Chapter Text
Captain’s Log, Stardate 68320.7. The Skaia is en route to the Federation colony on Denar 3 as part of a resupply run for the remote colony. We will be delivering essential medical supplies and helping to perform maintenance on the colony’s infrastructure. The crew is settling into a routine onboard the ship, as we’re nearly a month into our ongoing voyage, and this mission promises to be a fantastic opportunity for us to work together as a crew.
“Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Harley says through your communication badge. “The engineering team is ready to go whenever we arrive at Denar 3!”
“I’ll let you know when we enter orbit.” You tell her, and clock your comm badge off. “When will that be, by the way?” You ask the bridge.
“We’re about half an hour out.” Captor calls from the helm. You nod at him, and turn to your right, where Rose is sitting. You open your mouth to tell her to meet with Harley and organize the away mission, but before you can say anything, she nods and stands up.
“I’ll let you know as soon as the full away team is assembled.” She says.
“Thank you Commander.” You tell her. “I know that Denar 3 has a number of high altitude atmospheric control modules, if Harley wants to perform maintenance on those modules, take Captor and a shuttlecraft on the away team. I don’t want her taking any unnecessary risks when it comes to accessing high altitude machinery.” You add. The more you get to know Harley, the more you respect her, but you also don’t doubt that she would try to climb two hundred meters up the emergency access ladders just for the fun of it.
“Will do.” Lalonde says. “I’ll call for Captor to the briefing if Harley mentions those repairs.”
“Alright.” You say. “Dismissed.” Lalonde nods and walks out of the bridge, the turbolift doors whirring closed behind her. You stand and walk towards the helm, where Captor sits, manning his post. “Lieutenant, I think it’d be a good idea for you to go ahead and prep a shuttlecraft for departure. Knowing Harley, she’ll want to be as thorough as possible when doing maintenance on the colony.”
“Understood, Captain.” He says, his voice slipping slightly on the ‘s’ in understood. “Should I-”
“Yes.” You tell him. “You’re dismissed from your post.” He nods and stands, walking towards the door. You can see Ensign Strider transfer main helm controls to his terminal, and you turn heel and walk back to the captain’s chair.
As you sit and wait, you watch the distortion of the viewscreen that happens when the ship is at warp. Looking out windows at warp speed is certainly something to get used to – you remember being sick several times as an ensign when you looked out of the windows in your quarters, only to find that the stars looked different on a starship at warp than they do at any other time. Nowadays though, you love to watch the distortion at the edge of the screen. You’ve spent enough of your life on starships now to find comfort in the way that light stretches and bends.
“Captain.” Strider interrupts your reverie. “We’re entering the system now, I’m taking us out of warp now, and on impulse thrusters it’ll be another four minutes until we enter orbit.”
“Thank you Ensign.” You tell him, and tap your com badge. “Egbert to Harley.”
“Harley here.”
“We’re just about to enter orbit around the colony. What’s the status of the away team?”
“I’ve got my engineering team prepared. We’re all here in Cargo Bay 3, prepping the materials for transport to the surface. Lalonde is with Crocker in Cargo Bay 2, doing the same thing with the medical supplies.” She says to you. “As far as I know everyone’s ready.”
“Are you going to take Captor with you?” You ask.
“Yes. He’s in the main shuttle bay, prepping it. One of my ensigns is helping him load the necessary equipment for the repairs.”
“Alrighty. I’ll let you know when you can start beaming down.”
“Thanks John!” She says, and you can hear your comm badge click off. You smile, you always like talking to Harley – she’s an ideal officer, but she doesn’t get stuck up on the minutia of Starfleet regulation. You look at the viewscreen, and see Denar 3 growing to fill almost the whole space. It’s a beautiful planet, though only fifteen years ago it was entirely covered in an enormous dust storm. Now you can see the patchwork of green lines below, showing the development of the colony as the terraforming process continues. Atmospheric stabilization is slowgoing, you can see that much just by looking at the red and yellow swirls that are enormous deserts, or enormous dust storms. From here you can’t tell which is which, but you know that the planet has plenty of both storms and deserts.
“Captain,” Maryam says. “We’re being hailed.”
“Onscreen.”
The image that comes up on screen is much what you expected. There is a woman in a relatively bare room. Behind her you can see two insignias on the wall – one representing the colony, the other representing the Federation. She is dressed plainly, and her hair is covered. She smiles when she sees you.
“Captain, I’m Maria Gaian, the president of the colony here.”
“Pleased to meet you President Gaian, I’m Captain Egbert, but please, call me John.” You say, standing and walking towards the viewscreen.
“Thank you Captain. Er, John.” She says. “We’re ready to receive the supplies, the coordinates for our central spaceport are being sent to your ship now. That’s going to be the best place to go to, and we can meet you there and divide up the supplies from there.”
“Coordinates received.” Maryam says from the back of the room, and you nod at her.
“President, we were under the impression that your engineers could use some help with maintenance, especially on your terraforming infrastructure.” You say, turning back to the viewscreen.
“Oh, if you have time that would be fantastic. Our engineers are talented, but they are also very busy, as our colony is a small one still.” She says. She smiles at you. “We’ll always accept some extra hands.”
“We’ll be happy to help.” You say, and smile at the president. She smiles back, and cuts the transmission. You turn and walk back towards your chair. “Maryam,” You say, sitting down and straightening your uniform. “Send the coordinates we were given to the transporter chief, and send it to the computer of Captor’s shuttle craft.”
“Can do Captain.” She says. “And…the transporters are being activated now.”
John: Be the Android
Your name is Aradia Megido, and you are fairly certain that one of your language subroutines is malfunctioning.
You arrived in the xenocultural artifact storage and analysis lab to continue testing artifacts from the ruins at LOWAS three hours ago, and you have been working steadily through analysis of the artifacts ever since. The Skaia has a full staff of science officers, among a wide variety of disciplines, but you were the only officer in the lab until several minutes ago.
Tavros had walked in and looked around. The expression on his face indicated that he was relieved to see you, and you inferred that he likely had something to say to you. He had walked over to you and said hello.
