Tholian

Posted on Sat Apr 4th, 2026 @ 3:36pm by Lieutenant Bailey Good & Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Irynya & Lieutenant Axod Qo & Lieutenant JG Theodor Wishmore & Ensign Mei Ratthi

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Sickbay (Deck 2)
Timeline: Mission Day 22 at 1900

[Sickbay]
[Day 22]
[1830 Hours]

Noah Balsam was sitting up in the biobed, his lanky body curling toward his raised knees. The pale skin of his chest and arms was cool and a bit clammy while a nurse scanned him. Their hand rested on his back, instructing him to breathe deeply, hold, and then exhale. His dark eyes blinked while he checked a look over at the nurse and then Irynya. He was leaning on one hand while his the other rested over the concave space of his sunken chest.

Doctor Xex Wang had been called for, but was indisposed with a summons. With a smooth pivot, the nurse had called for Doctor Wishmore to attend his new patients. "Blood pressure is... 142 over 67 and coming down... heart rate 116..." The nurse reported. "Keep breathing, Ensign..." The nurse stated before moving over to Lieutenant Irynya.

At the nurse's approach, the Risian, too, squirmed into a sitting position. The movement gave her a momentary bout of dizziness and she dropped her hands to either side of herself, steading herself on the biobed a moment before pulling her feet into a lotus underneath the light blanket. She, too, was missing her shirt, but must have been well enough that no one had felt it necessary to remove the sports bra she'd been wearing -- a dark band of fabric that wrapped around her chest.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," she said with a humor that didn't quite reach her voice at the nurse's approach. Her own eyes shifted to Noah, taking in the timed rise and fall of his shoulders and chest. Mentally she did her own inventory of him as if she needed, once again, to make sure he was all there.

The doors parted with a muted hydraulic sigh.

Dr. Theodor Wishmore entered already rolling his sleeves back, tricorder in hand, gaze moving first — posture, pallor, respiration, compensating mechanisms. Two patients. Upright. Pale. No visible trauma beyond the faint trace of dried blood beneath Ensign Balsam’s nose.

“Doctor Wishmore,” he said simply, stepping to Noah’s bedside. “Let’s have a look.”

The tricorder sweep was methodical — respiratory rhythm, cardiac output, neurological overlay. “Blood pressure’s trending down,” he noted evenly. “Heart rate elevated but not unstable. Keep him breathing slow.”

He angled the scan toward Irynya without requiring her to move. “Mild orthostatic response. Not unexpected.”

He narrowed the parameters.

“Trace isotopes present… sulfur oxides, methane, ozone.” A fractional pause. “Not consistent with station air.”

The scan deepened — cellular stress markers, radiation bands.

Chronitons. Tachyons. Fermion radiation.

He rechecked calibration. Confirmed.

A subtle fluctuation rippled across the quantum variance display.

“Run a continuous quantum variance monitor,” he instructed the nurse. “Real-time logging. Flag even fractional deviation. Start mild saline infusions for both — slow rate. Let’s ease the cardiac strain. And add a clotting panel,” he added, glancing at the dried blood. “Rule out pressure-induced rupture.”

Only then did he lower the tricorder slightly.

“You’ve been here about forty-five minutes. Your vitals are stabilizing. That’s good.”

His gaze lifted between them — steady, grounding.

“We’ll keep watching the numbers. In the meantime… tell me the last thing you both clearly remember.”

Irynya glanced at Noah as if doing so might put some part of what she remembered into a reasonable narrative. It didn't work, but she kept her eyes on him all the same, narrating to him more than to the new doctor whom she hadn't yet met.

"Umm... We were in a simulation room on the station. And there was a Tholian... I think... They weren't in a suit. But the program was on Tholia and..." she frowned, trying to piece together the order of events. "I think the Tholian was telling us something. Or maybe teach us something? They wanted us to identify ourselves and..." the crease in her forehead deepened as the memory returned more fully the way you might watch something surfacing from beneath water. "Noah collapsed. And then... it was... I don't know. There were all of these things in my head and the pain... it wasn't like anything I can explain... and... I tried to get to Noah and... I don't remember what happened after that."

She gave the new arrival an appraising look before shifting to something more apologetic. "I'm sorry. I don't know if that counts. The last... like... non-bizarre thing I remember is the shark in the underwater program." Another glance to Noah. "A... bull shark?"

