Quantum Physics and Crayons
Posted on Sun Jun 5th, 2022 @ 10:55am by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant Colonel Shaun Bradley
1,372 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Roll With It
Location: Captain's Office
Timeline: MD 01: 0842 Hrs
Stifling a yawn, Colonel Bradley poured himself another cup of coffee and headed for the office at the end of the hall. He had as much data as he could gather, which was admittedly less than he'd like. Two of the fighters had done a low pass with ground-following radar on to see if they could get a better idea, and come up with "A big bubble" which didn't help. Other reports were coming in, but they were filtering in slowly and mostly came with the same tagline: We aren't sure.
Still, Bradley was the next senior-most officer on station, and that meant if anyone was going to update the Captain, it should probably be him. Nodding to the few still around at this time, who weren't elsewhere, the Marine didn't even push the button, just simply let himself in, crossing the room and sliding one of the cups of coffee across to Luka next to his PaDD. "So, good news or bad news first?"
The sigh that came from the Captain was a whole body sigh; his shoulders sagged and he sank back into his chair, deflating as he looked from his console. He had taken the misfortune of looking at the reports of freaked out citizens as he waited for news from this freakish occurrence. As Shaun came up, with a fresh cup of coffee no less, Luka had a hard time holding in the stress that was building up.
He took the cup of coffee in his hands. "... Give me the bad news first."
"There was an unidentified explosion inside the circle that doesn't match any known type of explosive I've ever seen," Shaun said nonchalantly. "We still don't have any way of communicating inside the circle, and I had to explain to a man that even on maximum yield of one of the tricobalt devices we can bring here, we have no guarantees that we would so much as scratch whatever this is. He asked if we could try anyways." The Marine paused to sip from his coffee. "Oh, and there is a giant magical bubble of unknown origin in the middle of the colony, in case you somehow missed that part."
Standing from where he was, the Colonel got a good feel for the room itself, and mentally chided himself for specifically looking for the uniform coating monster that was the Captain's dog. "Good news though, we know that there hasn't been a change in lifesigns, so everyone inside the bubble is - probably - still alive. We don't do absolutes," Shaun said when he could noticeably see the Captain's blood pressure rise. "It's a good way to make promises you can't cash. It also appears, judging from the movement inside, that the overall layout hasn't changed, we tracked several life signs moving inside the Silver Tongue so that's a good sign."
"The Silver Tongue." Luka by this point had drained the cup of piping hot coffee in front of him as if it were a good shot of spirits. "Considering the timing of the anomaly, we're probably looking at a lot of night life and people just out having a good time..." He pulled out a PaDD, sliding it over to the Marine in front of him. "I've had all the departments report a list of people who weren't able to report to their shifts or are otherwise missing. I would request the same of the town's population, but our civilian point person, Miss Macae, is ... likely to be stuck in that predicament."
He frowned at the empty cup. They were in dire need of an easier to contact civilian representative. Seshi, while good at her job, was maybe too good at the people part of her job. "On top of that, I've heard word from the staff of a Romulan ambassadorial outfit who had a ship orbiting the planet that they're missing their dignitaries, which tells me that they're in the affected area as well." Dignitaries that Luka was not aware of arriving on planet, though he credited that to the number of memos he had yet to catch up on since the Fenris Ranger fiasco.
"So it'll be good to at least have some information to give to them, even if we're talking maybes and mights," he concluded. "Any luck on a source? Or am I looking at potentially calling up branches of Starfleet I don't want involved in Haumea."
"We've been doing math and looking at the maps, and we think it's from the science building. No real belief that they are the cause of it, but they are the centre of it," the Marine puled up the 3D scans using the room's holoprojectos. "According to ground penetrating sensors, we've noticed it's the best we could possibly centralize it." He pointed to the building's overlay on the last maps charted from the various scanner teams.
"If I was to guess, something in the middle of the building is the exact centre. So it could be a natural phenomenon, and this could be pure chance, but I am not in the habit of believing in chance. I'd normally have Marines kicking in the doors, but again no communication." He pulled the map back out, and pointed to several other points of import. "There have been explosions here, here and here, and they match the kind of the first. Though I'm looking at the live reports, and it doesn't match any normal flash style. At this point our EODs have entered Magick as an answer."
"The science building?" Luka's brow furrowed. Surely they would have gone over all the safety protocols with The Bray Foundation before anything like this occurred. "... Magick?" There was the pause, his brain catching up. "Magick?! Please tell me that's a paraphrase." That would have been a bundle of joy to explain to the Admiral.
The Colonel laughed pretty hard, a combination of the genuine comedy of the moment, and the exhaustion creeping in. "Our Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams have to put a trigger source when they do reports. Effectively 'This is how it was supposed to be triggered'. For this, we don't have one, so some jackass wrote down magick. Unless we're being fucked with by some cosmic comedy there is no reason to believe there is actual magick at play here. No, likely something inside combusted and the field is muting our ability to read it."
"Oh. Good." Luka settled at this. How many odd blips had turned into something unexplained in their line of work, only to later be explained by who knew what? "So if the science building is at the epicenter, it's a start. I-... Will still have to contact some resources, to see if we can turn 'magick' into not Magick. Anything else I should be aware of?"
"Probably, but I don't have that information yet. I'll get it to you as soon as I can," Shaun said. "We'll see if we can get teams into the bubble. We are trying some unique transport techniques boarding teams often use. I'll keep you appraised."
Luka's brow creased. Multiple times as he went from concerned to exhausted and back a few times. "If you're using the same unique techniques I reviewed medical papers about, I'll warn the hospital to have biomass replicators on standby." He was... Mostly joking. "I trust you and your men. I don't, however, trust quantum physics to work when we need it to the most."
"Too busy eating crayons to know about quantum physics Captain," he said with a wink. "We'll let you know," the Colonel finish as he excused himself from the room to let the Captain have space.
Luka watched with a deep, belabored sigh as the Colonel made his retreat. 'One day,' he thought to himself, 'One day I'll be able to complain about the dull paperwork I have to do.'
"Davna." With his hand on the comm, Luka stood. There was work to be done. "Get a report from Lieutenant Issacks, and let's see if there isn't someone up higher who can help us out with this."
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