From: Katrina Browne (eishnalatrek_at_gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 24 2008 - 00:50:40 PDT
-=(^)=- "Schoolyard Prank" Con't From: "Invasion of Desperation" -=(^)=- Location: EARTH, SFA Stardate: 2.80722.1737 Scene: Holodeck 3, Advanced Research Engineering School Career refocuses happened in Starfleet fairly regularly. But they usually revolved around adopting a red accented uniform and a shiny new pip. Blues, mustards, greys, and blacks all seemed to morph into new commanding officers, leading new Starfleet vessels in new challenges, using their various skills from their former fields to augment their new command training. Starfleet's Command School testified to the ordinariness of this type of change. Eishnala sh'Kor had often been an incidental black sheep. She had resisted many conventional tides in her personal life. Her old command uniform, now shed for that of a Federation engineer, attested to the few she resisted in her professional career. She was not alone. Starfleet's Advanced Research Engineering School principally provided a lab for bright young engineers to explore advanced concepts in their discipline. Systems engineers worked on quantum microscopy techniques, propulsion engineers played with new methods for preventing the loss of plasma in vessel's reactor, and material engineers converse with specialists at the San Francisco Fleet Yards. Yet, a smaller class of students inhabited the rooms of the Cochrane Laboratory and Montgomery Scott Engineering Annex who worked on refining long neglected skills. "Lieutenant Commander Kor, watch that matter stream compression rate," a young human junior officer advised. Eishnala nodded and her hands quickly flew over the control panel. "I know you Sec/Tacs like a nice bang, but blowing up your vessel generally doesn't reflect well on your fit-rep," Brian Turner said, bemused. The Andorian repressed the urge to role her eyes. **Everybody's a comedian,** she reflected to herself. Lieutenant (jg) Brian Turner was enjoying ordering around a superior officer a bit too much, but then Comodore Risan Nulchek was a notoriously difficult task master and at the end of the day the young Lieutenant was at her beck and call. Having your chain yanked tended to make you enjoy yank those of others, Eishnala thought as she continued to try to balance the field harmonics on her factitious warp core. "That's better," Brian smiled. "We'll make an engineer out of you yet." -=(^)=- Scene: Replimat Eishnala retrieved a less than tasty looking entrée from the replicator. It was probably just her imagination, a cultural memory that no longer reflected reality, but Academy replicators always seemed to be some of the worst in the Federation. Her Tolcot Stew was…well if it was supposed to have replicated meat she could not find much evidence of it. Eishnala looked around her. A sea of cadets from the multiplicity of world's across the federation sat at various table, knotting into different social groups. A group of engineers worked on a problem set while shoveling food into their mouths. A table of Vulcans discussed some philosophical concept from their seminar. Three cadets who shared a suit laughed about who one of them had started dating. And a table next to her filled with members of a flight squadron, the lone male in the group mimicking some banking maneuver he had preformed during their last practice. The Lieutenant Commander looked for an empty table where she didn't feel so surrounded…by the past. The Andorian woman had sat at these tables less than a decade before and her own group of friends had coalesced. The fleet had blown them apart like the seeds of a Risan Krilt flower by that planet's simulated winds. Their smiles and laughs and shared stories…would only be memories, occasionally relived during chance reunions. A deep, gravely voice interrupted her dour musings. Dourness that was not surprising considering she had recently been informed of the death of one of her Academy cohorts in a skirmish with the Dominion. "Commander Kor, there are a couple from the ARES class dining here," a Telurite named Gresh called out. "Thanks. Does this replimat make you feel old?" Eishnala asked Gresh. The Telurite woman smiled. "No, but trying to run around the old track sure did. Fur doesn't help in this summer heat, though, I guess heat in general is unwelcome to someone from an ice moon," Gresh shrugged. "Meh. It's not so bad. I keep my quarters at about -5 Celsius, but standard earth temperatures can be adapted to." "Woah," Sally Rowlands, a former ops officer said, "-5 Celsius? Have you heard of the human phrase 'cold fish'?" Gresh laughed heartedly. "You haven't known too many Andorians, have you Lieutenant Rowlands? I don't think many human males would find an Andorian woman to be a 'cold fish', even if she did her utmost to freeze him to death. " Eishnala suppressed the urge to roll her eyes for the second time that day. It was funny how returning to her old stomping ground seemed to make her regress in age a little. Andorian's were famously "passionate." It was a stereotype developed in Federation literature from a hundred and fifty years previous, but the idea had permeated popular imagination. Eishnala was