Posted by Ensign Caelian Weir (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Seeking Prometheus

Posted by Kvasir (Story Teller) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Seeking Prometheus

Posted by Lieutenant Markus Woods (Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Seeking Prometheus
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻

—SNIP—

The amount of information gathered by the Viking and her crew, as well as the data dump offered by the alien ship, amounted to an incredible amount of data that even the computer was having a problem organizing into succinct chunks for Woods to process. While his Starfleet training would allow him to paint a picture in his mind, the strokes were quite broad and somewhat subjective. Perhaps it was a task that would ultimately require a meshing of experienced minds, a blending of fields. The biggest problem that Woods would face would be that of the malfunctions: even the computer agreed that the plight of their systems was a result of an accident, an unfortunate incident that resulted in the loss of control across several systems. It occurred to him that a closer inspection might be in order—visiting the scene of the crime, as it were.

The present theory involving both the strange lights and the crew’s odd behavior wobbled precariously between influence and possession. The computer seemed almost pleased to inform Woods that information was still coming in from, and being processed by, Sickbay. The fact that not one, but two motes emerged from Commander Kohr’s body intrigued him, and the snapshot scan of the first mote Lieutenant Fayth managed to capture tugged at his attention. The pattern seemed hauntingly familiar somehow, but with the barrage of information and sensation coupled with the task at hand he couldn’t pluck the answer from the air.

The information on Hab’rabi was almost infuriatingly unhelpful: by all accounts he was a humanoid in perfect health—despite having been shot repeatedly by a phaser at close range, of course—and who possessed strength and stamina in measures that would make a Klingon jealous, as well as psychic abilities on par with a well-trained Betazoid. His brain scans were inconclusive by virtue of their very nature, a Gordian knot of impulses and pathways that gave Woods’ logical mind fits were he to attempt to trace them!

The alien ship was perhaps the least vexing piece of the puzzle, but only because of the limited information currently available to the Viking. Due to a leak in the ship’s warp core, radiation obscured the attempts at a detailed scan of the derelict. The crew had a general idea of the vessel’s interior—making it safe for excursions via transporter at the very least—but nothing concrete beyond that. Given the account of its travels offered by Hab’rabi before his unfortunate run-in with Ensign Sacco, the vessel fared admirably across an impossible gulf of space; she bears both hull and internal damage that could be attributed to the wear and tear of travel long-term in deep space. The way Ensign Weir is focused on her layout, however, niggles at Woods like a splinter in his thoughts.

With only a slight pause the captain’s voice came back over the comms. =/\=Rende here Lt. Go ahead.=/\=

Rende, CO

=^=I’ve got an update for you, but I need to have a word in person if at all possible for part of it, Captain.=^= Screen to screen might be good enough, but this would be better in person and might take some time to relay. His tone was a mixture of tension, some relief, and other things that didn’t quite translate over voice comms. =^=I’m having the high gravity areas of the ship evacuated of all non-essential personnel for now. High gravity doesn’t seem like much, but it can rack up injuries quick. Especially if people had more than twenty percent their body weight on them to begin with.=^= Carrying heavy stuff, a heavy pack or tool kit, things like that.

=^=Isolinear systems are fine. Gelpacks are still having issues, but I have one of our computer specialists on the way to get a handle on that and see if we can’t get that sorted quickly. The rest… should be in person, ma’am.=^=

Lt Woods, CSO/aXO

=/\=I will be there as quickly as I can get through the check points.=/\=

It took about 15 minutes longer than normal for Rende to take a lift from deck 25 up to main engineering. She suffered through the checks just like everyone else. Especially because it was her. Kohr was right of course when he said the risk to her was high and the amount of damage she could cause. But he was out of the count now, so here she was. She approached the group, spotted Woods and walked over. “Alright Lt. let’s talk.”

