Star Trek: Starbase 777 - engineering-hub

Deeper into the belly of the beast, then. For something that had remained intact this long, everything seemed to be in kind of okay condition. What wasn't completely overtaken by the sticky, stretchy sinew, of course. Which.. Wasn't much.

Though she was Intelligence now, C’Tessa had only been Intelligence for like, two weeks. The rest of her time, she’d been an Engineer. And in her prior-Engineer opinion, the engineering hub didn’t seem so bad. Even the.. meat.. seemed to be less prevalent. She looked around, hoping to spot another console she could tap into- and kept an eye out for anything.. alive. That wasn’t the meat, of course. “At least everything in here seems structurally stable. Besides the viscera.”

”I am still kinda impressed on how well this systems held on even with all this… dubious vegetation? And all the stick and goo and fleshy secretions?” Garcia couldn’t help but comment as the group advanced deeper. “It’s not something you expect to need to make your tec viscera proof, but at least a lot seems okay to use.”

Wandering around yet trying to stay to the back of everyone, like he had been told to, M’Rish looked up. “Maybe they made it viscera-proof on purpose?”

"I don't know, there still seems to be a lot of viscera around..." Zhi'rev spoke, his eyes narrowing at the sight. Really, he didn't like the look of all this, but he had committed, and maybe there was a way out this way.

“Mm… true.” He stepped back, seeing it stick to the bottom of his boot. He squirmed, trying to shake it off of his sole with a grimace on his face, before trying to regain some of the extensive composure he’d lost today.

She nodded. “If all of this… flesh, was here before then it makes sense they would seal the place as best as possible. But after it was abandoned and the… fauna? Flora?” She was definitely getting confused on how to address the flesh. “The vegetation invaded quite a lot, but we still have power and computers, that’s impressive.”

Apollo crouched down, looking at the underside of the computer console, caked with meaty growth attached like lichen. "I'd reckon this thing is that life signature. Question is, what's this thing gotta do with the computers?"

He walked in, immediately counting and recounting the visible heads... all of them. Okay. Okay... "Has anyone tried to activate the consoles yet?" he asked, eyeing one of them himself. "I think looking up information about how this facility operated before... abandonment, would give us some context as to what happened here. Besides that... maybe the engineering reports could also gives us some clues on what transpired here. I wish the operations console gave us more information on communications this outpost had with the outside world, but... alas." Saren regarded the whole room, then, green eyes squinted ever so slightly. "Besides that, finding our way back to the second team should be our second priority. I can assure you all that the comms are working, though. So we can keep in touch with them. At least, as of now. Is everyone okay with what I've said and offered so far?"

"It doesn't look super vegetation-y to me," Saith mumbled, prodding a meaty blob with a glove-covered finger. "I know that everything on planets with normal dirts and soils and shit is like, technically alive in a way, but man, I don't think this is what that's supposed to mean." He perked up, listening as Saren took charge. A glimmer of light through something that had been shrouded in darkness for... how many months now?... A bit of his old self peeking through. "No sir," he answered with a tentative sort of smile. "I'm not really good with this sort of thing, so I'll watch our backs."

The thick, sticky membrane caked onto one of the consoles pulsed, and the lights flickered faintly.

He pursed his lips, eyes widening at the flickering. M’Rish cursed under his breath as he followed along with the others, trying not to look at the viscera as he passed.

“I do not like any of this.” She mumbled as she looked around at the membrane.

“Uh huh…” He replied, stepping over a particularly thick chunk of planet meat, “Same here.”

Apollo took a deep breath in. He crouched to the floor and closed his eyes. He could feel his mind reaching out, trying to swim through a crowded space. "I can feel the other team. They're trying to find their way back themselves. I think I also feel... hunger. Odd. No distress, though."

”No complains here, sir.” Garcia smiled towards Saren, their current senior. She had heard good things about this one. “I’ll try to get us those engineering reports, and maybe run a systems diagnostic, might give us some insight on what is still operational.” She approached one of the console as the lights flickered. A small moment of hesitation before she decided to go through with it. Go big or go home. Except she actually wanted to go back home eventually.

"I still do not want to think about eating... well anything." Saeihr shuddered and poked at some of the sinew with her foot.

