The Genesis Directive (Part 6 of 6)

Posted on 30 Apr 2019 @ 6:13pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Commander Luke Wyatt & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Ensign Mimi & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Alexander & Ensign Callin Mastrel & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Azra Ghoc & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Elegy Reiko & Verity Thorne
Edited on on 30 Apr 2019 @ 6:28pm

4,010 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Various
Timeline: MD 01, 0448 hrs

Previously, on The Genesis Directive (Part 5)...

"Wyatt this is Ops. Solid Copy. Initiating site-to-site transport to sickbay. Sealing all jeffries tubes on Level 3." Ryan said as he quickly typed in the commands to follow the Lieutenant Commanders orders. "Activating emergency venting procedures. 5 seconds until oxygen levels are at 7%." Ryan called down to Luke. He waited the requested time adding in a few seconds before responding back to Luke. "Sir, oxygen is holding at 7%."

Ensign Ullswater shook her head "Its not enough, sensors are still showing the patient on the move." She pulled up a map of the ship and overlaid the path of the escapee onto it and tried to work out where he was going "From his current path he seems to be making his way to..." She stared for a moment at the path shown on the map trying to make a good guess at where it lead "It looks like the shuttlebay."

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Deck 3 - Corridors

Allyndra literally was flying down the corridor toward sickbay as soon as the turbo lift doors opened. She was both in a hurry and the temperature drop was like a slap in the face and it was not even at the temperature requested yet. Her lungs burned slightly from the increased oxygen but it seemed her brain went into overdrive a little as she kept trying to draw on anything she knew about silicone biochemistry. It was then a thought struck her and she dropped to the deck like a stone dropping into a pond. Silicone biochemistry did not work well with normal carbon like cycles but it would work well with radiation. It was a long shot but she hit her comm again. "Lieutenant Commander Wyatt, Commander Allyndra," she tried to keep the panic out of her voice as the scenario in her mind played out. "Send security forces to the impulse reactors and any other high radiation places. Our patient may try to work his way toward one of those areas."

Sickbay was empty as Allyndra arrived. She knew that the patient had broken quarantine and others were in pursuit. Her focus now was the laboratory with the samples and check one last thing.

She had to fold her wings as the lab was too small for her to use them there and that meant she had only a short time before the cold started to get to her. Beating of her wings had kept her body warm but without that exercise the near freezing temperature the ship environmental systems had brought it too would catch up with her. Her lungs burned from the extra oxygen and sucking in large amounts using her wings. It made her light headed. Still a though crossed her mind and she got a contained respirator out and on. That would help with the overflow of oxygen.

A couple of quick test confirmed what she suspected. The crystalline structure of the samples was mostly silicon dioxide. That meant it was tough but still vulnerable.

"Computer prepare a dart style gun with darts of hydrofluric acid please."

The computer coordinated with the replicator and did as she asked. While a phaser would definitely be nasty, the acid would dissolve the crystal structure. It might and probably would hurt but more importantly the fumes of fluorine would then react with other components of the organism and while toxic to carbon forms would, should be less to a silicone organism more of a heavy anesthetic.

She grabbed the weapon and headed out for the shuttle bay.


Deck 4 - Main Shuttlebay

A thump, thump, thumping sound could be heard in the shuttle bay, but the sound was hardly a whisper over the standby engines of the shuttlecraft Virginia. The sound was coming from the jefferies tube access hatchway to the overhead catwalk to the control booth. The hatch wouldn't budge from within, because they'd all been sealed, and so that's when the kicking started. The duranium hatch bulged outwards from the force of the kicks and finally it buckled beneath the boot of Elegy Reiko. The hatch shredded open and Elegy crawled through the opening, ignoring the way the metal shards cut into the flesh of his arms and legs as he escaped.

It didn't take long for the main doors to open with the group of breathless pursuers, tricorders in hand to trace the movement of this strange man...being...lifeform. Alexion slowed up as he saw him, his chest tight with how fast he had run to keep up, his injuries throbbing pain through him in protest. He slotted the tricorder away, shaking his head slowly as he took in the state of the other man. He had changed so much just in the time he had been on the ship. He'd never seen anything like it. He couldn't deny a small part of him was fascinated.

Alexion straightened up as he caught his breath, about to put his hands on his hips...but he had to flex his fingers open and shut instead. It had gotten so cold. He shivered, trying to stay relaxed, but the truth was, as a Vaeron, he was much more vulnerable to cold and heat than humans were. He tried to look unbothered by it, but between the chase, the earlier struggle and now the cold, he was having to resist the urge to just go curl up in a corner. "Come on," he said tiredly to the escaped patient, his breath shaking slightly with the drop in temperature. "You're hurt, you must be exhausted, because I know I bloody am...stop running and let us try and help you."

