Intelligence Is Overrated

Posted on Sat Sep 15th, 2018 @ 11:54pm by Commander Rita Paris & Petty Officer 2nd Class Ila Dedjoy & Emergency Medical Hologram (Adam Power) Mk X

Mission: Holographic Horrors
Location: USS Hera, Deck 6, Transporter Room 2
Timeline: 2395, in drydock at Artan Fortress, Kabul system

Nobody took a shuttle anymore.

Unless you were traveling light years, everyone beamed in. Even if you were traveling light years, it seemed everyone wanted to just beam in from the shuttle or runabout. Lieutenant Commander Paris was working on getting her people an exercise with real live flight time, just because actual shuttle piloting hours were precious for pilots.

Lately Rita had been promoted, which meant that she was now the welcome wagon for all of the new senior staff for which the Hera was being outfitted. Meet them, take stock to have a report, get them settled in, answer any questions, hand them a 'welcome aboard' PaDD as she was naming the ongoing briefing she was handing off to newcomers. The tablets represented their limited access to the Hera's systems until they were fully checked in and cleared from all departments, particularly medical. Scanning onboarding crew could be surprisingly revealing, after all.

For today, for the seventh time today to be precise, the transporter phobic Rita Paris was waiting in the transporter room. This time it was the intelligence chief. Unsurprisingly, the intelligence chief's job description was classified. The leggy lieutenant commander didn't even have a name. Just notice of 'CHIEF INTEL OFFICER INCOMING 72643.6 19:00'.

Cheery.

The portly and mustachioed transporter chief couldn't help but notice the way the first officer flinched every time the transporter operated, incoming or outgoing. She'd been waiting for nearly ten minutes, and that gold uniform of hers was starting to show some pit stains from her nervous perspiration. It was clear that she was trying to distract herself with work, but it wasn't working. He'd watched her as he'd activated the presets. More than once now, she reacted before he engaged the transporter.

Was kinda creepy, and it was starting to get to him.

"Say ma'am?" he asked, in his gravely grandfatherly voice. "I could call you when this arrival you're waiting for arrives. I'll send an update of the incoming traffic til you tell me to stop. You've got better things to do in places other than here I'll bet?"

That was when the extradimensional explorer flinched, and an incoming beam started to coalesce from photons back to a sentient.

Jules hated the transporter, made her stomach feel fluttery. It didn't exactly help that she was nervous. First day on a new assignment, first day with a totally foreign crew. After spending several years with the same 6 people for Project GEMINI, she had a slight case of agoraphobia developing. "Lt. Jules Lindenbrock... Reporting for duty," she announced awkwardly when she materialized.

There was no salute, no permission to come aboard, and no actual military discipline. As this was an intel officer, Paris expected an ensign, but she was a lieutenant who by now should have known better. But, no sense in starting out as a hardliner fleeter hell-bent on military etiquette. The unconventionally uniformed officer in the gold long-sleeved minidress that looked like it should have been retired 120 years ago smiled, a rather dazzling affair, and extended her hand.

“Lieutenant Lindenbrock? I’m Rita Paris, first officer of the Hera. Welcome aboard… let’s get you situated, shall we?”

"Yes, right, let's," Jules fumbled through her words. Six years of dropping formalities and replacing them with more fashionable vulgar language, she already felt the rock in her stomach starting to churn. Why she had decided to become star-ship bound again was causing more anxiety than it should have. The XO clearly was annoyed at Jules decorum and she knew that she needed to stand up straighter to please this one. "How long have you been serving aboard the Hera, Commander?"

“About two months… I transferred in from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away,” the buxom blonde offered with a continued smile as she lowered the offered and unaccepted handshake. Stepping to the door, the first officer's demeanor was still polite and cheerful as she gestured to the hallway. “How about you? Where are you coming in from? Intel doesn’t tend to be very forthcoming about transfers…”

Jules grimaced. She knew the words that would escape her lips in a moment could either make or break her time aboard the Hera. "I was a part of Project GEMINI for the past few years. After the attack on Virgo station, my commanding officer suggested we split up assignments. So, here I am."

"No idea what that means," the leggy lieutenant commander replied as she edged out into the hallway, seeing if she could coax the shell-shocked intelligence operative along. When she spoke, her tone held genuine concern. "Are you all right, Miss Lindenbrock? Do I need to get you to Sickbay or to the Counselor...?"

That was when the disheveled officer's eyes rolled back up in her head and she dropped dead right there on the deck.

Moving quickly to catch the collapsing intelligence officer in her arms, Paris at least slowed the woman's descent to the deck. On her knees beside the cold and clammy corpse of the chief intelligence officer, Paris tapped her left breast. "Sickbay! Emergency, Deck 6, Transporter room 2. Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Hologram!"

As the EMH shimmered into existence, he popped out with his canned statement as he glanced around. "Please state the nature of the... Ah, I think I see it." Reaching into the nearest emergency access panel, he pulled out a medkit and got to work with a tricorder. "This woman is unequivocally dead. It seems a rather large dose of neurotoxins were released directly into her brain and they'll be..." The tricorder started beeping rapidly, then stopped. "And now they've broken down into normal brain chemicals. If you hadn't called me so fast, I never would have seen them."