Ellie flinched at the flicker of the lights, adjusting her phaser to aim up, not at anybody, but for more of a sweeping motion. "There are roughly two dozen bodies in this building; perhaps the surface conducts electricity, and we have disturbed the construction by our interruption." The Golem explained as she lowered her laser back down and began pacing the room. Treading over to the flickering console. Inspecting its dusty and... slimy surface. "We need to conduct a system diagnostic of the station, yes, and see if there are any interruptions of the layout. Air filtration and such." She looked to Garcia, stepping back from the console and letting her work. Continuing to pace around the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary... out of the ordinary in the context of a meat moon.

“How is anyone hungry in here?” He cringed, watching his breath fog up the glass of his suit a tiny bit before receding , “It’s a bit, um… squishy for my tastes.”

The console flickered to life, the systems diagnosis loading... and loading...... and loading........ Life support was online. The lights were nonfunctional in a few areas — notably the labs, the observatory, and in almost every hallway— and most of the consoles were nonfunctional, with very few, plot-convenient exceptions. The lights flickered again. Timed perfectly with an activity spike in the logs, and another shuddering pulse of the meat. (edited)

3

He offered a nod to Garcia, just as he received the call from Vara'l - which made the scientist turn away from the team as he processed what was being said. And after talking into his commbadge, he turned back, a bit of a conflicted look settling on his features. "The other team is currently testing if the mass around us reacts to organic materials, via food from a replicator," he informed the rest of the team, before nodding to Garcia again: "Something there?"

”This synchronization… not sure if I appreciate it.” Garcia commented before informing Saren of the situation. “So far we got life support, lights are working on most places, consoles though… a few here and there. Guess we got lucky to find functional ones so far.” She proceeded to trying to find the lates engineering report available. “And… uhummm… the meat seams to pulse when there is a power surge? I wonder… if the flesh would react to electricity… what if we zap it…” She muttered as her fingers worked to get those reports. (edited)

Flinching at the flicker and the pulse, M’Rish’s fur stood on end beneath his suit as he breathed a sigh of relief at more contact with the other group.

Apollo patted M'Rish's thick suit. "Easy, officer. Nothin's happened yet." He attempted to reassure the kitty.

"Is there any possibility we can direct power from active unessential systems?" Ellie explained, as she looked around the pulsating room. Already becoming somewhat accustomed to the seemingly random and rhythmic pulsations. To be fair, it was just gore, and when you've worked at an autopsy table, you get used to it. "Perhaps it is stimulated by electricity yes. That would explain why the building is seemingly active. Perhaps it conducts electricity and sparks the systems in this way?" Ellie asked, feeling like an insane woman at the suggestion, but something about this didn't feel right. This was a living organism, and even a flower has instincts it has burned into it for survival.

The last log was dated for the second half of 2250, cutting abruptly to about the middle. Corrupted file... The voice on the other end was a gruff, low woman's, flat and disinterested. ".. so that incident report has since been filed, and the repair team has dealt with it the best they can. No casualties. We're planning on expanding soon, to allow for a larger space, for more testing of the samples, or somethin'. Until then, everything remains as it is now. End log."

3

“…yeah.” He whispered, “But also, you know— big flesh planet. Not my favourite,”

Apollo leaned into the console. "2250... I don't like the sound of testing samples either."

"I mean. We are on a science outpost on a meat planet," Saith butted in thoughtfully. "Who wouldn't wanna study stuff here?"

"Evidently that didn't go well." Apollo held his arms up, indicating to the environment. (edited)

"I wish I was stationed on a meat planet," he mused, still keeping his eyes on the exits, "Without all the overtaking bits, 'course. It's still wicked cool, and worth studying... Right, Saaren?" Saith prodded hesitantly, grinning up at the older scientist.

"I'd find it most concerning if they hadn't" Ellie nodded. "That would imply that this organism grew incredibly rapidly. Besides that, we should try and dig for this incident report log. It sounds like this wasn't the first or last of these incidents." Ellie explained, walking over to another terminal. "That would likely be in security." She inspected the terminals, trying to find one that functioned outside of just that one. see what else she could find.

Just the one, unfortunately. The rest were kaput.

"Don't come to the station's labs, then," came an even, pokerfaced response. He then looked at Garcia: "Let's see what the other team finds out about the mass, before we, ah... conduct our own experiments." Incident report... interesting. He nodded along to Ellie's words, "It should be an older file, given the context." Saith's remark made the older of the two Romulans pause, as if flabbergasted by the casual playfulness. Before the silence became awkward, though... he did incline his head: "Occurrences like this, of such catastrophic magnitude, are exceedingly rare. That's why we need to figure out what happened here. And a place like this, or what was here before it became overrun with gore... of course it would be studied. If it was indeed this mass they were after, for example, I could imagine multitudes of hopes and dreams they had here. Especially way back then, when some of the medical and engineering wonders available to us now just didn't exist."

