Star Trek: Starbase 777 - briefing-room

As the team crawled through the vents, it became more and more apparent they wouldn't have been able to get in from the outside anyway. Remnants of a pathetic barricade had been glued to the door by the almost cobweb-like layer that seemed to cover every surface in the room..

Saith was squatted down, delicately ripping away the growth around the barricade piece by piece. He was very glad that he couldn't smell anything through the helmet.

“Ew, ew, ew…” He wanted to power wash every inch of his EV suit, not… exactly pleased to have been in the fleshy vents, although who would be?

Having gone pretty near the front, Iki emerged too. They were clearly not feeling it as much as M'Rish was, and instead immediately took stock of the room. "So, they attempted to hide in here when the parasite started spreading," Iki concluded, looking at the barricade by the door. "In that case we should probably be able to find more clues here."

Apollo had to heave himself out of the vents. It was definitely not a comfortable position for him, especially given his size, so he required an easing out of the ducts as he entered the room. "These alien parasites sure know how to make navigation a hassle." He remarked. "I hope everyone's okay."

The woman was surprisingly agile inside the vents. Being on the smaller side had its advantages. As she reached the end that lead them to the next room, she expertly calculated exactly how much momentum and strength she would need to go head first and be able to make an air turn and fall onto her feet. She took impulse and readied herself. The action was unannounced and so fast it would be hard to assist. Anyone already in the room then had the amazing view of a little suited up engineer plummet from the vent opening into the hard ground, landing on her metal butt with a very undignified ‘yiiiep’. After all she was an engineer, not an acrobat. (edited)

4

After a very disgusting crawl/slide through the flesh vents, which left her covered in a gross film that she struggled to scrape off her EV suit. Here.. the flesh was.. kind of cobweb-like. She hated it. She crept forward, looking around for any more consoles or other tech that was accessible. If they were here, they should at least try and get more data.

T'Evoryn dropped out of the vent, gracefully landing on her two feet before she slung her phaser rifle back into her hands. Her eyes quickly made notice of the room's elements, burrowing as she noticed the door. Barricaded, hastily so. No doubt with a sense of desperation creeping in. Something about what happened here felt... oddly familiar. Though why that is, she didn't yet know. (edited)

Zhi'rev appeared at the back ot the group, checking up on everyone once he had crawled out of the vent. "It looks like this was a last stand... of some sort," he commented on the obvious, trying to get his observations out there.

“I hope it wasn’t too gruesome of a last stand, though.” He remarked, “It probably wasn’t… great, but… the image won’t leave my head, actually, never mind.”

Zhi'rev had gotten to work soon after, trying to identify lumps of what could be items under the viscera. Maybe he could find something useful there, maybe he could find a PADD or something like that.

Saith was chipping through the membrane around the desks and chairs pinned to the door, trying to cut it free. As for lumps.. there were a few flatter ones that looked more eaten away, and one larger, cylindrical. (edited)

"Could someone help me? I want to see what is going on with these lumps over here. We might find something useful here!" He was optimistic, starting to dig at... the cylinder! That was the largest object after all!

“I can— um—“ M’Rish stepped closer, one hand on his phaser and the other on his tricorder, before pulling out the latter, “I’m on it, sir.”

"Did I hear someone squeak?" he asked when he crawled down the vent, one of the last people to do so. Headcount, instantly. A quiet sigh of temporary relief. "Let's see what this place holds, then... Be careful."

Apollo inspected the walls. He felt around, searching for any useful devices or consoles. While he did so, he turned around to the rest of the group. "Since we know there're some real devils here, maybe we should think up a strategy 'fore we run into another."

"Just an inelegant exit, nothing to worry about yet," Iki told Saren, going to join Zhi'rev to uncover whatever that cylinder was. It helped that they weren't particularly disgusted with anything, perfectly fine to sink to their knees in the meat and claw at it until it gave way.

Ellie hung behind, but was more then happy to get out of the sickbay. She was large, so she felt that if she was up front she'd slow the team down. The Golem actually found herself having to wait for everyone ahead of her several times. Crawling through the vents like some kind of trench rat. "We only barely handled one, and we had to take down an entire ceiling for it. If we keep doing that we will have nothing to recover, all we can do is temporarily incapacitate them otherwise. Perhaps we can divulge records here involving possible weaknesses." Ellie flowed through the vents as she spoke, feeling claustrophobic and bound.

tw // rotting The officers dug at the layer of organic matter, stripping it away until they could freely pry whatever it was free.. and again, it was lucky that they had helmets, for the smell was repugnant. Beneath the flesh sat a leg; half digested, bone exposed, old muscle and skin already mostly rotted away.

