Salvage Analysis

Captain Taybar was in the offices’ of Lieutenant Rhee going over a couple of late additions to the Science team. Both would be waiting for the USS Leviathan-B at Starbase 901 and Lieutenant Rhee was glad that Starfleet was finally expanding the small science team serving onboard.

The first was another Lieutenant and somewhat of an oddity for a Science officer. Lieutenant Darius Klag was a Klingon-Human hybrid, found at the age of thirteen in the Australian desert with no recollection of his past. However his record at Starfleet Academy was exemplary and he had come highly recommended. From his records both the Captain and Lieutenant Rhee could see that he would make an excellent addition to the crew and Damson was pleased to have such a highly qualified astrophysicist onboard.

The second new member of the science team was Ensign Davis Wienfield. Unlike Darius Klag, Wienfield did not have such a fine Starfleet record. An obvious talent, he had found it hard to fit into the life of a Starfleet officer. Whilst most of his tutors at the Academy said he showed great promise, Davis appeared to fail academically and showed a great deal of arrogance towards both the tutors and his fellow cadets.

On several occasions he had been found to have undertaken dangerous experiments and used Academy equipment without . That blatant disregard for authority almost cost him his life and dismissed from the Academy. Eventually he completed his Academy training, although he did not achieve the results his tutors expected of him.

One of those tutors however had called in a favour with Doctor Rhee and it was due to her that Wienfield was now coming onboard. Rhee just hoped that the potential of this arrogant ‘child’ could be both controlled and put to good use onboard ship.

“Time we got to that briefing.” Captain Taybar stated.

They both rose from their seats and headed out of Doctor Rhee’s office towards the main briefing room.

As they entered, several members of the senior staff were already present. Doctor Kahfre and her brother Ash were sat together deep in conversation with Lieutenant McQueen. Lieutenant Luwall, the Chief Engineer was reading a report on a Padd she had on the table and Lieutenant Borealiou was just sat waiting. The only one’s missing from the group were the first officer Lieutenant Commander Hartmann, Lieutenant Loh, the Chief Tactical officer and Lieutenant Commander Rashad

As the Captain and Lieutenant Rhee sat down, Hartmann and Loh came into the room together, closely followed by two others. Lieutenant Moss arrived and explained that he was taking the place of Lieutenant Commander Rashad at her request. The final arrival was Commander Chu Barker, the former chief science officer of the USS Leviathan-A and an old friend of Captain Taybar’s. Chu was onboard because like the rest of the crew, he was heading back to SB 901 and had accepted a lift. Whilst onboard, he had offered to help in any way he could. When everyone had taken their seats, Captain Taybar started the meeting.

“Status report Mister Hartmann.” Aki requested.

“We are on course for the Briar patch and Starbase 901.” Hartmann replied. “We will reach the edge of the patch in about six hours and we should be arriving in the New Canada system in three days.”

“Good.” Aki commented. “What of the repairs ?”

"The attack on the Leviathan in the Sol system did very little damage and all required repairs have been completed.” Hartmann continued. “We have continued to scan for any new vessels which may attack us, but so far we are unchallenged.”

“Which brings me as to why I have called this meeting.” Aki stated. “It’s been two days since the attack on the Leviathan and I thought now would be a good time to pool our knowledge and see if we can establish who attacked us and why. Lieutenant Luwall, I believe you have been working with Lieutenant Rhee and Commander Barker in analysing the debris that was recovered.”

“That I have Captain.” Rachel replied. “We recovered nearly three metric tonnes of materials, mostly hull fragments, some organic material. Our analysis shows that the materials that the vessels were made of was highly advanced. The hull plating has a very unique property of being able to absorb nearly ninety percent of all known types of radiation. That’s why we had such a hard time detecting the vessels, our sensor scans were just being absorbed by the hull plating.”

“Further analysis has shown that this energy was actually re-used to power some of the ships systems, like an advanced form of solar panel.” Chu added. “It’s quite an achievement.”

“Do you have any idea about the primary power source used by these vessels ?” Aki asked.

“It would appear to be some kind of polaron-based power core, which was augmented with the radiation absorbed by the ships hull.” Chu continued. “The core would have had tremendous power.”

“Polaron-based power !” Aki exclaimed. “Obviously highly advanced, but potentially devastating. Were the vessels capable of inter-stellar travel ?”

“Negative Captain.” Rachel replied. “The vessel showed no signs of a warp core or that they had the ability to produce a stable warp field. They were short-range vessels, most likely some kind of fighter given their agility, speed and weapons systems.”

“So they were brought to Earth on another vessel.” Aki suggested.

“Most likely yes.” Rachel said.

“Just how powerful were these vessels ?” Aki enquired.

