In reply to LCdr. Gaius Glaucus (msg # 35):

"Excuse me," Jon interjects. "We have some Romulan prisoners beamed directly from the ship before it crashed. Perhaps we should ask them these questions about the Borg and nanotech. I mean, they've been hurt and stunned. They will probably answer questions pretty readily right now..." Jon adds the last bit somewhat timidly, since he doesn't have a lot of interrogation experience and isn't sure if questioning semi-conscious injured persons is kosher Starfleet procedure.

"Sure," says Tony. "Some of the buggers are wounded, but some are only stunned. The Intel and Security guys should be able to interrogate them as POWs just like they were doin' wit' the Klingons. Probably already talkin' to 'em!"

"Will you be taking Xelox and Pierce with you?" asks Glaucus. "We could still use them here with the Chirpers."

Lt. Nathen if ask.
I am happy to go or stay here.   I will be most useful.

Glaucus taps his commbadge and says, "Glaucus to Pierce and Xelox. The Thames will be returning to Dyson Base to assist with the interrogation of the Romulans. Dr. Pierce, I'd like you to remain here assisting Dr. Adonidas, as you're our most experienced doctor where the Chirpers are concerned. Lt Xelox, I need you to remain with the First Contact team—you're our point man. Make me proud."

He then continues, "Glaucus to Bras d'Or... Captain Taliaferro, LCdr Gaius Glaucus here. If you would be so kind as to swing by the Portal and do an intensive scan of the Romulan crash site, I would be indebted to you."

A voice comes from the communicator, "Roger that, Commander. We'll be there in... (there's a brief break) about an hour, as soon as we clear up a few things. Taliaferro out."

Glaucus again continues, "Glaucus to Talbot... Mr. Sloan has some important findings for you that I won't reveal on an open circuit, but it pertains to your Romulan guests. He's returning to Dyson station presently." and again, "Glaucus to LCdr M'Rel, can you fast-track Lt Leiliri's report on the Chirpers to Lt Xelox? He'll be heading up our First Contact with the Chirpers."

[OOC: Jon and Zed continue in the thread The Thames, while Billy and Nathan continue this thread.]
This message was last edited by the player at 14:26, Tue 10 Sept 2019.

Once Nathan has been contacted by LCdr Glaucus, Dr. Adonidas hands him a PADD. "Jon Clare just copied this file to me. You should be aware of its contents."

The file on the PADD requires Nathan's thumbprint and genetic scan to access. It has the header <tt>RESTRICTED STARFLEET EYES ONLY - No Unauthorised Access - SECLAR 5 SECRET</tt> and contains a holofile recapitulating the information on nanites beginning with Msg#24 above. Appended to the file is a note from LCdr Glaucus: Please scan any materials relate to the Kapecki unit designated R. David for nanites. Do not allow R.David or Cdr R. Olivaw to become aware of this. Treat any bodily fluids, et cetera, from R. David as potentially contaminated.

Billy notices Glaucus exiting the Thames. Glaucus waves Billy closer and says, "Get any personal effects you have from the Thames. We're going to do a little more research into these Chirpers and their relationship with both the Kapecki and with the Finorii or the Droyne or whoever they are today."

Glaucus seems to be somehow offended by the ambiguity regarding the Finorii. "I'm not so sure I trust the story about this Finorii takeover of Kapecki personnel that lead to the attack last year."

Lt Nathan take the pad from Dr. Adonidas.  He follows the instruction and reads the message.
He hands the pad back to the other doctor.
Well it going to be nice to get back to simple medical research and study the chiper after many years of other type of work I been doing.  It be so nice have simple straight forward mission for once.

He was sure Dr Adonidas would have some understand of Lt Nathan background and pass mission to do with diplomacy.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:44, Tue 10 Sept 2019.

Dr. Adonidas's eyes widen momentarily—she's not used to telepathic communication—then her face breaks out into a wide grin and she winks at Nathan. "Yeah, I know—battlefield surgery on unfamiliar species with cutting edge medical technology can get so boring, eh?"

Lt Nathan smiles back.
Jokes aside you know what is way more boring than that?

Nathan can sense her puzzlement when she asks, "No, what?"

