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“Fresh Squeeze”
Previous posts: (ANU) “Purple With Envy” by Hanali / (BAS) “What now?” by Dawn
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Setting: USS BASTET, Bridge
Stardate: 35259.0155
Before the CO could say anything though, the BASTET was violently shaken sending the unexpecting crew flying to the floor or crashing against whatever console was nearby.
Without warning, the BASTET lurched violently backward. Caught unaware, the bridge crew was thrown against their consoles or sent sprawling on the deck. Triggered automatically, the Red Alert signal flashed and blared deafeningly. The overhead lights flickered.
As the crew began to quickly recover, the BASTET heeled steeply to starboard. This caused Sofia the doctor and Nicole the counselor to roll toward the Science station where Aki gripped her station and worked to stay oriented to the displays. Aki’s widely set boots and shins stopped Sofia Andersson's roll. Nicole Dima stopped with a thud against Sofia’s body.
The Asian woman took a brief moment to look down at the two women, ensuring that they were alright before returning her attention to the science station where she hoped to figure out what had just happened. Aki was pleased that neither Sofia nor Nicole appeared injured, but this joy could not last. The CSciO/ExO needed to solve this latest mystery before the situation degraded even more.
In the meantime, Zub Enel steadied himself at Tactical with one scaly three-fingered hand. His chin had hit the console. He tasted blood but didn’t take time to check. He spread his long legs to help keep his balance against the increasingly vertical slant of the deck to the right.
His free hand blurred as he built up a collage of exterior views. He made an assessment. Over the rhythmic shriek of the Red Alert klaxon, he shouted, “Nanite! Has us in a gripper. Bringing another to bear.”
Captain Selene Iverson had been flung from the command chair. Her natural athleticism let her be flexible enough to cushion the impact and keep from bashing her face on the deck. She spread out to keep herself from rolling against the Ops station and Gemma’s feet. Iverson’s voice was strained from physical effort, “Silence that alarm! Tactical, repulsor beam!”
The alarm cut off so abruptly that ears were left ringing. In the relative silence that followed, other alerts beeped and chirped. Red indicators flashed on every console. The ship righted itself before it took a sickening roll to port as if at sea wallowing in heavy storm swells.
From Ops, above the chorus of alarms, the calmness of Gemma’s voice was striking. “Emergency power to shields. The D-Drive is redlining. At the current rate of field degradation, we will lose dimensional containment in 175 seconds.”
Zub Enel stopped aiming a repulsor beam at the approaching second gripper and tapped the shield power controls. In this dimension, the D-Drive integration into the bio-regenerative hull matrix was all that kept the BASTET from expanding into a sparkling cloud of atoms.
Overhead, the bridge lights dimmed to murky dusk bathed in pulsing red from the Red Alert signal. He deliberately echoed Gemma’s calm voice. “Shields at 130%. The warp core is under a lot of strain.”
The CO had used the point when the ship briefly righted itself before angling steeply to port to get herself back into her chair. She gripped both arms and pushed with her boots to keep the chair pointed forward and her backside jammed in the seat.
The main viewer showed a feed from Tactical of the attacking nanite. A small hologram modeled the BASTET’s arrowhead hull with a pair of red spots on the dorsal and ventral surfaces presumably from pressure applied by a gripper.
The viewer also showed in skin-crawling detail a wide fan of wriggling black, chitinous legs emerging from a crack in the blood vessel wall like some hideously big spider pulling itself from behind a mirror. The front of the nanite was partially through the gap. It apparently had snagged the BASTET with its nearest gripper while still clambering into the blood vessel from elsewhere. Another leg reached for the BASTET with a gripper held wide open.
Just as Selene formed the word ‘repulsor’ on her tongue, a pulsing ray with a mother-of-pearl sheen caught the reaching gripper. The gripper stopped its advance, but the ship began to rock more violently. She could see her Chief of Security tapping madly at his console. The rocking dampened slightly.
