#shaking at speeds scientists are yet to accurately measure

[ccomilk]

quick doodles for @vanillavengeance's fic Mystic Malfunction!!! i speedran reading it in the span of 2 days yall. it has a GRIP on me it's so good PLEASSEE go read it rn

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

QueenCorp, Pt 4b: Homelander’s Revenge

Homelander returns to find Lena unconscious in her chair and Lamplighter and Resurrectionist playing cards with an open bottle of tequila between them.

He sighs. "She done already?"

Lamplighter shrugs. "We'll see..."

"Taking a break," Rez supplies, slapping down a jack of spades. "If she doesn’t come round by the time we start again, yeah, she's probably done."

Homelander isn’t keen on that idea. “There's no point on continuing if she can't enjoy it." He grins. "I have something else in mind."

Lamplighter perks up. "Yeah?"

With a gloved hand, Homelander lifts a vial, filled with a tell-tale blue serum. "If Miss Luthor abhors us supes so much... I think we should give her a taste of what it's like to be one."

He tosses it to Lamplighter, who catches it deftly.

"It'll probably kill her,” Homelander warns, but isn’t at all concerned. “If it does, bring her back."

"You got it, boss."

---

Kasnia is a large country. One protected by the invisible barrier of international cold-war style  bureaucracy. Maeve and Supergirl do not receive authorization to breach Kasnian airspace, let alone begin a thorough search for Lena.

They wait weeks for word to come down, their prayers hanging on a final hail mary, and share a glance when their liaison relays the negative outcome. They say nothing until they return to National City and the privacy of Lena's empty office.

"So we touch down in the Kesch Republic, and go in on foot. It'll take longer, but--"

"Too long."

"It's all we have."

And so they do. At least Kasnia is equal parts empty land and small towns. Believing Homelander wouldn't risk being spotted in a metropolitan area, they stick to the hinterlands, speeding between structures and hovering below radar level to scan the larger compounds and suspect topography for underground bunkers.

They find their target in the form of a military compound, remote but crawling with soldiers. Not exactly the kind of place they'd expect a bunch of supes to lay low. But there in an isolated corner of the base are three figures-- two standing, one seated and unmoving.

"Got 'em."

They speed to the room faster than human eyes can see. Lamplighter is dead before they stop moving, neck snapped and spine broken by Maeve's gauntlet. The Resurrectionist they keep alive, locked in the cage of Supergirls's steel embrace.

"Lena? Lena, can you hear me?"

Maeve cups Lena's drooping chin, caressing cheeks crusted with tears and sweat. Lena doesn't rouse for long moments, and when she does her eyes open for a bleary moment before she recoils, pulling ineffectually against her bonds.

"It's us," Maeve says quickly, quietly, her fingers stroking against tangled hair. "It's Maeve."

"...Maeve..."

"And Supergirl," Maeve supplies. "We've got you. We're going to get you home. You're safe now."

There's no relief in Lena, no recognition beyond Maeve's name on her lips. She pulls against her bonds even as Maeve snaps them, but the motion seems involuntary, spasming muscles that tighten and relax of their own volition.

Lena is weak enough that speeding away isn't an option-- weak enough that Supergirl maintains her grip on the Resurrectionist as they quietly make their way through the compound on foot. Just in case.

As they walk Lena's spasms become more frequent and more intense, until she's struggling not to cry out in pain. Neither Maeve nor Supergirl knows what's wrong, but in the end their slow speed and Lena's moans of exertion under her tremors alert the soldiers, and bodies converge on them fully armed.

"Go..." Lena mutters, stiffly worming out Maeve's arms. It's the most she's said since they found her, and the most lucid she's been. Her jaw tightens against an oncoming spasm, her fingers warping into claws in an effort to control it.

"Lena..."

"GO!"

There's a desperation in her voice that gives them pause, a plea that engages Maeve's instinct to obey. She doesn't get the chance to choose. Hands rip Lena away, and Maeve knows better than to kill humans here, where any loss of life could mean all-out war.

They drag Lena to the next room, but as they do the ground starts to shake. The air pressure increases slowly, painfully, and then Lena screams-- a ferocious, loud bellow that releases the tension like snapping a rubber band.

Before their eyes Maeve and Supergirl watch the soldiers tear apart, their molecules disassembling as Lena's contracts, her body contorting as theirs lose shape and then blow away as though they'd never been there in the first place.

When it's over, there's not a soldier left in the entire compound, and they find Lena unconscious in the next room. Maeve gathers her up, cradling her carefully against her chest.

