She Did What? (Part 4 of 5)

Posted on 04 Jan 2020 @ 3:47pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Ensign Mimi & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Commander Andreus Kohl

3,402 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 1, Conference Room
Timeline: MD 01, 0831 hrs

Previously, on She Did What? (Part 3)...

Ward started working on Matthew. With the assistance of another nurse, he cut off all of the nasty, grimey, bloody clothing. Bare naked, he was cleaned by the nurse with a sponge as his lacerations, bruises and torn tissues were repaired with a variety of medical instruments. As the nurse worked on the outside, Ward worked on the inside. Finding the ruptured femoral artery, he stopped the internal bleeding. Ward next turned his attention to the punctured lung and the broken ribs. Then the fractures along Matt's sides. Bill wiped his face a few times but otherwise said nothing except for the occasional word or two to the attending nurse.

Plumeri had been beaten pretty well. But he was young and he was strong; he would recover in time. While all of this work was being done, Matthew's concussion was being treated. Making sure that the swelling and any pressure on his brain was being monitored and relieved. Ward carefully examined the fractures to his skull. He looked for more trauma and he repaired that as well. His broken nose was reset, the bleeding was stopped. His eyes were examined and the broken blood vessels gently, carefully attended too.

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Deck 1, Conference Room

Allyndra just listened to what was being said. When she heard Tholian transport signals it just made her wonder even more about what the Tholians were doing here. They attacked the ship and yet they seemed when first contact that they 'feared' if that was even an emotion for them. The term contamination was the word they used. There was no doubt as to the engagement they had done but perhaps something else was going on. She held her opinion but she was speculating in her mind that perhaps the Tholians were reacting out of concern, fear or something similar and not the perpetrators of the incidents and the creatures.

"You said Tholian transport signals?" she asked her friend gently.

"Yes, A group of Tholians appeared." Mimi replied. "I do not think they were coming for us as they fired straight away at the silicon creature but their weapon fire did not do anything to it, we did not stay to find out why and quickly ran in the direction of the shuttle."

Allyndra was completely puzzled now. The Tholians had fired on both the Trial and Galileo and weapon signatures had given every indication that they had destroyed the Franconia and now with Mimi's testimony they had left the shuttle team and had attacked the creature. It reinforced her earlier thought that perhaps just perhaps the Tholians were not extending territory but after something else, defending against the creatures or something and not being able to defeat it instead where looking for some knowledge. And there was the Genesis signal that they had gotten.

She turned to face the others at the table. "I must put forth that perhaps the Tholians are here for a different reason than to claim territory. If the creature was fired upon - and based on the transcripts of the Tholians saying 'contamination' and based on a survivor from the Franconia that seemed to be turning from carbon to silicone base and the fact that the ship was temporarily shut down with this Genesis signal - that somewhere, somehow such a device was used and it created or caused some sort of changes that resulted in the formation of a silicone based creature or conversion of a carbon based one. Such an event being observed by the Tholians who became concerned and have instead are trying to understand and correct things. After not being able to defeat the creature, they instead turned to trying to understand if the Federation had knowledge of this creature or how such a thing could be created and hence the report from Lieutenant Plumeri. The Tholians are afraid and are on a mission to destroy this creature and single minded in not letting anything get in their way. I would suggest we attempt to contact the Tholians in the area instead and try to work with them."

There is was out, her thoughts and a rather different approach than what was first on hand. Perhaps that is why Captain Saalm had left, she had figured that out before the rest of them and went to offer the Tholians needed data.

Captain Rasmussen was perplexed by the new information now coming from the science vessel's crew. The timely return of their away team seemed to yield valuable yet perilous information, and he now had even more questions. "Wait," he replied, "You encountered Tholians on the ground and saw them firing on this...lifeform?" he asked the remaining shuttle team members.

Rasmussen's brow then furrowed. "And what did that lieutenant say about the Trial? 'The Tholians have everything'? They boarded the ship and accessed the computer core? And killed the crew?"

"We could not pick up many humanoid life signs on the Trial, there were lots of Tholians onboard it though." Mimi replied.

There was a short silence while the senior captain considered the severity of the report. "The Trial was captured and boarded?" Rasmussen's eyes slowly spun. "That means...the Genesis files are at risk," he coldly stated with little regard for the apparent casualties. "What happened to Tanakata?"

"We found a group of three, but could only lock onto two of them, Lt Plumeri and Commander Jones." Mimi explained. "The third could have been the Captain, I think we have to call him missing.

As the discussion continued Sofie was doing her best to concentrate but her thoughts kept finding themselves dragged down to sickbay and back to the look on Plumeri's face, the blood and the moment he went limp. What she really wanted was to throw aside duty and run down there to find out if her friend was alright. "What about the wreck you saw?" She asked, trying to drag her mind back to the issue at hand "There wasn't mention of any other ships in the area in the briefing. Then again that might be because it was related to the..." She approached the next word with a lot of caution at almost a whisper as if it were something she thought she very much aught not to be saying "Genesis situation."

As Sofie talked Mimi walked over to one of the display panels in the conference room, deciding showing the data directly to the assembled officers would be better than trying to explain things. "Computer, download visual data from the Viriginia's logs and show it on the conference room screen." The computer beeped several times then several still images were displayed.

