completely unbelievable. Barlow could take this to the Captain, he could stop Rada’s work.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry and halfway through the vicious battle of the senses Rada suddenly lost it. Fury filled his features and he stood up, openly screaming at Barlow.
“It’s our only shot! A drowning man does not see what could be a ship in the distance and say; 'that might be a mirage, I don’t think I’ll bother!' You’re not making any sense!”
He’d been furious but in spite of all the anger he tried to convey, as Barlow looked at him he could see he was terrified.
Rada was shaking as he stood over his desk, looking down at his impossible task and trying to deny it was so.
For everything Rada did Barlow still sat across from him, seeming so calm and pitying.
Finally Rada let out a jagged pained breath, then slowly lowered himself down.
“She’s still getting worse.” Rada said quietly, his eyes turned down to the desk because he didn’t want to face Barlow as he admitted his greatest fear. He hadn’t been to see Wren again, but had allowed himself to be tortured by connecting a PADD up to the readouts from her medical equipment. “We have to assume our shields aren’t effective. If they are effective then nothing’s getting in and she’s just dying on her own. If they’re not, then this is our best hope.”
Barlow just nodded understandingly.
“Why haven’t you brought this to the Captain, sir?”
“Because it’s insane.” Rada confessed with frustration at these circumstances “It’s a million to one shot and I don’t have time to convince the entire Senior Staff that it’s a good one. It’s still all we’ve got.”
“Then I can help you,” Barlow suggested, “the entire department could get behind you on this.”
“No, I can’t allow that,” Rada said bitterly, as he looked back down to his work.
Barlow studied him with confusion. “I know if I were in your position I’d want to singlehandedly knock out the bastard who did this, but you need our help.”
For a second Rada thought he’d heard an insult in there, that Barlow was saying he should be trying to fight hand to hand with Wren’s attacker because he knew he couldn’t do it. However he didn’t have the time nor pride to care about being insulted now.
He began working on his equations again and absently spoke his thoughts aloud. He wished he could have had help.
“When the enemy comes as I’m sure they will we can’t have phasers without power or shields allowed to deplete to nothing because the staff were all too busy helping me with this. Starfleet’s greatest minds have worked on this problem and come up with nothing, a few extra Engineers won’t make a difference.”
As gently as he possibly could Barlow asked a question to which he wasn’t sure he had the right; “And what makes you think you can?”
The answer was simple; because unlike all the others who’d worked on this problem for Rada failure wasn’t an option. Though he knew this answer he didn’t respond. His mind was back on his equations now as he violently scribbled down a new line.
For a time Barlow just watched him, as he retreated back into his little paper world. He asked himself what he should do for him, as he watched Rada mutter quietly for his answer to come.
With sadness, he concluded there was nothing; except to leave him to his work.
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012