Junior Detectives
Posted on Mon Apr 4th, 2016 @ 10:59pm by
Edited on on Thu Jun 2nd, 2016 @ 11:35pm
Mission:
Time and High Society
Location: Civilian Yacht, SB-332
[ON]
Wars can expose mysteries as well as create them. One such puzzle motivated Dr. St. Louis to call upon Ens. Monday Starr for assistance. The Herisian arrived at Sickbay with broad spectrum scanner packs slung over her shoulder. "Sorry for the delay. Last minute duty requests."
Ricki nodded, beckoning her to come, "Understood."
"Thank you for helping with that gercheedi man."
"My pleasure. I got to learn, I got to help. Best of both worlds."
"What have you got?"
Ricki explained on the way to an isolation ward, "Atomic degeneration like I've never seen before. There's no toxic radiation, no unusual ambient fields, no weapon residues, nothing." She clipped a hazmat membrane belt around Monday's waist and deployed it. "He died earlier today, but the deterioration continues. I wanted to try transporter therapy, but the system alarmed into an abort."
Monday slowly entered the room and approached, "Some type of delta ray?"
"No traces of it. None." Ricki folded her arms and studied the body, "Believe it or not, he died happy. I could see it in his eyes. It was like he found something that he'd been searching for and needed to keep it secret."
Monday closed her eyes and hovered her hand over the body, "Species?"
"Human offshoot, probably colonial. Nothing radical about him."
"Ident?"
"Somebody knows who he is, but it isn't I. Computer gave me the endless 'pending' message."
"Which means you've stumbled onto something covert."
"Monday, I am so going to distance myself from this, but I want to know what happened. Whatever it is, it's dangerous stuff. He have a residence?"
"A ship. Went through standard inspection protocol upon arrival."
"What do you say, we pay it a visit before Sec slaps an impound tag on it?"
Ricki smiled, "Anything to ensure public safety!" The pair lost no time in prepping an equipment cart and getting it down to civilian docks. "Base computer says he arrived alone." She presented herself to the yacht's portal interface, "Dr. St. Louis, Starbase 332 requesting ship access as part of a bio-hazard check."
The computer transmitted a verification request and then opened the hatch. Monday gave a nod, "No protests? Ookay. That was easy."
The pair entered and surveyed the environment. Ricki exclaimed with raised brows, "Pretty upscale decor. The man like to travel first class." An hour of searching found nothing obvious. Ricki was ready to call in a precautionary quarantine when she noticed Monday scanning around the kitchen. "You're not going to raid a dead man's pantry, are you?"
Monday stared pensively, "I'm trying to figure out why the kitchen is sheathed in a fine layer of mrutirium-two."
"Privacy barrier? Sensor blocker?"
"Mostly, no. I don't see any contraband."
"Maybe the mrutiruim is what he's smuggling."
"Not rare or valuable. Many transporter filaments use it." Monday hesitated in transmitting a query.
"What's wrong?"
You said that submitting an identity query might have sent up red flags. I'm wondering if my doing a scientific query would do the same?"
"Covert, criminal, whatever we stumbled into, I'm not volunteering to be a hero. Let's go before we get tangled up in something. I'll slap a quarantine on it and let Sec deal with it."
"Agreed." As they started to depart, Monday snapped around with in a deep startle.
Ricki anxiously looked about, "What?"
"For just a moment... I saw him. I saw the man. He just stood there smiling."
Ricki waved a tricorder wand over her eyes, "If it wasn't purely imaginary, then your retina should have a trace shadow of the image." She synaptically reviewed the scan results. "Why I'll be! You did see him!"
Monday shook her head with renewed interest, "Hologram? But... there aren't any emitters!" She scanned, "The airflows in this room were disturbed by the apparition. That man was physically here. There are a few trace molecules in decay."
"Think carefully, Monday, what was he wearing? Did he hold anything?"
"His hand, it was up by his sternum." She noticed a goblet on the kitchen counter, "Holding this."
Ricki was about to scan it, but Monday put her hand over the tricorder wand, "Wait. Passive only. I don't want to trigger anything." The wands warbled for a few moments. "Lightweight synthetic stone... complex lattices... residual molecular energy is fading."
"Residual emission?"
"This material is a byproduct. It has recently completed some kind of energy reaction."
Ricki nodded, "All right. Now... what kind of reaction would be concealed by mrutiruim-two?"