Rende was looking over the data that Woods had pulled up. The first thing she was interested in was the medical scans of the crew. They all seemed to be okay despite what ever had happened to them. Except for Kohr. She wasn’t a doctor but it seemed that he would be okay, but it would take time. Hab’rabi was an unknown though. If he was Betazoid she’d say he would cover all on his own. The Betazoid people had remarkably resilient brains and healed from most trauma. That brought her eye to the scans of the young doctor - the one who knew her son. Apparently she’d had an encounter with a mote as well. Her scans seemed different but Rende wasn’t sure what that meant. The last report she went over was Fairweather. She read over his report and then reread it. “Woods, it seems Fairweather was injured, had one of these ‘episodes’ while he was working on switching us off the biogel packs. The same one that has caused the malfunction. Didn’t initial scans indicate these things worked like our gelpacks? That’s why Kohr switched us off of them.” Rende wasn’t an engineer. No where close, but after centuries with Eldorin she knew how to spot a problem, or at least narrow down the most critical thing to check. Even if she didn’t know what to look for or how to fix it. “We need to get someone to do a thorough diagnostic of the gelpacks that went haywire.”

The sound of the Captain’s voice, along with the CSO’s a moment before, made Kristi come out of the Chief’s office. “Ma’am,” she nodded to the CO. “Sir,” her response likewise to the Lieutenant. “The gel pack cascade is along one circuitous route that doesn’t intersect with anything vital. As long as it doesn’t work it’s way back through the damaged pack towards the main junction three packs prior, we should be fine. I can get the team to the junction if I have your permission to break quarantine from Engineering. No one here has been affected, that I’m aware of.” She glanced around suddenly wondering how she’s know. Glancing back at the two, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “And I’d like to volunteer to retrieve the Chief. It seems he is stuck between bulkhead sections. I believe I would go and get him back here, safely, by myself. That way minimal people are breaking the quarantines. We could work on the Cascade failure instead of coming right back if you’re worried about us getting infected out there.” There was a small edge of anxiousness to her voice and, if she was aware of the woman’s habits, Rende would sense a bit of a sting of tension that wasn’t usual for the engineer. That made her think. “I wonder if a stun setting on a phaser would affect the spheres. I mean, if they are energy, wouldn’t a different phase of energy affect them? Perhaps a short stun burst in a corridor in front of me would be a way to ‘clear a path’ between the containment barriers.” She was half thinking out loud as she rambled, when looked back up at the Captain with a bit of color on her cheeks. “Sorry, Ma’am. I tend to ramble when thinking too hard.” She bit her lip to keep from doing that even more.

The last Viking, the haunted one, had nearly taken the last Chief on at least a half dozen occasions. The idea of this Chief being stuck in the walls was a bit of a frightful flashback. She knew this ship was simply that, a ship. And after nearly a month of double checking the ship rosters to be sure everyone was accounted for, she had stopped worrying about people being swallowed up. But it still haunted her dreams. She couldn’t imagine how Kalika felt, having actually been one of the folks to suffer being disappeared then reappeared on the ship. Shaking her head, she focused once more on the Captain to see what her orders would be.

Kristi

Rende chuckled, “He’s fine ensign. I’ve talked to him. He is currently enjoying crawling around the jefferies tubes and figuring out the puzzle of how he got trapped. He’s got his tool kit, he’ll be fine. He’ll even fix anything he finds along the way. If he gets into trouble I’ll be the first to know. However, since you seem to have an idea of what is going on with the gelpacks, I want you to take the team and get them fixed. I don’t want this surge to spread anywhere else. I also want to know exactly how the damage happened. We aren’t lifting the quarantine protocols, but get the work order set up and I’ll sign off on it. You’ll have to pass through the check points, but you’ll be able to reach where you want to go.”

Caelian sighed audibly and swiped his hand across the central display, wiping away the aggravating image of the damaged alien ship and leaning against the console. He’d hit a workman’s wall, as his father called it: a point where he would just be banging his head against the same data over and over again, getting nowhere. From what he could see, it would take engineering repair teams two days to get the strange vessel operational again. For full repairs, however, they’d need to be towed to a starbase; the Viking simply didn’t have the equipment or resources to effect repairs on such a scale efficiently. But that was in regards to the damage he could actually see through the haze of radiation. For all he knew, there was more to worry about.