Words were bandied and Noah's knowledge of it was limited. But he latched on to a few that could affect ship's systems. Quantum- subatomic particles. Quantum signature... variance? Wait why were they... varying? Noah, who'd risen high on his hands, had a troubled and perplexed look. He scratched the hollow delta shape of his pectis excavatum. "Umm..." Irynya had begun a good list. "Y-yeah... bull sharks... that weirdly didn't stop when we asked if the safeties were on. I asked the, um, computer to take us anywhere else."

Axod was still assembling the fragments of the situation in his mind. The summons had been frustratingly vague. Little more than a request for his presence and an implication of urgency. It left him walking a narrow line between professional composure and restless curiosity.

He maintained his usual purposeful stride as he arrived at Sickbay alongside Lieutenant Good, his posture straight, movements deliberate. The doors hissed open, revealing a space alive with quiet intensity. Medical staff moved with practiced efficiency between biobeds and diagnostic stations, their voices low but urgent, the air carrying the sterile scent of antiseptic and charged equipment.

Axod slowed just enough to take in the scene, his eyes moving from one controlled motion to the next, searching for context where none had been offered.

With a rare smile, Bailey Good had swung in to Sickbay with the Counselor, a few paces behind- enough to appreciate the sublime nature of his rear. But she pressed that aside. She could have a moment- but she had been, of late, waist depth in the weird politics and stonewalling of Pathfinder Station. Her searches and widening network of request had been frustratingly... vague.

She schooled her face back to her normal stoicism- until she set eyes on Noah. "Oh. Balsam. Again?" She breathed in and out.

Mei entered then, her eyes fixed on the PADD in her hand though she deftly walked around the obstacles in her path before stopping behind Wishmore, then waited, her gaze still on the information in front of her. She glanced up now and then, catching Irynya's eye once and offering her a quick smile, then looking down again. When a lull in the conversation happened she spoke, softly saying, "Sorry, I'm getting familiarized with the Tholians. I'm not like an expert on their culture or anything. We talked about them in a couple of classes at the Academy, and that's about it."

Noah looked at Doctor Wishmore and then to Mei, nodding. "Umm... the computer took us to this planet. In a forcefield. And um..." His eyes narrowed. "Like... how you'd think standing on Venus might feel if you dropped to the surface below the aerostat stations." His mouth opened and closed a few times like he was half ready to speak and then pulled back. "Crying... babies? And an arm flailing around because it got electrocuted..." he rubbed the side of his nose, his fingertip pushing against the corner of his tearduct. "Tunnel vision? Tasting um... burnt toast?" He looked again at Irynya.

He looked at Mei next with a glance at the Doctor, "It insisted on knowing our designations. When I said my name it said it was irrelevant. But when Ir- the Lieutenant-" He nodded at Irynya, "Said our positions, it seemed to... hit us with this."

"Right," Iry agreed, also addressing Mei. She smiled appreciatively, glad to have the scientist there while they tried to work through what happened. Familiarity or not, she had no doubt Mei was someone who could help draw reasonable conclusions, at the very least, based on her areas of expertise. "It... said?... 'learn'. Or something like that? I don't think it actually vocalized, but I heard that word. It's like... I don't know... like it was putting things in my head that I was supposed to know what to do with, but they were all without context or even words to make sense of it. Like... at one point I could have sworn I was watching stars go through their entire life cycle from birth to death.

"That makes sense, given that they're said to think in images," Mei said. "What's weird, though, is that they need a much hotter environment than what we can stand, but there you all were, just in a room together. It would make sense if you'd seen a holographic projection, but holograms aren't exactly telepathic. Unless something really weird has happened." Her brow furrowed and she tapped a finger against the edge of her PADD. "Do we have a chemical analysis of the holodeck? That burnt toast scent might have been some kind of pheromone response or another mode of communication. If there are other chemical indicators, it could help us build on what little the database has on Tholian communication methods and their language."

