Star Trek: DTI: Forgotten History

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Scott nodded grimly. “Aye, sir. I understand.”

  “Dismissed.”

  He nodded at his former captain and left. Former indeed, he thought. Even with all that had happened in recent months, all the promotions and departures and dismantlings, it hadn’t truly sunk in until this moment how much—and how irrevocably—things had changed.

  Black Star system

  Stardate 7194.7

  March 2272

  Meijan Grey watched through the travel pod window as Warlock Station’s engineering teams reattached the starboard warp nacelle to the prototype ship. Beside her, Antonio Delgado watched her face, gauging her reactions. But for the moment, her response was neutral. “The shortened nacelle struts don’t critically affect the time warp metric?” she asked.

  “No,” Delgado replied. “Our analyses have shown that multiple warp geometries can allow for a stable time displacement field. Otherwise we would’ve needed a full Constitution-class spaceframe.”

  “I see.” Grey continued looking over the oblong shape that floated in the middle of an open drydock frame, trailing twenty kilometers behind the orbit of Warlock Station, the joint Starfleet/DTI outpost established to monitor the Black Star—one of Grey’s first initiatives as DTI director. The station’s name was a nod to one of sh’Lesinas’s more obscure early novels—a fantasy about an early Andorian astronaut flung through a Kerr singularity into a bizarre alternate reality—and to the seemingly mystical temporal properties of the Black Star. The timeship prototype was being built here because it would be used here . . . assuming Jan didn’t change her mind about authorizing a trial run into the future and back.

  “That certainly looks like a complete Constitution-class lower hull, though,” Grey said. “Aside from the impulse engine where the hangar would be.”

  “It is,” Delgado told her. “The ship’s built from duplicate components that were already on hand for repairs and refits. What with the new designs being phased in, they probably weren’t going to be used anymore.” Even though he’d already gotten what he wanted from the Enterprise, Delgado had kept abreast of the progress of its refit, since that project was competing with his for Starfleet’s shipbuilding and personnel resources. Ever since Captain Decker and Commander Scott had persuaded Commodore Probert to join the refit team, the acclaimed starship designer had worked alongside them to rethink the modernization program from the ground up, convincing Starfleet to undertake an even more radical reinvention of the Enterprise, and if it panned out, of the entire Starfleet. This had meant delaying the refit by several more months and lengthening the reconstruction and testing process to an estimated twenty months, though Decker and Scott were confident they could complete it in eighteen. Starfleet had resisted keeping a heavy cruiser out of action for so long, but with the Klingons and Romulans expending most of their energies on battling each other in the wake of their disintegrated alliance, it seemed as safe a time as any. Probert had persuaded them that it was better to take the time to get the most advanced ship possible into service, rather than rushing and doing a half-baked job that would cost them in the long run.

  “Besides, the engineering complex was designed to fit into a spaceframe of this configuration, and to power this type of deflector assembly,” Delgado went on as the travel pod flew past the bronze-hued parabolic dish that protruded from the front of the hull. “It may not affect the time field, but it’s better for the structural integrity of the vessel. Of course, we’ve added significant reinforcements to bolster the ship against the stresses of a slingshot passage—hence the shorter, thicker nacelles. There’s even an experimental structural integrity force-field system that reinforces the molecular bonds within the hull—similar to the old hull-polarization system that was used before deflectors. If it works, the technology might be introduced throughout the fleet.”

  “What about the power flow dynamics?” Grey asked. “Shortening the struts, removing the entire saucer and neck . . . that’s got to have an effect on the power distribution, the energy usage.” She had clearly done her homework.

  “Believe me, Jan, we considered all these questions in simulation and testing. We can compensate for all of that. The most critical factor is the chroniton emissions.”

  Grey lifted an arched brow at him. “Which gives me pause, considering that you still haven’t fully figured out how these engines are generating them.”

  He winced. Although his efforts to cultivate her friendship had been moderately successful, she was not the type to let her personal life get in the way of her professional obligations—which was part of why she had so little personal life. They got along well enough that she was willing to give his ideas fair hearing, but she didn’t hesitate to call him out on their shortfalls. “We understand the basics,” he insisted.

  “But not enough to know how to replicate the phenomenon, or you wouldn’t have been so careful not to alter the engines any more than you could avoid. One breakdown and you could lose the ability to generate these chronitons forever.”

  “Except that these engines have been damaged, repaired, and modified many times and haven’t lost the ability yet.” His team’s intensive study of the former Enterprise engines had largely confirmed the theory they’d devised in their earlier analyses: that the energy released in the controlled-implosion restart at Psi 2000 had transmuted a quantity of the hafnium in the interior lining of the matter/antimatter reactor chamber into a transuranic element provisionally called taranium; that the presence of this element, combined with the modified magnetic constriction and injector phase configurations Spock and Scott had put in place, altered the composition of the plasma stream sent to the nacelles; and that some idiosyncrasy of the warp coils’ construction enabled them, when energized by that modified plasma stream, to generate a rare type of exotic particle as a side effect of warp field generation. These particles had sufficiently high mass and angular momentum to produce a gravitomagnetic field—a distortion of spacetime arising from a rotating mass analogously to the way a magnetic field arose from a spinning charge. They could amplify the frame-dragging effect that could turn a space warp into a time warp, and somehow, when emitted in proper proportion with the exotic particles the warp coils generated to stabilize the field, could generate enough negative energy to prevent the runaway Hawking radiation that would otherwise vaporize a ship at the horizon of a time warp. The theorists had given this “time-travel particle” the formal name chroniton, from the Greek for “time” and the Latin for “go.”

