Soiled

Posted on Wed Jun 14th, 2023 @ 5:52am by Ensign Mei Ratthi & Lieutenant Xex Wang

Mission: On the Road Again
Location: Sickbay, Deck 2
Timeline: Mission Day 2 at 2206

[Sickbay, deck 2]
[Immediately Following 'Anomalous Accidents"]
[MD 02, 2206hrs]

Sickbay's doors snicked shut behind Bridgeport, and Xex was already heading for the processing suite. Before he could get through the doors out of main Sickbay, however, the duty nurse from earlier stepped into his path, seemingly materializing from nowhere as he said, “Doctor, if I may?” The man was a little larger than human average, well-built, and trim beneath his newly-replicated uniform. His long hair, which he wore in an intricate series of twists and braids, was a cheerful shade of green that Xex was beginning to appreciate; like a splash of terrestrial flora in the otherwise antiseptic space of sickbay.

Xex turned his surprise into wry pleasure. “It depends on what you may. Finished with your break, I presume?” he added, with just a touch of bite.

The man was unphased, flashing Xex a smile that was very white in his nut-brown face. “I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with the lieutenant,” he said, ignoring Xex's snort of good-natured rebuke, “and I just thought you might want to know, Ensign Dravor also mentioned a similar phenomenon.”

Xex's attention, which had wandered past the nurse's shoulder and into the next room, snapped back to the man, an eyebrow lifting with interest. “He did, indeed? Walk with me, Gatien. I want to get this sample running.”

Taking the order for an invitation to continue, Gatien fell into step beside the CMO. “The ensign came in shortly after we finished decontamination for the whole crew. He seemed...” Gatien trailed off as they stepped into the processing suite.

Xex placed the sample in a waiting bay and started the analysis. Then he turned, leaning back against the bulkhead and crossing his arms, his eyebrow raised. “He seemed...?” he prompted.

“He seemed very perplexed and his concern didn't seem to be for the phaser hit so much as what it might say about his physical health.” Gatien shrugged. “I ran a neurological scan-- admittedly, not six gamma--” he added with a frown of concentration, “but it came up clean. I recommended he speak with Doctor Bracco, thinking perhaps it was...” he trailed off again, clearly attempting to find the right words.

Xex inserted them wryly, “A mental phenomenon?”

Gatien's smile was startlingly bright in his brown face. “Exactly.”

“Well,” Xex said with a deep breath, “Unless it was a group hallucination, I think we can check 'just imagining' it off the list. Even two people with the same complaint is strong evidence that something was dampening those phaser shots. Having been at the receiving end of the Kazon fire,” he added, scowling, “I think it highly unlikely that the effect was something the Kazon intended.”

Gatien's regard sharpened on the CMO, much as it had earlier when Xex took over Bridgeport's treatment.

Xex chose to ignore this, shoving off the wall and moving past the nurse to the bank of displays. “Captain Kodak didn't mention anything limited about the Kazon ship's phaser fire up here-- if anything, it was more potent than the captain was expecting. Therefore, with the limited data available to us, I think we can conclude that the phenomenon is particular to the moon's surface, do you concur?”

Gatien trailed in Xex's wake, halting when the CMO stopped and turned, asking his opinion. “Seems reasonable,” he agreed with a shrug, “I'm no expert in ship-to-ship combat, but I can tell you those evasive maneuvers lasted long enough.”

Xex shot him a sympathetic glance, then clapped his hands together, rubbing them against one another, then stretching his knuckles. “Right,” he said, a grin half determined, half excited brightening his features, “Then all we have to do is comb through the data the team collected from Shaddam IVa, and see if we can't triangulate on some mechanism for the lack of phaser sensation, and whether it's environmental or physiological.”

“Is that all?” Gatien asked, with heavy irony. Dropping the tone, he added, “Let's hope it's the former. I certainly don't want to see the bulk of our security away team turning up with some kind of degenerative neurological condition somewhere down the line.”