Listening to the delegation from the Commonwealth of Menk and Valakis for the tenth time arguing  over which, The Menk or The Valakis would be on the right or the left side of the podiam they where both going to stand on to make their speeches to the rest of the federation.
Both would insist on going through their own speech in detail each time they made their many different reasons as to why they should be on the left side and not the right one.  Ahh!
And the only reason your in the room is in the one in a millionth to one chance someone has a hart attack and need medical assistants.  Which had somehow happened to one of the Valakis in such a situation some 30 years before and so a medical officer always has to be present.
I was not allowed to help or make any suggestions to resolve the situation.

Only thing that kept me going was thinking about the poetry my second wife would reed to me in the morning before I entered the room that day.  My dear Clare.

A big soppy smile cover Lt Nathan face which seem to go from ear to ear when he says Clare's name.

OOC:
Hope you did not mind me making this up.  I tried pick a minor set of species so the idea would not mater.
Also hope this idea would make you giggle.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:27, Thu 12 Sept 2019.

Dr. Adonidas asks, "Your second wife? How many times have you been married?"

Before Nathan can answer, a medical technician steps up and says, "Doctor? Have you seen Dr. Dovan? He was supposed to be tending the patient in bed 15, but I can't find him... or the patient. This was on the deck next to the bed." She holds out a medical tricorder which appears to be damaged. Dovan is the Deltan lieutenant who delivered the experimental medical replicator.

Adonidas looks at Nathan, "Can you feel where he is—maybe contact him telepathically? Perhaps his commbadge is out of order."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:45, Mon 23 Sept 2019.

Lt. Nathan smiled at Dr. Athena Adonidas.  It had taken him a few years to get use to how other cultures got confused about his family and the relasionship he had.  He had now found it funny and like to study the different ways different people coped with the extended family Nathan had.
Usually the biggest problem for most people was Nathan openness about the whole thing.
He realise that it was in a way his own coping mecnise with dealing with other races inablity to cope with who Lt. Nathan was.
This had given him his very human ability to playing on the meaning of words.  Something some of his own race found hard to deal with.

I have never been, married Dr. Adonidas.  I am, married.  Twice.  He informed the other Doctor.

Anyway I will try to find Dr. Dovan as best I can.  It does not always work.

Relaxing and clearing his mind.  Lt. Nathen shuts his eyes.
So he can focus on his sixth sense.  He slowly expands his mind reaching out to the world.
Slowly finding the lights in the darkness.  Each light a active brain thinking feeling.
He lightly touches each one.  Finding the memory.  That which help him know which light belongs to which person.  His own touch soft on them.  Most would not even know he had touch their mind.  One or two would feel something.  Only the ones with some psi ability would really feel anything.
It was Lt. Nathan nature to be gentle in all things.  But when using his mind he was even more so than normal.  Heavy feet always did damage to things they touched and damage was something that Lt. Nathan job was to help undo not to create more of it.

So bit by bit.  Mind by mind Lt Nathan tried to find Dr. Dovan.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:54, Mon 23 Sept 2019.

Dr. Adonidas chuckles. "Threeway? Sounds like it could be fun."

Nathan is unable to detect Dovan's presence. In fact, the lack of Dovan's unique presence sticks out like a lost tooth. Now that Nathan is aware of Dovan's absence it becomes a part of reality. Dovan is just... missing. The tricorder found by the medtech, Mirabelle, seems intact but nonfunctional; as if the power cell were completely dead or the circuity burnt out. Examining it more closely, the tiny screen seems fractured in a spider-web pattern only visible when the screen is tilted at an angle, and when the access plate is removed a faint smell of overloaded wiring can be detected. It's almost as if it's been subjected to a massive electromagnetic charge. Nathan has never seen anything like it, and when he shows it to Dr. Adonidas she, too is baffled. Scanning it with her own tricorder she finds that the power cell has been totally disrupted.

"Damn!" says Adonidas. "The Bras D'Or won't be here for at least 45 minutes. A lot can happen in that time!"

"Problem?" asks Petty Officer Mirabelle. "Let me have a look. I've got a specialist's rating in small equipment repair."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:54, Tue 24 Sept 2019.

"Great zarking fardwarks!" exclaims Mirabelle. "Something sucked the energy out of the sarium krellide cells so fast it superheated the circuitry—flash-fried it! Look at the characteristic shatter pattern in the transparent aluminum viewscreen. What in holy Zarquon's eternal name could do that?"

