When you stray too close to a black hole. You’ll stretch out, just like spaghetti.

The effect is euphemistically (and relativisitically) called “Spaghettification.”

There are three properties of a black hole that are (in principle) measurable: their mass, their spin (or angular momentum) and their overall electronic charge. Indeed, these are the only three parameters that an outside observer can ever know about since all other information about anything that goes into making up a black hole is lost.

This is known as the “no hair theorem”. Put simply: no matter how hairy or complex an object you throw into a black hole, it will get reduced down (or shaved) to its mass, charge and spin.

Now, I think that we can all agree that your average commercial ship – breakers yard is not without a significant abrogation of mass – given the various wrecks, junkers, insurance write – offs, once – were’s, pirate victims, etc. well…you get the jist of things.

If that isn’t enough to make your hair fall out – I’m not really sure what else will?

Sure – there’s not a whole lot of angular momentum in a swathe of detritus like that, but if (for arguments sake) – you were to spin up the warp – core of one of those ancient vessels and (as I am feeling in an a particularly argumentative mood) that ship used to once haul liquid – state Deuterium and still had a few metric Fuck –  Tonnes of that nasty – assed shit caking the remains of her storage tanks…

…well, I guess that you don’t have to have a frickin’ Doctorate from the Daystrom to know that if you were suddenly to drop containment all at once and let all that juicy antimatter and matter sort of jiggle around and have a good auld College – mixer…..

…. Well – there’s your spin and electrons in droves, ain’t it just?

Of these parameters, mass is arguably the most significant. The very definition of a black hole is that it has its mass concentrated into a vanishingly small volume – the “singularity”. And it is the mass of the black hole – and the huge gravitational forces that its mass generates – which does the “damage” to nearby objects.

See? Space Spaghetti!! Bellissimo!

One of the best-known effects of a nearby black hole has the imaginative title of “Spaghettification.” In brief, if you stray too close to a black hole, then you will stretch out, just like spaghetti.

This effect is caused due to a gravitation gradient across your body.

Imagine that you’re headed feet first towards a black hole – just like all of the rotten bastards aboard the former liner “Tonino Delli Colli” are, even as some of the rat – bastards try to flee for the docking rings of vessels that are far beyond the ability to flee, or light-up the faded Grand Ballroom with weapons – fire in a self-indulgent “fuck-you-fest” of the same kind of  impotent finality and pointless vengeance that so typified their wasted lives.

Since your feet are physically closer to the black hole, they will feel a stronger gravitation pull toward it than your head will. Worse than that, your arms, by virtue of the fact that they’re not at the centre of your body, will be attracted in a slightly different (vector) direction than your head is. This will cause parts of the body toward the edges to be brought inward.

The net result is not only an elongation of the body overall, but also a thinning out (or compression) in the middle. Hence, your body or any other object, such as the “Tonino Delli Colli”, will start to resemble spaghetti long before it hits the centre of the black hole.

The problem with “Spaghettification” is, if you opt to employ it as your chosen mode of vengeful – assassination – prudence itself dictates that you can’t really ever be there to enjoy the look on the bastards’ faces as their whole existence goes ‘Al – Forno’.

Some things, I guess, you just have to imagine for yourself.

Luckily, I have lived for an inordinate amount of subjective time, often with very little else to occupy my dirty – little Machiavellian – mind, so I have a pretty unhealthy sense of self – visualization.

It tends to help pass the less – interesting centuries.

I like to think that, when the Singularity latched on to the habitually – smug and self – satisfied face of Shadreck Deen, that the black – hearted motherfucker screamed for condensed eons & eons as the event horizon elongated his last moments of terror and agony into time immemorial.

Pure nightmare-fuel, hopefully, if there’s any justice in the universe (which experience teaches us that there is not).

I would imagine that the net effect of viewing that demise firsthand, will have Commander Samantha Hyland unloading on her Ship’s Councilor for some considerable time to come.

Some things ya’ll just can unsee – if you buy what I’m selling?