"This is the crater we found the debris in," Mimi flicked through several images till it showed the remains up close. "and this is what we found, tritanium-duranium hull peices, you can just see the number and a federation symbol here, NCC-1864. It... lit up with signs of protomatter when we scanned it."

Between glances as the screen and the images the other ensign was showcasing Sofie pulled up the historical records on the nearest terminal and skimmed through them. "So according to our records this was a Miranda Class - USS Reliant," Sofie began to relay the information while still half reading it herself "She saw at least 20 years of action before reportedly being destroyed in the Mutara Nebula."

Sofie paused for a moment, it took her a moment to see the connection - then it all clicked together "Reliant was the ship commandeered by the Earth warlord and the Mutara Nebula was of course the location of the planet that was formed in the Genesis experiment." She went back into the records for a moment looking up the final few missions of the ship "The records also show that she was taking part in the research of the Marcus Doctors." She looked around the room at the other officers, the records were deliberately vague when it came to Genesis but the link was obvious now. "This ship was clearly an important part of the Genesis Project. I suppose that might be what caused all of this trouble."

Allyndra listened intently. She might have to amend her original thinking but only slightly. The Tholians were not responsible was most likely the case unless they had fired upon this historical ship or perhaps it had been there awhile. She was still trying to fit in the Franconia and its rather odd survivor if one could call it that.

Rasmussen observed Mimi and Sofie's information with a surprised expression. Being a senior captain, he was familiar with Starfleet's complicated history and notable events. What the junior science officer had just referred to, however, was classified information for all except those who needed to know. But now it seemed that condition had been met. "It was Kirk and Khan..." he mumbled.

Lagrange's captain looked across the faces of each Galileo officer in the room. "How much do you all know about the Genesis Project? I...will need to brief you," Rasmussen revealed.

Allyndra turned her attention to Rassmussen and replied, "The senior officers have all been briefed. There are others here that have not." She was still trying to piece the Franconia into the mix. Could that ship and its compliment discovered the remains of the Reliant and accidentally have set the device off. It seemed the most logical based on what little information but then what about the creature threatening the colony? Was that awakened or did the Genesis device create it. There was much that needed to be filled in.

"Then you're familiar with the Battle of the Mutara Nebula - Kirk's Enterprise against Khan's Reliant in 2285?" he assumed, replying to Warraquim. It was one of the greatest tactical studies in Starfleet history. Rasmussen's eyes narrowed. "It was Singh and his augments who'd stolen the Genesis prototype from Regula One. In his final moments after Kirk bested him, he activated the device which detonated in the nebula. Which means the question is...how did a piece of debris from the Reliant end up here in the Latari system over a hundred years later?"

"It shouldn't be possible." Sofie responded with a tone of slight bemusement "The debris had no engine so it would have been drifting at sublight speeds." She frowned and gave a shrug, unsure of what was really left to be said "It would take astronomically longer than a hundred years for it to reach here."

That answer didn't sit well with Sofie though, she leaned back in her chair and tried to think about what could possibly have accelerated the object. After a moment of consideration she spoke up again. "I'll admit I'm no expert on protomatter explosions." She began speaking cautiously and stood up to walk round to the display screen in the conference room, head buried in a PADD looking up some half forgotten articles "But I think a possible effect of the explosion could be an unprecedented release of exotic particles. We'd be talking about large scale quasiparticle excitation, there would be concentrations of gravitons, Majorana fermions, dilatino bursts, and some sorts of NS tachyonic fields."

Sofie called up a number of equations and tables from her PADD onto the display screen. and gestured to them as she referred to them "There have been theories in condensed superstring physics that under certain types of subatomic excitation groups of Mesons could be caught up in a NST field under specific types of gravitonic disturbances." She pulled up a series of particle decay diagrams and an image of a human in a old sciences uniform standing in front of a large particle accelerator. "The first experimental evidence we have for this phenomena was found in the 40s by Dr Rodelyn Avila. She observed meson filaments moving at faster than light speeds in certain particle collisions. She called it Tachyonic Drift though these days its much more common to call it Avila Drift."

Worried that she was losing some of the less scientifically minded officers Sofie hastily made an analogy. "Its like the solar sails used around Bajor. They use the tachyon eddies of that region but in this case a tachyon field is generated spontaneously during the excitation. The graviton disturbance allows the tachyons to latch onto the filament and it gets trapped by the field and instantaneously jumps to a faster than light speed. There's nothing in the theory that say Avila drift couldn't happen to other hadrons or even macro-objects. The type of particle excitation that would be needed to cause such a reaction though would be unprecedented." She paused and licked her lips with a devious glee "A protomatter explosion though, that might just be unprecedented enough."

Sofie changed the display on the screen once again, this time to a star chart with Latari and Mutara clearly marked on it "I'm making a lot of guesses here," she said as she imputed some calculations at the terminal "But estimating the type of tachyon field that a protomatter explosion could generate," a series of concentric circles began to appear around Mutara "This would show where the debris might have got to if it was subjected to an Avila drift." The circles expanded out until they covered Latari and Sofie read off the labels. "Under an Avila drift I'd say it would have taken the debris somewhere between ninety to one hundred and forty years to reach Latari." She began walking back to her seat not entierly sure how much even she believed her own technobabble. "I suppose what I'm saying is that it is possible."

