2953-04-16 – Tales from the Service: The Fiddlehead Artifact
Obviously, though the general gist of the claims of the Fiddlehead Three should be more than apparent by the two prior episodes, but I will provide Commander Lund’s retelling of their explanation here for two reasons.
Firstly, Lund thought their story as amusing as it was interesting, and secondly, because the details that I am permitted to present here (some have been edited out of this retelling by Lund himself) are those I think represent this story as unlikely to be a cover story for a bunch of deserters. I am not wholly convinced, but I would suspect their account is more likely to be true than not. A Xenarch artifact capable of removing three humans from time for two days would be an incredible find indeed, if they hadn't needlessly expended it.
“So, am I to presume that you... misplaced this, erm, object?” Gunther Lund pressed when the silence had once again lengthened past what was normally considered awkward.
“Well, it...” Visscher glanced between her compatriots. “Sort of exploded.”
“On my station?” Lund arched one eyebrow. There had of course been no alarms indicative of any explosion in the period these miscreants had been aboard.
“There was a button of sorts, inside a slot you could stick your finger into. We... We pushed the button. And-” McCormick’s shoulders slumped.
“You pushed the button, you mean!” Bodinsen snapped, and he started to rise before his guard pressed a firm hand down on his shoulder. “I told you we needed to get it analyzed, but-”
“Get it analyzed? Who was going to do that, and not take it away?” Visscher scowled. “We hit it with every sensor in the standard crew kit. It seemed safe.”
Bodensen was quick with a response. “So would a thermite grenade. Or a bio-containment canister.”
Gunther began to suspect this argument had been had once before, and he made a show of writing a note about recommending better tracking the use of standard shipboard tools during off-duty periods on his slate. “What did this... item look like?”
There was a brief pause, but this time, Bodinsen broke it quickly. “It was a sort of cone or horn shape, about fifty centimeters long, slightly curved near the point, with a slot running the length. That’s where we found the button.”
This, Gunther wrote down almost word for word. “What was it made of?”
McCormick responded this time. “We couldn’t find out. Some sort of polymer, maybe. Sort of looked like pearl, but it was pale green.”
“Any markings? Controls other than the button you pushed?”
“Not that we found.” Bodinsen shrugged off the hand holding him in his chair. “And we looked damned hard.”
Gunther noted this as well. He had long ago stopped asking why Navy ratings did the unwise things they did; three of them found a device with a button, and they inevitably pushed it. The surprising thing was that they spent days – maybe even weeks – puzzling over its origins before they did the inevitable.
“We, ah. Went into that storage bay to push the button.” Visscher’s face reddened. "That way we had stuff to hide behind.”
“And less witnesses, living and electronic.” Gunther nodded. “You aren’t the first miscreants to think of that. What happened next?”
“As soon as I pushed it, the cone just sort of... burst.” McCormick sighed. “There was a loud noise, and a blast of green smoke, and... that was it. Your toughs collared us nearly the moment we got clear of the smoke and caught our breath.”
Gunther nodded as he wrote this down. “The security personnel first on scene did not report any smoke, or any signs of an explosion, except that two storage containers full of computer components were pried open and rifled through.”
Bodinsen cleared his throat. “If it were a normal explosion, we’d all be perforated. None of us was more than two meters from the thing when McCormick jumped the damned gun and pressed that button, and there’s not a scratch on any of us. We didn’t see any smoke either, after we got out of it.”
“Wait, containers?” Visscher frowned. “We didn’t touch your supplies. We didn’t have time or tools for that. We were only in there about half an hour. That must have been unrelated.”
“I can assure you nobody else was in that bay between when you arrived and when you were apprehended.” Gunther raised one eyebrow. “Hiding in a stack of cargo containers filed with electronics could easily block the security monitors, but I’m sure you knew that.”
“I uh. Suppose we could have guesed it.” Visscher shrugged. “I’ve worked on security monitors. But we weren’t-”
“They have no way of knowing if we were hiding in a stack of crates or not, if nobody else was in that bay” Bodinsen sighed. “And without the device, we’ve got no strong defense. The desertion charge sticks.”
Gunther shrugged and smiled. “It’s looking that way, yes. But your story is very interesting. I am curious if there are any other details you remember. I rather doubt they could hurt, at this point.”