The Distance Between

Posted on Wed Oct 7th, 2020 @ 9:43am by Major Naomi Sylan Griffiths

Mission: Survival of the fittest
Location: USS Penn, Deck 10. Stellar Cartography
Timeline: Pre-launch/shore leave

[ON]

Saffiya tapped the touch-screen control and stepped back. A swirling starfield materialised in three dimensions, the familiar view of the full spiral of the milky way in all its multi-coloured glory. A myriad of stars, systems and various other stellar anomalies. She tapped the screen again and the Delta Quadrant expanded to fill the display.

"Computer, enlarge sectors four through to eight. Correlate the information received from Voyager and mark all known information accordingly" she asked politely to the ships AI. Sometimes it paid to polite, even to a ship's computer.

The starfield expanded rapidly now with visible text notations of systems, planets and races that Voyager had visited in the Delta or knew by reputation and reconnaissance. A thin yellow line etched to show Voyagers route, here and there flashing red points marked areas of concern or where Voyager had had to fight it out. There was little distance between some of them.

"Computer superimpose the USS Pennsylvania's plotted intended mission course" she requested and a new line in red cut across the three-dimensional star map. "Add any recent updates by Long Range Scans and any probes currently in the quadrant"

Naomi decided to take a walk of the ship and visit a room she had not yet visited, she decided to get to Stellar Cartography and see what was happening down there and to meet the new Officer. Leaving the bridge she tugged down her uniform tunic and let the lift doors close "Stellar Cartography" she said and the lift whisked her down and across.

The door to Steller Cartography chimed, Saffiya turned to see who had entered.

After exiting the lift Naomi headed around the corner and walked into the room where she stopped in her tracks and whistled in amazement "Impressive" she said then looked at the officer there. "Hello, El-tee who is you? and what are you doing?" she asked.

"Mission Advisor Lt JG Saffiya Hadat" Saffiya introduced herself. "Running a full systems record on the Delta Quadrant and updating stellar cartography" Saffiya explained, with a sweeping gesture to the three-D display with her free hand. As she spoke more information appeared like transparent post-it notes.

She walked up to where the Lieutenant was and looked at the display. "I am Major Naomi Griffiths First Officer, pleased to meet you, Lieutenant, what you are doing sounds interesting, if not tedious, but then I am a Marine so my idea of activity differs to everyone on this ship. But back to the matter, have you come across anything we should be aware of?" Griffiths asked.

Saffiya smiled "Hey, I'm no desk jockey either, Major" she replied jokingly before turning back to the display. She tapped a few controls and the main display faded leaving the red line of the planned course of the Penn and interlinked areas of information leaving some other areas now highlighted in yellow.

Griffiths observed silently as the Lieutenant did her stuff.

"The main problem is the Hirogen" Saffiya explained. "These highlighted yellow areas are the generally known whereabouts of known Hirogen hunting ships and groups that have been operating in our prospective AO. Though, as they're mainly nomadic and always on the hunt with no set courses we can't anticipate or plan for possible encounters or if we become 'prey'. So, to put it bluntly, we should load for bear"

"HUH!" Griffiths exclaimed "What is the name of the Prophets are you on about El-tee?" she asked unaware of such a device, the name was recognisable, but as for what it was in relation too, she had no idea

"Uh... A large and formidable Terran ursoid predator" Saffiya explained. "Though I have never seen one either on my desert homeworld. It was a favourite expression of my uncle's" she explained with a wry smile.

She nodded "I see, interesting" she simply said.

"The other thing is the local information... Or, to be more precise, the near lack of it" Saffiya paused thinking of what to say next, aware that she was on board as the Mission Advisor. "Even though we have several unmanned Long Range Probes in the area where the Penn is expected to be operating. Though I would suggest we send two MkII probes ahead of us especially in the areas and systems about which we know next to nothing and ask for other probes to be redirected to our AO. The Delta is a big old Quadrant and the USS Voyager, apart from a few side missions of exploration and some areas of interest that they came across en route, was running a straight course home not running a full Alpha Survey of the Quadrant"

"I can agree to the probes, make it happen El-tee, make it happen," Griffiths said.

Saffiya nodded.

"It's strange," Saffiya said after a few moments. "I have studied ancient Terran maps of the early middle ages and, when they didn't know what lay in the unknown areas they used to say 'Here be dragons' - fierce mythical creatures of grim reputation" Saffiya explained, "I think the whole of the Delta Quadrant is like that... Here be Dragons!"

She shakes her head "You have no idea Lieutenant, no idea let us hope we do not encounter the Vadwaaur or the Hierarchy and even the Kazon en-masse, even with all the improvements to this ship, we would be hard-pressed to survive a protracted battle, I would personally prefer to avoid a space battle" Griffiths said.

Saffiya smiled. "I think you misunderstood..." she paused for thought. "By being forewarned we are for-armed. We are indeed lucky to have the files from Voyager, other vessels and probes and the like. And I, for one, also hope to avoid battle wherever possible. The worry is what else is out there that Voyager bypassed or simply, because of the stupendous distance and volume fo space, did not come across even by rumour and reputation"

Considers that comment and nods "me too El-tee, me too, I feel you have more to say?" Griffiths responded.

"Yet again, there may be greater wonders to discover and behold rather than, just, enemies and threats" Saffiya added with a smile. "I believe that is our mission"

"I know El-tee, I know but hard experience had taught me to expect the unexpected, I was assigned as XO should a combat situation arise, this is why we have SAR, QRT and Hazard Teams to back up main personnel if needed. So what else is there, if anything?" Griffiths asked and ended with a question.

The Lieutenant seemed to have nothing further to say so Naomi decided to take this as the conversation over and she left quietly allowing the officer to do her job.

[OFF]

Major NS Griffiths
First Officer

Lt Jg Saffiya Hadat
Mission Advisor (Retd.)