- Investigation
Alpha heard a noise. She turned and saw Nina enter the Bridge. She
saw that she had rested and smiled. “You are ready for duty?”
“Yes. What happened on that ship shouldn't have happened.”
“It would probably be a while before I'll let you go on another
away mission.”
“I was thinking about that,” Nina said as she sat her console.
“It would depend on the kind of mission.”
“It would,” Alpha said.
“I was considering travelling forwards to this planet's information
age and copying historical data from the worldwide network.”
Alpha was intreagued, but cautious. “So, you'll go forwards, and
steal a data storage device with the data on it?”
Nina interuppted. “I'll take a tricorder and use that to copy the
data.”
“That would be better,” Alpha conceded.
“I can do it today,” Nina sated.
“Sure,” Alpha was pleased that Nina seemed to have recovered from
the previous day's experience, but she was still concerned that she
was letting her exuberance get away with her. “But not right away.”
Nina examined more of the data collected by the Baffin crew,
specifically that on the version of Tanarexa IV in the first
alternate universe they visited. Her conclusion was inconclusive.
Whatever, or whoever, was responsible for the displacements on that
planet probably wasn't going to help her and the holocrew return the
ship to it's home universe. 'But maybe we could try?' It wouldn't be
the first time a Time Lord tried to turn a powerful being to their
side.
1200 hours. Alpha turned to Nina. “If you want to go on that
forward journey, you can.”
“I shall.”
In the shuttlebay, Nina grabbed several tricorders and PADDs. “Are
you sure you'll need all those?” Alpha asked.
“The contents of the network may be greater than the storage
capacity,” Nina answered.
“That's unlikely, the PADDs have a storage capacity of four
gigaquads each. Same with the tricorders.”
“I'll find a use for them.”
“You probably won't be gone that long.”
“Probably not.”
“You might need this,” Alpha said, holding out a phaser by the
emitter end.
“No. I don't think I would get into that kind of trouble,” Nina
said with a shake of her head.
“Away Mission Personnel shall not go into an unknown area
unprepared for the possibility of combat.”
“Is that a regulation?” Nina asked.
“Yes,” Alpha answered.
Nina sighed and took the phaser. “I'll be back as soon as
possible.”
Soon, the TARDIS dematerialised, and Alpha left the shuttlebay.
Nina looked over the Console Room as the TARDIS travelled forwards in
time. It was still in it's default design. She hadn't changed
anything since she had fled Gallifrey. She considered that it was
time to make changes. 'Starfleet certainly knows how to design a ship
interior that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing,' she
thought. She turned back to the console and accessed the
Architectural Configuration System. 'Now, the scanner has the
Baffin's interior on file.' She then set the ACS to style set
the Console Room Theme to Starfleet.
That done, she left the Console Room to find the wardrobe. She
suspected that just wearing the Starfleet uniform would draw unwanted
attention.
After finding a simple Time Lord robe that matched the colour of the
uniform, Nina entered one of the auxiliary console rooms and quickly
re-assigned control of the TARDIS to that room. The ship was about to
land.
As soon as the ship had landed and she had used the scanner, Nina
found that she had indeed landed in the planet's information age. So,
she interfaced one of the Tricorders with the Scanner and set it to
send the information to one of the PADDs. “OK, copy the information
from the planet's network to the PADD,” she said as she set the
scanner. The tricorder than began to receive the data from the
scanner and transmiting it to the PADD. 'Good!' she thought.
She emerged from the ship to see that she had landed next to a large
library, and that the ship had disguised itself as a motor home (with
the Baffin's regristry number, translated into the local
number system, on the licence plates, and in Circular Gallifreyan on
the sides). She also noticed the Starfleet pennants on the roof.
'Great! Is the Chameleon Circuit glitching?' She didn't want to worry
about that. Instead, she decided to go into the library.
The library was what she expected. A well organised space, with many
people interacting and looking up information, like any library she
had seen. She also saw that there were librarian jobs available. 'Not
sure how long I'll be staying, even if I could be back at the Baffin
within a minute of depature.' She decided to stay at least a day or
two. 'And I can work at this library for a day. She took a place at
one of the desks and used the PADD to interface with the TARDIS,
instructing her ship to create an identity for her.
Half an hour later, she came to the desk and handed over her
application.
Name: Nina Lumbra
Age: 27
…
“Nina Lumbra? Sounds foreign,” the librarian said.
“My father was from the North,” Nina responded.
“I see.”
“Everything checks out, you can start tomorrow.”
“That's good.”
The librarian handed Nina a card. “Welcome to the Rladibud
Library.”
Alpha waited for Nina to return. Thus she spent another day to
herself listening to Klingon Opera and occasionally checking on the
marooned ship via the probe.
“Commander's log, Day 1024, Crewman Nina still hasn't returned for
over a day... Otherwise the Baffin is still ship shape”.
Alpha finished the log and called up the data on the stranded ship
Nina had visited two days before.
She noticed something. She called up the data from two days before.
She could see that the wave action against the ship had further
compromised it's structural integrity. “Computer, estimate time
until structural collapse.”
“Estimated time until structural collapse any time from six to
ten days.”
“Right.” She thought for a while. There had to be away she could
rescue that crew without violating the Prime Directive. She couldn't
go, the 29th Century technology behind the mobile emitter
hadn't yet been reverse engineered. But using probes to repair the
ship would almost certainly cause a violation. And simply beaming
them off definitely would be a violation. That seemed to lead to one
solution. A Synthetic. The schematics for Synthetics, including the
positionic brains, were in the Baffin's databases.
Alpha entered Engineering with a PADD showing instructions.
“Computer, activate Emergency Engineering Holograms Beta and
Gamma.”
“Affirmative.”
“Please state the nature of the Engineering Emergency,” Beta and
Gamma said in unision. They then looked at each other in surprise
before turning back to Alpha.
Alpha handed Beta the PADD. “Build a Synthetic that can go on away
missions, so we can rescue the crew of a sailing ship without
violating the Prime Directive?” he asked, once he had read it. He
handed the PADD to Gamma.
“Yes,” Alpha answered.
“But, what will you be doing?” Gamma asked, her curiosity showing
in her voice.
“I'll be in one of the holodecks, running repair simulations,”
Alpha answered.
Both Beta and Gamma nodded, before turning to one of the consoles.
Alpha approached Holodeck 1. “Computer, load scan data of the
crashed ship to Holodeck 1.”
“Affirmative.”
Ten seconds later, the computer reported. “Program complete.”
Alpha entered the holodeck onto the virtual ship's deck...
The next day, Nina returned to the Library.
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