Iry frowned and she looked from person to person, hoping someone might be able to answer Mei, and more hoping that the answer would be yes. Surely there would be traces of... something... left behind. She tried to piece together more of what she remembered, thinking maybe there would be something... A flickering forcefield in burnt orange tending toward red and then back to a brighter tone clicked into place in her head. "We were," she said quickly before the thought was lost, "in a forcefield of some kind. Or... well... I could feel it was hot, but in the spot we were in... there was some kind of dome around us. It was like a deep orange red. I think that's why we were able to stand the heat. Maybe..." she looked to Noah to see if he agreed, but knew at this point that the next thought was a long shot, "... could the simulation room's safeties have created that for us?"

Her frown deepened when another connection hit. "But... that wouldn't make sense for the Tholian. I... I don't think they were in one of their suits. But they weren't outside of the forcefield."

Qo watched quietly as Noah and Iry spoke, their voices blending into the low, constant hum of the ship. ‘Tholians… why did it have to be Tholians?’The thought landed heavy in his mind, equal parts disbelief and weary recognition.

He drew in a slow, deliberate breath, holding it for a moment before letting it escape through his nose. His arms folded across his chest—not in defiance, not in anger, but as an anchor. A simple, physical reminder to remain present, to remain steady. The posture gave him something solid to hold onto while everything else threatened to feel uncertain.

Bailey, silently, emerged from the background of the situation. "I'll make inquiries in to the Sim Room logs... and see if we can find anything."

Qo's gaze drifted between them, attentive but guarded, his expression carefully neutral. Inside, however, his thoughts moved with far less restraint, racing through possibilities, risks, consequences. Tholians were never simple. Nothing about them ever was. “How are they?” He asked, genuine concern in his voice.

“They’re stable,” Theo said, tone calm but reassuring. “Shaken, physiologically stressed — but not in danger.”

Noah blinked and raised on his hands to adjust a leg. "Wuh what do you mean we have tachyons in us, Doctor? Aren't tachyons um..." He glanced at the surrounding. "Subspace particles or something?"

A frown creased Iry's forehead at Noah's question. She glanced at him sidelong as if doing so might somehow elucidate everything. But, of course, you can't see tachyons with the naked eye. Another mild wave of vertigo hit her and her hands dropped to her sides again, fingers wrapping the edge of the biobed so she could press the pads of her fingertips into the familiar material. She closed her eyes, but that made it worse, pulling a small quiet gasp from her before she opened them again and tried to find a fixed point to stare at.

Theo’s attention shifted immediately to Irynya when her breath hitched.

He stepped closer without crowding her, one hand bracing lightly against the edge of the biobed so she had something solid within reach.

“Easy,” he said quietly. “Keep your eyes open. Pick a fixed point — there.” He nodded toward a steady diagnostic panel across the room. “Slow inhale. Hold. Now out.”

He adjusted the biobed’s incline by a few degrees.

“Let’s flatten that orthostatic response before it worsens.”

The Risian followed the instruction, staring at a point on the panel until everything else around here blurred and her breathing began to reset into a normal rhythm. Whatever had happened, she dearly hoped the vertigo would pass soon.

Only once he was satisfied her vitals weren’t spiking did he glance back to Noah.

“Yes,” he answered evenly, tone measured. “Tachyons are subspace particles. They don’t belong in human or Risian physiology.” A beat. “The levels we’re seeing are low, and trending down. That’s important.”

He kept his voice deliberately calm.

“What concerns me more is the combination — chronitons, tachyons, fermion radiation. That’s not random contamination. It’s patterned.”

His eyes flicked briefly to Mei at the mention of Tholians, not deferring — just inviting.

“You both described non-linear sensory input. Images without words. Overlapping phenomena.” His gaze returned to the patients. “Burnt toast. Crying infants. Stellar collapse.”

A slight narrowing of his eyes.

“Those are neurological responses to stimulus, not hallucinations. Your brains were processing something.”

He straightened a fraction.

“Did either of you notice a metallic or copper taste? Or any distinct scent beyond the ozone you described?”

His thumb adjusted the tricorder’s scan range again.

“And when it asked for your designations — did the physiological response begin immediately after Lieutenant Irynya identified your positions?”

He wasn’t interrogating.

He was building sequence.

"Y- um... yes... sort of a metallicky taste... or like... burning toast." Noah attested.

“We’ll keep you both under observation,” he added, voice steadying the room rather than commanding it. “Right now your quantum signatures are slightly out of phase, but they’re returning toward baseline. That suggests whatever interaction occurred… has ended.”