Xex pursed his lips with disapproval. “Thanks for that cheerful thought,” he said dryly and turned to the display. “Computer. Compile all reports from Shaddam IVa. Cross-reference with bioscans--” he paused, tapped a few commands into the display, and then said, “Four-seven Charlie Bravo and two-three Tango Delta.” He paused, the silence lasting long enough that the computer chimed its acceptance and a progress bar appeared on the display. Xex's lips twitched at some internal joke, and he continued with emphasis, “Also flag any mention of phaser activity while moonside.” Another chime and he crossed his arms, staring at the twin progress bars.

“Anything else, do you think?” he asked, glancing aside at the nurse only to find Gatien had turned to a side terminal and was calling up a series of patient files, by the look of them.

The nurse grunted, an acknowledgment of Xex's question if not an answer. A few more quick gestures and he said, “I'm just compiling a list of our recent check-ups. I'll also cross-reference those for any mention of phaser activity.”

“Excellent,” Xex said and with another glance at the progress bars, headed toward the door. “I'm going to grab a drink and make sure Hartree is happy to be available to any comers while we're closeted away back here. Want anything?”

“Raktajino, steamed,” Gatien ordered without missing a beat or looking up from the screen.

Xex mouthed the words in an effort to remember them and disappeared back into main sickbay proper.

When Xex returned, the compilation had completed, the cross-reference was still in progress, and Gatien was surveying a list of names. Juggling two chunky mugs of raktajino, Xex stepped up behind the nurse, running his eye over the short list. He set the mugs down, frowning. “Only three?” he asked.

“Only three,” Gatien confirmed. “But if the phenomenon was as mild as Dravor and Bridgeport described, it's entirely possible others experienced it without knowing. I understand firefights are pretty high stress.” He lifted an eyebrow at his boss, who chose to limit his reply to a grunt of agreement.

“Computer,” Xex said as he set Gatien's raktajino before him, “add scan two nine--” he squinted at the screen, “Papa Whiskey to the cross-reference.” The computer confirmed and the progress bar reset.

Lifting his own raktajino to his lips, Xex reached out and began expanding the flagged portions of the data compilation, some of which were tangentially connected to phasers, and some of which held somewhat more promise. Behind him, Gatien stood and watched over his shoulder, sipping his raktajino.

It was not long before Xex took a step sideways and back to bring them both onto the same plane. Gatien gave him a lopsided smile and pointed, “That one is just the phaser check-out log.” Xex snorted and shoved it to the discard pile. Together, they sifted through the flagged data, highlighting some pieces, discarding others. Their raktajinos were down to dregs when the cross-reference status bar finally filled, and the computer chimed its completion. Xex reached over and shelved that information for the moment, his focus on the phaser data.

“Look at this,” he said, expanding one particular report.

Gatien stepped forward to gaze at it, frowning. “It has no mention of the Kazon in the tricorder description,” he said.

“Ah, but remember, it might not be a Kazon phenomenon. And it does reference 'phaser-resistant fauna.' Let's queue it up,” Xex suggested, suiting action to words. A three-dimensional holographic image of the inside of what looked to be a long abandoned building blossomed into being in sickbay's small processing suite.

A map of the building resolved within seconds, showing two rooms: A large gathering hall with a decaying table and battered furniture in the center, and a series of faded murals and tattered tapestries lining one of the walls. These had the most detail, revealing ultra high-definition details of the old artworks and a much lower resolution picture of the rest of the hall. A doorway led into another room. This one was smaller and lined with bunk beds and broken furniture. Piles of bone lay here and there, though it was hard to say if there was enough information recorded to determine a cause of death. Their arrangement seemed too random to be purposeful.

Xex leaned in, squinting at the bone piles, although he knew this would not change the holo’s resolution. “Interesting,” he murmured, but did not pause the recording. He made a mental note to go back and query the recording further about the bones, if necessary.

A curious scene began to play out, then. Though the tricorder had been set to scan and record the details of sentient habitation and materials, a strange cat-like shape appeared. Xex hadn't set the simulation to show motion of any kind, so it was difficult to tell if it was truly a feline creature of some stripe, or if the blur simply looked like a cat and would appear to be something else if he changed the simulation's parameters.

“What’s that?” Gatien asked, stepping forward and pointing to the cat-shaped blur.