stubborn, but passionate was an epithet few would level at the reserved old warrior. "Gresh, you're not using that old David Bell novel as a guide, are you?" Rowlands asked, referring to one of the famous novels of that earlier timer period. "It was written by a human. I somehow doubt Mr. Bell was really able to capture the Andorian heart." "He spent thirty years of his diplomatic corps experience working on Andoria. If any non-Andorian has a chance of understanding them closely it would be Bell," Gresh argued. Eishnala smiled to her self. Her new Telurite friend was living up to the litigious reputation of her people, a stereotype from the same time period as the misrepresentations of Kor's people. "It's really neither here nor there since the book was written about 170 years ago," Sally pointed out. "I'd hope there had been some changes in seventeen decades." "I'm pretty sure my patriarch is still convinced that Andorian society is the same as it was back then," Eishnala rejoined the conversation. "The Kor relies on tradition to maintain their power within the clan system. But Lieutenant Rowlands is right. Relying on Bell is a bit like looking to Kol'tek's study of Telurite life." "It does tell more about the Vulcan observer than the Telurites," Gresh conceded. She took another bite of a prickly looking fruit before asking, "So, what do you ladies think of Lieutenant Turner?" "He's a bit officious," Eishnala shrugged. Sally chortled, "I was going to say that he was an uppity pain in the ass." "Does he constantly pester you to make minor changes?" Gresh asked. Her companions nodded. "I found that if you just pretend to run your hands over the panel, he thinks you've some massive change." **That is a representative example of officious,** the cerulean woman thought to herself. "Really? How surprising?" Kor glossed over her impatient thoughts with a more polite response. "Yeah, I realized that about two days ago," the brunette from Ohio said. She took a bite of lasagna. "You know…he's supposed to a demonstration on transwarp theory tomorrow. We could…" "…have a little fun with the simulation." Sally smiled. "My thoughts exactly. I was an ops officer. I'm pretty handy with computer programs." "I was a sec/tac. I bet the lab's security protocols would be fairly easy to override," Eishnala suggested. "Excellent. Sounds like we have a plan," the Telurite said with a smile. -=(^)=- Scene: Corridor in the Daystrom Laboratories à Demonstration Holodeck Three grown adults skulked through the darkened hallways of the complex. A Telurite, an Andorian, and a human hovered over an access panel. That combination sounded vaguely like the start of one of those bar jokes, Eishnala mused to herself as she plugged security router into a port. Her tricorder suddenly filled with information about the security measures governed by the panel and employed to protect the room. Gresh leaned her head out of the group and double checked to make sure no one was coming. Classes were over for the day, but a researcher could always be pulling a late night. She had developed an emergency transporter protocol to get them out of the building if it looked like they might be caught. "Looks like a pretty standard voicelock system. It will log who ever access the room into a database for security purposes," Eishnala observed. "We should be able to open it with any of our access codes as recognized researchers. I'll divert the log information to this P.A.D.D. Their records won't show a trace of us if anyone goes looking. Set." "Computer, open Demonstration Holodeck 2." A tinny disembodied voice announced, "Authorization required." "Lieutenant Gresh Rotel Lastraan, Theta-6-7-3-Pi." "Code accepted." The silver doors parted. "There's no visual recording device in there?" "No. Someone should suggest they add one, "Eishnala said with a smile. "Their security protocols seem woefully inadequate. Guess that's what you get when you have engineers seeing to the security situation of a lab." "He's been teasing you about why sec/tacs don't make good engineers, hasn't he?" Sally asked in a whisper. "Something about have a propensity for blowing things up. Well…I think he'll be the one with a propensity for the whizzes and bangs," Eishnala snorted. "Too true ladies. Lets get this show on the road. I saw that light in the lab two doors down flicker off. We'll have less company in the lab than out here," Gresh placed a furry hand on a shoulder of each of her fellow partisans, escorting them into the room. Sally walked over to the station that holoprojectors produced what ever sort of engineering equipment was required for a demonstration. "Computer access, transwarp simulation alpha-2." -=(^)=- Scene: Demonstration Holodeck Time Index: The next day Clots of older officers flowed into the room taking seats along the lecture seating of the demonstration room. The junior officer cleared his throat as the witching hour approached. "Today we are going to review basic transwarp theory. The Excelsior project began in 2285 was the Federation's first attempt to develop a faster than warp drive. Physicists had long predicted that any speedy was theoretically possible for ship propulsion. The great experiment was a failure. The first prototype