"Neurotoxins?" Reflexively Paris dropped the corpse and stood up, holding her hands splayed out before her as if she might have something contagious on them. Frowning, she tapped her comm badge delicately with one finger. "Security, report to Deck 6, Transporter room 2."

Looking around at the transporter chief, Paris turned back to the photonic physician. "Please scan the area for any other neurotoxins or potentially harmful particles. Meanwhile, place this room under medical quarantine until you've completed the scan and we're positive this isn't contagious."

Within moments, two gold clad security types came around a corner with their phasers drawn while the EMH was scanning the body for an entry point or delivery method. "With as fast as those neurotoxins did their job and broke down, I doubt I'm going to find anything in the area. I'll need to determine how they were administered first. So far all I've been able to determine was that they destroyed her synaptic pathways, then completely disintegrated."

"That's horrific. Gentlemen, secure the area until the Doctor lifts the medical quarantine," the concerned commander ordered. Looking to the ceiling, Paris called out to the starship. "Computer, please alert Crewman Dedjoy that her presence has been requested to solve a mystery in my location, and please inform the captain that we have a situation at my coordinates. Thank you." Her orders sent to the aether, Paris looked around for the onboarding officer's carry on, finding a battered olive drab seabag that was a relic twice her age. She debated rifling through it, then considered scanning it first. But the Doctor was already scanning, and by the time the Captain arrived she was going to expect some answers as to why the new Intel chief was lying dead on the floor.

After a brief chirrup from the computer and the security personnel getting into a defensive position and activating force fields at either end of that segment of the corridor, the EMH came up with something. "Ah hah! This woman was definitely murdered before she got here. I've found traces of polynucleic proteins used to encase preprogrammed..."

Glancing over at Rita, whose face wore the bewildered expression of someone who was lost from the second word of the conversation, the EMH cleared his throat and started again. "Ah... it's all very clever, but this woman had a kill switch implant. From the look of things, I doubt she was aware of it. I have to wonder what the actual trigger was though."

"I'm sure it was her arrival here," Enalia added, obviously now in a very foul mood, having arrived a moment ago and seeing the situation.

"Thanks for translating for me," Rita muttered under her breath to the Doctor as she looked up from rooting through the dead woman's luggage, then stood up to greet the commanding officer. "Computer, please holographically recreate the thirty second period starting three seconds before Lieutenant Lindenbrock beamed in?"

At that the room shimmered and 'reset', as the captain got the opportunity to personally witness the holographic recreation of the event, up to and including the new chief's death, ending with the arrival of the EMH and the declaration of his scan results.

=^=Holographic recreation complete,=^= the computer reported.

"So that's what we've got. As you can see, she didn't look that healthy when she... Captain?" the leggy lieutenant asked, seeing her commander's ashen face. The color had drained and she looked as though someone had walked across her grave.

"Get this cleaned up and transfer the body to the Intel labs in the pod. I want it examined in every imaginable way. Put the EMH and Dedjoy on this immediately." Without another word, the captain turned and stalked off. She didn't need any further reminders of that failed project. She had tried to take in an old acquaintance, and instead she had ended up with an assassination. The question was if this was a message... and if so, what was it?

Left behind in the transporter room, the first officer and the holographic healer eyed one another dubiously. Eventually the gold-clad cosmonaut shrugged, shook her head and addressed the Doctor. "All right, Doctor. Can you verify that we are clear to lift the quarantine, and that this poses no further threat to the Hera and her crew? Chief Fingerman and I aren't going to similarly keel over in 72 hours or something, are we?"

"I can find no trace of anything dangerous whatsoever," replied the EMH. "Crewman Dedjoy and I will let you know as soon as we have anything. Computer, please transport the body to pod storage Victor three one."

With a chirrup, and a brief pause, the computer complied, the body vanishing in the silver sparkle of the emergency medical transporter rather than the more blue of the normal one.

"Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your diligence- good work," Paris patted the EMH on the shoulder. "I'll inform the next of kin. Chief, call your relief- you're off duty for the rest of the day," Paris ordered. "This one wasn't on you, but all the same, maybe go have a conversation with the counselor."

The gruff transporter chief snorted derisively. "Ma'am, with all due respect, I suspect that was rougher on you than me. I'm fine, I don't need counseling- I served in the Dominion War and I've seen a lot worse than this. I'll do it if you make it an order, but otherwise, I've still got work to do today."

With a wry smirk, the first officer shook her head. "Suit yourself, Old Salt," she said, using an ancient nautical term that was still in use in the fleet back in her day. "All right, Doctor. Please lift the quarantine and I'd appreciate it if you would keep us posted as to you and Dedjoy's findings. Chief, you can stay on duty if you like, but I'm leaving the security detail on hand in case anything else deadly happens today. Gentlemen, you are on standby in case of emergency. You know the drill, so keep a detail here until 23:59 hours."

Handing over a black datacrystal embedded with circuitry to the Doctor. "Have Dedjoy inspect this, and report her findings only to the Captain."

As for me, it looks like I need to go have a conversation, Paris thought to herself as she took one more look around her least favorite place on the Hera. Because Paris was certain that look on the captain's face was significant, and that most definitely meant trouble ahead.