439 Cleaning Up Is A Dirty Job
Beverly ordered the ship to slow down to impulse engines a quarter of a sector away from the tetryon fields in the affected sector. Using our more powerful warp engines near the Hekaras Corridor would only exacerbate the problem of spreading the fields and disrupting warp travel across the entire sector.
If it continued as it was, the damage could affect the nearby sectors and the fields of unstable energy would cause warp travel to stop all across the galaxy, not to mention the immediate deaths of the population on the nearby planet Hekaras II as the unstable energy expanded and ravaged the planet.
“All right, people.” Beverly said after hitting the ship's intercom. “We'll be spending some time over the next few days crisscrossing the sector at high impulse as we let the shields absorb the unstable tetryon energy and convert it into shipboard energy. If there's anything you want replicated, wait a few minutes and have at it. Crusher out.”
“Thank god we're fixing this problem before it gets out of hand.” Wesley said.
“Thank the Caretaker.” Commander Chappel said. “It's his advanced energy absorption system we adapted to the ship that's going to allow this insane plan to work.”
The Chappel at Tactical chuckled. “It took some creative programming to register it as an attack and then to adjust the ship's shields to not deflect ambient stellar and interstellar energy like it usually does.”
“Tom's handiwork, I assume?” Beverly asked.
“He helped.” Chappel answered with a smile, making Beverly chuckle.
“Wesley, bring us to the edge of the closest field and slow us down to a crawl. Tactical, expand the shield well out past the regulation limits, to the extent the shield emitters allow.” Beverly ordered. “We want to suck up as much energy as we can for the first test.”
“Aye, sir.” Wesley and Chappel responded and the ship approached the nearest field at the edge of the sector and slowed down to only drift, then the energy shield became visible and expanded out to several hundred feet from the hull.
“Approaching threshold in three... two... initiating test conversion.” Tactical said and the shield glowed slightly as it entered the tetryon field and the unstable energy became visible as it lashed against the shields.
The patterns detected let the scientist teams onboard know how the usually invisible tetryon energy would affect warp travel by disrupting the creation of warp bubbles. It would advance their theories significantly and several important papers would be published because of the results the scientific equipment produced.
“Shipboard energy reserves have risen by 3%.” Tactical stated.
“That much?” Beverly asked, surprised. “Wesley, back us off!”
Wesley did so and the shields stopped glowing.
“We're absorbing traces of ambient energy as well, not that it makes much of a difference. The tetryon fields are massive energy drains on any ship passing through, so it makes sense it's just been gathering for years as the problem grew. The corridor was mapped out for the safest route to pass through, which also drained energy from those ships.” Chappel answered.
“Then my words to the crew are not going to be enough to bleed off the excess energy.” Beverly said and leaned back in her chair. “What can we produce that uses up an excessive amount of energy to create that a single ship can't normally produce by itself?”
The bridge crew fell silent as they thought about it. The Chappel at Ops started typing furiously as she checked records and programs, then had Secretary Chappel pass the idea on to Tom. All the other Chappels on the bridge turned to look at her and she grinned at them.
“What is it?” Beverly asked, knowing they had just shared a common thought.
The ready room's door opened and Tom came out.
“We're going to build the Hekaras Sector a starbase.” Tom said with a grin that matched what Chappel at Ops had on her face. “Minus a few secret technologies that Starfleet isn't ready for, of course.”
“Like the Caretaker Array's ability to send ships to other quadrants?” Beverly asked.
“That's right. It's way too early to introduce something like that.” Tom said and sat down on the middle chair.
“Is it because they aren't ready for it?” Wesley asked.
“Yes and no. It's more like they will use it too quickly and cause a whole lot of problems without considering the consequences first.” Tom said and looked over at Ops. “Chappel, have our industrial replicators make ten copies of themselves and prepare to deploy them across the back of the main hull. We'll set them to produce the main superstructure for the starbase as we travel at low Impulse.”
“Sir? Should we contact the Hekaras II planetary governor to let them know what we're doing?” Chappel asked.
“Go ahead.” Tom agreed.
“I thought you wanted to be anonymous as we solved this problem?” Beverly asked.
“I did, except the energy conversion is too energetic. There's no way to hide us producing enough resources to create a large space station that will be easily seen from the planet's surface.” Tom told her.
“Not to mention the planet's sensors will easily detect it.” Tactical added. “It's doubtful the sudden drop in tetryon radiation in the area at the same time would be associated with it, however.”
