Stardate 72239.4; March 29, 2395
EPISODE
7
Edited by Chris Adamek
Written by Chris Adamek
ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS
None
Prologue
CAPTAIN’S
LOG, STARDATE 72239.4: Commander Keller and I are en route to
Sector 4258 after several reports of a gravimetric distortion forming in the
vicinity. While there is no evidence it
is related to the Elorg rift, it is strikingly similar to the distortion in the
Alteran Expanse.
Alan Christopher wasn’t too terribly fond
of the class-three shuttlecraft. While
they were meant to travel considerable distances, they weren’t well armed and
were terribly claustrophobic in comparison to the Dark Star’s opulent control rooms.
But it was
a shuttlecraft, and it did function
efficiently. So efficiently, in fact,
that the shuttle was completely devoid of any errant subprograms and additions
to slow it down because of its general disuse in favor of the Dark Star.
But when Christopher received the news
that the Dark Star was in need of a
baryon sweep, his heart immediately sank.
Baryon sweeps took hours to perform, and given the amount of baryon
particles the Dark Star had collected
during its short tenure, it would most likely take twice as long.
He attempted to stall his departure with
Commander Keller until the sweep was concluded, but Starfleet deemed the
situation too important to be delayed.
And so he and Keller scurried to the Shuttlecraft Hawking for their little excursion.
And now, two days later, the Dark Star sat in perfect condition in
the Starlight’s shuttlebay—and
Christopher sat uncomfortably in the lumpy seat before the conn on the Hawking.
The trip might have been less tiresome had
there been some actual conversation between himself and Commander Keller, but
to Christopher’s surprise, the Commander had remained unusually quiet the
entire time. She would often spout
their heading and current conditions, and occasionally engage him in some
discursive banter, but nothing near the magnitude Christopher had observed of
Keller on the Starlight.
Then again, Christopher had also observed
that Keller never engaged in such banter with him in the first place—not even
on the Starlight. It troubled him only marginally in the beginning,
but now, as he was starting to form friendships with the others, Keller
remained an outsider to him. He knew he
would find out why sooner or later—but it was the time in between that would
torture him.
It was at that moment when the sensors chose
to perform a symphony on the sensor display.
Christopher glanced over at Keller’s station and watched her process the
incoming data.
“We’re within sensor range,” she said
slowly. “I’m reading a small
gravimetric distortion heading zero-nine-four, mark six.”
Christopher nodded his head
accordingly. At least they hadn’t come
all this way for nothing. “Is it
showing any signs of verteron radiation?”
Keller quickly glanced at the data. “No.
It’s completely devoid of Elorg activity.”
Christopher suddenly felt whatever
trepidation he had over the mission subside as their good fortunes
continued. Given everything he had been
through recently, Christopher was almost expecting a fleet of Elorg ships to be
waiting for them on the other side of the distortion. He could only hope this good omen was a sign of things to come.
With the threat of an Elorg invasion
suddenly removed from his thoughts, Christopher finally allowed himself a
moment to relax. As that moment
passed, he briefly contemplated their next course of action. It was an obvious choice, really. “Setting a course heading zero-nine-four,
mark six,” he stated as he keyed the corresponding commands into his workstation. “Maximum warp.”
It wasn’t really necessary to say the
course and heading out loud when he was the one actually plotting the course,
but he considered it not only a courtesy to Commander Keller, but a necessary
cessation in the morbid silence that had been with them the past few days. Without those much needed spoken analyses
and reports, Christopher was almost certain the silence would suffocate
him. Prior to this trip, he did not
believe it was possible to go so long without any substantial conversation. Commander Keller had proven him wrong.
And given their new course and heading,
Christopher had just condemned himself to an additional three hours of
silence—the final three hours of their journey to the gravimetric distortion.
Once the Hawking was happily cruising along at warp seven, Christopher
turned his attention away from his responsibilities at the helm, and started
focusing on something equally important.
“I’m going to reconfigure the deflector to emit a resonant anti-graviton
beam,” he said.
Keller sat motionless for several moments
before gracefully nodding her
approval. She then returned her
attention to the console that had held her for the vast duration of the trip.
It was hardly the ringing endorsement
Christopher had hoped for, but he wasn’t about to argue. Not that it mattered; he got no further than
the deflector controls when the deafening silence suddenly became
unbearable. And so, Christopher finally
decided to take the initiative. He
turned away from his workstation and faced Commander Keller.
“Talk to me,” he said flatly.
As she looked up from her work, a single
lock of auburn hair fell down into Keller’s eyes. She stared at it for several moments before gently tucking it
back behind her ear. “About what?” she
demanded.
He shrugged. “I don’t know! Anything!”
Keller stopped to consider her words—but
after several silent seconds, the most she could do was expel a weary sigh.
Christopher did the same, though his sigh was certainly a frustrated one.
“I know you like to talk,” he
grumbled. “I watch you do it all the
time. And you do it well.”
Keller frowned. “Are you stalking me?”
Christopher was unable to tell if she was
joking or not. Her tone was so
enigmatic that he dared not turn it into a joke. Instead, he spoke the truth.
“No. I just happen to observe
you gossiping with Lucas or Kendall on occasion. Then I observe you not
gossiping with me. Now I know you guys
value me so much that you place me on a pedestal and treasure my every word,
but really, you can talk to me.”
Keller scratched her forehead. “I think you should talk with a counselor
about that ego of yours,” she said flatly.
Christopher knew a hint when he saw
one. “Okay, so you don’t want to talk,”
he replied, deciding to retreat from that particular battle before it became
incensed. “Do you want to get something
to eat instead?” he offered.
Keller shook her head. “Not hungry,” she said.
Christopher found that hard to believe
since she hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon—but he wasn’t going to force
her to do anything she didn’t want to.
He couldn’t order her to talk to him.
He couldn’t order her to dine with him.
All he could do was ask.
But for a moment, Christopher considered
clandestinely dropping the shuttle down to a lower warp to make the trip
longer… as a sort of revenge. But then
he realized it would be punishment for himself, too.
And so, he returned his attention to the
deflector controls, and the resonant anti-graviton beam they would need in
order to seal the distortion in Sector 4258.
In silence, no less.
Christopher hoped that once the remainder
of the stress was relieved by the distortion’s demise, Keller would suddenly
snap out of her seemingly permanent foul mood.
But he wasn’t overly hopeful. It
seemed that no matter what, it was going to be a very, very long trip.