Lt Rivka Brzezinski: The Greatest Discovery of my Career

[Avander Promontory]

((The town center, New Faren, New Bajor))

 

The last several weeks had been among the most productive of Rivka Brzezinski’s career. She had been given that greatest of all gifts, uninterrupted lab time. Apparently, most of the rest of the crew were running around and jumping through hoops accommodating and transporting refugees across the sector.

 

She had heard that the lounges had been super crowded. Rivka didn’t mind. Eating in her lab and working through lunch (and often breakfast and dinner) were old habits by now. And she was deep into a project now. She had never imagined that the Gamma Quadrant would have become not just the frontier for space exploration, but also neuroscience exploration!

 

She was still digesting the information from the Alpha Brenkevi experiences. If she hadn’t experienced what she had experienced firsthand, she would have had trouble believing it herself. But it seemed like they now had incontrovertible evidence of metaphysical components of the brain. As a staunch materialist, Rivka was still a little skeptical, but her investigations since hadn’t been able to find a corporal substrate.

 

An intriguing breakthrough had come in the last mission where the away team had found a plant that seemed to function along similar principles. And some special rock. She’d leave the mineral analysis to Wauhk, she was working on making a synthetic derivative of the brain-altering leaves. She hadn’t quite got it yet, but she had a few more ideas.

 

That, actually, was why she was down on the planet, instead of her lab. The refugee crisis had been a singular opportunity for Rivka to add dozens of new species to their neuroscience database. When she wasn’t in the lab, she had been scanning alien brains. There was even one unique alien that seemed to share one mind across several bodies. That was, perhaps, one of greatest discoveries—

 

oO Hmm. I’m going to need new superlatives if each new mission will be leading to what would have been the greatest discovery of a lifetime… Oo

 

Now that she was posted to the OEB, she no longer regretted her decision to come out into the field. The others at the Outpost would be so jealous! Rivka was finding more new topics for research in a single mission than most of the others would find in their whole careers!

 

oO I should probably hire a lab assistant. I can’t write papers fast enough to keep up with the pace of new discoveries. Oo

 

And that, again, was why she was down on the planet. She needed to get scans of more species’ brains. The collection from the refugees was helping build out an information library and she couldn’t help but feel like she was on the verge of another big discovery, a quantum expansion of cognitive mapping. She just needed to build out her database with more Gamma Quadrant species.

 

So she wandered the stalls, waving her handheld scanners and running her optical interface at maximum. She had already added seven new species to her collection and was optimistic about adding more.

 

As she rounded the corner, she almost bumped into some of her crewmen. The Vulcan scientist—what was his name, Ferret-something?--was talking to another of the scientists and a nonscientist.

Fer’at: If it would be beneficial, I am certain we can find some place to sit and rest for a moment until you are feeling more…normal.

 

Loq: Yes. Let's sit. Have a kava juice. Clear my head a little.

 

Rivka was about to nod at them and carry one, when the blue one and the nonscientist stumbled to the ground.

 

Fer'at: response

 

The situation was probably well in hand. Rivka went to move around the tangled pair, but as she did so, a snatch of their conversation caught her ear.

 

Loq: I'm okay. I mean, I'm not okay at all, but I'm not hurt, but—

 

Yinn: I'm having trouble controlling my limbs. And I—

 

Loq: Fer'at... I think...

 

Yinn: ...I'm both Qurgh'Loq and Yinn.

 

Fer'at: response.

 

Brzezinski: I’m sorry, say that again?

 

Loq/Yinn/Fer'at: responses

 

Rivka could not believe what she was hearing.

 

Brzezinski: What?

 

Loq/Yinn/Fer'at: responses

 

Rivka waved her scanner at and between the two beings.

 

Brzezinski: Hmph. Elevated Beta-waves. (beat) I think we need to get you to the labs for more analysis!

 

Loq/Yinn/Fer'at: responses

 

((OOC: No one needs to listen to Rivka just because all she wants to do is scan your brains!))

 

Tags/TBC

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Lt Rivka Brzezinski

Neuroscience Specialist

USS Octavia E Butler

O239910AP4