“Ribbet.” You said in greeting. The look on his face showed that he didn’t quite understand your greeting. You repeated yourself.
Now, Tavros is frowning at you. “Commander?” He says, an expression betraying not just confusion, but… perhaps that is concern.
“What is it Lieutenant?” You ask him.
“Uh, nothing.” He says, his expression unchanged. “I came to let you know that I think I’ve discovered the part of Casey’s brain that allows for language.”
“Impressive.” You say. “What would you like to do with this discovery?”
“I was thinking, um, that I could probably use this, and take readings of the language when she is talking vs when she is communicating with me telepathically. If there is a, uh, a noticeable difference in the way that her brain processes language, we can understand how her species interacts with the psionic field.” His face has shifted to a more positive expression as he talks. Lieutenant Nitram must be quite pleased with his discovery of the alien salamander’s physiology.
“That sounds ribbit.” You say. “Let us begin at once.”
“Commander,” Nitram says slowly. “I uh, think you might need to run a diagnostic.”
“Why is that Lieutenant?” You ask him.
“You keep saying ‘ribbit’.” He says. You look through your memory bank, and find that you are indeed using that word. Unlike lieutenant Nitram however, you cannot see why that would indicate a malfunction in your internal processes.
“And what is the problem with that?” You ask. You are confused. Confusion is a feeling you do not experience often, and it is also a feeling that you do not gain something from. You would classify it as unpleasant, though you are fairly sure that you do not have a particularly human concept of ‘pleasant’.
“Let’s head over to engineering,” Nitram says. “I can try to explain while we walk.” You nod.
“Ribbit.”
You walk through the ship, and Tavros tries to explain your predicament. He tells you that you are substituting a word that is little more than nonsense, for what he would presume is a random selection of words. You tell him that you didn’t mean to cause any confusion. He assures you that he really isn’t concerned about that. You tell him that he can begin work on Casey’s scans when he has finished escorting you to engineering and explained the issue to whomever is there.
“I would think that uh, Harley would be interested in helping you. She seems to be interested in artificial intelligence.”
“Harley is a skilled engineer, but there is an engineering away team on the planet below us now. Harley would very likely be on that away team.”
“Oh.” Nitram says. “I forgot that you read the duty rosters.” He says quietly.
“That is not unacceptable.” You say, an attempt at comfort.
You two walk in near silence until you arrive at main engineering. The doors whir open and you can tell that the engineering away team has left, as the place is nearly empty. Harley is nowhere to be seen for sure. When you walk into the main section of the room, one of the engineers turns to look over at you. He presses several more buttons on his terminal and then walks over to you.
“What can I do for you.” He says, his voice even.
"I ribbit saying ribbit.” You say. He raises one eyebrow.
“I see.” He says. He walks across the room and pulls a standard tool box from a drawer. He sets them up on a table and looks over at you. “Come on over, I don’t have all day.”
You turn to Nitram. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant.” He nods at you in an affirmative gesture, and then walks out of engineering. You walk towards the engineer, and look over him. His uniform has one filled pip, identifying him as an ensign. He is approximately 185 cm and 57 kg. His hair is lacking in pigment, leaving it pale in color. It is generally unkempt.
He pulls out a microdine enhancer and a an isomodulator and he asks you to have a seat. You comply, and he feels across your scalp and pulls back one of the panels of your skull, exposing a portion of your positronic matrix. You sit still as he starts combing through the positronic circuits of your brain. You presume that he is looking for some kind of anomaly. You close your eyes and one by one, begin each of your internal diagnostic scans. Once you have ensured that your positronic system’s self-diagnostics are functioning, you sit back and wait patiently. He is a competent engineer, if there is something wrong, he may find it.
Aradia: be the Pilot
Your name is Sollux Captor, and you're pretty damn good at your job.
Lt. Cmdr. Harley tells you this as you exit your shuttlecraft, having just landed in the middle of the Denar 3 colony’s central square. She smiles at you.
“Yes sir, I do my best.” You tell her. “I would’ve landed at the colony’s landing pad but you seem to have covered it in crates of some kind.”
“That was actually Crocker.” She tells you with a grin. “All the spare parts are either here-” She gestures around the square, which does have a number of crates stacked against the buildings. “-or outside the colony, at some of the power relay stations.” She finishes up.
“My bad.” You say, and Harley smiles wider. She’s a very outgoing sort of person, and you’re not always sure how to respond to her, but she seems to like you well enough.
You look around the square again, taking in the sight of the Denar 3 colony. The buildings here are primarily stucco, though you can see titanium support struts here and there, protruding from the buildings. You assume that the stucco is just a sealant or something of the like, but if it is, it’s certainly an impressive one. Everything is the same color, and most of the colony blends into the red-brown rock that covers Denar 3. You saw a number of enormous greenhouses, both surrounding and inside the colony as you flew in, but that was the only green that you saw. It seems to you like Denar 3 is a poor place for a colony, or would be if it weren’t for the rich mineral deposits in the surrounding asteroid field.
“That was quite the impressive maneuver.” A voice says behind you, and you look around to see one of the colonists looking at you. You nod awkwardly and turn back to Harley. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the colonist walk off.
“When are we going to get started on atmospheric control relay station maintenance.” You ask Harley, who shrugs and turns away from you. You follow her when she begins walking towards a pile of crates.
“I’m waiting to make sure that everything got distributed correctly.” She says, eyes locked on a pair of colonists who appear to be having some difficulty lifting one of the crates. “Once President Gaian assures me that everything is where it needs to be-” She leans over and picks up the crate, hoisting it high and placing it on one shoulder, steadying it with one arm. “Then we can head out.”
You look at the two colonists who had been struggling with the crate. They’re looking at Harley with some confusion, and you hold back a smile. You point at another one of the crates and look to the two men. “Where does this go?” You ask them. One of the two looks at you and points towards the other end of the square. You nod, and wave your hand. The two colonists eyes widen even more as the crate rises into the air, floating around six inches off of the ground. You move it in front of you, and begin walking off towards the place that they pointed.