"What did you do?" She glares accusingly at the Resurrectionist, who grins unapologetically.

"Ever hear of Compound V?"

---

When Lena next wakes, she's alone. Comfortable and clean in a cage of clear, reinforced walls, she knows instinctively that she's been rescued-- but she's not safe yet.

People come to visit her, but she can barely bring herself to look at the shadowy figures that lurk outside the plexiglass, their outlines fuzzy and indistinct.

Only their voices allow her to recognize them, and of the dozens who attempt to talk to her, she only identifies two of them.

"I'm sorry, Lena," Maeve says, her voice full of sorrow-- and guilt. "This is all my fault. But-- I won't let you go again."

"You're safe," Kara promises. The sound of her voice almost makes Lena cry. She doesn't. "They're still running tests..."

Who ‘they’ are, Lena doesn't know or particularly care. She sleeps more than she doesn't, and lets herself be poked and prodded by syringes on long poles inserted through holes in the plexiglass. No one enters.

Not when the spasms return in fits and starts as the pressure in her builds again. She locks every muscle in her body against the release it seeks-- she can never hold onto it for long. It explodes from her in waves of violent force.

The plexiglass shudders with the force of it, but contains it within the confines of her cell. Lena loses consciousness after each one. Kara is always there when she wakes up, offering words of love and assurance.

Over time, Lena finds her voice, and Kara's continuous monologue becomes a dialogue. She still can't bring herself to look at the shifting, sickening shape that is her girlfriend.

"Can I ask you a question," Kara asks hesitantly, as they rest back to back against the plexiglass-- the nearest they can be without Kara entering the box. "You haven't met my gaze once, since..."

Lena doesn't respond.

"Why?"

Despair tightens Lena's chest, making her traitorous eyes burn as she squeezes them shut against the rising tears.

"Because I can't see you."

---

Her power is classified as telekinesis-- the most volatile, most devastating manifestation they've ever seen.

It renders Lena's world to its constituent molecules, and the disfigurement of her loved ones is her vision’s new acuity to their molecular vibrations. The blasts Lena generates severs the bonds between those molecules, dispersing them to the ether as though they never existed.

Scientists work around the clock to devise a means to help her control it, but nothing emerges.

"Don't fight it," Kara urges finally, unable to watch Lena writhe with the effort and pain of trying to contain it. "Let it go, Lena. Let go!"

Lena does.

The power releases in a rush, with the ease and relief of a powerful sneeze. When it passes, Lena is left panting and moaning-- but conscious.

The next time she feels the pressure building, she takes a deep breath, and releases it with her whole body. The pressure dissipates with it, shuddering the walls of her cell but this time Lena's tears come from relief, not pain.

Suddenly, Lena has agency again. She works to solve her own condition, and slowly starts to explore what she can do with it.

Can she rearrange the molecules?

Can she alter the speed of their vibration?

Can she reassemble them, reignite their bonds?

Yes, yes, and no. Lena learns they don't have the means to accurately quantify the reach or magnitude of her ability. She learns her powers have the ability to render her unconscious, but don't function while she's out.

She learns that her sneezes are now more dangerous than a nuclear bomb.

With Lena's help, they choose not to contain or negate her powers at all. Her safeguard is relatively simple by comparison: sensors worn at her wrists, capable of measuring upticks of her ability, and rendering her unconscious if it raises to a critical level.

Lena designs them so that to the unknowing eye, they look like little more than tasteful silver bracelets, banded cuffs that fit snugly against her skin. Once the bracelets click home around her wrists, Lena slowly starts to come out of her cell, for longer and longer periods, until she can go a full twelve hours or more without incident.

When Lena returns to work, the world greets her as a returning hero. She follows a script describing a brief abduction and a consequent period of prolonged protection, spent in an undisclosed safe house. She confirms that Homelander was behind her abduction, and that he remains a threat.

"If you see him, please contact this Hotline," she urges. "Do not approach, and do not engage."

Supergirl remains at her side, a silent protector. Maeve stands with her, a vocal supporter.

They don't mention Compound V.

Despite the threat it poses, the knowledge that a serum exists to bestow super abilities on grown humans would be far more dangerous.

Lena grows used to having Maeve and Supergirl both within reach at any given moment, and leans on them more than she should.

"I'm sorry, Lena," Maeve says one night, joining her on her office balcony. Lena turns to face her, her expressive gaze flat and distant.

