LtCol Wes Greaves - The Wrong Kind of Serum

[Jacob Rittenhouse]

LtCol Wes Greaves - The Wrong Kind of Serum

 

(( Flight Deck - USS Talents – Tlugani Nebula ))

 

Staff Sergeant Navarro had quickly escorted the freighter captain on board the Talents and now Wes was face to face with Captain Luriaa. Wes kept his stance squared to Luriaa, but his attention didn’t belong entirely to her. Not with a boarding team still inside a dying ship.

 

Greaves: Captain, you’re the last person I expected to run into out here. You’re lucky we found you.

 

Luriaa: I appreciate your assistance.  I formally request that Starfleet aid us in getting medical supplies to their intended destination.  

 

It wasn’t the request that surprised him. It was how quickly she made it. No easing into it. No guarded dance around motives. Just straight to the ask like she’d already decided this conversation was transactional.

 

Wes didn’t let that show on his face. He filed it under competence and urgency, which didn’t always mean honesty.

 

Greaves: We’re here to help, but I need a little more to go on then that.

 

Luriaa: We were taking a greatly needed serum to a planet called Guranis which is now part of the United Dominion of Planets where a plague has swept through the population.  The nebula is about half way there, and we had just come into this sector of space when we were attacked.  

 

Wes felt the situation tilt. “Plague” and “serum” and “UDP” did not automatically equal “clean mission.” He didn’t trust the UDP’s ethics the way he trusted Starfleet’s, but he also wasn’t living in the old Dominion War playbook anymore. The UDP was its own thing now. Often unpleasant. Not automatically hostile.

 

And Luriaa, whatever else she was, wasn’t sloppy. He respected that part.

 

JoNz: ::slight purring trill as she checks a reading::

 

Greaves: And they did a number on you too. What happened.

 

Luriaa: Whoever attacked us did so while cloaked.  I never saw them, nor did any of my crew for when they boarded, they were within suits that hid their forms.  They went for medical supplies but didn’t actually take anything, just tried to destroy as much as they could.  We ran and hid here.  Somewhere during our flight, whomever was on board must have been transported back to their ship, for all they left behind were our injured and our dead.  

 

Wes watched Luriaa’s delivery more than the words. No embellishment. No visible panic. That could be discipline. It could be rehearsal.

 

Beside him, JoNz’s posture changed. The gray furred Cait whipped her head around so quickly it was a wonder that she didn’t pull a neck muscle. Kansz looked to Greaves for a moment, and then spoke directly to the Colonel and Captain Luriaa.

 

JoNz: That style of attack - the cloaking, the incognito boarding party - sounds like some of the more radical factions of the Black Kris; they’re a pirate syndicate that have ties across several of the sectors. 

 

Wes frowned. Cloaked ship was one thing. Personal suit cloaking was another. Those weren’t common toys, even in bad neighborhoods. And if the attackers could transport a cloaked boarding party, that meant they had the range, the precision, and the confidence to do it under pressure.

 

He didn’t let his mind wander into worst-case futures for long. It came back to the immediate geometry: Talents docked to a freighter, limited maneuvering, no shields worth trusting while attached, and sensors degraded by the nebula. If something came looking, they were exposed.

The Valkyries weren’t.

 

Wes decisively took three steps to the operations panel and opened a channel to their fighter wing.

 

Greaves: =/\= Valkyire Lead, this is Talents. We’ve got reports of a potential cloaked attack ship in the area. Yellow alert. Activate a tachyon grid and begin sweep pattern Beta-Six. =/\=

 

Valkyrie 1: =/\= Understood Talents. Give us thirty seconds and we’ll have the grid up. =/\=

 

Greaves: =/\= Perfect. Also, be advised, there are reports the attacker employed a cloaked boarding party. Keep your shields up. =/\=

 

Valkyrie 1: =/\= Aye aye sir. =/\=

 

Wes closed the channel and came back to the problem in front of him.

 

Greaves: Cloaked ship and personal cloaking… tthat’s some pretty advanced tech. I haven’t heard any reports of the Black Kris operating all the way out here. Really could be anybody.

 

The moment he said it, he realized his own point: “could be anybody” meant “could be back.” Which meant they were running out of time to be docked.

 

His eyes flicked to Luriaa again, back to her earlier request, and he forced the conversation onto the part that mattered.

 

Greaves: Captain, if your attackers destroyed all your cargo, how do you want us to help transport it?

 

Luriaa: Fortunately, they missed a crate of the serum, so we have some intact.  It needs to be delivered to the planet to begin treatment, and so more can be made.  

 

JoNz: It’s unusual for any raiders to destroy medical cargo as anything medical brings a fair amount of credit chits on the black market.

