Rolling on the wheel of space-time -- 10409.08

[LoAmi 0]

The emergency science department meeting was called, and the officers from the duty shift (minus Nemesis) and from the next incoming shift rushed to the table and sat down. Lt. Cmdr. Lo'Ami opened the briefing room's view to space. Arcadia's engines were shut down, but the stars could be seen twinkling and changing positions in a strange dance. Every few minutes, they would cycle back to their original positions, and the dance would continue.

 

He then began the briefing.

"In an attempt to retrieve a capsule containing three people from a transdimensional conduit, that was created in their escape attempt from Axaia. The capsule was probably supposed to have been using interdimensional space as a transport pathway. Some kind of damage to the capsule instead caused it to leave a rupture in space-time behind in our original universe and create the transdimensional loop. Arcadia has been inexplicably drawn into the conduit."

 

"Lt. Hudson, did the calculations check out?"

 

Lt. Hudson responded, "I checked all your calculations, sir. I only had fifteen minutes, but, as far as I can tell, they looked fine."

 

Ordinarily, Lo'Ami liked being right, but an error in the calculations would at least explain how they got where they are.

 

Anyone who didn't start paying attention when faced with the view from outside the ship now looked towards the front of the room. The briefing continued. Lo'Ami didn't have time to prepare a presentation, so he picked up a light pen and began drawing on the presentation board.

First, he drew a circle. "This circle represents the transdimensional loop we're in now. Each point represents traversal of one universe." He then made a mark, a circled X. "This is our origin universe." He then made another X, elsewhere on the circle. "This represents Arcadia." He then drew an arrow representing Arcadia's trajectory around the circle. "What you're seeing outside and what the sensors are picking up are a superposition of the universes that we traverse while inside the loop conduit. Lt. Erias' sensor readings are mostly a jumble, but, we have been able estimate our 'speed' at 1017 universes per second."

Ens. Hernandez added "at that speed, even if we could reverse the process and open up the loop, it would be almost impossible to get Arcadia out of the conduit into the right universe. We would need an *exact* distance to the event horizon ... and, at least warp 9.4, if not higher, triggered at the right moment."

 

Lo'Ami continued. "It gets more complicated. This transdimensional loop is not just cycling between universes, it's also translating in interdimensional space." He continued drawing, making a line tangent to the circle at the "origin universe" and moving the circled X away from the loop. He then drew an arrow facing away from the loop. "We can't detect the translation from inside the loop, but, while we were in our original universe, we detected a degradation of energy emissions from the loop and during the opening of the conduit in the origin universe, we detected a steadily increasing phase decoherence between the conduit and normal space. Judging from the rate of phase decoherence and energy degradation, we have less than fifteen minutes left before the conduit completely detaches from our native universe."

 

Lt. Maxwell entered. "If that's the case, even if we could reopen the loop, there would be no chance of getting back. And, not to sound obstructionist, fifteen minutes doesn't seem like enough time for the engineers to get Arcadia's drive systems back online, and for us to work out what's wrong with our theory."

 

"Which means we're going to have to find another way back. Lt. Hudson, continue working with your team on the theory; Lt. Erias, you're with me - we're going to see if there are any clues in that pod. We'll interview Dr. Virax as soon as she's cleared by medical."

 

Lo'Ami had thought of checking on Lt. Nemesis, and, he desperately needed a shave (again). But, with less than 10 minutes left, he headed to the shuttlebay...