~\\_
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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 240304.21
`
_______________________________________________________________________
/ Simulation Teaser |
/ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
"Where Alph, the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to
man, down to a sunless sea."
The Third Chamber was magnificent. More than 30 kilometers in
length, the dual singularities entered the chamber only to branch
into six, as if touched by an enormous beam splitter. These
singularities then branched again, themselves touching machinery
that Patricia Luisa Lopez felt she could almost understand. Powered
by long-chain Omega molecules, the reactors supplied what must have
been a virtually limitless supply of power. Lopez had looked at one
piece of machinery and immediately gained Lt. Commander Jim Owen's
respect by identifying it as Xanadu's inertial damping system, and
after working for four minutes with a PADD, announcing that it was
probably capable of selectively damping inertia of any object
anywhere within Xanadu. Owens confirmed that so far as they had
been able to determine, this was true.
"Then why spin Xanadu to simulate gravity?" Lopez asked, as Owens
led her toward a receiving area below the machinery. "The damping
system is more than capable of gravity generation."
"Efficiency," a voice said, and Lopez looked over to see a short but
powerfully built human approach. Next to him was a taller man.
Both of them wore Starfleet uniforms, as did a much younger woman of
Asian descent. "The Jjaro preferred to be as efficient as possible
in all things," the shorter man said. "Good morning, Dr. Lopez.
I'm Rear Admiral Dev Wallace, in command of the Xanadu facility.
This is Rear Admiral Todd Marshall, and Lieutenant Commander -- and
Doctor --- Wu Chang."
Introductions were made all around. Chang turned out to be that Dr.
Wu Chang, a theoretical physicist and Zee Magnees Prize winner from
U.S.S. Odyssey. "I have been so looking forward to meeting you at
last," she said to Lopez. "Interesting that when we finally meet,
it is so far from where we began." Wu had a twinkle in her eye and
a quiet yet powerful presence. Lopez liked her immediately,
particularly since it was obvious from the start that they were both
physical, tactile people. Wu was also the Expedition Two team
leader, whatever that meant. Patricia filed that bit of data away
to ask about it later.
"I don't know if you remember," Marshall said to her after he was
introduced, "but we met at the Propulsion Dynamics conference on
Chandra IV three years ago," he said.
"I could hardly forget your presentation, Admiral," Lopez said,
smiling. "I was surprised to hear that you had left Starfleet R&D."
Marshall laughed, a bit sourly. "Well, I can't sit still for very
long," he confided. "Have to get back 'out there,'" he said, miming
quotation marks with his fingers, "as often as possible. Wasn't
counting on being 'out there' quite this long this time around,
though." He chuckled, then gave Lopez a sympathetic smile. "I'm
glad you're here, Doctor. I don't care for anything that I can't
understand and this place..." He almost shuddered, but not quite.
"This place gives me the screaming willies."
Wallace was taciturn, and clearly bothered by something, but
wouldn't specify what it was, other than to say it had nothing to do
with her or her arrival, which he was clearly pleased about. He
reconfirmed that she would be given carte blanche to research
anything she liked, but he hoped -- and there was the tiniest edge
to his voice when he said it -- that Xanadu would be high on her
list. Lopez confirmed that from what she had seen so far, she
couldn't think of any place she'd rather work and he visibly
relaxed.
Marshall excused himself -- "I've seen it before," he said, "and I
have no particular desire to see it again." -- but the others led
her further into the receiving area. After the magnificence of the
Third Chamber, the grey sameness of this area combined with the
truck were a little ridiculous. The truck sat on knobby tires and
had a four passenger cabin and a long, empty bed. More than
ridiculous, it was almost an anachronism. She squatted down to get
a closer look at the road bed the truck was sitting on, and realized
it was garden variety asphalt. Made of vegetable oils, rock, and
sand, it was little different from the road surface on a hundred
Federation colony worlds. She looked more closely at the truck,
then gave Owens a questioning glance.
"We're not sure why yet, but the Jjaro preferred wheeled vehicles,"
Owens said, then glanced at Wallace. "Efficiency again, maybe. But
we found hundreds of wheeled vehicles all over Alexandria, the city
we passed over on the way in," he said, and Lopez nodded, standing.
All four of them climbed aboard, Owens driving with Wallace seated
next to him in front, Wu and Lopez in the back. Owens got the truck
underway -- it was very quiet, at least -- and soon the receiving
area and the Third Chamber were behind them. Lopez looked over her
shoulder, lost in thought. She'd have to get back in there and
explore the Third Chamber machinery in much more detail.
Meanwhile, the truck approached a connecting tunnel and Patricia
turned forward again. On either side of the tunnel were signs,
which at first she took for Camelynian, but using human lettering.