Dr. Adonidas taps her commbadge, "Get one of those runabouts in the air and do a hi-res scan for Deltan life signs. And patch me through to Cdr Taliaferro stat!"

Seconds later, her commbadge chirps. "Dr. Adonidas, Tom Taliaferro here. What's up?"

"Sir, we've got a man missing. He's a Deltan—no communications and our Betazoid MD can't read him in the area. And we've got something screwey going on with our tech. I've dispatched a Danube to scan, but I really need your ship's sensor suite. Any chance you can get here ASAP?"

"I'll try my best, Doc, but thirty minutes looks to be as fast as I can get there!"

"'Preciate it," she replies. "I've got a ba-a-ad feeing 'bout this!" She looks at Nathan. "Pierce, are you absolutely sure you can't read him? I understand that Betazoids can contact unconscious people."

Her commbadge chirps again. "Mac on the Cuyahoga here, I'm about to run a scan for Deltan lifesigns. Anything else I need to know?"
This message was lightly edited by the player at 03:39, Fri 27 Sept 2019.

"Just that. We're missing a 35-year old Deltan male. Scan for Deltan life-signs and pheromones in particular. Have Engineer Seingalt do a high-res scan for his communicator and ping it for an autolocation. His access override is available to you... now!" she says, tapping an icon on her PADD.

As this is taking place, PO Mirabelle is taking instruction over her own commlink and running a tricorder peripheral over the Deltan doctor's inert tricorder. She has activated a link to Nathan's device as well.

Lt. Nathen Pierce face fronds.
He had taken his time.  When dealing with missing people he was very careful.
He did not like go around saying people had disappeared for now good reason.

He turns to Dr. Adonidas.
Dr. Dovan is gone.  Missing.  I cannot feel him around here at all.
Given time my mind can cover some distance.  Reaching out to other minds.
I am good at it.  Wasted child hood with nothing better to do.

He thinks.
I am sure he gone.  Not dead, not passed out but gone.
With the energy reading and what I do not feel.
Was it not true the Chirpers are not from this time and space.
We must consider all possibility from Romulas to time and space rifts.

What was the last communication we had with him?
Who was the last federation person to see him?

"Thank you, Doctor. I can tell this is stressful for you. I lost several people during the war. It never gets easier." replies Dr. Adonidas. "So. Here we are, with a missing doctor and, as far as we know, a missing patient. There's nothing we can do except wait for the Cuyahoga and the Bras D'Or to complete the scans. The Thames hared off back to the station after finding something. Is it connected?"

She taps her commbadge again. "Adonidas to Sloane. We've got a missing doctor and patient..."

While Dr. Adonidas is on the comms with Dyson Station, Nathan has a sudden idea. Dr. Dovan is a Deltan—Deltans exude a constant supply of complex pheromones which make the sexually irresistible to most humanoids. Since Dovan disappeared so recently, there may be traces of these airborne pheromones in the vicinity. Taking out his tricorder, Nathan can get a reading on the pheromones. The module is awash in them, very faint, as the Deltan has been working here for a couple of hours. The pheromones usually persist in any one area for about an hour, so if Dovan had left the medical module, there may be traces of pheromones leading to his current location. Add to that the fact that Dovan is the only bald humanoid in the area; even the Chirpers who may not be able to tell the various Starfleet personnel apart should be able to pick him out. Perhaps it's time for old-fashioned investigative techniques.

Suddenly, there is a tug on Nathan's sleeve. Looking down, he sees Chiree standing there. Though Nathan cannot read his facial expressions, his emotions are clear—he is frightened and worried. "Friend Doctornathanpierce I ken that you are worried about friend Doctordovan. I, too, am worried about one of my flock mates who was with Doctordovan when something badveryterrible happened to him. May I share something with your mind?" he says as Nathan feels a tentative push on his mental shields.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:31, Wed 09 Oct 2019.

Lt. Nathan starts to work through his ideas and what would be the next action to take to find out what had happened to Dr. Dovan.  The little Chirpers speaks to him.

"Chiree." Lt Nathen says simply to let the little creature know he was listening.
Finding the missing doctor was important but the Chirpers are too.
They seemed to get into everything that was happening here and often seem be the course and answer to most things all in one.

After listening to Chiree he answers.
Then we must work together to help each other get our friends back if possible.
It is good you ask to share what is in your mind than just show it.  Thank you.
Please share it with me and I will try to help find your flock mate.

