[snip]

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.

For Cross it seemed the Captain was gambling with jeopardizing the lives of the crew ,she simply shrugged her shoulders and finally left heading to sickbay.

Captain Glen could see that he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Leadership was always a heavy weight to carry. No one could be prepared for every situation,
crisis, or circumstance that might befall a Captain in deep space. However, they had no time to reconfigure Transporter or tractor beams as tethers. By the time they had achieved that, Cornwellis would be dead.

He could see that Murdock and Pokorski had laid in the flight plan, so he gave his signal to begin the tricky manoeuvrer.

• Glen, CO