Star Trek: Rapture - science-lab

When the team entered there science lab, they were thrown by the lack of lighting in the room, that is until one of the officers switched them on, and were able to see the room in better detail. Everything seemed normal at first...that is until they heard a quiet buzzing sound, upon closer inspection they found a stasis pod encompassed by an extremely strong forcefield, higher even that level 10, possibly the reason it had escaped detection by all of the sensors, both on the Rapture and the Kon-Tiki.

T’Asha was the first in the lab. She fumbled for the light switch, until she managed to turn it on. She missed the automatic doors and lights of the Rapture. But, with those convenient yet annoying at times Vulcan ears, she was able to pick up the buzzing loud and clear. She followed the sound until she found the stasis pod. With some observation and a tricorder scan she realized the force field was higher than level ten. If the full force of the sensors of the Rapture couldn’t find this, she doubted her tricorder could find what was inside it. “Commander, this pod is surrounded by a force field higher than level ten. How should we proceed?”

"How about we scan the room and look for the strongest energy source leading to this pod? That pod and its forcefield are powered by some sort of connection to the ship's power supply, or some other power supply, so if we find the line of connection, we can sever it. Or maybe there's an off switch somewhere? Actually, I'll just scan it." He scanned the room, knowing the scanners wouldn't penetrate the forcefield but that wouldn't necessarily be true of anything else in the room, and also looked around with his eyes, the old-fashioned way.

They wondered what could be in the pod that needed that much protection… Or was it it protect them in some strange roundabout way? “Any luck finding anything with your scans? Truthfully I can’t make sense out of the half of the machines on this ship” S’tihuur asked Hopps, whilst simultaneously searching the room.

Hopps indeed had the right idea, shortly after initiating the scan, it detected a small alien device in the corner of the room, hooked up to the pod via a thin cable. Upon further scanning, the tricorder recognized it as Tholian in origin, and could be deactivated easily.

“If you can get the force field lowered, we should be prepared to react. Whatever is inside the pod is unknown and could be dangerous.” T’Asha stood a safe distance away from her pod, phaser in hand. She didn’t point it at the pod, but she was ready to react. If it didn’t kill her immediately, she had her tricorder at her side to scan whatever was inside the pod.

S’tihuur readied their phaser, setting it to stun. They didn’t want to kill whatever was in there, even if it tried to attack them wouldn’t it be normal to panic if you awoke with a bunch of strange people around you?

Hopps approached and was about to deactivate it, but stopped. "This is gonna deactivate it - I-I think, anyway, so unless anyone objects I'm gonna go ahead and do that on zero, so be ready, okay?" And if nobody objected, he said, "Three... Two... One.. Zero!" He pressed the button or pulled the lever or however you easily deactivated the thing.

The Doctor was not taken aback by the darkness of the room, it was likely dark because they had turned off the lights to save power. But why didn’t they activate automatically when they opened to door? A question for another day. “Be careful.” The Doctor said carefully, they was nothing else to do but switch the device off, it was the only clue.

After Hopps deactivated the field, all of the atmosphere within it escaped with a hiss, leaving the pod open to the air. On the pod was a small console, with a message starting to loop in the loud, shrieking tones indicative of the Tholian language.

T’Asha went up to the console, still holding her phaser set to stun. She couldn’t understand the language, and it was absolutely killing her ears. “Can anyone translate this message?”

He cautiously stepped closer to the pod, activating the UT function on his tricorder, and placing the device on the console to translate. “I’m justa bout’ sure as sin this’ll work!”

Once the translation software activated, a looping messaged played “The deviccccce did not work on thissss ssssubjecttt, bring back to Tholia for further ssssstudy.”

Hopps rubbed the short bit of his undercut, behind his ear - a nervous tic. "We have Tholian in the UT database? Wow. Okay, so sounds like the mind control didn't work on whoever's in here. Shame, would been nice to find out why it didn't work on them so we can protect ourselves from the mind control devices in the future." (edited)

He stood for a moment, slack jawed, completely unexpecting what it was saying. “You reckon we should open it? Maybe we can render honors and bring em’ home if we can identify em’? I’d hate to leave em’ in this state!”

"Yeah, uh, we should, just, you know, maybe someone else should do it in case there's something gnarly in there?" What if they were just straight up dead in there? He would like to see as few corpses as possible in his lifetime.

“Yes. I say we should open it in order to return whoever it was to their home. But in the end it is up to Commander Olson.” She stepped closer to the pod, ready to open it if Olson gave the okay. She had a looser grip on her phaser. This wasn’t a monster in here, just a crew member. Right?

“I’ll open it myself.” She stated, she was used to seeing deceased patients, and she was familiar with the mechanics of a stasis pod. “You may all wish to stand back.” She said, making her approach, and she had followed the basics in terms of deactivating the stasis pod, but assuming the device was alien in origin, she couldn’t read the text, only the images and symbols.

T’Asha did as ordered, stepping back and getting out of Olson’s way. She wasn’t afraid of seeing dead people. But it was their duty to try and return whoever was in their it their home for a proper funeral rather than being left here forever. She wouldn’t want to be left like that.

As Angela opened the pod and the condensed atmosphere dissipated, it revealed a young looking Andorian Ensign, with the name Ca’Ril emblazoned on his uniform. He had clearly recently passed and was dispatched by a single small entry wound at the center of his forehead. If Angela were to scan him, it would be immeadiately obvious that he had been placed in the pod not 20 minutes before the Kon-Tiki jumped to the 25th century.

