Needle in a sea of Haystacks

Posted on 28 Aug 2016 @ 10:23pm by Ensign Mimi & Ensign Miraj Derani
Edited on on 13 Sep 2016 @ 12:24am

1,639 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 12 - Recluse
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 7, Astrometrics lab
Timeline: MD-5 1900

[ON]

Miraj was sitting in astrometrics, staring at the projected image of the Typhon Expanse. Only the edges were mapped. The vast majority was a big black blank. The Serpents Tooth had gone in there seven years ago. No one had seen it come out. It contained at least one temporal anomaly, and who knew what else. You had to be insane to venture in more than a couple of AU.

On her break Mimi was slowly making her way across deck 7 towards the astrometrics lab, it was one of the only sections of the small ship she'd not really explored plus with Lirha saying she would get science to help her attempt to find her original homeworld she wanted to see if anyone was in. As she stepped in she saw the young chief helmsman sat infront of a projection. "Ensign Derani?

Miraj looked around, "er hi. Mimi? isn't it?"

Mimi nodded "Yes."

"Can I help with anything?"

"Well." Mimi started "The Admiral said she would have science help me with a few things." She'd never spoken with Miraj about her background yet.

"Well, I'm not Science. I'm conn. I can help you with flying from a to b, detours to C optional, but thats about it."

"It is kind of about flying. When I first met her she asked me about where I came from." She recalled the events of the interesting chat she'd had with Lirha while she fixed her enviromental controls "So i told her about how I wound up in starfleet that a colony of my own kind was wiped out by Klingons and I've no idea where my original homeworld is."

Miraj's orbital arches raised, her eyes going wide. "You don't know where you're from? At all?"

"No." Mimi answered "I know the homeworld is real as my mother told me stories and had pictures of it when I was young, but where it is I don't know."

"And starfleet doesn't know?"

Mimi shook her head. "The only people that really know where the colony I was found on is were the Klingons that wiped everyone out, my foster mother and the crew on the USS Charlstone. And me naturally"

intrigued, Miraj pulled her chair up to the console. "Well, if Charlstone found the colony, there'll be a record of the colony." she tapped into the database. "What was its name?"

"We called it Kemi." Mimi said, she stepped forward till she was stood at Miraj's shoulder. "It was near the Mutara nebula and lower down on the map than gorn space of 2382"

Miraj projected the image of that sector, the colony highlighted in red amidst the rest of the stars and planets nearby. "So that's the Beta Quadrant, just. " Kemi had been just over the border from the Alpha quadrant, down by the Mutara Nebula, practically unknown space. "okay. Do you know if your kind are space faring by themselves, or if they chartered ships from other races?"

"My mother told me we had help from our friends the Bespiri." Mimi was thinking hard bringing back memories from her childhood long before she knew anything about most of the galaxy around her. "But the ship we came on was built by our own hands.

Miraj tapped Bespiri into the database. it came back as system unknown, and she frowned for a moment. "Well, if starfleet doesn't know you're people, and you're spacefaring enough for first contact we can pretty much eliminate all of this..." She touched a button and a full map of the galaxy was projected. Then a red grid appeared over a sizeable chunk of the Alpha quadrant, and a much smaller lump of Beta quadrant, eliminating Federation space.

"I'm also going to assume, given distances involved, that we can rule out Gamma and Delta Quadrants," she cut out the other half of the galaxy. "and everything between there and the federation. so goodbye Breen, goodbye Ferengi, Goodbye Cardassia, Romulans, Garidans." The nations blinked out in turn. "which just leaves..." And sighed, "Several quadrillion kilometers cubed of uncharted space, probably more."

She zoomed the projection in, to show the huge band of space running from the edge of Tholian territory, to the end of the Klingon Empire. Millions of stars, probably billions of planets.

"That is a lot of space." Mimi said looking at the projection, she sighed and her tail dropped to the floor. "And with no idea what direction to even start looking, never mind a speed or time. The chances of me finding the homeworld in all that."