 

Wes felt a few pieces slide into place without clicking clean.

 

If this was profit, they’d steal, not smash. If this was intimidation, they’d leave a message. If this was targeted… then the serum wasn’t the point. The outcome was.

 

Greaves: Means its even less likely that these were pirates. Mercenaries maybe. Enemies of the UDP possibly. Or enemies of Guranis. (Pause, turning back to Luriaa) How progressed is this disease on Guranis?

 

Luriaa: We need to get it to them quickly.  

 

From the corner of his eye Wes saw the Cait start working on her console.

 

Greaves: Lieutenant, what’d you find?

 

JoNz: ::looks to Greaves:: Colonel, once we get our team back on board, I can get us to that planet faster than a Tellerite checking out a buffet. 

 

Wes didn’t take the bait on the joke. His mind jumped to the last time he’d seen the UDP treat “development” like an inconvenience. The Zet. The warp tech trade. A clean illustration of why the Prime Directive existed in the first place.

 

If Guranis was anywhere near that kind of situation, they needed to know before they blundered into it.

 

Greaves: Captain Luriaa, I need to know more about Guranis. What’s their technology level? Are they friendly? Will we be well received? I’m not putting this task force at risk without some intel on what we’re heading to.  

 

Luriaa: Response

 

Wes nodded, satisfied for now with those answers, but before he could reply the comm line to the boarding party opened. He had previously turned off the live line, so the fact he was now hearing Woolheater’s voice meant that Sam was deliberately reaching out.

 

That meant something changed.

 

Woolheater: =/\= Talents actual?  We found another survivor. Inside a special crate. Its own backup power. =/\=

 

Wes’s head snapped to the forward screens. He didn’t ask JoNz; he just pointed, and she enlarged Woolheater’s feed.

 

Sam’s helmet cam filled the viewer.

 

Inside the crate, a small figure lay restrained in a padded frame. Too small to be an adult. A child. Pale skin, sweat sheen, the wrong kind of stillness. A blanket tucked around narrow shoulders with deliberate care. Medical leads and a weak pulse readout. A slow rise and fall that barely counted as breathing.

 

Wes felt his patience drop out from under him.

 

Greaves: What in the hells?

 

He turned back to Luriaa, voice flattening into something colder.

 

Greaves: You didn’t say your medical supplies were people!

 

Luriaa: Response

 

JoNz: Response

 

On the screen, Ragh moved with the controlled urgency of a doctor who’d decided the moral argument could wait until the patient was stable. Hypospray. Quick reduction. Visual check. Then the line: tubing and a compact collection unit that didn’t look like standard field medicine.

 

Wes didn’t care about the specifics yet. He cared about what it implied.

 

Greaves: That’s not good enough. Explain.

 

JoNz/Luriaa: Response?

 

Before any answer could settle, the Valkyrie channel lit again.

 

This time the voice wasn’t calm.

 

Valkyrie 1: =/\= Talents, this is Valkyrie lead. Valk 4 got a ping in the grid. Ship movement bearing 120, mark 040. At this range, and with this nebula interference we’re not getting it on sensors. Could be cloaked, or could just be the nebula. It’s heading toward your position. =/\=

 

Wes didn’t hesitate.

 

Greaves: =/\= Good copy Lead. Close in on the Talents, close protection formation. We’re gonna expedite here. Keep that detection grid functional though. We can’t lose sight if they’re cloaked. =/\=

 

Valkyrie 1: =/\= Understood. Lead out. =/\=

 

Wes turned on his heel to Jonz.

 

Greaves: Lieutenant, let the boarding party know we’ve got inbound and get us ready to shove off.

 

Wes didn’t realize until he saw the external plot that the freighter had drifted. The cloud had shifted shape. The Svisivak was bleeding warp plasma and atmosphere in a trail that might as well have been a flare. Out here, it was no longer hidden.

 

JoNz: Response

 

Woolheater: =/\= Understood. We are on our way! =/\=   ::to himself::  I'd like to see how 'Mama Cee' computes THIS variable!

 

Luriaa: Response

 

Wes didn’t have room for careful phrasing anymore.

 

Greaves: Care to explain more about this child Luriaa? I’m not helping you traffic people.

 

He moved back to the ops station and snapped the display into a quad: Woolheater’s video, the freighter schematic with the team sprinting back, local space, and the Valkyries tightening into position. The red contact marker pulsed on the edge of uncertainty, close enough to matter.

 

Luriaa: Response

 

JoNz: Response

 

Luriaa: Response

 

JoNz: Response

 

Greaves: We’re much more ready for a fight than your freighter was, but I’d prefer to not go toe to toe with a technologically advanced invisible ship of unknown capability.