Following close to Alexion Wylde, Lake ir-Llantrisant strode into the main deck of the shuttlebay. Moments earlier, he had caught up with the Sickbay staff on deck three and followed along to where Elegy Reiko had led them. Craning his head back, Lake looked up to where Elegy was raising to his feet on the catwalk. Lake rested one hand on his newly-holstered phaser. He wasn't the best shot around, especially with security officers on-site, but he couldn't allow Elegy to harm any of the crew. Lake's duty as a Starfleet officer weighed too heavily on him to allow for that.

Up on the catwalk, Elegy stepped closer to the handrail barrier between him and the cavernous shuttlebay at large. His feet dragged heavily, perhaps the exertion or the chilling air temperature was finally catching up to him. Elegy shouted down to Alexion, "I don't want any--I don't need help from any of you. Why can't you understand how hungry I am?" He slapped his hands on the rail, and he clutched it tightly, as he pleaded with the officers. "Put me-- just put me back on the escape pod," Elegy said. "I was never hungry in the pod. The replicator died and I ran out of rations weeks ago, but I was never hungry. Please, please put me back."


Deck 1 - Bridge

The way the patient had moved throughout the Galileo was both fascinating and troubling for Ryan. He actively tried to monitor and pass on the location of the patient as he moved through the jefferies tubes, but unless the patient tripped a sensor or passed through a forcefield, Ryan had a difficult time tracking him. The destruction of the sealed hatch sent a warning to Ryan's console. "Captain, I think I have patient located. He has entered the shuttlebay through one of the upper walkway access hatches. Systems report that hatch was breached and I am not detecting anything that would explain how."

Still engrossed in the data streaming to her console, the captain's head suddenly snapped up and to the rear of the bridge where the Ops alcove was located. "What?!" she managed to say before the onset of a mild panic attack set in.

"The patient has gained access to the shuttlebay through one the secured walkway access hatches." Ryan said incredulously. Some how the patient had been able to breach a solid duranium hatch.

Lirha's green hand slapped the commbadge on her chest with lightning speed. "Virginia, bridge, intruder alert in the main shuttlebay," she warned with loud urgency in her voice. Updates on the patient's quarantine escape had been limited, but from what she could ascertain, the colony survivor was now posing a direct risk to the both the crew and the away team preparing to depart in the aft shuttlebay. "Commence launch sequence. I repeat, launch now!"


Deck 4 - Main Shuttlebay

Hearing the urgency in Lirha's voice over the comm system Mimi quickly threw the last of the away team's gear into the Virginia and slammed the hatch shut but not before hearing the pounding on metal and seeing a security team run into the shuttlebay. "Something strange must be going on, lets go chief." She said to Azra.

Azra clambered into the shuttle and dropped into the pilot seat. The shuttle's power was already on standby and the nacelles lit up as power went live. There was a subsonic hum in the deck as the thrusters prepared to fire. "Ready for launch as soon as the shuttlebay doors open." The large bay door was sliding open as she spoke and the tractor-beam that would guide them out of the bay had already engaged.

Above the shuttle, from the overhead catwalk, Elegy Reiko stood absolutely still. He was conserving his energy; he could feel every ounce of strength being sapped from his body into the lower air temperature of the shuttlebay. There was an insectoid quality about what little movements he made; his head flitting from side to side, following the movement in the shuttlebay. His crystalline eyes were naturally drawn to the security and medical officers shouting at him from below. What made his head truly turn was the rising of the shuttlebay door, exposing the shuttlebay to space, but for the one-way forcefield.

Elegy sniffed at the air, breathing in deep. It wasn't truly his human olfactory senses that allowed him to smell that which he desired, but it was the closest sense he could understand. It was that which was alien to him that could detect what he needed, beyond the Galileo.

Bracing his hands against the railing, Elegy kicked his legs up and above the guardrails. He launched himself out past the catwalk, until gravity dragged him plummeting through the shuttlebay. Arms and legs outstretched, Elegy crashed against the roof of the shuttle Virginia.

Lake ir-Llantrisant watched as Elegy hurled himself from the catwalk. Following an instinct he didn't know he had, Lake raised his phaser. The shuttle crew were his first priority now, Lake told himself. Elegy had never been any patient of his, Lake told himself. By the time Elegy was stationary, on his hands and knees atop the shuttle, Lake had lined up his emitter in Elegy's direction. Lake couldn't hesitate, he told himself, and he tapped the firing stud. Thanks to the phaser's gyrostabilization more than anything else, the blinding phaser beam connected with Elegy's centre mass.

And... it had no apparent effect. Elegy clutched the roof of the shuttle with his crystalline fingertips, remaining fully conscious despite the phaser blast.

