Transporter Problems

Commander Holland was furious. The rendezvous with the Centaurians was in six hours and no progress was being done – or at least reported to him – on the transporter issues. He was so furious in fact, that he didn’t care that he had had to walk all day and that he now had to walk to the transporter bay; it allowed him to stomp or even barrel and build up his anger even further.

He entered the transporter bay and located the woman he considered responsible. “Booq! Over here!” he yelled. The slender Europan made her way through the crowd of working technicians.

“Sir, what is it, sir?” she asked; a conservative opening move.

“We need those transporters in six hours, maybe even less. Why aren’t you done yet?”

“Sir, we are working tirelessly to fix the transporters, but I am afraid it is not as easy as it may look from the command chair, if you allow the turn of phrase.”

“But can you fix it in six hours?” Commander Holland was not about to give up.

“Sir, we have been having transporter issues all day and the Captain agreed that we take them offline until the issues are fixed. Otherwise, they might endanger people or even the whole ship.”

“So what’s the issue? You said the transporters were copying things. That’s what they do normally, right?”

“Well, not exactly. Under normal circumstances, the transporters scan the object that is to be transported, break it down into energy and reassemble it from energy at the target destination. It is overall a very efficient process. But it seems that our transporters skip the breaking-down-step and just create a copy of the object.”

“Then what’s the big deal? We just need to beam over the archaeological artifacts and the two members of the Centaurian expedition that we took on. Shouldn’t that still be doable?”

Lieutenant Booq was struggling to find the right words. Simple words. “Would you care for a demonstration, sir?” she asked.

“Sure, if it helps you,” the Commander replied.

The two walked over to the transporter pads where Lieutenant Booq placed a mug on one of the raised platforms. It read Galaxy’s Best Parent. Standard issue. “Yang, transporter pad 2 to pad 6, please,” Booq told a nearby Ensign. Ensign Yang went to the transporter console, which two other Ensigns were currently re-assembling, and typed in the necessary commands. “Ready, sir,” she said.

Booq gave a hand sign. The transporter beam activated as normal, but instead of taking the mug with it, it just showered it in golden-blue light. The second ray, however, still created a new mug, even more identical to the first than is usual among this kind of mug. The lights in the room flickered.

“Commander,” Booq said, “the problem is that matter contains incredible amounts of energy. By not breaking down the original, we have to use extraordinary amounts of energy to assemble a copy of the object. Thankfully the energy surge is quite noticeable and we were able to immediately deactivate the transporters until further notice after the incident last night. Thankfully nothing and, more importantly, nobody was harmed so far.”

“Oh yes, last night. That short blackout. The report said something about too many crates, I think.”

“That is correct,” Booq said. “We tried to transport cargo crates into the archaeological storage, to pack the artifacts for transport. The crates did arrive in the storage compartment. However, they did also stay behind in the cargo bay, so to say.”

“Huh,” Holland grunted. He did not extrapolate from this example and was thus not phased by its philosophical implications. He was, by all accounts, a practical man. A solid B- of a person. “So, if you know what the issue is, fix it.”

“Sir, the issue seems to be with the hardware. We think it might be a physical flaw in the transporter’s computer system. We will have to wait until we get to port and can get replacement parts.”

“That means we will have to fly the artefacts over in a shuttle. Normally I’d trust those things, but these artefacts are priceless. We cannot let one bumpy ride set the field of Rigelian archaeology back by a few decades,” Commander Holland said with a stern expression. “Anyway, I’m sure you can fix this, Booq. And don’t stress yourself.”

* * *

“Red alert. All stations on battle positions,” Captain Riha announced. The main screen already showed the source of trouble: three Struv’ian pirate ships followed the Centaurian transport and they were gaining fast now that they had all dropped out of subspace.

“Struv’ian pirates,” Commander Holland observed. “Three ships shouldn’t be too hard. Might get messy with the Centaurians mixed in, though.” He leaned forward in his armchair.

“Let’s get in between them. Shield the Centaurian vessel,” the Captain said. They were shouting orders to the other bridge officers. “Shields to maximum. Fully charge the laser banks. Ready some torpedoes, just in case.” A routine scenario, perhaps, but by no means should one let one’s guard down.

The ship did a half-loop-half-roll maneuver and squeezed itself between the Centaurians and the Struv’ians. “Fire,” the Captain ordered. The lasers took a heavy toll on the Struv’ians weak, black-market shields.

“They’re splitting up,” Lieutenant R’o shouted from controls. The Struv’ian ships split up and caught up to the ship, surrounding it on three sides.

“Well, then rotate the ship and hit them with the lasers,” the Captain said. Her command was immediately superseded in priority: “Captain, our shields are being drained,” shouted Lieutenant Commander Noyc from weapons systems. “We can’t keep our shields up much longer; it’s using too much energy. They must have some kind of magnetic weapon.”

“Drop the shields, then do a roll and hit these pirates with all we got.” The Captain was getting irate.

“You heard the Captain,” Commander Holland added.

“Shields are down. Lasers firing at full power,” Noyc reported. Immediately the main screen flashed red. Damage reports were overlapping with footage of the enemy ships. “We’ve been hit. Struv’ian one and two are damaged. More hits to our ships, Captain.”

