The Struggle Is Real... Sometimes

Posted on Tue Jan 7th, 2020 @ 6:45pm by Captain Benjamin Ingram Dr
Edited on on Tue Feb 4th, 2020 @ 11:00am

Mission: S2:1: Into The Drowning Deeps
Location: Canopus Station, Captain Ingram's Office
Timeline: MD 2 : 11.00

Aimee Paulsen had found herself thinking back a lot to the accident from time to time. It had been more than two years since that foolish damned transporter chief really messed her life up. She couldn't return there... Not again, but as she made her way from her quarters up to the Captain's office all she could do was think about it. Imagine being thirty years old, but looking like a thirteen year old girl. Now imagine trying to be a Counselor to a crew who had never seen what she looked like as an adult. That had to have been the ultimate insult to her and had almost ended her career.

Her mother...

Her mother had wanted her to come home to recuperate after the accident had happened. Now here she was on a station so far from home that she hadn't heard from anyone in her family for some time. The memory of a time when she had to go to the Quartermaster for the ship and ask for a new uniform after it had become apparent that she would never again be adult size. Her voice was effectively stuck at the tone for a thirteen-year-old girl. Take the last counselling session she had for example...

A young Ensign was having marital issues and so had submitted their request for an appointment. Her aide thought it would be 'hilarious' if the Ensign was to go straight to the Chief Counselor for the station instead of seeking one of the more junior Counselors that had been assigned there. The Ensign, at first, couldn't stop laughing once he had seen her. Then he wondered how he was supposed to take advice from a thirteen-year-old who was 'playing Starfleet'.

Her life was miserable. Yet, Aimee was determined to not let them win even if it meant being utterly stubborn and occasionally behaving as a girl her assumed age would act. As she stood outside of the office for the Captain she wondered which personality would come out. Would it be the thirteen-year-old or the thirty-year-old? She reached up and activated the chime... There was only one way to find out.

The door hissed open quietly to reveal the glass-walled office of Captain Benjamin Ingram. Out beyond the transparent aluminium that enclosed all three walls apart from the one, she walked through was the tiered controlled room of Station Operations. The main holographic system display floated in the air above the work stations, showing the navigational icons for the few Starfleet ships patrolling the Carpathia system.

Captain Ingram sat behind his black onyx desk and made a gestural command to the holo display that made it turn foggy and indistinct. He did seem to be looking down at her, but that could have been a height thing even from a sitting position. He made a gesture to the chair in front of the desk, a plain utilitarian affair replicated from generic stock matter. It looked uncomfortable because it was a chair designed from the first atom up to be uncomfortable.

"Welcome to Messier 4," Ingram said dryly. He turned to regard the holo display again, his side clearly not obfuscated by the privacy fogging. "Huum...I'd have thought you'd be assigned somewhere more suitable. A long-range expedition to the furthest frontier seems something of a waste for someone with your unique circumstances."

"Frankly," Aimee began while looking towards the Captain, "I made the same comment to the Personnel Officer when they assigned me to this post. My suggestions fell upon deaf ears though," Aimee told him rather calmly. "The Commander that I dealt with at Starfleet Headquarters disregarded that request and sent me out here whilst informing me that for starters it would be good for my career... And, finally the Commander mentioned having a strong dislike for you.

"He didn't go into details, mostly because I didn't ask, about why he disliked you of course," Aimee continued to tell the Captain. "The Commander thought it would be hilarious to send you a Counselor who, in his humble opinion, shouldn't even be allowed to remain in Starfleet. Shortly after telling me this I left his office and heard what seemed like uncontrollable fits of laughter."

"Huum," Ingram said noncommittally. "I'd like to say that alone narrows down the list of fools who could have assigned you here, but I do not make it a habit of making a list of those I deem to be uniform warmers. I am, at my core, a scientist. And as such the results are all that matter in the grand scheme of things. I'd have thought assigning you to Starfleet Medical would have been the more prudent course of action. To understand the process by which your unique situation could be replicated in a controlled fashion."

Ingram stood from his chair and tapped an inlaid control on his desk. The glass walls polarized to obsidian black, illuminating the office from the light strips in the ceiling.

"But we are here, and given travel back to the Milky Way is currently inaccessible until the construction of a second Phase Space Accelerator can be completed, we are stuck with you," Ingram tapped at his display screen, and the wall behind him began to populate with personnel files all marked with the seal of the Star Fleet Marine Corps. "Tell me, have you had any dealings treating patients who suffer from extreme psychosis?"

"Because the doctors back at Starfleet Medical believe that I cannot age sir?" She questioned him. Then Aimee waved her hand and turned around so that she was facing away from him before he could have the chance to answer her question she moved past that, "I wouldn't want anyone to ever end up like this Captain," She told him with an amount of confidence that seemed almost impossible for someone like her. As far as Aimee was aware nobody in the history of forever had ever ended up like her. Sure there were 'incidents', but those had been fixed by a zealous Doctor who had understood the situation better.

