A Moment In Time

Posted on Tue May 4th, 2021 @ 1:24pm by Captain Bethsabée Leroux

Mission: Mission 4 - Eden
Location: Comms centre
Timeline: Day 163 20:00
816 words - 1.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Beth wandered into the comms center and giggled at the sight that greeted her of O’Connery sound asleep on the floor under a jacket and Constantine hard at work at a station. She could not blame the woman after her adventures on the ship alongside them. She had been volunteering for more than her fair share of searching the ship.

The Captain almost tip toed over and took the familiar seat next to the chief communication officer. “So she is asleep and what have you been up too? Are you okay Lieutenant?” She wondered. It was late and everyone was tired which was why she had been surprised to see him still logged in from the bridge.

Deep in concentration, Constantine's perception had not been wide enough to notice Beth's entrance into the communications center. He was sure that Lexi had fallen asleep sometime within the last hour, having taken a moment to remove his jacket and lay it over her. Sure, the chill in the room lurked just on the fringe of becoming annoying, but it helped the communications officer focus on the task at hand. The room was quiet with the exception of the ever constant drone of the ventilation and the occasional mumbling of some choice, four-letter words from beneath Constantine's breath.

"Oh,," Mattias stood with a start. "Apologies captain, I didn't notice anyone enter. Yes ma'am, Lexi's been exhausted from everything going on, so she's recuperating while I keep trying to get a grasp of how EDEN is communicating with us," he glanced over to his sleeping girlfriend's figure for a moment. "The work has been absorbing, to say the least. Frustrating is another way I'd describe it. Expletives have been used in this office recently."

The Captain indicated for him to seat before she sat in the vacate spot next to him looking at the same thing as had been studying. “Well, if she does go off exploring,” Beth said not revealing anymore just encase the young woman had not revealed anything about her afternoon exploits and finding out that the ship indeed had at least one person on board. “Yes, it is quite maddening isn’t it?” She mused thinking on EDEN and the fact she knew languages but not of the Human’s, Vulcans or Andorian’s. It was maddening with how it worked. “I suspect it's neural-like we are hearing it differently as anyone onboard who speaks more languages hear it confusingly.”

"Well, when you start eliminating the other variables, whatever it left must be the truth, right?" Mattias scratched his head. One maddening complication after another had been eliminated off the list. "I've gone as far as to discuss the possibility that the entire ship was somehow hallucinating with the medical team, but they ensure me that nobody is any more or less off of their rocker than normal," the communications officer afforded himself a grin. "Not to belabor the point, Captain, but yes, your initial hypothesis is the only one still standing. EDEN is quite the polyglot, and the best that we've been able to come up with is that it communicates every language it knows all at once. Take this, for example."

Lieutenant Constantine stood for a moment and retrieved his guitar from its stand nearby. The instrument served as a way for him to relax and let his subconscious try and catch up during tedious workloads, a use case that had proven itself to be quite invaluable in recent days.

"If EDEN is this guitar," Mattias softly strummed a chord, "then this mix of frequencies would be how it communicates. Each one of us hears our language, represented here by each individual string." He plucked a single string to demonstrate his point. before returning the wooden instrument to its resting place. "A similar analogy could be done using visible light and a spectrum, but I didn't have one of those handy," he grinned as he sat back down.

The captain smiled at his analogy of the situation. She just preferred his approach even if it got a grumble from the sleeping ensign. “But that then leaves us with two questions then Lieutenant m. One, how does it know the languages when the AI has said she’s never met a species before and two what kind of species develops technology like that?” There were more questions but Beth didn’t want to ask them with a man she wanted to leave his mind not quite as full as she felt her own mind was with all the questions and the wondering about the ship. “Do you mind if I just sit here for a moment and pretend it’s just me you and sleepy beauty as a team again?” She wondered. The man did not hesitate in offering her his allowing her to enjoy the moment and just forget.