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Arrival: The search... for Science!

Posted Jan. 30, 2021, 11:14 a.m. by Ensign Daizi Orin (Scientist) (Ffion Grace)

Posted by Ensign Daizi Orin (Scientist) in Arrival: The search… for Science!

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Akirel Ros (Consultant Researcher) in Arrival: The search… for Science!

Posted by Ensign Daizi Orin (Scientist) in Arrival: The search… for Science!
Posted by… suppressed (10) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Daizi peered somewhat myopically at the PADD in her hand and compared the deck layout displayed on the screen against the door in front of her. Her eyes moved back and forth from the screen to the door and back again, a frown beginning to crease her forehead. With a sigh, she took off her glasses and polished them on the hem of her uniform skirt before replacing them carefully on her freckled button nose.

Unfortunately, despite her somewhat hopeful lens maintenance, the sign stencilled on the door still clearly read ‘waste management systems’ rather than the hoped for ‘science lab alpha’, and no amount of glasses cleaning was going to change the fact that she was going to be late on her first day aboard a starship.

She glanced up and down the corridor, hoping that either inspiration would strike or she would see some friendly face that could point her in the right direction.....

Ensign Daizi Orin

OOC - feel free to jump in anyone!

Unfortunately, the face that she saw first was that of a short and slightly tubby Tellarite coming around the curve of the corridor and carrying a tool kit. Mostly bald with an elegant comb-over, and a beard that would be worshipped by Beardo’s the Galaxy throughout, Gruv spotted the woman outside that particular door and frowned slightly.

He hadn’t been assigned backup for this adventure, but he wasn’t going to look a gift-Targ in the mouth. “Ye got here quick!” He exclaimed as he walked up to her, shoving the tool kit at her with clear intent for her to hold it. Putting one hand on the wall, he reached down and adjusted the knee high heeled boots he wore that added at least three inches to his already impressive frame. At least his Tunic was standard issue, showing the yellow of Engineering. “Ye ever had to wear in a pair of these things? I swear, never buy them from an Orion trader in a hurry, they’re tougher than my grandmothers cheese toasties. Grab the Endo-plasmatic calibrator out of the kit would you and lets get started on that blockage.”

Lt Gruv Skallig, Engineer

Daizi fumbled and juggled with the kit as it was thrust at her, finally grasping it firmly on the third try after wedging her PaDD awkwardly under one arm.

She glanced down at the rotund officer and wondered exactly he he had managed to sneak up on her while wearing boots that would have put even her on an even height with the average crew member.

A succession of questions came to her mind, including “could you point me to the main science labs please?” “Who are you sir? And “how do you walk in those??”

Unfortunately what came out of her mouth was:

“Err.... waah? Blockage?” As she struggled to open the kit whilst keeping hold of the box, her PaDD and her bags, sent off balance both physically and mentally by his somewhat abrupt manner.

Ensign Daizi Orin

“Not just any blockage,” Gruv spoke quietly as if with reverence. “The Blockage, of the type that only the bravest souls with the lowest rank and the most expendable last names get to wrestle with!” Finally finishing adjusting his boots, Gruv pushed himself off the wall and stood upright again, although he still had to look up to the woman. Compared to a Tellarite, even short humans were tall. Puny, but tall. Running a security card over the doors console it slid open revealing the Leviathans waste management facilities on the lower decks.

Sliding his hand into the toolbox Daizi was carrying, he drew a device that looked for all the world like an oversized soldering iron, but with extra prongs, and an energy pack that clipped to his belt. “Suit up lass, make sure it doesn’t slime ye. We’ll be working on the primary matter conversion matrix in the tertiary waste holding reservoir, and I don’t have to tell you where that lot comes from! What’s your name anyway, and what did you do to get landed with this job?”

Lt Skallig

“Um… Daizi… err.... Sir?” The last word coming out as more of a question than she intended, but she was having trouble reconciling the Lt pips the strange little man was wearing with his manner and tone.