Aimee's case was entirely different because the Doctor's had never been able to fix her situation and so she was stuck as a thirteen-year-old girl, or at least in the body of one, with nothing anyone could do for her. Two years had lapsed since the accident aboard the USS Wincott and while she did agree that Starfleet Medical would have been more prudent she did not agree that she needed to be experimented on to replicate something that Starfleet Science and Starfleet Medical failed to grasp.

Aimee turned back around after her line of questioning in order to view the personnel files that were now displayed. She had to crane her neck in order to see them, which was something she had grown used to by now. "I've had experience with patients suffering from extreme psychosis. However, Captain that was in a controlled environment and something tells me that this will be a different situation entirely." Aimee looked at him, "Why do you ask? What is wrong with these people?" She pointed her index finger towards the personnel.

"As part of Phase Two of the Project Long Jump, Canopus Station was launched via the Alpha Phase Space Accelerator in three modular sections. Due to the nature of Phase Space travel, the exit point was scattered across several light-years. The Command Module carrying the bulk of the Stations personnel arrived in Carpathia. The Service and Engineering modules that would allow for long term habitation exited Phase Space five light-years from here, in what we now know to be the Xilos star system. Both Service and Engineering modules were manned with skeleton Starfleet crews but were guarded by over two-thirds of our Marine contingent. Including Lieutenant Colonel Sytex. Upon arrival, the caretaker crews of the modules can broadcasting a low-level subspace distress call, and in doing so picked up a weak FM signal from the surface of what was thought to be a Demon Class world."

Ingram made another gesture, and a larger image imposed itself over the personnel files. It was a view from a ship's hull camera, showing the caramel coloured orb of a planet with complex wind and cloud patterns. What could be seen of the surface looked barren, and looked somewhat poisonous. A straight line of impact craters worked up the sulphur-yellow coastline of a continent.

"Colonel Systex sent a Marine landing party in full battle dress to the surface to investigate the transmission. Whilst there they encountered a structure left behind by a race called The Concordance, a temple by design but whose purpose is quite sinister. It is believed that during this away mission one or more of the Marines were exposed to a highly contagious fungal infection," Ingram sighed. "Alas even with a short incubation period of three hours, it was time enough for the infected Marines to return to the Engineering Module and infect the entire contingent. Relief teams from the Service Module were similarly infected when they tried to retake the Engineering Module. In short the fungal agent enters the brain, causing short term aggressive tendencies and irrational behaviour. During this phase, it is highly susceptible to the bodies natural immune functions, but in the process of consuming the infection, a self-organising carbon nanotube structure is left behind. This conductive material begins to rewire the brain's sensory function, connecting the regions of the brain associated with tribal hierarchy and religious devotion."

He waved the picture of the planet away.

"To the point of the matter, all of the Marines currently assigned to Canopus Station bar a single platoon that was on station aboard the Command Module were infected. This seems to be a common Concordance tactic for recruiting their foot soldiers, converting a population to their banner before burning their world. Each Marine is convinced we are their enemy, a rationale that for some of them is chafing badly with training and upbringing. They know we are Starfleet, but if we release air from a common crew compartment into the sealed isolation wards we have them in, they go into a frenzy. We no longer smell right to them. We are no longer 'their kind'."

Aimee had listened closely while taking multiple mental notes on the situation. The Captain was right in that these marines were suffering from an extreme form of psychosis though she needed more information to go off of before being able to really determine how she would deal with them. "Are they still contagious or has that stage passed?" She asked and crossed her arms over her chest while looking just past him at the screen where the personnel images had been. It was the first of many questions and she did have several come to mind, "Do we know of any means by which we might return them back to their old selves?" She asked next. Her eyes returned back to the Captain after the second question.

"At this time we're not certain. The fungus outside of a host is hardy, prone to spreading like grey dust. We had the entire Engineering Module fumigated with low-level plasma remove the infection risk. At the moment we are treating it as a Level 4 Biohazard: bio-suits and negative pressure containment. The Xilosian's have a patch that can pick up the blood markers of the infection, it's how they were able to screen their survivors before sealing their bunker," Ingram made another gesture. The image changed to a live holographic feed, as though another room had attached itself to the clear glass side of Ingram's office.

in the hologram was a sterile white isolation room, with a single biobed and the swan-necked medichines holding court behind it. Two doctors in red bio-suits and headgear stood to either side, looking over their shoulder as the room's computer system alerted them to the intrusion.

On the bed was a young man, barely twenty years of age if a day. He was unconscious, his hair cut short in an approved military buzz cut. The bio readout above the bed read as deep unconscious, yet his hands and legs were retrained by padded cuffs.

"Private 3rd Class Truman. Of the infected, he was the youngest, and according to our files the most physically fit. He was selected by our medical team as the most likely to respond well to any removal procedures," Ingram reached out and pressed an icon on the glass wall. "Doctor? Allow me to introduce our new Chief COunsellor. She has some questions concerning a possible cure or treatment regime."

