ljsim, posts by tag: interphase - LiveJournal

Even if he wore the rank of Admiral now, at least he still had a ship; his own ship. The Enterprise. It took some getting used to, to be sure, but he had turned Wolf 359 from a massacre into their first real victory against the Borg. They were stopped there, and hopefully they would never be seen from again.

But the President, Starfleet, and assorted dignitaries wanted to know "what if they do return?" It said something about the enlightened times that they lived in that the response wasn't "More guns, more ships, more bombs". To invest all that against a day that might never come couldn't be run past the public without an agitating fear monger.

One might have arisen, but Captain James R. Kirk stepped up first. "The Borg are the worst possible conclusion of technology," he had told the Federation Council, recently back from his victory. "We could arm ourselves against their eventual return, but at what cost? To live in a perpetual state of fear is insanity. The best defense against this threat, and the next one, is to spread the ideals of the Federation as far and as wide as we can. To stick to our mission- new life, new civilizations. To do that, to hold to our ideals and to spread them will create a Federation so strong that no outside force could destroy it."

Almost as if to prove his point, it was only an hour after his speech that the Romulan ambassador arrived before the Council. The Empire was as devastated as the Federation- perhaps more so. The Klingons were looking at them with a lean and hungry glare, and for the first time since the Romulan War, they were willing to talk.

Kirk and the Romulan Commander that escorted the Ambassador developed an uneasy friendship, the kinship of two ship's masters- the only sort of people that really know the pressures that they're under. He reminded Kirk of another man he had never met, but once faced, near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Really, this diplomacy resembled that cat-and-mouse game. Things moved in the shadows.

It was too soon to talk peace, but with the eloquent words of Sarek, and testimony from the katra of his son, Spock, a compromise was met, guided, in part, by what Kirk himself had experienced within the rift. A first olive branch that could open up new territory and perhaps soften the relations between the Federation and the Empire.

And so, it was on Stardate 5928.5, that Kirk found himself on the bridge of the Enterprise escorting a newly commissioned ship, the carefully secured USS Magellan that carried aboard it two crews- one Federation and one Romulan.

He had met both crews, the hard-headed Captain Shelby that swore up and down that 'Fleet was in her blood. Her father was a captain, her children, and her children's children would end up there too. The smooth and intelligent Commander Septimus who liked fine Terran wines and to discuss military history. It almost brought tears to his eyes to see that young crew heading off into the unknown.

"Captain, over the past few months, I have learned that my son's estimation of your capacity for logic was somewhat... pessimistic."

Kirk grinned, throwing off the raw emotion in favor of easy jest. "What did he say?"

Sarek raised an eyebrow. "Simply that you were 'all too human'."

"Thank you Ambassador, but I hope you don't mind if I take that as a compliment. And I mean it in that spirit when I say the same of Spock."

(( Feel free to keep wrapping up other stuff in the previous thread- I just figured this was best bumped into its own post for lack of a better place! ))

After debriefings and a few pitched celebrations- none nearly as dramatic this time around- the Magellan was back on course toward the Beta Quadrant, and her officers went their separate ways. Feraan simply returned to quarters. Vydok requested a meeting with Xal. Goren arrived at Burhans' quarters at the perscribed time, wearing slightly old-fashioned but nonetheless smart civilian attire of Romulan origin and brandishing a bottle of ale.

And Mayat waited in his quarters for Nazeh, who said she'd be there in five minutes twenty minutes ago. He was starting to get a little concerned, especially when it edged closer to thirty, but his door eventually did chime.

When the door opened, his concern only intensified. Nazeh looked very distracted. "Hey- everything all right?" he asked as he steered her in.

"Oh- yeah, fine," she replied, giving him a reassuring smile along with the customary hug and kiss. "Sorry it took me so long. I... kinda ran into somebody I wasn't expecting."

"Who?"

She dropped onto his bed and dug out Alef, keeping her eyes focused on his display. This was usually how she avoided topics of discussion she found too difficult, but Mayat wasn't having it this time. He was about to question her again when she suddenly looked up and handed Alef to him. Apparently, she hadn't been avoiding the answer, but instead, had been calling it up for him.

He glanced over the files she'd accessed, then sat down beside her. "He's on-board?"

"Yeah- but neither of us knows, okay?"

"Knows what?" Mayat replied jokingly. "But, why'd he risk blowing his cover to talk to you?"

