Away Team II
Posted on Tue Jul 5th, 2022 @ 3:09am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant Ashlesha 4827/A & Lieutenant Chester "Duo" Maxwell & Lieutenant Anna S. Thesia M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant Jessica Holland & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell
Mission:
New Harrington
Location: Orbital Weather Station Alpha
Timeline: Current
The lights were on. Was anybody home?
Aurora was concentrating hard on trying to get past whatever it was that was interfering with her senses. She sighed as she looked toward Savar. “Commander I’m definitely picking up on something, or someone but I think I’m being blocked.”
Ashlesha wished she knew how to help Aurora but she wasn't sure how. But she had an idea regarding what might be a shared problem. She strode over to Durnell.
"Sunfire has a problem," she murmured, "There's some sort of code originating from this station, apparently it attempted to infect Sunfire. If I could describe it to you, do you think you could find it here and decipher it?"
Blinking in surprise, Bonnie responded, "Um, sure, I think." She was curious to know how the communication worked for Ashlesha, and she had formed her own hypothesis, but this was a new person whom she was not yet familiar with and therefore remained on a professional level. She secured the work she was already doing and prepared herself, "ready."
Ashlesha Violet nodded, "All right. According to Thenis it looks like a synthetic living code. It's a," she closed her eyes, "chloroplast tri-helix cell chain containing nanonite chlorophyllin and it's transmitted in an electronic stream where it appears like little protozoa. Similar to how Borg nanonites infect living beings and machinery."
She opened her eyes, "I'm almost positive I got all of that right."
Bonnie scrunched up her eyebrows as she tried to think through the idea of a plant based synthetic AI. Using her tricordwr along with the station computer she attempted to find and isolate the code. By looking for inconsistencies it didn't take her long to find. She pressed a few keys and displayed the system matrix on screen and then overlaid the synthetic code over it. It was infecting almost every system. Everything except life support and a few internal nonessential systems.
She sat back and commented to Ashlesha, "I don't suppose you brought any weed killer with you?" Because to her that was what it looked like, a weed spreading itself through her code garden.
"Learn to live with the weeds, don't try to fight them", Anna remarked, looking down at her tricorder to see if she could get any biosigns of the missing personnel. "If you introduce weedkillers, you're going to upset the entire ecosystem and it'll bite you in the arse in the long run."
Ashlesha was about to say something mildly acerbic to the doctor...when she paused. And smiled at Thesia, then turned back to Durnell.
"We could do a scorched Earth number on this virus," Ashlesha replied, "Maybe. I'm not sure. You are the expert. But viruses are like weeds in that they are simply programs we don't want in our digital garden. Only...the weeds now are the garden. Do we really have time to uproot the whole thing or maybe we need to find out if the virus has a purpose and can, uh, repurpose it? Work with it instead? I mean even if we did tear out the virus would that leave us with a brain dead station with no means to stop the storms?"
Bonnie nodded, they were all good questions. "Normal procedure would be to do a complete wipe and restore, but..." She tapped a few keys to isolate a section and enhance. The viral code appeared to react as if it knew it were being observed by growing suddenly still as if it were playing dead. It clearly didn't want to be detected. "If it is sentient and unique we would essentially be killing a lifeform. Afraid the call might be above my pay grade. I do want to try something though, if you don't mind?" She asked of Ashlesha who had given her the idea
Ashlesha grinned, "Please, you're the expert here. Anything you think would be helpful I'll be completely behind. Although..."
The smile faded, "We might want to let the commander know what's going on. I mean, at the end of the day he's the one who has to answer to the captain; I would hate to blindside him."
"Sure, um, yeah. I have no, I mean okay of course." Bonnie replied hesitantly. Normally she would have just acted considering she was only going to attempt to separate the code from the virus in one small section which was normally a benign task, but she also didn't want the fallout of responsibility if something should go wrong.