Xex frowned, cocking his head to the side like a corvid trying to study a problem from a new angle. "Well, it sure looks like a cat," he allowed, "And the team was attacked by some kind of feline analog. But I'd rather not draw too many conclusions from a blurry blob. Lemme see if I can--" Xex glanced down at the console and made some adjustments to the simulation, changing both the angle and the settings for motion. Although the recording had not been taken with video playback in mind, he hoped the sheer number of images taken would allow the computer to make an approximation of motion.

"Ok," Xex said, restarting the recording. "Let's see where this blob takes us."

The simulation stopped, then disappeared momentarily as the computer reset it to account for the adjustments, and then reset from where the feline analog had entered the room. The scene juddered for a moment as the resolution rapidly shifted-- Xex figured the person holding the tricorder must have spun around when the feline analog entered-- and with the new information, the images were clearer, though they flicked past like an old-fashioned stop-motion animation film. It showed that the creature hadn't just shown up in the room. It had been chasing a Starfleet officer, and if the vague flashes were any sign, they had been firing a phaser at it. To no avail, as it became quite clear seconds later. That hadn't been just any member of the team-- it had been Booth.

"Well fuck me sideways," Xex said into the processing room's silence. The entire recording had been eerie, played out as it did with no audio, but the appearance of the now-deceased crewman added another level of creepy to the entire scene.

Gatien, shot a sidelong glance at the CMO, either shocked or concerned by his profanity.

Xex ignored him, playing the recording again. He narrowed his eyes at the feline shape, trying to predict where it would enter so that he could focus on Booth's simulacrum and his actions, which did, indeed, seem to include firing a most ineffectual phaser at his pursuers. "Huh," he said, as the feline analogues continued to chase the man into the room. Cutting his eyes to Gatien, he asked, "Thoughts?"

Gatien's generous mouth had thinned into an unhappy line. "What I think is that something chased that unfortunate soul, and either he was a real bad shot, or his shots were ineffectual. Assuming those are phaser shots," he added doubtfully.

Xex grunted, still staring thoughtfully at the recording. Without looking away, he said, "Computer, locate Ensign Ratthi."

Gatien, who had been staring as intently at the recording, now swiveled his head to face Xex, a perplexed expression on his nut-brown features.

The computer chimed and answered, "Ensign Mei Ratthi in her quarters, Deck Five."

Nodding to himself as though this had confirmed some unspoken hypothesis, Xex tapped his new, shiny commbadge. "Wang to Ratthi."

Several seconds passed before she answered. "Ratthi here. What can I do for you, Doctor?"

"Good evening," Xex answered smoothly, dropping the formal tones that had characterized his initial contact. "I'm sure you're very busy, but would you possibly have a few moments to come up to Sickbay and provide some valuable insight into some of the tricordings you took on the moon's surface?"

"Um, well, I'm not really busy right now. I'll be there in a few minutes," Mei replied.

"Excellent, thank you. When you get to sickbay, just make your way back to the processing suite. Hartree can direct you." Xex said, "Wang out."

Where Xex continued to stare at the frozen recording, Gatien was regarding Xex with a sharp-eyed look. When the silence had stretched taught enough to be heavy, Xex, without looking away from the holo image, said, "You may as well spit it out, Gatien. I'd rather clear the air before Ensign Ratthi arrives."

Gatien sighed. "You do realize she was probably off-duty?" Censure snapped his words more than he had probably intended.

Xex's lips twitched to the side in a wry smile and he finally tore his eyes off the holo to meet Gatien's pointed stare. "Do you regard all CMOs as particularly oblivious, Gatien? Of course she was off-duty. It's well into Charlie shift and in any case, she was in her quarters. But this way--" He continued, cutting Gatien off as he opened his mouth to interrupt, "We don't have to wrangle Ms. Ratthi's time away from her CO, yes?"

Although Gatien looked some ways from being convinced by this logic, he chose not to argue further. Instead, he sighed and said, "I'm for another raktajino. Want anything?"

