Mother's Advice
Posted on Thu Aug 2nd, 2018 @ 11:31am by
Edited on on Thu Aug 2nd, 2018 @ 4:30pm
1,617 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Episode 4 - The Sum of Our Parts
Location: Jati's Quarters
Timeline: MD001 - 1500hrs
"Yes, sir", Jati said. She turned and headed back up the steps towards the lift. This could have gone better. She'd have to call her mother. Who would be stupid enough to de-fund science? Mind-boggling.
Hadir watched the woman leave and enter the turbolift. Quite the fetching female. However... his thoughts trailed off as he sat down. There was something about her that he could not put his finger on. He opened an internal ship's channel. "Bridge to Intelligence report to the Command Office..."
May 28 2394 1500 hrs (relative time)
Her meeting with the Gul could have gone better, Jati figured. Not only did she not know what was happening on her very own home front, but he had also taken pleasure in humiliating her in front of the bridge crew. She was prepared for an antagonistic approach, she got that a lot from other Cardassians, but that was usually reserved for social settings, verbal sparring matches, which she enjoyed. This one was different. She worried who he’d send to ‘interview’ her. The last thing she’d heard was him calling intelligence, it was easy to pick up for her artificial ears even though the closed doors of the lift. She hoped it was the counsellor, at least with her it wouldn’t be uncomfortable.
She pushed these thoughts from her mind. She’d have to endure what there was to endure. She’d always been good with accepting the circumstances, and never sought to change them. Some things simply had to be endured. But before, she had an important call to make.
Jati had received the scanner data from her girlfriend, Valentina. The doctor had told her about a quantum variance in her cells, as well as traces of chroniton particles which she had confirmed after Jati’s talk with the two El-Aurians. It appeared, from all the scientific evidence, that the two were speaking the truth, or at least weren’t far off. Jati wasn’t a trusting person, in fact she was naturally suspicious of everybody at first, but scientific evidence could not be ignored. It was objective reality, which was a dilemma for Jati.
Should she help them? She had some memories from that timeline, but they were like a dream. And it was impossible for her to tell whether any of it was accurate. And more so, she didn’t know which version of events she preferred. The El-Aurians had said their timeline was the right one, and this one was wrong. What they hadn’t been able to tell her was how they could arrive at a right and wrong. Time was, events happened, this way or that. So it came down to the question of which version she preferred. Should she help to restore what they had lost, and what would that do?
She thought of Valentina. They had been together for a year. The chroniton particles went way further back than that. Would they even have met in the other timeline? Was she losing her girlfriend by agreeing to help them? And then, what would become of Cardassia? Things were far from ideal in this timeline, she had no idea whether they were better or worse in the other. Besides, was there ever such a thing as an ideal situation, where everything was the way is was supposed to be? Jati doubted it.
But before she had to make that decision, whether to tell the Gul all that she knew and cause problems for the El-Aurians, or whether she should assist them in reverting the changes, she’d have to collect more data. The more she knew, the better the grounds for making a decision. And to know more, there was one person who she trusted would give her an honest opinion, and who’d be able to understand the sensor data she had collected: her mother.
Sometimes it helped being from a scientifically minded family. Professor Geske Niall, recently of the Cardassian Ministry of Science, was much better with particle Physics than Jati, whose primary field was biology. Speaking to her mother would also give her a chance to figure out what she was going to do now that her research had been de-funded.
She opened a subspace channel from her quarters and had to wait for just a few seconds before the image of her mother appeared on screen. “Mother, it is good to see you”, she greeted.
“Likewise, Jati. I understand you’re having a bit of a problem?” her mother asked.
“I do. The sensor data I sent you, it represents an anomaly we’ve discovered and are currently headed towards, at the site of a former research station”, Jati explained, giving context to the raw data she’s sent earlier. “I was hoping you could make more sense of it than me. What does it mean?”
“It’s a ripple in the space-time continuum”, Geske explained. “And one that needs be addressed. Make no mistake about that.” She pressed a few buttons and a text appeared on screen on Jati’s end. “This is my analysis, and I’ve confirmed it with Jirani 4. We are both agreed that it needs to be addressed quickly, before the time stream collapses and tries to merge both timelines.”
“How do we do that?” Jati asked.
“It’s all in the report. Your ship is capable of emitting antichronitons, yes?” Geske asked.
“It is. This is an Intrepid class. Starfleet built it for all kinds of exploratory endeavours. It’s probably better at this than any of the others we’ve got”, Jati said. “How do we choose which timeline to keep?” Jati wanted to know which version her mother preferred, and if she was able to tell, not merely how one could be stabilised at the expense of the other.
“You modulate the antichronitons to the phase variance of the other timeline”, Geske explained. “That will close the anomaly, and all the influences from that timeline will disappear from hours. Don’t use our own phase variance or it’ll have the opposite effect. It takes some doing, Jirani 4 has provided the instructions on how to modulate your secondary deflector dish. You will have to control it personally from deflector control. Don’t let anyone else handle this, it’s delicate.”
Jati nodded. “Understood”, she said. She got the message. Her mother had given her both options, and cautioned her not to trust the decision to anybody else. She had more data on the how now, but she still didn’t know which way to turn. “Now, Gul Prenar told me the Ministry of Science was closed? What happened?”
“Ah, we’re restructuring the science administration to be more efficient”, Geske explained. “As members of the Dominion, we don’t need our own ministry. It means I can get out of the office and back into the lab more often. I’m closing up a few projects here which I’m still supervising, and then I’ll be joining Jirani 4 in a new exotic particle simulator in the gamma quadrant.”
“So you’ve been demoted?” Jati asked. Her mother’s words were positive but the way her head was inclined that told Jati she wasn’t entirely happy about it.
“I’ve been relieved of my administrative duties”, Geske clarified. “In a sense, you could say it’s a demotion. But I’ve never wanted to be anywhere other than the laboratory.” She didn’t need to add that she’d prefer that laboratory be in Cardassian space, close to home, rather than on the other side of the galaxy. Jati understood her mother regardless.
“You’ll get that Mitani prize after all”, Jati smiled. It was a prestigious award, but not one earned from behind a desk. “Now, I’ll have to explain to Gul Prenar what we have to do...”
“Explain to him what these particles do, and remember those that make up all matter in the universe”, Geske told her daughter.
Jati nodded. “Yes, I shall remember.” It was an old joke they’d shared. Usually, people answered protons, neutrons and electrons. Jati knew that those who did forgot the morons, of those there were always plenty about. Her mother had just warned her not to trust Prenar.
“I have to leave now”, Geske said. “Good luck, Jati. I love you.”
“You, too. Take care”, Jati said and closed the connection. Her mother did not expect to see her again. Her mother expected her to wipe out this reality. Had she seen what the other was like, and considered it the better option? Had to be the case, Jati figured. One more reason to trust the El-Aurians. She could not possibly ignore her mother’s advice.
She read the text her mother had sent her. She’d need an engineer’s help with some of it but she already saw that whoever was in deflector control at the crucial moment would get to choose the phase variance. She hoped her mother was right and there wasn’t anyone else around with the skill to do this. And having the plan approved and endorsed by her mother’s Vorta friend, maybe she wouldn’t have to face Prenar’s intelligence team after all?
Glen Jati Niall
Cardassian Liaison Officer/Assistant Chief Science Officer, USS Pioneer
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