Lt. Kim Stapledon - The Heart

[John Smith]

((Engineering - Underground Facility - Large Chamber behind Door with Tubes ))

They closed the door behind them.  Kim felt a knot in her stomach as she listened for and finally heard the soft thump of the small fusion reactor outside overheating, its outer shell popping off as the safety containment blew and the reactor shut down automatically.  She'd rigged it to overheat when Williams had asked her to find a way to shut down the power unit preferably temporarily.  The job she'd done on it was technically temporary.  Someone would need to come by and repair the safety casing to get the reactor to start again.

Presently they made their way through a corridor and then out into another reactor room.  Her tricorder registered nothing, but she could tell something was there.  She gripped her phaser and heard the quiet roll of ch'Clex's wheelchair beside her.

In the moderate light of the chamber there was something familiar about the light-brown patches she saw.  Looking up she realized what she was looking at.

Lim: Is that a giraffe?!

Williams: I think you are right… I consider that a blessing. I feared we might be dealing with some carnivores instead.

Kim's stomach churned.

ch’Clex: I don’t know what a “giraffe” is. ::He kept the phaser up, steady.::

Williams: Plant eaters… long necks, but besides that pretty harmless. Or so they should be…

Lim: ::Muttering:: How did it even fit down here? The room’s not that big.

Williams: Transporters? That would explain how it got here.

Stapledon:  I think there's more to it than that.

ch’Clex: If it fits, then either it was put here on purpose… Lieutenant Stapledon is there something weird about this creature?

She almost laughed, thinking, "Other than the fact that it's standing 3 storeys underground in an effectively enclosed chamber?"

Stapledon:  I can't get a good reading on it from all the dampening.

She looked beyond, saw another transparent aluminum casing as tall as a house.  The glare of the lights against it made it difficult to see inside, but she thought she heard the hum of another fusion reactor beyond the glass.

As if on cue, the giraffe jerked its body, as though it felt itself under attack.

ch’Clex: We need to take it down.

Kim felt a twinge at the core of her being as emotion fought with reason.  This wasn't a real giraffe, she thought to herself.  And yet the Genesis Device had created it -- like it had created all the other creatures here -- using the DNA of the species.

Williams: Given that the bear didn’t give in, we might as well go for the kill setting. It saddens me to say there is probably no alternative.

Kim nodded.

Alex moved forward, only just in time as suddenly the giraffe decided to go into a frenzy and swung its neck, almost as if it wanted to use its head like a wrecking ball. Its ossicones hit hard against the wall, leaving a large dent.

Tholin and Williams fired at the creature with their phasers.

The creature slammed its head into another bulkhead and the lights in the room flickered off just as someone phasered the animal one last time and it fell to the ground.

Kim felt both relieved and terrible that she hadn't helped phaser the animal.  She'd not hurt it.  And yet she hadn't helped defend her team mates.

ch’Clex: This needs to end, that thing did not deserve to become that.

Williams: Couldn’t have said it better myself. This ends now. Whatever is orchestrating this… we shut it down. No more innocent creatures turned into weapons. Not on my watch.

Stapledon:  Agreed.

Williams: Let’s see if we can find what’s getting power in here. If we can shut it down, it might stop these attacks, and hopefully the explosion will offer some kind of position marker to the Eagle.

Williams: Only problem is, we have to find a way to keep ourselves out of harm’s way.

Stapledon:  I have a feeling we're the reason these attacks keep happening...  And...

She didn't want to finish the sentence.  If they left would the genesis device stop doing this?  Would it stop creating animals only to torture them?  Was that the only solution?  Just leave it alone and it will all stop?  It felt like they were wandering through an old generative AI, seeing forms switching as though they were systems stabilizing like an attractor.

Ch,Clex: Response?