"I'll have the same," Xex said, his expression pleasant, rather than gloating. When Gatien returned, handing him the mug, he had reset the tricording to the beginning once again, and was staring at the piles of bone, attempting to manipulate the image to give him more clues as to the significance of the remains. "Odd that they're just... out in the open," Xex mentioned. "The Kazon are ritualistic by nature-- I would have thought they would have funerary practices of some kind."

"Assuming they're Kazon remains," Gatien pointed out.

Xex grunted in grudging agreement, but was forestalled from further comment by the unmistakable-- and constantly listened-for-- sound of sickbay's doors swishing open.

True to her word, Ratthi walked into sickbay about five minutes later. Her face had that freshly-washed look to it, and her curls were held back with a purple headband. Her commbadge was attached to a loose purple t-shirt, and a pair of regulation uniform shoes poked out from the ends of baggy black pajama pants. "Hi, Doctor. You needed some information about the scans I took?" She bit her lip and glanced down at herself and nervously tugged at the hem of her shirt. "I hope my pajamas aren't a problem."

"Ah, Ensign Ratthi, welcome!" Xex greeted her warmly, turning from the holo and gesturing expansively for her to join them before the image in the air. "Your pajamas are absolutely not a problem," he assured her, "and I apologize for taking you away from your relaxation. I'm hoping this won't take too much of your time."

Gatien's carefully blank expression was perhaps more of a condemnation than any eye-rolling. Xex ignored it.

"This is Nurse Savoir--"

"Gatien, please," the man in question said, holding out his hand to shake Mei's warmly.

"Hi," she said, almost shyly as she shook his hand. Then she turned back to Xex. "So my scans? I was mostly looking at the cultural relics we found there, like the artworks and the furniture. Did you need some additional information about that?" She looked puzzled, like she couldn't imagine why a doctor would be curious about art or furniture after the fact. She looked back and forth between Xex and Gatien, her brow furrowing in puzzlement.

"We've been attempting to work through a puzzle brought to our attention by a few of our security staff who were hit by phasers, yet seemed to suffer none of the damage one would normally associate with phaser fire," Xex explained. "Your report was flagged by our search because you mentioned some phaser activity during the feline?" he glanced at her, as if to confirm his use of the word to describe the creatures, "attack. We were just playing back the tricorder information, but it's difficult to get a clear picture of what was going on. Would you be able to elaborate?"

"Oh." Mei flinched and bit her lip when she looked down at the simulation with its blurry creature and Booth simulacrum. She took a deep breath. "Um, so we were examining the room. I was scanning the furniture and fabrics, and I was about to start scanning the bones, in case there was some cultural context I'd be able to find, and . . . Well, Booth ran in. He was firing at something and yelling at us, and then that-- that creature ran in behind him, and-- and it killed him."

The flinch was not lost on the good doctor, whose silvery features softened with sympathy. Though his first instinct was to reach out and comfort her, Xex resisted the urge, instead stepping back to reduce his physical presence and give her some space to breathe and, unfortunately it seemed, remember.

“I do apologize for recreating this sequence for you,” Xex said in a gentle tone, “Violent deaths are never pleasant to remember, and I wouldn’t ask it of you if this weren’t such a critical piece of information. We really do need to know more about this phenomenon so we can be sure our crewmembers aren’t suffering any neurological damage.” He shot a glance at Gatien, who was regarding him with pleased surprise. He avoided sticking his tongue out at the nurse by a narrow margin and turned back to Mei, the caring sympathy on his face giving way to excited enthusiasm, which he only barely managed to restrain in his tone. “Do you remember if he hit the creature at all? It’s hard to tell from the recording.”

Mei looked up at Xex and gave him a shaky smile. "It's-- it's okay. I think he did? Hit it, I mean. But it didn't do anything. Didn't even slow it down. It just kept coming." She swallowed hard. "Another one came in after that, but they were . . . preoccupied. No one fired on them after that. At least, not while we were in the room. I had my tricorder emit some white noise, in case that would keep them from hearing us while we left. I have no idea if that did anything or not. Lt. Margarar started running, and one of the creatures started chasing her. The other one didn't seem to notice when we left, and once we were clear we started running. I know someone fired at the creature that was after Margarar. I couldn't tell you who, though. I'm pretty sure my tricorder was still recording, but I doubt it would have gotten anything useful. It probably just got a bunch of random soil readings."

