DNA - Part One
Posted on Wed Apr 29th, 2009 @ 2:33pm by Captain Elsie Halliwell & Master Warrant Officer Sam Jackson
2,472 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
Location: Science Lab, Deck 6
Timeline: Current
ON:
[Deck One]
After Mabren was excused from the briefing, he wasted no time in heading back to the science lab and the results. After the lift arrived he stepped in and called out, "Deck six." After the doors swished closed, the lift began to descend through the small science vessel to the desired location.
Before the lift could arrive onto deck six, the doors opened on deck three, admitting two enlisted members of the small crew. Nodding to the new comers, Mabren stepped back from the entry way and allowed them to enter. After the doors swished closed, the lift resumed its plunge through the small science vessel to deck five, where the newest riders got off. Fortunately no one got on and the lift descended the final deck to the where the Doctor needed to go.
Stepping out of the lift, Mabren walked quickly down the corridor to the science lab; he needed to find those results. As soon as the doors started to open, he called out, "Computer, status on the DNA comparison."
[Deck one, after the staff meeting]
It was a veritable mad dash, as the Archimedes Command staff filed out of the briefing room. Not wanting to get caught in the throng, Larkin hung back and allowed everyone to leave before him. After finally exiting the room, he spotted Commander Lane heading toward the same turbolift. "Commander, I'm assuming you're heading down to the lab," he spoke, jogging a little to catch up to the other man. "Mind if I walk with you?"
"Not at all, Lieutenant," Lane said with a smile. "Can you walk quickly?" he asked, jokingly.
The two practically marched down the corridor to the turbolift, as they approached it, Lane tapped the panel on the door and halted. "Everything okay, Lieutenant?" he turned and asked exquisitely while they waited, listening to the whirring of the pod in the shaft on the other side of the doors approach them.
"Well, sir, I don't mind telling you, I'm a little rattled. Commander Arkham gets shot, we've got who-knows-what brewing down on the planet below, and now there's a possibility that the ships systems might decide to overload. I'm trying to be scientific about all of this, but it's getting hard not to jump to the conclusion that something or someone is working against us." The turbolift arrived, and the men got inside. 'Oh yes, and don't forget to tell him that you think you might be hallucinating and losing your mind,' he thought to himself.
Lane turned to his Chief Science officer, and narrowed his eyes on him. "Do you really think that someone is onboard, tampering with the systems, Lieutenant?" he asked, playing his cards close to his chest.
"Well, like I said, Commander, I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but it all just seems a little too random." He paused, and came at his thoughts from a different direction. "Let's look at this logically. According to Engineering and Ops's reports, we've had something like five or six mechanical...let's call them glitches in the past forty eight hours, at least two of which could not have been caused by anything in the gel-pack system. Now, it's possible that all of these are separate problems, but as the number increases, that explanation loses plausibility, implying that there must be some sort of link between them. As far as we know, there isn't a mechanical link between ALL of the systems involved, so... Forgive my pessimism, sir, but that doesn't leave many possibilities."
Lane simply sighed and pondered the gravity of the truth coming from Larkin. "Agreed, Lieutenant."
[Deck 6, Science Lab]
The computer beeped its acknowledgment of the request and said, "DNA comparison is complete."
"Results," Mabren requested.
Beeping again, the computer answered, "The DNA of Pack Beta-76 has a five percent genetic variance."
"What's the normal variance between the regular gelpacks?" He asked the computer.
"Less than one percent," the computer answered.
"So, how is that possible?" he asked aloud.
"Unknown without further data," the computer answered.
Rolling his eyes at how stupid the computer was, Mabren called out, "Display results." The nearest monitor flared to life, with the two DNA sequences displayed. Watching them scroll by, he knew that would take forever. "Display the genetic variances." The displayed code changed, to that of the changed genetic sequences.
As Lane and Larkin entered the lab, the Trill walked over to his Chief Medical officer, and smiled. "Report, Doctor," he said, as he approached from over his shoulder. "What have we got?"
Mabren had been lost to the world as he looked over the genetic code of the contaminated pack that he didn't hear the doors open or the two officers walk in. Until the CO talked, right in his ear. Yelling in surprise, he turned to the Captain, "Where did you come from?"
