Drinks anyone?

Posted on Fri Mar 19th, 2021 @ 2:14am by Lieutenant JG Matthew Plumeri & Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Coleman

1,965 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 109 - The Dust Settles
Location: Deck 15-Officer's Mess
Timeline: MD3, 0530 hrs

[ON:]

Nick was sitting in the Officer's Mess on Deck 15, as he had been working on the transfer orders for the Endeavor. Not only that, but he had received an update on the Tholian artifact that the team down in the Science Lab had been working on.

Jonathan had come to talk to Nick after working on the Tholian artifact yesterday and gave the update about the newest Endeavor. It wouldn't be at the Starbase for another bit of time due to some unforeseen issues with a computer core and engines, it appeared. Nick knew he wanted to tell Plumeri, but he didn't want to wake him either.

However, as Nick looked up to see if anyone was using the Replicator, he saw Plumeri ordering a meal. Nick got up and headed over to the Replicator and stood next to Plumeri, waiting to see how long it took for Plumeri to notice.

Matt was tired. He had stayed up too late talking to Alekela and stargazing in the Arboretum. "Incantari coffee please? And a lump of of oatmeal." The replimacator whirred to life and a mug of strong coffee and six ounces of oated meal appeared. As the food materialized, Matthew felt himself being watched. He looked over and jumped, "WHOA! Shhhh!! Oh! Commander. I wasn't expecting you sir. Sorry. I know I'm supposed to be on at 0600; I'll be there. I was just going to run a bit of breakfast down my throat. Want to join me man?"

"Dude, both of us are supposed to be on at 0600. But, the good thing is that I'm your boss and I know that you've been working on that pet project of ours. How's that going by the way?" Coleman asked, as Nick ordered up a bite of breakfast for himself.

Coleman followed Plumeri and they both took a seat down at the table Nick was sitting at before he got up to talk to Plumeri.

Matthew sat down, took a drink of coffee, "Mmmm, good news, I think. So, last night I got to thinking about something that McWire had said to your brother Jonathan." He took a bite of food, "About the error that we keep getting and about being able to link the iso-optical processors in a chain for more computing power. And then I remembered what Alekela was talking about. Remember? Division by a non-sequential link. So, your brother and McWire traced the error to that code. And, best we can make out is that the computer is not able to follow all the links back. Right? So imagine that you've got...a white paper....and there's footnotes. Everytime the computer reads off the optical data it encounters references that refer to other parts of the 'Librarian's' coded matrix. Most likely, we think, something that maybe is contained in the other gemstones. That makes sense because the original structure had a place for every gemstone. And that we could deal with yeah? We expected to see holes....missing data in the original program. But - that's not what we find. The Librarian can access all fo her or his data just fine. No gaps, no empty holes. So - maybe it is a security feature to prevent copying or stealing of the data? But, then why go to all the trouble to record it in such great detail if you don't want people to find it? No, that won't do either. So - here's the new theory. OK? Hold on to your dooky - it's about to get spooky. Literally, spooky quantum physics. Alekela's computations seem to suggest that the gemstones are resonating not just in the here and the now - but through time. Like....I don't know how to describe it - like looking at an aquarium. If the aquarium is all of history. The beginning to the end and the gemstones are outside of normal flow of time and space, all of history, all of time would appear to the program as visible. As happening 'now'. The error the computer is getting is because the reference point is not another data set...but in another time set."

Nick just stopped and starred at Matt like he sprouted tentacles. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, but it would be extraordinary if it was true.

"So, could the Librarian have knowledge of more than just the here and now? Could that be why the Tholians wanted it so badly?" Nick asked, taking another sip of his morning coffee from the Southern Region of Betazed.

Matt, his mouth full of food as he ate quickly, "MMMmm..hmmmm - May-veee?" He swallowed and the cement like breakfast went down his throat. He took a big drink of coffee. "We'll have to run some simulations. But, I think, boss, we just skip the error points. We reprogram the lab computer to ignore any referential error in the holographic matrix. If we're right, then our 'copy' of the Librarian will pale in comparison. It'll be a poor facsimile. Maybe it'll have enough data from the time and the place when it was encoded into the stones. Maybe it won't?" He took another drink of coffee. "So....what's on your plate today?" Matt has a shit-eating grin on his face as he teased.

"Listen here now. I'm a growing boy! I have been up since yesterday morning and I need the steak and potato breakfast of champion. But, let's be real...what's on your plate? It looks like the plate could be eaten by what you're trying to eat," Nick teased back as he took several bites of his literal steak and potatoes. However, Nick had some Earth A-1 sauce on the steak as well. He knew that he would need to go for a workout after his shift.