But that’s a matter for Tomorrow Caelian, he sighed again, downloading his report to a PaDD. Today Caelian needs some coffee. But first…

When the download piped up as complete, Caelian scooped up his PaDD and gave Brown a soft nod. He blinked. He had to run this up the chain of command, but if the chief was still locked behind bulkheads with spotty comm signals, who would that be? He did almost a complete turn of befuddlement before he noted the captain talking to the lieutenant—no, acting executive officer, a thought that worried Caelian—putting their heads together at another workstation. He shrugged inwardly and made his way over.

Markus nodded. He would have sent Kristi as well. He’d known her for a while on this ship and she was more than capable as an engineer. “Recommend taking Ensign Little with you. He’s into computer sciences and the like. He should be a quite able assistant, and give him a chance to get his hands dirty.” Cross-pollenation of skillsets was always a good idea.

After Kristi left with her team, Rende turned to Woods, “Alright, teach me something.”

Rende, CO

“Alright,” Markus said, exhaling in a sigh through his nose as though mentally switching hats. One could almost see him adjusting a pair of glasses if he had them. “Let’s start with some review. We have the ship, which seems to be a derelict colony ship, low on power and almost out of gas. We make contact, wake it up. Come aboard without knowing the full measure of the situation. Interference from their damage warp drive obscures much from our sensors.” As he spoke he swiped each of the data points he had on his tablet onto the screen, beginning to build a network of data points and information.

“We make contact with Hab’rabi aboard his vessel, as he is thawed out from cryosleep. The rest of the crew are still there. And we have our first encounter with those lights. Conversation ensues, we move back to the ship, scans all around on the flight line. The lights are with us.”

“Now we’ve asked him about these lights. Ship, people, etcetera. We’ve gotten some dodgy answers. And even picked up some deception off of him.” He focused his gaze on Rende for a moment. “However. Everything he has told us tracks.” Markus spoke of deception, then jumps to Hab’rabi telling the truth? That was a twist.

“Okay, so we have been told the lights are Remnants. Bits of consciousness and the like. Hab’rabi is the Keeper of the Remnants. Or a keeper. We thought it was a cultural metaphor. But it’s literal, at least I believe so.” At the same time he pulled up the cultural references they had received from the ship, especially in relation to the castes, and the remnants as he’d spoken.

He pulled up Hab’rabi’s latest scans, showing the electrical activity in his brain. Then pulled up the other comparative scans for those that had been affected by the Remnants. Then he pulled up the victims anecdotal accounts of their experiences. And lastly he pulled up Fayth’s. “Memories. Fragmented, but there. A sense of consciousness, of another person. We have Commander Sigmundsson going off book. For an intel guy that’s well… not unusual. But he’s disciplined and committed to the cause. Lieutenant Darz.” He went on to show the others, pulling up their images, their faces lined side by side. “They’ve all gone off book, but don’t remember why. Now we might think of it as possession. And there might be some correlation there. But I don’t think that’s really what we’re seeing. Not in the way we think about it.”

Caelian stopped a respectful distance away, clasping his PaDD behind his back and waiting patiently to be noticed. Much as he tried not to listen to what was being said, he couldn’t help but key in on some of the snippets and highlights. Ever since hearing about the derelict vessel from beyond the core of their galaxy, Caelian had been itching for an opportunity to learn more. Then the rumors of malfunctions and strange occurrences began to circulate, resulting in a contamination protocol and their current logistical plight. Eventually, he couldn’t help but follow along with what Woods was saying.

