Lt. JG Natasha Cole - The Folded Core

[Natasha Schell]

((USS Artemis-A, deck 11, Hazardous Materials Lab))

Cole: So best case, it collapses and we lose the contents. Worst case, reality gets… ::moving her hands together into a single tight ball::

Bancroft: Huh. Second time today my entire existence has been threatened by advanced engineering. ::glancing between Cole and Tarsan, the faintest smile under his mustache:: And I can’t help noticing that the two of you are present in both incidents. ::kindly:: D’tin, in the future you might consider requesting a transfer if you’re ever assigned to a team with the three of us together.

Nat shot Roy a look that said You’re the accident-prone one. I’m just the chaotic one. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Breys trying not to grin.

Breys:  I’ll ::she manages to stifle a laugh:: I’ll keep that in mind.

Tarsan: Yeah uh, the metaphor kinda falls apart there. 

Silveira: Or on itself from what you said Ensign. 

Cole: ::shrugs:: That’s the trouble with metaphors.

Roy’s eyes cut to her.

Bancroft: ::leaning forward:: You, of all people, have trouble with metaphors? I may need to sit down.

She locked eyes with Roy briefly. With a look that clearly said she wanted to smack him. 

Breys: If Ensign Tarsan is right, then the folding of space is very delicate. Spatial Trajectors may have solved the problem, but usually the effort ends in at least one form of matter passing through the folded space being irradiated. If it opens, and they didn’t perfect the tech, that could be a problem for us.

Vitor closed his eyes, took a deep breath and rubbed his neck before he spoke again.

Silveira: Let’s see if you are right, Ensign Tarsan. ::He looked at the others:: Anyone have any other thoughts?

Cole: We need to know whether opening the box reveals the contents or collapses the conditions keeping them where they are.

If Gavrin was right, then the box wasn’t carrying cargo. It was carrying conditions. That implied the contents were either unstable, intelligent, or both. Natasha did not care for any of those options.

Bancroft: Unless something’s changed with our sensor tech in the past ::checks chrono:: few seconds, it sounds like the only way we’re going to learn what’s inside is to actually open it. D’tin? Gavrin?

Breys: If we’re going to open it, and I still don’t encourage it, then we need to make sure to do it from a safe distance. Ideally into a vacuum.

Tarsan: I think it should be fine to open. We’ve stabilised it as best as we can at this point. 

Vitor nodded as he listened to them.

Silveira: OK we can also try that. Just remember, no boom on the box

Cole: If that pocket is real, then this isn’t a box anymore. It’s a boundary.

Bancroft: The HML’s safety protocols are still active, Commander. I’m… almost entirely sure we’ll be fine.

Hearing Roy say that was somewhat reassuring. For all their playful teasing back and forth Natasha trusted Roy’s judgement. She realized she had finally exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Breys: “Almost entirely sure” is far from the worst odds Starfleet deals with at least.

Tarsan: Almost entirely sure is… ::remembering the order for no jokes:: .. good enough for me. 

Nat noticed Vitor had started to lean forward squinting as the box slowly started to crack open.

The seam separated by a fraction with a soft metallic click. The sound inside the box changed with it, not louder, but sharper, as if something enclosed had suddenly become more aware of the room around it.

Cole: Easy. That sound changed the moment the seal moved. Nobody rushes the next step.

Bancroft: I’m picking up what looks like trace antineutrino residue. Can anyone confirm? 

Breys: I’m seeing something anti-matter, but it could be traces of the antiproton scan. ::she looks closer at her console:: That’s interesting though, the residue seems to be filling the damage in the kelbonite.

Tarsan: It’s self-healing as well?

The interior resolved in fragments, a compact core suspended inside the folded space, veined with luminous pathways that flickered in sequences too deliberate to dismiss as random power loss. Natasha had seen enough data centers and enough tactical systems to know when something was processing.

Cole: So the good news is, it’s interesting. The bad news is, it might be thinking.

Nat noticed Vitor nodding, with a bit of… recognition, or familiarity on his face. It was hard for her to gauge.

Bancroft: Or trying to talk… that change in pitch we heard? I think it was an automated distress signal. I’m seeing what look like communication signals. Outbound.

She cocked her head slightly, that was an interesting theory.

Silveira: Shut it down. 

Nat had started to enter in her security override codes to kill the power. When the two ensigns spoke up.

Breys: We can’t just yank out the power supply, right? ::she looks to Tarsan:: Tell me what to do and I’ll help.

Tarsan: Considering everything else right now, I’m not sure I’d want to just pull the power. If that pocket collapses the wrong way it could uh… well, we’ve been over it. Let’s not linger further.

Nat looked over to Roy while her hand hovered over the last key stroke. He shook his head.

Cole: Alright. No hard shutdown.

Bancroft: Respectfully, don’t shut down the signal – let’s just make sure it doesn’t get wherever it’s trying to go. ::looking up reflexively:: Computer, erect a level-ten subspace damping field around the Hazardous Materials Lab. Isolate the lab from all internal and external communications relays. No outbound subspace, EM, tachyon, or carrier-wave emissions without command authorization.

Computer: Acknowledged. Level-ten subspace damping field established. Hazardous Materials Lab isolated from communications relays. Outbound emissions restricted.

The energy in the lab shifted almost imperceptible but it was there. The Hazardous Materials Lab became isolated from the rest of the ship. 

Silveira: Okay, fast thinking Doc… Now what?

Breys: It seems like Bancroft was right, the residue in the cracks is definitely antineutrinos, and it can’t all be residual from the scan.

