Searching for the language of the rift

Posted on 20 Dec 2025 @ 8:44pm by Ensign Ryan Collingway & Lieutenant Commander Riah Amberlyn XMD & Ensign Mira Quinn & Lieutenant Commander Adrian Sorvak
Edited on on 20 Dec 2025 @ 8:45pm

1,333 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: The Displaced
Location: Sickbay

=/\= Medical Conference Room =/\=

Lt Cmdr Sorvak waited until the two ensigns were seated around the conference table, then gave Riah a brief look. “You’re staying, Doctor?”

“If this ship does have some form of sentience and properties that would support the idea it has a consciousness and life, as we define life, which is pretty broad on the edges of space, I think a medical opinion might be of value,” ventured Riah in reply.

Sorvak nodded at her. He remained standing at the end of the table. “As you are aware, the rift is reforming,” he said. “We do not yet have reliable parameters for its behavior — rate of emergence, duration, or stability once reestablished. Nor do we understand the role of the lifeform you encountered.” He looked from Ryan to Mira in turn. “To refine our stabilization models, we need to know precisely what you observed aboard the Eirian ship.”

His gaze settled on Mira. “Ensign Quinn.”

“Yes, sir.” Mira hesitated. “Well, the Eirians don’t store information the way we do. Their memory core is harmonic. Resonant. I accessed a sequence Serel called ‘Echo of the Crossing.’ If it was a record of their transit through the rift—”

Sorvak lifted a hand slightly. “Stop there. Was it sequential?”

Mira frowned. “No. Not exactly.”

“Describe it.”

If only she could. Mira searched for the words. “It was mostly… impressions. Emotions. Sadness.”

“Emotional impressions,” Sorvak repeated. "Who was sad?"

Mira paused, again unsure. "The ship? This was a memory of the ship. This would be comparable to our data cores."

Ryan had briefly conferred with Lelina to let her know he was in a meeting. "I interfaced directly with the ship. There is a sentience behind it. It understood that we were there to help. My experience was that it was peaceful. Perhaps calling it a 'living ship' is a bit of a stretch. Advanced artificial life, maybe. Maybe its sadness was limited to the memories that Mira accessed."

Sorvak nodded. "The Echo of the Crossing, it was called. But of course that would be "sad', it suddenly found itself away from home."

"No." Mira tried going back in her mind to the 'memory place' and how she felt as she heard that haunting song. She looked up at Sorvak. "I mean, no, sir. The sadness was in the crossing itself. Not afterwards."

"Something in the crossing itself made the ship... sad?" Sorvak asked.

"Well... yes."

The Chief Science considered that. "So would you say the sadness suddenly dissipated?"

"... No." Mira stopped, but then realized this was exactly how she had felt. "No, it didn't. It was like waves. Coming to a peak and then cresting, and then coming to a peak again."

“Emotions have an effect upon the physiology of sentient beings,” Riah finally spoke. “And emotions often come in waves: sadness, grief even the euphoria of orgasm is a wave. Hormones are also released in waves or pulses. So the sadness could indeed peak, release for a while, only to descend again after a short period.”

Ryan shifted slightly. This was getting a little out of his field. He was used to fixing engines, not figuring out the emotional ties to an entity. "There was also the ruptured area on the ship, the displaced area that was slowly healing. The creature was also found near there as well. Maybe it caused the rupture on the ship to begin with," Ryan pointed out. "Did the Elarians communicate what they were doing prior to the rupture? Could this have been done inadvertently by something they did?"

"Maybe they..." Mira started saying, but she was interrupted by Sorvak.

"Hormones," he said. He glanced around the table. "If I understand correctly, the ship records data differently than we do, but it's still data."

Mira nodded. "Through harmonics."

"Which had an emotional impact on you. But it's possible that the Eirians read it differently."

Mira blinked. She hadn't thought of it this way. "Yes, sir."

Sorvak hadn't really waited for a response. "As you pointed out, Doctor, the feeling of emotion was in waves... like a hormonal mechanism. And it would be only logical to assume that if the ship recorded its passage through the rift, then the telemetry that was recorded from the rift also came in waves. Maybe, like hormones, there was some aftereffect."

Ryan resisted the urge to yawn as he realized that his own hormones were starting to crash, as the doctor had warned. He wasn't bored, but the adrenaline of the mission was starting to disappear. "We didn't record the data on our end, though. Beyond what Ensign Quinn remembers. How does this get us closer to stabilization?" he asked.

Sorvak fixed his gaze on Collingway. "We don't have a lot of information, but we must use what we have. Ensign, what was your experience aboard the ship? Did you understand what the ship went through?"

Ryan blinked under the superior officer's gaze. "No," he stated simply. "At first there was a scan to 'add' me to their system. They initially advised against me from interfacing with the ship. They said my thoughts were too chaotic. However when the situation became urgent, I was able to calm my mind and do so. I wasn't focused on finding out what the ship had gone through. My main goal was to help the Commander. The process was peaceful, gentle. Perhaps intentionally done to my own benefit."

"You saw the engines. Could you theorize what hit them?"

"Something overloaded the main systems and the engine itself, comparable to an EMP. We were able to restart it using a boost from Arawyn. The damage was minor after that. While I didn't have time to go into it in more detail, the Eirians have the ability to move corridors and walls around the ship, internally. I suspect they will do a similar process externally to fix what's left of the damage."

"Curious," Sorvak said. "That is extremely important. So let's repeat what we have found so far: The engines looked as though they were hit by an EMP wave, which disrupts phase coherence and causes a temporary system collapse with lingering aftereffects. This fits with what Ensign Quinn has felt - the rift has a wave effect, which suggests a hormonal-like mechanism. We have seen this same effect from the lifeform, who disrupted the communications system."

"The Eirians believed that Mira had connected with the creature...somehow," Ryan added. "They described it as young. Lost. Hungry. Perhaps it was also sad, by extension."

Riah again spoke, “I’m interested in this creature too. If it lives in that sub-space realm, and Ensign Quinn feels the sadness happened in the crossing, the creature also, like the Ensigns, may have interfaced with the ship and ship recorded and remembers that great sadness.”

"The sadness.... The lifeform itself responded to harmonics," Mira added. "When I played the harmonic we've found in the displaced region...." she trailed off.

"What is it, Ensign?" Sorvak prompted.

Mira glanced at Sorvak. "It reacted. I could feel its return harmonic."

"So it's a language, essentially. Could there be other, similar life forms in that rupture? One that would respond to harmonics?" Ryan wondered. He glanced at Mira. "You did say 'mama' at one point," he added.

"That would be only logical," Sorvak said. "We are dealing with entities that use harmonics to communicate - a behavior we have observed in both the Eirians and the lifeform. We have picked up harmonics both in the rift and in the displaced space. If we align the Arawyn's shields to that harmonic waveform, we might stay in phase coherence comparatively to the rift."

Ryan nodded. "If you send me the data from the wavelength, we can set that up in Engineering quickly," he agreed.


Ensign Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
&
LtCmdr Riah Amberlyn, XMD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Arawyn
&
Ensign Mira Quinn
Science Officer
USS Arawyn
&
Lt Cmdr Adrian Sorvak
Chief Science Officer
USS Arawyn

 

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