The androgynous voice of the computer announced, =/\= Warning. Power consumption at unsustainable levels. Initiating emergency shut down of all non-essential systems. =/\=
Gemma added, “That repulsor beam is taking power we don’t have. Between the repulsor beams and the added stress on the D-Drive, we are looking at a complete power system failure. If that happens, there will be nothing for us to do but wait for our demises”
"The way things are going, we won't have to wait long," the Caitian FCO added, A'Janni trying his best from the Flight Control station to steady the ship, a task made nearly impossible thanks to the hold the nanite already had on the BASTET.
Zub said without looking from his displays, “The repulsor beam acts like a rod to shove objects away. I am making it springier against pushback by adjusting the power, but the nanite is still trying to grip the BASTET.”
“Our defense is taking too much power,” Gemma noted. “If we fight off more grippers, we’ll blow the core trying to keep the D-Drive’s dimensional bubble intact. We need another solution.”
"Why not try using the nearby cells as obstacles?" The FCO suggested. "Let the nanite deal with the cells instead of us."
"That might buy us only a few extra seconds," Aki countered. "Remember, these nanites are built to navigate this sort of environment, we are not. Plus, the power we would need to accomplish this would only speed up our rapidly diminishing energy reserves."
"The power from the impulse drive has been rerouted to emergency systems," Gemma added from the Ops station. "We could not use the impulse engines without causing severe damage to our environment, so at least this way we will gain some energy and time."
"We still require a solution to get ourselves out of this mess," Captain Iverson said, bringing everyone back on point. Addressing their immediate energy problem was one thing, but they needed to have a game plan that extended beyond that of the BASTET and those aboard were to be saved. As the Commanding Officer, it was her responsibility to always keep the larger picture in mind, to consider the effects of all actions not only on the immediate situation but also possible impacts and repercussions down the line. There was no way to predict the future, even on board the USS BASTET, so the Captain needed to rely on her intuition and experience to try and figure out what the best course of action would be. This also meant that she had to be ready to admit if only to herself, that previous decisions might not have been as good as she had hoped them to be, and it seemed that this would be one of those times. Selene took a few precious seconds to scan the bridge, giving each member of her senior staff the opportunity to offer a new solution, but it was clear to see that everyone was scrambling just to stay a split second ahead of what was happening to them. "Commander Mitshiba, Lieutenant Gemma, reestablish the link with the nanite communication net," focusing her gaze on the Intelligence Liaison Officer, the Captain continued. "You said that you could hack their system, do it."
Doctor Andersson was visibly concerned by the decision, anyone only needed to see the expression on her face to become fully aware of this. The subtle shivering of the scales of their Voth Chief of Security indicated that he shared in this misgiving, but both officers knew that they had little to no other options at this point. The bridge went silent as the link was reestablished, and it took no time to see the effect this had on Gemma. The woman once again froze, as if time itself had stopped, her skin becoming sickly pale, reminiscent of a Borg assimilation. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the link between the woman and the nanites had been restored, the question that remained was what would happen next?
=-=
Setting: Mindscape
Gemma shuddered. She was again surrounded by a mechanical world.
“Stinky,” Anya said from beside her. Gemma startled, uncharacteristically showing emotions and reactions which hinted at the effect this place had on her.
Gemma stared at a metallic parody of a living world. Bleak windowless buildings. Machines walked or clattered by on treads. All had steely eyes, no eyelids, just eyeballs that stared back at her.
Her voice, rich in timbre and low, bordering on sultry, spoke from behind her. “Ready to die?”
Not so startled as before, Gemma faced the mechanical version of herself. It gloated coldly.
“You first,” Anya said, already in mid-leap. Smiling, she delivered a lightning chop-chop-kick to the automaton’s shiny neck and chin. All killing blows.
The mechanical woman reeled but recovered before Anya landed. Her smile broadened as she gazed at the assassin. “The solution to you is simple.”
They weren’t dogs, exactly, but there were lots of them. They rushed in from every direction and converged on Anya.