T’Asha didn’t make a sound or visible reaction to the appearance of the Ensign, but she was definitely surprised. He looked recently dead even from a glance. This poor man, she thought, what an awful way to die.

And so she did, she scanned him and enlightened her crew. “The cellular analysis suggests that they were placed into the pod- approximately 20 minutes before the ship jumped into our century.” She also examined the person for life signs, no matter if they appeared to be dead.

No lifesigns could be detected other than some residual neural impulses that hadn’t had a chance to dissipate because of the stasis field.

"Sooo... Are they dead, or..." He was resisting the urge to look. He'd seen so many dead animals, and probably a few dead humans in his career, but what with everything else going on, he didn't want to put himself under more stress. Like, they were stuck in the 22nd century and they might not be able to get back, right? Oh no! What if he never saw his rabbit again? "We need to take the body or whatever back to Rapture, but, like, we need to get back to Rapture first, so I'm actually not sure we can do much else here... Should I comm engineering and see how they're doing?"

“Maybe you science folk should check im’ out to see what’s up? Maybe he has a pathogen or sumthin’ lurkin’ in there?” He said, curiously peering at the body in the pod, a feeling of deep sadness at seeing one of their own, a newly minted officer laying in there dead as a doornail.

“Ensign Lovell is right. May I investigate further? There must be a reason why the Tholian mind control did not work on him. Perhaps there is another factor contributing to his death besides the obvious hole in his head.” And if she was allowed, she would approach the body. She would investigate for any signs of illness or anything strange that would inhibit the Tholian mind control. She also scanned him again, just in case.

S’tihuur hoped that his death was quick and painless, but their face was completely blank. How awful fate was… Nobody deserved to die in such a way. They weren’t bothered by it however, just… Angry at life, and at whoever did this. (edited)

"A pathogen from the past? Yeesh..." He was getting a bit stressed out. He could cope, obviously, he wasn't going to lose his cool in the middle of a mission, but man, he really wished he could get a hug or something right now.

She had looked over the body, saddened they wouldn’t have been able to rescue a crew member today. “We can use the transporters on the Rapture. When we return, but I agree it’ll be time to comm engineering soon enough. But we will continue examining the body. And we completed, we’ll reinstate the stasis pod so to preserve the body. I’d prefer to examine the body back in my sickbay, in a sterile area. We’ll have to regroup with the rest of the team. My first thought would be in the hallway where we first beamed aboard.”

[COMMS] “Lieutenant Xakarix to Doctor Olson.”

To the wall panel again. “You’ve got me go ahead.”

[COMMS] “We are about as wrapped up down here as we can be, I suggest you finish up in the lab and meet us and the other team on the bridge, Xakarix out.” (edited)

The pod console once again beeped, and the display shifted to one showing in-depth biological and chemical data, a line of text blinking red indicating a high concentration of adrenaline in the officers hindbrain, possibly because of latent telepathic ability, this individual possibly had Aenar ancestors relatively recently in his genetic timeline.

Having been standing next to T’Asha, he whipped his head around when he heard the beep, gesturing to the science officer for her to investigate. “Ya might wanna check that out ma’am! Could be somethin’ mighty important!”

T’Asha nodded to Parker before beginning her speech. “According to this display, there is possible latent telepathic ability in his brain. He could have Aenar ancestry recently in his genetics. This telepathic ability may have prevented the Tholians from using their mind control capabilities on him. That would explain why they put him in the pod to take to Tholia. What confuses me is why they killed him. Objectively speaking, for what the Tholians probably wanted to do, dead test subjects are not as useful as live ones. Did he try to fight back and was thus killed? It would explain the amount of adrenaline in his brain.” She said after reading the pod console. She went back to examining the body, now searching for any signs of a struggle. She also wasn’t really a fan of being called ma’am, she much preferred Lieutenant, but she wasn’t going to bring that up.

Further study of the corpse and the console would show that the Ensign had been killed because of his discooperation with the Tholians, and his resistance to the bio-electric technology. Another loud series of beeps emanated from the console, warning of rapid decomposition if the stasis field was not reengaged.

T’Asha looked at the console once again. The man had fought his hardest against them. But in the end he was killed. His fight was admirable, to her, she would’ve done the same in his place if she could. The beeps startled her, and she looked back at the console. She knew what she’d have to do. “If we do not re-engage the status field, the body is at risk of rapid decomposition. Everyone stand clear, I will reactivate the field.” She closed the pod door, and went over to the console to reactivate the stasis field.

As soon as the field was reestablished, the pod door automatically closed and the warning messaged ceased.

“Let’s get a move onto the bridge and get the hell out of this time line.” She said, as soon as the pod was secured. Amy then moved out into the corridor.

The huge Texan follow the Doctor out of the lab almost like a duckling, eager to get the hell out of that spooky room and back to somewhere less...creepy.

Hopps followed, wondering if they'd be able to find the deceased's family. Would they even appreciate the closure or would the explanation of what happened to him just make things worse?

T’Asha followed as well, thinking much the same thing as Hopps. His poor family, they went so long without closure, and had they not come, the Ensign would have gone for eternity without a proper funeral, alone on this cursed ship to exist until the end of time. She didn’t like that, and she was glad they had come, that she had made the proper observations and encouraged the away mission so they could find him.