Fragmented Memories

Posted on Thu Jan 4th, 2024 @ 1:28am by Commander Kevin Lance
Edited on on Thu Jan 4th, 2024 @ 1:32am

Mission: The Avenger
Location: USS Chuck Norris
Timeline: Current

on:
{Bridge}

The ship was entering its nineteenth hour of the search pattern that Kevin had planned. He had been able to extend the ships’ sensor radius by rotating the Norris’ four Type 18 shuttlecrafts through three hour shifts strategically position at the edge of the ship’s short ranged sensor horizon. He also employed Class 2 probes to extend their sensor coverage even further, sending out the ship’s to Worker Bee maintenance shuttles to recover the probes to be refurbished by the ship’s maintenance crews before being relaunched to gather more data.

The pace of the search operation was burning through the allotted flight hours for the regular shuttle pilots and Kevin had added to the flight crew rotation every qualified shuttle operator who could be spared from other duties. Shuttle maintenance teams were similarly tapped out having to turn a shuttle from post-operations to flight-ready every hour in addition to periodic resupply of the Worker Bees and refurbishing probes. The crews were holding up well so far but the lack of downtime was beginning to show on the maintenance teams.

The first several hours of the search had revealed little. Only a few score trace fragments, none larger than a human hand, had been discovered. Not enough to provide any meaningful data. Then they had found a larger piece that turned out to be a portion of the ship’s warp cowling. More chunks of larger debris where discovered over the next hours. The transporters was unable to secure lock-ons even with the assistance of the Type-18s so retrieval and return of the fragments was added to the list of tasks for the ship’s Worker Bee shuttles.

The makeshift gymnasium in the portside cargo bay had been packed away to make room for the collection of fragments from the Avenger and Lieutenant K’ner and her team poured over each new acquisition with meticulous care. Better, from Kevin’s point of view, was the fact that he was able to use the accumulated velocity and course data to better refine the search area, cutting his original prediction by nearly one-third.

“Norris, this is Sierra-03,” Lieutenant Walker called from his shuttle out on the sensor line, “Tracking a large fragment of anomalous matter approximately two meters in length”

“Roger, Sierra-03,” Kevin replied, “Dispatching a Worker Bee to your area. Stand by.”

Switching the comms channel with a practiced ease borne of repetition, he continued with barely a pause, “Shuttle Operations, this is Flight Conn, send a Worker Bee out to Sierra-03s vicinity to retrieve anomalous matter. Coordinates to follow.”

“Roger, Flight Conn,” the female voice replied, “Be advised that WhiskyBravo-01 is in final flight prep. Skids up in five minutes.”

“Acknowledged. Launch when ready. Flight Conn, out,” Kevin answered before switching back to the shuttle communications channel, “Sierra-03, maintain contact with the anomalous matter. WhiskyBravo-01 is ten minutes out.”

“Roger,” Lieutenant Walker replied.

“Norris, out.”

Kevin was elated. This was the largest piece of debris so far. It was an indication that larger portions of the Avenger might still be intact. He transferred the coordinates of the anomalous matter to Shuttle Operations then began to refine the search area with the latest plot track.

Thirty minutes later the anomalous matter was in the port side cargo bay. Kevin overheard the communication between the Captain and Lieutenant K’ner.

=/\= “Captain, the object is approximately two by one by one meters. It appears to be an old style computer core” =/\=

“Can you integrate it into our core to access the data?” the Captain asked.

=/\= “It’s not that easy,” K’ner replied, “It is based on a much older binary language that our isolinear systems won’t understand.”

“What about powering the computer core separately?” the Captain offered.

=/\= “That might work,” K’ner answered thoughtfully, “but this is only a small component of a much larger system. Computer cores on the NX-series took up three whole decks. Additionally, I don’t see anything like an input/output console. I could jury-rig something but it will take time.” =/\=

“Do it,” the Captain ordered, “I want to know what is on that computer core."

:off

Lieutenant Kevin Lance
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Chuck Norris