“Don’t call me Sir, lass,” Gruv said with a smirk. “I’m a Lieutenant! I work for my money. I’m no fancy pants Lieutenant Commander or Commander that chats up the ladies or mounts chairs the wrong way round.” Not that Gruv could ever mount a chair the wrong way around of course. Maybe a footstool.

She peered around the chamber the opening door had revealed, a multitude of pipes, fluid holding tanks, and mixing chambers crisscrossed the space, many of them large enough to walk through. Indeed, in a slightly worrying development she noted that many had access ports seemingly designed exactly for that purpose.

She glanced down with regret at her best uniform and highly polished boots, worn to create a good impression on her new department head. Still, she could hardly refuse a direct order from her superior and maybe he could help her find the science dept after she had helped him with..... what ever the heck this was......

“Err I just came aboard, I hope I didn’t do um anything yet”

Ensign Daizi Orin

“Well, ye about to become a legend!” Gruv said, hefting the device in his hand like a club. “It’s not often ye get a chance to go down in a blaze of glory right? I’m serious though no open flames in here, got it?” He said as he stepped through the door, looking left and right for the offending piece of equipment, lifting his head slightly as id he was trying to ....smell.... the problem.

“Just came aboard heh? So what is it ye do for a livin lass?” Spotting what he thought might be the issue, he made his way towards a large jumble of pipe work where something large and bulbous seemed to be suspended in the maze of semi-transparent pipework ahead of them.

Lt Skallig

“Listen to ME you pathetic, pint sized, potbellied excuse for an Officer! You WILL take me directly to the Main Science Labs on this vessel or I will personally take an interest in seeing you suffer! I will clean up this mess with your face and then toss you outta an airlock so fast even the smell won’t have time to linger, DO YOU GET ME?!?”

Daizi definitely didn’t say. Instead she blinked several times, unsure why she suddenly felt a bit hot and flustered. Maybe it was the air in here? Or perhaps the smell.... oh gods the smell....

Looking back, Gruv checked in case there was a problem in the pause.

“Err I’m assigned as a science officer here..... I was looking for the labs actually to report in.... do you happen to know where they are? I seem to have gotten myself turned around somehow......”

Her voice trailed off as she spotted the bulbous pustule the LT was pointing out. Instantly forgetting that she was meant to be reporting in somewhere, Daizi pulled out her tricorder and started to collect readings.

“Fascinating… where did you say these pipes originate?”

Ensign Daizi Orin

“These ones?” Gruv shrugged and walked under the pipes, looking up to get a better look at them. “I’d say these ones come from the secondary science labs, they’re always flushing junk away. Out of sight out of mind right.” Reaching up with the device in his hand, Gruv tapped the pipes a few times as if the simple taping would dislodge the bulk of the object. It didn’t.

“So supposed to be in Science Eh Lass? Yep, you took a wee bit of a wrong turn there. See the Labs are up, and you went down. Let’s check this monster out and I’ll escort you to the labs straight after yes?”

Lt Skallig

“Hmmm I’m picking up what appears to be Caitian DNA, or at least what started out as Caitian DNA....”

Daizi was intent on her tricorders’ readings as she scanned the hideous, pus-bloated mass, barely hearing LT Skallig as he waffled in the background. The slime covered blockage appeared to have a semi solid internal structure underneath the viscous , oozing exterior. In fact if she had to make an early hypothesis....

“Do we have a Caitian on the crew? If so, I’d say that this is an excreted hairball. Or at least it was before it mixed with the other waste.... now..... it is something else..... something..... alive”

Ensign Daizi Orin

“What? I have no idea, I haven’t seen one but I only been here a few days yet,” Gruv explained with as shrug, looking at it and scratching his beard. “Alive? Ye serious? Like someone fed a caitian after midnight like some kinda gremlin that coughed up them hairballs?”

