Particular Particles

Posted on Wed Sep 28th, 2011 @ 1:41pm by Commander Oralia Zeferino & Commander Patrick Leroy

Mission: In Our Time of Need
Location: Science Offices
Timeline: Sometime After Oz's Visit to the Nexus

Oz paused and rubbed her forehead before asking Gilroy, "Any word on the deck-by-deck?"

"We've located and dismantled two homemade brewing stills, one ketamine lab, and arrested all those associated with those items," he started off in his best monotone computer voice. "We also located one lost child, who'd been missing for four hours and was returned to a very relieved parent." He trailed off as he caught sight of Oralia's hand on hip stance and her raised brow and slight frown. "Right... as to Kh'ali? Nothing."

"The Marines?"

"Have they contacted you?"

"Noooo...," she gave Gilroy a confused look.

He shrugged, "Then they haven't found anything."

"Okay," Oralia knew Gilroy well enough now to know she didn't really want to follow that conversation any farther.

"Why are we down here?"

'Down here' meant just outside the Science Labs, specifically where the Chief's office was. Chief Leroy was off on Divitia, tending to the Divitians' environmental woes, but Oz had called ahead and confirmed that one Ensign Avis Edney would meet with her and answer some questions. "I want a science opinion about chroniton particles."

"Ah," Gilroy nodded and the two went into the Science Labs to locate Ensign Edney.

"Goodday sirs" the man greeted them upon entering "I'm Ensign Edney. Welcome to the Science labs, do you have any business here?"

The hair of the man parted on the left side and high cheekbones paired with strong chin and somewhat big teeth gave the man a slight equine look.

"Morning, Ensign," Oz answered.

Gilroy quickly added in, "Good morning, Mr. Ed. Neigh." He grinned his strange part-Klingon smile, showing his teeth, and held back a laugh.

The interruption drew a glance from Oz, but she wasn't familiar with the talking horse, even though it was an element of Earth's ancient culture. "Ah...," she hedged a moment, "We're here because a high level of chronitoms were found in Kh'ali's quarters after she went missing. I need a lesson about 'em."

Gilroy filled in the correct words for Oz: "Chroniton particles."

"Right, those," Oz nodded.

"Is that so?" Edney asked eyeing the both of them in turn. seemingly oblivious of Gilroy's joke "Because you know, with the Divitian crisis Commander Leroy and Asst. Chief Rutheridge have left with many others of the staff and at the moment we are a little overworked. Is that urgent?"

Oz blinked. She wasn't used to Ensigns resisting her request for information. Then again, it had been ages since she'd asked for information from an Ensign.... Frowning, she cleared her throat and nodded, "Indeed, it is. Did you not hear me mention that Lieutenant Commander Kh'ali, our Chief Diplomat in charge of relations with the Divitians, is missing? Perhaps it's just a rumor, but I've heard that your boss, Commander Leroy, rather likes Commander Kh'ali. He'd probably appreciate that you had to drop something else in order to help locate her." Her tone held a mild threat.

"Is that so?" Edney asked a bit surprised "Mr. Leroy didn't mention anything about that with me or anyone else of the staff. Still he had me in charge of the laboratories when he left and was very specific about the tasks to be done."

Without waiting for Oralia's response Edney took out a padd and began reciting "Constant monitoring of the Plasma emissions from the nebula... recording and further study of any variation of Layrax pulsar star... Experiment, as per schedule, the effects of plasma on energy shields... You know, Mr. Leroy is particularly fond of this one, trying to reduce voyage time for Federation ships in the Passage that is normally crossed by plasma storms... You see?" He ended showing the Padd to Oralia.

Oralia's jaw tensed and Gilroy eased ever so slightly away from her. She took the PADD from Edney to look at it more closely. Looking over the list, she keyed in a set of commands and security codes that erased the 'to do' list. One moment it was there, the next it wasn't. It was convenient that, in the grand scheme of the Starbase, Security had the ability to override just about every department in an emergency. Blinking slowly, she promised the universe that, later, she'd apologize to Commander Leroy. For now, she hit the 'upload' key, smiled at Edney and passed the PADD back. "I don't see any such list on there, Ensign. It seems that your calendar is clear."