“In their culture, these middle-caste folks serve as … channelers. Mediums. The Habs serve as almost a balancing force, but also interact with the Remnants in many other ways. Hab’rabi… is almost more like a priest. But his whole job is not only a spiritual leader for the people alive but also a leader for the Remnants. Or at least, … like a host for them? But his brain circuitry is engineered either through evolution or actual engineering to handle this. Most people on board are not really equipped, mentally, to interact with the Remnants. I might be able to. Maybe the betazoid doctor, a few other telepaths might. But it would take time to … get the technique and discipline down. But it could be done.”

No, thank you, Caelian thought bitterly to himself. The idea of having something else rattling around in his head, making him do things—or even just jumbling his already active thoughts—was enough to give him gooseflesh. A finger tapped absently against his PaDD.

“Now I bring this up because the Remnants, I think, are just looking to interact. Both with us and the ship. I do not think it’s intentionally malicious. Despite the cascade of failures we’ve seen. Despite having Kohr out of commission for now.” He knew some might be giving him looks, wondering who’s side he was on. But their thinking might well be upside down on the whole thing. “Hab’rabi told us initially that they served as part of the ship’s function. They’re similar to the gelpacks. They register our systems as similar to theirs and likely compatible. Or even something they can… dump data into. But they don’t know how to do it yet. The static discharge shorts out the pack. Almost like shorting out some of our people.”

It wasn’t a bad theory. While the gelpacks were a wonderful way to boost a computer’s processing power, they were also composed of living matter and were extremely sensitive to external influences. If these “remnants” were of a varying energy type or maintained some manner of bioelectric property, that would go far to explain how the packs Fairweather was working with could have malfunctioned. And since they worked on the same general principle as neurons, it would definitely speak as to why they were affecting the crew. Caelian found himself nodding along, forming theories of his own.

He brought Hab’rabi back to the front. “This ties in. Hab’rabi’s job, is the Keeper. Say that title is literal. He keeps and maintains the Remnants. Like an ancestral memory or record, keeping these consciousnesses or fragments of them intact as long as he can. My analogy may be off, but his brain may well function like a jar, holding all of the Remnants. Outside of the jar they lose energy or cohesion, but over time. But they can afford to leave, for a while. Then circle back. Which is why there are lights coming and going. It may well not be the same Remnant leaving his head as entered. One comes in, another comes out. Juggling more Remnants than he can actually hold. And aboard the ship they may be able to interact with the ship in a similar fashion.”

Caelian nodded again. He hadn’t done as well as he’d have liked when it came to medical studies at the Academy, but he was able to muddle along. Isn’t that what the brain is, basically? he mused wryly, trying not to smile at himself. A jar for our memories? Thinking to himself, he punched up the available data on the energy motes, toying with a few ideas of his own. After a moment, he blinked and cocked his head. Was it his imagination, or did some of those motes look brighter before entering Hab’rabi’s skull? He made a mental note to look over the data more thoroughly later. Woods was moving on, and he didn’t want to get lost.

He turned back to Rende. “So they’re not really trying to hurt anybody, even though they kind of are. They may just be trying to hang on. Or interac tand tell us soemthing. Based on the memory dump that Doctor Fayth got. And with Hab’rabi down, there’s no executive control there right now.”

“So it’s possible everything we’ve been told is actually accurate. We’ve seen damage to the ship. Those remnants might be his remaining crew. The thingthat troubles me are the amber ones we’ve seen now. But like any group… they’re people. People who want to maintain the status quo, others who want to rock the boat, and varying agendas all around. So while one group might be benign the other might well be hostile. And perhaps that is part of Hab’rabi’s altercation. But more than that, his deception may not have been that he wanted to lie to us, there just wasn’t time, or things that we might not get right away. Or just complicate matters.”

He chewed the inside of his lower lip for a moment. On the display the image of one of the motes squirting right through a force field in front of the security team popped up. “Well, crap,” he muttered under his breath.

=^=Computer. Isolate the force field in that footage and check it’s frequency and timing against he visual time index of the mote passing through the field.=^= Did it anticipate when the field would change directions, oscillate, or fluctuate? Or did it change it’s frequency to match it?

