Something clever

Posted on Sat Mar 28th, 2020 @ 6:44am by Lieutenant Seleya & Lieutenant Helena Wells

4,206 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: The science of stars
Location: USS Wolff - Sickbay
Timeline: ---- Back Post ---- Pre Away Team

ON:

The device that HG was working on seemed to decide to disassemble itself in a shower of sparks and bits of flying metal and glass. Unfortunately, while she had protected her eyes, her involuntary reflex of protecting her face with her hand had managed to catch a few of the bits.

HG plucked a few of the easier to get ones out but a few small shards had managed to get deep enough that even with nails and teeth she could not quite pull them out. She tended to hate going to sickbay but there was nothing for it and besides Anthony certainly would not be pleased with droppings of blood all over the lab. Thus, she wrapped the offended hand in a bit of cloth and headed out.

She arrived at the sickbay doors which opened with a loudish whoosh sound. HG wondered if they were designed that way in order to alert anyone to the presence of a patient. "Pardon me," she called out toward the office tucked in the corner of the empty sickbay. "I seem to have managed to make a mess of my hand."

Seleya, who'd been reviewing reports in her office, heard the door whoosh. She was already on her feet when the woman called out. She rounded the corner, "Ms. Wells. What has happened?" She asked indicating the biobed.

"Ah the long range transport inducer I was working seems to have decided to self-disassemble itself with the result that I have managed to get bits of it in my hand. Hence the reason for my visit." HG simply stated the reason but was observing the Vulcan woman. Normally she found Vulcan's too drool for her taste but sometimes there were exceptions. She had not had much interaction with the new head of the medical department.

"I see. Well transporters are used to disassembling things and people so I assume it wanted to see what it would feel like." She turned to pick up a tricorder and a few other tools. "Please have a seat."

"I am not sure it was intended to to that with itself, but perhaps gives me an idea." HG replied and then cocked her head. "I guess we have not really met, you obviously know my name and I yours but that is about all I know. How about that we drop a bit of formality?" HG suggested. She went on and said, "Helena Grace Wells, though I hate using my given names and prefer just HG. I am a distant descendant of Herbert George Wells, perhaps you might be familiar with his writings?"

"I have not heard the name." She said as she turned on the tricorder. "What does he write about?"

HG was not surprised a bit disappointed perhaps but not surprised. "Ah well, he was a speculative fiction writer, what on Earth we called science fiction, stories in which an author writes a story but basis it upon some science or speculative science. He quite prescient. At at time on Earth that was still in the steam age and animals were quite still in use for labour he wrote about time travel, genetic engineering, television, wireless communication, atomic bombs, airplanes, directed energy weapons and more. Things that the current technology of the day did not even have a glimmering of and further more he described it quite accurately. I would be more than happy to send you a couple of his works if you care to read."

She gave a nod. "Thank you." She checked the tricorder. "I see some slivers of glass have been pushed deep into the muscle. If you will lay back I will remove them. They are close to nerves and I cannot use a medical transporter. I will need to remove them by hand." She turned and started preparing a hypo for the pain.

HG rolled her eyes. Typical Vulcan, a bit too focused on the here and now. She did as the doctor had asked but decided to try again. Anything to keep her mind off things especially her hand. "So when you are not plucking shards out of errant scientists hands what do you like to do in your off time if I may inquire."

"Meditation, reading, I keep an exercise regiment." She numbed the area and then began to work being careful to cut lightly and to remove all the shards slowly to ensure that she missed nothing. She had the monitors going so they could guide her and let her know when it was all gone. "And you?" She asked seeing that the woman needed a distraction. It was better if she talked then Seleya.

"Oh holodeck adventures based upon the books you are not familiar with but otherwise anything with puzzles, games involving thinking that sort of thing. However, I need to get a bit more exercise and all. Besides I have always been intrigued about Vulcan meditation, if I could be so bold perhaps you could teach me a bit?"

She stopped pulling the fragments and tilted her head to the side as if thinking. After a moment she gave a nod. "I can indeed." She continued her work. "What were you thinking in terms of sessions? Once per week ?"

"That would be wonderful doctor. I do not want to over occupy your time but that sounds perfect," HG replied glancing down at the hand. "I do appreciate the offer." HG meant that.

"It will be good to meditate with someone. I look forward to them." She closed off the skin and picked up her tricroder. "I want to run one more scan and you should be good to go. Is there anything else you wish me to look at?"

"Hmmm........not that I can think of, but some people call me crazy, I just say that they cannot recognize genius. However, scan away doctor, nothing ventured, nothing gained." HG would normally have scooted straight on out of there but she was trying to make a bit of friend and thought it rude after the Vulcan doctor had agreed to help her learn some meditation.


