"A Brief Exchange..."

[Shane 0]

One of the Capricon crew members asked Tomar to step aside to discuss a matter, leaving the Qob group alone for the moment. Seizing the opportunity, Shane reached into the pockets of his greasy cargo pants and tossed a small object to Troy. The piece was a triangular shape, with a worn green covering and wires hanging from an opening in the side. The big cyborg spoke quietly as to not be overheard, "I grabbed the chance to have full access to the main computer durin' all the rucus and found that. The Capricon system had already been tampered with when I got there."

 

Troy caught the object, looking at it, turning over in his hands. If the Capricorn's computers were already compromised, then any information recorded there relevant to the plasma leak-- or, for that matter, anything else-- could have been falsified. He supposed that was to be expected in a situation like this one; on a starship, where extensive maintenance needs translated into fairly ubiquitous surveillance, any crime worth talking about needed either an escape plan with a very short timetable or a component of electronic subterfuge.

 

 

This crime was certainly worth talking about. And Troy doubted that the enemy had gone for the short timetable option, not only because of the green pyramid that he now held in his hands, but also because of a shamefully unscientific feeling that there was more hostile action to come.

 

 

In his head, the former professor made a list.

 

 

Priority 1: Establish Goals. This much was easily done. Possible goals included: a) Remaining alive, B) Keeping the other members of the party alive, and c) Preventing any further unnecessary deaths. Troy considered a): In the short term, that goal might be best served by getting off the Capricorn and seeing to it that the former Federation ship was reduced to space dust, taking the whole mess on-board with it. But then there was the murder on Verbistul; perhaps the mess had already spread. Besides, in the long term, destroying helpless vessels had a way of coming back to bite you. So a) didn't really say much either way, at least, not enough to make him care. As for B), many of the same considerations applied, and anyway, if his comrades were worth anything, they'd be able to look after themselves. So that left c): preventing any further unnecessary deaths. Troy did the math in his head and concluded that goal c) recommended in favor of finding out who was responsible for the recent plasma leak, so that the threat that they represented could be identified and neutralized. Priority no. 1, accomplished.

 

 

Priority 2: C&C. Control and contingency. Establish control over the situation, because the more that was going on without their knowledge, the less they could infer from anything they found out. As things were, the members of the QoB party were very much on the outside of whatever was going on, and while they could try to investigate from such a footing, anything they came up with would be little better than guesswork and vulnerable to a million kinds of deception.

 

 

Troy supposed that some might argue that it would be best not to focus too much on control, to instead work together with the locals in the spirit of friendship (or some other kind of meaningless feel-good nonsense, no doubt to be carried out to a soundtrack of tribal peace chants). But the scientist in him identified any participation by the locals as investigators, rather than as witnesses and/or suspects, to be a source of uncontrolled variables. To be sure, Tomar seemed trustworthy, but seemings weren't worth anything. Knowings were worth something; you could take knowings to the bank. Seemings, on the other hand, could take you to the morgue. Besides, even if he could trust Tomar's character, it was irrelevant, since he knew that he could not trust Tomar's competence. The fact that this situation existed was proof enough of that. Conclusion: for everyone's sake, establish control.

 

 

At the same time, especially since establishing control was not a sure thing, they had to prepare for the worst. Troy had nothing against optimism, but optimism was a feeling, and he did have something against confusing feelings with reality. If the investigation failed, most likely, the risks to the QoB party would increase; that, in turn, would change the status of considered goals 1a) and 1b). Should everything fall apart around them, Troy wanted to be able to get his people out, and to ensure that the Capricorn could not once again become a threat to QoB and Verbistul.

 

 

Thankfully, he had had the foresight to have Shane take steps in this direction already, by accessing Capricorn's computer. The next step would be to leverage that access into control. He would need surveillance protocols, for instance, with data-filtering capability so that he could listen in in the right places. That alone, of course, would not catch anyone, but it might yield interesting clues as to who was who on the former Federation ship, as well as being helpful for keeping track of the situation as it evolved. He'd also want a quick and dirty variable lockdown of some kind: not executed yet, of course, but waiting, so that control could be regained quickly in the event of another attack, and, somewhat more subtly, so that he could redirect personnel flows through the ship in ways that enhanced his surveillance capabilities. And, of course, he would need any uncontrolled influences, whether hostile or simply (given the situation) idiotic, purged from the network. Conclusion: return Shane to Capricorn's engineering.

