Ensign Talon Morda: Fettuccintruder alert
Eston Melton
((Bridge, Deck One, USS Khitomer))
Dewitt: Good work, Mr Morda. Push that data over to Lieutenant Zerva and Commander Valeris in real time. I want the three of you on the same picture from here on. Mr Korras, anything new on the scan for other masses, large or small?
Morda: Aye, Commander.
Korras: Response
While the Klingon responded, Morda’s fingers danced across the console to ensure the totality of what the sensors had captured, what he had gleaned, and what the computer had quantified was available to Valeris on the bridge and Zerva in the transporter room. In short order, he also tied them in to the live scans with identical overlays.
The data pool would flash up on Valeris’s console, and it’d probably catch his eye any second. But the conversation with Zerva, Naxell and the XO hadn’t made clear whether his superior officer was in a spot to notice a data dump. oO Better overcommunicate than not enough. Oo went the adage. So Ensign Morda tapped the console’s intercom key.
Morda: =/\= Morda to Zerva. Don’t mean to distract you, boss, but the XO wants you tied in on the energy scans for our intruder. We put it through the wringer pinning down the nanofilaments and putting up a confinement beam. Might be helpful. It’s diminished various energy outputs. Commander Valeris is looped in on the data feed, too. =/\=
Zerva: =/\= Response. =/\=
Morda: =/\= Aye, sir. Morda out. =/\=
The ensign kept monitoring the bridge sensors trained on the intruder, listening to the senior officers to cue … whatever came next.
Valeris: So… Do I have the green light to enact the lighting program? The Captain didn’t really say…
The part of Ensign Talon Morda that still resonated with the enlisted ranks smirked, glad to have his back to the three-pipping senior officers. The captain hadn’t given permission because Commander Dewitt hadn’t asked for it; he’d instead announced a course of action. The captain’s explicit response had expressed trust that the XO would report back -- but more importantly, he’d expressed tacit trust in Dewitt’s intent to act. It seemed the two senior-most officers were syncing up rather well.
Korras: Response
Dewitt: He did not say no, Commander. ::beat:: So go ahead. Push it. Sickbay first.
Valeris: Just wanted to make sure. Didn’t want to step on any toes…or filaments.
C. Dewitt: ::dryly:: I think the noun fight is already lost, Commander. The intruder has been named multiple kinds of flour based product. Whatever sticks to the wall will name it.
Korras: Response
Morda tilted his head up to the banks of consoles above his eyeline. Up there, he displayed visuals from engineering and sickbay, curious to see with his own eyes how the tendril mapping scheme would work. It took a few moments, but it seemed things worked, with pairs of laser-transmitted lines criss-crossing both decks. Not surprisingly, someone in engineering immediately took some kind of inert probe and gently wafted it in the space where a tendril hung -- a portion of the probe promptly slicing off at about throat level. The engineer holding a half-probe gently backed away and disappeared out of frame.
Valeris: Still think we need some music to go with this laser light show. ::shrugging:: But more important things to deal with first.
Not the first time, Morda wanted to shake his head at this odd commander who plucked at aliens, called them sad, and now wanted to sing at them. oO But … Oo He had been the first to discern a shift in the intruder’s behavior, and maybe his earlier tendril-pluck had been his response to a subconscious read of the alien’s nature that everyone else had missed.
Korras: Response
C. Dewitt: ::quietly half to Valeris, half to himself:: Actually, Commander…
The ensign half-swiveled his chair at the XO’s soft tone, wondering if they shared an inclination to give it a shot.
C. Dewitt: ::beat:: Maybe you are not wrong… Mr Morda’s numbers say its reaction eased… The Whistling of Miss Sparks… ::still in thought, then turning to Valeris:: The Captain said gently… So pick a song, Commander. Or have the computer pick one. Nothing too stressful. We are not trying to wake it up, we are just trying…
C. Dewitt: We are just trying to convince it not to eat the ship… If there’s intelligence at all.
Morda tried to quickly switch gears. His sister Effa was a brilliant musician -- even among Kerelians as a whole, whose astute hearing gave many of them a predilection for the craft. Alas, it’s not something he’d taken to himself -- but, Effa had tried to teach him some things about music before he’d left for the service (and her offer to compose his funeral dirge when he inevitably launched himself naked out of an airlock). She’d told him about pleasing sounds, something something over-something something.
Morda: Overtones. ::Swiveling all the way to face the rest of the bridge:: Maybe something with resonant overtones. It reacted to resonant frequencies before. Stringed instruments, winds, vocals -- many sentient find those instruments’ resonant harmonic overtones very pleasing. ::Looking around at some of the blank looks he was receiving:: I don’t suppose anyone here was in The Warp Chords a capella group at the Academy?
Korras/Valeris: Response
C. Dewitt: ::aside, to Morda:: Ensign, I want continuous read on your data. If anything spikes, cut the music. If it gets more… sad… or sleepy… I want to know it.
Morda: Aye, sir. I’ll make sure it gets shared on the same line with Commander Valeris and Lieutenant Zerva.
He was relieved for an excuse to turn back to his console, mainly to hide his blush as unbidden memories of various encounters with Warp Chord singers threatened to district him.
Korras/Valeris: Response
TAG/TBC