Warp Fishes, Part One

Posted on Tue Mar 13th, 2012 @ 4:34pm by Captain Elsie Halliwell & Captain T'mpest Michaels & Commander Cailean Fox, M.D. & Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd & Lieutenant Commander Dylan Blake & Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper & Lieutenant JG Leo Flynn & Lieutenant JG Lucy Carter & Captain Alexsa Kendrick

1,143 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Fishing
Location: Under the Sea (Kiss the Girl)
Timeline: Current

ON:

It had been six long hours before the sensors had finally picked up the warp variation thread sufficiently for the Ranger to hone in on its source, and as the Intrepid class vessel slid delicately through the meandering currents, Elsie Halliwell sat on the edge of her seat, poised and eagerly listening to any call outs of information.

Ensign Edsell behind her was searching the ocean floor with such eagerness that a tension headache had begun to form behind his eyes. The dull, aching throb that had haunted him from puberty seemed to rear its ugly head when he needed to concentrate the most. Still, he had become so adept at controlling his facial constrictions that the only outward sign of any struggle waging beneath his brow was a pair of glassy eyes peering outwards, framed by a dull-red sheen. He coughed to clear his throat and then said, "It looks as though the source is about six hundred kilometres at bearing one-zero-four. We shouldn't have to sink any deeper."

Elsie nodded, thankful that the groaning of the hull had seem to dissipate as Engineering worked tirelessly to keep the ship strong and water-tight. "Good," she said out loud as she then turned to T'mpest. "It appears that we may be at the end of this yellow brick road."

T'mpest nodded. "Now we have to get through the forest and find the Emerald City."

Alex Kendrick stood on the outskirts of the bridge looking on in mild interest. Interest was probably the wrong word she mulled as she paced slowly around the rear of the two command chairs by the master systems display--perhaps bemused was more descriptive. She still felt it was a mistake, Halliwell's mistake to be down here, and an even bigger one to follow an undetermined energy signature through the depths of the Taylforth ocean world. She didn't speak, she knew her very presence spoke volumes about her disapproval of Captain Halliwell's actions. She did continue though listening to the seemingly inane chatter. 'Yellow brick roads', 'Emerald cities', it was clear that this crew had all but lost the plot. Either that or it was some sort of code for her benefit. She made a mental note to check on the possible connotations later.

"Captain," Lieutenant Prudentia spoke up from the Science console, "The warp signal seems to be oscillating, going up and down in both polarity and strength."

"Any idea on what it is yet?" she replied, tapping in some commands on the central display between her and T'mpest and looking for herself.

"I do not know, Captain. Whatever is causing it isn't stable, though the signal is steady enough to be predictable at least."

"Then predict it," she called out, a look of authority and detachment gleaning from her eyes. She went back and considered the information as it streamed down the little screen to her left in silence, drumming at her lips with her slender fingers in a subconscious habit that seemed to manifest itself when her mind switched off and her innate instincts took over.

"Shepherd," she called out, not looking in his direction, "prep Engineering with the algorithm Predentia formulates when it's ready. I don't want an unexpected warp fissure to cause undetermined complications while we're down here." She kept her gaze down and then flicked her attention up to the scientist who was already hammering away at the controls.

"Aye, Captain," Shepherd replied, keying his console.

"Polarity has a frequency of four point seven, strength one of six, with a random variance of about five percent." As Prudentia got the numbers, she spread it to the rest of the bridge.

Elsie nodded silently again to the lieutenant's report, slowly and methodically as if in a trance as she then narrowed her eyes on the data still flooding her screen. "What is causing this variance?" she questioned herself almost too quietly for even T'mpest to hear. "What happened down here?"

T'mpest began to run several algorithms and program variants and compare them to the data coming in. After several minutes she turned to Halliwell. "The oscillations match both the tidal drift and an outward spread from some central point. If you look here," she pulled up a diagram, "you can see the pattern of thrust from an initial event. Match it with tidal drift and the natural undulating of the ocean and it matches what we're getting. As to what the initial event is, or was, I'll need to adjust the scanners accordingly so we can get a more accurate reading. I can use these variables to filter out much of the debris and resident harmonics to get a clearer picture of this anomaly."

"Already on it, Commander. Increasing sensor resolution." Prudentia nodded to T'mpest. At that point, low resounding thumps started resonating through the ship.

Elsie looked up, snapping out clearly from her own private ponderings. She shot a pregnant glance to T'mpest and then over to Shepherd in a questioning expression.

"It's matching the frequencies we've just discovered. It seems to be resonating with our own systems." Prudentia reported, before Edsell added, "I'm working on compensating for it, Commander."

"Quickly," Elsie called out, gripping the arm rest a little tighter. "I don't want Ranger shaking apart at the seams."

"If you'll forgive me," T'mpest said, quickly assisting Prudentia. She could do the calculations faster in her head and quickly reconfigured the scanners. "Try it now."

"Our systems do not resonate any more." Lieutenant Prudentia said.

"We also seem to have matched closely to the physical effects of the warp variance," added Shepherd, working through T'mpest's schema. "The shields should be able to compensate."

Elsie loosened her grip on the arm-rest and visibly relaxed into her chair at Shepherd's words. She looked about her, her focus now trained to one goal: searching for this needle in a haystack. She leaned a little further left and hammered in her own instructions into the miniaturised status display screen between her and T'mpest. She sighed and muttered, "Why they couldn't design this thing any bigger, I have no idea," and then continued on with her search. Frustrated, she bounded to her feet and marched impatiently over to Edsell at his station. "Anything?" she asked, clasping her hands around the console's surround.

Edsell peered down and then shook his head. "Nothing any clearer, Captain," he replied, almost in lost hope. But then as he lifted his eyes to meet Halliwell's a piercing beep trilled at his finger tips. "No, wait!" he exclaimed, now beginning to work feverishly. "There's something but the sensors are finding it difficult to pinpoint but there is something here. The dissipated warp field is strongest... here." He pointed on a localised map of the ocean floor as Elsie spun around and nodded to the helm.

"Take us there."

OFF:

 

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