A subtle glance toward Qo.

“At least for the moment.”

Irynya spoke up, but her answer held a degree of uncertainty. "Yes. I there was some kind of metal. I just thought it was something in the program. Or... well... honestly I didn't give it much thought at all. It hurt too much by then. And there was another scent. But I don't know the name of it." She glanced at Noah hoping he'd be better able to help. "Kind of like cookies?"

Noah twisted his mouth. "Burnt toast is as close as I can get.... or burning wood." He confirmed.

Axod drew in a slow breath, letting it out through his nose as he settled himself into stillness. When he spoke, his voice was gentle but purposeful. “Alright,” he said softly, grounding the moment with calm intention. “I’d like you to walk me through the interaction from the beginning. Slowly. Take your time, anything you remember could matter.”

He shifted his stance so he could meet each of their gazes in turn, careful not to favor one perspective over the other. His attention moved between Noah and Iry with quiet, steady focus, an unspoken reassurance that both accounts were equally important.

From the pocket of his uniform he withdrew a PADD, activating the recording function with a practiced motion. He held it loosely at chest height rather than between them, making it clear the device was a tool, not a barrier. “I’m going to document this so we don’t lose anything to memory drift,” he added, his tone transparent and reassuring. “Start wherever it feels clearest. I’m listening.”

He inclined his head slightly, posture open, waiting without pressure. The silence he allowed was intentional , space enough for truth to arrive on its own terms.

Noah slow blinked and did a box breath. "Ok. Um. We'd been in the simulation room for... maybe half an hour." He glanced up at Qo as the Doosodarian paced around. His eyes caught Bailey Good's as she leaned against the wall, also watching. Her expression was unreadable. But like Qo, she was recording- in her own way. "We were in a... uh..." He squinted his eyes. "Underwater sim. With whales. And a shark. We were talking about the whale probe..."

Noah looked at Irynya. "Then... that was when the shark made its pass toward us... and-and we identified it as a Bull Shark, right?"

The Risian nodded, picking up the thread Noah had begun to unravel. "Right. The shark... I don't know. It was just alarming. Really quiet and," she glanced back at Noah again, "you even checked to make sure that the safeties were on. I remember the computer confirmed it." She frowned. "The shark kept coming and ... It was probably fine... But... I think we were both just ready to do something else. The sim rooms are... More believable even than our holodeck. I knew the shark wasn't real, but jt felt really real. So... We paused the program and then Noah asked the computer to take us anywhere else."

Frowning, Irynya tried to remember exactly what had been said, but the words escaped her. She shifted to look again at Noah hoping for a correction or addition if he remembered anything differently.

"It felt real." Noah agreed. "And... we asked if the safeties were on. And the computer said yes but it didn't feel like it. Then we changed scenes to.. um..." He gestured a finger roll at Irynya, "Anything... And it dropped us in this odd... place. And the feeling was it was a simulation... uh... probably... of something like the surface of Venus. You know. The programs you can go to places you'd never see." His dark eyes searched the space in front of him, akin to him searching his mind palace. "There was a force field... and a weird... uh... crystal fortress on the horizon. It felt really hot but like... like the heat you might feel if you reached in to a dilithium chamber but had protective gloves. Like... um... if you didn't have it, you'd be crispy."

Again Noah looked at Irynya first, and then to Bailey Good, who gave a slow nod. Noah blinked and watched for Qo's next pass. The man had an oddly comforting smell.

The exchange of glances had the effect of passing the baton. Iry offered Noah a small smile, wrapping her arms around herself. For good or ill Sickbay was kept colder than was comfortable for her in next to no attire. The deep rooted desire to curl up in the warm fuzzy blanket from her bed struck hard and fast. The space between the two biobeds felt huge as well. She sighed and nodded her agreement. "Right. It wasn't any kind of forcefield I'd ever seen, but then I assumed the simulation had taken us somewhere unfamiliar and thus the technology was unfamiliar. The sky was... I don't know if stormy is the right word, but it's what I keep thinking. There was a lot of lightning and clearly some sorts of lava... or... you know... heated metallic floes. The fortress was really really far away. We weren't sure if we were meant to try to get there, and were trying to figure out what we should do next when the Tholian appeared."