Looking closer, she then realized she could almost make out what the
sign said -- NO VEHICLES AUTHORIZED BEYOND THIS POINT WITHOUT -- and
then something she didn't recognize, and decided that the sign must
be in Old English for some reason. The spellings of most of the
words, particularly "beyond" and "point," were certainly not the
Federation Standard spellings. Marshall, she knew, enjoyed this
sort of humor. "When have you had time to put up signs?" she asked
to make conversation. "And why would you need them? I thought you
weren't allowing anyone beyond the Second Chamber yet."
Wallace turned around, his eyebrows up, just visible as the truck's
lights came on, reflecting off the tunnel walls. "Dr. Lopez, the
signs were here when we got here," he said, glancing at Owens --
hadn't the man told her anything? "Humans built Xanadu," he said.
"The language the signs are in is their evolution of English."
Lopez gave him a dubious look. "Oh," she said. "Pull the other
one." What was this, some kind of initiation ceremony?
"I'm serious!" Wallace said. "Do you honestly think that we've had
time to hang signs, lay down asphalt roads... build this truck?" he
asked. "Lean forward and you'll see its dials and guages use Roman
numerals. We didn't modify it. It was parked in a garage in
Alexandria."
"I don't expect to be made fun of."
Wu took her hand. "We are not making fun of you, Dr. Lopez," she
said.
Lopez turned to Owens. "But on Arrow, you said that Xanadu was
thousands of years old," she said. Owens nodded confirmation, and
Lopez turned back to Wallace. "I have an easier time believing that
you hung that sign or built this truck than believing that Julius
Ceasar or whomever had Xanadu made to order!" she said.
Wallace turned to Owens, who looked over his shoulder to explain.
"Dr. Lopez, Xanadu is thousands of years old, but it's not from OUR
past. It's from our future. This asteroid is Juno, from the Sol
system. Construction won't begin for another 60 years," he said.
"We're not entirely sure how or why yet, but Xanadu was thrown into
the past. The Jjaro were -- will be -- humans and other races from
the Federation."
Lopez whistled. "But you've had contact with Earth... that means
that this is a potential paradox," she said, voice soft.
Wallace nodded. "Trust us," he said. "We know. That's why there
wasn't any information about Xanadu in the briefing materials we
sent back to the Milky Way. We can't even begin to guess what the
effect of telling the Federation about this facility might be," he
said.
As he said this, the truck left the connecting tunnel and emerged
into light and warmth again. Overhead, the twin singularities shone
with their peculiar light, both of them apparently projected from
another of those crystal spires that Patricia had seen in the Second
Chamber. The road crested a low hill, then ran alongside a forest
to the left. Off to the right, a couple of simple buildings stood;
the road branched there to connect with those buildings. Far
overhead, she could just make out the opposite curve of the cylinder
interior wall through the clouds. Its mottled green color told her
that it probably looked very much like this side. A soft breeze
blew, making the trees dance, and the clouds overhead seemed to
obscure the far end cap; it was not at all the looming grey presence
that it was in the Second or Third Chambers.
As she looked about, Lopez realized that there was a sense of
building anticipation in the truck's cabin, centered on her. They
were waiting for her reaction. Owens was holding his breath.
Wallace had turned to look at her expectantly. Reaction to what?
Her shoulders tensed. If anything, this Chamber was the least
impressive of the four. What was she supposed to say?
Wu, still holding her hand, turned to Lopez. "What do you see?" she
asked, her voice gentle.
"The road. Trees. Clouds," Lopez said, then squinted. "Is that a
lake?"
"Look straight ahead," Wu said.
Patricia looked. The clouds were overhead, but the view straight
ahead was clear. Visibility was at least 30 kilometers. As the
truck started to climb the hill, she looked up, squinting along the
singularities, trying to make out another of those crystal spires on
the far end of the chamber. She didn't see one. The singularities
dwindled into a vanishing point in the distance, certainly more than
30 kilometers, getting dimmer and thinner until they merged with the
horizon. Of course, in the inside of a cylinder... she figured
furiously in her head, trying to calculate the strange perspectives
of the insides of huge cylinders.
"This chamber is longer," she said, finally.
"Yes," Owens said from the driver's seat, cautiously. Wallace
suddenly grinned, as if at some private joke, turning to face
forward again.
"Now let me get this straight," Lopez said. "We've come about 230
kilometers into Xanadu, which is about 290 kilometers long. That
means that this chamber is -- at most -- 50 kilometers across." She
could feel her hands trembling. "But it isn't."
"Look closely," Owens advised.
"It's a trick. An optical illusion. A hologram," Lopez said.
"No," Wu said from beside her, voice all too sympathetic.
"So?" Patricia asked, looking from one face to the next to the next.
Owens was impassive. Wu was sympathetic. Wallace's still held that
secretive grin. "What am I supposed to see?" She could feel
herself getting angry, or afraid, or annoyed... and didn't know why.
