“Your interpretation, Cadet Harris?” Captain Peter Crawford sat at the head of the long table, PADDs scattered across the charcoal surface. The conference room had been host to the senior staff early that morning, followed by the science department the remainder of the day. As the evening approached, Crawford had ordered a break, but held his Yeoman back. Her engineering and operations background had him curious. Harris was bright, her instinct to question everything she could get her hands on ran rampant through her academy records.

The red-haired cadet stood, staring at the large holo-screen. She paced back and forth, leaning closer to the shimmering data, frowning, “It doesn’t make sense. Two days and all we know is that warp engines aren’t doing what they should and our sensors can’t see past a certain point. It’s not just weird, it’s backwards.” Natalie tapped at the screen, moving and pushing the data. He watched her cross her arms, scowl, uncross her arms, lean back and repeat it several times. “It’s like the nature of space has lost its mind. There are rules for this thing, Captain. They form the basis…oh…oh…” She took a step back, shaking her head.

He admired how her mind had worked through the problem. As much as she had declared her future on the command track, he would witness the daring and thoughtful engineer deep within her occasionally coming up to breathe. “You’ve got something?”

At first, her head nodded slowly, muttering about this and that while her hands organized the data and assigned the sensors new objectives. The rate of her nod increased as the returned data scrolled onto the screen, “I have something…but I’m not happy about it.” He watched her fingers hesitantly connect data points to hypotheses and scenarios for the computer to verify. Slowly her innate confidence returned. Ten minutes later she stepped back, “Subspace harmonics…I think.” She walked through the data she had and the data she didn’t have, “I took historical data and the work we already did today – you can see here what the passive sensors were picking up until just recently…and what it looks like now. We don’t usually check them because, well, they’re there to make sure everything’s as it should be. It also shows it wasn’t immediate…it took its time.”

Peter leaned forward, “What do you mean…you think?” Her face was uncertain and confused…and he wanted to know why. Her usual precise nature was absent.

There was a long sigh from the cadet, “It’s an exact science until it isn’t. There’s a class at Academy that covers subspace harmonics, but it doesn’t cover…this. This is beyond the scope of what I learned.” She detailed how sometimes, depending on phenomena, harmonics have mild changes that necessitate adapting. “This isn’t something we can adapt…that I know of.” Natalie turned her attention back to the holo screen, “That shouldn’t exist. It’s not normal, abnormal, it’s…not possible. Subspace harmonics don’t just…do this.” He watched as her eyes searched the display for an answer.

“Your theory is better than most of what we worked on today, Cadet Harris.” His smile was warm, and he hoped it helped to soothe her evident frustration.

Another long sigh as she roughly slid into a chair at the table, “We’re still stuck here, Captain. This problem is bigger and badder than anything I’ve seen or read about.”

His smile remained, “What you mean is you haven’t figured out how to take it apart…yet.”

Natalie frowned, turning back to the screen, “I’ve tried everything I know.”

Crawford pushed his chair out and stood. “Yes, but we’ve got the crew of the FDR…and,” he checked his watch, “The Nova is due any moment. Her CO loves science like you love engineering. Our chances of figuring this out and getting home have increased by leaps and bounds.”

“Bridge to Captain Crawford – USS Nova is entering the system under full impulse.”

He held out his hand and pulled her from her chair, “Come along, Cadet Harris. We’ve got the impossible to figure out.”