Her face screwed up into a frown as she tried to remember. "There might have been a sound. Or like... a shift? Something about them arriving. And then they were standing in the forcefield bubble with us. At least I think they were. Maybe the simulation made that possible?" She gave her head the tiniest shake. No. They'd already discussed that part. "Umm... anyway, they were... beautiful. In a really alien way. Their body was all sheer faces and crystalline. It... it glinted. Reflected the light. I remember they were hard to look at. And they asked us for our designations."

Ax nodded as they spoke, his attention shifting between Noah and Iry while the small recorder on his PADD captured every word. He kept his posture relaxed, but there was a sharp attentiveness behind his eyes, the sort of focus that came from years of learning how small details could matter later.

He made a small adjustment to the PADD in his hand, angling it slightly as if to reassure himself the recording was still active. The faint indicator light blinked steadily. “Alright,” he said softly, more to guide the rhythm of the conversation than to interrupt it. He let their explanation finish before continuing. “And how did you respond to that?” He asked carefully.

The question was gentle, but deliberate. He tilted his head slightly, inviting them to continue while giving them the space to remember the moment clearly. “Take your time,” he added, his tone calm and steady. “Even small reactions; tone of voice, body language, anything that stood out can help us understand what was really happening in the moment.” The PADD remained poised in his hand, the quiet hum of its recorder continuing to capture the unfolding account as Ax waited for their next piece of the story.

"Well... once, um, we got past that they wanted to know our Starfleet jobs not our names... " Noah chewed his lip. "That's when the images started coming. Burnt toast and something metal... smell... um." His eyes narrowed. "Crying babies... an arm jerking back like it was electrocuted. This weird... tunnel vision..." His brows popped. "Vertigo... uhh... sort of felt like time was moving strange. I felt... maybe a little cold?" Noah looked at Irynya.

"This is interesting," Bailey Good piped up. She had been hovering at the back with a PADD. Now she approached. "The Simulation Room terminates its runtime when it detects no active users. At 1640 hours, the Sim Room did its ten minute scan. Balsam and the Lieutenant's life signs weren't recorded." She handed Qo the PADD first. "Two anomalous life readings only... not verifiable. Too much interference. Enough that the room shut the sim down."

Theo’s gaze shifted toward Bailey as she relayed the simulation room’s report, his expression sharpening slightly as the timestamp settled into place.

“1640,” he repeated quietly. “So the room stopped detecting them, not just the program.”

His tricorder chirped softly as he narrowed its scan band, following the implication of the data rather than the device itself.

“That aligns with what we’re seeing physiologically,” he continued. “Chronitons, tachyons, fermion radiation — all trending down, but enough to interfere with standard life-sign detection.”

His attention returned to Noah. “When you say you felt cold — was that the environment, or internal? Like your body temperature dropped suddenly?”

"Umm... bohhhhh.... both?" Noah had to consider, squinting an eye in thought at the Doctor's question. "Here..." And he sort of patted at his chest...

He angled the tricorder toward Noah’s neck and wrist.

“Nurse — add continuous core and peripheral temperature monitoring. And run a blood gas panel on both of them. If there were atmospheric irritants involved, that could be amplifying the vertigo.”

Then, to Bailey, with the same calm efficiency: “If you can pull the Simulation Room’s environmental logs for the full runtime window — atmosphere composition, holomatrix integrity, power fluctuations — anything it recorded before it stopped registering them.”

"I'm on it," Bailey took the suggestion as action. "As soon as I get my PADD back." She smiled a subtle quirk of a smile and eyed her PADD.

Theo glanced briefly to Mei, the invitation subtle but clear.

“The scent descriptions may not be metaphor,” he added. “If Tholian chemical signalling was involved, matching it against whatever trace compounds are already present in their blood might give us a direction.”

He returned his attention to Noah.

“After the images began,” Theo asked gently, “did either of you try to speak and find you couldn’t? Any muscle locking, jaw tension, or difficulty focusing your eyes?”

"Uhh..." Noah looked at Irynya. "I don't... remember trying. But more like it didn't...." He frowned again. "It felt like... in my head... I was maybe thinking... telepathy... or..."

A brief pause.