Lt Nathan opens up his mind carefully so he can gain the information chiree has.
However he keeps all his mind protection ready and prepared for the worst when it come to the images he will get.  It is not that the little Chirper would try to harm Lt. Nathan but that the images he will see may not be pleasant or nice.  He is a doctor after all and is use to dealing with such things.

As Nathan closes his eyes to better separate the psychic impressions from normal sensory input, he finds "himself" lying on the medical bed, staring up at the ceiling. He notices the lettering on the wall panel above his head as a standard medical display, but in his vision he is incapable of deciphering its meaning. This sort of phenomenon is  common where the subject of telepathic contact is observing a language they do not read. Clearly, he is "seeing" the Chirper patient's impressions. A shape moves into the Chirper's field of vision—Dr. Dovan—holding a tricorder. The tricorder suddenly seems to explode in a ball of light. Dovan attempts to drop the tricorder, but a series of gleaming cables erupt from the duritanium casing and enter Dovan's arm. Dovan stiffens into a form of rigor and his normally tanned face goes pale, a sheen developing on the skin. Dovan's hand moves into the the Chirper's view and a pair of the same gleaming cables shoot out from between Dovan's knuckles into "Nathan's" neck. Nathan feels a sharp pain as the cable tips puncture "his" skin, then his vision goes dark and he feels himself falling from a great height. He impacts the floor and passes out.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 02:47, Thu 17 Oct 2019.

Nathan hears an inner "voice" chanting <Friend Doctornathanpierce wakeupwakeupwakeup>

He feels a hypospray injection on his shoulder and wakes up to Chiree pulling at his sleeve repeating, "Friend Doctornathanpierce wakeupwakeupwakeup" over and over.

Dr. Adonidas' voice breaks in, "Nathan, wake up! Whatever Chiree here showed you seems to had overloaded your brain and put you in shock."

"Yes Doctornathanpierce, Doctorathenaadonidas is correct. Chiree is so veryverysorry," says the diminutive green alien.

Nathan feels dizzy. He tries to stand but can only get to his knees before again collapsing. All he can remember is the face of Dovan transforming into the face of the Borg Collective. Now, he sees the face of Athena Adonidas with a worried look on her face. "Here, drink this," she says softly. The liquid burns his throat and he begins coughing. "Slowly, it's strong stuff," she says, lowering the miniature bottle of amber liquid. "Canadian Club - 80 proof - good for what ails ya."

Nathan manages to catch his breath and stand up.

Dr. Adonidas presses a hypospray to Nathan's neck and says, "Would you like some tri-ox compound to clear your head?"

If Nathan agrees, she gives the shot. "You gave us quite a turn there when your eyes rolled back and you said 'Resistance is futile,' then went pale and passed out. I've reported it to Capt Samson and the Thames is on the way back with Lt Dahlakino. You've not met her, but she's an alien with a... unique... skill set."

As Nathan's head clears, whether from the sip of whisky or the tri-ox injection, Nathan reflects on the sensation of being assimilated, as filtered through the Chirper patient's sensations, further filtered through Chiree's psychic transmission. The feeling of one's personality being torn away will be with him forever, but he is able to compartmentalise it for later reflection.

To be continued in the thread The Thames:

Notes:-


Confused me a bit.

Now I am on my feet and had tri-ox compound.  Do i remember everything?

So am I right in saying the chiper was converted into a borg.
Was the doctor too?

Just make my understand clear.  Thanks.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:26, Mon 21 Oct 2019.

Yes. Nathan remembers Chiree showing him a vision through the eyes of the Chirper. The Chirper observed a number of Borg assimilation tubules erupting from the tricorder and assimilating Dr. Dovan. He then in turn assimilated the Chirper. Nathan felt everything the Chirper felt as he was assimilated and passed out from the shock. Nathan is now able to stand and think clearly. The whole episode was very distressing, but Nathan is able to cope with it. The tricorder must have been infected with Borg nanoprobes. Since the three Starfleet personnel (Nathan, Dr. Adonidas and Mirabelle) present have all handled the tricorder without being assimilated, it is possible that the nanoprobe supply has been exhausted, but it's probably best to avoid touching it until the Thames has arrived and Tony Gazzo examines it as Tech Assessment Officer. The Thames should arrive in a few minutes, if Dr. Adonidas is correct.