Away team two. The watcher.

Posted on Tue Dec 28th, 2021 @ 8:34pm by Ensign BF 345078 (john Snow.) [Sthilg] & Gunnery Sergeant Nenaa [Sthilg] & Lieutenant Tate Sullivan Ph.D. & Captain Natacha Patani & Lieutenant JG Damien Blackford & Lieutenant Myne Redal & Lieutenant M'Tuuri Sh'iss [S'hib] & Staff Sergeant Leilani Charles {Kelea-Salik}

Mission: Season 5: Episode 3: CAPETOWN
5815 words - 11.6 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

"Well, you're right my floating friend. Someone has definitely been here," the Orion marine said as she examined the place they had detected the watcher. They were gone but trials in the dust showed they had been here. Snow was running a scan to see if he could get a dna result from their unknown watcher.

"Nenaa to Whavi. We found the watchers hiding-place do we have permission to try and follow them?" She said into her coms.

Katherine was also running a scan to try and identify these watchers. "Strange that there are still people here after all this time."

“Stranger still that I’m not sensing their presence,” Leilani frowned. “Unless they're of a species unreadable to Betazoids, or well hidden somewhere that’s shielded.”

Katherine spoke. "Let's see... this was on one of my xenobiology lessons on my medical refresher courses. Talosians could be immune to telepathy.. Dopetarians... Ullians... Ferengi.... Ensign Snow. Try scanning for Ferengi life signs."

Snow let out a bleep as his scanner faded out and then started up again. After a short second, he bleeped as he found something. "One Ferengi female DNA signature detected."

"Looks like we have a survivor from the scavenging team. They won't be right in the head if they've been here for nearly forty years alone," Nenaa said.

Myne had caught up the group after starting up the generator, looking at Nenaa with a worried expression. "A Ferengi survivor, alone on this planet for forty years? With nothing to do? And a female at that? If we catch with her, this might not be pleasant. I speak Ferengi if needed be." She offered softly.

"Agreed, Lieutenant Redal. Sergeants, we must appear as non-threatening as possible." Katie noted. "I have a bad feeling something terrible happened here, and she's been surviving for years." Katie spoke again, Louder. "Translate for me, Lieutenant Redal."

Katherine spoke. "Hello.... We know you are there.. We're not here to hurt you. Come out.. You do not need to be alone anymore." Katie spoke in her usual calm voice.

The sound of a dead world and the faint echoes of the train spread on the wind. The orions eyes scanned the area. "Eleven o'clock second window on the right." She said softly having noted the small dust cloud leaving the window frame. "If she's from the Ferengi scavenging team she's most likely held up at their main ship. I could follow her at a distance."

Katherine spoke. "Let me and Lieutenant Redal handle this. If she sees your weapons, then she'll continue to hide." Katie opened her backpack and pulled out a ration pack. Moving towards the building Neena noticed the dust from. Katie entered the window of an abandoned building and crouched down, in a non-threatening position. She then opened the ration pack and pushed it forward as a peace offering. "I know you haven't seen many people. I know you're afraid... And you've lived in this fear for years. It's kept you alive. I am a doctor... I've sworn an oath to do no harm." Katie noted. "Please come out. You don't need to linger here anymore, and you don't need to be afraid of me."

Nodding at Katherine, Myne began talking in as calm of a tone as she could, which was ok. Not the same as Katherine, but one should be granted points for effort. She began in Ferengi: "Hello there, we know your location and we have no wish to hurt you. We can offer assistance if you are in need. The woman that is with me is a doctor and can offer you medical assistance as well as food. We know you have been alone for a long time."

After doing her best to translate Katherine's words, Myne continued a bit off-script. "I have lived on Ferenginar for many years and served under three different DaiMons. If you want, I have a very lucrative business proposition for you. We need information and you have plenty by having lived here for so long. In exchange for your information, we are going to pay in food, supplies, medical attention, and even one latinum bar! Rule one hundred twenty-five: You can't make a deal if you're dead."

