Chapter 2
Whether it had been on a Starfleet vessel or Maquis, on every ship which Tom had served, the night shift was generally quiet. It might have been here as well, if it hadn't been for the lieutenant running the science station. For the last three hours she had talked incessantly. Tom had until this point accommodated her by answering her questions. But in the last forty-five minutes or so he had come to the breaking point. It had taken him a week to finally get to this point, but he'd decided that he'd had enough.
Fortunately, she was the only one that caused him any grief. The week he had been night watch commander had been beneficial. It had given him the opportunity to truly get his command legs back, as well as becoming accustomed to this ship's normal operations. Although in his estimation, normal was becoming a very subjective word. The crew that was under his watch were not precisely normal, but at least they weren't too far from normal for Tom.
His conn officer definitely fell into the slightly strange category. Esn. Lightman was a fairly quiet man, although there were times when he would begin to mutter to himself, sometimes in characterization. At first Tom had worried. But on the third night he finally pieced it out enough to be at ease. He then asked the man and got his suspicions confirmed. Lightman was a part time novelist and actually had a couple of his works published. He had requested to stay on graveyards so he could have the quiet time to work on his latest tale. His ops officer was actually totally normal for a fresh out of the Academy ensign, if you ignored the fact that she graduated at the age of twenty. She had a quick wit and was easy to talk to. It was from her that he learned the ship's gossip and how the rest of the command crew fit together, on both this ship and Calhoun's Excalibur.
On the other side of the coin, there was the girl on sciences. Lieutenant Rhiannon Meyran was nothing short of a genius. After the first barrage from her Tom had chosen to check her service record. It was very impressive, albeit very brief. The Trident was only her second posting since graduation. Her first was as a research assistant in the Daystrom Institute. She served there for eight months as an assistant to Commander Reginald Barclay on Project Backtrail. The essence of the project was reverse engineering findings from Voyager. She held a doctoral degree in quantum theory and masters degrees in both warp field theory and engineering. Honestly she was very overqualified for her job. When he finally finished with the file he found the reason for it. Attached to her out briefing was a personal recommendation from Comdr. Barclay. He cited that while she was one of the top researchers in the field of quantum mechanics she had a problem accepting authority and was too flighty for the project. He suggested she have two or three ship tours to work off the nerves, in any department but engineering. He implied her over exuberant personality as a benefit in a think tank, but detrimental in a crisis. Thus she had ended up here. She had been an excellent officer as far as Tom could tell, but Barclay was right, the questions were going to drive him nuts.
Most of her recent questions had revolved around Tom himself, specifically the incident on Nervala IV. Even after twenty plus years Tom still felt a little uneasy talking about it. "Meyran, do you ever talk about anything other than quantum theory?"
"Yes sir, why?"
"Frankly I will tell you that while I know a fair amount about the subject it has never been very interesting for me. I don't mind chatter on the bridge, especially on graveyard shift. But this is getting to the point that if you do not change the subject I am going to ask you to refrain from any conversation at all while on duty."
"Sorry sir. But you see, I did a graduate paper on quantum change within transporters and I used the incident on Nervala IV as part of the case study on how atmospheric interference could change the degree of phase shift that occurs on a very minute level every time a person is transported. I have always found your case fascinating in it's own right. I also have a minor in psychology and I have wanted to study both you and Captain Riker for the last couple of years." She was literally bouncing, not obviously but bouncing none the less.
"Meyran…" he scolded. She took the not so subtle hint. The rest of the shift was much quieter. Once the woman had returned to her duties Tom made a mental note to see Shelby in the morning about the overly enthusiastic Lieutenant. Maybe I will suggest to Elizabeth that Meyran's next assignment be the Titan.
"Captain, I think you need to see this." M'Ress commented from her station.
"What have you got Lieutenant?" Shelby swiveled in her chair as she addressed the Catian officer.
"Sir, a normal long range sensor sweep of the sector has picked up on the remains of an ion storm. The abnormal part is that we run these sweeps often enough that we should have picked up on it long before now. What we are picking up on is the end of the storm, not it's forming. And that is not the strangest part."
"What else, as if I really want to know." When M'Ress classified something as strange Shelby knew to believe her without knowing the details.
"The apparent origin is the same system as the gateway that you and Captain Calhoun came out of during the Gateways incident. Within the system itself."
dor two of quiet around here, not with this crew. "Conn, set a course for that planet."
"Aye sir."
There hadn't been much of her shift left but Eppy never noticed. When she did realize that it was nearly time for gamma shift to come on she was rather testy. Now that they were in range of the more detailed sensor array they finally had a fairly decent picture of the system as it was now. From what they could tell they only thing that allowed them to know this was the system that had plagued her and Mac several years ago was its spatial coordinates and the presence of a currently inactive gateway. The planet itself had undergone climatic change, and while from what they could tell still to cold t live on, the storms that had nearly killed her no longer raged on the surface. The storm they had found the remnants of had actually occurred within the system, and near the only class M planet in the whole area. This was what she had been contemplating for a while now. Why had they not picked up on this earlier. Granted they had not been this way in about two weeks, but ion storms just did not come and go in that short of a time span.
The amount of information that had been gathered so far had a two word conclusion for the storm 'cause unknown'. By the time they had given her this she had nearly lost control of her already short temper. After snipping at Kat for giving her the report Shelby came to the conclusion that she really did not have to do this to herself. She could have left this for Kat and gone to bed earlier, but she had found one part of the report worth enough of her failing attention that she elected to go ahead and stay until gamma shift. There were pockets of the left over ion fields where it appeared to be 'out of phase'. These pockets were very tiny, only detectable because Meyran had recalibrated the Trident's lateral array for her own experiments in quantum mechanics. Well if I just stick it out until Tom (for some reason she still refused to use his last name) comes on duty brief him on what we've got and throw a bone to Meyran. Maybe she won't harp on him as much and I won't have to arrest him for murder. Although a week ago, I bet they entire crew on both this ship and the Excalibur were betting how long it would take until I would kill Tom. She only had another half hour so she took the time to stretch, grab a sandwich, and listen to a little music before calling in her Number Two.