Shards

Posted on Fri Jun 26th, 2020 @ 5:00am by Commodore Jane Saulitis

Mission: Cruel Meridian
Location: Various
Timeline: MD 07
1819 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Jane sat down at her desk in her quarters and rubbed her temples. It had been a long day, week, month? However long they'd been on this journey. If time wasn't moving right on the ship who knew how long they might have been repeating moments or days. It made her head ache. Hak was the person who would have understood all this except, he along with everyone else in the federation and nearby systems seemed unable to get their messages. Perhaps because of what Jane had discovered earlier, the ship appeared to be in sections. She didn't know if they were fixed or fluid but she opened the top on her computer, determined to have a look at what they had learned so far, what the sensors had shown them. The problem was she couldn't arrange things in a way that made sense. Not if the ship was in the center of this.

Reaching for her glass of juice she accidentally knocked over the stand up mirror that she kept there to ensure that no hair was out of place before she left in the morning. She tried to catch it but too many things were in the way, including the juice that crashed on top of the mirror not only breaking both the glass and the mirror but spreading light yellow liquid all over the surface of the floor. "Dammit," she said reaching down to clean up the mess when she stopped and looked at the reflection of the glass shards on the broken mirror. She looked back up at her computer and then down again. That was it. It was as if they were traveling through the side of a broken mirror. Each shard was piercing the ship as if they were traveling right through the point of impact.

She jumped up from her chair, the mirror and glass and juice forgotten on the floor. Heading toward the exit she heard Command Sommer's call and nodded before pressing her communicator. "Yes, we do Commander. Have Commander Hanover meet me in the Astrometrics lab."

"Yes ma'am," the security chief responded without pause. Deciding he had no time to get properly dressed, he headed out in his sleepwear. "Commander Hanover, please meet me and the captain in the astrometrics lab."

[USS Majestic, Turbolift A]

"Deck seven, Astrometrics please."

Commander Hanover leaned against the railing of the turbolift as it catapulted around the inner workings of the ship. There was a reason that the designers hadn't included windows into the design. The dizzying speed and the tight clearances with the ship's framework would make for a thrill ride like no other if the occupant was allowed to see out of the lift. Rumors had spread of an engineer who had installed transparent sides in one of the turbolifts in an old Excelsior class starship that had been repurposed for use in training cruises during Hanover's time at the Academy. According to the stories, the poor cadets unlucky enough to summon the Sandusky Screamer were faced with either conquering a rite of passage or ridicule for refusing to take the ride.

Hanover, of course, steered well clear of rumors while serving as an adjunct professor at the Academy. He had no knowledge of the design, nor the fact that the transparent aluminum was weaker than traditional alloy used in the paneling, thereby requiring a thicker sidewall. This distraction from current events proved to be a welcome one, and it helped him pass the time until the Majestic's perfectly normal turbolift car opened its doors and discharged him near Stellar Cartography and Astometrics.

"Captain, Lieutenant Commander," Jared nodded to both as he walked in through the double doors. "How may I be of assistance?"

"I just encountered two separate versions of you," Lhaes commented, "within a timespan of minutes. I was sleeping and your singing and cajoling woke me up. You departed and then you appeared again. And then disappeared when I invited you inside my quarters."

"Yes, it's another time . . . . discrepancy but that's why I called you here." Jane entered the lab and tapped the console in the center of the room using the large map in front of her. "I broke a mirror in my quarters and it dawned on me that I had seen that image before. It was what our sensors were trying to show us. We're not in any kind of anomaly I've ever heard of. We've hit the edge of some kind of rift in time." She brought up the image she'd created so they could see the different shards of time periods."

It took a moment for Commander Hanover to process the fractal pattern splintering across the display in front of him. Naturally, his brain searched for any type of pattern to try and make sense of the information, but he realized that the computational power required to do so was beyond him. From what he could make out, the captain's description of a broken mirror seemed apt, but knowing that the shards depicted the fragile border between times and realities was a sobering thought.