The computer chirped and eagerly—if a bit sluggishly—pounced on the task at hand. Mechanically speaking, the containment field had been operating properly at the time of the incident. The sensor readings of the mote at the time of “impact” showed a shift in its energy matrix, but in a way that confounded Woods: there was a drastic drop-off in both amplitude and frequency. Simultaneously, while the field emitters may have been operating properly, there was a dip in the barrier’s charge when the mote came into contact with it. It was a strange loss on both sides, and by all accounts the field should have held. So why hadn’t it?

“A… subspace inversion wave…?” Caelian breathed, then wishing he hadn’t. Not now, Cael. They’ll see it. Give it time.

Tapping on the display he brought up Sharah’s scans of the Remnants she’d directly taken readings of. The ones around Hab’rabi, the ones that came out of Kohr, and the one that exited her and winked out. Mind working in overdrive he began to dig into the specific data of the motes. Their energy output, frequencies, energy composition, and so on. This he cross-checked with the data he was getting from the force field incident.

Another point of frustration emerged from the pattern: that of variety. When the computer displayed the matrix patterns of the observed and recorded motes, there were four different and distinct types. The first and most obvious was the subject from Deck 34, with a very erratic, almost angry, wave pattern. Sharah had caught a brief scan of a similar mote exiting Commander Kohr before disappearing, though its pattern was more cohesive somehow; conversely, the ember that had lingered behind to interact with her vaguely matched several in orbit of Hab’rabi’s head as he boarded the Viking. Yet the last type—the most complex energy matrix Woods had ever seen—was also found floating about the alien lord, and seemed to be the type most frequently entering and exiting his skull.

The first and second types seemed to share a commonality in energy makeup, though there were distinct enough spikes in frequency that Woods felt confident in keeping them separate in his head—a dingo standing alongside a shepherd, as it were. To follow the analogy, the third type bore a faint enough resemblance that they could have been far-flung cousins—a hyena, perhaps—but was distinctly different in that it had an underlying electrostatic charge. The final type was so eerily dissimilar and dense that there was no doubt it earned its own place beyond the horizon of its kin, a whale of an energy signature. However, each did have its own unique waveform, strengthening Woods’ theory that each mote was an individual.

Caelian felt a working theory building up inside his mind, racing along his neural pathways and lighting his brain up like a supernova. Those waves were the piece of the puzzle the engineering team had been missing, and a great deal of it went far to explain why they couldn’t readily detect or contain these energy forms—until now. It was only an idea, but maybe…

“If I can find a common frequency and amplitude and reverse the polarity, I can possibly create a field that they can’t enter, or that nullifies them. I’d settle for repelling them,” Markus explained as he worked. “I want to go back to the derelict. I feel there are many things we’re missing. But we need to be able to do it safely. For both our sake’s and for Hab’rabi’s people. We might even be able to uncover medical records that help us treat him. Find out if the ship was sabotaged. These other Remnants that are … causing problems or are hostile. Maybe hostile.” He glanced over to Rende, pausing for a moment. “If you need me here, i’ll stay, but I do think we really didn’t give it the once-over we should have, so sending a team back on a runabout…”

Lt Woods, CSO/aXO
—Jas—

“You can’t!” Caelian finally blurted, his face turning bright red in embarrassment. What had gotten into him? “I mean… you can go back to the alien ship, sir. That’s not what I meant to say. In fact, if you do go, I have a repair schedule already prepared for inspection. What I meant to say is… uh…”

“Out with it Ensign,” Markus said. He could feel Caelian’s excitement pressing up against him, vibrating like a drill in his hand. The guy was about to burst with what was on his mind. Mark found himself smiling a little, trying to keep it contained.

The ensign nearly vibrated with anxiety. Still, he took a moment to close his eyes and take a deep breath. Caelian could feel their eyes on him, hear the blood of chagrin thundering in his ears. But he’s already stuck his foot in his mouth. Nothing to do but press on and hope he didn’t end up on someone’s bad side. After all, he’d already been removed from one ship.