The Doctor, a Bajoran with ginger hair whose fringe poked out from the edge of the helmet's visor, looked at Ingram and then spent a hard two seconds looking at Aimee. He seemed caught somewhere between questions and more questions.

"Doctor." Ingram prompted, an edge to his voice.

"Ah...yes. Yes of course," he said slowly. "I'm Dr Vissla, Head of Viral Studies for the Canopus Expedition. Without going into to much detail about the procedure we attempted, it seems the nanotube implant constructed by the fungus has some sort of tamper failsafe built-in. We attempted to excise part of the implant, in the hope of breeding a strain of medical nanomachines to digest it. But upon contact with the medical probes the entire implant began to show signs of an unregulated thermal overload. We cut off contact and extracted the probe, but the heat bleed from the implant caused significant damage to the surrounding neural tissue. Standard stem line printing has repaired that damage, but he has yet to regain consciousness. We assume similar procedures with the other infected might result in similar failsafe measures."

Aimee had caught the strange look in the Doctor's eye that she had seen with so many others before. She ignored it and once he had concluded explaining to her what had happened to the Marine Private that was laying on the bed she began to tap the base of her chin. Her arms remained crossed as she considered what had just been explained. "You may want to try and locate the fail-safe with the implant?" She suggested with a relative quietness to her voice. "Another option..." She turned her attention away from the Bajoran Doctor and towards Ingram.

"Another option would be to attempt to break the programming initialized by the implant on the brain. Is there any evidence that the aliens responsible for creating that thing function as a single hive mind?" She asked while waving her hand slightly before lowering it back down over her arm. "There are also numerous methods in which to break the mental programming without the removal of the implants," Her gaze had returned back to the Bajoran Doctor.

"Has anyone tried communicating with those affected?" She asked.

"Dr Bansen, one of the on-call doctors in the medical centre, tried to talk to one of them," Vissla said. "I think they had a personal relationship before the Expedition launched. Took two security guards to subdue the Marine he'd been talking to after she'd broken his neck."

"Thank you Dr Vissla, that'll be all," Ingram waved a hand and the hologram vanished to leave the wall of personnel files. He gestured back to the uncomfortable chair, and walked to his own.

"We've only met the Concordance in person once, a trade team encountered at The Sleepers Bazaar, a sentient trading market in the very broadest of terms. What we saw was a radicalised military theocracy comprised of multiple species, all of whom thanks to the infection implant, have the same religious fixation. It seems the Concordance's belief's help give common cause to familiarity the implants provide each infected person, making 'devils' of the rest of us," Ingram sighed. "A lot of the Marines infected are treating their confinement in our Medical Centre as being prisoners of war. Name. Rank. Serial Number. Some throw in a hodgepodge of religious iconography, but for the most part just three phrases. They only seem to become violent when they know they are close to an uninfected, or we release unfiltered air from a common area of the ship. One theory being the implant is tapped into the sensor nerve bundles, a biological IFF."

Ingram smiled.

"Of course that was a doctor in a bio suit. One has to wonder how they might react to, say, a small child? One with the faculties and mental acuity of a Starfleet Officer and an adult?" Ingram mused aloud. "Strange how such a soul landed here upon the stoop of my command like a gift from the Gods, were I to believe in such common nonsense."

Aimee had sat down immediately after the chair had been indicated she then listened to the Captain explain to her what he understood to be the given situation. Even she had to admit that she was curious as to how one of the infected would react to her and Aimee did know how to play up her appearance, though she despised doing so. "I can play up the child," She admitted while tapping the base of her chin in thought, "I would have to change into civilian clothes though I doubt they would react any differently to me in a Starfleet uniform as they would any other member of Starfleet."

She looked up after a moment, "If you would allow me to Captain I would like to talk to one of the infected in a controlled environment... At least as controlled as we could make it?"

"I'm sure one of the medical isolation wards can be outfitted for the cause. It might take a day to outfit and secure it. Time enough for you to stow your gear," Ingram said. He then paused. "We also have a visiting delegation from a group called the Reciprocity of Carcosia. A sapling civilisation born from evacuees who fled the Earth/Romulan War of 2160. Humans, Vulcans, Trill san's symbiotes. If you happen to run into any of them whilst you are getting your feet under you, I'm ordering you not to identify yourself as a Starfleet Officer unless absolutely necessary. They might say more around you then they will around more traditional Fleet staff."

She raised her brow, it seemed that Captain Ingram had numerous uses for her. She shrugged her shoulders, "I can do that I suppose though I'm going to feel weird about it." She told him. As for the other thing it didn't take much consideration, "A day is plenty of time to prepare myself for time with one of the infected." Aimee stood up, "I'm going to go do just that," She said next then proceeded to depart from the Captain's office to head towards her own.