Examination & Discovery (Part Two of Two)

Lieutenant Commander Barker was already in Astrometrics looking over the analysis he had started just over an hour before, when Murphy came into.

"Anything interesting ?"Murphy asked.

"Not much. The anomaly is some sort of sub-space vortex and it appears to be able to expand and contract at will. At first I didn't know if it was the probe's scans that caused the anomaly to expand or if there was some other trigger. Just take a look at this."Chu said, bringing the Ronin's visual record of the probe that it launched into the anomaly on the main viewscreen.

"It does look like the probe has caused the anomaly to open up and the forces would appear to have been so great, that the Ronin had been dragged on in as well."Murphy described.

"Yes, but did you see that flash of light just before the vortex opened and why was the Ronin pulled into the vortex as well ?. She was over six thousand kilometres away from the vortex. Now I don't know about you, but the only thing I know that would have that sort of influence is a quantum singularity, a black hole. Take another look at the video replay."Chu said, pressing a few controls on the console in front of him.

The same video appeared on the large viewscreen, but this time all the colours were wrong and everything was running much slower.

"I've shifted the image into the ultra-violet range and reduced the speed by a factor of fifty. Look again." Chu said.

From the centre of the vortex a beam of bluish light could be seen, first scanning and then enveloping the probe. Seconds later the viewscreen was lit up with the same blue light and the image slowly moved into the vortex as the Ronin was pulled in.

"So the Ronin was definitely pulled into the vortex by something."Murphy exclaimed, "Looked to me like some sort of high energy tractor beam, it must have been powerful to 'grab' the Ronin from six thousand metres away."

"Exactly, but that whole series of events happened in about five seconds. The Ronin's sensors were blinded the moment the beam hit. The crew would never even seen the tractor beam, to them it would have appeared as if they had been pulled into the anomaly by natural means." Chu explained.

"OK, so the Ronin was pulled into the anomaly by the Proletarians somehow. So what's next ?."

"Remember we said that the Ronin appears to have no sensor data from their journey through the vortex. We were wrong, there is data, but only from the aft sensor array. Somehow the tractor beam disabled the forward and lateral sensor arrays completely. I was also able to get some readings from the internal sensors, which were unaffected." Chu said, bringing up a diagram. "What do you think of that ?"

"It looks like a worm-hole, but the quantum kinetic readings are all wrong. Computer, analyse the data currently on the Astrometric main viewer and cross-reference with all known phenomena and encounters."Murphy asked the computer.

[Analysing data.]

"Do you think we've encountered something like this before Ensign ?" Chu asked.

"It's just a hunch, something I read about whilst I was at the Academy."

[Analysis complete. Match found.]

"Computer. Proceed with summary of information."

[Match found with records of USS Voyager Stardate 53202.4. The current data is consistent with the subspace corridors encountered by USS Voyager. These corridors were discovered by accident, when Voyager entered one, through a 'tear' in the side. The Voyager reported that they were able to travel over 200 light-years during their brief trip within the corridor. Voyager was forced to land on a planet, after being attack by an alien race who laid claim to the corriders, which they described as 'Under-space'. On the planet the crew of USS Voyager found a small number of Vaadwaur in stasis, who had been 'forced' into 'sleeping' when their homeworld was attacked. Originally intending to be in stasis for five years, a malfunction in the control systems kept them in stasis for nearly nine hundred years. The Vaadwaur at first appeared to be a peaceful trading race, but later on and through further encounters they turned out to be a race who would use any means to regain what they claim was theirs.]

"Under-space. Never heard of it."Chu said.

"Think of Under-space as...." Murphy said, pausing a moment to think, "As a naturally occurring slipstream conduit, like those that the Leviathan's slipstream drive creates. The only difference between a Slipstream conduit and an Under-space corridor is that the corridor is fixed between two points. If memory serves me correct, Voyager mapped over a hundred intersecting corridors and before the Vaadwaur turned against them, Captain Janeway was informed that there were over three thousand such corridors known to the Vaadwaur and possible thousands more undiscovered."

"So if this is an Under-space corridor, then it leads between the location of the anomaly the Ronin detected and the other side where the Proletarian system is."

"Exactly and from the time the Ronin was inside, it looks like the Proletarians home system is some distance away. At an approximate guess, I would say about two and a half thousand light years." Murphy said.

"Two and a half thousand light years, even with the SS drive, it would take over a month to travel that distance and the Ronin took only two hours." Chu exclaimed.

"Are there any readings at all from the point after the Ronin emerged from the vortex." Murphy asked.

"At first I thought not, but I've now found basic telemetry reading from the Ronin for over twenty eight hours. From the readings I've managed to find that the Ronin stopped briefly after she left the vortex, before proceeding to the Proletarians planet at full impulse. They landed on the surface where they spent approximately twenty four hours, before returning to space and travelling back through the vortex." Chu explained.

"Any data on the area of space that the Proletarian's system is in." Murphy enquired.

"Not a great deal, the aft sensor array isn't as sophisticated as the other arrays on the Ronin. There is one thing I can tell you, the area of space that the Ronin found herself in was totally devoid of subspace emissions. It was like subspace itself did not exist in that area of space." Chu answered.

"What about the ring structure the Ronin's aft sensor grid examined. Have you got anything on that yet."

"I've not taken a look at the ring yet, but let's do that now. Computer analyse all the data from the Ronin's aft sensor array from the moment the Ronin exited the vortex."

"Just look at it, quantanium plating, almost a metre thick, it must have taken an entire planet to mine that much ore. Anything on the power source yet, what keeps that thing running ?" Murphy enquired.

"The power source does seem to have been the four pods on the structure, but there's just too much shielding to discover what the actual process is. The inner side of the ring appears to be emitting a strong gravimetric pull on the vortex, almost as if it were trying to keep the vortex open. I guess you were right about the structures purpose, it does appear from these observations that it was constructed to keep that end of the vortex stable." Chu said.

"Or to divert it to appear in this system, that's something that even I hadn't considered. As I said before, the corridors were usually between two fixed points in normal space, so why build a structure to keep something that should already be fixed in place. The only answer to that is if the P have somehow used the structure to 'bend' the corridor so that it would come out in their system" Murphy questioned.

"There is one more possibility Ensign. What if the structure was designed to create these 'Under-space' corridors in the first place? The Federation has had some limited success in creating wormholes and the Bajorian wormhole is we know artificial in construction, plus we can travel through the quantum slipstream and create trans-warp conduits. So isn't it highly probable that you could create an artificial 'Under-space' corridor. Just think about it for a moment, you have a device that can create a 'short cut' through normal space to anywhere in the universe. You could appear out of nowhere, attack your enemy and disappear again, back to the safety of your own system, thousand of light years away." Chu replied.

"It's an interesting idea, but why leave an anomaly behind in normal space. Surely it would not be 'prudent' to leave such an obvious sign of when you left behind." Murphy asked.

"Could be a natural side-effect, it could be an escape route kept permanently open just incase the Proletarian's were attacked." Chu replied. "I'm going back to the Bridge Ensign, see if you can get anymore information from the data the Ronin collected and also see how your probe is doing. I'll see you in about twelve hours in the Captain's ready room. The Ronin should be nearing our position by then, maybe after we've briefed Captain Devore we can talk to some of the Ronin's crew. They may have answers to our questions. "

With that Lieutenant Commander Barker left Astrometrics, leaving Ensign Murphy to work on the data alone.