She scanned Wells' hand and arm. "That is odd." she said picking up a secondary tricroder and scanning again while keeping the first tricorder active. She looked at the read outs. "It appears that one of the bits has broken away and is in your blood stream. Hold still please."

"Oh?" HG responded and then thought a moment, "Oh! OH! If it is part of micro super scan lock you must be careful. We don't want to be transported who knows where!"

"I am not sure. Hold still please. I need to do a more detailed scan." She picked up a device that looked like a claw. it was a micro scanner that would be able to get the read out. She set it over HG's arm. "I will begin the scan. Please take a deep breath and do not let it out."

HG complied with the request. As she did so and lay there she hoped it was not the device she had been working on. It was like the bracelet well a modification to that device that would allow one to get a transporter lock from quite some distance. The problem was it was not tuned yet and if someone activated a transporter, it might sync with said machine and wisk them who knew where.

Seleya sighed, "Tell me what you were working on. I have the distinct impression there are items or bits of information that you are withholding.

"Well.....," HG hesitated. "You know what a transporter lock is right? And an enhancer rods?"


"Right, basically helps the transporter get a lock when conditions are bad or a bit further away. Well, what this device was supposed to do was enhance the lock but utilizing a quantum vortice wave function with guided pilot wave. You see transporter signals degrade over distance but this keeps that signal from degrading. It is something called a soliton, think of like a ocean wave, they travel long distances but do not degrade easily."

She sighed, "In other words I should be careful."

"Unless you want to find yourself halfway across the galaxy if some transporter got a lock on this. I have not had a chance to fine tune to respond only to the Wolff's."

She started the scan. "I believe I have found it. I will try to pull it out. This...may be a little painful."

HG tensed up. She was not a big lover of pain and perhaps why she never considered having children besides the mess they caused. She nodded her head slightly, "go ahead."

As Seleya twisted the device to remove the little chip like bit she heard a strange hum. A pull of sorts. "Wh...."

What might show up on the ship's recorders was a swirl of light, greenish in hue and the two shapes vanishing from the sickbay. There was that sickening feeling especially enhanced of being in two places at once before things resolved and instead of a nice sickbay bed, if one could call those nice, HG and company found themselves on a metal floor surrounded by metal walls. Shortly there was a somewhat distorted metallic hum and a voice, male from the timbre that said, "Just who are the heck are you?"

Seleya was on her feat first. She held out her hand to help HG up. "Where are we?" She quickly asked.

HG was still smarting from where the Vulcan had been poking around in her wrist. There was a trickle of blood but at least she could still feel the bit buried in there.
"Not a clue..." she stated and that voice came again.

"Just who are you and how did you two get in there? This is a top secret project!" The voice became stern.

Seleya raised an eyebrow. "The chip...we activated it."

"Chip?" the voice came again, "what chip? What is a chip?" The there was other voices over the open line. "I do not know major, these two just appeared in the chamber during the test transport."

"Well get them out of there! You know we were not up to transporting living things yet!"

"Yes sir," the voice replied and then there was a commotion on the other side of what appeared to be a sort of hatchway door. It was something similar to what one saw in the old Earth movies of a submarine hatch door sans there was no way to open it from the inside.

There was a moment of metal screeching as the lugs retracted and then it opened to reveal several people, some in uniform and some with white lab coats on. "Come on out of there ladies and let's clear this up."

HG looked over at Seleya and shrugged and then ducked out into the brightly lit area. There was another chamber not far away, maybe a few meters or so. Banks and banks of machines with tapes lined the walls and everyone looked at them as they emerged.

The voice belonged to a man with short blonde hair and piercing blue eyes with a lab coat over his uniform. Various people HG guessed were technicians stood around the machines and slightly behind the man stood a shorter man with black hair, brown eyes strictly in uniform with two soldiers with what appeared to be hand weapons they had their hands on.

The blonde haired man helped HG out and then offered his hand to Seleya. "You alright miss? You look a little green around the gills."

Seleya raised an eyebrow. "I can assure you I do not have gills. Like you Humans I have lungs and breath using them."

The man looked puzzled at the response but just added, "No, I meant you look a little greenish." He then added, "I take it you two are not from around here?"

Seleya looked around somewhat confused. "We are not." She studied the man and then looked at HG. "I believe you are more experienced then I at this."

HG looked at the doctor and back wondering just what that meant. She had not a clue either other than somehow this machine, some sort of primitive transporter she guessed had somehow locked onto the chip signal.

"Umm....alright. Well my colleague and I seem to have been transported here by accident. I take it," she waved which caused the what she guessed where guards toward the door to bring their weapons around.

The man waved his hands in a gesture to have them put them down which they did warily.

