Catching the Unknown
Posted on Tue Jun 18th, 2013 @ 6:33am by Commodore Samantha York & Lieutenant Jourdan Abbott & Lieutenant Eamon Lynx & Lieutenant Khalpek & Warrant Officer Sterling Kamala IV & Gaia
1,144 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission: What Dreams May Come?
ON
Samantha sat on the bridge, only half awake. "Lieutenant Khalpek, what news do you have on the entity?"
"The reports are hard to track ma'am, to be honest. Reports of something are coming in from all over the ship, but they range from a small child to a twentieth century librarian to a some sort of Romanesque general." she replied.
"There is definitely something on board, but no one is quite sure what."
"Thank you." Sam closed her eyes for a moment. There had to be a way of finding this creature and getting it to stop.
She tapped her combadge. "York to Abbott."
"Abbott here" Jourdan replied from down in engineering.
"I'd like you to work with Lieutenant Khalpek to buffer the lounges and Marine barracks against psionic attacks and telepathy. Use whatever means you feel best. We need to give the crew some relief before this powder keg ignites."
It was becoming clear that telepaths and empaths were most affected by the entity on board, for now Sam was sure it WAS an entity. One of the crew mentioned an idea to her and Sam decided to give it a try. She sent a message to the crew asking all telepaths to meet her in the conference room in two hours.
She also sent a message to the chiefs of science and engineering to join the meeting.
[CONFERENCE ROOM]
It had taken a bit to figure if the turbo lift should go up or down to get to her destination but once she got there it wasn't so bad. Gaia hesitantly entered the conference room.
"Hello, Gaia, come in and take a seat," Sam said.
Gaia relaxed visibly and smiled tiredly "I thought I was in the wrong location."
"Nope. You made it. Would you like something to drink?" Sam asked.
"A mug of hot blackberry tea please." Gaia replied
"Security to York, we have a problem, Lieutenant Lynx is reported to be attacking people. I have him located on deck 5 and we are going to apprehend him."
Sam closed her eyes for a moment. She had to find a way to stop this before her crew started killing each other. "Understood. Take him carefully and put him in the brig, then notify me."
"Will do," the channel closed as yelling and phaser shots could be heard.
Sam looked up at Gaia. "Lynx is an empath. If this entity is responsible for his actions, then we're going to have more attacks around the ship. We need to find a way to locate whatever this creature is and neutralize its effects on the crew."
"Can't we work together is some way to corner it?" The lounge manager said
Jourdan entered the observation lounge still looking a little sleepy. She sat down in her usual chair and rested her head on her hands.
"Hi. Feel free to replicate something if you wish," Sam said to Jourdan.
Sebastian entered the bridge wearing a uniform that was fresh out of the replicator. The spots on his face were darker than usual, though that could have been the lighting. He had had a bad dream, but for him it was just the first one and it had not gotten too bad. Others he knew had fared far worse.
"I am sorry," he said, "I am merely an empath and it has more to do with linking up with someone and knowing what they like, who they are, who they want me to be for them. So I'm not nearly as powerful as some of you, but on the other hand my gifts are rather unique, perhaps they can help."
"Welcome, Warrant Officer Kamala," Sam said. "Have a seat. I would love to have your perspective on this."
Gaia glanced at the man who had been there when she had belted Eamon against the head with a pan. The Lounge Manager felt so out of place with these people but she sat down anyway.
"It was suggested to me that as telepaths and empaths are the most susceptible to the entity that we gather all of us together and see if we can pinpoint the exact location of the entity. Lieutenant Khalpek has identified a number of rare particles that congregate around the sleeping quarters. This indicates where the creature spends most of its time, but not necessarily where it currently is. If we can locate it, we can find out how to track it and then get rid of it."
"Internal sensors" Jourdan half said half yawned.
"Internal sensors have so far proven effective only to track where the carpathian particles are most numerous. We'll need to find the entity and then focus the sensors there to see if we can then find what's different. That will allow us to track the entity."
Sterling considered what he was about to say. Being the new kid on the block and the most junior officer he didn't want to ruffle any feathers. "If I can make a suggestion, we need someone to act as bait. This entity could be anywhere on the ship as you point out.
We could spend hours trying to pinpoint it since we have no real idea where it is on the ship. We know it feeds or attacks people who are sleeping. So I can go back to my quarters that should draw it to me like the proverbial moth to the flame. Then you can be ready."
"Having someone act as bait could work, but we'd have to isolate everyone else from its effect first. Otherwise, how could we ensure that it goes after the right person?" Sam asked.
"You're right of course. Its isolate or make me too tempting to resist."
Sam turned to Jourdan. "You've set up some buffered areas of the ship. How hard would it be to extend those buffers to the rest of the ship? All but one area, that is."
"We can run it through the shield emitters with some modifications and protect the entire ship. However if you want to catch this thing, we can lower shields around a certain room to set up a trap" Jourdan explained.
"Okay, let's do this," Sam said. "Get everything set up so that we can bait the trap," Sam said to Jourdan.
Then she turned to Khalpek. "Work with Doctor Bowen and see if you can find something that will drive off or psi blind the entity. I don't want to kill it, but I want it to lose interest in us and the ship."
She looked around at everyone seated around the table. "I want this ready to go in less than 24 hours. Dismissed."
Commodore Samantha York
Commanding Officer
OFF
Lieutenant Khalpek
Chief Science Officer
Lieutenant Jourdan Abbott
Chief Engineer
Gaia
Owner, Bazinga's
Lieutenant Eamon Lynx
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
Warrant Officer Sterling Kamala IV
Security Investigations
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