Lt.Cmdr. Taelon - Split Down the Middle (FAO: ALL / Tag: K’Mal/Dehnir/Lyndsay/Braddock+)

[Lieutenant Commander Taelon]

((Main Briefing Room, The Hub, Star Base 118))

K'Mal: ::looking toward the Captain:: The composition was primarily duranium and titanium with an outer coating of what we suspect are the remnants of ablative armor that have been sheared on a molecular level by an high end explosive force such as a warp core breach.

Taelon:  ::Taelon nodded.:: It seems most likely to have originated from the ship’s inner hull, but it’s a bit too destroyed to place it without knowing, um, for sure what model it came from. 

 

Taybrim: And everything in the tests was consistent with destruction from a warp core breach?

 

K'Mal: Not exactly, sir. Additional studies of the ablative armor are inconclusive but we did note that nucleonic particles are embedded into the sheared material. Embedded or rather warped in a way that is outside the realm of natural physics. Doctor Weyer and myself have no direct answer for why though… that is outside of the realm of metallurgy.

Taelon: There’s something wrong with it. ::He shifted in his chair, clasping his hands together and looking a bit sheepish, despite the headaches.:: It’s hard to explain, it’s just - it’s been through something highly unusual. 

 

::Before anyone could add more, the doors swished open.:: 

 

Moor: ::To Captain Taybrim:: Sorry to interrupt sir but I have the data on any ships relevant to that debris found.

 

Taybrim: No worries Ensign Moor, you're right on time. Let's hear it.

 

Moor: We went back 35 years and followed the projected path of the item. I’m sorry to report out of the 17 ships that have crossed into that projected line, none have reported any accidents nor detected this debris in the past. ::The Ensign handed the PADD to Captain Taybrim and frowning a bit that he didn’t find anything:: Sorry sir.

 

Taybrim: ::He spoke in even, assuring tones:: No need to be sorry, Ensign. We're having this briefing specifically because the facts don't line up. ::He paused and looked at the assembled.:: Add to this, the nucleonic signatures we scanned were fresh - and that sort of radiation starts decaying within two weeks. ::He took in a deep breath and looked towards the assembled:: I trust you'll all back me up if I say I don't remember any ship's warp core exploding outside the station in the last two weeks.

 

Moor: No sir. The most excitement Flight Ops has had in months was a Tarkalean freighter bein’ towed into Space Dock after its computer system shorted out. Other than that, we got nothin’. 

Dehnir: oO How curious. Oo

Taelon: Y-yeah. As i said. Unusual.

 

Taybrim: It is highly unusual. So last night I had the intel tower ::He nodded towards Aitas:: Work in conjunction with station Ops to get a better scan of the area the debris was coming from. And they found this... ::He tapped his PADD And put a specific wavelength readout up on the viewscreen:: Chroniton wavelengths.

Dehnir: oO Chroniton….chroniton..Oo

Dehnir: What could cause those? Aren’t they related to temporal phenomenon? 

Taelon: Well…

Taybrim: ::He shook his head very slowly:: So far we have not found any sign of temporal disturbances - so far. But with debris from a potential warp core breach, we need to make this investigation our top priority and figure out what is causing this disturbance.

 

Aitas: Intelligence has had no reports of anything from the other nearby powers that would indicate involvement in chroniton technology.

West: Chronotron Energy, could that indicate a traveling unstable wormhole?  Maybe opened and caught a ship by surprise and then the deposited part of here.

::Taelon just shrugged. That didn’t seem right, either. He hated dealing with his gut instincts; they were often wrong, and never clear.:: 

 

Taybrim: ::He punched up the next slide, sending the information to everyone's PADDs:: Setting aside the possibility that some sentient species in the area might be messing with technology we don't understand, the localized focus of the chronotron energy indicates that this is not an anomaly or a naturally occurring phenomenon. The evidence points towards this being the work of a hostile time traveling species.

::Taelon looked at him in mute surprise. That - well, that might explain a lot.:: 

Dehnir: oO Hostile time travelling species. Oo

 

Moor: ::speaking to himself:: Time travel? :: a sign and a shake of the head came from the Trill ::  

Aitas: It's a bit hard to determine what such a species might be up to, but if there's anything in the station's past my people should be able to find it. The future, though...we can't do much for that.

West: Have the Borg been ruled out?  Chronotron manipulation seems to be a skill they have mastered.