5

Was Saren's voice echoing?...

6

Zhi'rev felt chills up his spine when he heard the echo. There shouldn't have been an echo, not somewhere covered in meat and flesh. "Something isn't right here... and for different reasons than usual... have we tried all the logs we could find yet?" He added, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.

”Give me a minute… and maybe try to speak lower…” Garcia was back into trying to find logs or reports. Anything useful? Anything that could explain why Saren’s voice was suddenly echoing or the weird pulsing plus energy surges?

Nothing about the pulsing, or energy surges. The system itself didn't even report an energy surge. Just the lights being triggered as normal. INCIDENT REPORT, STARDATE [ REDACTED ] ENTER SECURITY CLEARANCE TO PROCEED

Her ears perked up at the noise, her brow burrowing as she readied her rifle once again. Why was there an echo? Was something repeating back what he was saying? T'Evoryn soon stepped back to gain a wider view of the room. A better vantage point, just in case something caught them off guard.

Apollo could sense a similar wave of confusion from his teammates. He couldn't hear this effect on anyone else's voice. "Lieutenant, sir, something about your frequency is strange." Apollo told Saren.

Upon hearing his own voice echo back, the man went rigid - hand slowly moving backwards to hover over the phaser. The sudden comm from Vara'l seemed to snap Saren out of his short stupor, and the scientist grunted a curse before lowering his head to respond. This was fine. He should recount everyone after he's done talking. This was okay. "What frequency," came a question, as flat as a sheet of paper and as dry as a desert, his head still lowered.

”Okay, sir I have good news and bad news. The good news is: I’ve found a report that might be the one regarding the last incident.” Garcia looked around to find Saren’s eyes. “Bad news is, I don’t have clearance. It needs a security code.”

"Is there any possible way to bypass it?" She asked, watching the bundle of officers surrounding the console. "I believe it's security measures should be quite outdated, no?"

Ellie pointed a phaser at the doorway at the echo. Why had it only been for the Liutenant? Perhaps it was more then just a reverbiration. She could test it later though. For now, she listened to Garcia as she discussed the log. "Unlikely, it is probably a different Incident. The audio file did not require clearance, and it stated the date." Ellie explained. "This is likely different one, something more substantial, to the point where general access was deemed a threat to sanctuary." Ellie explained, stepping away from the door, but keeping a sight on it. "It may not be that simple. It's system is more then likely outdated, but that also means that it could be foreign to most of us to crack. We would need someone who knows there trade with these. Either that or search for quarters to see if anybody would have access codes." Ellie looked at T'Evoryn as she explained, before turning back to the doorway.

"I meant that... strange copy. Looks like... it went away... Can't hear it any more." Apollo responded to Saren. He looked down at the pulsating mass. "I'm willing to search." He offered to Findley. "Just keep a level head." He whispered to himself. (edited)

"Not by yourself. We should stay in pairs at minimum." Ellie looked at Apollo. Nodding to him.

”Alright…” She cracked her knuckles. “Just… don’t make this any worse than already is…” Making a small cross with her dominant hand she set to work in a way to counter the security code. She had done this before! She had worked around a whole Tal Shiar total system sabotage back in 777! These were a bit older… but that meant possibly less complex too? Well… it was this or spending a lot of time looking around.

He furrowed his brows and shook his head, deciding to leave Apollo's commentary unanswered. To distract himself from the thoughts of there maybe being something that mimics him, he addressed the engineer instead: "Try to see if there is a way to bypass it first, yes. As for people separating... I am not really keen on that idea. What if you walk away and then the echoes begin again, and lure you away from us? And while yes, we have the commbadges, there is also the risk of being attacked. Which, speaking of comms.." Saren pointed at his chest area: "Lieutenant Commander tr'Hara has informed me that their experiment, which consisted of offering the, hmm... meat, some food, has been done. They reported that it had reached out to the piece and embraced it, beginning what is likely the process of digestion. Do with this information... what you will."

"So it could have some form of consciousness. Interesting." She muttered, still keeping a vigilant eye on their surroundings. However, the fact that it took 'some food', was a bit concerning, at least to her. Going of what she heard, there was a chance the 'thing' required food. If that was true, and if there hadn't been contact on this planet for years, how did it get it's food? Hmm. Maybe she was thinking to hard about this. She wasn't a scientist, after all.

