Captain's Log, Stardate 57381.3
The establishment of permanent relations with the Na-Zek is already paying dividends; the Na-Zek government has shared some of the scientific theory that underlies their advanced sensor technology. Starfleet has already passed on this information to the Daystrom Institute and the Vulcan Science Council, but our own Science and Engineering departments here on the Melbourne are also eager to take a crack at it. We are six days out from a stellar nursery that the astrophysics team is preparing to catalog; perhaps there will be an opportunity to put these new theories into practice.
In the meantime, Starfleet's efforts to get information from the Ferengi government about their lost vessel seem to be hitting some roadblocks. They have been able to confirm that our sole survivor is named Lizig and was in fact the ship's cook. Between the neural damage and trauma from whatever happened, Lizig himself has not been able to fill in any more blanks. I have asked the Ship's Counselor to keep working with the Ferengi to help him remember any new details about the events leading to the loss of his former posting.
The U.S.S. Melbourne is traveling at Warp 5 towards a stellar nursery when the ship suddenly drops out of warp and collides with something. Crew members are thrown and several consoles short out across the ship, including the Ops Station on the bridge, which explodes violently injuring Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress. As Ahn'Kress is taken to Sick Bay, the initial damage reports indicate that the port warp nacelle has been struck by an asteroid, despite the ship having been at warp and nowhere near an asteroid field. While damage is being further assessed, sensors show that the ship is in the middle of an asteroid field, and a position check puts the ship somewhere in grid G1, in the Gamma Quadrant, approximately 30,000 light years from their previous position.
As the damage is being contained and the severity determined, Lt. Stuart starts scanning for subspace anomalies or other potential causes for the ship's sudden change in location but cannot detect anything. Once the damage is stabilized, Captain Mitchell orders Lt. JG Reydon to get the ship out of the asteroid field. Before the Melbourne has traveled far, however, the ship suddenly reappears at its previous location in the Alpha Quadrant.
Mitchell immediately orders Reydon to bring the ship to a stop while Lt. Stuart does another round of scans. As before the scans reveal no anomalies that could account for the sudden shift, so Stuart expands the scans to look for anything out of the ordinary, but still cannot detect anything of note. Engineering, mostly unaware of the unusual transits, report that several warp coils in the port nacelle had been damaged or destroyed in the asteroid collision, nothing that they cannot handle, but it would take several days to complete the repairs. Captain Mitchell orders the ship kept on Yellow Alert with shields raised and informs the crew of the situation.
Less than half an hour after returning to the Alpha Quadrant, the Melbourne is again suddenly shifted back to the asteroid field in the Gamma Quadrant. A probe is launched and additional scans are run. Theories are proposed, such as transiting to a parallel universe or a temporal shift, but data collected from scans rule every theory out. With no external cause detectable, diagnostics and scans start being run on the Melbourne herself to see if the cause is on board the vessel itself.
Some 40 minutes after the latest shift, the crew of the Melbourne once again find themselves suddenly back in the Alpha Quadrant. A probe is launched here, and analysis of data being collected is ongoing, but there is still little clue as to what is happening to the ship. There is not even a pattern to the timing to the changes in position that can be discerned. All that can be done is keep all instruments recording and await the next shift, which does happen nearly an hour after the previous.
Once again in the Gamma Quadrant, the crew hope to gain new data from the probe left behind on their last stop here but it cannot be detected, nor is there any trace of what might have happened to it. Five more probes are sent out, positioned at varying distances in the hopes at least one will still be present on the next return voyage. In the meantime a detailed analysis of the data collected so far is performed, indicating that the jumps seem to include everything within the ship's structural integrity field. It is too risky to deactivate the field, but the information helps narrow where to focus the investigation after more data is gathered on the next transition.
Upon the next return shift to the Alpha Quadrant, it is discovered that the probe left on this side has also disappeared without a trace. Reviewing all the data recorded so far, it is Lt. Cmdr. Tir who makes a connection. With one of her past Trill hosts being a Quantum Physicist she realizes that the ship itself has somehow become quantum entangled with another object and the two have been swapping places. Captain Mitchell has another probe launched, this time with a recorded message that will hopefully be found by the other object, in the hopes that it is also a vessel of some kind and its crew will be able to receive the message.
In the next shift to the Gamma Quadrant, it is discovered that the other object is indeed a ship and that its crew had a similar idea, with the Melbourne being bombarded by a powerful subspace signal as soon as it arrives. The signal is traced to a message buoy of some kind, and after adjusting the Melbourne's communications systems to properly receive the transmission and the Universal Translator processing the message, the crew of the Melbourne get some answers as to their predicament.
This is Captain Tis'Lin of the Caranid vessel Trailblazer. Our vessels have become entangled on a quantum level and are exchanging places with each other. If you are receiving this, please respond by leaving a message with this buoy and we will provide additional information on the next exchange.
Captain Mitchell records a short message, including some basic information, and has it beamed back to the message buoy. While they await the next swap, the crew looks for any of the probes they left behind but again there is no trace. The answer to what is happening only comes after another set of transits to the Alpha Quadrant and then back here to the Gamma Quadrant, where an updated message is waiting for them in the alien buoy. The Caranid reveal that they use a technology called an Entanglement Drive for interstellar travel. The drive is supposed to work by becoming quantum entangled with buoys around different planets for rapid relocation.
The message further explains that the Trailblazer was experimenting with having a remote buoy that is piloted by one of their flight controllers. This relationship would allow for an especially maneuverable ship in asteroid fields and combat. Unfortunately, while attempting to perform high-speed maneuvers in the asteroid belt the receiver buoy was destroyed as the Entanglement Drive was being engaged. When the buoy was destroyed, the Caranids' ship somehow became entangled with the U.S.S. Melbourne. Tis'Lin's engineers believe it should be possible to sever the connection between the two vessels, but they will need the Melbourne's help to do so.
The Caranid message also notes that have not made any modifications to their message buoy, yet somehow it does not vanish while the probes launched by the Melbourne do. Noting that it must then have something to do with the Melbourne herself, Lt. Stuart thinks it is related to the subspace field and looks for ways to break the entanglement, settling on modifying the Heisenberg Compensators on one of the ship's transporters and beaming a probe out.
This time when they shift to the Alpha Quadrant and back to the Gamma Quadrant, the probe that was beamed out is still there and provides the first proper look at the Caranid vessel and data on the transition. With the newest information, Lt. Stuart believes that a modified subspace pulse from the main deflector will successfully decohere the entanglement and free both vessels. With the knowledge that if this works they will no longer swap places and that this might be the last chance to exchange information with the Caranid, Captain Mitchell leaves a final message extending the hand of friendship and providing the coordinates of the Gamma Quadrant end of the Bajoran Wormhole, still almost 10,000 light years away but still a much closer means of establishing a more permanent contact than traveling the long way.
The modifications to the main deflector are performed, and when the Melbourne again shifts back to her original position in the Alpha Quadrant the subspace pulse is generated. Initial scans indicate the pulse was successful, and when several hours pass without another shift back to the Gamma Quadrant, Captain Mitchell orders the Yellow Alert cancelled and the ship returns to normal status. Repairs are started on the damaged warp nacelle, giving the crew a few days of rest before they can resume course to the stellar nursery, though the data collected from the Gamma Quadrant and the Caranid gives the Science department something to keep them busy. Lt. Cmdr. Ahn'Kress is soon released from Sick Bay, having recovered from her injuries, and her inquiry as to what she has missed earns her some incredulous looks and laughter from the rest of the bridge crew.