“If you knew your sun was burning out, wouldn’t you go searching for another sun and planet as a bailout?” Celeste submits possible reasons for the NEWFOUNDLANDER’s trips to Earth and eventually Mars.
“That would be excellent motivation, but I do not think it applies to our friends. These chaps were just plain curious and that is why I am leaning toward the orange Epsilons — Eridani and Indi. At seven and ten light-years, either of those would be more likely home bases. If you subtract the tracks we are laying down every second, who knows when we would get there.”
“You are talking possibly ten years Sam, and that’s if you are right. I happen to know that Rigel, the white-hot giant of the Orion Constellation is 500 light-f***ing-years away. If it took Columbus 500 years to reach the West Indies from Italy… well you know where that comparison is going.” Celeste’s perspective is that of a new mother, realizing that Deimostra may never set foot on solid ground in her entire space-bound lifetime.
“You’ve got me there Cel, but we must look for the positives in our predicament. Maybe I failed to mention that we may be going much faster than the mere speed-of-light factor of one. As my hero Captain James Tiberius Kirk would say, ‘Can you give me Warp 8, Scotty?’”
“I’ll do what I can Captain, but the strain on the di-lithium crystals may be more than they can take!”
“You remember that episode too.”
“Of course I do. When we were dating at the Academy, we couldn’t go anywhere until that or any of the other bleeping on-demand episodes or movies were finished!”
“Why didn’t we pack the Star Trek z-ray file into our PDAs. The trip would go by quicker.”
“So do you think we are past Warp 1?”
“Exactly. I have been triangulating ever since we left Uranus behind.”
“I love it when you talk space-dirty to me. Triangulating Uranus must be code for interstellar whoopee,” she puts her sleeping infant down to make a flirtatious flyby of her husband.
“Isn’t it too early… for THAT?”
“Recovery times on the NEWFOUNDLANDER are amazing.”
It is not your average romantic advance, so in the middle of a serious discussion, they achieve Warp 2 to their makeshift living quarters.
THE RETURN TRIP
Warp Speed Mr. Scott by Euderion deviantart.com
Episode 165 page 201
