Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 3: Yours Is No Disgrace
Scene 3: Dogfish
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Dogfish
Only a day out of Deep Space 9 and the night terrors - or nightly journeys - had ceased for Trader Pel, Lt. Ki Kresid, and Captain Rhonda Carter. It had taken another three days at warp 5 to pass Empok Nor. The farther the task force traveled, the less definite the direction became.
“The first astral experience for our astral trio happened the very moment we were running an experiment with the doppler tunneling generator.” Commander Dutch Holland felt comfortable discussing this topic on the bridge of the U.S.S. Beagle exclusively in the presence of people who were authorized to know these details.
Captain Skip Howard was lounging in the captain’s chair - a posture that its previous occupant, some vulcan captain perhaps 20 years previously, would have found scandalous. The vulcan in the room today, Lt. Cmdr. Senek, stationed at the ops panel, appeared to find it only mildly annoying. Dean Sakura Nakamura Holland was at the pilot station. Dr. Tentis Uto was seated at the life sciences station.
“The next round of astral journeys did not happen until we arrived at Deep Space 9,” Commander Holland continued. “We had been running subspace soundings steadily. The subspace configuration in the environment of DS9 is impacted by the presence of the wormhole. The stresses that our experiment caused in local subspace were nearly identical to the stresses caused by the wormhole…”
“So are you telling me that you know how to find Dolnok Nor?” asked Captain Howard.
“We opened a door,” said the masked director of engineering. “Something on the other side reached through and brought our people to that space station. The wormhole opened a similar door. I have been reprogramming our probes to look for the other side of that door. And I think I found it. I would like to re-task one of our probes to enter that space and see if we can obtain readings.”
“What is the downside?” the Beagle’s captain asked.
“We could lose the probe,” Dutch Holland answered.
“With all of the advanced, sensitive technology that it carries,” Sakura Holland added. “Technology we really don’t want anyone else getting their hands on.”
“What if we were to rig up a probe that could sit outside of the, um, area of denatured space and send a smaller probe in? How long would that take to develop and deploy?” Howard asked.
“It would be at least 34 hours to put the probe in place.” Dutch Holland looked down and rubbed his gloved hands. Cracked enormous knuckles. “Probably, Sakura?” His wife looked back at him. “Probably 2-3 hours to rig it up?”
“Easily,” Sakura replied. “Maybe a little less. How about a little robot to board the station? Do some scouting?”
“A dogfish,” Commander Holland replied.
“Alright then,” Howard said. “I’ll clear it with the commodore. Get me a pilot up here and get down to the launch lab and start rigging that thing!”
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