Anya, her face fierce, red hair flying, destroyed a dozen, but the sheer number of jaws seizing every part of her body pulled her under a heap of mechanical dogs. She screamed once.
Not one dog assaulted Gemma. They trotted off like pets called home. Anya had vanished.
The metal Gemma raised delicately arched eyebrows. "Why do you resist? We have already gone through this and you know how it ends. You cannot win."
The statement was directed to Gemma but the ILO did not stand alone. Jinx and Shinra who now flanked the auburn-haired Starfleet Officer, both displaying a look of absolute resolve on their faces.
"We will fight you a thousand times if we have to," the Bounty Hunter said as she took a single step forward. "And we will come back and hunt you down a thousand times more."
"We will do whatever it takes to protect those we have come to call friends, and there is nothing you can do that will ever change that," the Reman Bodyguard added, joining Jinx one step ahead of Gemma who stood just as defiant at the others.
"You cannot win," Mech-Gemma said, her cold mechanical voice echoing through the lifeless world that surrounded them on all sides. The battle that would follow did so without any further delay, both Jinx and Shinra lashing out at the mechanical version of the redheaded woman who stood and watched behind them. The battle was fierce, but the target seemed barely affected by the repeated blows, all of which landed exactly where they had intended to. Moments later, the two attackers were swarmed over by a multitude of small replicas of the nanites they had encountered in the real world, the Bounty Hunter and Bodyguard suffering the same fate as the Russian Assassin in mere moments. As they did before, the mechanical creatures retreated leaving nothing behind to attest to what they had accomplished. "As I said, you cannot win."
"Sometimes, winning is not the goal. Showing that we are ready to fight to the very end to protect those we love is what matters."
"Love? What would you know of that?" Mech-Gemma said, almost laughing as she did so.
"More than you will ever know," Gemma growled back as she narrowed her eyes and took a single, defiant step forward, repeating the pattern that the two predecessors had established before attacking.
Nonplussed, her mechanical doppelgänger raised metal eyebrows and grinned with menace. “Your turn.”
“Byte this!” A purple blur passed Gemma as Viras rushed by to seize the mechanoid’s shiny shoulder before flipping clean over the unexpecting target. The wild-haired hacker thrust a rod into the back of mech-Gemma’s neck who immediately stiffened. Hacker Viras grinned at Gemma from behind the convulsing mechanical woman. “Nice diversion. It gave us the time we needed. By the way, Aki says Hi. We’ve compromised their command structure.”
Gemma smiled. “Say Hi back.”
“Tell her yourself.” Viras slowly twisted the rod sticking out of the mechanical Gemma’s neck like a sword hilt. Mech-Gemma looked even more confused, her wide-eyed gaze betraying her inability to understand what was happening to her.
Viras joined Gemma. She pointed to the ILO's mechanical alter ego. “*She*, if you can call this soulless stack of used parts that, is now highly suggestible. Every male’s dream, right?” The hacker giggled.
Gemma felt a rush of gratitude. With Aki’s help, she’d won. This time. She commanded the mockery of herself, “Release the BASTET immediately. Release *me*.”
=-=
Setting: Bridge
Stardate: 35259.0200
Sofia Andersson had been gripping Gemma tightly by her shoulders as she stood stiffly. The ILO's eyes had opened and rolled back to show ghastly white. Her face had been alarmingly pale, verging on the green pallor of a corpse. Her breath came in spasmodic rasps like her next would surely be her death knell.
The death knell didn’t come. Gemma’s green eyes focused on the doctor’s concerned face. Her skin flushed pink. Her red, delicately arched eyebrow crept together in a small frown of confusion.
Sofia narrowed her brown eyes, not yet willing to let this strange woman go. She could be in the control of the nanites. “Tell me who you are.”
The frown became a scowl. “Whoever I have to be. Did they let the ship go?”