"You tell us, Doctor," Wallace said from the front without turning.
"Stop the truck," Patricia said. Owens did so and Lopez hopped from
the cab. They had reached the top of the hill now and Patricia
squinted ahead and looked at the long line of the road, which
vanished into the distance -- no cap, no barrier. The cylinder
walls did the same, as did the singularities far overhead. "It's
bigger," she said. Lopez could hear the high-pitched tinge of
fascination -- and panic -- in her own voice. The others got out of
the truck to join her, looking at her, saying nothing. Each had
been at this point before. "It's bigger than the asteroid. It goes
right on out the other end," she said. "Is that what you're trying
to tell me?"
"We don't tell. We show," Wallace said. "It's the only way."
That long-ago and far-away Stanford professor had been wrong.
Patricia realized that there was -- or would be -- someone other
than a God or a being of pure energy that could appreciate her work.
She now knew why she had been enticed to M64, then brought here by
packet and Arrow and truck.
Xanadu was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.
The Fourth Chamber went on forever.
================
((With apologies to Greg Bear. ;) ))
((Coronado's seventh and final season begins September 1, 2003.))
================
The holographic image quality was very good. Dr. Patricia Lopez
stood in one of the buildings near the tunnel entrance to the Fourth
Chamber and was able to see a holographic image of a table and the
four objects resting on it.
The table was an everyday, ordinary table. Lopez recognized it as a
variation on the standard table an industrial replicator would
produce for a workroom in pre-fab Federation colony housing. The
four items on the table were a bit more unusual. A rose in a
crystal vase. A white lab rat in a small steel cage. Lopez noted
with amusement that someone had put a name tag on the cage: the rat
was apparently named Patricia. Nearby, a Petri dish full of liquid
that looked like water. At the bottom of the dish, flakes of
yellowish metal of various sizes. The fourth object was at least
somewhat understandable. Someone had pointed a tricorder at the
Petri dish. It was visibly active, presumably scanning the contents
of the dish. A flat line was just visible in the tricorder's
display.
"I'm sorry about the tricorder," Lt. Commander Jim Owens said,
entering the room. "Commander Vaskayana has a rather... odd sense
of humor." Besides the holographic display and the two people, the
room was bare. The building had been erected in a hurry, intended as
pre-fab housing for the Expedition One team exploring the Fourth
Chamber, Owens explained. However, once some of the more unusual
characteristics of the Fourth Chamber had come to light, it had
become difficult to get anyone to sleep there. As a result, the
building had been turned into a lab for studying the Chamber itself.
Expedition teams fell back to the Third Chamber or to Alexandria to
sleep.
Admiral Wallace had excused himself after once again welcoming Dr.
Lopez "to the team." He said that he had an urgent meeting to
attend that unfortunately could not be delayed. Dr. Chang had also
departed, wanting to rejoin her Expedition Two team. However, Wu
had promised that Lopez would be meeting with the rest of that team
as soon as she had had time to assimilate the data that had been
gathered to date.
"What am I looking at here?" Lopez asked, pointing at the
holographic display.
Owens looked, then nodded. "Ah... that," he said. "OK, before I
explain that, you have to understand the conditions that we've
discovered to date in the 'Corridor,' as we've called it." Dropping
the display of the table for a new holographic matrix, Owens
programmed in a display of Xanadu's interior. The Fourth Chamber
was naturally somewhat open-ended.
"We've fired a LIDAR beam down the zero-G axis of the Chamber. That
was ten weeks ago, and it hasn't returned. Therefore, either
something absorbed it, or it hasn't hit anything out to about 900
million kilometers down the corridor," Owens said, and Patricia
blinked, the implications of the Fourth Chamber hitting her again.
Then she nodded, indicating Owens should go on, which he did.
"What we do know is that normal physics works more or less normally
out to about 61.4 kilometers down the Corridor. I assume the
implications of that number aren't lost on you," Owens said.
Patricia nodded. "More or less where Xanadu would physically end,"
she said, and Owens nodded.
"After that, things get a... little strange. We get time
distortions, space distortions, every kind of strangeness you can
imagine. The Jjaro apparently wanted to study this, because the
Fourth Chamber environment outside... the grass, the trees, the
gardens... continues out to a little over 300 kilometers down the
Corridor," he said.
"Then what?" Lopez asked.
Owens swallowed, uncomfortable. "Then things get really strange,"
he said. "There's a wall at 304 kilometers. It looks like false
matter, but it's not false matter. We don't know what it is, except
for all intents and purposes, it acts like a wall. What it does do
is hold in the atmosphere in this portion of the Fourth Chamber.
