The Quagmire

Posted on Wed 20th Feb, 2013 @ 5:22pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Brian Windsong & Lieutenant Colonel Tallus Karikkar & Lieutenant Colonel Cara Karikkar & Lieutenant Adam Keller & Lieutenant T'Sai & Commander Jasmine Collins-Keller & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Samantha O'Dell & Captain Eee-eee-rie--eeee-eek Nightingale D.Sc & Lieutenant JG Xavier Lee

3,108 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Senior Officer's Conference Room: Deck 14
Timeline: MD-03: 0100 Hours

ON:

Ashton stood at the large window of the observation lounge, cup of coffee in hand, just staring at the abyss. He had been here for the past hour, waiting for the various members of the Senior Staff to gather and present their findings.

What would those findings be? Not much, that's for sure. Four hours wouldn't be enough time to even start analysing what had taken place down there, in the depths of the station. This meeting was more to touch base and assign everyone specific tasks.

Presently the first person walked in.

The door hissed open, and Paul saw with satisfaction that no one else had yet arrived. Good. He wanted a few moments alone with Drake before they were mobbed by other staff.

"Hello, sir," Paul said. He set his PADD down on the conference table and then walked over to the window where Drake stood. He took a moment to gaze out it, his attention captured by the jewel-like lights of craft approaching and departing the station or docked at it. Then he looked back at Drake. "How are you doing?"

The directness and simplicity of the question caught Drake off guard. He turned to look into the Counselor's gray eyes - a cold colour, but warm at the same time. He felt confused and without direction... a hug would have been the best thing to receive right now. But failing that, a quick chat might just help.

"I... not well, Paul. I'm not quite convinced that I know what I'm doing, in all honesty." He turned to the window once again.

On that note, the Shimmering Aquatic field surrounding the Chief Science Officer walked in. "You know, lad, 500 years, and I'm still not sure about that. And I dabble in multi-spatial trans-dimensional quantum theory. I'm pretty sure that's life's default setting." Nightingale said, in English. "Honestly, if we knew what we were doing all the time, there'd be no bloody point in living."

Samantha O'dell had very little information in the report she was about to present, which made her hate it all the more. She stepped in through the doors of the conference room at 0100 in the morning. It was god awful early and she was grouchy and frustrated. She could still smell the stink of that horrific room on her uniform and hair.

She walked in as Nightingale finished her sentence no bloody point in living. "Let's call the whole thing off then." She smirked slightly. It was probably a pathetic attempt at humor this early in the morning but hey, she was already the newest crew member why not make herself well known.

For a second Drake felt like his privacy had been breached, the sentence had been directed at Graves and he was unaware that others were coming into the room. Then again, it was he who had invited them all here.

"Please, take a seat" He gestured with his arms, turning and leaning against the window.

Smooth, O'Dell... she told herself as her smirk went deadpan... as deadpan as her joke. She took a seat and wanted to faceplant onto the table but didn't... she sat there like a school girl unprepared for the biggest test of the day.

Xavier walked in like a zombie. He had been on shift since 0800 hours the previous morning and he was struggling to function. He carried an extra-large cup of coffee and his PADD containing his very limited report, he wished he had more to offer the senior staff but four hours was only long enough to scratch the surface. Xavier chose a seat opposite Samantha but purposely avoided making eye contact. The disastrous double date from the previous night (or was that two nights ago now?) was still etched in Xavier's memory and with all that was going on he didn't want to process exactly what she thought of him right now. So he sat, sipped and waited.

Despite the sudden interruption, Paul had to grin at Dr. Nightingale's remark about uncertainty being the default setting for life. It was good to have something he could find amusing.

There was precious little about the situation to arouse humor. Samantha looked uncomfortable, and Xavier looked half-dead. But he'd seen Xavier a couple of hours before, so his friend's exhaustion was no surprise to Paul.

And how did he himself look, Paul wondered? The four hours since finding section 49 Alpha had not been restful. He wanted to excise all the tortured emotions from his mind but couldn't. If Xavier was feeling even half of what he did, Paul hoped the man would be able to sleep, once he finally did take himself off duty. Paul sighed. He was still trying to work out what the emotions meant. He had a theory, and he hoped he was wrong.

Cara walked in feeling pale and uncomfortable after what she had seen, her own memories and nightmares now too close to the surface.

Brian walked without his guide dog, he looked grimfaced and a bit haggard. He had only heard about the situation from Sam and he was hoping this was not normal Star Fleet protocol. From the looks of the other officers in the room he was pretty sure it could not have been which was a good thing, because if it was he would be recommending that Akadia pull out of the Federation.

He had a pretty good idea who was behind it and if he was proved right, there would be hell to pay.