“And when you say time felt strange… do you remember losing a moment entirely, or was it more like the room itself felt delayed?”

Noah was reduced to silence. His shoulders stiffened and he pushed his hands in to the biobed to feel grounded. He finally shook his head, "I-I don't know."

He let the room settle before finishing in the same steady tone.

“You’re both improving,” he said. “But if the station couldn’t verify your life signs, we treat this as an exposure event until we understand it.”

Irynya had listened to the questions, but hadn't answered. They'd been directed to Noah, after all, and it gave her time to think. Now, though, she piped up. "Exposure?" she asked, a tiny bit of new anxiety curling about the tone of her voice. "As in, something went wrong in the simulation rooms environmental controls?" She had the odd feeling that might not be what the doctor meant, but then she couldn't think of any other explanation.

Theo caught the concern in Irynya’s voice and shook his head slightly.

“Not a systems malfunction,” he clarified gently. “When I say exposure, I mean your bodies reacted to something unusual — radiation signatures, possibly chemical signals. Nothing we’re seeing suggests it’s ongoing.”

He glanced briefly at the tricorder display.

“Your readings are already trending back toward normal. At the moment this looks more like your nervous systems processing an intense stimulus than any environmental failure.”

The catalog of her own answers to the questions finally crystalized into speech. "When the Tholian appeared it felt like I had to look at them. I don't know if I actually had to, but it was... I didn't want to look away, but also kind of did. It's hard to describe." She glanced at Noah then, finding the combination of emotions that welled at this last thought more than confusing. They were urgent -- an echo of the fear of losing him that she'd discovered on the Kordra Lisrit -- and she wished, again, that they weren't so far apart. "Noah fainted first. It... I think maybe it talked to him first? But when he dropped I tried to reach for him. I could move, but... not really much. It was like pushing against something thick. Mud... or... I don't know... it wasn't solid, but it was certainly difficult to move. And I remember my ears hurt. Like stabbing. At one point I felt like I couldn't look at anything else. Other than Noah, I mean. And my hand. I don't remember anything after that."

Something beeped off to the side of Iry's biobed, a small warning strobe indicating elevated heart rate and breathing. She closed her eyes and focused, breathing her way through an irrational well of panic.

Theo’s attention shifted immediately when the alarm sounded.

He stepped closer to Irynya’s biobed and muted the sharper tone with a quick touch, keeping his voice low and even.

“Lieutenant, look at me a moment.”

He waited until her eyes opened again before continuing.

“Slow breath in… hold it… now let it out.”

The rhythm was deliberate.

“You’re safe,” he said quietly. “Your body’s reacting to the memory of the event, not the event itself. That can happen after a neurological overload like the one you described.”

His tricorder hummed softly as he rechecked her readings.

“Your heart rate’s elevated, but nothing dangerous.” A small reassuring nod followed. “Just keep breathing with me for a moment.”

The Risian nodded, following along for another round before murmuring, "I don't like tight enclosed spaces. And... this felt like that a little." It was more attempt at explanation than anything. All the same a swell of embarrassment washed through her. It was hard not to want to withdraw when that kind of anxiety took hold. What was it that Noah said when he was feeling the threat of of overwhelm? Something about an ocean, she was sure, but she couldn't pull it immediately to mind. Instead she gently reached up to tap at the spot behind her ear that he'd taught her about. To this day she didn't know if the move was actually physiologically effective for a Risian, but even if it was only a placebo effect, it was worth it.

The breathing continued, though, eyes focused on the man in front of her. The crest began to release, dying down until she at least felt as if she had control of the sensations and feelings. "Sorry about that," she murmured, finally.

Theo gave a small shake of his head and a soft smile.

“Your body just reacted to the memory of the event. That’s normal,” he said gently. “Whatever helps you regain control — use it.”

He nodded slightly toward the spot behind her ear she’d tapped, then glanced at the monitor as her readings steadied.

“You’re doing fine, Lieutenant.”

The mention of Iry’s aversion to enclosed spaces immediately caught Axod’s attention. He took a quiet step closer to her, setting his PADD aside so it wouldn’t sit like a barrier between them.

His gaze softened as he studied her for a moment, part clinical assessment, part simple concern.

