Whispers in the Darkness II

Posted on Wed Mar 11th, 2020 @ 12:56pm by Ahreva Malana & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant JG Tovanna Mah & Petty Officer 3rd Class S'Rina Wil'I'Ams & Petty Officer 3rd Class V'Nus Wil'I'Ams
Edited on on Fri Mar 20th, 2020 @ 4:01pm

Mission: Dedjoy System Mystery
Location: Engine Room of the U.S.S. Turing
Timeline: 2397

"Form up," the Klingon security petty officer ordered the commissioned officers. "We need to get to engineering and the bridge, yes? Get the engines running, make the shield modifications and get the ship back online is the mission, save or punch out the crew is secondary?"

Nodding, V'Nus tightened her formation around the rear of the group. But the slightly more compassionate of the two sisters put a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Once the ship is secured and power restored, we can help everyone, Doctor. For now, this one is in no immediate danger. Perhaps a sedative to ensure he will not rouse himself and do more harm to himself or others while we work?"

The leaner of the two Klingons had long thought been considering preparing for the officer's exam and was trying to think like one as she looked up to the mission commander and Hera's second officer for orders.

" Give him a sedative doc. We'll head for engineering. If everything working down there I should be able to get the ship moving without having to take the bridge." The engineer said as she looked around the corridor to check they were still clear. " Malana if that feeling gets any worse tell me immediately. "

“Engineering is this way,” S’Rina pointed forward. “Form up, stay together, and let’s move out.”

Through the darkness of the corridor, the team moved slowly but with focus. Eyes and ears all focused and listening. The Turing's manifest had a crew of 80. 9 of that crew went down to examine the planetoid and with the Deltan unconscious, that meant there could be 70 more crewmembers roaming the hall, driven mad like the one they encountered. Or locked down somewhere waiting to be rescued. Or dead.

But for now, those were all possibilities to be discovered with time. And for now, action was what was needed. Forward momentum and their mission as they made their way closer to the Turing's engine room. From the rear, V'Nus tapped her Heads Up Display and turned to look behind the team for a moment. "Sensors are muddy... but there's movement. Coming up behind us. The map shows the entrance to Engineering is... 20 meters forward. Be on guard, there is an intersection 10 meters ahead. We will be vulnerable."

As the team came to the intersection, there was the sound of breathing coming from all sides as it became clear that more crewmembers were closing in on the away team.

Stopping her tricorder scans of what would be affecting the fissure that separates the CA1 molecular layer from the dentate gyrus molecular layer, Dr. Mah could see in herself that this area of her brain had a marked reduction in Theta wave activity. With a long period of time, this would have detrimental effects on all of them, however, for any highly rated PSI race this was disastrous. If the noises beginning to surround them were any indication they were about to get a first-hand look at the results of this type of exposure.

"Commander, recommend targeting PSI level races first, they are highest priority. They may be harder to take down than usual, I'll explain after." She knew she likely gave their position away but she also realized she may have just saved many more lives in the process. The Starfleet physician holstered her scanner and made sure her weapon was set to maximum stun settings. If cortisol levels, stress hormones and other adrenaline-like chemicals were at the rates she suspected they were in for a fight. She could heal light damage later, Death didn't need extra duties on this away mission.

As soon as a couple of the mad Turing crew attacked, Malana moved into action so fast that it surprised even her as her race was known for sitting still for hundreds, if not millions of years. Still, being a pacifist, she didn't actually counterattack, but instead grabbed them around the waist and slammed them against the wall to pin them in place. As the blow seemed to have no effect on the Betazoid and human she had grabbed, having pinned them literally between a rock and a bulkhead yet losing her footing, Malana decided she needed a firmer grip and the buzzing in her head was getting just that much worse so she pulled back just slightly and drove her hands directly into the wall's computer panels and clung onto the infrastructure inside which stripped the gloves from her suit in the process.

"Doctor... At your... Convenience... Please..." the stone woman struggled to enunciate as the two she was holding clawed and beat at her to get free.

Pulling her hypo out with practiced ease, Dr. Mah pumped up the sedative, knowing it would be needed to counteract the current hormone levels. It wasn't her first time in 60 years of medical practice wrangling around rowdy patients and she hit each as quick as a dart watching them crumple immediately.

"Thank you Malana," she looked at the woman's hands, "Your gear has been compromised." She switched out her hypo for the scanner looking at any possible foreign matter and infection as well as abrasions themselves not wanting any embedded metal remaining in her hands to do more damage during a fight.

