"Quantum Stability, Pshyonic Ghosts and Other Unproven Impossibilities"
(Previous Post: "A Hirogen, A Vulcan And A Human Walk Into A Room")
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Stardate: 60339.1900
As the temporary First Officer of the USS ANUBIS it
had been the job of the Shillian woman to insure that
everything had been as ready as could be for the
return journey to SURIAL III, and as the Chief Science
Officer it had been the task of the scientist to make
certain that all of the scientific equipment onboard
the ship was working at optimum efficiency. Although
not technically considered to be a *scientific* tool,
the transporter systems of the ANUBIS did possess some
very scientifically oriented component that the
Shillian scientist had made a point to know like the
inner workings of her own biology.
Since Captain Rikar had hinted as to the important
role the transporter systems of the ANUBIS would play
during their mission, it had made sense that the
Shillian had put that specific system on the top of
the verification list. Normally such a task would
have been the responsibility of the Chief Engineering
Officer, in this case Lieutenant Fairborn, but in view
of the heavy workload the Oltharian had faced with all
of the unfinished repairs, the Executive Officer had
decided to do the inspection herself.
The level-one diagnostic of the pattern recognition
sensors, bio-filters and targeting arrays had revealed
no problems permitting the Executive Officer to
proceed with the second phase of her verification
which included a verification of the patter buffers
and of the memory core reserved for the storage of the
patterns during transport. Normally these were
immediately deleted following a successful transport
so as to free memory space for any subsequent beaming,
leaving only the back-up file hidden in a secured
section of the main memory core in case of some
strange emergency.
Needless to say that the Shillian woman had been
beyond surprise when her verification uncovered a
memory block of a pattern stored within the active
memory of the transporter. Since the computer showed
no recent transport, the Chief Science Officer
dismissed the finding as having been an omission made
by the engineering team and proceeded to deleting the
memory block so as to insure that the memory would be
available for the next beaming. The mild surprise
that the Shillian scientist had experience when
finding the used computer memory turned to puzzlement
as she found herself unable to access the memory
block, let alone attempt to delete it.
Now suspecting that there had been some malfunction
with the computer component of the transporter the
Executive Officer of the USS ANUBIS reached for her
communicator and called upon the one person who she
knew would be able to fix this problem in one way or
another. "Lieutenant Fairborn, this is Lieutenant
Commander Maya, I am sorry to disturb you as I know
that you are quite busy at this moment but I seem to
have come across a malfunction with the transporter
system. I mean I am guessing that it is a malfunction
since I am unable to clear the reserved memory
assigned to transporter patterns of a single pattern
that appears to be locked in there. Could you send
one of your engineers to Transporter Room 1 to have a
look at this?"
The voice of the gentle Oltharian quickly filled the
room as he replied to the request of the Shillian
scientist. =/\= I will take care of it myself
Commander, please wait I will be there shortly.
Fairborn out. =/\=
As much as she had hated having to disturb the Chief
Engineer of the ANUBIS, the Shillian woman had hated
the idea of informing the Captain of a malfunction
stopping them from using the system even more, and as
the First Officer it had been her unsavory duty to
pick the lesser of the two evils. While waiting for
the arrival of the giant engineer, the Chief Science
Officer tried once again to access to secured file
thinking that maybe now that she had contacted the
Chief Engineering Officer the person referred to as
Murphy might have done his magic. By the time the
door to the transporter room opened and the Oltharian
stepped in, the scientist had not been able to get any
further than she h previously had.
"I am truly sorry to bother you for something like
this," the Executive Officer of the ANUBIS said
displaying a fragrant lack of authority which her
position demanded, but Elan did not mind more
preoccupied by the reason as to why the file had been
unable to be deleted.
"There is no need to apologise Commander," the
Oltharian said in an oddly soothing voice form someone
of his stature. "Although the problem may appear
minor it may prove to be a symptom of something more
dangerous affecting the computer core of the ship.
This is why I wanted to investigate this in person,
just to be on the safe side."
