Posted by Jason Wolfe in Main Sim [Sickbay]: A Flicker of Understanding

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Sharah Fayth (Medical) in Main Sim [Sickbay]: A Flicker of Understanding

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Kohr (Executive Officer) in Main Sim [Sickbay]: A Flicker of Understanding
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

—[SNIP]—

As Fayth listened to Fairweather she tried to get an empathic impression of him. Not prying but just a general feel of if he was lying or telling the truth. It could be that Dwyers felt his behavior inappropriate and he was trying to avoid getting in trouble, but she didn’t think that was the case. Fayth ran the wand over him again, confirming what her first scan already showed, high blood sugar levels and an increase in digestive enzymes. “You did eat a huge meal, in last 20 minutes.” Gel packs…gel packs…the energy motes were like the gel packs… “Was there anything abnormal about that gel pack? Do you remember a flash of light, or maybe a small shock? Sometimes an eletrical surge can cause temporary disorientation.” Fayth was not an engineer, but she was a scientist, and had an incredible telepathic gift, and her brain just worked fast. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was sure there was some connection there. She pulled up the neurological scan of Fairweather to get a closer look at the readings for the time when his PFC was on double duty.

Semenza had left…who to call? While she was contemplating that the XO walked in.

Some time later, Commander Kohr strode in through the door. His gaze swung back and forth over the room, his frown only deepening when he did not spy anyone he expected. The Klingon paused to nod assuredly at Lieutenant Faith and her patient before moving to an unobtrusive distance to wait. Whether or not Hab’rabi would eventually be brought to Sickbay for evaluation, he wasn’t certain. It was, however, the best place to be for him to be scanned and cleared to return to his duty. That fact alone made him grind his teeth. Whatever force had set them against one another, he would see it brought down… whatever the cost.
—Kohr, Executive Officer—

Ensign Fairweather
GM

Fayth nodded to Kohr and noticed he moved out of the way, so he wasn’t there to speak to her. She felt though what was going on was important and made her way over to Kohr while the scans finished with Fairweather. “Cmdr. I think you should hear this.” And she proceeded to explain to him about Fairweather’s memory lapse, his behavior during the lapse from kissing the officer to the heavy meal, and the fact he was working near the bio gel packs. “Those motes, the ones I scanned when the alien came on board, they act like our gel packs…I don’t know if there’s a connection, but I thought I should mention it.”

Fayth, med

Kohr nodded along with the medical officer’s explanation, folding his arms across his chest thoughtfully. When she was done, he mentioned all that had happened with Lieutenant Darz and Commander Sigmundsson. He did take a moment to look over any notes that she had available before turning back to Sharah.

“I left orders for any systems using gelpacks to be taken off-line for diagnostics,” he rumbled. “It is possible that there was a malfunction of sorts when Fairweather was examining them, but I do not believe it is coincidence. Given all we know of these things—which is frustratingly little—I suspect there was an entity within or nearby. Whether it leapt to him from the gelpack, or chose that point to assume control, I am not certain. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

Fayth nodded and returned to check on the scans of Fairweather.

=/\=Rende to Kohr. I’m sending you a video feed. NE Sacco just shot Hab’rabi, point blank. Does medical have any idea how to determine if someone’s been affected or not?=/\= She keyed up the video feed and sent it to the console nearest his location.

Rende, CO

Kohr watched the feed with grim attention, the ridges of his brow only deepening with his frown. Giving a polite apology to Sharah, he stepped a respectful distance away and tapped his comm badge. =^=Kohr here. Stand by.=^=

The Klingon leaned over the monitor, gripping the sides of the table. His dark eyes drank in the interplay between the security officer and the alien. He could not help but lean closer at Hab’rabi’s grunted words. Was it a trick of the mind, or had the officer been speaking as if he knew the alien? Kohr could see it in Hab’rabi’s eyes, the barest twitch of realization and familiarity. The way the security officer then stunned Hab’rabi made the knot in his skull tighten. There was… a kind of cold rage in the act, a spark he had only ever seen in the heat of battle once or twice before. He had to stop the feed for replay twice, zooming in on the officer’s face, before he could confirm his suspicion.

He tapped his comm badge again, glaring at the playback. It was paused just as Sacco began firing on Hab’rabi’s prone form, phaser fire giving a malevolent glint to the officer’s eyes. =^=Kohr to Bridge. I do not believe the medical staff has had sufficient time to come up with a countermeasure. However, I do believe I—=^=

A wash of vertigo rolled over him like a wave, pulling from the back of his skull to just between his eyes. His vision swam, and he twitched forward. Only his grip on the table kept him from toppling over. Kohr gasped, clutched his chest with his gloved hand. The air was too thin, the room bucking and twisting beneath his feet like a flailing cave snake. Suddenly, his thoughts felt sluggish and dull, split apart. Or was it compressed? The lights in Sickbay dimmed, flared, dimmed again. Looking to Sharah, he heard himself ask for help but her eyes did not speak of understanding. Taking another breath, he tried again.