A slight shuffle could be heard as a filthy-looking hand rose over the window pane. Quickly followed by a rock which missed the two by quite a distance. "Go away space ghosts. This is mine, mine mine mine mine mine mine mine. My planet my treasures mine mine mine mine mine mine mine." Came a crackling voice that clearly hadn't been used in a long time.

"Yes, this is your stake, planet and treasures. We do not dispute that. We can trade, do you not want to conduct business? Information for supplies, Ferengi are honorable business people, everyone knows that." Turning to Katherine she used the coms in their helmets for privacy. "Doctor, she is very possessive of this place. Claims ownership of the planet and is kind of a bit coo coo. Thinks we are space ghosts. I do not recommend we approach too quickly. If anything, drop the kind soul act and treat this as dealing with a potential, unruly customer, from whom you want to buy and she doesn't wanna sell."

Katherine used her helmet communicator. "I wish we had a specialist here in Ferengi Psychology. Dementia is dementia."

"Literally spent a century among them Doctor. Their psychology is simple, everything is a business. The real problem is that she is a female. They are not allowed to conduct business, which makes dealing with her a bit... delicate. Because she has the same instincts and ferocious, business mind, but less practice." Myne explained a bit bitterly, not exactly agreeing to that aspect of Ferengi society.

Another rock flew through the window this one knocking over the ration pack. A pair of wild yelloweyes hidden by a ragged clock pocked over the window frame. " Give give shiny thing. You and the glowing man don't scare me."

Katherine's hand moved towards a hypospay of sedative she kept for self defense reasons. She spoke to Myne. "What is the shiney thing?"

"No, no idea, asking now. Also which one of us is the glowing man? She does not like that guy at all. He scares her." Raising her voice to be heard by the Ferengi woman, Myne speaks out again in Ferengi. "The shiny thing is yours, just tell me which one is it. The glowing man will go away now, and I do not want to scare you. Just conduct business. So show me the shiny thing and I will give it to you!"

Another rock struck near the ration pack. She was clearly meaning the sliver textured ration pack. " Give give." Hissed the woman. " Then chase of ghost man. He liesss and sssitsss on the great tresssue. Keeping it from me."

"Oookay, Doctor. Would you like to be the one to go give that darling woman the ration pack? And maybe we should get our dear rifle guy behind take a step back?" Myne asked Katherine, not sure how to proceed from this point and deferring to the team leader.

As everything was happening, Damien excused himself from the Exocomp, heading back outside, quietly and slowly making his way back over to Myne and the Doctor, quietly slipping next to Myne. “What’s going on?” He asked quietly.

"Ferengi survivor, female. Forty years spent here, possibly alone. She is suffering a bit from dementia and she's not easy to deal with." Myne explained quickly to Damien before looking at Katherine and still waiting for orders.

Katherine picked up the food and proceeded to walk forward with it.

As the doctor talked with the Ferengi the Orion marine had deployed her wrist drone to scout the area. The small disk spun across the dusty sky and across the dead city. Passing over the city's star port the Orion noticed one of the massive concrete shelters doors was hanging open. Bringing the drone around her torch light eliminated a Ferengi freighter tucked into the shelter. It was one of the smaller ones a Profit-class she guessed.

"Nenaa to all away team. I've found the Ferengi ship. It's been hidden in one of the cities old starship hangers. " she said into her coms.

_______________________________________________________________


During all the commotion M'Tuuri had quietly retreated from the group and crept her way around behind the Ferengi, making sure all her environmental suit lights both internal and external were off, even going so far as to deactivate the life support systems so that the suit ran as quiet as possible.

She watched in the shadows as the woman picked up another small clump of debris and hurled it at the rest of the away team, shouting more nonsensical rambles as another pane of glass shattered.

every sound the Ferengi made, every crack of glass or shout from the rest of the away team masked every step forward, her body moving in rapid jolts only to freeze in place like a statue as she got closer and closer.

Then in a blink of an eye, she pounced forward the last few feet and gripped the Ferengi on the shoulder, digging her gloved claws into the appropriate nerve cluster to render the woman unconscious in a matter of seconds, though doing precious little to help her descent to the floor.