Ashlesha tapped her comm badge, "Commander Savar, lieutenant Durnell and I think we have a possible lead on what is causing the problems but she would like permission to try something regarding this virus we've found. Permission to-"
Ashlesha gave an almost violent jerk and fell back from...something...she oriented herself and glanced at Durnell.
"Something happened on the ship," she said, "Captain was on top of it, though. It just...surprised me is all."
"Can you be more specific Lieutenant? What happened aboard the Sunfire?" Savar pressed Ashlesha.
Bonnie, bright-eyed, was more concerned with Ashlesha, "More importantly, are you okay?" Bonnie asked. "You looked like you were in pain for a moment there." She knew there was nothing they could do for the Sunfire and the focus was bigger than one ship. If they couldn't get a handle on the situation on the platform, thousands could perish.
"Yes, quite right Bonnie. Are you alright Lieutenant?" Savar asked Ashlesha. Do you need the Dr. Thesia to look at you?"
Ashlesha glanced about and looked terminally embarrassed.
"I'm fine, really," she replied, "The virus almost broke free of containment on the bridge and it caught me completely off guard. I suggested we beam out that entire section of the bridge but the captain killed power to infected components and things seem to be under control for now."
She smiled, "I am good," she turned to Durnell, "Why don't you tell us what you have in mind?"
"Broke free?" Bonnie showed her open concern. So far, this code had fought them, fought containment. "I, uh, I want to attempt to tempt it away from the communications system. I believe I can introduce a bit of complete but benign coding in a separate sector as a sort of bait. If it detaches from the comms, we should get them back online. If not... " She looked concerned as she considered what had just happened on the Sunfire.
"I think we need to at least try it," Ashlesha said to Bonnie and Savar both, "If it works we get comms back and we learn something new. If it doesn't work..."
She shrugged, "Well, every experimental failure teaches you something too..."
"Sunfire to away team, status report please, we're reading the platforms shields are raised, we can't beam you back until we find a way to lower them" the voice of the Captain rang through the control room.
"Savar answered the captain's hail his voice giving no indication of any problem. "Away team to Sunfire. That is correct Captain. The platforms shields have indeed come on. We are currently looking at a way to lower them."
Aurora looked towards Savar, Whatever was blocking her seemed to be fading a little as she was sensing more now. “Commander, I’m getting more of a sense now. We’re not alone here, I can’t say exactly how many people are here but we’re definitely not alone.”
"Are you able to do come up with anything more Aurora other then we are not alone?" Savar asked hoping Aurora with her abilities could give him more specifics.
Aurora shook her head. “I can’t give specifics Savar, I honestly don’t know why I’m not picking up on this like I should be.”
" Confirmed Away team, report in every half hour or unless something changes" The Captain replied before the channel closed.
Somewhere deep within the bowels of the weather platform, something, or someone, wasn't very happy with the way things were going.
Upon hearing the shields had been raised, Duo's first instinct was to reach for his phaser, but his training prevailed. Instead, he reached for his tricorder and flipped it open. He began to scan for life signs other than the away team. If this was the prelude to an ambush he needed to know what was coming and how many there would be. His brow furrowed as he interpreted the results. "Commander, my scans agree what Lt. Vali is reporting. There are no life signs in the immediate area, but my tricorder is being blocked by some sort of interference about twenty meters in every direction." While the other members of the team were working on their tasks, Duo continued his scans, hoping to uncover some clues to what may be causing the disruption. "Sir, I advise we stick together until we have a better idea of what we are dealing with here." he said as he paced the room next to Savar.
"Agreed Lieutenant. Most logical." Savar answered as the team looked for answers.
Aurora looked towards Savar, “Might I suggest we start looking? Who knows how long we have before something else could go wrong.”
"Very true Aurora." Savar answered. "We will begin by all of us searching this main level before we descend to the lower levels."
Deep in the bowels of the master weather platform, the system was running another set of analyses. It had successfully protected itself against the last three intruders, however they had been smaller and less trained numbers. This would prove a formidable foe, and it was determined to protect itself again.
TBC
