Chapter 58:

The remainder of meetings after the Orion attack clarified some plans. Yes, the shields were on during the attack. Clearly it would be a priority that the vulnerabilities that made it possible to disable the shields should be fixed.

We setup a joint research project with the Tellarites on how to detect Orion ships from a distance. We were pretty sure that the Vulcans already knew how to do this, but didn't want to ask them for technical help that they didn't volunteer to give. Earth and the Tellarites both knew that they were behind in some technologies and were willing to fully cooperate with each other. Both Humans and Tellarites had good engineers. They also jointly worked on trying to improve the shields using information from the Orion attack.

The further interrogation with the Orion prisoners revealed the maximum range of their transporters and why they attacked from the exact range they did. They also confirmed that the Orion ship, before destroying itself, would have sent all relevant information to the Orion Syndicate first. They also said that their own survival would be regarded as treason and that if they ever were to be traded back to the Orions they wouldn't expect to survive after being interrogated.

Another Starfleet research project was started to determine to what extent damage occurs despite shields being on. That appeared to be how the Orions destroyed two shield emitters, and that is how the Starfleet photon torpedoes halted the Orion ship's engines, probably only temporarily, but a few seconds was all that was needed for the rescue mission. Detailed analysis of the recordings were done, but also many experiments with firing on unmanned ships were performed. There was also a repeat analysis of canon, of examples where shields remained up but weakened while various levels of damage to ships occurred.

The mood on Earth was effected by the Orion attack. Space no longer was just a new frontier with friendly extra-terrestrials. It did help the push for additional taxation to pay for a higher Starfleet budget.

The building of new ships was paused, as Starfleet focused its production efforts on scaling up anti-matter production to create much larger photon torpedoes, and building and deploying dense networks of mines and sensors to be placed far outwards of all Starfleet installations and planets, and at a lower density, star systems.

Work continued on shielded photon torpedoes. The idea behind them is to effect only a part of a sphere, so it can be exploded near a friendly ship or installation. Another area was how to launch them while at warp. This was done in canon, but we couldn't yet figure out how. One idea was to somehow manipulate the warp field from the launching ship.

Cargo ships traveling to the Starfleet inhabited systems, so far Sol, Centauri, and Barnard, and also ships conducting trade with Tellar, would now only travel in convoys with starships. The cargo ships themselves were expected to have the same defensive capabilities as starships, although not the offensive capability. That space on the ship was used for cargo.

There was an analysis of the shape of the Orion ship, which had its warp field generators enclosed within the hull of the ship. It would give an advantage in protecting those components, but the Starfleet design of having the nacelles a distance away reduces the need for shielding the crew from radiation generated by the warp field generators, and the distance between the nacelles provided an advantage in warp field generation.

Since there were ships already built, the mission to Wolf 359 was launched as soon as the ships were refitted to the latest Starfleet standards. It is 7.8 light years from Earth, which was 4 months at our current speed. In canon it was the place of a last stand against the Borg ship headed towards Earth. It was launched March 12th 2014 and by August the survey of the system was complete and a planetary colony was started with a large space station orbiting it. So far none of the ground colonies have been habitable. All required domes and different levels of atmosphere suits and protection from extreme conditions when outside the domes.

The Wolf 359 colony differed from the previous ones due to a request by 35 Goblins to join it and to build their own tunnel based habitation. They found the conditions favorable to their type of construction and arrived there on a follow up ship in January 2015. The Goblins also really took to hand-held phasers, both as weapons and as tunneling tools. After learning the technology behind them, they crafted their own, with intricate decorative designs, and often combined with swords. The number of planets that would be ideal environments for Goblins would so far exceed those ideal for humans who prefer to live on the surface. The Goblins said humans should get over that idea, and live with them underground on various planets.

Meanwhile some research projects, in cooperation with the Tellarites were reaching completion. We could now detect Dilithium deposits, and surveys of all Starfleet controlled systems were about to start.

I said to Luna, "There was a hint in a book that was not quite canon but not quite non-canon, that some Dilithium could be found on a moon of Jupiter, depending on how you count the moons it could be Io."

In our silent communication, what Luna and I didn't need to tell each other was that we both knew that the surveys would likely find Dilithium on Io, and then Starfleet would want to do mining and disrupt the undiscovered sentient life there.

Luna thought for a second and said serenely, "Renée in 2027 changes the timeline, so did canon Renée in 2024. Doesn't have to be then."

Cora snuck into the room and said, "Does so! Uncle Q showed me!"

I asked, "Cora, 2027 is too late for what she needs to do. What if it were this year?"

Cora looked at the wall for a several seconds, then said perfunctory, "That works. Then she'll have to do something else in 2027. Uncle Q said so, to you, 22 years ago. It was a specific year. He never said what, but Uncle Q is amused at what you think she needs to do now and said, go for it."

Luna and I said in unison, "Spring Break!"

