By Lara Valera Ryn and Ashton Ledbetter
100321.2330
After Risks and Consequences
-=Brig of USS Poseidon=-
100321.2330
After Risks and Consequences
-=Brig of USS Poseidon=-
Ashton reached out and tapped at the forcefield, then he spun and glared at both Jamie Halliday and Lara Valera Ryn. “I’m flabbergasted! We were supposed to beam over and assist them, not be put in this cell!”
“Maybe they just wanted to welcome us in person, and they needed a place to hold us until this Tucker Brody got here.” Jamie offered optimistically.
“Or maybe they just wanted a confined space to make us easy targets when they kill us.” Ryn added.
“You there!” Ashton shouted at the guard. “I demand you lower this forcefield! I outrank you, you know! Where is Tucker Brody? I’m peckish, do you have a spot of watercress about? I fancy a sandwich.”
“No,” the guard replied.
“No? No to which part?” Ledbetter demanded.
“All of it.”
Ashton harrumphed and turned back to his companions. At the same moment, Tucker Brody entered the brig.
“Welcome aboard. I apologize for the forcefield but I wanted to greet you in person and needed a place to hold you until I got down here.” He tilted his head in a very gentlemanly fashion. Both Ashton and Lara turned and looked towards Halliday.
“See, I told you,” Jamie said.
“Mister Ledbetter has offered us his services in restoring the jump drive on this ship. You will both be helping him. The Captain’s offer of help came in exchange for the lives of your crewmates being spared, so please do keep that in mind. We should get to Engineering so you can get to work. If y’all will follow me.
Brody waved at his guard, who fell into step several meters behind the quartet as they left the brig.
"I don't know about you," Lara whispered to Jamie, who happened to be next to her and behind Ashton and Brody, "but I feel like a rat being led through a maze."
Despite the dire situation they were in, Jamie controlled himself from chuckling softly. "Except I doubt there is going to be a wedge of cheddar waiting for us at the end."
"More likely the business end of a phaser."
As they turned down a corridor, it was Brody, who had up until to then been chatting politely, although not amicably with Ledbetter, who replied. "Do you really think our intent so malicious?"
"You are holding numerous captives," Ledbetter stated, his voice tight, "and we are working under duress."
"No, actually, I don't," Lara interjected.
All three men, four if the now mute guard was counted, shot Lara looks, but it was Brody who stated, "I'm glad to see that someone here can be reasonable and understand the ramifications."
"I'm hardly being reasonable, just practical.” Ryn said. “By our moral standards, you are vain and corrupt, and from the perspective of our morality, there is no way we can understand the necessity of this use this violence to meet your ends. But from your point of view, your actions are a natural conclusion of your own standards."
“Would you presume to debate the merits of morality and ethics with me?” Brody asked with a slight grin on his face. He could tell where she was going with this already, attempting to plant seeds of doubt in his head. No doubt she wanted the guard with the phaser at the rear to think twice about Brody as well.
“Sure, why not now?” Lara prodded. “You seem to be an intelligent man who can think on his feet. Why not convince us right here and now that what you are doing is moral?”
Brody let out a deep chuckle, as he slowed to a stop outside main engineering. “Sorry Lieutenant, but that’s all the time we have for today. But if you want to make an appointment, we can discuss it in session." He appreciated her tenacity, but he was not going to play her game. He had far more pressing matters to attend to and time, as it always seemed to be in this profession, was short. “Um, would you all mind turning around please?” He asked.
Tucker nodded towards the security pad and waited till everyone, including his own guard, was facing in the other direction. He didn’t even raise his hands lest anyone see him reaching towards a particular number. Once satisfied they could not see, he blocked the panel with his body anyway, and tapped in the code. The door unlocked and hissed open.
Ashton’s eyes widened as he looked into Engineering. “You’ve been making some modifications.” He observed. There were wires dangling from the ceiling, out of panels, even some up through the floor. Access panels were removed and leaning against any available surface, and the ship’s temporal core was humming away at a rather uncomfortable rate for a ship that was neither time traveling nor at warp.
“Modifications that your friends I have imprisoned sincerely hope you can complete.” Brody walked down the short flight of stairs to the floor of the engineering compartment. “Dexter!” He shouted.
One of the engineers popped up from behind a console and raised a visor he had been using to shield his eyes. He looked at the Serendipity crew members, then approached Brody, keeping his voice low enough that only Tucker could hear him.
“We don’t need them.”
“Then I assume the jump drive repairs are complete?” Brody inquired. Dexter Powell was silent. “I see… in that case, I believe more help could not possibly hurt our endeavor.” Brody lowered his voice down all the way to a whisper. “Keep an eye on them, but not too close. Give them just enough rope to hang themselves with if they intend to betray us. The short one has experience with TI,” he inclined his head towards Ashton.
He slapped Powell on the shoulder, and turned back to Ryn, Halliday and Ledbetter. “Mister Powell is in charge. Replicator use is strictly with his authorization only. I’ll give you access to the computer but remember, we’ll be watching. I’m needed elsewhere, if you’ll excuse me.”