Matt nodded his head in mock agreement, "Ahhh...well. When you put it like that. I need a raktajino. Drinks anyone?" he asked the table.

Nick looked at Matt and said, "Can we order some true drinks? Or do you think the Admirals would frown upon that? I'll take some El-Aurian tea, double strong and double sweet."

As Matt walked away to get the drinks, Nick smirked and took Matt's plate. He sat the plate on his lap and waited for Matt to return.

Raktajino in hand in a big Klingon mug and the Collins glass-style El-Aurian tea double-strong and double-sweet in hand, he sat the drink before Coleman. He sat his mug down and looked at the table. Cocked his head to one side as if he forgot something and asked, "Did I bus my plate already?"

Taking the cup of the El-Aurian Tea, Coleman took a sip and looked over at Plumeri and asked, "What plate? I never saw any plate."

Matt looked at him with a most quizzical look. And then, crept onto his face a grin and a laugh, "You're full of shit. Sir." An ear to ear grin as he spied the plate on Coleman's lap. "Well, I ain't eating it now. Now that you touched it and it's got your cooties."

Pointing over at Matt, Nick couldn't help but laugh himself. "Hey now! El-Aurian and human cooties are some of the best cooties one can have!" Nick handed the tray of food back over to the younger man before grabbing his tea and taking another sip. He was enjoying this lighter moment.

"By the way, have you gotten any letters from back home in the latest datastream?" Nick asked, curious as to whether Matt ever got any letters from back home.

Laughing back, he took the tray back and then answered, "No, nothing this go around. That's not unusual though. This time of year. Harvest time. The last letter I got from home was from Mom and she wanted to know all about this place. How about you? You getting letters from old girlfriends?" he teased.

"No, nothing like that. Just from annoying younger brothers that has made it to a full Commander before me. He's telling me all about the new Endeavor. We should have her soon enough. He wanted both of our command codes, so he could add them into the ship systems and I had the proper people send them out," Coleman said as he smirked and took a few more sips of his drink.

Matthew puts his arms in the air and shouted, "WOO HOO! Now that's going to be fun. I can hardly wait to see the new ship. Have you seen the specs? We're going to be able to go deeper into space and farther away than we could with the Nova-class. I think the Nova class is great but this will be awesome! Do you have our first missionn profiles yet boss?"

Pulling a PADD from his lap, Coleman handed it over to Matt and pulled up not only the specs for the newest Athena-Class Endeavor-A, but pulled up some holos from the ship. Both exterior and interior holos and it showed the true beauty of this new ship.

"She's got a cruising speed of warp 7.4, max speed of warp 9.6, and an emergency speed of warp 9.9. We can do so much more with that ship. She's going to be great!" Coleman said, excited to be sharing some of the newest Endeavor. He waited to see Matt's reaction for the newest ship.

"Oh baby! Mark VIII computer core and science suite! Look at the auxillary craft. Man, boss, I'm have to borrow this on the weekend and go cruising!" He poured over the specs and flipped through the PaDD. "When will it be here?" he asked handing the device back to Coleman and taking a long drink of his Raktajino.

"I'm hoping to have it here in the next few weeks. Like I said before, my brother needs our command codes and they're working out a few more kinks. He said it was like the Defiant Class Starships, where their engines were overpowered for such a small vessel. But, in the case of the Athena-Class Starships, they are trying to make sure the sensor suites are working for the Quantum Slipstream Drive. Don't want us falling out midstream," Coleman said, taking the PADD back and equally enjoying his drink.

But, before he could take a few more sips, the comms opened and said, "Commander Coleman and Lieutenant Plumeri to Science Lab 4."

"Which lab were you working out of? For the Tholian Librarian?" Coleman asked Plumeri as they both began getting up.

Matthew answered, "Lab four on deck 1685. They must have found something?! Maybe the long-form calculations are finally done?" he answered excitedly. "That was to account for stellar drift and the angular procession of the planet Mendak. Trying to work backwards to get the planet in the sky back then. To see the stars they saw and to see where Mendak was in relation to other celestial bodies. Like the Iteb people? Many of their cave drawings and inscriptions on the monuments can be traced back to the skies as they looked when they were carved. It's a theory - but maybe the computer found something?"

"I guess that it's time to report to duty then? You can show me what you guys have been working on and what the computer has come up with," Coleman said as he got up from his seat and finished off his tea. He was excited to see what the team had found from the Tholian crystals and the Librarian.

Matthew said in a sing-song voice, "Let everyone be master of his time. That is, until the work whistle blows!" He teased, swung a leg off the cafe bench and set off with Coleman.


[OFF:]

Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Coleman
Chief Science Officer
Starbase 400

&

LTJG. Matthew Plumeri
ACSO/Historian
Starbase 400

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