"I don't know for sure." She shrugged, her usual mischievous grin appearing. "But I get the feeling he likes me. You gonna do something about that?"

"Why should I?" he asked, reclining on the bed. "I'm not insecure. Besides, I seem to remember you really liking that collaborative bit we pulled in Science."

Her grin deepened as she maneuvered closer to him. "Damn right I did."

To avoid attenuation, the tractor beam had to be used at practically point-blank range. The advantage of this was that they were using it against the corner of the cube that they were firing on. The corner was too damaged to return fire, and most of the other weapons on the cube couldn't get at the Magellan.

As if to help the Magellan, the cube began to fall back, so that it could get a line of fire, which brought one edge of it in contact with the node. That edge of the cube began to crumble, but the Borg adapted, increasing their internal gravity to maximize their grip on space.

In Science, Trent went straight through the Engineering computer, letting the machine grant permission for this plan, and hit the warp drive with his program. Space bent around the Magellan, and invisibly, shards of space began to be torn free from the cube, adding to the Magellan's stability.

Taking advantage of this, the Defiant slid into position with the Magellan, hammering away at the same corner, using its own tractor beam to augment the force. Even as the Borg adapted to the weapons, the damage they were taking from the combination of phasers, torpedoes, and eroding space were taking it's toll.

"Almost there," Trent cried in Science.

The cube vanished, and in its place lay a star field; points of light twinkled in the darkness, exhibiting a strange double vision as the light from two Universes was merging and interacting in the rift.

"Sir, we're being hailed by the Defiant," said the communications officer.

The Magellan didn't carry that impressive a weapons array, although it made that aboard the elder Defiant look like a lit match by comparison. This Borg cube from an alternate Universe hadn't seen weapons like that before- which meant it hadn't adapted.

All told, the damage wasn't anything to speak of, even if the light show was impressive. The Magellan darted in for an attack, while the Defiant hammered away from the other side. Bits of Borg hull exploded off into space, only to be repaired a few moments later. There was no central nexus on the Borg cube, no vulnerable spot. Everything was decentralized.

The Borg cube returned fire, and this time, it had a new objective.

Blasting through computer lock-outs and overrides, the message began repeating itself aboard the Magellan. "We are the Borg. We will add your cultural and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated." On a loop, it began hammering at them, another weapon in the arsenal of the Borg.

"NAGI," Kirk called from another Captain's command chair, "bring her about to 067, and release the antimatter spread. Remember, our goal is to hold that thing in position."

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Magellan, helm played a delicate game with tactical, skipping through the spatial turbulence that Dekospos fed it, finding paths of space through which to fire. Tactical needed to be tied in directly, firing with split-second precision.

At least Mayat had a big target.

For the crew of the Magellan, the Borg greeting was typical though it did not fail to send shivers down spines. They were facing the Federation's greatest and most dangerous enemy, and enemy they had thought they would probably never need face again. Borg attacks had grown less and less frequent since USS-Voyager had returned from the Delta Quadrent, after Captain Picard had foiled their last attempt to take over Earth. However the crew of the Magellan was trained and true and each member manned his or her station bravely.

Ensign Nagi Dekospos, armed with the programming code she had been "born" to and an engineer's kit waited in Transporter Room 2 for Captain Kirk.

Security posted themselves throughout the ship just in case the Borg had managed to beam aboard.

Lt. Rahimi, Trent and Mary Beth worked feverishly to determine the exact location the cube needed to be led to.

Dr. Burhans and Dr. Goren readied sickbay for causulties, grimly aware that things could get very busy very soon.

Alja stormed her way onto the bridge and ordered Lt. Shelby off the bridge, back to sickbay to assist the medical staff. She didn't have time for untrained soldiers on her bridge, and she didn't want to have to deal with a situation later on.

"Lt. Mceabein, if you would be so kind as to keep engineering together," she said softly as she took her seat.

Leaning forward slightly, she looked up to Hiran, her hands resting lightly on the arms of her chair.

"We've got to buy time for the Defiant and for science to extrapolate where exactly we'll need to lure the cube. They believe that if we use the cube's matter, we can bridge our way to our respective universes," she said. "Helm, I know we're not very manuverable, but making ourselves a moving target would sure keep my mind at ease." She paused, "Fenn, can we fire in this lack of space?"

Alja leaned back slightly in her chair, as if she could will science to work faster.

