by Rada Dengar and Salvek
80905.12
The day after Tending to the Flock
-=Main Engineering, USS Alchemy=-
80905.12
The day after Tending to the Flock
-=Main Engineering, USS Alchemy=-
Salvek carefully examined Kellyn’s work, which was nothing more than a formality. You don’t share Engineering duties with a Vulcan for over a decade without learning to dot every “i” and cross every “t”.
The latest modifications to the transwarp drive could, in theory double the range of the drive, allowing them to cover two days of warp travel in an instant, rather then just one.
They had been forced to keep their plans hush with all that was happening on the ship at the moment, but now was the time for a trial run.
Salvek wondered exactly how the Captain would react when she found out she had been left out of this particular loop.
“Are you double checking my work?” Salvek spun in surprise at the voice, and had his head knock against the panel for his trouble.
Lair Kellyn strode up to him, with Rada Dengar at her side.
“Look who I brought with me.” Kellyn said.
“Mister Dengar, it appears you are feeling better.”
“Doctor Hubbard has allowed me a chance to walk around under the strict understanding that I avoid lifting anything heavier than helium,” joked Rada, it felt good to be back in Engineering.
“You didn’t answer my question Salvek,” commented Kellyn “were you double checking my work?”
Rada observed the conversation like an anthropologist studying social behavior amongst different species of an ecosystem.
*The majestic Vulcan likes to maintain an ever watchful eye over the activities of his mate but there is the ever present danger that the more aggressive Bajoran will take this as a challenge,* he thought to himself, with no one probing his mind anymore his mood was definitely improved.
“You know it is standard Starfleet procedure for all prototype equipment to be reviewed by at least two engineers before being tested, for safety’s sake.”
Kellyn grinned and rolled her eyes. “Well I guess considering that our experiments nearly destroyed a space station in the past and if they had would’ve killed everyone aboard, that double checking me isn’t the worst idea.”
“Sounds like I missed all the fun.” Rada said. It was true that the most fascinating things to happen in the Engineering world were often also the most dangerous; everything from the risk of losing antimatter containment in the first warp engines to the chance of losing a finger to the propeller in the first aeroplane, this Engineering was a very risky business.
“Oh, there may be fun today Rada. You may wish you had stayed in Sickbay.” Kellyn warned.
“So how can I help?” Rada asked.
“Monitor all the ship’s systems. Structural integrity especially. Transwarp experiments have some temporal side effects occasionally that can turn a ship’s hull…”
“Into pudding.” Kellyn said, completing Salvek’s thought.
Rada moved over to the display, it was clear from his walk that he was still a bit sore, he smiled most of the time but turned away briefly to cringe. After a quick scan he has happy to announce what he was sure both Salvek and Kellyn would have already triple checked themselves “All systems are operating at or above acceptable levels and structural integrity is confirmed.”
“Has the ship’s chronometer been confirmed?” asked Salvek with a raised eyebrow.
Checking the ship’s clock was working properly before a jump was certainly not normal procedure but Rada knew that a Vulcan could never be too careful. He began to pull up the log but before he could answer Kellyn cut in. “Only ten times today,” she then asked teasingly “You’re not nervous, are you?”
“I am merely being…conscientious,” Salvek replied in a very official tone. “The precise timing of the activation of each component is vital for the drive to correctly function,” this led Kellyn to give him a knowing smile.
“Well, the chronometer’s now been confirmed for an eleventh time,” said Rada. Then with a smile he added, “I think that’s the entire check list.”
"Salvek to bridge."
[Go ahead,] Replied Blakeslee.
"Please have Lieutenant Grace confirm our heading to Klaestron. We are about to make our jump, which should place us only two hours away from the planet if it functions as it should."
There was silence for a moment, then the delightful voice of February Grace over the comm.
[I've adjusted our course just a bit so that if your tests works better than you expected, we transwarp past the planet, rather than through it.]
"A wise precaution," Salvek replied. "Engineering out."
Kellyn and Salvek took up opposite positions across the engineering panel, and brought the transwarp drive to full power. A hum began to fill engineering, and the lights dimmed as power was routed into the drive.
"Mood lighting is established. Core temperatures normal." Rada reported with confidence.
"So who does the honors?" Kellyn asked.
"We will do it together, as we have always done." Salvek wrapped his fingers around hers, and together they activated the transwarp drive.
Rada braced himself as the ship trembled and shook from the sheer energy coursing through it. "Everything looks good. There is a large concentration of chronotron particles forming in the core. Should I abort?"
Salvek checked Rada's findings, and saw no reason to be concerned. "Negative. The particles are innocuous."
Rada eased his grip on the panel as the ship ceased its jump, and returned to normal space.
[Grace to engineering. We are right where we are supposed to be, we just covered two days of warp flight.]
Rada left his station and crossed Engineering to wrap an arm around Salvek and Kellyn both in congratulations.
Salvek reached out to embrace Kellyn and Rada both in return, but in the blink of an eye, Rada was suddenly back on the far side of the room.
[Grace to engineering. We are...] February's voice trailed off, then started again [Right where we are supposed to be. Didn't I just tell you this? I'm experiencing deja Bru.]
“You can’t have told us that already,” replied Rada unsurely, although he definitely recognized the words from somewhere. “I mean you… you wouldn’t have had time, we finished the jump and then you immediately announced the results, there was…there was no way you could have had the time.”
Salvek looked to Kellyn concerned, how could Rada and Bru have forgotten?
“I do remember you notifying us of the success of the transwarp jump already,” confirmed Salvek “but I do not remember Mister Dengar returning to the other side of the room.”
“Me neither,” added Kellyn.
“I never left…At least…I don’t think I did,” replied Rada becoming very confused.