“Their weapons systems were all based on polarons, which made them very powerful, but their defensive systems were nothing more than navigational shields to prevent damage from space debris. It would appear that they relied on the radiation absorption properties of their hull for protection. There is one odd thing…”

“Odd.” Aki commented.

“For such an advanced vessel, the shielding around the power core was not very effective.” Rachel continued. “It took us nearly six hours to decontaminate the debris before we could examine it closely. The pilot would have been exposed to massive doses of theta and delta radiation, more than enough to kill them in minutes.”

“Captain I may have an answer to that puzzle.” Doctor Kahfre announced.

“Go on.” Aki suggested.

“One of the pieces of debris recovered was what we can only assume was the cockpit area of one of the vessels. The pilot, for want of a better word was obviously dead and was heavily contaminated with radiation.”

“Have you been able to perform an autopsy ?” Aki enquired.

“As soon as we got the pilot out of the damaged cockpit I had the EMH do a through examination of the body. From the results we obtained, I would say that the occupant was totally dependant on the radiation to survive. Either it had evolved to survive in a heavily irradiated environment or was genetically altered to do so. My guess would be a little of both.”

“Explain ?” Aki requested.

“The pilot was not what we would call a body; it was more of a large multi-celled organism. It had no obvious arms or legs, no eyes, nose or mouth, but when we ran a DNA sample through the medical systems, we found all the DNA sequences for a humanoid species. My best guess would be that whatever this species was originally, it was genetically altered to survive in an irradiated environment. Over the years they must have continued to evolve, actually requiring radiation to survive, just like we need oxygen to breathe.”

“But if these creatures have no arms or legs, how are they able to operate the vessels or even move for that matter ?” Lieutenant Hartmann enquired. “They were obviously expert pilots.”

“The pilot was actually integrated into the cockpit area and from an examination of its nervous system, I would guess that there was some kind of symbiotic relationship between the creature and the vessel.” Rahel continued. “They controlled the vessel by thought control and received feedback from the vessels sensors in the same way. The pilot had an unusually large brain, possibly genetically developed to fly the vessel. There were several areas which correspond with areas of several humanoid species that have above average special awareness.”

“Lieutenant Moss, has Starfleet Intel got any information on the vessels that attacked us or on these creatures ?” Aki enquired.

“None Captain.” Stefen replied.

“What about the Axtilities ?” Aki asked. “We know that they have been at war with another race, maybe these aliens discovered that the Federation was sending an Ambassador to speak with their enemy and wanted to stop us.”

“That would be the most logical answer. However, we have had no contact with the Axtilities directly and won’t get a chance until we reach Starbase 901.” Stefen stated. ”As for our attackers, to achieve such a task, they would have needed to know on which ship the Ambassador would be travelling and have detailed knowledge of Earth’s defences. To come into the Sol system totally undetected is a major achievement, something even the Romulans would not attempt now.”

“Interesting that you bring up the Romulans Lieutenant.” Aki stated. “During the Earth-Romulan war, hiding in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was one of their best tactics. They could prevent supplies reaching the outer stations and so hinder our war effort, whilst hiding within the field undetected. These new aliens would appear to have been reading from the same book the Romulans did.”

“That’s a very interesting observation.” Stefen commented. “I’ll need to double-check, but Starfleet Intel may have files on several Romulan science expeditions that travelled in the general direction of the Briar patch.”

“So it’s possible that this race could have contact with the Romulans ?” Aki stated.

“Possibly.” Stefen replied.

“Is there any other information ?” Aki enquired.

The room was silent.

“Then I guess we are finished for the moment.” Aki stated. “Let’s keep on with investigating these aliens and hope that the Axtilities will have some answers for us. Lieutenant Moss, I’d be interested in reading some of those Intel reports on the Romulan expeditions.”

“I’ll see what I can do Captain.” Stefen replied.

Everyone rose from their chairs and headed out of the briefing room, leaving just the Captain and her first officer behind.

“Penny for your thoughts Captain.” Steven asked.

“I’m worried.” Aki admitted. “These aliens came at us with no warning and I’ve got a bad feeling that once we reach Starbase 901 and speak with the Axtilities ambassador, we are going to find that we have got ourselves into a war without doing a thing.”

Lieutenant Commander Hartmann was silent for a moment betraying his own feelings.

“I think you could be right.” He admitted. “Plus we could have a security leak, as Lieutenant Moss pointed out, these aliens would have needed precise information to pull off such an attack.”

“Keep the crew on full alert and keep scanning the area for any hostile vessels.” Aki ordered. “Also see if we can’t use the information we’ve got on these vessels to discover a way around their cloaking technology.”

“Yes Captain.” Hartmann replied. “We are already working on a method of picking up the vessels by looking for areas of localised absorption of radiation.”

“Dismissed.” Aki stated.

Hartmann left the briefing room and headed back to the Bridge, leaving the Captain to her personal thoughts.