5

6

”That was just me sir, no need to worry.” Garcia smiled at Saren and then joined Zhi’rev on the bump hunt right when the cylindrical object was freed and revealed. “Wanted to thank you for the hel… WHAT THE… Oh, gross.” For the first time Garcia had to look away and fight the urge to puke. It would not make her situation any better since she was stuck inside a suit.

Oh. That was no good, thay eas no good at all. It was also not helpful in the slightest. "Well, that is one avenue explored... do we dare check out the flatter objects? Or... do we let it go and try to figure out a plan..." He was trying hard to keep it together by this point.

His nose scrunched at the sight, stepping back. It was horrifying, even from afar, and through the thickness of the EV suit. “Oh— oh, that’s—“ He huffed, “We should move on…”

Seeing the reactions of his fellow officers, Saren furrowed his eyebrows and came closer to inspect, and... ah. "I think we should scan the remains," he suggested, voice even, albeit quiet. "Perhaps they could be identified later and, well. Possibly offer some peace to some family."

”Look…” She had to take a small breathing break to settle her stomach. “As much as this is a truly horrendously disgusting sight, I still think we should not leave rocks unturned here.”

"I'll try to get a scan of the genome, so it can be sequenced and cross-referenced later," Iki said, their tricorder out and ready. How long had it been since this person had passed... how long had the leg been here, somehow preserved in this viscera? Were there no bacteria here to cause it to rot? Although, with the flesh zombies, that could actually very well be the case... They'd have loved to study this parasite more closely, had it not clearly been so overwhelmingly dangerous.

2

Ellie hadn't seen what everyone else had, but from the sounds of officer reactions it was probably a carcass, consumed enough to be disturbing, but still with enough to leave behind an impression. "We can do that when all is clear. We need to focus our efforts and securing the building before we can make plans like that. Now we cannot burn time to do so." Ellie sounded apathetic for this, but as someone who's been around after a crisis management team, it was standard procedure to incapacitate all possible threats before conducting a final report. "We need to report the body, but we cannot stick around for long unfortunately."

Apollo sighed. He looked back at the gruesome sight. He hated to, but he agreed with Findley. "Can we preserve the remains somehow?"

So she was right then? It seemed to be consuming whatever remained of the old crew. Her brow narrowed for a moment, but she was otherwise still quite composed despite the chill slowly crawling up her spine. "I think it's best not to risk contact. In any case, our priorities should be elsewhere for the moment." She spoke. (edited)

"We're supposed to be exploring and finding out what happened here," Saith argued, prodding at the leg with his foot (why), nose wrinkled a little under his helmet. "This is a part of that, no?.."

"Given how many hands we have here, we can do multiple tasks at once," he then paused, looking at the leg. "Hm. Sorry for that. Anyways... recording remains is just as important, I feel."

”They have been here for over a hundred years and it still did not digest them completely?” Garcia was baffled. Why didn’t it consume them fully? “Maybe… thats on purpose?”

“Mhm. Exploring… and whatnot.” M’Rish was unable to tear his eyes away from it. He was a nurse, damn it! He should be able to handle that! “I don’t think we should risk getting too close except for recording it, especially seeing what the, um, stuff— did to the corpse.”

"Playing with its food before it eats it. Or if it's a zombie, maybe they only completely consumed them recently..." he swallowed. "Gross."

"I agree, it is important to." Ellie agreed, she was a detective, but she usually recorded the deceased after the situation was considered, as she explained. "This situation should be considered an active threat though. We have seeming hostiles, and they seem to eject from this meat, so the longer we stay in one place, the more likely we are to be ambushed." Ellie exposited, she was clearly a bit paranoid, this was a crisis management situation, last time she was in one of these she got shot by a phaser four times. (edited)

Though you couldn’t really see it behind her EV suit and the layer of gross shit on the helmet, C’Tessa’s face contorted in horror and disgust upon seeing the leg. Absolutely disgusting. For a moment, C’Tessa went dead silent, imagining a rotted, furry, white and black-spotted leg sticking out instead- her own leg. She was meat too, she could be digested. She didn’t like the idea that this meat virus/parasite/thing played with its food. “I agree. Get as much as we can out of here, and head out before another one of those things comes knocking.”

"You all don't have to look at it, if you're unsettled go find something else to uncover." As the genome finished being scanned, ready for later uploading and sequencing, Iki took a second to see if there were any of the normal pathogens associated with organic decay present in the leg. They assumed not, but they wanted to see what was there, anyway.

The romulan wandered around the room, eyes scanning around for any movement or sign that something was going to suddenly crawl out of a panel in the wall and claw them all to death... "Eh, I mean I've seen enough gore and gristle before, skinned enough wildlife to be completely unphased by the sight of all these meat, but... It's still got this strange unpleasantness to it."

