A Voice in the Night

Posted on Thu Oct 1, 2015 @ 11:29pm by Lieutenant JG Rhe'la Daughter of the Forty-ninth House

607 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: USS Deloraine
Timeline: MD 4 1000

ON:

"Ensign, where do you want this?"

"Just set it down here." Rhe'la replied without looking up from her work.

Once she had her assignment, she had tasked a couple of crewmen with loading some equipment onto the Deloraine that she figured she would need. A set of subspace amplifiers, a subspace modulator, a set of signal beacons, and enough emergency transporter beacons for each of the officers assigned to the away team. They didn't know just how bad the interference would be on the planet, and the last thing they would need is to have someone get lost and cut off from contact.

Being a small ship with limited capabilities, the Deloraine was forcing Rhe'la to think outside the box. So far, nothing she had tried was working. The interference around Pangaea was extremely complex, and seemed to be actively attempting to thwart her attempts to pierce it. Every time she thought she had the answer, some new wrench was thrown into the works.

Lost in thought, the Zarnac drummed her fingers on the edge of the console. "This thing came from another dimension... possibly some temporal incursion... so maybe if I jacket the carrier wave in a chroniton beam... GAH!" For a moment it looked like her test signal would make contact with the remains of the fighter which had crashed on the planet (which she was using as the receiver for her tests), but the signal broke nearly as quickly as it clarified. To anyone who might walk in on her, she may have appeared to be trying to cough something up. But the coughs, hisses, and pops emanating from her were simply curse words in her native tongue that the universal translator hadn't managed to decipher.

Which was probably for the best, as Zarnac foul language was... colorful.

"OK. Time to try something completely out of nowhere..." she muttered to no one. "Polarize the EPS system, and use it as a signal booster, while also routing the subspace radio through the deflector. And just for fun, let's just push the signal into the upper EM band and throw in a low power tachyon burst ahead of the signal."

And, as it had before, the console bleeped and squawked and ultimately nothing happened. This was ultimately followed by a soft thump as Rhe'la leaned forward to bang her head into the console. "Just as well, I suppose. If I had to pull that move every time - we'd burn out the EPS grid."

Frustration was setting in, and the miniscule lizard knew she had to step away from the problem for a bit to clear her head. Hopping down from her seat, she walked over to the replicator. "Water - cold."

The computer chirped in protest. "Please state temperature."

"I don't care! As cold as you can make it!"

The computer bleeped. The replicator made its little swirling noise as it materialized a glass filled with a solid piece of ice.

Rhe'la's eyes narrowed as she wondered if the replicator was screwing with her, or if there was a legitimate flaw. She hadn't ruled out hazing by the engineering staff. And she REALLY hadn't ruled out a parting gag from Commander Wyman.

Pulling an isolinear resequencer from her belt, an evil gleam shone in her eye. "All right you clinking, clattering cacophony of collagenous cogs and camshafts; you'd better hope the rest of the away team gets here before I take you apart and turn you into a toaster."
OFF

Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference in the last paragraph.

Ens. Rhe'la, Daughter of the Forty-ninth House
Chief Engineering Officer
Deep Space 5

 

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