A stitch in Time Pt I

Posted on Wed Sep 7th, 2011 @ 9:31am by Lieutenant Jasad Broca & Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Bridge
Timeline: Some time after Bridging Ambition

"I relieve you," he said to Lieutenant Marion.

"I stand relieved," she replied, and stood off from the station.

That was the ceremony which ushered in Jasad Broca as the new head of the Operations department. It might as well have included the musical salute of a military band. He was just as pleased as if it had. He held a PADD in his left hand with some notes he had made about how best to tackle his unofficial assignment.

Sitting at the station, he thumbed the console's voice control option. Speaking softly, he ordered, "Computer, display standard internal diagnostics for this time index," he commanded the PADD to transfer the timestamps he was interested in, "continuous readout, 1 second intervals."

The computer beeped, and a visual display of various ship systems appeared on his console. Color highlights designated different functions and data returns. He watched the display carefully, and began making additional notes on his PADD as the display progressed. "Once more," he said, "but now only systems whose activity fell outside of statistical norms. Label activity blue for periods of subnormal activity, green for normal, and red for periods exceeding normal."

The display ran through a second time, and Jasad peered critically at it. "Now isolate these systems," he reached out to tap particular EPS conduit lines and other systems. "Source the anomalies in these areas."

The computer beeped again. Momentarily, trace data began to scroll. He shook his head, "Computer, this makes little sense. How can the anomalies source from within closed systems that are functioning according to specifications?"

"Unknown."

"Is there any other evidence of crossleak, intermittent failure, or rupture in these systems other than those caused by the anomalies themselves?"

"Negative."

He sighed. "Computer, give me a new window, and display external sensor data concurrent with internal anomalies during the designated time indexes."

The computer beeped, and soon the data was displaying in a new window. When the lateral sensors showed an external particle burst, the internal anomalies blossomed in sync. It was fascinating to watch. "Computer, given the correlation of external particle bursts to internal anomalies, what is the likelihood of induction?"

"Theories on Chroniton Induction do not exist in sufficient detail to extrapolate probabilities. However, the presence of induction would explain all anomalous behavior."

Jasad nodded, "That is good enough for me. Unfortunately... I have no idea what to do about it."

He tapped his badge, "Lieutenant Broca to Commander Aix. I request a consult at your convenience, Sir." Only after he finished his hail did he remember that he was on the bridge, and the Commander was on duty just a few feet away.

Amused by the antics of the new Chief Operations Officer, Aral Aix tapped his own COMM badge. "Aix to Broca." When the line opened he began. "I'm presently on the bridge, would you like to meet here or in astrometrics?" As the cardassian span around in his chair the trill's eyes were alive with playful mischief. "Congratulations on the promotion."

Jasad's face somehow managed to combine a frown with a smirk. "Thank you, Sir. If you have a moment, I'd like to show you what I've been working on and get your opinion."

Swiveling to face his console again, Jasad began gesturing to illustrate what he was saying. "The Commodore asked me to prepare the ship for a transit through the gateway. Such transits are routine, of course. The protocols are here in the system. We send out a modulated chroniton particle burst, the singularity opens, and we transition without incident. In fact, we're ready to go."

He brought a set of diagnostic reports to the fore, "However, the mention of chronitons reminded me of the time-portal that brought us here. You may remember that when we arrived, the ship's systems were the worse for wear. EPS conduits leaked everywhere, consoles overloaded. It took us a whole day to repair the worst of it. This got me to thinking about the fact that we will hopefully eventually return to our own era. And when we do, the Commodore will probably not want the ship falling to pieces a second time."

"So I've been studying our initial arrival here, and noticed that the EPS overloads and ruptures coincided with massive intensity chroniton particle bursts generated by the Guardian gateway. My theory is that the external chroniton emissions were so powerful that they induced small chroniton vortices within our EPS systems. These vortices sped up or slowed down plasma movement, creating deficiencies in some areas, and overloads in others. Miniature temporal anomalies inside our ship's circulatory system. It's even possible that with our higher capacity Borg conduits, the deleterious effects will be magnified."

He swiveled back to look at the Commander. "So at some point before the Guardian Gateway summons us back to our own time, I'd like to do something about this. I thought perhaps a kind of chroniton sponge or chroniton shielding mechanism that we could disseminate across our power grid. The problem is, this is all very deep into theory, and I am a more practical laborer. I have no idea how to build such devices, or upon what scientific principles they might be expected to operate. No one has ever had this kind of trouble before, and the computer can't even summon up enough established research to confirm the problem."

"But if you can help me to figure out the principles of such a device- something we could install to protect our plasma lines from these induced chroniton vortices... well, then when we return to our own time, it will be a ride as smooth as a trip through the Iconian gateway. I wager such preparations might impress even the Commodore. We could share credit for the achievement. And we may even be published in scientific journals for creating a solution to problems that no one else has even imagined before. At the very least, Temporal Investigations will be interested in the technology."

"So, what do you say," Jasad asked, "Can you help me figure this out? When we're not consumed with other duties, of course."

"I'd love to." Aral replied having listened to the cardassian's request very carefully. "However I believe I'm less than credible in the wider scientific community these days." The prospect of temporal currents in the EPS flows was not only a scientific discovery and significant engineering problem, but it was also one of the innumerable barriers to the development of effective time travel technology. Until Broca's enquiry Aix had believed the ship wide technical faults and exploding consoles and bulkheads was the natural consequence of virtually any encounter with a quasi omnipotent non-linear entity. Indeed, having heard of the Commodore's exchange with the entity he considered a few ruptured EPS conduits and a few small burns was quite a light penance.

"Perhaps they'll think differently of you," Jasad suggested, "once we have solved this riddle."

(Continued briefly in Part II)