Slingshot

Posted on Mon Oct 8th, 2018 @ 6:40pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Abril Hirano
Edited on on Mon Oct 8th, 2018 @ 6:57pm

Mission: S1E2: Half Past Dead
Location: USS Meridian, Deck One Astrometric Lab.
Timeline: MD 1; 03.00hrs
Tags: Lieutenant Commander Kazyah Linn

The one thing an investigator hates is being left in the dark.

Petty Officer Abril Hirano was one such person, by merit of both her recently former profession and her Latin heritage, she was not a woman that suffered obscurification or ambiguity with an even temper – with a talent for both logical and lateral interpretation – a clear and unambiguous mode of operation was endemic to her mindset.

Fingering the freshly starched collar of the unfamiliar light – grey uniform shirt ruefully, the young woman peered intently at her reflection in the mirror of the cramped cubicle of the cramped visitors’ quarters on the tiny ship, hurtling through the void and wondered why (with this familiar comfort zone receding at Warp – speeds) she had accepted her recent assignment with Starship Intelligence?

Abril had been happy during her 5 years with Starfleet Security. As a young rating she had served as a Brig Officer aboard the USS Erskine, as the venerable Sabre – Class Escort has relentlessly pursued its Anti – Piracy Interdiction mandate and had learned much about abhorrent sentient behavior from presiding over her captive audience.

This rare psychologic insight had, in turn, honed her investigative skills as she progressed to duty as a Security Investigations Officer. As she checked her face one last time and performed a sense – check to ensure she had left no trace of herself behind, Abril reflected that she had been a damn good SIO too.

She stepped out into the empty corridor, as the Ship slept and made her way to the Turbolift, for the shortest leg of her Journey today.

As she stepped out onto Deck 1, she was met by Captain Susan Hannity.

“Good Morning Petty Officer.” Hannity smiled, the fact that she was outside of her normal duty rotation and up in what was effectively the middle of the night did not touch her features. She used Abril’s rank – honorific as, beyond that, she had no idea about who this young woman was.

She did however have at least part of an idea about where Abril was going, so she knew that much more than her at least.

“Good Morning Captain.” Abril nodded as Hannity led her to the Astrometric Lab.

There, staring out of the viewport of the Lab at the Aft – streaming stellar contrail, stood Chief Hal Morgan. Unlike his taciturn CO, the Transporter Chief was not so diplomatic about being up in the middle of the night and even less happy than Abril about the ambiguity of her destination.

“Captain.” The squat Mississippian’s dark features glowered at Abril - who guessed any niceties the Chief might manage would not be rationed for her consumption.

“Ah’m not sure what ya’ll fixin’ to achieve with this catawampus, but you mark – me it don’t bode no body no good.” Morgan frowned massively as he readied the control panel of the small transporter pad, more usually reserved for the retrieval of scientific samples.

“Your concern is duly noted Chief." Captain Hannity rubbed her eyes as she closed the door to the Lab. Susan had served with Hal Morgan for a number of years and in private, was given to allow the Chief more lassitude than she would in front of the rest of the crew.

Hal pursed his lips as he nodded to Abril.

“She’ll be lucky if she don’t turn up inside out.” The Chief muttered darkly to himself, as he brought the transporter transponder array online.

Abril tried to look unconcerned as he added “If’n she turns up at all.”

Captain Hannity took this moment to turn to the business in hand and get back to the Command of the doughty little Nova Class vessel and the business of Stellar Cartography.

“Okay Petty Officer...” Hannity’s mouth twisted wryly as she reminded herself that she didn’t know Abril’s name, “Let’s get this show on the road.” She sighed.

“Thank you, Captain.” Abril returned respectfully, she herself was at odds with the subterfuge that accompanied her new role and even she considered these security precautions that surrounded her transfer to her new duty assignment labyrinthine in the extreme.

“Now I don’t hold with all this cloak and dagger bee – ess Petty Officer,” Hannity smiled evenly, “But when Starfleet Command tell me that I have to give an Intelligence asset a lift to the middle of nowhere and kick her out of a moving car – well who am I to argue?”

Abril raised a quizzical eyebrow – she hadn’t even been briefed on the name of her destination, let alone its location and now it sounded like her mode of transport would be something she’d rather not know about either – had she had the choice.

Hannity indicated to the transporter pad and said “To be honest, the Physics behind all of this make my head spin, so I’ll let the Chief explain it all.”

Abril did as she was bidden as Chief Morgan fixed her with a poignant look.

