Autopsy or Vivisection - Part II

Posted on Sun 30th Apr, 2017 @ 6:43pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Zachary Hunt & Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD

1,189 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Wrongs Darker Than Death Or Night
Location: Deck 83: Main Infirmary
Timeline: MD-02: 2000 Hours

PREVIOUSLY ON STAR TREK VANGUARD:
And I pray to the Prophets that it will be the right thing to do. he added silently.

Doctor Addams nodded and looked over at the previously silent command officers. "Colonel?" she prompted.

Hunt looked towards Drake, waiting his response. He hadn't said much as his thoughts were elsewhere and this whole affair would probably make him go a bit mad if he watched it all with close attention. Just seeing Commander Addams was always enough to make him shudder!

Drake's face remained frozen, like a statue. His gaze was fixed on the comm. badge of the officer lying in front of them, rusted over and dirty... the symbol of Starfleet, defaced. This 'death' had been different from the death Drake had seen - death in battle was somehow more fair, more just then this... butchery. He took a deep breath. "He may have information... and if there's a chance we can retrieve it, then we have to try." He nodded at Addams.

AND NOW THE CONTINUATION:

"What environment was he found in?" Lanis asked. "What was the lighting level? How noisy was it? If he wakes up, I don't want him to be overwhelmed by noise and light if he's not used to them. He'll be terrified enough without adding that to it."

"When we entered it was dark and quiet." Drake shifted from one foot to another and folded his arms.

"When you..." Lanis' eyes widened. It explained a lot--and created more questions. "Thank you," he said and then turned away to study the bloodwork readings to determine what was keeping their patient unconscious. Was it just the state of Breaux's brain, or was there a pharmaceutical cause?

Addams glanced at the bloodwork as well, and opened her mouth to discuss circulation in regards the tetanic contracture, but abruptly closed it again. "Al₂O₃?" She reached into the holographic display. "Excuse me, Doctor," she murmured, expanding the entry. "Aluminum oxide?" She studied the readout a moment longer, and then, "crystalline polymorphic aluminum oxide. Corundum. Computer, is the corundum dispersed or concentrated in granules?"

The computer's contralto voice answered, "Corundum is present throughout the patient's blood and tissues. It is shaped as capsules two microns long and one micron in diameter."

"Odd that it's in capsules, not crystals," Lanis said. He rubbed at the creases on his nose. "It must have some function in either keeping this patient alive or in facilitating communication between the Borg implants and the patient's body--or possibly just between the implants, I'm guessing--or am I far off the mark, Chlamydia?"

"Those aren't exactly Borg implants, Lanis," Addams answered absently. "There was a ship... Computer, records search. USS Re-something. Regretable, Repulsive, something like that. A doctor with a Highland name... MacDuff, MacDuck...."

"USS Relentless," the computer answered. "Lieutenant Commander Ryota MacDougall."

"Yes, that's the one. Put his nanites up next to these capsules, would you, please?" Addams nodded as a second crystalline shape formed in the hologram. "Let me see if I remember the whole story," she said, looking between the new sphere and the capsules in the patient's blood. "A number of years ago, Borg attacks were relatively common, and people were devising all sorts of strategies to counter them. This MacDougall fellow came up with a promising approach using nanites as antibodies. They're approximately an eighth the size of a red blood cell, and can consequently go where blood cells can't. They had a couple of weaknesses, though... they didn't self-replicate, and over time, they would be knocked out by random radiation.

"MacDougall was conducting tests with his nanites when the Borg attacked Relentless," Addams went on. "In the fighting, the Doctor's wife was infected. She'd also been treated with the nanite anti-bodies, and fell into a coma. In order to safeguard the rest of the crew, Doctor MacDougall took his wife, various medical equipment, and boarded a life pod, intending to return if the nanite antibodies were successful in purging her blood of the Borg nanites. They were officially never seen again."

"And unofficially?" Lanis questioned.

"I am suspicious of things which are never seen again," Addams said dryly, gesturing to the holodisplay.

She drew a circle in the air around one region of the sphere. "Computer, enlarge this area two hundred percent." The sphere bloomed, revealing subtle details... there was a rotor at the top of the sphere. Addams repeated her gesture with the capsule. "And here, please." Again, the capsule swelled, displaying a rotor inset in the crystalline matrix. "Computer, compare these details. How similar are they?"

"Rotor structures are ninety-eight percent similar," the computer answered.

Lanis frowned. "So either MacDougall designed the nanites injected into Lt. Commander Breaux's body, or they are based on MacDougall's work. Whether MacDougall was involved in that, we don't know. But I agree with you, Chlamydia. That's two disappearances in this ugly mess, so far. I don't like the pattern that's forming."

"Indeed," Addams said. "Either way, the clear lineage of design tells us that the likely culprit in this case is someone connected to Starfleet... or at least, to the Federation." She pulled her long black braid over her shoulder and worked her way down it, tightening the plaits as she regarded the holograms before her.

Lanis glanced at her. "This doesn't quite have the feel of black ops about it--at least, not the sort of black ops operation I would run," he said. "Would you say these micro-capsules are capable of penetrating the blood-brain barrier, then? They do seem to be consistently dispersed throughout Cmdr. Breaux's body."

Addams tilted her head thoughtfully. "The average resting pore size in the endothelium of the brain is two hundred angstroms, which is two-hundreths of a micron. Even the smallest respirocytes I am aware of are an order of magnitude larger than that; these... things... are more than a hundred times too large. However, those pores can open for osmotic transport, and these have manipulator arms. It is possible that the endothelium might be induced to open for them.

"Nanites are not magical," Addams said with a sigh, pushing her braid back behind her. "They cannot create from materials which are not present. Borg nanites self-replicate and take elements from the local environment to construct structures in the host body. Doctor MacDougall elected not to have self-replication be among the capacities of his nanites, because he was concerned with the possibility of self-replicating nanobots going mataglap -- a possibility which does not concern the Borg, as they see no value in individual drones."

Addams realized she was rambling, and sighed. "These things? Frankly, we don't know what they have in their toolkits. But we do have rather a great many of them in Commander Breaux. And we have dermal plating which appears to be more organic in nature than that exhibited by the Borg. What do these clues mean? At the moment, Doctor, your guess is as good as mine."

"Let's not borrow trouble, then," Lanis said. "I'll figure they can't mess with the brain in certain ways unless we observe otherwise.

 

RSS Feed

Comments (1)