HG continued being more careful now. "That machine is some sort of transporter."

The man looked at her a bit blankly and she amended, "Teleporter, you know to transport objects from one place to another."

He looked over the other older darker haired man and then shrugged. "Yes," he said flately.

"Ah, thought so, well it seems that your trans....teleporter caught a signal from elsewhere and we got transpor....teleported here. I am Helena Wells and this is Lieutenant Seleya." HG nodded her chin toward the doctor.

"Lieutenant? What force?" the dark haired man interrupted looking at Seleya hard with a bit of suspicion.

"Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets." She spoke truthfully.

"The what?" the blonde haired man said with a puzzled look.

"Sounds like Eastern spies to me," the black haired heavy set man looked at the two of them suspeciously.

The blonde haired man did not seem to jump to such a conclusion and then he noticed Seleya's ears. "Ummm......colonel you might want to take a closer look at this one." He looked at Seleya and asked, "Just what are you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I am a Vulcan."

The blonde haired man crinkled his brow and shook his head. "Ma'am, I have no idea what a Vulcan is or for that matter who or what you are except you have interfered with an important experiment and are trespassing into a secret government facility." He waved a hand beckoning a couple of the guards. "Take these two out and down to the medical facility and make sure you restrain them. I want a full examination."

He looked to HG and then back to the one that claimed to be some sort of lieutenant. "I would highly suggest you be cooperative. Colonel," he nodded the black haired man then with his chin indicated that they should walk toward the door.

She looked at HG. "This is not going well is it." She began to walk to the door and then just as the man opened it or her she twisted and placed a nerve pinch on his neck. The man crumpled. She turned to HG giving her a nod to go after the other one before he could react. This was one of those times where Surak .... needed to turn a blind eye.

HG was taken by surprise also but finally she responded using an upward back kick to place the heel of her boot into what she presumed was standard humanoid male anatomy. The guard crumpled and HG caught the weapon and backed up pointing it. It was primitive as heck but it did not take too much genius to figure out a trigger and that the pointed end was the business end. She swept the room and said as stern as she could. "Alright I want to see hands!"

The blonde and dark haired man started to move but froze when they saw HG with the rifle and a few of what HG presumed were technicians also froze up. "Sorry, but no dissections today though you might her kind of interesting."

The blonde haired man shook his head and said, "You know there is no way you are getting out this facility. Too many people and even if you take me a the colonel captive we have some good sharp shooters."

"We," HG did not waiver the muzzle, "are leaving the same way we came. She turned her attention to Selya. "Think it best to tell them about the chip unless you want to hold this weapon."

Seleya sighed. Vulcans did not lie, nor did they like to tell lies but she made an exception in this case. "Very well," she began.

"My colleague has a chip within her that is dangerous. It could post a danger of unimaginable scale even here. I was attempting to remove it. if you will allow me to, since I am a doctor, I will remove it and secure it and then you may lead us away and do your tests."

"What the hell is a chip?" The blonde haired man glared at the two but kept mostly a watch on the woman with the rifle in her hands. "I do not think you mean like the food snack."

HG shook her head and interrupted. "An lieutenant we may need it to get home. Instead perhaps we should reverse the what ever settings are on there. We loose the chip then we loose transporter signal for what is obviously a long range transport."

The two older military men just looked at each other and finally the older one referred to as colonel just shrugged. He spoke in that deep sort of commanding voice. "Alright soldiers," motioning to the guards. "Let's stand down. Captain." he nodded.

The blonde haired man nodded back and then said, "Captain Alex Robbenson. At this point, I think we have finally figured out that somehow a mistake has been made. If you would be so kind as to not point that at me anymore I would appreciate it ma'am." He turned to Seleya and asked, "Obviously you are not the enemy well at least I guess you are not. You some sort of ET?" he asked. Then realized she might not understand the acronym. "Extra-terrestrial?"

Seleya gave a nod. "Yes, that is a good enough assessment. I am from a planet called Vulcan. Might I enquire what is the current stardate..I mean date here on your world?" She motioned for HG to keep the rifle down but ready. She hoped that the woman understood. Perhaps diplomacy might help.

Robbenson blinked and made a questioning face. "Stardate? The year is 1955 at least by our count. I am taking you people use something else. Vulcan eh? I have heard of planet nearer the sun but never proven but guessing again that we are talking about something different. Well you look human enough." He gave a little tight smile. "This chip?" it came out as almost a question. "This whatever your friend with the rifle has there caused you come here."

HG responded. "Yes a little invention of mine so that devices like this can lock on at a very long distance. Though now I am suspecting a bit of something else. No matter," she shook her head. "I think we can reverse it."

"Uhg, Lieutenant, you have any idea of how transporter controls work?

