<USS Banshee> "Academy Daze" Pt. 3
- From: "Brad Ruder" <groundzero@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ussbanshee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:28:13 -0800
(The readable version...)
“Academy Daze” - Part Three
Lieutenant Commander Joshua Asper
Special Guest Writer:
Aldren Cross as Cadet Jerrad Asper
She had elegant and flowing brown hair with matching dark brown eyes. Her smile was the perfect contrast as it shimmered like a beacon in the darkening night, but that was just the outside. With a personality that radiated like the sun, there was never a sad person in the Midnight Cafe - she made sure of it. Autumn stood behind the counter with a smile on her face, a coffee pot in her hand, and a plethora of advice for all ages.
Josh remembered her from his academy days. She was much younger then, but her zeal had never faltered. "Another cup, please, Autumn."
Nodding, she poured him another cup, "I'm glad to see you again, Asper, I hardly ever get to see those that walk out those doors again. It's just one of the muddles of life, you know? Well, anyway, I'll be here all night so study as long as you want."
"Thanks. All right, Jerrad, the inner-spectrum layers of a White Dwarf supernova."
"Inner spectrum..." Jerrad he mumbled as he read the contents. The first paragraph made little sense, the second half as much, and the rest were pretty much the same as he skimmed down the contents. He groaned, more than over done sarcasm spilled out, "oh yeah, nothing like eight thousand pounds per cubic foot to make sense for me if a starship gets to near and the internal structure looses it's hold, what the hell is a security guy suppose to do? Fire torpedoes?"
Hayden looked at him, "Josh, you haven't even began with the thing, and already you're makng quitting. At least read the damn thing."
"There's seven, Jerrad, all you got to do is name them."
Bre sat next to him, a hand on Jerrad's leg, and an arm around his shoulder. "Come on, Jer, you know what it is. Remember the acronym we had for them when we studied the first time. Just recite it and you should know it from there." Bre always impressed herself with her determination in her otherwise seemingly hopeless love interest. "You can do it."
"Yeah," Jerrad responded. He gave the seven layers but his eyes drifted off the topic as he mumbled a few things barely audible, "White Dwarf Supernova. A Neutron Star... Cosmic Stings..."
"And what is predicted after a suns' supernova?" Hayden inquired. It was there, on the padd. As he took a gulp from the hot coffee.
"A neutronic wave front."
"How high in temperature can it get?"
"Dependent on the explosion of it."
"And the explosion depends on the amount of what in the what?"
Autumn poured them all another round of coffee. It seemed that she was crossing to their couches every couple of minutes, but she always did it with a smile. Bre wasn't a coffee drinker and had probably drank enough water to drown the entire Academy population. Hayden was a coffee drinker; so much so that he would put Sara to shame with the amounts.
Josh was timid, but he held his own. The whole group was a caffiene party.
"Well," Jerrad reread the padd, "a neutronic wave front is dependent on either a supernova, or a collision of two neutron stars. A case of a supernova happening.. would be a result of..." Jerrad sighed, "I can't find this."
"Neutronium decay. The overall result?"
"Is a neutronic wave front." Jerrad realized he went into a complete circle. He shook his head.
Josh looked at his brother-in-law, "And you're not teaching at the academy because...? I knew that you were bright, but this is just amazing. You looked at the PADD once since we sat down and you're already reciting off of it?" Having always taken a liking to Hayden, Josh wasn't nearly as amazed as he should've been with his brother-in-law's excellent memory and ability to regurgatate information.
Hayden smiled, "it's been a while, but I've been doing a little catch up since you called us. Now Jerrad, what are the effects of a mutara nebula?"
"Uh... limited sensors... diminished shielding... and lack of navigation... I think." Jerrad took another padd, "I hate this, dont see why I need this shit," he quickly added before his brother could say anything, "but I see it, I get it... somewhat."
Bre took a sip of her water and, without missing a beat, launched a new barrage of questioning, "and a metaphasic nebula?"
He looked at Bre, "um... apparently a metaphasic nebula does have certain properties that... like increase in shields, but lower on sensors."
"And it also increases warp efficiency in the plasma decay plains of the warp engines. Jerrad, you need to know all of them if you're going to pass the test. Hessin isn't going to let you skate through the test on half answers and guess," Bre placed a hand on his leg and kissed him lightly on the cheek, "you know all this, you just have to recall it and hold onto it."
He shook his head, "we've been going through this for the last few hours. You'll have to excuse me if I can't retain all of this. It's harder now then ever."
"Maybe you should've studied. You won't be having to do this," Hayden responded.
Jerrad couldn't glare, or react to Hayden's reply. He was right. He placed the padd down, "god this is giving me a spin."
"Breathe," Josh said before sipping at his drink.
"I am bro, I am. This doesn't help."
"Explain the phenomena on astral eddies." Hayden pressed on, taking a refill on the coffee.
"Discovered by the USS Voyager. It's a rare combination of space and subspace creating mass amount of energy- it's highly charged plasma and has a temperature of up to nine million Kelvins. Shockwaves are common for a formation of an astral eddy." Jerrad responded almost instantly.
"Seems someone is getting this quicker and clearer than he though." Hayden smiled as he sat back.
Bre placed a PADD in front of him, "All right, explain the phenomena of the Barzan Wormhole and the fixed and unfixed points of the openings to the structure, this is on the test." Bre laughed a bit as she downed the last bit of her water. She saw that Jerrad was losing his battle with patience, but she knew that he needed the push.
Jerrad groaned in frustration, "I don't know. It's a freaking wormhole that's gone berserk." Clearly losing his patience, he looked at Josh, "do we have to do everything on this thing? I have no idea about the Barzan wormhole."
"Come on, Jerrad," Josh said, placing his empty glass on the table, "Kol and Arridor..."
"Who and who? Forget it, give me another question."
"Alright, explain the Typhon Expanse."
"Uh...gimme a sec." Jerrad went looking onto the padd, "it's gotta be here somewhere. There," he quickly reread the material and placed it down, "alright, so basically the Expanse is a temporal rift. A starship - Bozeman - got caught in the rift and experienced a time loop for about a hundred plus years- or something to that effect. The fact reamins though, the temporal rift is still under study right now."
Hayden looked at Josh, "you think he'll do alright?"
Josh gave a half-hearted look to Hayden, "Barzan Wormhole?"
Hayden smirked, shaking his head, "I’m not the one taking the test."
Josh looked at Jerrad, now with a smile on his face, "Barzan Wormhole. Answer."
"Bro. I. Don't. Know." He waved his hands around.
Bre shifted next to Jerrad, "It's on the PADD, Jer."
Jerrad looked downed at the padd. A different one that Bre had pulled out from somewhere in the stacks, "oh... tracked by dispersal plasma... was lost when it was bombarded by Verteron particles. There, enough, I've had it." Jerrad deactivated the padd.
"Do you hear that, Josh?" Bre asked, straining to hear something that apparently only she could hear.
Josh listened for a moment, straining equally if not harder for the imaginary sound. "No, Bre, I don't hear anything. Am I listening for something in particular? Whistling? Bass-like sound?"
Bre looked at Josh, then a Jerrad, "that's the sound of Jerrad's career. Nothing. Study the damn PADD Jerrad. I'm going to graduate and I'll be damned if you're not coming with me. Activate the damn PADD and read about Arridor and Kol and the Barzan Wormhole." She narrowed her eyes. God help him.
"Alright, alright."
Josh looked at Hayden as the PADD was reactivated and Jerrad started to recite stuff he was reading out of the information. Nodding acceptingly, Josh finished off what seemed like his nineteenth coffee. "I think he's going to do just fine."
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