“Why won't they make that connection?” Wesley asked and turned to look at her.
“They're going to be too happy about having a starbase gifted to them to worry about the local area's dangers dropping off.” Chappel answered. “I believe there's only a couple of their local scientists that are upset about ships warping through their sector and disrupting the tetryon fields.”
“Isn't it like an environmental disaster?” Wesley asked and looked at his mother. “Why would they ignore it?”
“Because it won't affect them for years, possibly decades.” Beverly said with a sigh. “They can pawn it off on the next generation and they can worry about it.”
Wesley sighed and turned back to face the viewscreen. “That's really shortsighted.”
Tom chuckled. “Welcome to the world of bureaucracy, Wesley. If it can be safely ignored to keep everything running and everyone happy, why cause themselves problems over it?”
Wesley didn't have a good counter for that, so he shrugged.
“And that's how they can get away with it.” Tom continued and Wesley looked back at him. “Most of the population reacts the same way when told what's going on. If the people in charge aren't worrying about it, why would they? It's not affecting them right now and can be someone else's problem in the future.”
Wesley gave him a searching look, then nodded and looked back towards the viewscreen. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Use the tractor beams to catch everything as it's produced. Once we have enough built up for the first load, we'll drop it off in a good spot and leave several teams of engineering Chappels to start working on assembling it.” Tom ordered.
“Sir, this might take a lot longer to build with only our ship as a production facility.” Chappel at Ops said.
What she didn't say was they didn't have the components that were produced at a starbase, like the warp cores and reactor cores that were usually carried by the main ship in the squadrons sent out. They also didn't have any large computer cores to install inside the main part of the starbase to run everything.
“Don't worry about that. I'll have them ready when they're needed.” Tom said. “With so much free energy to work with, we'll have the place up in less than a week.”
“How?” Beverly asked.
“We're only doing the bare bones and not doing any of the finishing touches.” Tom said.
The Chappels nodded in agreement. If they could ignore all of the small details and concentrate solely on building the necessary components, it really would only take about a week. It was the detail work that slowed them down to install them.
“We'll leave the patterns for the miscellaneous details inside the replicators, like the carpeting and wall panels, and instruct the Hekaras people to decorate it however they like, since it's going to be their station.”
“That will earn us even more respect by letting them configure the look to their own people's aesthetic and not force them to use Federation standard colors and facades.” Chappel responded and she typed at the Ops console. “I've composed a message and the industrial replicators are being placed on the hull now.”
“As soon as the replicators are ready and the Chappels are safely back inside the ship, take us in at one eighth Impulse. We need to gauge how quickly we produce materials with the speed needed to maintain the flow without bottlenecking any of our systems, especially our emergency energy storage.” Tom ordered.
“Aye, sir.” Wesley said and entered the commands and hovered his hand above the start button.
The Ops console beeped. “Replicators are secured and connected.” She checked and nodded. “The Chappels are safely inside the main cargo bay.”
Wesley hit the button and the ship moved forward into the tetryon energy field at a very low Impulse power. The shield glowed slightly as the turbulent energy was absorbed and the replicators started churning out reams of durasteel scaffolding.
“Ops? What's the input compared to the output?” Beverly asked.
“Severely lacking. We're pulling from the reactor core to compensate.” Chappel answered.
“Wesley, increase to quarter Impulse.” Tom ordered.
The pattern of questions and answers continued incrementally until the ship was travelling at three quarters of full Impulse and it finally balanced the energy consumption with the material output. The internal industrial replicators were producing the things needed to connect everything together, like wiring, piping, plasma conduits, control panels, ducting, ladders, handholds, and everything else a starbase needed to fill the inside.
Tom left the bridge and went to the main cargo bay and saw the Chappels stacking everything the replicators produced into organized containers. The bay had been expanded inside to fit more than really should fit, only no one questioned it. Their perception of what a main shuttlebay had was standard and it didn't matter if the smaller ship shouldn't have such a large cargo bay.
Tom went to the side and picked a far corner that was currently out of the way, then he took out a copy of a main computer core, a copy of a large warp core, and a copy of the Caretaker's reactor core. The space station was never going to be lacking for power with them installed and he waved over a Chappel wearing a yellow engineering uniform.
“I'm ready, sir!” Chappel said and held a hand out to me.