Until you hit that wall, there's breathable air at the cylinder
interior. Fertile soil... mostly pulverized asteroidal rock... what
used to be the interior of Juno, we think, mixed with nitrates and
carbonaceous compounds that came from who knows where." As Owens
talked, the hologram filled in, displaying the garden areas and the
wall.
"The wall is 46 kilometers in height, leaving an eight kilometer
hole at the zero-G hub through which the singularities pass. Once
you pass into... well, we call it 'No Man's Land,' nothing makes
sense. Newtonian physics still applies... mostly... but anything
more complex stops working. No subspace... that means no subspace
sensors, no hyperluminal computer cores, no warp drive, no subspace
communications, no slipstream propulsion."
Lopez nodded, impatiently. "I predicted all of that in my paper.
As you pass through a superspace barrier, the normal 1:1 correlation
of every point in space having an equivalent point in subspace no
longer applies," she said. "I'm sure that's what your wall is...
you can't tell what it is because it isn't... well, it probably
isn't really there. The wall between the 'garden area' and 'No
Man's Land' is a mathematical abstraction representing the end of
normal Euclidian space," she said.
Owens visibly relaxed; had the man doubted that she understood her
own theories? "That's what we thought also. Fortunately, though
subspace coils won't work, a light enough platform propelled by
impulse engines still works, so we were able to cross into No Man's
Land... that's where the Expedition Two team is, as a matter of
fact. That table is sitting about 1200 kilometers down the
Corridor, on the cylinder interior surface... except the cylinder
interior surface isn't..." Owens hesitated.
"What?" Lopez asked. "It isn't there? It's another abstrac--"
Suddenly Lopez went silent, realizing why Owens and the others were
seemingly so frightened. She reached out and took the man's
shoulder, spinning him toward her. "You found a probability
cluster!" she exclaimed, delighted.
Owens swallowed again and nodded. "We found... something... that
matches your description of what such a feature would... look like,
yes," he said, stumbling over the words. "That table is sitting
about eight meters away from it, in another pre-fab building like
this one."
"But don't you see?" Lopez said, "This is wonderful! I can validate
some of my theories! You have to get me out there! I have t--"
"Dr. Lopez!" Owens said, interrupting her. "You don't understand!"
Lopez was obviously still excited, but she turned to Lopez. Got a
good look at his face. Almost scoffed. Almost. "Commander," she
said, "I've been working on the theories relating to these features
for nine years. There's nothing to be afraid of!"
"Doctor... I hate to tell you this, but there's an aspect of
these... probability clusters... that you didn't anticipate," Owens
said, his voice shuddery. He refused to look at Lopez.
"Oh?"
Owens nodded again, then returned the display to showing that odd
table with its odd objects. When he spoke again, his voice was at a
rush, on the edge of sheer panic. He stabbed an accusing finger at
the display. "Dr. Lopez, we set up that table four weeks ago. We
haven't been back since. That rose was cut from a garden in
Alexandria. It hasn't been watered. That lab rat came from U.S.S.
Panache. It hasn't been watered either. Or fed. We watch it 24/7.
It doesn't sleep. It doesn't *breathe*! That little dish of
metal... that's Gold-198. It has a half-life of 2.7 days.
Therefore, it should have gone through 14 half-lives and the
Gold-198 should make up less than 0.01% of the sample. Look at that
tricorder! Gold-198 makes up 100% of the sample! Oh, and by the
way: that tricorder's been running on an eight hour battery for 29
days!"
Owens got himself under control and ran his hands through his hair
and looked at a very quiet, very stunned Dr. Patricia Lopez. "Dr.
Lopez... Patricia... at your probability clusters... time ceases to
have any meaning at ALL. You're damned right we're scared."
----------------
"...a highly localized distortion of the space-time continuum..."
"Scan the distortion... back us off, Ensign... nice and slow."
"Main power is off-line!"
"...a matter-antimatter reaction will be needed to disrup..."
"All hands, abandon ship! All hands, aba--"
"...a highly localized distortion of the space-time continuum..."
"Scan the distortion... back us off, Ensign... nice and slow."
"Main power is off-line!"
"...a matter-antimatter reaction will be needed to disrup..."
"All hands, abandon ship! All hands, aba--"
"...a highly localized distortion of the space-time continuum..."
"Scan the distortion... back us off, Ensign... nice and slow."
"...a matter-antimatter reaction will be needed to disrup..."
"I wonder if we've ever tried this before." "I don't know... does
this seem familiar to you?"
"Admiral, we have no choice: we have to disrupt the distortion to
escape. That means destroying Panache."
"We've been trapped in here for 17 DAYS?!?"
\_______________________________________________________________________
\ 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)
Chief of Operations: Cmdr. Olme Tlaloco (rev)
Chief Flight Operations: Lt. (JG) Maiko D'Rall (Farrell)
Command Yeoman: Cwm. 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:
Executive Officer: (---)
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/