The game is afoot?

Posted on Tue Feb 25th, 2025 @ 11:39pm by Lieutenant Irynya & Lieutenant Commander Victoria Cross & Andrew Munro

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Location: Deck 2 BioLab and beyond
Timeline: Mission Day 25 at 1000

Making her rounds in Deck 2, Victoria kept her eyes glued to her PADD, looking over various efficiency reports and data of the various departments. As her patrols continued, she received a notification of an synthesizer error within the Biolab, drawing her attention to there.

Entering the lab, she peered around for a moment to catch her bearings, and waved to Dr. Munro.

"Doctor Munro, I've received an automated report that something's affecting the synthesizer systems in here? Has anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary or any problems?"

Leighton looked up from when he heard the voice of Commander Cross. He had been summoned to the biolab as he was the diagnostician on duty at the time for what had been reported as a possible lag in the biolab's analytical computers. He had just opened up the main ODN conduit junction box when the commander entered.

"Commander Cross," he said as she looked towards his direction. "There was a separate report about a possible lag in the new LCARs system for the analytical computers here. I was the duty diagnostician, so I arrived a few minutes ago, but this is the first I've heard about another problem with the synthesizers," he said giving her an equally puzzled look as Doctor Munro appeared.

"Commander," Andrew greeted as he approached. "I started a job on the enzymatic synthesizer a few minutes ago, but I haven't had a chance to check on it yet. It's just over here."

"Mr. Romanowski, Dr. Munro, a pleasure," she inclined her head to the two men before following Andrew.

He led her across the lab to the far side, where a red light blinked ominously on the machine's control panel. Inside the reaction vessel, a thick, unpleasant sludge—dotted with crystals—had formed.

Andrew frowned, exhaling slowly. "Yeah... that's definitely not right."

Victoria squatted somewhat to peer - from a safe distance - away from the sludge and crystals, unbuttoning her service uniform enough to cover her mouth and nose with the flap of her collar. "Crikey, that is most assuredly not right. Looks ... organic? But what organism creates crystals like this? Could it be a reaction to the synthesizer components?"

She pawed at her hip for her tricorder and scanned the goop, her bright blue eyes darting to the readout as it came to be.

The goop, for all that it appeared to be sludge, seemed to undulate for a moment before returning to its inert sludge-y state giving nothing more than the impression of a synthesizer malfunction despite the strange appearance of movement just a moment before. It was such a minor movement that it could easily be missed. The tricorder chirped as it completed its scan -- the elements on the screen registering merely as those that Munro had been working on and no more.

Across the room another flicker of... something... shunted across the ODN relay before disappearing coinciding oddly with a strange flickering of the console's display which stabilized nearly as quickly itself.

The flicker caught her peripheral and drew her attention, eyes wide. "Uhhh. That's strange! That's not something that uh, that's not something that happens." She took a characteristic long stride to the ODN relay, and scanned it with her tricorder. "What do you lot make of this?"

The readout was, indeed, unusual, but only insomuch that it was identical to the readout she had taken for the console Munro had been working. Had she been scanning the exact same area she might have expected as much, but to have it replicated identically, down to the point where instead of registering a scan of an ODN relay it clearly indicated that the scan had been of the synthesizer.

"Uh." A thousand thoughts raced across Victoria's mind. She would quickly holster her tricorder and begin typing away at the console, running a complete systems analysis and check, or at the very least initiating one. She would turn to her crewmates. "So, I'm not quite sure what just happened, but I think it's related to the goop. I think maybe we should isolate the computer networks in the BioLab, unless you have any objections. How long has this goop been present?"

"It wasn’t there when I started the job," Andrew said, tapping a few buttons on the console to bring up the command log. "That was twenty-five minutes ago." Despite the precision of his words, his tone betrayed uncertainty. His brow furrowed as he studied the screen.

"Wait—this is weird," he said, his voice rising slightly. "My job is the only one logged recently, but the failure was recorded two minutes after it started. And look at this—power consumption increased when the synthesizer should have been idle."

He stepped aside, gesturing for the others to take a closer look at the log. "I’m no engineer, but that seems like a lot of power to draw for some automated diagnostic-on-failure process."

The spike in power was indisputable. So much so that it was surprising that engineering itself hadn't been alerted and sent someone to investigate. Cross's duplicate record indicated the same information, though it was unclear if that was an accurate reading of the ODN relay or a malfunction of the tricorder that she had been using.

As if in recognition of their discussion another power surge began to cycle through the ODN relay and the synthesizer at the same time, the goop seeming to undulate in the synthesizer in a way that, now, was unmissable and would have been comical were it not alarming to encounter any change like this when no one had restarted any of the synthesizer's halted processes.

Andrew raised his tricorder, determined to scan the pulsating goop while it still writhed. Carefully, he configured an active biological analysis, his fingers steady despite the growing unease. The moment he initiated the scan, however, something darted from the goop to the tricorder—a shimmering streak, faster than his reflexes could counter.

The device's readings erupted into chaos. Indicators flickered with contradictory data, their signals overlapping in nonsensical patterns. The display burned brighter, almost searing in its intensity. Before Andrew could react, a sudden jolt surged through the tricorder, sending a sharp shock up his hand. He yelped in pain, dropping the device as it clattered against the toe of his boot and skittered noisily across the floor.

