Lt. JG David Flint: Incisive
Robin Hopper
((OOC – Apologies for the delays. As noted in previous OOC, there’s been a lot of work-related activity lately which has been eating up my spare time!))
((Sickbay, USS Artemis-A))
Flint moved to the door of Sickbay, poking his head into the hall beyond. It was presently empty, but if there were others aboard, it would be only a matter of time before more showed up. What one drone knew, all the drones knew. By now they’d be well aware Sickbay was in the hands of the unassimilated.
He stepped back, pressing the control to shut the door, and turned back to Adea and the Caitian.
Flint: ::Furrowing his brow:: Commander, if it’s possible to secure Sickbay, these poor souls might give us a chance to learn what’s going on here. We can get them onto biobeds, erect forcefields, study them. Perhaps even reverse the process?
Kraal: In the meantime, I can begin producing more of the serum.
Adea: Good idea. ::he looked to the officer on the floor closest to them:: Give me a hand with this guy.
As he stood, the medical gown he was wearing swished ever-so-slightly, threatening to give the Commander and Technician a view of Flint in his Betazoid Suit. With another glance, Flint did his best to quickly size up the man on the floor. He seemed to be around the same measurements…
Flint: You don’t think he’ll miss his uniform, do you?
To David’s knowledge, he wouldn’t have replicator permissions aboard the Artemis – not yet anyways. He’d spent nearly the entirety of his time aboard the vessel so far unconscious in the medical bay, and he doubted anyone had foreseen this particular scenario.
Adea: I don’t think he’d thank you, for certain. ::he jerked his head towards his office door:: I’ve got a spare in my office.
Flint: Brilliant.
It was certainly a preferable solution to stripping the poor devil on the floor.
Flint: Though teal has never been my colour.
Flint moved to the CMO’s office hurriedly, looking around in the dimly-lit room for the aforementioned spare. Finding it neatly folded atop a shelf near the wall-mounted replicator unit, he slipped off his medical gown and began to change. His eyes shifted, momentarily, to the window into Sickbay, where he could see Kraal and the Doctor working together to lift the assimilated crew up onto the biobeds and restrain them.
Adea’s uniform was a mite large on David – surprising given the doctor’s seemingly-lithe frame. oO He must hunch… Oo Flint just tightened the waistband slightly and popped the deceased nurse’s combadge back on his chest, then returned to the main room.
Adea: The colour of your uniform aside, what’s your medical knowledge like?
Flint: Limited. Emergency field medicine and the like… But when it comes to the intersection of Borg technology and biology, I suppose I’ve assimilated a thing or two.
It was a poor attempt at humour (and nobody laughed) – but then, Flint was a helmsman not a comedian. David cleared his throat as the CMO nodded seriously.
Adea: Okay, first up, let’s get started.
David’s eyes flicked momentarily to Kraal, both of them following the CMO to one of the biobeds and awaiting instructions. Adea retrieved a medical tricorder and began running scans on the assimilated crewmember.
David, meanwhile, gave him a look over by eye. It was certainly unusual – there appeared to be no nanoprobe injection sites, and no Borg implants had begun to form on the affected man’s skin. Whatever this was, it was something new and unfamiliar, which meant the Borg had devised this particular scheme within the last five years or so, following David’s separation from the Collective…
Adea moved to the next drone, running similar scans, and then the next.
Adea: There’s only a few Borg drones here, so I can’t make a definite conclusion, but is it me or do they all look a little… young to you?
Flint: ::Rubbing his bearded chin:: Now that you mention it, Doctor… I suppose they do. ::Concentrating:: And I recall something – when we were on the Cube. The Collective was interested in taking samples, but only from some of the crew members.
Adea: Response
Kraal: What difference would age make to the Borg? I would think they’d just want to assimilate all the crew if they could.
David nodded. It was unusual. The Borg typically took an ‘all or nothing’ approach. Worlds that could be assimilated were consumed in their entirety – the young, the old, even the infants and elderly… The youthful had years of service ahead of them, but the aged had the knowledge that fed the Borgs’ hunger for perfection. Species that couldn’t be subsumed were eliminated.
Flint: Can you tell how they were assimilated? I’m not seeing any of the ‘usual signs’... Come to think of it, do they even show any sign of Borg nanoprobe activity whatsoever?
Adea: Response
It was strange, but David almost wished that he had spent more time ‘back in the Collective’. His fleeting reintegration had given him time to absorb only the most relevant information about escaping the cube – with more time he might had been able to learn what they were up to, how the plan had been carried out, maybe even how to set things right again. Alas, that was not the case – leaving them only speculation.
Flint: I know they had some sort of device, taken from Amity. It must have something to do with this. I know Commander Hopper and Lieutenant Vanlith were working on it with your First Officer… Have we had any word from any of the–
Before he could complete his thought, there was a loud thump from the door. More drones had arrived. The sounds of phaser fire on duratanium bulkhead told David that they had armed themselves and were now attempting to cut their way in.
Kraal: ::Growl:: They’ll cut through in a matter of minutes…
Adea: Response
TBC