If their lives hadn't reconnected, Homelander would never have set his sights on Lena. Maeve knows it, and she suspects Lena does as well when no response is forthcoming. But when Lena's eyes remain on her, just shy of actually making eye contact, Maeve doesn't feel any resentment from her former lover.

"I wish I could make it right," she finishes, leaving it unsaid that there is no way for her to do so. There's no undoing what's been done, and in the end, there may be no guarantee she can protect Lena from Homelander when the time comes.

"I always said," Lena says finally, after a long moment of silence, "that my life was better to have you in it."

She shrugs.

"That hasn't changed."

There's no chance of romance between them, but Maeve finds she doesn't need it. Just to have Lena again, next to her on the balcony, or on the other end of a phone line, or in the next room, is more than enough.

More than Maeve ever thought she'd have again.

"You too," Maeve returns quietly, letting their shoulders brush. "You too."

---

When Homelander finally makes his move, Supergirl is far away, dealing with the distraction he'd engineered to lure her from Lena’s side. Maeve fights with everything she has, and it's almost enough.

Almost.

When Homelander lands his final hit, Maeve goes flying, and lands heavily in an office three walls over. Coughing, she manages to push herself up just far enough to see through the holes her body made in the layers of drywall.

She watches helplessly as Homelander closes in on Lena, murder written in his stride.

"Now it's just you and me, Miss Luthor. No Supergirl. No Maeve. No Lamplighter. No Resurrectionist. I think it's about time we settle things between us. Don't you?"

If Homelander expects Lena to shrink away in fear, he must be shaken when Lena's lips curl into a predartory smirk instead.

"Let's."

The last thing Maeve sees before the world goes dark is the glint of silver bracelets dropping from Lena’s wrists.

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.50

"Time Space Stumble”

A/N: In the spirit of continuing occasional classic Trek escapades, I give you "Time Space Stumble."

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 49 - Going Nowhere Fast 51 - Two Truths and a Lie >>

The tests continued. They achieved distance jumps. First small distances, differences barely visible to the naked eye, but then bigger jumps, bigger distances, measurable not in meters but kilometers. Always, though, they seemed to be trailing the Glenn just a smidgen. If they went fifty kilometers, the Glenn went sixty.

"He refuses to push us past the Glenn," said Lorca. He was standing at the window of his quarters, a hologram of Lalana beside him. The two rooms had been carefully mapped in such a way that Lalana appeared to be standing on the same plane as him, and his bed equaled her couch.

"You really have terrible luck with engineers," she informed him. "Billingsley was a 'piece of work,' Sural had no sense of humor, and now Stamets is... well, it's clear you like him, at least."

"He's a headache!" exclaimed Lorca. "The most frustrating man I've ever met."

"Yes, but how much fun do you have watching him squirm? There is a certain degree of delight in your face."

Lorca exhaled in a long chhhhh through his teeth. "No," he concluded. "I don't like Stamets. I hate him!"

Lalana clicked her tongue. "You only protest this hard when I'm onto the truth."

Lorca started to laugh. "My god, you're ridiculous."

"Yes, but would you have me any other way?"

That made him laugh so genuinely, he felt a little guilty about it. "What about your day."

"Saru came by, to check on Emellia's progress, and then they ended up spending a long time drinking tea. Apparently, Saru's old captain also drank tea."

Lorca had noted as much in a personal log many years back. "That she did," he said, with a degree of somber reverence for the departed captain. Even if Georgiou's grave miscalculation at the Binaries had potentially kicked off this war. "So Saru and Emellia get along?"

"I think she might like him even more than you like Stamets."

"Get it through that thick, blue skull of yours. I don't like Stamets!"

And yet, as they readied for the latest test of the spore displacement drive, Lorca had to admit Lalana was sort of right. Making Stamets squirm was absolutely delightful. "Stamets!" Lorca shouted, his voice filling the entirety of the bridge. "Where is my spore drive!"

Stamets, for his part, always rose to meet Lorca's level of ire. "We're not ready yet, captain! We need fifteen minutes!"

"Why!"

"Maybe I don't feel like telling you!" This was a sure sign something was going very wrong in engineering.

Lorca balled his hands into fists and took a deep breath, deliberately forcing his anger away. It half-worked. He didn't scream, but he remained firmly angry as he warned, "Don't make me come down there to engineering, lieutenant. When am I getting my drive back?"

"My spore drive up will be up and running in fifteen minutes. Not ten, not five, fifteen."