"You can thank me laterrrr." She purred as her suit powered back up, shining her helmet lights at the rest of the away team.

Katherine moved to the woman's side. "Forty years here, and severe dementia." Katie noted. "If you want a case study. Look at Gollum from the Lord of the Rings. I don't know if I can do anything for this woman except keep her sedated. In her current mental state, she is very much a danger to everyone, even herself."

Leilani nodded as she approached Katherine. “As a counsellor I have to agree. The poor woman has been so long on her own, it’s not helped matters any. I think it’ll be safer all around.”

"I noticed a mental ward back at that hospital. I think we should put her into it. We'll be able to clean her up and get her dressed into something more than these rags." Katie noted as she gave the ferengi a hypo of sedative.

Snow had beamed over and was running a scan. "Signs of malnutrition, many untreated injuries, and signs of poisoning around the lobs. Seems she was wearing fake extensions." The excom added.

It was a tough call all around, Tate knew. They couldn't risk the Ferengi hurting one of them or herself, which would be best avoided in a more controlled environment, but Sullivan knew people with dementia stayed calmer in more familiar surroundings. None of them were suffering from the mental deficits their patient was, and Tate knew the ward on the hospital was the last place she would want to be confined.

"Should we go and investigate the ship. What if there's more of them?" Nenaa inquired.

"If you must investigate, do so carefully." Katie noted. "I'm getting a really bad feeling about this place. Ensign Snow, Sergeant Charles, help me with her." Katie secured the Ferengi's hands. "We're taking her to the hospital."

Snow teleported in with a stretcher and began tractor beaming the Ferengi onto it. Nenaa nodded as she and a team split off and started running through the dirt.

Rael appeared in a flurry of sparkling lights, having been commed in his office by one of the members of the away team as an individual certified in field operations and as a telepath; though potentially just to see how he did in the field, so to speak. His prognosis-formed thus far solely on a thirty-second rundown briefing-in terms of discovering useful intelligence from the patient was not optimistic-dementia was inherently irrational, but perhaps he could glean some semblance of coherency via a careful application of his psionic capacity-and ease some of her suffering simultaneously. He met them at the doors to the hospital, offering a brief wave before settling his hands behind his back. "How is she doing?" he asked the doctor, crouching to help transfer the Ferengi woman onto the anti-grav stretcher in a single fluid motion, showcasing a far greater degree of strength contained in his wiry physique than one might expect-but that was Vulcans for you.

Leilani moved across to the new arrival. “She’s suffering from severe dementia, the doctor...” She motioned to Katherine, “has sedated her for both our safety as well as hers. Oh...I’m Sergeant Leilani Charles, Combat Medic and Counsellor.”

Tate recognized the Vulcan doctor immediately, not just from the personnel manifest of recent transfers, but as an enthusiastic and inquisitive attendee of some of her lectures on matters of forensic psychology. This was going to be a hell of a trial by fire for him, but she was glad to see him. Her knowledge of the Ferengi cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology was limited, so anything that allowed them to get this woman to safety and to get all of them off this planet sooner was perfectly fine in her book.

"I'm Dr. Rael," he introduced himself simply, offering the woman his hand to shake. His grip was gentle, and he let go to rummage through his medkit, obtaining a hypo ampule and loading it into the jet injector tray promptly. "Dementia is a tough one-I'm going to try Synaptizine first, to see if that might stimulate glial activity, but every patient is different and at a certain point neural degradation reaches the point of no return. If it's ineffective, I'd like to try reaching out telepathically. Ordinarily patients with dementia do retain information, they just can't express it correctly or in its proper order-it also tends to get mixed up with other memories, dreams, television shows. That type of thing. Let's see what we can do for her." He placed the hypo against her neck and depressed it.

It took a very long time before the Ferengi woman opened her eyes. Staring angrily at the Federation personnel she started thrashing against the straps holding her down. "Let me go. I see you now servants of the glowing man."

