Debriefing

Posted on Fri Jun 23rd, 2017 @ 5:41pm by

1,162 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Unknown Life, Unknown Dangers
Location: Ready Room

Once she was beamed back to the ship with the others, BJ ordered Ensign Wilson to go get decontaminated and to file a report in Security before she did the same thing. She sent the sample she collected to Medical so Xavier could study it, then headed to the bridge.

Once there, she pressed the chime and waited to be called in.

William was eager for a report on what happened, any answers would at least in some way shed light on what transpired and what options lay ahead of him. "Come."

BJ entered the ready room with a look in her eyes that many first contact officers had; a mix between awe and wariness, but there was more than a hint of steel in her brown eyes as she approached the Commodore. "Sir," she said.

"Commander. I hope you have answers for me because what we picked up while you were on board was simply mind boggling." He spoke as the very same readings streamed on his computer screen as he tried to figure things out prior to her arrival.

"If you want mind boggling, Commodore," she said as she activated her tricorder which had been actively scanning and handed it to him. "Take a look at this. If you want to have your mind blown, go over to the Civic and let some form of alien vine and....fireflies...try to get in your suit while strangling you."

William looked over the readings and that just amounted to more confusion. "Did you find any sign of the crew at all?" He asked. "Not long into the mission our sensors picked up a bloom in lifesigns."

BJ hesitated for a moment. "There was blood everywhere, Sir," she said. "As for the crew...we didn't see any bodies. Including the Engineer that Commander O'Connell took with him. We heard banging, but at that point, we had lost communications and were being attacked. The funny thing is there were no signs of life when we beamed over until O'Connell started to power the freighter up."

William wondered why powering up the ship triggered the following string of events. It was a known tactic of raiders and pirates to lay in wait, powered down to lure in prey but this was entirely different. "Take a seat Commander, something to drink?"

"If I weren't on duty, I'd say an Aldebaran Whiskey would be a good start," she said. "I don't know what happened on the bridge, but Ensign Wilson is writing that report. Before me and O'Connell got off the ship, I set a phaser on overload and threw it into the mass that was coming after us, but I don't know if it were effective or not."

William flicked through the readings taken. "It almost seems that these growths were alive when power was restored." He pulled up the same time stamp from his own readings. "Exactly the same time." He pondered some more. "This thing, this entity that chased you. Did it try to communicate prior to attacking? Do you think any actions of the away team might have provoked it?"

"If it did, it was in no language that our combadges recognized and the tricorders didn't pick up any sentience," BJ said as she sat down. "We didn't exactly have time to get into a meaningful chat after it started to come after us."

"When we lost contact with the team I prepared to send another over, the readings we were getting were confusing, we lost yours amongst them so we couldn't get a transporter lock because of the interference." William sat back in his chair. "In your opinion how would you rate the salvage potential of the ship if I reported it in?"

"Don't send another team over," she said, shaking her head. "I suggestion just blowing the ship up. I had a sample sent to Xa...Commander Patrovski to analyze, but until then, I would suggest maintaining a safe distance from the freighter and see what else our scans pick up now that it's...active."

"Agreed." Nothing BJ said seemed unreasonable and honestly fell in step with his own assessment of the situation. "I'll await the Doctors assessment of the samples before I signal in, I'm sure that Command will want answers as to the cause and I would like to provide some."

BJ sighed. "I really wish we had had more time to study whatever that was and figure out why our comms went down," she said. "We couldn't even reach Commander Bawden or Ensign Wilson and there was a weird growth over everything, especially the warp core and consoles."

"When the power started we detected that power struggled, reading fluctuated." William spoke. "Is that growth the cause?"

"I believe so, but I can't confirm it," BJ said. "When Lieutenant Whitaker went to get the injectors online and Commander O'Connell was powering up the core, we heard a scream over the com and what sounded like a face helmet shield breaking and a struggle before it went dead. Whatever it is likely killed her."

"Considering what happened and what ever it was, I'd like the team to undergo assessment. We have no idea what that thing was or its ability to penetrate materials. I'd like to be sure everyone is safe and well."

"I've already been through decontamination with the others," BJ said. "But I'll report to Medical, Sir."

"If this is a lifeform and we didn't recognise it then we don't know what its capable of, especially if it killed the Civic's crew I don't want it doing the same here. Hopefully the Doctor can do a detailed review of the samples and we can forward them to SFM and Command."

"Without any of the Civic's crew to tell us what happened, we don't know what happened to all of them," she pointed out. "I want to do a wide area sweep to see if we can find any debris or bodies. There's no telling how far the ship drifted before we found it and I'm not sure if Commander Bawden had time to get the Captain's Logs."

"Agreed, task who ever you need to, I'd like to give as detailed a report as I can to command." It was not the most stellar first mission, already lost a crew member and that was the harder part of command. "Thank you for these scans, I will add them to my report."

"I'll get that started after I get through with Medical," BJ said before she came to her feet. "Is there anything else, Sir?"

"No, thank you Commander." William replied as now he had a lot more information, but whether or not it provided answers remained to be seen.

BJ gave a not and turned, then headed out. There were a lot of things that weren't adding up and they only had a few samples for answers. Hopefully that would give them more answers than questions.

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