Strange Goings On

Posted on Fri Apr 15th, 2022 @ 11:10pm by Lieutenant Commander Deanna Celes & Commander Jonathan Grayson & Commander Samantha Howard & Ensign Zack Ravencroft & Petty Officer 1st Class Amethyst Wyse

Mission: Jupiter Mystery
Location: USS Jupiter

Deanna continued working at the Ops station aboard the Jupiter. She had transported all of the bridge crew down to the ship's sickbay and had transported additional patients from several other decks. Her focus at this moment was pulling up the captain's log which was behind seven layers of encryption for some strange reason, and she had only broke through the first three thus far. It was made complicated by the face that bits of the signal code seemed to have gotten into the computer and were causing malfunctions across all systems which she had to jump to periodically. She was grateful for the engineering team that was working with Cmdr Grayson in Engineering to figure out and correct the issues with the engines and environmental systems.

Jon was in engineering working with the small engineering team sent over from the Washington. The warp core was still online but at low power. The team was busy bringing the power up as well as correcting the environmental systems. It was slow going but progress was being made. He had gone into the CEO's office to see if the officer had made any log entries pertaining to the disappearance of both crewman and systems breakdowns.

Sam worked methodically between the biobeds, having called for the EMH only to find the system offline leaving her on her own until reinforcements from the Washington arrived. She was having no luck rousing the unconscious crewman and was scratching her head as to why. Still, she could keep them stable until a solution was found.

On the bridge Celes was working diligently. "Ensign, are you testing the weapon systems?"

Zack looked over the weapon systems and frowned. "This isn't right. The phaser backs are out of alignment and nearly all torpedoes are depleted." he reported.

"It appears the phasers are out of alignment. They are slowly building to overload. You'll have to go down to Deck 6 in the phaser control system to correct it."

Zack wasn't at all happy about that, he would have to leave the crew, the crew he was supposed to protect, and go alone down. But he was on duty and he had to do what he was told, no matter how much he hated it. Without a word, he used the turbolift to head to deck 6.

As Deanna continued working on the issue of the captain's logs, she finally hit paydirt. "Finally!" she exclaimed with satisfaction and a hint of glee. She began skimming through the logs and began to see a pattern that was a bit disturbing.

=^=Celes to Grayson. =^=

In engineering Jon answered Deanna's hail. "Go ahead Deanna."

=^=Jon, I have finally cracked the encryptions and gotten into the captain's logs. It would appear that whatever phenomena they were dealing with started after they entered orbit and began the investigation of the signal, which was of significantly higher technology than the rest of the ruins. It appears they were under the belief that the signal had somehow infected their ship and began to cause malfunctions. The part that is truly disturbing is that the disappearances started with the civilians, and once they were gone senior officers began to disappear one at a time until only the junior officers were left. They speak of some sort of unnatural sleeping disorder that mimicked a coma that they had yet to find a cause for nor a cure.=^=

Jon frowned at what Deanna was telling him. "This is indeed disturbing Deanna for it suggests an intelligence behind the abductions. Any more information on the sleeping disorder?""

=^=It appears they did load all medical information into the EMH, so Sam would at least have that bit of good news to work with. Unfortunately, one of the current malfunctions is with the hologenerators in sickbay, which are currently down. Could you spare an engineer to go down and repair them? =^=

"I'll send an engineer right now to repair them . That will give Sam an additional hand in dealing with this problem."

Celes suddenly had a terrible realization. =^=Jon, the captain said they had sent down an away team to the planet. Whatever caused the sleep disorder is likely on the planet itself. They'll be infected.=^=

=^= and we have an away team already on the surface. Have them redirected to beam back here rather than the Washington. We don't need both crews infected.=^= Jon replied.

=^=I'll notify the captain immediately. =^= Celes replied. She quickly sent a message to the Washington and then sent over the captain's logs for review.

With the additional Washington medical crew now on board, Sam headed into the CMO's office and tried to retrieve some of the latest medical reports, beginning to trawl through the symptomatic data until she had a wall. The CMO was missing, as were the entire senior staff PLUS all of the civilians. Why??

She looked up as the Engineer arrived to repair the holoemitters which would hopefully reactivate the EMH and the treasure trove of medical knowledge the program generally contained.

The engineer worked diligently. After working for nearly 20 minutes the engineer looked over at Samantha, "Alright, that should do it doctor."

The EMH flickered to life, the routinely looking semi bald man with a no nonsense attitude and a wealth of knowledge. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency"

"Look around Doc" Sam replied, medical tricorder in hand and a sickbay full of unconscious patients.

Amethyst was keeping busy looking after those who needed care. Everyone was asleep so it was just a case of keeping them stable until the cause could be found. “This is very odd Doctor, I don’t understand what’s happened to cause this.”

"Neither do I, they should all be returning to consciousness or at least showing a rise in conscious levels" Howard remarked as she watched the EMH work, he seemed to be processing something in the back of his mind as he reviewing the patients.

"What is your hypothesis Doctor?" She promoted.

The EMH looked to Samantha and Amethyst. "The original hypothesis from the data collected by the Jupiter crew was this artificial was caused by an environmental factor of the planet, specifically the higher amounts of krypton and neon in the atmosphere. This however only created the drowsiness and the desire to sleep. The real culprit is technology mascaraing as biological. Nanotechnology doctor. These people have all been infected by a nanotech virus, though why I cannot say."

“A nanotech virus?” Amethyst looked at Sam then back at the EMH. “Is this virus of risk to those from our own crew who are currently aboard this ship?”

The EMH quickly replied, "Not at all. This virus requires physical contact to pass from one person to another, much like how the Borg use nanites to assimilate. As you are in an environmental suit, you have no danger of being infected. The truly fascinating aspect of this virus is that it isn't ultimately designed to harm. It is simply designed to keep host organisms in a deep sleep that mimics a coma. Again, for what purpose I cannot say."

" Good thing we bought the suits" Sam quipped as she absorbed the information. " The only reasons I can think of for keeping people in a coma is to keep them...fresh. kinda like a spider does with its prey, paralysis until eating them alive. Which may mean we have a bigger problem."

"One other thing of note, the temporal lobe is quite active in all of the unconscious people. All scans indicate they may be dreaming. Further, for those species with a telepathic ability, their telepathic center seems to be quite active." The EMH had a look of superiority on its face from giving such a great description of the situation.