 

Bootsteps hit the deck behind him.

 

Hard.

 

The sound snapped his attention around. In a runabout this small, you could hear intent in footsteps. These were fast and heavy, too close together, the cadence of someone moving through a hatch without waiting for permission.

 

Ragh burst into the flight deck like he’d brought the freighter’s smoke with him. Woolheater followed close, not angry, but moving with the intensity of someone trying to keep things from tipping over.

 

Ragh: ::angrily interrupting:: What is the meaning of the sick child we found aboard your ship?

 

Wes held his posture steady and kept his hands clear. He didn’t step between them yet. He didn’t want to escalate by posture alone. But he shifted his weight, subtle, ready to.

 

Ragh’s voice had that Klingon edge where emotion and purpose lived too close together. Wes understood it. He’d even respect it later. Not now. Not with a potential attacker inbound and a civilian captain in his compartment.

 

Luriaa: Response

 

JoNz/Woolheater: Response 

 

Greaves: Ensign Ragh-

 

Wes tried once, firm but controlled. A correction before it became a confrontation. Ragh cut him off though.

 

Ragh: How did you not know? This child was being kept sick and barely breathing to produce the very serum you are delivering. On your ship!

 

Wes felt his patience narrow into a straight channel. His job was to keep this from becoming chaos. He could argue morality later. He had seconds and distances and angles to manage first.

 

Luriaa: Response

 

Wes didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. When he spoke, it was the same tone he used when people were about to get themselves killed. It dripped with the unmistakable implication of a threat.

 

Greaves: Ragh, you’ve got three seconds to contain yourself or I’ll do it for you. Get back to your patients.

 

Wes let the compliance stand as the Doctor left. No victory lap or lecture. Just immediate control re-established.

 

JoNz/Luriaa/Woolheater: Response 

 

He held Ragh’s eyes. Not a threat for pride’s sake. A boundary. Wes could not afford a brawl in his flight deck while his pilot was trying to maneuver and his fighters were hunting a possible cloaked ship.

 

Ragh: That is.. plausible. ::to Greaves:: Understood, Sir. I will be in the medbay.

 

Wes didn’t soften.

Greaves: Sam, go with him and make sure he calms the hell down. JoNz, get us clear of this damn ship and get us back into the nebula to hide, shields up.

 

He didn’t look away from Luriaa when he gave the orders. He wanted her to understand the hierarchy in the room and the reality outside it. They were not in a courtroom. They were in a potential kill zone.

 

JoNz/Woolheater: Response 

 

Luriaa: Response

 

Greaves: We’ll talk it over en route. JoNz, get us moving toward Guranis as stealthily as possible. Luriaa, I need to know the full story on this disease and this child. Now.

 

Luriaa: Response

 

JoNz: Response

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OOC – TONS has happened in a really short amount of time, so I’m gonna slow us down a bit so we can explore these new plot threads! Also, we’re all back in the same scene. With five character’s in one place I’m going down to my standard “two new tags per sim”. I find this keeps things from becoming unmanageable when there’s lots of characters. I also did some creative re-arranging of tags. I simmed last time that the “open comm line” got closed, so I removed every dialog tag that Greaves can’t hear from the Talents. This is a best practice that I’ve found as it keeps the scene firmly rooted from the authoring character’s point of view. Leaving in dialog that can’t be heard makes it really hard for me to stitch together exposition around it that makes sense. When I’ve tried to do it in the past I’ve found that those “unheard” dialog tags just turn into a weird tumor in the sim that takes away from the narrative flow in my exposition, so: best practice: leave out dialog your character can’t hear. Finally, I added some extra tags for Luriaa to interact with Ragh. Ragh is very clearly being direct with Luriaa, but having four people talk inbetween each accusation/dialog from Ragh makes that kind of a conversation hard to follow, so I added some more to help. For our new writers, feel free to get creative with HOW you add new tags. It doesn’t HAVE to be:

 

*************

Ragh: Statement

 

Greaves/JoNz/Luriaa/Woolheater: Response 

*************

 

Alternatively it could be something like:

 

*************
Ragh: Statement

 

Luriaa: Response

 

Ragh: Statement:

 

Greaves/JoNz: Response

 

Woolheater: Response 

 

Ragh: Statement

 

Greaves/JoNz/Luriaa/Woolheater: Response

*************

Sometimes getting creative with tags is the best way to have direct conversations with an NPC in larger scenes without creating super weird conversation dynamics as other authors come in and try and fit their dialog in.

 

Anyway, way more OOC than I probably needed to write. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

 

 

 

Tags/TBC!

 

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Lieutenant Colonel Wes Greaves

Marine Detachment Commander

USS Octavia E. Butler NCC-82850

E239702WG0

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