An Explanation and a Necessary Interruption

Posted on Sun 30th Apr, 2017 @ 7:04pm by Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Commander Zachary Hunt
Edited on on Sun 30th Apr, 2017 @ 7:08pm

1,054 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night
Location: Senior Staff Conference Room
Timeline: MD-2, 1830 hours

Paul watched as the Vulcan, Bajoran, and Cardassian civilians filed out, followed by the other officers who had attended the meeting, presumably to address the protest rally. He turned to Hunt once they were the only officers left in the conference room.

"That was a curious meeting," he said. "I'm not even quite sure why I was summoned to it; the Vulcan lady seemed to have it well in hand and was smoothing things over nicely." He glanced at Hunt. "Any idea what was eating at Drake? He felt as if he was damned-near ready to explode, as if a near-riot was a trivial thing, compared to what was really bothering him."

"To be honest, I wasn't paying too much attention to the whole thing," He quipped, paused and thought to himself for a moment. "I would say it's standard Drake, but we've found something aboard the station." He paused again. "I've probably said too much just saying that, I can't really say anything else to do with that."

Paul studied him. "Computer, lock the door to this room, medical override Graves-omicron-two-one-seven."

"Conference room is locked, per medical override, Dr. Graves," the computer announced.

Paul turned back to Hunt. "I won't ask for details, just confirmation, so I can be prepared if anyone comes to me about it. You say something's been found on this station. It must be disastrously bad, because that's how upset Drake is. This is far beyond the normal."

Hunt thought for a moment before speaking, wondering if telling the counselor was the correct route right now. He decided that it probably was, "We have found a section on board the starbase called Section 49 Alpha. The section itself had been hidden and we stumbled right across it and we made the decision to open it up. Essentially the room looked like a morgue. There were bodies all over the place," He paused, as if the horror of the situation had only just hit him. "They had Starfleet uniform. Not from now, but from like 20 years ago. They were wearing Borg armor. They weren't dead either nor alive," He pulled another face as he realised how stupid it sounded, but Paul was still listening. "It was as if someone was trying to create their own combat force with a group mind. Drake had given the go ahead for them to be revived," He paused again. "The body we took, one of Lt.Commander Breaux who hadn't been seen for 15 years. It looked as if the Borgs had been testing him, but it was so sloppy, it couldn't be them. We pinpointed that it's someone in Starfleet or the Federation that is the culprit. We also found some encrypted files that were being deleted, but I managed to save a third of them. I was trying to decrypt them but I passed them on as I had no luck. I'm assuming that's what Kellian wanted, he's probably found something. But all of this must be playing on Drake's mind." Hunt sighed, it was always one thing after another with this place.

Paul stared at Hunt as he struggled to realign his thought processes. "Wha-at?! Bodies just hidden away? For...15 years? Starfleet personnel? But why just leave them there?"

Well, Graves, if you didn't want to know, you shouldn't have asked, Paul thought. Somehow, he found his voice. "Understood. I hope you telling me that won't go badly for you. In any case, thank you, because it means people who know of this can come to me now, if they need to."

Whilst Hunt had been telling Paul about the situation, he had taken a small object from his pocket that he had started to fiddle with between his fingers. He continued to fiddle with it as he replied, "It's all about surreal right? If it goes badly, it goes badly. Some things shouldn't be kept a secret to everyone."

Paul glanced at the object Hunt was fiddling with. "What's that little doodad?"

He glanced down looking at the object, "Well I don't even know." The object was the size of Hunt's thumb, oblong in shape and a metallic silver. There was three distinct lines on it running parallel, but seemed to have no purpose to it other than Hunt spinning it in his hand. "My brother, Eddie, is on a ship and on one of their trips, they found an undiscovered planet. He told me that the planet was uninhabited, but there were these strange things all over the planet," He nodded to the object. "Like a sort of scrapyard planet. They ran tests on the objects, but found no purpose to any of them. He was allowed to keep one, so he gave it to me when we last met. I keep it in my pocket as a good luck charm really, superstitious nonsense after the amount of bad stuff that happens on board. Would you like to see it?" He went to pass Paul the object.

"Sure," Paul said. He held out his hand for the little object. "Like a fidget toy, I guess. Wonder what purpose it was supposed to serve? These were just lying all over the place on the ground?"

"Literally millions of the things. The planet was empty apart from these things. But they look man made so we must assume somewhere along the line loads were created. Or we could be completely wrong and it was actually made by the planet itself. Either way, we never know. I might give it to Lt. Collins, see if she can find anything about it. I believe my brother is due for a visit on Vanguard, I would very much like you to meet him when he does."

"Hm," Paul said. He handed the object back to Hunt. "I was thinking packing peanuts, seed pods, or animal droppings. I'm very glad to know the things are--."

Before he could finish speaking, Hunt's combadge clicked on, and someone's nervous voice spoke over it. "Collins to Colonel Dr-Drake, Could you please come to the Genetics Lab? Commander Hunt should probably come too."

"Speaking of Lt. Collins eh?" Hunt joked, getting up from the chair and making his exit to answer the call from Collins.

Commander Zachary Hunt
Executive Officer

Lt. Commander Paul Graves, PsyD
Chief Counselor

 

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