Lane merely smiled. After his conversation in the turbolift with Larkin, he wasn't in the mood for humours. "Doctor?" he said, raising his eyebrows.
"Right," Mabren said, "Anyways, the results of the comparison are not good. There is an unexplainable variance in the genetic code of the contaminated pack. And it's well outside of the norm."
"Unexplainable?" Lane questioned. "What is the variance, and more importantly, what can it mean and how could it be caused?"
"A well outside of norm five percent difference between the control and the contaminated," taking a breath, Mabren continued; "With it being a biological system, there is a less than one percent variance in the genetic code from pack to pack. Why this one and who knows how many others has a five percent.
"As to the meaning and cause," he continued, "Well, there could be several. If a pack was already contaminated when it was grown and then installed, the new code could, theoretically, begin to spread through the network. Or there could be some form of virus or pathogen in the packs that is slowly spreading through the network. Either way, bad all around I'd say."
Lane thought for a second, and then brought his hand up to his chin and rubbed the skin. "It seems unlikely that the Starbase would provide us with faulty gel-packs; they have rigorous tests to ensure their integrity, but, we can't rule that out completely. If there was a pathogen spreading through the packs, can we extrapolate where it was introduced? Localise the pack that started this? If we could - I don't know - trace the growth of it back to its origin, we could hopefully come up with the source to stop it."
"The power requirements of the pack we removed were increasing exponentially. We should scan the entire system; if the increasing power requirements were being caused by the pathogen, then the pack that is drawing the most power should be where it originated," Larkin had already moved to a console and begun to set up the scan before finishing.
Nodding, Lane sighed. "Of course. Can we do that from here, though? Or do you think Chief Warrant Jackson can assist?"
"That would probably be for the best, Commander." Larkin became visibly frustrated by some impasse he'd reached in what he was doing. "I only half know what I am doing here, after all." Finally resigning, the CSO tapped his communicator. "Larkin to Jackson. Would you mind joining Commander Lane, Doctor Mabren and myself in Multipurpose Lab 2. We need your assistance."
"Sure, I'll be there momentarily, Jackson out" Sam paused handing over his cryosensor to the crewman next to him. Fortunately for the group in the lab, he had just been down the corridor trying to investigate a drop out in one of the internal sensors. Twenty metres later, he entered the door of the science lab. "What can I do you for gents?" Sam replied tiredly.
No one else seemed to be about to speak, so Larkin offered an explanation. "We need to run a diagnostic of the entire gel-pack system. If our theory is correct, some of them should be drawing more power than they're supposed to; we need to find the one that is drawing the most."
"Okay, a level 4 diagnostic should catch that. It'd only take a handful of seconds. Of course there's no guarantee the gel pack in question will be easy to get to."
"Easy to get out, Chief?" Lane questioned. "What do you mean? Go ahead anyway," he said, waving his hand. "We can jump off that bridge when we come to it."
"Well, bio-neural gel packs run throughout the entire ship and not all of them are in convenient places. It's not a giant issue but we just need to be aware of it."
"Okay," Lane said, understanding his meaning. "Do it anyway, and we'll see where it is, first. Then, we'll extract it should it be possible. Do you need anything, Chief?"
"Just a computer terminal for now sir"
"Proceed, Sam."
Sam moved across the room to the wall panel. "Computer, bring up an orthographic view of the ship's bio-neural gel pack system and then run a level 4 diagnostic on all gel packs. Display power drain results visually on this panel." Sam finished. "It might take a few seconds longer but would make it a lot easier to pinpoint the right pack."
"Running diagnostic" the computer replied.
"And now we wait, should take thirty to forty seconds."
"Waiting isn’t exactly my favourite past-time," Lane smiled.
"Diagnostic complete," the computer then chimed.
Looking at the display, the Trill ran his hands over the feed. Tapping at the brightest point, he turned to Jackson. "Where exactly is that, Chief?" he asked.
"You're going to love this sir. It's in a jeffries tube, between waste management and anti-matter storage, Tube 8-E, pack 12, if I'm not mistaken."
"Now, who wants to go and retrieve that?"
