Semper Paratus

Posted on Tue Sep 20th, 2022 @ 7:53pm by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Commander William Gerhard & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D. & Lieutenant JG Ethal Reade & Ensign Michael Sloan

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: Science Labs
Timeline: Day 303, 10:00
2984 words - 6 OF Standard Post Measure

Being the first to arrive was a bit new for the engineer. Being the Chief over a department with more work than it could handle usually meant that he worked long hours. However, this was a take that had to be completed. They had lost too many for this to be just another task in the work order. Sloan had ensured that the entirety of his scans and those taken during the duration of John Smith’s stay on the Atlantis were uploaded. Since he had been released from Sickbay, he had poured himself and a good chunk of his department into this task.

With that said, he had not given a thought to refreshments or other conference table necessities. The workstation for the group consisted of a large table, consoles set up with access to all data regarding Smith, and a couple of PADDs each. Michael sat down at his claimed area to go over everything before the others began arriving.

William paused for a moment outside the science lab as he reached up and felt the new pips at his shoulder for what felt like the umpteenth time. Instead of two, there were now three silver pips, indicating his new promotion to Commander. He had not been one to buck for promotion, in fact, he had given up reaching Commander once they had gotten lost so far from home. But even before their current circumstances had engulfed them, William had preferred to let his work speak for itself. Going from enlisted to officer had already been a significant achievement, but he wondered if he could live up to his new role. He was the XO now, not just the Armory Chief.

He pressed the button on the panel and stepped through the doorway to find the room empty except for Sloan who was seated at the table. He made his way over to an open spot near the head and offered a nod towards Sloan as he eased himself into his chair. "I see they let you out of sickbay too," he said by way of greeting.

Only a few voices could have brought Michael out of his trance-like fixation on his work. William's just happened to be one of those, especially when it was not something harsh. Looking up to the Chief Armory Officer, Sloan replied, "I think they'll let anyone out these days." Shifting in his seat, Michael decided to offer an olive branch. "How are you holding up?"

William shrugged as he subconsciously rubbed his ribs again. "Ribs are still sore. As far as mentally speaking, I'm just taking it day by day. I still get flashes of the attack, wake up in bed drenched in sweat," he said before trailing off. He remembered where he was and looked back at the man he had held such disdain for a long time. Something passed between them then, a mutual understanding of sorts.

With the room beginning to fill up with the arrival of the others, all that Sloan could do was offer a sombre nod in William's direction. Waking up drenched in sweat had been a common occurrence for the Chief Engineer since the mission to the Vrav's algae planet. It had begun to get better, but he understood where the other man was more than most.

Avira stepped into the room at the tail end of the conversation between William and Michael, she decided not to comment and simply took up a seat at the table. She looked over the data she had brought to the conversation one last time.

Ethal walked up to the science lab doors deep in thought. The labs were somewhere she had started to miss. After the Mess Hall incident, Reade had to begrudgingly take a short stay in sickbay to treat her injuries. The remains of that incident were a trace amount of pain in her face but it was manageable. Thankfully due to the doctor's handy work, there was no lasting damage other than her pride.

Ethal snuck quietly into the room as others were already seated and chatting amongst themselves. Once she realised she wasn’t late, she gave a quick friendly greeting to everyone to announce that she was now present before leaving them to their previous business. Reade found a seat and quickly set herself up for the discussion ahead.

Beth knew she was going to be the last to arrive and as she walked in with a coffee mug and four PADDs in her hands. She had come from one meeting to another and knew that this one would be slightly freeing to her after a decision she had made. “Apologies,” Beth said moving to a stool and kicking it out so she could sit down and lay down everything on top of the pet rock cage.

With everyone gathered in the labs, Sloan decided to kick things off. He tapped a couple of commands to mirror his console's screen to the display behind him on the wall. "Normally, intruders and threats can be dealt with through regular means of detection and... removal," he began, indicating a more tactical approach for normal threats. Opening his hands a little to indicate a question, he moved on, "What happens when the threat is born from another universe, arrives without the need to breach our perimeter, is not detectable by internal sensors, and can alter the memories of everyone aboard?"

Giving those gathered a moment to consider the question, Sloan remained quiet. Tapping the PaDD in his hand to change up the display to show lists of all of the data that could be gathered, "I have assembled all known sensors readouts of known Smith locations, compiled a list of medical scans, and interviews with all who were able to give statements." Pointing to the consoles in front of each person, he added, "All of this data has been assembled in front of you. We are all experts in our fields and Starfleet saw something in us that made them want to put on on just the fifth NX class starship. We have to find something."