Fayth turned at the sound and the sudden sense that someone was in pain. She looked at Kohr and began hurried in his direction, tricorder already flipped open.

“Not… yet…” he gurgled, his voice thick with phlegm and strain. The veins in his neck and head writhed beneath his skin with a heavy pulse, eyes bulging. “Let… go…”

=/\=Cmdr?=/\= Silence.... =/\=Rende to Sickbay. Where is Cmdr Kohr?=/\= Rende’s voice barked through the comms as she moved down the corridor.

With a rattling gasp, Kohr collapsed as surely as if he were a mannequin with his strings cut. His forehead smashed into the monitor hard enough to crack the image before tumbling to the floor, motionless. Only the raging pulse in his neck spoke of his desperate clinging to life.

Fayth rushed forward as his body folded in on itself. She ended up half pinned under the weight of the large Klingon. At her 5‘2” she wasn’t going to stop him from falling. She maneuvered out from under his bulk and started scanning him. It was a good think he was Klingon and had those brow ridges. They probably saved him from serious brain damage. Checking his pulse the old fashioned way she breathed a sigh of relief there. Detaching the wand from her tricorder she started to take readings of him. “Computer, does Lt Cmdr Kohr have a history of seizures?” “NEGATIVE” came back the immediate reply.

A moment later, a soft pool of light coalesced beneath the skin of Kohr’s brow. It flickered briefly before condensing at the surface and rising lazily as a spark of russet light. It hung just above the inert form of the Klingon, wobbling back and forth before rising toward the ceiling like an ember on a soft breeze. Before it got too far, however, the air about it began to ripple and warp like heat rising from desert stone, until the mote was nearly obscured. Then, it vanished as surely as if it had never been.

Sharah moved backwards quickly at the light, tricorder still scanning, but out of the way of what ever was going on under his skin…and then one of those cursed motes left his head. She aimed the wand at it. “Computer, track the energy pattern my tricorder is currently reading.” There was a trill of response. She couldn’t chase it, but the computer might be able to.

=/\=This is Dr. Fayth. He appears to have suffered some type of seizure…and one of those motes just came out of his head.=/\= Curiosity, concern, and worry registered in Rende’s empathy. Rende closed the comms and kept moving. Bugging the doctor wasn’t going to help the matter.

Another pulse of light gathered at the base of Kohr’s skull, this time a gentler amber. This luminescence wafted free of the Klingon without much trouble, though it bobbed to and fro with almost listless curiosity. Like a moth to a flame, it dipped this way and that closer and closer to Sharah. Before it closed within an arm’s length, it stopped and veered sharply toward the deck before returning to a somewhat still position at eye level. It almost seemed… interested… in her.
—Jas—

Sharah didn’t notice it at first, too focused on her patient. “Watkins, Kh’tol get the anti-grav straps and get him to a biobed. I want neural scans in addition to a full work up.” She stood up, stepping back, once they had moved Kohr, Sharah looked up right into a mote....the color was different but she had no idea what that meant. Wand still in hand it was still taking readings.

Sharah was hesitant to make any sort of telepathic contact. Last time she did something like that she’d created a new life, and she had no desire to repeat that experience or something worse. “What are you?” Her feelings and thoughts were loud enough that any empath on board would sense intense curiosity and caution, tempered by apprehension. A telepath would clearly pick up the thought, ‘Oh gods…it’s coming after me.‘

Fayth, med

Whether it understood her words, was reacting to the sound of her voice, or just blithely bobbing along, the dim beacon drifted closer. It reminded Sharah of a curious insect, like a bumblebee or a butterfly, with its listless movements. Its pattern became more erratic than before, and Sharah detected a growing sense of—she wasn’t quite sure, disinterest? boredom?—from it as the seconds wore on. It did react to the tricorder’s wand, however, dipping lazily away from it with each pass before closing distance again.

Nearby and in stark contrast, the computer chirped and displayed the results of Ensign Fairweather’s scan for Sharah’s eye when she wasn’t so distracted. She could, however, see that it was grinding doggedly away at the tricorder information from both motes, clicking and whirring as it searched medical and scientific databases for something to compare it to.
—Jas—

The sickbay door chimed, and a moment later a voice called out. “Hello? Uh, security here with Lieutenant Darz - where do you want us?” A pair of ensigns moved through the door, along with the aforementioned Lt.

-NE Odendecker & NE Pascal; Security