You help move crates for another half hour, shifting things around in hopes that you’ll get to go do your real job sooner. Sure enough, it doesn’t take particularly long before Harley, who had retreated into what you are fairly sure is the main government building of the colony, walks back out into the square, looking around for you. She jogs over to you, raising an eyebrow at you.
“Hey Captor, do you mind teaching me that sometime?” She says with a smile. You set down the crate gently before responding.
“No can-do.” You tell her. “Unless you’re interested in kironide poisoning, that is.” She grimaces.
“Ouch. I didn’t even know you could get kironide poisoning.” She says to you. “It must’nt have been fun.”
“No.” You say. “Are we set to leave?” You ask her, and Harley’s smile returns.
“Yeah, whenever you’re ready. President Gaian authorized the maintenance – apparently the lack of supplies means that a couple of the modules are behind their maintenance schedule. and gave me the coordinates for the high altitude atmospheric control modules.” She says, holding up a PADD with a series of coordinates displayed. You turn back towards the center of the square, where your shuttlecraft stands ready. Harley follows you towards the shuttlecraft.
“Are you bringing anyone else?” You ask her.
She nods. “Another pair of hands could do us some good.” She tells you, and signals to the nearest engineering ensign, who gathers up the tools in front of him and walks towards you. He’s an eight foot tall Klingon with a great silver baldric draped over the top of his Starfleet uniform. You’re not familiar with the house whose crest is woven into the baldric, but then again, you never did take to Klingon culture.
You enter the shuttlecraft and slide into the pilot’s seat. “All the tools you’ll need were loaded into the back.” You say, and you can hear Harley opening several of the boxes, likely to be sure that she’ll have what she needs. “Everyone in?” You ask, flipping the impulse thrusters on. You run a quick checklist, doing your best to check four systems at once. Good thing you’re damn good at your job.
“We’re all set.” Harley says, appearing at your shoulder. You glance around and see the Klingon ensign hunched awkwardly in one of the seats at the side of the craft. “I’m feeding the coordinates into the shuttle’s computer.” She says.
“Where to first?” You ask her. She taps on the PADD several times before answering.
“It looks like the first high altitude atmospheric control module is…” She pauses. “Twelve degrees northeast of the colony.”
The coordinates flash on a screen, and you confirm them, locking them into the system. You prepare the shuttle’s launch sequence, starting with the shuttle’s door whirring shut, and the impulse thrusters kicking into standby. You are in your element. Harley moves away, taking the copilot’s seat, and you resist the urge to tell her not to touch anything.
When the shuttle launches, it’s slowly, straight up. You take advantage of your psychokinesis, sensing the distance between the shuttlecraft and all the buildings in the colony’s central square. You rise out of the city with ease, and then adjust your heading to point you twelve degrees northeast of the city, towards high altitude atmospheric control module number one.
The control module is nearly 56,000 feet above the surface of Denar 3, and as you rise through the Denarian atmosphere, you feel the shuttle start to pull against you.
“I see why they need the modules.” Harley says beside you, and you give her a small smile.
“They still seem to have a few kinks in the system,” You respond, and she laughs. The Klingon in the back shifts uncomfortably. “I can handle the turbulence; it’ll just make the atmospheric docking a little trickier.” You tell Harley.
It doesn’t take long before you see the module, a spindly structure with an enormous ionizing station and vapor tanks. There’s a small port on the upper lefthand quadrant of the station, and you turn the shuttle about to dock. “Is this station manned?” You ask Harley, mid-turn.
“They’re almost entirely automated. The geoclimatological technicians run most of the equipment remotely.” She tells you. You decide to take that as a no, and send the station’s computer directions to begin docking procedures. You guide the shuttle slowly into place, giving the station ample time to open its outer hatch. As you back into the port, you see two of the vapor tanks slide past you. You flip stabilizing thrusters to maximum and hope that the wind holds steady, and you hold your breath. When you feel the station’s docking port connect with the shuttlecraft, you let your breath go.
“We’re here.” You say, swiveling around to face the Klingon ensign. “Now, let’s get to work.”
Sollux: be the Engineer
Your name is Dirk Strider, and you were left behind.
Half of the engineering staff of the U.S.S. Skaia was transported down to the colony on Denar 3. You were left behind, and now you are stuck in main engineering, looking for a crossed positronic link in Commander Aradia Megido's brain. You have yet to find something that sticks out, so you have decided to switch tactics.
“Combing through this with a fine toothed isomodulator is isn’t turning anything up.” You say to the Commander, putting your tools down on the table beside you. You click the duranium plate of her skull back into place and she looks around at you.
“What is your next proposed course of action?” She asks you. Her tone is even – one of the few things that gives her away as an android. She’s certainly an impressive piece of work, without the distinctive discoloration of the bioplast coating on Lieutenant Commander Data, Starfleet’s previous android officer.
“We should hook you up to the ship’s computer.” You tell her, retrieving a high-capacity data transfer cable from a drawer in the corner of the room. You couldn’t find anything looking through the positronic networks by hand, so you figure that it might be useful to have the computer look for computational anomalies.
“I see.” Commander Megido says. She watches you walk back over to her and begin hooking up the cable to one of the computer’s conduits in the wall. “I am almost finished running my full gamut of internal diagnostic scans. I will let you know when they are finished.”
You frown slightly. She might’ve mentioned it earlier, but oh well. You run your hands along the cable, making sure that it isn’t tangled, and then you pull back one of the panels on the back of Megido’s head. You know the basic specs of her positronic nets, and so you know that it makes a great deal of sense for you to try to attach the cables to the base of her skull, if you can really call it that. Is it a skull if it’s made from duranium?
You take the cable and uncurl the net interceptors, clicking them all into connective ports in Commander Megido’s brain. She shifts slightly, making it easier for you to ensure that the cable is properly attached. Once you are able to ensure that you did indeed connect the cable correctly, you walk over to the computer and begin scanning for anomalies.
"Egbert to Megido.” Commander Megido’s comm badge squawks after nearly an hour of diagnostic scans, one after another. Megido taps her badge.