  But he had to admit Grey had a point. Naming the particles wasn’t the same as understanding how to re-create the freak chain of circumstances that created them. Other warp coils from the same manufacturing run had been exposed to the modified plasma streams and had failed to generate chronitons. Perhaps the initial burst of energies from the controlled implosion had transmuted something in the coils as well as the M/ARC, but there was no known way to replicate that accident. And they couldn’t dissect the coils without risking the permanent loss of the only slingshot-capable engines they had.

  Delgado suppressed a surge of resentment toward Spock and Scott for their unwillingness to participate in the project. He was convinced they both knew more than they were letting on. But Scott refused to leave the Enterprise, and Spock had vanished into the Mountains of Gol on Vulcan (perhaps to keep his time-travel knowledge out of Delgado’s hands?). And so the research team was forced to start from scratch.

  With the impulse drive taking up the volume where the hangar deck would normally be, the travel pod mated with a docking port on the starboard hull of the prototype ship—officially designated just FDTIX-01, though in Delgado’s mind it was Timeship One. The admiral and the director disembarked into a pressurized corridor running along the inside of the hull toward the engineering complex. Relatively little of the timeship’s interior would consist of habitable space even when it was completed and fully pressurized. The bridge would be fore and above, where auxiliary control was located in a
conventional Connie, and there would be limited crew quarters and facilities aft of it. But the action was in engineering.

  The engine room still looked much as it had when it had been part of the Enterprise. The status display panels on the walls had been modernized, but the controls remained essentially the same, like the components they regulated. Two engineers in heavy white hazard suits with ribbed black collars, the up-to-date design incongruous in this setting, stood at the master systems workstation in the engine room foyer and watched the upgraded systems display above it, which showed a schematic diagram of the timeship as well as a live video feed of the nacelle attachment procedure, now nearly complete. The senior officer, tall, brown-haired, and square-jawed, noted their arrival. “Admiral Delgado,” he said, “and Director Grey, welcome aboard.”

  Grey shook his hand. “Commander DeSalle. A pleasure to meet you again.” Vincent M. DeSalle, in command of the timeship’s combined Starfleet/civilian crew, had been one of the few former Enterprise crew members to offer a guardedly positive opinion on the potentials of time travel during the CAC’s interviews, acknowledging that mistakes had been made but seeing that as part of the learning process; so Delgado had been quick to recruit him.

  Delgado gestured to the other officer, a craggy-featured, brown-skinned man who was still absorbed in his work. “And this is Lieutenant Commander Frank Gabler, the timeship’s chief engineer.”

  Gabler glanced at her over his shoulder. “Ma’am.”

  “Mister Gabler.” Grey looked between them. “You were both on the Enterprise, correct?”

  “Not at the same time,” DeSalle said, “but yes. Frank came aboard after I left.”

  “I’ve tried to bring aboard as many Enterprise veterans as possible for security reasons,” Delgado said. “Particularly those who’ve actually been through time, as Mister DeSalle has.”

  “If you can call it that,” the commander said. “I was on the ship when it happened, but I was too busy trying to hold her together against the stresses of the trip to notice what was going on outside.”

  Delgado clapped him on the shoulder, laughing. “Which is exactly what we want for this test flight, of course.”

  “And you, Mister Gabler?” Grey asked. “Have you been through time?”

  Gabler smiled. “Just once, ma’am, and it’s like Mister DeSalle says—I was too busy to take a look outside. But I’m here because I know these engines. I may have been a latecomer, but it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with them. I figured they needed someone who knew them to, well, take care of them while Commander Scott oversaw the Enterprise refit. And the idea that they can do something unique, something no other engine can—I take a lot of pride in that, ma’am. And I want to help them keep doing it.”

  “Well said,” DeSalle told him. “And we’re eager to get started.”

  “How long until you’re ready?” Grey asked.

  Delgado answered with a sigh. “At least four more months.”

  “That’s longer than you anticipated.”

  “Yes, well, I was hoping to finish before the Enterprise refit finally got under way, so there’d be no questions raised about the unavailability of engineers and resources. But the analysis phase took longer than hoped, and now that their refit’s begun, I’ve had to let go as many personnel as we could afford—though naturally they’re sworn to secrecy. It will slow down completion, but it’s more important to be quiet than fast.”

  “Quiet and safe,” Grey replied.

  “Of course,” he said, smiling to reassure her.

  Delgado allowed DeSalle and Gabler to get back to work and led Grey out into the corridor. “You don’t need to worry about safety, Jan. As you can see, these men care deeply about this ship. They won’t let her launch until they’re certain she’s ready.”

