It had been a long night for Lt. Commander Kira Markos and Lt. Linn Haakon. Just yesterday a few "Protectors," guardians of the planet that Starfleet Command had dubbed P3R-823, had boarded the USS Knight. In their efforts to try to defend the planet, the Protectors had decided to beam aboard the Knight in order to nullify what they perceived as a threat to their charge. In their efforts to destroy the Knight the Protectors had caused many injuries and a few casualties as well. As Linn and Markos continued to treat the injured, Linn noticed a peculiar side effect to the weapons that the Protectors employed. As far as either of the two doctors could tell, the weapons fire not only acted similar to a phaser, but also carried along its beam a small sample of miniature devices that, for all practical purposes, acted like Borg nanoprobes. The only difference between the two devices was that the Borg had used their nanoprobes to assimilate individuals into the collective by augmenting and changing the physiology of the individual at the near-cellular level. The Protector nanoprobes also have an effect on the cellular level, although they don't augment the physiology of the cell, they destroy it. At the moment both Dr. Haakon and Dr. Kira were working on a way to neutralize the nanoprobes before they caused the injured to be converted into casualties.
"What if we were to send a bio-electrical pulse through the body tuned to their operating frequency. The pulse should render them useless and allow us to repair the injuries," said Haakon as she turned from monitoring Lieutenant Nige.
"I've been working on finding the right frequency to disable them, and it seems that the magnitude of the pulse would be well beyond most of the crew's physiologic electrical range. We would destroy the nanoprobes and the tissues of the infected as well," replied Kira as he peered at the data displayed on his tri-corder. "I need an engineer to decipher the circuitry on these things. If we can change their programming we can disable them long enough to flush them out of their system. Maybe we could even reverse their programming to cause them to repair the damage they've done."
"The only problem is we're running short on engineers. Most of the engineering crew is either injured or dead," replied Haakon.
"I can work a computer, but I'm not an engineer. There has to be someone left on board who can figure these things out." said Kira in a frustrated tone.
Linn taps her communicator and begins to speak clearly, "Dr. Haakon to the Bridge."
[Go ahead Doctor,] replied Captain Osagawa.
"Sir, we have isolated the nanoprobes from the injured crewman, but we seem to be running into a wall. We need an engineer down here to help us make sense of these things."
[We don't have many left, Doctor. I'll see what I can do. Osagawa out.]
Linn looked over at Markos and gave a small shrug. "At least we tried."
At that moment, the sound of breaking glass was heard in the main infirmary room where the injured crewmen were located. Both Kira and Haakon looked at each other in shock as both of them stopped what they were working on to see the source of the commotion. As they reached the doorway, they found Lieutenant Brock sitting upright in his bed with the remains of a small glass container at his feet.
"Lieutenant, are you okay?" Kira asked, grabbing a nearby scanner to check on Brock's condition.
"A little disoriented, but recovering. What happened?" asked Brock in his synthesized voice.
"A few Protectors beamed aboard the Knight and caused a lot of damage. They hit engineering first. You were hit by their phasers and were knocked unconscious,." replied Linn as she checked the readings from the biobed that Brock was lying on a few moments ago. "You don't feel any pain?"
"No, just a little disoriented. Horta physiology usually responds to injury with unconsciousness in order to repair damaged systems in a rapid manner. Our bodies can repair themselves in a manner of hours for most major injuries while in this state."
"Linn, look at this, the nanoprobes in his body are inert. It's as though they were never activated." said Kira as he handed over the scanner and tricorder information for Linn to inspect.
"His biobed seems to have recorded some residual energy that it can't identify. The nanoprobes weren't activated by the time he was brought to the infirmary."
"Excuse me, Doctors--nanoprobes?" said Brock.
"Yes, nanoprobes. For all practical purposes the Protectors weapons infuse micro-cellular devices into the victim that act like Borg nanoprobes, except they don't assimilate tissue, they destroy it," Kira responded in a busied tone of voice. "What is suprising is that the nanoprobes are inert in your tissues, while in the other crewman they are quite active."
"Our systems are not biologically similar to humanoids. Where your systems are mostly based on carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and phosphorous, ours utilize mostly silicon, oxygen, and boron. Perhaps the nanoprobes perceived my body as non-organic, and thus never were activated."
"Check for the energy signature on the other crew members," asked Kira as an idea began to form.
"None of the crew has this energy signature in their system. Only Brock's bed seems to have recorded traces of it." said Haakon as she roamed about the room checking each bed for the energy signature.
"Hmmm... wait, do we have some of the equipment that was on the crewmen, like phasers, tricorders, engineering diagnostic equipment...anything?" asked Markos.
"Yes, there are a couple of phasers that were removed from a few of the engineering crewmen. What are we looking for?" asked Haakon as she wonders if Kira has lost his mind.
"Just scan one of them and see if the same energy signature is present."
As Linn passes the scanner over the equipment in question her eyebrows raise in a look of suprise. "You're right. It's the same signature that we found in Brock's body. Why is it here, but not in the crewmen's bodies?"
"I think that the weapon's energy signature is designed to change when it comes in contact with organic matter. When the signature changes, the nanoprobes are activated. Like a negative feedback system in our cells. Once the stimulus is gone, i.e. the original energy signature, the nanoprobes activate and begin to do damage to the remaining tissue."
"Oh, I get it," says Haakon, "Brock's body isn't even close to our notion of organic matter, so when the energy beam hit him, it didn't change its signature."
"And the nanoprobes weren't activated." Replied Markos. "All we need to do is duplicate this energy signature and the nanoprobes should deactivate, and we could remove them, or even reprogram them."
Kira tapped his communicator badge in excitement "Dr. Kira to bridge."
[Doctor, I haven't found anyone to assist you yet.]
"Not to worry, Sir, I believe that we have found a solution. Lieutenant Brock has just regained consciousness and seems unaffected by the nanoprobes. We think that the energy signature of the Protector weapons keep the nanoprobes from becoming active. We're going to need his help down here in order to test this theory. "
[Good, keep me informed. Glad to have you back with us Lieutenant Brock. Osagawa out.]
"Brock, do you think that you are well enough to help us with these things? Your engineering expertise would come in handy right now," asked Haakon.
"Yes, I can assist you. Where do we begin?" replied Brock.
With that comment the three officers began to decipher the Protector nanoprobes, and within a few hours had administered the treatment to the injured crewman. The damage would take some time to repair, but at least they had found a way to stop further insult to their already serious injuries. Brock was even confident that the nanoprobes could be reprogrammed to repair their cellular damage and speed up the healing process. But for now that project would have to be placed on the back burner. Brock was needed in engineering, and the two doctors were finally making progress in healing their patients.