Not particularly — most of the breakdown came from the flesh eating its way through the human skin beneath, absorbing it into its mass piece by piece. Almost more like a viral infection than predator and prey. Enough to ensure the human beneath didn't rot away into nothingness before it was done consuming it...

"What's on the scan, ensign?" he asked, tearing his gaze away from the limb, trying to ease his thoughts about the sheer possible amount of such jane and john does around here...

"No decomposition-related pathogens to speak of, not even the ones expected to be already inside of a human body. Some degradation through autolysis, but beyond this most of the damage seems to be from the parasite itself. There has to be something antifungal and antibacterial about it." It was the only satisfactory answer to what Iki was reading. "I would like to pose a formal hypothesis: the parasite envelops, reducing decomposition to nothing through its own antifungal and antibacterial properties, and then waits to consume until it needs energy, to expand or to heal from damage." It was a neat explanation for what they were seeing, explaining the scans and what they'd seen from the flesh zombies.

6

5

"So it just... makes preserves for itself to feast on whenever needed," he moved his hand to rub at his chin and neck, but quickly lowered it back. "Very interesting. An absolute goldmine for studies and innovation, alas... one that fights back."

Zhi'rev started to try and dig out one of the flatter lumps, under the assumption that it might be a PADD or something with information on it.

”I guess… let’s just agree to not take any samples back with us.” She looked around for any possible consoles. Briefing rooms might have them sometimes, and screens for plan discussion and schematics.

Some improvised weaponry, mostly; blades that had been eaten away by the infection, now sporting little flesh bubbles. A PADD as well, one that had been seemingly stepped on and left broken. Damn. No sign of any console..

Iki stood up, having learned everything they could from the limb. "Is that all? We should probably get a move on if so."

"Yeah, let's get a move on." Zhi'rev said, a little sad that all of his hard work had turned up... a gross leg and some useless items, but at least they knew that the bumps weren't useful now.

“Let’s move on, yes please…” M’Rish’s tail swayed as much as it could while in the confines of his EV suit.

Apollo let out a sigh. He hated to leave the remains of a person. But, it was what the officers had ordered. No samples. "Rest in peace." He whispered before lifting himself up.

”Right behind ya!” Garcia agreed. Not much else to do there.

Saren nodded to that: "The swifter, the better. Eyes open, everyone. Hopefully, we will meet the rest of our team soon..."

She stood back for a moment, as the rest of the group began to leave. Her eyes still glacing around the room as she lingered for a little longer than she should've, before she finally took a step to follow behind the group.

Since there weren’t many consoles to tap into, only the leg (and she wasn’t great at biology), C’Tessa had been sort of chilling. Well, as much as one could chill in the Meat Hell Outpost. So, she went off in search of someone to talk to-if only just to stay sane in this place, full of people she did not know in the slightest. What a welcome to Starbase 777. She settled on Iki. At least they seemed happy to talk about.. what all this was. “So.. uh.. how many of these people do you think are under all this meat as food storage? Versus as zombies shambling around?” She asked. Iki seemed more knowledgeable about the flesh than she was, but if they could figure it out, it’d be useful in order to infer how many more meat creatures they’d end up encountering.

Oh, they were being talked to! C'Tessa was going to regret this. "Hard to say. It'd be easier with a clear estimation of how many people were on this moon when the parasite got loose. It's also unclear how much damage the parasite would have had to repair, and how well it digests non-meat organic matter. Metabolism speed, too, though I think we can safely say that that's pretty low." It would be such a fun project to keep track of, if they had had a chance to study it. But alas, it was too dangerous. "If you were hoping I'd tell you there won't be any more zombies, though, I can't. We have to assume that any bodies that haven't been digested yet can be utilised in that manner, and I am not going to state uncertainties as if truth. There is every chance there will be many, many more." Don't come to Iki for comfort, ever. Just don't do it. They will not give it if they deem comfort too far from the plausible truth.

“I wish one of the consoles we’ve run into had a crew roster, or I could give you that number.. but I’ve not found one yet. I’ll look for one where we go next, maybe.” She shrugged. “I’d think as much. It’s better if you don’t say something you don’t know is true, sometimes. With our luck, the next room we go into will be crawling with them.” She said, still trying in vain to scrape the residual meat slime off her gloves. “This is one hell of a first away mission on this station for me, I’ll say that much.” She commented.

There was only one way, really. Saren peaked in before walking through, and seeing as there appeared to be no danger there... he gestured for the rest to follow.

Onwards! Corvus thought to herself as she pushed forwards through with the rest of the team into the next area.