Nazeh's jaw dropped as she reviewed Trent's revolutionary discovery. Her eyes lit up with excitement. "Trent, bahali! We get enough mass together, and we can build our conduits home," she said rapidly, pointing at Vydok.

Her excitement at that thought, however, waned. "But there isn't possibly enough matter between us and the Defiant to do it, not even if we converted every spare atom. We'd need a lot more... but you can't just create matter, and if we could pull matter in here, we'd also be able to go back toward where the matter is and this'd all be moot."

Nazeh sighed, her shoulders slumping. "All we can do is hope more matter shows up here before the space around us is gone."

"It just might, too," Mayat said nervously under his breath.

"What?"

"Uh..." He faltered, glancing at Kirk. "It's probably best discussed in your office."

Moments later, Nazeh had assembled Mayat, Vydok, Hiran, Kirk, Trent, and Mary Beth in private to hear about Kirk's unfortunate experience.

"So, it's possible that the Borg may follow Kirk's ship here," Vydok summarized, remaining collected despite the sense of dread hanging in the atmosphere. "I would need to run some calculations to be certain, but I imagine that even one cube would be more than enough matter to create a sufficient conduit. The true problem is how to convert the ship into space-time."

Nazeh nodded. "If it arrives, it'll be enveloped in space like we are. Once that bleeds off and the cube is exposed, it becomes space. But a ship that big will have a lot of space around it to bleed off- a lot more than we do. No way we'd outlast them, much less outgun them."

The group fell into a tense silence for a few moments.

"Wait." Mayat straightened and looked at Nazeh. "Can you pull up a model of the 4D vectors you've mapped out so far?"

"Yeah." Nazeh tapped at the console mounted to the desk they were gathered around. "It'll be approximated in 3D obviously, but at least we can see it."

Even in a three-dimensional holographic display, it wasn't the easiest diagram to follow, but it made enough sense. The Magellan and Defiant were pictured within their respective space shields, and all around them were vectors pointing every which way- all time vectors to other universes. The calculations were still ongoing, so new vectors appeared and disappeared occasionally. Nazeh was rather proud of the speed of the calculations, and had her recent disciplinary research with Trent to thank for that. Commander Dekospos couldn't have known that the punishment he'd dealt then might prove to be their salvation now, but it was damned uncanny nonetheless.

Mayat leaned in toward the model, studying it for a few moments, then clapped his hands together energetically. "Okay. I know you're not totally done modeling this yet, but so far, we can see these vectors aren't evenly distributed. You've got some volumes of sparse intersection-" he pointed to Magellan, thankfully occupying such a volume "-and others where a lot of vectors cross through. We assume space is bleeding off along each vector it comes in contact with. So, the more vectors you happen to bisect, the faster you're going to lose the space around you.

His voice increased in volume; he was on a roll here. "So, if one or more Borg vessels show up here-"

"We just lure them into one of the high-density vector points so their space bleeds off faster than ours. Then we've got enough space for our ride home," Nazeh finished rapidly, equally excited. "We don't have a lot of maneuverability, but it could work! Khayli khoob ast, Mayat-joon-am! I could kiss you!" And she would, later.

Her euphoria evened out, however, when she realized what all this entailed.

"Never thought I'd ever hope for the Borg to show up," she murmured.

If they didn't, they were as good as stuck.

With Captain Lyons debriefing Captain Kirk, the good doctor busied herself as she subtly overheard the conversation, quite on purpose. It wasn't that she was wary of Kirk, she just wanted to make sure there was no cause to be wary of him. Lyons was a trusting woman, and that didn't always bode well with Burhans. Especially not with the unknown. Who knew what boogie monsters lie in wait? Of course, she knew of a great many of them, but there were some things even she wasn't an expert on.

She approached Doctor Goren and beckoned to her office. Once inside, her eyes narrowed slightly as she recapped exactly what the two captains had been discussing. The Borg were on her list of well-known boogie men. They didn't frighten her, but she knew this crew wasn't prepared for them, especially if they would need to pass through interphase again.

"I've developed a cure-all for the interphasic space, using a mixture of marajuana and some chemicals the body naturally makes to make one happy. When needed, I've substituted other compounds," she explained. "If we exit this void, chances are we'll be passing through similar interphasic space. We're going to need to mass-produce the vaccination."

She smiled to Goren, "Heard there was some excitement in the transporter room."

Captain James R Kirk shook his head. "Life support cut out three hours ago; without the main drives, there's no power to run anything, and without an Engineering staff, there isn't much I can do about that. I've been drifting in and out of consiousness. A beam out would be greatly appreciated- then we can talk about why you're in strange uniforms, and why the only Magellan I knew of was destroyed by those damned aliens two days ago. I'll be bringing a phaser, and I think you'll understand that I intend to keep it until we straighten things out."

Dekospos tapped his comm badge, and barked some orders to the transporter room, after Lyons gave him the OK. They couldn't directly beam Kirk over; the scanners couldn't detect any life signs, but based on the input from other scanners, the schematics of the Constitution class vessel, they could estimate the volume of space he occupied. They targetted that, relying on the annular confinement beam to correct any small errors in calculation.

At that instant, a beam of carefully constructed energy shot from the Magellan, cutting across several layers of strangely folded space. It gathered up the matter within that volume of space, and began pulling it back, qubit by qubit, filling a buffer.

When one places a metal rod between an area of high temperature and an area of low temperature, the energy conducts until both areas are equalized. The transporter beam served that same purpose, and the convoluted patch of space time they were in evened out, ripping the Magellan and the Defiant from the patch of space they were in, the momentum of that change pulling them solidly through the rift, into a patch of flat black nothingness.

Throughout Engineering, alarms blared. Some announced the sudden change in local physics that caused a small, but frightening, hiccup in the warp core, but most were announcing two conflicting errors- a massive increase in pressure on the hull, creating a danger of buckling, as well as a massive negative pressure on the hull, which could eventually rip the ship apart.

In the transporter room, a mixed medical team of Romulans and Federation was standing by. They were knocked from their feet when the shift occurred; they landed in a heap along with the transporter chief. He pulled himself back to his feet, smacking the final sequence on the controls just in time to reassemble the fabled Captain in the buffer, and a moment later, the lights returned.

His eyes fixed on the Romulans, and his phaser appeared. The uniforms they wore enough resembled what he was used to that he could recognize them. His phaser was out in an instant. "I should have known this was a ploy! Those alien ships passed through the neutral zone! You green blooded bastards sicced them on us to save your own skin!"

The communications officer looked up from the auxiliary station at the port fore area of the bridge. Her hand went to her earpiece, and with some shock, she announced. "Sir, we're being hailed. By the Defiant."

Both Mayat and Feraan could agree that sitting around waiting for further news of this interphasic rift was both unproductive and bothersome, and so they set about being proactive. A small contingent was assigned to patrol each deck, making themselves as unobtrusive as possible, just to be certain that any violent interphasic effects didn't get too out of hand.

The two chiefs had disagreed, however, on whether their people should be armed. After some debate, they'd reached a workable compromise: all would have phasers, type one, set to the lowest possible stun, and would conceal them on their person. They were only to be used in the most dire circumstances, and- as Feraan made blisteringly clear- if one of those weapons were to fall into the hands of an affected crewman, there would be consequences.

There had also been slight disagreement about what to do with an apprehended crewman. Mayat had thought this was a no-brainer: transport them to Sickbay.

"And what happens when Sickbay is overrun by the insane?" Feraan posed.

"It's already run by the insane," he dismissed with a shrug. "But yeah, that could be a problem. Do you really think the brig's the next best place, though?"

"The whole idea is to contain them until the doctors can treat them, and make certain that no one else is harmed." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I thought that was the very definition of Federation criminal detainment centers."

"Well, I guess... all right, we'll check with the doctors to ask what they want us to do with a patient."

"Hopefully," a new voice entered the conversation, "nothing we can't repair."

Feraan and Mayat turned around to find Dr. Goren entering Security. "Anything specific you'd like us to do to help?" the latter asked.

"Actually, I was wondering if you had anyone to spare. I'm making my own sweep of the vessel, to see if anyone requires help that isn't able to express as much. I don't need company per se, but I certainly wouldn't object to extra eyes and ears.

"Mouths, on the other hand-" Goren eyed Feraan devilishly "-are optional."

Mayat nodded and found himself a phaser. "I'll go with you. Do you want to head up to the bridge?" he asked Feraan. "Science has been re-manned, I don't see why Tactical shouldn't be. You can monitor everything that's going on better from there anyway."

Feraan nodded, and as Goren and Mayat took their leave, she commed the bridge, notifying them of the steps Security had taken thus far and requesting permission to man the Tactical station.