Riley Meets The Sphere

Posted on Thu Jan 28th, 2016 @ 11:52pm by Lieutenant Riley Sukotav & Commander Patrick Leroy

Mission: Further Challenges
Location: Galileo Science Center

* Galileo Science Center *

Riley had been moving in Reva’s last box when his comm badge beeped. When Commander Leroy’s voice came through, ordering him to his office later, Riley was surprised, given it was his day off. After the discussion with Reva at the Arboretum, he’d returned home, donned his uniform, and now stepped into the science center. He waved a greeting to Ian as he passed by, then checked the readouts on the panel outside the room where the stone slab was kept to make sure the climate-controlled room was operating normally. Finally, he approached Patrick’s office door and rang the chime.

“Come in” Patrick said as he watched the orb on his desk, opportunely mounted on a magnetic field platform.

Riley stepped in as the doors opened. “My apologies for the delay, Commander,” he began. “Ensign Madhava is moving in and I was finishing up with the last load.” His attention was drawn to the small sphere. “What may I do for you?”

“Have you ever heard of this object?” he asked still focusing on the little foggy matter inside the sphere. “I doubt. For until today it was only a record written on the Voyager’s log.”

Patrick breathed and leaned back on the seat. “It is a Krenim device which we came in possession of by stealth of hand. It contains a small part of dark matter and stores incredible energy… Energy needed to power such thing as a time machine as I’ve been told. Implications are terrifying and I’ll not linger on them. This request is coming directly from the XO of the starbase. We are to uncover its secrets, see if it can be duplicated or better if it can be safely dismantled. And we have to accomplish this result in a very little time.”

Riley’s eyebrows crept up and he leaned in to take a closer look. “Dark matter? Inside there? Why haven’t we been blown to dust by now, sir?” The fact that Patrick had such a thing so casually on his desk was a little mind-blowing.

“It’s perfectly stable. The technology behind this object is very advanced and is exactly the thing we have to discover. How many of the expert staff are present at the moment in Galileo? We’ll exclude juniors and cadets for this task.”

“Based on the rotation schedule, two besides us and Tess, plus Ensign Bren,” Riley answered. Hearing that the sphere was stable, he leaned in to examine it more closely. The tiny bit of matter rotated slowly, resembling a miniature star system. “Fascinating.”

“Indeed. We’ll conduct the first series of experiments inside the Force Field Chamber. The priority will be proton bombarding and reaction to temperature. We’ll rise it close to that of a sun, the force field can take it for a little and then study the effects on the sphere, even if I’m sure they will be minimal.”

Then Patrick pushed the orb down in the mag-field with a finger and released it, watching as it bobbed up and down for a while. “Fascinating indeed. So small a thing for so great a danger.”

“Understood. If time is pressing, we’ll be starting now I presume? If so, I’ll call home and let Reva know I’ll be here until further notice.”

“Yes we’re going to start immediately. I’ll get to Tess to have him inform the other members of this task force that’s going to be built. You can cut out one hour or two to take care of urgent things at home if you wish. In any case this time will be used to adjust and calibrate all the required instrumentation, routine work that can be easily handled by juniors.”

“Very well, thank you, sir. I’ll be back in two hours.” Patrick’s concession was welcome news indeed. It meant Riley had time to spend with Reva before she departed on the Korenna, and get Gilroy (the eight-legged one) delivered to Chance and Eli.

Patrick nodded and stood from the seat taking the small mag-field platform in his hand “Don’t linger then Lieutenant. Make the best of this time for we have a heavy schedule ahead of us.”

Both men walked out of the office into Galileo main laboratory, Patrick scanned the locale searching for Rutheridge as he addressed Sukotav “Agreed then, Lieutenant. I’ll be waiting here for you in two hours. You’ll find a to-do list relative to your competences ready by then.”

“Aye sir.” Riley checked the time, then turned and hurried out of the science center. Two hours wasn’t very long at all.

*****************

Lt. Cmdr Patrick Leroy
Task Force Commander

Lt. Riley Sukotav
Occupied