Short Fiction: Age of Warp - Cochrane

title: Age of Warp - Cochrane

"As you can see," Zephram Cochrane stepped over the electrical lines, making his way forward pursued by the hover-camera. "The Rockhampton still requires a considerable amount of work before she can carry colonists out to... wherever."
"But," Zephram pointed through a hatch at the warp reactor. "She has a fully operational warp reactor."
"The Dilithium crystal itself was tricky to grow," The hover-camera bumped against Zephram Cochrane's head invoking his ire. "Do you mind?"
"Where was I?" Cochrane looked past the hover-camera. "Growing dilithium crystals... Lilly!"
"Lilly!" Cochrane slipped past the view of the hover-camera momentarily before the cam returned him to centre focus, his back to the lens. "What was that thing you wanted to discuss with me earlier?"
"I wanted to talk to you about the..." The small woman noticed the hover-camera loitering behind Zephram Cochrane. "Is that a hover-cam behind your back Zeek?"
"What?" Zephram Cochrane raised an arm and looked below his arm-pit at the hover-camera he had forgotten. "Oh right... yeah... just filming a cam-tour."
"Anyway..." Zephram returned his attention to the woman who had stayed with him through the Warp program. "What was that thing?"
"I wanted to discuss that..." Lilly eyeballed the camera as it moved. "...issue of the 'Swiss' Protocol."
"The 'Swiss' Protocol?" Zephram Cochrane remembered something he had been ignoring for a decade. "ah."
"Stop Recording." Zephram Cochrane turned his attention to Lilly leaving the hover-cam floating in the air behind him. "You found one?"
"A Borg Nanomachine." Lilly held up the specimen container. "It was in my comb."
"Captain Picard killed one of the Borg right in front of me." Lilly looked at it closely. "It must have got on me then."
"It seems to have deactivated in the aftermath," Lilly considered how close she came to becoming Borg. "While attempting to assimilate my hair."
"Well then," Zephram Cochrane smiled at his unsuspecting quarry. "Lets see if we can assimilate it."
"You still have to get the Rockhampton under way." Lilly smiled and pocketed the prize. "And give the Warp five Engine speech."
"Oh god," Zephram Cochrane laughed at the idea of an engine that would take a century to grow its own warp crystal. "The little engine that could."
"Right," Cochrane nodded in acceptance "lets get the speech done and then back to the Rockhampton."


"All right Lilly," Zephram Cochrane stared at the Readout. "Activate the Nanomachine."
"N-One activated." Lilly watched the data of the microscope display the Borg Nanoprobe altering the cut of the Dilithium Crystal. "and functioning as programmed."
"Incredible." Zephram sat back, staring at the screen entranced by the Nanomachine. "Its creating in a moment what would have been impossible with any existing Dilithium Crystal fabrication systems."
"A whole other Warp Field topology in
 superposition," Zephram Cochrane looked at Lilly with a look she had not seen in his eyes since first flight. "And when its done we will have Warp Ten."
"That will certainly be faster..." Lilly contemplated a distant memory and whispered: "than I have gone Before."
"Oh yes." Zephram looked up from the microscope. "very fast."


"All right Captain Mills," Zephram Cochrane stared at the Read-out from the orbital shipyard that fed him the warp drive data for the NCC Rockhampton. "Retract moorings and ease her out of Space dock."
"Moorings..." The Moorings retracted releasing the Rockhampton to space. "...retracted."
"All right Captain," Zephram smiled. "Take her out past the breakwaters and Engage Warp Drive."
"With pleasure Doctor Cochrane." The Colony ship Rockhampton pushed away from the  spacedock at one quarter impulse and at two kilometres jumped to Warp with a single Word from its Captain: "Engage!"


"To hell with them all Lilly." Zephram Cochrane stared at the report on the Administrative news net data tablet dominated by Lilly's dead face. "God damn arse backwards murdering bastards."
"No more objections Lilly," Cochrane dropped the data tablet and pulled the warp ten crystal module and its dormant nanomachine rider from the warp crystal fabrication microscope and carried it toward the Phoenix sitting on the maglev track in the centre of the hanger. "Time for that test flight I keep putting off."
"Doctor Cochrane?" Zephram Cochrane spotted a young Henry Archer hugging an arm full of documents. "I hadnt realized you were back."
"Henry?" Zephram Cochrane pushed the gantry against the hull of the Phoenix and climbed it with his prize pausing to insert the new warp crystal before turning to look at Archer. "I'm going to put you in charge of the Warp five Engine."
"Doctor Cochrane," Henry Archer dropped a data pad in surprise and scooped it up only to realize Doctor Cochrane had slipped from his field of view to loot a crate of Rations from a shelf. "I'm honoured you would consider me."
"Don't let it get in the way of having a life Henry," He had just condemned Henry Archer to die in a desk job waiting for a warp five dilithium crystal to grow. "God forbid there wont be an Archer at its launch."
"What about you?" Henry hadnt considered children or the Departure of Doctor Cochrane from the Project. "What are you going to do?"
"Right now I'm going to take Lilly out for a flight." Cochrane pushed open the hatch and piled millitary rations into the small storage locker of the Phoenix keeping a bottle of Bourbon at hand. "Time to go Lilly."
"Lilly?" Henry Archer sorted through the files sure one mentioned she had been shot dead by in a barfight started when Green accused Cochrane of selling out Earth to the Aliens. "Sir?"
"I christen thee..." Zephram Cochrane gulped the Bourbon and with an angry and rage filled swing, shattered it across the Titanium cockpit of the Phoenix. "the Lilly."