Chapter Ten

Halee and James walked onto the bridge to see that all the senior staff was already in the adjoining observation lounge.

"Wonderful." James muttered to himself because they are the last ones to arrive, then walked through the door and took the seat to the right of the Captain next to someone who he hadn't met before. That person was a middle-aged Japanese woman in her late twenties.

"Commander, you haven't met our Chief Engineer yet, this is Lieutenant Commander Hatoko Kobayashi." Jon introduced.

"Pleased to meet you Commander." she said, shaking his hand. "I hope you don't mind, I had a look over your fighter when you were planet side. Quite the piece of hardware. The modifications are quite impressive."

"Thank you, but the credit really goes to the mechanics on the Majestic." James responded with the hint of pride in his voice.

"I actually have some questions about some things, If I could talk to you later." she requested, James nodded.

"Now that introductions are complete, let us get down to business. The USS Antarctic has disappeared en-route to the Yaxanaar system. Deep space observation detected what they think is an explosion with a tachyon signature."

"Tachyons?" Amber said with an inquisitive look on her face.

"I know what you're thinking, and temporal mechanics doesn't know what to make of it. Since we are the nearest ship, Command has dispatched us to search for the Antarctic and investigate the explosion site."

"There is a possibility that we could encounter severe tachyon radiation. I suggest we modify the shields to prevent contamination." Amber suggested.

"That will take a few hours, but it'll be done before we reach our destination" Hatoko stated.

"I'll start working on a treatment for radiation, just in case the modifications aren't enough. No offence Kobayashi-san." Marcus said to the engineer, who just smirked and took a drink from her coffee cup.

"Halee, what do you know of that region of space?" the captain asked. Who quickly thumbed some commands into a padd and looked it over.

"Starfleet doesn't have much at all on that system. It remains largely unexplored except for deep space probes doing preliminary exploration. Other then a few basic star charts, we got nothing."

"Is there anything else to report?" The captain asked his senior staff but got no response. "Very well, Miss Andrews, set course for the Antarctic's last known position, warp seven."

"At that speed, transit time will be two days." Marion reported.

"Very good. Dismissed. Commander Soul, a minute please." Jon said, getting up and looking out the observation window has the ship left orbit and went to warp.

"Sir?" James asked.

"What do you think of this situation?" Jon responded

"Not what I was expecting, but then again, it comes with the job." James said leaning back in his chair. "I'm a soldier not a scientist, time anomalies are a bit beyond me, I admit."

"Don't worry about it, neither am I. That's why we call on the abilities of those under our command. It takes some getting used too and awhile before you develop a command style that works for you. Now, I have some paperwork to do." He said, sitting down in his chair. "You have the bridge commander."

James was caught off guard for a second. "Um. Aye, sir." James said turning around and walking out onto the bridge and stopped in front of the center chair."It won't bite, James." Amber joked. James just smiled and sat down.

"Ensign Golden, what's our status?" I requested.

"We're on course, traveling at warp seven; all systems are functioning within normal parameters."

"Good. Very good." James said nodding, exhaling hard and leaning back in the chair feeling about as nervous as he was when he first tasted combat.

James tapped his finger on the arm rest of the center chair bored out of his skull skimming over the duty rosters for the next day's shifts. There really wasn't much else for him to do while in transit. He'd gotten up and walked the bridge and familiarized himself with all the work stations about twenty minutes ago. Feeling thirsty he got up and got himself a cup of coffee from the replicator at the side of the bridge, turning back he saw the Captain in his chair.

"Captain, when did you get here?" James asked, sounding puzzled.

"Pardon?" said a voice he wasn't expecting in response from the other side of the bridge at the entrance of the Captain's office.

"Wha..? But you..." James stammered out looking back at the center chair which was empty. "When I turned back from the replicator you were in your chair, sir."

"Miss Fox, scan the bridge, leave nothing out." Jonathan ordered.

"Already working on it sir." She said quickly. She raised her eyebrows at the readings she got. "I am picking up tachyons on the bridge, sir."

The captain took his seat and James sat to his right. "Helm, how long till we reach Yaxanaar?" he enquired.

"Approximately thirty-five hours sir." the young Ensign Andrews responded.

"We must be starting to feel the effects of the temporal anomalies. It might be safe to assume that they will get worse as we get closer." Amber said studying the readouts on her terminal.

"Notify the crew, I want all occurrences reported as soon as they happen." The Captain ordered.

"Aye sir." Amber said as she started contacting department heads.

Realizing that he was still standing in front of the replicator, James walked down to his seat to the right of the captain's seat and sipped his coffee.

"Are you alright commander?" Jon asked. "You seem a bit unnerved."

"I'm fine, sir. That was just... weird." James admitted.

"That was scientific." Amber cracked; she still had a smirk on her face when both James and Jon turned around to look at her. "Right, notifying the crew." She quickly spat out.