T20: High Law and Low Justice, Part 3

[Watus]

Quinn stalks back onto the bridge, dropping a fire-scarred handcomp into Saanath's lap. "Do me a favor. See if you can get anything out of that."

He pauses for a moment, looking over Zaed's shoulder, and then takes his perch in the captain's chair. "As I see it, our choice is simple. We can't fight, and we can't surrender. That means we run, no matter how slim the chances. Unless anyone's got any bright ideas, Ruzzkoff, bring the engines online and get us underway to Gelugon at our best possible speed.

"Zaed: if those fighters move, I want to know it. I suspect that if they had anything they could hurt us with they'd have done it by now, but if a hole opens up in their jamming, we need to get a message through to the Keruuchan. Not that it will do any good.

"Tomas, if they close with us, you know what to do."

He leans back into his seat and keys the comm: "Listen up people. I know we've all got a lot of unanswered questions right now, but our first priority is getting the hell out of here in one peice. Keep that in mind.

"Having said that, though, once we're under way, it looks like we'll have a few hours at least before we're likely to be in danger of our lives again. Ktarle, when you're finished with your preliminary analysis of the sample from the life support system, I'd like you to compare it to whatever remains in the plastisteel tube in the safe in stateroom [number]. I've got some reason to believe that it was intentionally brought aboard, but for what reason, I have no idea.

"And Vyrkris: when you're done with the life boat, I want you to carefully examine the large lowberths down there. They belong to the person who may have brough this thing aboard, so be careful. But be thorough."

 

[Douane]

"AROOOOO!"

Zaed howls in sadness as the tragic tale of the Doctor reveals itself to him.

Never should anyone be forced to make such decisions!


With the sudden arrival of Quinn back on the bridge, Zaed forces himself to shift his attention back to the matters at hand. "Here's a piece of my thoughts. I can fly this tub, no prob'. I can plot the jump path out of here, also no prob'. However, if the SDB decides to go after us, we will be hard-pressed to outrun her to jump distance, even with me at the reins. And guessing by their behaviour so far, I wouldn't exactly call them 'friendly'." Ignore a distress call, will you! "Next the oxgen: With 10 hours fly-time till jump-distance plus skimming Gelugon I don't know whether whatever we brought aboard will last that long, plus time wherever we go. I think this is going to be a close call. But even putting all that aside I strongly suspect there's still a G-Arms ship out there. Something must have carried those fighters and the logs indicate that it was here and probably is still. Why it doesn't reveal itself, I can't say. Also it was conveniently exactly where malfunctioning drives kicked the Dvonn out of jump space."
In an afterthought he adds, "Not to mention we have something freaky aboard: something that converts oxygen into some strange dust. Something I haven't ever heard of in my travels, and I traveled through a good bit of space."*

After speaking his mind, Zaedhrarg doublechecks every calculation and tries to compare/correlate them to similiar situations from the past for anything inconsistent or out-of-place because his faith in the electorincs onboard has been a bit shaken by the events depicted in the log.


* [OoC: Or has he? K/Jump space +11]

 

[Maerdwyn]

Zaed:

Spoiler

J
regarding the dust/oxygen: No you have not heard of this phenomenon before

 

[Douane]

OOC: Edited post to something more adequate. Thanks!

 

[Guest 11456]

Trelene Scrautigue : Luriani Navy 2/Prof 7/Trav 1: Retired Makhidkarum Vice President

A minute or so later, Ruzz'koff appears at Trelene's side, and stares for a moment at the slime. "So what do we do about this?" he asks quietly, as if he doesn't yet have any ideas.

Looking up from the life support unit, the luriani peers back at Ruzz'koff.

"I do not know. I am hoping that the doctor can tell me more about this stuff. We need to clear it from the unit before we can get life support back online. Any ideas?"

Trelene looks at Ruzz'koff quizzically.