Cora asked, "I want to meet them too!"

Luna said, "Just the four of us. You can come since you are part of this. Ekdotis and grandfather Xenophilius will be disappointed, Jean-Laurent, grand-père Maurice, and grand-mère Adeline will understand."

We brought Renée home after classes on Friday. I said, "This Spring Break, we aren't going sailing like we planned. Do you want to guess where we are going instead?"

Renée said, "I was going to operate the sailboat myself to Pearl while you all eat bonbons on the deck. I'm ready for it."

Luna said, "I was going to have pudding, not bonbons. We'll try to do that later this year. Any guesses?"

Renée answered, "Is it somewhere sunny?"

I laughed and said "Probably, but the sun will be much dimmer."

Renée said, "What Cora said? I'm going to Io? Now?"

I said, "With Cora and us. Timeline got moved up."

We taught Renée the new intelligence detection spell. When she mastered it, we went to the whale exhibit and it worked. Tried it out on Dolphins and it worked. Tried it out on Seals and it didn't. It did work on Octopuses. Afterwards Renée said while we were having lunch, "Eating seafood and salmon while the fish watch seems wrong."

Luna said, "Those are Orcas, they eat all sorts of sea creatures. They are not offended."

Renée tried the spell on the Orcas, "Not sentient either."

We spoke to her professors, Renée was in her fourth year at Starfleet Junior Academy. We told them that we are taking a trip during spring break and might be back a little after school resumes, but that the trip will be educational. Luna refrained from adding "for everyone".

Our trip was just in time. Starfleet was fine tuning their Dilithium detectors on Earth. They found some small deposits in Antarctica from asteroids that crashed there. They were about to search the moon, when it was time for our trip.

We said our goodbyes and assured Xenophilius that we would keep good records for his articles about anything we discover. We apparated to Travis Spaceport and got on our shuttle. Our security convinced us to take along three Starfleet marines plus two pilots. They said that Starfleet marines would better be able to handle anything that happened in space than they would, and that the two crew members could handle any ship maintenance needed.

The shuttle took off with magic only, so no plumes of smoke or loud noises. When it reached orbit the pilot announced, "One quarter impulse", then the ship smoothly accelerated to .25 c, while on board a normal Earth gravity was felt. In 4 hours we were in orbit around Io, a moon of Jupiter.

After scanning, we did our checklist for surface exploration. I said, "150 rem per hour. We'll need to deploy magical radiation shielding on the surface."

The pilot said, "The ship automatically put up radiation shields. Its pretty intense up here in orbit."

Luna asked Renée, "If you were a micro-organism, where would you be hiding?"

Renée pointed to a crater with lava and said "There". Both Luna and Cora knowingly nodded.

I said to the pilot, "Make it so." I always wanted to say that on a spaceship.

We found a patch of a micro-organism after flying around the crater. We got close and hovered, instead of landing on it. The four of us, glided out, not stepping on the ground, and Renée performed her spell and discovered intelligence.

We did scans with our equipment, "Sulfur, silicon, oxygen and iron based life."

Renée exclaimed, "Bioluminescence! That pattern is a sequence of prime numbers!" and then used a modified Lumos spell with her wand to mirror the pattern.

Renée then said, "Computer, first contact prime number protocol, interface with a point light source."

It might seem a little unfair, but the advanced levels of the toy that simulated looking for unknown creatures, that Xenephilius had built for Renée, actually prepared her for exactly this situation. We knew that in canon she managed communication without being prepared in advance, but why not give her every possible advantage. Since canon didn't say how it was possible to communicate with them, Renée learned many possible ways.

By the next day we could communicate fairly well. We left behind a sub-space transmitter that provided an encrypted channel between Io and Earth only. Renée asked the lifeform that we named, in English, the Ions, "Would some of you like to visit Earth"

The Ions said, "That would be acceptable."

We went over the practicalities of what sort of environment they would need, and built an environment box for a sample to bring to Earth.

When we returned to Earth, we made sure that Renée got the main credit for the discovery. We mostly emphasized, "Family magics." After we did the round of interviews, and she returned to Starfleet Junior Academy, they had her teach a class about what she learned, attended by adults as well as other students.

At the Starfleet meeting I emphasized, "Io belongs to the Ions. We might find Dilithium there, but we only get it by negotiations with them."

Luna said, "We need to convince them to join Starfleet. They are part of the Solar System, we respect whatever level of isolation they might want, but cannot allow other star systems to directly negotiate with them."

Upon further discussion with the Ions we determined that they could help terraform planets. Besides protecting them from trespassers we were trying to determine what we could do for them, in exchange for whatever help they wanted to provide us.

The world-wide public reaction was best summarized as fascinated. There was a completely different form of sentient life, and near Jupiter.

Starfleet setup a cordon around Io to prevent anyone from reaching it without authorization of the Ions and Starfleet.