[Hallway, onboard what is left of the Kalen]
Donal tr'Ragarok looked down on his uniform. The uniform was scarred,
burned, dirtied, but none of that mattered. The Chief of Science's eyes were
solely on his new award- "the Black ribbon with falling dagger" was what
Raith had called it. "Finally!" said Ragarok outloud to no-one. "I have
something that those Federation science council types can be envious of."
Ragarok continued to wander through the hall, not paying attention but
somehow missing all of the collapsed ceilings and frayed wires. "Hmm... I
forgot totally about that blasted Dalasian puzzle... and I doubt I'll get to
work on it anytime soon. Ah, who cares. Those egg-heads at the UCIP science
council can work it out themselves." tr'Ragarok instinctively stopped at the
door to his quarters. "Ah, here we are. Finally, I can get some rest." The
door slid open, responding to his voice. The beleagured science officer
stumbled into his quarters. He gazed around, and all the events of the past
few days flooded back to his mind. "Computer, are au operational?" The
computer responded that it was, but operating at much less than peak
efficiency. "It matters not- what I want to do won't take much. Begin entry
into Ragarok scientific journal." The computer made sounds to acknowledge
the request.
"It's been quite a trying past couple of days, and frankly, I'm
exhausted." The scientist's voice perked up. "However, I do have several new
contributions to the advancement of Science! First of all, I must report
that the scientist known as tr'Riam had an experiment fatally backfire. His
thesis, as I understand it, was something having to do with utilizing the
nature of politics in combat. The experiment obviously failed, and now I
must dispose of his belongings. However, the mission as a whole was a
partial success. Apparantly someone had gotten ahold of our experiment plan
beforehand, and so took countermeasures in an experiment of their own.
Fortunatly, our valiant staff, being the respectable scientists that they
are, were quite adapt at thinking on their feet and were able to still
accomplish the mission. I personally was able to destroy an important power
grid, and in the process, found the Regent- who turned out to be a former
student of mine. Not a very good student, as I recalled, so I was able to
utilize his position and stupidity to my advantage. He's in custody now, and
good riddance. While all this was going on, the ship was being heavily
damaged, and is now in the process of undergoing repairs. The erie'Riov has
recognized my scientific achievements, awarding me this "Black ribbon with
falling dagger", citing my ambition. By the elements atomic numbers 1
through 155, I didn't even think using explosives was such an ambitious
experiment! It did prove quite useful, however. Getting back to the current
situation, Raith is leaving temporarily for who knows where, and being
replaced by someone named Kandeen or some such. Hopefully he will provide me
with as much scientific leeway as Raith did. I have not gotten to personally
talk to him myself, so time will tell. For now, I must rest, and prepare for
what cradol (fate) holds in store for me. Computer, end journal entry,
append time/date stamp, and save." The computer did so. "Transmit to back up
scientific log on subspace partition via lab transmitter."
"Cannot comply."
the computer responded. "Lab subspace transmitter is offline."
tr'Ragarok
suddenly darted up from his seat.
"By the elements hyrdrogen and helium! My lab!" tr'Ragarok ran out his door,
and quickly came to the door of the science lab. The door did not open
automatically, so tr'Ragarok was forced to pry it open manually. He gazed
into what once was his pride and joy... and now was in total ruins. He
checked what was left of the instrumentation, and found what had happened-
his life's work, the Probability shield, had sort of done what it had been
designed to do. The shield had been designed to utilize entropy manipulation
on the quark level in order to affect the effect of weapons fire and
basically anything destructive. The intended effect was to shield the lab
from destruction. However, all the weapons fire had merely overloaded the
shield, causing the lab to take even more of the damage than it normally
would have. It DID take some of the fire that probably would have taken out
an important system. tr'Ragarok glanced around once again at the damage.
Then suddenly, a big grin spread across his face. "I'll build a NEW lab,
better than the old one! More systems, more efficient, more experiments!
Yes! And I can write a book about my custom building! I'd better get to work
on the schematics right away... hmm, maybe I can just adapt the one from the
ship I was designing... yes, that's it..."
And the quirky scientist had
plenty of time to design his new lab, as no crew member in their right mind
would have asked him to help with the repairs. The existing crew had no
desire to have a warp drive that destroyed the universe or a replicator that
shot out genetically altered gerbils.
"Yes..." the scientist continued to himself, "I could make it so that the
lab could detach... hmm...."
|