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Star Fleet Science Labs - Message In A Bottle Part II (TAG Woods)

Posted March 15, 2023, 3:21 a.m. by Lieutenant Commander Markus Woods (Chief Star Fleet Science Officer) (Sam Haynes)

Posted by Lieutenant Nia Harmon (Scientist) in Star Fleet Science Labs - Message In A Bottle Part II (TAG Woods)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Markus Woods (Chief Star Fleet Science Officer) in Star Fleet Science Labs - Message In A Bottle Part II (TAG Woods)

Posted by Lieutenant Nia Harmon (Scientist) in Star Fleet Science Labs - Message In A Bottle Part II (TAG Woods)
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Dark eyes were already scanning through the file, picking out the main points. Both brows shot up once or twice. As she mentioned one more thing, his gaze swept up to lock on hers. Getting to his feet, he took the proffered hand. His grip was firm, quick shake. “It’s going to the top of the stack. It would be nice to have a longer tail to vet this, but we’re in a rush, it seems.”

“Indeed. Thank you. Please let me know when your report is ready. I will come personally to pick it up and you can present your findings to the Executive Leadership. I’m looking forward to your findings, Commander. Good day.” and she left.

It was an interesting puzzle, and one that left a gnawing in his gut. There was no telling what this stuff could really do, and what it would do. The only way to know was to start looking, start digging. “Computer. Open a new project file. Scrape everything you can get about this into it.”

=^=Accessing. Storage preference?=^=

“Better keep it on my personal partition, full encryption. I don’t want this wandering off.”

One of the displays came to life and began scrolling readouts, and files began populating on a new project folder as requested.

“Computer. Personnel analysis for our best geosciences options on the colony, Starfleet and civilian. Also, our best geneticist, eco sciences, and biologists, botanists. Cross reference by security risk for each. I want to assemble a solid team, but also need ones that aren’t going to blab about this. If there’s a leak, it damn well better not come from this department.”

The computer gave a quick acknowledging beep as it churned away at his requests. A new set of folders appeared, personnel, with sub folders for each specialist type requested, and coded/graded by quality and clearance.

Were there any wildcards he could think of? He had physics covered. Chaos theorist, maybe?

For the moment he was left with the conundrum of how best to tackle the matter.

Lt Cmdr Woods, CSFSO

Dorma Fen

One of the names that came up under the biology department was one Lieutenant Nia Harmon. Her last official assignment was on the USS Athena before she was reassigned to a classified project. She was assigned to Oed V three years ago and had a solid record during her tenure as a helpful and collaborative member. Her pet osmotic eel, Carl, is well known helper at Sacred Heart Hospital (osmotic eels excel at cauterizing wounds, especially those at at more complicated).

~Helpful Computer

Studying the displays as the computer sorted out candidates, he noted the entry for Lieutenant Harmon as she was sorted into the pool of possible candidates. After a minute, she’d climbed the ladder out of various scientists and officers on hand. Finally, opening up her profile and looking through it directly over coffee, he sighed. With a swipe he added her to ‘the short list.’

Eventually he would circle back. A Master’s in Exobiology would be useful. In addition to a fairly decent foundation from the Academy in the first place. A number of good postings. And whatever that thing was. Not that he was going to try to pry into it. While his clearance was good, and probably should have been higher, it wasn’t that good. Starfleet didn’t trust him that much yet. Level 7 was nothing to sneeze at though. It was probably unlockable. Probably had no bearing on this anyway.

Mark let out a dejected sigh as his mind wandered halfway across the colony. There was another scientific mind he wished he could bring in on this. But … that was a sore spot. And while an excellent botanist, he wasn’t entirely sure she had the time. Much less was exactly what this situation called for.

=^=Commander Woods to Lieutenant Harmon.=^=

=/\=Harmon here, Sir.=/\= There was a slight echo from wherever she was responding from.

=^=I hate to interrupt. Can you see me in my office as soon as humanly possible.=^=

Woods, CSFSO

=/\=Can do. Give me twenty.=/\=

Awhile later (23 minutes later to be precise), there was a knock at his door. Harmon was in uniform, with her blond hair pulled up in a loose bun.

Lt. Harmon, Sciences

Mark looked up from his holo screen at the knock, his eyes narrowing for a moment. “It’s open, Lieutenant,” As she entered he held one hand over a mug sitting on the desk with a spoon in it. He made slow clockwise motion with one finger, like he was stirring it. Below, the spoon stood, moving in slow matching circles for a moment before clinking lightly as it dropped back to rest, forgotten.

Stepping in, the petite woman blinked as she took in the sight before focusing on her department head. “You asked to see me, Commander?”

“Thank you for coming so quickly. I apologize about the short notice. This is a pretty emergent matter.” He gestured to the chairs and around the office. “Grab a seat. Coffee? Tea?”

Woods, CSFSO

Nia waved him off. “Nah, I’m fine, though I might change my mind later. I’m more curious what’s so urgent, so by all means, fill me in,” she said, settling into a chair and leaning forward.

~Nia Harmon, Scientist

Mark sat once more and then scooted as far as the space would allow forward. Tapping a couple of buttons on one of the holo displays started a set of music playing, along with a babble of voices overlapping, much like that of a coffee shop or bar. Scattered and emitting from farther away around the room. Other countermeasures snapped into place as well. “Alright, so… this particular matter is above top secret for now. The origins for this are still classified.” He let that hang, before continuing on. “But … It’s pretty promising bio-tech. Our job is to make sure that it’s safe, and doesn’t have any hidden, nasty side applications that we don’t know about.”

“It’s not designed to be a weapon, so far as I understand it. But as we know, most anything can be weaponized if you try hard enough/ We’re looking for sneaky, under-handed stuff.” He gave a slightly exaggerated nod, as if acknowledging the point. “Now, what we have here…” He produced a small display of the sample in a realistic hologram, “… is a substance that can do a few things. It encourages rapid growth and spontaneous replication of organic materials. You put in a seed and you’ll get more seeds. You put it with a seedling, and that seedling grows very very fast. Like the craziest fertilizer you’ve ever heard of.”

“The idea is to use this ‘stuff’ here on Oed to speed up the terraforming project. We could have a viable biosphere and ecosystem in a fraction of the time. And designed how we wanted. Now I’m no bio-scientist. I know a lot, but I need a team of experts. You’ve got the clearance, you’ve got the credentials. And you rate high enough to be on the short list with being able to keep stuff to yourself.”

“We may just be being paranoid, but so far as I know, this stuff is still experimental. I’m going to have to report to the Governor on this in a few days, and we’ve got a lot of people to make sure this stuff is safe for the planet and for the colony. Can I count on you?”

Lt Cmdr Woods, CSFSO


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