“If I may, sir?” Caelian barely waited for so much as a nod before stepping to the console and tapping at the controls. He pulled up the mote data from both Sickbay and Deck 34, placing them side-by-side. It took him a moment to get the computer to align them properly, but he finally nodded and turned. “I’ve seen this type of wave pattern before, specifically in the field of subspace study. I attended a conference where we discussed the technology used by the Dominion to build houdinis and— Ah, nevermind.”

He gestured to the wave pattern displayed both at the moment the mote disappeared from Sickbay and the instant the mote on Deck 34 passed through the field. “This sort of pattern most regularly occurs when a physical object enters or leaves subspace, similar to a houdini. Similar, more subtle patterns, occur during subspace transmissions or long-range sensor scans, but the computer accounts for them and disregards them or they’re so fine as to be almost imperceptible. I’m going to guess that these things aren’t pure energy, but more of a sort of bioelectric plasma, hence the inversion wave as they fold into subspace. It would also go a long way to explain why we haven’t been able to detect them: they’re not here to detect.”

“I had a similar thought about them being bio-electric plasma. Which is why we have the containment field protocol and such,” Markus said. As he studied the fields, he knew exaaaactly what the Ensign was talking about and onto. Inside he was kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. That was his specialty, among other things. In truth he felt his ears begin to ring and the grip on his PaDD tightened, along with his jaw muscles bulging from clenched teeth. Caelian was definitely onto something. Why hadn’t he seen it? It was so freaking clear now.

“Now we could permeate the Viking with a type of nucleonic charge found to border subspace,” he mused as much to himself as anyone. “That would essentially thicken the air and destabilize the formation of subspace inversion waves. But that would mean recalibrating the main deflector and taking the warp drive off-line while the field was active. It would also mean we would be unable to use the subspace relays to communicate, and we’d have to navigate via other means if we wanted to go anywhere. Depending on the field strength required, it could also disrupt other systems like containment fields. We’d keep those two types of beings out—or in, if they’re already here—and render them visible but it could come as a trade-off.”

Caelian gestured to the other mote in the security feed, bumbling about haphazardly. “These ones don’t have that underlying subspace property, so our conventional methods of containment should work fine on them. It’s also why we’ve been able to see them. He—or she, I suppose. It?—doesn’t seem to like it, though. Watch how its matrix destabilizes and reconstitutes each time it bumps into the barrier. Our energy fields certainly don’t seem to agree with it, are possibly hurting it. I don’t know whether to be relieved or upset that we haven’t tried beaming them off the ship; that would likely have destabilized it completely.”

“This jumbled misto is giving me a headache just looking at it,” Caelian grumbled at the final convoluted energy signature. “It has all the varying energy markers found in the others but its… different somehow. Denser, but constantly fluctuating, like its trying to be in two places at once. Given enough time, we could probably get a better handle on it.”

“Maybe it’s newer? Or one of the other castes. It’s possible these things could have a super-position,” he mused along with the Ensign. At the same time the situation was giving him a headache as well, and he could feel his blood pressure on the rise, even see it as his vision pulsed some.

He chuckled sheepishly, stepping back and offering an apologetic smile. “I-I’m sorry for interrupting, sirs. I find this kind of thing fascinating, but I clearly overstepped into your conversation. It won’t happen again.”

“The, uh,” he coughed and offered the PaDD to Captain Rende, “damage report on the derelict, sir.”
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—

Markus waved one hand. “No, no. Very insightful, and you spotted something I missed. I’m glad you spoke up.” He glanced toward the engineer then back to the display. “It’s a good thing you didn’t sit on that, or we’d be worse off.” Thinking about it for a moment he frowned. “Could we modify a level three containment field to stop these buggers that way? They create a spatial distortion.. a gap in the fabric of space that things simply can’t move across. Like sliding off the edge of the universe.” The field he had was a great idea, but they’d have to be dead in the water while they tried it. The level three containment fields though were a lesser measure.

Lt Woods, CSO