[USS Suffolk] USS SUFFOLK:New Detectives...old crimes.
- From: "JEFF MURPHY" <sovereign5@xxxxxxx>
- To: gibxfor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:00:20 -0700
SD 140621.1500
md 70.1309
*** Sphere surface ***
** GANGES crash site **
Mary watched as the form of Ian Dunross shimmered out of sight. In the back
of her mind, she always knew Ian was 'too' smart to work well with Star
Fleet, but she never thought it might lead to a result like this.
But in his defense, he did have valid points. But even Mary knew you NEVER
debated with an XO... no matter how right you thought you were.
These Star Fleet types were big on 'Chain of Command'.
Grommar had been very insistant about pointing that out to Mary when she
recieved her 0-3 pips a month ago.
"There's a time and a place to be right...in the field is not the time." he
said over dinner the night before she reported to the SUFFOLK.
Lt.Cdr St.Ives turned to her after Dunross was gone. Mary recognized the
look of controlled anger on her face, but was amazed at the young woman's
self control.
'Now SHE has the perfect temperment for Star Fleet.' she thought to herself
as St.Ives continued forward toward the shuttle hatch.
The two Security ratings were on 'extra alert mode', Mary could see. Looking
in as many directions as they could at once. Mary suddenly wished she'd
brought a phaser, even though she was not very proficient with one.
What bothered her more was that Ens.Orentes had died before her eyes, but
her tricorder only barely registered a change in BIO signs. And even that
was questionable at best.
She paused as she played back the reading indicators. Running the
Cromatigram again and again. Nothing. She re-tried infared... no change...
Ultra-violet.. no change... there was a slight echo on the motion sensors...
but again, nothing that conformed with any known database file.
She had heard people on board talking about 'sensor ghosts'... she was
starting to believe them.
She finally looked back up to the rest of her party, and something odd
caught her attention on the corner of the hatchway. She could see just above
Commander St. Ives was somthing that should not have been on a Star Fleet
shuttle.
Cobwebs... big ones.
Depending on when the ship crashed, the local aracnids should not have had
time to make webs that size... she moved closer, her tricorder taking in
every bit of information she could think of.
The problem with having Degree's in Chemistry AND Biology... almost EVERY
LITTLE THING was interesting in one way or another.
Mary knelt down and opened up her field kit, senors were good... physical
evidence was better. She tweezed one of the masticated insects from the
web's little collection area.
It amazed hers still as as she removed the arachnid it's self and placed it
a collection jar... 8 legs... thorax..., big abdomen... even all these Light
years away from Earth... a spider was still a spider. Although this one's
lime green coloring made it look much more exotic. It was still just a
common tree spider.
"Something interesting Lieutenant ?" Cmdr St'Ives voice startled Mary as she
came up behind her as she collected the samples.
Mary jumped slightly as she turned to face the red headed XO. She adjusted
her glasses, as she always did, the presented the spider to the ships first
officer.
"This spider ma'am." she turned it for a different angle of instection.
"What about it?" Ivy asked, somewhat confused.
"A ship that travels through space... i.e...a shuttle craft... DOES NOT have
cobwebs. The speed and temperature would never allow it to exist in the
vacume of space. So, it has to be an indiginous arachnid...but... the ship
has not been here long enough for a spider to build a web that large OR
consume as many insects as this one has.
Unless this species needs 20 times more food than any other arachnid in this
quadrant... but I'll need to run tests back on board to determine that..."
she trailed off as her attention drifted to the spider inside the container.
"How does that get us closer to finding the lost officers ?" Ivy asked.
Mary shrugged as she placed her samples in into her field kit. " Not sure...
but then again.. that's the way science works... I'm not even sure I have a
theory yet. Even if Von Friedurg and his party died, we SHOULD be detecting
bio-signatures of some sort. Dead or alive, DNA does not lie and does not
walk away on its own. If they are out here in this mess, we should at least
be able to pick up a DNA sign." she pulled her tricorder back out and ran
another scan. Then showed it to the XO.
"See ? Not a thing. Just ours. And one deceased terran in the shuttle."
Mary raised an eyebrow as she looked to Ivy.
"Yes... the pilot...a Midshipman on a his last year... must have been
assigned to the the EUROPA as a final exam." Mary thought for a moment there
was emotion in the XO's voice, but again, the younger officer's mental
fortitude took over and her professional demeanor kicked in.
"I need to see the body." Mary said quickly.
"It's pretty advanced in the decomposed stage..." Ivy offered.
Mary paused and almost had a grin on her face. "Commander, I don't know how
much you know about about me...but I've spent the last decade of my life
studying how people die in space... I've rather gotten used to dead
bodies...I'm probably more at home with them than Doctor Dunross is with
4000 year old mystery ruins." she smiled a genuine smile as she turned and
entered the shuttle, moved carefully past the Master at Arms, who was trying
not to experience a reverse peristaltic moment.
Upon the seeing the body, even Mary had to admit it was a horrific sight.
The young man was slumped forward in the pilots seat. His forhead embeded in
the flight control console. The pool of blood had long since turned brown,
and dependant lividity was already fading. Leaving the body a pale shade of
gray, with purple bloches where it was sitting and touching a hard surface.
His hair was a tangle of dried blood which had adheard itself to the panel.
"Dead more than a week at least." she stated with confidence. Not even
taking a reading yet.
"EUROPA hasn't been here that long." St.Ives pointed out.
" Maybe not, but HE has." Mary pointed to the dead pilot. Finally opening
her kit on the other side of the panel, away from the body. "Just let me get
some samples before you transport him."
"Can't you get that on the ship ?"
Mary gave the XO a look that indicated she clearly thought she had lost her
mind. "No... any foreign matter will be destroyed in transport... the
Bio-filters won't allow anything through... they'll automatically sterilize
it." She didn't mean to sound like EVERYONE should know that. But upon
reflection, that's how it came out. She realized too late how it sounded,
then turned sheepishly back to collecting her blood and tissue samples.
Placing each one in a sterile container.
Her tricorder was running on the console as she worked, and after securing
the samples, she retrieved the tricorder,checking the readings.
"See... right here ?" she handed the tricorder to St.Ives.
The XO read over the information on the machine, set for BIO readings.
"Is that a DNA strand I'm looking at ?" she asked.
"Yes. But It's not human... which actually means nothing... could be Vulcan,
Klingon... any species of the Federation really... all I can say is that it
is not his." she pointed to the pilot. " Would have missed that if he'd been
transported." Mary observed.
"Commander." the Master at Arms 2 called from the back of the runabout.
Ivy moved back the the storage unit in the rear of the ship where the
enlisted security specialist was. " Yes ?" she asked simply.
"There's two EVA suits missing from the locker according to standard Star
Fleet protocol. The CO can alter the manifests... but why would he ? If the
ships stores are right Ma'am, there are two suits not accounted for." The
rating informed her.
"Commander, I am getting faint traces of DNA from the locker door... and
they are consistant with Captain Von Frieburgs file DNA pattern." Mary
anounced as she too moved toward the rear of the ship.
"Finally, SOMETHING that gets us closer to finding him." Ivy let herself
sigh ever so slightly. " Now we just have to figure out what all this
means."
Respectfully Submitted
LT. Mary Alexander Ph.d
Chief Science Officer
USS SUFFOLK
********************************NRPG***********************************
Better late than never right ? :)
Amy, I hope I got Ivy right. Feel free to throw large sea fearing mammals at
me if I was too far off the mark.
Hope this moved us along at least a 'little'.
I'll try to post more often, but work's been a bit greedy as of late.
Sean Murphy
"I drank what ?"
Socrates
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