Captain’s Log, Supplemental

Lt. Vossk has transported down to the surface to get more precise readings of the energy signatures he detected from the surface. The optimist in me hopes it’s some overlooked alien civilization. The Pessimist thinks it’s some overlooked alien civilization that got wiped out by the pirate gangs operating out of the Triangle. And the realist in me thinks it’s a pirate camp. We’ll see which of the three it turns out to be shortly when Lt. Vossk returns with his report, and his data.

“Sir. Transporter room 1 just reported that the away team is back. Lt. Vossk is on his way with a preliminary report.” Kael reported from the Captain’s chair.

Tiberious glanced up from his padd, reviewing the projected death tolls of Frontier Day, and finding it difficult to keep his stomach under control. He gave her a soft nod to the conference room. “Have him report to there. We’ll have a quick senior staff meeting before we pull up anchor and carry on.”

Kael’s brow furrowed, and her chromatphores flashed with her confusion. Still, she kept professional, giving him a firm nod and tapping her combadge. “Lt. Vossk, this is Commander Kael, meet us in the conference room. We’ll have a quick senior staff meeting to debrief before we get underway.”

“Yes sir. On my way.”

Kael rose from the Captain’s chair and paused long enough for Tiberious to stand up and follow her. They strode into the conference room, with him in the lead, and her just behind him. The rest filed in behind them, taking their seats. Once his staff was seated, Tiberious gestured to his chief science officer. “Mr. Vossk, care to share for the class what you found?”

The azure scaled Saurian nodded, his large eyes blinked once before he swiped up on his tablet and a holographic of the planet appeared in the center of the briefing room table. He pinched on a marker and spread his fingers to zoom in until it was the away team landing site. Data scrolled on the side of the projection. Tiberious’ chemistry was rough at best, but he recognized a large number of artificial compounds and energy readings.

“As you can see, much of what we found is not native to this world. It’s a barren rock composed of mostly iron and some other trace elements. Likely what didn’t get sucked into the formation of the nearby star. There wasn’t much of atmosphere, so we were confined to environmental suits. As you’ll note from the data feed, it would appear that someone has been using this as a weapons test range. Of the black market variety. Traces of Tetryon, Thoron, and chroniton emissions, as well as some of the more exotic varieties.”

“Tetryon, thoron, and chroniton aren’t exotic enough for you?” Tib asked with a wry look.

“Not in contrast to some of these readings.”

“Any guesses as to whose toy box we just found?”

“Sir?”

Tiberious made a mental note to ease up on the earth expressions. It was a bad habit he’d picked up from his old man. “Do we know who used this rock to test their ill gotten goods?”

Vossk shook his head, “No sir. It could be any number of the rogues that operate within the triangle.”

Tiberious nodded. The test range added a wrinkle, but not a large enough wrinkle they needed to be further distracted by it. This was someone else’s problem now. “Alright, mark this location in the maps and log it for patrol. The last thing we need is some pirate group lobbing banned weapons at us. Any objections to getting underway?”

His senior staff exchanged nervous glances before reluctantly shaking their heads. He got it. No one wanted to be doing this. “It’s ok to have reservations about our mission. Some of us are still trying to figure out how to sleep at night with what we’ve recently been through. Others, trying to make peace with what they had to do. But right now there’s a ship out there that needs help, and we’re the best suited to give it. So that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“What if they attack us?” Lt. Vraxar Jel’kan, his chief tactical officer said. It was the first he’d heard from the reptillian Thraarken in a bit. Compared to Vossk, Jel’kan’s scales were a dark earthy brown with a slight irridescant shimmer to them. Of Tib’s crew he was the most finger quotes alien looking of them. More akin to a gorn, but with horn like crests in the males.

Tiberious shrugged for show. “Hard to say. Are we done treating them?”

“Sir?”

Tiberious rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward casually. “Well, you started this thought exercise. Let’s play it out. Have we finished treating them before the attack? Or are they doing so while we treat them?”

Jel’kan thought of his initial question. “All.”

Tiberious smirked. He liked the Thraarken’s tendency to prepare for any contingency. “Well. If they try before hand we remind them we’re the only help they’ve got. We’re here out of the goodness of our hearts, not our minds. And that if they want to push us away, we’re happy to leave. If they attack during treatment, they’ll have to face down our security detail and deal with our quarantine procedures. If they do so afterwards? We remind them we do have backup on the way. We just happened to show up first.”

Jel’kan appeared to want to protest more, but relented with a nod. “Very well. I have nothing further.”

No one else had anything left to voice, so Tiberious took the initiative. He rose, and the staff rose after him. “Dismissed everyone. Let’s go save some lives, and do Starfleet proud.” The briefing room emptied and he turned to give the uninhabited rock one last look. Just another reminder that the Triangle was a dangerous place. Even for barren worlds. He turned and stepped back onto the bridge, finding Commander Kael back in her own chair. He quirked a brow at her questioningly.

“It’s comfortable. But it’s not mine. Not yet.” Kael said, gesturing for him to resume his post.