From within the synthesizer what had bene undulating goop seemed to shoot out of the space, landing with a splat next to Andrew's tricorder. It seemed, for a moment or two, like a simple puddle of goop, but then it seemed to pull into itself, edges rounding and a something that vaguely resembled a head -- barely more than a bubble-like blob at the top of the goop -- perked up and seemed to look from side to side. It held still for the briefest of moments and then, without a second thought, rolled over the tricorder and seemed halfway to ingest it... or to try to at least, subsuming it completely resulting in an awkward and bulky tricorder-esque shape creating an outline around the middle of the larger part of the blob.

"Computer!" Andrew barked, his voice tight with urgency. "Seal the lab. Level 10 containment field."

The faint hum of the containment field activating sent a shiver through the air, followed by the computer’s composed confirmation: "Containment field established." Only then did Andrew release the breath he'd been holding.

The blob, mere feet away, quivered in response, its surface rippling with unsettling fluidity. It loomed between them and the rest of the lab, an alien barrier that seemed both aware and indifferent. Andrew's tricorder was somewhere beneath it, swallowed by the amorphous mass. His hands twitched, instinctively seeking tools he no longer had.

"If we can get past it," he said, keeping his voice low and steady, "I’ll reduce the containment field to cut it off from us." His gaze remained fixed on the blob, tracking every shift and pulse.

He tilted his head slightly toward Commander Cross, just enough to signal he was speaking to her, but his focus stayed locked on the entity. Was it reacting to them, the containment field, or something else entirely? The uncertainty prickled at his nerves, and every quiet moment felt like a question waiting for an answer.

"Smart thinking with the field. Ahh, shit," Victoria murmured under her breath, keeping her eye on the blob, though teaching behind her to literally grab Andrew by the sleeve on instinct to protect her crewmate, keeping herself between him and the blob as she approached the wall furthest from the entity.

"Slow and easy does it. Neither of us need to venture into the infirmary today, mate."

Think, Vickie, think! THINK!

She unholstered her phaser, removing the small, pocket sized Type-1 component from the pistol, and configured a sequence in the defense weapon that essentially cooked the phaser's emitter with a stun array, creating a buzzing handheld stun gun that would last for a few moments.

With no other ideas, she hucked her phaser at the opposite wall behind the entity, hoping the energy emissions from the few seconds of activation would draw the entity's attention and give them time to run. Thank goodness Victoria had long legs for running.

The blob had grown, it seemed, by swallowing others. The mass of goop that had been on the ODN relay had separated in the midst of the hubbub and joined the one with the tricorder. And then another, from within a console and then from between the very tight edges of deck plating and then another until the creature was, roughly humanoid in size. It still looked blob like, though, with its smaller blob head which watched almost curiously as Victoria's adjusted phaser arced through the air towards it. With the kind of curiosity a dog gives to a thrown ball it followed the arc with its sightless head and then, too quickly, turned back and seemed to shuffle, if a glob without feet could shuffle, closer to the team members. It seemed to lean expectantly in their direction and waited.

"Well, shit." Victoria muttered, looking to Munro. "Hey, so, I have other ideas, but they require fire suppressants, so what do you suggest? It appears to be a gel- but let me try something first."

"Hello?" She waved to the blob, then have a Vulcan salute. "Maybe it's sentient, like a slime worm or something?"

From throughout the comm system within the bio lab a high pitched child-like voice spoke. "Hello?" It asked in a near perfect copy of Cross's inflection though the much higher tone of a child. "Maybe it's sentient, like a slime worm or something?" It's blob head tilted from one side to another as if considering and then the comm system added, "What is slime worm?"

"A slime worm is a type of amphibious lifeform, capable of changing shape to fit it's environment and the like. Do you mean to cause us any harm?" Victoria asked, showing her hands to the blob. "I'm quite sorry for throwing my phaser first and not asking questions, I was worried about my colleagues, you see. New to the job."

For a moment, at the showing of the Ops Chief's hands, the creature seemed to tense, scooting backwards just the tiniest bit before stopping. Cross's explanation seemed to puzzle it so that it merely tilted its head again, holding that position for a long moment before positing another question. "What is harm?" It asked, still childlike, "And what is job? And phaser? And..." here it drew out the word as if sounding it out... "col-lea-gue-s?"

Victoria listened for a moment and stopped to consider her actions. She tapped her commbadge. "Ltc. Cross in Biolabs to Sciences. If we could get a xenobiologist to Deck 2, I think we may have a stowaway worth investigating."

"I'm Vicky. Vic-ee. I am a hugh mann. What do you call yourself? Do you have a name?

"Vic-ee," the blob repeated, "hoo min."

Although Cross had heard the responding chirp of a comm channel opening it took a strangely long moment for any reply to come and when it did the message was garbled.

Bi--abs, Sci... 'er... P... eat, over.

The blob seemed to be listening as well, suddenly honed in with whatever sight or other sensory elements it had on Cross's commbadge.

Victoria scratched her chin in thought. "Well, Mr. Munro, it seems we have a mystery on our hands. What do you suppose we do with our little stowaway? It seems to be interfering with radio communication, if I could hazard what's going on. I think this is going to require more study."

Before Andrew could even begin to formulate an answer the blob, given ever so temporary a reprieve in their alertness chose that moment to move. It was shockingly fast for something that seemed to move half by rolling and half by oozing. Green gelatinous creature slipped quickly to the side and then, finding the still open ODN relay, made a break for it.

It was there, and then it wasn't, leaving the crew assembled to investigate it at sudden loose ends just as the clear voice of the chief scientist on duty cut through the comms.

Biology labs. This is Science. What was it you needed?"

=/\= A blob encounter by =/\=

Lieutenant Commander Victoria Cross
Ops Chief

Ensign Leighton Romanowski
Ops Officer

Andrew Munro
Biologist