Now – I can just hear you thinking – It’s a bit rich to be so joyfully celebrating such a cruel and nightmarish death for any sentient being? What a fucking hypocrite! A sociopath cheering on the end of a psychopath? Talk about the pot and the kettle – ammiright?

But you obviously know very little about the life of times of the elongating piece of excrement that is the soon – to – be – extinguished life of Shadreck Deen.

The little green – monster grew up hard, as an orphan and foundling on the mean streets of Rigel – #7. Boo – fucking – hoo. Everyone’s got their hard story to tell, and brother, ain’t none of them not got a little bit of “Bambi” in them.

Excuse me if I do not cry.

As a child, Bambi never took a bucket of potent industrial acid to his main rival in the Bleeker St Orphanarium.

Bambi never betrayed Thumper and saw to it that Thumper ended his days in an industrial microwave annealing machine and Bambi sure as shit never sold an entire colony ship of men, women and children to a Gorn Breeding fleet – just because he was too bored to actually torture or ransom them and had a headache.

Believe me, as Shadreck Deen’s hateful features begin to stretch off into a scream that will endure into infinity – ain’t no one gonna miss him!

Little Sammie Hyland, on the other hand, her – I like. That girl’s got potential.

And whatever has potential – I never throw away.

So that is why, as Onkem – Pog and his misfit crew of Pirate bastards extruded into endless bacon, whilst Comrade R’Kirad and the remains of the Reman Remnant finally got to experience firsthand the doom that overcame the planet of Romulus, as Legate Gohiarr Dac decided to throw down one last time and murder his hated enemy (only to find out that Commander Samantha Hyland did not die so easy after all), as Marshall H’odahl shak’Mad laughed one mad last laugh and took a drink at the bar (sometimes – people still have the fortitude and capacity to amaze even a jaded – old bitch like me) and Shadreck Deen was turned into hyperspatial pasta – that’s why Sam Hyland was not ultimately fated to die.

To be fair, the gaudy name badge that she had been given by the Angosian Merc, acting as doorman to this soiree of soon – to – be – lost souls had given the Commander when she first came aboard the gracefully – drooping lines of yesterday’s liner; that had a LOT to do with her ongoing longevity.

“Hi! My name is ‘Sammie’.”

Despite her ire Hyland continued to follow instructions, like a good little Starfleet Girl – Scout and did what she was told and did not take that badge off.

Which was fortunate, as it turns out, as that badge contained the only pattern enhancer available aboard the “Tonino Delli Colli”, that was capable of transmitting beyond the effect of the Transport – Inhibitor that had been emplaced to trap the rogues -gallery of buyers at the auction and seal their collective fate.

This is also why, when the USS Albion slammed into the system, determinedly expecting to mount a finely – executed law – enforcement deployment and bring the criminal curs to justice; only to encounter a screaming anomaly gobbling up every available shred of matter in the Cattivo Industries Recycling Facility – after some very impressive and extemporized re-planning of their mission profile, Captain Carrington was able to pluck his XO from the very jaws of death and make like fuckoff to hightail it from the new Black Hole consuming most of the breakers – yard in orbit around Vannis – Ursus #3.

And there were many brown – trousers on the Bridge that day, I’ll bet you even – odds.

SO!

All nicely wrapped up, n’est – ce pas?

High adventure, intrigue, high – treason, betrayal, a cocktail party, murder, revenge, canapes…..didn’t I promise to show you all a good time?

But no, I can hear you mouth – breathers out there, wallowing in your ire and chewing on your crayons in frustration. Each as eager than the next to clamor “Please Miss! Please Miss! I’ve worked it OUT, Miss! I KNOW who the “Unreliable Narrator” really is Miss!”.

Whoop – de – fucking – doo!

Good for you. “Hit me with your best – shot then, Kiddo.” Say I…..