"You have five minutes!" yelled Lorca. "Bridge out!"

Everyone on the bridge was holding their breath. None of them could see Lorca's face, standing as he was at the very front of the bridge by the viewscreen. Lorca clenched his teeth and shook his head as he stared out at the stars. Then he relaxed somewhat. There was a rather nice red-orange nebula visible. Probably Lalana was staring at it right now. He'd had the main viewscreen routed through to her quarters so she could look at the same stars he did.

When Lorca turned away from the viewscreen and faced the bridge crew, he looked perfectly calm and even mildly amused. "It anyone wants a coffee, you've got ten minutes," he advised them, smiling. At the operations console, Lieutenant Owosekun smiled and tried not to laugh. She was awfully cute, but Commander Landry was over at the tactical console on the other side of the bridge, and Landry was not a woman you stepped out on unless you had a death wish. Besides, of the two, Lorca guessed Owosekun was the less experienced in bed. Pretty only went so far.

Lorca paced the bridge, walking past the stations and stretching his legs. He paused and exchanged a quick word with Saru at the science station on a briefing scheduled for later that afternoon. After seven minutes, Stamets reported to the bridge that the spore drive was ready.

"Thank you, lieutenant," said Lorca, sounding perfectly amicable.

"So, are we going to go now?" asked Stamets expectantly.

"Not just yet," said Lorca. He could picture the frustration on Stamets' face.

After a minute, Stamets asked, "Are we waiting for something?"

"You're waiting for my command," said Lorca, in the same vaguely derisive tone that had once flummoxed Sarah Billingsley on the Triton. Poor Stamets, but really, the man brought it on himself. Lorca waited just long enough that he began to get impatient himself, then declared, "Black alert! Lieutenant Stamets, do you have our destination keyed in?"

"As good as it's gonna get," said Stamets, probably rolling his eyes as he said it.

"Yes or no, Stamets."

"Yes!"

"Prepare to jump." The traditional pause. "Go."

Discovery jumped. There was the familiar sensation of clammy humidity on the skin.

Everything went sideways. The ship lurched, sending Lorca sliding across the bridge as the force of an impact overwhelmed the gravity generators. Lieutenant Detmer half-fell out of her chair at the helm. Alarms blared. At the ops panel, Owosekun managed to keep a firm grasp on her console and reported, "All systems stop!"

"Stamets!" bellowed Lorca, climbing back to his feet.

"I don't know what happened!" said Stamets, sounding genuinely panicked. "We jumped, we just..."

Lorca looked at the viewscreen. The red-orange nebula had been replaced by a faintly starry void. "Astrometrics! Where are we?"

"Not where intended, sir. It looks like we've traveled... six light years!"

Even if something had gone wrong, Lorca was impressed. This was more than triple their previous record. It was also farther than the Glenn had gone and meant the ship was potentially approaching viability over long distances. But the best part was they had finally surpassed their rival. Discovery was in the lead.

"All right. Systems check."

The alarms quieted. They ran through the systems one by one. Everything seemed fine, until the lieutenant at the communications panel, Richter, reported: "Sir, I'm not receiving any subspace communications."

"Comms down?"

"They seem to be operating, it's just, no signals, and no response to our communications." Wait..." Richter's brow furrowed. "I am receiving something, but it's... I don't understand. I'm sorry, sir, I don't know how to explain it."

"Sir, I believe I have an answer," said Saru. Lorca turned his attention to his first officer. "We are receiving communications signals, but at a rate so gradual it is almost undetectable."

A faulty communications relay? Lorca crossed over to Saru's station to see for himself.

"Since we dropped out of the mycelial network, we have received one piece of a transmission, and we are still receiving it."

"Meaning what exactly?" asked Lorca, trying to make sense of Saru's display. He was no slouch when it came to the science aboard the ship, but the data he was looking at was entirely unfamiliar.

Saru considered how to explain. "If you'll forgive me for 'dumbing this down,' captain, imagine if someone were sending us the message 'hello.' In the five minutes since our arrival at this position, we are still in the process of receiving the letter h."

"Oh my god," said Stamets over the comms. "We're stuck in time."

They called a meeting of senior science staff in astrometrics. Saru, Stamets, Mischkelovitz, and two scientists in charge of other projects aboard the ship: Egorova and Kumar, an astrophysicist and systems engineer respectively. For some reason, Groves had come, too.

