Transport to the Bethesda

Posted on Thu Feb 12, 2015 @ 9:50pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant AJ Taggart & Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings

2,130 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: U.S.S. Bethesda
Timeline: 63296.347 [Sat, 07 Sep 2385 16:02:10 GMT}

The familiar interior of the U.S.S. Victory's transporter room faded away in a haze of blue/white energy. Darkness dominated the awareness of the transporter team for a heartbeat of time, then rose once more into blue/white energy which solidified into an unfamiliar passageway. Deep blue carpet running down the center of the corridor, with a narrow gray stripe to either side along the wall paneling. The overhead lights were on, the sound of the ships air system could be heard; a soft subtle hiss normally not audible due to the other sounds of a ship and it's crew. Those sounds...were noticeably absent.

Looking about the darken transporter room, Alec stepped down and waited as the other members of his team did the same. They were soon joined by the second away team. "Mr. Taggart you and your team explore Engineering and then make your way to Sickbay. We'll head to the bridge. Maybe the Captain had time to record a log."

AJ nodded. "Aye, sir." looking over to the group, he motioned with his free hand. "Anderson, Yarin, and Evans. You're with me," he said in a commanding tone.

[Bridge]

With that Alec headed out, the other members of his away team following. Alec's team made the trip to the bridge in silence, not encountering any of the Bethesda crew along the trip. Entering the bridge, they found it to be the same as the rest of the ship: dark and silent. Only the sound of some systems running could be heard.

Other than that soft, quiet hiss of air through vents...the Bethesda was utterly silent.

"Would this be classified as 'creepy'?" Penny said.

Blackburn looked about the empty bridge and then to Lt. Naroot at her comment. "No argument here, but just keep your mind on the task at hand," she grinned, placing a reassuring hand on the young woman's shoulder.

"But then I can't watch for creepy stuff," Penny said.

"Nina, check the computers for anything that might give us a clue to what happened. Penny, see about the tactical station. Maybe they encountered something. Mr. Mejia check the science logs." Alec told the others as he walked to the Captain's chair to see if a log had been recorded.

Nina nodded and moved to one of the auxiliary computers in the aft section of the bridge. She input her clearance codes and began to scan through ship's activities and sensor logs.

"Aye sir," Aidan said, as he moved to the science station. "Creepy ain't the half of it," he thought to himself. He wasn't a scientist, but he at least knew the basics. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings, but his hands moved over the console and then he looked down to what he might find.

"Righty-o," Penny said, her suit chirping like a cricket as it rubbed together while she walked. She stood behind the tactical station and pulled her wand out of a pocket, running it over the console.

A few minutes of silent chirping passed as she checked her readings and tried activating the tactical screens. "Computer's responding," she said. "I don't see anything amiss, really." She looked it over again. "Security was sent to one of the crew lounges, and Sickbay, and the Captain's ready room..."

She suddenly turned and walked quickly towards the side door leading to the ready room, hitting the override by the door and looking inside. "Found the creepy!" she shouted.


[Engineering]

Chris and his team had finally made it to engineering and he almost jumped as the doors hissed shut behind them, he was the last to enter the room and was too busy getting his tricorder out to start taking scans and see what they could figure out to notice he was standing so close to the door. "This ship is giving me the creeps" he said as he opened his tricorder and started scanning.

"Oh...this is nothing, trust me," Nicole said, looking around. She wasn't an Engineer and didn't want to get in anyone's way, so she kept to the side, leaning against a bulkhead. Her arms were folded tight and she was clutching her tricorder. She glanced at AJ then around the quiet bay, her ears straining to pick up anything around corners, on the upper decks, or inside the walls, but nothing caught her attention yet.

Coming in close with the rest of the team, AJ walked over to Nicole. "Relax. There's nothing to be afraid of." AJ wasn't much of a liar, but there was a feeling of unease he couldn't quite shake. Engineering was uncharacteristically dark, the warp core was running but it was almost like it was running at only 50% power. Walking over to a console, he attempted to access it but found it locked against him. Opening up the underside of the console, AJ knelt down and began to carefully count the isolinear chips and remember the courses he took on isotronic computer processes. Picking one, he began to slowly remove it. A split second later an alarm began to sound.

"Warning: fifteen seconds to core ejection. Ten. Nine-" AJ quickly reinserted the chip and the alarm stopped. Standing up, he turned around towards the Science head. "Lieutenant, see if you can unlock this console and download the ship’s logs and reports."

Yarin nodded Lt. Taggart and got to work, he was a geneticist not an engineer but he knew enough about computers to attempt a hack. His 24 digits flew over the buttons as he attempted to override the console’s lockouts.

Checking his suit for rips, AJ continued. "The rest of you, split up and see if you can locate some of the crew. "

"Always famous last words in holonovels," Nicole groused quietly, pulling a tricorder out of her bag and scanning in front of her as she walked towards the back of the bay. All her senses were on alert, and she was twitching her head back and forth, more than looking around. Every thrum from the warp core was an enemy landing on the deck, every chirp of her tricorder was a weapon being aimed. She tried to control her breathing, but her nerves were starting to get the best of her.