"Oh... Is that so?" Ensign Edney asked staring perplexed at the padd display now empty. "I think that means your request is urgent."

He looked around as the other ensigns were busy with their works "It seems I can spare some time for you then, not much but you're not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, right?"

Gilroy coughed to cover his bark of laughter. While Edney glanced at the part-Klingon, Oz hid her own snicker. "No, of course, Mr. Edney, so long as it's a horse," she managed, not realizing that the comment would induce a fit of giggles that would send Gilroy back out into the hallway. Ignoring his departure, Oralia raised a brow at Edney and said, "Chroniton particles? What can you tell me about them?"

"Hmm... Chroniton particles. Very particular subject, let me check with our records." He said moving to a console and typing some quick commands.

"For what we know, chronitons are subatomic particles with temporal properties. They are generally produced by normal operation of Romulan cloaking device." He then turned to Oralia as if dubious, "You know what I'm speaking of right? That Romulan ships have cloaking devices able to render them invisible to eye and instrumentation..."

Gilroy returned just in time to hear Edney's words and he realized that those words just might be the Ensign's last ones. He saw Oz's eyes narrow and her jaw tighten again, both were bad signs. He spoke up quickly, "Ensign, it's likely that Commander Zeferino and I know more about Romulan cloaking devices and weapons than you do. Just get on with why chroniton particles might have been in Kh'ali's quarters."

Beside Gilroy, Oz nodded. "Anything besides Romulan cloaking devices that might produce these particles?"

"Well, we have some reports stating that Borg ships are able to produce chronitons and project them through specially-designed conduits... But a Borg cube in the vicinity of the starbase would have been surely detected. For they do not use cloaking devices... So I deem this last assumption unlikely." Edney ended taking his chin between thumb and index.

This time, Oz's hands snapped into claw shapes and were on their way to Edney's throat when Gilroy bumped into her and caught her arm to keep her from falling. She glared at him but mouthed, 'Thanks.' "Yeah... we've sort of ruled out Borg cubes all on our own, there, Ensign. Now, before we draft you for target practice, how about making another suggestion that has a basis in the facts at hand? Those facts being that Kh'ali disappeared in her quarters, there's no trace of her anywhere else on the 'base and there's a high level of chroniton particles in her quarters."

"Hmm... Is that so..." Edney returned typing some more commands in the console and assumed a pensive look, lips pursed and narrowed eyes, for what seemed an eternity to Oralia's frazzled nerves.

"We have some notes about an episode occurred to two crewmembers of the USS Enterprise-D in 2368 who were 'phased' out of existence due to massive chroniton exposure. But that was due to an accident caused by Romulan experimentation. They were trying to produce an interphase generator on their vessel that was being assisted by the Enterprise. Of course you know about the Enterprise, right?"

An icy silence followed Edney's last question.

"Well, of course you know... I would say that Commander Kh'ali could have been phased out of our dimension due to chroniton bombardment but I'm at a loss to identify the possible causes for that, we do not know of any instrument short of Romulan cloaking device able to produce enough quantity of chronitons to make people phasing possible. Commander Leroy could be more specific, probably. I guess...."

Edney was speaking to himself. While he'd continued babbling, Oz and Gilroy had traded glances and then hurried out of the Science Labs. A second later, Oz came back in, "So, if someone had been bombarded by chroniton particles and phased out of our dimension, how do we get them back into our dimension?"

"Well you could use Anyon emissions but they should be aimed in the right place and at the right moment to de-phase people. Some portable device to track even the faintest traces of chroniton could be assembled here in the labs. Could that be useful Commander?"

"Yes, Ensign, that would be. Get on it, immediately and pull as many of your fellow scientists in to get it done as soon as possible," Oz ordered. "Even if they are 'busy' on something else, this takes priority. Understood?" She gave him the same look that made Eli nervous until finally Edney nodded. "Good." She hoped this was the right answer and not just a red herring.


**************
Lt.Cmdr. Oralia Zeferino
Creator of the Risks

Lt. Gilroy
Well Aware of the Risks

&

Ensign Avis Edney
Totally Oblivious of the Risks