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

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Miranda R. Sheridan (Science) in Main Sim [Sickbay]: A Flicker of Understanding

Posted by Lieutenant Issac Forgrave (Chief of Security) in Main Sim [Sickbay]: A Flicker of Understanding
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

—[SNIP]—

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.

There was too much going on around the ship. People were stressed, frustrated, angry, scared. It rocked her for a moment, but she absolutely could not be overwhelmed by it. Their XO had been attacked, or…something. Using the only meditative visual that worked, Fayth dragged herself above the waves of noise and feeling and surfed right above the chaos. And then someone’s mind touched hers very briefly. It was calm and still but filled with worry and purpose. The science officer from the shuttle bay. Sharah had far too much going on at the moment to deal with that. A quick ‘listen’ told her that the ‘sound’ and ‘feel’ were the same, and so she didn’t worry it wasn’t who she thought it was. And then she turned her attention back to the room (it had all happened in just a few moments) and…

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

Just behind them came another in science blues, moving fast. She came through the doorway, to see the two security ensigns, Darz, and then a doctor with a tricorder. Kohr was unconscious on the floor. And a mote of light was in front of the good doctor though she seemed to be warding it off with the tricorder.

Fayth was watching the mote curiously. It was bored, and if this thing was dangerous, boredom was not what she wanted it to feel. She didn’t want to, but she was going to have to try and urge it to hang around. She allowed a gentle tendril of curiosity to gently prod the mote in front of her. To keep it from wandering off.

Not wasting any time she shoved past the ensigns. “Biobed 2 for the moment,” she ordered as she passed them. They weren’t in her department. Kalika outranked her, but she was compromised and relieved of duty for the moment. Or so they were going to find out. Sharah was of the same rank, Lieutenant Junior Grade, and while a doctor, and this was her house, Miranda had been in Starfleet for a decade. She had seniority. It was a good order as any for now, until there was reason to for something else.

Sharah glanced over at the people coming into sickbay, “No, quarantine room 1. Security, if you would stay outside the room.” She glanced back at the mote and without really considering what she was doing the thought traveled to the it ‘I want to talk to you, don’t go anywhere.‘

“Watkins, go with them and take full bio and neurological scans. hKh’tol do you have those on Cmdr Kohr yet? Elbbirt see if you can help the Lt over here,” she nodded her head towards Sheridan. Sheridan was stressed, the three security officers were confused, two of them embarrassed, and didn’t like having to detain one of their own. ‘Join the club.‘

The medical officers tending to the executive officer grunted as they heaved the Klingon onto a biobed and got him set up. One jerked a thumbs-up in Fayth’s direction before leaning exhaustively against the wall. Kohr was well in-hand.

Watkins nodded, “Lt Darz, come with me please and we’ll get you settled.” She led the Lt who looked like she might have taken a shower in her clothes, to the first quarantine room to begin the scans.

“Get it to where you can drop a forcefield,” she barked to Fayth who seemed at a loss for how to proceed. At the same time, she took the pocket phaser Markus had passed her and set the beam width to spread by about fifteen degrees. The motes were smaller than the ones on the target practice range. She set for heavy stun. The type 1 phaser didn’t have as many settings as a type 2, but it still could disintegrate and vaporize targets if she had to. But firing anything more than heavy stun in sickbay? That wasn’t something she wanted to risk, though if she had to she’d step it up to light or heavy disrupt. Even this was only a stop-gap if the force field didn’t work.

Lt j.g. Miranda R. Sheridan, Sci

With the stress and resentment and fear running around the ship, Sharah almost snapped at the woman. She had no idea who she was or what she was doing. Obviously, Sharah was going to try and trap the thing. “You are not shooting a phaser in sickbay. There are patients in here.” It came out harsh and Sharah felt bad immediately. The tension on the ship was rising and getting to her. She turned back to the floating light....was it closer? She moved away from the entry way back towards the main medical bay where a field could be dropped, ‘Come on, follow me. Nothing interesting in there…‘

Fayth, med

With Sharah distracted by the flurry of activity in both her mind and in Sickbay, she was perhaps too slow to evade the dancing ember. Had there not been so many people and thoughts demanding her attention, she might have noticed the flicker of response the mote gave off to each touch of her telepathic speech. And perhaps, too, she would have sensed its change in both behavior and intent—from lackadaisical to focused, from bored to intense. The moment Sharah’s body began to withdraw towards the main chamber of Sickbay, it was simply there flickering against the skin of her brow.

It did not hurt or burn or tickle or any of the other sensations Sharah might have expected as it moved through her skin and… what? There was no real way for her logical mind to process what she should have been feeling, and the absence almost made her mind ache. She would almost want to laugh for a reason she couldn’t understand. This was all so confusing because she honestly felt better. Comfort, that was perhaps the best word she could describe her emotional state. Though there were others in the room with her, she felt safe and whole. Complete. The voices in the back of her mind—the minds of the rest of the crew, almost ever-present—were quieter now. They weren’t being blocked or shoved away, just not as strong. Closer, but somehow muted. A part of her struggled to catalogue everything; another half of her was content to just be.

It was very disorienting.

Something wasn’t quite right, she finally realized. That feeling of comfort and belonging suddenly gave way to something else, a sense of disquiet. Sharah could feel emotions boiling up within her, emotions she could not find the cause for. They washed over her like a wave, hammered into her mind over and over until it plunged her consciousness under. The room spun and dipped, swam and tilted, then finally fell away. She found herself in a dark space, bursts of light and sound beating against her, threatening to erode her very sense of self!

Then it was gone as quickly as it had happened, leaving her a touch dazed but otherwise nonplussed. The emotions—contentment, sorrow, confusion, curiosity, dread—clung to the inside of her skull like cobwebs, but the meaning behind them faded more quickly than a dream. It had all happened in a flash, between the space of one breath and the next, but she felt exhausted. It was little wonder, then, when she did not react to the mote of luminescence slipping free of her brow once more to linger in the air. It seemed dimmer now, almost translucent. Then, it winked out in a burst of what Sharah could only describe as thought, a single word that had profound impact on her. A single tear slipped free of Sharah’s restraint, tumbling down her cheek as that word echoed over and over in her mind.

~Mother…~
—Jas—