Data Mining

Posted on 02 Mar 2015 @ 5:09am by Ensign K'os Beaumont
Edited on on 03 Mar 2015 @ 6:05pm

2,555 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 5 - Intelligence Office
Timeline: MD -02 0700

ON

Now that he'd had a couple days back aboard the Galileo it didn't take K'os long to get back to his usual routines. He was beginning to prepare for his day earlier and earlier now. He had finished early enough this morning to have a good 45 minutes before he had to report for Alpha shift. He had on a fresh uniform and a PADD tucked under his arm as he strode confidently down the corridor smiling at people as they passed by; more out of a reflexive politeness than anything. His mood, had he not been disassociated from his emotions, would have been genuinely cheerful. He was a morning person by nature, regardless of how much sleep he had gotten.

Today though was his first official full day as Engineer's Mate and he wanted to go into his Briefing with Lt Jones prepared to offer the Acting Chief as many options as possible when it came down to ensuring the mock safety of the ship during the war games. He was hoping to catch someone in Intel to pick their brain -- or their databases really. Gamma shift would still be on and should have ample time to do a little research before shift.

Tyrion yawned; still one hour to go until he could go and get some sleep. He rubbed his eyes and stared at his screen, then looked up as he sensed something. "Oh, hello," he greeted the visitor. "Can I help you?"

K'os had stopped a few paces into the office just as the man had started to yawn. His grey-blue eyes sparkled as he watched a handsome face distort as it stretched through the yawn before resting back to normal. The Intel Officer was older than the hybrid, maybe by four or five years, K'os thought. His wandering eyes locked into those black Betazoid irises however, and decided the distance was close enough for him. Thoughts of Ellsworth were pushed away. Indeed K'os went almost into immediate lock-down in his mind out of reflex. Was he going to shut himself away from all telepaths now?

With a passive expression, he decided to just continue on with what it was he came there for. "Hello. My name is Beaumont, I'm the Engineer's Mate. Do you have a moment to help me out with something?"

The Betazoid smiled. "Tyrion Faye," he answered, sensing the withdrawal but pretending he hadn't. He wasn't going to try and get a read on him anyway. He was still trying very hard to ignore what he sensed from anyone, pretending not to be a telepath. He knew that he had to accept who he was, but he just couldn't. "Of course, come in. What do you need?"

K'os took another step or two into the room. "I'm trying to source some information for a Briefing with Lieutenant Jones. My rank prevents me from accessing the data that I need until it's been added to my mission specific access."

His head swiveled as he took in his surroundings.The surfaces of the desk; the crinkle in the skin around Tyrion's eyes as he smiled; the slight hum from the monitors in the room; All worked to produce various images and feelings. His eyes finally settled back on Tyrion. The smile was nice. It was warm, and looked liked it would have put him at ease had he not been already. Despite the apprehension in being so close to Tyrion, he took another step towards the man. "I'm looking for information on the exact levels of Tachyon emissions that are given off by each of the different class of Klingon vessels that we'll be encountering. My access only gives me general information on Klingon Tachyon distributors and that Klingon cloaking devices emit Tachyon emissions. It doesn't go into detail about how much is emitted." With black gloved hands, he stepped forward to hand Tyrion the PADD he was holding. "I'm also looking for any information we might have on anti-proton emission levels generated by the cloaking process."

"I could have a look for you," Tyrion offered, gestured towards a seat nearby. "I'm no expert on emissions though, so I'm not quite sure what I'll be looking for but if you can give me a hand I'm sure that together we can find what you need."

"That would be wonderful." K'os said as he reached for the indicated chair. He turned it around and sat in it backwards, resting his arms over the back of the chair. "Tachyon emission levels shouldn't be too hard to find, but depending how much sensor data there are on Klingon vessels as they decloak, the data on antiproton creation or annihilation will be trickier to find."

"Given I've been gathering data on fleet maneuvers for the past several days, I'm sure there should be something.." THe Betazoid called up the logs of the past three nights and showed them to the engineer. "There's faint traces of tachyon emissions here," he said, pointing at the monitor, "is this what you're looking for?"