“You know how important this is.” Tom said and took her hand. He noticed the changes in her body and raised his eyebrows. “Does Wesley know there's going to be so many of you?”
“Not yet.” Chappel said with a grin and Tom chuckled.
“I'll make sure to have him fly the ship near the construction area after each shift.” Tom promised and a hundred other Chappels appeared around them. He dropped a hundred space suits on the floor in front of them. “Try to keep the ruse up when the locals send out ships to inspect the area.”
“Yes, sir.” All the Chappels said as one and saluted.
Tom saluted back and left before the group started to change out of their uniforms to put the spacesuits on. He'd seen her naked before, considering he built her; but, that was much different than standing there and watching a hundred of her strip off to their panties.
He went to the small cargo bay and dropped off several shield emitters, weapon arrays, and computer consoles that would take time to replicate and slow the production of the necessary components to build the starbase. After the Array Program had built hundreds of the starbases all over the galaxy, Tom was well aware of the parts needed to make construction easier for the Chappels.
Tom nodded to the Chappel working in the small cargo bay and she nodded back, silently agreeing to let the rest know where the essential parts were. He left the cargo bay and thought about returning to the bridge, then decided he wanted to relax until Beverly's shift was over. The Enterprise would be arriving in a few days and he needed to be ready to deal with the fallout.
It wasn't because of his ship dealing with the tetryon radiation, either. No, it was because he had the plans to build a federation starbase and could construct one without the assistance of anyone from Starfleet. Building one on a planet wasn't a big deal. However, an independent space station that was fully functional and self-sufficient? That was going to ruffle a lot of feathers at Starfleet HQ.
The best part about the resulting scandal was that Tom was handing it over to the Hekaras people with no strings attached and wasn't going to take command of it himself. That should shock Starfleet Command enough to make them reconsider how they approached him in the future.
*
Agent Keyla sat in her suite made to look like Cleopatra's home and stared at the copied link to the main viewscreen on her console. She watched, fascinated and kind of horrified, as a hundred Chappels swarmed around a massive amount of durasteel beams that the USS Retaliation had just dropped off. The androids easily rearranged them and assembled the main hub to hold the computer core and reactor core for a starbase. A goddamned starbase!
She had been briefed about the advanced technology the ship contained and she was given permission to 'steal' certain designs to send along to Starfleet, which she would do occasionally as she slipped out reports when they passed certain designated areas used by Section 31 as drop-off points.
What she never suspected was them having the ability to produce and construct an entire starbase with such a small ship. How was it possible? There were only a couple industrial replicators available and those were allocated for main engineering to use.
Keyla started typing commands and dug into the bridge recorders. She replayed Tom's orders and found out he had ten replicators made and attached to the ship's hull. That explained the massive amount of metal the ship had dropped off. What wasn't explained was where all that energy had come from. A little more digging and discovered it was a modification to the ship's shields and whoever the Caretaker was.
I'm going to need another briefing. Keyla thought as she switched back to the viewscreen feed and saw a large warp core being brought out of the small cargo bay. Where the hell did that come from?
The stunned woman watched with disbelief as a reactor core and then a computer core was added to the growing structure, along with wiring and attachments for their future use. Not long after that, five industrial replicators were floated out from the main cargo bay and temporarily attached to the reactor and they started producing more durasteel that was needed to construct the space station.
The viewscreen changed to show space and the ship started moving again, now that it had dropped off what it needed to. Now that she knew they were gathering energy as they flew in a criss-cross pattern through the supposedly dangerous tetryon fields that damaged warp engines, her mind went to what her next report had to have inside of it.
There was no way for Riker to hide an entire starbase being built in a sector of space that normal ships usually avoided because of the inherent danger. Why would he also include a warp core if the energies caused the tetryon fields to react and expand? It didn't make sense... then her mind brought up the shields being able to convert energy, which the entire sector was full of.
He's cleaning up the whole area to make it safe. Keyla thought and cut off the link to the viewscreen. She sat there and stared at the blank screen as she came to grips with the fact that Thomas Riker was removing one of the growing hazards to warp drive travel. When she was done recovering from the shock, she only had one thought left in her head. What is he going to do next?
The console beeped and she checked it. It was a message telling her they would be there for only another three days and then the ship would have to leave federation space for a while. She would then have her first mission against the Borg and Tom hoped she was up for it.
After seeing that? Of course I am. Keyla thought with anticipation.