"Look-hey, look at me," he crouched down to her level, placing his hand over hers and transmitting a psionically assisted pulse-burst of calm along her frayed nerves while the Synaptizine shored up the rest of her senses. "We're not here to hurt you. I need you to stop struggling, though, because otherwise I can't let you go. If you're going to attack us, that's a problem. We just want to talk, that is it. Do you understand me?"

"We're not here to harm you. That I can Guarantee you. Both myself and Doctor Rael have taken oaths to do no harm, nor allow our patients to come to harm. You are safe from any glowing man with us." Katie noted. "Can you tell us more about this Glowing Man?"

"He's evil." She spat with venom in her deranged voice. He sits on the greatest treasure and doesn't tell me. Mocks me keeps asking I bring him Dimar."

"I'm going to try reaching out mentally," Rael told Katie after a few moments. "It doesn't look like the meds are having much of an effect. I'll be as gentle as I can," he patted the woman on the hand, and then he was beside her. Not beside-within, standing on two feet next to her in the Landscape. It was-fractured. Disorganized. But not a complete ruin. Not yet. He attempted to buffer it a little, to ease the vice grip of anxiety and confusion. Not a full mind-meld, but more an awareness of one another on a deeper level. They were both still oriented in reality. "Can you understand me? Can you tell me your name?" he asked, and his voice came from within, too.

"Queen Daphi or is it Surak? " The Ferengi said before bursting out into a cackling outbreak that would cause anyone's spine to shiver. Images of someone close a father, brother, or cousin helping her up with a look of kindness on his face only for her to bring a knife into his neck. Pride in watching him gurgle out his last breath before stealing his identity and dealing in any vice she could think of. Illegal weapons, drugs, slaves by the millions anything she could sell she had. Then the most valuable thing she could find. A whole planet to strip for credits and a treasure of such value she could bring a whole species to bow before her.

"Daphi," he repeated out loud to the officers around him, a silent entreaty for them to look up any information they could on her. Otherwise he remained unfazed by the imagery before him. Despite the brands on his own skin. "Queen Daphi," he addressed her by her rank, respectful. "What happened when you came to this planet?" he pushed through the insanity, resting mental fingers along the thrumming cords of her mind, leading her back to rationality as well as he could.

"Queen Daphi?!?" Katie noted as she used the dermal regenerator on the Ferengi Woman's wounds. Especially the sores on the lobes.. "My god.. This must have been painful considering how several major nerve clusters on Ferengi are located in the ears." Katherine continued to attend to the Ferengi.

"We found latinium just laying around. All these credits just left laying around. We stripped the place. Then we found the glowing man. He cursed us, made the crew turn on me their lord and master. I had to put them in their place. The rest ran off or died lazy creatures. Left me along to find the treasure that would let me rule the lizards. " She spat images in her mind showing a rather different view of events from the one that had happened in her twisted mind. One that did stand out was a glowing blue orb that appeared when she mentioned the glowing man.

"We are wasting our time with this," M'Tuuri hissed, becoming somewhat unnerved as she stepped back away from the group, pacing around the area, her instinctual flight or fight responses on the verge of kicking in.

Rael held up his hand to quiet those around him, paying more attention to the Ferengi. "Daphi and her crew landed on the planet with the intent to strip it for resources," he relayed calmly. "And potentially to sell its inhabitants into slavery. But when they landed, an alien presence took control and they all turned on one another. I'd wager it's responsible for her current condition as well." At this point, it was looking a lot like self-defense. "Unless we can find some way to communicate with it and open a diplomatic channel, we're all potentially at risk."

"Doctor Rael you are slightly incorect." Snow said as he hovered over letting out a few bleeps " Everyone on this planet has been dead for over two hundred years. Commander Sthilg's team found a Ferengi shuttle at his home village. From it's database they believed an ancient mech of the gorn people called a Balakin was on this planet. "

That set the Ferengi off. Her eyes darted open as she started screaming. "MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE-"

Snow ignored her and carried on. "The Ferengi team at Sthilg's home village had all died from the virus. I believe they unearthed it again. Most likely they panicked and turned on each other."