Tarsan: Maybe we can try and decrypt the signals, figure out what it’s trying to say, and to who?

Cole: From a security stance, that’s a solid idea. That’s info we really need.

Bancroft: So, whatever we’ve got in here has antineutrino residue and is trying to phone a friend. Possibly the same system, possibly two different but interconnected systems. Anyone have any theories?

Vitor nodded. 

Silveira: Yeah… Romulans.

Breys: The singularity core would lend to that theory, I’m just not sure why they’d make something like this. The Da’al could be using tech from multiple sources.

Cole: You sound pretty certain Sir. How certain?

Vitor shrugged.

Silveira: It’s a gut feeling more than anything. This feels like something that the Romulans would come up with. If we could get some evidence on it… ::Vitor raised his hand:: I am not saying I am right, if any of you have any other thoughts or ideas, please state them…

But I really feel it's Romulans…

Cole: ::thinking:: It’s consistent with what we’ve seen so far.

Bancroft: Response

Vitor leaned forward, looked back at the box and then the others,with a raised eyebrow and a wrinkled forehead.

Silveira: Can we translate that? Make it discernible or have a way to talk back? Maybe that way we get to see logs or anything that gives us concrete evidence.

I mean… What can explain the antineutrinos and that space pocket thing Ensign Tarsan explained? I… ::from the back of his mind a thought formed:: Wait… Isn’t that used by someone for transportation?

Breys: I’m reading starfleet’s data on spatial trajectors, and it just supports Tarsan’s theory. They definitely are generated by the tech. It says here the particles are incredibly damaging to federation technology as well.

Breys was diving into the ship's database for answers.

Breys: It looks like folded space transporters in general emit antineutrinos, and the Romulans have been using those for at least thirty years.

Cole: That sounds incredibly dangerous. ::just quiet enough to sound honest:: And that says a lot coming from me.

Bancroft: Response

Vitor tipped his head.

Silveira: Oh really?

Breys: The density of antineutrinos we found earlier could imply that both technologies are at play here.

Tarsan: That’d make sense from the readings.

Nat looked between the two Ensigns.

Cole: ::raising an eyebrow:: So we’re dealing with some kind of technological hybrid. Interesting.

Bancroft/Silveira: Response

Breys looked at her scanner and immediately panicked.

Breys: The shielding is decaying too quickly, we either need to open this thing or decode the signal.

Tarsan: Let’s see if we can get the signal first?

Cole: We do both. Decode while Gavrin gets us ready to open it. 

Bancroft/Silveira: Response

Breys: I’m attempting to decode the signal now, something about the data feels familiar.

Cole: Gavrin, get us ready to open it. 

Nat turned towards her console and brought the signals information up and started running security description programs in parallel to what Ensign Breys was running. While Gavrin worked on opening the box.

Cole: I’ll run a security decryption program, that should help speed it up. ::looking over towards Breys:: Familiar how?

Bancroft/Silveira: Response

Breys: The box is trying to transport something out of it, presumably with a folded space transporter. I can’t tell what the pattern is for though.

Nat glanced at the updated data Breys sent to her console.

Tarsan: Do you think it’s trying to escape?

Cole: Through that forcefield and the isolation field Bancroft activated, It’s unlikely.

Bancroft/Silveira: Response

Breys: I think the only way we’re going to find out for sure with the time we have left is opening the box.

Tarsan: Let’s do it, I think I have the last of the sequence

Cole: ::looking at Vitor:: Unless there’s anything you can think of, We’re as ready as we can be Sir.

Bancroft/Silveira/Breys: Response

Gavrin nodded before activating the last part of the sequence. 

The lid finally gave way.

What sat inside did not look like any piece of hardware Natasha knew how to file cleanly. The core hung there in its containment field, all impossible angles and looping pathways, like the inside of it refused to agree on basic geometry from one second to the next. Her eyes could follow only briefly before her mind rejected the effort. It was compact, controlled, and felt deeply wrong.

The core was blinking what appeared to be a regular pattern, pulsing through various colours as if it was trying to communicate

Tarsan: I’ve… never seen anything like it. Everytime I try and look directly at it it’s like my mind tries to comprehend the space and just goes… nope.

Cole: That makes two of us. I looked at it for three seconds and now my brain wants to speak with the manager.

Bancroft/Silveira/Breys: Response

The blinking began to slow.

Not much. Just enough for Natasha to notice the rhythm dragging, as if whatever process was driving it was losing the strength to continue.

Tarsan: I don’t think our power can keep it going for much longer… we can’t just let it die! Any luck on that signal?

oO hopefully it’s not the final countdown Oo

Nat’s hands moved faster over the console. 

Cole: Working on it. ::typing faster::  I’ve got… Seventeen more percent to go. How close are you Breys? 

Bancroft/Silveira/Breys/Tarsan: Response

The pulses from the core dimmed again, one beat slower than the last. Natasha did not know if it was shutting down, running out of room, or giving up, and none of those possibilities improved her mood.

She looked from the display to Gavrin.

Cole: Gavrin, can you squeeze any more power, we’ve almost got it.

Bancroft/Silveira/Breys/Tarsan: Response

Natasha’s console chirped as the decryption routine finished. She glanced toward Breys, then back to the core, which was still blinking, still trying.

Cole: Great Job Breys! ::beat:: What's it doing now? 

Bancroft/Silveira/Breys/Tarsan: Response

Tags/TBC

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Lt. JG Natasha Cole

Security Officer

USS Artemis-A

A240205NC4