  “I don’t know,” Grey said. “They both seemed rather gung ho about it.”

  “Can you blame them? The chance to glimpse the future, find out where we might be going?”

  It was the right thing to say, simultaneously reminding Grey of the diminished risks of a trip to the future rather than the past and of her own barely restrained excitement at the prospects of what might be learned. The director relaxed somewhat and looked around. “Can we see more of the ship? Or is there anything left that isn’t open to vacuum or crawling with engineers?”

  Delgado smiled. He still had her hooked. “Well, maybe I can point out a few things. . . .”

  Timeship One FDTIX-01

  Stardate 7260.8

  September 2272

  “Engines holding on full reverse,” Lieutenant William Hadley reported from the helm station. “Deceleration curve nominal. Twenty seconds to target date.”

  “Engine stresses near redline,” said Frank Gabler at the engineering console. “Holding within tolerances.”

  In the command chair, Vincent DeSalle nodded. “Steady as she goes.”

  Seconds later, Hadley started the countdown from ten. Finally: “Two . . . one . . . full stop, Captain.”

  “Acknowledged,” DeSalle said, liking the sound of the title. He didn’t yet hold it by rank, but as the commander of the ship, he was entitled to be called “captain.” His first command—humanity’s first timeship. It was a heady feeling. True, it was officially a civilian ship under DTI supervision despite its mostly Starfleet crew, but the adventure that lay in store for this vessel more than made up for that.

  But for now, he was all business. “Chronometer reading?”

  At the science station, Lieutenant Dierdre Watley reported the stardate, then added, “Thirty-two days, eleven hours, fourteen minutes upwhen from our starting point.”

  DeSalle did a double take. “‘Upwhen’?”

  The dark-haired science officer displayed her radiant smile. “That’s what Asimov called it in The End of Eternity.”

  “Yeah, but . . . shouldn’t it be something like ‘downstream’? I mean, if we’re heading in the same direction time flows, like in a river . . .”

  Watley shrugged. “It’s a higher number, so it should be ‘up.’”

  DeSalle shook it off, aware that he was a little too eager for excuses to converse with the striking lieutenant. Not only was he her commanding officer, making any involvement inappropriate, but he knew full well that she had a thing for doctors. And he’d briefly dated her sister the historian back on the Enterprise, so it would be a bit strange. Still, she filled out her blue-gray Class-B jumpsuit quite distractingly, though it didn’t flatter her as much as her old, miniskirted uniform had. “We’ll sort out the terminology later. Hadley, hail Warlock Station.”

  “Aye, sir.” The laconic, nondescript helm officer complied with his usual efficiency. Bill Hadley was the only member of this small bridge crew that DeSalle had known well, even though all four were Enterprise veterans. Hadley, among others such as Ryan Leslie, Angela Martine, and DeSalle himself, had been part of that cadre of junior officers who had been cross-trained in multiple shipboard disciplines and served as pinch hitters in whatever job was needed, either as part of command-track training or simply as a consequence of the vagaries of deep-space service. They’d been overlooked in the media blitz that had surrounded James Kirk and his command crew when the Enterprise had come home, but DeSalle knew that it was the steady, unsung service of folks like Bill Hadley, just as much as the leadership and inspiration of men like Kirk and Spock, that had kept the ship intact for five years. DeSalle was glad to have him on the team.

  Moments later, the voice of Warlock’s communications officer came over the speakers. “This is Warlock Station. About time you showed up, Timeship One. You said you were just going out to get coffee!”

  The bridge crew chuckled. “Very funny, Samira. Warlock Station, this is Timeship One reporting a successful simulation run. Again.”

  The next voice he heard was Admiral Delgado’s. “Don’t sound so impatient, Captain. It’s only three more days until you do this for real.”

  “Acknowledged, s
ir. But I can tell you, we’d all like to use this ship to jump through time to the day when we get to use this ship to jump through time.”

  “You’ve got it easy, Vincent. Keep in mind that the rest of us will have to wait a month for the results you’ll know about within three days.” He had a point. The DTI wasn’t willing to risk a return jump at this early stage, so they would simply be making a one-way trip a month into the future. It would be a long, anxious wait for the people at Warlock.

  “For now, though,” the admiral went on, “we’ve been at these simulations long enough. How about we break for dinner?”

  DeSalle looked around, seeing no objections. “Fine by us, sir. We’ll meet you aboard in—”

  “Sir,” Samira Jalili interrupted, her voice sounding urgent. “I’m picking up a distress signal!”

  A pause. “Source?” Delgado asked. DeSalle held his seat, as did the rest of the crew. This ship may have been secret, and the station did have others, but it was best to stand ready for any contingency.

  There was a longer pause as Jalili tracked down the origin. “It’s just under four parsecs out, near Gliese 229.”

  “Hadley?” DeSalle asked.

  The lieutenant didn’t even need to check the star charts. “That’s a pretty empty region, but it’s closer to Vulcan than here. I’m sure they’ve picked it up already.”