Chapter One
CAPTAIN’S LOG, STARDATE 74334.3: The Starlight is en route to the
Gren’Thon System to examine what may be the first stable wormhole discovered
since the Bajoran wormhole in the 2360’s—and the Starlight has the honor
of being the first vessel to investigate. All we have thus far are reports from
the Thonian government regarding a series of spatial anomalies. Hopefully,
we’ll be able to confirm or deny those reports in the near future.
Alan
sat peacefully on the bridge of the Starlight, effortlessly destroying
the sanity of those unfortunate enough to be stuck on the bridge with him. “…And then,” he droned on, “with the
wormhole AlanGate, we would be able to explore to the far reaches of the
universe. Due to the fine discovery, I would naturally have been promoted to
President of the Universe… or Supreme Commander—I haven’t decided which… but
I’d make sure you all got fine assignments either way. But then again, no one
would want to explore to the outer reaches of the universe, because it
would only distance them from my greatness.”
“Perhaps
if we recite that tale at our trials,” Commander Matthew Harrison muttered, loud
enough for the rest of the bridge crew to hear him, “they’ll clear us of the
murder charges and we may claim self-defense.”
“You
hold him,” Lieutenant Bator swiftly decided. “I will beat him.”
Christopher
held up a warning finger, “That, dearest Bator, would get your golden
stars revoked quite soundly.”
“We
sealed them in sub-space,” Kellar chirped up, “So it’s an empty threat.”
Alan
opened his mouth, a witty and brilliant comeback on the tip of his tongue, but
Neelar Drayge suddenly interrupted from his position at the helm. “We’re
approaching the coordinates of the rift.”
“Gold
star revoking can wait then,” Alan said mock-seriously. “Slow to one-third
impulse, and then bring us to a stop two thousand kilometers from AlanGate.”
He
glanced at Erin, “Are you getting anything on sensors?”
“I’m
getting something,” she replied, “But I don’t know what.” She paused, and Alan held his peace, an
unspoken sign for her to continue. And
she did. “There’s some sort of spatial anomaly there, but I don’t think it’s a
wormhole. At least, not like any I’ve ever studied!”
“Get
Kendall and ease on down to the astrometrics lab,” Alan decided a moment later.
“See what you two can turn up.”
As
Erin got up to leave, Alan stood as well and declared, “I will be in my ready
room, mourning the non-existence of AlanGate. Tell me when something happens.”
As
he wandered out, Harrison glanced sidelong at Bator, “Just when normality makes
an appearance, the Captain grows weird and frightens it off.”
“I
don’t think it comes around here much, anyway.” Bator replied flatly.
Lucas
Tompkins was frowning. He had, in fact, been frowning for a good twenty minutes
now as he worked—or rather, wrestled—with the warp engines, and the related
systems.
Something
was not right.
At
first, he hadn’t really been sure of a problem, or even if the problem had
existed in the first place. All he’d noticed, at first, was a slight
fluctuation in the matter/anti-matter flow. It wasn’t serious, yet—although if
it had gone unchecked, it could have caused some fairly serious problems. That
was all irrelevant, however, since he noticed it fairly quickly, and the
problem was corrected five minutes later.
And
then, a fluctuation had appeared in the plasma manifolds.
This
too, had been caught early, dealt with quickly, and any major repercussions of
the problem were averted. But then, in the process of running further
diagnostics, a fluctuation called his attention in the EPS relays.
Currently,
he had Jayla Trinn hard at work fixing that particular problem while he
stood with tricorder ready, carefully watching the coolant valves for a
possible descent into chaos.
The
fluctuation was similar in each instance, and it simply seemed to be traveling
from one system to the next. In fact, Lucas compared its behavior to a bubble
in a poorly applied piece of wallpaper: one could push it down and hope for it
to go away, but it would simply pop up a moment later a few inches away.
His
badge suddenly chirped and he touched it.
“This is Tompkins—go.”
“The
problem in the EPS relay has been taken care of,” said Jayla Trinn,
sounding confident her work was complete.
And it undoubtedly was. But if
Tompkins’ theory held true, the bubble was merely pushed.
And,
almost exactly on cue, his tricorder beeped and chirped away busily. Glancing
down at the readings, without really needing to see them, he grimly confirmed
that a fluctuation had indeed appeared in the coolant flow. The bubble was back…
This
is going to drive me insane, he decided as he closed the tricorder, summarily
killing the constant bleeping the unit provided.
Still
grumbling, he tapped his comm badge and said, “Tompkins to Christopher.”
“Yes,
Lucas?”
“Captain,”
Tompkins said, “I’ve got a problem down here.”
Quickly,
he outlined the problem with the various fluctuations, during which the Captain
listened in silence. When he was
finished, Christopher pondered the situation for a moment and then declared, “Perhaps
you should stroll on down to astrometrics—Kendall and Erin are already there
looking for something interesting… and if these systems only started acting up
recently, it could be related to the spatial anomaly we’re investigating right
now.”
Lucas
nodded, “All right. I’m on it.”
“Enjoy,”
Christopher replied, and then closed the channel, leaving Lucas to swing
himself down the service ladder onto the main floor of engineering, from which
he trotted out the main doors and headed toward astrometrics.
A
few moments later, Lucas walked into astrometrics to find—much as he had
expected—Erin and Kendall already working busily at the control station while
images of the spatial anomaly flashed across the screen.
