Ensign Morton: Reflections on the Crystal, the Return, and the Unknown
James
Personal Log
Ensign Vala Morton
USS Octavia E. Butler
Stardate: 240205.19
Morton: Computer, begin log.
The computer chirped quietly to indicate it was recording. Vala had just finished her professional log, and this was her space to really unpack things.
Morton: We’re back.
That should be the whole log. We’re back, and everyone’s accounted for. The ship is damaged but intact. Most of the crew is… quiet. Or maybe that’s just how they’ve always been. I don’t really know what “normal” sounds like yet. This was my first mission aboard the Butler. But it feels like something is different. As if the resonance of that other universe is still vibrating in the metal beneath our feet.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the crystal. Not just because of what it was, or what it let us do, but because of how it felt. Energetically. Empathically.
When it grew, when it pulled energy into itself and began forming bridges, it… touched us. There was a moment, just a flash, where it reached out with a non-corporeal limb and struck us like a tuning fork. The crystal’s energy swept across and through me.
Vala walked to the viewport and looked out. Recalling the feelings and sensations for a moment. Everything had happened so fast at the time; she’d been unable to process it. The easiest way she could relate to it was by considering her life experience so far.
Morton: I’ve had empathic feedback before. Background emotions. Stress echoes.
Even a few projected memories when people were careless. But this was something else. It wasn’t Haliian or human. It wasn’t Betazoid or Vulcan. Or anything else I could name.
This wasn’t just emotion. It was sensation. It felt like standing at the edge of an event horizon, knowing you’re about to fall in, and not knowing if you’re terrified or exhilarated. It felt like loss and yearning and being witnessed all at once. Maybe it was scanning us. Maybe it was reflecting us. Maybe it was a mirror, one that amplifies whatever you bring to it.
Morton: oO So what does that say about me? That I felt fear and awe and the sick, shameful certainty that I wasn't good enough? Oo
Morton: I’ve tried to catalogue it in words, in mental imagery, even in sketches.
I’m still not sure any of it’s accurate. Maybe it’s not supposed to be.
What I do know is that the crystal contained trace markers of our missing crew. Not just DNA-level fragments but deeper signatures. Harmonics. It recognized something of them, and maybe… of us too. That’s what let us triangulate their locations on the Trillian. That’s what let us build a bridge home.
The rest of the team: Commander Arlill, Lieutenant Lahl, Lieutenant Nis, and I, all worked hard, pulling on threads until a pattern emerged. I made a few good suggestions. Holographic simulation instead of direct modeling. Passive sensor calibration. Low-frequency power trace comparisons.
I’m proud of what I contributed, even if it didn’t feel like much at times. The science behind controlled wormhole generation is well outside my comfort zone. Crystalline structures tied to xenobiology? That I can get excited about. But dimensional mechanics? That is where the ground gets unsteady.
I’ve taken the courses, sure, but not all of them. You can’t. No one can. Eventually, every scientist hits the edge of what they know. I’ve learned to live with that. I didn’t come straight from school like some of my peers; I took time, had life outside of equations. And honestly? I’m starting to see that gives me an edge.
The high achievers? Some of them never had to struggle to understand. They knew the answers. Until suddenly, they didn’t. And when the problems got too big for textbooks, they froze. Because not knowing is uncomfortable. Especially for people who’ve built their self-worth on always being right.
For me, the discomfort was familiar. I’d already made peace with it. And that meant I could keep going, keep asking questions, even when the answers ran out.
Vala took a seat on the edge of her bed. These personal logs were quite therapeutic and allowed her to think about and talk about things that just weren’t appropriate for the science officers’ logs. She was surprised at some of the realisations and takeaways from the mission. She didn’t want to get off on too much of a tangent however, and brought her focus back to the mission once more, and one of the moments that had caused more than a little alarm.
Morton: At one point, the question of whether to’not record’ or even delete the data came up.
I immediately knew that we shouldn’t. That we couldn’t. Scientific responsibility demands recordkeeping, even when the records scare us. I feared that Commander Arlill might be persuaded to do the unthinkable and I was ready to leap in and object. Mentally, I was already arguing my points, anticipating potential pushbacks. I was terrified of the prospect of having to object to an order, or to challenge a superior officer.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to fight. I worried over nothing. The logs were secured to an isolated core. Of course they were. Commander Arlill was never going to do something so reckless. Honestly, I was really impressed with how he handled the whole situation and I do not envy the decisions he had to make.
Anyway, there are still a lot of unanswered questions around the nature of the crystal, and the abilities it has. There are theories. They all feel small. But what matters is that it worked, and that we didn’t break it trying.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about what it means to be a scientist out here. Starfleet likes to imagine us as explorers, optimists with tricorders. But sometimes, science is damage control. Sometimes it’s a lifeline. Sometimes it’s the only thing standing between us and unthinkable loss.
Morton: oO And sometimes, it’s a crystal that screams through your nervous system and tells you it sees you, but leaves you wondering what it saw. Oo
The scientist lay back and sighed heavily.
Morton: We’re back. The data is locked down. The crystal is… dormant. Maybe dead.
Or maybe just done with us. I don’t know what it will do next. I don’t know if we’ll ever see anything like it again. But I’ll remember it. And I’ll remember that, I wasn’t just studying the problem. I was part of the solution.
End log.
Science Officer
USS Octavia E Butler NCC-82850
O240205VM3