“It would appear that our memories have been somehow altered,” surmised Salvek as he tapped his combadge. “Salvek to Blakeslee,”
[Yes, Commander,] replied Blakeslee, his voice indicating that he was much more tense than before, reflecting the change in mood on the bridge as no one was sure exactly what they remembered.
“We may have an alien intruder onboard with the capacity to alter our memories.” Said Salvek. “Please perform an internal scan to check for anomalous life signs then notify the crew, anyone experiencing any kind of memory loss should report it immediately. Also hail the Serendipity to see if they’ve had any similar occurrence.”
[Aye, Sir,] replied Blakeslee still trying to work through the feeling of what had just happened.
“We should have the computer monitor everyone’s movements,” added Kellyn moving across to input the commands. “Give us something to check our memories against.”
Rada meanwhile had been running a systems check “Commander, you haven’t made any alterations to the drive’s cooling system that I don’t know about, have you?”
Salvek moved to Rada’s side “I have not.” He immediately saw what Rada had found. On the screen in front of him the record of the transwarp drive’s temperature was displayed upon a graph, it climbed steadily as they built up to the jump and then just after they returned to normal space there was a sudden jump discontinuity downward before it began to fall at the typical rate.
“It would appear that ten point three seconds of the recorded temperatures have been removed.”
“That’s impossible,” replied Rada shaking his head “The chronometer has been confirmed via time beacon and every second is accounted for.”
“That is impossible,” replied Salvek as he checked the ship’s chronometer “I remember those extra seconds passing.”
Rada knew that you could trust a Vulcan’s recollection of the passing of time more than you could trust most clocks but he did notice even Salvek questioned himself enough to glance down to his wrist to make sure that the correct time to his mind was displayed. It seemed it was.
Zander’s voice cut in [Blakeslee to Salvek. I’ve contacted the Sera and they haven’t experienced anything like this. I’ve warned them to be on the lookout.]
“Understood,” replied Salvek.
“I’ve checked the timestamp of the Serendipity’s transmission,” announced Rada. “It matches what I have here.”
Kellyn put her wrist next to Salvek’s and confirmed that their chronometers matched. “That ten seconds passed for both of us,” she frowned, deep in thought, “and it looks like it also did for the transwarp drive but not for anyone or anything else.”
“The two of you were in close proximity to the drive during the chronotron particle build up,” Rada said not believing what he was suggesting. “They have unpredictable consequences by their very nature, somehow when were all stuck in a loop they must have protected you.”
“No,” Salvek shook his head as he subtly placed a hand on Kellyn’s shoulder; remembering what taken place the last time something like this happened. “The simplest explanation is most probably the correct one. Either a time beacon, a starship and most of the Alchemy skipped a moment over a distance of several light-years or…” he made sure that he had a solid grip on his wife. “Myself, my wife and it would appear the transwarp drive relived it. We traveled backwards in time.”
Lair Kellyn's mind flashed instantly back to another experiment, in another location...
-=Stardate:20308.1130=-
-=Main Science Lab, Deep Space 23=-
(Seven years ago)
-=Main Science Lab, Deep Space 23=-
(Seven years ago)
"We have much to talk about, Kellyn. But not now. Right now, I need for you to tell us exactly what you experienced." Temporal Investigations agent Zanh Liis demanded, having just arrived on the scene.
"I don't know how to." Kellyn responded. "I was just testing the engine power, like all the other experiments. Eleven minutes passed when you were out of the room, yet you're telling me that you never left. One of these statements must be false. Unless of course, the space time continuum was interrupted in some way by the burst of energy that the engine expended." Her voice was thick with sarcasm.
She waited for a reply. No one spoke.
"Hello? I just made a perfectly funny joke. Liis, I at least expected to get a laugh out of you."
"Yeah, well that's the thing. The field created by the engine did disrupt the time line. For an virtually imperceptible instant from where Salvek was standing, for eleven minutes from your perspective."
Kellyn's expression changed six times in the next several seconds, as she went from shock to stunned acceptance of what she had just been told.
"Congratulations, Lair Kellyn! You just traveled through a rift in the timeline! What are you going to do next?" Liis asked.
Instead of giving the standard response, which was for the person asked to state that they were going on vacation at a large, well-known resort, she did something neither Salvek or Liis expected.
She passed out cold.
-=End Flashback=-
No one fainted this time, but Rada did go very weak at the knees.
He plunked down onto a seat, his face turned from expressionless, to confused, to expressionless, to near crying, to expressionless to finally settling on mindlessly blissful. All those years at the Academy and every day since spent trying to work out why he could never understand the equations of temporal mechanics and now he knew; they were all wrong. All he could do was laugh.
---------------------------
Lt. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Alchemy NX 53099
and
Commander Salvek
Executive Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
and a tiny bit near the end from
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
NRPG: Congratulations to Rada and Salvek...I can't think of a more perfect five hundredth post for us here at ST: Alchemy.
Thank you to every writer for every post that has made up our amazing journey so far, but especially to Salvek and to my enduring, brilliant, and loyally steadfast core crew; D, M, T, and J. You guys are Sera's heart and soul.
I just can't wait to see where we go from here. ~ZL
Lt. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineer
USS Alchemy NX 53099
and
Commander Salvek
Executive Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
and a tiny bit near the end from
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
NRPG: Congratulations to Rada and Salvek...I can't think of a more perfect five hundredth post for us here at ST: Alchemy.
Thank you to every writer for every post that has made up our amazing journey so far, but especially to Salvek and to my enduring, brilliant, and loyally steadfast core crew; D, M, T, and J. You guys are Sera's heart and soul.
I just can't wait to see where we go from here. ~ZL