What to do with a 2.2AU Ball of Doom

Posted on Thu Mar 8th, 2018 @ 6:22pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie & Petty Officer 2nd Class Ila Dedjoy & Ahreva Malana & Commander Mal Xustos & Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan & Lieutenant Commander Eneas Clio & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant Vaemyn & Crewman Draex Ashir & Akira Zhuri & Lieutenant Marci Ulfred & Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral & Staff Warrant Officer Nexi
Edited on on Sat Apr 7th, 2018 @ 3:23pm

Mission: When Iconians Deserve to Die
Location: USS Hera
Timeline: After Dance of Death

***USS Hera Bridge***

That was it then. The Master was dead. His reign was over. The Hera was mostly in one piece. The Nightmarelands were starting to dissipate, but it would take a few thousand years for that to finish and likely never fully. Now they just had to figure out what to do with the giant sphere of neutronium built around a brown dwarf sun behind them.

Enalia wasn't cured of her affliction still though, and it was showing. Her skin was turning grey and cold sweat was forming on her face. She still refused to go back to sickbay during the fight with the Master though. "Have Akira... Contact that lab that she got that body from... See if there's a way to disable that Dyson sphere... Or send it away... Where's my doctor at? I think it's time to go back to sickbay."

"Captain," Mal said. "I can summon Hermes if you think Artan Fortress or even the Trill Symbiosis might be able to help you better than we can. You know he can get here quickly and get you where you need to go even quicker, far faster than we can."

Mal was worried about Clio, but had to trust that she was in good hands. The Captain looked like she might expire right here and now.

"As much as I trust Hermes, I'd rather not owe him any further favors. Have one of the runabouts prepped just in case though." Taking a deep breath, Enalia slumped a bit lower in her chair and closed her eyes. "Akira and Vaemyn head up a team to figure out how to neutralize the Dyson sphere. Thex, focus on making sure the Hera can get us home safely as fast as possible. Gonadie, start plotting a course that'll get us to... Damages being what they are... It might be best to put in at McKinley station over Utopia Planitia for a couple weeks. Oh and that specialist... What was her name? Malana or something? have her work with Clio, Nexi, and Ila and see if they can do something with the newly infected."

"Now... If you'll excuse me... I need to get to sickbay..." Enalia's voice was smooth and tempered through most of that, but towards the end it started tapering off. The last few words, she faded and rather than heading to sick bay, she just sat there. Unmoving.

"I haven't released you from sickbay!" Marci growled as she came out of the turbolift behind a slightly battered looking Clio. "We don't know how the black blood will affect you. It might not be safe!"

Clio rolled her eyes without saying anything. The 'it might not be safe' argument didn't hold much water with her. She wasn't safe to be around when she wasn't infected with creepy black blood. As she reached her station, she caught sight of Enalia slumped in the command chair and immediately changed directions to see what was going on. "Marci!"

"Shit," Marci breathed, rushing over to Enalia and fishing a tricorder out of her lab coat pocket. Scanning Enalia, she uttered a few curses in her native tongue. The readings were worse than the last time, but she would have known that without even looking at the scans. Clenching her jaw a bit, she tapped her communicator badge. "Ulfred to sickbay. I need a stat medical transport for myself and Captain Telvan. Prep trauma 2 for symbiont stabilization. Energize."

A moment later, the transporter beam took Enalia and Marci to sickbay, leaving Mal in command of the bridge.

Mal started doing some calculations on the Tactical Console and called for some help.

"Lieutenants sh'Zoarhi and Rybeena," he said into the comm, hailing the ship's two top engineers. "Please respond. Commander Jordan and Miss Zhuri as well. Mister Vaemyn, I require your assistance."

"Thex here," The andorian said into her combadge not bothering to hid the exaustion in her voice as she ran to help get another fault fixed. "Please tell me he's gone Commnder because some parts of the ship are being held together by brown paper, vinegar and happy thoughts."

"The Master is dead, Lieutenant," Mal said. "Please standby until I have looped everyone into this conversation."

=/\="Zhuri responding,"=/\= Akira said, somehow sounding just as fatigued as Thex.

"Excellent," Mal said. "Please standby."

From his post at one of the aft consoles, Vaemyn perked up, although the Vorta looked less cheerful now, more somber and intense. He didn’t know Captain Telvan very well, nor Commander Clio or the other wounded, but he was still worried about them as his shipmates. Still, as he always did upon feeling such feelings, Vaemyn took comfort from his simple ability to feel them. Compassion was, after all, not a trait that had been engineered into his genetics, but rather something he had learned.

“Ready when you are, Commander,” Vaemyn said, shaking off his private musing.

"Thank you," Mal said. He activated the comm again on all call. "Now hear this: if anyone sees Lieutenant Rybeena, please have him call the bridge at his earliest convenience."

Mal wasn't overly concerned. Communications were still spotty throughout the ship.

"Alright everyone," he said. "Let's get started. I need to come up with a way to destroy or render inoperable that Dyson Sphere. We also need to get Lieutenant Vaemyn and Miss Zhuri over there to the Herald Lab. To do the former, we're going to have to figure out how to do the latter. We can't beam through the Dyson Sphere's hull, and we can't penetrate its hull with our weapons. However, if we can get Vaemyn and Akira over to the sphere and back again, then presumably we could place an explosive device inside at the same time. We can't risk trying to open any of the hatches large enough to get a the Hera or a shuttle through. The sphere's security systems might disable us again. Before we start talking about how to render the sphere permanently inoperative, can we remotely activate the Iconian Gateway? Signals can get through, since Akira was able to send herself over there. Could we remote access the gate and get through that way?"

"I'm not an expert on Iconian gates, but I don't see why we couldn't do that." Since she couldn't investigate such things from this part of the bridge, Clio went over to her station and started sifting through the data they had on the gates and spheres. "If we know the frequency, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Engineers and scientists?" Mal said. "Do you concur?"

"It was a great risk transmitting myself to the Sphere the first time, I'm not entirely comfortable doing it again," Akira replied. "What about how the team got onto the Master's ship? That, uh, secret transporter in the pod, it ignored the MAster's ship's shields and defenses, right?"

" I could try using the transporter to beam someone over to the sphere to open up a gateway. May burn out the transporter, but it would be safer than trying to access the gateway remotely." The andorian chief engineer added as she headed to get her gear. She had a feeling she'd be going over to help blow something up.

Clio shook her head. "I don't recommend sending anyone else through that thing. Especially not anyone who hasn't already been through it. Besides, the Dyson spheres were built by the Iconians. They have defenses against transporters... the tractor beams are the only way in."

"To be clear," Mal said. "The Hera is NOT getting tractored in there, period, end of discussion. Anything that goes in that way might be going on a one way trip. Nobody is getting killed over this. Worst case scenario, we have Starfleet Intelligence scramble an emergency demolitions team and they blow the thing up. If the transporter is no good, why can't we remote activate the gate? We don't need to send Akira's program over there to access it."

"If I can get back to the lab, I believe the computer there will help us find a way to disable or destroy the sphere from within," Akira asserted. "No one knows the sphere better than its own computer, and if he proves to be unable to help or simply uncooperative, then we can activate the gate and call back for more help."

"Okay," Mal said. "So our standard transporters won't work, getting tractored in there is unsafe in my opinion, Thex doesn't like the gate, and Clio doesn't like the Section 31 transporter. One of us is making an incorrect assumption. Ideas?"

Thex paused for a moment as she ran through idea's in her head. " Akira you used the transporter to reach the sphere right? Couldn't we use that way to get back in the sphere and open a gateway from that side? " She inquired

"She downloaded into the body she's in now," Mal said. "Or uploaded, depending how you look at it. So, no, no one has tried beaming over to the sphere, which is why we're trying to decide if it would work.

Ila Dedjoy, who snuck in a few moments ago, overheard the tail end of the conversation. "Commander, if I may... The Section 31 transporter may be jarring, but the fact that we transported through the Master's shields and hull to his bridge is proof enough that we can use it."

"How so?" Mal said. "If the Master's ship was made of neutronium, we would never have been able to damage it. How does beaming through that ship's hull translate into being able to beam into the sphere?"

Ila nodded and continued, admitting just how much she'd experimented with this transporter. "Because scans showed the same security systems against beaming. As for the neutronium, I ran tests on that during our last shore leave by beaming bio-canisters in and out of the Artan vaults which are lined with it."

"Alright then," Mal said. "We'll send them over there via the Section 31 transporter. Once there, they'll do what they need to do regarding Miss Zhuri's new form and discuss with the sphere's computer how best to render the sphere safe. In the mean time, the rest of us can brainstorm about how to, say, supernova the sphere's interior 'star'. A protomatter bomb, something like the genesis device, perhaps with the addition of tekasite and maybe trilithium resin, would certainly do the trick. The device wouldn't need to be all that large, it would certainly fit on a transporter pad. Unfortunately, I don't know that we have any of those things. Perhaps we could simulate some of them? Alright, everyone has their orders. Mark and move."