“Megido here, Captain.”
“Senior officer’s meeting in five minutes.” The captain says. “We’re meeting in the observation lounge.”
“I will not be able to attend.” Commander Megido says, matter-of-fact.
“Why?” The captain asks. You continue to tap away at the console, searching for more diagnostics that you can run. So far, you’ve run scans on her language, communication, analytics, mechanical control, and memory subroutines. You’ve found and repaired several broken connections, but you still can’t find any reason for Commander Megido to be ribbiting.
“I am ribbet some technical malfunctions.” She says.
“Ah.” The Captain says. He pauses on the other end of the communication, clearly trying to process what Commander Megido has just said. “Okay then Commander.” The communication beeps again, and is over.
You begin a full scan of Megido's positronic system. It may take several hours to run, but you don’t know what else to look for. It’s all just a waiting game at this point. But as the scan continues to run, Megido's chest communicator beeps again.
“Egbert to Megido.” The comm badge clicks.
“Megido here, Captain.”
“Where are you?” The captain asked.
"I am in main engineering,” Megido says. “One of the ribbit crewmembers is assisting me in ribbit diagnostic ribbit.”
“Aradia? Uh,” The captain says. “What was that?”
“I am in ribbit engineering. Ribbit of the remaining crewmembers is ribbit me in running diagnostic scans.” Megido repeats herself.
“Okay.” The captain says on the other end of the comm badge. “I’ll be there as soon as I finish the senior staff meeting in the observation lounge.” He says, and then the comm badge clicks off. You look to Megido, but she says nothing. She seems entirely unfazed by the conversation, as if nothing at all had happened.
You move back towards your station at the computer and begin clicking around at the terminal. You don’t actually have a lot to do while the diagnostic runs, so you begin looking through the computer’s library, searching for diagrams of Commander Megido’s positronic nets. You bring up one of the diagrams and begin looking it over, searching for some point of weakness that you may have missed. You comb through the tiny lines on the chart, magnifying sections of the diagram to make the pathways clearer.
After twenty minutes or so of looking through the diagrams of Commander Megido’s positronic nets, the doors to main engineering whirr open. The cable attached to Commander Megido moves, and you look around to find that the Captain has walked in. Commander Megido stood to greet him.
“At ease.” The Captain says, waving around at her. Megido seats herself. “So, what seems to be the problem, Ensign?” He asks, looking to you. This is the first time you’ve had the chance to get a good look at him, and you’ve gotta admit, he doesn’t look half bad. He’s a bit shorter than you, with wildly unkempt dark hair. He seems tired, concerned and maybe a little haggard, but he wears a goofy smile even so.
“We can’t tell.” You say.
“Any more details?” He says, leaning against one of the walls.
“I’ve scanned through her language, communication, analytics, mechanical control, and memory subroutines. I encountered a number of problems with those systems, but nothing that seemed to be causing it.” You tell the Captain. You zoom out of the positronic net map, and point as you talk. “These unrelated areas all experienced failures due to clean cuts of the matrix. The degradation seems to be continuing faster than I can fix it, but there’s still no recognizable affect other than the fact that the Commander here is quacking like a frog.”
The Captain frowns. “Frogs don’t quack.” He corrects you. You give him a blank stare, and he continues. “You said that the failures are independent, yet every one of them has the same cause?”
“Yes sir.” You say.
“When was the last time that you had maintenance done?” The Captain asks.
“Star date 68298.3.” The Commander replies. “It is ribbit unlikely that this malfunction has been caused by crew error.” She tells the Captain, who frowns when he hears this.
“Ensign…?” The Captain says, looking to you.
“Yes sir?”
“Your name, Ensign.” The Captain says, a slight smile at the lapse in communication.
“Ah, yes. Strider, sir.” The Captain raises an eyebrow, but makes no other comment.
“Ensign Strider, please disconnect Commander Megido from the main computer. If the diagnostics can't find anything wrong, it's worth preventing the malfunction from spreading while we look for another solution.” He tells you, and you nod. You allow the main computer to finish up its final diagnostic before removing the positronic cable from Commander Megido's nets.
Meanwhile, the Captain keeps talking.
“Megido, is there anything that you did differently in the past few days? Anything that you remember that could have damaged your nervous system?”
“Captain, it ribbit clear that this malfunction is not ribbit accident.” The Commander says.
The computer had finished its final diagnostic, so you begin to unhook the connector cable from Megido's brain. While doing so, you notice that one of the clasps is loose. It appears to have a sticky hinge keeping the clasp from securing the cable properly. Good thing it's redundant. But this makes you think.
“Captain, Commander,” you say. “It might be a hardware problem.” The Captain raises one eyebrow, and you continue. “Commander Megido's malfunction appears random. There’s no clear problem in the Commander’s software, and we have no evidence of a major hardware failure, but I can look for a smaller cause.” You move towards the wall panel and zoom out of the map of the positronic nets. You draw a line between the repaired broken circuits. “So, if there was something moving along this route through the Commander’s positronic nets – ”
The Commander nods. “It would most ribbit explain the malfunction.” She says.
“Why wasn’t that considered earlier?” The Captain asks you.
“Because it would mean that someone or something is trying to destabilize the Commander’s positronic nets.” You tell him simply, and he nods. You coil up the data cable and put it down beside you. “We’ll need to catch this little dude in the act, keep him from going any farther, and then make sure he didn’t get into the main computer.”
The Captain nods. “Keep me informed.”
Dirk: be the Klingon Ensign
Your name is Equius Zahhak and you are tired of these small humans.
This maintenance mission is proving to be routine, yet extraordinarily cramped. You’re in the third of seven high altitude atmospheric control modules, each of which seems to have a lower ceiling than the next. At the moment, you are stuck halfway inside this ventilation shaft, and have been for almost half an hour, double checking the internal circuit pathways. You are not sure why you were the one who had to enter this small ventilation area, but it is your duty, regardless of how uncomfortable the position.
“Zahhak,” Lieutenant Commander Harley calls to you from the larger station. “Are you almost done?” She asks.