"That's a good start." K'os said leaning in. His eyes darted over the information, picking out specific pieces that might help more. "That helps actually, it lists here specific measurements. I can extrapolate a little of what I need from that. Is there anything there on the cloaking device itself? System processes would even help.

"The device itself?" Tyrion shook his head. "I'm no engineer sir, I know how to pick up signatures but I don't know how to identify them without hacking into their computer systems, and for that, I need to know exactly where they are, and preferably, from the ship itself..."

K'os continued to stare at the various scans and sensor readings as Tyrion scrolled through information. He absently rubbed at his chin as he ran equations and calculations; a kind of synesthesia morphed the equations as blobs of colour in various shapes in his mind. His finger absently wrote out series of numbers and symbols in the air -- more out of habit. He took a deep breath. "What if..." he started saying to himself, before blinking away his thoughts and cutting his grey-blue eyes to Tyrion. "It would be quite the information dump, but if I can look through the sensor data, maybe I can...there might be calculations I can run through Engineering's simulators to get what I'm looking for. Can you send this to me?"

"Of course," the Betazoid replied, leaning forward and across from K'os, reaching towards a PADD as well as controls that were just out of his reach because of the Vulcan sitting next to him. "Excuse me," he said, stretching out to reach.

K'os was too lost in thought to register that Tyrion was reaching past him, though it was the smell of the man's skin that sharpened his focus and made proximity alarms go off in his mind. K'os pulled and leaned the chair back a little to allow him more space. Even though K'os was confident that he wouldn't produce an accidental meld anymore, he was still sensitive about it and it made him a little jumpy around the Betazoid now.

Seeing the move, and fearing the man may topple his chair back, Tyrion shot his left hand out and grabbed a fistful of uniform to keep him from falling over. "You okay?" he asked, black eyes searching the man's face. "Some of these chairs don't have wheels you know...be careful."

K'os had instinctively reached his hand up to grab Tyrion's arm to steady himself. "I'm alright." K'os said calmly. To safeguard himself more than anything, he had clamped down on his emotions just encase. He continued to hold the man's arm as he lowered the chair level again, still cautious of the closeness, but slowly gaining confidence. "Vulcans have pretty good proprioception. Most of the time." He forced a smile on his face before reaching for the PADD Tyrion was going for initially then handed it to the Betazoid.

"Are you sure?" Tyrion asked, a little startled by the sudden change in emotion coming from the man. A somewhat welcome change but very sudden and without warning. He released the man, and smoothed down the fabric of his shirt, more out of sense of decency than a desire to touch him. He could see there was less to the smile than the man was trying to let on.

"Yes, I'm sure." K'os could sense the embarrassment welling inside of his mind, even if his cheeks didn't grow pink. Why am I so jumpy?. He thought to himself as he stood. "Thank you for doing this for me." He forced yet another dimple-less smile on his face; something that was starting to become easy to do these days.

Without meaning to, Tyrion sensed it too and moved his hand back to his desk, looking up at the now standing male. He bared his teeth in a teasing grin. "Nothing to be embarrassed about," he said before he could catch his words. "I'm sorry, I try so hard not to read people that sometimes I catch something anyway. I'm sorry, being a telepath truly is the bane of my existence."

K'os shrugged a little. "It's not always all bad. It's just that I'm sensitive to telepaths, and have had a bad experience in the past. Your closeness made me nervous, is all." He continued to hold his emotions at bay, but he was still curious. "You picked that up quite easily. Have you been given telepathic training on Betazed?"

Tyrion shook his head, a little too quickly. "No. I haven't been back to the planet since I left it when I was seventeen. I'm sorry if I made you nervous, that wasn't my intention. I was born telepathic and my sisters made my life hell so I left when I could, and I haven't been back. Why?"

K'os tilted his head as he thought about that. "I'm sorry to hear that. I have met a lot of Betazoids, and they seem to have varying levels of skill. I was just curious if you'd had schooling. You said you try hard not to read people. Is it too personal to ask why?"

