Lieutenant Falt: Getting my science on...
Tom Cholewa
((Science Lab 2, Deck 6, USS Juneau))
Tomas stood in science lab 2. The water sample he’d taken from the treatment plant was suspended in front of him, safely behind a level 4 containment field. He stared at it, as if his eyes might be able to detect something the battery of tests he’d already run had missed.
Nothing he’d tried so far had come up with any evidence of the life form that had appeared to briefly occupy Ensign Sera. He’d found nothing under the electron microscope, the mass-spectrometer had only detected water, and the liquid chromatography test had failed completely. It was both frustrating and concerning.
An electronic tone from his workstation alerted him to the completion of the most recent attempt. He turned and called up the results. Nothing. Again… He sighed in frustration and rubbed his temples. He should have been able to find something by now, either the sample he’d retrieved wasn’t large enough, or something weird was going on with the water itself?
Crossing the lab he powered up the subatomic electron microscope. There was no harm in ruling out the water itself, although he doubted it was the source of the problem. He extracted a tiny amount of material from the sample in containment and carefully placed it in the machine.
His gasped in surprise as the results appeared on the workstation screen in front of him.
He’d been both right, and wrong. The water was not the source, but suspended in it were tiny, slow moving dots of... something... he couldn’t tell. Each was smaller than a quark. He felt his pulse quicken. Had they discovered a subatomic lifeform?
He retrieved a second, larger sample, and repeated the test. He got the same outcome, although the dots seemed slightly more active in this time around. Wanting to be sure of his findings before he contacted Doctor Indobri he repeated the test a third time, with an even larger sample. Same results, and exponentially more activity from the dots.
Falt: ::to himself:: Interesting, they seem to be more active the more of them there are.
Unsure of the significance of that observations, but satisfied with his results, he opened a channel to the clinic.
Falt: Falt to Doctor Indobri.
Indobri: Response.
Falt: This is only preliminary sir, but we may have found a subatomic lifeform?
Indobri / Sera: Response.
Falt: It would certainly explain why the bio-filters didn’t detect anything. ::entering a command on his console:: I’ve just sent you my findings, sir.
Indobri / Sera: Response.
Falt: Aye, sir. One more thing, initial data suggests the... dots as I’ve been calling them... become more active the more of them there are. I’m going to return to the water treatment plant and try to get more data, but if this really is a subatomic lifeform that might be significant. I’m speculating, but perhaps there need to be a larger number of them for a coherent intelligence to appear. Sera, do you have any insight after your experience?
Indobri / Sera: Response.
TAG / TBC
Lieutenant Tomas Falt
Chief Science Officer
Denali Station
J239807TF2
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