<USS Avalon> Log-Voices in the Night

Voices in the Night

PT1: Dodge Thomas

 

 

It was dark in engineering, cold and foreboding. The warp core attributed the 
only sound to the otherwise silent room. Ensign Sha?uri Idan yawned and rubbed 
her eyes. She was not used to the night watch, but since the department had 
several permanent members of it?s team, everybody had been forced to step it up 
a bit. She personally had not been acquainted with either of the traitors, but 
she had known Ensign Aguatequa. At least she isn?t dead, Sha?uri thought to 
herself. For the past few weeks, Anilla Aguatequa had been painfully absent, as 
had the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Dodge Thomas.

Ensign Leila Criswell had practically taken command of the department, 
assigning new team leaders and assistants. Sha?uri had been assigned as Beta 
Team leader and she was more than delighted to accept the post. Deep down, she 
had never had much confidence in her friend Anilla?s ability to do anything 
other than gossip. Anilla was a bright girl, deft and clever, but pretty much 
useless when it came to making the big decisions. 

A muffled slamming sound broke Idan?s reverie and she looked up from her 
console, confused. Nobody should be in engineering at this hour of the night, 
she thought speculatively. 

?Hello?? She called out. ?Ensign Criswell, is that you??

The answer was delayed longer than she would have liked, and it was definitely 
not Leila Criswell. ?Whaddya want??

?Who ever you are, I?m afraid you can?t be in here without authorization.?

The voice made a frustrated noise, followed by ?Computer, lights.?

The lights obediently came on to their full level. 

?Can?t find a damn thing in that dark. I don?t know how you can stand it.?

?I?m sorry sir, but you need to leave. If you don?t, I?ll have to 
call---oh?sorry?? Sha?uri backed down, recognizing the now scruffy face of 
Dodge Thomas. Tired, purple bags sagged unhappily beneath both of his eyelids, 
while red veins stood out noticeably in both of his normally blue eyes. His 
face seemed noticeably hollow, especially around the cheek bones. A long, tired 
sigh issued from his chest and he smiled at the new Ensign.

?You were just about to send me off??

?I?m so sorry sir, I--I didn?t know it was you.? 

In truth, nobody had seen or heard from Lieutenant Thomas in nearly a week, 
although several rumors had risen to take place of his presence. None of them 
made any sense, of course, but people were willing to believe anything. 

?It?s all right Ensign. I?ll be on my way in just a moment. I need to sort 
through some data.?

Sha?uri nodded absently, still taken aback by his haggard appearance. The last 
time she had seen him had been nearly three weeks earlier. Then, he had seemed 
healthy, his hair neat, his stubble shaved back to the skin. He now looked a 
good deal thinner as well. She narrowed her eyes and watched him enter his 
office without realizing she was doing so.

Dodge looked about the PADD storage closet that had once been his office. Two 
weeks of heavy duty had left his office a complete disaster area. The deaths of 
two engineers, be they traitorous or not, had taken a severe toll on him, both 
physically and mentally. He didn?t blame himself for their deaths, but he did 
wonder if there was some way he could have prevented the entire incident from 
ever happening.

He activated his personal communications computer and flipped through two weeks 
worth of messages. There were several from various crewmembers, their voices 
turning from worry to anger as he listened. One message from Starfleet Command 
congratulating him on his wit and brilliance in such a stressful situation. One 
message from Starfleet Command reprimanding him for disposing of their only 
viable contact to the information spy net that continued to plague them with 
its constant interference. Several dozen memos from various departments and a 
formal invitation to dinner sent by Carson Fuller and Lindsay Kaiser.

He smiled. It had been several days since his last decent meal. 

After flipping through his messages, he summarily deleted them and set to work 
on the stacks of PADDs sitting on his desk, on the floor, and more 
distressingly, on his chair. He smiled again, looking out at the warp core. The 
new Ensign, Sha?uri Idan, was staring right back at him. Their eyes locked for 
a moment, then she quickly turned away. Dodge made a funny face and pressed a 
few panels on his control interface. The window to his office immediately 
fogged, offering him quiet privacy, even if it was just from a curious Ensign.

 

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Almost eight hours had passed when Dodge was abruptly awoken by the door chime. 
He groggily blinked his eyes, rubbing them with his hands. The imprint of a 
PADD was outlined on his left arm. Dodge had no idea how long he had been 
asleep, but it had felt good. The door chimed again.

