Commandments

Posted on Thu Nov 14th, 2024 @ 12:12pm by Lieutenant Alph & The Commander & Doc & Lieutenant Commander Alex Flynn & Lieutenant Rune Thul & Doctor Intharia T'Zor & Lieutenant Atna & Ensign Abra Akzhouri & SubLieutenant Attania Viren
Edited on on Thu Nov 14th, 2024 @ 12:56pm

2,060 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: DownTime [1]
Location: Sickbay, USS Excalibur
Timeline: 1400 Hours - MD02 (After 'You can (not) go home again' and 'A brief history of Flynn')

A champagne-coloured blur of energised particles arrived with an ethereal shriek softened by gentle rhythmic tones, the unmistakable hum of a 23rd century transporter. It dropped the entire away team in what appeared to be a constitution-class sickbay. All the beds were empty but one. A boxy orange stasis field ensconced its patient. Any who moved closer would see that the being inside was the Commander. The same Commander who’d given them vague instructions to deal with the impromptu visits to their own history they’d just beamed away from.

Everyone was there who had come aboard the Excalibur, except notably Thul, and P'Lar and Korusca, who had remained aboard the runabout Hou Yi to monitor the object in the cargo bay.

Alex looked around at the assembled away team. She was deeply confused, but doing her best not to show it. "So, did anyone else just experience an oddly specific moment from their past bookended by what seemed like a recorded message from that guy in the biobed there?" She asked, pointing at the Commander.

Ensign Akzhouri nodded quietly. She was trying to get her head out of the time she had just been immersed in, the days before she left her homeworld to join Starfleet.

"That sums it up pretty well." Intharia said, looking over at the Commander. "On the subject of well, he doesn't look it."

Atna didn't say anything, but she agreed with Dr T'Zor. She too was trying to reorient her thoughts after her venture into her own history.

Viren looked perturbed, she was looking around the sickbay trying to think of something other than her own Commander-guided experience she'd just beamed away from. She sneezed again.

That's when Lieutenant Thul appeared in a transporter effect, he was tired. It was clear he had been crying, and there were a few fresh tears that welled at the corners of his reddened eyes before falling down his wet cheeks. He realised he was in sickbay after several moments and saw the rest of the away team.

"Thul. Hi." Alex said as he appeared. She thought to ask if he was alright, but her discretion won out.

He slowly brought his hands up and wiped away the tears before gathering himself into the professional he had been. Furthermore, he found he felt lighter somehow as he took a deep breath and corrected his posture. It was a relief to see the others and the medical hologram.

Rune heard his name and turned to the XO and he managed a half smile. "Hi Commander. I'm glad you all are okay." Though two people weren't present as he looked around, Rune quickly tapped his combadge. "Thul to P'Lar and Korusca,"

"This is P'Lar." Came the Vulcan's voice through Thul's badge.

"I'm glad to know you are okay, we just had a... event which I'll explain later. What is the Hou Yi's status and the Bronze statue?" Rune asked.

"No change in either, sir. We are retaining transporter lock on your team and all systems are nominal. Our scans have been unable to penetrate the object's surface, it is constructed of a most unusual alloy. Its properties seem to change depending on what scans we run. It's as though it is designed to be inscrutable to sensors."

"That's rather odd, anyway we will be on our way back soon," Rune replied and glanced over at Alex to see if the XO would agree.

"Here's hoping." Flynn responded to the security chief. "How's the patient looking Alph?"

"My emergency medical subroutines cannot make much sense of this data." Alph said, reviewing the health status display on the old-time biobed. "He is not of a species contained in my records. He has two hearts among other peculiarities, and is physically quite robust. He is stable, but I do not think he will live long without a stasis field. There is a strange energy emanating from his cells I cannot identify, and another he is irradiated with that seems to be destroying them. We may need to contact one of the shuttles and have them send their doctor." The android suggested.

"Flynn to shuttlecraft Cupid." Alex said, tapping her combadge.

The computer's voice responded, "Acknowledged."

"Beam the lantern to the ship's sickbay." She instructed, and the computer acknowledged her order. With a whir and a flash of transporter energy, a device appeared. It was about knee-height that looked something like what starfleet engineers might come up with if they were told to build an oil lamp, sturdy but potentially luminous.

"Lantern?" SubLieutenant Viren asked.

"Activate SMH." Alex instructed to answer Viren's question, and the lantern device glowed, generating a copy of Doc, the ship's supplementary medical hologram. "We've had the technology for combadge-sized mobile holographic emitters for a while now, but they haven't entered mass production. The lantern is the next best thing." Alex told the Romulan.

"Please state the nature of the medical situation." Doc asked as he appeared. Before anyone had a chance to answer him, his eyes lit up. "Well I'll be, either starfleet decorators finally got themselves a long-lost sense of taste, or we're standing in an honest-to-goodness Constitution-class sickbay." He quickly refocused on his duty. "What have we got here?" He asked of the man in the stasis field, moving to inspect the vitals.

Alex kept quiet, choosing to leave answering to anyone who might be able to answer follow-up questions the holographic Doctor might have.

"It is a... Constitution-class," Rune commented, but didn't think the rest was important.

"We know only what the medical systems have told us. A humanoid we don't recognise, dual circulatory system." Intharia told the SMH. "Unusual cellular energy readings. Encased in a stasis field."