Stuck in time was not completely accurate. It was more that they were out of sync with time in the rest of the universe. Events on the Discovery were unfolding at what seemed like normal speed for them, but outside of the ship, everything was moving so slowly it appeared almost completely still. In fact, they were still in visual range of the pretty red-orange nebula, but because they were receiving fewer photons, everything looked dimmer.

Furthermore, the mycelial field they used to delineate the ship and its contents for transport through the mycelial network had not dispersed. The spores were similarly frozen, unmoving.

The fact that they were receiving photons and an ongoing bit of a transmission indicated they had not somehow fallen out of time completely. They were simply operating at such a speed that time outside had become meaningless.

"It's like the spore field has become a temporal stasis field," concluded Stamets. "Or maybe not stasis, more like..."

Groves spoke. "Technically-speaking, the most accurate term would be 'temporal retardation,' but good luck getting that past a jury. 'Temporal reduction' works."

"A jury?" echoed Stamets. "I'm sorry, who are you again?"

"Impediment?" wondered Mischkelovitz aloud.

"Deceleration," offered Saru.

"I've got it. You know null space? This is null time," said Groves.

"What?" went Stamets, shaking his head rapidly as if to knock that idea loose from his brain. "That's a math concept! It doesn't mean space as in"—he waved his hands towards the window—"space!"

"No, but it's catchy," countered Groves. Between that and "radical recyclers," Lorca rather got the impression Groves fancied himself a wordsmith. That instinct probably served him well in courtrooms. Slightly less so in this context.

"I like it," said Egorova.

They were getting distracted, as scientists and civilians so often did. "Terminology aside, analysis?" prompted Lorca.

"We cannot leave the field," said Saru. "If we attempt to, I believe we will incur another collision as we did upon exiting the mycelial plane, and we may damage the ship irreparably."

"Do we have to leave?" asked Mischkelovitz. "I mean, if time's passing super-slow on the outside, think how much work we could get done in here."

"Your work, you mean," said Stamets. "Mine would be stuck. Literally. In time."

Egorova touched a finger to her lips. "The spores aren't entirely frozen themselves, are they? They're moving at the same rate as we're receiving information from the outside world. Meaning, eventually, we might just drop out of whatever it is we're experiencing naturally when the field collapses."

"Then it's a question of the rate," said Groves. "How fast is data entering? And is the rate constant, or is it decaying or accelerating?" He looked at Saru for the answer.

"I have detected no discernible change in the rate as far. Computer, based on the time it takes the mycelial field to dissipate and the current rate time is passing aboard the ship, how long until the field naturally decays?"

"Insufficient data," said the computer.

"We don't know exactly how long the mycelial field persists after a jump," said Stamets. It was something they were still crunching numbers on from the various drive tests. "Individual spores can survive anywhere between a fraction of a second to several seconds, and that's just the ones that actually do get expended by the process. Some persist and have to be flushed out manually before the next jump. Then there's also the question of the threshold at which the field itself collapses. So far, we've seen fields persisting post-displacement even at a density of thirty-five percent."

Saru rephrased. "Computer, using the averages observed so far for post-displacement spore persistence, what is the minimum amount of time required for field density to reach forty percent?"

"Six hundred and forty-five years," said the computer.

That was the optimistic estimate. There was one person on the ship who could live long enough to survive that. She was not in the room.

"Well our ship won't last even half that long," said Kumar. "Our systems will decay well before then and we'll run out of power, not to mention food and everything else we need to survive."

"So we need to find a way out," said Groves.

Stamets had been thinking about the passage of time. "Actually, this could be a good thing. If we're not going anywhere, I could fill that cultivation bay with mushrooms. We could get a whole forest growing, ensure a steady supply of spores at a quantity that would let us make multiple test jumps in a day. We would have way more left over for ourselves after supplying the Glenn." It was no secret that, between Straal and Stamets, Stamets was the better gardener, but because Straal's drive jumps were going more successfully, they were getting the lion's share of the spore supply Discovery produced.

"I want us out of here sooner rather than later," said Lorca. As appealing as Stamets and Mischkelovitz might find the idea of unlimited time for various reasons, Lorca had no interest in aging while the rest of the universe passed them by. "Everyone, get your teams together and start working on potential solutions. I want proposals in three hours. Give me everything, no matter how out there, using the resources we have on Discovery."

Three hours later, they were back, along with the addition of Cadet Tilly.

"'Null time' got me thinking," said Tilly. Stamets had disliked the term and repeated it to his engineering crew derisively, but Tilly had turned it into a positive. "This is really a math problem, and it's a spore field problem. Now, when we're talking about the universe on the scale of the mycelial spore network, we lose the distinction between physics and biology. So, my idea..."