Ledbetter strolled up to Powell. “So, what seems to be the trouble?”
“Drive’s broken.”
“Well then, let’s have a look.” Ashton said, before sniffing at the air near Powell. “And perhaps a shower as well.” He indicated that Lara and Jamie should follow him to the temporal core. Powell stepped off, keeping an eye on them, but not too close, as Brody had instructed.
“You’re familiar with this?” Jamie asked.
“Well as shocking as it may be, TI’s Captains didn’t keep me around all these years for my company. Each of these drives has a hyperspace relativity transposer. Essentially it removes this vessel from what we know as the visible universe and as a consequence the laws of physics go out the window with it. Their HRT is…” Ashton’s voice trailed off.
“Is what?” Lara asked.
“Is… I’m not sure what it is. I cannot even tell if it is working properly. I’ve never seen a configuration like this!”
“If it was working, we wouldn’t be here.” Halliday noted.
“Lieutenant Ryn,” Ashton began, “The HRT requires enormous amounts of energy to be initiated, and so uses antimatter like a conventional warp drive. If you could please, search the diagnostic and sensor logs for anything you think may be hindering the reaction. Defective part, subspace field, anything.”
"I'd be more than happy to." Lara turned around in the room; there was nothing standard about this baby. "But where do I begin?" She gave their friendly engineer Powell and glance and batted her eyes in an I'm trying to be cutesy manner.
He didn't budge.
"Well?" Lara asked.
Powell looked back and forth between Lara on one hand and Ashton and Jamie on the other, unsure if he could divide his attention and feeling his annoyance with Tucker Brody rising.
It was Ashton who spoke next. "Look, I'm good. No, strike that, I'm great around a ship." Then he pointed to the modified console. "But even I can't fix, or sabotage this vessel in the less than 30 seconds it is going to take you to show her the right console over there." He pointed to a series of three linked consoles on the other side of the room.
Powell sighed, and it was enough to indicate to Ashton that he was conceding defeat. "This way," he said to Lara, and lo and behold, took her toward the console that Ashton had pointed to.
As soon as he started to escort her, Ledbetter turned to Halliday. "So, here's what we're going to do."
Powell immediately stopped, turned back, and shot Ashton a dark look.
"We're planning repairs," Ashton stated without looking toward the engineer. "Nothing more, nothing less."
"For now," Powell snapped back.
Ashton shook his head in annoyance and frustration. "For now." He paused, and then added, "There, does it make you feel better if I admit to something I have not even thought of yet?"
What would make me feel better, would be for you to not be here and my responsibility. Powell thought. He gritted his teeth and rubbed the stubble on his chin, the result of having been recalled to the Poseidon before he could shave. He pointed, and grunted, towards the panels Lara was to use, then shouted at the rest of the staff in engineering, who were all staring at the newcomers.
“Back to work!” Powell lowered his shield back down, and pulled a laser welder from his pocket. The shield afforded him the luxury of keeping a watch on the Sera crew while they had no idea whether his eyes were on them or his work.
“This is where the power is diverted into the matrix.” Ashton said, pointing to a location on an intricate schematic. “The HRT acts as a sort of lightning rod for energy, and focuses it onto an infinitesimally small point in space time. It creates a fracture and bolsters it by simulating the effects of negative matter.”
“Creating a gateway in space time for the ship to pass through. How exactly would you simulate such a powerful negative matter without its anti-gravitational effects pulling the ship apart at the seams?”
Ledbetter drew back from the console and narrowed his eyebrows. “How would you know enough to even pose such a question? Negative matter is still only on the drawing boards of theoretic physics. They don’t even bother discussing in at Starfleet Academy.”
“I love reading.” Jamie grinned. “And should you even be discussing this with me? Can’t what happens here disrupt the future?”
“Or fulfill it. If I answered your previous question it would create a paradox that would quite possibly destroy the universe, but I’m not going to do that, so don’t worry. Just be a dear and don’t read the panel two stations over because that will indeed trigger a paradox.”
Jamie looked over his shoulder nervously, and then quickly shut his eyes before he saw anything.
“Now,” Ledbetter continued, “Tell me what you see here?”
“Well, I see an energy signature consistent with a matter anti-matter reaction. It appears to be directed towards your hyperspace device, but that’s all. The energy isn’t going anywhere.”
“We’ve been tearing this place apart to figure out where it’s going!” Powell shouted from behind his mask.
“So where is it going?” Halliday said to Ashton.
“Well hopefully there is no planet directly in line with whatever universe that energy is flowing to, but the answer is, I really don’t know. This configuration is beyond my understanding, and that is saying something.”
“Well you best figure it out, because Brody doesn’t like to hear I don’t knows.” Powell warned.
“I bet he doesn’t,” Lara mumbled under her breath.
*************
Lt. Lara Valera Ryn
Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
&
Ashton Ledbetter
Temporal Investigations Observer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Lt. Lara Valera Ryn
Science Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
&
Ashton Ledbetter
Temporal Investigations Observer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012