 

[Maerdwyn]

As Ruzz'koff and Trelene study the situation for a few more minutes, Ktarle comes over the ship-wide system. "I've had a look at the dust under the microscope here in medbay, and compared it with some of the tissue samples the medic left here. The dust is an organism - or it contains an organism. It's tiny, on the order of 30 nanometers, which is about the size of a medium-sized virus. But it has a cell wall, and I can see what I think are mitochondria - It would be truly amazing to find the features of a cell in an organism of this size. I need a better microscope to be sure. Some of the cells are encased in the crystalline dust - seems to be about a few hundred cells in each dust particle. I found a few of the cells themselves, not the dust, present in the tissue samples taken from the victims here. They are dead, though, and they have not multiplied to a level at which I would have expected them to have triggered an immune response from the victims when they were alive. Vyrkris said the plate she brought up here had been covered in slime? Well, it was just a small pile of the dust by the time it got to me, so there's something that causes the change. I'm doing more tests on the dust now to see if I can find out what it is. Let me know what else you all observe."

 

[Maerdwyn]

After speaking his mind, Zaedhrarg doublechecks every calculation and tries to compare/correlate them to similiar situations from the past for anything inconsistent or out-of-place because his faith in the electorincs onboard has been a bit shaken by the events depicted in the log.

Everything checks out okay the second time through. On a hunch, he reviews astrogator's calculations from the last jump, and they check out okay as well. In fact, better than okay. With those calculations, the Dvonn should have arrived safely, without misjump, at Daramm.

 

[Guest 11456]

Trelene Scrautigue : Luriani Navy 2/Prof 7/Trav 1: Retired Makhidkarum Vice President

As Ruzz'koff and Trelene study the situation for a few more minutes, Ktarle comes over the ship-wide system. "I've had a look at the dust under the microscope here in medbay, and compared it with some of the tissue samples the medic left here. The dust is an organism - or it contains an organism. It's tiny, on the order of 30 nanometers, which is about the size of a medium-sized virus. But it has a cell wall, and I can see what I think are mitochondria - It would be truly amazing to find the features of a cell in an organism of this size. I need a better microscope to be sure. Some of the cells are encased in the crystalline dust - seems to be about a few hundred cells in each dust particle. I found a few of the cells themselves, not the dust, present in the tissue samples taken from the victims here. They are dead, though, and they have not multiplied to a level at which I would have expected them to have triggered an immune response from the victims when they were alive. Vyrkris said the plate she brought up here had been covered in slime? Well, it was just a small pile of the dust by the time it got to me, so there's something that causes the change. I'm doing more tests on the dust now to see if I can find out what it is. Let me know what else you all observe."

Trelene opens a channel to medbay.

"Doctor! The slime that is in the life support unit, which is where the plate was from, seems to be our problem. Any ideas on hiw to remove it from the unit? It appears to be absorbing all the oxygen that the life support unit was producing. I have turned the unit off for the moment. Could the dust be a protection against the low air environment for the cells? Perhaps a defense mechanism? Would the dust protect the cells from such an environment? If Vyrkris can bring a sample container to engineering, I might be able to get a sample of the slime to you in med lab. Over!?"

 

[DrZombie]

The new Ruzz'kof

Ruzz'kof's ears perk up. "You mean like spores, from a fungus or such? Stop the life support system and take it apart, it should all turn to the white dust. Then we should kill all the white stuff, the spores. Sterilise the unit, or.. VACUUM. Hard vacuum. Shoulldn't that kill the spores, doc? Maybe you should expose a sample to vacuum and see if it dies. Then we just , eeuhm, Depressurise the ship? And , euhm, fill it with air again afterwards?"

Woohoo, if that works I'll get a medal. If it doesn't we're dead anyway.

 

[Maerdwyn]

"We could certainly try it," Ktarle's voice says hesitantly over the comm. "But I'll need to investigate more first, and even if it would work, we need a way to keep everyone safe while we do it- we're down a couple vargr vac suits at best. We need a complete search of the ship - all passengers and crew need to be accounted for, alive or dead, before we even talk about depressurising the ship.

"Vyrkris is down in the hangar, or headed that way, to see if the life boat is an option. I'll come to collect a sample of the live cells now, to see if exposing it to a vacuum works."

A few minutes later, Ktarle arrives with a sealable beaker that's hooked up to and oxygen tank. She uses an instrument from medbay to scoop up a sample of the the slime. "I'm going to look at what happens with normal, high, low, and no oxygen levels. Then I'll work on the dust. I'll be in Medbay." Unless anyone has questions for her, she turns to go.