“Keep it up. And fire those torpedoes!” Captain Riha said. More damage reports kept rolling in. The Struv’ian ships were only equipped with weak lasers, probably simple quartz ones; no match of course for the USS Idaho’s state-of-the-art emerald lasers. Still, without shields the USS Idaho was completely at their mercy. They had to win quickly or risk not winning at all.

“Captain, life support systems have been hit,” Noyc said. The main screen showed the warning, “Life support systems damaged. Switching to backup,” while the first Struv’ian ship was blowing up in the background. A race against time. Another torpedo found its target, yet no grand explosion. A call popped up on-screen: engineering, urgent.

Commander Holland accepted. “Engineering, what is it? We’re kind of busy here.”

Lieutenant Booq’s face appeared in the corner of the screen. “Captain, we have a problem. Life support backup systems have been damaged. We are trying to keep the up, but with main systems down, it’s getting difficult. We should prepare for possible evacuation.”

“Understood,” the Captain said. A second later, a torpedo destroyed the second Struv’ian ship. Another second and the whole ship rocked back and forth. “What was that?” the Commander squealed.

“Direct hit to lower decks, sir,” Noyc said. Another warning popped up on-screen, this one bigger, redder and flashier than the ones before: “Life support critical. Emergency.”

“That didn’t leave us much time,” Captain Riha said bitterly. “Prepare for evacuation. And get that damn ship off the screen.”

* * *

“All senior personnel to launch bay six,” the ship’s computer announced. It was hard to hear over the blaring sirens. Commander Holland was developing a headache. Evacuation of such a large ship took a tremendous amount of time, especially if you cannot use transporters. Still, engineering promised them that life support would hold until then. Not much longer, though. When he made it to launch bay six, most of the other senior officers were already there.

“Where were you, Holland?” the Captain asked. He got the feeling she wasn’t trying to do small talk.

“I was seeing to it that the Centaurian archaeologists made it onto the shuttles. I was entrusted with their safety and the success of their mission.”

“Yes, but we also have bigger issues on hand,” the Captain said. “Booq?”

“Yes, sir. There are not enough shuttles to evacuate every person on board,” Lieutenant Booq explained. “There will be sixty-two people left, to be exact.”

“So what, you look like we’re gonna have to draw straws and see how’ll have to stay behind when this place goes kaboom,” Holland said. He was met with stares.

“Unless you have a better plan, you should start finding straws then,” the Captain said. Their words could cut through stone.

“Well, we’ll just beam them over to the Centaurian ship, right? They should have enough space to house sixty people for a few days.”

“Booq, you said the transporters were unusable,” Captain Riha asked.

“They are. Basically, they use too much energy right now. Cannot fix it. Could not fix it. Transporting sixty-two people out of the ship and onto the Centaurans’ might blow up our reactor.”

“I don’t think it matters if the reactor goes bust, we need to save lives, Booq,” the Captain said sharply. “Get on it.”

“There is another problem, though, Captain.”

“One that makes it so you can’t get the people off this ship?”

“No,” Booq said. “I guess not.”

“Good. Then get on it. Holland, you go with her.” With that, the Captain dissolved the meeting.

Booq and Holland went off in the direction of the transporter room. “What was the other problem?” Holland asked.

“Oh, it is just—” Booq looked up at Holland’s face. Calm. Unbothered. Incurious. “It is not important right now, I believe.”

* * *

Noyc shuffled the cards. It had been five months since the USS Idaho blew up. The weekly poker night was unaffected and simply migrated with them onto their new ship, the USS Ripley. “The Idaho did make a better beer, though,” Commander Holland said. “This one just doesn’t hit the spot, you know?”

“And the doors open a bit too slow. I still walk into them sometimes,” Noyc lamented.

“The Idaho was a good ship,” Holland said and raised his bottle. “Still, a damn miracle that we got everyone out in time. When did the reactor explode, Booq? Two minutes after everyone was beamed out, right?”

“Yes,” Booq said. “One minute and fourty-eight seconds, according to the Centaurians’ ship logs.”

“That is wild. So close and everyone made it out. Could almost feel the heat when I stepped off the transporter pad,” Holland laughed. “Such a close evacuation and no casualties. Has that ever happened, Noyc?”

“On ships with more lifeboats, yes,” Noyc said.

“Well, there is the…,” Booq turned quiet mid-sentence.

“What is it, Booq? Don’t tell me we missed one. Don’t tell you didn’t get everyone and cooked the books a little, eh?” Holland was egging her on.

“No, everyone made it off the ship alive, just like the official report said,” Booq said.

“So? Then what’s the problem, professor?”

“Sir, the transporter was malfunctioning that day, remember? It did not transport the people out. It made copies of them. That is what led to the reactor meltdown.”

Noyc was quiet, his mouth slowly opening in horror as he understood what Booq was saying. Holland was leaning back, his brows furrowed and moved in response to the great cerebral goings-on behind them. He was forming a thought. “Wow,” Holland said. “I wonder what I was thinking when the ship blew up.”