~\\_
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`\\\\\ -----------------------------------------
|\\\\\ Starfleet Command, Eighth Fleet (OOC)
\\\\\|__.-~~\
_--~ ~~/ Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone"
/~ _-~~~' Embarked on U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
('-//////-// Rear Admiral Tebrun Lora Kor, Commanding
////// }}-) -----------------------------------------
/////~ Simulation Teaser
_///~ Stardate 240305.12
`
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/ Simulation Teaser |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
Ten kilometers was a ridiculously short distance.
Jeremy Ironside kept repeating this to himself as he concentrated on
putting one foot in front of the other. Ten kilometers. He could
have jogged it in boots with a full combat pack in less than an
hour. He could jog it without a pack in 35 minutes. Ten
kilometers. Ten kilometers was nothing. Only ten kilometers.
When Rear Admiral Lora Kor had announced that ten kilometers was as
close to the probability cluster as he could safely put Kelaka down,
Ironside had almost laughed. Lora Kor's voice had been so serious
about that ten kilometers when he said the group would have to hike
it. Ten kilometers was nothing.
The first five steps had been the hardest. The Expedition One team
had made the hike infinitely easier, at least. Several metric tons
of dirt laid down a wide, straight road covering that ten
kilometers. Kelaka sat on a circle of earth almost 80 meters in
diameter. The road -- itself four meters wide -- led off to the
"north"... by reckoning in the rest of Xanadu, that is.
Beyond that 80 meter circle... beyond the borders of the four meter
wide path leading north... there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The circle and the road hung in the middle of absolutely nothing at
all. Taking that first step had been the hardest, but stepping onto
the road itself had been nearly as hard. Seeing nothing... nothing
at all... that close. Close enough to touch. Ironside pushed that
thought away quickly; the last time he had dwelled on it, he had had
to stop walking and that had resulted in a break of more than 20
minutes as the five members of the Admiralty staff fought to again
take that first step.
Around Ironside, the rest of the Admiralty staff also did what they
could to overcome the absolute strangeness. Savant looked about,
fascinated, filling the time with talk and disappointed that the
others could not or would not discuss the possibilities with her.
Rear Admiral Lora Kor led them on toward the cluster and its
surrounding pre-fab buildings. Like Ironside, he appeared to be
concentrating on placing one foot before the other; he also forced
them to take frequent breaks. "Conditioning to the environment," he
called it.
Sieven Drexler's reaction was almost frightening... a hollow, almost
hysterical laughter bubbled out of him every few minutes. He
suppressed it, almost viciously... but a few minutes later, it would
bubble out of him again.
Before and behind them, as far as the eye could see, the road. All
of them had walked off it at least once. "Absolutely nothing" was
at least solid; you could walk on it. Nobody wanted to. Their
longest break had been caused by Drexler wandering off the road and
being overcome by hysterical laughter for more than ten minutes. It
had been another fifty minutes beyond that before they could go on.
Absolutely nothing surrounded them. It had its effect on all of
them.
The only other reference points were far above... the dual
singularit-- Ironside, looking up at them, suddenly realized that
something had changed.
There was only one singularity above him. Where had the other one
gone?
----------------
Dr. Patricia Luisa Lopez frowned at the three pages of equations she
had just finished. In the end, she had had to do them longhand, on
actual paper. Computers were no good for this kind of work. They
could assist in verifying the function of the equations, but
actually writing advanced mathematics was beyond the standard LCARS
interface. To date, no one had found a way to comfortably enter
them into a computer quickly, over and over again.
Most mathematicians and physicists did their rough work on paper,
then transferred only finished equations into the computer.
Staring down at the papers before her, Lopez's stomach churned. The
revelation by Jim Owens that she had missed something so vital about
the probability clusters had shaken her badly. As a result, she'd
gone back to her base equations to try to find the problem.
And now she had.
"Computer," she said, "display Daystrom Industry Journal, volume
118, issue 9, article Non-gravity Bent Geodesics of n-Spatial
Reference Frames: An Approach to Superspace Visualization and
Probability Clustering, author Patricia Luisa Lopez."
The article appeared and for the third time that day, Lopez scrolled
through her own paper. She'd only written it two years before...
and now it seemed primitive... almost naïve.
"It's brilliant," she said, frowning at the screen. Then she
exhaled, angry with herself. "And it's WRONG."
\_______________________________________________________________________
\ End Simulation Teaser |
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone" Staff:
Commanding, TG 85.3: RADM Tebrun Lora Kor (Jester)
S-1, Group Adjutant: Cmdr. Sieven Drexler (Brad)
S-2, Group Intelligence: Cmdr. Kariasa Ma'Aru (Kari)
S-3, Group Logistics: Cmdr. Savant (Savant)
Commanding, M64 Ground: Brig. Jeremy Ironside (Fraser)
U.S.S. Coronado Crew Roster:
Commanding Officer: Capt. William Daren (Daren)
Executive Officer: Cmdr. Velorna Tal (Aggie)
Chief of Operations: Cmdr. Olme Tlaloco (rev)
Chief Flight Operations: Lt. Maiko D'Rall (Farrell)
Command Yeoman: Spec. Miranda Forester (Fox)
Chief Tactical Officer: LCdr. Kyle Marcy (Marcy)
Raptors Squadron Leader: LCol. Thomas Wayne (Masters)
Battalion Commander: Maj. Jacob Prescot (Shadow-FjP)
Flight Leader: LMaj. Thirishar ch'Thane (Alffred)
Flight Leader: 1Lt. Natalia Petrovna (Phishie)
Chief Engineer: Cmdr. Zunite Oswald (Sonya)
Assistant Engineer: LCdr. Jack C. Farley (CCC)
Chief Science Officer: LCdr. Isamu Dyson (Isamu)
Chief Medical Officer: Cmdr. Alec Reed (McC)
Assistant Medical: LCdr. Lauren Dyson (Natty)
On Extended Leave of Absence:
Bartender: PO/1 Bridget Bordeux (Dolin)
Positions Available:
Assistant Tactical (---)
Assistant Engineer (---)
------
Jester
Rear Admiral Tebrun Lora Kor
Commanding, Defenders Task Group 85.3, "Whitestone"
embarked on U.S.S. Coronado, NCC-97901
http://www.jestertrek.com/coro2400/