(( Int - Main Reactor Enclosure ))

They stepped into the massive enclosed chamber, past the edge of the transparent aluminum wall, the door opening and then hissing closed after they'd passed through.  Williams shone his flashlight along the walls, the beam catching machinery and platforms, until it fell upon something much larger, the source of the hum Kim had heard earlier.

The machine, covered in odd tendrils, was about 3 cubic meters in size and Kim wasn't able to make out the specific design.

Williams: If this is the heart of the system… we might have an opportunity.

Williams moved ahead of her and said,

Williams: Reinforced casing. Minimal access. Probably trapped.

Slowly Kim angled her light up, following the contours of the reactor and its many sprouting tendrils.  They expanded, following their own paths like branching blood vessels.

The higher up the vessels went the more expansive and impressive they became.

Ch'Clex:  Response

((Outside the Main Reactor Enclosure))

No one heard the subtle sounds as the giraffe's body changed outside.  The head lay still, one eye still slightly open, as the tissues inside of morphed.  The ossicones throbbed, the tufts of fur at their tips falling away.  There was a dull moist popping sound as something began to emerge from them.

(( Int - Main Reactor Enclosure ))

Williams: Its producing power roughly 10 times more than it should… It still a federation power unit in origin. But the inside is altered in so many ways. Pick up all kind of elements and chemical processes… its hard to say WHAT its doing. But its surely creating a lot of power.

Stapledon:  Generating chemical energy... maybe..  Could be partly how the animals are getting produced -- or at least fed -- inside this place.

Ch,Clex: Response?

Kim shrugged, wondering what was producing the animals herself.

Stapledon:  Something we haven't seen yet, I assume?

Ch'Clex/Williams:  Response

((Outside the Main Reactor Enclosure))

The flesh along the giraffe's lips and outer mouth slid back, several tendrils from deep inside its throat dragging it backward.  There was a soft crunching sound as its legs slid out from under it, spreading and propping the creature up, muscles along its midsection bulging unnaturally.  The bones of its snout and lower jaw were now exposed, its teeth still hidden behind what flesh remained on its mouth.

The creature stumbled and stood up, its half-exposed jaw looking like a bony claw with teeth inside as tendrils flailed from the maw, and from the exploded ossicones above.

(( Int - Main Reactor Enclosure ))

Stapledon:  If I can get into the main assembly again, I should be able to short the intermix connectors again and cause a thermal overload.  We'll need to leave quickly after I've done it though.

She swallowed, considering what other organic parts might be inside the chamber.

Williams/Ch'Clex:  Response

((Jeffries Tube Just above Reactor Enclosure))

The bear's 700lb heart fell the remaining distance to the engineering deck with a loud wet thud and then skittered along toward the vent from which the humanoid scent was emanating.  Now that the air exchanges had been disengaged it was a lot easier for the major defensive assets of the genesis device to find their targets.

The large ursoid heart throbbed, lumps of tissue repurposed as a brain guiding it as it scampered the final few feet to the vent.   Its fifth leg, protruding from what had been an upper atrium, flopped down toward the vent.

(( Int - Main Reactor Enclosure ))

Stapledon:  The maintenance hatch is clear.  

Pointing with her phaser, she pulled down the access lever.  It made an audible clank that reverberated through the chamber.  The fusion reactor interior looked surprisingly pristine.

Stapledon:  I can see the intermix connector, I just need to--

There was a dull thump from behind them as something struck the enclosure wall.  Their lights caught the shifting movements of bone and spots, brown and white, slender red tendrils.  Kim's eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at.

Williams/Ch'Clex:  Response

The massive upper and lower bones of the giraffe's skull smashed against the transparent aluminum, leaving small chips and then cracks as they hit again and again, trying to grip and tear at the surface.

And then, meters above them, the ceiling vent finally gave way and fell.

Williams/Lim/Ch'Clex:  Response

--

Lt. Kimberly Stapledon

Chief of Science

USS Eagle-A

I238601KB0

Pronouns:  

Character:  She/Her 

Writer:  He/Him