A crackling voice came through to Daizi’s comm badge, the dulcet tones of an irritated Ferengi rang through like broken glass in a tumble dryer. =/\= Ensign Orin, you’re late! I do not expect this to happen with my seasoned crew and I especially do not like it when my first impression of someone is their lack of presence in my office! Where are you and are you planning on gracing me with your presence any time today? =/\= Before the Ensign had time to respond the line went dead as Lazol stormed out of his office to yell at someone and get back to reading up on the rather large backlog of ARU reports he needed to submit.

Lazol, CSO

Daizi paid little attention to the voice issuing from her comm, ok whomever it was sounded a bit upset but that was nothing compared to the fascinating opportunity that was right under her nose!

She cleaned and reseated her glasses on her nose to get a better look at the strange podlike growth. Her scans read it as being somewhat hollow beneath the gooey exterior. Her tricorder could barely penetrate the outer husk but she definitely was getting readings of a life form of some sort inside, with definite traces of Caitian DNA.

“Okay, I say we flush it out, send it into space right!?” Gruv said with confidence that he didn’t feel. Living Caitian hairballs were not what he signed up to Starfleet to fix.

Curiosity getting the better of her, Daizi reached into her bag and pulled out a small phaser cutter, focusing the beam into a narrow scalpel like edge she proceeded to cut open the the bulbous pustule, causing a green viscous ooze to leak from the cut she had made.

“What on Tellar Prime are ye doing luv?” Gruv exclaimed, pointing at the tool in her hand. “Hang on, where the heck did you get that thing from? Ye just carry one around yeh?”

Concentrating, she carried on cutting to widen the excision she had made, after all, what harm could come from investigating a strange egg-like thing found in the bowels of a starship??

Ensign Daizi Orin

“Wait, your cutting into the thing?” gruv asked, then clamped his mouth shut as the delicate looking woman seemed focused on surgically examining the insides of the giant bulbous puss ball of hair and muck. He couldn’t help but retch internally as he watched the laser slicing through the outer layers of hair and ooze as she acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Ye scary, Lass, ye know that?” Gruv exclaimed.

Gruv Skalling

“Hmmm?” Muttered Daizi, her attention still focused on the now significantly oozy egg sac type thing. She sighed internally and ran back through the hirsute fellows’ conversation in her head while she continued to cut. She often struggled with things like the social niceties and interpersonal skills, especially when she had an interesting project right in front of her, but felt like she should at least make an effort being new to the ship and crew after all.

“Oh this? I keep one handy for my hobby, I collect spores, moulds, and fungus. You never know when you might find an interesting collectible after all.”

Peering through her thick lenses she made one final incision and daintily stepped to one side as a rush of greenish/brown fluid sloshed across the decking.

Seeing movement within the sac she trained a light source inside. A head poked it’s way out of the gap she had made. Shaped somewhere between a feline and a simian, the creature blinked it’s oversized dark eyes as it adjusted to the light. It appeared to be roughly the size and shape of a large house cat, with striped fur to match, however its paws ended in what appeared be clever looking fingers that gripped the edges of it’s cocoon as it hauled itself out, revealing what appeared to be a prehensile tail that it quickly used to grasp a pipe for better balance.

It’s head turned between first the short, bespectacled human woman and the hairy tellerite engineer, giving both what appeared to be an appraising look before it’s gaze settled on the more hairy of the two.

“Mama?” It ventured.....

Ensign Daizi Orin - Scientist

(OOC: getting this back on track after a fairly big detour lol)

Daizi stood outside what she REALLY hoped was the right door this time. She glanced down at her uniform and made a couple of ineffective brushes at a patch of cocoon goop that sadly wasn’t going to shift without the deployment of weapons grade cleaning agents or a burst from the ships’ main phaser batteries.

She hit the chime and while she waited for an answer she wondered how Gruv was getting on with the strange creature that they had found that seemed to have adopted him as a parent. Hopefully they were doing ok and they wouldn’t get in trouble with her new boss for being late.... after all, a star fleet science officer would surely understand being late because you were investigating a possible new life form.... right??

Daizi Orin - Scientist


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