::Taelon’s shoulders stiffened at that. The idea the Borg would use time travel again...no. It’d been one rogue Queen that had tried that, and it’d failed. Time travel was too complex a tactic even for them - and if the Borg had anything, it was the simple desire to continue existing. Destabilising space-time didn’t suit their goals.

Or so he hoped. He really, *really* hoped. Still - ::

Taelon: It’s not the Borg, sirs. Their work is very distinctive. ::He pressed his lips together. The headaches and feeling of oddness was making sense, now.:: And if was them, they’d have already changed the timeline. 

K’Mal/Taybrim/Dehnir/Hael/Aitas/Kasun/Any: ?

Taelon: ::He shook his head.:: N-no, it’s - the timeline feels...right? I’m sorry, it’s hard to explain. But we’re where and when we’re meant to be. 

West: Well there is huge stockpile of junk parts from ships in storage, to include some rather large hull fragments.  Of course we use them for spare parts or so forth or some are waiting transport to the fleet yards, its junk to us but to others it would be a gold mine of technology.

::Taelon sipped his coffee, wondering. He couldn’t think of any group that had access to time-travel tech that wasn’t also on par with the modern Federation...more or less, anyway. But that didn’t mean the fragment didn’t hold some value that the starbase hadn’t realized it had:: 

K’Mal/Taybrim/Dehnir/Hael/Aitas/Kasun/Any: ?

West: I was just wondering if the hull fragment could have been something from storage, that someone was trying to steal using maybe a Chronotron Transwarp Transporter beam?  I mean we have parts down there of all kinds of stuff to include some saucer sections that Forensic Sciences have been working over for years.

Taelon: Well - ::Taelon licked his lips; with some things explained his usual manner returned in small increments.:: There’s - there is one species I’ve h-heard of, I think, that does things with this sort of energy. I’m not sure I, um, remember much about them, though...

K’Mal/Taybrim/Dehnir/Hael/Aitas/Kasun/Any: ?

::Taelon had fallen silent, filtering through old memories - quite old, by now - and trying to remember the species his mother had taught him about. Abruptly, Taelon snapped his fingers as the name came to him.::

Taelon: Um! I t-think they’re called the D-

::Whatever he’d been about to suggest, it didn’t come. There was a flicker from the corner of his eye - a figure - and then the entire room blazed white.

The explosion seemed to play out in slow motion - a white void tore open down the center of the room, the conference table rising up to meet him and when it hit, everything went black.:: 

((Timeskip - Briefing Room, Present Day))

::It was quiet when Taelon came to, save the pounding in his ears and head. He felt like he’d had a dagger rammed into his skull, and it took him several long seconds to begin the routine check - legs, check, hands, check...and ability to feel pain, definitely checked. 

What in Cantavi’s name had happened? It was still dark, his retinas stuck reflecting the blaze of light, but as they slowly adjusted he could see hints of brown and wood. His legs were tangled up in something, and the black wall above him smelled like -

It was the conference table, he realized. 

Taelon pushed against it, twisting his legs, and as small pin pricks of light started to appear he realized the table must have been swept across the room to slam into the far wall, taking people, chairs, plates of food and the room’s decorations with it. The tinkle of broken glass echoed around him as he pushed harder, finally able to grab the top of the table and pull his legs free of what turned out ot be the ruins of his chair. He hurt all over. 

A small gold statuette of the USS Albion rolled off his shoulder as he pulled himself somewhat upright. There was wetness trickling down his head and the collar of his uniform was sticking to his neck as he tried to free himself.

It was terribly quiet. Far too quiet given the amount of people in the room. Stomach sinking, he called out.:: 

Taelon: Hello? 

::K’Mal had been next to him, he recalled muzzily. Still trapped in the rubble of the table, he tried to move the debris aside. The little Albion statue fell the rest of the way to the floor, cracking off the saucer section.

Another push on the table revealed a uniformed foot, shoeless and covered in red. He grabbed the ankle and tugged, and was endlessly relieved to see not only that the toes twitched, but that red was actually from a jelly donut.::

Taelon:  Is that you, K’mal? Anyone?

K’Mal/Dehnir/Lyndsay/Braddock: ?

((OOC - Taybrim will be posting for the folks on the other side of the void!))

TAG/TBC

Lieutenant Commander Taelon

Chief Science Officer

Starbase 118 OPs

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