Lt JG Avander Promontory - Ana Log

[Alora DeVeau]

((Personal Quarters, Deck 5, USS Intrepid))

 

The quarters Avander had been assigned were private (a positive), but windowless (a negative). Looking out at the vastness of space never got old, and he liked to record his personal and duty logs while staring out a window.

 

Instead, he found himself staring at a painting of geometric shapes, a circle and a triangle. He thought it might be something meaningful to Vulcans—what was it called—ID-eye-see? That sounded about right.

 

He would have preferred a window.

 

The crew had already received a briefing on how to file their official duty logs. There would be a copy for the ship’s records of their specific actions, but another, more detailed copy (with notes about the temporal shenanigans) forwarded to the Department of Temporal Investigations. Their protocols would keep certain details under wraps for at least the next 135 years.

 

Still in discussions with the counseling staff, Avander realized that many of the staff were concerned about the stress their loved ones would have in the future when they suddenly blinked out of time in the year 2400. While they hoped to get back to the very time they left (or thereabouts), some of the crew were (justifiably) concerned that that was easier said than done.

 

So the solution they had come up with was, in Avander’s humble opinion, quite clever. They would encode personal messages with a codex that would be indecipherable until 2400 and send personal messages to friends and family along nonrelativistic, old-fashioned radio transmissions. To most observers, they would look like background radiation, but if they had made accurate calculations, Starfleet would be able to intercept their signals, decode them, and pass along messages to those left behind in 2400.

 

Avander pressed the record button on the old-timey data pad, stared at the painting, and began to dictate.

 

Personal message

Saturn Delphi Codex

 

I don’t know when, or if, I will return to my own time. I want my family to know that I am well enough. I’ve taken a detour to the past and the crew and I have helped to save a planet’s population in the 2260’s. More alarmingly, there are transhumanistic beings aboard, including a Q. I’ve made contact with Auntie Elmond and have been reassured that things will all work out.

 

Avander paused the recorder. He didn’t feel that this would end up being his “last message” home and it felt off to try and force any finality to the message. Still, in case something unexpected did happen to them, it might be better to add a few more words.

 

The past isn’t as fun as I was led to believe—at least it’s a lot more inconvenient than Grandpa Endic always made it out to be. Our Starfleet delta’s aren’t even combages!

 

He could go on about the technology limitations of this age, but didn’t want to come off whiny. Avander struggled to think of an appropriate topic for this awkward cross-time communication.

 

Without technology and endless access to information libraries, I’m gaining a better appreciation of analog listening. I think I’m getting better at it, but there are always so many different ways to interpret the same data…

 

Shoot—what had started as a good personal observation had turned into a philosophical reflection within two sentences. His mother would chide him for being too abstract in his messages. Perhaps it would be best to wrap this up and get ready for his shift.

 

One way or another, I’m sure I’ll see you all again “soon.” I am grateful for the opportunity for a truly novel adventure—after all, that’s what I signed up for! I just didn’t expect my assignments to take me quite so far from home. All my love, Avander.

 

That would have to do. Time to get back to work.

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Lt JG Avander Promontory

Intelligence Officer

USS Oumuamua

O239910AP4