Doc moved over to the biobed's readout, the lantern hovered silently just above the floor behind him, following. "The interface is working well enough, but looks like there's something wrong with the database systems. I can't make enough sense of it to find any records about him or his physiology. I think our best bet is to wake him up. Can someone better versed in the operation of technology please let me know if you'll be able to bring the stasis field back up if things start going south? I think our only option is to talk to this fella." Doc explained.

"Yes. I think so. Yes." Sublieutenant Viren said with oscillating confidence as she rechecked her wrist-mounted tricorders readings of the system. "Yes." She said again, nodding.

"Alright then. If you'd be so kind as to please bring it down." Doc asked the Romulan engineer.

"Sure Doc. Deactivating stasis field." Viren reported as she did it.

As the stasis field fell, the Commander in the 23rd century uniform began to squirm. He was obviously in some discomfort. He opened his eyes and looked around at all of them, when he seemed to realise what they were he masked his pain. "Finally. How long has it been?" He asked, tapping a panel on the biobed that caused the area from the head down to the waist to rise, elevating him into a seating position. Despite his attempts, he could not mask how weak he was.

"Judging by your uniform sir, a while. It's 2402. Our Stardates probably won't make sense to you. Our Doctor needs to ask you a few questions to help treat you, we believe you're injured." Flynn responded, fascinated by the ethereal presence of the man.

"I'm sorry to say he won't be able to provide much assistance. My mission has brought me to an end, I'm afraid." The Commander slowly brought a hand to his mouth and coughed a weak cough, then let his arm fall limp. "I need your help to complete it. Will you assist me?" The Commander asked the woman who had spoken up, he could tell she was their leader.

Alex was hesitant, but something about him inspired her trust. "What is it you need us to do?"

"First I must confess something that might sound strange to you; I am not from your universe. I come from another reality." The Commander told them all, hoping it would not blow their minds too dramatically.

"That was something we did on some level suspect. We know about the anomaly. She's from another universe too." Flynn gestured to Thari.

Intharia didn't say anything, but smiled and raised her brows in non-verbal acknowledgement. She was quite suspicious of this commander, given that he'd subjected them to journeys into their own past.

"Oh. How grand. Then I also must apologise that I have no time to answer your questions. I arrived here in pursuit of an enemy, the greatest enemy known to sentient life where I come from. It is dead, but its remains must be disposed of. The enemy is as resourceful as it is murderous." The Commander explained.

"What enemy?" Rune asked.

"You are fortunate that you do not know them. I fear I do not have time enough to list their crimes against sentience and nature. They see all other life beyond their own as unworthy of existence. To exterminate it is their highest and only moral calling. They were all destroyed in a great war, except for this one. I survived the mutual destruction of our two peoples only because I pursued it beyond the boundaries of my own universe. While I may have destroyed it, it too has destroyed me." The Commander explained, wincing weakly.

"We appreciate the context but how do we dispose of whatever this is?" Alex asked.

"In main engineering, you should find four identical devices. I need you to place them in positions surrounding the bronze remains in the shuttlebay and activate them, they'll open a spatial fissure that will deposit the remains in an empty micro-universe where there's no risk of anyone coming into possession of them." The Commander finished his explanation, and his strength seemed to leave him, he seemed like he could not keep his eyes open any further.

"Bring the stasis field back up, his vitals are starting to plummet." The SMH instructed, his concern subroutines finally overpowering his optimism directive.

"Reactivating." Viren said, filling with relief as the neon orange barrier rose once more, freezing The Commander in place.

"I wouldn't recommend bringing him out again unless it's to say goodbye." Doc said, a tough southern melancholy entering his voice.

"Understood, Doc. Thank you. I'd like you and Lieutenant Atna to remain here and continue to monitor the Commander, see if you can't learn something about him even if you can't fix what's happening to him." Alex instructed.

"Understood, ma'am." Atna responded, moving to the display on the biobed to see what she could glean.

"Danged if I'm going to give up on him while there's still life left." Doc said.

"So what is this thing in the shuttlebay?" Flynn asked the Hou Yi team that had landed there.

"There's a strange bronze statue in the shuttlebay," Rune said and gestured to Atna for her to give her report.

"The object appears damaged and has not given off any signals our sensors or telepathic abilities could detect, but the alloy it is composed of has proved impenetrable to our scanners." Atna said, opening her tricorder for a moment to share the information she'd collected wirelessly with the rest of the team. She then began scanning the Commander through the stasis field.

"Thul, take Alph, T'Zor and Viren and do as the Commander asked. If you lot can't figure out these devices you're after then nobody can." Alex instructed the team confidently.

"Understood, are you three ready to go?" Rune asked Alph, T'Zor and Viren.

"Ready, sir." Intharia told the security chief. She felt an unexpressed concern for him, whatever he'd encountered in his past had obviously affected him profoundly.

"Ready." Alph said simply, and Viren said the same before letting out another sneeze.

"Ensign Akzhouri and I are going to make another attempt at getting to the bridge. I get the impression there won't be any more trick hallways and psychic regressions." Alex explained. "Any questions?"

Abra looked ready, Alph was standing at attention and Doc was already at work exploring the readings he was getting from the lantern's inbuilt medical tricorder. None asked any questions.

"Alright then. Let's be about it." Flynn said, striding away with Akzhouri in tow.

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