After the Warrant had showed up to help, Mabren just hung back from the group, staying quiet. When the display of the gel pack system came up on the display, his mind wandered off. 'Hmm,' he thought, looking at the diagram he got comparing the systems of the ship to the systems of a person. 'The computer system of course is the central nervous system. Sensors are sight and hearing. Waste management system is the digestive tract. The plasma relays could be the circulatory system. Propulsion could be muscles. But that's not the way muscles work.'
As he was thinking on the comparison, Mabren unconsciously tilted his head to the left and his eyes followed, ending up staring at the floor. 'Propulsion, propulsion, propulsion,' he repeated to himself, trying to come up with a comparison. When a pair of feet crossed in front of his view, he snapped out of his reverie. "Huh? What?" he asked, glancing at the faces of the others and then to the diagram with the results. "Crap," he said.
"Doctor?" Lane questioned, looking at him.
"Well," Mabren started, "I was just thinking that we could replace the contaminated gel-packs with what stores we have onboard. But unfortunately, we don't have the luxury. We only have 37 extras onboard, and that," he pointed to the result, "Looks like way more than 37."
"Most likely" Sam paused "If there is enough of the right type of biomatter we could make some more but it would likely take weeks and we don't have that much time, the ship will be inoperable long before that."
"Also, there's the added problem that it may be difficult to discern how far this 'virus' has spread through the system," Lane interjected. "It was undetected before, and who knows how long it has been onboard before it manifested itself."
Mabren thought a moment, "It's possible, with the originally infected gel-pack, we should be able to figure out a way to counteract whatever is causing that." Again, he gestured to the display.
"Doc, it might be a good idea to find out if this virus is susceptible to any radiation. Gel packs are pretty resistant to a lot of types."
"That's a good idea, Sam," Lane said, tapping his finger on the panel before him. "Doctor?" he asked. "Maybe we should first retrieve this pack and go from there. I'd do it myself, but I'm due on the bridge shortly," the Trill smiled, purposefully betraying the lie that command afforded him.
"Right," Mabren said, "first things first. I think Petty Officer Gena Forbes could get down there and get it."
"All right. Sounds good to me." Flicking his combadge, Lane said, "This is the Captain to Petty Officer Forbes. I need you to head to Jeffries tube 8-E and retrieve gel-pack 12 for me. Bring it to the Multi-purpose Lab 2 down on Deck 6 when you have done so."
A slight stammering could be heard on the other side of the com-transmission. "Uh – Tube 8-E, sir?" she quivered. "Isn't that – uh – near to the waste-management system?"
"It is," Lane said with a smile. "I'm impressed with your systems knowledge. Quick as you can, Forbes. Lane out."
If the Trill had left the channel open a second longer, an expletive would have been heard uttered under her breath.
Twenty minutes later, the door to the lab slid open to reveal and not too impressed Petty Officer. She composed herself, checked her anger and wiped the strand of greased hair that languidly hung over her brow. "Sir," she said handing the pack over, fixing her eyes onto him.
"Twenty minutes?" he asked, a slight, sadistic smirk quivering across his face.
"I had to get a spare to replace it, sir." She replied, slightly trembling with a hint of unadulterated rage.
"Good timing then," he replied, receiving the pack. "Get yourself cleaned up, Gena, then head down to the mess. You can have an hour's break before returning to your duties."
"Thank you," she managed, underneath a smile.
"No, thank you. Dismissed."
Turning to the officers assembled, he placed the pack down onto the table. "So, what have we got here then?"
When the Petty Officer walked into the lab, Mabren looked back and then quickly away and had to do everything he could not to laugh. After she left, he took the gel pack from the Captain and headed over to the microscope. "It'll take some time to figure out. We'll need to run complete analysis of it."
"Of course. I shall leave it to you, then," Lane said. "Carry on, and I'll be on the bridge should you need me."
With that, the Trill nodded and took his leave of the science lab, making for Deck 1.
OFF:
Commander Coltan Lane
Commanding Officer,
Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Class Sam Jackson
Chief Operations Officer,
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Gustav Mabren
Chief Medical Officer
AND
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Kevin Larkin
Chief Science Officer
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