“Aye.” You say. You have gone over all but two of the pathways. everything is connected correctly. When you dislodge yourself from the cramped ventilation system, you inform Commander Harley of such. She sighs, clearly frustrated, and turns back towards the console before her.
“There is a glitch somewhere in this system,” She says to the room. "Why can’t we find it?”
“It might be mechanical?” Lieutenant Commander Captor suggests with a shrug.
“Then why would the computer register it as internal!” Commander Harley says, bringing up something on the panel before her.
You walk over to where she stands, and look down at the panel. The ionizing modulator seems to be overactive, releasing an excess of ions into the atmosphere. You feel the atmospheric control station shudder, and look around. The lights flicker, but only for a moment.
“Looks like the ion cloud isn’t dispersing fast enough.” Lieutenant Commander Captor says.
“We must disperse it.” You interject. “If we do not, the feedback loop will cause complete system failure.” You say.
“Not to mention set back the colonists terraforming progress back about four months.” Says Lieutenant Commander Harley. She walks brusquely towards the shuttlecraft port, walking into the shuttle. Lieutenant Captor is standing in the corner, but at Harley’s disappearance he frowns, walking forward to look over the panel in front of you.
“The regulators for the ionizer are malfunctioning.” He says, pointing. “If the computer is having trouble getting the hardware to respond, it might register the ionizer as being in multiple states at once.” You nod.
You bring up the ionizing regulator on another screen. The computer is only displaying the ionizer as on, but it’s possible that the display is simplified, or glitching. “Your theory is possible, Sir.” You tell Captor, who shrugs again, before pulling up something on another panel, apparently looking for another solution.
“I’m going to try to disconnect the ionizer from its power source if we can’t find the glitch in fifteen minutes.” Harley says, calling out from the shuttlecraft. She emerges from the port, frowning. “I’m going to notify the colonists on the ground that this atmospheric control station is in worse condition than they reported.” She says, sighing.
“They’re lucky you wanted to play with their terraforming machinery.” Lieutenant Captor says with a laugh. You can’t help but be affronted on your commander’s behalf, but she laughs back at Captor’s comment, and you refrain from commenting on the pilot’s lack of respect. If your commander isn’t affronted, then you must hold your tongue.
“Fair enough, Captor, fair enough.” She says. “Either way, it works out great for the colonists,” She pauses, casting her gaze out one of the module windows. “If we can fix the ionizer, that is.”
You all work in terse silence for the next quarter hour, trying to fix the ionizer - or even just figure out what is wrong with it. You are impatient, but the computer has never been your strong suit. You are a hardware specialist. So, when Commander Harley’s 15 minutes are up, you volunteer to dismantle the ionizer.
“Zahhak,” She says slowly. “You have to be careful.”
“I am a capable engineer.” You say. “I will do my job.”
“Just, take care, alright?” She says, hesitant. You resist the urge to inform her that you are strong, perfectly capable of holding onto the control module, and again, a competent engineer. You take a deep breath instead, and nod. She smiles. Humans confuse you, but you must respect them – when they are your commanding officers. You remind yourself of that, and of the dishonor of failing to respect Commander Harley. “Good.” She says, before fetching you a tool belt from the shuttlecraft. You clip on the belt and pull on your coat, fastening it tightly.
You walk to the ladder inside the module and climb up it to the hatch that will let you out onto the sloped roof of the control room. You unlock the hatch and push it open. You can feel the cold of the wind as you pull yourself onto the roof, and you shudder. The air around you crackles as you inch towards the ionizer, slowly creeping forward. The space up here is small, but you are able to hold onto the metal plating without much trouble.
The ionizer is humming. Your hair begins to stand on end as you approach it, and when you are a foot away, you can feel your hair floating around your head as it would underwater. You resist the urge to push it out of your face, or even tie it back. The tall metal rod is held up by a plastic cylinder, connecting the charged rod to the module. You pull open one of the panels on the side of the cylinder and peer in – you can see all the insulated wires controlling the amount of power that is fed through to the ionizer, and you can see that one of them is loose. The whole contraption shocks you when you reach out to move the wire back into place, and you jerk your hand back, growling at the ionizer.
“You okay up there Zahak?” Harley says through your communicator. It comes out as more of a crackling, likely because of the static electricity in the air.
“Yes sir.” You say, and you reach your hand into the plastic cylinder again. You can feel your hand tingle, but there are no small bolts of lightning this time, so you fiddle with the loose wire, and see the small power indicator inch back towards “off”.
You tap your communicator again. “Commander,” You say. “I believe I may have found the cause of the ionizer’s malfunction. Does it seem to be responding to the controls?”
"Y-es, Ensign, it is. We’re still a way from the ideal ratio of ionized particles in the atmosphere though,” Harley says to you. “It’s still pretty dangerous out there.”
You look into the control panel again. There are a couple of other loose wires – it looks like the ionizer’s plastic casing isn’t completely secure, so you pull out a few of your tools, hoping to be able to reinforce the cylinder “I'm going to readjust the ionizer.” You tell Harley. “It is unsteady, and could easily malfunction again.”
“Let it power down some more,” Harley’s voice crackles. “I don't want you rushing and getting electrocuted.”
“The repair is essential.” You say. “I am a warrior, I can endure the electrical power of 5 Klingon pain sticks without blinking an eye!”
You reach your hand forward and grasp the ionizer firmly. It burns your hand, but you are expecting it, so you are able to grit your teeth and continue. You shift the ionizer and begin tightening the plastic cylinder into place around the ionizer again. Your whole body seems to buzz with electricity, but you cannot tell if the stinging on your hands is due to the bitter, howling wind, or the electricity of the ionizer.
After another moment through which you tighten the plastic casing, the air crackles, and the ionizer sputters, sending waves of electricity throughout your body. Your teeth are clenched through the pain, and you hear a high pitched screeching from below.
You pull away from the ionizer, freeing yourself only with all your strength. The pain courses through you, and your muscles ache in protest, but you push through, inching back towards the open hatch. It takes several long minutes to crawl back.