Jade slipped in and took a seat at the foot of the table, moving as unobtrusively as possible. She had nothing but rumors to report to the Colonel, and she'd do that privately, but she wanted to know any information that would affect the Promenade businesses she represented. Ashton trusted her to share only things that didn't impair Protector's security and efficiency, and she trusted him to tell the truth.

Nyx and Kell came in together. They didn't appear to be speaking to each other but they walked almost touching.

Nyx took her seat and Kell took the one next to her. She'd been going over the autopsies all night. What some of them had been put through...She couldn't imagine the pain.

Drake moved to the head of the table and slowly looked at each of the officers in front of him, with a sobering look. He placed his nearly empty cup of coffee on the table and put his hand on the back of the chair's headrest... unwilling to sit just yet.

"I don't want anyone... to jump to any... presumptions about..." What was he saying? He didn't want anyone to presume that the people down there hadn't been tortured? He didn't want them to presume that the most fundamental breaches of rights, ethics and morals hadn't clearly been breached? He looked down at the coffee cup and stopped in his tracks. The sooner this was over, the better.

"Lieutenant Lee... if you'd kindly begin proceedings" He gave a half-hearted smile to the Operations Officer, who looked like he needed sleep but still had a look of determination on his face.

Cara looked down at the table and tranced slightly as Tallus was teaching her. She needed calm desperately for this.

Xavier cleared his throat, now wasn't the time for sleep, he had a job to do. "For those of you that don't know or are unsure, earlier this evening we discovered a section of the station that was concealed behind a dampening field. We managed to breach the section and gain access to what can only be described as some kind of laboratory." He sensed that Drake only wanted the facts and not any speculations at this point and so he would keep his report as factual as possible. "Inside the lab were dozens of bodies from a variety of species that had been altered in some way, shape or form.

"My department have been trying to trace the origins of the dampening field as well as the origins of the lab, which isn't on any of the blue prints or specs of the station. As far back as we can trace, deck 1030, section 49 alpha should be a storage bay. Nothing high-tech, just a standard bay with shuttle parts and other bits and bobs. There's no record of when the section 'disappeared,' though we do have a theory." At this point he faced Drake directing this to him. "We believe that the other facilities on that deck were sabotaged, rendering that whole part of the station unusable, meaning someone could come and go as they pleased without much detection."

Brian listened carefully to everything that was being conveyed, it was worse than he thought, far worse. But he could sense Cara's unease. An unease that threatened to turn into a panic. He rose with Wicker leading him and went over to her, placing his arms around her to comfort her.

Cara gave him a grateful hug as she ran a hand over Wicker's fur letting the two of them remind her she was safe among friends.

Brian took her hand with his free one, there wasn't much he was going to be able to do on this current mission that had been thrown their way. Nothing but offer what support he could.

What is he doing? Paul wondered, incredulous, as Brian got up and embraced Cara in the middle of the staff meeting. Was this really the place for that?

"Lieutenant Lee, when do you suppose this sabotage took place?" a part of him was hoping and praying that he wouldn't say sometime around the Dominion War... that would mean the FCDA had been in control.

"According to our records it was sometime during the FCDA's control of the base," Lee answered. "In fact we believe it might have been one of the first decks to be shut down."

Drake nodded at the news.

Nightingale nodded to Lee. "I've been studying the signal, but the problem with dampening fields is, save a few trademark signals, like the Breen's, they're pretty much the same signal, no matter whose technology is generating it. I can tell you it's definitely not Breen, simply because the rest of the station had power. It's also not a duonetic field, for the same reason. However, the skill used to hide the place does tend to lead one to believe it's certainly not the Klingons. They're not nearly clever enough for that. This is Romulan Grade Science or better."

"Thank you Doctor, that's extremely interesting," Drake addressed Nightingale.

Mentally, Lantz raised an eyebrow, running through the species who would have such scientific expertise. While all Federation members had a minimal level of technology and science, as well as competence, in any group, there were going to be those who were the best. In the past, such distinctions had been economic more than anything. Now, it was all about the science and technology a species produced. There were a number of planetary governments which came to mind, but there wasn't enough data to draw any definite conclusions.

Xavier nodded at Nightingale's analysis. "My thoughts exactly. My main suspects would be either Romulan or Cardassian, which fits the time period of the Dominion Wars. A lot of Cardassian technology became available on the black market mostly because of the Klingons who were forced out of Cardassian territory at the beginning of the war," he explained to the group at large.

"Interesting." Drake processed that information for a moment. If they were talking about a Romulan or Cardassian experiment... somehow hosted on a Federation Starbase... twenty years ago, the chances of bringing anyone to justice were slim to none.

"Doctor Nyx, what can you tell us about the actual bodies?" This was the part that he was not looking forward to. He knew that full autopsies could not yet have been done, he was only interested in the preliminary findings at this point.

