Chapter 3: Pieces of a Greater Puzzle
Andor, Stardate 911.8, Earth Date 2176
Sub-director Mosi Sukuda of Yoyodyne Corporation's Andor Propulsion Laboratory watched a sunrise on a cold world, the rays of sunlight gleaming over the icy peaks of Andor's most extensive mountain range and sending rainbows out of the prisms that they struck. It was a sight that continued to take her breath away.
There was a chime at the door, and she found herself pulled away from the fantastical sight as she stood to go to the door. "Come in."
The door to her apartment opened, and a Vulcan man was at the threshold. "Good morning, Sub-director," he said.
"Good morning, Reton," Mosi replied as the man entered. "Do you need some breakfast?"
"I have already eaten, Sub-director." Reton, her connection to the scientists and engineers of the current project. "Your concern is appreciated. However, There has been a… complication."
Mosi frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"It is a situation that would be better explained at the main lab. Will you be ready to accompany me soon?" Reton said, glancing over at the room where her daughter was still likely sleeping.
"Give me a moment to call Mizu's babysitter," Mosi said. One call to Tythe later, and the two were on their way.
"So," Mosi said, "before we get to the lab, how is your family doing?"
"My father is currently serving as an escort to one of the Curiosity-class survey ships undergoing joint training to acclimate Vulcan crewmembers to working on Federation starships. And my aunt is, of course, doing well in her current station, now that the adjustment period has largely passed."
Mosi nodded. It was no surprise that the new Ambassador T'Pol would take so easily to the position of head ambassador of Vulcan. Some small talk later, though, the two of them entered the technically packed, somewhat sprawling complex of labs that the human staff of Yoyodyne had taken to calling 'The Apple'.
"Alright," Mosi said as they came to a nearby console, "what's going on with the Type-3 project? Did one of the prototypes do something?"
"Most of the prototypes have been written off as dead ends of development," Reton said. "The current prototype that has the most promise compared to the standard Bussard ramscoop configuration is a field-focussed injector made to directly enrich warp plasma, theoretically decreasing the mass of any given nacelle by at least 4 percent and raising the maximum warp ceiling by as much as 20 percent."
"Okay," Mosi said slowly, frowning slightly. "So, how did it fail?"
"That is, perhaps, the most interesting part of the current quandary," Reton replied as he opened a video of the small testbed that what was likely the prototype in question gliding through a closed test course before its nacelles glowed more and more brightly before promptly exploding. "It is not that there is, in all technicality, a failure. In fact, the field-focussed injectors seem to be performing their duties too well, overloading current EPS conduit designs."
Mosi's brow rose for a moment. "I'm guessing lowering the power settings isn't an option then?" she asked with a slight grimace.
"Indeed. Lowering them to acceptable power increases puts them behind the current generation of collectors, rendering any new design redundant." Reton replied.
Mosi sighed quietly. "Any proposed solutions so far?"
Reton was silent for a moment, as if considering something uncertain. "There are two engineers who are conducting… experiments outside the purview of the current project. I have been close to reprimanding them several times for their lack of focus, but in this instance… they may perhaps hold the solution that we seek."
Mosi's brow arched slightly. "Are they here at the moment?"
"They should be."
"Lead on then, Reton."
It wasn't terribly hard to find the station that the pair was using, as there was no small amount of mess that surrounded the two engineers at the moment, somewhat ordered in that way that Mosi could tell that the pair had some system of cataloging but little beyond that. And she could tell that one of the pair was a Tellarite from the argument that they were clearly walking into the middle of.
"Don't be so stone-headed. We have to try another bonding agent at this point. This stuff's been failing constantly since we've started putting the components together."
"Not yet, Hund. Even if this particular mixture doesn't fully work, we know we're on the right track. It isn't even affecting the graphene that much."
"That much?" Hund said incredulously as Mosi and Reton turned a corner to see the two men standing over a table that held an EPS testing station that had clearly been added on to. "We're seeing drops of up to 23.7 percent from projections! Even if it's a general improvement, we…"
The two men noticed Mosi and Reton standing and waiting for them, their argument stumbling to a halt. "Oh. Uh, hello, Sub-director." the other man, a human, said in an accent that she vaguely knew. "I hope we weren't… too loud."
"I think we can forgive you if you're willing to explain what has you so spirited," Mosi said. "Please though, remind me of who you are before you get into what's on your table."