“Irynya?” he said gently, his voice lowering a notch. He didn’t crowd her, leaving enough space that she wouldn’t feel cornered, but close enough that she wouldn’t feel alone in the moment. His posture remained open, shoulders relaxed, hands loosely at his sides. He wanted to be sure she was okay in the moment. There was a lot happening.

The Risian fixed the counselor with small appreciative smile. Her eyes, though, held a bit of the lingering anxiety and dropped from Qo's face to her hands where they where entwined in her lap and then up and across the space to Noah as if his state was a grounding force in the moment. Another deep breathe in. Held. Out. She could feel her heart rate slow. She gaze returned to Qo and then to Wishmore. "I think I'm ok," she said quietly. "What else do you want to know about the encounter?" A shift in her posture allowed her to take in Good and Mei as well, extending the question to them.

"Burnt toast, crying babies, an arm jerking back like it was shocked." Mei frowned down at her PADD. "Burnt toast. . . According to what we know of Tholian pheromones, the burnt toast scent signals urgency. There's nothing on the metallic scent, though maybe we could start to speculate if we knew what kind of metal it was. Iron's different from aluminum and whatnot. But I'm wondering what the shocked arm and crying babies are all about. We don't know a whole lot about the Tholians, but do we know how much the Tholians know about us? If one or more of them are reaching out and trying to communicate with us, they'd want to use imagery that we would understand. Or at least imagery that they would assume we would understand."

She looked up at Irynya. "Did you get any sense that they wanted something? Like if they wanted you to help them or something? A sense of urgency added to their asking for your 'designation' could– possibly– indicate they were looking for someone to help them. That's all speculation, of course, but we have to start somewhere."

Axod lifted the PADD again, ready to capture the next part of their account. The device rested lightly in his hand, the recording still active as he waited for their response.

Even so, his attention wasn’t fully on the screen. His eyes drifted back to Irynya, watching her carefully, quietly checking that she was still steady after her momentary panic. The glance wasn’t intrusive, just a subtle reassurance that she hadn’t been forgotten in the process of documenting the event.

Satisfied for the moment, Ax gave a small nod, signaling they could continue.

"Just... a weird sense of urgency... or..." Noah winced at his word choice. "Almost like... hungry? Hunger?" He added.

"Urgency or hunger. Huh." Mei's brow furrowed as she thought it over. "Hunger or urgency. Or both? And what if it's not hunger, like a desire for food, but hunger like a desire for something else? Emotions are some of the hardest things to translate between cultures that are radically different, even for empaths. So we have a Tholian reaching out to you– maybe not you two specifically, maybe you were just the ones in range– because they needed to connect to another sentient being. Why? Who knows? We don't have the pheromone receptors to understand the scents, and without more context clues it's hard to decipher the message."

She looked back up at Iry, then at Noah. "But from what you've said, I don't think they had a hostile intention. You were hurt, but it may have been unintentional, just a result of whatever force caused the connection in the first place. Granted, I could be wrong, but I think the results of your encounter would have been different if the Tholian's intentions had been hostile."

Noah absorbed that, and nodded. It... he didn't remember ever feeling threatened. To think on it now. Brows knit. And maybe Ratthi was right, that Irynya and he had just been a convenience. "Yeah... but why? If um," Noah furrowed his brow again. "Do Tholians just... talk to us biologicals? If they did why not just walk up to us in a hall? Why try and what they did?" Why hunger, why so much immediacy and... need. "Why are they sending us feelings that feel... empty or... lacking or..." The hand jerking back in his mind came again. "Pulling away... flinching? Crying babies?"

"I don't know," Mei said with a shrug. "I can't do anything but guess about their intentions from this one little data set. If they try to make contact again, we might get more information or have some real communication, but right now your guess is as good as mine. Probably better, since you two were the ones the Tholian talked to. The best thing to do right now might be to let you two rest, and I can input what you've given me into the ship's database and see if there's anything else there that might give us more insight. If they don't contact us again, though, we could just have a weird little mystery on our hands with no other answers."

Axod bit down lightly on his lip, his gaze drifting from Noah to Iry, and finally settling on Mei. The edges of his own focus had begun to blur, the fatigue of his own condition draining his usually vibrant energy.

