52 Tales of 2016: Mystery of the Defiant - Hour One
The First Hour: Daria
First character: Daria Morgendorffer (MTV's 'Daria')
---USS Defiant NX 74205---
- Sensor report. Ship no longer docked to Deep Space Nine. No one aboard.
- Intruder alert! Deck 2, Section 10.
---
Daria came to. She had fallen asleep at Jane's place after watching weird science fiction movies. Now she awoke in this place. 'Calm down, Morgendorffer, it wouldn't be good to panic.'
The small confining corridor looked familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere else. 'But where?' she wondered. She stood up and walked along the corridor. The signs on the doors read 'Crew Quarters'.
That piqued her interest, but she continued moving along. She then found a door that read 'Turbolift'.
“Turbolift?” she asked herself aloud. In a flash, she knew in what kind of place she now was. 'But that's impossible. It could just be a dream,' she considered. She pinched herself. There was definitely pain from that action. “Not dreaming, and on a Federation Starship, from Star Trek,” she said. She stepped forward, and the turbolift doors opened. 'But what ship?' she had to know. She also wanted to know how she had got here, but that would wait. She stepped into the turbolift.
“Bridge,” she said. The turbolift started moving.
Daria stepped onto the Bridge, and quickly found the dedication plaque. “USS. Defiant. Great! Deep Space Nine.”
“Correction, ship is no longer at Deep Space Nine,” the computer said.
'Right!' Daria thought. She went and sat in the Captain's chair. She wasn't sure how to operate the ship's systems! 'I hope the interface is intuitive enough.'
“Computer, display ship's location on viewscreen.”
“Affirmative.”
A starchart was then shown on the main viewscreen. A Starfleet delta at the centre showed the location of the ship relative the nearby stars. She saw that the ship was 20 light years from Earth. (The relevant star being marked with 'Sol'.) But was it her Earth? Or the Earth that hosted the Federation Government? Or was it a third Earth? She knew one thing, that there was only one way of knowing. She went to the Conn station. 'How to set course for Earth?' she pondered. “Destination: Earth,” she said.
No response.
After 15 minutes of trial and error, Daria managed to set course for Earth. One step at a time she decided. The impulse engines before the warp drive. Half impulse. The ship started moving. The ETA updated as the ship accelerated. Full impulse. The ship accelerated. 'Now, the warp drive.'
Warp 1.
'Warp drive is offline.'
“Of course,” she said. It wouldn't be that easy.
She went to the turbolift again. “Engineering.”
Once in Engineering, Daria saw why the warp drive was offline. The Warp Core wasn't active. 'Great! I wouldn't be able to get it started,' she thought. One thing was for certain. Messing about with trying to start a Matter-Antimatter reaction was certain to not end well. The walked further into the room, she saw a PADD and a tricorder lying on a table near the core. 'I suppose that would be a start,' she decided. She also saw a panel open on one of the side walls. She could see a couple of phasers there.
For use against boarding actions she supposed. Still, before she began to try to activate the warp drive, she could try to use the sensors to determine if the universe around the Defiant was the 'verse that ship was supposed to be from or not. 'But there is another question first,' she thought. “Computer, access all databases, proper name search: 'Daria Morgendorffer.'”
“Affirmative,” the computer said, “Daria Morgendorffer: a fictional animated character. Character first appeared in the MTV series 'Beavis and Butthead' in 1993. She later appeared in her own series from 1997 to 2002. Character also appeared in later CBS animated media throughout the early 21st Century...”
“That's enough,” Daria said. She considered the motion she was thinking of. 'Mutually fictional, that figures,' she thought. Although she wondered why anyone would want watch a show about that duo. 'Or why they would want to watch me for five years.' But that was out of the way.
“Computer, scan the quantum signature of the interstellar medium near the ship, compare with that of the ship.” She hoped that the ship could do that.
“Affirmative,” the computer said.
Daria picked up the PADD. “Display results of scan on PADD.”
“Affirmative.”
A minute later, the result showed.
Divergent Quantum Signature
She then picked up the tricorder. “Similar scan via tricorder, compare results.”
“Affirmative.”
Divergent Quantum Signature
'That answers that,' Daria thought. But if she was fictional from the Defiant's perspective that was obvious. “Compare with outside signature.”
“Affirmative.”
Divergent Quantum Signature
“That figures,” she said. It was a third universe. But enough fooling around. “Transfer a step-by-step guide to starting a Defiant-class warp drive to PADD.”
“Affirmative.”
The screen filled with information. “Let's get started.”
As Daria was determining the nature of things (both the mutual fictionality and the quantum signature), the Defiant herself was trying to determine things. While the ship itself wasn't self aware (Starfleet had learned from the M5 debacle the previous century), many low level AI systems were running in the computer core. One was trying to determine how the security systems had been bypassed, allowing the intruder to gain access to the ship's systems. As such several diagnostic programs were running.
Still, Daria did have access...
Daria had read through the information once, when an alarm sounded. “Intruder alert!”
An hour had passed since she had appeared on the Defiant.