Nyx stood and cleared her throat. "Preliminary inspections shows that all seven bodies had been physically altered with nanite technology and it was obvious that the victims were awake during the procedures." Her body visibly shuddered at the thought of their pain. "Varying parts of their bodies were removed and replaced. The trauma to the muscle tissue and the way the muscles in the arms and legs were clenched indicates they were awake through the entire procedure. I believe their bodies were paralyzed by keratizine or some similar substance which prevented them from moving but not from .... feeling the pain." She cleared her throat again. "That's all I've got so far."

Ashton stared at the Doctor for seconds... which seemed like minutes. She had just announced possible the most horrific revelation of all in this saga.

"Thank you, Doctor" He smiled and nodded at her, wondering whether he actually wanted to know the full results of the post-mortems.

Brian raised his head and asked a question he really didn't want to ask, but felt had to be asked nonetheless, "What if it wasn't alien technology?"

"Well, I think we've ascertained that it wasn't Federation technology, at the least?" He looked at Lee and posted the statement more as a question than anything else.

Xavier shook his head, "definitely not Federation." It really was all he could manage to say without bringing up the contents of his stomach.

"Following the logical chain of evidence, nanite technology is certainly not Earth technology, thus, by definition, it's Alien technology. However, I should likewise point out that my environmental suit is of Velurian design, so to your eyes, Commander Windsong, it would be alien. I'm likewise going to note that most forms of nanite technology, notably when used in this sense, are strictly outlawed by the Federation, raising the question of what it is doing here, of course, but also extrapolating the supposition that if this is Federation technology, it was scavenged off someone else. And our records databanks only list about four or five plausible suspects, one of which comes immediately to mind, and certainly has the science to pull off the dampening field trick." Nightingale said in Velurian. It took the translator a full thirty seconds after her mouth closed, and her singing stopped to catch up. "And if any one of you are going to make me name them, you deserve a smack, and a trip back to the Federation History archives." She added, in English.

Drake glanced at Lee and gave him a somber look. Of course, everyone knew the species that the Chief Science Officer was talking about... and everyone was quite happy to dance around the issue, including himself. He decided to move from the issue as quickly as possible.

Xavier stared back at Drake, his own face a blank mask. Every time someone opened their mouth around this table, the news just got worse. He really was dreading the next report.

Jade had followed the technical discussion, but her mind was, in a sense, hung up on what Lee had reported. She knew everything said around this table was likely to get out somehow; things always did. Those in the civilian community would hear the details, and by the time they did, there would probably be exaggeration and rumors that would spread like wildfire. It was bad enough thinking about the torture of those whose remains had been found. She was glad she hadn't been part of that discovery team.

"Lieutenant O'Dell... have you found anything of value, thus far?" He asked.

Samantha had been listening in to what little information they had all been able to get in the 4 hours. Her information wasn't going to be anymore helpful. "All I've been able to determine is that they were thorough in their retreat. They wiped everything." She offered with a frown. "I was able to recover a few seconds of what might have been a log of some kind, it's degraded and it will take me time to clean it up, if I can even get it to a point were it's understandable."

Drake rubbed his eyes, he was getting tired. "OK, thank you Lieutenant".

Once again his looked around the group - he saw such a mixture of emotions and expressions. However the one, overwhelming feeling, was one of determination. He had no doubt that more would be discovered and this, seemingly, rag-tag bunch of officers would find out what organisation was at the bottom of this.

"Carry on with your assignments, Colonel Treia and I will be trying to help out where we can. For those of you not directly involved... get yourself involved. Second yourself and as many staff as you can spare to a department of your choice... work with them, help them. We need more information."

"Does anyone have any questions?"

Samantha looked across the table at Brian Windsong, she was going to ask for his help, diplomatic corps had connections she might be able to use. She had no questions, she was just exhausted as she assumed most people were.

Xavier looked around the table and his eyes fell on Paul. He wondered if he should bring up their theory to the Colonel, somehow it troubled him more than the physical torment he saw in the lab. On a second glance of the briefing table he decided against it. There was just too many psychics and he didn't want to start a panic, not when he wasn't sure. He would talk privately to the Colonel once the meeting was over.

"Colonel," Jade spoke for the first time, "there are a lot of rumors floating around the civilian community, and I expect there will be more. Are there any particular rumors you would like floating around?"

A small grin took over Drake's face... there was a reason why this extraordinary individual was representing every civilian and their business, on the Starbase.

"Well, I suppose there's no way of hiding exactly what forty nine alpha is. So I suppose the only thing we can do is try and dilute the truth. Perhaps less bodies? No amputations? Definitely no alien technology. The last thing we need is everyone thinking that Protector isn't secure. At the same time, we don't want people thinking that the Federation were responsible for this".

He was beginning to confuse himself... it was a catch 22 situation and there was no way of getting out of it.

He signed, "Use your best judgement, Miss. Lantz".

OFF:

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The Senior Staff
Starbase Protector

 

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