 

 

Priority 3: Personnel Distribution. He needed his people spread out, so that they could investigate more efficiently. For one, he needed at least one person on Verbistul, to determine the extent to which the problem had spread to that ship. It would make sense to send Kea; the Verb was her ship, after all. On the other hand, Verbistul's crew had been compromised before, so he wanted a QoBite there. Conclusion: send Kea, but also send a low-value QoB member to keep an eye on her. Byblos, perhaps? The large alien's injured condition reduced his value, but on the other hand, he was still fairly intimidating. Conclusion: send Kea now, with no indication that he'd be sending Byblos later. Once he had more control over Capricorn, he could send Byblos to Verbistul, a move that also might be unexpected enough to catch enemy elements on Vebistul by surprise. If Shane and/or William-- perhaps the latter could pull it off under the banner of helping out, while the stronger cyborg did the dirtier work on the computers?-- could get the Cap's transporters back, he might even consider sending Byblos (or rather, a molecularly exact duplicate of Byblos, after the original Byblos was annihilated by the dematerialization process) over via beam. The remaining members of the party would stay on Capricorn and start investigating the old fashioned way: by asking around. Who had been seen working on that plasma conduit? Who stood to gain by the disaster in the cargo bay?

 

 

In his mind, Troy looked over the list, checking for errors in his reasoning, not seeing any (though, of course, it was always the one you didn't see that did you in). Momentarily satisfied with his plan, he turned to speak to Shane. "I'm not surprised," he told the engineer. "It'd have been rather silly of them to do what they did without computer control, after all. Can you secure Capricorn's computers for us? Make sure whoever did this is locked out, or come as close as you can. And while you're in there, see if you can get us surveillance and lockdown access; I'll have my ODRI put the specifics of the access package on the local cloud. We're going to find who did this, and we're going to stop them." As soon as Shane was on his way, he'd give Kea and the others their respective instructions. And then have a smoke; it'd been too long, thanks to the disaster, and the cravings were starting to get bad...

 

 

There wasn't much time for Byblos and their was no patience in him at the moment period. The gas he inhaled while running around in the triage center had to be purged from his lungs fast or he'd cease to be of any value to the Boss's crew. The Nausicaan knew knew the only reason why the human called Joe Manning allowed him to join the Qob crew was his species reputation for intimidating and enforcing an employer's will upon others. He'd be of no use in a mobile chair with a respirator system replacing a set of destroyed lungs. Nor would anyone care to provide such a chair anyways. Byblos was broke, and just another expense to the boss. He'd be spaced rather than attended to in the long term. It was just part of the business.

 

Time was of the essence. He needed one of the Doctors to get his Lungs flushed NOW. For if he just saw what the Cyborg had handed Parson, the coolant leak was an act of sabatoge. That meant someone else from the Capricorn needed to be dealt with. And talk of a death on the Vestibul could mean one of Diklyt's men survived Byblos surmised. What a jyking situation! Byblos concluded.

 

With minutes to spare, the Nausciaan staggered to his feet briefly pulling the O2 mask from his face belting out: "Would one of you Kind Young Doctors get me back on my feet again before I am deemed a total jyking loss!!!!!

 

Kerris frowned, turning from Troy to Byblos now, sitting him back down forcibly. How in the world was she supposed to make him better if he refused to take and follow instructions? She made a mental note to never give him medicine to take for more than a day. She ran a hand down her face, then shoved the oxygen mask back onto his face. She dug around in her bag until she found a supplement for cleansing, and worked for a minute onto making it so that she could attach it to his mask.

