Setting the Course: Five Year Mission

Chapter Ten: A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By

April 4, 2156 1700 – Enterprise Situation Room, in orbit around Andoria (Procyon VIII)

On the bridge, T’Pol shut down the science console and headed for the turbolift.  The alpha crew, minus the captain, were at their usual stations.  A cleaned up Lieutenant Reed, smelling faintly of vinegar to her sensitive nose, was at the tactical station.  She called out as she walked, “Lieutenant Reed, you have the conn.” 

“Yes ma’am,” came the quiet reply. 

She entered the turbolift and the doors closed.

Inside the situation room, Archer was fiddling with the mapping interface.  He had gone for a walk around the ship before heading to the situation room for his meeting with T’Pol.  He looked up as she came in. “Hi, T’Pol. You’re right on time.”

She raised her left eyebrow.  “Of course. We were scheduled to meet at 1700 hours and there are currently no emergencies, so my being on time should be expected.”

Archer chuckled.  “Someday I won’t state the obvious… and you’re going to have a heart attack.”

“My heart is in excellent condition, Captain.  I would be very surprised, however.”

Archer decided to raise his eyebrow at her for that.

Teasing aside, he was concerned for her after last night’s little dinner battle with Trip and subsequent sliming.  This was the first chance he’d had to speak with her privately.  “Are you okay?  You and Trip were really getting into it at dinner last night.  I thought he was over the line with what he said.”

“I am fine.  As I said, it is a compliment for a Vulcan to be called unemotional.”

“You nearly broke your plate.  Didn’t look like it was a welcome compliment from where I was sitting.”

“I do not wish to discuss it,” she said flatly

Archer felt he should help, but he wasn’t good at people stuff and she was offering him an easy way off the hook.  He took it.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.  I’m going to have a chat with Trip later.” 

T’Pol stepped to the console.   She busied herself with the mapping interface as she said, “I have already dealt with Commander Tucker.”

“I heard about his blue goo encounter.  There won’t be any damage to the shield generator will there?”

She continued to look at the controls.  “No, I checked the manual very carefully.  The shock absorbing fluid is only needed during actual movement of the container.  I will arrange for more shock absorbing fluid to be sent up and he can refill the crate tomorrow.”

Archer nodded. “I thought he had it coming, by the way.  You guys are starting to play a little rough, though.  Try not to kill each other, okay?”

She turned to him abruptly.  “I would never do anything that actually endangered Commander Tucker!” 

“I know, I know.  Still, you two need to tone it down a notch or two.”

She nodded.  “I understand Captain.  Shall we look at the potential courses?”   

“Yes, let’s.”   Personal problem time is over, he thought to himself.  One of the things he really liked about working with T’Pol was that she was so good at compartmentalizing.

“I have been reviewing the Vulcan Science Academy’s list of interesting stellar phenomena, and I believe I have found an excellent candidate to serve as the vertex of the first leg.”  The stars on the main screen whirled when she pressed the “Go To” button.

“Really?  It’s not a space moth, is it?”  Oh, please don’t let this be boring; please don’t let this be boring, he thought.

“No.  Are you familiar with pulsar SGRJ2020-4271, as it is referred to in Earth terminology?”

“No, I can’t say that I am.”  He was well versed on the stellar geography within 100 light-years of Earth, but not beyond.  It had never seemed relevant.  There weren’t any pulsars within 100 light-years of Earth.

She tapped at the controls and a blinking dot labeled “SGRJ2020-4271” appeared.  “It is the nearest pulsar, at approximately 225.3 light-years from Earth,” she said.

“Okay, well, investigating a pulsar up close sounds like a decent endpoint to the first leg.  We’d be the first.”

“There is more.  SGRJ2020-4271 was only detected 130 years ago.”  She waited expectantly.

Archer knew there was a hook in there somewhere that she expected him to pick up on so he quickly reviewed what he knew about pulsars.  Let’s see, he thought to himself. Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars.   They appear to “pulse” because the misalignment of the rotational axis with the magnetic poles cause the beams of radiation coming out of the magnetic poles to flash at the observer.  Pulsars are hard to miss.  How could it not have been observed before?

“Is it especially faint?” he asked.

“No, it is of normal magnitude for a pulsar.”  Her lips held just a hint of a smile.

He thought some more.  So it couldn’t have been missed.  Could it be newly formed?  Pulsars were also believed to be the results of supernovas.  The closest observed supernova had been seen on Earth in 1054 and resulted in the Crab Nebula along with the Crab Pulsar.  That supernova had been over 6500 light years away.  It had been the brightest star in the sky, visible to the naked eye.  A supernova put out enough energy to wipe out solar systems twenty to thirty light-years distant.  One 225 light-years away would have lit up the night sky on Earth.

It hit him quickly.  “There haven’t been any supernovae that close, certainly not in the last 150 years.  There’s no way we could possibly have missed that.”

She gave him an approving nod.  “There are no Earth records of a supernova there, nor does the Vulcan Science Academy have any records.  There have been a number of research papers devoted to explaining SGRJ2020-4271.  One of the more outrageous theories that has been proposed is that it is actually the result of extremely advanced engineering, created for purposes that we do not understand.” 

“You mean someone might have created a pulsar?”  He looked at her sidelong, trying to determine if she was teasing him in her subtle way.

“It is a possibility only. During my astronomy training at the Vulcan Science Academy it was mentioned as an interesting natural phenomenon.  The suggestion that it might be created was raised in a paper from CalTech.”

Archer’s mind boggled at the technology that would need to be involved to create a pulsar.    A pulsar was a mass greater than Earth’s sun, spinning up to hundreds of revolutions per second.  This was far beyond the capabilities of any race Archer was familiar with.  Except maybe one.

“Do you think it might be another project of the Guardians?” he asked.

“I don’t believe they have the technology.  The spheres, taken all together, massed less than Earth’s Moon.  Even their transformation of the Expanse didn’t involve that much energy.  It was more subtle.”

“That’s a little scary, don’t you think?”  Scary, but exciting, he thought.  And this exploration wouldn’t involve everyone on Earth dying if he screwed up.  He could handle this.

“As I said, that is one of the more outrageous theories.  There are other more mundane ones as well.  It could simply be that the magnetic axis was aligned with the rotational axis and shifted at that time.  The Vulcan Science Academy has that area tentatively scheduled for a survey mission around the Earth year 2750.”

He looked at her and knew that, underneath, she had that same spirit of adventure that he had, though she would never admit it.  They would both be very disappointed if it was boring.

“Well, this seems like an excellent opportunity to bump the timetable up, wouldn’t you say?”

“I believe I did, Captain.”