Zub Enel boomed from Tactical, “Affirmative. The nanite just released the hull. We are floating clear.” In the dim lights of the power-starved bridge, his golden eyes focused gratefully for a moment on Gemma.
"Looks like all of the other nanites have also stopped," the Asian ExO/CSciO reported. "The communication network is still fully active, but the signal has dropped to nearly nothing. It would appear that we have indeed broken the nanite's command programming, they should no longer present any sort of a threat against us."
"That is as long as we remain in control of them," Counselor Dima said as she carefully scrutinized the ILO in search of any indication that the current victory might only be short-lived.
"Relax, Counselor," Gemma said with a grin. "We are controlling them."
"We *we* or we *you*?" The Joined Trill inquired, staring into the ILO's emerald eyes.
Those emerald eyes swept the dimly lit bridge ceiling. “We *me* needs to return to Ops.”
The Joined Trill said, “I won’t stop you.” Her firm, blue-eyed gaze said silently, **I’m watching you.**
Gemma, rer expression coolly professional, made a pivot that sent her coppery curls flying. Her fingers elicited beeps and chirps that joined the chorus around the bridge.
The bridge, bathed in gloom and red flashes, steadily brightened. Air changers deemed non-essential sighed warmth into the stale and chilly air. The aviary of beeps faded, the console display cleared of alarms.
Gemma turned. “Captain, bio-regenerative hull matrix damaged in two places, but will fully heal in a few minutes. I have reduced shield strength. Power usage is returning to nominal.”
Selene Iverson nodded. “Thank you, Lt. Gemma.”
Gemma returned to scanning her console without smiling. Nicole acknowledged this behavior seemed classic Gemma, but the counselor still wasn’t convinced the ILO was free from control by the alien nanites.
The huge, white-tiger of a man at Flight Control rumbled, “Sir, we’re drifting faster. I can keep us in trim, but any faster and we’ll start bouncing off the walls.”
Zub Enel switched the main viewer to forward from a view aft of nanite spiders receding down the vein. He glanced at A’Janni at Flight. “Your forehead is bleeding.”
The Caitian’s one white eye opened wide. He pressed a clawed paw-hand to a diagonal cut that oozed blood across his black and white striped forehead. He grinned like an elated boy. “Hey. I am!”
“He’s right,” Aki said from Science, ignoring the FCO's minor injury which Doctor Andersson was already on her way to address. “Blood flow velocity has increased by fifty-three percent.”
Sofia closely studied the main viewer. “A valve or whatever this body uses for a heart pressure regulation might cause that. We might get pummeled soon.”
Selene swallowed due to her growing anxiety. She said crisply, “Helm, stay off the impulse drive. It’ll vaporize fluid and tissue. We must avoid injury to this person.”
A’Janni addressed the Captain. “What if I try to grab the blood vessel wall with a tractor beam? Maybe we could pull ourselves out of this vein.”
Iverson pointed her chair at Sofia who had started toward A’Janni. “Doctor, *can* we pull ourselves through a body without harming it?”
Sofia glanced from A’Janni to Zub Enel and then the Captain. “That nanite that grabbed us entered from outside the vein. I think we’re small enough to poke and prod our way between cells without injury. We could even try to aim for some sort of internal lesion thus reducing even more whatever damage we might cause.”
The Asian ExO/CSciO quickly jumped in. "Sensors are picking up some sort of a cut on the lower-right, roughly 800 meters ahead of our current location."
Selene put her gray-eyed gaze onto her Flight officer who watched her. “Lt. A'Janni, can you get us to that cut?"
"We are about to find out," the grinning Caitian said, gladly accepting this challenge. The smiling tiger-man quickly triggered a tractor beam to grapple at the passing wall with a tractor beam, unsuccessfully. The smile faded. “We’re moving too fast to get a solid hold using a tractor beam.”
“Sir,” Aki urged from the Science station. “Look at the positioning of the nanite.”
"It looks like it's moving to be directly in our flight path forcing us to be on a collision course with it," the Voth Security Chief reported.
