Commander Jo Marshall - Makes Warp Transporting Look Simple
Jo Marshall
((Observation Bay, near Engineering Annex, Gibaria Outpost))
In the middle of the bay, sunken into a recessed platform and surrounded by banks of monitoring equipment blinking in the quiet, sat a vehicle. Or rather, it sat in several places at once. It was a modified shuttle, that much was clear. Type-9, standard Federation issue and Starfleet aftermarket judging by the paint stripe that used to be along the side, but the modifications along were extensive. Erin might've said unhinged. Mounted to a platform inside a tunnel that ran the full length of the bay, in a tube of interlocking emitter arrays pulsing with low, rhythmic thrums Jo felt in her back teeth.
Marshall: I might be hallucinating, but is that… a dimensional shear array?
Kovar: Your perception is consistent with my own observations, Commander, though I am unfamiliar with such devices. Do you have any knowledge of the potential function or experiment that may have been conducted here, Ensign Fenn?
Fenn: No idea, ::honesty Jo appreciated at that moment,:: trans-dimensional physics isn’t exactly my area of expertise. I’m hoping these monitors will give us more information.
Jo tilted her head as she watched the shuttlecraft as it moved without moving through the dimensional pocket, phasing in and out of focus, still trying to decide if the shuttle was actually there or if the Engineering Annex vines had been hallucinogenic as well as homicidal. Were the scientists trying to build something that could move through the gate and be a source of transport there? Something that could ferry scientists and equipment back and forth between dimensions like a really ambitious taxi service?
Kovar: I am curious as to how this vessel might be connected to the evolving situation here. Is this bay enclosed, or does it extend toward the epicenter of the extra-dimensional incursion?
Now there was a question. Was the dimensional shear ground zero for whatever had turned Gibaria Outpost into a carnival of horrors, or as they were there and then, just adjacent to the problem? Jo glance around, blinking the dimensional dancing shuttlecraft phasing out of her eyes, and noticed Fenn had moved towards the monitoring stations that took up a side part of the room, where data continuously flowed in streams. The resonance device clunked as she set it down on a surface.
Fenn: We’ll need a lot more information to answer that question. I’m going to see what information these monitors were recording. It might shed some light on what’s happening.
Marshall: What are the chances this is still connected to the breach in some way?
Kovar: Response
Approaching the shuttle itself seemed like a bad idea, so Jo kept to what she considered to be a respectful distance from the shear field. Respectful meant far enough away that if it decided to explode, she had time to offer a quick prayer to the Prophets before being atomised.
Fenn stepped back from the monitor, and Jo could practically see the hypotheses stacking up behind her eyes. The look of someone who tried to connect mathematics in an area of science they hadn't touched with a boom arm while something with too many limbs prowled the corridors outside looking for new ways to kill them.
Fenn: I can tell you whatever this is supposed to be is reading as stable though I’m not sure how much I trust that assessment at this stage.
Marshall: Given everything else on this station that's been both stable and contained, that's a healthy dose of scepticism.
Kovar: Response.
The station was falling apart at the seams, reality was leaking through the cracks, and here they were staring at a shuttle that existed in quantum superposition because some brilliant scientist had thought they weren't busy enough.
Stepping away from the shear array, Jo moved closer to the nearest control console, fingers hovering over the interface. The console flickered under her hand, and when it came back, her stomach dropped like a faulty turbolift. Secondary diagnostics pulled up, fingers moved quickly, though told a story about as cheerful as a Klingon funeral dirge.
Marshall: The dimensional field around the shuttle is degrading. Has been since the stabilization systems went offline. My guess is when the dimensional breach opened, it knocked out the automated systems. We've got maybe four hours before the field collapses entirely. ::Her eyebrow nearly escaped to her hairline.:: That's not ideal.
Kovar / Fenn: Response
Marshall: Best case scenario, the shuttle phases completely into the other dimension and we lose it. Worst case— ::She glanced at the shuttle existing in four different states of reality.:: —the field collapse triggers a localised dimensional cascade that spreads outward from this bay.
Kovar / Fenn: Response
Marshall: Right, new priorities. Fenn, I need you to work out how to access and restart the auto-stabilisation sequence. Your call, make it fast. Kovar, shuttle access. We need the onboard computer active and communicating with the external systems but the pocket is blocking the connection, so we need to get on there. While it's phasing between dimensions. Also not ideal.
Kovar / Fenn: Response