?Come.?

Leila Criswell stuck her head inside his office. ?Somebody told me you were 
back! How are you sir??

?Fine, I suppose. Hey Leila, thanks for covering engineering in my absence. I 
really appreciated it.?

?No problem. Summer was the real work horse. Be sure to thank her too. So are 
you back now??

?Yea, don?t sound too excited.?

?Oh, it?s not that, it?s just that--we were about to run a harmonic warp field 
overhaul.?

?Why?? Dodge inquired, surprised that Criswell wanted to run such a complex 
series of tests and demodulations.

?Well, for the past few days, the warp field has been fluctuating rather 
severely. We can?t maintain a stable warp bubble because the harmonic signal 
keeps overloading. It?s almost as if we?re feeding it too much energy.?

Dodge perked an eyebrow. ?Really? Maybe I should take a look at it.?

?Sure.?


He stood and followed Leila out of his office and over to the field maintenance 
controls. For a few minutes, Leila punched up instructions while Dodge nodded 
his silent approval.

?Now watch.? She instructed.

The graphic representation of the ship?s warp field bubble rotated slowly. For 
a few moments, it held it?s traditional configuration. Then, it abruptly began 
to waver. Energy spikes showed on other monitors registering clear into theta 
wave readings. The bubble began to collapse, it?s sides awkwardly sinking 
inward before it vanished completely.

?That shouldn?t have happened.? Dodge muttered.

?I know. That?s why I?m worried. If it keeps this up, we?re not going to be 
able to go to warp anytime soon.?

?Has there been a systems failure? Are any other propulsion devices not working 
properly??

?No and no. Everything checks out. I can?t figure it out.?

Dodge studied the information readouts for a few more minutes before abruptly 
speaking up. ?Well here?s your problem. That theta energy spike is a carrier 
wave of some sort. ?

?What??

?It looks like we?ve been picking up some form of carrier wave. I think that it 
has been accumulating on the warp bubble, feeding itself directly into our 
computer via the energy input/output relays. I?ll see if I can sort it out.?

Leila watched quietly as Dodge ran more scans on the wave. 

?Whatever it is, it?s working on a very low frequency. That?s probably why we 
didn?t pick it up. Space is full of theta radiation and theta band waves. The 
ship?s sensors just filtered it out as normal background noise. There.?


Dodge stepped back and activated the carrier signal. A weak but discernable 
beep sounded, followed shortly by another and another. The beeping continued 
until Dodge turned off the audio. 

?That?s it?? Leila asked, disappointed.

?I guess.? He chewed on his left middle fingernail for a moment. ?It sounds 
like a homing beacon to me.?

?No. The pings are too close together. It couldn?t be a homing beacon.?


He shrugged. ?Maybe not a ship beacon, but it?s a homing signal all the same. 
Could be a sensor pod, or a probe. Hell, maybe it?s the Allegiance?s cargo or 
maybe even her backup warp core. You know, they dumped all that stuff. Scouts 
have been finding pieces of their junk halfway to the next system.?

?Why would anything be transmitting on such a low frequency??

?Maybe it?s not Federation, which opens a whole new can of worms. Since it is 
on such a low frequency, it might not be from a species know to us yet.?

?There aren?t any inhabited worlds in this system. Two J-class gas giants and a 
ice ball prone to frequent asteroid impacts.?

?Vargas Two.? Dodge mused to himself. ?You know, we have a research facility 
down there.?

?How do you know??

Dodge continued without answering her question. ?They?ve been running some 
weird-shit quantum warp experiments. Stuff like folding space and the like. 
Weird shit.?

?Maybe we?re picking up one of their transmissions.?


?Naw. If they had anything to say, it?d be on standard communication channels. 
Hell, chances are, we?re just picking up standard radiation spikes. Reconfigure 
the warp bubble stabilizers.?

?Aye sir.?

Dodge started to leave, paused for a moment, then turned back to Leila. ?Just 
how long have you been monitoring this phenomenon?? He looked at her intently.

?I don?t know, four, maybe five days??

?Before you reconfigure the system, I want you to isolate that signal. When 
you?ve finished with that, I want you to come and get me.?

Leila returned the odd gaze. ?Aye sir.?