Rael sedated her, figuring it was unlikely they'd get any more information out of her, and despite her transgressions, he wasn't interested in prolonging her suffering. "That would largely align with what I've seen in her mind-she's not exactly a reliable narrator," Rael murmured dryly. "But I'm concerned about this presence-it's featured heavily across various motifs in her mindscape. It might be legitimate."

"There are several dumb AI in the local area still functioning. Maybe she hallucinated one as the glowing man?" The Exocom suggested.

"It's possible. All the same, I'd prefer not to be caught off guard," Rael answered with a nod. "I don't think there's a whole lot we're going to be able to do for her without treating the virus," he eyed up Dr. Taylor pointedly; it wasn't his field, even if his knowledge exceeded that of a layman, he knew better than to overstep. "If we can get a sample of it-whether that's from her or the environment, can we try to isolate a treatment?" Who she was didn't matter. She was a patient. Primum non nocere, and all that fucking shit. He pinched the bridge of his nose, anticipating a stiff drink by the end of this day.

"Believe me, Dr. Rael. I would love an intact sample of the virus... but there's a small problem with that. It's gone." Katie noted. "Viruses sustain themselves through mutation. It killed a majority of the planet's Gorn population, then it ran out of vectors for it to sustain itself." Katherine noted. "Without additional genetic material for it to propagate, the virus becomes a dead end. I'm afraid we're sixty years too late for this virus. And whatever virus did remain, this woman's immune system might have killed it."

"We've collected what evidence we can, but we're not hopeful we have anything useful on the virus itself," Tate acknowledged.

"Kind of like ebola," Rael figured. "At a certain point a virus gets too deadly to sustain itself, right?" he understood, tapping his touchPADD against his opposite wrist. "So we are looking at permanent neurological effects, even though the virus is not active in Daphi's system. That's regrettable," he murmured. "Perhaps we can transfer her to the Elysium. It would be more humane than leaving her here, and the Federation Rehabilitation Council could likely assess her in greater detail."

"Her mental state reminds me of Gollum from the Lord of the Rings." Katherine noted. "Who knew J.R.R. Tolkien could produce such a fine case study on the effects of long term isolation on the humanoid mind. I agree Doctor, and I'm prepared to sign the papers on the diagnosis; Dementia, and commitment to a mental treatment center." Katie noted. "I'll have the commitment papers ready for you to endorse, this woman needs qualified mental care far beyond even what we can provide on the Elysium. Though I am not sure she can ever fully recover from this. She's been here for forty years." Katie noted as she began to clean the woman and dress her into new clothing she replicated in the hospital. The process took a while before the woman began to look like a Ferengi again. Katherine then put the binds back on but loosely. After the process was then, Katie entered a room to decontaminate and scrub.

Leaving the Ferengi woman here was out of the question, Tate agreed, but she couldn't help but have reservations about bringing the woman aboard the Elysium without stringent protocols in place that balanced her welfare with that of the rest of the crew. She'd been through enough throughout her Starfleet service as well as her time with the Elysium to know that things like the "glowing man" couldn't so easily be dismissed as a hallucination or a misinterpretation of someone's psychological perceptions. There could still be unforeseen dangers connected to whatever this "glowing man" could be, and they could not afford to take any chances.

To Rael she offered, "We will need to collaborate with the medical team aboard to ensure we provide the best care possible while seeing to the safety of Daphi and everyone else. Just to clarify, however, when you linked with her, you saw nothing within her mind that would lead you to believe her impressions were more likely to be hallucinations than not, is that correct, Doctor?"

But he shook his head. "Unfortunately I can't provide that level of clarity. I saw the events as she perceived them. Whether or not they really happened is undiscernible. I would say that the detail and consistency of her experiences should be taken into consideration, and some of it was jumbled-such as this glowing man-but it was mostly consistent and coherent."