As for Petty Office S'Rina, this was her moment,

As the crazed and feral Starfleet personnel came at them, she manifested her phaser first, firing once, twice, until the weapon ran out of charge on the second shot. Returning it to the extradimensional space from which it had come, she was surprised when her request for a melee weapon received no response. The bracers of Hera had never failed her before, but no matter,. With a grim smile, she stepped into the oncoming wave of personnel, armed only with her bare hands.

Throughout her Starfleet career, restraint was the watchword. Watch what you say, don't use too much force, don't hurt other Starfleet personnel, mind your honor. Today she stood at the vanguard of the exploration away team, and they were in danger. Energy weapons did not function, and it seemed she was reduced to her body as the only weapon available. Which was just fine with her.

Grabbing one incoming crewman by the face, she used his forward charging momentum against him, her superior strength enabling her to drive him back, legs leaving the deck as she drove his chest down to it, knocking the air from his lungs even as she pivoted to sweep the legs out of the next charging madwoman. The first crewman's head hitting the deck she felt was no6t hard enough to break his skull or cripple him, but should render him unconscious at the very least. Finishing the spin she had used to sweep the legs out from under the next crewman, as she rose she lashed out with a kick that would break ribs and leave the average humanoid unable to rise, let alone fight.

Rising, she turned it into an uppercut, her fist driving the pointy-eared madman up into the overhead before he dropped to the deck, knocked completely senseless by the fierce attack. As two more rushed her, another Vulcan woman and a human-Betazoid? She neither knew nor cared. The Vulcan's strength was impressive, fueled by adrenaline as it was. But S'Rina Wil'I'Ams worked out to venter her frustrations. Already sturdy, hardy and blessed with a strong physique, she worked out daily to improve upon it. As a member of Hera's honor guard, the gifts of her aura were available for the staking- greater strength, speed, agility, and endurance.

The Klingon warrior had accepted it all, and was quite well off for the choice.

Beyond all that was the simmering rage which burned within her at all times. Rage at her ancestors for their dishonor. Rage at the rules and regulations which kept her bridled and restrained in her actions. Rage which seldom got outlet, save in sparring with the angry Romulan chief flight officer, who seemed to have similar issues. That rage was seldom given an outlet- but this was a perfect moment for her. As the two scrabbled at her armor, flailing and biting at her, she delivered brief, savage strikes on both of them, knocking them unconscious with deliberate and practiced ease... although perhaps with more force than was necessary.

This was a rare moment for her to cut loose, and she was taking full advantage of it to cripple some lunatic Starfleet officer. Not kill, just cripple- otherwise she would never hear the end of it from her sister.

That sister, for her part, was hard at work with a maddened human and what appeared to be another Betazoid, perhaps. V'Nus was a skilled warrior, though taller and leaner than her more thickly muscled sister, she made up for slightly less strength with a greater emphasis on finesse and lightning speed.

Once her phaser had bee lb exhausted by the ambient energy absorption effect, she had switched over to her duranium bo staff. It gave her greater range and allowed her to incapacitate multiple goes with less force. A guick jab to the throat of the raging human in a gold Starfleet tunic left him gasping for air, which made it a simple matter to pick up the wounded crew member and us him as a literal battering ram to slam her remaining foes to the deck.

From there, the skilled combatant utilized nerve strikes she had learned from the angry Romulan's mother in training that quickly knocked them out cold.

Thex grunted as one of the mad crew jumped onto her nearly sending the Andorian over. Her usual fighting style was impossible in her bulky Evo suit, but Thex was an Andorian. She could still remember the pain on her back from her parent's whips and sticks from when she failed. She wasn't going to go down without a fight. Letting out an Andorian battle cry she charged back slamming the blue-clad Vulcan into the wall. The Vulcan screamed coating the back of her suit with green blood as she elbowed the crewman hard in the chest. She loosened her grip allowing Thex to turn and smash the Vulcan in the face with one hand as she brought up her phaser hitting the Vulcan with a heavy stun which sent her falling to the floor

As Malana inspected the shreds of her suit's gloves and her hands in Doctor Tova's light, she saw that her suit's gloves were a complete loss. Not much of an issue since she had sealed her suit but not turned it on or anything. However, what was more concerning was the fact that there were now several chips in her granite-based physique. As her people didn't heal like normal biologicals and had to be patched, this was mildly concerning. "When we return to the ship, I will forward my medical requirements to you for my repair compounds. For now though... I believe the feeling from earlier is starting to become... mildly annoying."

Getting up, the moans of a few of the Turing's enraged crew members was all that remained of the immediate threat. V'Nus looked around to confirm that her and her sister's charges were intact before nodding. "There. The path to engineering appears a good degree clearer, Commander sh'Zoarhi."

" Indeed. Let's keep moving in case there are any more out there. " Thex said leading the way towards the heart of the ship.

As they arrived at the double doors that lead into engineering, the power was insufficient for the doors to open when they hit the pad by the door. So, after checking their surroundings while S'Rina stood guard, V'Nus opened the wall panel below the access pad and pulled out the small, metal handle that allowed her to manually pump the doors open. It took a few moments, but with a stale hiss, the minimal atmosphere in the corridor rushed into the darkened engineering chamber.

Stepping in first, S'Rina took point to ensure there were no rabid crewmembers inside. But her searchlight, however dim, revealed something else. Something more unsettling.

While the towering warp core itself was dark, the few seats in the chamber had a number of officers strapped in them, arms hovering limply in the minimal gravity. In total, 8 crewmembers that were still in engineering when the life support began to fail. But there was still some air in the chamber, so there was still some hope that the crewmember who had stayed at their posts trying to keep the engines alive might, themselves, be alive.

The stone woman, Malana, pulled free her personal scanner and ran it around the area for a moment before tucking it back away. "It seems the minimal height of the corridors maintained the residual gravitons for much longer than the open engineering bay. I detect zero residual graviton emissions near the core. I also detect another thirty-eight biologicals in the maintenance conduits. Oxygen levels are thirty-three percent lower than Federation standards."

Without saying anything the commander was already at one of the control panels finding out what was still working. Thankfully there was still power, but the look on her face showed a situation that needed no words to explain. This girl was a mess. " Great. Many of the ship's systems are fried, half are broken and many I can't even find the staus off. I can get secondary life support up and running using the emergency power cells, then I can work on the warp core. " She said already grabbing a repair kit from the locker. " This is going to be loud. Get the entrances closed and watch the maintenance conduits in case someone tries coming through."

Meanwhile, Dr. Mah was immediately drawn to the crewmen strapped in the seats, going to any of them she already determined were a priority based upon race. Performing a general scan of the first she came upon, with the additional scan for the Theta wave disruption in the entorhinal cortex, in the medial temporal lobe. It was a quick way to determine disruption since high levels of Theta waves were easily read in this area of the brain. She rapidly did the same for all of the crewmen, before walking over to Malana to see if a similar frequency was being disturbed within her body, despite the biological differences. "My apologies Malana, I need to check something to confirm my suspicions before I can come to a conclusion on what may be causing this sudden rash of behavioral disturbance." She ran the scanner over the large woman, looking for a frequency within the Theta and Delta range that corresponded to the one being disrupted within the humanoid races she was dealing with. Returning to the most damaged patient, she built her report to the Commander.

At the door, V'Nus had opened the control panel on their end and, using the manual lever inside, closed the exterior doors. Then, using her duranium staff, jammed the lever in place so that the door couldn't be opened from the other side. "Main entrance secured, Commander."

Then turning to her burly sister, V'Nus glanced at the two maintenance conduits. "Sister, perhaps we can find some means to seal off these conduits and... wait." Putting her hand to the side of her helmet, the taller of the two Klingon's had a raised eyebrow. "Commander sh'Zoarhi. The communications channel with the Hera is choppy, but we are receiving a message from the Hera. I shall try and boost the transmission gain."

After a few seconds of adjusting the frequency of her helmet's transceiver, the Klingon Security officer put the message on speaker for all to see. "...is Lieutenant Commander Do... *KKKKT*... from Yeoman Dedjoy regarding the nature of the signals from Primordious. Using the information received from your team and Commander Paris', we are attempting to communicate with what we believe to be an intelligence down... *KKKKT*. The theta wave disruption appears to be affecting crewmembers with psionic... *KKKKT*... and recommend focusing on the shield modifications to the Turing to block the detrimental signal...*KKKKT*"

Thex was listening as she continued her desperate work to get everything back up and running. " Thex to the Hera message received....." She said as with a wack of a few cables the ships back up life support thudded into a weak life. " Okay, that's being held together by happy thoughts let's hope it hold/ " She said first checking the rising oxygen levels before looking at her team. " Right we need to get the shields up and modified. V'Nus third pannel of the left from the door... is it working?" The Andorian yelled as she turned her attention to the warp core. If they needed the shields up they'd need at least some power from the warp core.

The lean security officer in the gold armor stepped over to the panel in question and tapped on the dark screen. After a few flickers, the LCARS display weakly began to glow. "Power is minimal, but Aye. It is working, Commander."

" Good keep an eye on it. If any error message pop up tell me at once." Thex said as she opened up the manual controls to reset the warp core. " S'Rhia can you man the main console as soon as it comes on tell me."

"Lieutenant Commander, with respect, there are active signatures in the ductworks, and hostile forces known to be in the area. My duty is to ensure the safety of the landing party, and I cannot do that if I am monitoring a technical panel. Sir." S'Rina had still edged over to the main console, but she was watching for threats from all sides as she did so.

" Understood watch the ducts. I'll have to do this from memory. " Running through the process that was burned into her brain from her time at the academy. It would take seven minutes to do this from an emergency shut down if everything was okay which there was a good chance this wasn't.

From there, the room became eerily quiet. S'Rina watched the interior points of entry, on guard for further excursions while V'Nus manned the panel closest to the main door which enabled her to remain on guard at that entry point. Malana and Dr. Mah did their bet to attend to the crewmembers in the room who had passed out from the low oxygen, keeping them stable with hypos and tlc while Thex worked feverishly on the Turing's engines.

Two minutes in, there was a bang on the main doors followed by a scraping sound as crewmembers in the corridor were clearly trying to get inside the hard way. It was a momentary distraction, but the doors held firm and didn't budge. In their crazed state, it was clear that the altered crewmembers lacked the mental faculties to attempt to use the control panel or the manual lever that V'Nus had jammed on their end. And the work continued.

Thex was doing her best to keep the sound of banging out as she struggled to single-handled do a job that normally needed three people to do safely. Thankfully for her, the core was relatively okay as she worked her magic as she slid the dilithium crystal matrix back into place. A slight humming brought a smile to her face as the machine began to power up.

Slowly, the lights in the engineering chamber began to softly glow back to life as the various consols began powering back up and a light hiss of flowing oxygen could be heard through the vents. With power humming gently back into the Starship, the next step was in adding the new shield frequencies to the ship in order to block the detrimental signal from Primordious that was causing the psi-sensitive members of the Turing's crew to continue to rage in the corridors outside of engineering.

A smile was on Thex fae as she slid out from under the warp core handling port. " Girl don't fail me now. " She said leaping over to the console despite being in her heavy spacesuit. She already had the new shield frequency loaded up on her helmets hud. Her fingers were flying over the console as she worked to get the new frequency loaded up. She was having to override the ship's safety frequencies as the primary shield matrix was down and the ship was running on its backup. " Come on..." She said as a bang echoed from the door as the crew continued to force their way in. " And there we go." The Andorian yelled triumphantly as the ship shoot as its shields thundered into life.

Moments later, there was a strange sound out in the corridor, on the other side of the door. A faint groaning could be heard and a series of light thudding sounds as both Klingon sisters glanced at each other. Stepping from the panel she had been at, V'Nus stepped over to the main door panel and began punching in data. "Computer. Security override, Omega-6-6-7-9-x-Delta. Wil'I'Ams, V'Nus. Petty Officer. U.S.S. Hera. Display security feeds, this station."

After a moment, there was a light chirrup and the computer's voice, somehow colder sounding than the Hera's own, chimed back. =^=Security override code accepted. Security feeds rerouted.=^=

"Call up the holographic scan feeds. External corridor, main engineering." V'Nus said, as a holographic representation of what was just outside the door appeared in the center of the room for all to see. On it, was several officers, doubled over in pain on the deck of the corridor, grabbing their heads and moaning. But they looked decidedly less crazy.

"Doctor Mah. From this station, you should be able to access the medical scanners to confirm their status. Protocol dictates that once we have power, we should beam them directly into isolation in the brig until we can confirm that the shields are working and they are themselves again, however." V'Nus said calmly, but firmly. They were going to take no chances.

Dr. Mah nodded in understanding "Shields or not, suits need to stay on. If that message is correct we are facing an onslaught of continual Theta wave disruption, so every protection will help. In the meantime, once the affected patients are in the brig lets get them tuned into a proper Theta enhancing biofeedback and a medial level of antigrav to help induce natural Theta production. We also need to have these crewmen put into med to do the same." She sighed, "If we are dealing with a lifeform that changes things. We don't want to harm them however we need to help our crewmen as well." She looked at Thex worried.

" Sounds like a plan. I'll get power back to the transporters and the medbay. We can get the EMH up and running to assist. Then I'll make sure this ship isn't going to fail again." The Andorian confidently said from the station which she was already working on. " I'll get some emergency repair teams and medical personnel over from the Hera as well. "

And as the azure engineer got back to work, there was a moment of relief in the engine room of the Turing as it's crewmember slowly began to regain consciousness with full life support restored. There was still much to be done to return the fragile, Oberth-class starship to proper working order, but for the moment at least, the crisis had been averted.

At least on the Turing.