Intruder : Aftermath

[All senior staff to the Conference lounge in ten minutes]

"Welcome everyone, Ensign Barker has given me a report on our intruder and I think all my senior staff should hear this first hand. The Captain said. All yours Ensign."

Ensign Chu hesitated for a moment and then cleared his throat.

"Thank you Captain. Firstly, I've examined all the ships internal sensor logs starting with when our visitor Mr. Holmon first appeared and worked backwards. I believe that Holmon came aboard the ship via a subspace transmission from Starbase Three. There is an unusual energy signature within the carrier signal, which matches the signature of the energy field that was detected on the Bridge."

"You mean that whilst I was talking to Tom Geiger about the problems with the Holo-communicator, this Holmon character was downloading himself into our holographic memory core." Hansen said.

" Precisely and its quiet a feat to transfer that much information over a subspace link to a vessel at Warp. The compression algorithm that was used must be amazing, I estimate that it would take over three hours to transfer that amount of information using current Starfleet algorithms. I've had Engineering look at all the subspace relay processors and found a hidden' algorithm embedded within the bio-neural circuit and I have traced its origin."

"Right, we know how he got aboard, now what exactly is our Xavier Holmon." Lieutenant Toran said.

"I've accessed Starfleet personnel files and there was a Ensign Xavier Holmon who served aboard the *USS Odyssey* at the time he was destroyed by the Dominion. What's of interest is that our Mr. Holmon was a newly joined Trill, just over six months."

"What's so interesting about that ?" Ensign Shaka commented.

"Its where his previous host was and what happened to the symbiont. Before becoming Xavier Holmon, he or rather she was Lieutenant Lela Holmon. Lieutenant Lela Holmon was Chief Science Officer aboard the *USS Buran* up until the vessel's destruction at Wolf 359 whilst attacking a Borg cube."

"How did she survive long enough to be transferred to a new host then ?" Lieutenant Shaka started to inquired and then stopped knowing the answer. "She was assimilated wasn't she Ensign."

" That is correct Lieutenant. Obviously, the Borg had never encountered a joined species before as she was found within the wreckage of the Borg cube in a reinforced stasis chamber. They obviously wanted to study her more closely and put her into stasis. The host died shortly after being removed from the chamber and so was born Xavier Holmon, who then died on the *Odyssey* six months later. The compression algorithm that we found was of Borg origin."

"But what about our visitor ?." Lieutenant Hansen asked.

"From my analysis of the sensor readings, the lifeform was made up of bio-neural energy, operating at a frequency slightly higher than the ship's computer systems. Because it was Bio-neural energy, it was able to navigate itself around the ship using the computers neural fibres and invade most of the ship's systems. He appeared on the Bridge using the holo-emitters and the EMH program. His attacks on the crew was achieved by extending the magnetic containment field into a tube and pulled bio-neural energy from the victim. Not enough to kill them, but enough to make the victim unconscious."

"That is true Captain, one of the symptoms found in all the victims was a drop in their bio-neural energy." The Doctor informed everyone.

"Our attempt to remove the entity from the ship was successful as we all know, but I don't think we've seen the last of him."

"What makes you think that ?." Ensign Shaka said.

"Mr. Xavier has shown that he has a strong will to survive. He has also shown that it can possess the crew, although the hosts were unconscious all the time. However, after talking to the Doctor I believe that the entity was trying to learn how to control the host bodies. This has been borne out by the fact that the Doctor recorded random neuron emissions, which appeared simultaneously in all three hosts. These started to get more co-ordinated until the entity released them. If we should ever encounter Mr. Xavier Holmon again, I would guess that he would start by taking over another member of the crew and use them. I also guess that he will be angry at us so we should expect the worst." Ensign Barker continued.

"I'm working on a way to remove and capture the entity if this scenario should occur." The Doctor said.

"One of the things that I did find is that ten seconds before the entity started to transfer across, a signal was transmitted which would appear to have been a signal to activate the Borg compression algorithm. With the help of Security, we have devised a subroutine which will monitor for this signal. If the signal is detected, all subspace communication systems and holo-emmiters will be put offline immediately and only the Captain and Security Chief will be able to bring them back online. The internal sensors have also been programmed to run an internal sensor sweep at random intervals to try and detect the bio-neural energy signature." Chu finally finished.

"Thank you Ensign, I believe that everyone will have benefited from hearing this report and I now know that everything is being done to keep our intruder from returning. However, everyone must be on their toes just in case, as I believe that Ensign Barker is right, this may not the last time we will encounter Mr. Holmon or someone or thing like him." Captain Devore said.