Monday pulled up a transporter technical manual, "Mass field restabilization..." She turned to Ricki, "If this were a transporter mechanism, then the mritirium would contain the splash of stabilizing energy." She held up the goblet, "Being emitted by this."
Ricki checked the cabinets and pulled out a matching goblet and scanned it. "Same material." She pulled another two out. "Same, and... not the same!"
Monday held it up to the light. "He was using these to counter whatever effect was eroding his atomic structure."
Ricki bagged unused goblets and then the two went to his study. Once again, there was momentary flash of a man sitting in the chair, writing at his desk. "Somehow, moments of the past are echoing into the present."
Monday tapped at her wristbook, "Computer, give me all recorded chroniton, phi distortion, and filament decay anomalies in the past hour."
==All readings normal, negative temporal detection.==
Ricki's eyes widened, "Are you suggesting that this man was a time traveler?"
Monday cupped her hands over her mouth for a few moments in thought. "Engineering. Let's check this boat's machine spaces."
The two climbed down into areas jam packed with equipment. "What are we looking for?"
"If my guess is right, something in plane sight, just like the goblets."
Ricki shook her head, "I'm out of my element, here. It just looks like an ordinary engine space."
Monday nodded, "Everything about this is wrong. Look. One component manufactured at Pargellis is attached to one made at Regulus. This whole engine room, this whole yacht was built from spare parts." She met eye contact, "Which means, there's no official record of this boat ever having been manufactured."
"Doesn't make sense, Monday. Wouldn't it light up on Customs scanners as unidentified?"
She walked about, then commanded into her wristbook, "Computer, retrieve design specifications for ship type, current inspection. Carry out component comparison."
==Specify acceptable variance. No two parts are likely to be identical.==
"I am looking for design, material, or configuration variances."
==Three assemblies vary.==
Monday took a force wrench and dismantled a main power condenser. As soon as she removed the cover, a vivid glow poured out from within.
Ricki quickly warned, "Radiation!"
"We're okay. We're okay. This thing is..." She shook her head, I have no idea what this thing is. The propulsion system utilizes it, but it cleverly has a second function. Monday used force-cepts to carefully remove the glowing containment field.
Ricki shook her head, "That thing... barely registers on my scanner! It almost doesn't exist. Antimatter?"
"Not like I've known. It's extra-dimensional matter, could be dangerous. We've gotta get it away from this starbase, even Archa System. Here." Now in a hurry, Monday quickly reassembled the unit and then inspected the other flagged machinery. "This is a disguised laboratory."
"I'll bet you a shiny quatloo that whatever he was doing is explicitly illegal. What do you say we leave it for the darksuits to handle?"
"I don't fancy them attempting to erase my memory for having seen it."
"I'm not sure they could. You're Herisian and I'm Thorian."
Monday slowly turned to her with a wary look, "And what do they do when they can't erase?"
"Oh, man. Okay, okay. Time to remain calm. We have... some kind of n-th dimensional matter on our hands, and we're standing in a mad scientist's laboratory." She stared off and then sighed, "All right. button this all up. We've scanned the physical structure, we can reproduce it. We confiscate the vital materials and then scrub evidence of anything we did. We then turn the yacht over to impound as a matter of procedure following the owner's death."
"What will declare as the cause of death?"
"Preliminary autopsy indicates radiation. If our guess is right, the darksuits will show up and take the case over for us."
"And you certainly won't protest."
"I'll be intensely curious about cause of death, and they'll promise to let me know."
"And eventually you'll receive some half baked report."
"That man's method of travel is lethal. He stayed the effects, but the consequences finally caught up with him."
On their way out, Ricki reviewed the events, "He found what he was looking for. He went somewhere... maybe even some time... and accomplished his purpose. Before he died, his brainwave activity was stable, no indication of psychosis or malevolent emotions. Betazoid nurse had a good feeling about him."
"That's comforting, but it doesn't change anything. Don't attempt to investigate, Ricki. Forbidden technology like this is the prime obsession of terrorists, black ops, megacorps and militaries. We're in way over our heads."
"Monday, how are we going to get these things away from Archa?"
"Pilots, pilots everywhere... and countless thousands coming and going every hour. My question is, to where?"
"We'll find a good home for Dr. Franken-matter's toys."
[OFF]
Dr. Ricki St. Louis
Ens. Monday Starr
Starbase 332
Pegasus Fleet
