Discovery

Lieutenant Barker awoke from his 'nap' at the Science station on the Hellcat's small Bridge, picked up the small box by his side and left. The immediate threat posed by the Bariens had passed for the moment and the crew of the now destroyed USS Leviathan was heading back to the relative safety of Deep Space 9. With over one hundred crew onboard, space was at a premium. The Bridge and Sickbay were the only places on the ship where non-essential crew had been barred. As Chu walked back through the ship, threading his way down the corridor strewn with exhausted crew, he passed the quarters of the Captain and the Counsellor. Sierra was exiting just as Chu was passing.

"Good evening Counsellor. or is it morning. Heading towards the infirmary ?" Chu inquired.

"Yes, I'm going to see how Brayden is." Sierra replied, with an air of concern in her voice.

"Then we're heading in the same direction, Counsellor." Chu replied. "You seem very concerned about Brayden's injuries, It's all that you seem to be thinking about at the moment."

"How did...... ?, Of course, it's hard sometimes to remember that you're half Betazoid. With all those spots, I always think of as only being Trill." Sierra replied. "Why are you heading to Sickbay ?"

"It's the only place onboard where I'll be able to examine this." Chu said, lifting the small box that he had been carrying.

"What's in it ?" Sierra inquired.

"It's a unrefined Decria crystal. The Nuans have known for years that it could be used as an explosive and tried unsuccessfully to create a weapon from it. But, they have never took the time to study how the Decria actually operates, how and why it absorbs energy. I requested a sample whilst we were in spacedock, I'm hoping that by studying it, we can find a way to combat the Bariens 'leech' torpedoes." As they both entered Sickbay, the conversation finished.

Sierra stepped over to the bed where Brayden still lay in a coma.

"Doctor, mind if I use your lab facilities for a while ?" Chu asked.

"Be my guest." Doctor Katts replied.

An hour later, Chu called the Doctor over to examine the crystal that he had been studying.

"Doctor, what do you make of this ?" He inquired.

Lyn looked at the console screen, showing the analysis results on the crystal sample.

"It looks like there's an organic component to the crystal." She replied.

"That's exactly my conclusion as well. And watch this." Chu said, taking his phaser and pointing it at the sample. Setting the phaser to halfway, he fired.

"WHAT are you doing ?" The Doctor asked, as the beam struck the crystal sample.

"Look at the readings now." Chu said.

"My god, the crystal has absorbed almost all of the energy from the phaser blast." Doctor said. "We've got to show this to the Captain."

"I agree, it's not what I was hoping for, but at least we know now how the crystal works."

Half an hour later, the Captain was in Sickbay and after checking for himself the condition of Brayden, stood with Chu and Doctor.

"OK, show the Captain what we've discovered." Chu said to Doctor "Captain, watch the console reading".

The Doctor took the phaser and fired at the crystal once more.

"Amazing isn't it." Chu said.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant but I don't see the point." Devore said.

"The Doctor just fired a phaser on full power at that crystal. By rights, the crystal should have been vaporised, along with the sample table and most likely the floor where that table stood. Instead, the crystal has absorbed and stored the energy." Chu explained with enthusiasm.

"You mean that these crystals act as a sort of battery." The Captain remarked "Absorbing and storing energy."

"That's what we initially though as well, but it's more complex than that." The Doctor said.

"The crystal has an organic component, in essence it's alive Captain. All be it on a very simple level, but it is a living entity. Actually, it's a colony of single cell organisms. The colony absorbs energy, consuming some to survive and storing the rest throughout the crystal. The stored energy act in the same way as our fat cells, storing energy to be consumed at a later date." Chu explained. "The mineral part of the crystal is however highly reactive and unstable. Somehow, the colony seems to be able to stabilise the reaction within the crystal so that it doesn't explode. Only when the organisms die within the crystal, does the crystal begin to go 'critical', releasing the energy stored within. That appears to be how the 'leech' torpedoes operate. From our initial studies, we've hypothesised that the Bariens refining process increases the absorption process one hundred fold."

"But how does all of this help us defend against these torpedoes." The Captain asked.

"The Bariens must have a way of killing the organisms, because as we've seen the torpedoes do explode once all the energy from the target has been absorbed." Chu continued to explain. "That phaser blast is enough to 'feed' the colony within that crystal for over a decade. The only way for the torpedo to explode is if the colony was killed off. This seems to have been the Nuans problem, they couldn't discover a method of 'detonating' the crystal, the Bariens seem to have had more luck."

"Maybe the Barien just use a standard explosive." The Captain suggested.

"But the crystal would just absorb most the energy from the explosion, there wouldn't be much of a bang left. The colony seems to actively absorb all kinds of energy." The Doctor replied. "No, something has got to kill the colony directly, without using energy. A poison of some sort, probably added during the refining process."

"It's certainly progress, keep at it. If we can find a way to 'kill' the torpedo before all our shields have been absorbed, then we will finally have a more even playing field when we next meet the Barien fleet in battle." Devore said. "Keep working on it and keep me informed of your progress, I'll be on the Bridge."