"Well," the human said, "I'm Alastair Scott. This is Hund Januklun. We've been working here since the beginning of the Type-3 nacelle project."
"Alright," Mosi said, stepping forward to look at the project, "so what has you two in such a passionate row?"
"Well, ma'am," Hund began, "as I'm sure you're aware, there's a power intake issue with the current injectors that overloads current EPS conduits. We've been tinkering with potential new designs for at least the length it takes to get to a power regulator. Mr. Scott here…"
"I've been working on a combination of a graphene sleeve bonded with a lurandium-duranium alloy outer shell using a nano-emulsion mixture of graphene and halzine tritandadiene," Alastair said, gesturing to what was likely an example of such a conduit. "It's certainly promising, but we are running into complications. As I'm sure you just heard."
Mosi studied the component with a keen eye. This wasn't fully her field of expertise, but time spent in Starfleet had made her familiar enough with electro-plasma systems. This one had a slight blue-green sheen, likely thanks to the lurandium within the alloy. "What kind of outputs are you seeing from this design?" she asked.
"Currently," Hund said, "we've managed to safely reach 1.127 terajoules of equivalent power before having to scale back."
Mosi stood, regarding the two men with a rather shocked expression. "That much?" she said somewhat incredulously.
Reton, who had regarded the whole affair silently for a moment, stepped forward. "And why have you not brought such advancements forward? This current system, even with its faults, would ensure the ongoing success of the Type-3 project."
"We wanted to make sure that it was performing as well as it theoretically could without exploding in someone's face," Alastair said firmly before pausing for a moment. "As it has threatened to several times as we've pushed the limits."
"Well," Mosi said, "we'll make sure that everyone else gets a look at your work so they can help you out with that. This could help us power starships far in advance of what we already have, let alone make the Type-3 work. I commend you for making it this far just on your own."
Alastair and Hund nodded. "Thank you, ma'am. It was getting somewhat tedious to get the matter replicator to produce the alloy for this."
"I'd bet," Mosi replied.
. . .
Several months, and a bottle of champagne, later, Mosi sat in her office with Alastair. "It's been a pleasure to get to know you and see you work here," she said to the man she'd been paying close attention to for the last while. "Earth will be lucky to have you."
"Thank you, miss," Alastair said. "I have to admit, as much as I'll miss Andor's views, it'll be nice to be able to be home in Scotland again while I work."
"Scotland," Mosi said quietly. It was silent for a moment as she mused on the home she'd come from that was now so far away.
"Where are you from?" Alastair asked softly.
"Kenya," Mosi replied. "It's been so long since I've visited. Seen the forests that are growing again."
"Well," Alastair said with a slight smile, "maybe I can go and visit. Take a few pictures, get to meet the family of the director who's helped me get as far as I have, and congratulate them on having produced such a fine woman."
Mosi chuckled. "You'll have to make a stop by Japan too. It's beautiful in the spring when the cherry blossoms fall."
Alastair frowned, then his eyes widened. "Ah, that's right. "You're Rear Admiral Sukuda's wife. I had an uncle who served with him on Thunderchild during the Romulan War. Lieutenant-Commander Crowley."
Mosi nodded slowly. "That's right. Crowley was our chief MAKO officer for the fleet. He could be a real hardass, but he was a fine man."
"I'll be sure to tell him his Rear Admiral said that." Alastair chuckled.
It was silent again. "How's the wee lass holding up, having him be so absent?" he asked.
"As well as she can." Mosi smiled slightly. "He calls as often as he can. Records stories that Mizu listens to as she falls asleep."
"Ah, good," Alastair said with a slight smile. "I hope he comes home safe. I've got a son waiting for me on Earth."
He stood, Mosi standing with him. "So, I'd better not keep Roy waiting. Hopefully, I'll see you again someday, ma'am."
"You and me both."
. . .
"And that's how my granddad helped make this ship's nacelles possible, lass." Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott said as he closed the panels on the EPS conduit in the hall aboard the Enterprise. "It just goes to show that no part of these fine boats is too small, too unimportant. So treat her right, and every part of her will sing."
Ensign Hohlenk, a distant niece of the other man that her engineering chief had spoken so highly and sometimes so humorously of, smiled slightly. "I'm sure Uncle Hund will appreciate when I call and tell him."