“Hey,
Lucas,” Erin called as he walked through the parted doors, “What’s up?”
“An
annoying fluctuation in ship’s systems,” Lucas said shortly by way of
explanation, “The Captain wanted me to check with you guys and see if it were
related to the spatial anomaly somehow.”
Kendall
nodded and began running programs through his station while Erin rolled her
eyes skyward and said, “Ah, our beloved leader. The man’s got an ego bigger
than the Starlight.”
“You’re
just now realizing this?” Tompkins quipped, sidling up to Johnson to see what
results the diagnostics and sensors were providing.
“If
it’s a wormhole,” Erin declared, “He wants to name it ‘AlanGate’ and believes
it will make him president of the universe, or something like that.”
“Heh. Sounds like chronic ego to me,” Tompkins
decided, “Right, Kendall?”
“No
doubt,” Kendall said distractedly, more intent on the diagnostics than the
conversation.
“That
wasn’t the worst of it,” Kellar pursued. “This morning, he was obsessing over
my hot chocolate.”
“Why?”
“It
wasn’t replicated, and it was driving him nuts.”
Lucas’
eyes grew steadily wider. Erin, oblivious to this, closed the programs she was
running and said, “I’m going to head back toward the bridge. See you boys
later!” And with that, she was gone.
“Not
replicated?” Lucas inquired. “That could be worth obsessing over, actually.”
“I
think she got it from Earth, before we left,” Kendall muttered, opening another
program.
“Damn… I wish I had thought of something like
that. Replicated food is edible, but it
doesn’t really compare to real food…”
Kendall
looked up at Tompkins and said, “Come on, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Yes
it is!” Tompkins declared sharply. “Think about it. She has real
food! The only thing I’ve got out here
that’s even remotely close to that is a crappy tomato bush that my uncle gave
me as a gift!”
Kendall
grunted and continued working, then paused and looked up slowly. “Tomato….
bush?” Johnson repeated hesitantly, unsure if he had heard correctly.
“Yeah,
a little scraggly tomato bush… it hasn’t even given me one damn tomato,
and I’ve had it for a year now! I mean, what’s the point of—”
“Lucas,
tomatoes grow on vines. They don’t grow on a bush.”
“But
I’ve got a tomato bush in my quarters.”
“Vine.
Tomato vine. You can look it up if you don’t believe me. Tomatoes grow on
vines.”
“Then
what the hell is in my quarters?” Lucas’ brow furrowed heavily and his jaw
flapped slightly as his mind worked busily to comprehend this. Finally, he
grunted, opened a program, and said, “Shut up and help me fix the fluctuation.”
Kendall
chuckled, but the sound was lost when it was intermingled with Tompkins
irritated grumbling...
“So,”
Alan said, spinning his chair with a flourish away from the ready room window
and toward Erin who stood before his desk, “What have you got for me?”
Erin
tossed a padd to him. He deftly plucked it from the air and quickly began to
scan over its contents. After a moment, he furrowed his brow in a serious
manner, studied the data intently, and wondered how long he could pull off the
stunt of pretending to know what he was looking at.
Erin,
however, knew him better. “Why yes, Alan, I would love to explain,” she offered
helpfully, pulling up a chair. “It’s like a pool in space, sort of. Basically,
it’s a center, drawing charged neutrinos into the pool, building up and
building up. The reason for the fluctuations in the systems down in engineering
was because each system has some component that directly affects, and is in
turn affected, by neutrinos.”
Alan
furrowed his brow again, but this time in direct relation to what he
understood. “Affected, how?”
“Almost
like heating gasoline on a stove.”
“Gasoline...?”
“A
highly flammable substance,” Erin added with a smile. “Used on Earth in a
combustion engine that served as a means of transportation.”
“Oh...”
Alan gave up, deciding to venture into the safer territory of technobabble,
rather than venture into history. “So if I understand the analogy, the
neutrinos build up to explosive levels when reacting with our systems?”
“Exactly.”
Erin nodded firmly, relieved that she’d cleared the mess of scientific
information without too much loss of sanity, sleep, or hair.
Alan
leaned back, tilting his chair a little bit dangerously and let the thoughts
digest in silence for a moment, then said, “So what do you suggest, Erin
dearest?”
“Well,
if we sit here, Lucas is going to be putting out brush fires in engineering for
as long as we remain.”
“And
we wouldn’t want to listen to him complaining that much,” Alan deadpanned,
tapping his communicator. “Christopher to Drayge. Neelar, we need to get
underway. Power up impulse engines and move us two thousand kilometers away
from the anomaly.”
“Yes,
Captain.”
“So,” Alan said, standing up and walking toward Erin with a
pronounced swagger that made her want to call Doctor Sarah Hartman with a
medical emergency, “Would you enjoy my presence, and dinner, tonight?”
“Well,
I’ll enjoy the dinner anyway,” Erin chirped innocently, “We’ll see about you.”
“But
my dear,” Alan said with sickeningly oozing charm, “the phaser in my pants is
set to kill.” He was referring to their earlier adventure on Vintara, and an
incident with the natives when they had been forced to hide their weapons.
“That’s
kill?” Erin chirped, a wicked smile on her lips. “I thought it was more of a
mild stun.”
She
laughed at the glowering look on his face as he stood. Alan slowly approached Erin, leaning down to
kiss her, despite her insolence—
—And
then hell exploded around the Starlight.