You slide through the hatch and allow yourself to fall to the floor of the module only after pulling the hatch closed behind you. You're met with a grisly sight when you lift your head and look through the control room.
“Harley to Skaia, medical emergency, repeat, medical emergency.” Harley is calling through her comm badge. She stands over lieutenant commander Captor. He lays motionless, his face laced with what appears to be streaks of blood.
“Can't…ion storm too thick…transport not possible…” Someone sputters through on the other end. “Medical…on ground…return to colony.”
You blink several times, and feel everything go numb. You close your eyes, and feel the control module shudder underfoot.
Equius: Be the Doctor
Your name is Jane Crocker, and you are just having one hell of a day.
You’ve been called back from an away mission that was supposed to last for three days, because someone decided to go ahead and get the robot sick. You were taken from the Denar 3 colony straight to sickbay through a site-to-site transport, and now you’re sitting at your desk, browsing through a list of know microscopic lifeforms.
“What was it targeting?” You ask the ensign sitting, rather coolly you think, in front of your desk. It’s a wonder that he’s so nonchalant. “What type of circuit, what metals or energies does this lifeform consume?”
The ensign leans forward, looking over the contents of a small PADD. “Um, I think it’s going after…” He pauses to scroll. “It consumed junctures that all contained dentarium, aluminum, polyduranium, and neosorium composites.” He says to you.
You nod. “Polyduranium is too rare to be a likely suspect, knowing the rate that this lifeform is consuming the circuits.” You say. “Neosorium seems to have a structure that makes it an easily digested composite, at least when compared to some other compounds that are chemosynthesized.”
He taps some buttons on his PADD and nods at you. “Neosorium, got it.” He looks back up at you expectantly, so you turn to your desk computer and begin a search. You pull up information on the known lifeforms that consume neosorium-like composites and when the search resolves, you find quite a bit of information.
“Ensign, you say you didn’t see anything amiss other than the severed connections in Megido's positronic circuts?” You ask him after a moment, trying to think of what would be a reasonable way to narrow the computer’s search.
“Yeah,” He says. “There was no visible residue, and the lifeform either moves fast or just wasn’t detected by the tools I had.” You nod.
“It could have been both.” You tell him. “There has to have been some residue, because there’s no way a lifeform that subsists on chemosythesis can be entirely efficient,” You say, thinking aloud as you look through the information that was pulled up.
“Can you give me the specs that would allow me to reconfigure my isodynamic modulator so that I could detect the residue left behind?” The ensign asks, leaning forward with a look of mild interest, and you smile, turning back to your desktop. Maybe you’ll be able to get back to the Denar 3 colony today after all.
“Computer,” You say to the desktop. “Refine search results to show me what sort of waste was produced by lifeforms that consumed any composites resembling neosorium.” The computer beeps, acknowledging your request, and refreshes the display.
It takes another quarter of an hour to finish isolating the proper resonance pattern for the neosorium waste, and the ensign sits in front of your desk, bouncing his leg, but leaning back in his chair. You assume that he’s doing his best to look patient.
When you’ve finally finished isolating the resonance pattern, you reach out your hand. The ensign looks at you. “The PADD, ensign.” You say. He nods and hands it over to you. “Computer, transfer this resonance pattern to the PADD.” The computer beeps out an affirmative and you hand it back to the ensign. “That should allow you to locate the lifeform’s waste.”
“Got it.” He says, practically jumping up from his chair.
“Hold it kid.” You say before he runs out of your office, and the ensign turns and looks at you. “What’s your plan when you find the thing?” You ask him, and, while he doesn’t exactly frown, he seems like there… there might be some sort of facial expression there.
“… I was thinking that I could use a submicron scanner to figure out precisely where the lifeform was and extract it from Commander Megido’s positronic nets.” He tells you.
“How?” You ask him, raising an eyebrow, and this time, you definitely see the hint of a frown. “I can replicate a microstructure made of neosorium to lure the lifeform into a containment field.” You say. “That way you don’t accidentally kill it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He asked you slowly, and you stand from your desk with some force.
“Exploration, discovery, science.” You say quickly, hurrying over to the replicator. “Computer, replicate some neosorium for me.”
The computer beeps. “Specify quantity.”
“One sixtieth of a gram.” You say, estimating how much you’ll need. You know that the microstructure won’t require a lot of neosorium, but you haven’t made a nutrient medium for this exact purpose before, and it might take a few tries to get it right. The computer beeps and begins. “Ensign, go start the search for this lifeform.” You tell him. “But call me before you do anything.” The ensign nods.
“Yes sir.” He says, before hurrying back out into sickbay.
You watch the replicator work, watch it glow and slowly form into the shape of a vial. The process still manages to enchant you, even after all this time. When the neosorium has finished materializing, you pull the vial from the alcove and tap your comm badge.
“Crocker to Nitram, report to sickbay.”
“I’ll be there momentarily!” The lieutenant squeaks through your badge.
“Crocker to Egbert.” You say, tapping your badge twice in quick succession. “I’ve got news for you.” You say.
“I’m on my way.” He says.
Nitram arrives first, but not by much. He hurries into sickbay a little out of breath. “What can I do?” He asks, glancing nervously over at Commander Megido, who is sitting up on a medtable, her eyes glazed over.
“I need your help preparing a nutrient medium for a chemosynthetic lifeform.” You tell him, and he nods. “I have to design a neosorium microstructure, and I figured that you could give me a hand with that.” You say, and he takes a step forward.
“I uh, can help you out with that.” He tells you. You hand over a PADD with the completed portion of the microstructure design, and give him a few minutes to look over it while you gather the appropriate materials to make the culture itself. Ensign Strider may think that this lifeform deserves to die, but you’re not taking any chances about the opportunity to study this new type of lifeform. You’ve entered a high phase variance for the containment field that will hold the petri dish after you’ve extracted the lifeform from Commander Megido’s brain.
“Does it look doable?” You ask Lieutenant Nitram while you wheel the petri dish over towards him.
“It does look stable.” Nitram says. “It might take some time to create this culture though.”