Beth nodded. But she was going to stay silent for now to let them work through it all. She needed to see how everyone worked together in a situation like this.

Looking toward Gerhard, Sloan asked, "Lieuten... Commander Gerhard, "What is your tactical appraisal of the incident?"

Looking up from his own screen, he realized this was the first time his new rank had been spoken out loud amongst the senior staff. As all eyes were on him, he pulled up his own incident reports and summarized them. "It's clear that our own internal security sensors are still lagging in areas of detection. We are still trying to ascertain why our sensors didn't fully register Smith as an intruder. By all accounts, he should've been recognized, even if he were human. Internal sensors passively sweep the ship looking at identifiable markers for the crew that is stored within the computer. Even if someone who is not one of the crew were to come aboard, the sensors would detect this and posit a friend/foe challenge on the bridge. Our logs indicate no such query was ever given," William said as he took a moment to look around the table.

"He took over Aurelius' life..." Beth added thoughtfully.

"Not necessarily," William said looking towards the captain, "He was able to give us false memories. I remembered serving with him, but I never served with Aurelius."

“On the ship. He had his clothes and his quarters.” Beth said softly explaining herself better. “He got in because of that hole in the ship and then infected us all.” It was easier to think of the thing as a virus that infected the ship.

"Dr Avira," Michael called out. "I know of a few instances where people, including myself, reported to you for various health-related issues. Fatigue, headaches," looking to Beth for a moment before putting his eyes back on the Andorian, "nosebleeds. Was there anything that could have told us that we might have been dealing with some kind of being?"

Avira contemplated the question for a moment. She had asked herself similar questions following the whole ordeal. "The issue with identifying a common denominator was that the symptoms could all be accounted for with fatigue and stress, and it didn't have the same effect on everyone." She looked around the group. "Due to our current situation, unfortunately, stress-related symptoms are very common among the crew." She wondered how deep her analysis should go for the purposes of this session. "It's also not uncommon for more severe symptoms to show up in times of lower stress since stress hormones suppress the human immune system. Moments of relative calm can easily create waves of illness. Again, especially considering the situation we find ourselves in."

"We need to look at people's mental health," Beth said simply.

"We do." The Andorian doctor nodded in agreement. "However, as I said in our own conversation, Commander, I am ill-equipped to handle such health concerns."

“I know. So I need suggestions from everyone to assist in the mental health disaster we are walking into.” Beth had ideas but she needed to hear from them as well.

William looked around the table before looking back at Avira. "Is there anyone aboard who has a background in counselling," he asked. He knew he had his own issues after the incident, but he was at a loss on what the correct course of action would be.

"We do not have medical specialists with that particular background." Avira then realised something and pulled up Hughes's educational history. "Unless Doctor Hughes followed a similar path to his counterpart in this universe. I've not had time to check this but I'll be sure to follow up with him."

"Can you check that please Commander?" Beth requested Gerhard and then glanced at Avira. "Maybe we will get lucky. But I also seem to remember vaguely that O'Connery was attempting to assist in morale-boosting activities."

William nodded and made a note on his PADD, "Yes ma'am. I'll also check our own records and see if he's listed in our Starfleet database, though there's a possibility that he won't be found there." He then looked back towards Beth, "Ensign O'Connery has mentioned to me her desire to help the crew interact more. I think making her the acting morale officer would be beneficial to the crew."

Beth nodded. Lexi had previously been one of the bright spots on the ship before her accident maybe the extra duty would help in bringing all that back. “Let her know,” Beth said offering a slight smirk to the man.

Tapping a few commands to bring up his readings and the Engineering team's conclusions, Michael cleared his throat. "As we've talked about before. This entity known as Smith was a complete sensor ghost. We did not pick up any residual energy, biomass, trace elements, anything."

Pointing at the screen, Michael brought up some comparison photos of areas where Smith had a known location. The first was the Mess Hall incident. The image showed the crew that had been attacked surrounding a small area devoid of anything. The comparison was the mess hall empty and another full of people during a meal. A few of the other images were set to similar comparisons and included, the nacelle access area where Leyton had been killed, Sloan's quarters where Smith had barged in unexpectedly, and a few other instances of similar sightings.

