Stitching the Rift

[Lt. Greg Dooglus]

Sees a ship appear on the view screen he starts scans "Ma'am scans can not confirm it" as it gets closer he can see it is a Galaxy Class vessel. "That course and rate of speed, it will collide with in ten seconds. Ma'am" he calls out all in one breath and fast

[TahlandiLaren]

She looks down at the Operations officer console. "Ma'am, its odd that none of our proximity alarms have not alerted us of this." She slides over to her security console.

[LtCmdr Deka Rekalan]

Deka's lips were pressed together, her jaw tight as both the Ops officer and the CSEC reported.

"Hold steady." She ordered, bracing for a possible impact. Nothing could come at them so quickly and not have been visible on their scans. So that was what it had to be...Nothing.

The ship passed through them without the slightest disturbance, like a hologram she thought, stopped a short distance away and assumed a standard orbit. On the hull was painted USS Yamato NCC-71807.

"The Yamato was destroyed and all hands lost in 2365, so that is obviously not the Yamato. We know what it isn't, let's find out what it is."

She addressed the bridge. "Suggestions?"

[TahlandiLaren]

"Ma'am I'll admit to a lack of scientific training," She said tentatively. "But I think the more prevalent question is 'who are we'? Judging by what we are seeing we seems to be the spectators."

[LtCmdr Deka Rekalan]

As they watched, the Yamato launched a shuttle headed for the planet's surface.

"Spectators perhaps but I don't intend to remain so exclusively." She stood. "Tahlandi, and Lang. You two are with me. Lt. Dooglus, when that shuttle lands, send the coordinates to transporter room 1 and put the tachyon experiment on hold. I want to find out exactly what we're witnessing and why."

[LtCmdr Deka Rekalan]

They were greeted by a blazing hot desert sun and winds that whipped black sands into small flurries and whorls at their feet. It glinted sharply under Denius's glare, like tiny shards of obsidian. She covered her mouth and nose automatically to keep from inhaling the deadly looking dust before realizing that she neither felt the sun nor the wind. She glanced at the Lang and Tahlandi and indicated with a tilt of her chin for them to follow.

The shuttle was just ahead of them. Equipment had been unloaded and set up, some standard and some clearly specialized. Archaeological equipment, Deka remembered. The Yamato had been here on an archaeological mission.

"Dr. Ramsey!" One of the party raised a hand to call him over as he emerged from the shuttle squinting into the brilliance of the reflected light. "We've found something!"

Walking quickly, Deka closed the distance to the shuttle and kept pace with Ramsey as he answered the hail. As she'd expected, no one here seemed to see them.

Using brushes to protect themselves from the sand, the workers had uncovered an object, perhaps one third of a meter in length. It was a dull gold color with markings etched into and along the flared areas of the rod. At the top, appeared to be a large cut crystal. They beamed as they moved aside to let Dr. Ramsey examine it. He clapped the worker who had found it on the shoulder in congratulations, and held it up to the light, the crystal refracting it into red, orange and yellow arcs.

It appeared ornamental or at least, there was nothing to indicate movable parts, buttons or switches of any kind and despite it's age, scans showed it at least 200,000 years old, it showed no wear. Carved and raised glyphs were as well defined as if they had been made recently.

While Ramsey carefully wrapped the piece and put it in a protective carrier, Deka noticed one of the dig crew move away from the rest of the group. From under his tunic, he brought out another object and examined it. It was the same jet black as the sand, highly polished and marked with the same strange glyphs as the wand had been. He ran his fingers across the several lines that divided the flat piece into three sections, like a round loaf of bread. He pressed the letters experimentally then turned it over to examine the back. All three sections met in the center, joined by another raised symbol. Smiling at having figured out the puzzle, he pressed the symbol and the object broke into three pieces. Immediately he pressed them back together and through some unseen mechanism, the object was again solid. His smile broadened as he tucked it back into his tunic. Deka could almost see him licking his lips in anticipation of the amount it would bring in sale. In their excitement over the other find, no one else had noticed this man steal away with his.

"That would have been the star map Dr, Ramsey gave to Captain Varley but I had never heard of any other objects of Iconian design being found here." She raised a enquiring brow to the others.

The planet shimmered in front of them and they found themselves back on the transporter pads aboard Trevious. Without stepping down she leveled a stern gaze of the operator. "Reverse the procedure immediately! There was no order given to return."