"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us," Jared continued looking on in awe as he paraphrased the old twenty-first century astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson. "We are fortunate you were awoken by my mediocre singing, Mister Sommers. I'm glad you made note of the discrepancy, because I can assure you that neither of those versions of me were, well, me. Perhaps another me from one of these fragments," he gestured towards the screen.

"But are you from our current fragment?" Lhaes noted, "are the captain or I? There are several reports of people seeing themselves, there is no difference between civilian or officer. Some have had even multiple sightings of themselves. My own wife, as well as myself had such sightings. Does this mean we not only have shards of time, but loops as well? Or crossovers?"

"I guess that's a good point. What stardate do you think it is?" Jane asked both of them. Would it matter? If they moved the ship and got out of there would the ones who didn't belong return to their rightful place? There just wasn't any way to tell, in her mind. She'd never heard of anything like this.

Arching an eyebrow, Lhaes told her what date he thought it was. Jared breathed a sigh of relief and nodded, clearly in agreement with the security chief.

"Okay then good." Jane replied. "We all appear to be in the same time. Question is, how do we get out of it? Can we just fly through it. It's going to take a good pilot. I'm sure Lieutenant Sullivan would love to take a stab at it if she's feeling better."

"Or perhaps Miss Minvayr," Lhaes suggested, "she seemed to have a fairly good knack at it too. Is there some way we can just reverse engines, and hope for the best?"

Jane rubbed her face but shook her head. "I'm not putting that responsibility on a ten year old with little experience. And either way, forward or backward we need to know where to move. A good pilot should be able to follow the instructions of the computer's calculations to determine where to move to? How to exit safely? Shall we try some simulations and see what happens? Commander," Jane said addressing Hanover. "Would you mind informing the rest of the crew?"

"I don't mind, I'll do it," Hanover nodded. "I agree, a well thought out plan is what we need. Lieutenant Sullivan should be doing well enough to be up for some simulations. That kid's made out of rubber, I swear. The only reason I say should is that I hope we still have our version of Lilith. Which brings up a question," he looked back towards the broken mirror represented on the display, wondering which shard he was in. "What do we do if we get separated in time between now and when we are able to find a solution?"

"Then we alert the versions of that time, and hope to whatever deity you adhere to, that somehow we'll find each other again before we get out of here." He shrugged. "Maybe jumping to maximum warp, and hope for the best works? I'm but a simple security chief now ma'am... Engineering and piloting are beyond my area of expertise."

"We can't risk that, we don't know if it would be a future version or a past one. We could alter the timeline if things don't merge back together when and if we get out of this." But they both had a point. How were they going to insure that all the right people were where they needed to be? "For right now, until one of us figures out how to read the timestamps on the shards . . . we create a code word like," Jane paused for a moment and just thought of the first thing though it was odd. It couldn't be mistaken for anything else. "Mango."

"Mango. Mango.," Commander Hanover tried the code word on for size. "I like it, captain. It keeps things simple."

"Right so, we'll just bring that up in conversation and if either of you give me a look like you have no idea what I'm talking about I'll know. Same with the other way around I suppose." The expression on Hanover's face as he thought about the word was nearly enough to make Jane giggle.

"Understood, captain, it sounds like a plan," Hanover cracked a grin, realizing that something in his own facial expression cause Jane's expression lighten. In his mind, a little levity was a more than welcome addition to the building uncertainty surrounding their future. "I gotta say, assuming I have been working with other versions of you two, you've been nothing but the consummate professional officers that I love and respect. However Lhaes," he turned to look at the security chief, "I gotta say, it was a bit unnerving when you were a woman in one of the other timelines."

The Romulan just stared, not sure whether to take that comment seriously or not. "Well then," he finally answered, deciding not to take it seriously after all, "I do hope I was better looking than I do now?"

Commander Hanover bubbled over, chortling at his own ridiculous joke, thankful that his compatriot had taken it well. He patted Lhaes on the shoulder and relished the moment; a part of his brain remembered how nice it was to be able to laugh with his friends and colleagues. "I was only pulling your leg commander," Jared replied. "Thanks for the laugh. But in all seriousness, shall we get to work?"

---

Commander Jared Hanover
Executive Officer

Captain Jane Saulitis
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Command Lhaes Sommers
Chief of Security