Stamets looked genuinely proud of Tilly for a change as she outlined her proposal to counterbalance the spores with spores modified to be something akin to an anti-spore.

"And we can do this?" asked Lorca. "An anti-spore?"

"Theoretically," stressed Stamets, "but maybe? I mean, it's within the realm of possibility, sir. And having run the math, it looks like it would be perfectly safe to try, so I think Tilly's proposal is worth exploring. It doesn't put the ship in danger."

The same could not be said of every suggestion. Kumar's proposal involved hitting the temporal field with a charged tachyon pulse which would potentially create new, temporally-charged particles sufficient to disrupt the field or cut a hole in it.

As Kumar relayed this, Mischkelovitz began to tug at Groves' arm. Lorca noticed the motion. "Something you want to share, doctor?"

"We're in a chroniton field."

"Chroniton?" repeated Egorova.

"I think the mycelial spores developed a charge that attracted chronitons, coating them in the particles, and the chronitons are holding them suspended in time. In essence, they can't move because they're bogged down by the excess chroniton weight. Not weight or mass in the way we understand it in this physical realm, but in a similar way all the same."

"Chronitons are only theoretical, doctor," said Saru, "but I think the idea has merit, captain. I would trust Dr. Mischkelovitz's expertise in this area. It was her husband's primary field of interest."

"I thought he was a weapons engineer," said Kumar, sounding dismissive. He had always felt the Mischkelovitz name overrated. Hearing Kumar's assessment of the deceased scientist, the surviving Mischkelovitz shrank back behind Groves.

Egorova said, "He rarely published in physics, but what he did was remarkable. I didn't know he was involved in temporal research but I wouldn't be surprised."

"And what do you think we should do, Mischka?" said Lorca, drawing her back in.

"The cadet's plan," she said. "If we negate the spores, the chronitons should disperse because they'll have nothing to adhere to. That would release the field. But if we charge the field with tachyons, as the lieutenant commander suggests, we risk causing a casmaclysic cascanade... No. Casme—no. Casmaclysic... No. Casma—no."

"Cataclys—" both Lorca and Groves began.

"—mic cascade," finished Groves, narrowing his eyes at Lorca. Lorca shrugged in response and made a face as if to say, "It was obvious, you think you're the only one can do that?" If the look in Groves' eyes meant anything, it was probably that he felt he was indeed the only person allowed to do that, and Lorca had just violated some sort of unspoken boundary.

"What would make the spores develop a temporal charge in the first place?" asked Stamets, disliking the implication his spores were to blame.

"Residual temporal radiation!" exclaimed Tilly. "We cleared the spores from the chamber when the first module wasn't working, but radiation could have lingered in the chamber. Then, when we put in the next batch of spores, they were contaminated. And because the spores act in concert with one another, it caused a chain reaction! Like a virus!"

Stamets' eyes widened. "Physics as biology!" he exclaimed. "Of course! It wasn't the spores, it was the chamber! As we went through the mycelial plane, the infection spread across the ship, until it dropped us out because we were too heavy with—chronitons!"

Tilly was over the moon. "Yes!"

"How were the spores exposed to temporal radiation in the first place?" said Groves. He seemed to have no trouble following any of the science. Mischkelovitz stood deep in thought, saying nothing in response to this question.

"Perhaps Dr. Mischkelovitz and I could investigate this question while Lieutenant Stamets and the cadet devise a way to create an 'anti-spore,'" said Saru.

"If we're right about this, we could prove chronitons exist!" exclaimed Tilly.

"That's already proven," said Mischkelovitz.

Egorova shook her head. "I'd have heard if chronitons were proven. If anything, we're just gonna prove that mushroom spores are unpredictable, or we got a bad batch, or the mycelial plane we've been traveling through has some temporal mechanics we haven't properly accounted for yet."

"My spores are not the issue," said Stamets defensively.

"Are we all on board with Tilly's plan?" asked Lorca, looking to head off a fight between the scientists.

"I'd like my team to continue research into the field mechanics area," said Egorova.

"Granted," said Lorca. "And Kumar, as a backup, draw up schematics for as many devices as you like, but focus on resource rationing. Just in case our plan A is no good. Everyone know what they're doing?" The assembled scientists responded with nods and words of assent. Lorca clapped his hands and then spread them, palms up. "Then go."

Part 51