by Vol Tryst, Salvek, and Zanh Liis
90529.1300
After Space Ghosts
-=USS Serendipity=-
90529.1300
After Space Ghosts
-=USS Serendipity=-
“Captain's Log, supplemental.
“At the insistence of my Executive Officer, we have lowered the shields just long enough to transport our CMO and our Ship's Counselor back from the Zenith. Hartcort had to come back, as I could not send the Alchemy out with expectant mothers and small children aboard without a physician no matter how short the trip is meant to be.
The Counselor, though, I would have preferred stay aboard the Zen so that he could keep an eye, not only on the developing situation, but on the mental health of the Away Team, as early reports indicate that being aboard the unnaturally silent and empty ship is already starting to take its toll on my officers.”
Zanh Liis continued rotating slowly from side to side in the chair at her desk in her ready room. She was weary of pacing, too wired for more coffee, and growing more anxious by the moment to hear that the Alchemy had reached the Gauntlet and that help was on the way.
They didn't need that help yet, but something told her, given the condition of poor Wren Elton, that they were going to.
She sighed, asking the computer to save her unfinished log entry as the chime sounded and the thin, elegant frame of Vol Tryst appeared before her. She had asked the Counselor for just one more minute of privacy so she could make her log entry, but could put him off not a moment more.
"Report." Zanh said softly, without the normal edge and strength to her voice to which Vol was accustomed. "Please." She added hastily, knowing that he had been under terrible strain himself. What must it be like, she wondered, for an empath to be in a situation where there was supposed to be life in every room, only to find that the space echoed as a cavern; silence only occasionally punctuated by the thoughts of those Sera crew people scattered about the Zenith.
It took only a split second for Vol to read and understand the depth of her worry, and he was sorry to think that the words he was about to say were only going to further fuel that concern.
"Salvek was able to gain only one useful piece of information from the meld, Captain."
Zanh nodded, holding her arms open in a gesture urging him wordlessly to just say it.
"The being in the Zenith's Sickbay is not Vulcan."
Zanh leaned forward in her chair. In very controlled, incremental movements which seemed so slow that they defied the speed at which time usually passed by, she rose. "If it's not Vulcan," Liis whispered hoarsely, "Then what the hell is it?"
"I don't know, Captain. We don't know." Vol admitted. "But I can tell you one thing for certain. Whatever it is, it did not come as a messenger of good will and peace among species."
"That much is obvious, no one attacks a civilian like Wren in the name of good will and…"
"Ymust ordeem to returtto da Zenit." Vol said. The word 'blurt' didn't accurately describe the manner in which he uttered the words. To prove this point, Zanh titled her head and nearly crisscrossed her eyes.
"I beg your pardon?"
Vol cleared his throat.
"Request permission to return to the Zenith."
"To do what?!" Zanh was now up from her seat, hands firmly flat against her desk as she stared in disbelief up into the eyes of the Counselor.
"Captain," Vol implored, "this species is bent on eliminating telepaths like myself. What better tool to accomplish such a goal than the one currently functioning within my brain? Once they familiarize themselves with it, the possibilities would be endless. All I need to do is talk to them and they will listen to me. I can stall them, give you and the Gauntlet enough time to…"
“To do what Vol? Escape? Ambush them? You can’t be serious. You want me to use you as a lightning rod?” Zanh shook her head as she spoke to punctuate her incredulity.
“But, if I could slow them down somehow Captain. Keep them occupied while we make some sort of move.”
“We don’t even know yet what happened to the Zenith’s crew! Who’s to say they wouldn’t just vaporize you on the spot with some sort of weapon we don’t even understand then move on to the Sera?” Zanh folded her arms over her chest and lowered her voice several octaves. “I appreciate what you want to do, but there is too much we don’t know yet.”
Zanh paused and thought for a moment, looking at the floor, then back up at Tryst. “Unless you can offer me some kind of reason as to why you think this will work. AND,” She added, almost wagging her finger at Vol, "how you intend to come home alive."
Vol said nothing.
“Your stunned silence is very reassuring.” The Captain opined.
Vol stood up straight, with a pleading look on his face as the Captain lowered her arm. The two locked eyes, and Vol knew that she had just presented him with a blockade that he could not hope to dodge or climb. She would have to clear it of his way, but she'd only be willing to do that once she got what she wanted. Vol made a mental note to play chess against this woman some time in the future.