experienced a cascade reaction leading to a core breach when the vessel's dilithium became unstable when exposed to the high frequencies of transwarp travel," Lieutenant Turner droned, reciting history that non-engineers already knew. "Other problems with transwarp prevented progress on developing faster than warp drives. High speeds developed a velocity differential that could cause tritanium depolarization. The first successful human experiment led to cellular mutation in the test pilot." "So how did we overcome these obstacles? Computer, begin transwarp simulation alpha-2." Gresh and Sally glanced at one another. Gresh mostly failed to suppress a sly smile, but her marbled fur covered what her impertinence failed to. Though Eishnala could have sworn she saw the former doctor's nose twitching. Checkered black and yellow walls quickly transformed into a cavernous space. A brilliantly pulsating core, flecked with the blues, ceruleans, and indigos Kor was so familiar with, filled the center of the space. The panel Brian stood at became one of the operation clusters for the generator combining holomatter with holo-antimatter. It was the same panel Sally had spent two hours with the night before. Turner began the arduous process of explaining how Starfleet scientists had analyzed a sample of super stable, though rare dilithuim discovered in the Delta quadrant and eventually developed a process to alter the far more common form dilithuim. A bajoran officer asked a question or two about the process, but generally the class remained quiet. Turner hadn't quite realized his audience was more sophisticated than he intended on treating it. "Cellular mutation is by far the most sever challenge for engineers to overcome. Starfleet physicians could undo the damage caused by intermittent exposure to the high frequency particles associated with transwarp reactions, but they couldn't prevent it. Ironically, transwarp geometry proved to be the key." Turner touched the control panel. "Bi-lobed ovoid formations not only create a pocket for the vessel to smoothly travel, but control the radiation dispersing it relatively safely. "Computer, apply the Lorentzian manifold equation to the field and engage." The feminine voice announced its compliance. However, klaxons quickly lit. Gresh looked at Sally this time, unable to do with oblique glances. A red glow molted the blue of the reactor core. The gentle swirling storm so carefully controlled within its magnetically enhanced walls began to darken. The junior officer mussed his brown hair. "I don't understand. This isn't supposed to happen." "Cascade reaction detected. Core breach eminent." "If the transwarp field isn't properly calculated, the core destabilizes more quickly than they did in the old warp models. You'd probably have less than three minutes to stop a problem like this one. Computer, apply Lorentizan manifold equation to the field," he insisted. Color raised to Brian's cheeks when the storm seemed to be brooding all the more. Turner closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "Okaaay….apply an Alcubierre function to the field…this should force the bubble to collapse. No transwarp bubble is better than a bad transwarp bubble." "Error. Cascade reaction accelerating. Fifteen seconds till core breach." In the red light, the indigo looked…angrier. Not that it was rational to apply an emotional to a random coalescence pattern. Brian hurridly tried to calibrate a nacelle to force a micro supraliminal bubble to form and disrupt the transwarp field. He was too slow. Or perhaps too late. On a real ship, it would have been crazy to try anyways. The nacelles would have been sheared from the vessel, resulting in the same massive casualties a core breach was notorious for. Blue energy flooded the space. Turner closed his eyes as a wave of "plasma" billowed in to him. "Computer end program." Black walls. Yellow lines danced across their surface creating a plaid of holographic emitters. "That's funny. I thought it was sec/tacs who blew things up," a human commander with salt and pepper hair said. He still dawned the gray of his former discipline. Brian knitted his brow. This looked unprofessional. That he was sure about. But the thing that bothered the junior officer most was that it shouldn't have happened. -=(^)=- Scene: Replimat A sea of tables, but unlike before, they were mostly empty now. Meal times were regulated in the regimented lifestyle of a pseudo-military organization. The "accident" had let the class out early. Sally plopped onto on of the chairs and was quickly followed by her non-terran companions. "Did you see the look on his face?" "Priceless," Gresh said. "I guess doctors, security guards, and operation specialists cause explosions." -=(^)=- NRPG: Looks like a very interesting mission you guys have going on. Seems like there isn't a very good canonical reason or method for bringing Eishnala aboard so I thought I'd play with the idea of professional development. Thanks for the welcome I've received. -=(^)=- Katrina Browne writing for Lieutenant Commander Eishnala sh'Kor Chief Engineering Officer USS STONEHENGE From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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