Tiberious gave her a friendly smile and took his seat. “Ms. Thorne. Any change in the distress beacon’s signal?”

“No sir. Signal is unchanged.”

“Alright then. Set a course, maximum speed.”

“Aye sir. Course plotted.” She turned to him. Every captain had their own special ‘thing’ when issuing an order. It was almost a right of passage for first officers to workshop what works for them. Tiberious’ choice? “Send it.”

The stars blurred as space was compressed in front and expanded behind the ship accelerating it beyond the speed of light while staying within the rules of relativity by a loop hole. With the ship underway again Tiberious allowed himself to relax. Kael leaned close to whisper to him, so he leaned over to hear.

“What if the distress signal is because of the world we just found?”

“Interesting. Go on.”

Kael’s markings flickered blue for a moment. “Lt. Vossk said the world was used as a testing grounds. And not everything was energy readings. Some of the data collected was biological in nature.”

“Something viral?” Tiberious asked, his stomach threatening to fall away from him.

Kael shook her head. “I’m not sure. Not without looping in the doctor. The data looked pretty degraded so I’m not even sure we could find anything useful. But I can’t help shake the feeling the signal is too close to this testing grounds to be a coincidence.”

Tiberious nodded. “Good. Follow your hunch, get more information. Take the data down to the doc. Until we actually start seeing injured or sick, I want this to be your top priority. If there is a link, I want to know about it so we aren’t walking into a bad situation blind.”

Kael tapped a series of commands on the console of her chair, downloading the data and the report from Lt. Vossk to her padd and stood up, giving Tib a nod. Then she marched for the lift without another word. He turned back to focus on the main screen. It was going to prove damn difficult to not worry or brood about this until they hit the distress beacon. He checked the chrono. Kael had a little over an hour. Likewise their little detour bought the good doctor some much needed extra time to prep below decks for triage and quarantine, and every extra minute was helpful. He pulled his personal padd out and started going through the map of the triangle, checking nearby worlds, and activity reports for any more red flags.

Thankfully the zone they were heading into wasn’t reporting much activity from their patrols. That either meant the seedier groups working out of the region had the sense to not get caught here, or didn’t operate out of the region. He was hoping for the latter and expecting the former. Operating in a zone like the triangle was less than ideal for the Rubi, but she could pull it off.

He keyed the console to activate the shipwide comm system. “This is the captain speaking. As most of you may know, we’ve received a distress beacon that we suspect is from a Hunters of D’Ghor vessel. They are under duress and need medical attention. We’re the only ship for 15 parsecs. So it falls to us to respond. Since we’re acting as first responders it falls to us to take care ourselves first and foremost while providing care to those who need it. I know some of you may be a little anxious about this mission, but we’re Starfleet and we have a job to do. So let’s do it. Medical, you’ve got one last hour to make your preparations for triage and quarantine. Medical decontamination protocols are now mandatory. Same goes for quarantine and isolation. Whatever they’ve got, we don’t get. And if you do? You’re to let your first line leader know asap. Let’s do our job and do it right people. Rain out.”

Below on Deck 8, Sickbay…

Commander Sariel Venrith glanced down from the ceiling back to the XO waiting for him with her arms folded. “The captain doesn’t think I’m not busy enough so he sends his XO down to throw me into a pet research project? I’m busy preparing. Go away.”

“Captains orders.” Kael said, thrusting the pad at the too distracted doctor. He signed it reflexively before yanking it back to swipe it at the holo projector in the middle of sickbay. He briefly scanned over the data flicking irrelevant bits out as he skimmed.

“We could always set the search filters?” Kael said.

Venrith scoffed, “If we knew what we were looking for, we wouldn’t be looking now would we? Besides. I don’t trust the computer. Medicine isn’t always ones and zeros. And it only knows up to what it knows, but it can’t make speculations and think outside the box. Which is what you’re asking me to do, you want me to abstractly connect pieces of data and form a hypothesis.”

Kael frowned and nodded, that was indeed what she was doing. She just hadn’t realized Venrith didn’t rely on the computer quite so much. She stood back silently to give him space to think and only spoke when she was confident he was looking for her input. After forty five minutes of shuffling around data he finally collapsed into a chair and shook his head. “I have no idea what you’ve got. But it is something. The pieces just don’t quite fit in a way I can make heads or tails of from the data. Highly aggressive organic matter, but it’s not viral, bacterial or fungal. Initially I suspected some kind of biological weapon but none of it makes sense. Whatever this is? We should be careful. I’m going to emplace sterilization field protocols every five meters in the ships decon protocols. Not sure how much it’ll help, but I suspect we’ll need all the edges we can muster.”

With that Venrith waved her off. “Now go. I’ve got to make sure this thing doesn’t make its way into places it doesn’t belong.”

Kael nodded, turning to head back to the bridge, her skin markings flickering blue and purple with anxiety. This was not good news for anyone.