"No, you can ask. I consider it rude to actively read someone, and actually often I wish I didn't have any telepathic skill at all. It was hard for me as a child, and I was a pariah because everyone kept saying I'd be going nuts. But I didn't. I have no training, because I've always tried to lock it down. When I do sense something, it's unintentional." He tilted his head a little. "You're Vulcan...and yet you emote. Why? Aren't you a follower of Surak?"

K'os shook his head gently. "My mother was v'tosh ka'tur, as my more devout family would say." He mentally noted the ease in which he said the Vulcan vowels, but any pride he would have felt was suppressed. "I've studied Surak's works, but I wasn't raised on it." K'os was conscious not to assume what level of knowledge Tyrion had of Vulcans or their culture, but since he asked he continued. "There are certain Kolinahr rituals that I use, like the one I'm using now, but I can't sustain them. There's a lot of individual variations in ability and heritable genetics when it comes to hybrid species. My father is Human, a very emotionally driven species. I've met hybrids that have no emotional instability and I've seen others that have to control it by going through Kolinahr. It's really very diverse."

"Why would you want to control it, when it makes you for who you are?" Tyrion asked curiously. "And, how do you learn to control it? I wouldn't mind learning some control because sometimes, hearing this ever present background buzz...it might just drive me out of my mind to be honest. And..having no training, I have a hard time keeping other telepaths out too. I mean, I know how to keep secrets a secret, intel training taught me that...but anything else, nope, no clue. "

"It's taken a lot of practice and patience. I'll probably be trying to master it when I'm old and wrinkled." He allowed himself to feel the serene happiness that image brought to him and a small smile appeared on K'os' face. "I control it, because I have to." He quoted his friend Toor. "I have hyper emotionalism. If If I didn't exert control, I'd be manic. They just go until it builds to other emotions and it cascades. Different ways to cope with it." K'os shrugged again, "I don't know how useful it would be for a Betazoid. Meditation certainly helps telepaths. Have you tried that?"

Tyrion shook his head. "No, and I haven't met anyone patient enough to teach me either. I kept my heritage a secret for most of my academy days to be honest... I saw other Betazoids being ignored because of who they were, and I didn't want to be alone. I mean, without friends." He blushed slightly as he realized the implication of his words. "Would having a stable partner help you be more uhm....normal?"

"I don't know about 'normal'. I'm not the best example of normal." K'os chuckled. "But yes I think it would help a lot of telepaths if they sought out someone skilled in it. You might be surprised by how many other telepaths out there that feel the same way as you." K'os crossed his arms and stroked his chin in thought. "I'm beginning to feel like there should be support networks or frameworks in place for Starfleet to address the isolation and unique problems telepaths face everyday."

"Well, if there are any, I never heard of them, because I was never referred to them. Not even by any counselor I was required to speak to. I mean, it's not like I lied about my herigate when I applied to starfleet, I just never told if I wasn't directly asked about it. Don't ask don't tell, right?" He smiled back. "And you seem pretty normal to me, except that it looks a little wicked to see a Vulcan smile. It looks good on you, very cute."

K'os laughed at that, throwing his head back. It was a loud and hearty laugh. "It's how I lure you in." He said, his tight lipped smile was full of mirth. "I disarm you with my boyish smile then bombard you with questions on anti-proton emission measurements."

"And here I am, answering all your questions," Tyrion smiled back. "Was there anything else you needed?"

K'os shook his head. "You've been a big help. I'm going to get the computer running some numbers to present to Lieutenant Jones. If I need anything further, I know where to find you. Thank you, Chief."

"You're welcome to stop by any time." He yawned. "I'm off duty in an hour."

"Yikes. Which means it's almost Alpha shift. I hope the rest of your hour goes by quick then. " K'os returned dimpled cheeks before he turned and headed out the door.

[FADE OUT]


CPO Tyrion Faye
Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

&

PO3 K'os Beaumont
Eningeer's Mate
USS Galileo

RSS Feed