Alexion stared in disbelief, but he wasn't sure what defied his mind more; the fact Elegy had actually jumped onto the shuttle, or the fact that the phaser had done nothing to him. A part of him knew he shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore, not after the day he'd had so far. He reached a shivering hand to slap his commbadge, his knees buckling as he half dropped into a crouch. "Wylde to Virginia, the escaped patient is on the top of your shuttle...." he tried to warn them so they could abort.

Inside the shuttle, Gabriel leant forward sharply at hearing the voice of the doctor over the comm...and had to ask himself if he'd really heard that right. "What the hell is going on out there?" he grabbed the back of the seat in front of him to pull further forward. "If there's someone up there, we have to stop..."

Azra prepared to launch the shuttle. She didn't know exactly what would happen if they launched the shuttle with someone perched on top of it. It wasn't something any sane person would try. It likely wouldn't be good. The best-case scenario was that the rider would be scraped off by the force-field and dropped to the deck. So energy burns and a drop of around three or four meters. Not good. "Virginia to deck control. Be ready to guide us out as soon as we're clear."

Bracing his palms against the shuttle's roof, Elegy pushed himself upwards. Looking down at his own fingers and thumbs, they weren’t anything like he remembered them. It wasn’t only his fingernails that had transformed now. The impact of crashing his body into the shuttlecraft had torn the old flesh away from his hands. It didn’t frighten Elegy to see himself this way; not anymore. He didn’t want the old flesh; he was shedding it to birth himself into something new. His new hands were stronger now; formed of amber crystal with more flexible joints than he’d known in his life before. Pushing himself up to his knees, he was moving to stand when another nadion particle beam hit him in the side of his head.

"Step down from that shuttle, sir," demanded Lieutenant ir-Llantrisant from where he was stood on the deck. His outstretched arms kept his phaser aimed at Elegy. Lake softened his barking tone, somewhat, when he repeated himself: "Step down from that shuttle... Please."

After a couple of false starts, Elegy Reiko rose to his feet and his whole perspective on the situation changed. His body practically vibrated in anticipation; he could feel that which he desired on the other side of the shuttlebay's forcefield. It was like there was a dark sun, an invisible sun that no one could see, and it's rays were warming him up. It's rays were for him. Only for him.

Also, his perspective changed because the skin of his face slid off his head.

Between face-planting into the shuttle and the phaser blast, Elegy shed his human identity like a snakeskin. Where there had once been muscle tissue and bone, there was an animated silicate skull. So little of him was recognizable as Human or carbon-based or alive. "You can gut me, you can set me on fire," Elegy spat out; "But I didn't die. Bitch, I crystallized!" Elegy spun on his heel and used the length of the shuttlecraft to give himself a running start. He kicked off the forward viewport of the shuttle and launched himself towards the shuttlebay opening. He spread his arms wide, opening himself to the blessed radiation of his secret, dark sun.

Elegy cried, "I'm so hunggggrr--" and his voice was cut off when his body passed through the one-way forcefield and spun out into space.

Verity watched on with a mixture of horror and awe where he was crouched close to Alexion, having meant to discover if the doctor was okay, but unable to look away from the drama that unravelled in front of his very eyes. His lips moved in a prayer for the man...for no matter what had happened to his body, he had been a man with a name. He tapped his commbadge, shaking his head slowly. "Thorne to bridge, the patient made it off the ship through the forcefield. He's...out there, alone."

A few paces away, Lake lowered his phaser. All the while, he couldn't take his dark eyes off the listless form of Elegy Reiko, he watched the transformed man drift. Lake moved to slide his phaser in the holster on his hip, but his hand was shaking too much. The emitter end of the phaser couldn't seem to connect with the holster opening. Lake had to use both hands to tuck the phaser away successfully.

The captain's voice quickly replied, "What? Say again, what is the patient's status?" Saalm's console was tracking the colony survivor but now lost all traces of his biosignature across internal sensors.

Having seen that physical attacks and attempts to block the man.. or whatever it was now failed Luke had decided to coordinate the security efforts from the bridge. Stepping out of the turbolift he caught the last SITREP and wasn't surprised to hear it had made it off the ship. What did, however, was the fact he was out there with nothing separating him and the cold vacuum of space. "The patient has left the ship, recommend trying to restrain him with our tractor beam, I also recommend we use the ships enhanced sensors to gather as much data before he does something else like disappear."

Azra took a few moments to recover from the shock. Without the correct frequency codes or enough force to overload the forcefield, nothing should be able to go through them like that. "Shuttlecraft Virginia is prepared to launch. Do we have clearance to proceed?" she asked.

Allyndra had arrived a bit too late and quickly learned that their erstwhile patient had fled into space. She only shook her head and then separated from the group to give command to return the environmental controls back to normal settings. There was no use further at the the moment for freezing muscles and burning lungs.

Lamar Darius' voice quickly replied to the shuttlecraft commander from the bridge's helm station. "Virginia, cap'n says go so go!" he cleared.