All of the images had one thing in common, a person-sized hole where no scanning data had been recorded. "That is all that we have. Not just a camouflage where the entity is hidden from sensors, but nothing. The absence of anything."

"So as far as the internal sensors are concerned, he was never aboard ship," William asked for clarification.

"In a manner of speaking," Michael nodded. Pointing to the same blank spots on the sensor output, Michael further stated, "I do have a working theory. If we could calibrate the internal sensors to pick up such holes, we may be able to find him if and when the being decides to come aboard again. In this readout of the mess hall, the atmospheric levels are normal, the temperature is normal, you have a few spikes and valleys of background radiation, and the other crewmates are clearly visible. But, that single spot reads like a vacuum."

“How strange,” Beth said looking at the readings.

Looking to both Beth and Ethal, Sloan said, "And that brings us to Science. How can we tie all of this together, was anything discovered that could help us out here?"

Putting down her PADD and looking at the rest of the group Ethal sighed “I wish I had a concrete reason as to why he was able to ghost the sensors. I have a theory that it could be due to the fact that he was from that other universe. If this is the case then we could adjust the sensors to pick up anything or anyone from that universe.

“Multiple universes. He revealed to the group in the mess hall he had done it many times. Over and over.” Beth said quietly not looking up at the gazes on her. She did not need to meet their gazes to see the shock and disgust.

"Perhaps there could be some way we could prevent him from...jumping...to this universe," William asked the science officer.

Ethal looked at William and smiled. His question gave her an idea. “To stop him from jumping into this universe again would be impossible, to do that we would need to inhibit his ability to jump.” She did not sound sombre about this. “But to stop him jumping back onto this ship, that would be more feasible.”

Ethal looked and addressed the whole team assembled. “Our sensors did not pick him up but we have his jump site, the mess hall. I would need some time in the mess hall to take some detailed scans but he would have left behind a trace, something I could use to make an alert for. When that signature gets picked up again we will know and better yet I might be able to make an inhibitor to stop him entirely.”

"My team made extensive sensor sweeps of the mess hall gathering evidence. I can make that available to you," William offered to the Science Officer

“That would be a great help, thank you.” Reade was not aware to what extent the mess hall had been swept for evidence but then it may be because at the time she would have been in sickbay.

Beth looked at the crew assembled and nodded. They had some type of solution in regards to Smith or whatever he attempted to go by else where it led Beth to bring up what she needed now there was some normalcy to the crew. "So as we all can gather things are changing in the chain of command. Gerhard is now commander and Executive Officer but for you guys, it all means you are full Lieutenants now but with that, I need to set up a rotation for everyone until Gerhard is back to proper duty and able to do more than I need each of you do start doing a bridge watch. I have been doing 20-hour days and my health is suffering." Beth admitted looking truly tired for once.

Not entirely sure what it would mean for her to be promoted since she was officially on loan from the Andorian Imperial Guard. What was clear was that she was expected to pull bridge duty, something she wasn't familiar with. Avira merely nodded. The Commander was clearly burning the candle at both ends and this wasn't the time to bring up this conversation.

Noting Beth's change in countenance, William looked toward Avira. "I don't want to speak for Dr Avira, but I can work on updating our watch schedules for the time being. That being said, I'll be meeting with each of you for an update on each of your departments. We've all been through a lot, and now is the best time for us to take stock and reevaluate procedures," he said while looking at the assembled officers individually.

Beth did not need to tell the man that he was doing nothing more than looking at the schedule until Beth got the full clearance from medical that he was fit for duty. She was pretty sure he was pushing it less than 72 hours after his heart had stopped even with modern medicine. "I appreciate it but as I said I can no longer do 20 hours days so I need everyone to take a bridge shift on a rotation. Will keep all your skills sharp." She added with a wink trying to lighten the mood just a little.

Hiding the relief he felt, Michael simply nodded. Beth had been killing herself and this is just what she needed.

This was big news for Ethal, she was getting a promotion. She was working up the chain of command quite quickly than she expected but then they were in unprecedented circumstances. Despite this, she was willing to take on more responsibility to help the crew.

William caught the wink and smiled slightly before looking at the assembled officers. "Well, as the XO, I can assure you that we won't mess with your adjustments to the centre chair," he said before giving the captain an upraised eyebrow.

"I appreciate it. I have just gotten it how I like it. If there is nothing left to add from anyone I would like to suggest that everyone gets some rest." Beth prompted knowing she was going to be heading to her quarters for a nap.

Hopefully they would do the same.