“Okay Jane Bond.” Morgan commented dryly (a reference that escaped her) “What we are about to do is dangerous in the extreme, if not fatally irresponsible and has a failure – metric that the computer is currently having apoplexy about.”

Abril, also not a morning person, was attempting to maintain an even keel, but her pretense of professional detachment slipped momentarily when she replied.“Starfleet has been performing at – Warp transporter transfers for decades now Chief.” Abril commented tiredly, “You should be able to do this in your sleep."

Morgan grinned widely at her sass.

“Oh yes Missy.” The Chief rumbled as he brought the system online. “We been slinging spooks and grunts across the ether at Warp Speeds for a LONG time now, yes we have.”

As he began to energize the pad and Abril felt the familiar but disconcerting fission on her skin as she began to dis-incorporate into a stream of electrons, the Chief added sardonically, “Of course normally when we do that – we usually have a destination to send your smart – ass to…….”

“Wait! WHA………”

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The USS Meridian continued implacably on its assigned course to its destination in the Obada System, where it would begin a predictably routine three months spent observing and recording a number of stellar phenomena.

Even the most studious of observers, had they been trailing the tiny Nova Class Science vessel, would have been hard pressed to detect the transporter signature that emanated from the vessel as it sped on its way. If such an observer did exist they would logically put the reading down to a system anomaly as there was clearly no habitat within the ship’s effective transporter range – capable of supporting life.

As Chief Morgan had rightly pointed out, the practice of initiating a site to site transfer by matter transference at Warp speeds was a not insignificant challenge to any operator – but this risky operation had been formalized when the legendary Starfleet Engineer Commander Montgomery Scott established the theory of Trans warp Transference in the 2300’s.

The digitized flow of matter that was Petty Officer Abril Hirano was condensed into a stream of pure sub – relativistic energy by the USS Meridian’s Heisenberg Compensator and then tight beamed to a point near the extreme range of the Nova’s emitter – where it was received into the pattern – buffer of a dormant Class – 9 Astrometric probe that Captain Hannity had launched some 14 hours earlier.

On receipt of its package, the probe initiated it’s drives and headed out on a prearranged course to a set of coordinates that were only just becoming available to its CPU.

Hours later when the probe was reaching the limit of its endurance, its transponder picked up an encrypted handshake from a Starfleet signal buoy - part of a static passive network of navigational beacons that dotted remote parts of space.
The probe initiated its tiny transporter buffer and squirted the stored pattern from its own storage matrix to that of the distant signal – buoy – before initiating a level one system – wipe of its own navigational data core and initiating a self – destruct sequence some 9 parsecs away.

Abril’s signal pattern remained dormant in the pattern buffer until the assigned time when the Sovereign Class Vessel USS Triton was passing within range, as part of its routine patrol route – whereupon the Duty Bridge Officer aboard the Triton received the following message,

=^=Shuttle-bay One to Bridge =^=

=^= Bridge here – Go ahead Shuttle - bay One.=^=

=^= Lieutenant this is Crewman Asura, Sir we’ve just had, well, a glitch I guess with the Cargo Transporter Pad. =^=

=^= A “glitch” Crewman? =^= Lieutenant Michael Reed sighed, the grind of Gamma shift always took away some of the luster of sitting in the big – chair. =^= Would you care to be a little more specific? =^= Mike sighed.

=^= Well Sir, I was just performing a routine diagnostic on the pad when it appeared to run through a cycle. It’s damned odd Sir. Obviously, nothing was sent and there’s nothing here – but the oddest thing is that when I went back to check the logs – there’s nothing there – its like the system didn’t register any activity at all! =^=

Lieutenant Reed rubbed his eyes tiredly as he returned =^= Sounds like a systems error Crewman. Mark it in the maintenance log and have a crew look at the unit in the morning. We’re at Warp – so I don’t think we’ll be shifting cargo anytime soon. Reed out. =^=

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Chief Hal Morgan settled back into his bed and tried to sleep unsuccessfully. The magnitude of what he had just done both amazed and appalled him.

Morgan had just attempted the fabled “Slingshot.” As far as he knew he was the only living person that had attempted what had previously been a theorem best left for the more esoterically - deranged scientific periodicals.

A “Cascade Trans-warp Transfer.” The kind of thing that made a career a legend and the most frustrating thing was, no one would ever know a thing about it.

“God – Damn Jane Bond.” The gruff Mississippian muttered wanly as he scrunched his pillow and did his best to go back to sleep.

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Location: Memory Theta (Overwatch), Deck 5, Transporter Room.
Timeline: MD 3; 07.37hrs

“Wait! WHAT ?!”