80531.12
Following Blank Canvas Part Two
-=USS Serendipity=-
Having asked Doctor McKay to keep her informed as to even the slightest changes in Vol Tryst's condition for good or ill, Zanh Liis headed for the main security office, where her Second Officer TC Blane had been analyzing surveillance data of the dinner, which had ended hours ago.
TC looked up from the panel he was working as Liis entered the room, and he noted how tired she looked. He'd served with captains who, it seemed, were very detached from the everyday lives and individual conditions of the members of their crew, but Zanh was not that sort. When one of her own was down, she was dealt a blow that she felt very personally.
"Tryst?"
Zanh held up a PADD that McKay had supplied her with, containing all his findings so far about the device that was making Vol so sick. Blane held his hand out, and Zanh flicked it at him. He snatched it out of the air and began scrolling through it as Liis flopped, drained and exhausted, into the nearest chair. She put her hand behind her head and tried to wring some of the tension out of her neck with her fingers.
"Somehow they managed to introduce that thing into his system, and we have to figure out a way to shut it down without shutting him down," her voice trailed off, and Blane nodded solemnly. He knew what her next two words would have been- they would have been "or else."
"Are all the Strasa gone?" She really hoped they were.
"All except for Blik. By this time, they should have returned to the surface and to the comforts of their Providence Spire."
"What about the teams, have they started returning home yet?"
"Two shuttles have returned; Fate and Destiny. Fortune and Chance, as well as the Polaris, are still somewhere on the planet by last report."
"Why?" Zanh sat up straight in her chair. That meant that Dengar and Salvek's teams were still in harm's way.
"We simply haven't been able to communicate with them, Captain. We can't get through. Zander is still working on it."
Zanh nodded. She didn't like it, but she knew that the crew was doing all that they could. "What about the transporters? Have we figured out a work around for the weather net?"
"We could always. . ." Blane began, but then he stopped.
"What?"
"I was going to say that we could always blow it to hell and then it'll be shut down, for sure."
"Thomas, be serious." Zanh objected at first, but then, she actually began to consider the idea. If things down on the planet were going to get as dangerous as she thought, as quickly as she thought, they had to brainstorm all possible options, no matter how far fetched they seemed when you said them out loud.
TC stared at the captain with his typical blank expression. "I’m always serious.”
Zanh smiled. “Of course you are. Please." She waved her hand at him. "Continue.”
Blane changed screens and brought up a schematic that Micah Samson had been given to work with, before the Strasa decided to deny him the opportunity at the last moment.
"There are several remote, automated stations that all have redundant safety protocols. If one of them blew up, they would all go into a dormant stand-by mode. Since the weather net was not fully shut down due to the cascade from the Power Allocation Center, it keeps trying to reinitialize itself and therein lies the danger to the crew if we use the transporters."
"Yeah, you add an unexpected, major weather event into the middle of the transporter cycle and people don't see the other side of it." Zanh concluded. "Go on."
"All it should take is one shot at one of those outlying substations and the net may lock itself down."
Zanh's eyes hazed over as she struggled to keep her focus, as her thoughts continued going back to Vol, and the question as to whether the teams down on the planet were still safe.
"Captain?"
"Get with Zander, and make a working strategy in case we have no other choice."
"You do realize if we did that, it would constitute," Blane knew that she knew, but still, for the sake of formality, he had to say it.
"I know." Zanh rose from the chair and approached the panel, indicating the security logs he'd been reviewing. "Did you find anything at all yet as far as what exactly happened to our Counselor?"
"Yes, actually, just before you got here. Have a look at this." Blane tapped the screen to magnify the images captured by the security cameras, and pointed to Blik.
"Watch, right. . ." he dragged a fingertip across the time index control at the bottom of the image and fast forwarded several individual frames. ". . .right there. See? Blik pats Vol on the back, and if you enlarge it. . ." Blane froze the image the second that the look of confusion had crossed Vol's face.
"See it? Right there. Tryst winced, only for a split second. Then he looked puzzled, then he returned to normal."
"I was standing right there, but I was so intent on watching Lank across the room, I missed it." Zanh murmured regretfully. "Blik must have injected the device into Vol when he touched him."
"You know," Blane scratched his chin thoughtfully, as he regarded the data on the PADD again, "the Romulans have devices eerily similar to this thing."
"Yeah," Zanh rubbed her hands up and down her arms, as a chill rattled through her. "I know that, too."
“Yes you do.” He replied. “We’ll have to wait to hear from the Doc as to the next course of action for getting our Counselor back onto his feet, but we could use this to put pressure on Bilk. Maybe he’ll give us some more insight as to what the problem really is down there.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing makes a supposed friend of the Federation squirm more then being accused of aiding the Romulans.”
The captain shook her head. “It is a good thing you are on our side.” She smiled. “You have a real evil streak.”
“Yes, but it is only a small one.” He winked in a rare moment of jest before turning on his heel. “I’ll get to work with Zander to get a plan together for disabling the weather net and getting our people back.”
She tapped the screen, and rewound the tape of Blik's interaction with Vol. Watching again as each image flickered slowly before her eyes, she sighed. She tapped her badge.
"Zanh to McKay,"
[Yes, Captain?]
"TC Blane just discovered the instant at which Blik assaulted Vol."
=^=Hours Later: Concurrent with Walking the Wire =^=
TC and Zander stood stooped over the tactical console on the bridge of the Sera. Several schematics were displayed on the screen in front of them.
“So, if we hit the weather net relays here, here, or here. It should cause a cascade that will shut it down.” TC surmised as he pointed to the three locations on the screen.
Zander nodded his agreement. “Yeah, but like I said before, Commander, we are only guessing since we really do not know anything about the actual workings of their backup systems.” He frowned. “Which are odd unto themselves from what I can tell.”
TC rubbed his head. “What do you mean?”
Zander flipped over the schematics. “Look here. It seems like everything leads back to a central point, kind of like a spider web. What ever is here in this central location must run the show. The thing is there is no indication of any disaster recovery location, no back up. Now granted these are high resolution scans that we took here on the Sera so that means they could be inaccurate.”
TC looked over what Zander was saying. “It does look like they are putting all of their eggs into one basket doesn’t it? What if we were to strike this spot?”
Zander shrugged. “My guess is this is their hub of technology, probably also where there problem is. The thing is several hundred feet under ground. If we were to try and take it out?” He closed his eyes as he did some mental math. “We would need a sustained burst at maximum from the phaser for at least seven to ten seconds.”
“Plus, we could be permanently putting these people back into the dark ages if this is the central hub.” He added.
TC nodded. “That would be bad for PR. So that means we strike these three outer points.” Zander nodded.
“Ok, Let's inform the Captain.”
Commander TC Blane
Second Officer/Chief of Operations
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=-Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012