Stardate: 70718:1900
Title: How and From When?
Author: Ensign Megan Garrett
Time: During "New Civilizations"
Scene: USS Horizon - Astrometrics/Stellar Cartography


After leaving the reception and getting some well deserved rest, Megan had reported into one of the science labs and had gotten to work. There was so much information still to be analyzed on the Brodarn spheres that there was plenty of work for her to do. She had already begun an in-depth analysis on each sphere individually in preparation for an eventual comparison to each other and the Dyson Sphere. She was already beginning to compose the outline for a paper in her head. The opportunities for discovery were immense, practically endless in fact.

She felt the ship jump to warp and wondered for a moment where they were going and what their new mission was. Still, as a junior officer, she was not privy to that information, and although she didn’t like being on this side of things, she tried to look on the positive side: not knowing what was going on gave her plenty of time to work on research and projects without further distractions.

~

A few hours later when the alert sounded, Megan’s optimistic position on being a junior officer all but died. She wanted to know what was going on and what she could do to help. However, the warning voice of Admiral MaCalaster came back to her.

'I can tell you’re not going to like being a junior officer; the first red alert and you’ll be on that bridge wanting to know what’s going on and trying to jump in.' Not wanting to prove him right, she stayed where she was.

A few moments later, data began pouring in, scans of a ship nearby that was sending out a distress call. It was obviously a Federation vessel (that much was clear), so Megan moved to enhance the resolution of the visual image and clarify the sensor data that was coming in, as she was sure whoever was on the bridge was doing as well. Unknown to her, she came to the same startling conclusion about the identity of the ship at the same moment those on the bridge did.

Her first idea was to scan for tachyons that would indicate that time travel had recently taken place in the vicinity. Her second was to take more detailed scans of the second Horizon to try and place how far into the future they had come from. The next question she had was how many people were aboard?

There were far too many questions to ask - where, why and how all seemed to blur together - but she continued to focus on the first two questions: how and from when?


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Ensign Megan Garrett
Science Officer
USS Horizon
NCC-72400
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