Vol walked over to the panel on the wall, quickly tapped a number of sequences which all beeped in compliance. Vol then turned back to the Captain and held his own hands behind his back.
"Computer, open a channel to Sickbay on the Alchemy, Long-term Medical Hologram."
The bald headed hologram appeared a moment later on the small screen atop Zanh Liis’s desk.
[Ya’ll should know that ya got about three seconds to yap at me before we go to super-duper warp or whatever the hell they call it and I disappear from your screen faster than a skeeter during froggin’ season!] McKay announced in his trademark drawl upon seeing a perfectly healthy man and woman before him.
“If we’d had three seconds, they’re over now. Let Vol talk!” Zanh exclaimed, the edge returning to her tone.
"Doctor," Vol started, addressing the man. "I hereby abolish any and all verbal agreements between you and I as to keeping the current state of my health in the strictest confidence.”
Zanh's eyes opened wide, as her head almost robotically, and slowly, turned to look at Vol. "Excuse me?"
Zanh wasn't at all fazed by the fact that some members of her crew had private matters that they preferred not to discuss. Vol however, was a member of a race that is known around the Galaxy for their shrewd honesty.
For him to be harboring secrets took the Captain aback a bit. Furthermore, this particular secret was health related. In lieu of the Prophets, she swore to Keiran’s “God” that if Dalton was about to tell her that Vol had two weeks to live, she would kill Vol before he ever had the chance to go on this suicide mission.
"Captain," Vol muscled past the urge to look away from Zanh's face, which clearly had the expression of someone who was both exceptionally shocked, and ticked off. "Please, repeat your question."
Vol now looked down at the ground, he had hoped to spare himself the humiliation of telling the Captain his secret. Zanh didn't like this choice, but if there was ever a time for rapid disclosure, it was now.
"Dalton, how can Vol be sure that he can encounter this species and survive?"
The LMH didn't express any hesitation in sharing Vol’s secret now; in fact he seemed almost relieved to be rid of it.
[Ever since the Counselor recommenced his duties, he and I have had regular appointments. It's difficult to explain Cap’n, but in basic terms, his brain functionality has mutated through the influence of the device that once impaired his telepathy and empathy. Now, you remember we fixed that problem by reverting said device's function back to its original setting. That solution is exactly what's causing a change in him. The Counselor shows symptoms of increased psychic skill. Through exploratory means and experiments, we've discerned that…]
"No!" Zanh held a hand up. "Enough." Zanh slammed her hand down on the computer, cutting the link to the LMH, and marched right up to Vol so that the Betazoid was forced to look at her right in the eye, as she stared into his.
"I asked you to give me an answer. You can't pass this off to the Doctor. I asked you to supply me with a satisfactory reason why I should let you pull this little stunt, and I expect you to comply. That's an order." Zanh was distressed, which was coming off as anger, but Vol didn't sense anger in her more than just frustration. She asked for a simple explanation from him, and he was still trying to dodge the blockade.
Vol sighed. "It would seem that I have developed the ability to mask my mind from those who would otherwise be able to sense that I am telepathic. To them, I would appear completely human."
“So,” Zanh processed what Vol was trying to get across to her. “You’re saying that you can…portion out…your telepathic abilities to be recognized by the aliens? Giving them enough to sense you, and be drawn to you, but still at the same time, closing yourself off to them before they can locate you exactly?”
“I could keep them confused and guessing. While they are focused on the Zenith, you can be doing whatever it is that needs to be done to stop them.”
“And if Blane and Briggs are right, we may have some idea of how to attempt to do that.”
She thought for a moment, and was about to grant approval to the plan, when her door chime rang. The sound caused Zanh Liis to bow her head a moment as if wondering what could possibly be next.
“Come in!” The doors opened and First Officer, along with Lieutenant Ryn, entered the room. “Salvek? Who’s minding the Zenith?”
“I left Commander O’Sullivan and a few members of his security team on the bridge. Captain, we need to speak with you immediately.”
“Wait. Just wait,” Liis was being bombarded from all sides by information, and she needed everyone in the same room to get all the ideas on the table. “Five minutes, conference room. Get everyone in there, Salvek. Vol, we’ll discuss your plan and what you need there.”
“Of course,” Tryst said in apology, as he snapped out of his contemplation and followed Ryn out of the ready room.