Tate nodded. She didn't expect to hear complete certainty, but she thought it was worth reinforcing there was consistency in the Ferengi woman's perceptions. To dismiss them as the confused musings of a demented mind was to do so at their peril. "Consistency is nothing to sneeze at."

_______________________________________________________________


As the orion and her team moved through the streets of the dead city towards the looming starport she began to notice something troubling. There was nothing and she meant nothing. It was as if someone had picked up and moved all the crashed hover/transport from the streets. Even the houses they could see into had been stripped with even their doors missing.

As the team crossed into the starport she stopped as she panned her flashlight through the entrance hall. Stripped just like the area's. After sending her report she lead her team towards the hangers.

The Ferengi ship was easy enough to find. The floor of the hanger was covered in dried ship fluid and various amounts of junk. As the orion carefully lead the way to the airlock she parched as her light illuminated it. The door was wedged open the corridor filled completely with random junk. Only a small tunnel appeared to allow anyone to move into the space vessel. " Well someones got a bad case of hoarding." the marine said as she called into the coms. " This is Nenaa. We found the ship. Going to take a while to get inside looks like she's jammed the thing completely with whatever junk she could find."

"I highly recommend against entering the ship, sergeant. She barely had the capability of caring for herself, much less the ability to preserve her own health. Suffice to say, things on this ship will not be.... fresh." Katherine noted on the helmet com.

The orion had bent down and pocked her rifle into the tunnel. " Don't think i could fit in here even if i tried. We'll try and......" She began before she paused. Something had whispered on the breeze barely hearable, but she heard something.

"............01001010 01001111..............."

"Was that binary code?" One of the other marines asked.

"Nenaa to hospital team we may have something here."

Rael's lips quirked as he converted it quickly in his head. "If it corresponds to Standard, it just spells JO. I'm not certain what that could indicate," he scratched the back of his neck. Binary code typically referenced Federation mathematical base systems, so he started there. "Try to look around for a cypher key."

The Orion began before she heard the same faint numbers drifting on the wind. " 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100001."

" The Ferengi said she encountered someone called the glowing man. Maybe one of the planet's AI has gained sentience?" She said looking around the starport. This place was enormous.

Katie spoke. "Nenaa. That is binary for 'Hello!'" The Doctor then spoke. "Sergeant, I'm sending a reply on an open signal."

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00101100 00100000 01010111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00111111

Katherine composed the message and sent it over the same wavelength.

As the reply echoed on the wind nothing came back in reply. Until with a faint punt, ancient light on one of the hangers flickered back into life forming an arrow pointing towards the port's cargo bay.

" Look's like someone wanting us to find them." The orion said as her helmet cam showed the light. " Let's go and see who's calling."

The team followed the lights leading deeper and deeper into the mass load of cargo containers. Most had their contents spilled out most likely from the fernegi looting.

Turning a corner the team's cams came across a grisly sight. Three fernegi bodies lay across the ground in front of an open container dried blood covering their mummified bodies. The cause of death was obvious from the blade logged in their backs.

What appeared to be scorch marks covered the wall as if a great heat came from the container.

Another crackling of binary code crept from the container. Something was definitely inside. Slowly the marine edged around the corner. She let out a gasp at what her helmet cam showed. Inside the container was a clearly ancient-looking machine part. It resembled a knights helmet from Terran fantasy with a blue light shining from within.

" You guys seeing this?" Nenaa said into her coms channel

On board the Elysium a fireteam of Marines stood ready to respond at a moment to a call for help. It was rather tedious duty, sitting and waiting, a point emphasized by Marine Captain Patani's quotation:

"Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

"Ma'am?" one of the Marines asked, confused.

"Seventeenth century human poet," Natacha replied, waving the Marine quiet. The marine officer had been dutifully monitoring away team communications, and one image had caught her attention.

"Gunnery Sergeant Nenaa," Natacha interrupted on the comm, "That looks like an exact duplicate of a Stechhelm. A jousting helmet," she clarified. There was a pause before the Marine captain asked in a deadpan voice, "I don't suppose there's a suit of armor in the vicinity that it would attach to?"