 

This is what she liked to do. Fiddling around with things and making new things and fixing things. That's what she did at home... had done at home. She makes a twist in the tubing and gives a 'help please' look to Soora. At least she could hold him down long enough for the cleanser to do its work. Usually she would give it almost a half an hour or a full hour, but there was no time for that today. No, she had to increase the concentration and hope that it would be enough. He was relying on her, and Manning was relying on him.... it was a tough position to be in, that's for sure, but at this point, with all the hours they had spent in triage together, she wasn't about to just port him off on Soora for no reason other than she had a few minutes to cure him of that blasted plasma junk. She wasn't even sure exactly what it had done to him, or herself for that matter.

 

She grabbed an extra oxygen tank and started to gradually dilute the cleanser, frowning. What had happened to her? She hadn't had an unwilling change since she was a Youngling. It was certainly an oddity. Has this attack been directed at her? She snorted and shook her head. Even back on her own ship there were few who knew she wasn't human. It was in her record, sure, but she had only to tell command, and no one else. She wasn't sure what to think of it, especially since the change was primarily mental invoked and not anything very physical. That something could get in and make her change to even her half form.... that was scary. She was glad only the kids from Qob had seen. She would have preferred no one, but she rarely had that good of luck.

 

She hooked up the cleanser to Byblos's mask and nodded to Soora. "Just sit," she begged of him, "be careful not to move too much or the poison might get into your muscle tissues..." She sighed.

 

Soora looked back at Kerris and nodded, keeping her face blank with difficulty. While the woman went off to do something with the cleanser, Soora stood behind Byblos, ignoring his stench, and kept her hands firmly on his shoulders. She was prepared to slam the mask back onto his face if she needed to. He might be strong normally, and she wasn't much a match for him in size anyway, but now her body adjusted to the air change and his didn't. It was strange, so she wrote it off to her Vulcan blood and didn't think much more on it.

 

She knew she would have to take over Byblos's care, especially if her thoughts went along the same lines as the others from the Qob, which was highly likely. Kerris would be sent to the Verbistul, and they would be left here to do damage control and investigate here. Or rather, the others would be doing the investigations and she would be left to do some undercover investigating... meaning amongst the wounded and others tending them.

 

Which she didn't altogether mind. She wouldn't mind getting her hands on some computers, but she would let the engineers do that. She eyed the triangle that Troy held, tying to think if she had seen that design still somewhere before. It was likely she had seen them sometime in the Academy or sometime afterwards in her travels. It was going to drive her crazy until she remembered, she knew, and she wouldn't think of much else. If she had reliable access to a computer or had time to pull out her PADD she would, but she didn't.

 

She watched as Kerris attached the cleanser to his mask, and let her eyebrows raise.

 

"Is that diluted enough?" She wondered. "Even for his species... that seems strong." She tried to think through her process and tried to make the proper conclusions. Even with the plasma, which the cleanser was approved for, such a high concentration might be toxic. She took in a deep breath, wondering if the woman's judgement and brain was addled as well.

 

Byblos started to feel the immediate affects of the two Doctors` efforts. Instead of his lungs feeling as if on fire and smoke choking his breathing as they had been, the Nausicaan was beginning to feel his lungs free up and cool down. He glanced up at the two forceful but effective doctors and gave them a thumbs up as he basically allowed the medication to kick in. As a few minutes went by, and events unfolded around him his breathing returned to normal, and any nausea he did have disappeared. Still he was a mess. His own vomit all over himself, no doubt testing Vulcan and..shifter's sense of smell. The Vestibul Doctor who suddenly changed into some sort of reptilian, would have to explain herself later. But for now he was just grateful for the doctor's care in the pathetic state he was.

 

But with his breathing miraculously returning to normal another burning feeling consumed the Nausicaan. Revenge. Byblos was going to make the bastard(s) who put him in such a state pay a price. And he hoped for the opportunity to wield his old blade once more into some pirate Pe`teQ .

 

Shane looked to Troy during the doctors and Byblo’s exchange, “I’ll get on it. I’d show that to Tomar when you get a chance to throw their suspicions of our arses.”