Salvek summoned anyone crucial to the meeting who wasn’t present on the bridge, and then raised Keiran on subspace to join the conversation. He ignored the rumbling of bass coming from the ready room and noted that her restraint was remarkable in terms of the volume. Usually the song of choice was readily identifiable, but not today.
However, if he were a Ferengi given to betting and not a Vulcan, Salvek would have put his latinum down on the wager that the artist most likely performing the song in question was known as Green Day.
When the rumbling ceased, the Captain appeared on the bridge, as the five-minute time limit expired. Salvek followed her into the conference room, and took his seat at the table.
“We need to get on the same page, people. I want everyone to summarize what they’ve found out. Salvek. Briefly.” Zanh stressed, not looking for a long-winded explanation.
“Lieutenant Ryn discovered that Silav, the Vulcan imposter, sabotaged the Zenith’s sensors to mask the use of transporters.”
Across the table Reece nudged Ryn with his elbow, as if to say “good job.”
“The Force is strong in this one…” Reece babbled into her ear, but of course Ryn had no idea what that meant and could only blink in confusion as Zanh loudly cleared her throat to silence the enthusiastic Science chief.
Salvek continued, “We believe their transporters are perhaps based upon subspace technology to allow them to take people from great distances. Possibly even outside our own galaxy.”
“So the Zenith crew could be, where?” Zanh asked.
“Anywhere in the Universe, theoretically. We also hypothesize that to generate the power necessary to operate such a device would require a massive amount of energy. Possibly based in a stellar core.”
Blane snapped his head up at the mention of “stellar core.”
“Briggs and I found radiation patterns in this system consistent with what you would find in a star.”
“That shouldn’t be,” Reece chimed in, hearing of this for the first time.
“No, and we also saw what looked like a ship possibly, approach the Zenith then split with it exactly when her crew vanished. The radiation then moved into a large mass of radiation, what we believe could be a portal.”
“What if the radiation wasn’t a ship?” Ryn asked. “What if this energy is what they use to probe? Searching for telepathic signatures then locking their transporters when they find a ship or planet with telepathic life?”
"Either option is possible," Vol offered. "The energy could be ship, a method of scanning with going through the portal, or maybe it's both. Maybe their ship comes through cloaked, and scans using the same radiation?" Vol felt like he was already stating the obvious.
"But if their goal is to kidnap, transport and kill all telepaths, then why was the entire crew of the Zenith taken? Could they have resisted? Maybe forcing the aliens to just abduct them all?"
“Maybe they didn’t feel like taking the time to figure out who was who, so they just took everyone and decided to sort them out wherever it is they ended up,” Reece suggested.
“However they did it, we know the signals to look for now. Reece, I want the sensors to set off every alarm on the ship at the first sign of a transporter or any unusual radiation. Counselor Tryst suggested that he might be able to draw the attention of the aliens so as to make them vulnerable to us, and I have…reluctantly…” Zanh seemed to nearly choke on the last word, “decided to allow it. So, Vol, we’ll try your plan, but I’m not leaving you on the Zenith alone,” Zanh said.
[My people and I will hold down the bridge, Captain, if you prefer. We’ll get ev’ra’one off the ship at the first sign’a trouble.] Keiran volunteered from the Zenith's bridge.
“Very well,” Zanh replied, without batting an eyelash, despite fully understanding that her husband had just volunteered to be the ground for their lightning rod.
“Captain I recommend we keep armed Security officers in engineering at all times, in case they try to place an infiltrator here like they did on the Zenith,” Blane suggested. Zanh looked at Dengar for his opinion.
“Having armed men in a room with a warp core is just asking for an accident to happen, but as long as they stay clear and let my people do their job…” Dengar said.
The Captain reluctantly agreed to Blane’s suggestion. “I want everyone prepared in one hour.”
“Captain,” Salvek interjected. “If I may ask, if the Counselor is successful in drawing the aliens out into the open, what do we intend to do?”
“We’re going to figure out how to talk to them, and ask them what the hell they’ve done with our people.”
“And if they are not forthcoming with that information?” Salvek inquired.
“Then I hope they are ready for a fight, because that’s exactly what we’re going to give them.”
*****************************
LT. Vol Tryst
Ship’s Counselor
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander Salvek
First Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
LT. Vol Tryst
Ship’s Counselor
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Commander Salvek
First Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012