"It will be a collision only if we do not push off against it," Gemma said, a faint grin dancing on her lips hinting that she had somehow been responsible for the nanite finding itself in their path.
"Hang on," the man-cat warned. "Diverting all available power to the forward repulsor beam." As he said this, the lights on the bridge dimmed and everyone braced for what they knew would be a rough ride ahead. Bouncing like the miniature marble that it had become, the BASTET made a sharp turn using the nearby nanite to angle itself directly into the discovered opening in the vein.
Thanks to the warning, everyone managed to remain at their station, although barely. This was enough to allow the bridge officers to witness the ship's transmission from the vein into a much smaller tunnel that oddly appeared very circular.
"Is it me or does this not appear natural?" Doctor Andersson asked, the CMO holding on to the Flight Control Station, the physician never having had the chance to take care of the Caitian's forehead cut.
"The more we move up this tunnel, the more I have to agree with the Doctor," Aki noted. "It is as if something punctured a whole through our host's muscular tissue."
"Whatever did this, it looks like we are about to go right into it," Nicole said, a distinct tone of concern lacing her words as they looked at a large metallic angled structure lining the wall of the tunnel they had entered.
"Helm! Full reverse!" Captan Iverson ordered.
"Something is pulling us in, the current strength has increased by more than 2000 percent," Enel reported. "There is no way for us to fight against this. We are already looking at a possible structural breach. We actually have to find a way to increase our speed if we are to avoid being ripped apart.
There was little anyone could do as the ship was literally sucked into whatever the metallic object was. After a few more seconds, things settled down allowing the bridge officers to try and figure out not only what had happened but where they had found their way to.
"We are surrounded by plasma," Aki reported. "Long-range sensors are picking up some sort of thick, glass-like structure all around us. It appears to be in a cylindrical shape,
"We are in a syringe!" Sofia exclaimed. "The metal tube we passed through was the needle. We have just been *sampled* out of the host body."
"That is old-style technology if you can even call it that," Nicole half chuckled. The joined Trill had spent enough time in Sickbay with Sofia to recognize the antique item and know that it was not something that had been in use for quite some time, yet its effectiveness could not be denied.
"Maybe so," Selene added, "but correct me if I am wrong, would not this unexpected development make it a great deal easier for us to get back to our dimension?"
"We would need to make our way out of the syringe first though," The auburn-haired Intelligence Liaison Officer pointed out.
"Based on the data being collected by the sensors, the tip of the needle has been fully extracted from the host," Mitshiba reported. "There is too much ambient light coming from that specific area to be anything else. We have a clear line of sight to the outside world. The only thing keeping us here is the negative pressure created by the pulled back plunger." Apparently, as a scientist who enjoys pushing back the limits of her field of expertise, the Asian woman was also familiar with the item stated by their CMO.
"Helm," the Captain began.
"Already on it," The Caitian Flight Control Officer interrupted. "Thrusters at full, setting course back for the sharp-pointy-end."
"We will need extra power to the forward shields if we are to break through the plasma's surface tension," Gemma suggested.
"Already on it," the Voth Chief of Security growled, trying his best to sound like A'Janni.
It only took a few moments before the BASTET was back in the narrow metallic tunnel. Smiles of anticipation grew as the opening grew increasingly larger. Those displays of joy remained fully present as the ship broke through and transitioned from a liquid environment to one of air. "Helm, find us somewhere safe for us to engage the Dimensional drive so that we can get back home."
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David Michael Inverso
Chief Security and Tactical Officer
USS BASTET, NCC 74977
“Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.”
- Abbie Hoffman
AND
Dawn Bohr
Executive Officer / Chief Science Officer
USS BASTET - NCC 74977
AND
Jessica Solarik
Commanding Officer
USS BASTET
&
Chief Science Officer
USS ANUBIS
"To see the world in a grain of sand,
and a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour."
- William Blake (British, 1757-1827)