IRW Delta Flyer, Delta Quadrant
Stardate 56688.7, alternate
Lieutenant Naomi Wildman sat in the co-pilot's seat, reading a copy of Heinlein's Starship Troopers on the padd in front of her, as Sublieutenant Paris piloted the Delta Flyer, keeping pace with the other ships in the Voyager fleet.
The Romulan insignia on her chest chirped; she tapped it lightly. "Wildman here."
Icheb's voice filtered through the badge. "I'm detecting a quantum singularity.in our flight plan," he said. "It has a high level of tachyon particles emanating from its event horizon, which could interfere with the cloaking device of any ship passing throught the sector."
"Understood," Wildman said, putting down Starship Troopers to call up the information on the anomaly on her console. "Good work, Icheb," she told him. "Automated scans wouldn't have caught that." Each day, Icheb proved himself to be worth his weight in latinum.
Wildman opened the Delta Flyer's hailing frequencies. "Delta Flyer to Voyager fleet. All ships equipped with a cloaking device are to disengage cloak immediately, until further notice. Delta Flyer out." She turned to Paris. "Tom?"
He disengaged the Delta Flyer's own cloaking device.
Wildman looked at the information on her screens a little more closely. "Icheb, do you know what that is?" she asked, tapping her commbadge.
"A quantum singularitry. Borg Categorical Index 074365. Romulan Catalogue 35847. Also known as T'sal's Singularity."
"That's what destroyed the Voyager," Wildman said. It was almost a decade ago that the warbird encountered this anomaly and was destroyed, along with most of her crew. Wildman remembered those crewman-Harry Kim, B'Elanna Torres, Chakotay, Kathryn Janeway, and of course, her own mother, Samantha Wildman. All in all, over a hundred crewmen died.
'I remember," Icheb said. "It occurred shortly after I was brought on board."
"Well, Icheb, it's a shame you weren't working the scanners then." Then, glancing at Tom, "no offense to Harry." The late sublieutenant had been a dear friend to Paris.
"It's okay, Naomi," Paris said. "The kid had nothing close to Icheb's skills."
The doors to the cockpit of the Delta Flyer opened behind them, and Tuvok stepped out. "Is everything going smoothly?" he asked.
"Yes, Commander," Wildman reported. "We've detected T'sal's Singularity within our flight plan. I ordered all cloaks to be dropped."
The Vulcan nodded. "A sensible precaution."
"Commander?"
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Perhaps we should stay, study the anomaly for a bit. Find out more about the singularity that destroyed the Voyager."
"That fact is coincidental. Sentimentality bears no place in the research of astronomical phenomena.'
"Of course, Commander." Wildman had heard the speech a hundred times before.
"However, the research of astronomical phenomena does bear merit in its own right. As Commander Janeway would have said, we are on a mission of exploration."