Allyndra nodded slowly at the information. It might explain partially what happened here but there were still missing pieces of the puzzle. She finally voiced her concerns.

"Excellent analysis Ensign Ullswater, that certainly might explain how the pieces of the ship got here. Now what if there was still a bit of active Genesis device onboard, or what did you call it proto-matter?" She left that as a sort of question. "On board the ship, perhaps in some aspect this might have formed said silicone creature. Exactly how I am not sure. I am still trying to piece the Franconia into place and the strange survivor, if you could call that being that, that we found. It might be possible that the Franconia being called for rescue mission discovered the remains also and either through contact with them caused one or more of the contactees to....well transform. There must have been some sort of energy reading if this device or some part of it went off and attracted the Tholians attention. They destroyed the Franconia, then seemingly ignored the colonists and one away team to attack the creature. They attacked the Trail and this ship but from what Lieutenant Plumeri indicated they are looking for information which they may have but might not fully understand. I believe then they are looking for information on Genesis and there is something about the creature and perhaps what happened that well frightens them. They did keep saying 'contamination' or at least that is how the translator translated that. It is my considered opinion as ranking medical officer that is exactly what we are dealing with a contamination brought about by an incident from the Federation's past and if anything we need to work with the Tholians to resolve it. They maybe aware of more than we are of whatever danger this creature is, enough so to risk a conflict with the Federation by destroying two Federation vessels in order to contain it. Sir," she turned those odd faceted eyes toward the senior captain. "We need to return and make contact with the Tholians as soon as possible, recover the second away team, and find Captain Saalm as such under Medical protocols section 15.2 I am declaring this incident a Epidemiological Emergency."

"A what emergency..??" Rasmussen exclaimed, overwhelmed with a plethora of new data and scientific analysis he didn't completely understand. He looked to Kohl then to both Ullswater and Warraquim. "My Gods, do you know what you're suggesting? That a contaminated piece of the Reliant landed here - hundreds of light years away - and spawned some new life form? Starfleet is responsible for this?!"

Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, Andreus Kohl visibly grimaced from his lips to his lightning-blue eyes as he paced around one edge of the table. He looked to Rasmussen out of the edge of his eyes and then he looked to his once-mentor. "Allyndra, if we're talking about a creature..." he said slowly, repeating her choice of words. He paused, allowing the thoughts to crystallize, while he was speaking aloud. "And it's a creature that may have been born through the wreckage of the Reliant," Kohl said, his brow furrowed at the labyrinth of obligations; "And we've already caused harm to one... Then we're responsible. Starfleet is responsible for new life. Wouldn't our first duty be to make contact with this new life, before containing it as a contaminant through military measures?"

Allyndra made a small shrug but was firm. "We can try but first off we must make sure what has happened and also satisfy the Tholians. They may know something more about this creature considering it is based on the same chemistry as they are by all indications. I do not want whatever happened to our....patient," she wanted to say the name but professional wise it was best not to, "spread any further if that is a possibility hence the need for epidemicological containment." She looked at Kohl directly and asked, "You are confronted by something which seems to have spread between the two colonies, something that has transformed an individual leading to its death, something that has frightened a highly technological species. Quarantine is what I am asking until we know more would you concur?"

Chewing on his lower lip --as if he would find all the answers inside of it-- Andreus Kohl watched Allyndra behind serious, unblinking eyes. He nodded his agreement at her suggestion of quarantine. Protecting the Federation crews, even protecting the Tholians, was of desperate importance in this precarious situation. Despite his agreement on that point, Kohl kept quiet. He didn't know what to say. Between the swirl of the Genesis project, the quarantine, making first contact with new life, and the missing away team, Kohl didn't have the first clue about where they should begin. Looking down at the conference table, Kohl set his jaw and he deferred to Rasmussen.

A short silence ensued while senior minds contemplated the situation and its possible repercussions. "New life...," the captain pondered out loud. "You keep talking about this 'survivor', from Franconia. Tell me more," said Rasmussen.

"I shot him," declared Lake ir-Llantrisant. The words came out in a flat, but precise, timbre. The Romulan Counselor wasn't boasting, but he wasn't exactly ashamed of it either. "I shot the survivor into space," Lake said. He was lurking by the doorway, having just returned from Sickbay a minute earlier. Striding back to his empty chair, Lake explained, "...Not exactly the first contact protocols you had in mind, but he was attacking the away team's shuttle. In his attack, the survivor shed his skin, revealing an entirely crystalline body structure underneath." --Lake looked around to the other faces around the table-- "I can't say I know where he came from, before he reached the shuttlebay..."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second and Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

Commander Andreus Kohl
Acting Captain
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC ir-Llantrisant]

Ensign Mimi
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A

ENS Sofie Ullswater
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

CAPT Rasmussen
Commanding Officer
USS Lagrange
[PNPC Saalm]

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