Finally after ten minutes of attempts, Yarin had gained access to the engineering consoles. "Lieutenant, I am in."

AJ nodded at the multi-fingered Science officer. "Go ahead and begin the download, see if you can find out if the ship came across anything that might have caused her crew to abandon.”

Nicole had gotten to the point where she was going to turn around and head back to the main bay when her tricorder finally registered organic matter nearby. *What took it so long?* she thought. She followed the signal towards an auxiliary corridor and saw someone standing in a doorway, trying to force his way between the doors.

She immediately slapped her combadge. "Anderson to Taggert, I found a crew member," she said, walking up to the crewman quickly and pulled on his arm to get his attention.

AJ began to make his way to Nicole, following the map displayed in the corner of his Heads Up Display. "Doctor, is he alive or speaking?" he asked, picking up his pace. If there was a crew member alive, then that would be a serious boon of information that they could use.

She knew right away something was wrong. With her suit on, she wasn't able to smell him, but she couldn't see any pulse under his skin, and the feeling of his flesh was tough, like dried meat. He tipped backwards and fell to the deck with an unceremonious thud.

Nicole jumped back, turning on the spot, looking around to ensure there was no one else within sight. She hit her combadge again. "Anderson to Taggart," she said again, slightly choked up. "Correction: I found a corpse."

Finally reaching her, AJ noticed the corpse of the crew member. He could see that he was a Lieutenant Junior Grade in his mid 20s with sandy brown hair that was beginning to gray as well as a chiseled jaw that was now jutted open in an bizarre expression of immeasurable pain. His hand was outstretched, almost as if he was begging for help. Looking over to Nicole, he put his hand on her shoulder. "Just don't think about it. Let's get him out of the doorway and tag him for autopsy when we get back to the ship."

"It's not the dead that frighten me," she said, crouching down and flipping open her tricorder. She scanned the body, frowning slightly. "He's severely dehydrated," she said. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's been without water for weeks, but that isn't possible. It's more like he's been out under the sun on Dryad II for a day or so." She reached into a small pocket in her suit and pulled out a small, glowing transponder. "Anderson to Sickbay," she said, tapping her combadge.

"Miller here," a voice said.

"Ralph, I need box one prepared," Nicole said. "Level 10 containment field once transport's complete."

"Understood," Miller said.

She closed her tricorder and placed the transponder on the body. "Anderson to transporter room."

Tom, who had been quietly listening to the open comm channel, had been keeping a steady lock on each person as they traversed the ship. The signals had yet to flicker, maintaining full strength with each passing minute. Never one to let his hands leave a console, tapped the appropriate button he'd programmed on the panel and replied, "Barnes here."

"Lock onto the signal directly in front of me and beam to the active stasis chamber in Sickbay."

"Acknowledged." Tom delegated tracking of the Away Team to Transporter Room Two and quickly located the transponder in front of Doctor Anderson. Using the transponder's unique sensor set in conjunction with the Victory's sensors, he locked onto it and all matter in its close proximity. Noting it was a body, Barnes automatically activated the biocontainment protocols and initiated the transport. A moment later, he reported to the Doctor, "transport complete."

She watched the body vanish in a shimmer of light and stood back up. "I should go to Sickbay," she said.

AJ shook his head. "No, we need you here until we secure this ship. Also, we can't risk you taking a contagion back aboard Victory."

Chris had decided to search the area around engineering and look for any survivors, or figure out if he could help get some of the system issues figured out. He pulled his tricorder out and set it to scan for life signs and energy fluctuations and started scanning as he walked down the corridor.

Looking over to the junior officer, AJ waved him over. "Picking up anything, Mister Evans?"

Evans didn't like the readings he was getting as he shook his head. "Nothing," was all he said in reply.

Nicole huffed and reset her tricorder as she scanned the area around where she’d found the body. What would her tricorder not pick up immediately that could dry out a body like that?

AJ stopped for a moment to review the tricorder readings that were streaming into his HUD. He didn't know what was more strange: the fact that there wasn't a single sign of life or the fact that these bodies that they kept finding were as essentially human mummies devoid of moisture. Recalling his training, AJ knew that only a biological life form or certain types of radiation could do this sort of damage. He also knew that this was probably a painful way to go. Initially one would just have symptoms of sweating and dizziness. Then they would begin to have weakness in the muscles, random bleeding from all orifices, delirium, blindness, hair loss, and eventually they would just keel over dead.

Nicole turned quickly, the answer appearing on her screen just as it popped into her brain. She backed up quickly, noting AJ doing the same. *Smart boy,* she thought.

Adjusting his HUD, AJ opened a channel to all teams. "Attention all teams, activate your radiation sensors and report any spikes as soon as you find them." Cutting the channel, AJ tapped his tricorder and watched as the radiation readings stayed steady but as he approached the room that the corpse had been attempting to escape, his readings went through the roof. Letting out a silent curse, AJ stepped back. This was about to become a completely different ball game and he hoped that they had prepared for it.

Nicole backed away from the room further, scanning Engineering quickly. “We’re safe in here,” she said, reading moderately low levels. “For now.”

TBC

 

RSS Feed