He exhaled through his nose and lowered himself onto the edge of Noah’s biobed, the motion careful, almost deliberate. Even seated, he kept the PADD raised, fingers steady despite the fatigue as it continued to record.

Even in Noah's compromised state, as Axod sat on the edge of his bed, Noah swooped his legs away to make room. He leaned close and put a hand on Qo's back. "Hey. Are-are you ok? You looked really dizzy for a second." Noah's worried dark gaze lifted up to Wishmore and Mei. "Doctor?"

Bailey too went in to motion. "Lieutenant," she said in a tilting up tone to get his attention. She didn't block Wishmore, nor anyone else.

On the biobed opposite, Iry's attention, too, had shifted to the counselor. Her gaze followed his movement to Noah's bed and her eyes narrowed slightly in concern. But she didn't move. Nor did she speak. Here, in Sickbay and a patient herself, she felt dramatically out of her depth. Could whatever they'd experience affect others? Did they need to be quarantined? She fought a temptation toward anxiety again, refusing this time to let it gain any foothold lest she draw attention away from Qo. Instead she tried to catch his eye and offered him an encouraging smile.

Axod gave a small shake of his head, as if the motion alone might steady him, might pull him cleanly back into the moment. The lingering haze clung stubbornly, but he forced it aside. The sight of the others watching him, concern etched plainly across their faces, sent a flicker of embarrassment through him, sharp and immediate. “I’m alright, just a bit tired,” he said, offering a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, the strain beneath it difficult to disguise. He lowered his gaze to the PADD in his hand, thumb hovering for only a moment before he pressed the control to end the recording.

A quiet exhale followed, his posture settling into something more composed, if not entirely convincing. “I think we ought to let them rest.” His eyes lifted again, moving between Bailey and Mei, seeking their agreement, if not reassurance, in the subtle nod that accompanied his words.

He got in in the form of Good, though she seemed rather unconvinced of the Counselor's alrightness. "Alright. Let's wrap this up. Doctor Wishmore? I'll need what notes you can give me about your results for my report." She looked at the two officers. "Whatever doesn't breach their privacy." This was too weird, and it was more weird atop weird.

Theo gave a small nod to Good, already turning slightly back toward the biobeds.

“I’ll compile a summary for you,” he said. “Preliminary findings only — anything beyond that stays medical.”

His attention shifted between Noah and Irynya, tone softening a fraction.

“For now, both patients remain under observation. Vitals are stabilising, radiation signatures trending down, no indication of ongoing exposure.”

A brief pause — then his gaze flicked to Qo, sharpening just slightly.

“And Counselor — before you go, I’d like a quick scan. Dizziness isn’t something we ignore in this room.”

It wasn’t a command. But it wasn’t entirely optional, either.

Then, just as easily, his focus returned to the patients.

“They need rest more than anything else.”

He adjusted the edge of Irynya’s blanket slightly, a small, practical gesture.

“We’ll continue monitoring their quantum variance and neurological response. If anything changes, you’ll be informed.”

[Optional Tags?]

Iry let herself shift back, reclining and unlacing the crisscross of her legs underneath the blanket. It was a relief to feel as though they'd answered as much as they could, but a slightly uncomfortable sense of foreboding settled in her gut all the same. This was the second 'incident' she and Noah had been a part of in only a matter of days and there was still another 2 days of shore leave scheduled. The impulse to ask Noah what he thought, though, was shoved back, though she turned her head to the side to look at him, leaving it to the officers who had assembled to work things out between themselves for reports and follow up requirements.

Her gaze trailed down to Qo at the foot of Noah's biobed and a new well of concern cracked open inside of her. Had the Counselor been able to take leave or had he been on call around the clock while they were at the Station to help get the crew's mental health back into service-ready order. She guessed it might have been the latter, but it didn't strike her as like him to let things get to a point where he'd have a spell. Maybe it was as simple as something he'd caught.

She sighed, and her eyes drifted back up, looking for Noah's dark gaze and offering him a small 'what can we do?' smile when she found it.

-- A Mystery By --

Lieutenant Axod Qo
Ship's Counselor

Lieutenant Bailey Good
Chief of Security

Lieutenant Irynya
Flight Chief

Lieutenant JG Theodor Wishmore
Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Ensign Mei Ratthi
Xeno-Anthropologist / Archaeologist

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist