The Key to Time

Posted on Fri Jan 27th, 2023 @ 9:36am by Ensign Tobias "Toby" Dienstag & Lieutenant Azrel Vox & David Meddows MD-Ph.D.

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Fool’s Errand
Location: Science Lab II
Timeline: M1 MD13 (2268.28.05) 1300

Dave was so excited about the experiments to find the 'Anchor' for the Orion 'Shield Dodger' device that he had been having difficulty concentrating upon anything else, including his vital work as Ship's Councilor. Then the answer hit him harder and faster than Mike Amato's fist - dressing up. Just like Starship Captains wore different coloured tops, Gold or Green, when they had been split into their good and evil halves, he would dress differently depending what he was working on - and concentrate only on that!

Counseling work: his usual Science Blue service uniform.

His informal Love-Think meditation sessions: a rather lovely flowery kaftan.

Lab work on the device: a natty set of blue overalls with the Federation Insane Asylums symbol of a giant hand crushing a pigeon (or was it a dove?) which he had worn when he was an intern briefly on Elba II.

Thus, he looked resplendent in the latter outfit, when the door of Lab II two swished open and he span round excitedly to see whether it was Aze or Toby arriving.

Unfortunately it was Toby who arrived first, the ensign sighed as he entered. The door closed behind him, "Lieutenant Karashka instructed me to remind you to adhere to all lab safety protocols and to return everything in servicable condition... Anything outside of regulations will be taken out on my hide," he said in a mildly annoyed voice.

Meddows nodded knowingly.

"Oh yes, I'd forgotten old droopy drawers was on this voyage. Is she your boss then? Hard luck!" he moped.

He noticed Meddows attire and asked, "So is that a souvenir from your stint on the inside?" he tried not to laugh.

"Eh?" Dave looked down at himself "Oh! No. This is from when I was on Elba II as an intern. I have been a patient in a mental facility, though." he said with nonchalant candour.

"When I came out of my coma..." Dave Meddows was one of those people who sort of assumed everybody always automatically knew his entire life story, probably a hangover from when he had actually been a 'somebody' "... I was completely uncontrollable: raving about voices in my head and thrashing about like nobody's business. Medication was no good, so they sent me to Tantalus V. Dr Adams cured me with neural neutralizer treatment." he said, matter-of-factly.

He patted one of the Science computers like a long lost pet sehlat.

"That's why I gave up doing this for a job, scientific research, and became a ship's councilor. I wanted to help people in the same way that I'd been helped by Doctor Adams." he smiled wistfully, almost sniffing back a tear of gratitude for that great, misunderstood man.

"Maybe you should have kept your old profession," Toby responded with an eye roll. Despite their first meeting when Meddows completely freaked Toby out, now Toby was quite immune to Meddows' insanity. He supposed he was used to it at this point.

"You might be right" agreed Meddows "Between you and me, this Counseling lark isn't going too well on this ship. The Captain's none too happy with me and I've even had personnel on my back." He looked at Deinstag with a frown. "It was going all right until that day I examined you - the day of the Orion attack - but I just can't remember anything about that day. The only other people I saw that day were Lt. Thraxina, and she's all right with me, and Cadet Larant. I wonder if I did something to annoy her and she's put in a complaint against me." he frowned.

The doors swished open as Azrel entered Science Lab II. "Have I missed anything? Have you started without me? " She asked.

Toby was about to explain a bit of what went so wrong that day but stopped as soon as the Trill woman entered the lab. Frankly it was a relief. "No Lieutenant, we have just arrived," he responded, "The doctor had his... Eh lab coat on."

"Fair enough. So where do you want to start?" Aze enquired, taking a seat next to the two men.

"Don't get too comfy!" warned Dave, pulling a piece of elasticated string out of his pocket. He held one end to Aze and then offered the other end to Toby. "Hold onto that and pull it tight." he instructed.

Toby grabbed the end of the string as instructed with a puzzled look on his face.

She looked at him somewhat confused but took hold of the string. "I am sure this all going to make sense shortly." She commented.

"Don't bet on it," Toby commented.

"Right" said Dave, not at all put off by their banter "You're the Orions" he pointed to Aze "... and you're the ship" he pointed to Toby. The Orions want to beam abord the ship, but they can't, because the shields are in the way.

He pantomimed this by running his forefinger along the string and barring the way with his other hand. Simple.

"Now" He looked to Toby. Where is your end of the string going to be in five seconds' time?" he asked.

"About here," Toby responded, still not following where Meddows was going.

The question was so vague that it could not be answered with any precision, but fact that Toby had moved his end of the string was enough to tell Meddows that the young wunderkind got where he was going to a certain extent.

Dave pointed to the new position.

"What if I could arrange to very suddenly just be there when the ship reached that position? I wouldn't need to go through the shields." the lunatic in the bizarre dungarees posited.

"I suppose it's theoretically possible," Toby admitted, "Although the ship I'm question would need to reduce its mass significantly to be able to achieve this."

The older man shook his head "Nah nah nah. I'm not talking ships, I'm talking a limited, controlled Interphase, which allows the device user to reappear in this Universe..." he snapped his fingers "... like that! At just the right time at just the right place."

Then he threw up his hands. Loopy Dave might be, but he wasn't so loopy as to not realise how loopy this sounded. "Don't ask me how! Technology that could do that doesn't exist. Not in this Quadrant, probably not even in this timeline." he gestured to Vox. "We tried it. Well, me and the thingy there inside the Lieutenant. Didn't get past the starting line."

He didn't stop explain this comment about their attractive, spotty workmate to Toby.

"Thingy? When a host and Symbiont are joined its a merging of both minds. So it wasn't just Vox you were working with but Torbin as well. Just like I am Vox, just Azrel Vox this time around and now I have all of the knowledge and experience from Torbin. I'm one person Doctor. " Aze replied doing her best not to get rattled.

Dave just looked at Aze open mouthed and then, once she had finished, nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I know, but I didn't have time to say all that."

"For a counselor you certainly aren't rather sensitive or tactful when dealing with people," Toby commented on the obvious. He was finally able to let out what he had been thinking for ages.

"I know, I think I'm in the wrong job." Dave admitted "But after I went completely insane myself, I was so grateful to the shrinks who brought me back from the abyss that I wanted to do the same. You know, help nut-jobs, er, I mean, those with mental health issues." He was so busy concentrating on the job at hand, he forgot to use FPA approved terminology.

"Also if we were unable to figure this out, then I doubt the Orions have," he said

"Oh, you're right there. They'll have bought something off-the-shelf from some unscrupulous merchant with contacts in other Quadrants, or even other time streams..." Meddows pondered "... that device they dropped was a 'one-shot' gimmick - built in obsolescence - typical tech-trader trick."

"Yeah... Interphase technology, hardly ever come across it. Far too dangerous." he added, but Toby remembered something.

"Although..." He stared blankly at the string, "Yes of course, I remember M... someone telling me about what happened to the Defiant earlier this year that the ship was trapped in some sort of interphase. Captain Kirk of the Enterprise was caught in it... No one knows if the Tholians were responsible or if it was something else."

Dave shuddered "Ugghh, Tholians. Only thing worse than a creepy crawly, it's a giant creepy crawly." Then he laughed and looked up at Aze "Hey, tell Toby about that time when we met a Tholian!" he frowned "Or rather, when me and Torbin met one."

"Oh yeah, went well didn't it. Not. But, then Tholian's are hardly known for being polite are they. " She turned to Toby. "Its a long but good story but suffice to say, we managed to get out that one in one piece, and we both learnt that Tholian's possess a rather impressive right hook." She said sympathetically rubbing her chin remembering the punch Torbin received.

"Oh yes, that's right!" laughed Dave "I'd legged it by then, of course. Anyway..." he returned to the topic at hand and that pieced of stretched elasticated string.

"So, let's say you've got this gizmo that can bring you out of interphase at the right place, right time. How do you know where and when that is? You don't! So you need an anchor on the target. He took Toby's hand and started to move it randomly about.

"It doesn't matter where the USS Toby's Hand is in time or space - the anchor means that the traveller always finds the target. LET GO!" he said suddenly to Aze and her end of the elastic snapped painfully against Toby's hand.

"Oooh, sorry, did that hurt?" Dave asked, somewhat redundantly.

"Just a bit, ouch," Toby responded as he flinched, dropping the string to the floor.

Dave looked pleased at Toby dropping the elastic.

"Very prescient, ensign, very prescient!" he lauded, stooping down to pick up the discarded symbol of the link between the Orion ship and their own. "If we still had the link in our hands, we could trace it all the way to the anchor. But it was lost. Or rather erased by some kind of transmission to the Midway sometime after the attack."

He turned to the woman in red.

"That's where your insight in communications technology comes in, Aze. If we can find the signal that did that, it might help us locate the anchor... and get rid of it. If this thing has interphase properties, it's a risk to the ship and all of us on board." he intoned.

Of course, this was all just a theory and Meddows was not unaware that it could sound far fetched to his two fellow seekers: but he was confident that when they started to study the data readings as he had, that they would become as convinced of it as he was.

"Oh I see, right. Do we know exactly what we are looking for in terms of frequency, amplitude and other factors?" She asked.

"No, that'd be too easy!" moped Dave. "I wouldn't worry about that too much, just search through the records of incoming signals that are in any way unusual: above and beyond the everyday inter-ship chatter, fleet signals, distress calls and what have you. I imagine it would be big strong signal, lots of data: using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, that sort of thing. Least, that's how I'd do it, to be safe."

"I will have to use my terminal on the bridge to do a full analysis of the records for incoming signals. I am sure I can get it done on my next shift. I will let you know what comes up." Aze replied.

"Yeah, nice one!" nodded Dave casually, although he did get a little frisson: Torbin had been like that, used to like to take problem away to work on "Just don't miss any important communications from Commodore Anderson" he added with an amused smile.

"Oh of course not" Aze replied. I will get this done on my next shift. " She advised.

When the Trill woman had gone, Dave was all business.

"Right, what we need to work on is how to neutralise the Interphase Anchor once Aze's work allows us to locate it..." he said and was about to launch into his ideas about how this might be achieved when he stopped himself and put in: "And, er..." he looked a little pained "... well, I know I'm not exactly your favourite person, so thanks for agreeing to work on this: even if it was an order."

There was a second's embarrassing silence and then the failed counselor piped up again "So... if we reverse the..."

 

RSS Feed