Falling through Phase
Posted on Tue Aug 2nd, 2016 @ 2:46am by Lieutenant Griffen Tanol & Lieutenant Commander Jean Reynard & Lieutenant Ryan North
Edited on on Tue Aug 2nd, 2016 @ 3:18am
Episode:
Lost Property
Location: Astrometrics Lab, Highlander
Timeline: Before Talking through Time
Grif scrunched her nose at the smell of burnt isolinear circuits as she dropped the torch to the ground beside her and grabbed at her tricorder to check that the circuit had power. With an affirmative scan from her trusty device she pulled herself out from under sensor control panel before tapping her comm badge, "Grif to Astrometrics, that should do it see if they're working now."
"Here's hoping," Ryan muttered. He reached out and tapped the activation button. For a brief moment nothing happened and then a few seconds later system kicked into gear and started sending data back to the ship. "That did it."
"See, I told you we wouldn't break it," Jean told Ryan, while commanding the probe to power up and run a final preflight diagnostic. "It's all in perfect working order. Well, except for the magnetic spectrometer, but it's not like we need that right now." Satisfied, he ordered the probe to launch and take up position near their version of the De Salle. "Starting test jump, phase band one."
"I had a 2nd Lieutenant that said that a lot in the MACO's, usually right before one of his modifications went boom," Ryan smiled. "Thankfully, he was a very resilient Tellerite."
"You're lucky I'm a mad genius type then, my stuff doesn't explode." Grif replied over the open comlink as she made her way towards the tubrolift to head to Astrometrics. "Barely resembles anything close to standard but that's semantics. Send the probe into the next level then use the sensors to confirm. If it can detect the probe we're good to go with a full spectrum scan."
"Jump two in progress," Jean said. He frowned as the probe disappeared from the scans. "Well, that's slightly concerning. I'm still getting a faint telemetry reading, though. Is it possible to boost power further without burning anything out?"
"Uhh.. shift some power from the aft sensor array that might do it." Grif said as the turbolift came to a halt on the same deck as astrometrics and the door swished open. "We might blow some circuits in the dorsal array but it'll hold for now. How's she doing any pings yet?" The Trill asked as she rounded the corner and the lab came into sight.
"Yeah, now the signal's coming in clear, and the probe's showing up faintly," Jean said. He moved the probe another layer, and while it still wasn't picking up a very good image the communications link remained steady. There were a number of overheat warnings starting to show up, but shutting down all the non-essential sensor packages got it back into normal levels. The astrophysicists would just have to wait to study the nebula. "I think we're good to go for search purposes. Once we know exactly what subspace layer we're looking at, we can optimize the scanners and we should be able to get a much better reading."
Ryan tapped a few commands. "The parameters are all programmed in, starting the scan now."
The image on the large screen shifted as more data started to come in. So far nothing the probe was picking up was at all what they were looking for, although given the relative number of spectrum they had to sweep through, that hardly surprised the science officer. What was surprising him was how well the enhanced sensors were working, not because of the engineer mind you, because his idea was wholly based on theory. His panel started to beep and Ryan's fingers danced across the display.
"I may have something, a faint surge in EM radiation, it could be background noise but maybe not," Ryan stated, tapping in a few more commands. The new information was highlighted on the screen.
The doors to the lab swished open and Grif strode in, the backs of the two men towards her, the large screen filled with information that would look like gibberish to many. "EM Radiation was something earlier communications systems tended to use. Focus in on that with the scanners, let the probe keep going through the levels." She said as she appeared at the side of the scientist.
"Ryan, focus your checks on... thirty kilohertz, one megahertz, and two hundred to three hundred megahertz," Jean said, looking up old-style radio frequencies the Earth starfleet had used.
Ryan nodded and went to work inputting commands into his station. "Scanning now, assuming we do find that frequencey we should reconfigure the subspace oscilator and narrow the datastream that should help us trace it back to the source."
"Yeah, that'd be worth trying. These scanners weren't meant for picking up radio across dimensions." Jean frowned at the scan results. "There's a pattern here for sure. I'm running a cross-check now... yeah, the computer agrees. It's heavily distorted, but there's a sixty-percent probability this is a 2160s automated distress call. There's definitely a functional ship in there somewhere."
"Try narrowing the bandwidth. We're too wide at the moment picking up everything and anything. If we narrow the bandwidth to just the frequencies we might get a clearer picture." Grif said as she leaned up against the console and watched Ryan scan the phase spectrums.
Ryan tapped away at his controls. "I've already got the bandwidth as narrow as I can and still get reliable data. This might be one chance where the sensors on the ship are too good, they are picking up everything. Hang on a moment, let me try something. Mr. Reynard, can you boost he secondary radio relay for a moment?"
Jean pursed his lips. "I can give it to you for brief periods of time - say, two minutes on, then one off. Otherwise something's going to overheat or short out."
"Don't need it for long, I think I can trace the signal back to the source. It should tell us exactly what phase frequency they are stuck in," Ryan reported, rapidly tapping in a new set of commands. "Ready when you are."
Nodding and tapping a key, Jean said, "Signal reception amplifier now boosting at max-plus-thirty. Make it quick."
Ryan's hand danced across his station, plugging into the amplifier. Seconds later his station chimed and he typed another series of buttons, bringing up the data on the large screen in front of them. "The distress call is coming from a phase frequency of 0.745. I'd say we found our missing starship."
"Send a signal to the probe, get it to that phase frequency." Grif ordered as she pushed off the side console and moved around to step up to the big screen. "We need confirmation, 100%, before we can start thinking about re-configuring the probe." She paused as she stared at the large screens display, "...Do you think the imaging sensors would work? I mean technically it's just a different phase within our reality. Anything in that phase would still be visible to something of the same phase."
"Already on its way," Jean said, tapping his foot as he waited for the probe to cycle layer by layer to the target. "Here we go. Sensors are picking up a single NX-class starship, but no sign of the Highlander, so it's definitely not just seeing real space. Lifeform readings coming in as well." With a gesture he slid a blurred picture up to the main display. Even with the distortion, it was clear the ship had not suffered the long period in space that their version had. "We should tell the captain."
Grif nodded in agreement as she tapped her commbadge, "Tanol to Williams. Sir we've found them."
OFF:
Lieutenant Griffen Tanol
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Highlander
Lieutenant Jean Reynard
Chief Operations Officer
USS Highlander
Lieutenant (jg) Ryan North
Chief Science Officer
USS Highlander