| abstract | - “So you’ll be there, then?” Jacques Pierre asked. “When does the show start again?” Kate McMillan replied to her fiancé. “Twenty-one hundred.” Her mouth quirked as she considered her shift schedule. “I will if I can get Lieutenant Medrona to let me off a few minutes early.” “Please do. And maybe you can stay over here through tomorrow morning?” The Québécois wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Kate snorted. “A man can dream, can’t he?” She laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. Lord knows we haven’t had any serious time together in weeks.” Off the screen she heard somebody ask, “Ensign, have you got that tetryon flux pattern analysis for me yet?” Jacques muttered, “Merde,” then looked over his shoulder and said, “Thirty seconds left on the algorithm, sir.” “Quit wasting time with your girlfriend and get it finished. We need those numbers for the core retrofit on the Repulse.” “Yes, sir.” “He sounds like my dad,” Kate commented. Jacques’ head spun back to the screen with a surprised look on his face and she chuckled. “No, he does, seriously. All right, stay safe, hon. I love you.” “Je t’aime. Au revoir, ma chérie.” The screen flicked to the Utopia Planitia logo and Kate got up and twisted her long, flaming red curls into their usual tight bun. She actually really hated that style—she preferred to wear her hair loose—but it was either that or cut it military short: way too easy for long hair to get caught in something at the shipyard. She dug into the dresser and pulled out her black and red uniform jacket and zipped it up, taking a moment to ensure the single stainless steel pip on her right breast was straight and shiny. She grabbed her stab vest off its hook on the wall and shrugged into it, then buckled her gun belt and checked the charges on her stunstick and sidearm. Finally she palmed the door access and stepped out into the corridor to head to her duty station. Kate was Starfleet Security, one of the shipyard’s guards, though she was hoping to get into the Investigative Service eventually. She’d met Jacques in their second year at the Academy. She was studying criminal investigation; he was a subspace physics major on Starfleet Science track. It’d taken some doing to even get them both assigned to the same installation when they weren’t married yet, but sufficient begging had gotten Captain Kirkpatrick, Jacques’ major advisor, to pull a few strings and get them both assignments at the shipyard after graduation. He’d proposed in September when they’d gotten some time off and visited her mom on Staten Island, and the date was set for April 14. Kate arrived in the station security office after a short tram ride, unzipped the vest and hooked it over her chair, then grabbed a cup of coffee from the replicator. She was glad she’d pulled second shift this week, since it tended to be the quietest. There really wasn’t much to do except break up the occasional argument at the station cantina and sweep for contraband. Lieutenant Medrona, the chocolate-skinned Xindi-Primate in charge of the office, walked in a minute later. Kate stood up and snapped to attention. “As you were, Ensign. Good morning.” “Morning, sir. Uh, can I get you a cup of coffee?” “Only if you want me to have a stomachache.” “Oh, right, caffeine—” “Bad for the Xindi stomach lining, yes. Herbal tea, though…” “Peppermint?” Medrona nodded and Kate turned to the replicator. “Peppermint tea, hot.” The machine hummed but then made a squawking noise. Kate smacked the side with the heel of her palm and some kind of black sludge materialized on the tray. “Oy vey.” She reached around back, felt around for the power feed and disconnected it, then plugged it back in. The replicator came back up and she hit the “dematerialize” button, then made the request again. A cup of hot tea glittered into existence and she handed it to the lieutenant. “Sir, I, uh—” “Spit it out, Ensign.” Kate paused to organize herself. “Sir, I wanted to know if I could go off-shift early today.” “Why?” the Xindi asked, taking a sip of her tea. “Jacques got tickets to a concert in New Venice, and, um, we haven’t seen each other in weeks.” “Jacques is your lifemate, yes?” Kate blushed. She hadn’t thought of it quite that way. “Um, we’re engaged, yes, sir.” “‘Engaged’?” “It means we’re getting married but we haven’t had the ceremony yet.” “You humans,” the lieutenant commented in what sounded like a patronizing tone. “Sir?” “Never mind.” Medrona shook her head and took another sip of tea. “I don’t see why not, barring any unforeseen circumstances. But I want your Form 407-C on my desk before you leave.” “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Medrona smiled. “Get to work, Ensign,” she said, and walked into her office. Kate maintained something close to military composure until the door slid shut, then couldn’t resist leaping half a meter into the air and shouting “YES!” “A bit quieter, please, Ensign,” Medrona’s muffled voice came from the opposite door. “They can probably hear you on Phobos.” “Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!” She struggled to stifle a giggle, then sighed. Today was definitely looking up. “Bikog, I’m telling you, I saw something,” Sherazi insisted. “And I’m telling you, Sherazi, there’s nothing on the scanners,” Bikog contradicted her. The Choblik’s cybernetic arms raced across the board as his tail agitatedly whipped back and forth. “See, nothing. Nothing. More nothing. Carry the nothing. Nothing plus nothing equals nothing!” “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Chief Blackhawk said from her console. “It means there’s nothing there, Chief!” “Oss-One Bikog, calm the frak down or I’ll have Kybok pinch you,” Lieutenant ch’Kreem interjected. “Kybok, take a look at her data.” The Vulcan idly wondered where, exactly, he was supposed to grip a Choblik to perform the nerve pinch as Sherazi shot the data over to his console. That faint ripple pattern in subspace was still appearing sporadically, traveling inward along with the DeWitt. They had already alerted Captain Hollingsworth that he was having possible warp field problems. Kybok advanced through the logs to the timeframe Sherazi had marked, a minute or so after they’d finished talking with Hollingsworth the first time, and went through frame by frame. He spent forty-five seconds looking when he suddenly spotted it. “Sherazi, Bikog, come over here, please.” The human and Choblik walked over. “A tachyon burst, from frames 102 to 115, point-two-nine-five light years out.” This was deeply unsettling. It was the result of large quantities of tachyons, matter that permanently existed at superluminal speeds, suddenly entering normal space and self-annihilating. According to everything Kybok knew about subspace physics (he understood the basic concepts, though writing a paper was out of the question), that was impossible under normal conditions. Now, subspace was inherently unpredictable and there were natural phenomena that could cause a tachyon burst, but none of the ones he knew about had ever been sighted this close to the Sol system. “Computer,” Sherazi said, “analyze readings during selected timespan and explain tachyon burst.” The intercom chirped. “There are four hundred forty-seven possibilities.” Kybok heard Blackhawk say a word he had been told humans considered very rude. “Sort by descending order of likelihood and give me the top five,” ch’Kreem requested. Chirp. “Microsingularity interacting with gravity wave. Nadion inversion field. Cloaked starship entering normal space. Quantum flux—” “Repeat the third item,” Kybok interrupted. “Cloaked starship entering normal space.” “Likelihood?” “Four percent.” Kybok spun in his chair and saw ch’Kreem sitting, staring at the readout and scratching his goatee. “Sir?” The Andorian stood and tugged the hem of his jacket straight. “Sound yellow alert. Any one of those could be dangerous to navigation if nothing else. Bikog, you’re with me. I want to take the Ibn Yunus out to get a closer look. Chief, the deck is yours.” “I have the deck,” Blackhawk confirmed. Bikog and ch’Kreem walked to the turbolift and the Andorian requested, “Docking ring.” The door slid shut. About two minutes later, the listening post’s only Type-10 shuttlepod appeared on the plot and went to warp.
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