Glad to see that maybe she had not been wasting the
precious time of the Chief Engineering Officer, the
Shillian woman stepped out of the way and allowed the
Oltharian to perform whatever he had needed to do. As
time passed though the First Officer of the ANUBIS
noticed that the gentle giant had been growing
increasingly frustrated with his own lack of success
in unblocking the section of memory in which the
pattern had been locked in.
As great as the knowledge and skills of the Oltharian
man had been he eventually had to admit that the
problem had been beyond his understanding forcing him
to refer to a higher authority, and in the case of the
mechanical and electronic systems of the USS ANUBIS,
this person was the Avatar.
"Lieutenant Fairborn to Annie, could you please report
to Transporter Room 1, we seem to have a problem," the
giant said barely having the time to finish his
sentence before the door to the room opened and the
mechanical wonder known as Annie stood in the open
doorway.
"The file which you and Lieutenant Commander Maya have
been trying to access has been placed there from the
back-up files and secured by orders of Captain Rikar,"
the Avatar said in a way which pointed to her having
had foreknowledge of this matter.
"Why would the Captain ask to have the pattern of a
member of the crew placed in the memory and *secured*
in such a way?" The Chief Science Officer asked, not
at all understanding where this had been leading to.
"Because," Annie replied in a matter-of-fact way, "the
patter is that of Lieutenant Commander Enaii and will
be essential to her being rescued from SURIAL III."
Surprise and confusion soon gave way to an endless
string of theories as the Chief Science Officer
reviewed in her mind the events which had led to the
death of Lieutenant Commander Enaii, the Intelligence
Liaison Officer of the ANUBIS. The dispersion field
which had been present around the planet had made it
impossible for anyone to beam to the planet surface, a
fact which had made rescuing the crew of the MERCURY
that much more difficult. After some work though, the
Intelligence Liaison Officer had come up with a plan
which she had believed would allow one person to beam
down and set the necessary equipment on the surface to
permit more to do the same. The mission log showed
that something went wrong causing the pattern of
Lieutenant Commander Enaii to be dispersed throughout
the ionized atmosphere of the planet.
"Let me get this straight," the First Officer and head
of the science department said, her eyes opened as
wide as could be. "We are planning to reconstruct the
energy pattern of Lieutenant Commander Enaii and use
the pattern contained within the memory core of the
transporter system to return her to a physical, and
hopefully living state of being?" Annie simply stood
there neither confirming or denying the outrageous
theory presented by the Shillian scientist. "I mean I
have heard of such things having been attempted," the
Chief Science Officer said, resuming her rant, "but as
far as I know such an attempt has never been
successfully accomplished, except in the case of where
both the bio-matter and energy of the an individual
had been stored in the pattern buffer, but that is an
entirely different story since we only have the memory
blueprint of the pattern and not the actual bio-matter
not to mention that the ionization of the atmosphere
of SURIAL III had made it impossible for us to even
think of attempting this when we had been there the
first time, so what makes the captain or anyone else
for that matter think that we will be able to
accomplish this impossible task this time around?"
The Oltharian stepped in, as gentle and calm as ever.
"The term *impossible* is often and inaccurately used
to describe something that has not yet been
successfully done. Many believed that breaking the
light-speed barrier had been *impossible*, as being
able to transform matter into energy and back into
matter. Impossible does not mean that it *cannot* be
done, merely that we have not yet figured out how to
do it."
Faced with such an explanation which only served to
compound the matter at hand, the Chief Science Officer
decided to bring this issue to the Commanding Officer
of the ANUBIS who had requested the pattern to be
moved and locked into place. Hopefully Captain Rikar
would be able to provide her First Officer with some
solid scientific ground to support the decision and
the entire mission on which not one but two ships
would be embarking on in less than ten hours.
---
"To see the world in a grain of sand, 2006 post #007
Setting: USS ANUBIS, Transporter Room 1
Jessica Solarik { maya_992003@yahoo.com }
Lieutenant Commander Maya
Executive Officer and Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)