“Is the structure going to remain stable after it begins to corrode?” You ask him. “It’s supposed to draw out a chemosynthetic lifeform, so it can’t decay as soon as the organism takes a bite out of it.”
Nitram nods, putting down the PADD and walks over to your tray of medical instruments. He looks them over, apparently searching for something that could help to create the microstructure. You cut in rather quickly, as you know that there’s nothing over there for him.
“I don’t have any submicron replicators.” You inform him. “You’ll have to input the base sequence of the structure into the replicator and then put it into a containment field with gaseous neosorium.”
“To allow the microstructure to form on its own?” Nitram asks, apparently confused, but clearly not intending his statements as a challenge. Poor kid looks like he’s hardly out of the academy, but based on his rank he must’ve been out in the field for at least six or seven years – how is he still so timid?
“If we begin with several sample structures, it’s likely that the gaseous neosorium will continue to follow the short range order of the sample structures.” You tell him You pick up one of the three petri dishes that you’ve begin populating with neosorium instead of agar, checking to make sure that the metallic substance has distributed itself evenly throughout the medium. “The computer can produce small portions of the total microstructure, and then allowing the microstructure to self populate within a containment field should allow us to speed up the process and link the pieces together.”
Nitram nods, picking up the PADD again. He looks at the structure, and then nods again – first at the PADD, then at you, and then back at the PADD in his hands. He walks over to the replicator and begins entering the instructions for the delicate microstructure. You return to your work, ensuring that the neosorium based medium is properly mixed.
And then the Captain walks in. The doors to sickbay whirr open and he steps inside. He looks around and then smiles widely at you, walking over to where you’re standing. “How’s your patient?” He asks you, and you grin back at him.
“She’ll be okay, and it looks like we’ll have a new type of microorganism to catalogue.” You tell him. “We’re going to replicate a neosorium microstructure so that we can remove the lifeform from Megido’s circuts once Ensign…” You pause, a little embarrassed to realize you don’t know his name. “Once engineering finishes making the appropriate adjustments to their instruments and has located the lifeform.” The Captain nods, looking over at the chief science officer sitting on one of your biobeds, and he frowns. You reach out your hand and touch him lightly on the arm. He turns back to you, the frown vanishing. “Really, Captain,” You assure him. “She will be okay.”
He smiles at you. “Thank you. Good work Jane.” He says.
His comm badge beeps, and you hear Lieutenant Commander Maryam on the other line. “Captain,” She says, her voice steady, but tense. “You are needed on the bridge.” She says. “As soon as physically possible.” She adds, almost as an afterthought.
Egbert sighs and nods to you before turning and walking out of sickbay at rather a brisk pace. You watch him go, and hope that nothing happened on Denar 3 while you were away.
“Strider to sickbay.” Your comm badge beeps.
You’re just finishing up linking together all the microstructures into a single filament, perfect for drawing the lifeform out of Commander Megido’s brain. “Sickbay here.” You say, drawing your eyes away from the perfect filament. You only have another few minutes until you can drain the containment field of gaseous neosorium and retrieve the filament.
“I’ve finished the modifications to the isodynamic modulator,” Your comm badge squawks. “I’ll be up momentarily.” So that’s his name. Strider.
“We’re almost ready up here.” You reply, and then click the badge off. “Nitram, can we go ahead and drain the gaseous complex from the contained area?” You ask him, and he leans in to examine the forming filament.
“It uh, looks complete.” He says. “I’ll start the process.” He begins tapping on the control panel for the containment field, and you look at Megido.
“How are you feeling?” You ask her, and she looks at you with a glazed over expression.
“Ribbit.” She says in response. Then, again, but much slower this time – “Riiiiibbbbbiiiiittt.” You’re not sure what she means by that, but you nod and smile at her.
“Well you’re going to be all fixed up in no time!” You assure her. When she opens her mouth, probably to correct you about the factual accuracy of that last statement, you quickly amend your phrasing. “You’ll be back to normal health within a reasonably short amount of time.” You say, and she nods slowly, before returning to staring off in the distance. What a strange being.
You’ve never had to perform a physical on Megido before, as you only treat biological lifeforms, and she’s artificial, and all of a sudden you feel rather thankful for that. She can’t even speak and she’s trying to correct you. Perhaps that’s just the infection, you think to yourself. You hope it’s just the infection.
“The procedure is finished.” Nitram calls out to you. “Computer, lower containment field.” He says. The computer beeps an affirmative before lowering the field. You walk over to Nitram and pick up the filament. It’s tiny – maybe the size of a piece of hair, but strong enough to hold its shape. You carry it gingerly and place it across one of the petri dishes, ready to be used, and then instruct the computer to prepare to initialize the containment field around the petri dishes on your instruction.
Ensign Strider walks in while you’re finishing up detailing the computer exactly what phase variance to use in the containment field. He stands quietly near the door while you finish up, but strides across the room towards you as soon as the computer confirms your orders.
“Are we all set?” He asks.
“We are.” You say. “Just find the lifeform and then let us handle the rest.” You tell him. He glances over at Lieutenant Nitram, and then nods at you.
“Yes Commander.” He says.
The three of you walk towards Aradia, who is sitting there, almost motionless. Ensign Strider opens up her skull, exposing layers and layers of positronic circuits. You’re not familiar with the details of Aradia’s hardware, but you can tell that the lifeform is turning her brain into swiss cheese by the look of Ensign Strider’s face when he looks down at it.
You pull the petri dishes over to her biobed and wait, as Strider flips on his isodynamic modulator and gets to work.
Jane: Be the Nurse
Your name is Feferi Peixes and oh glub he's dead!
There’s an ion storm raging outside, trapping you in an auxiliary storage room for one of the automated greenhouses on the outskirts of the Denar 3 colony. Several minutes ago, a shuttlecraft landed – although poorly – outside the building. Commander Harley banged on the tin door, and when you opened it you saw a rather grisly sight.
