Scientific Puzzle

Posted on 04 Sep 2015 @ 6:05am by Lieutenant JG Cyrin Xanth
Edited on on 09 Sep 2015 @ 2:53am

988 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 7, Astrometrics
Timeline: MD04, 2100

[ON]

Cyrin looked up from his screen just long enough to glance at the chronometer. At 2100, he was halfway through his shift. It felt like he'd been sitting here forever though. Before him on the display were undulating patterns of various energy forms that was likely to make some people feel sick if they stared at it took long. Beside it was a scrolling mass of equations that would probably make even more people sick just to glance at. It certainly wasn't making Cyrin feel very good at the moment.

"Dimensional Simulation #379-12 Alpha-1 is complete," the Computer said, and the pulsing energy stopped at the same time the numbers ceased to scroll as well. "Singularity structure collapsed at two-minutes three-point-seven seconds. Gravimetric signatures do not correlate to stated sample. Orbit circumference differential: C = 2πR so for R = 68,000 km, C = 400,000 kilometers."

Cyrin sighed, heavily, and took a look over his shoulder at the only other person in the room. Astrometrics was quiet during Beta shift, and Trisant Myrddin was working at his station on the other side of the room. Cyrin liked it this way, no chatter. With the Bajoran's speciality on signal detection and processing they didn't have much to speak about very often anyways. But Trisant probably could easily hear yet another failure.

"Computer," Cyrin said wearily, turning back to his controls and began to type. "Alter circumference to 72 meters, x-ray wavelength to 112 nanometers, gravity to 1.9 x 10 to the 42nd power. Label 'Dimensional Simulation #379-12 Alpha-2', and begin simulation."

There came a beep of confirmation, the screens cleared, then a new pattern of energy and mathematics appeared. It might look like the same as the previous one, but Cyrin could see the difference as he stared bleary-eyed at the screen. He'd run so many of these simulations now, trying to understand, that even the slightest adjustment stood out so that to his eyes the pattern was wildly different.

It was what he'd been doing for four days now. Four days of this, trying to figure out just what had happened to the Galileo and her crew. The discharge from the secondary deflector dish, with an apparently unforeseen mechanical defect, had caused the singularity - the vortex as it was popularly known as around the ship. But that just didn't add up to the astrophysicist, not with what happened next. The Galileo had been caught in the event horizon as it had been too close, but came through the other side relatively unscathed given the power of the anomaly. There was a slight physical displacement of a couple hundred kilometers he still couldn't account for, but that was nothing compared to the larger problem. They shouldn't have survived!

The odds of a random burst of undirected energy, what this was supposed to be, creating a singularity that would only slightly damage the ship and spit them back out the other side was beyond astronomical. Either the vortex should have collapsed in on itself, evaporated, torn a massive hole through space-time and/or subspace, or any other number of dire or unspectacular things. That the Galleo had come through like this was mind boggling, though not many onboard seemed to share in his surprise. Cyrin had told Commander Kohl about his doubts and he'd been ordered to look into things, so four days.

He'd been trying to match the effects of what they'd experienced with the little information they had to go on. Most of the logs containing the telemetry of the vortex before and after their passage had been destroyed, and what Sigrid had managed to save was incomplete. Without her information though, Cyrin wouldn't have been able to begin to approach this problem. There were literally an infinite number of variables, too many possibilities, when it came to the nature of the vortex. Her data though gave him a starting point, a way to start to figure out what the likely combination was that created the singularity.

And, Cyrin both hoped and dreaded, might prove if things were as he suspected. That someone had done this intentionally. As he'd said to Kohl, it was too unlikely for this to be random. And where were all the other ships from the wargames? If he could prove his theory then came questions he hoped were easier to figure out than this. Who had done it, and why?

"Dimensional Simulation #379-12 Alpha-2 is complete." Cyrin reached for his controls with a sigh, fully expecting yet another failure. "Partial match of singularity geometry found. R = 3.0 x 24 km for last stable particle orbit, matching sample data. Singularity mass within defined margin of error. M = 18.5 to the second power / 30 to the second power = .09 solar masses. Singularity structure collapsed within four-point-nine minutes however, outside of simulation parameters. X-ray wavelength 114 nanometers also fails to match."

Despite the missing puzzle pieces still left, Cyrin let out a quick whoop of joy. He'd finally gotten, after four days, out of so many failures, a small break. The Trill glanced over his shoulder again to see if he'd disturbed Trisant, then back to his screen. His grey eyes scanned the results with laser-like focus, hungrily devouring the data. Cyrin hoped this would be enough to please Kohl, Lucero, and Oren. He'd been making himself feel sick worrying about his lack of results and wondering when one of his superiors was going to come down here to shout at him or give him an evil eye.

"Now I'll have something to show them," Cyrin said with renewed enthusiasm. "Computer, let's try this again, but alter the gravity to 1.87 x 10 to the 42nd power. We'll pick this apart piece by piece if we have to. I'm going to figure this out, eventually. Label test as Dimensional Simulation #379-12 Alpha-2-0001, and begin..."

[OFF]

--

ENS Cyrin Xanth
Astrophysicist
USS Galileo

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