Lt Imril - Beam Me A Clue, Scotty!
Chris Taylor
((Tertiary Conference Room - Operations Center, Deck 5, USS Artemis-A ))
K’Wara: Jumpscares aside, I trust you to know what you’re doing, Doctor. ::looks to Imril and Ollie:: Is there a way for the Artemis to safely disable the Afalqi without risking destabilizing that plasma?
Ollie smiled apologetically.
Bergmen: My answer would be a cautious yes, sir. (beat) Especially if they decide to just surrender as soon as they see us instead of us having to perform heart surgery on their plasma conduits in the middle of a bar brawl between our phasers and their plasma accelerators - if that thing really powers the weapons.
Imril: It would take precise shooting. We'd need to tell the Bridge where to hit and where not to. And to do that, we need to finish plugging the holes in the schematics.
This far, Ollie and Imril’s work had determined that plasma accelerators had to be present on the ship, but not where.
K’Wara: That’s the next step then.
The hologram on the table began to take on a basic humanoid shape.
Jaran: That's the most basic phenotype data. It's at the core of every transporter pattern of a living being.
K'Wara: Humanoids, at least.
Bergmen: Input muscle variation based on the skeleton identifiers, Ensign.
The humanoid figure distorted and then resolved into a shape that had what could only be musculature beneath pale skin. But it was still featureless.
Jaran: Now, this portion is a little less clear. I'm still missing a few primary markers, but I have enough to make a good guess at some of the more notable internals. Nothing is interfering with our assumption of "Romulan" yet.
K'Wara: Nothing’s confirming it either.
Variations on corrupted data addition based on the database weren’t that helpful, as one might first think. Hologram flickered through the shapes of a Da’al woman, a Klingon Warrior, a Da’al security officer, and a Romulan.
Jaran: Commander, I... I don't have any explanation for... whatever it is we're seeing. Is that even possible?
K'Wara: ::hesitant pause:: Ollie, do we have any DNA markers?
The words Frontier Day hovered in the air unspoken.
K'Wara looked both uncertain and a little afraid.
Bergmen glanced down at his display and nodded slowly.
Bergmen: All markers we identified, at least in the basic parameters. This one definitely matches as Romulan. Nine of ten markers match.
K’Wara: ::shaky breath:: Good. Good... ::shakes head slightly:: Evidence of Romulan involvement.
Bergmen: Weird thing is, sir… The system was able to identify all ten basic markers in that DNA chain… And the last one marker was definitely Da’al.
Jaran: Response
K’Wara: It’s likely either genetic engineering or some sort of specialized transporter technology that can alter your appearance to specifications, though I don’t know if we have a way to be certain which one.
Ollie nodded.
Bergmen: Yes, that makes sense.
Imril: I’m not the physician here, but doesn’t moving from one form to another have a high metabolic cost? Could that leave biological traces behind? Excess body heat for one?
There were plenty of shapeshifters out in the galaxy. And most of them didn’t have a gelatinous base-form like the Changelings. So far as Imril knew, it took metabolic effort to shift muscle and bone and similar tissues around, just like any other physical activity.
Jaran: Imril
K’Wara: It would explain why no one seems to remember seeing a Romulan walking about the facility. But evidently, it doesn’t mask DNA, and that’s why the infiltrator needed Alvaine’s biometric ID to pass through security.
Bergmen: Yeah, and there goes the puzzle piece about the receptionist, I guess.
Imril: What color were the receptionist’s eyes? They could be a Chameloid. They always have yellow eyes. ::Remembers they have yellow eyes, blinks, looks away:: Never mind.
Jaran: response.
One of Ollie’s PADDs on the table beeped, and the lieutenant pulled it out of the stack and looked at its screen. His face was puzzled, uncertain as he glanced back at the hologram and took a deep breath.
Bergmen: Sir, I was working on the DNA comparison against the Da’al database with the initial raw data…
Ollie pressed a button on the PADD, and a hologram showed eight DNA double helices, yet three were still incomplete.
Bergmen: ::points to helices:: Three data samples were too corrupted to be analyzed, but that’s not an issue. The computer was able to find a match for the rest, and I’m quite sure they are connected to the other five identified. I think those oldest transporter patterns in the communication belong to these eight Da'al engineers and scientists - all close coworkers or acquaintances of Doctor Havun in the past.
Ollie pressed another button on the PADD, and the DNA transformed into faces as holophotos. None of whom Imril recognized.
Jaran/K’Wara: Response
Ollie's was reluctant, again, to share his findings. This time, Imril didn’t press him to.
Bergmen: There is just one issue… Two, technically, but one is more like headscratch…. (beat) All eight were flagged by Da’al Security for some reason. All eight died altogether in the transport accident according to Da'al records… A month ago.
Imril: First guess, they all faked their deaths and were hiding out in the Afalqi until the time came to leave. Quietly building the plasma accelerators and whatever else in the ship all the while.
Just as the smuggling operation explained where the parts came from, a covert team of builders working on the ship unseen would explain how Havun’s accomplices were able to assemble their covert creations without leaving any footprints on the project’s official time-table or personell schedules.
Jaran/K’Wara/Response
Imril pointed to the many-faced recreation of Jaran’s reconstruction.
Imril: How might this ‘accident’ tie in to that transporter signal? Could the ‘shapeshifters’ be these supposedly dead Da’al, walking around the facility in other forms?
Jaran/K’Wara/Bergmen: Response
Imril reactivated the schematic hologram and scrolled to the gaps near engineering. The spaces where they found specialized components in the walls.
Imril: Let’s play another mental game. Assume eight officially-deceased stowaways on the Alafqi. The best place to hide the lifesigns would be here and here, in the schematic gaps nearer the engines. Any power readings given off by cryopods or shielded saferooms could be pretty easily masked there if you modulate the EM wavelengths coming off the experimental dilithium chamber. The excess power linkages in the walls could support either option.
Jaran/K’Wara/Bergmen: Response
Imril scrolled back to the other notable gap with extra infrastructure in the walls. The one that was not near Engineering.
Imril: That would leave this area to house the plasma accelerators and whatever they charge. It's near the front end of the ship, and not too far off from a main weapon bank. It wouldn't be too hard to link one system into the other, or to convert these portholes into cannon ports.
Presumably, such work would have been started after the ship escaped its homeworld.
Would this hypothesis stand up to questioning? Imril was about to find out.
Jaran/K’Wara/Bergmen: Response
TAGS/TBC
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Lieutenant Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12