Information Gathering
Posted on Wed Nov 14th, 2012 @ 11:24pm by Captain Vorn Krace & Lieutenant Commander Sara Archer
Mission:
Heart of an Explorer
Location: Maltorra - Government Research Centre
As the transporter beam dissipated as quickly as it had formed, the two EV-suited figures with command red colour designations under their chest pieces began moving again, the containment field having released their motor functions.
"Captain Krace?" the voice was the of a Maltorran researcher, filtered through the speakers inside the sealed helmets. "Prefect De'Laan has instructed us to give you and your officers full access to our systems and record keeping."
"Thank you," Krace responded, nodding his head in an exaggerated way in order to make his suit mirror the movements. "If you could lead the way to a console we could use?"
"Of course, Captain," the researcher answered. "Follow me."
The two suited Starfleet officers were led through the complex to a large, sealed room with several banks of consoles and a small seating area.
"Our head researcher felt that you might be able to best make use of this area of the facility. It can be completely sealed and has its own independent oxygen supply. If your instruments confirm that it is free of the virus, it should allow you to work without the bulk of your space suits."
"Thank you," Krace responded, allowing their guide to retreat, and listening to the odd exclamation of "Are they aliens?" "What do they look like?".
The other officer pulls out her tricorder, and pulls up the pre-set atmospheric condition function. Sara scanned around the room, using the small device's advanced sensors to scan for traces of the virus. She put away the scanner and turned towards Krace. "We're clear, Captain," she answered through the EV suit's comm system. The suits themselves had two method's of communication. One used external and internal speakers to relay the message, allowing people inside the suits to speak with those outside. The other was purely internal, used for private communications or when in space. There was no need to be discrete, so she used the former method.
As Archer confirmed that the air was free of infection, Krace touched the control on his suit to release the seals, and then reached up to remove his helmet, followed closely by his gloves, which he placed on the couch in the corner. "Shall we see what sort of systems we can access from these?" he asked his intelligence officer, pointing towards the bank of consoles over on the far wall.
Sara removed her own helmet and gloves and made her way to the bank of consoles. Taking a seat, she began to decode the system. "The display configuration is Maltorran, but I don't believe we will have much trouble interpreting." It was an older style configuration, at least compared to Starfleet standards. Unlike the Federation touch panels, the Maltorran computers still used physical control panels. It was quaint, but not something that left the intelligence officer befuddled. "It looks like it's primarily just an information terminal. We should have easy access to any public records." Sara looked around to spot the locals. Convinced that most of them were out of earshot, she looked back at the captain and lowered her voice. "If we have enough time to study their networking systems, we may be able to access the non-public records."
"Do it," Krace said, giving an additional nod to confirm his order. It was likely that much of the information they needed wouldn't have been released to the public anyway, in order to prevent a panic. "You work on accessing the non-public records, and I'll go through what we already have access to," he said, seating himself at one of the other terminals and beginning to access it; slow at first, until he was able to acclimatise himself to its operation. He paused for a moment to set up his tricorder to interface with the computer and download any relevant data as he accessed it.
Sara nodded, silently acknowledging the order. She set up her own tricorder, but knew that she was going to be more meticulous with her search. She started the long process of testing their network security, being careful to keep her actions secret from the Maltorrans. If they caught her looking through classified information, she doubted their remaining visit would be pleasant.
"It looks as though the first wide-spread reports of the infection started about forty days ago, locally. The days here are longer, so that puts the estimate at around two to three months," the captain said, reading off the screen. "If this virus was present before then, then something must have kicked it into overdrive. Over a period of a few days, reports began escalating in multiple provinces."
"There were no public military actions in the area, nor do there appear to be any 'official' activities. I'm not very deep in the system though, so it could still take some time. Still, I haven't seen anything that suggests the Maltorrans have a habit of using biological weapons, other than for a brief time in their history." Like Earth, this world had a bitter history of fighting between various nations, but the biological weapon fad ended far sooner relative to Earth's history. "I might still be able to find something. There may have been research on this virus before the outbreak."
"This is odd..." the brow above Krace's eyes furrowed as he studied the information on his screen. About three months before the major public outbreaks were recorded, there seems to be a mention in the news feeds of some sort of meteor landing, though some are referring to it initially as a UFO sighting. But after a couple of days, the story just disappears."
"Let me see what I can find. They have a decent security system, but I've seen tougher nuts to crack." She works at her station for a few minutes as she talks. "I have heard of viruses or bacteria somehow surviving reentry on a meteor. It's possible that's what we're seeing..." She looks at the monitor closely. "That's interesting. There is a military listing for your meteor, but the impact crater was significantly smaller than would be expected for a meteor that size. The official military stance is that it was a meteor impact, but none of the normal evidence is there. Even in the unofficial records, it had the Maltorrans stumped. They don't know what it was either."
"It doesn't look like it could be the cause of the virus - at least not directly," the captain said, before moving over slightly to give the intelligence officer a better view of his screen. "Look; the area where whatever it was came down? Not a single reported infection. It's one of only two or three complete clean zones on the planet."
"That's very interesting. I'll have the Iapetus use her sensors to scan the area. Our sensors are much more sophisticated than anything the Maltorrans have at their disposal."
"Make it so," Krace responded, absent-mindedly and unknowningly uttering the phrase that so many associated with the famous captain of the USS Enterprise. "There is also a mention in the news of a disease infecting a few people of a small town, just a few hundred kilometres from he supposed meteor site," the captain said, making use of the tricorder's more advanced search and association protocols on the alien database. "It's effects aren't quite the same, but it has a few similarities; violent, almost primal behaviour, apparent loss of higher thought processes. The three reported sufferers all died within a week."
Sara pulled up the information on her screen. "The symptoms are certainly similar, but it seems to be a different strain. We should probably set the ship's computer to analyze and compare that data to the other data we have."
"Now this is something..." Vorn's brow furrowed at the information he was reading on the screen in front of him. "There's a few reports of a doctor in a rural community that has had some minor success of keeping the virus at bay after its early symptoms have shown."
"I wonder why they hadn't coordinated with others working on a cure. It would seem like a collaborative effort would present better results."
"I don't know, but this doctor seems to be the only one so far who has had even the most minor of effects on this virus, though there aren't any reports from people who have met them first hand, and there seem to be blanks in some of the information that I'd have expected to see - almost as if there's a shroud of secrecy around this doctor and their local community."
"Let me dig a little deeper." A few moments of typing reveals some interesting results. "I've located the community. It's pretty far from major civilization centers, but not anywhere that we can't beam down to. Take a look at this. Some of the reports suggest that this doctor appeared out of nowhere not long after the outbreaks started. There are no official records of who it is or where they came from. There are also reports that the doctor has used methods completely unheard of by the Maltorrans. It is very possible that this doctor isn't from around here."
"That settles it, then," Krace announced, replacing his tricorder back on his suit's waist and moving to pick up the rest of his gear. "If this doctor isn't from Maltorra, then they're likely to know more about the virus than the locals do, and that means that we're going to meet them."
"I agree. I've already set the Iapetus to run through my search algorithms and see what else we can learn. I've set up a remote access point so we can pull information from the ship. I doubt that the Maltorrans will ever find my link." She returns her tricorder to her belt and regathers the parts of her suit. "I've also taken the liberty of relaying the coordinates of this community to the transporter room."
"Let's go then," the captain responded, sealing his suit helmet again and standing still as he awaited the transporter effect. "Krace to Iapetus. Two to beam to the coordinates you've just been sent."
Captain Vorn Krace
Commanding Officer
&
Lt. Commander Sara Archer
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Iapetus