“Great, so we are the hamburgers for this thing. Got it.” She muttered, heading over to Garcia to help with the security code. Not really knowing what the cross meant, she did it too. She assumed it was some good luck ritual, and oh boy did they need some good luck.

1

"That depends on what definition of consciousness you employ," Iki supplied, thinking out loud. "A level of awareness of surroundings can be ascribed to many plants that lack even sentience, let alone sapience. Whether or not this thing organism responds to more than simply biological imperative remains to be seen." They were cataloguing all information as it came. It was rather interesting, and provided a potential reason for why the outpost was so deserted. At C'Tessa's comment, a more apt metaphor came to mind, of bugs caught in a carnivorous pitcher plant. They elected not to share it, only humming mildly to convey their disagreement with the sentiment.

"True. I suppose we can only hope whatever we learn of this thing won't be to our detriment." She muttered, the last few words stumbling slightly as she took in a breath. T'Evoryn wasn't quite on edge, but she always had an aversion to uncertainty. After all, how could you protect yourself from a threat you don't know about?

"Could be a defense mechanism." Apollo suggested. "I mean, if the entire moon is made of this stuff, you gotta wonder what and why a moon needs to eat." Apollo reached to grab his chin, only to bonk his hand on his helmet. The officer let out a sigh. "Personally, I wanna know what that team was researchin'. Could give us a way to ward off this thing. Or... what it even does."

Access granted.

INCIDENT REPORT: STARDATE [ REDACTED ] The science team did their best to contain the accelerated growth, but even their greatest efforts failed to prevent the destruction. The growth quickly became too large for its containment, and attempts were made to design something easily adaptable. The scientists on alpha shift entered the labs on [ REDACTED ] to find the mass spilling outwards, having grown into the corners in its enclosure to crack it open. Holographic containment procedures recommended. Repair team successfully deployed. End log.

7

Oh, that wasn't good, that wasn't good at all. But what had caused this accelerated growth -- growth that had clearly only continued. Zhi'rev was curious, but they did say that curiosity could kill. He just hoped he wasn't going to end up like that beef.

”Damn… so it did grow from the inside out, at least on the most part?” Garcia mused over, looking. “According to this… they probably took samples from the moon and… well, screwed up some way.” Maybe trying to zap the meat was not the best idea after all…

He nodded along to what the fellow scientist was saying. Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember ever seeing this person. Side effect of the station being so large, or did he miss out on a new arrival during Saren's... self-imposed isolation? Hm. "I agree with that assessment," he picked up where Iki trailed off, meanwhile reading the incident report. "So... we had a Starfleet outpost here. Clearly they have been experimenting with something, and with current context clues, it does seem that their target was this meaty substance that coats the planet. This report mentions "accelerated growth", and the need for "holographic containment", which certainly makes me suspect that something went wrong at some point. But... what happened afterwards?"

Hey look, new person! She's been here the whoooole time. Corvus was wandering slowly around the outskirts of the room, examining the meat with a rather curious look on her face. She had seen the inside of countless animals growing up hunting and seen plenty of corpses too... But nothing compared to walls upon walls of flesh. "I've seen nothing like this before, it looks natural enough, but almost... still alive. It's horrifying."

4

”Maybe… the containment measures did ultimately fail. And whatever growth was happening eventually ceased without more stimuli after they went away.” Garcia offered. “Giant growing piece of meat surely would make most run for the hills. And the audio recording did say ‘don’t let it take you’… One could definitely assume at least someone had direct contact with the meat and it wasn’t very peaceful or productive.”

"I wouldn't be surprised if those 'taken' got consumed by the meat like the beef that was sacrificed earlier. I shudder to think of what might happen to those who did get 'taken'." Really, Zhi'rev was starting to worry that there was something more to the taking. Worst case... shambling flesh zombies. Best case, long dead skeletons. "I don't want to stay in one place too long though... should we get moving?"

Kya had been hanging back observing, but even she was put off by the fleshly overgrowth. “This was never reported either. Strange we went in blind.” She murmured.

Ellie looked to the Liuetent Commander. "They were likely initially feeding it bovines or replicated food like our team did in the Cafeteria. It's clearly carnivorous. If people were assimilated, it was likely excretiatingly painful." Ellie tapped her chin, or tried to with the EVA suit. She was trying to figure this out, nothing made sense. "Its strange it wasn't reported. Perhaps we should do a system check of the communication features. It's possible by the time they were to outsource this information to other facilities in space their facilities were corrupted." The Golem explained, looking over to Kya. Tapping her EVA suit made her itch, unrelated, but she just had the urge to itch her chest but the suit didn't let her easily.

