Red Means Dead

Then

a/n: I don't list the tones for the Mandarin words. If you want to know what they mean, please ask!

Eris IV is a beautiful planet with cotton candy waters and licorice-black continents powdered in sugar-white snow caps. I am staring again. When I was a little girl, my grandmum gave me a bag of marbles that were the prettiest things I had ever seen but none compared to this onyx planetoid with its red undertones. I overheard a crewman from Greenland say it reminded him of how iceburgs seem to glow with a pearlescent blue-green coloring and, as I gaze at Eris, I do find a similar characteristic in the rocks. Because the atmosphere scatters red lightwaves more than blue, and the rocky terrain is translucent enough to concentrate and refract the light, the planet pulsates an eerie sanguine much like the glaciers back home, if they were filled with blood.

The Enterprise has been circling the tiny planet for three days, scanning the flora and fauna, surveying the geology and collecting as much data as possible. Apparently, much hasn't been learned due to conditions in the atmosphere but it seems like a relatively tranquil place. As it doesn't pertain to my job directly, I've only seen the ship logs at the end of each day, most of which are measurements and statistics, and whatever my friend Meiying has told me; she's a science officer in every sense of the words.

Our shifts lined up today, so we agreed earlier to meet up for dinner now. She has already given me a detailed report about what little was discovered in the scans and has asked several times what I did on shift.

I look away from the window that is giving us the perfect view of the planetoid and shrug my shoulders. "Mr. Scott has me working on some theoretical equations dealing with warp."

"And?" she probes.

"And the possibility of time-field distortion."

"What? Like time travel?"

I nod and pluck a carrot from the end of my fork.

"How so?"

Talking around my food, I say, "We would need to use an object with enough gravitational pull to break the ship away from lightspeed. A black star would do it in a nanosecond. Maybe even our sun if we flew fast enough and used it like a slingshot." I purse my lips in thought. "Light speed breakaway factor, I suppose. Anything is possible if we fly faster than capable and don't destabilize the warp field, flinging us into a wormhole or a million pieces."

She has her head perched against her fist, her mouth and eyes slightly more open than usual as she hangs on my words. I know what I do can be boring but this is pretty cool and I've learned to hit enough of the hi-lights to keep people interested. Though with Meiying I could be talking about a jar of dirt and she'd act like it was the most fascinating thing ever.

"Gai si, Oyster" she sighs, "I want to be your brain when I grow up."

I eat a forkful of mashed potatoes and shrug. "Mr. Scott suggested it. I'm just doing the math. I guess when you beam someone traveling at warp, you're always looking onward and upward."

I remember the Vulcan incident when Scotty and the Captain transported onto the ship, making the entire engineering department all aflutter with the mathematics involved. It was like every holiday and birthday rolled into one moment.

Mei sighs. "That theoretical math makes my eyes cross."

I scoff. I know that's not exactly true. Mei's I.Q. is a few points beyond incalculable and she could do anything she desires but animals and their habitats are far more interesting for her.
"Well your biomes and taxonomy make my head spin," I counter.

Her eyes twinkle and she brushes at her collar absentmindedly. Compliments are difficult for her to take, even off-handed ones so I leave it at that. Truthfully, several of my graduate projects involved the study of body movement which included animals but Mei could run circles around me still.