Looking apologetic and confused, the crewman raised his hands from the controls. "Ma'am, the team never left. The system safeguards indicated there was nothing at all at the coordinates you requested. You were held in the pattern buffer for a few seconds and then rematerialized."

She stepped down and nodded her acknowledgment without further explanation."I expect then that we have been shown what we were intended to see. Let's get down to the business of finding out why and by whom."

[Lt. Greg Dooglus]

He was monitoring his station when heard LtCmndr give him orders "Yes Ma'am" he says, as Deka picked her Away Team then headed for the transporter room

He keeps an eye on the shuttle tracking it when it landed he sent the coordinates to transporter room 1 "coordinates Sent Ma'am" he reported

He put the tachyon experiment on hold as he was order to do, when he registers they transported down, he keep a Transporter lock on the Away Team then noticed they were back in the Transporter room

[TahlandiLaren]

"Ma'am," Laren asked. "Should we be in a 'Yellow' tactical alert. It appears that whatever just happened had nothing to do with Trevious. If there is something out there that can effect us from inside the ship.I feel we should be on guard Security wise."

[Chief Robert Lang]

Lang watched each movement the object and the people. It was obvious they could not be seen. It seemed to quick for it to have been Trevious that brought then to this place. As quickly as it appeared everything was gone. "Wow," He said eyes still glazed over. "Can we do it again?"

[LtCmdr Deka Rekalan]

Deka outpaced the other officers who would have to doubletime to keep up with her as they returned to the bridge.

"The ship is in no danger, Lt.Tahlandi and no Mr.Lang, at least not just now. These occurrences are hardly arbitrary. I have no doubt that what we're experiencing is directed and of those races who might have the power to bring us here and show us what we've seen, I suspect, that some Iconians must have escaped the destruction of their home planet. I have no idea what this information means but a soon as we're out of this rift, I'm sending a report to Command. Perhaps with all the other information being gathered, it will help put an end to all these random anomalies.

They exited the lift. "And Mr. Lang, please continue with your tachyon experiment." Deka took her seat. "I feel quite confident it will be successful."

[Chief Robert Lang]

"Yes ma'am" Was all Lang said and went back to work. He sent communication down to the MENG to route a tachyon pulse through the deflector dish. "Ma'am, it read. I've routed control through the tactical console to fire a tachyon pulse through the deflector dish."

[LtCmdr Deka Rekalan]

"Lt Tail Kinker, fire a widespread tachyon pulse at the point at which we entered. I don't think we have to reopen the rift. I think it's still there. We only need to light our way out."

"We enter but appear to have gone nowhere. What we see doesn't exist and there's no evidence of temporal displacement. There's only once explanation I can think of for such unusual circumstances. We've been inside the rift itself and inside there is no time or space. "N" space. Nothingness. Won't it be amusing to tell command on this last excursion, that in no time we went absolutely nowhere." She smiled.

"Wherever you're ready lieutenant. Not that the 'when' particularly matters."

[Lt Tail Kinker To~Settle Sand]

At Tactical, she spoke up, giving voice to her thoughts. "I have never heard of a space where nothing exists. There has to be something somewhere."

With that, she done as ordered, tapping a key to fire the wide beam tachyon burst at the point where the Trevous entered the null space. She watched her sensors, awaiting a change in readings

[LtCmdr Deka Rekalan]

"In essence you're right lieutenant. Absolute nothingness isn't possible. The fact that we are there, proves it's existence or to use a variant of a well used phrase, it's space lieutenant but not as we know it. Our laws don't apply there, but imagine the possibilites." Her voice trailed off as she considered. "A gate without limitations..."

The brilliant white light they'd experienced before blazed onto the bridge, illuminating every corner. Instead of covering her eyes as she had previously, she forced herself to look into the light. It seemed to Deka that every star in the galaxy had joined together to create one massive force. Perhaps they had.

She blinked and the stars had returned to their respective positions and presented themselves in the familiar arrangement. She glanced at the time display on the main viewscreen. It had returned to normal as well.

"Operations, confirm our position."

[Lt. Greg Dooglus]

He listened to the LtCmdr as she replied to Tail Kinker, then the bright white light returned, he looked down at his sensors checking the readings, plus shielding his eyes

When the light was gone he replied to the LtCmndr "The Stars are in their respective positions, sensors show Time frame is normal as well, We are back Ma'am" he reports "Should I hail StarFleet Command Ma'am?" he adds