Xex's eyes crinkled around the corner as he fought to keep from smiling at this bit of trivia. She was probably right too; tricorders did not know when you were running for your life-- they just kept doing what you had asked them to do from the start.

She tilted her head, eyebrows quirking upward in a look of sudden remembrance. "Dr. Marwol was with us. If he got some readings on those creatures, they might be more useful than what I got. I'd set mine up for anthropological specimens, not local wildlife."

Something complicated happened to Xex's expression, some odd mix of interest and regret, leavened with just a hint of anxiety. "Mmmm," he agreed somewhat noncommittally, of Marwol's data, knowing he would have to ask Gwenwyn about it, and knowing equally that the entire incident had been what had triggered the man's trauma.

At the back of the processing suite, something chimed its completion and stole Xex's attention for a brief moment. His eyes flicked over Mei's shoulder, his expression going thoughtful. "At such close range," he said, as Gatien slipped behind him toward the sample processor, "A phaser blast like that should have at least given pause to any solid, biological lifeform known to us," he said, cradling his elbow in one hand and drumming his fingers against his chin in thought. After a few seconds of silence, his gaze focused in on Mei again. "I'll limit myself to one last question tonight and let you get back to your rest," he claimed, "Although I would be very interested to learn your findings on those bone piles--" Xex cut himself off before he could get sidetracked too far, waving away the bone piles for the moment and manipulating the recording further on in its timeline.

At this timestamp, It looked like Booth was already down, the dark shapes of the felines grouped around him, fortunately too vague to make out what they were doing. The tricorder had been bumped, or realigned or moved completely, for the view was silently askew and the slanting light from some outside source was now lancing across the scene, a wedge of fuzzy light filled with countless floating motes. The tricorder seemed to be having some difficulty filtering out the fuzziness. "This," Xex said, pointing at it, "was the same dust that was outside everywhere? It was inside as well?"

"Yeah. There were places where the ceiling was falling down and dust was blowing in from there, and the furniture had dust all over it, too." Mei's gaze went distant, then she focused on the simulation for a moment before she quickly looked away. "I think the creatures had been sleeping in the room with the bones, or they were climbing on the furniture. I remember the dust was smudged. I'd thought, maybe, it was because some group of Kazon had been there. That maybe this place was some sort of sacred site for them, but it must have actually been the creatures wandering around." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "But back to your question, yes. As far as I know, the dust inside was the same as the dust outside."

"Huh," Xex huffed, his gaze on some faraway hypothesis. When his eyes focused again, it was to hold Mei's gaze, excitement lighting his features. "Thank you for your help, Mei," he said with real gratitude warming his voice, "Your perspectives have been invaluable. I have a few avenues of inquiry to pursue now. Your random soil readings might even prove more useful than you know. Please, don't let us impinge any further on your free time." He gestured grandly for the door, as though inviting his date to pass through ahead of him. "Consider me in your debt," he said, as he walked her toward main sickbay, "I owe you a favor."

Mei raised an eyebrow. "Okaaay? I mean, all I did was answer a couple of questions. I don't feel like I was being all that helpful. But sure? I'm glad I could help in whatever way I did. I'll take another look at the soil readings and see if one of the biologists sees something interesting. It's all dust to me." Smiling, she shrugged.

Xex reached out and touched one of those shrugging shoulders to ensure he garnered her attention, "You took the original recordings," he reminded her, "And had the presence of mind to bring them back and catalogue them. These could prove invaluable-- as might your additional observations," he added.

"Oh. Well okay. I'll keep my eyes open, then. If you need anything else, just let me know. And if we find anything weird in the labs, I'll send the results over to you." Mei waited for a moment as though waiting for Xex to say something or ask another question, but her words seemed to have directed the doctor's attention back to Shaddam IVa and its odd soil. "Well, goodnight, then," she said softly then headed out, the doors swishing shut behind her as Xex stared back into the distance and considered the nature of alien soils.


---

A joint post by

Lieutenant Xex Wang, M.D
Chief Medical Officer

and

Ensign Mei Ratthi
Anthropologist