He nodded and left engineering. A persistent grumbling reminded him that it had 
been a while since he had eaten last and he remembered the invitation from 
Carson and Lindsay. Dinner sounded like an excellent idea, one which Dodge 
immediately decided to pursue.

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?Um, sure Dodge, why not?? Carson Fuller scratched the back of his neck. ?I 
mean, that invitation is like, a week old, but hey, why the hell not??

Dodge smiled. ?Great! What?s for dinner??

?Hi Dodge!? The voice of Lindsay Kaiser echoed from within Carson?s quarters.

?We were just about to sit down for a game of poker, but the more, the merrier.?

?Cool. Thanks.?

?Not a problem. So, whaddya wanna eat??

Dodge opened his mouth to speak, but was unceremoniously interrupted.

?Lieutenant Thomas?? His combadge chirped. ?It?s Criswell. I think you may want 
to hear this.?

?On my way.? Dodge looked at Fuller and Kaiser meaningfully. ?Sorry, duty 
calls.?

?What?s up?? Lindsay inquired.

?Oh, we?ve been picking up some weird stuff that?s been accumulating within the 
warp field bubble. Some sort of homing signal, I guess.?

?Sounds interesting. Can we tag along?? Carson actually looked interested.

?I don?t see why not.?

?Yea, anything?s better than staring at his face for an hour.? Lindsay piped.

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It was nearly fifteen minutes later by the time Dodge and the two forensic 
doctors finally made it to Engineering. He smiled at Leila when they entered, 
but the smile was not reciprocated. 

?Is something wrong? You look awfully?.distraught.?

Leila simply nodded. ?Follow me.? She stopped in front of the harmonic 
sequencer.

Dodge felt suddenly suspicious. ?So, what did you find??

?We were decoding the information, so that you could have a full report like 
you asked for. Those blips?they weren?t a homing ping?they were compressed data 
streams sent in spurts.?

?That?s odd. Why would anyone send information like that??

?That?s what we wondered. So we cleaned it up and this is what we got.? She 
pressed a few panels and the display screen winked on. Images of scientists 
running experiments in the snow, talking, laughing, and playing around filled 
the screen.

?So what is this?? Carson asked.

?At first, we thought it might just be airwave junk, you know, chatter. 
Scientists love to talk. Then it turned to this.? She accelerated the image.

A dull and monotonous voice began a narration, describing several procedures 
and experiments. There was a large amount of interference, making the actual 
commentary impossible to understand, but key words and phrases were clearly 
present.

?This guy talks for something like twenty hours, same old junk. Exotic 
scientific jumble. But this was why I called you back so urgently.? She pressed 
a few more panels and the image skipped, presumably over the twenty hours of 
garble.

The voice continued unabated, as if she hadn?t done anything. For a moment, 
Dodge wondered what she was trying to prove. He couldn?t understand what the 
person was trying to say, so what was the big deal? 

Then something sounded dull, loud and ugly, as though a distant explosion had 
just taken place. The person recording the commentary stopped speaking for a 
moment and left the recording device?s field of vision. The recorder itself 
wasn?t high quality, but there was no mistaking the sound.

A pounding noise followed the explosion. There were shouts, some near, some far 
away. Then echoes of confusion, of equipment being tipped over, of glass 
shattering. Running feet grew loud, fading as their owners moved away from the 
recorder.


Something went thunk and the volume intensified, as if the recorder had been 
hit or thrown against something hard. Feet sounded close by, banging on deck 
plating. 

A violent gurgling rose above the general cacophony, then a loud hiss like a 
steam boiler shutting down. Men and women screamed and raged in the background. 

Then a piercing screech that made the hair on Dodge?s neck stand on end. 
Several explosions next, like cannon fire in the distance. The execrable 
screeching again, mewling louder than ever and mixed with the distraught, 
panicky cries of the scientists.

Leila noted the grim expressions on the faces of those gathered around her. She 
derived no satisfaction from the effect the recording had on them. Soon all 
sound stopped. The recording had come to an end. She deactivated the playback 
and regarded her companions in silence.

?That?s it?? Carson asked softly.

?The recording ends there. That was all we received.?

?It could be anything.? Lindsay said, more to reassure herself than anyone else.

Dodge felt ill deep down. ?Sure?.anything.?



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