She had another crewman slung over her shoulder, a small, lanky man with a fractal sort of welt branching across his face. She dumped him on the floor and staggered outside again. You kneel down beside the crewman, pulling out your tricorder and scanning the man. He’s been burned, his muscles are all fried and his brain is fizzling out. His heart has stopped, and you can only sense the vaguest glimmer of life in his mind.
You pull off his shirt and see that the Lichtenberg markings stretch down his neck and across his chest and arms. In several places, the markings seem almost bloody. His skin is hot to the touch, much hotter than it should be, and he twitches on the floor. You place your hand on his cheek, in hopes that you can ease any pain he feels, and reach out towards Harley with your mind. You send out mental images of the shuttlecraft’s medkit, and hope for the best.
When Harley returns, it’s dragging an unconscious Klingon ensign with one arm and the medkit with the other. She tosses the medkit towards you, and you tear it open. You pull out the cortical stimulator and place it on his temple, turning it on as quick as you can. You pull out painkillers and the electromuscular regulator, all with one hand, keeping the other on his face. You can feel his mind fizzle, but it isn’t gone yet.
“How is he?” Harley says. Her voice is raspy, and she’s breathing heavily.
“Almost dead.” You tell her, tossing a hypospray of a painkiller towards her. “Take that.”
“I’ll be fine.” She says.
“Then give it to him.” You tell her, gesturing towards the Klingon, who is still sitting on the floor, slumped over and unconscious. “And leave me alone.”
You can feel adrenaline coursing through you and you don’t want to be distracted just now. You shift your hand on the burned man so that you’re not touching the hot red welts on his skin, and scan him again with your tricorder, looking over him more intently this time. All his systems are running haywire, although the cortical stimulator is helping. You can see his nervous system falling into line again, but his cardiovascular system is still fried.
You hunch over the man, and begin CPR. The cortical stimulator is helping to keep his brain pattern from degrading, but that’s useless if his heart doesn’t start pumping again, so you perform 30 chest compressions, give him a breath, and resume. You close your eyes and try to focus on his mind. You go through four cycles of this before you can feel the officer’s heart begin to move on its own.
As soon as the man’s heart is clearly pumping, you scan him again with the tricorder. As you might have expected, the CPR cracked two ribs, but his heart is beating without an arrhythmia, and the cortical stimulator has stabilized his brain pattern. You keep your hand on his chest for several more minutes before administering a sedative. He settles down, his muscles having stopped twitching, and you breathe out a sigh of relief.
You turn to the Klingon now. He too is hot to the touch, and a quick tricorder scan indicates internal burns. “What happened?” You ask Commander Harley, pulling out some medications that will help treat the burns.
“We were repairing one of the atmospheric control modules.” She says to you. “The ionizer fried, and Ensign Zahhak here volunteered to manually reset it. He went up on the roof and fiddled with it, but as soon as it was fixed, there was a power regulation problem.” She looks over at the man lying shirtless, with the lightning shaped welts covering his body. “The excess electricity routed through the console. Lieutenant Captor was leaning on it at the time, and it went right on through him.” She finishes with a grimace.
You nod. “It’s a wonder they’re both still alive.” You tell her. You stand up. The adrenaline running through you is making you warm and happy, and you’ve always been careful about your Deltan impulses, so you retire to the far end of the storage shed, trying to keep your eyes from wandering over either of the limp forms. “They should both be alright now.” You tell Commander Harley, settling into a spot on the floor. You try not to look her over, opting instead to stare her straight in the eyes.
She raises her eyebrow at your movement, but doesn’t say anything, electing to stay seated by her ensign. You all sit quietly through the rest of the storm. Every half hour or so, you move over, running tricorder scan of the two injured men, before administering whatever medication they need, and retiring to your corner again. Starfleet expects decorum from Deltans, and although you didn’t have to swear an oath of celibacy (being only half Deltan, and not retaining the physical traits of one) you know what is expected of you.
By the time that the ion storm subsides, Ensign Zahhak has woken up, and, though weak, seems to have a full recovery in store. Lieutenant Captor however, you keep sedated. His internal burns are severe, and you’ll have to give him plenty of time to rest.
Feferi: Be the Captain
Your name is John Egbert, and you have had one hell of a day.
Two of your crewmembers almost died today, and during what was supposed to be a routine mission! But Doctor Crocker assures you that everyone will be just fine, and the mission on Denar 3 was, technically, a success, even if it doesn’t really feel like one.
Besides the accident that nearly killed your pilot on the colony’s surface, your one android officer caught a virus today. You’ve just received Doctor Crocker’s report on the bug that infected Aradia, and you’re waiting for the all clear from engineering stating that the bug hasn’t infected the main computer. As soon as that’s resolved, you’ll be all set to leave orbit, all of the day’s problems neatly fixed up.
“Captain?” Ensign Strider says from the helm. “Heading laid in, 912 mark 3, all systems responding.”
“Hold on Ensign.” You tell him. “On my mark.” He nods, and you look around the bridge. Megido looks tired, and the ensign at helm seems a little unsure of himself. You trust your crew, but you can tell that today was a strain for everyone. After several minutes of waiting, Maryam speaks up.
“Engineering reports an all clear, Sir.” She tells you, speaking over her shoulder. You nod, and look to the Ensign at helm.
“Engage, Ensign, warp 2.” You say. He moves quickly to carry out your order. You stand up from your chair as you feel the ship pull away from its orbit around Denar 3. The familiar hum of the ship at warp settles over the bridge, and you stride towards your ready room. “Maryam, you have the bridge.” You tell her, and she nods, standing to take the chair.
You go to walk off the bridge, but you pause in the door of your ready room. You watch the viewscreen, watch Denar 3 slide offscreen, and then you feel the ship jump to warp. The stars onscreen blur, and you smile. Finally, you can take a nap.
Captain’s Log, supplemental. The Skaia has completed her mission on Denar 3, though it took a bit longer than we expected. While on the surface, our crew discovered a malfunction in one of the colony’s terraforming systems, and the repairs led to an ion storm that led to near fatal injuries for two officers. On board the ship, one of my senior officers came down with a mysterious bug, and almost infected our main computers. Thankfully, everyone onboard is safe now, and our mission is complete.