Untitled Post #666

Posted on Wed Mar 18th, 2020 @ 8:09am by Petty Officer 1st Class Keth Soban & Ensign Sara Chang

Mission: S2:1: Into The Drowning Deeps
Location: Food Court Delta, Medina, Canopus Station
Timeline: MD 3 : 1730

Sara knew that, as she sat there with her bowl of noodles waiting, that Aimee had tried warning her about Keth. Though, Aimee had also said she found the kitten to be an interesting person, cat, man, thing... Anyway there she sat waiting for Keth the seven foot tall, three meter tall if you will, cat man to arrive. The Ensign didn't know what to expect, but she at the very least was a cat person. Cat humanoid? Well, Sara Chang would decide for herself...

If he ever got there.

"Er...hi are you Chang?"

The shadow that was Keth loomed over her, blocking out the overhead lighting of the public food court so that his tabby coloured mane glowed slightly, like a nimbus. He then moved around the table, bumping into the various other patrons sat in neighbouring tables. It was a well-known fact that Starfleet did not design their facilities for Huanni, mostly because most species tended towards a mean height of 'normal'.

"Aimee didn't get a chance to tell me a lot about you, but she said we should have lunch," Keth said as he settled onto his chair.

"Well he's taller than I had imagined," Sara thought to herself through a smile. She didn't remember in any part of her brain that Keth was that much taller. "You can call me Sara," She told him and indicated the seat across from her, "Please sit," She offered with the same level of smile on her face as before. Aimee had told her good luck and she had found herself wondering what that meant, "Aimee mentioned you are a very interesting person," She said, "Though she did say something about you having been assigned to a lot of places?"

"I prefer to think of it as a well-travelled life," Keth said with a nervous smile. "And I like to think I'm an interesting person. But Aimee hasn't told me a lot about you, I mean other than you were also an interesting person. And that's great because interesting people are the best."

"Well," Sara said and leaned back in the chair crossing her arms with a slight grin on her face, "I've only ever been to a couple places before this station. When I was a Sophomore at the Academy one of my assignments was to conduct an experiment on how electrostatic pulses travel through different chemical compounds. I did that sort of thing when I was seven, I got bored, and well the science lab to this day apparently still smells like burnt popcorn."

She snapped her fingers, "And, then there was this one time when I was aboard the USS Okinawa, my previous duty station, when I combined two explosive chemicals with water and Cesium... I don't really remember what happened next because I woke up in the infirmary three days later," Sara remarked. "Other than that I don't know why Starfleet sent me to this station, but I'm really excited to be here you know." She realized she was starting to ramble and stopped talking.

Keth smiled, no teeth this time, releasing a deep nearly subsonic purr of contentment as he nodded along to her story.

"I came to the station following Dr Ingram, he's very particular about the title. And the science work I've been apart of has been cutting edge first-rate stuff. On the USS Odyessy, I was part of a team that helped keep a moon from crumbling to dust when an artificial black hole was being fired at it," he said enthusiastically. "But, then again on the Odyessy, I was Dr Ingram's assistant. So, I did a lot of work chasing down Barney. I think you'd call him a pet of sorts, of Dr Ingrams I mean. Barney liked to hide, and being able to turn completely invisible in the optical light spectrum is a neat trick. Dr Ingram always said he could understand Barney's thoughts better than some Starfleet Admirals. Especially when he uses his tentacles to grab a mop and hit a lab tech."

"What kind of animal is Barney?" Sara asked as she was immediately interested in his story as she continued to eat what was in front of her. 'Aimee was right he is a very interesting person,' She thought to herself.

"A Trill meta phasic cephalopod. Think a two-meter long cuttlefish that can turn itself invisible by pulsing the chromatophores on its skin to the same frequency as the signal pulses in a viewers optic nerve. Dr Ingram was studying Barney because it was able to sync that pulse without ever touching the viewer, though the effect degraded with more viewers watching," Keth said thoughtfully. "I always supposed it was because the nerve pulses of two observers would never be in perfect sync, though Dr Ingram did perform a number of experiments to try to disprove that."

He looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"I think most of them got their eyesight back."

Sara found herself quite intrigued by what Keth was telling her about Barney, "Is Barney still on the station? I would very much like to meet him though I'll probably need some sort of protective eye wear or something of that sort. I do need to be able to see the things I am experimenting on... The people I'm experimenting on... With!" She said and corrected herself, "I mean with."

Keth grinned.

"Dr Ingram has the same verbal tick as well." Keth chuckled. "And no, Barney is back in the AQ at the Shedd Aquarium on Terra. Dr Ingram transferred me back to sciences when Starfleet assigned him a new Yeoman. And it's nice to be getting back into theory work. I mean don't get me wrong, working for Dr Ingram has been the best thing ever. But I like finding things out, opening the doors of the universe and seeing whats out there."

"I enjoy working with Doctor Ingram when he comes to the science lab, he would make an excellent test subject though," Sara said and tapped the base of her chin for a moment in thought. She then shrugged her shoulders, "You know what we need to do... Invent synthetic artificial intelligence drones. I know, I know... Synths are presently outlawed, but that shouldn't stop us right?"

"Well, technically the Long Jump Project is operating outside of the jurisdiction of the United Federation of Planets, as Messier 4 is an extragalactic territory. And Synths are only outlawed with a physical humanoid body. Plenty of non-humanoid bodies to use, I mean engineering have drones they use for hull repairs we could use as a base." Keth mused.

That was all too true, "I wonder how the Captain and Chief Science Officer would respond to a little experimentation in the field?" She asked out loud and without any thought on an answer, "It would be fun working on that... How much cybernetics experience do you have Keth?"

"I have a speed reading index of 6, so I'm a quick study," Keth said hurried, his pupils getting larger and more plate-sized by the second. "And I think it would be best if we come to Captain Ingram with a working model. He's always telling me it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and he'd not tell me something like that if he didn't want me to learn from his example."

"I have limited cybernetics knowledge, but I wouldn't be against studying up on it. We could see if anyone else has made any progress in the field?" Sara questioned.

"Cheif Ricci is keen on cybernetics, just look her arm! I'm sure she'd help us, especially if we're making an intelligent engineering drone. I can't see her not wanting to help us with that," Keth said, his eyes jittering a little from side to side as he thought. "And we could...we could perhaps cross-link a number of basic dumb AI's, allow their heuristic webbing to expand out from their base forms. A sort of networked problem-solving gestalt."

"Then we should talk to the Commander see if she'll help us?" Sarah asked suggestively.

Keth got up.

As he did so, the table came along for the ride, flipping over to the side.

It did this by the bolts shearing off with a metallic yelp of pain, and a startling start from other diners.

"We should go talk to her now."

Keth had learned early on, that when people agreed with his ideas he should get them underway as fast as possible. Before someone asked other questions and found holes that were not there now, but were there then.

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