"I am confident that I can fix this. It is... as she said a new experiment so this is all a little unpredictable. If you will allow it I will try. The worse that can happen is it can send us to another location." Although it was the Time she was worried about.

Robbenson interjected, "I think I am more familiar with the controls. I know you will have to trust me. Someone outside the chamber will have to work the mechanism anyway." He shrugged his shoulders. "Sure would like to see that chip though but I guess that is out of the question?"

"It is inside her. Perhaps we can retrieve it from her arm and then we can try a more controlled experiment but for you to keep it...that would violate our Temporal laws."

"Temporal laws?" Robbenson made a quizzical look. "You mean like time travel?"

"This is the 1950s we come from the 2300s" She simply said.

Robbenson looked hard at her then HG. "You mean this time pulled you two from some place in the future?" He did not wait for an answer but looked over at his superior and shrugged. "We might have a bigger problem sir then just keeping things from getting tangled up."

"Maybe, but it might be something about that device that the one there says they are carrying. I am not sure we are ready to pull the plug yet."

"Agreed," Robbenson nodded and turned his attention back again.

"So I guess you can't me on the World series coming up who is going to win?"

She shook her head. "Afraid not. You might not be destined to come into that much money." She deadpanned. "Well then, gentlemen. We have work to do. If you can provide me with...a scalpel and some tweezers I can set to work on this device."

Robbenson actually chuckled. "Darn, I mean it is only a ten dollar bet with the Colonel there. Alright," he turned to one of the soldiers. "Go fetch what she needs from the infirmary and nothing but nothing goes outside of this room, got it corporal?"

"Sir! Yes, Sir!" One man said and turned to head out the door.

Robbenson turned his attention back. "So anything you can tell me? I mean you say you are some military called the Federation. I am guessing some sort of space programme? You said you where Vulcan, so which planet is that in the system. We think maybe Mars might be capable, uh...the fourth planet out."

It was obvious to HG that Robbenson could not quite grasp just how big the Federation might be. She interjected, "Think bigger and further out, interstellar kind of bigger."

Robbenson and the Colonel both looked at her and then to the Lieutenant. Finally the former spoke. "That true? One can travel between the stars?"

Seleya gave a nod. "A lot further. You won't discover a shadow of the planet until well into the year 2000s." She studied the man. "I am fascinated by this time period. I must admit. I was rather fond of the fashion of this time. In the future Humanity has gotten rid of many ills, poverty, illness, but fashion also faded for practicality sake."

Robbenson raised an eyebrow. "Tell you what, since obviously you have some ability to do teleportation, what did you call it a transporter? We are having trouble with getting consistent teleportation and can't figure quite why. So help us with a few ideas, what you can, and I will take you personally shopping in town. Okay with you Colonel?"

The other man nodded in the affirmative, "Sounds good to me how about you two?"

HG spoke up and said, "Sure I can take a look at things. Heck Lieutenant they already have the device, we are already here and few general pointers I do not think will be giving away the farm."

"I..." before she even finished he sentence she felt the pull of something. It was familiar yet a little different. The scene before them vanished and within moments the were standing back in sickbay.

Seleya looked over at HG. "What just happened?" She wondered if this had all been a hallucination.

"Somebody must have activated a transporter, guessing probably on board the Wolff. Best to get this thing out while we can. Oh..." HG held up the weapon she had been holding. "I guess a bit of souvenir for you."

"Not the kind I had in mind but...I am glad we are not stuck there." She worked again, with her tools and managed to remove the chip. Once she'd fixed up HG's arm she studied the woman. "Did that happen? Did your chip actually take us to another time?"

"It would appear that the sensor lock needs a lot more work on it for discrimination but in essence I think," she nodded her chin toward the firearm. "The evidence is clear unless somehow some weird parallel world." HG shrugged but as she did so took the chip and broke it in two. "And until I have time to figure out this thing, best make sure it is not working any more.

She looked up and smiled, "Though I think you would have looked smashing in a Fine crepe suit with novel front flanges tapering from bustline to pockets creating that mid 1950s much-desired slim look. Toss in rhinestone trim sparkling on the flanges and in teal blue."

Seleya stayed silent a moment as if in deep thought. "Indeed." She paused again. She wasn't good at making friends. "If you perfect it perhaps you and I can...have a shopping trip."

"That sounds good!" HG responded enthusiastically. "And you will have to teach me some meditation techniques, is it a deal doctor?" She did not hold out her hand as she remembered Vulcans tended not to like touch.

She inclined her head. "A deal, yes."

"Excellent, well let's dig this out so I can do some more work on it." HG hopped back up and presented the arm.

--

HG Wells
Civilian Scientist
USS Wolff

Dr. Seleya
CMO
USS Wolff

 

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