Unveiling the Enemy

Posted on Thu Nov 21st, 2019 @ 4:21am by Captain Abigail Laurens & Lieutenant Commander William Gunnison & Lieutenant Alexis Aenera & Captain Amanda Foxwell & Commander Ichiko Gail & Lieutenant Commander Calvin Morgan & Lieutenant Commander William Rogers

Mission: Sounds of Silence
Location: Observation Lounge

Abigail walked into the small observation lounge and looked around. Ichiko had, as always, already been in and set out hot drinks and soft pastries, though this time there were pitchers of cold drinks available as well.

PaDD's had been set at every seat, each one linked to the main display system so that everyone could see what was typed rather than having to wait for each PaDD to be shared around.

With a few minutes to wait until everyone was scheduled to arrive, Abigail sank gratefully into her seat at the head of the table and leaned forward, elbows on the table, forehead on her hands, eyes closed, loathing the sound of the silence that surrounded her.

Amanda was one of the first to walk in. She hadn't been able to sleep, so she looked terrible as she walked into the Observation Lounge. She looked around, nodding to the Captain as she walked in; the most she could do considering she was unable to talk. She took her seat and started typing into her personal PaDD, before handing it over to the Captain.

"Good morning Captain, how are you feeling today?" Was the message inscribed onto the PaDD.

Alexis walked in slowly, eyes on the tricorder in her hand, barely paying attention to anything else. She was scanning for two things and if she found anything, she would move the meeting, but her initial scans were coming up empty as she slowly worked her way around the lounge, seemingly scanning every inch of the place, tricorder moving up and down.

The next figure through was the ship's second, or the ship's XO if you preferred the local term. Ichiko looked a lot better than she did two hours ago, but it's amazing what a shower could do to mask the discomfort. Fresh uniform, fresh hair brushing, even her ear fur fluffed nicely. She seemed a new person, despite still being in all the same old pain.

The mask you wear to keep crew morale up. She noticed Alexis roaming around, taking charge and doing... for lack of a truer term... her job. That brought a smirk to her features. She found the Captain's glance, and then pointed to her own eyes with two fingers before pointing to Alexis. As though to say 'hey, look at that'.

The next thing she did was head to the replicator and key in an order. Tea, with more ginger than allowed by law.

Calvin walked in moments later, disheveled and tired, but for different reasons the rest. His voice was still there, but he hadn't slept in what felt like forever. If he wasn't in his overflowing Sickbay he was in the lab processing data. It wasn't until some discreetly passed information to him and a late patient that allowed him to realize everything that was going on. He slumped down into a chair, flicking the provided PaDD away a little to drop his own PaDDs full of information.

Even after nearly hour hundred years of sleep, Buck had found that he could still get very tired when he didn't sleep. He slumped into his seat, poured himself a coffee, downed it in one, and poured himself another.

Alexis finished making her round of the observation lounge and settled herself into the seat closest to the door, tricorder still out and scanning, but on the table in easy view. She gave a thumbs up to Abigail as people entered and made their way to their seats.

Abigail looked up and glanced around the room, making sure everyone was present before she nodded, a very slow and careful movement. Motioning to the PaDD in front of her, she typed out a quick "Glad everyone is still alive," message and then pointed to the screen where the message appeared, hoping everyone would understand how they would be communicating for the meeting.

Clearing the message, she nodded toward Calvin before typing again. "How is the crew holding up? How are things in sickbay?"

Glancing over towards Alexis to make sure they were 'alone,' he spoke up. "Sickbay is overflowing. Majority of the crew is feeling sick. Last patient I caught in the act of being attacked, so I have been compiling a lot of information about it." He sat there quietly for a moment contemplating anything else to say. He shook his head, and leaned back into his chair.

As one of the few people who still had a voice, Abigail had to admit that it was nice to be able to listen to him speaking, it broke the silence enough to provide just the right balance of comfort and reassurance that things weren't necessarily as bad as they may have felt.

She nodded slightly, again another slow and careful movement before she turned slowly toward Alexis, and started typing on her PaDD, the words appearing up on the screen. "I guess that means you're up? How do we find them?"

Alexis had anticipated the question and had been typing on her PADD and at the question, gave a single finger to indicate 'one moment'. She typed for several more seconds and a petty officer entered the room to take away empty dishes, and her tricorder flashed twice at her and she leaned over to take a look and typed faster, then hit the send key. "Finding them is going to be the problem, at least until we can confirm that what we think are the telltales actually ARE. It's a two-stage method that they're using to avoid detection. The first stage is whatever they're doing that prevents some of us from speaking, causes the headaches that don't go away and just beats our bodies down. This, combined with pheremones they exude seem to be their primary method of avoiding detection passively. I haven't been able to figure out how they work against us, but I'm also not a molecular biologist."

"The second stage of their hiding technique is an inefficient phasing cloak, I'd have to describe it. It allows them to move through inanimate, static objects, but I would doubt it would be able to move through objects or people in motion, because of emissions. I believe that it's a new technology for them, because it kicks out occasional positrons that a real cloaking device wouldn't. It also has to adapt as the subject moves, which means more positrons escape and if they move too quickly the cloak 'fades' and allows potential sightings."

"How to find them, you ask, is that we can trace pheremone concentrations, but that would give us just a general area that they can be in, to within three meters if the subject is just arrived, then with a new margin of error of one meter per second after that to a maximum diameter of eight meters one way or the other. As for the positron emissions, it's again an area effect, with a meter and a half radius due to the short half-life. I can't counter the pheremones without a good sample of them, but I can certainly counter this cloaking device that they're using, at least the visual, probably the phase. Speaking of which, does anyone have a phaser or something, in case we want me to reveal the alien that arrived with the Petty Officer?"

Abigail raised an eyebrow slightly, her expression moving from slightly pained to fully annoyed as she turned a questioning gaze to Alanah and Amanda before taking a moment to type furiously on the PaDD in hand. "Are either of you armed?"

"Also," William tapped out as well, "we must consider how this one or their companions may react if we reveal them. We should go on the assumption that they are using cloaks because they do not wish for us to know they are here, and as such it is well with the realm of possibility that they may react in a hostile manner if they know we are on to them and can detect and even uncloak them."

Abigail nodded again, looking down at PaDD in front of her and typing furiously. "Right before we unveil them we will take the ship to red alert. Lieutenant Rue, set countour conforming shields and take all transporters offline on my order. If memory serves there is a small weapons cache in a panel behind the bulkhead to my left. Lieutenant Matashi, as soon as the ship goes to red alert access the weapons locker and arm as many people as you can. That should help."

Amanda nodded ever so slightly at the Captains question, pointing at the phaser strapped to her right leg. She picked up her PADD. "I will send a message to my teams to arm as well, if that is acceptable Captain." She typed, waiting for the reply.

Abigail shook her head slightly, before typing out her response. "We don't alert anyone out side this room. We don't want to show our hand too soon. Everyone standing by."

She drew in a slow and shuddery breath, putting her head back in her hands again and closing her eyes, offering up a silent prayer to the deities and giving everyone a few moments to read her message before they proceeded.