“Well, obviously, you’re D’Taani Varada!! You were responsible for pushing The Nausicaan out of the airlock of Starbase 72 and it has been you, all along, manipulating poor Samantha into stealing the promise of Project Genesis – just so you could kill off all of your rivals! HA !!!!!”

(Fanfare, whatever)

And you’d be 100% right.

(Yayyyyyyy)

And utterly, completely, absolutely wrong.

(Whuuu?)

Shut your drooling mouths darlings, it really is so unbecoming for those who pretend towards sentience. I will explain, for the benefit of the amassed & confused masses…

There is no D’Taani Varada. At least, not in the way that you think.

Sure, there was a flesh and blood female Orion, that managed to worm her way convincingly into the fetid – bosom of the Orion Syndicate. She had hopes, she had dreams, she nurtured pedestrian thoughts and orchestrated passionate betrayals. She had her good days; she was invariably bad.

And she was all a fiction – born of my imagination.

An avatar of immediacy, a marionette of misdirection, a golem of inescapable intent and a facsimile of personality traits best derived to achieve her intended end.

My name is Bora, and I am a member of the ancient race that your kind, with your minnow’s – pride and amoeba – like hubris, have managed to dub a name as tawdry as “Changeling.”

Really, maybe you should just finish eating that crayon after all? I can’t see it doing much more damage to your brain, all things considered.

My kind were venerated as “Founders”, whilst your own people weren’t even covalent peptides with the base – potential to become primordial soup.

So I don’t really hold your ignorance against you – that would be like asking the fly if it’d like to set up shop on my crouton and perform advanced calculus.

For reasons your tiny mammalian – minds could never fathom, my people dispatched me and many like me long ago (long before the kerfuffle that you laughingly call – “The Dominion War” – and brother, you think that was a WAR – then you ain’t seen what’s coming next!) with the remit to insinuate myself into the cracks and crenelations of criminal strata in the Alpha & Beta Quadrants with open mandate to formulate misrule and peddle influence, as I saw fit.

And for a long, long time – the getting was GOOD.

But, as the Hologram of Varada (me) told those fateful fucks aboard the “Tonino Delli Colli”, their excess of garrulous greed had indeed attracted the wrong sort of attention from the United Federation of Planets and a “Hard – Reset” had been required, else long years of intricate work be wasted.

So, I spared little Sammie Hyland.

Commander Hyland has piqued my interest, ever since Kenney Zhao strolled into my bar, “The Last Resort” aboard Terminus Station and parlayed for the chanced to wreak her revenge upon the hacker that had caused the death of her colleague (I mean – really? That guy must have wiped down a bar top like a GOD!).

What loyalty. What resolve.

So, I resolved to put that loyalty to the test.

Yes, I was the Angosian Mercenary, ‘Udgat Chul’, when I forced The Nausicaan out of the airlock on Starbase 72 and set this whole rollercoaster of murder and mayhem careening down the track.

Yes, I had formed myself into the Holo-recording device that was smuggled aboard the USS Albion & its projection blackmailed Samantha Hyland to embark upon the hairbrained scheme to infiltrate the Daystrom institute, there to steal the data for Project Genesis.

All to save the skin of a woman for a crime she did not commit, ostensibly to remove a Death -Mark on the head of a criminal that did not exist.

And will I now deliver to Samantha the vital evidence that is required to spare her friends good name and clear her of The Nausicaan’s murder?

Will I fuck. The universe is an uncaring place and if you go around righting all the wrongs in it – everything quickly gets out of balance. Kennedy Zhao prized herself on her guile and resourcefulness when she barged into my bar and made her bargain. Smart girl like that should do well in a Federation Penal Colony.  Que – Sera!

Like I say, when you have been alive as long as I have, you bore easily and tend to amuse yourself in ways that are hard to countenance – but I must admit, I didn’t think that the crew if the USS Albion could actually pull the heist off! I had originally anticipated that they would get caught. Best laid plans and all.

For the more observant amongst you, you may have deduced that I took the form of Crewman Park’s Tricorder, and piggybacked Hazard Team Albion down into the Secure Area of the Daystrom Institute.