"Only time will tell, I'm afraid," he responded to Garcia. "But given what the other team has reported, and what we heard on the tape, it... does paint a rather grim picture, doesn't it." Unsure what Kya and Ellie meant by "this", he continued on. "Is there anything else left for us here? Otherwise it might be a good idea to move on, I think. We have looked at the log, the report..."

”Well… it does seem like someone tried to erase this… or at least hide it?” She furrowed her brows. “Some things are redacted, and we did not have access to these reports, plus them being locked by security codes… I don’t know about you, but If I had escaped a really hostile ‘do not come back’ type of place, I would certainly at least inform why.”

“Unless they don’t want anyone to know about this place at all? The less traces, the better, in that case.” The words came out quicker than he could really think about them, “For safety, or— other reasons, I don’t know.”

"Could've also gotten damaged, no?" he made a slow, wiggly gesture with his palm. "I've seen similar damages to files when the consoles were messed up. Given our surroundings, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that these cells are now, well... inside of the consoles as well." He paused, then. "Which... hmm."

"Nobody escaped... at least not on record... how fast did this grow when it escaped containment. There's probably a plethora of information elsewhere though. The engineering hub won't have anything else necessary." Ellie explained, wanting to, and preparing to leave. "No, unlikely, the team has a responsibility to blacklist and set out a casualty report if they had one." She looked to M'Rish, and considered a few things mentally. "I'd need more information, but I think the initial growth that consumes everything here may have been the alloted time of a few minutes to hours. Likely at night, but that is my hypothesis."

”Leaving a very dangerous place as a ‘no access’ zone without telling why is certainly very dumb.” Eventually people would question or get curious enough to attempt exploration again. “But people often are very dumb.” She watched Saren. “I think this is the most we will get here, sir. Anything else is speculation… we should find more data to confirm our grim picture.” The carefree smile she sported was a contrast to everything else going on.

"I would argue the substance is likely omnivorous, feeding on all organic matter," Iki pointed out, not to be helpful, just to be pedantic. "Otherwise we would likely see plant life. Or teeth and bones." They turned to Ellie. "Where did the nighttime assumption come from? I don't see any evidence to support that hypothesis."

She nodded along with the groups conversation. “Regardless, we’ll be able to report it once we’re back on the Eventide.” She said with a hum.

“Ah. That’s… fair, but I don’t know why anyone would cover up something this big, other than to try and erase it completely.” He replied to Ellie, “Doesn’t seem like something to dwell on.”

"There is nobody here, no bodies, no trace. From the sounds of it, no bodies in the Mess Hall. It could have arisen at night time, when most were incapacitated in their rooms. We'd need to check the quarters first, but it is only a hypothesis." Ellie explained, but she acknowledged the omnivorous content that the other Ensign explained. "You are right about being omnivorous though. I was too focused on the consumption of meat to notice that, thank you." Clearly ignorant of the interjection being largely irrelevant, but if could still help Ellie here if no more logs were recoverable. A non-zero possibility.

Iki scoffed at Ellie's hypothesis. If it consumed all organic matter, why would there be bodies? A flawed assumption based on the evidence presented. Still, looking at the yellow of her uniform, they decided to let it go. "We're moving on, then?"

"Was there something in your throat?" Ellie said it response to the scoff. Not getting the intention behind it. "We should get moving though, yes, this was a dead end."

"I think that is for the best. We have a way right over there. Now, let's try and stick with each other, yes?.." he was definitely not referencing the previous instance of people running ahead. And if he was, he was doing it from a worried junior assistant angle. After counting the heads again, he approached whatever ominous doorway was available for them...

”There was a ship, and they didn’t seem to report anything about the incident either…” She sighed and walked away from the console. “Don’t think we have any chances of finding bodies though… so off to look for more consoles!” Garcia’s uniform might have been yellow, but the kind of yellow closer to blue. It was a dim possibility given the meat eating meat and the many years that passed. Unless someone died in a suit. Or in a locked room.

The Romulan wandered around a little further before turning back to the group. Rifle still tensely held and ready should the wall decide to suddenly move and try and eat the entire away team... "Where now then, back the way we came?"

"This way," Saith followed the rest of the group to the #sickbay .