Captain’s Ready Room…

Tiberious paged through patrol reports filed in this portion of the triangle recently, looking for any connective tissue and coming up short. It was a stretch, but it helped burn time at least. That was something he’d learned the hard way. Keep busy doing something. Anything can lead to insight or lead to a breakthrough. No matter how trivial it may seem. The overlooked gem leaves you just as poor as you were. The chime at his office door drew his attention up. “Enter.”

Commander Kael stepped in practically strobing dark blue. “Sir.” She started. “The doctor isn’t quite sure what to make of Vossk’s data. But he didn’t like what he saw.”

Tiberious leaned back pensively. “Ok, elaborate?”

Kael nodded. “Venrith mentioned that it was organic in nature, but that it didn’t match known viral, bacterial, or fungal configurations. He also mentioned that it was highly aggressive.”

Tiberious frowned. “Well all of that just sounds, frankly horrible. I trust the good doc is taking precautions?”

“He wants to adjust some of the ships decon protocols to emit sterilization fields every five meters.”

“Any downsides to that?”

Kael shrugged. “It’ll be a little excessive on our energy use, but as long as we’re not blasting full output phasers at high warp, it should be fine with a little energy rationing.”

“I’ll leave it to you micro manage that with engineering. You can relay the instructions from the bridge. No need to make a personal visit.”

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

Tib nodded and stood up from his chair, arching back his to stretch a little. Thing was so damned comfortable it made him a little stiff. He gestured to the door and the both filed out into the bridge. Taking their seats he called up a small star chart and watched the federation symbol for their ship racing across the map towards the distress beacon. They’d arrive at their target in 3,2…

The ship fell out of warp and Lt.jg. Thorne put the ship to a full stop. They were a full lunar distance from the ship in question and it popped up on the main viewscreen, Vossk anticipating the request. Tib noted the saurian was also working at the sensors already. Good.

“What are we looking at people? If it’s bait tell me now before we go any closer.”

Vossk shook his head. “I don’t believe this is a false operation. The bird of prey is showing structural distress in several locations, but the data is quite odd. The hull is being consumed by some kind of organic matter.”

“That word again.” Tib muttered to Kael who nodded.

“Well Mr. Vossk, tell me about what I’m looking at.”

“It appears to be consuming the vessel and spreading, but its difficult to say for certain. The data is complicated.”

Tib nodded standing up and pacing. He snapped his fingers on one hand and clapped it into the other as he walked a slow circle thoughtfully. “Ok, break it down for me like I’m a child.”

The request gave Vossk pause, who blinked at the console screen for several moments before looking back up. “I believe it’s simplest to say the ship is infected. Parts of it are being converted into living tissue.”

Tib paused and turned to face Vossk with a brow quirked. “Infected. Interesting. What converts in organic matter into something living?”

“The only frame of reference I have if Species 8472. And only snippets of data at that. Much of it from Voyager’s time in the Delta quadrant. But this is different.”

“So similar, but not. Ok. We’re pretty far from the Delta Quadrant, so it’s safe to assume this isn’t 8472. So let’s look at what we know and see if we can make some safe guesses. Is this infection contagious?”

“Difficult to say without knowing what the vector of transmission is. Somehow this had to be introduced into the ship, and by the state of the crew, I’m guessing this wasn’t intentional.”

“The bioweapon traces on that rock we passed enroute. What are the chances they shot themselves in the feet with their black market weapon?”

“Given the current data, I’d say it’s highly likely and also irrelevant. Whatever happened? They’re dealing with it now.”

Tib nodded. “Too right. It doesn’t matter that much. They’re in a bad way and we’re here to help. So!” He clapped his hands. “Thoughts on how to do that?”

“Personally I would prefer we avoid exposing ourselves to that ship as much as possible.” Kael said, “However, we need to get their crew out of that ship. Environmental factors will only make recovery worse.”

“Diseased ship bad. Ok. So options. We transport them or shuttle them. Risks?” Tib snapped and clapped as he slowly circled the space in front of his chair, eying his bridge staff for input. “Anyone?”

“Both. If things are as bad as they sound, we don’t want to be exposed any longer than needed. We extract as much as we can as fast as we can using all our resources, get them aboard, secured, and quarantined for treatment.” Lt. Jel’kan said from Tactical.

Tib pursed his lips and nodded appreciatively. “Alright. We’ve got ourselves a plan. Let’s send it. Helm, take us in slowly. One quarter impulse. Hail the ship. Tactical, put us at yellow alert please and open a shipwide com.”

The yellow signal lights flashed, shields raised, and the Tactical console chirped that the intercom channel was active. “This is your captain speaking. We’ve reached our destination. We’re going in nice and easy. Things look pretty bad. Possible contagion of unknown type. That means everyone is dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s when it comes ppe and decon procedures. No risks, and no laziness. Get our patients, buckle them in, and lets start treating them. Let’s get to work people.”

Tib drew his hand across his throat and Jel’kan cut the channel. Lt.Jg. Thorne already had the ship easing forward. Tib glanced back at Jel’kan. “Let’s get our shuttle teams prepped.”

“Yes sir.”

Tiberious turned back to the main screen. “Now it’s time to reap what’s been sown.”