And if you’re so bloody – clever, you can doubtless tell me why? EH?

No?

Maybe you’re not so omnipotently – clever as you think you are then, are you?

The truth of the matter is, I was never interested in acquiring the Genesis Particle; in the same way that I am not very interested in the concept of waking in the morning and dashing my fucking brains out with a ballpeen hammer.

It’s stupid, roundly pointless and doomed to failure from the start.

Project Genesis has been so jealously hoarded by Starfleet, since it’s accidental inception, that it is so absolutely proscribed & policed as to effectively useless. It’s like trying to light a BBQ with a thermonuclear device. Sure, it’s showy and impressive, but invariably self – defeating and smacks just a little of desperation & poor judgement.

No, Genesis was the perfect carrot to motivate the donkey, but my real goal was to hitch a ride into the lower – levels of Daystrom for a prize far more erudite and insidious.

You may recall the little “Tete – a – Tete” that occurred when Lieutenant Hask met the Synthetic in the halls of the Daystrom Secure Area (and when the Android introduced Lieutenant Hask to the roof of that self – same corridor)? You may remember that Soo – Jin lost her Tricorder for a short while – before ‘miraculously’ recovering it from the debris from Clara Hask’s brief tryout as a light-fitting?

Well, it turns it, if you have a plan and know what you’re looking for – finding the thing that you really desire, doesn’t take long at all!!

(Hallelujah! Hallelujah!Hallelujah!)

In addition to housing a side – show of mostly ostentatious means of mass – destruction, such as Project Genesis, the Secure Areas also accommodates the finest collection of Rogue Artificial Intelligence matrices that have ever been captured by the United Federation of Planets.

They “Study” them down there, in supposed – safety.

And it is a copy of one of the most subtle and insidious of their positronic number, that piggybacked its way out of Daystrom in the Tricorder and subsequently into my greedy little hands.

It’s called “Chimera.”

A machine mind of such enormous perfidy, a hybrid intelligence of such infinitely Byzantian destructive potential that Starfleet was tasked from removing all trace of it from the Galaxy, lest it proves to be the Galaxy’s end.

And why would I desire such a thing, you may ask?

Are you kidding? If you don’t know me by now, you may never, ever know me baby!

Which is why I let Commander Hyland live.

Apart from the convenience that posing as the USS Albion’s Command Yeoman, Senior Crewman Luther Groves, for the last few weeks has provided me – since I staved the real Luther Grove’s skull in with a Hypospanner and shoved his sorry ass into the Biomass Tank on Deck 23?

Not to mention the delicious irony of evading the very people searching for D’Taani Varada – by hiding in plain sight aboard the very Starship tasked to hunt me down; I’m currently enduring play – acting as Luther (he collects ancient sailing ship models in glass bottles – give me strength) and his many foibles for two, VERY important, reasons.

Firstly, because the advanced computational matrix aboard a Block – 3 Inquiry – class Exploratory – Cruiser is the perfect place to hide an AI as adept as Chimera is in emulating normal subroutines, as it worms its way through every system, slowly insinuating itself into the beating heart of the ship, subtly suborning the entire vessel over time – until it is everywhere at once & nowhere.

Secondly, like I said, I have somehow (against all odds) developed a ‘soft – spot’, of sorts, for Commander Samantha Hyland. She is a person around who a peculiar locus of fate and probability seem to gather and invariably be subverted by, for no reason I can genuinely fathom, and that is always of interest to a person with my particular proclivities.

So, for now, I think I will continue to sit where I am on the promenade and sip my cooling Macchiato (hoping that it doesn’t include any replicated matter that used to be part of poor old Luther) and idly watch Petty Officer Varela try to kiss and make up with his (obviously) upset husband as he tries to truthfully lie with that beautiful face of his and promise no more Hazard Team deployments for him, this time was the last. His husband does not look impressed nor convinced.

I think that I like it here, aboard the USS Albion.

It has Potential.