[snip]

Then the puzzle of this catastrophe was finally explained. The Risan sub-light ship had been taken from the colony within its own system by the gravitational anomaly, most probably from the explosion of a deuterium canister, and then deposited at the other end, light-years away inside the nebula. Only one survivor was now remaining, his estimated time left was critically low. Pinned down, so unable to operate a pattern enhancer himself, or to put on one of the Emergency Transport Suits. And there were several more deuterium canisters aboard. An entire starship already lost in an attempted rescue. Can I risk another? thought Glen.

Glen had crossed the Bridge and was now at NE Coals’ communication console. “Can I speak to him?” Glen asked NE Coals.

=/\= This is the USS Merrimack. Hello Cornwellis. Captain Glen speaking. You’ve done well to make it this far. We are inside the nebula and can see your ship. We are pulling out every stop in our attempts to rescue you. Can you confirm that you are the only living person aboard? =/\=

There was a pause and a squeal of static before it cleared =/\=....Yes besides my co-pilot static burst .....but he’s gone, we had a crate of Risan field mice for a science lab on our delivery route but static burst –ead most likely.. =/\= he replied.

Mice!! thought Glen, The rise in Carbon Dioxide must be giving him Brain Fog.

But the knowledge that there was only one person to be saved was important. It would be much easier for the Merri to pinpoint and isolate a single life-sign aboard the Risan vessel. They could make the rescue more quickly, and Glen might consider taking the ship further into the “whirlpool” if it could be for a more limited time. Just as long as the rising Carbon Dioxide doesn’t kill him first!

=/\= Don’t worry! We are going to get you out of there. Just hang on a little longer. Can you do that? =/\= Glen told Cornwellis.

There was a bit of a weak cough from the man before he replied, =/\= Not....not going anywhere like this Captain..=/\= He said, guess he was still with it enough to crack jokes.

“Someone could be searching Risan records for ‘Cornwellis’ for me, please?” Glen asked the Bridge crew. “Quick as you like! I need a first name. When he said it, it was lost in all that static. Find out who he is … what is his age and what are his vital stats … his temperament …his service record, his purpose, his passion …I need to know what makes him tick …I need a ray of sunshine to burn off his brain fog, and to keep him talking to us as along as possible!”

McDuff turned to his station and began hurriedly working the Computer hoping for the quick production of results.

Looking through their databanks for the particular Risan colony, they found 18 matches for a Cornwellis, all between the ages of 8 months and 72 years of age. So likely a large family. Of those 18, 3 matched with a first named that ended with ‘iel’, the first was an 8 month old infant named Reniel Cornwellis listed as female, the second was 29 years old named Daniel Cornwellis the 2nd, listed as male, and the third was 46 years old also named Daniel Cornwellis also male. Records showed ‘the 2nd’ was the son of the third listing. So they were dealing likely with one of them......or maybe both if the son/father had been co-pilot.

Cross turned to the Captain ‘’ This is getting complicated by the minute , if you take the ship in would it be able to withstand the physical hardship of the whirlpool , strain and exposure ?’’ the CMO asked .

Glen replied ,”Oh! You’re back again? …To answer your question, I have no idea how exactly much the ship would be able to withstand, which is why I have engineers who can calculate that for me. Given the state of your patient, my guess would be not a great deal, but then Daniel Cornwellis has survived right in the heart of it, and his injuries are secondary, from falling objects. But we’re debating in a vacuum here. Let’s go get some answers.”

Oh! You’re back again? Cross wondered if that meant that Glen missed her or the other way round ....she came to the conclusion that it must be the latter .

‘’Captain I know I cannot offer much but at least I did suggest we find another route which you did with less severity turbulence and tempestuousness lightning bolts, beside I do need to know how many patients I’ll expect , that is if we manage to get any back ‘’ then as an after thought she continued ‘’It seems there ain’t much ‘’ she finished off with a deep sigh.

Glen replied, “I can only tell you that there is certainly just the one survivor to rescue ..and apparently there are also some laboratory mice, but I’m not risking the Merrimack to rescue those, not even if they were found to be merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings. I’ll answer for that decision if I ever need to.”

Cross tried to figure out if Glen was in a foul mood or just being plain cheeky ,in any case she though it would be wise to say nothing but Cross was Cross ‘’Sir if the explosion from the canisters made the helium and nitrogen which were already present might have caused them to infuse and thus created the whirlpool ‘’ if that theory was correct then the CE or the science dept could come up with a solution and make it less hazard for the Merrimack to enter.

Glen replied, “Sorry Doctor but I’m afraid that it takes more than a simple chemical reaction to cause a subspace rift of this kind. It is a rupture of a region of subspace instability where subspace extrudes into normal space. It is much more than the breaking and reforming of chemical bonds between atoms, but it is the breaking and reforming of the very fabric of the space-time continuum itself and it would usually require isolytic plasma to be created. The so-called ‘whirlpool’ that we can see is simply what we see in normal space where the rift is exposed, but the subspace tear itself will be larger, more extensive, and run far deeper into subspace, before appearing again somewhere else in normal space. If we entered into it, we will never be able to leave. Somehow we need to skim around the edge of it, like smooth stones skipping across the surface of a waterbody, and then beam out the survivor at the precise time that we are closest to him.”

‘’But Captain, surely it has formed recently for the federation would not have send the ship that blew up and the previous other ships being send there returned safely …so do you think your hypothesis is correct about how it was formed ? ‘’.

“Which part?” Glen was confused again. “I do think this did form recently. I think it formed when the Deuterium canisters exploded, under some kind of unusual situation or experiment. But the explosion happened in the Risan’s own system, and then it brought their ship here through the ‘whirlpool’. That’s the only explanation possible for them being here!”

Lance had been trying to stabilize the coms channel with the NE and so far the Comms NE was showing him exactly why he should stick to science.

Then there was the clear domestic that was going on between the Captain and the CMO, he wanted no part of that argument and kept his head firmly down.

But there was still the problem of the whirlpool spacial thing as he was calling it. He could wing astrophysics with the best but, he couldn’t remember all the complex names they wanted to call the things they found in space. Not that he’d been very good at naming things, ‘angry Snow grass’ had been vetoed very quickly. Even when he resubmitted the name in Latin it had been vetoed with a note saying not to try in any other language.

Lance shook his head as he had become quite distracted and at times like this his ability to distract himself was not helpful. He pondered practical solutions to an impractical problem. “Tether!” He exclaimed loudly. “We need some sort of things we can tether on to do we can get closer. Like if you need to rescue someone in deep water you tie yourself to something and swim out and rescue them so you don’t get pulled in. If we could do something on that sort of scale we might be able to reach them without get stuck in the whirlpool ourselves.” He quickly rattled off. He could see it in his head but he want sure how to make it happen.

“A Tether!” Glen agreed. “That would work too! But what do we use and how could we produce such a thing?”

‘’Well ‘’ Cross replied ‘’That’s why we have scientists and engineers onboard Captain!’’ she winked at Lt Malone . Then she wondered if Glen would tie her up and once she was lost say ‘’Good riddance! ‘’.

Max was just listening but wanted to make sure and bring something up. He then said, “Just be aware that the rift might pull anything small apart very quickly. This is why doing the tractor beam might hurt the other ship. Throwing probes or people at it, probably would not last very long.” He wanted to provide all the details as he knows based on what he knew and what he had seen in the experiments he ran in engineering with the computer before heading to the bridge. He waited to hear what the Captain had to say.

“I’ve thought hard on your earlier analysis, and I agree with it,” Glen replied. “The only way to rescue him seems to be by Transporter, but that means getting much closer to his ship, and by necessity, closer to the eye of the Whirlpool. However, I’ve been encouraged by learning that we could get in and out much more quickly, and that the Merrimack is likely to be able to withstand that stress, as long as our polarised hull can withstand the lightening bolts that were thrown at the Trudograd. So, despite what I said earlier, I’m prepared now to give it a go, but it isn’t going to be easier and the chances of success are lower than I would have liked.”

Lance pondered the issue at hand he scratched at the blonde stubble on his chin. He could visualize the problem in his head communicating it would be hard and he didn’t think the Captain would make any sense of his rather epic stick drawings.

“Perhaps we’re looking at this backwards Sirs” Lance said addressing the CE and the Captain. “What if we don’t use the tractor beam to grab the other craft. What if we use it as a.... well a rope. If we could lock it on to something and use it to push us closer to the other craft this reducing the distance we’d need the transporter for then we could pull ourselves back out of the whirlpool” he says trying to explain his idea.

Lance was correct, the stick figure doodles meant nothing to the Captain.

’’ It seems you have two choices Captain risk going in or turn around. As Captain Kirk once said risk is our business’‘, Cross said.

“That lightweight?” Glen replied. “Did he save two Galaxies… twice? Is his ship the centrepiece of a museum in the future?” Cross seemed to hit a raw nerve.

Jaris liked Lt. Malone’s theory. Jaris nodded approval at Lt Malone. “I support Lieutenant Malone’s idea Captain.”

“I wish it would work, Jaris!” Glen replied. “…but can we really use the Transporter as a rope? I’m not a scientist and I’ve never heard of such a thing… and I’ve no idea about how it might work. If we are being held by the Transporter, using the Tractor Beam is out of the question. The Tractor Beam would be too strong… And we can’t use then use the Transporter to beam the survivor away because it would already be in use. Your thoughts please? …And time is of the essence!”

Over the comm a weak cough and wheeze came through, =/\= zztich mack? You still there? =/\= Came the man’s voice again. Sounding more out of breathe and struggling then he had before, clearly the man was at a critical point of losing consciousness from the failing air supply. =/\= It’s....funny zitchzzz see my Uncle Barbie out—zzitch window heh....heh coughs* =/\= And evidently was starting to hallucinate to boot.

=/\= We’re still here, my friend! Just finalising our plan to get you out of there. Hang in there, please! =/\=

On hearing the man Cross turned to the Captain ‘’If you don’t take action immediately you know we’re going to lose him.’’ At this point Cross knew her place was in sickbay ,the ship was about to go into uncharted waters and sickbay needed to be prepared.

“I’m fully appraised of the situation, Doctor,” Glen told her. Socrates and Aristotle developed a word to describe Glen’s behaviour here. They called it Akrasia: the state of acting against your better judgment, or when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else. “As you informed me earlier, leaving him to die is still an option on the table!”

“We cannot wait any longer,” Glen announced. “Our procrastination will get him killed if nothing else. Lt. Mullins, can you tell me this idea of using the Transporter as a rope will work? If not then we’ll try my slingshot idea - we’ll take in the Merrimack at high velocity, getting as close to the vessel as possible, and beaming out the survivor as we pass by. I’m banking on us having sufficient velocity to exit again afterwards. I’m a pilot not a scientist, and this is what I can understand.”

=/\= Astrid Murdock, please come to the Bridge immediately. =/\=

Cross was about to leave ‘’Captain didn’t you say you had the appropriate gear just like the one the Lt we saved had? ‘’ she did not wait for an answer ‘’ You can take the ship as far as it could go ,someone from the crew would be tied and exit .The first part would be easier as he or she would be moving in the same direction of the spinning whirlpool that in itself would aid the person to easily reach the guy inside the vessel, putting on the same gear he’ll be taken out, not an easy feat by no means cause now he would have to hold on for dear life as we’ll have to aid him out of the center of the whirlpool along with the man in the vessel’‘.

The CMO stopped long enough to take a deep breath ‘’Once the two of them are near enough that’s when the transporter can get hold of them ‘’.

“ETS emergency transporter suits?” Glen asked. “The problem is that I mentioned those before I knew that this guy was buried under a tonne of rubble. There isn’t time to move it off him and to put a suit on him, and in any case, I’m not sending anyone else over to their certain death, not even if they volunteered. No, I think we have time to beam him out as we pass close by, without needing any fancy tricks. No problems about beaming him through the Shields either, since they don’t work here and are currently offline. We have no power problems and we should get a strong lock on him without the need for any enhancements. …This is all just more procrastination!”

When the doors of the Turbolift opened for Doctor Cross, Lt. Astrid Murdock stepped out onto the Bridge.

“Good afternoon,” Astrid said to Miriam, “Excuse me!”

Astrid walked down to the Captain’s chair.

“Hello Captain, how can I help?” Astrid asked.

“Please help Lt. Pokorski, thank you,” Glen told her.

“Aye Sir!” she replied.

“Lt. Pokorski,” Captain Glen instructed the Navigator, “Work together with Lt. Murdock. Lay in a elliptical course that will take us around the edge of the whirlpool in the same direction that it turns. I want a trajectory with a parabolic path, so that the closest point is directly opposite that vessel, and with just enough velocity that we won’t get caught ourselves but should get ejected again. If I remember my Flight School coursework correctly, we need just the tiniest characteristic energy to achieve a minimum-energy escape trajectory. Insufficient energy and we’ll never escape from the central body. Too much and we’ll never get close enough to the vessel but shoot off on some hyperbolic course instead, and we can say goodbye to Daniel Cornwellis because we won’t get a second chance at this. Be ready on my mark!”

“Aye Sir!” said both Pokorski and Murdock together.

“I’ve made my decision.” Glen told the Bridge crew. Fancy tricks by jury-rigging Transporters as tethers were untried and uncertain. Orbital mechanics and astrodynamics was proven.

• Astrid, Astronavigation and Warp Field Dynamics