"Hey!" Miraj reached forward and patted Mimi on the hand. "Don't give up hope. All questions have answers. You have a point of origin. That's a start. All you have to do is figure out the rest. It will happen. You just have to think of every little detail. Did you parents ever point out a star to you? Did you ever see ships leaving? did they talk about things in other directions to home. Anything like that at all?"

"I don't know. It was many years ago and so much has happened since then." Mimi thought a little harder. "The only ships we had were like shuttles for transport and trading."

"No that helps. If you had shuttles, Do you remember anything about them? how long the trading trips were, did anyone say what their warp capabilities were? Anything at all?"

"I wasn't technically minded back then." Mimi said taking her time with the long word. "I knew little about warp other than it was how our shuttles moved really fast."

Miraj sucked her teeth, thinking. "Okay. well, lets make a massive assumption. most shuttles have a cruise speed of warp 4. that's a massive assupmption by the way. Assuming warp 4 from beginning to end, that gives you a range of... two days, a week, a month," concentric shells sprung up around Kemi. featuring, thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of stars.

"I don't know if you home was close to the home world or not, but your people were travelling somewhere. All you need to do is run these co-ordinates through the system, find out if there are any inhabited worlds, or if there have be any surveys. you may not find home, but you might find a clue. I know it's a lot of data...."

"A lot." Mimi remarked. "There are millions of stars out there and any number of planets around them. That's if your assumption is anywhere near correct." She sighed again, she couldn't see any way of even coming close to finding the homworld with that much area to search.

"I'm trying to find a single person, last seen seven years ago. " Miraj gave her a slightly sad smile. "I know what its like when your chances are vanishingly small. But you can't let yourself think like that. Every scrap is a clue. Or a pointer to the next scrap. If your people were trading, they were trading with someone. All you have to do is start at Kemi and work your way out till you find some one saw them who might know more. Yes it may take years, but its not a sprint, its a marathon. And its not about skill, its all down to persistance. Planet after planet, light year after lightyear. Eventually you'll get there. If you want it enough."

"You have no idea how much I want to find the homeworld. All I have left is what I had in a bag on my back when I was found, which wasn't a lot. Some music files I managed to get working with federation technology, a few pictures of the homeworld." Mimi said slowly starting to reminisce. "I want to look down on the fifteen cities from the top of Garai mjestim. Run the whole length of Roos kiezel and eat steamed Pakake. Just like my mother did before she left."

Miraj sat up, pink bunches bouncing, "You have pictures? With sky in them?"

"One does yes." Mimi answered, the look on Miraj's face made her think she was on to something "Looking up from the top of Garai mjestim."

"Well thats a massive clue." Miraj saind, "take it to someone in science who knows how to work the astrometrics array. They may be able to figure out some spacemarks from the picture. Is it taken at night?"

Mimi nodded "I have two, one during the day and one at night but the top of Garai mjestim is very cloudy."

"They can do very clever things with images. If there's anything there to find, they'll find it. trust me. I wouldn't know where to start, so you'll have to talk to science, but they'll sort you out. Don't give up."

Mimi's eyes lit up and she smiled, she had never thought that a picture taken by her mother over 23 years ago could be the key to her finding her real home again. "oooh I could hug you Miraj, you have been so much help."

Miraj waved it away. "Its nothing. I've just done a broad filter. easy wins. the hard work will be all you."

"But you've helped me figure out the next step and I can't thank you enough." Mimi countered.

Miraj smiled. "We're good. Just show me what the Scientists find, maybe I can knock another couple of thousand of stars off the list."

"I will do Miraj." Mimi said then glanced at the clock on the console, she was late in getting back to work, she hadn't planning on doing the actual searching until after her shift. "oh keelah, gotta go. Thank you." She quickly scarpered out the door.


[OFF]

A JP by

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

and

Ensign Mimi
Operations Officer
USS Galileo

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