" Would need to be a very big suit of armour." The Orion replied as she looked around the pod. It was at least fifty-five meters in diameter and the helmet covered the rear wall. A few other exotic looking machine parts littered the container one of which was a very old looking energy weapon which she only then realised was tracking her. " Easy big guy were here to help." She said.

A faint rumble of binary code echoed as the light seemed to focus on her. " I....roar...." Came a faint crackle from the helm. Looking at her helmets hund the marine saw it was speaking in what seemed to be an ancient dialect of the orion tongue. " Captain I think it's trying to learn our language should I keep speaking to it?" She asked into her coms

"Gunny, put your comm unit in front of the helmet and back away. I'll keep talking to it as you get out of the potential line of fire," Natacha instructed. "Replicators do better at replacing comm units than they do Marine non coms."

The Orion did so taking of her helmets coms unit and placing it on the floor. She noted the gun seemed to track her even more as she approached another Ferengi body this one was leaning over an exotic piece of machinery. It looked somewhat similar to the federation hazardous material containers.

As soon as the Orion put the comm unit down and started backing away, Natacha began reciting literature from memory:

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and..."

Another burst of code as the blue light from the helmet shone on the coms unit. " Need more. Incomplete...."

Natacha had been halfway through the first chapter of "Wind in the Willows" when the helmet interrupted her. With a nalf-nod to herself, the marine pulled another literary work from her memory:

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright..."

With a final burst of binary, words came out clear as a summer day. " Translation complete. Language recognised as delict of native species on solnran 34567. " It said in a haunting robotic tone.

"Query," Natacha said through the comm, the tone of her voice almost as bereft of emotion as the helmet, "Now that you have identified our language, what is your function?" Once Natacha had established the marines and others on the ground weren't in immediate danger from the helmet, she was going to withdraw her intervention and go back to being on standby alert.

" Function failed. This unit was assigned to watch over and protect forming lifeforms on Thikonov by ones creators. This unit believes your kind calls them the Progenitors. The primary mission failed due to a planetary collision. Was found by the lifeforms know as gorn. They seem to be the only species with active units of my kind." The machine replied in the same robotic tone.

"Query," Natacha began. "May my kind approach you without concern of detrimental repercussions? We would approach solely for the purpose of understanding, so that we would not interfere in the function of other units such as yourself."

Natacha considered herself an educated officer, but subjects like Progenitors and Gorns possessing similar units were way above her paygrade. As soon as she was sure the situation was non-volatile, she wanted to hand it back off to the scientists and other members of the landing parties.

" Leave my emergency backup power core alone and you may." Came the reply as the gun swivled to point to the dead Ferengi. " If it's power source is removed from it's stabilisation feild it could cause a subspace disruption over seventeen light-years across the surrounding systems. " The previous creatures refused to heed my warnings."

"Gunnery Sergeant Nenaa, did you copy all that?" Natacha asked the Orion non-com. "It should be okay for you and the personnel you're chaperoning to continue your investigation. I'll try to keep off the comm from here on out," the Marine officer added dryly.

" Copy." The orion replied into her coms still thinking how glad she was not to have the plasma cannon aimed at her. " Shall we get diplomatic down here or contact the gorn?" She inquired.

Natacha was about to reply when the area around her became suddenly distorted. When reality came back into focus, there had been changes. The three marines she had been sitting with, all males, had been wearing combat utility uniforms. Now they were wearing something akin to a duty uniform, though their uniforms looked as if they were museum replicas.

Natacha's uniform was the one that had changed the most drastically. It was now a dress. A fairly short one that showed off an unseemly amount of leg, emphasized her bosom, and even had a hint of décolletage. Instead of a simple braid she wore her hair, Natacha's hair was bound up in what she considered a ridiculously high bun.

Natacha's first instinct was to tap her commbadge. It was no longer on Natacha's much abbreviated uniform. The multimedia display of the various planetside communications had disappeared. So had any visible means of communication in the room.

"On me," Natacha commanded, as she made her way to the door, her fireteam right behind her. Natacha was relieved that the door still worked.