"Get a transporter lock on the patient, now!" added the Orion captain after hearing Wyatt's confirmation of the survivor's condition. "Science, what's his status? Is he alive?"

"I am unable to get a lock on the patient; there is to much biothermal radiation." Ryan said trying to anticipate the next stage of the recovery of the patient.

Although Galileo guided the shuttle from the bay, it was only seconds before the shuttle was under Azra's control at the helm. "Virginia to Galileo, we are clear of the shuttle bay and proceeding to planetary surface."

"That was very unusual," Mimi reaarked as the greyness of the shuttle bay gave way to the blackness of space. "no damage to the shuttle though."

Gliding away from the hull of Galileo, the shuttle craft took care not to cross paths with the slowly spinning remnants of Elegy Reiko. The hard angles and sharp planes of his new form had shredded away his Federation-standard jumpsuit. Alone, in the dark, his crystalline form shimmered in the darkness. It was cold out there, colder than Elegy had ever been, and yet Elegy felt full. He felt fulfilled. For the first time since being rescued from the Franconia, Elegy smiled.

But maybe that was just the rictus.

"Captain, I'm tracking the life signs but they're fade-" Callin began to reply, then cut off long enough to re-run the last result that had come to his board. His hands shook slightly on the controls but he looked up to make eye contact, "Confirmed, Captain, life signs have terminated."

Saalm sat in the center of the bridge in shocked silence. Her thoughts raced while contemplating what the crew had just observed. A suicide? She knew of no life form which had survived to a state of advanced evolution that could possibly act in such a self-destructive way. Her shoulders sagged and her eyes turned down to the deck plating beneath her feet. "Medical, confirm," she solemnly replied through her commbadge.

Allyndra got the call from the captain and headed over to a panel to access the sensor readings. She looked at the feed and as much as she could given the odd differences in biochemistries replied on her comm, "I have to agree. I believe the cold of space has caused biochemical pathway shutdown." It was as much as she could offer given the limited data. "Sorry sir, we were dealing we something very odd."

Wylde's breathing had become strangely controlled. Perhaps it was because his jaw was clenched so tightly where he was still on his knees on the deck, shaking his head slowly from side to side, his violet eyes gleaming with strangled anger. "Wylde to bridge, we should try and retrieve him," he said quietly, his voice and words carefully measured to try and keep his feelings restrained.

Allyndra turned at that and shook her head in the negative. "We quarantined for a reason. We are still not sure what happened and though perhaps the chance of infection is less I am going to recommend against it."

"He's our *patient*," Wylde watched the floor, not trusting himself to look up as his chest moved with how tight the breath he took was, and how strained his voice was. "And now he's out there. Alone."


Deck 1 - Bridge

The helm station suddenly let out a loud notification which broke the silence in the room. Galileo's conn officer quickly tapped at his console's LCARS screen then gave an urgent update.

"Captain, long-range sensors are detecting an incoming warp signature," Darius paused to isolate the readings while the nav computer processed the trajectory. "Bearing....one-five-five mark one-zero. Two minutes to intercept."

The warning caught Saalm off guard and she straightened up in her chair. Her first thought was an unannounced reinforcement from the other two Starfleet vessels in their task force, but then she realized the bearing was coming from the reciprocal heading. "That's from the direction of the border..."

"Captain," Lamar interjected once more, "I'm now reading two warp signatures...now three..." his voice trailed off while he tried switched to manual sensor targeting, "..correction, four warp signatures incoming, in formation."

Lirha gripped her fingers across her chair's armrest. "On screen, maximum magnification."

The science officer acknowledged the captain with a small nod, pulled up detailed version of the sensor readings and ran the number on where the signatures would likely drop out of warp. With a quick flick of her wrist Ullswater sent off the visuals of the, for the time being, empty section of space.

The main viewscreen at the front of the bridge blinked from the image of the planet Latari A III and now showed a close-in view of streaking warp trails surrounding several small objects. The captain squinted and looked close at the streaming image -- a formation of six-sided starships resembling polygonal cones with pointed and elongated frontal features.

Swallowing a heavy lump in her throat, Lirha rose from her chair and stepped forward towards the viewscreen to stare at the incoming threat. Her Starfleet service before Galileo had been with the Intelligence division and it only took the Orion a few seconds to recognize the alien ship design profile of the vessels.

"They're Tholian."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo-A

Elegy Reiko
Colonist Survivor
Latari B III
[PNPC ir-Llantrisant]

CWO3 Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CMDR Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

LT Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

ENS Ryan Alexander
Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

ENS Sofie Ullswater
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

ENS Callin Mastrel
Science Officer
USS Galileo-A

CWO3 Azra Ghoc
Boatswain
USS Galileo-A

CWO3 Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

Verity Thorne
Chaplain
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

ENS Mimi
Deputy Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

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